Full Text for CTM Theological Observer 7-8 (Text)

Q!uutur~ta: m4ruingtral :!InutIJly Continuing LEHRE UND VVEHRE MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. VII August, 1936 No.8 CONTENTS Page Die Bedeutung der Predigt bei Luther. P. E. Kretzmann ••• , 561 King Henry VIII Courts Luther. w. Dallmann .••••••••••• 568 The Greatness of Luther's Commentary on Galatians. R. T. Du Brau. • • • . •• 577 Ueber Buecherbesprechungen. L. Fuerbringer •••••••••.••.• 581 Der Schriftgrund fuer die Lehre von der satisfactio vicaria. P. E. Kretzmann • • • •• 584 Dispositionen ueber die erste von der Synodalkonferenz angenommene Evangelienreihe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 587 Miscellanea ........................................ 599 Theological Observer. - Kirchlich·Zeitgeschichtliches. . . .. 606 Book Review. - Literatur ........................... 629 Ein Prediger muss nicht allein weid .... also dasa er die Schafe unterweise. wie ale recbte Christen sollen seln, sondem auch daneben den Woelfen wehr.... dass 81e die Schafe nicht angreUen und mit falaeher Lehre verluehren und Irrtum ein· fuehren. - Luther. E. ist kein Ding, daB die Leute mehr bei der Kirche behaelt denn die gute Predigt. - Ap%gie. Art. 8 •. If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? 1 Oor. ~. 8. Published for the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. I ARCHIV 606 Theological Observer. - .Ritcf)lid). "The purpose' 0'£ the mission has been sta.ted as follows: - " 'An authentic Christianity is a, perpetual act o.f judgment. It shall be the· object of this mission to. understand and apply tha,t judgment in l'espect of the individua,l, the Chmch, and contempo-ra,ry life, with courage enough to. accept it when it comes to> us as condemna.tion and humility enough to a.pprnpriate it when it comes to us as grace'. " 'The mission shall therefore· seek to teach and preach in its fulness the· Gospel of nul' common Lnrd and Savior Jesus Ghrist; to confront, tlmmgh group contacts and public meetings, as well the· elea,r thought and courageous will o.f the, American people as their finer feeling and best tradition; in a. world which irreligion is on the' verge of destroying, to stress once more the reasona.bleness of the Christian faith, its aptness to the deepest needs. and the highest aspirations O'f human life, and its crea,tive po,wer in the organizing and shaping of a. bewildered society toward the standards and ideals o.f the kingdom of God. "'And, finally, wherever cnunsel is asked or assistance. needed, the mission shall lend itself to. the co.ntinuance of such a, program within local communities, in orde,r that changed lives, e·ver the result of God's wnrking, Dlay be enabled through the· Church of Jesus· Christ to. make their lasting impact upon a. changing world.' "He·re i8 a, move not towa,rd high-pnwered organiza,tion, but toward cooperation in the preaching of a whole Gospel. Instead of standing idly by to judge, may we not as Lutherans, in so' far as possible, give the mission tlle support o.f our presence, wha,t encouragement we' have to' oifer, and surely the courtesy of a, hearing? Personally I ha,ve believed in its possibilities because I ha,v€> believed iu the spirit of the men who, a,re responsible for it. It is not a. 'great preache'r series' nnr any s11ch thing; it is an earnest and honest attempt concerledly to focus, the' pressure of the Gospel of Christ a,t strategic points in our nationa.l life, hoping that from the'se po,jnts will spread whatever power and influence can be brought freshly into being under the added impe,tus of united effort. It is our privilege a.t least to pray that in God's own fashion the mission may prove a blessing in this time when our common Christian faith needs the accent of bo.th vo.icer and life." That this venture, which is altogether unionistic, will ha,ve la.rgely a modernistic complex is asserted by Dr. Frank Norris, the militant Texas Fundamentalist among the Baptists. A. Economic Cooperation, lVIodernism's Newest Substitute for the Gospel. - }<'rom an address delivered in the Glen Echo United Presbyterian Church, Columbus, 0., by its pastor, Rev. Wm. E. Ashbrook, which the Jonrnal of the Amerioan Lntheran Oonterenoe published in its April issue, we quote the following: "The Ohio Council of Churches through