Mary & Lutherans

Holy Trinity 2010, Volume XIX, Number 3Table of Contents

(A feature article from the journal: Semper Virgo: A Doctrine by David Scaer)

In its confrontation with early twentieth-century liberalism, Fundamentalism designated Jesus' virgin birth as one of the four necessary beliefs. Some self-styled confessional Lutherans have gone one step further in raising the hypothesis of the semper virgo, that is, Mary's perpetual virginity, near to the level of doctrine. It qualifies as a question of biblical interpretation and not a doctrine. What Luther and the Lutheran fathers said about this question may be of historical interest but is not determinative.

Since Bishop John Spong and the now popular Bart Ehrman, in the tradition of radical biblical criticism, deny Jesus' virgin birth because they consider it to be something added to the gospel message late in the first century, Mary's perpetual virginity has hardly been a matter for serious discussion. The semper virgo means that after giving birth to Jesus, his mother refrained from sexual relations with Joseph. Not only was Jesus conceived ex Maria virgine, but she remained so for the rest of her life. The highly fanciful second-century Protoevangelium of James, which combines and expands the Matthew and Luke birth narratives, is the first known document to offer the idea. It gained momentum with the Roman Empire's recognition of Christianity as a legal religion. Martyrdom as a certain way to heaven was replaced by asceticism, which included celibacy, and Mary was held up as an example to be followed. Virginity became the new martyrdom.

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The Promise of the Resurrection and the Work you are Given Today

 An ordination sermon by Rev. Prof. John T. Pless on April 17, 2010 at Dr. Martin Luther Lutheran Church, Chicago Illinois (Ordination of Jacob Gaugert; Sermon verse: I Corinthians 15:58)

We are here this morning in the glow of Easter. That is true chronologically as we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection two weeks ago tomorrow. But more than that we are gathered here because the Father raised His slaughtered Son from the grave and the Son alive with wounds to prove He was not a phantom of fatigued apostolic imagination, breathed out His Spirit on the men He had chosen, sending them to forgive sins. The sending that the Lord put in motion on that first Easter evening has not stopped. Today we are here on the receiving end of the Lord’s sending. The Lord sends another servant, Jacob, to do what the apostles were given to do, to preach Christ Jesus, forgiving the sins of those who repent and retaining the sins of those who insist on keeping their sins for themselves.

When and where the Lord gives out His gifts there is joy. John tells us that when the disciples heard Jesus speak His words of peace and when they saw His hands and side that they were glad. Certainly there is joy and gladness to go around here today. There is joy for you, Jacob, as today marks the end of a long and winding road of education that would prepare you for this holy office: Undergraduate studies at Mequon, seminary in Fort Wayne and Oberursel, and vicarage in Berlin and Norman, Oklahoma. More than just receiving academic degrees, you have learned the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise into the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. You have studied the Lutheran Confessions and today you will make them your own confession- a confession which you are not ashamed to make before the judgment seat of God’s Son. You have mastered languages and delved deeply into church history. You gained a capacity to preach, conduct the liturgy, catechize, and counsel. You have been examined and declared ready by the church to undertake the office of Christ’s under-shepherd, to be entrusted with the care of souls purchased and won by the Good Shepherd Himself. Surely today is a day of deep joy for you.

It is also a day of gladness for your parents and family who have supported you with their money and prayers, who have watched you grow as they anticipated this day.

Today is truly a continuation of Easter for the members of Dr. Martin Luther Congregation as you have prayed to the Lord to send you a pastor. You have waited and now your prayer is answered and your waiting is terminated. Your Easter gladness is deepened as this ordination service is reminder that the Lord has not forsaken His flock or overlooked you but given you a man to be your pastor.

But ordination is not so much the celebration of a goal achieved as it is an anticipation of what is to come. So the Apostle Paul says in our text: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain” (I Cor. 15:58).  These words, dear Brother Jacob, anchor you and work the Lord is giving you to do in the promise of His resurrection.

These words come at the end of I Corinthians 15, the great “resurrection chapter” of the New Testament. Paul has reminded the Corinthians of the Gospel which he preached and they received: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with Scriptures” (I Cor. 15:3-4). This is the content of apostolic preaching; this is the message proclaimed by Paul as the Word which has the power to save. But if Christ has not been raised, Paul is quick to add, this preaching is vain and our faith is in vain for we are left in our sins, of all men to be most pitied for this life is futile and the future is without hope. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. He has appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve and more than 500 brethren and finally to Paul himself. Paul goes on for the rest of the chapter to extol the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, the first fruits of those who sleep. By His death, He has defeated death. Death is swallowed up in victory. Yes, sin gives death its sting, its ouch and sin gets its potency from the law. But listen to Paul’s doxology: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is God who gives us the victory through His Son put to death for sin and raised again to give life to all who trust in His name. That is the message, Jacob, you are ordained to preach. C.F. W. Walther in his evening lectures to theological students, transcribed and published under the familiar title, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel reminded future pastors: “Remember when you become ministers, you become helpers of the Christians’ joy” (407). That is a good reminder for you, Jacob. God is today giving good news, glad tidings of great joy to preach: forgiveness of sins for real sinners, life in the midst of death, and hope when the future is dark. It is all true on account of Jesus, the One who died for the sins of the whole world and whose resurrection declares God’s righteousness for all.

