By Dr. Jeffray Greene
Since the Fellowship of Confessional Lutherans came into being, there has been an understanding that all is not well with the church. Continuously there has been issue after issue that has plagued the church. Why is there no end to controversy?
There are two divergent viewpoints that drive a wedge between what is meant and what is understood when someone says they proclaim the Gospel. That Jesus came and died for sins is not in question; but what this means in the lives of the faithful has provided differing answers.
The literal quality of the Bible telling how God created the universe and the order under which it exists contrasts greatly when you stop and query what is meant by one group versus another. Because the systematic theology of Barth accepts the view that Scripture is just a human book God uses to introduce His plan, it introduces the idea that we should not get caught up in too literally in the application of what is contained in the book. Good principles, there is no denying, but it is the Spirit who will guide and direct the individual into a higher understanding of what God intends personally. Contrast this with the historic understanding that God has chosen a specific means and method of communicating what His will would be for humanity and you begin to see that there is a clear-cut difference not only in application, but in understanding.
This is not to support the kind of absolute literalism that is understood through the current use of the word ‘fundamentalist,’ which requires rabid legalism and doctrinal conformity. With the advent of modernism, there have been increasing degrees of separation between two primary groups within Lutheranism. One group, who more closely follow the historic understanding and use of Scripture utilized by the theologians at the time of the Reformation, and the other which has stepped off from this place and followed an understanding that has developed through existentialism, demythologizing, critical methodology and other avenues of understanding God’s redeeming act in the world. Is the opening the church feared that Origin left open and has been avoided over the centuries? Increasingly, it seems as though these two diverging viewpoints are reaching for an permanent impasse. Is this the last opportunity to prevent the kind of break that occurred during the Reformation where the church deeply divided? Or is this just a stepped-up pace for division? Scripture teaches us that a house divided cannot stand. But at what cost should we strive for unity?
When describing the group who feels they most closely align themselves with the Sixteenth Century Scriptural hermeneutic, one has to be careful not to get to carried away with literalistic interpretation of Scripture. God declares that He will gather His people like a hen gathers her chicks. Does that mean God is a chicken? This is one (amongst many) of the glaring misuses of Scripture by the Mormon church. Going to the other extreme is equally galling. How often do those who are dismissive of the Romans 1 text declare that the reason they can be so dismissive is that we no longer require women to cover their heads during worship. How we interpret the Bible and what authority we claim it has is essentially the difference that has created our current tension. Setting sexuality aside, we are in an argument over Scripture as the Source and Norm for faith and life. More truthfully, there are two primary ways in which Scripture is interpreted by Lutherans in the ELCA. The first, arguably, is more commonly found residing in the average person in the pew, while the other is found primarily in the seminaries, among a large number of clergy and in the leadership of the denomination.
Taking our cue from Barth, we see that the experience of faith, using existentialist language helps us discover Christ. It sounds like what was discussed by those who were called gnostics in the early centuries of Christianity to the orthodox. A ‘superior’ knowledge which appeals to those who feel they have indeed found a superior way of understanding how God reveals himself. One of the ways used to new initiates of looking at theology in this way is to ask the question: “Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute?” At first thought, the average person ponders the speculation of this question. A best-selling book picks up on this theme and people read it pondering whether or not it is true. It doesn’t help when there are numerous authors who take the opposite extreme and proclaim ‘secret’ codes hidden in the text. However, if the gnostic gospels, written in the second and third centuries, are utilized as a source (remember that from this viewpoint, Scripture is the jump-off point), we see that an argument against any kind of legal moralism being substantiated. If Mary was not a person of ill-repute, there was no need for her to repent, and her relationship would have been based solely on her love for the Lord in pure motivation and not in response to a gift resulting from forgiveness. Christ invites, we accept and the eternal relationship begins in the here and now. There is nothing to repent and no need for repentance.
The logic of this kind of thinking is at the heart of the article quoting Andree Seu, and her statement, “I don't obey Scripture, I discuss it.” Indeed, if Barth is right in his attempt to theologize a compromise to keep the church from further dividing and the Bible is just a human book that God uses, then we are being disobedient to God’s wishes if we behave as the Pharisees, being ‘legalists, whom Jesus rebuked. Those who are passionate about understanding the Gospel in this way want to ‘save’ others whose theology is ‘wrong’ and dangerous. This discussion begs the question: “What is the core of the Gospel?”
What is the Good News that Christians proclaim? Is it that Jesus died for our sins? Self-proclaimed Christians do not argue this point. But we can ask whose sins are forgiven and why. If we ask, as Luther taught us, “What does this mean?,” referring to who are saved, we find quickly that there are two theologies living side-by-side in the church today.
The law condemns the sinner and declares that he is unable to make recompense before God. Jesus comes and pays the unpayable price. All who turn to him are saved. What’s involved in the turning? Is a life of obedience required, or is it just an acknowledgment of Christ which is needed? What do we do with the law? Which set of declared rules are in the body of the law. Is the law completely fulfilled in Christ so that nothing else need be done, or do some laws still apply. If we no longer require a woman’s head to be covered in church, how can we say that homosexuality is a sin? If we make legal declarations at all, is what we are doing an offense to what Christ accomplished?
In order to more easily understand the quandary of what has happened, we need to see the two sides of anti-synergism. On the one hand a supralapsarian inability to be anything other than God’s puppet is contrasted with a rigid fundamentalism that requires a Pelagian adherence that outdoes even the most ardent legalist. Both propositions have been understood as anathema by Lutherans. Arguably, Luther’s finest yet most difficult to understand work, Bondage of the Will, delves into understanding how the Gospel works in the believer.
It can be argued that the weakest link in theology has been in answering the question of how one is sanctified? Are all saved because of what Christ has done, or are just those who enter into a relationship with Christ saved through what he has done? Both questions are answered affirmatively in Lutheran churches in the ELCA, as well as in churches in many mainline denominations. Both cannot be right. It cannot be that just some and all people are saved through Christ. Herein lies one of the primary issues providing the current tension. How do we reconcile, or if that is not possible, mitigate such contrasting understanding of what the Gospel means?
Underlying the difference are accusations of triumphalism versus intellectual superiority, universalism versus legalism as well as other contrasting labels applied to adherents of particular viewpoints.
In order to provide an increased sensitivity to the deliberation at hand, let’s look at the continued debate related to understanding Scripture currently being continued in the secular realm in the National Geographic Magazine. In their November issue, an article asking if Darwinism was a dead issue, they said, “ If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's (referring to evolution) "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally—taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.”
Once thought a ‘dead’ issue, the concept of intelligent design, as it is now known, harkens to the day when Scripture was declared inerrent as a reminder that God spoke authoritatively through the Bible and declared His hand in creating the universe. As Luther reminds us in bondage of the will “Because they are all ungodly and unrighteous and hold the truth in unrighteousness.” It is true that we have all gone astray. It is not what we think that matters, but what God declares that provides the Word of life. Repentance is an integral and necessary portion of the Gospel. Without turning from ourselves toward God, there can be no forgiveness. We have not created this story that we call the Gospel, it is God’s story revealed.
What’s at stake? The heart of the Gospel. Each of us needs to be able to give an account of the hope that is within us. We are saved by only one faith, that is the faith that has been given us from above, revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of the One True Lord, Jesus Christ.