LOGIA
A JOURNAL OF LUTHERAN THEOLOGY
EPIPHANY 1998 VOLUME VII. NUMBER 1
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
The Evolution of Luther's Reception of the Early Church Fathers in Eucharistic Controversy:
A Consideration of Selected Works, 1518-1529
By Kent A. Heimbigner ................................................................................................................................................. i ........................................ 3
Cyprian's On the Lord's Prayer: A Patristic Signpost in Luther's Penitential Theology
By Mark Sander .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
A Call for Manuscripts .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 18
The Use of Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses in Martin Chemnitz's Loci Theologici
By JanIes D. Heiser ............................................................................................................... ; ................................................................................ 19
Inklings by Jim Wilson .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 32
The Priesthood of All Believers
By Arthur DrcYlowt .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 33
Missouri at the End of the Century: A Time for Reevaluation
By David P. Scaer ................................................................................................................................................. ; ................................................ 39
COLLOQUIUM FRATRUM
"SANCTIFICATION: THE POWERFUL PARDON"
Paul R. Raabe & Steven Hein ............................................................................................................................................................................... 53
"ROBERT BELLARMIN AND MARTIN CHEMNITZ: ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE ROMAN CANON"
Leonard Klein & Oliver Olson ................................................................................................................................................................................ 55
REVIEWS .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 57
REVIEW ESSAY: Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. By Gilbert Meilaender.
For All God's Worth. By N. T. Wright.
Augsburg Today: This We Believe, Teach, and Confess. Edited by David L. Mahsman.
Luke 1:1-9:50. By Arthur A. Just Jr.
The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul's Letter. By Mark D. Nanos.
The Revolt. By S. Wise Bauer.
The Problem of Suffering-A Father's Thoughts on the Suffering, Death, and Life of His Children. By Gregory Schulz.
The Lord's Supper (Expanded Edition). By Martin E. Marty.
BRIEFLY NOTED
LOGIA FORUM .................................................................................................................................................................................... 69
Righteousness: A Concrete Path • Forgetting Self-Chosen Forms • Preferring Piety to Orthodoxy
Unconverted Pastors • Hymns and the Collective 'We" • Unity and Confession • Funerals as Corporate Worship
To Observe and Protect-Two Kinds of Lutherans, Woman's Suffrage and the Bible, The Enduring Relevance of the Brief Statement,
A Second Look at Promise Keepers, A View from the Pew, Categorically Speaking, The Computer as Liturgical Meat Grinder
Missouri at the End of the Century
A Time for Reevaluation
DAVID P. SCAER
--------------------------t--------------------------
T HE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE Lutheran Church-Mis- uncovered by 1996 could already be found in David Friedrich souri Synod (LCMS) may be a time for celebration, but it Strauss's Jesus (circa 1846). is also an occasion for reflection, evaluation, critique, and Paradoxically the heritages of Rationalism and Pietism,
repenting. It is a time for sitting on the front porch to escape the which Schleiermacher brought together to provide an ersatz
rain and for realizing that many of us are unwittingly parts of certainty for the religious despisers, provided the stimulus for
that history and sometimes its last remnants. Self-evaluation, the regeneration of the confessional Lutheran movement. Until
even on a corporate level, is only beneficial if it leads to contri- the present time, the LCMS has been the most obvious and
tion, faith, and an amend,went of life to do good works. Other- prosperous survivor. of the nineteenth-century confessional
wise, historical self-reflection is useless. "For if anyone is a Lutheran revival. Even if the LCMS should choose another
hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes path, its first one hundred and fifty years were historically
his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself andg~:--remaxk~1Jle)ts current flowed against the tide and the world
away and at once forgets what he was like" (Js 1:23-24-). knew it. We stillbaV'e a name recognition that would be the
But just how does one evaluate one hundred and fifty years? envy of any advertiser. "Missouri" has less tq do with a geogra-
And is this the right time to do it? Matthew divided Jewish his- phy and more to do with a religious conviction.
tory into three spans of fourteen generations. Such a precise Even without such an eyep division of one hundred and :fifty
division challenges historical accident, but it provides us with a years each, those of us who have lived thrOl.J.gh the events in the
precedent in dividing our own Lutheran history into three LCMS since the middle of this century have the sense that one
epochs: 1546-1696 (the death of Luther and the Age of Lutheran era was closing, even if the outlines of a new era were not per-
Orthodoxy); 1696-1846 (Pietism-Rationalism-Schleiermacher); fectly clear. Personal links with C. F. W. WaltlIer have, with Span-
1846-1996 (LCMS). ish-AnIerican War veterans, long disappeared. Few are those
One hundred and fifty years after Luther's death, the period who sat at the feet of Francis Pieper. Those who knew the heroes
of classical Lutheranism was being quicldy overtaken by a flam- are gone, and replacements for the heroes have not been found.
