CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Volume 59: Number 3 JULY 1995 The Divine Call in Die Rechte Gestalt of C.F.W. Walther Norman E. Nagel .................................................................. 161 Modem Fanatici and the Lutheran Confessions Carter Lindberg ........................................................................ 191 Books Received ........................................................................... 2 18 The Opinion of the Department of ................................. Systematic Theology on "Meta-Church" 219 Homiletical Studies ..................................................................... 225 ............................................................................. Book Reviews 237 Modem Fanatici and the Lutheran Confessions Carter Lindberg The author has been asked to answer in this essay this question: "Is the judgment of the Lutheran Confessions on fanatici still usefill?" The answer, of course, is an unqualified "yes." Who, after all, is in favor of fanatics? Not many people are when the question is phrased in this way. If the root meaning, however, of "fanatic" is coinsidered, we fmd, in actuality, widespread contemporary support of fanatici as meant in the confessions. The adjective fanaticus, according to Cassell's New Latin Dictionary, means "inspired by a deity, enthusiastic." The word "enthusiastic," of course, comes from en and theos, meaning "God-withinism."' Enthusiasm in this sense is as socially and theologically popular-and dangerouetoday as it was during the Reformation. I. contemporary Fanaticism In this perspective the condemnations of fanaticism in the confc:ssions are not merely still useful; they are, in fact, essential to the Lutheran confession of the gospel. The confessions as the distillation of the Reformation proclamation of justification by faith alone: totally oppose the perennial human efforts to shift the locus of salvation from extra nos to in nos. Such efforts are called perennial because enthusiasm did not end with the condemnations of Nova- tians, Donatists, Pelagians, Montanists, and Schwamer. Enthusiasm lives on in contemporary charismatic movements, church-growth and renewal movements, and all their secular New Age counterparts obsessed with introspection, self-analysis, and self-improvement. In a sense, enthusiasm is the hallmark of contemporary theology, which begins with the self and views, in the words of George Lindbeck, "the public or outer features of religion as expressive and evocative expressions (i.e., nondiscursive symbols) of internal e~perience."~ This "experiential-expressivism as Lindbeck calls it, "is so pervasive in contemporary theology and at the same time so variegated that it is hard to decide on any one author to serve as an instan~e."~ From a historical perspective the phenomenon of enthusiasm includes many strange bedfellows in its protean bed. A random list could1 include Thomas Miintzer, Philip Spener, Friedrich Schleier- 192 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY macher, and Donald McGavran. What they have in common is the tendency to use experience as the yardstick for revelation, and thus to make revelation contingent on results whether viewed qualitatively or quantitatively. The presence of the Holy Spirit is indicated by more intense piety, growing churches, and total quality in mini~try.~ The present fascination with inner experience, with spirituality, is quite ecumenical; "it afflicts Christians of every denomination. Our culture has told us that introspection is the proper modus operand in life. As a result contemporary spirituality has turned increasingly to navel-gazing and has made us unable to get outside our~elves."~ "As modems under the influence of Pietism and the Enlightenment, we think in terms of subjectivity, of our own life of faith, of our intentions and motives, of our inner urges and their forms. 'Sanctifi- cation' in this way of thinking is primarily a matter of personal, individual form, and way of life."6 "Modem Protestantism and psychologism have denaturalized and moralized conscience so that it has nothing to do with the external world."' This condition is not just the effect of Pietism, Enlightenment, and Freudianism; it is original sin: we all are born enthusiasts. As Luther states in the Smalcald Articles, the devil "made enthusiasts of Adam and Eve. He led them from the external word of God to spiritualizing and to their own imaginations." "In short, enthusiasm clings to Adam and his descendents from the beginning to the end of the world. It is a poison implanted and inoculated in man by the old dragon, and it is the source, strength, and power of all heresy. Accordingly, we should and must continually maintain that God will not deal with us except through His external word and sacrament."' The Reformers' condemnations of the fanatics are directed at the whole human enterprise of self-sanctification, self-transcendence, and self-chosen religiosity manifest in our tendency to think in terms of law, virtue, and moral progress. Our modem world, to be sure, has put its own spin on the ruses of the old Adam. The special revela- tions of the Zwickau prophets of today require dialing a 900 number at so many dollars a minute to come by astrological signs and psychic readings. Regardless, however, of such technological updates, the medieval quest for the certainty of salvation is no less lively today than on the eve of the Reformation. The piety of achievement that so oppressed the young Luther continues to be the hallmark of our society. The present political mantra of personal responsibility echoes the medieval monastic cloaking of self-interest in high-sounding phrases. We have perhaps lost the sophistication of medieval scholastics but we continue to think, as Luther put it, "ad modum Aristotelis (after the fashion of Aristotle), where the gaining of righteousness means acquiring virtue and removing sin."' Our focus has shifted from the economy of salvation to the salvation of the economy, from fasting to dieting, from pilgrimage to jogging, from ciathedrals of worship to cathedrals of capitalism; but we are no less a performance-oriented, score-keeping people than our medieval forebears. We are, consequently, no less insecure and anxious. Lex semper accusat: "the law always accuses and terrifies conscienc- es."1° The condemnations of fanaticism in the Lutheran Confessions are neither mere historical remnants of Luther's battles with Karlstadt and co~mpany nor mere theological dressing for Luther's theology of the word. Melanchthon warned that, when sound doctrine is crushed, "fanatical spirits will arise whom our opponents will be unable to restrain. They will trouble the church with their godless teachings and overthrow the whole organization of the church, which we are very anxious to maintain."" The condemnations of fanati- cism reflect the proclamation of justification by faith and hence relate to every one of its theological loci. 11. Justification by Faith Alone In a recent essay Martin Brecht draws this conclusion: "The essentiid common ground [of the theology of the Reformation] exists in the dloctrine of justification by faith alone and in the anthropology of the justified sinner connected to it. Where this central doctrine is not shared, as for example by the many representatives of spirituadism, one cannot speak of Reformation From the beginniing this article of justification has been understood to be non-negotiable.13 Everything else, including the papacy in theory, was open for discu~sion.'