LOGIA A JOURNAL OF LUTHERAN THEOLOGY REFORMATION 1997 VOLUME VI. NUMBER4 ARTICLES CONTENTS JAN 06 1998 Philippism - Melanchthon and the Consequences: An Observation in the "¥ear ofMelanchthon" By Jurgen Diestelmann ............................................................................................................................................ '" ........................................... 3 Melanchthon and His Influence on the Lutheran Church By Jobst Schone ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 ! I' 1 The Role ofPhilosophy in the Theology ofPhilipp Melanchthon: Is There a Need for Reappraisal? By James Heiser .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Melanchthon's Scottish Friend: Alexander Alane (1500-1565) By Bruce W. Adams .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 25 Formula ofConcord X : A Revised, Enlarged, and Slightly Amended Edition By David P. Scaer .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 27 Bishops for the Church: Apostolic Origins and Lutheran Affirmation By Allen C. Hoger ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 35 REVIEWS .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 41 REVIEW ESSAY: Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip SchaJfs Interpretation ofNineteenth-Century American Religion. By Stephen R. Graham. Annotations on First Corinthians. By Philipp Melanchthon. Introduced, translated, and edited by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. Heaven on Earth: A Lutheran-Orthodox Odyssey. By Robert Tobias. The Diary ofa Missionary. By Ernst H. Wendland. Sharpening the Sword. By Stephen D. Hower. The Menace ofMulticulturalism: Trojan Horse in America. By Alvin J. Schmidt. Exploring the Gospel ofJohn: In Honor ofD. Moody Smith. Edited by R. Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black. Bible in the Pulpit. By Pastor William P. Grunow. Evolution is not Scientific: Thirty-Two Reasons VVhy. By Albert Sippert. BRIEFLY NOTED LOGIA FORUM ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 53 Twentieth-Century Indulgences • Ecumenical Council for Practical Christianity • The New Segregation Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education • Theology, Psychology, and Philosophy He Gave Gifts to Men • Dreaming of the Middle Ages • Men without Chests Ontotheology and the Theology of the Cross • W.W.J.D. Preaching Sanctification • The Return of the Moderates A Call for Manuscripts .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 62 Formula ofConcord X A Revised, Enlarged, and Slightly Amended Edition DAVID P. SCAER -------------------------------t----------------------------- The Melanchthon Anniversary Year nor bad (FC Ep x, 2. Latin: adiaphora; res media et indifferentes. 17EBRUARY 16, 1997, MARKS THE 500TH anniversary of the German: Mitteldinge. Tappert, 492-493).2 These lacked specific birth of Philip Melanchthon. Author of three of the biblical mandates, but Christians were at liberty to practice Lutheran Confessions, Luther's co-reformer lies buried them-for example, fasting and giving of alms. The Latin indif next to him in the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The Eleventh ferentes and the German Mitteldinge need no translation. Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions at Concordia Melanchthon had shown in the Augsburg Confession and the Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, in 1988 studied two aspects of Apology that the Lutherans shared basic practices with Roman his theology and not unexpectedly arrived at no unanimous ver Catholics. Private confession and absolution was seen as a sacra dict on whether the second reformer was more villain than hero. 1 ment, but the Interim required it before receiving the Lord's Sup Roman Catholics and Reformed found various aspects of his the per. The Treatise (§64) recognized that ordination historically was ology at times attractive, but he belongs to Lutheranism and is a bishop's prerogative, but this was by human"arrangement. arguably its most ecumenical sixteenth-century figure. An Apologia for the ''Apologist''Article x on the Lord's Supper in the first edition (1530) of the Augsburg Confession was accepted by the papal party, a point that Melanchthon's position supporting conformance in indifferent Melanchthon seemingly welcomed in the Apology (153(}-1531). He matters is defensible. Should confession to a priest be desirable allows for transubstantiation by quoting Vulgarius: "the bread is and even ideal, objections to requiring it are less compelling. If not merely a figure but truly changed into the flesh of Christ" ordination by a priest is not inferior to one by a bishop, little rea (Ap x, 2; Tappert, 179). While allowing that the pope could be the son exists for not accepting and even preferring the latter and Anti-Christ in the Treatise of 1537 (Tr, 39-42; Tappert, 327-328), more traditional.3 As Matthew C. Harrison points out, Melan his signature to the Smalcald Articles of 1536 (Tappert, 316-317) chthon "expressly refused as contrary to the article on kept the door ajar for papal self-reevaluation, an opportunity con justification, prayers to the saints, private masses and masses for sistently ignored by occupants ofPeter's chair. the dead, and canon missae."4 His was not so much capitulation Melanchthon's 