its 609 annual pastors' convention makes audible the voice of Modernism in Ohio. . . . In order that we might brush up in our understanding of the social gospel, we have again attended most of the sessions of the pastors' con- vention. . .. Tn the light of what we have heard the past week, just what does Modemism have to offer to a sin-cursed and troubled humanity to-day? First of all, it offers an attack on the person of Jesus Christ. One of the early speakers informed us that 'orthodox Christianity has never said that J eaus was Goll. That idea originated about the fourth or fifth century. The idea that Jesus Ohrist was God would have been obnoxious to the apostle Paul, and Athanasius would have denied jt. Those who say that have no standing in orthodox Ohristianity. It is not that Jesus was God, nor even like God, but that God, the Power behind the universe, was Ohristlike.' . .. Now that leads us to consider the second thing that Modernism as represented by the Ohio Council of Churches has to offer. It presents a program of social reform to take the place of individual salvation through the precious blood of Christ .... Two lengthy addresses were given by Dr. Fred Fisher of Detroit, who set forth with elaborate eulogy the progress in social reform that is being made in Russia to-day. 'It is a new country where man is brought into his own.' . .. Dr. Fisher was followed later on the program by Mr. E. R. Bowen, general secretary of the Oooperative League of the United States of America. He is one of the leading advocates of Consumers' Cooperative. And the Consumers' Cooperative, in case you haven't heard, is the new Messiah of Modernism. 'The Church was founded to heal the diseases of selfishness,' he said. 'I>lenty awaits us if we will just reach out and take it. As long as the Church stays with capitalism, it should die.' ... So it was throughout this convention. Here was a great organization of churches sponsoring a ])l"ogram that placed no emphasis upon the need of telling lost sinners of a Christ who died to save them, silent on the subject of the new birth ancl sounding no call to prayer or repentance. This council says nothing about sin and salvation. Apparently the modern mind is done with such old-fashioned things. Instead it offers crusades against military training and schemes for redistributing wealth. It adopts, as our newspapers have reported, a portion of the Communistic scheme, and it does this in the name of what they term the 'kingdom of God.' . .. To what follies will churchmen not give themselves when they lose their faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of men! For in all this we could discern no salvation for the soul and no need for cleansing from the guilt of sin." E. Stanley Jones insists that this gospel of Modernism in its newest form is the real Gospel, is what Jesus meant when He declared that He was anointed "to preach the Gospel to the poor," Luke 4, 18. In Ghrist's Alternative to Gomm1lnism Dr. Jones writes: "All we can say now is that the fu'st item of the program good news to the poor - would mean, according to the total teachings of Jesus and according to the results of that teaching and that spirit in the lives of the early Christians, the creation of a new kind of society, spiritual in its basis, but issuing in a collective economic charity and cooperation in which each would have material goods according to his need - poverty would be banished. The only good news to the poor that would be adequate would be that 39 610 Theological Observer. - stitd)lid)~8eitgefd)id)tIid)e~. there are to be no poor" (p. 83) . "';V e can prepare for the public ownership of public resources and utilities, to which society must come if we are to stop selfish exploitation, by training the group mind in the handling of collective projects through cooperatives. Kagawa of Japan is making the forming of cooperatives among various types in various occupations a part of the Kingdom of God Movement. He is improving the economic and moral condition of vast numbers and at the same time training them for the new cooperative society - the kingdom of God on earth" (p. 280). The Ohristian Oentw'Y, the stalwart advocate of Modernism, is of course heart and soul for Modernism's newest interpretation of the Gospel. "The cooperative movement