~ Luther was quite self-conscious that this point was what distin- guished his reform-movement from the renewal-movements ranging 194 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY from Wyclif and Hus to the Anabaptists. Their concern was for moral renewal, for sanctification, whereas his concern was for that article on which the church stands or falls, justification by faith alone. In other words, the issue was doctrine: Doctrine and life are to be distinguished. Life is as bad among us as among the papists. Hence we do not fight and damn them because of their bad lives. Wyclif and Hus, who fought over the moral quality of life, failed to under- stand this. I do not consider myself to be pious. But when it comes to whether one teaches correctly about the word of God, here I take my stand and fight. That is my calling. To contest doctrine has never happened until now. Others have fought over life; but to take on doctrine-that is to grab the goose by the neck! . . . When the word of God remains pure, even if the quality of life fails us, life is placed in a position to become what it ought to be. That is why everything hinges on the purity of the Word. I have succeeded only if I have taught correctly.15 Luther never tired of emphasizing that doctrine stands above life. Doctrine "directs us and shows us the way to heaven . . . We can be saved without love . . . but not without pure doctrine and faith." To Luther doctrine and life could by no means be placed on the same level. If doctrine gives way to love, then the gospel may be denied. That is why the devil' "attacks us so cleverly with this specious argument about not offending against love and the harmony among the ch~rches."'~ Luther's emphasis may be misunderstood, especially in American culture, which so prizes religious toleration, on the one hand, and moral activism, on the other. It must be said, therefore, that Luther distinguished doctrine and life precisely for the sake of life. Without such a distinction the twin consequences are cheap grace and works-righteousness." The function of doctrine is the proclaiming of the forgiveness of sins as unconditional promise. The Lutheran Confessions reiterate1* Luther's emphasis that "the article of justification is the master and the prince, the lord, ruler, and judge over all doctrine; it preserves and rules all teaching of the church and puts right our conscience before God. Without this article the world is naught but death and darkne~s."'~ The article of justifkation is "not just one doctrine among others, but . . . 'the article on which the church stands and falls' (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae) . . . the sine qua non of Christian unity."20 The case may be stated in this way: The gospel tolerates no conditions. It is itself unconditional promise. And when it is rightly spoken, it takes the conditions we put on our life as the very occasions of its promise. This is the first and fundamental Lutheran proposal of dogma. When it is practiced consistently, the Lutheran Reformation has succeeded, whatever else may happen. When it is not practiced, other departures from medieval Christianity represent only sloth and lack of seriousnes~.~' Luther's point is that justification by faith alone throws the burden of proof for human righteousness before God (coram Deo) back upon God. This "Copemican revolution" in theology and piety condemns the human quest for security and efforts to control life. For Luther everything was already said and done in justification by faith allone. "Whenever Luther nevertheless speaks of 'sanctifica- tion' he. discusses nothing else than ju~tification."~~ To do otherwise would erode the certainty of faith. 111. The Certainty of Faith Medieval theology in its various forms of scholasticism, mysti- cism, and pastoral care was a coherent effort to create security in an insecure, crisis-laden time. Underlying this effort was Aristotelian philosophy and logic. This logic posited that like is known by like. In church-growth parlance this idea is the "homogeneous unit princi- ~le."~~ In order to know God and be salvifically known by God, it is necessary to achieve likeness (similitude) to God or to make God "like" us in the double sense of appreciating our achievements and similituio to us. The difficulty, however, is precisely in the assumpt.ion of continuity between the old and the new, between the sinner 2nd the righteous person before God." Such continuity, which marks all theologies of progress and development, throws the 196 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY person back upon his own resources. Insecurity and uncertainty about salvation resulted from making salvation contingent upon an inner change in the person. But justification contingent upon an inner change in the sinner, no matter how stimulated by the grace of God, is bad news. The good news, Luther discovered, is that justification occurs outside us (extra nos). Justification by faith alone means that it is not the sinner who is changed but rather the sinner's situation before God?5 "In short, the term 'to be justified' means that a man is considered righteou~."~~ Luther states: God does not want to redeem us through our own, but through external, righteousness and wisdom; not through one that comes from us and grows in us, but through one that comes from outside; not through one that originates here on earth, but through one that comes from heaven. Therefore, we must be taught a righteousness that comes from the outside and is f~reign.~' This truth is succinctly expressed in Luther's marginal gloss on Romans 2:13: "'To be righteous before God' is the same as 'to be justified in the presence of God.' A man is not considered righteous by God because he is righteous; but because he is considered righteous by God, therefore he is righteous. . . ."28 :In other words, only when the burden of proof for justification rests on God is it possible to have any certainty of salvation. Our righteousness before God is not contingent upon our theological expertise, our ethical rigorism, or our religious experience, but rather solely upon God's action in Jesus Christ. There are no human prerequisites to righteousness before God except, of course, sin; and that condition we all easily To the person terrified by sin and plagued by doubts; Luther says: You are not to be conscious of having righteousness; you are to believe.it. And unless you believe that you are righteous, you insult and blaspheme Christ, who has cleansed you by the washing of water with the Word (Ephesians 5:26) and who in His death on the cross con- demned and killed sin and death, so that through Him you might obtain eternal righteousness and life. You cannot deny this, unless you want to be obviously wicked, blasphe- mous, and contemptuous of God, of all the divine promises, of Christ, and of all His benefits. Then you cannot deny either that you are righte~us.