Full Text for Confessions 1- Volume 63 - How did the Lutherans overcome the problem of not having bishops theologically and what does this mean for how Lutherans obtain pastors today? (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 63 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 3238 Rose Street Franklin Park, IL 60131 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >>The Lutherans struggle to find bishops who ordain their pastors. How did they overcome this problem theologically and what does this mean for how Lutherans obtain pastors today? >>DR. KLAUS DETLEV SCHULZ: Your question that you have just asked reflects a practice in the time of Reformation that gradually came about. As you know, the Lutherans had relied always on the consecration being performed by bishops. That is as long as they were in together within their own Catholic church, it was possible to continue the practice of being ordained by bishops. And as you know, Luther and other theologians during the time of the reformation who gradually grew into the Lutheran movement were ordained by bishops. However, the problem was that many of these bishops remained within their own Catholic church for obvious reasons I think they considered themselves as being affecters of the hierarchial system in their own Catholic church. They benefitted from the great wealth that had been accumulated in the church, monasteries and so forth. They had a dig any identified position. And there was no reason really to change and come over to the Lutheran reformation. So what to do now. Luther addresses this problem in the third part of the Smalcald Articles, the 13th article. There he clearly says that he does not want to get rid of the practice of order being ordained by the bishops. I don't think we should be as radical as some theologians say that the reformation once to rid totally of the state us of the bishops. Where they were coming over, they could come and ordain individuals. However, that was not the case. So what should one do theologically now. I think Luther answers it quite clearly. He draws attention to the history of the church and then he says already at the time of *Sipron and others, they said that we will ordain ourselves. What does that mean? They perhaps relied on the local pastor or priest or performed the ordination of those present. Melanchthon takes a similar position in his treatise. There also he says that the keys have been given to the church principally and immediately, a very important statement theologically speaking because it tells us that the keys to ordain, that means that they are handing over the keys to an individual through the practice of ordination means that that right has been given immediately and principally to the church and not to this or that person in office that means to the hierarchy itself either to the pay pass see or the bishops alone. So if it comes down to the crunch, I think they believe clearly that the church had the right to do it and negotiate and find a solution to the problem if there was no bishop to ordain individuals. Melanchthon goes at great length to explain this idea that the church my ordain and he also says that we as pastors will do it, if we have to. Melanchthon also mentions an emergency situation at the closing of his treatise. That is he refers to an example used by the great theologian Augustine where two individuals are sitting in a boat and where someone becomes the pastor of another one and absolves them of their sins that is an emergency situation. And we should not forget that very fact that it is nothing about an emergency situation. That means that if all normal circumstances fall our way, one could perhaps resort to the idea that they are christians all over in the world who may assume the role of pastors. However, the reformation was not that desperate. It still had pastors. It still had Luther and Wittenberg and others who could perform the ordination. So it was within the realm of pastors and those ordained that did perform the ordination on behalf of the Christian church. There is admittedly a lot of church custom and condition in this treatise here as it is reflected in the history of the church. It means some churches try to maintain the ordination performed by a bishop or a regional overseer in conjunction and in connection with the congregation. Others try to prefer to do it only with a pastor. Somewhere in the month sorry senate, it is usually the custom that a district president ordains. So there are a number of practices here. But one factor remains I think in the treatise. It is that the right of ordaining has been given to the church and not to only a few individuals in the hierarchy of the church those of the pay pass see and of the priests. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***