which Toyohiko Kagawa will preach to Amer- icans and Canadians will include consumers' cooperatives, to be sure, but it will also point out the necessity for at least seven otll{~r types of cooperative organization. It will call for producers' cooperatives, credit unions, utilities' cooperatives, land cooperatives, insurance coopera- tives, and many forms of mutual-aid cooperatives - social insurance in all its phases, including medical and educational insurance. Entered upon voluntarily, those who live in the social enclave set up by practise of this fully rounded cooperative program will find themselves in a society approximating mutuality. They will have at least a fair chance to develop and display a way of life which will attract others because its rewards are larger, mean more to the human spirit, and last longer than the rewards offered in a dog-eat-dog struggle for survival. . .. Kagawa has come under the belief that he has a word of divine revelation intended for the Christian intent on achieving a Christian world - a world of brothers relieved of a brutal obsession with the insensate pursuit of private gain. Can such a world be brought into existence? Kagawa declares that it can be and that he has discovered how." (Dec. 4, 1935.) "The cooperative movement has now come into the focus of the Church's atten- tion and is making a far more potent appeal than any concrete program has ever made as a plan of Christian activity on the economic level. Awareness of the Christian aspect of this movement has been greatly intensified by the preeence in America of Dr. Kagawa, who has inspired an extensive development of cooperation in Japan and who sees the coopera- tive movement as an integral part of the Christian Gospel." "There are grounds for real hope that we are about to witness in this country a new and vital fusion of personal and social religion such as Kagawa himself typifies, which will impart new reality to the religious life of the churches. At the same time, through the awakened interest of church people, an added impetus is being given to the actual growth of cooperatives and, it is to be hoped, to those other forms of political and economic action which look toward a righteous society." (March 11, 1936.) E. The' Inspiration of the Gospel according to Mark, according to, thel "Lutheran Church Quarterly." - This periodical published in its April issue an adicle by W. P. Bradley, "The 'Cursing' of the Fig-tree," from which we quote the following: "As told by Mark, the so-called cursing of the fig-tree is perhaps the strangest incident in the, life of Jesus. It is more' than strange'. It iSi shocking. The tree was in lea,f, and Jesus hoped to find figs upon it. Disa,ppointed in this, He cursed the' tree, and it died. The condition of the story is singularly and significantly chao-tic. Theological Observer. - .Ritd)lid)<.8eitllefd)td)tlid)e~. 611 Some nf its details are out of haJ:mony both with the' main theme nf the story and with each nther. Such a, condition is by nO' means uncommon in Mark. . .. Shortly a.fter they le·ft Bethany, Jesus 'hungered.' Why was that? Had He eaten nothing there? If not, why not? . .. The' words use-d by Jesus would seem to enjoin barrenness, not de'ath. But dea,th was what ha,ppened. Now its, dea,th doubtless put an end to' the fruitfulness of the tree; but if Jesus really wished the treel to die, he could easily ha,ve, said so .. '.' Jesus, who ha.d bee,n considerate enough the day befnre, when borrowing an ass's coIt fo'r use in the' triumphal entry, to' assure its owner tha,t He, 'would send the' animal back promptly (Ma,rk 11, 3), is now said to' have deprived this, owner of his tree, not nnly without due process of la,w, but apparently withnut a thought. . .. Accnrding to' Mark a, period of incubation inte'rvened between the' curse' and its consummation. Nothing happened at first. Nnthing seems to' have happened all tha,t da;r. At any ra,te the disciples noticed nothing in the' a,fternoon when they re- turned the same way to Bethany. It wa,s not till the morning of the next day that they saw the result. Then they sa,w that the tree had 'withered awa;r from the roots,' and Peter caUs the attention of Jesus to the, fact: 'Rabbi, behold, the tree whioh Thou cm-sedst is withered a,wa;r.' . .. Jesus is re'presented by Ma~'k as