~' Whe:n we examine our lives, we can only be plagued by insecurity and uncertainty; but, if we look to God in Christ, we have certainty of salvation. This truth was the reason why Luther emphasized doctrine over life. When life is placed over doctrine, the ultimate result is what Luther called the "monster of uncertainty": [It] is obvious that the enemies of Christ teach what is uncertain, because they command consciences to be in doubt . . . Let us thank God, therefore, that we have been deliv- ered from this monster of uncertainty . . . . The gospel commands us to look, not at our own good deeds or perfection but at God Himself as He promises, and at Christ Himself, the Mediator. . . . And this is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive.31 Introspection and activity as means to justification and sanctification lead only to the twin possibilities of pride and despair. Hope cannot come from within us but only from outside us, extra nos, in the certainly that God does not lie. Paradoxically, the precondition for certainly of salvation is real sin. "God offers His grace to real sinners. He will not be turned aside by the unpromising character of the objects of his gener~sity."~~ This truth is vividly expressed by Luther's discussion of the rights of inhe:ritance and the certainty which a will provides the heir. Luther saw in Hebrews 9:17 the new testament-id est, the new will-iin Christ already given us as "the forgiveness of sins and eternal life."33 The following quotation sums up Luther's conviction that justification by faith alone is an event extra nos which changes our situation before God: 198 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Everything depends, therefore, as I have said, upon the words of this sacrament. These are the words of Christ. . . . Let someone else pray, fast, go to confession, prepare himself for mass and the sacrament as he chooses. You do the same, but remember that this is all foolishness and self-deception if you do not set before you the words of the testament and arouse yourself to believe and desire them. You would have to spend a long time polishing your shoes, preening and primping to attain an inheritance, if you had no letter and seal with which you could prove your right to it. But if you have a letter and seal, and believe, desire, and seek it, it must be given to you, even though you were scaly, scabby, and most filthy.34 It is no accident that Luther speaks so forcefully of the extra nos of justification in relation to the sacrament because the sacraments are an "irreducibly external word. . . . They will not let the word be swallowed up in our internality. They remain always external, from without. They guarantee the character of the word as a word from outside us, from out there in the world of things and bodies."35 Luther's "most pregnant description^"^^ of the extra nos are found in his vehement battles with the enthusiasts over the sacraments: Now when God sends forth His holy gospel He deals with us in a twofold manner, fvst outwardly, then inwardly. Outwardly He deals with us through the oral word of the gospel and through material signs, that is, baptism and the sacrament of the altar. Inwardly He deals with us through the Holy Spirit, faith, and other gifts. But whatever their measure or order, the outward factors should and must precede. The inward experience follows and is effected by the outward. God has determined to give the inward to no one except through the outward. For He wants to give no one the Spirit or faith outside of the outward word and sign instituted by Him, as He says in Luke 16[:29], "Let them hear Moses and the prophet^."^' The enthusiasts, in contrast, tear away "all the means by which the Spirit might come to you. Instead of the outward order of God in the material sign or baptism and the oral proclamation of the word of God he [the fanatic] wants to teach you, not how the Spirit comes to you, but how you come to the Spirit. They would have you learn how to journey on the clouds and ride on the wind. They do not tell you how or when, whither or what, but you are to experience what they d10."~' If we lose the "for us" of the proclamation, Christ remains for us only a person on the gallows. "Even if Christ were given for us and crucified a thousand times, it would all be in vain if the word of God were absent and were not distributed and given to me with the bidding, 'this is for you, take what is yours."'39 The distribution and appropriation of the promise of the cross is the work of the Holy Spirit. He "leads us into His holy community, placing us upon the bosom of the church, where He preaches to us and brings us to Christ., . . . Therefore to sanctify is nothing else than to bring us to the Lcllrd Christ to receive this blessing, which we could not obtain by o~~~elves.''~~ IV. The Corollaries of Justification by Faith Alone The old wineskins could not contain the new wine of the gospel. Justification by faith alone radically altered every aspect of late medieval theology. The unconditional promise of the gospel shattered all continuity and created things out of nothing. Grasped by justification by faith alone, Luther rewrote every aspect of theology. His theological anthropology radicalized the human predicament before God. The old Augustinian understanding of sin as a turning away from God toward lesser goods (curvatus ad terram!) was displaced by knowing sin as that egocentricity which feeds upon itself (incurvatus in se). The old Augustinian theology of prcqyess or growth in righteousness (partim justus, partim peccator) was displaced by an understanding of the pilgrim as wholly righteous and wholly sinner at the same time (simul justus et peccator). The medieval (and modem) notions of correlating human progress with the will of God were rejected as theologies of glory in opposition to the theology of the cross. Justification by faith alone dots not make the Christian intrinsical- ly righteous. The Christian "should not be so smug, as though he 200 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY were pure of all sins. . . . He is righteous and holy by an alien or foreign holiness." Sin is forgiven, but it still remains.4l The forgiven sinner is simultaneously righteous and sinner. Sin here is basically unbelief and being curved in upon the self; it is the desire to be God and the concomitant refusal to let God be G0d.4~ Sin, therefore, is so radical that only God's gracious imputation of Christ's righteousness can overcome it. The sinner's acceptance of God's judgment enables him to live as righteous already in spite of sin. By letting God be God the sinner is allowed to be what he was intended to be-h~man.4~ The sinner is not called to deny his humanity and seek "likeness" (similitude) with God. The situation is, rather, that the forgiveness of sin occurs in the midst of human lift:. The Christian stands thus before God: [He] is at the same time both a sinner and a righteous man; a sinner in fact, but a righteous man by the sure imputation and promise of God that he will continue to deliver him from sin until he has completely cured him. And thus he is entirely healthy in hope, but in fact he is still a sinner . . .44 In the light of this brief excursus into the motif of simul justus et peccator we may turn to an equally brief summary of the content of the law as understood in Luther and Lutheran theology. The traditional way of speaking of the law in Lutheran theology is in terms of its uses. The civil use of the law is to build up society through the encouragement of good and the discouragement of evil. The content of this use of the law is known through reason, which comes to the conclusion