Destructive Tolerance
By Dr. James Kallas
St. Olaf College has appointed a Hindu as chairman of the Religion department. St. Olaf College, for over a century the flag-bearer for the very best of Lutheranism in the field of higher education, has lost its theological anchor. St. Olaf has capitulated to the current politically correct emphasis on diversity. Apparently, she has been seduced by the sweet sounding, but silly saying, that it makes no difference what you believe, as long as you sincerely believe it.
There is no compatibility, no room for cousin-kissing, between Christian convictions and contrary beliefs. An embrace of diversity was an impossible act for the earliest church. For the first three hundred years of its existence, the earliest followers of Jesus were battered and beaten, beheaded, thrown to lions, torn asunder. And what was the charge? Atheism! The church flatly refused to recognize the legitimacy of any other form of worship. The Roman gods were empty idols. The Pantheon was powerless. The key word for those who left father and family and fishing net behind to follow Jesus was not diversity, but exclusivity. Thus, they wrote of Jesus that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
And when these “uneducated, common men” were commanded “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus,” their fearless and faithful answer was, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 4:13, 18, 5:29). And they paid the price. Stephen was stoned and James fell to the sword in Jerusalem. Peter and Paul were executed in Rome. Ignatius was dragged across Turkey and died in the arena. These were the earliest martyrs, whose unwavering allegiance to the exclusivity of Jesus led to their death. Their blood was the seed of the church. There was no vapid forfeiture of their own convictions of others. There was but one way. No one came to the Father but by Jesus.
Luther said the three ingredients of faith are notia, assensus, and fudicia. That initial step was notia, knowledge. Faith does not begin with emotion. Faith does not depend upon how we feel. Faith begins with education, awareness, knowledge, an emphasis not on how we feel, but on what Jesus did. Thus it was, that the university system, the jewel of western civilization, came into being. It was not a product of the state; it was the fruit of the church. Bologna, the oldest university in Italy, was founded by the church. Oxford and Cambridge were products of the church and the deans of the university were the dons of the cathedral. Harvard began when a Presbyterian pastor took a few boys into his home and began to train them to be evangelists for Jesus. On the seal of Dartmouth are the words of John the Baptist, “a voice crying in the wilderness;” and the word of Jesus was to be made known to the Indians of the area.
From the beginning, this majestic crown of the Christian world was a product of the church. Centers of education were outposts of evangelism. Dedicated believers in Jesus took the most far reaching, the most all-encompassing and the vastest thing they could grasp – the universe – and they founded the university. And theology was the queen of the sciences. Jesus was the center and goal of that educational adventure. Faith began with knowledge. Christianity permeated the curriculum. It was not a fringe, not a department. The Gospel was not taught as if it were just another topic in a box along with other topics – it was itself the box! Professors were not called to be deluded by the inane assertion that truth was like a race horse, all you had to do was put competitive ideas on the track and the best would automatically win. You had to fight for what you believed in. The very name they gave the faculty, the head, was “professor!” One who professed, believed, was permeated by the truth of Jesus and that allegiance which soaked his soul would shine out in all that he said. His job was not to pat other points of view in tolerant approval, but to maintain the primacy, the exclusivity, the metaphysical and life-changing truth found in Christ Jesus alone.
St. Olaf in its finest hour understood this and made that idea its matrix. I entered there in 1946. The year was important. That was the first full academic year after World War II. The veterans were enrolling and, rightfully, priority went to them. It was almost impossible for one like myself, fresh out of high school, not a veteran, to gain admission; either at St. Olaf, or anywhere else. Even though my high school grades were excellent, I was not admitted until a few weeks before the fall semester. June rolled by. July rolled by. So did most of August before the word came that enough veterans had decided not to attend after all, so that there were a few openings available to those of us fresh out of high school.