sa;ring in effect ... tha,t with faith in God not only can you aocomplish anything you wish, but ynu can also, obtain any- thing you wish and which you pray for. These undoubtedly genuine words of Jesus, sO' vital and inspiring in almost any other connection, a,re in- expressibly degraded by being uprooted and transplanted hither to' serve as suita,ble- (!) comments on the cursing of a, fig-tree. . .. Such is the story as Ma,rk teUs it." Hnw could such a, story have, originated? "It would seem mnre reasonahle, to suppose tha,t originally the' story had a, quite different me-aning frnm the' present one and that not long before Ma,rk's gnspel wa,s written something ha,ppened which changed tha,t mean- ing cnmpletely. In such a, case', and in the absence, of suitable editing, the' original details of the' stmy, which of course would have been in ha,rmony 'with its original meaning, wnuld become ina,ppropriate under the new one. It is this view which we shall a,ssume to be the cnrrect one and by which we' shall be guided in our attempt to solve, Ma,rk's puzzle .... We, shall reach onr goal mos,t directly by attacking the problem at its stronghold, so' to' speak, by exautining aga,in the ve'ry peculiaJ: wording of the 'curse.' 'No> man (no one) eat fruit from thee hence,fo,rwa,rd forever.' This wording puts the emphasis npon the' people who shall necve'r again be permitted to find pleasure or profit from the tree. Now, all that is needed to bring simplicity out of the chaos is to suppose that Jesus, used the future indica,tive and tha,t there was nothing manda,tory in His, thought. In the English transla,tion this would require the insertion of the auxilia,ry 'will': 'No man (no one) will eat fruit from thee.' Let us see how this, change works out. According to this re-ading, which from now on we' shall assume to ha,ve· been the' original one, it will have, been something peculiar ahout the a,ppea,rance of the- troo which a,ttracted the attention of Jesus, from a, distance. Anel since the tree wa,s in le-a,f, it will have' been some,thing peculia,r about the a,ppeaJ:ance of the lea,ve,s which did it. A nearer view showed tha,t the, tree' was dying, - indeed, that it was already faJ: gone. Then Jesus will have said in effect, Your usefulnes,s is ove,r. Thus, so. 612. Theological Observer. - mrd)1idJ the serious lmdersta,ffing of many parishes throughout the country. "'Our inability to keep pace with the rapid development of the new housing areas and the rivalry of the motor-car and the wireless are creat- ing a grave problem,' Mr. Mohan declared, 'and large areas of the country are lapsing into semi heathendom. Hard-pressed incumbents are breaking down lUlde'r the double burden of a task beyond their powers and of the despair which failure breeds.' "Among the real causes of their failure were the neglect of pastoral visita,tion, the lowering of spiritual standards, and the lack of Gospel- teaching and -preaching. 'The Church's message to-day is so often a curious mixture of heroic futility and mawkish sentimentality. There is no mes- sage for the plain man who knows he is not a hero, but knows he is a sinner.' What was needed was a campaign of house-to-house evangelism. "The conference expressed regret at the publication of the Church and State Commission's report. 'It deprecates the dissipation of the energies of members of our English Church on controversies that must necessarily be ban'en a,t a time when the more urgent question of evangelization and intercommunion and ultimate home reunion call for unprejudiced con- sideration,' it was added. "'The conference is convinced that at the present time it would be impossible at a round-table conference to seCUTC agreement on such qUCG- tions as permissible deviations from the Order of Holy Communion and Reservation, and implores the Archbishops not to revive controversy by call- ing such a conference. " 'The conference denies that there is anything in the existing relations between Church and State that prevents the Church of England from doing the work which is at present being left undone. It is an obligation of a national Church to cooperate with the State in matters concerning the character, conduct, and welfare of its people. The relations between Church and State in England are not matters of purely local concern, but