The 60th Biennial Convention of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) convened today (Monday, July 27), and is scheduled to adjourn Friday, July 31. It is being held at Michigan Lutheran Seminary in Saginaw, MI. As all eyes among us are fixed on Saginaw this week, I will not be posting much this week, if at all.
Of major concern is the future of our Synod's ministerial education system. In addition to over 300 Lutheran Elementary Schools (LESes) and around 25 Area Lutheran High Schools (ALHSes) run by congregations throughout our Synod, the Synod proper runs two prep-schools (Michigan Lutheran Seminary (MLS) and Luther Preparatory School (LPS)), one ministerial college (Martin Luther College (MLC)), and one theological seminary (Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS)), solely for the purpose of training future called workers.
The WELS is the last Lutheran church body in America to support a prep-school and ministerial college system, and it is precisely this system which is in jeopardy. Current economic conditions, reportedly in combination with two decades of diverting funds away from ministerial education into missions (much of which seems to have been traced to optimistic spending according to principles of the Church Growth Movement), has left our current ministerial education system financially unsustainable. The immediate future of MLS will be decided at this years' convention.
But not unrelated to the immediate future of MLS is the near and long-term future of MLC, a significant proportion of whose student body comes from MLS, and thus of our Synod's future doctrinal integrity, stability, and unity, resulting from the loss of our prep-school(s) and possibly our ministerial college.
Some propose that our ALHSes can take up the slack, but this is ignorant in my opinion. Our ALHSes are mostly progressive/constructivist schools that prepare students for secular college and careers, which (by my limited observation and discussions) essentially rest on the pedagogical foundations of Dewey (Naturalism/Progressivism) and, in the case of modern epistemological learning theories, an ideological foundation rooted in Post-modernism (Constructivism). This follows the trend observed in schools of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), which prior to WW II provided an exclusively Classical education to all students -- and this despite Dewey's "Educational Revolution" of the early 20th Century. Following WWII, however (and for as yet unexplored reasons, I gather), LCMS schools, and apparently following them, those of the WELS, slowly abandoned the Classical models that served Western Civilization and the Church for so long, until, by the mid-70's, Synod teachers were being prepared according to almost exclusively Progressivist models.
Today especially, the mission of the prep-schools is incongruent with the mission of the ALHSes, as is the sort of education required of a future pastor with respect to what is offered by the ALHSes. Confessional Lutheran Pastors require a Classical, not a Progressivist, education. While technically not classical schools, our prep-schools, with their emphasis on language and the Humanities, approach this ideal, which prepares future pastors from the foundation of Western Civilization, having itself found much of its life and longevity from the Church -- from two-and-a-half millenia of devotional creativity and intellectual excellence, compounded. Indeed, as intimated by C.P. Krauth (in Ch. IV of his Conservative Reformation), when he describes the church catholic as the outflowing of 2000 years of Christian faith and practice into the present, and as that which projects it into the future, the utter necessity of well-educated Pastors, fully trained in the Great Western Tradition (read, Classical Education), is fundamental and paramount; those without such rigorous training are not fit to be Pastors, because they are incapable of effective catholicity.
It is simply ridiculous, in my opinion, to presume that a Classical preparation can be provided in Progressivist schools, in the context of a "Pastor's Track;" more so is the notion that a prep-school education provided in two schools can be reproduced over 25 times in the ALHSes at a cost savings, while at the same time maintaining consistency and integrity. The substantial difference in Classical pedagogics, from those of modern Progressivism and Constructivism, makes the "shared areas of content" between schools separated by these educational paradigms impossible to reconcile -- both in terms of their curricular requirements as well as the the preparation and experience required of their teachers. The loss of the prep-schools, in my opinion, would, in this day and age of plummeting educational standards, be catastrophic.
The pragmatic financial concern related to our ministerial education system is accompanied by other financial concerns, such as the reduction of Synod staff, the recall of missionaries, and the defunding of mission congregations. The undercurrent to all of this, if I read it correctly, is realizing the damage wrought by ~30 years of influence from the Church Growth Movement in our Synod, and resulting concerns regarding the integrity of our Synod's unity in doctrine and practice.
In addition to the Convention Website, the convention can be viewed live, here. Also, an excellent overview of the issues can be found on Light from Light, a blog maintained by another WELS layman. In addition, Ichabod has been (and will continue to be?) hosting daily threads on the Convention, which I intend to follow, as time permits. If the Ichabod threads do not continue, at least read the documents he has collected under the "WELS 2009 Convention Packet" heading on the left column, especially those documents beginning with the "Koeplin Paper" through item six "About the Corky Koeplin Essay" for a broader and historical view of some of the issues being faced today.
Welcome to another excessively long post! With lots of beautiful black print... Indeed, perhaps this post could be more aptly titled, "The Confessional Principle: Extended Quotes from Krauth." Regardless of the volume of information, I consider it valuable and necessary given the challenges facing Confessional Lutheranism in America today, and present it as a resource to those for whom these issues are also of concern.
From blogging over the past year on the issues of Lutheran Worship, the Lutheran Confessions, and the various infections of the Church Growth Movement (CGM), and from conversations with fellow laymen on these subjects, I have come to the impression that most Lutheran laymen are uninformed regarding the Principle of Confessionalism. It seems that most are under the mistaken impression that Confessional subscription is to merely say, "I confess to believe everything the Bible says," leaving them with private judgment and wholesome affinity for Christian Brethren as the material basis for Confessional unity. As a result, a growing number of such laymen seem to be growing frustrated with what they see as "the burdensome strictures of Confessionalism as it has been traditionally understood and practiced," and are growing active in their movement away from it. A growing number of Lutheran pastors and theologians, seem to be complicit in this movement. There is a marked degradation of catechesis and in the quality of catachetical materials, a wholesale abandonment of doctrinal and ecclesiastical language, not only in preaching and teaching, but in publications as well, and a rather well-documented willingness and desire to venture away from identifiably Lutheran practice, to experiment with that of the sectarians, and to thus rely on the aberrant doctrinal foundations of those sectarian practices. In general, there seems to be a growing desire for equivocation on "non-fundamentals" in doctrine and practice, and to appeal to adiaphora in defense of it.
