Proposal of the Lutheran Theological House of Studies
Dr. Dennis Bielfeldt
In a presentation to the Spring WordAlone Convention in Golden Valley, Minnesota, Dr. Bielfeldt discussed the issues facing theological education for those preparing for ELCA ministries. This abridged article presents the thesis of the issues now facing the theological difficulties in the ELCA.
What is the current situation of theological education within the ELCA driving the WordAlone desire to establish a house of studies? We believe that there are economic, sociological, leadership, and theological challenges confronting the ELCA and its seminaries; challenges so profound that we think it necessary to develop and implement a bold house of studies initiative.
The Economic Challenge
Because ELCA funding continues to decline, seminaries must increasingly rely upon tuition dollars to fund their education programs. This economic fact must not be ignored. Seminaries today must offer programs that attract a broader range of students than was necessary in previous generations because attracting these students is requisite financially for seminaries to survive and offer any program at all.
The subtle augmentation of mission and constituency has forced seminaries to broaden beyond their traditionally focused and solidly confessional center. Given this context, it is important that our Lutheran house of studies intentionally constitute itself to stay narrowly focused and solidly confessional in all that it does.
The Sociological Challenge
Two generations ago, students matriculating at Lutheran seminaries were 22-26 year old males seeking to become Lutheran pastors. The situation has changed dramatically. Increasing numbers of nontraditional, second-career students, male and female, now attend seminary; many of whom already have families. Many find it exceedingly difficult to give up their occupations and move to an ELCA seminary to study. The cost of seminary education is very high relative to the expected financial rewards of becoming a pastor or rostered lay leader. Our house of studies must address this problem of high cost residential theological education by offering felxibility through multi-site delivery options.
The Leadership Challenge
Present leadership throughout most of the ELCA and its educational institutions came of age in the late sixties and early seventies. It was a time in our nation’s history where the practical political and social demands of ending civil rights injustices, not to mention the war in Viet Nam, seemes to trump deep theoretical concerns. Even today, ELCA leadership tends to privilege praxis over theory, and concrete action over profound reflection. The prospect of effecting political and social change seems, to many, to generate more excitement that any penetrating theological reflection or analysis. In a leadership ethos privileging praxis over theory, confessional particularity is correspondingly de-emphasized. Leadership is concerned with ‘practical’ issues of political and ecclesiastical policy, rather than confessional specifics. But our Lutheran house of studies must take its confessions very seriously, and it must know that responsible, concrete political and social action is ultimately grounded in our confessional substance.
The Theological Challenge
ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson affirmed Dr. Craig Nessan’s seertation last year that there were two irreconcilable, yet valid ways, of interpreting Scripture in the ELCA. One is traditional and the other is contextual. There is great irony in his comment, for the necessary condition for saying that there are two equally valid ways to interpret Scripture is to say that the tradtional way that sought in Scripture the norm and rule of faith and life cannot be sustained. Clearly, if autonomous human reason has determined that there are two equally valid ways, it has already stepped outside the traditional Reformation hermeneutic on Scripture. That hermeneutic denies that human reason can autonomously apply external hermeneutic forms to Scriptural substance.
If, in fact, Hanson and Nessan are correct and human reason can properly apply different methods to the reading of Scripture in order to get different results, then we are in a position not unlike that of the late Middle Ages when Luther criticized the fourfold method of Biblical interpretation. According to that method, all of Scripture can be read for its literal/historical, allegorical, tropological and anagogical senses. Luther criticized this because it made human beings master over Scripture. It made Scripture the work of human beings determine what a passage really meant, or ought to mean. By eliminating all other senses that the literal/historical, Luther allowed Scripture to be its own interpreter. Human beings do not control what Scripture means, only Scripture does that. Scripture interprets itself. The Word of God in Scripture is sufficient for its own interpretation through the activity of the Holy Spirit carried upon the wings of this external Word. To the degree which revisionist ways of appropriating Scripture reject the internal clarity of Scripture, they must be rejected as inconsistent with the hermeneutic of the Lutheran Reformation. Our Lutheran theological house of studies must assume the Reformation hermeneutic of the internal clarity of Scripture, believing that the Word alone is sufficient for its own interpretation. Concomitant with autonomous reason’s adoption of a revisionist hermeneutic on Scripture, there is a general tendency within the ELCA and its educational institutions to downplay the notion that theological language has truth conditions, i.e., that it makes definite statements, some of which are true, others of which are false. The dominant theological agenda over the past two hundred years has tried to offer an analysis of theological language that does not assume a realist view of God and God’s relationship to the universe. Oftentimes theological language has been taken to be merely expressive of the one who uttered it, or his or her cultural values. Remember, however, that the great theologian Karl Barth once said that one cannot talk about God by talking about a man in a loud voice. Our Lutheran theological house of studies must dare to be realist with respect to the semantics of God-talk, and realist with respect to the ontology of the Divine.