1540 edition of the Augsburg Confession, known as striking a via media in the face ofan overwhelming force. as the Variata, took the same conciliatory attitude toward the To his lasting honor, Melanchthon authored the Augsburg Reformed that the first edition previously had taken toward Rome. Confession, which is basic to Lutheran teaching. His Apology is By saying that Christ's body and blood are shown (exhibeantur) to the most closely argued and theologically profound of our confes those who eat in the Lord's Supper, he avoided saying that unbe sions. Those embroiled in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in lieving participants (manducation malorum) received Christ's body America (ELCA) debate on whether its candidates for the ministry with their mouths (manducatio oralis). To this day Lutherans repu should be ordained by Episcopal bishops, or those in the Lutheran diate Melanchthon's "revised standard version" by putting U.AC., Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) who struggle to find clarity on "Unaltered Augsburg Confession:' on their church cornerstones. who is really a minister, need look no further than Melanchthon's The Invariata was as much a mark ofconfessional faithfulness as it Treatise. There the pope is one bishop among other bishops, and repudiated Melanchthon's accommodation to the Reformed. In bishops and priests differ only in function. quoting his confessions against him, the Formula of Concord Melanchthon's orderliness assures a clarity often not found delivered the unkind est cut ofall. in Luther. For doctrinal inconsistency, he became an unnamed defendant in the Apology articles on the Free Will (IV), the Things Indifferent: The Adiaphora Lord's Supper (VII), and Church Rites or Adiaphora (x). Our With Charles v's armies occupying Lutheran Saxony after dilemma is that confessional subscription calls us to embrace Luther's death in 1546, Melanchthon assisted in preparing the his theology with the same zeal with which we reject some of Interims of 1548, two agreements with the papal party which his later positions.5 required the reintroduction of customs that were neither good In Search ofa Theme Any of Melanchthon's three confessions and aberrationsDAVID P. ScAER, a contributing editor for LOGIA, is Chairman of System atic Theology and Professor of Dogmatics and Exegetical Theology at addressed in the Apology might provide a focus for his anniver Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. sary year. Proposed alliances between Reformed bodies and the 27 28 ELCA in North America, and between Anglicans and Luther ans in northern Europe, call for careful review of articles on the Lord's Supper. Any Lutheran discussion with the Anglicans and Roman Catholics is compelled to grapple with the teaching on justification, which, to Melanchthon's eternal credit, he called the main doctrine in the controversy with Rome (Ap IV, 2 [Latin); 3 [German)). With this the Anglicans have already expressed discomfort. Justification still has not reached resolu tion in the ELCA rapprochement with Rome. Apology II, which repudiates the free will as an efficient cause of salvation, provides a basis for evaluating the practice of making decisions for Christ as proof of salvation. Smoke in the LCMS, however, points to liturgical flames. The Reporter featured an article with the self-explanatory headline "Worship Wars."6 Adiaphora is the issue. Adiaphora in Our Situation Defensible is the proposition that the 19705 debate over bibli cal inspiration, inerrancy, and historicity remains the defining moment for the LCMS. Assumed similarities with conservative Protestants on these issues provided an entrance, or at least an opportunity, for neo-evangelical practices to enter LCMS litur gical life. Assimilating these practices became possible when distinguishing differences were blurred. Practices do not come devoid of ideas. This interpretation ofadiaphora becomes the wild card in the deck allowing its players to trump every trick. While inspiration and inerrancy is affirmed by both the Mis sourian and the neo-evangelical, for each the Bible functions differently. Each looks for and sees something different in the Bible. Scriptures for the Reformed provide divine knowledge for spiritual growth. The Bible is fundamentally a rule book that reveals a pattern for life. This corresponds to their empha sis on sanctification and their understanding of the third use of the law as reimposition of laws in the Christian life. Law fol lows gospel. For Luther, "The Bible contains only one truth, but it is the decisive one: 'that Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for the sake of our sins, and was resurrected for the sake of our righteousness."'