that life is better when we act toward others as we should wish them to act toward us. In this sense Luther remarks that the Ten Commandments are the Jewish version of Saxon Common Law-in short, a kind of human survival kit. By no means, however, does this civil use of the law instituted by God to promote the public peace make one righteous before God.45 The second use of the law is the theological use.46 Here the law reveals and multiplies sin: "the true function and the chief and proper use of the Law is to reveal to man his sin, blindness, misery, wickedness, ignorance, hate and contempt of God, death, hell, judgment and the well-deserved wrath of God. . . . For if someone is not a murderer, adulterer, or thief, and abstains from external sins, . . . he develops the presumption of righteousness and relies on his good works. God cannot soften and humble this man or make him acknowledge his misery and damnation any other way than by the Law.It4' The iheological use of the law poses the question for which the gospel of justification by faith alone is the only proper answer. Without the question the answer appears to be a trivial non sequitur. Without the answer the question creates presumption or despair. The dialectic of law and gospel runs through Lutheran theology because it is the only form in which the gospel can be rightly proclaimed. The distinguishing of law and gospel is no theoretical abstraction but rather the dynamic proclamation of the gospel by which the presumptuous are terrified and the temfied comforted. V. Sanctification A perennial response to Luther's radical theology of justification is that it cuts the nerve of human responsibility and leads to quietismi. Even those who appreciate Luther's theology of justifica- tion have raised this issue. In the eighteenth century John Wesley stated: "Who has written more ably than Martin Luther on justifica- tion by faith alone? And who was more ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification, or more confused in his conception of it?"48 By the beginning of our century the social-ethical side of this critique was advanceld by Ernst Troeltsch. Troeltsch portrayed Luther as a conservative ethicist who separated private and public morality to the detriment of the latter." Troeltsch's well-known arguments that Luther decreed "an inward morality for the individual and an external 'official' morality" indifferent to social structures and instituticns were uncritically taken up by Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr., in fact, intensified Troeltsch's critique: "In confronting the problems of realizing justice in the collective life of man, the Lutheran Reformation was even more explicitly defeatist." Niebuhr went on to claim that evidently for Luther "no obligation rests upon the Christian to change social structures so that they might conform more perfectly to the requirements of brotherho~d."~~ The judgments 202 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY by Troeltsch and Niebuhr have become the received tradition for many contemporary theologians who claim that the "Lutheran theology of the 'calling,' combined with the notion of natural 'orders,' produced a thoroughly reactionary social ethic, which never advanced beyond the ideal of charity."51 In actuality, quite to the contrary, it was precisely Luther's theology which enabled him to speak in detail about the shape of the Christian life and to develop a radical ethic that clearly went "beyond charity." Without losing sight of Luther's emphasis on God's imputation of forgiveness which stands against all fantasies of intrinsic personal and social progress in holiness, we may also recall his emphasis on the new life. We may, for instance, recall Luther's exposition of baptism in the Large Catechism: "In Baptism we are given the grace, Spirit, and power to suppress the old man so that the new may come forth and grow strong."52 He also empha- sized the new life in the Spirit in his lectures on Psalm 51: "When by mercy we are free of guiit, then we still need the gift of the Holy Spirit to clean out the remnants of sin in us, or at least to help us lest we succumb to sin and to the lusts of the flesh."53 "It is well known that the new obedience in the justified brings with it the daily growth of the heart in the Spirit who sanctifies us, namely, that after the battle against the remnants of false opinions about God and against doubt the Spirit goes on to govern the actions of the body so that lust is cast out and the mind becomes accustomed to patience and other moral virtues."" 'The crucial point to remember, as Gerhard Forde succinctly reminds us, is that the "Christian life is not an exodus from vice to virtue, but from virtue, to the grace of Christ."55 When sanctification is linked to ethical progress the consequences are either personal and social constipation, on the one hand, or personal and social trium- phalism, on the other. Both options share a theology of glory. The striving for personal perfection may constrain our contributions to others because everything we do will be posited on its expected outcome. Our lives and those of our neighbors then become contingent on their results. The striving for perfection, as Karl Holl remarked, "gives birth to the calculating frame of mind" characteris- tic of both the Puritan and capitalist spirit.% This is the context for Luther's advice to Melanchthon: "Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe wen more boldly and rejoice in Christ, who is victor over sin, death, and the ~orld."~' The crucial question for Luther was always this: "what makes a Christian?" In his "Letter to the Christians at Strassburg in Opposi- tion to the Fanatic Spirit," Luther wrote: "My sincere counsel and warning is that you be circumspect and hold to the single question, what makes a person a Christian? Do not on any account allow any other qu~estion or other art to enjoy equal importance. When anyone proposes anything ask him at once, 'Friend, will this make one a Christian or not?"'58 The only correct answer is the divine promise. "When you look to what you have done you have already lost the name of Christian. It is indeed true that one should do good works, help others, advise, and give, but no one is called a Christian for that and is not a Christian for that."59 "The quest to be a virtuous or pious person is not a Christian quest."60 The option of triumphalism equates one's own vision of holy living with the divine mandate and thus all too easily falls prey to the temptations of force and tyranny. The historical examples of Thomas IMiintzer and the Anabaptist kingdom of the city of Miinster are vivid reminders of how easily human beings can be sacrificed for causes. Closer to home we have the murders of persons associated with women's health clinics and the terrorist bombing of federal buildings. True Chistendom does not wield the cross but rather lives under it. It lives not from an imposed and imposing human self-transcen- dence in the striving for sanctification but remains a community of sinners under the constant sanctifying work of God. Its holiness remains ]passive; it does not transform itself into an autonomous active holiness. The church is thus holy only in the eschatological movement from faith to appearance; it is, like each individual Christian, sirnul iusta et peccatrix:, a holy church of sinners.61 This muth does not vitiate social good works but empowers them. When "Luther speaks of 'sanctification' he is emphasizing in particular the institutional aspect of justification." 