ing Pietism (1696), which, like programs encouraging self- Those who began theit ministries in the '50S are aware, from
absorption, proved to be sterile. Its short and mercifully the nature and conduct of their ministries, that we have crossed
unproductive life was the narthex for Rationalism. The former a boundary within tUn~. Abortion was a crime. Divorce was
was a disease of the heart, the latter of the mind. socially and not sill).J?ly tp,eologically unacceptable. "Day care
At the end of another span of one hundred and fifty years center" was not part of the vocabulary. Mothers were not
(1846), Schleiermacher's The Christian Faith (1830) rang the employed outside the home. Afternoon women organizations
death knell for Enlightenment Rationalism, but in another flourished. The word "engagement" had not been replaced by
sense preserved its critical approach to biblical scholarship in "relationship:' and neither meant cohabitation. No one would
tandem with the foundationless piety of Pietism. A Christian- have understood what was meant by "the significant other."
ity was constructed out of a historical skepticism and a self- Voters' assemblies were male, and only charismatic churches
impressed piety. History and faith were separated without a had women preachers. Hymnals were used for singing hymns.
final decree of divorce. Enlightenment destroyed the reasons Regular churchgoers knew page five by heart. That was not a
for being religious and Pietism gave a reason for being religious golden era, but it was a simpler one.
to those who had no reason to be so. Like a water softener, this In marking a denominational anniversary, we must ac-
schizophrenic existence has constantly recycled itself in the last knowledge that truth is not the permanent possession of a
one hundred and fifty years (1846-1996). With only mild exag- specific denomination, even ours, but truth is the confession of
geration we can say that anything the radical Jesus Seminar has the faith once delivered to the saints by the apostles (Jude 3).
DAVID P. SCABR, a contributing editor for LaGIA, is Chairman of Sys-
tematic Theology and Professor of Dogmatics and Exegetical Theology
at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
39
Any church is faced with the temptation of judging any issue by
the mind of the synod, namely, "what people think" on this or
that issue. Then what claims to be a church becomes another
organization. Problems are then resolved by pointing to the
LCMS's "officially adopted doctrinal statements" without the-
~,
40
ologically engaging the Confessions of the church and the
problems they address.1 The existence of "officially adopted
doctrinal statements" has allowed LCMS commissions to offer
opinions on everything from gambling to church-state rela-
tionship. Such opinions invite the same kind of allegiance given
to the Confessions.
The shapers of our history have been Walther and Pieper,
Wyneken and Sihler, pfotenhauer 'and Behnken. Any church's
self-absorption with its own history stands in danger of giving
birth to a sectarian mindset. Such a mindset is characteristic of
any church that understands itself as a custodian of the truth,
which of course it must do if it wants to be a church. A church
that does not make this claim is not even recognizable to the
world as a church. This leaves us in a Catch-22 situation. Our
church-any church-must understand herself as a guardian
of the truth, but at the same time not read her history as an
exclusivistic Heilsgeschichte. A church that does not see itself as
a custodian of the truth soon looses its claim to be church.
We must acknowledge that truth is
not the permanent possession of a
specific denomination, even ours.
Our problem is not yet an organizational problem, in which
a bishop or a pope is blessed with being correct or infallible,
but ours is a confessional self-assuredness, the belief that our
historic confessional commitment is a guarantor of the future
truthfulness of our church pronouncements. Continued self-
assuredness, which cannot be confused with infallibility,
requires continued self-critique. To her own embarrassment,
Rome as an organization has failed with papal infallibility and
tried to ignore and redefine it. Only the recorded history of
Christ and the apostles is above critique.
We may be destined to being self-directed and so required to
look exclusively at our own history, even if that road is covered
with sectarian pitfalls, which clouds the search for pure objec-
tivity, as if that were even theoretically possible. Like earlier
explorers, we are obligated after our short journeys to leave
maps that later theological cartographers may find hopelessly
naive in their primitive understanding of the church. Ours may
prove to be a less significant journey than that of the reformers
or the LCMS founders, but our journeys are the stuff out of
which Christ has built his church.
Each generation may have its own heroes, but many class-
mates of mine are more or less agreed that our generation was
not provided with very many. The giants who commanded the
admiration of an entire generation were gone. One septuage-
narian is troubled that the names of Piepkorn, Lueker, Caem-
merer, Franzmann, and C. S. Meyer are unknown to today's
seminarians. P. E. Kretzmann, Ludwig Fuerbringer, and Stoeck-
hardt were only names to my generation and hardly pulled on
LOGIA
the heart strings. With only few exceptions, heroes get only
part-time employment. The lack of heroes in the 1930S and
1940S may be a determinative factor for a later malaise that has
permitted externally acquired infections.
Even before the death of Pieper, the LCMS had lost its pris-
tine vigor. It was perhaps a matter of aging more than anything
else. A vigorously healthy body is more likely to have an effec-
tive immune system. Nothing in LCMS history prior to 1950
can match the diverse challenges faced since then. With our cor-
porate body's defenses down, we had become susceptible to any
number of theological viruses-and the heroes of that time are
nearly gone. Their counterparts in EUM, Missouri in Perspec-
tive, Seminex, and AELC--movements that threatened the core
fibre of the LCMS-are no longer factors and their names are
also not remembered. This is the history we want to recount.