? Justification of the sinner on account of Christ is the chief article. Christ is the Bible's content.8 Law is God's opus alienum. Through seventeenth-century Pietism, the Reformed prac tice of the Bible as a source book for personal edification found a permanent place among some Lutherans. An equal and higher value was placed on private or informal Bible reading than on what the Augsburg Confession and the Apology called the Mass, which was the center of Lutheran liturgical life.9 Individual piety replaced corporate hearing of the gospel and LOGIA reception of the sacrament as the ultimate communion with God on earth. This change of focus may account for the warm welcome given to neo-evangelical practices by some Lutherans three centuries later and the excessive individualism experi enced and disliked by the Reformed themselves. Lutheran proponents of Sunday morning novelties rest their case on Augsburg Confession VII, which does not require uni formity in church ceremonies. This view rests on the false assumption that liturgies are the "ceremonies" and congrega tions are the "churches" referred to in the confessional articles dealing with adiaphora.1o Catholic liturgies in regular use in Lutheran church services are neither the "ceremonies" of Augs burg Confession VII nor the adiaphora of FC x. In the Formula, ceremonies that accompanied the liturgy could be those prac ticed by papists, with the proviso that they were neither man dated nor required for salvation. At stake was the Lutheran understanding of justification without works. An action allowed in one situation may be a denial of Christian truth in another. Article x raises certain rituals to the same level ofconfes sion occupied by the formal written documents themselves. Amending Article X Richard John Neuhaus belled the cat in calling the LCMS decision to allow lay ministers to celebrate communion the "Wichita Amendment to the Augsburg Confession XIV." While the amendment was rescinded by having the laymen ordained, a truly confessional spirit requires that a church transcend the original historical moment, recognize the confessional princi ple, and respond with the appropriate action. It has been publicly conceded that liturgical uniformity in the LCMS has eroded in the last few years. A former worship commission executive predicts changes will soon be common place.ll Innovative liturgies and practices are defended on the basis of the Bible and the argument that our confessions offer no specific proscriptions against liturgical changeP This inter pretation of adiaphora becomes the wild card in the deck allowing its players to trump every trick. Questions of accept able practice are swiftly swept off the table and consigned to the limbo of adiaphora where anything goes. Like a bad penny, it stays in circulation. Through the eye of this needle, a steady stream of previously unknown practices are funneled into the church. Pure Doctrine and Liturgy The theme "Things Indifferent: Limits of Formula of Con cord Article x-New and Old Liturgical and Doctrinal Contro versies," connects church liturgy, that is, what she does at wor ship, with her formal declarations of faith (confessions), that is, what she believes. This title does not intend to suggest that liturgy and doctrine are two different, or at best parallel, reali ties, which from time to time must be brought into synchro nization with each other. If all matters liturgical are indifferent (adiaphora) and doctrines are matters of divine determination, then we are really dealing with two different realities with no essential relationship. Each congregation could then devise its own worship services, provided that what the LCMS deter mined to be pure doctrine was not contradicted. Theoretically FORMULA OF CONCORD X six thousand LCMS congregations could worship on a given Sunday with six thousand liturgies whose resemblance to each other would be only coincidental. This is effectively what we have now that the LCMS Commission on Worship has pro vided us with the "essentials" of what makes a service Lutheran.13 From a practical point of view, the laity would no longer have a way of recognizing a Lutheran congregation. Such liturgical diversity would have theological ramifications in contradicting and even denying the church's catholicity. It would be difficult to confess, "Credo in unam sanctam catholi cam et apostolicam ecclesiam." The church's historical moor ings to God's actions with Israel and the incarnation would be severed.14 Dividing the Indivisible Protestations not withstanding, what the church believes is recognized by what she does on Sunday mornings. Removal of the creed from liturgy in the eighteenth-century Enlighten ment was more than a change in form, a mere practical matter, but signaled that Lutheran theologians had no use for the con fessional understanding of the Trinity, baptism, and other foundational articles of belief. Newly introduced rationalistic forms proclaimed the absence of Christian substance. Though these theologians had bound themselves by oath to the Lutheran Confessions, they proclaimed by how they worshiped that they had in fact disregarded them. Form and Substance: A Theological Argument Article x was not a response to a specific doctrinal aberra tion, as were the Formula's other articles, but a confession that what the church does as church-how she conducts herself on Sunday- is as important as any formal confession she adopts. This is the controverted issue.15 Francis Pieper, the LCMS's pre mier theologian, recognized the interconnection of Christian doctrines. An aberration in one place anticipates problems elsewhere. Church history demonstrates that the same princi ple applies to both confession and liturgy, and liturgy is the immediately available confession. Liturgical deviations are bellwethers of future doctrinal changes. Pietism, by placing a higher value on collegia pietatis what