'Iht "institutions" (Stiinden)~ which Luther has in mind are the church, household 204 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY (economy), and government or political community. These are God's means for sanctifying human beings in their everyday Through these means we serve our neighbors and contribute to the common good. VI. Political Community: The Example of Social Welfare Especially instructive, in the light of the perennial modem charges that Luther had no social ethics, is his contribution to early modem social welfare, which received legislative form in the Lutheran church orders. Late medieval poor-relief was marked by struggles between the urban laity and the clergy over the administration of its funds, properties, and institutions. Luther's theology provided a new framework of articulation and legitimation in which to rationalize and secularize early modem social welfare.63 His theology undercut the medieval sanctification of poverty and provided a theological rationale for social welfare that was translated into legislation. Luther "created, as it were, a discursive field in which to bring together in imaginative ways the practical realities of institutional life on the one hand and the ideas evident in Scripture on the Medieval poor-relief was perceived under the much overworked rubric from Ecclesiasticus 3:30 that "almsgiving atones for sin." Bishops and theologians quoted approvingly the old rationale that "God could have made all persons rich but He willed that there be poor in the world so that the rich would have an opportunity to atone for their sins."65 Medieval preachers did not hesitate to refer tco this relationship as a commercial transaction, with the poor carrying the riches of the wealthy on their backs to hea~en.6~ The ancient tradition of the poor as intercessors with God was supple- mented by a theology that presented the poor as objects for good works and thereby a means to salvation. Practical efforts to reform poor-relief were frustrated by a theology which legitimated begging and valued almsgiving and by a church whose own mendicant monks compounded the social problems of poverty. In religious terms, on the one hand, begging continued to be valued as a vocation; the poor had an important soteriological function as intercessors for almsgivers. In economic terms, at the same time, the poor were a cheap labor-pool for an expanding profit-economy. Luther undercut this medieval religious ideology of poverty by his doctrine of justification by grace alone apart from human works. Since righteousness before God is by grace alone, and since salvatior~ is the source of life rather than the goal of life, poverty and the plight of the poor cannot be rationalized as a peculiar form of blessedness. There is no salvific value in being poor or in giving alms. This new theology de-sanctified the medieval approach to the poor which had both obscured the social and economic problems of poverty and obstructed the development of social welfare. In other words, the "role of a clear discursive field such as that enunciated by the reformers was to alter the framework in which specific conflicts and grievances were e~pressed."~' Luther had no intention, certainly, of initiating the modem world or of setting in motion a social revolution. The modem world, indeed, was already under way when Luther entered public life. Luther's theological contribution, however, removed the obstacles which still prevented the complete breakthrough of the modem period.68 Luthe:r understood the preaching office to be responsible both for the liberation of consciences and for raising and commenting upon issues of worldly government such as poor-relief. The preacher is "to unmask hidden [e.g., systemic] injustice, thus saving the souls of duped Christians and opening the eyes of the secular authorities for their mandate to establish civil justice."69 Furthermore, not only was the preacher obligated to social-ethical instruction and action, but so too was the Christian community (Gemeinde). Its activity in worship was the source and resource for service to the neighb~r.~' By 1519 Luther had amplified this connection between theology, worship,, and social ethics in a number of tracts and sermons. In his Short Sermon on Usury he contrasted God's command to serve the neighboir with the self-chosen "worship" which concentrated on building churches and endowing masses to the detriment of the needy.71 In his treatise The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ and the Brotherhoods, written in German and addressed to the laity because Luther was concerned that the people understand his sacramentally rooted ethic^,'^ he specifically relates 21% CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY reform of the mass to social ethics: The significance or effect of this sacrament is fellowship of all the saints. . . . Hence it is that Christ and all saints are one spiritual body, just as the inhabitants of a city are one community and body, each citizen being a member of the other and of the entire city. . . . Here we see that whoever injures one citizen injures an entire city and all its citizens; whoever benefits one [citizen] deserves favor and thanks from all the others. . . . This is obvious: if anyone's foot hurts him, yes, even the little toe, the eye at once looks at it, the fingers grasp it, the face puckers, the whole body bends over to it, and all are concerned with this small member; again, once it is cared for all the other members are benefited. 'This comparison must be noted well if one wishes to understand this sacrament, for Scripture uses it for the sake of the unlearned.73 The right use of the sacrament builds up community. "As love and support are given you, you in turn must render love and support to Christ in His needy ones." From Luther's perspective the late medieval church had broken this connection between worship and welfare to the detriment of each. "So we at present see to our sorrow that many masses are held and yet the Christian fellowship which should be preached, practiced, and kept before us by Christ's example has virtually perished."74 Luther's Address to the Christian Nobility of 1520 presents an explicit and forceful expression of Luther's new conception of social welfare and poor-relief based upon his doctrine of justification. Here he urged that every city and place should take care of its poor, and that all begging be forbidden. He conceived of securing a minimal existence for those unable to work but also stressed that those who were able had a responsibility to work.ls VII. The Liturgy after the Liturgy The first effort to institutionalize welfare in Wittenberg, known as tht: Beutelordnung, was passed by the town council with Luther's assistance sometime in late 1520 or early 1521.76 The next major step was the council's. Wittenberg Order of January 1522.77 The focus o~f this legislation was the reform of worship and welfare. A cornmca chest was established for poor-relief, low interest loans for worken and artisans, and education and training for children of the poor. Funding was provided from the endowments of the discontin- ued relligious institutions and properties of the church. If this funding proved insufficient, article eleven provided for a sort of graduat.ed tax on the clergy and citizens "for the maintenance of the multitu~de of the poor." Begging, including that of monks and mendicants, was abolished. Artisans and craftsmen unable to repay loans would be excused from repayment for God's sake. Daughters of the poor would be provided with appropriate dowries and given in marriage. The inext major legislative expression of the relationship of the reform of worship and the institutionalization of welfare was the Leisnig Order of 1523 developed with Luther's assistance. Luther expressed his great joy, and pleasure over this ordinance, which he hoped would "both honor God and present a good example of Christian faith and love to many people."78 In his preface to the Leisnig Order, Luther explicitly tied worship and welfare together. "Now there is no greater service of God [gottis dienst, i.e., worship] than Christian love which helps and serves the needy, as Christ Himself' will judge and testify at the Last Day, Matthew 25 [:31-46j1."