I had applied at St. Olaf due to the urging of my high school football coach, E. J. Nelson, himself an Ole. And when they were the first to respond positively, I decided to go there. It was my first contact with the church. It was only after I put down my $50 enrollment fee that I knew of its religious affiliation and its Religion class requirements. At first, that was alright. I went in neutral, not hostile, just uninformed. I was different. It was not just that I had black hair and everyone else was blonde. It was not simply that I was Greek, and everyone else was Norwegian. I was unchurched, a pagan! I was an inviting evangelistic target for every pre-seminary student on campus. Everybody was trying to convert me! I felt like a lonely pioneer on the Minnesota prairie, surrounded by Indians trying to scalp me; one more trophy to hang on their piety belt. I went into neutral, but I became hostile. I shunned chapel and almost failed to qualify for graduation because I refused to write a paper for Religion 101, outlining the essential ingredients of my Christian beliefs. Ditmanson got me off the hook. He offered me the opportunity to write about what I believed – not what the church said – and he even gave me a ‘B’ for the course.
The role of Ditmanson was indicative of that faculty. Superb people, filled not only with Christian charity, but supercharged with Christian commitment, able to integrate the essentials of Christianity with the basic elements of their discipline. I never went to chapel, but I became a Christian. A faculty who had tied together their faith with their subject matter showed me the significance and centrality of Jesus.
I had Pete Fossum in a freshman Physics class. One day we were looking at flecks of coal dust under a microscope. Each fleck was unique, a thing of beauty unlike any other; no two alike, each one exquisite in its symmetry and delicate fragility. And suddenly, Fossum said, “What a magnificent God of beauty and creativity is ours, who is able to make such a beautiful thing out of a fleck of coal dust which is today and tomorrow is cast into the fire.” Pete probably used that line many times earlier. Professors do that. If they find a good line, they hold unto it. But for a kid of 17, never before exposed to Christian confessions, having heard of supposed conflict between science and religion, I was stunned and moved by the fact that a learned scientist with a Ph.D. could see the hand of God in a hunk of coal. It was a step. One of the first. One of many.
Norman Nordstrant, who later left to become the Cultural Attache at the U. S. Embassy in Norway, taught a course in world literature. We read Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment. And as he unfolded it for us, a profound confession of sin and grace unfolded; a Christian anthropology was thrust upon me.
He told us how Raskolnikov went to Europe and was infected by Nitsche, the cultural giant of his day, the politically correct voice of that time. Nietsche said that God was dead. And if God were dead, then man was on his own. Dog-eat-dog philosophy, the weak to the wall, anything to further your own ascendency. So diseased, Raskolnikov returned to Russia and spilled out the entire bucket of a woman’s happiness to further his own by a single drop. He murdered her with an axe.
But the Russia to which he returned was mother Russia, pre-Bolshevik Russia, Christian Russia. He returned to the bosom of the church and as humanized anew. He was lifted up by the icons of the church and knew he had sinned, done wrong, and if it were ever to rise higher than the animal level to which he had descended, he needed to be cleansed, punished. Hence the title, “Crime and Punishment.” It was more than a literature class. It was an awareness of what it is to be human from the Christian point of view.
Every class was like that. We all chuckled with Glascoe’s heavy Scandanavian accent railing against “cigarette suckers,” but we all came to see that behind those perhaps too colorful denunciations of contemporary culture, there was a commitment to the body as a temple, which impressed us all – even those of us who smoked.
I didn’t go to chapel. But old Doc Mellby did. He had retired long before I had enrolled. He must have been over eighty years of age when I first saw him. But I did see him. At 9:30 a.m. in the morning, I saw him – temperature below freezing – trudging up the hill so that he could attend chapel. He made me wonder why I was so hostile to chapel. Perhaps there something to be learned there.
Karen Larsen was so frail that I was afraid she would sneeze and shatter. I had a history class from here; the top floor of the library. One blustery day, in early March or so, I noticed that a sparrow had made a nest on the window sill and was protecting her egg, and the next week, her baby, from the winter’s winds. I decided I might have a chance at a better grade if I let Karen see that I was soft-hearted and sentimental. And so, after class, I asked her to come back and see this baby bird. She did. And she liked it. And it was only then that I realized that she was far more insightful and made of sterner stuff than I had originally recognized. She thanked me for sharing the bird and the put me into my place by telling me I would be better off in her class if I listened to her as intently as I watched out the window. I did listen to her more Carefully after that. One of the lines I remember is that, “History is His story. It is the hand of God shaping the affairs of humankind. Beware the Greek cyclical view, that there is nothing new under the sun. History has a goal and God is its shaper and end.” She, like Fossum. Like Nordstrand, had integrated her discipline with her devotion. Education was evangelism.