Having no idea what Confessionalism is, or what the Lutheran Confessions say, most Lutheran layman are unable to call upon Confessional norms as they consider their own understanding of Scripture, and are unable use these norms as a basis for evaluating what they are told in the name of the Church. Pastors who are not deliberately overt in their Confessionalism, contribute to the confessional poverty of the laity. This is important, because it is one's Public Confession that marks him as what he claims to be.
Because such poverty seems to be rampant, I have decided to post the following selections from Ch. V of Charles Porterfield Krauth's Conservative Reformation, entitled "The Confessional Principle." The book is available online here, and can be purchased in book form here. The Conservative Reformation is a dense work -- it is not easy reading for most folks. What I have done, below, is to break up Krauth's discussion of the Confessional Principle by annotating it with my own descriptive headings and highlighting what I consider to be some of the key points.
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Excerpts from Chapter V of
C.P. Krauth's
Conservative Reformation
"The Confessional Principle"
The Word of God Alone is the Rule of Faith.
The thetical statements of the [General] Council and the declaration which follows, exhibit, as we believe, the relation of the Rule of Faith and the Confessions, in accordance with the principles of the Conservative Reformation. Accepting those principles, we stand upon the everlasting foundation – the Word of God: believing that the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament are in their original tongues, and in a pure text, the perfect and only rule of faith. All these books are in harmony, each with itself, and all with each other, and yield to the honest searcher, under the ordinary guidance of the Holy Spirit, a clear statement of doctrine, and produce a firm assurance of faith. Not any word of man, no creed, commentary, theological system, nor decision of Fathers or of councils, no doctrine of Churches, or of the whole Church, no results or judgments of reason, however strong, matured, and well informed, no one of these, and not all of these together, but God's word alone is the rule of faith. No apocryphal books, but the canonical books alone, are the rule of faith. No translations, as such, but the original Hebrew and Chaldee of the Old Testament, and the Greek of the New, are the letter of the rule of faith. No vitiation of the designing, nor error of the careless, but the incorrupt text as it came from the hands of the men of God, who wrote under the motions of the Holy Spirit, is the rule of faith. To this rule of faith we are to bring our minds; by this rule we are humbly to try to form our faith, and in accordance with it, God helping us, to teach others – teaching them the evidences of its inspiration, the true mode of its interpretation, the ground of its authority, the mode of settling its text. The student of theology is to be taught the Biblical languages, to make him an independent investigator of the Word of the Holy Spirit, as the organ through which the Spirit reveals His mind. First of all, as the greatest of all, as the groundwork of all, as the end of all else, we are to teach God's pure Word, its faith for faith, its life for life; in its integrity, in its marvelous adaptation, in its divine, its justifying, its sanctifying, and glorifying power. We are to lay, as that without which all else would be laid in vain, the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets – Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone.
The Rule of Faith is not its own Creed.
Standing really upon the everlasting foundation of this Rule of Faith, we stand of necessity on the faith, of which it is the rule. It is not the truth as it lies, silent and unread, in the Word, but the truth as it enters from that Word into the human heart, with the applying presence of the Holy Ghost, which makes men believers. Faith makes men Christians; but the Confession alone marks them as Christians. The Rule of Faith is God's voice to us; faith is the hearing of that voice, and the Confession, our reply of assent to it. By our faith we are known to the Lord as his; by our Confession, we are known to each other as his children. Confession of faith in some form is imperative. To confess Christ, is to confess what is our faith in him. As the Creed is not, and cannot be the Rule of Faith, but is its Confession merely, so the Bible, because it is the Rule of Faith, is of necessity not its Confession. The Bible can no more be any man's Creed, than the stars can be any man's astronomy. The stars furnish the rule of the astronomer's faith: the Principia of Newton may be the Confession of his faith. If a man were examined as a candidate for the chair of astronomy in a university, and were asked, 'What is your astronomical system?' and were to answer, 'I accept the teaching of the stars,' the reply would be, 'You may think you do – so does the man who is sure that the stars move round the world, and that they are not orbs, but gimlet-holes to let the glory through. We wish to know what you hold the teachings of the stars to be? Do you receive, as in harmony with them, the results reached by Copernicus, by Galileo, by Kepler, by Newton, La Place, and Herchel, or do you think the world one great flat, and the sun and moon mere pendants to it?' 'Gentlemen,' replies the independent investigator, 'the theories of those astronomers are human systems – man made theories. I go out every night on the hills, and look at the stars as God made them, through a hole in my blanket, with my own good eyes, not with a man-made telescope, or fettered by a man-made theory; and I believe in the stars and in what they teach me; but if I were to say or write what they teach, that would be a human creed – and I am opposed to all creeds.' 'Very well,' reply the examiners, 'we wish you joy in the possession of a good pair of eyes, and feel it unnecessary to go any further. If you are unwilling to confess your faith, we will not tax your conscience with the inconsistency of teaching that faith, nor tax our own with the hazard of authorizing you to set forth in the name of stars your own ignorant assumptions about them.'
Fidelity to the Rule of Faith demands that it be Confessed in the form of a Creed.
What is more clear than that, as the Rule of Faith is first, it must, by necessity of its being, when rightly used, generate a true faith? But the man who has true faith desires to have it known, and is bound to confess his faith. The Rule cannot really generate two conflicting beliefs; yet men who alike profess to accept the Rule, do have conflicting beliefs, and when beliefs conflict, if the one is formed by the Rule, the other must be formed in the face of it. Fidelity to the Rule of Faith, therefore, fidelity to the faith it teaches, demands that there shall be a Confession of the faith. The firmest friend of the Word is the firmest friend of the Creed, first the Rule of Faith, and then the Confession of Faith.
The Rule of Faith and its Creed, while in agreement, are independently normative.