we call cell groups~than on the traditional worship, sig naled the blossoming individualism of the Enlightenment. Here we see the strange linking of Pietism and the Enlightenment: the absolute sovereignty of the individual over the community of faith. In America this principle reigns supreme and is readily apparent in the LCMS, where individual congregations now stress their individual freedom from the synod with the support of a position expressed as early as 1934.16 In calling for a com plete overhaul of all liturgical rites, the Enlightenment announced its disregard for the supernatural and began to annul the church's Catholic characterP A liturgy in which the sacramental bread was not identified with Christ's body sig naled the collapse of Lutheranism in Prussia. So today also a Sunday liturgy without communion speaks volumes. Churches without established, unnegotiable confessions do not have to face the dilemma of coordinating confession and liturgy that confessional churches do. Without firm creedal 29 attachments, such non-confessional churches can hardly demand liturgical uniformity. But of course, they do. Baptist insistence on immersion proves that even the confessionally blase can be downright liturgically legalistic. A crucifix in such churches would be tantamount to announcing papal primacy. Appropriate iconoclastic responses would promptly follow. Liturgy is not only a practical matter of who does what and how he does it, but a confessional matter of what the church believes. In her liturgy the church actually presents the confes sion that defines and identifies her. Rites-call them liturgies-are never randomly chosen, butflow from the character ofthe organization. When the gathered assembly sings or says her liturgy, those who are assembled recognize themselves and are recognized by each other no longer as individual Christians but as church in a particular historical context. In hearing of the Word and receiving the Sacraments, the church takes on that incarna tional form that her Lord gives her. These forms identify her as the bride of Christ and confirm her as his body. The church is present apart from her worship, but only there can her pres ence be recognized with certainty. Only here we know that a particular assembly is truly church and not another kind of human association. Lutherans have always said that word and sacraments create and sustain the church and are her identify ing characteristics, or "marks." Without these she is not church and not recognizable as church. Form and Substance: A Philosophical Argument Liturgy or rites are not exclusive church possessions. In addressing the question of ritual, we are also speaking of princi ples that have a wide application and not one that refers only to the church. No secular or religious association is completely devoid of rites or liturgy. Basic military training is but one example. Book-of-the-month clubs are another. Rites~ call them liturgies-are never randomly chosen, but flow from the character of the organization. Rites inform us about the nature of an organization and how its members relate to one another. The rites of societies are their marks. The inauguration of the American president is noticeably less elab orate than the British coronation. Each rite carries its own message. One cannot be substituted for the other without indi cating a significant change. A MacDonald's franchise would immediately be taken away if its proprietor offered its products in the Burger King wrappings. Readjustment in church ceremony alerts us to a change in doctrinal substance. Liturgy is not an "accident" to doctrinal "substance" (to borrow language from the philosophical dis tinction between a thing and its accidents), but belongs to the thing itself. In our context, FC x requires more than joining in 30 the historical condemnation of those who submitted to the Roman Catholic Interim, but forces us to ask whether we can adopt forms and practices that are common to and identify other denominational groups, such as Baptists, Methodists, and the Assemblies of God, and still remain Lutheran. Church prac tice or lack ofit already makes a confession to the world, which our formal confessions are never able to do so immediately and effec tively. A church without the creed in its liturgy and a baptismal font and an altar in its edifice has already delivered its confes sion to all those who are present. Adherence to formal confes sions do not change this. Article X in Reverse If the Formula had been written after 1613 when Johann Sigismund, the Elector of Brandenburg, publicly took Com munion according to the Reformed rite, FC x would certainly have taken on an entirely different hew.I8 Mary Jane Haemig observes: The Calvinist court sought to convert the common people by reforming popular piety. Central to these efforts was the reform of the celebration of the Lord's Supper, but the court also tried to reform the baptismal rite, change the place of art and music, and reform the church calendar.19 In protest the people rioted in the streets. Lutheran sub stance could not exist "in, with, and under" Calvinist forms. Adjust the forms and the substance is changed. To them form mattered. Forms that indicated capitulation to Rome were now confessional marks. Haemig concludes: Brandenburg [circa 1539l first