This aggressive insistence on the exclusivity of Jesus, the affirmation that it is only His truth which is worthy of embrace, and that all other professions of allegiance are but words on the wind, can and has led to horrific abuse. The Inquisition is but one of the most sordid examples of the depths to which the denial of diversity can lead. And it is no doubt the cummulative impact of these past execesses of the church which have led to today’s attempt to say something positive – to be more accepting of – other religions that we have in the past.
But the posture of our time which mistakenly suggests that there is validity in other religions is not the right remedy or cure-all for past abuses. There is no validity in other religions. Not for the Christian. To be something is to be against all other things.
It would have been impossible for Pete Fossum, or Doc Paulson, or Karen Larsen to say with appreciation or approval, “One of my most memorable students became a Buddhist while here.” (Page 6 of the Spring 2007 issue of St. Olaf magazine.) That is surrender, a consequence of the crises of confidence. It is a collapse of conviction. It is an abandonment of the exclusivity of Jesus, which is the bedrock of Christianity.
The atrocious excesses of the Inquisition were an outrage, an unforgivable sin of the medieval church. But equally outrageous is that contemporary spineless attempt to wallpaper over serious differences and speak of the “Hebrew-Christian tradition” as if there were no fundamental and far reaching differences between Christianity and Judaism. (See page 42 of that same St. Olaf issue.)
There is another way, an alternative avenue, in between the rabid persecution of past anti-Semitism and the present tepid tone of compromise which compliments and confirms as legitimate those opposing opinions which undermine our own.
The Bible itself shows us the way to go. There can be absolutely no denying the fact that both Paul and the Jews of his day saw the fundamental incompatibility of church and synagogue. When Paul abandoned his persecution of the Christians and instead became one with the church, he was from that moment on, despised and condemned by his former brethren, who vehemently sought his death, as we see in Acts 22 through 26.
And yet, despite the monumental gulf between Christianity and Judaism, which both sides clearly saw, Paul continued to pray for his fellow Jews: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). He told of his love for them and of efforts to convert them (Romans 11:13-15). He did not indulge in hypocritical pretense, claiming community of thought or commonality of goals. They were wrong, and he said so, but he continued to love them and sought to convert them. That is the Biblical way, the only way, to approach other religions.
There are differences between Judaism and Christianity, and there are differences between Christianity and Hinduism, and between Christianity and every other religion. And those differences are monumental. We are not to attack and torture, renew the atrocities of the Inquisition. But neither are we to ignore in an ostrich-like fashion, the foolish and unfounded fiction that we are all climbing the same mountain only from different sides. We are going in opposite directions. We have nothing in common, beyond a few ethical axioms, with Judaism, or Hinduism, or Buddhism. Our task as a church active in the amphitheater of life, where we battle for allegiance of young men and women, is not to provide a platform for the presentation of views other than those of the church. Our task is to return to the unshakable allegiance of the earliest church which insisted upon the exclusivity of Jesus. And our prayer is that St. Olaf will repent of, and recover from, its jelly-legged abandonment of its treasured tradition.
Churchwide Assembly at Navy Pier
Rev. Sara “Sally” Gausmann*
One of the slogans of the ELCA over the last couple of years has been “unity in the midst of diversity.” This unity has been so important that it even made it into the proposal of the task force presentation in 2005 when we discussed the blessing of same sex unions and the rostering of non-celibate clergy. The resolution was, that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—its members, congregations, synods, churchwide organization, and agencies and institutions—be urged to concentrate on finding ways to live together faithfully in the midst of disagreements, recognizing the God-given mission and communion that we share as members of the body of Christ.
What is the disagreement that we have that endangers our unity so much that we have to make resolutions promoting living together faithfully? Well, after I attended the 2005 assembly it became clear to me that the disagreement was not just on matters relating to human sexuality but had to do with a different understanding of theology or what I would call a new gospel. After attending the 2007 churchwide assembly I now realize that not only does this new gospel exist, but I have now had confirmed in my mind the realization that because of this new gospel we cannot have a unified church.