The Authority Challenge
A related challenge concerns the nature and foundation of authority. Every religious tradition presupposes authority; for without such authority, no tradition can survive. Within Christianity historically, the Church functioned as the requisite authority, finally determining what Scripture and Creed really meant. Within the Lutheran tradition, however, Scripture and Confessions have always constituted the final authority for the tradition. But what happens when we are no longer sure what Scripture and Confessions mean? In the ongoing debate within the ELCA on the sexuality issue, it is apparent that people read Scripture in quite different ways. Some say that Scripture proscribes homosexual activity, while others say it does not. In this situation, how does one decide who is right? Moreover, how does one choose among vastly alternate readings of the Lutheran Confessions themselves? These are difficult issues. Our Lutheran theological house of studies must find its authority in the Word alone as it confronts us in the Biblical witness, and as it is testified to in the Lutheran Confessions.
The Rights Challenge
Another problem concerns the nature of rights. We live in a time where talk of human rights often predominates in our churches, even over Gospel proclamation. We deeply believe that all human beings have equal rights. We believe this so profoundly that we worry about offending someone or violating his or her rights when we share our Lutheran-Christian values with them. At all costs, it seems, we don’t want to be ethnocentric. We want to avoid claiming that the values of our faith tradition are objectively right and true, and that they should therefore be normatively determinative of the values of other cultures. In our rush to avoid any trace of ethnocentrism, we often adopt the problematic view that our values, while ‘right for us,’ are ultimately only one option among many options; no one of which is ultimately more justifiable than another. Accordingly, we often believe that others have the right not to have us proselytize to them. This fear of ethnocentrism and our penchant for rights has adversely affected the logic of Christian mission. It is very difficult to share the Gospel with non-Christians without making a normative claim that the other should adopt the ‘religious values’ of the one doing the sharing. When the Christian story is assumed to be one cultural value among others, the perceived danger of ethnocentricity seems to preclude the very possibility of sharing it. But our house of studies will not privilege the rights of the citizen above the scandal of the Cross. It will steadfastly ground itself on the notion that the Christian story ought to be shared because it is true, not merely because it is, or has, value for us.
A Final Challenge
A final challenge exists that we have not yet mentioned. We must always ask in what ways the putative truths of our Lutheran Confessional heritage connect to truths within the other disciplines. There has been an unfortunate tendency within confessional traditions to ignore the difficult task of relating theology to the other academic disciplines – especially the sciences. If theological language is to be true, it must, in principle, be relatable to the disciplines generally regarded as offering true theories: the natural and social sciences. Part of the apologetic task of our time is not to allow theology to become marginalized discourse, relegated merely to the valuation margins of our lives. Our house of studies must be intentional in its desire to connect confessional Lutheran theology to the intellectual horizon of our day.
A Letter from Professors Robert Benne and James Nestingen
Dear ELCA Members,
Has our church lost its center? Since the early days of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, there has been no shortage of people willing to tell you what they are against. What are we for?
The Challenges
Cris-crossing the congregations of our church, it doesn’t take long to run into differences and with them, deepening divisions. Some of the differences are historic, rooted in the church bodies that came together to produce the ELCA. Some of them are regional—like long separated cousins, Lutherans are recognizable but have a different look in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and California. Untended, aggravated by additional factors, these long standing differences have proven divisive—in issues like the ELCA’s ecumenical policies and more recently, sexuality.
For a variety of reasons, the ELCA’s leadership—nationally and in many of the synods—has proven unable to lead our church through the divisions to our common center in the gospel of Jesus Christ and our callings. For all the talk of inclusiveness, hard experience has demonstrated that the ELCA is profoundly exclusive—particularly for those who express their faith biblically, in catechism and hymnal, as traditional Lutherans. With this has come the deep sense, expressed by theologian Carl Braaten in a widely distributed recent letter, that the church has drifted into a “liberal Protestantism” that has lost its zeal for Christ and his mission.
Our Hope
In spite of this drift toward liberal Protestantism, we believe there is hope for the ELCA. There is much health in the church, especially at synodical and congregational levels. Regardless of what happens at the Churchwide Assembly in Orlando, there will be efforts to organize a large association of congregations, pastors, and laypersons who want to re-center the ELCA on the Gospel as it is understood in its own constitution.