retained many of the Roman ceremonies in order to demonstrate its continuity with the Roman church, then it retained the same cere monies as a mark of Lutheranism, against the attacks of Calvinism. During the Second Reformation [1619l the Calvinist ruler tried to get rid of such ceremonies but ran into heavy resistance from Lutherans who regarded the liturgy as the mark of true Lutheranism.20 FC x addressed "a specific situation of confession" and was not a call to be perpetually anti-Roman Catholic in liturgical matters.21 Rather, it places the burden on the church to refrain from biblically unmandated practices that give the impression she is surrendering her confession.22 At the same time the church must maintain practices that reflect her confession. In fifteenth -century Saxony, Lutherans were forced to act like Roman Catholics and in seventeenth-century Brandenburg like Calvinists. In each case, they applied the same principle and resisted. In each case, the Fourth Commandment requiring obedience to civil authority had no authority for the church. The United States: Catholic-Controlled Saxony or Reformed-Controlled Brandenburg? Unlike Europeans, Lutherans in America are not subject to governmental interference in matters of doctrine and liturgy, LOGIA but culture exerts a subtle-some would say profound!-con trol. This often unrecognized pressure does not evoke the resis tance that overt government intervention does. If Latin-lan guage-speaking countries have a predominantly Catholic cul ture, the American and British English-speaking countries are mainly influenced by evangelical Protestantism of the Armin ian type.23 Even American Roman Catholicism drinks these waters. What would a Roman Catholic Mass be without "Amazing Grace"?24 FC X addressed "a specific situation ofconfession" and was not a call to be perpetually anti-Roman Catholic in liturgical matters. Neo-evangelicalism comes as close as possible to being an official religion in the United States. Billy Graham is the official court preacher. More people probably know and definitely understand the words of "How Great Thou Art" than "The Star Spangled Banner." Our prototype is Reformed-dominated Brandenburg-Prussia rather than Catholic-controlled Saxony. Maintaining (Reclaiming) Heritage Pietism and the Enlightenment have made locating an unbro ken doctrinal and liturgical succession from classical Luth eranism to the present LCMS impossible. If ours is a Repristina tionstheologie, then our liturgy has also been repristinated. LCMS confessional Lutheran theology was literally resurrected out of a German Protestant tradition whose most positive feature was Pietism.25 No pure "apostolic tradition" in theology or liturgy exists for us. It is not surprising that our fathers' first attention was to theology and that only in this century have we looked for our liturgical foundations. The 1941 Lutheran Hymnal with the service for the Holy Communion was a monumental achieve ment in reasserting the ordinary of the Mass. Since we are still more likely to see things in a Protestant context, it may be diffi~ cult to imagine that the Reformation did not mean that the Lutherans stopped being Catholic and doing Catholic things. The Augsburg Confession is adamant about this: We are unjustly accused of having abolished the Mass. Without boasting, it is manifest that the Mass is cele brated among us with greater devotion and more earnest ness than among our opponents (AC XXIV, 1; Tappert, 56). The Apology is hardly less reserved: "We keep traditional forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc." (Ap XXIV, 1; Tappert, 249). Lutherans were claiming to be more Catholic than the papists. About twenty years later both sides in the adiaphoristic con troversy kept a liturgy in place whose parts were found in the Roman Mass.26 Liturgy for Luther, Melanchthon, and Chem FORMULA OF CONCORD X nitz was not a matter of creative construction or selection among several options, but liturgy rather belonged to their church. Churches were not voluntarily formed assemblies forg ing liturgies for themselves. Such was the legacy of the Enlight enment and Schleiermacher in Europe, as well as Charles Finney and revivalism in America. The latters' doctrine of the church differed essentially from Luther's. For Luther, church and liturgy were inherited, gifts of divine grace. Synods or territorial churches, and not individual con gregations, had liturgical responsibilities.27 "Creating liturgies" is as much an oxymoron as "covenanting together" to form a church or even a synod. In being catholic in their liturgy, Luther and especially the Lutherans in Brandenburg were not Romanists or submitting to the pope, but maintaining their faith, which they confessed and inherited from Rome (Conclu sion to first part of AC; Tappert, 47). Without this claim they were a sect.28 Any thought of a liturgy adjusted to culture would have been strange to the reformers. An American liturgy is as repulsive as an Asian or German one. Freedom in adiaphora was never understood as self-emancipation from Rome, that final step which a recalcitrant Luther could never take. Martin Chemnitz, a chief architect of the Formula, enforced liturgical uniformity in the churches of Braunschweig, for which he was superinten dent. Article x was not a liturgical declaration