What shall be our Confession? Are we originating a Church, and must we utter our testimony to a world, in which our faith is a novelty? The reply is easy. As we are not the first who have used with honest hearts and fervent prayers, the Rule, so we are not the first who have been guided by the Holy Ghost in it to its faith. As men long ago reached its faith, so long ago they confessed it. They confessed it from the beginning. The first adult baptism was based upon a 'human creed,' that is, upon a confession of faith, which was the utterance of a belief which was based upon a human interpretation of divine words. The faith has been confessed from the beginning. It has been embodied in a creed, the origin of whose present shape no man knows, which indeed cannot be fixed; for it rose from the words of our Saviour's Baptismal Commission, and was not manufactured, but grew. Of the Apostles' Creed, as of Him to whom its heart is given, it may be affirmed that it was 'begotten, not made.' The Confession has been renewed and enlarged to meet new and widening error. The ripest, and purest, and most widely used of the old Confessions have been adopted by our Church as her own, not because they are old and widely received, but because they are true. She has added her testimony as it was needed. Here is the body of her Confession. Is her Confession ours? If it be, we are of her in heart; if it be not, we are only of her in name. It is ours – ours in our deepest conviction, reached through conflicts outward and inward, reached upon our knees, and traced with our tears – ours in our inmost hearts. Therefore, we consecrate ourselves to living, teaching, and defending the faith of God's word, which is the confessed faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Fidelity to the whole truth of God's word requires this. We dare not be satisfied simply with recognition as Christians over against the Jew, because we confess the Rule of Faith, of which the New Testament is a part, has taught us faith in Jesus Christ; we dare not be satisfied simply with recognition as holding the Catholic Faith as embodied in the three General Creeds, over against heresies of various forms and shades. Christian believers holding the faith Catholic we are – but we are, besides, Protestant, rejecting the authority of the Papacy; Evangelical, glorying in the grace of the Gospel; and Lutheran, holding the doctrines of that Church, of which the Reformation is the child – not only those in which all Christendom or a large part of it coincides with her, but the most distinctive doctrines, though in the maintenance of them she stood alone. As the acceptance of the Word of God as a Rule of Faith separates us from the Mohammedan, as the reception of the New Testament sunders us from the Jew, as the hearty acquiescence in the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds shows us, in the face of all errorists of the earlier ages to be in the faith of the Church Catholic, so does our unreserved acceptance of the Augsburg Confession mark us as Lutherans; and the acceptances of the Apology, the Catechisms of Luther, the Schmalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord, continues the work of marking our separation from all errorists of every shade whose doctrines are in conflict with the true sense of the Rule of Faith – that Rule whose teachings are rightly interpreted and faithfully embodied in the Confessions afore-mentioned. Therefore, God helping us, we will teach the whole faith of His word, which faith our Church sets forth, explains, and defends in her Symbols. We do not interpret God's word by the Creed, neither do we interpret the Creed by God's word, but interpreting both independently, by the laws of language, and finding that they teach one and the same truth, we heartily acknowledge the Confession as a true exhibition of the faith of the Rule – a true witness to the one, pure, and unchanging faith of the Christian Church, and freely make it our own Confession, as truly as if it had been now first uttered by our lips, or had now first gone forth from our hands.
Confessional subscription does not abrogate the right of private judgment...
In freely and heartily accepting the faith of our Church, as our own faith, and her Scriptural Confession of that faith, as our own Confession, we do not surrender for ourselves, any more than we take from others, the sacred and inalienable right of private judgment. It is not by giving up the right of private judgment, but by the prayerful exercise of it, not by relinquishing a just independence of investigation, but by thoroughly employing it, that we have reached that faith which we glory in confessing.
...but both unites those of common judgment and necessarily separates those of opposing judgment.
Could the day ever come, in which we imagined that the Evangelical Lutheran Church had abused her right of private judgment, so as to reach error, and not truth by it, we should, as honest men, cease to bear her name, or to connive at what we would, in the case supposed, believe to be error. On the other hand, should the Evangelical Lutheran Church ever have evidence, that we have abused our right of private judgment into the wrong of private misjudgment, so as to have reached error, and not truth by it, then, as a faithful Church, after due admonition, and opportunity for repentance have been given us in vain, she is bound to cast us forth, to purify her own communion, and to make it impossible for us, in her name, to injure others. As the individual, in exercising the right of private judgment, is in peril of abusing it, the Church has the right, and is bound by the duty, of self-defense against that abuse. The right of private judgment is not the right of Church-membership, not the right of public teaching, not the right of putting others into an equivocal attitude to what they regard as truth. A free Protestant Church is a Church, whose ministry and membership, accepting the same rule of faith, have, in the exercise of their private judgment upon it, reached the same results as to all truths which they deem it needful to unite in confessing. After all the intricacies into which the question of, What are fundamentals ? has run, there can be no practical solution better than this, that they are such truths, as in the judgment of the Church, it is necessary clearly to confess; truths, the toleration of the errors opposing which, she believes to be inconsistent with her fidelity to the Gospel doctrine, to her own internal harmony and highest efficiency. The members and ministry of such a Church must have "one faith," as they have one Lord, one Baptism, and one God. Apart from the "unity of the faith," and the "unity of the knowledge of the Son of God," every striving to reach "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," will be vain; thus only can Christian men "henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive."
Private judgment is free, but does not entitle one to call himself what he is not.
A great deal is claimed under the right of private judgment, which is a most impudent infringement of that right. A man is a Socinian, a Pelagian, a Romanist. Very well. We maintain, that no civil penalties should restrain him, and no ecclesiastical inquisition fetter him. Give him, in its fullest swing, the exercise of his right of private judgment. But your Socinian insists on such a recognition by Trinitarians as logically implies, that they either agree with him in his error, or that it is of no importance. What is this but to ask thousands or millions to give up or imperil the results of their well-used right of private judgment, at the call of one man, who abuses his? Could impudence go further? 'Go,' they may rightly say, 'with your right of private judgment, go where you belong, and cease to attempt the shallow jugglery, by which one man's freedom means his autocracy, and every other man's slavery. If your right of private judgment has made you an Atheist, don't call yourself a Believer; if it has made you a Jew, don't pretend to be a Christian; if it has made you a Papist, don't pretend to be a Protestant; if it has made you a Friend, don't call yourself a Churchman.'