On September 27-29 a meeting of representatives of many grass-roots organizations in the ELCA will take place in Kansas City. Those organizations agree in general with the analysis offered above and are committed to making the kind of changes in the ELCA that will assure the pre-eminence of the classic Gospel in the ongoing life and mission of the ELCA. The meeting will result in proposals for a “big-tent” association that will then be forwarded to the WordAlone Conference, November 6-8 in Brooklyn Park, Minn. That group will receive and consider these proposals in preparation for the founding of a new association. The enclosed brochure states in a general fashion the characteristics of such an association, as yet unnamed. Though the exact agenda of such an association is not yet defined, it will no doubt address the issues that have been elaborated in this letter.
If you are ready, please begin now to participate in the formation of an association as outlined in the enclosures or watch for announcements about the organization of such an association after November. If you as individuals and congregations share some of the concerns we have outlined, as well as our hopes for constructive change in the ELCA, please be alert to these developments.
Sincerely,
Dr. Robert Benne
Dr. James A. Nestingen
Lutheran CORE – A Partner in the Ministry of the LC3
Lutheran CORE is a coalition of pastors, lay people, congregations and reforming groups. We seek to preserve within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America the authority of the Word of God according to the Lutheran confessions. Our intention is to remain within our church and to work with congregations, individuals, and other reform-minded groups for the reform of our own church.
The Purpose of Lutheran CORE
1. Encourage individual reform-minded congregations, laypersons, and pastors.
2. Support and offer coordination for the various renewal groups within the ELCA.
3. Address significant synodical and churchwide issues.
Among a host of issues within the ELCA today, there are three that trouble us most deeply. These are: the need to affirm the authority of the Word of God within and throughout our church; our concern to elect leaders (both synodical and churchwide) who will guide us in faithful witness and mission; and our profound concern over changes in doctrine and practice regarding marriage and sexuality.
As a Lutheran "Coalition for Reform" we are committed to raising up leaders at all levels of our church who share our convictions regarding Biblical authority and confessional loyalty. We are committed to working for a consistent implementation of Vision and Expectations throughout the ELCA, one that will provide a ministry of oversight and discipline for all rostered leaders within our church.
Lutheran CORE is closely allied with the WordAlone Network for mutual support. However, Lutheran CORE is a broad based coalition and is open to those individuals and congregations who do not choose to affiliate with the WordAlone Network. Lutheran Core also supports the Lutheran Churches of the Common Confession, whose aim is the renewal of congregational ministry and mission.
Our goal as Lutheran CORE is to work for the reform of the ELCA, and to serve as a channel of cooperation among the various reform-minded groups and with reform-minded congregations and individual pastors and lay people.
For more information: http://www.commonconfession.net/coremainset.htm
LC3
Taken from the most recent information provided by LC3, the following excerpt will help you understand one of the renewal organizations that is seeking reform in the ELCA.
The Lutheran Churches of the Common Confession (LC#) is a Lutheran mission association made up of churches that have publically covenanted with each other arounf a statement of beliefs (outlines in the Common Confession). LC# churches are those who desire to work intentionally and cooperatively in serving the mission of Christ.
More than simply an ‘organization’ to join or a petition to sign – and certainly not a new denomination – the LC3 is simply a gathering of churches that are willing to commit time and energy toward a common goal. We seek to encourage a passion for mission and evangelism among churches of the ELCA, and bring renewal to the Lutheran witness at home and abroad. Founded upon the authority of the Word of God and the urgent call to witness and mission in Christ’s name, the LC3 seeks to bring clarity, leadership, and direction to this witness by putting its core convictions into action.
The Common Confession
CC1) The Lord Jesus Christ
We are people who believe and confess our faith in the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We trust and believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.
CC2) The Gospel of Salvation
We believe and confess that all human beings are sinners, and that sinners are redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God alone justifies human beings by faith in Christ - a faith which God creates through the message of the Gospel. As ambassadors for Christ, God uses us to speak his Word and build his kingdom.
CC3) The Authority of Scripture
We believe and confess that the Bible is God's revealed Word to us, spoken in Law and Gospel. The Bible is the final authority for us in all matters of our faith and life.
CC4) A Common Confession of Faith
We accept and uphold that the Lutheran Confessions reliably guide us as faithful interpretations of Scripture, and that we share a unity and fellowship in faith with others among whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and the sacraments are administered in accordance with the Gospel.
CC5) The Priesthood of All Believers
We believe and confess that the Holy Spirit makes all who believe in Jesus Christ to be priests for service to others in Jesus' name, and that God desires to make use of the spiritual gifts he has given through the priesthood of all believers.