of independence, but unfortunately it has become so in American Lutheranism. The Lutheran claim that the Mass was celebrated with more solemnity than their opponents is not made inoperative by FC x but affirmed thereby.29 Article X: Church Practice Does Matter Even though the Formula has twelve articles, the tenth is the last of the articles in both the Formula and the Book of Concord to address church practice.30 Each article of faith is played out in practice, which practice must correspond to what is believed. Practical matters, the adiaphora, are not devoid of theological consequences. Where practice is not seen as a matter of theologi cal concern, church life is trivialized. Just as the last two ofthe Ten Commandments, which forbid coveting and so internalize God's law by applying it to the heart, inform the first eight, so FC x informs and shapes all other Lutheran articles of faith. Article x is, however, not the first confessional article to be concerned about the theological import ofchurch practice. At first, around 1520, Reformation Lutherans sought a preci sion in doctrine that they could not immediately demand of church practice. No such leeway was allowed ten years later in the Augsburg Confession and the Apology. Denying the cup to the laity, mandatory celibacy for the priests, and monastic vows were proscribed as wrong. Practices mattered. Article Ten of the Formula took another tack by placing the burden on the church to recognize those practices which are not offensive in themselves, but which become so because of specific situations. The freedom and demand to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable practices brought the early Christians to the brink of division in observing Jewish ritual. Paul, who had opposed Peter for eating with Jews and not Gentiles, returned to Jerusalem and performed rituals required of practicing Jews. 31 Scriptures, Confessions, and Liturgy Subjecting ancient church liturgies to doctrinal, that is, confes sional, review is not without problems, though it is synodically required. It may not take into account Scripture's origin in and for the early church's liturgical life. The Scriptures are as sacra mental in their purpose as they are christological. Since the beginning, church liturgies have preserved the Scriptures and made them accessible to the people as no other medium has, including sermons. Pictures of Luther detaching the Scripture from church imprisonment with a chain cutter to give them to the people may be misleading. Scriptures are themselves confes sions and are preserved in the liturgy as confessions of what the people believe. Since people confess only what they have first heard, Scrip ture, liturgy, and confession constitute one reality in which each constantly informs the other. This process of mutual reci procation is curtailed when the Scriptures are no longer recog nized as the normative word of God, or when the church's for mal confession is shelved as an historic relic, or when her liturgy is replaced by contemporary creations adjusted to fit the perceived desires and needs of the audience. Current examples of each aberration are commonly known. "Where orthodoxy is labeled adiaphora, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Without both formal confession and liturgy, the church becomes no more than a community association with self defined and continually redefined religious purposes. Such purposes are now called "mission statements." The church becomes a Volkskirche in the worst sense of that word, an asso ciation so defined by like-minded individuals. She forfeits her claim to catholicity and eventually her claim to being church. The Lutheran definition of the church as created and recog nized by the word and sacraments requires that she must be believed to be a divine creation. The church must be believed to be Christ's body on earth, called, gathered, and enlightened by God, not chartered, constituted, and incorporated by the voters' assembly. Her liturgy and confession, as aspects of a common faith, are defined by her Lord and are not adiaphora (Rom 10:9). Where the faith is preserved in formal confessions but not in the liturgical life of the church, those confessions are disregarded and her faith is already dead. For reasons of church practice, the LCMS has traditionally often refused fellowship to other Lutheran churches. To paraphrase James, faith without corre sponding liturgical practice is dead. Doctrinal review for litur gies at best assures the absence of error without assuring its catholicity and the presence of truth. The process itself may assume, and so concede already, that each community is permit ted de novo to create liturgy. Questionable is whether any litur gies copyrighted by Maranatha are really creationes ex nihilo. 