Confessional subscription is freely enjoined by its subscribers...
When we confess, that, in the exercise of our right of private judgment, our Bible has made us Lutherans, we neither pretend to claim that other men shall be made Lutherans by force, nor that their private judgment shall, or will, of necessity, reach the results of ours. We only contend, that, if their private judgment of the Bible does not make them Lutherans, they shall not pretend that it does. We do not say, that any man shall believe that the Confession of our Church is Scriptural. We only contend, that he should neither say nor seem to say so, if he does not believe it.
...but must remain unpolluted if it is to carry the meaning intended by it.
The subscription to a Confession is simply a just and easy mode of testifying to those who have a right to ask it of us, that we are what we claim and profess to be. So to sign a Confession as to imply that we are what we are not, or to leave it an open question what we are, is not the just result of the right of private judgment, or of any right whatever, but is utterly wrong. For it is a first element of truth, with which no right, private or public, can conflict, that names shall honestly represent things. What immorality is more patent than the pretense that the right of private judgment is something; which authorizes a man to make his whole life a falsehood; is something which fills the world with names, which no longer represent things, fills it with black things, that are called white, with bitter things, that are called sweet, and with lies, that are called truths, with monarchists, who are called republicans, with Socinians, who are called Trinitarians, with Arminians, who are called Calvinists, with Romanists, Rationalists, fanatics, or sectarians, who are called Lutherans?
We concede to every man the absolute right of private judgment as to the faith of the Lutheran Church, but if he have abandoned the faith of that Church, he may not use her name as his shelter in attacking the thing she cherishes, and in maintaining which she obtained her being and her name. It is not enough that you say to me, that such a thing is clear to your private judgment. You must show to my private judgment, that God's word teaches it, before I dare recognize you as in the unity of the faith. If you cannot, we have not the same faith, and ought not to be of the same communion; for the communion is properly one of persons of the same faith. In other words, your private judgment is not to be my interpreter, nor is mine to be yours. If you think me in error, I have no right to force myself on your fellowship. If I think you in error, you have no right to force yourself on mine. You have the civil right and the moral right to form your impressions in regard to truth, but there the right stops. You have not the right to enter or remain in any Christian communion, except as its terms of membership give you that right.
The abuse of private judgment is not to be restrained by persecution.
Before the plain distinctions we have urged, in regard to private judgment, go down all the evasions by which Rationalism has sought to defend itself from the imputation of dishonor, when it pretended to bear the Lutheran name, as if Lutheranism were not a positive and well-defined system of truth, but a mere assertion of the right of private judgment. It is the doctrine of the Reformation, not that there should be no checks upon the abuse of private judgment, but that those checks should be moral alone.
Lutherans are unique in this regard, historically speaking.
The Romanists and un-Lutheran elements in the Reformation were agreed, that the truth must be maintained and heresy extirpated by the sword of government. Error is in affinity with the spirit of persecution. The first blood shed within the Christian Church, for opinion's sake, was shed by the deniers of the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Arians. So strong was the feeling in the primitive Church against violence toward errorists, that not a solitary instance occurs of capital punishment for heresy in its earlier era. The Bishops of Gaul, who ordered the execution of the Priscillianists, though the lives of these errorists were as immoral as their teachings were abominable, were excluded from the communion of the Church. As the Western Church grew corrupt, it grew more and more a persecuting Church, till it became drunken with the blood of the saints. The maxims and spirit of persecution went over to every part of the Churches of the Reformation, except the Lutheran Church. Zwingli countenanced the penalty of death for heresy. What was the precise share of Calvin in the burning of Servetus is greatly mooted; but two facts are indisputable. One is, that, before the unhappy errorist took his fatal journey, Calvin wrote, that, if Servetus came to Geneva, he should not leave it alive, if his authority availed anything; the other is, that, after the burning of Servetus, Calvin wrote his dissertation defending the right of the magistrate to put heretics to death (1554.) The Romish and Calvinistic writers stand as one man for the right and duty of magistrates to punish heresy with death, over against Luther and the entire body of our theologians, who maintain, without an exception, that heresy is never to be punished with death. The Reformed portion of Protestantism has put to death, at different times and in different ways, not only Romanists and Anabaptists, but its terrible energies have been turned into civil strife, and Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents put each other to death, especially in the great civil wars of England, whose origin was largely religious. Strange as it may sound, Socinians themselves have been persecutors, and yet more strange is the ground on which they persecuted. The original Socinians not only acknowledged that Jesus Christ was to be worshiped, and characterized those who denied it as half Jews, but, when Francis David, one of the greatest of their original co-workers, denied it, the old man was cast into prison, and kept there till he died. The Lutheran Church alone, of all the great Churches that have had the power to persecute, has not upon her skirts one drop of blood shed for opinion's sake.
Rather, the abuse of private judgment is to be restrained by denial of Church recognition.
The glorious words of Luther were: " The pen, not the fire, is to put down heretics. The hangmen are not doctors of theology. This is not the place for force. Not the sword, but the word, fits for this battle. If the word does not put down error, error would stand, though the world were drenched with blood." By these just views, centuries in advance of the prevalent views, the Lutheran Church has stood, and will stand forever. But she is none the less earnest in just modes of shielding herself and her children from the teachings of error, which takes cover under the pretense of private judgment. She would not burn Servetus, nor, for opinion's sake, touch a hair of his head; neither, however, would she permit him to bear her name, to "preach another Jesus" in her pulpits, to teach error in her Universities, or to approach with her children the table of their Lord, whom he denied. Her name, her confessions, her history, her very being protest against the supposition of such "fellowship with the works of darkness," such sympathy with heresy, such levity in regard to the faith. She never practiced thus. She never can do it. Those who imagine that the right of private judgment is the right of men, within the Lutheran Church, and bearing her hallowed name, to teach what they please in the face of her testimony, know not the nature of the right they claim, nor of the Church, whose very life involves her refusal to have fellowship with them in their error.