I say this not to be overly dramatic or divisive; I say it simply because it is the truth. Our Lord himself said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. (Mk 3:25) and Saint Paul likewise condemned the preaching of a new gospel (Galatians 1:9)
Now, first of all I need to define this new gospel and how it differs from the gospel of Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in holy scripture and the historic witness of the church catholic. Consider this excerpt from Susan Hogan/Albach’s story in the Chicago Sun-Times: “The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination on Saturday passed a measure calling on church leaders to “refrain from or demonstrate restraint” in disciplining gay clergy in committed relationships. A day earlier, church members meeting at Navy Pier voted down a measure that would have ended the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s celibacy requirement for gay clergy. Still, Saturday’s 538-431 decision was widely viewed as historic and a sign of shifting thinking on homosexuality within the 4.8-million member denomination. “It’s a huge victory,” said Jeremy Posadas, a voting church member from Decatur, Ga. “The gospel of inclusion has won, and we’re going to keep winning.””
Jeremy Posadas has succinctly identified this new gospel – what he has named “the gospel of inclusion.” Traditionally some of us would refer to this gospel as “cheap grace,” a term coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Others would call this new understanding antinomianism – an aberration of the gospel that Luther had to speak out against when people of his day abrogated the use of the law and celebrated Christian freedom in a way that was not healthy for the church or society. Some of the things that accompany this new gospel are the redefinition of some familiar words. In this new way of thinking love equals acceptance and justice means promoting and affirming whatever each individual has decided is right for him or herself. This new gospel is not without law entirely but instead they have a new law which replaces the Ten Commandments – this law simply stated is that those who do not accept the new way of thinking are the “real sinners.” This new way of thinking when it does recognize God’s explicit commandments at all, has also elevated the second tablet of the law over the first – preaching that we must “love” our neighbor without any counsel about how that relates to our love of God. In this theology the Spirit of God is disconnected from the Word of God, thus claiming that the Spirit is leading us in new directions that are not related to past revelations. Luther also ran into this type of thinking and he labeled those with this rationale “the enthusiasts.”
In my training for the ministry I learned that our preaching always involves both law and gospel. The law of course, is not the means by which we can earn our salvation but it certainly is the compass by which we are to live and a tool to learn about holy living. Because of this traditional viewpoint we have continued to teach Luther’s Small Catechism (the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed.) One of the chief messages that Jesus preached was that the Kingdom of God had come near – this gospel message is recorded in Matthew 4: 17 when Jesus says: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. This turning around that Jesus calls us to is good news because it reminds us that we don’t have to continue on the path we are on – we are not held captive by our sexual desires or any other proclivity – rather we are made new as we are embraced by this Lord of life who desires for us, new life, life and life abundant.
The more speeches that I heard at churchwide assembly the more I was convinced that we were speaking two different languages. A number of years ago Bishop Hanson quoted a seminary professor as saying that we have in our church two “equally valid” but irreconcilable hermeneutics. I quote the “equally valid” because I wonder how that can be true. How can some be preaching this new gospel and others the traditional understanding of the faith and both be right? How long can we hold together this unhappy marriage of opposite theologies? When will we say enough is enough and declare that this new way of thinking is unfaithful to teaching of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church and those of us who want to remain faithful to scripture and traditions can no longer support a church body that wants us to move in this direction?
Many do not want to give up the ship so to speak. I have heard many from Lutheran Core and Word Alone and others say we must stay with the ELCA and be the ones who continue to speak out for orthodoxy in the church and in many ways I sympathize with this way of thinking. I do not want to be a part of a runagate sect, however neither do I want to be like a frog in a pot of boiling water that doesn’t know that they should jump before they are cooked alive and eaten. What I saw taking place in Chicago was a tug of war. It seems to me that about 45% of those attending want to remain orthodox, 35% would like to revise our theology and about 20% fluctuate back and forth. The 35% that would like change are smaller in number but they are in control of our seminaries and our youth gatherings and are in many of the leadership positions of the ELCA. And so even though they are smaller they have great influence and when they are patient they can see the tide turning their way and they keep paddling the boat in this new direction. They are often effective in changing the minds not only of the 20% in the middle by playing on the sympathies of many kind hearted souls with personal stories of pain (as if orthodox folk have no pain,) but also by name calling and manipulation they at times even win over some of the 45% who hold the traditional beliefs. I sat at a dinner table while a bishop, a seminary professor and a pastor made fun of those in the ELCA “who don’t have the spirit,” joking that maybe they would spike the drinks of these sour folks. Who wants to be talked about like that? Some of the 45% are also being lost due to what I would call a slow leak – some going to Rome, some to LCMS, some to LCMC and others to whatever is the going church in their town. One lay voting member told me that he thought maybe he would continue to attend his local Lutheran congregation because the orthodox way was still being taught, but he would no longer be a member of that church because he could no longer support the denomination’s teaching of this new way of thinking.