Both the LCMS and Concordia Theological Seminary, now
again in Fort Wayne, have a history of one hundred and fifty
years. In the last forty years (1956-1996) both institutions may
have experienced more changes than in any other comparable
period. Many of us observed this history and were drawn into it,
and so we were shaped by it. We were more controlled by events
than we controlled them. This anniversary invites us to remem-
ber that the controversies of the 1960s and 1970S were the theo-
logical environment whose air our souls breathed. Evaluation of
that time cannot be anything else but autobiographical.
In the period since the 1970S, what is distinctively Lutheran
is in danger of being lost, because we cannot agree among our-
selves what is distinctively Lutheran. If this is so, then this is
only a replay of the eras first of Pietism and then of Rational-
ism. Lowell Green has pointed out the similarities between
neo-evangelical forms of Lutheranism in our time and the
"American Lutheranism" fostered by Samuel S. Schmucker.
Ours may not be a new conflict, but rather a resumption of one
that was never resolved. A pervasive Protestantism, which is
more Reformed and Arminian than it is Lutheran, contami-
nates the ecclesiastical soil from which all American churches
are nourished. After a Roman Catholic priest of the Byzantine
Rite had sung the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, he claimed
"Amazing Grace" as his favorite hymn. The same sub-ground
aquifer may lead many of our parishioners to favor this hymn
over ''A Mighty Fortress." All American churches are drinking
from the same stream.
It is easier to mark the end of an era than to recognize the
beginning of new one. So if we can recognize that certain signs
of the period of classical Lutheranism are not as evident today
as a century ago, it is virtually impossible to provide precise
blueprints for the future. People who make a difference are
identified after they have served and very rarely before. Only in
the midst of World War II did Churchill emerge as the great
political leader of this century. Before that he was regarded as a
gadfly and a nuisance.
As the LCMS goes into the next period of its existence, it
will do so without such prominent names as Lewis Spitz, Wal-
ter Roehrs, Robert Boerber, and John Klotz, all of whom have
passed away. More significant in the last two years were the
deaths of J. A O. Preus in August 1994 and his brother Robert D.
Preus in November 1995. Those Who attended the memorial
MISSOURI AT THE END OF THE CENTURY
services for Robert D. Preus instinctively knew that an age had
come to an end.
When Robert D. Preus came to the St.. Louis seminary in
1957, the LCMS was one hundred and eleven years past its
founding. His brother J. A 0. Preus arrived in Springfield in
1958. For nearly the next forty years, both brothers were in the
middle of what made the LCMS and its public theology what
they were, as no other persons were. This is a value judgment
and open to debate. The Preuses fascinated two generations as
no other men had. Both were leaders and theologians, men of
recognizable personality and character. They were not the
issue, but without them the issues would not have surfaced, at
least in the way they did.
THEPREUSBROTHERS
Perhaps we must wait for another generation, or even a cen-
tury, before the contributions of J. A O. Preus, a.k.a. "Jack;' and
his brother Robert D. Preus, ak.a "Robert," can be evaluated
from a'detached perspective, but then it may be too late to
recapture the emotions they stirred when they entered the
LCMS. The LCMS in the last half of the twentieth century is
not the history of these brothers, but without them,om.hiRt?!y
would have probably been entirely different. Only God'knows: .
Humanly speaking, what happened would not have happened
without them. In life, and now in death, they have a name
recognition that the native-born LCMS members do not have
and will never have. We can offer any number of other promi-
nent names, but only the Preus name will define our times.
A now-deceased uncle of mine spoke with the abundance of
Christian liberty that is given to those who approach their cen-
tennial, saying that the LCMS would only be happy when the
Preuses were gone. His sentiments reflected those of erstwhile
colleagues who were indiscriminate in sharing their emotions.
Now since both brothers are gone, we can expect historical
evaluations, some of which will be brutally honest, even if we
may question their correctness.
Even before he was gone, some announced themselves as
"Preus watchers;' a term that referred almost exclusively to Jack.
They could be found in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS),
where he had been a pastor before going to Springfield. A small
and, in a sense, outcast synod had produced, if not the most sig-
nificant, then its most controversial Lutheran leader of the cen-
tury. "Preus watchers" were also found in the ELCA, of whose
predecessor synod he was also a pastor. People who did not
know him loved and hated him with the same intensity, and
mostly for the same reasons. Often they were the same people.
One district president who was removed by Jack remembers
with some fondness a visit to his home where he helped out in
the kitchen. Everyone who knew him will recognize this as
Jack. I have not read his funeral orations, but what was said
probably described him as an "old Missourian." Yet there was
something more complex about him. Besides a book that was
written about him, Pre us of Missouri (1977), two other outside
analyses have been made, one by a friend after his death and
one by a critic before.