The Right of Private Judgment and the Right of Church Discipline are harmonized by genuine Confessional subscription.
It is not the right of private judgment which makes or marks a man Lutheran. A man may have the right to judge, and be a simpleton, as he may have the right to get rich, yet may remain a beggar. It is the judgment he reaches in exercising that right which determines what he is. By his abuse of the "inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," a man may make himself a miserable slave. The right of property belongs as much to the man who makes himself a beggar as to the man who has become a millionaire. Rights, in themselves, give nothing, and cannot change the nature of things. The right to gather, gathers nothing; and if, under this right, the man gathers wood, hay, stubble, neither the right nor its exercise makes them into gold, silver, and precious stones. The Church will not put any violence upon him who chooses to gather what will not endure the fire; but she will not accept them as jewels, nor permit her children to be cheated with them. The right of private judgment and the right of Church discipline are co-ordinate and harmonious rights, essential to the prevention, each of the abuse of the other. To uphold either intelligently, is to uphold both. In maintaining, therefore, as Protestants, the right and duty of men, in the exercise of private judgment, to form their own convictions, unfettered by civil penalties in the State, or by inquisitorial powers in the Church, we maintain, also, the right and duty of the Church to shield herself from corruption in doctrine by setting forth the truth in her Confession, by faithfully controverting heresy, by personal warning to those that err, and, finally, with the contumacious, by rejecting them from her communion, till, through grace, they are led to see and renounce the falsehood, for which they claimed the name of truth.
In Summary
This, then, is a summary of the result we reach: The basis of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Word of God, as the perfect and absolute Rule of Faith, and because this is her basis, she rests of necessity on the faith of which that Word is the Rule and therefore on the Confessions which purely set forth that faith. She has the right rule, she reaches the right results by the rule, and rightly confesses them. This Confession then is her immediate basis, her essential characteristic, with which she stands or falls.
Krauth, C.P. (1871). The Conservative Reformation and its Theology. Philadelphia: Lippincott. (taken variously from pp. 165-175).
In Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this series of blog posts, I posted from the little book, Explanation of the Common Service (which is available on Google Books, here), published in 1908 by the General Council. The Common Service explained in this old book is the same Common Service published in The Lutheran Hymnal, which was published in 1941. The content I posted from this Explanation covered its FOREWARD and INTRODUCTION, through the complete Order of THE SERVICE or THE COMMUNION. In Part 6, posted an image depicting a summary view of the Lutheran Liturgy.
With this post, the last post in this series, I post from material toward the end of the book, covering a brief history and explanation of Christian hymnody and a brief explanation of the liturgical colors that complement the liturgical Church year. Before proceeding with material from the Explanation, however, I thought that I would post the following quotes from a vitally important Lutheran book, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, by Charles Porterfield Krauth. Published in 1871, this work embodied his vigorous and scholarly attempt to unite the various Lutheran church bodies in America under the Lutheran Confessions. It was a time of Confessional renewal, of the sort needed in all of Lutheranism today. The Conservative Reformation is currently being reprinted by Concordia Publishing House, as is its companion works by Schmauk and Benze, The Confessional Principle and the Confessions of the Lutheran Church. Both of these books are on sale right now at CPH for only $15.00 each! Get copies for yourself before they go out of print, again!
Anyway, in Ch. IV of Krauth's Conservative Reformation, he made the point that Lutheranism having attained pre-eminence in its theological rigor, was also an educating church -- a point made very clear by this old little book, full of liturgical and theological terms with which it purposed to catechize Lutheran young people. It was an educating church... Today, adults are given reading material suited for sixth grade children. Krauth goes on in this same chapter to highlight the unrivalled beauty an compelling art of Lutheran hymnody:[quoting Goebel] 'The Lutheran Church has a great pre-eminence of the Reformed in regard to its internal theological development. German theological science comes forth from the Lutheran Church. The theology of the Lutheran Church supported by German diligence, thoroughness, and profundity, stage by stage, amid manifold struggles and revolutions, arose to an amazing elevation, astounding and incomprehensible to the Swiss, the French, and the English.' 'The Lutheran Church,' says Lange, 'is the Church of theologians'. ...At once as a cause and a result of this greatness in the highest form of learning, may be regarded the fact that the Lutheran Church is an Educating Church from the humblest sphere of the children of the poor to the highest range of the scholar's erudition [referring to 'catechetical instruction, congregational and public schools, and universities'].
...Many embarrassing circumstances prevented the Lutheran Church from developing her life as perfectly in her church constitution as in her doctrines and worship... But especially in sacred song has the Lutheran Church a grand distinctive element of her worship. 'The Lutheran Church,' says Schaff, 'draws the fine arts into the service of religion, and has produced a body of hymns and chorals, which, in richness, power, and unction, surpasses the hymnology of all other churches in the world.' 'In divine worship,' says Goebel, 'we reach glorious features of pre-eminence. The hymns of the Church are the people's confession, and have wrought more than the preaching. In the Lutheran Church alone, German hymnology attained a bloom truly amazing. The words of holy song were heard everywhere, and sometimes, as with a single stroke, won whole cities for the Gospel'.
...[quoting Nevin, a contemporary of his in the German Reformed Church, and nemesis of Charles Hodge in Reformed circles of the time] 'We have no wish to have the Lutheran Church overwhelmed in this country by the reigning unhistorical spirit of our American Christianity – no wish to see it Americanized, in the sense of anything like a general rupture with its original theological life. The whole Reformed church here, whether it be perceived or not, has a vast interest at stake on the power of the Lutheran Church to remain true and faithful to her confessional mission.' ...That such a Church has a mission of extraordinary importance in this land [America] in which exist such dangerous tendencies to sectarianism and radicalism, and whose greatest need is the cultivation of historical feeling, under the restraint of a wholesome conservatism, requires no argument. ...The catholicity of the range of our Church among nations, in which she is entirely without parallel among Protestant Churches, does, indeed, make the problem of the fusion of her elements very difficult; but it is the very same problem which our nation [America] has had to solve.