32 Adiaphora: Optional Orthodoxy The editor ofFirst Things calls the proposition "Where ortho doxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed" the "Neuhaus law."31 He might have said, "Where orthodoxy is labeled adiaphora, orthodoxy will sooner or later be pro scribed." If the Episcopal-ELCA alliance succeeds, it may do so only because Lutherans are willing to concede that justiijca,tion as the chief doctrine is optional, namely, an adiaphoron. In the 1970S the LCMS was brought to the brink of corporate destruction because one group, who descriptively called them selves "gospel reductionists;' made the law and the gospel the only doctrines and regarded other doctrines and biblical his tory as optional, namely, adiaphora, or better, res inditferentes. Today more and more Lutherans see the historical liturgy as optional, that is, res inditferens. It may be hard to imagine a day when the traditional liturgy has no place in the church beyond being an historical oddity. It is hardly likely that the horrors of the 1817 Prussian Union, where pastors were removed from churches, imprisoned, and evicted from their parsonages will be repeated. This might be an example of an amendment to the Neuhaus law: "Where tradi tionalliturgy is optional, traditional liturgy will sooner or later be proscribed." When the Reformed Prussian authorities required a Calvinistic-friendly liturgy of Lutherans, they were giving more than lip service to the proposition that "by what the church does when she assembles, she is confessing what she believes to believ ers and unbelievers alike." On that account church practice is never incidental, that is, adiaphoron, a matter of congregational and personal choice, but it is a matter of inheritance and gift. Our current definition of adiaphora has become so broad that anything beyond the doctrine of "justification by faith" could be considered adiaphoron. In seeking to resolve current differences, we must agree that the ordinary of the Mass, the historical service, was not understood by the confessors to be an adiaphoron.32 IIIIIIII NOTES I. On January 22,1988, Michael Rogness offered "Was Melanchthon a Philippist on the Doctrine of Conversion?" and Lowell Green lectured under the title of "When Did Melanchthon Become a Philippist on the Lord's Supper?" 2. Charles v's Augsburg Interim (May 15,1548) was opposed by both the ruling class and the people and was replaced by the more conciliatory Leipzig Interim (December 22, 1548). 3. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) faces this question in acquiescing to the ordination of its future pastors by Episco pal/Anglican bishops. Ifepiscopal ordination is required for church unity, is such an ordination an adiaphoron anymore? 4. Matthew Harrison, "Martin Chemnitz and the Origin, Content, and Meaning ofFC x," unpublished essay (August 1994), 7. Available from its author. 5. Bente judges him to be the culprit, a verdict not beyond challenge. See Bente's "Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evan gelical Lutheran Church," Ccncordia Triglotta (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 95-102. 6. Sean Parker, "Worship Wars," Reporter 22, no. 11 (November 1996): 8--9,12. 7. Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 171. 8. Daniel Preus writes, "Like Luther, Robert Preus believed that to speak of justification was to speak of Christ, and to speak ofChrist was to LOGIA speak ofjustification" ("Solus Christus," LOGIA 5, no. 3 [Trinity 1996l: 21). 9. Philip Jakob Spener, Pia Desideria, ed. and trans. T. G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), 87-89. 10. Eugene Klug observes that the ceremonies that Roman Catholics , required of Lutherans were "Baptism (sprinkling with salt and exorcism), ; confirmation by bishops, extreme unction, Corpus Christi processions, and fasting rules" ( Getting into the Formula ofConcord [Saint Louis: Con cordia Publishing House, 1977],62). 11. "Worship Notes," Reporter 23, no. I (November 1996): 12. 12. "Can girls be acolytes?" is the topic of the "Q & A" column in the Lutheran Witness 115, no. 11 (November 1996): 25. Reasons for a negative answer cannot be that the Bible prohibits girl acolytes or that the LCMS has a position forbidding it. Answering this question may be more difficult than suggested by the article. Lighting candles can be done by anyone, even a church sexton who might happen to be a Bap tist. Another factor comes into play if the acolyte functions within the eucharistic celebration. A non-Lutheran could not ordinarily take this role. Historically the position of acolyte was considered one of several preliminary ranks before becoming a deacon and a priest. The Refor mation had no use for these distinctions, but in the past many Lutheran pastors have been not alone in seeing acolytes as a way of rec ognizing future candidates for the ministry and preparing them to conduct the church service. With this understanding of acolytes, it is understandable that some pastors might find girl acolytes inappropri ate. If lighting the candles is seen as a janitorial-type function, then prohibitions against having girls do this are without merit. It cannot be overlooked that until recently the present Roman pontiff opposed the practice presumably because the innovation was demanded by femi nists whose ultimate goal is the ordination of women. If this were the case, then he acted in accordance with the Lutheran understanding of adiaphora. He acquiesced when the American bishops authorized it for their dioceses and put him in a position where he could not have done otherwise. Here he was a Philippist. Looking for specific biblical prohi bitions or mandates in resolving matters of church practice has echoes of the Lutheran controversy over adiaphora. 