Leigh Jordahl, a long-time family friend, writes kindly and
warmly of Jack's faith, and finally critically: "Preus was not the
41
theologian or church leader who was needed to forge a new
way to overcome the delinquencies already apparent in the
Lutheran controversies of the nineteenth century." 2 He was,
however, both the theologian and the church leader who
addressed the problems that came to a head for the LCMS in
the 1970s.
This is a point acknowledged by Leonard Klein, who was not
a friend. Klein was and remains closely associated with those
involved with Seminex and the AELC. Klein holds that Preus
was right in rejecting the notion that the "announcement of
grace could pre-empt questions of dogma, authority, and
meaning." ELCA antinomianism is the result of what Klein
calls Seminex's "bizarre Schwarmerei."3
In his last conversation with Jack, Jordahl called his attention
to "a Missouri flirting around with such novelties as Church
Growth" and claimed that Jack was intrigued with the "evan-
gelical catholip;" of the ELCA-not that Jack would have gone
along. It was part of his nature to keep people guessing. This is
my observation. Jordahl may be right in seeing that Jackhad
not laid dov.:n' a course' for the LOMS, but there is only so
much that ol1eJ;ilan can 40.
Preus was right in rejecting the notion
that the "announcement of grace
could pre-empt:questions of
dogma, authority, and meaning."
We have not seen any written reviews on Robert, but oral
tradition was flourishing even before he died. People loved and
hated Robert with the same intensity that they loved his
brother, but for different reasons. Jack was an organizer of the
troops. RoJ:Wrt wa~ t~estandard around which the troops,
more unorganized than not, gathered. Even when deprived of
office, he was the body aroUnd which the eagles gathered.
Brothers cannot avoid tomparison and the Preuses wei:e no
exception. Both were theological and political animals, but here
the comparison will stop. Robert had become a sy.mbol and a
rallying point at different times in his life for groups within the
LCMS that are now increasingly disparate. So he may have been
the last universal Missourian, as much as this Was possible. His
passing left both a politicai and a theological void.
While Robert was often at odds with LCMS officialdom, he
consciously represented "old Missouri." His defense of biblical
inspiration gave him immediate recognition with neo-evangel-
icals, with whom he fostered and cherished alliances when
LCMS officialdom locked him out of his old haunts. Many
advocates of Church Growth-like programs were allied and
supported by him. At his death, his greatest admirers were
those who showed a growing interest in the classical
Lutheranism of the earlier period and who were seeing theol-
ogy in terms of the old church liturgies.
42
Robert fits under Klein's critique that the LCMS isolated its
doctrinal commitment from its liturgical life, but towards the
end of his life, Robert recognized the dangers in the Church
Growth Movement. Outwardly in the matter of forms, the
liturgical products of Church Growth were not unlike a way of
life with which Robert was most familiar. No one could accuse
him of being liturgical.
Robert's dismissal from the seminary and synod provided a
direction in his theology of which we have only threads. Out
of these threAds, had he lived, Robert would have woven a
cloth. In defending the concept that "All theology is Christol-
ogy," he came to see the legitimacy of the liberals' argument
that the Scriptures and all doctrines had to be defined within
the dimensions of the gospel, though this gospel was more
than "the sheer announcement of grace," to borrow Klein's
terminology.
Gospel for Robert Preus involved both theological and his-
torical dimensions, which were missing from the "gospel-
reductionism" of the liberal position. Gospel was both histori-
cal and theological Christology, now in uppercase. Robert's ser-
mons were never doctrinal dissertations but a preachment of
Christ. The substance of his later understanding was already
there, but the final controversies made this existential for him
in a way he had not experienced before.
Gospel for Robert Preus involved both
theological and historical dimensions,
which were missing from the ('gospel-
reductionism" of the liberal position.
Robert's removal from office helped him reshape his under-
standing of the ministry, which he published two years after his
removal in The Doctrine of the Call in the Confessions and
Lutheran Orthodoxy.4 Previously Robert held that the ministry
was established in Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession,
while Article v dealt with the general ministry, or ministry in
the abstract. Now he saw that the ministry was established in
Article v. This book was indeed an attempt to set forth the clas-
sical Lutheran position on this issue, but it was also a defense of
his own position as seminary president, and later also seminary
professor, set against certain practices he found abhorrent in
the LCMS.
In the conclusion to The Doctrine of the Call, Robert took
issue with these now current or proposed practices: laymen
preaching in churches; disposing of pastors without due
process or because they are employees; placing pastors on
"restricted status:' whereby they are ineligible to receive calls;
district presidents controlling.call lists; district presidents or
counselors talking to congregations apart from their pastors;
temporary calls; forced retirement; and ministerial calls to
women.
LOGIA
Robert took up these issues in 1990, almost seven years ago.
These are now the very issues that are being proposed to the
LCMS. I am convinced that as recently as ten or even twenty
years ago, he did not see the issue of the ministry as the one
that would disrupt in the LCMS. His own situation forced him
to this conclusion, even though he had been the preeminent
symbol and rallying point for all of Missouri's conservatives in
the "Law-Gospel Debate."