Krauth, C.P. (1871). The Conservative Reformation and its Theology. Philadelphia: Lippincott. (pp. 151-160).
These words supply an ample preamble to what follows, in this last post in a series covering the Explanation of the Common Service -- a work published by Krauth's own General Council in 1908.
-------------------------
An Explanation of the Common Service (1908)
Board of Publication of the General Council of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America
To the
Young Lutheran who asks
The Meaning of the
Beautiful Liturgy of
His church
...
Christian Hymnody
A HYMN is a sacred song. A Christian hymn is one that embodies Christian truth, or gives expression to Christian belief and feeling. "Know ye," asks St. Augustine, "what a hymn is? It is a song with praise of God. If thou praisest God and singest not, thou utterest no hymn. If thou singest and praisest not God, thou utterest no hymn."
There are two kinds of hymns, inspired and uninspired. The inspired hymns are all found in the Holy Scriptures. These are the Psalms and all of the Canticles, except the Benedicite which is found in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Bible, and the Te Deum, which is an ancient Christian hymn.
The inspired hymns are all Hebrew in form. The principal characteristic of Hebrew poetry is the parallelism or responsiveness between the two parts of each verse. For instance, in the second verse of the fifty-first Psalm, we read, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity: and cleanse me from my sin." Here the second clause parallels and balances the first, reproducing the same general idea, but in other words and with a slight variation in the thought. In Psalm 119:113, the two clauses are sharply antithetical. In Psalm 1:1, there is a regular progression in the thought. Again, the second clause supplies the reason for what is said in the first, as in Psalm 16:1, or it may state the results which follow, as in Psalm 23:1. On account of this parallelism, the psalms should always be rendered antiphonally, whether they be read or chanted, each verse being divided for this purpose by the colon.
With the exception of a few, which are numbered with the Canticles, the uninspired hymns of the Church have taken the form of compositions with metre and rime. In this the Church has followed "the universal promptings of human nature peculiar to no age, which in sacred compositions, as in others, looks for smoothness and ease, for the music of language, for the assistance to memory, and for something to rivet the attention; to which the music may form an harmonious accompaniment."
For a long time the preference of the Church was for the Psalms of the Bible; and it is very probable that before the hymn found its way into the Service, it was in common use among the people. Only gradually, because of its value as a means of spiritual edification, did it win for itself a place in public worship. At first, the popular use of the hymn was confined to the heretics, who employed it in the spread of their false doctrines among the people. In self-defense orthodox writers composed numerous hymns, which finally displaced the songs of the heretics. Many of these ancient compositions are still in use in the East, and some of them, in translated form, throughout the Church.
Early Christian Hymnody
Among the very first composers and users of uninspired Christian hymns were the Syrians, whose language closely resembles if it is not identical with the language which was spoken by the common people of Palestine in the time of our Lord. The Syriac hymnody was rich and full, and in general use for a thousand years and more. The main stream of Church hymnody, however, takes its rise in the Greek Church of the East. The oldest of all Christian hymns is a Greek hymn of Clement of Alexandria (170-220). The later Greek hymnody reached its zenith at the close of the eighth century.
Latin hymnody originated in, and was derived from, the Greek hymnody of the East. The earliest names which can be connected with any Latin hymns, occur at the beginning of the fourth century. But from the fourth to the sixteenth century, the Latin is the main stream of Christian hymnody. It contains the best of the Greek, and was the inspiration of the majority of the first German hymns. Hundreds of the old Latin hymns, in translated form, are in common use in the Christian Church today.
The Influence of the German Reformation
"The Church hymn, in the strict sense of the term, as a popular religious lyric in the praise of God to be sung by the congregation in public worship, was born with German Reformation." German hymnody surpasses all others in wealth. The number of German hymns cannot fall short of one hundred thousand. "To this treasury of song several hundred men and women of all ranks and conditions – theologians and pastors, princes and princesses, generals and statesmen, physicians and jurists, merchants and travelers, laborers and private persons – have made contributions, laying them on the common altar of devotion." The treasures of German hymnody have enriched churches of other tongues and passed into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and modern English and American hymn-books. Luther was the leader in the reformation of the doctrine and the worship of the Church; he was also the first evangelical hymnist. "To Luther belongs the extraordinary merit of having given to the German people in their own tongue, the Bible, the Catechism and the hymn-book, so that God might speak directly to them in His Word, and that they might directly answer Him in their songs." Luther's example inspired many others to compose evangelical hymns, so that by the middle of the sixteenth century a large number of them were in common use. After the period of the Reformation German hymnody was constantly enriched. Where there are so many famous names which claim attention, space forbids more than the mention of the very greatest hymnist since Luther, Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). In poetic fertility he greatly surpassed Luther, and his one hundred and twenty-three hymns "are among the noblest pearls in the treasury of sacred poetry." The several English Lutheran hymnals now in use, all contain translations from the principal German hymn-writers of the last four centuries.
Sweden
In Sweden, the first evangelical hymn-writers were the two renowned brothers, Olaf and Lars Peterson, the chief assistants of Gustavus in the work of reformation. But the greatest name in Swedish Hymnody is that of Johan Olaf Wallin, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century revised the hymn-book, contributing to it about one hundred and fifty hymns of his own. This book remains in the form in which he brought it out. It is highly prized by the Swedes, and is used everywhere.
Denmark
Claus Martenson Tondebinder (1500-1576) was the father of Danish hymnology. He issued what was perhaps the first complete hymnary of the whole North. "The Hymn Book for Church and Home Worship," which is in use in Denmark today, may be traced back through many revised and supplemented editions to Tondebinder's "Handbook" published in 1528.