Many of us also want to stay because of the children. We have two sets of children in this relationship. We have the real flesh and blood children to whom we would like to pass along the historic faith to – children that we want to have hear both law and gospel – children that we want to teach the catechism to…And then there are the other children that many of us don’t want to give up – Lutheran World Hunger, Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Services in America, Lutheran Disaster Response, etc. Those programs that our church has adopted or given birth to that help us to live out our Christian witness in the world are important to many of us. We like the good things these organizations do on our behalf and if we are pushed out of the church we would hate to have to give full parental rights to those who are preaching this new gospel.
So here I am – at a great crossroads in my life wondering if I should stay in the ELCA and use my voice to perhaps speak to the 20% in the middle, and to encourage the 45% who want to remain faithful. Are there still those I can help to wake up to this important calling we have to stand up for the traditional faith of the church? How important is it that the voice that speaks against these false teachings is a voice within the ELCA? Is there any chance that they will hear a voice from outside any more or less than they hear our incessant call to faithfulness? And where will I go? Will those who want change in the ELCA have the last laugh as orthodox women clergy flounder to find a faithful home that will accept women’s ordination? Perhaps, the best case scenario would be for an African Bishop to adopt those of us who are being abandoned by the ELCA. Again, I don’t want to sound like a victim, but I am also wondering at what point those of us who feel like sandbaggers will come to the realization that the flood waters are just too great and we must run to higher ground before we drown.
I am truly thankful to God for the hard work of so many at Lutheran Core, Word Alone and all those people who have not joined an organized group but who continue to pray and work for reform in the ELCA. We are very aware of the challenges that have come to the gospel in the past and we know that in spite of it all, God has remained faithful and still continues to bless us with his Word and sacraments. It is in his name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we move forward despite whatever befalls knowing that our Lord will not abandon us and that ultimately he will provide a home for the faithful in this life and a home in eternity for all who confess his holy name.
Rev. Sally Gausmann is an ELCA co-pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in York, PA.
There’s Work to Be Done
In our world which sells ideas, we are reminded once again that we need to answer the question Jesus asked His disciples: “But who do you say that I am?” Confessing the name of Jesus, believing He is who He says He is, believing the account we’ve been given in God’s Word, holding fast to the faith that’s been handed down to us is what makes us confessional. Slight-of-hand parlor tricks with words can never change the truth, only mask it. Even in this, as a people who believe in God’s Word, we have been told by the Lord Himself to be on guard and to be shrewd. You are encouraged to visit FOCL’s website at www.FOCLNews.org. We will be offering useful tools to help rekindle a confessional understanding of the Christian faith, along with all the articles and newsletters we’ve published these past eighteen years. Sometimes looking at things from an historical perspective can help. If you peruse our archives, a clearer picture of what’s been happening comes to mind. If you pay attention to our brothers and sisters in Christ in other denominations, you know they too have been under an onslaught as well. Now is the time to live in the example of Luther and stand firm. Luther said, “Here I stand . . . I can do no other.” Paul said, “Put in the full armor of God . . . “ Jesus said, “Follow me.”
As we move into God’s future, we should trust His Word which promises He will work all things out for glory for those who love Him and were called according to His purpose. These are interesting times, where the church we are a part of is locked in a battle over what will be in its heart. It can be quite dismaying to see what’s happening. Things aren’t what they once were. But there is nothing new here that the church hasn’t had to fight before, we’ve just been very blessed with a time that allowed the church to grow and spread around the world.
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