THE LAW- GOSPEL DEBATE
During the 1970S a controversy broke out in the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod over the role of the law and the
gospel in theology. Afterwards similar debates over biblical
inspiration, inerrancy, and history arose among the Southern
Baptists and other Protestant denominations, but for Luther-
ans the debate over the Bible was connected with the law-
gospel principle. Perhaps a majority of now-active LCMS cler-
gymen were pastors or seminary students at that time. Their
historical witness can serve as a needed corrective on my own
interpretation of those events.
What is intended here is more of a theological appraisal of
the movement and less an historical one, though on that
account it is not ahistorical. Controversies necessarily produce
exaggerated language and exorbitant claims for each position,
from which I hardly exempt myself. Soldiers do know more
about battles than those who visit battlefields only after the
wounded have been safely hidden away and unsightly debris
removed. On that account it is better to concentrate on ilie
issues themselves, with the least possible attention to the par-
ticipants in that debate, though complete abstinence from his-
torical biography is impossible.
Formulating the point of controversy will be determined by
where we begin our analysis. A date for the roots of the contro-
versy in the 1940S would suggest that the issue of the '60S and
'70S was a growing desire for LCMS participation in the ecu-
menical movement. This was an alleged but not proven goal of
the Statement of the Forty-Four.
Placing the roots for the debate in the 1950S would suggest that
the issues were biblical inerrancy and the use of certain methods
in interpreting the Bible iliat cast doubt on its historical reliabil-
ity. The end ofJohn Behnken's nearly lifelong tenure in 1962 sig-
naled the overt politicizing of the LCM S Theological differences
took form in political organizing. Unlike his predecessors, Oliver
Harms could not look forward to an election for life.
The election of certain district presidents and J. A O. Preus as
LCMS president in 1969 meant that concerns about the theo-
logical direction of the LCMS had become so public that con-
gregations who implicitly trusted the synod. were ready to
replace certain church leaders. With two opposing groups
emerging as virtually self-contained "churches" within the
LCMS by the 1970S, clearly opposed theologies could be recog-
nized. Until then the LCMS was faced with individual theologi-
cal opinions, but in the 1970S quasi-official theologies emerged,
one associated with the 5t. Louis seminary and the other claim-
ing tradition.
By mid-decade matters had progressed far enough to allow
representatives of each position to recognize and critically ana-
MISSOURI AT THE END OF THE CENTURY
lyze the other's theology. In retrospect these alliances were not
ideologically monolithic. We can put aside the issue that some
alliances were often joined by some for political reasons and
personal advancement. This is not unusual in church life, and
only the totally naive will hold up hands in indignant horror.
Members of one group or the other had theological differ-
ences among themselves that were not evident to its members.
For example, an undiagnosed Fundamentalism, which is now
known as neo-evangelicalism, was seen as the equivalent of
confessional Lutheranism. When asked what Lutheran infl-
uences a prominent theologian was making outside the LCMS,
one college professor replied that the man in question was a
defender of verbal inspiration, as if that were a uniquely
Lutheran doctrine.
The failure to recognize these theological differences may be
at the root of any discord and disharmony that the church expe-
rienced one generation later. This was as true for the conserva-
tives as it was for the moderates. The break, which was finalized
in 1976 with the LCMS president following a decision of the
1975 convention to remove some district presidents from their
positions, was not absolutely catastrophic for the body politic.
The LCMS maintained its shape and form with some districts
43
Article v in the Formula of Concord (1578), titled "Law and
Gospel." It condemned the idea that the preaching of the
gospel led to repentance and saw this a confusion of law and
gospel.
Article VI of the Formula took the matter further and ad-
dressed the role of the law in the life of the Christian. The For-
mula acknowledged that the word "gospel" could be used in
several ways, but in the strictest sense it was exclusively a
proclamation of grace and not a conviction of sin. From the
beginning, law and gospel became the characteristic principle
of Lutheran theology and historically continues to distinguish
ours from other churches, as the proponents of gospel reduc-
tionism themselves recognized.
Surfacing as the prominent one was
whether the Scriptures or "the law
and the gospel" were the determi-
native principle in theology.
taking the brunt of the schism. An inevitable gloomierf~--·-_" ...... ____________________ _
felt by some of us in the late 1960s and early 1970S did not mate-
rialize. The feared "liberals" did not storm the walls, as they had
done in every other major Protestant denomination.