CC6) Marriage and Family
We believe and confess that the marriage of male and female is an institution created and blessed by God. From marriage, God forms families to serve as the building blocks of all human civilization and community. We teach and practice that sexual activity belongs exclusively within the biblical boundaries of a faithful marriage between one man and one woman.
CC7) The Mission and Ministry of the Congregation
We believe and confess that the church is the assembly of believers called and gathered by God around Word and Sacrament, and that the mission and ministry of the church is carried out within the context of individual congregations, which are able to work together locally and globally.
For more Information: http://www.commonconfession.net/index.html
Thank you to all the supporters of FOCL who so generously supported the ongoing work of confessional faithfulness to our Lutheran understanding of the Gospel. The FOCL Board was asking the question of whether or not there was an ongoing need for FOCL to continue its witness in an increasingly hostile environment. Your response, we believe, was moved by the Holy Spirit to tell us that our work is not yet complete. As we continue looking to the future, we hope you will join us prayerfully to see what role FOCL will play in the mission of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many items we are considering as we continue to look forward to FOCL’s role as a voice within the ELCA. We have always been and remain dedicated to not just reporting what we hear and see, but to reaching out with a confessional voice, proclaiming the Gospel we have received.
Current Tensions in our ELCA
Dr. Jeffray Greene
It may seem like it’s been quite the past several months in the ELCA, but, in fact, many of the issues that have plagued our young denomination continue after a hiccup last August. With the outcome of last year’s Churchwide Assembly, Solid Rock Lutherans were able to keep the third recommendation from passing; a recommendation that would have allowed for the ordination and installation of same-gendered persons in a monogamous relationship. Vision and Expectations remains the document that officially guides the ELCA in these matters. Having completed its charter to deal with the matters of the 2005 Churchwide Assembly, Solid Rock Lutherans ceased to exist last fall. At the same time, seeds for a continued and unified effort to resist changes to our traditional understanding of how we do what we do was birthed.
In November, however, the Metro New York Synod took an action that went against the Churchwide Assembly’s actions and sought to circumvent the final authority in the life of the church by ignoring the unchanged third recommendation. This issue remains open as the Churchwide Council figures out how to deal with a synod that is, from the Council’s perspective, not adhering to its understanding of our governing documents. Time will tell what happens in this matter and we’ll keep you informed. Several other synods in the season of synod assemblies have on their docket resolutions that basically circumvent the decision made by the Churchwide Assembly in 2005 as well, joining with what Metro New York has already done. It’s as if they are determining that Churchwide, from their perspective, made the wrong decision, and so, it is okay to ‘correct’ that decision. In many ways, this is very revealing of the type of battle that has been going on since this denomination began. It brings us ever closer to a place that puts what we say in contradiction with what we do.
One of the challenges we face as the Fellowship of Confessional Lutherans is to seek to move beyond just being an organization that laments the issues that have plagued our denomination, and move to reaffirm and uplift faithful mission for the sake of Christ and the Gospel. Keeping in mind that the issues we have outlined over the past sixteen plus years remain unabated in their progress, we also realize that there needs to be a proactive movement to reaffirm the confessions and rebuild the efforts of those who would see the Gospel of Christ continue in its historic and traditional manner.
In this FOCL Point, an abridged presentation by Dr. Bielfeldt outlines WordAlone’s desire to create a house of studies. Why should such an institution be necessary? It might seem we are creating a redundancy because we already have eight seminaries that are struggling to survive financially.
Dr. Craig Nessan’s statement of two irreconcilable, but equally valid interpretations of Scripture validated by Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson reveals the nature of one of the ‘irreconcilable’ interpretations which reveals the struggle we are in. Within the understanding of one of the interpretations acknowledged, Scripture is the source of understanding the Gospel, which then introduces a personal relationship with God through Christ that is built upon and nurtured throughout an individual’s life. Within this interpretation, what is meant in baptism is: “God initiates an eternal relationship with you through your baptism and He will see you through all that life will bring.” The use of the law is removed from the equation. Jesus fulfilled the law. In our constitution, the ‘norm’ of Scripture is effectively removed from our statement of faith – which says that Scripture is both the source and norm for faith and life. It is a small nuance, but an important one for our understanding.
For those who are within the fold of this perspective, the traditional view is often castigated as being legalistic. However, Luther implied from his answer, when asked to recant his writings, said that he could not recant what he conscientiously understood from Scripture. The age of Rationalism introduced a whole new way to use reason, but within the pail of what Luther meant, we do well to see a logical construct of how Scripture ought and ought not be used.