have an influence upon Christian communities throughout the world.''' Pastor Zorn finds the first part of these remarks "a timely introspec- tion," but justly complains about the second part that it is "so hide-bound." A. Elimination of English Tithe-Rule Plan, - On this topic the Living Ohm'ch submits the following information: - "The Tithe Bill, which the g'overnment has promised to introduce, is the outcome of a Royal Commission report, which recommends a com- prehensive scheme for the complete and immediate extinction of tithe rent-charge. To the general principle of the scheme proposed no great objection can be raised. It seelllS at first sight to embody a reasonable compromise between the rights of the tithe-owning clergy and the present distress of a number of land-owning farmers. "The N. C .. J. C. News Service summarizes the background of the British Tithe Bill as follows: - "The government has adopted the report of a Royal Commission on the tithe rent-charge. Complicated by a flood of cryptic British terms, Theological Observer. - Rircf)licf)=.8eitgefd)icf)tHcf)d 627 such as 'Queen Anne's Bounty,' 'Benefice Rent-charge,' 'Welsh Church Commission Benefice Tithe Rent-charge,' and other categories of church taxes unfamiliar to Americans, the report boils down to the fact that the centuries-old tithe rent-charge will be eliminated over a period of eighty-five years. "According to the plan of the Royal Commission the amount of the existing liability of those subject to the tax has been substantially reduced. Since this automatically cuts the revenue of the Church or some lay institution which was beneficiary under the old plan, the state will under- take to make up on a predetermined basis a portion of the loss, which is estimated to be about $67,000,000 for the Church alone. The Exchequer is issuing what it calls 'tithe redemption stock' to facilitate this protective arrangement. "Ancient Land Tam. The tithe rent-charge referred to was a tax to the value of some two pence (four cents) an acre collected in produce from agricultural areas until 1836, when the fee became payable in cash. Although called a 'tithe,' it was apparently very seldom equivalent to ten per cent. It applied only to certain lands, the income from which was thus taxed for the support of the Church (ecclesiastical tithe rent- charge) or of lay institutions - schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums, etc. "For centuries the tax was locally collected by the bishop, parish priest, or administrator whose institution \Yas concerned. In 1737, however, it was mainly conccntrated in a fund which came to be known as 'Queen Anne's Bounty' - collected nationally and dispensed by a central authority. "lllany Oppose Scheme. :NIany in England oppose the new scheme, particularly the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, which will be seriously affected. The CimTch 'Tim es believes it an unwise and inequitable plan since it 'is for the benefit of the landowners from whose land the tithe is [now] payable.' The economic cause of the trouble, asserts this journal, 'has arisen from the fact that during the period immediately after the vVar a large number of farmers, many of whom had been tenants on the land, bought farms at inflated prices and are to-day heavily embarrassed.' To have helped these men, it continues, would have been justified, but they will not be aided by the plan until the expiration of from forty to sixty years. "The plan, says the Ohu1'(Jh Times, is 'confiscation.' It adds further, 'If conservatives to-day apply it to the clergy, Communists may hereafter use it to justify land nationalization without adequate compensation.' Even so, it does not want to see the Ohurch agitate against the proposal, but to secure certain modifications by lifting the amount to be guaranteed the Church by tho government." A. mlll)ammellnncrlllijjhm. ~ie t\'orifdJd±±50etuegung be5 ~5Iam iff noel) lange niel)± aum ®±illf±anb gefommcn. t\'r eiHel) , Die \![u50reitung mit t\'euer un)) ®djtueri ljat Wngf± ber friebIiel)e.n :Dmel)btingung l13Iat gemael)±. ~n Of±aftifa ift bet inbifel)e ,\)iinblct, in m5eftafrifa bet fiuge .\)auffa"Sfaufmann, in ~Hebetfiinbifel)~~nbien ber malaHfel)e .\)aufietet unb :8mtlietfeljtet bel' ge" fel)id'te m5egoeteitet be5 ~,:;Iam unfet ben ljeUmifcljen