Though many issues were coming together in the 1970S, sur-
facing as the prominent one was whether the Scriptures or "the
law and the gospel" were the determinative principle in theol-
ogy. One writer noted that "at the heart of the discussions in
our Synod is the question of whether the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ is the sale source of our personal faith and the cen-
ter of our public teaching." The author of this statement, who
was a critic of the new position, agreed with his opponents that
law and gospel formed the substance of theology, but he spoke
for the traditional position in asserting that the governing
principle for theology was the Scriptures.5 He also noted that
the new position was an "arbitrary polarizing of the gospel over
against the Holy Scriptures:' which was never known in confes-
sional Lutheran theology.6
The new position was commonly called "gospel reduction-
ism." Even though it had a somewhat negative ring to it, and
was not used by its proponents, it was suggested by the title of
an article by one of its leading advocates? Adding to an
intended or unintended confusion was that law and gospel were
understood differently by the opposing sides. Gospel reduction-
ism brought a number of factors together, including a legitimate
Reformation principle that the law and the gospel provided an
outline, goal, and content for preaching and theology.
Justification, the core Reformation doctrine, was carried out
for the believer in the law, which condemned him, and in the
gospel, which assured him of his salvation. Law and gospel gave
meaning to the Reformation. In Articles IV, v, and xx of the
Augsburg Confession (1530) and the Apology (1531), Melan-
chthon held that salvation was by the gospel and challenged
any idea that works of the law made any contribution. A pecu-
liarly Lutheran controversy resolved itself in the formulation of
The law and gospel priJJ.ciple was reinforced in the nine-
teenth century by C E W. Walther, the Missouri Synod's first
president, whose Law and Gospel remains a standard for
homiletics. The debates of the Reformation and the role of the
law and gospel as a principle for preaching were not the issues
that surfaced in the 1970S. Gospel reductionism of the 1970S
was not a revival of the old controversy in whioh gospel was
confused with law, nor was it a renewal of the question of what
role the gospel had in preaching. Gospel reductionism was the
claim that the law and the gospel, and not the Scriptures, were
normative for Lutheran theology.
In gospel reductionism, justification was seen not merely as
the chief, but as tnt; only required doctrine. Other church
teachings were rele.gated t.o a secondary position, as if they were
nothing else than adiaphora. In comparison with the law and
the gospel, other items were expendable. Law and gospel was
used as a principle of exclusion rather than inclusion and as a
method of analyzing the biblical data.
According to Reformation definition, law and gospel were
diametrically opposed to each other and characterized God's
revelation of condemnation and redemption. Redeemed by
Christ, the believer is still not free from condemnation. In
gospel reductionism, law and gospel went beyond describing
the human dilemma in standing before a God who hates him
for his sin and loves him in Christ and became the standard in
evaluating the worth of other doctrines and the biblical docu-
ments. Whatever was not found to be in disagreement with the
law and gospel principle was allowed.
As a principle in exegesis, gospel reductionism allowed any
opinion of biblical interpretation, as long as the gospel as a
message of forgiveness was proclaimed to the hearer. Evaluat-
ing a given pericope as either myth or history was allowed, if
the message of forgiveness was quarried from the biblical text
44
and preached. Agreement on the literary character of any sec-
tion of the Scriptures was secondary and freedom of opinion
was allowed. What was previously considered to be a historical
account might be considered poetic saga.
At that time Bultmann's definition of "forms" was the rage
of the scholarly world, though little attention is given to them
now. Some who identified with the new movement in the
LCMS seem to have found this approach too radical. They held
and still hold to recognizably conservative positions by insist-
ing on the biblical history and, in certain cases, even defending
it. Among these are some now in the ELCA.
Gospel red,uctionism did not introduce an entirely new way
of thinking, though the terms were mid-twentieth-century vin-
tage. Rationalism in the seventeenth century had already made
a distinction between the Scriptures and the Word of God. This
type of thinking has persisted to the present time and is charac-
terized by pointing out that the phrase "Word of God" in the
biblical documents has other meanings besides the Scriptures
themselves. A one-for-one equation between Bible and Word
of God was against the biblical evidence.
Gospel reductionism regarded gospel,
that is, the word offorgiveness, as the
Word of God in theprimary sense.
This position was, of course, defensible but hardly new.
Peculiar to the new position is that the Word of God was
looked upon as an overarching category out of which any num-
ber of sub-categories are derived: words spoken by God,
prophetic and apostolic word, Scriptures, sermons, hymns,
liturgies, Christian testimonies. These sub-categories can be
labeled as Word of God, insofar as they provide significant wit-
ness to that Word of God, but are not identifiable with it. They
are bearers of the Word, but they are not ultimately authorita-
tive Word of God, an honor reserved for the gospel.
Gospel reductionism regarded gospel, that is, the word of
forgiveness, as the Word of God in the primary sense. Scrip-
tures were the Word of God only because, or insofar as, they
proclaimed the gospel, that is, the word of forgiveness. It was
something like the old liberal platform that the Bible contains
the Word of God, but not exactly. The newer concept was more
fluid. On one occasion a certain portion of the Scriptures could
be the Word of God and on other occasions not. Sections of the
Bible that were found not to proclaim gospel could be dis-
counted as Word of God, at least on that one occasion when
they were heard. Oral proclamation was more likely to be Word
of God than written Scriptures. One pericope could be, and
could not be, the gospel depending on whether it accomplished
its goal in preaching the gospel.