If, as some believe, Scripture is just an amalgamation of writings by men (and perhaps a woman or two), then the weight of its message is the message. And the message, at least thus far, is not argued over in most circles, and that is that Jesus Christ saves us from sins recompense, namely, death (although some argue over the second element of salvation, and that is from damnation). All other things derived from the fundamental message in Scripture would simply be an historic explanation of how to apply the message within the then contemporary context. If this were true, then it would be unfaithful to apply past context to current context. Therefore the focus must be on the message of Christ’s salvation alone, and all other components are no longer applicable. It is how those who hold this line of interpretation see no problem with ordaining and installing a pastor in a committed same-sex relationship.
There are a couple of fundamental flaws in this line of reasoning. Could all people up to this point in time have gotten it wrong? Is there no room for succinct and timeless morals and ethics? Was not a fundamental message of Jesus given when He said, “I did not come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it.” Jesus is implying that the law serves a definitive purpose. How can we know we need to be saved unless we recognize that there is something to be saved from. If our salvation is just from death (which is an obvious dilemma, since we all will die), why are there any religious system at all, if Jesus came and saved us all – we should then take counsel from the book of Daniel and “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall all die.” It is illogical to so de-construct Scripture so as to eradicate the law. Therefore, the law must serve a purpose, which we state in our constitution; but if some laws are no longer applicable in the moral and ethical code, which laws are to be expunged from Scripture? To be sure, Christians no longer practice the sacrificial system, or its laws, because Jesus was the fulfillment of those laws, being the perfect and fulfilling sacrifice. But, as in the case of adultery, Jesus commanded the woman caught to go and sin no more; thereby stating that this particular law, at least, still applied in our human – and I would add, sinful – condition.
Here’s where one of the irreconcilable interpretations has a problem. If you ask the question, “How can they, from Scripture, get the interpretation . . .” You run right into the problem that it is not from Scripture that the basis of ethics or morality is provided. You cannot logically say that Scripture doesn’t say what it says. You may argue, from a basis of human logic, that what it says doesn’t belong there, but it is disingenuous to say that it doesn’t exist.
The traditional method of using Scripture recognizes that God has made a revelation through human means to deliver something specific. We say in our statement of faith, “The proclamation of God's message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgement and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.” So for Lutherans in the ELCA, we would have to change our statement of faith if we were to validate the one irreconcilable interpretation and repudiate our stated interpretation of Scripture.
Herein lies the problem. From the traditional perspective, agreeing that there are two irreconcilable, yet valid interpretations, is an oxymoron. You cannot have two contradictory views and say both are right. Either Scripture is simply an historic account of God’s message, or it is God’s revelation within which is His message. This statement reveals the battle for the church which we have witnessed; and has been waged for a long time. The traditionalist would say that the devil is at work twisting the Word of God. Many in the other irreconcilable view of Scripture do not believe there is a devil; for that was a contextual construct to describe evil.
Although wrapped in biblical language and massaged to sound convincing, the basis of how we believe what we believe has been slowly, but now clearly seen, changed to be a different Gospel. The new ‘gospel’ seems much closer to universalism, and includes things that are strikingly close to already agreed upon heresies in Christianity such as Gnosticism (superior intellectual understanding), Pelagianism(no original sin) and Antinomianism (the law is no longer relevant).
We all struggle to understand more fully what God is up to with humanity. We all have our bias and prejudice when it comes to understanding things in light of our own personal experience. But the fundamental issue is simply whether or not Scripture is revelation by the Transcendent God, or a reflection of the Transcendent God through the eyes of others who have sought to understand human existence.
As long as there are two irreconcilable interpretations in the ELCA, we’re going to have difficulty. Walking away will not resolve the issue. It will only divide, and that goes against what Jesus prayed for in the High Priestly prayer of John 17. Every division will be made up of two minorities, who believe they are right and the other is wrong, and a third and perhaps larger minority that will walk away in disgust and confusion, which only serves the devil and his desire to see all humans damned.
The wisdom of Gamaliel is, from the traditional perspective, as valid now as when it was first spoken. If what is happening is of God, then it will flourish. But if it is not of God, then it too will go the way of all other struggles against God’s truth and be forever banished.
A rather new challenge for us Lutherans is the challenge to stay put long enough to let the Holy Spirit speak and declare whether or not one interpretation is valid and the other is not, or whether there is a new relative way of understanding what God is up to with humanity.
As a traditionalist, I believe God will bless one and cause the other to pass away. The God proclaimed within the traditional view of the law-Gospel tension will see to it that His Word does not fail. Those who would agree with this statement would do well to follow the example of Luther and stand firm, knowing there is no other option. Let God wage the war while remaining faithful to the witness you have received. God is up to something in our midst.