13. "Worship Notes," 9. It is noteworthy that a reading ofthe Word of God, without specification of the Gospel, is listed as an essential ingredi ent. Lost is the connection between the words ofJesus and his Sacrament in which he is corporally present. Historic liturgies know of no substitu tion for the Gospel. 14. Introits and graduals are composed ofOld TestanIent psalms, and the Sanctus is taken from Isaiah 6. The established early church custom of two readings from the Old Testament has found its way back into the liturgy with at least one reading. See John Kleinig, "Worship in the Old TestanIeot," Concordia Theological Quarterly (forthcoming issue). IS. See for exanIple "Worship Wars," 8-9, 12, with subheading "Tradi tional worship vs. contemporary. What's right? And is anyone wrong?" One happy exception is Leonard Klein, "What Is to Be Done," Lutheran Forum 29, no. 2 (Pentecost/May 1995): 6-8. 16. Theodore Graebner, The Borderland of Right and Wrong, 6th ed. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941), 1. Each congregation had the right to determine how it should worship, a right now exercised with vengeance. 17. Carl Schalk, Handbook of Church Music (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978), 64. 18. It was the beginning ofan attempt that came to final resolution in 1830 with the amalgamation ofLutheran and Reformed churches in Prus sia, the infamous Prussian Union against which our fathers protested. 19. Mary Jane Haemig, review of Bodo Nishan, "Prince, People, and Confession: The Second Reformation in Brandenburg," Lutheran Quar terlYlo, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 211-12. [Philadelphia: UniversityofPeonsyl vania Press, 1994l. 20. Haemig, 212. 21. Harrison, 8--9. 22. It is amazing that in the American situation, where the Baptists insist on immersion, the Wisconsin Synod (WELS) without discussion calls this form ofbaptism an adiaphoron. See John F. Brug, Church Fellow ship (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1996),35-36. 33 FORMULA OF CONCORD X 23. Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 24. Jay P. Dolan, Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience 1830-1900 (Notre Dame and London: Notre Dame Press, 1978). 25. See Michael Henrichs, "Liturgical Uniformity in Missouri," LOGIA 5, NO.2 (Eastertide 1996): 15-24 26. Harrison writes, "So for instance the Leipsic [sic] Interim imposes an order for mass which contained the basic ancient liturgical profession and portions of the liturgy, the Lutherans hardly felt compelled to aban don this progression themselves" (9). 27. Harrison, 11-12. 28. James NuechterIein leads the way in repudiating Rome's claim to catholic exclusivity, a position taken by his editorial colleague Richard John Neuhaus. See Nuechterlein, "In Defense of Sectarian Catholicity," First Things, no. 69 (January 1997): 12-13. Announcingthe Second Annual 29. Klein writes, "Liturgy per se is not an adiaphoron, a collection of rites and ceremonies that embellish word and sacrament but are somehow indifferent to saving faith. Word and sacrament necessitate a liturgical ordo. So the Augsburg Confession affirms that we celebrate the mass faith fully every Sunday and Holy Day and at other times when there are com municants. The mass, not something else" (6). 30. FC XI distinguishes the Lutheran doctrine of election or predesti nation from that ofJohn Calvin, but in the sixteenth century it was not a problem among Lutherans. From the title of FC XII, "Other Factions and Sects Which Never Accepted the Augsburg Confession," it is evident that internal problems among Lutherans are not being addressed. 31. Richard John Neuhaus, "The Unhappy Fate of Optional Ortho doxy," First Things, no. 69 (January 1997): 5()-{io. 32. Certain references were provided by my colleagues Lawrence Rast and Arthur Just. International Academy ofApologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights STRASBOURG, FRANCE ~ecognizing the need for serious academic and practical defense of historic biblical faith in an increasingly secular age devoid of a solid basis for human rights, the Academy offers an intensive two week course for those who wish to become Christian Apologists or refine their apologetic skills. Instruc tion will be provided in Historical, Scientific, Philo sophical Juridical and Cultural Apolgetics. Nonchris tian world views will be subjected to rigorous criti cism. On successful completion of the program, can didates shall be designated Fellows of the Academy 'Faculty for 1998 (EC.A.). A second registration in the defense of a thesis on an approved topic leads to the Diploma in Christian Apologetics (D.C.A.) or Human Rights (D.H.R.). Recipients of the diploma with appropriate qualifications may proceed to a doctorate (Ph.D. or Th.D.) from Trinity College/Seminary, Newburgh, Indiana. The full cost of the summer program in Strasbourg July 7-18, 1998 (excluding transporta tion): $2,495.00, covering tuition, board, room and social programs. Enrollment limited to 20; 10 $1,000.00 scholarships for needy applicants. Pro£ Dr. John Warwick Montgomery (Academy Director) Pro£ Dr. Michael Horton Pro£ Dr. Rod Rosenbladt Pro£ Craig Parton (United States Director) For further information: Craig Parton phone (805) 682-3020 • email: Parton 1 @juno.com) • Dr. Montgomery fax 011-44-171-583-1210 Registration Deadline: December 1 (Scholarships November 1)