~~ The term Gottesdienst links service to God and to the neighbolr with worship. In terms of direct relief to the poor, the order regulated disburse- ments o~f loans and gifts to newcomers to help them get settled, to the house-poor to help them get established in a trade or occupation, and to orphans, dependents, the infirm, and the aged for daily support. The order concluded on behalf of all the inhabitants that all its articlles and provisions should "at all times be applied, used, and administered faithfully and without fraud by the parish here in Leisnig for no other purpose than the honor of God, the love of our fellow Christians, and hence for the common good. . . In a remarkably short period of time these reforms of worship and welfare became models for similar efforts throughout the empire. It was frorn this conviction of the Reformation that the widely effective 208 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY church orders penned by Bugenhagen and others flowed. The reform of worship included the renewal of community life. Justification and sanctification were inseparable. VIII. Conclusions The condemnations of fanatics and fanaticism remain important wamings against the temptation of Christians to try to conform to wilys of the world, to become absorbed in spiritual growth and progress to the detriment of ourselves and our neighbors. In sanctification, as opposed to supplying some additive to justification, wt: rather realize that we may "let God be God" and thus be free to become human?' The "spiritual" person, Luther argued in his "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans," "is occupied with the most external kind of works, as Christ was when He washed the disciples' feet [John 13:l-141, and Peter when he steered his boat and fished. . . . The 'spirit' is the man who lives and works, inwardly and outwardly, in the service of the Spirit and of the future life. Without such a grasp of these words, you will never understand this letter of St. Paul, nor any other book of Holy Scripture. Therefore beware of all teachers who use these words in a different sense, no matter who they are, even Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and others like them or even above them."s2 Endnotes 1. Gerhard Forde, Theology Is for Proclamation (Minneapolis: Foms Press, 1990), 160. George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theol- ogy in a Post-Liberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 21. Lindbeck continues: "For nearly two hundred years this tradition has provided intellectually brilliant and empirically impressive accounts of the religious life that have been compati- ble with-indeed, often at the heart of-the romantic, idealistic, and phenomenological-existentialist streams of thought that have dominated the humanistic side of Western culture ever since Kant's Copernican 'turn to the subject."' 3. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 31. The latter development is the application of the recent business development, "total quality management," which strives to achieve increased business quality and thereby one hundred percent customer satisfaction. The Community Church of Joy (ELCA) in Glendale, Arizona, is the leader in this development. One may see Walt Kallestad and Steve Schey, Total Quality Ministry (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1994). Carl Maxcy, "Catholic Spirituality, Catholic Ethics, and Martin Luther," Ecumenical Trends, 10:4 (1981), 55-57, here 57. Oswald Bayer, Aus Glauben Leben: ~ber Rechtfertigung und Heiligung, second revised edition (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1990), 65. Forde, "Christian Life," 418. Smalcald Articles, 111, Article 8, The Book of Concord, ed. and trans. Theodore Tappert (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), 3125; 313~9-10. Gerhard Forde, "Christian Life," in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Christian Dogmatics, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). 2:390-469, here 408. Apology, IV: "Justification." Tappert, 112:38. Apology XXI; Tappert, 23543. Martin Brecht, "Theologie oder Theologien der Reformation?" in Hans Guggisberg and Gottfiied Krodel, eds., Die Reformation in Deutschland und Europa: Interpretationen und Debatten (Giiter- sloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus, 1993), 99-1 17, here 116. In his lectures on Psalm 51 Luther says: "The proper subject of theology is man guilty of sin and condemned, and God the Justifier and Savior of man the sinner. Whatever is asked or discussed in theology outside this subject is error and poison." LW, 12:311: WA, 40, II:328, Iff. One may compare, for example, Scott H. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 149. "I am willing to kiss your feet, pope, and to acknowledge you as the supreme pontiff, if you adore my Christ and grant that we have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through His death 2 1!0 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY and resurrection and not through the observance of your tradi- tions." Lectures.on Galatians, 1525. WA, 40:356; LW, 26224. WA, TR, 1,295, cited by Steven Ozment, "Humanism, Scholas- ticism, and the Intellectual Origins of the Reformation," in F. Forrester Church and Timothy George, eds., Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 133-149, 148; and by Eberhard Jiingel, "Gottes Umshittene Gerechtigkeit: Eine reformatorkche Besinnung zum Paulinischen Begriff 'dikaiosune theou,"' in his Untenvegs zur Sache (Munich: Kaiser, 1972), 60-79, 62. One may see also LW, 6:228-232. Lectures on Galatians, 1535. WA, 40,1151-52: LW, 27:41-42. One may compare Gerhard Ebeling's excellent chapter, "Faith and Love," in his Luther: An Introduction to His Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). especially 172-173, and Jungel, "Gottes umshittene Gerechtigkeit," 62-66. One may compare the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 4: "Justification," and the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article 3: "Righteousness," in Tappert, The Book of Concord, 107, 540; Robert Jenson, "On Recognizing the Augs- burg Confession," in Joseph A. Burgess, ed., The Role of the Augsburg Confession: Catholic and Lutheran Views (Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 15 