Norway
The Norwegians have in the main followed the lead of Denmark in their hymns. Several hymn-books have been in use in Norway, but the one most generally used is "The Church Hymn-book," edited on the basis of existing books by Magnus B. Landstad (b. 1802) and authorized in 1869. A supplement was added in 1892.
Iceland
In Iceland, for a long time, the hymn-book consisted of translations of the earlier hymns of the Danish hymnary. It was published under the name of Graduale which was explained to mean Messu-saungs bok (The Mass-song Book). The last edition was issued in 1773. A new hymn-book, of the first rank among modern Lutheran hymn-books, appeared in 1886. The Bible Poems of Valdimar Briem (b. 1848), have placed him in the first rank among modern hymnists.
The earlier Scandinavian hymns were doctrinal, but the later are to a great extent expressive of religious sentiments, hopes and fears. Their plaintiveness is very marked, while the strength of their writers' personal faith is undeniable. The blending of the two, as in the illustration below, often produces a most pleasing result. That English hymnody might borrow with advantage from the Scandinavian, is not to be doubted, although at present but few translations are available for use. The following is a specimen, from the Danish poet Brorson, of the style of hymn which largely prevails in the North:
"I build on one foundation,
On Christ who died for me;
Sheltered by Jesus' passion
My soul at rest shall be:
'Tis there the life of heaven
Poor worthless I obtain;
Through what my Lord has given
The Father's love I gain.
No craft or deep invention,
No princely power or might,
Nor aught that man can mention
Of mocking or despite,
Nor weak nor strong endeavor,
Nor want's or sorrow's smart,
Nor death itself, shall sever
My soul from Jesus' heart."
England
"The English hymn singing at the time of the Reformation was the echo of that which roused the enthusiasm of Germany under Luther. The most notable proof of this is found in Coverdale's Goostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs." Most of the book "is a more or less close rendering from the German; and some of the finest hymns are Luther's."
The three Wedderburn brothers, before 1546, published a translation of Luther's hymns into Scotch-English, with a paraphrase of Luther's Catechism. It is interesting to note that, long before Calvinistic versions of the Psalms were sung by the Scotch, they used such renderings of Luther's words as the following:
"And He, that we should not forget,
Gave us His Body for to eat
In form of bread, and gave, as sign,
His Blood to drink in form of wine;
Who will receive this sacrament
Should have true faith and sin repent;
Who uses it unworthily,
Receiveth death eternally."
and
"Our baptism is not done all one day,
But all our life it lasts identical;
Remission of our sins endures for aye,
For though we fall, through great fragility,
The covenant, once contracted faithfully
By our great God, shall ever remain,
As oft as we repent and sin refrain."
Very few original English hymns are of earlier date than the close of the seventeenth century, and the actual development of English hymns began among the Nonconformists, the Baptists and the Independents. Isaac Watts (1674-1748), who lifted English hymns out of obscurity into fame, may justly be called the father of English hymnody. After him, Philip Doddridge (1702-1751) may be mentioned. But the greatest English hymnist, and one of the greatest hymn-writers of all ages, was Charles Wesley (1707-1788). He is said to have written no less than sixty-five hundred hymns, and it is perfectly marvelous how many of them rise to the highest degree of excellence. It is an interesting fact that his brother John's little collection of Psalms and Hymns, which was one of the very first attempts at an English hymn-book, was published at Charlestown, while John Wesley was among the Lutherans in Georgia, in 1737.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the use of hymns was still a new departure in the order of divine worship in the Church of England. Until the middle of the century, the Dissenting element made up nearly two-thirds of the total contents of the hymn-books in use in this Church. Since then Church of England writers have greatly added to the number of English hymns, translating many of the best Latin and German hymns and producing many more of original composition.
America
America has already produced a large number of hymn-writers. Naturally, English Lutheran hymnody is yet in its infancy. However, the proposed "Common English Hymnal" for Lutheran congregations, contains original hymns by Joseph A. Seiss and Henry E. Jacobs, and translations by Dr. Seiss, Charles Porterfield Krauth, Charles W. Schaeffer and Harriet R. Spaeth.
Office of the Hymn
As St. Chrysostom says, "Nothing gladdens the soul like modulated verse – a divine song composed in metre." It was Luther's purpose to inculcate the word of God in the hearts of the people by the use of song. The hymn as such is not intended to be didactic, and yet it is one of the surest means of conveying sound doctrine, and perpetuating it in the Church. St. Paul himself recognized the use of Christian song in teaching (Col. 3:16). Moreover, it is chiefly by the use of the hymn that the participation of the congregation in public worship is secured. The purpose of the hymn in the Service depends upon its position, although in general it may be said that its principal object is to awaken and stimulate devotion. Doddridge's hymns were sung as the enforcement of his sermons, and were probably given out from the pulpit, line by line. Sometimes the hymn serves as a preparation for what follows, as does the principal hymn in Matins; again it is the form in which the congregation appropriates what has preceded, as in the principal hymn in Vespers. The office of each hymn used in the Common Service, and the kind of hymn to be used, have been indicated at the proper places in this Explanation.
Liturgical Colors
| Chief Festivals | | | Minor Festivals |
| I Advent to Christmas Eve: | Violet | | | Reformation Festival: | Red |
| Christmas Eve to Octave of Epiphany (Jan. 13) included: | White | | | General Thanksgiving Days: | Red |
| II Epiphany to Quinquagesima, included: | Green | | | Harvest Days: | Red |
| Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday, included: | Violet | | | Dedication of a Church: | Red |
| Holy Week: | Black | | | Days of Humiliation and Prayer: | Black |
| Easter Sunday to Exaudi, included: | White | | | Festivals of the Virgin which are retained: | White |
| Pentecost and its Octave (Trinity): | Red | | | Apostles' Days, St. Michael's Day, All Saints' Day: | Red |
| Sundays after Trinity: | Green | | | Commemoration of the Dead and Funerals: | Black |
The above is the order recommended by the General Council. Another rule of good authority prescribes Violet from Septuagesima to Maundy Thursday, included.