Such a view flew right in the face of the traditional doctrine
of inspiration, which had been brought to prominence by the
publication of Robert Preus's The Inspiration of Scripture, a
LOGIA
study of the classical Lutheran position on this issue. His stature
in the LCMS as an opponent of gospel reductionism was
directly connected with the position he set forth in this book.
The theoretical understanding of Word of God as law and
gospel had direct practical implications for the LCMS. The
law-gospel principle allowed for the ordination of women as
pastors, an issue under consideration first in the American
Lutheran Church (ALC) and then the Lutheran Church in
America (LCA) in the 1970S, though its proponents in these
churches acknowledged that specific Bible passages disallowed
it. Biblical and historical evidences were against the practice.
The fragile LCMs-ALC fellowship, which was initiated in 1969,
was in danger of being disrupted by the latter's declaration of
fellowship with the LCA and their intent to ordain women.
At this juncture the law-gospel principle served LCMS pro-
ponents of fellowship. Placing women as pastors did not
directly oppose the gospel as the Word of God proclaiming for-
giveness, and so they could be ordained, it was argued. At least
one woman was admitted to the regular M.Div. program ofthe
St. Louis seminary and was assigned to vicarage. Lines were
being drawn.
The law-gospel principle also was used to show that a suffi-
cient basis for fellowship between Lutherans and other
churches was already in place.8 No longer was it a matter of
coming to agreement on the specific doctrines that previously
divided churches from one another, but whether the gospel was
being preached in these churches. What was happening
replaced what had happened. Result was more important than
source or origin.
The ELCA has now used similar arguments to achieve
alignment with the United Church of Christ, the Reformed,
and Presbyterian Churches. Classical Lutheranism could
express its material principle in several ways: forgiveness,
justification, law and gospel, or Christ. Scriptures as the
source of theology were the formal cause. In gospel reduction-
ism, the material principle was transformed into the formal
one. Justification, or the law-gospel principle, was both source
(formal principle) and content (material principle). Law and
gospel became the norm.
In gospel reductionism, something was true, or allowed, if
the law and gospel were effectively proclaimed. Where a word
had created faith, that word could be recognized as the gospel
or the Word of God. The result indicated the nature of the
proclamation. Only when the proclamation was accepted by
the hearer could that proclamation be recognized as gospel and
hence as the Word of God. Faith became the final arbiter. This
is easily recognized as an existentially influenced theology,
which it was. Objectivity was swallowed up into subjectivity.
The background and the substance for the new position was
twentieth-century neo-orthodoxy, especially the Swiss theolo-
gians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, as well as the Scottish the-
ologians Don and John Baillie, who had put this peculiar under-
standing of the Word of God in the center of their theologies.
John AT. Robinson, bishop of Woolwich, represented this think-
ing for awhile in England. Paul Tillich played the same role in the
United States. Though Barth, Brunner, and Baillie were not
J:,utheran, they used tlteological terms familiar j:o .Lutherans.
MISSOURI AT THE END OF THE CENTURY
At first many Lutherans may not have been aware that these
terms were given other definitions. Rudolf Bultmaim also
belonged to the movement and spoke in recognizable Lutheran
terms. He made his mark as a New Testament scholar with his
method of demythologizing, but his theology was recognizably
Lutheran, especially in the pulpit. Piety, in this case Lutheran,
survived in a Nestorian arrangement with complete historical
skepticism.
Neo-orthodoxy was not without European Lutheran critics.
The Swedish theologian Anders Nygren and the German Luth-
eran scholars Werner Elert and Paul Althaus Jr. were the most
prominent. They recognized that neo-orthodoxy, with its
redefinition of terms and its lack of attention to biblical history,
was hardly compatible with Lutheran theology, and they
engaged it in polemical dialog. Some Lutherans in America
took a more positive attitude to neo-orthodoxy and saw in it an
opportunity for expanding their theological horizons.
For all of its failings, neo-orthodoxy offered a substantive
theology compared to the lightweight liberal theology that
dominated the American scene long after it had lost its cre-
dence on the European side of the Atlantic. Neo-orthodox the-
ological fibre may account for its popularity in America among
conservatives, including neo-evangelicals. The president""6foOne .. ,
seminary assured the synod that his institution was "doingilie-
ology." It was!
The influences of neo-orthodoxy among Lutherans, includ-
ing the LCMS, may be more difficult to decipher. With the loss
of German as the theological language in the LCMS by the end
of the 1920S, and the problems in maintaining contact with the
Continent during the Second World War, leading American
Lutheran theologians may have become less informed about
European theological developments than, for example, did
Francis Pieper. Pieper's bibliographical knowledge was ency-
clopedic and is still unmatched today.