1-166, John F. Johnson, "Justification According to the Apology of the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord," in H. George Ander- son, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, eds., Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII (Minneapo- lis: Augsburg Press, 1985), 185-199. Luther's preface to the "Disputation of Palladius," 1537. WA, 39, I:205,2 (comparing WA, 25:330,8-18), cited by Andre Birmel6, Le Salut en Jksus Christ dans les Dialogues Oecumkniques (Paris: Cerf, 1986), 47. On this and the following pages BirmelC discusses the centrality of justification to the Lutheran Confessions. One may also compare Gerhard Miiller, Die Recht- fertigungslehre. Geschichte und Probleme (Giitersloh: Mohn, 1977). Eric W. Gritsch, "The Origins of the Lutheran Teaching on Justification," in Anderson, Murphy, and Burgess, Justification by Faith, 162-171, 163, and note 3 on 351. One may also compare Gerhard Miiller and Vinzenz Pfniir, "Justifica- tion-Faith--Works," in George W. Forell and James F. McCue, eds., Confessing One Faith: A Joint Commentary on the Augsburg Confession by Lutheran and Catholic Theologians (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1982), 117-146, 118. This position is so widely held that it is not necessary to provide extensive references at this point. It is the leitmotif of the Lutheran contributions to the volume mentioned above as well as of the recent major analysis of ecumencial dialogues by Birmelt5, Salut. On the famous phrase itself, one may compare Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei. A History of the Doctrine of Justijication, I1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 193, note 3. McGrath mentions not only its rootage in Luther (e.g., WA, 40, III:352, 3) but also its seventeenth-century Reformed use. 21. Eric W. Gritsch and Robert W. Jenson, Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings (Philadel- phia: Fortress Press, 1976), 44. One may also compare Gerhard Forde, "Radical Lutheranism," Lutheran Quarterly, 1:l (1987). 5-18. 22. Bayer, Aus Glauben Leben, 65. 23. Just as God likes those who act His way, so "men [sic!] like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers." Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, revised edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), 223. For a satire on the church-growth movement, one may see Tom Raabe, The Ultimate Church: An Irreverent Look (at Church Growth, Megachurches, and Ecclesiastical "Show-Biz" (Grand Rapids: Z~nde~an Publishing House, 1991). 24. '"The doctrine of justification by faith alone implies that human reality is not a substance given prior to all community. Rather, lhumanity happens in the event of communication, in the speaking and hearing of the word. . . . What I am is not defined in advance by some set of timelessly possessed attributes; it is Ixing defrned in the history of address and response in and by which you and I live together." Gritsch and Jenson, Lutheran- i'sm, 68. The incompatibility of justification by faith alone and my process of becoming righteous is discussed by Gerhard Forde in his essay, "Forensic Justification and Law in Lutheran Theol- ogy," in Anderson, Murphy, and Burgess, Justification by Faith, CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY For a concise discussion of this point one may compare Gerhard Ebeling, Luther, 154-158. Disputation Concerning Justification, 1536. LW, 34: 167; WA, 39, k98, 13-14. Lectures on Romans, 1516. LW, 25:136: WA, 56158, 10. LW, 25: 19; WA, 9322.24. Steinmetz, Luther in Context, 10: "Real sinners are people who are not merely sinners in fact (everyone, after all, is a sinner in that sense), but who confess that they are sinners. Luther found this notion liberating. Real sinners conform their judgments of themselves to the judgment of God over them and by doing so justify God. That is, they acknowledge that God is in the right when He condemns them as sinners and offers them a pardon which they cannot merit. The problem with human righteousness is not merely that it is flawed or insufficient (though it is both). The problem with human righteousness is that it is irrelevant. God does not .ask for human virtue as a precondition for justification, not even in the sense of a perfect act of contrition. He asks for human sin." Lectures on Galatians, 1535. LW, 27:26-27; WA, 40, II:32-33. LW, 26:386-387; WA, 40, 1589. In the essay "Justification, Faith, Works" by Miiller and Pfniir cited earlier, it is argued that this question of certainty of salvation was one of the major issues in the late Middle Ages but that it is "a presupposition which no longer exists today" (119). In actuality, however, it is precisely the question of certainty of salvation that is behind so much of contemporary media-evangelism and charismatic movements as the author has discussed at length in The Third Reformation? Charismatic Movements and the Lutheran Tradition (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983) and "Justice and Injustice in Luther's Judgment of 'Holiness Movements,"' in Peter Manns and Harding Meyer with C. Lindberg and Harry McSorley, eds., Luther's Ecumenical Significance (New York and Philadelphia: Paulist Press and Fortress Press, 1984), 161-181. David Steinmetz, Luther and Staupitz: An Essay in the Intellec- tual Origins of the Protestant Reformation (Durham: Duke University Press, 1980), 88. Forde, "Forensic Justification," 281: "We can be candidates for such righteousness only if we are complete sinners." One may compare Kenneth Hagen, A Theology of Testament in the Young Luther: The Lectures on Hebrews (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 82. A Treatise on the New Testament, 1520. LW, 35:88; WA, 6: 361, 3-7. One may compare also Lectures on Galatians, 1519. LW, 27:268. Forde, Theology 1s for Proclamation, 160. Forde continues: "Sacraments sav.e because they save the Word from disappearing into the inner life. They save because they prevent us from understanding grace as some kind of hidden agenda, a behind- the-scenes spiritualism that we are supposed somehow to master or learn the secret of. Sacraments save, that is, because they protect us from the wiles of the devil, the master of turning even the Word of promise into temptation-'Has God said . . .?"I Albrecht Peters, Kommentar zu Luthers Katechismen, volume 2 (GCIttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1991), 197. Peters lists the pertinent writings and sermons. Against the Heavenly Prophets, 1525. LW, 40:146. Against the Heavenly Prophets, 1525. LW, 40:147. This theme is repeated in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession (Tappert, 212-213: l3), the Smalcald Articles, 111, 8 (Tappert 312:3), the Formula of Concord, Epitome, I1 (Tappert, 470: 3; 471:13), and the Fonnula of Concord, Solid Declaration, I1 (Tappert, 520:4; 536: 80). Against the Heavenly Prophets, 1525. LW, 40:213. See Peters, Kommentar, 2197-198, and the Large Catechism, Tappert, 41644; 41855. The Large Catechism: The Third Article. Tappert, 41536-37; 41539. See Peters, Kommentar 2211-212. Commentary on Psalm 51, 1538. LW, 12328; WA, 40, II:352, 33-34. Lectures on Romans, 1516. LW, 25291; WA, 5630425ff. The human inability .to let God be God is noted in Thesis 17 of the 214 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Disputation Against Scholastic Theology of 1517: "Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God, and does not want God to be God." LW, 31:lO; WA, 1: 225. Commentary on Psalm 51. LW, 12342-343; WA, 40, II:373, 25-35. Lectures on Romans. LW, 25,260; WA, 56,272, 16-20. One may also compare WA, 57, 165, 12-13; 2,497, 13. Lectures on Galatians, 1535. LW, 26, 274-275; WA, 40, 1, 429430; LW, 26:309; WA, 40, I, 479-481. There has been much more debate on using the law as a guide to Christian living, on which one may see Forde, "Forensic Justification," 302, and "Christian Life," 449452. Lectures on Galatians, 1535. LW, %:3 10; WA, 40, I:48 1-482. The Lutheran Confessions frequently present the law in this sense, as that which always accuses. One may compare the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, 4:38; the Smalcald Articles, III,2 1-5; and the Formula of Concord, Solid Declara- tion, 5: 12, in Tappert, 112, 303, 560. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 7 (London, 1872), 204. One may see Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 472, 508, 510-511. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), 2192-193. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Peter Crofts Hodgson, "The Church, Classism, and Ecclesial Community," in Rebecca S. Chopp and Mark Lewis Taylor, eds., Reconstructing Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 303-325, here 314. One may also see Max Stackhouse, Creeds, Sociery, and Human Rights: A Study in Three Cultures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1984), 54-55, 173. Psalm 51. LW, 12329. Psalm 51. LW, 12381. Forde, "Christian Life," 408. Karl Holl, The Cultural Significance of the Reformation (New York: Living Age Books, 1959), 183-184. WA, Briefwechsel, 2372, 83ff. LW, 40:67. WA, 10, I, 2:431, 6ff.. cited by Forde, "Christian Life," 438. Forde, "Christian Life," 438. Peters, Kommentar, 227. One may also see Forde, "Christian Life," 435: "We cannot understand what Luther means by growth and progress in sanctification unless all ordinary human perceptions of progress are reversed, are stood on their heads. The progress Luther has in mind is not our movement toward the goal but the goal's movement in on us. Imputed righteousness is eschatological in character, a battle is joined in which the totus iusrus moves against the totus peccator. The 'progress' is the coming of the kingdom of God among us. That is why complete sanctification is always the same as justification and cannot be something more added to it or separated from it. Complete sanctification is'not the goal but the source of all good works." Bayer, Am Glauben Leben, 65-69. For much of what follows see the author's Beyond Charity: Reformation Initiatives for the Poor (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), and Emily Albu Hanawalt and Carter Lindberg, eds., Through the Eye of a Needle: Judeo-Christian Roots of Social Welfare (Kirksville, Missouri: The Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1994). Robert Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse. Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, l989), 134. One may compare Michel Mollat, Les Pauvres au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, 1979), 61. This theme is articulated, for example, by the fourth-century North African bishop, Optatus, the seventh-century French bishop, Eligius (PL 87:533), and the thirteenth-century pope, Innocent 111, who clearly stated that almsgiving removes the stain of sin, justifies, and saves (PL, 217:747-750). 216 CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY This idea had already been stated centuries earlier by the theologian of the medieval church, Augustine. "If our posses- sions are to be carried away, let us trzlnsfer them to a place where we shall not lose them. The poor to whom we give alms! With regard to us, what else are they but porters through whom we transfer our goods from earth to heaven? Give away your treasure. Give it to a porter. He will bear to heaven what you give him on earth." The Fathers of the Christian Church (Washington: Catholic University Press, 1963). volume 1 1,268. Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse, 138. Karlheinz Blaschke, "Reformation und Modemizierung," in Hans Guggisberg and Gottfried Krodel, eds., Die Reformation in Deutschland und Europa, 5 11-520, here 520. Heiko A. Oberman, "Teufelsdreck: Eschatology and Scatology in the 'Old' Luther," Sixteenth Century Journal 19:3 (1988), 435-450, here 444. Junghans, "Sozialethisches Denken und Handeln bei Martin Luther," Evangelische Monatschrift Standpunkt, 70:3 (1989), 70. One may also compare Igor Kiss, "Luthers Bemiihungen um eine sozial gerechtere Welt," Zeichen der Zeit (1985), 59-65. WA, 63-8; one may compare 7: 15-20. This sermon was greatly expanded into The Long Sermon on Usury in 1520 (WA, 6:36-60), which in turn was appended to the treatise of 1524 on trade, which is known as Trade and Usury (WA, 15:279-313, 321-322; LW, 45233-310). The subtitle is "Fur die Leyen," WA, 2739. The tract is found in WA, 2: 738-758; LW, 35:47-73. (Although the term "confra- ternity" is frequently used for these associations, Luther uses the German equivalent, "Bruderschaft.") One may see Gerhard Muller, "Zu Luthers Sozialethik," in Helmut Hesse and Gerhard MUller, eds., ~ber Martin Luthers "Von Kauffshandlung und Wucher" (Frankfurt am Main and Diisseldorf: Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanzen, 1987), 59-79, 62-63, and Hans-Jiirgen Prien, Luthers Wirtschaftsethik (GOttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1992). Luther's concern to provide theological and ethical guidance for the laity is evident throughout his catechisms. One may compare his exposition of the seventh commandment in the Large Catechism. LW, 3550-52. For Luther the sacrament applies not only to one's personal affliction but also to the affliction of all the needy everywhere. One may compare Ursala Stock, Die Bedeutung der Sakramente in Luthers Sermnen von 1519 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982), 248-249. LW, 3553-56. The medieval Franciscan desire for poverty was related to its usefulness for salvation and thus had little to do with the involuntary poverty of the needy. One may see Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence, 148-149. LW, 44189-191. For the text of this "Common Purse" and relevant literature, one may see Emst Koch, "Zusatz zur Wittenberg Beutelordnung. 1520 oder 1521," WA, 5962-65. Hans Lietzmann, ed., Die Wittenberger und Leisniger Kastenord- nung (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1935); an English translation is found in the author's Beyond Chariry, 200-202. WA, Briefwechsel, 3:23. By early summer Luther responded in print to the request for biblical warrants for Leisnig's plans in the following writings: Ordinance of a Common Chest: Preface: Suggestions on How to Deal with Ecclesiastical Properly, That a Christian Assembly or Congregation Has the Right and Power to Judge AN Teaching and to Call, Appoint, Dismiss Teachers, Established and Proven by Scripture, and Concerning the Order of Public Worship. LW, 45:161-176; LW, 39:303-314; LW, 53:7-14. LW, 45:172. One may see Junghans, "Sozialethisches Denken," 70, and WA, 1213,26-27. LW, 45:194. LW, 12343. LW, 35372. Dr. Carter Lindberg is Professor of Church History in the School of Theology of Boston University in Massacliusetts.