Significance of Liturgical Colors
Violet. – A shade of purple, the color of royalty. It symbolizes the majesty of Christ in His humility. Being a sober, earnest color, it invites to meditation, and has been adopted by the Church for the two great seasons of preparation – seasons of fasting and prayer.
White. – The color of light. Also of those who minister in God's presence – Angels, Rev. 15:6. The Elders, Rev. 4:4. The Saints in heaven, Rev. 7:9,14. Hence, those who minister in holy things in the Sanctuary may appropriately be robed in white. This color symbolizes Divinity, Dan. 7:9, Matt. 17:2; purity, Rev. 19:8; victory, Rev. 3:4,5; 6:11.
Green. – The common color of nature, in the freshness of her bloom. Restful to the eye, and widely diffused, it is used by the Church for her common seasons. It is also symbolic of the Christian life, which is the fruit of God's grace, set forth in the services of the Season when nature dons her green vesture and brings forth her best fruits.
Red. – The color of blood and fire. It is symbolical of sin and its atonement. Also of the Church, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and testified by the blood of martyrs. Her faith and zeal are enkindled and perpetuated by the fire of God's Holy Spirit.
Black. – The color of darkness, the absence of light. Symbolical of death, and the deepest sorrow and humility.
With today’s blog entry, I finally complete a detailed review of the essay, “Liturgical Renewal in the Parish,” by Arthur A. Just, which is the lead essay in the book, Lutheran Worship: History and Practice. Centering the need for “renewal” on the congregation, rather than on the liturgy itself, two aspects of liturgical life were pointed out by the author, which if renewed in the congregation will impact all its other aspects. The first was discussed in Day 5 and Day 6 of this review: restoration of the theology of worship. Today, I cover the second aspect of liturgical life in which the author calls for renewal: renewal of time.
“Renewal of time” is a metaphor for a return to observance of the church year and use of the lectionary.
The church year ...gives to the congregation access to the life of Christ so that it may fully employ an understanding of the Bible in light of his real presence that forms it into the Body of Christ. ...Time has always been a critical commodity in the church, and the church has no other choice but to be good stewards of time.
Time in the Christian sense is a servant of theology, and in this time the church has taken the incarnation and the crucifixion, the two scandals of Christianity, and raised them up to be the two great festivals of the church year, Christmas and Easter. ...Within sacred time, the church has harmonized the seasons of nature with the seasons of the church year...
Just, A.A. (1993). Liturgical Renewal in the Parish. In Precht, F.L (Ed.), Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (pp. 31 - 32). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.
The author goes on to describe how the themes of judgment in the church year coincided with late autumn, when “nature is dying,” symbolizing the ultimate death of the old world, and the permanent separation of unregenerate souls from God, at the Judgment. This naturally leads to a period of expectation, of looking for new life and salvation from the certain separation from God that all mankind faces. This is the period of Advent. Then, “[w]hen the sun reaches the point of death at the winter solstice and begins to rise again, the church celebrates the birth of the new world when ‘the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings’ (Mal. 4:2)” (pg. 32). Following this, new life in Christ by His resurrection coincides with the period of spring. Pentecost – the Jewish harvest festival celebrated 50 days after the Passover – is for us Christians also a celebration of harvest, of the giving of the New Testament Church for this purpose. The season of Pentecost begins for us as the seed is sown, and comes to maturity in autumn as the fields ripen for harvest. [Note: under the Historic Lectionary, the Pentecost Season observed by most Lutheran congregations today, is, instead, the Trinity Season – whose liturgical color is green, signifying the new growth of the Christian under the teaching of our risen and ascended Lord, Jesus Christ - FF]. The author then concludes with this observation:
The church has transformed the world by its liturgy and served the Gospel’s goal. The church has raised secular time to the level of the sacred. This sacred time becomes sacramental because Christ now appears in it for the benefit of his people.
Just, A.A. (1993). Liturgical Renewal in the Parish. In Precht, F.L (Ed.), Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (pg. 32). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.
Necessary to a “renewal of time,” the author goes on to stress the importance of Sunday worship (celebrating God’s gifts to us on the Day of the Resurrection), and also insists that a renewal of language is elemental to any renewal of time and renewal of liturgy:
The role of liturgical preaching and catechesis is of vital importance in the congregation’s renewal of time. Liturgical preaching and catechesis belong under the rubrics of renewal of language, but liturgical renewal of time will take place through liturgical preaching and catechesis. In both of them, the language and metaphors of Scripture must become the language and metaphors of our sermons and our catechesis. Scriptural language must again become the primary theological language of the congregation, a language that is rich in the stories, the images, and the people of the Bible.
Just, A.A. (1993). Liturgical Renewal in the Parish. In Precht, F.L (Ed.), Lutheran Worship: History and Practice (pg. 32). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.
In this final comment, the author has hit upon a particularly troubling and irritating trend that I have noticed among Confessional Lutheran congregations (and among most Christian groups in America): an appalling degradation, even elimination in many cases, of distinctly Ecclesiastical terminology and manner of speech. Gone are the theological terms. Gone are the liturgical terms. And with them, gone is the thorough and vigorous catechesis that Lutheran layman once enjoyed, gone among the layman are the specific ideas those terms embody and communicate, gone are the important distinctions created by those specific ideas in the mind of the average layman, gone is the deep insight brought about by realizing those distinctions, and reduced is the common layman to discussion of Christian liturgical life according to subjective and personal criteria. In coming days, I intend to post more on this issue specifically, in exploration of the deplorable trend and gross catechetical error of dumbed-down and white-washed ecclesiastical language, and its tragic consequences. In anticipation of these entries, consider this fact: by dumbing-down the language we use, we are deliberately presenting ideas which we expect will be outgrown and left behind by those who hear them, rather than presenting ideas into which the average hearer will grow and mature.
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