The war had cut the Missouri Synod off, not only from her
sister churches in Germany, but from the general theological
deVelopments there.9 Thus when neo-orthodoxy took hold in
American soil in the 1950S, many theologians of the conserva-
tive churches were not fully equipped to analyze it and were
susceptible. Failure to analyze neo-orthodoxy allowed its intro-
duction into the LCMS. One district official described the new
method as reading the Bible, praying, and then interpreting it.
Something more complex was afoot, but such simple, and
yes, naive explanations of what this was were not uncommon.
It would be equally false to say that everyone who had been dis-
satisfied with traditional LCMS theology and practice in the
'30S and 40S were "gospel reductionists;' though they made
common political alliance with them. The gospel reductionism
movement did have informed, committed, and articulate
spokesmen who came to be associated with Concordia Semi-
nary, St. Louis, and Valparaiso University in Indiana, either as
faculty members or as writers for their scholarly publications.
Memoirs and autobiographies may still uncover theological
and political alliances.
Neo-orthodoxy does not attract the attention it did in the
1950S through the 1970S, and in a sense we are visiting bat-
tlefields of wars from which the soldiers have longed departed.
45
Some well-known combatants have enlisted in other armies.
One suspects, both intuitively and from personal knowledge,
that those who then used its phrases may not in every case have
known neo-orthodoxy's origins as a protest in the 1920S. This
protest was directed against the optimistic liberal tradition that
was spawned by eighteenili-century Rationalism and then nur-
tured by Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Albrecht
Ritschl, and finally by Adolf von Harnack.
When neo-orthodoxy took hold in
American soil in the 1950S, many
theologians of the.conservative
churches were not fully equipped
to analyze it and were susceptible.
From our point of view, neo-oriliodoxy was "liberal." On
the European shores it was conservative, hence the term "neo-
~rtl:iodoXY'?'·European liberalism had met a sudden death with
the Great War (1914-1918), which destroyed the idea that a
heavenly society on earth was within human grasp. Its Ameri-
can cousin was not scarred by the ravages of the war and sur-
vived in the form of the Social Gospel, which followed the
rationalistic tradition of reducing biblical history and theology
to bare but recognizable minimums. These liberals were not
historical agnostics in the sense that the Jesus Seminar is. Harry
Emerson Fosdick, who was removed from Princeton Theologi-
cal Seminary, perpetuated the old optimistic liberal tradition
into the 1960s. American theological liberalism lingered into
old age and died a natural death.
To American Protestantism, which had not known the
ineffectiveness of C.,ontinentalliberalism, neo-orthodoxy may
have appeared as noiliing more than a mild diuretic. Barth,
the consumma:t~· theologian of the twentieth century, had
been politically involved and was not above addressing soci-
etal ills and national evils. He was a mover behind the Bar!!
men Declaration. To many conservatives neo-orthodoxy, with
its protest against liberalism, may have seemed simply a
revival of classical theology. It seemed to be similar to the
repristination of confessional theology in the 1830S and 40S
among Lutherans in Germany and Anglicans in England,
which of course, it was not.
Still, Barth was a scholar of the classical Lutheran and
Reformed theologians as few men have ever been. His theologi-
cal presentations are the most valuable of this century, and
serious doctrinal scholars must engage him and, where neces-
sary, accept his corrections. Underlying his tlteological pro-
gram were principles tltat may have sounded traditional but
were built on an existential foundation and would have
appeared strange to ilie leading parties in the Reformation and
post-Reformation debates. At that time all agreed that tlte Bible
was the Word of God and hence the source of theology.
Barth's definition of the Word of God as encounter between
two subjects, one giving and another receiving, does not belong
to Reformation theology, though some in our circles attempted
to cite Luther in its defense. Rudolf Bultmann provided an
existential definition of gospel, which he had borrowed from
the philosopher Martin Heidegger, a colleague at the University
of Marburg on the philosophical faculty. Forgiveness was the
willingness to accept onesel£ The gospel was the proclamation
that effected this. Scriptures could be equated with the Word of
God if they proclaimed gospel to effect a new self-awareness
and self-acceptance. These views were exported to the United
States and appeared in the traditional Lutheran dress of law
and gospel in gospel reductionism.
For neD-orthodoxy Scriptures were the
Word of God only insofar as they
were believed as gospel.
For all the objectivity neocorthQdoxy.claimed for its defini-
tion of the "Word of God;' the Word WaS dependent ona sub-
jective reception of it by the hearer. Thus neo-orthodoxy fun-
damentally did not advance beyond the liberalism it claimed to
displace. In fairness to neo-orthodoxy, the liberalism originat-
ing with Schleiermacher saw the Scriptures as nothing else than
the expression of the community. For such a liberalism, the
transcendental was only an expression of a commonly held
self-consciousness.
For neo-orthodoxy Scriptures were the Word of God only
insofar as they were believed as gospel. If all the Scriptures
were accepted as the gospel, then they could all be reckoned as
Word of God. Just the opposite was equally true. If the Scrip-
tures did not effect any change in the hearer, they were not
gospel and hence not Word of God. It could be said and it was
said: "All the Scripture was the Word of God" and "None of