You have been taught this Gospel. You believe it. Today you will confess it once again. Today you are ordained to preach. You will announce it week in and week out from the pulpit. You will declare it in the absolution. You will administer it as the Lord uses you as His mouth and hand to wash away sin in Holy Baptism. You will serve it to open and hungry mouths around this altar as you feed them with Jesus’ body and give them to drink of the cup of the New Testament in His blood. You will speak it at bedside and before open graves. It is a word that will pass from your lip into the ears of catechumens young and old. It is a Word that will carry you outside the walls of this church to the streets, workplaces, and homes of this community. It is a Word you will speak in English, and perhaps in Spanish or German. But whatever the setting and whatever the language it remains ever the good news of Good Friday and Easter, of our Brother and Redeemer put to death for our trespasses and raised again for our justification.

You will sustain the weak and the weary with this Gospel. But this Gospel that you are given to preach will sustain you. For you see, the empty tomb of Jesus is God’s own guarantee that your future is opened to God’s favor and mercy. The words of the Apostle Paul apply to you: “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” By God’s grace, you will make such promises to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” as you pledge yourself to the Holy Scriptures and the Ecumenical Creeds, and the Lutheran  Confessions in few minutes. You will freely and willingly give yourself to the work of the ministry, promising to preach the Word in season and out of season, to demonstrate to the church a constant and ready ministry centered in the Gospel. Big promises indeed! So large and daunting that they should cause you to tremble a bit! You would be foolish, in fact, to make them were it not for the promise of God that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The specific challenges that the coming days will bring, we know not. But this much is sure: your labor will not be in vain because Jesus is raised from the dead never to die again. You, Jacob, are beginning a new chapter today. No longer just Jacob, but Pastor Gaugert ordained for a work that will not be void of pain and tears. Yes, the cross and death itself. But you already know the end of the story. When the church in Stuttgart where Pastor Helmut Thielicke was bombed out during the air raids of the Second World War, Thielicke preached to those who were left saying “He who has the victory of the last hour, can endure the next few minutes.” We have the victory of the last hour. Jacob, you have the victory of the last hour for Christ is raised and death has no dominion over him or over you. So in the confidence of His resurrection victory go to the work of the ministry with confidence and joy. You have Christ’s promise…and that is more than enough. Amen.

Worthy is the Lamb who was Slain

A sermon by Rev. Prof. John T. Pless on April 22, 2010 at Concordia Theological Seminary

A strong angel. A sealed-scrolled. A teary-eyed seer. An eschatological zoo of four living creatures-one like a lion, one like an ox, one with the face of a man, and one like an eagle. A lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. Twenty-four elders with harps in their hands. Incense swirling from golden bowls. Interpreters ancient and modern have had a hermeneutical picnic in the Bible’s last book. Little wonder that G. K. Chesterton would remark: “though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.” Let that be a warning to all who would dare preach on Revelation!

That being said, those who would preach are not to apologize for a text but to preach it. That goes also for the Book of Revelation, bizarre though it is with its cosmic strangeness and its apocalyptic twists and turns. The book finally does live up to its opening line: “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” John is not concealing Christ, but revealing Him. No deus absconditus here; but God revealed.

In the midst of this heavenly liturgy, John weeps. He weeps for God’s mighty angel raises a question that seems to be unanswered and unanswerable: “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break the seal?” No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was found worthy. And if the book remains closed, we are left with hope. The outcome of the church’s future is futility. The reckless assaults of those who scorn the living God might indeed go on unpunished. Sinners are left to their own destructive devices. Evil triumphs and God’s righteousness falters and fails.  A sealed book would mean that the will of the Lord God Almighty is inaccessible and hidden. So John’s tears are plentiful for no human being has the capacity to break the seal and peer into the words recorded on this scroll.

John hears a voice that brings what all preachers worthy of the name deliver- consolation. An elder says “weep, no more John…dry your tears for there is One who is here who has the authority to pry off its seven seals.” This One is the Lion of Judah, the Root of Jesse. He is the One promised of old. He is the Lord who opens the Scriptures to the sad-hearted disciples on the highway to Emmaus, showing them that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and then enter into His glory. When John looks up, he sees not a raging lion but standing their in the midst of the heavenly congregation, he beholds the Lamb of the God. This indeed is the theologia crucis, the theology of the cross- the Lion comes as a lamb. The all powerful Lion of Juah comes in the weakness and meekness of a lamb destined for death. This is the Lamb who went uncomplaining forth as sacrifice for the sins of the world. It this slaughtered lamb who stands. Not a lifeless, butchered carcass hanging of a meat hook, but a Lamb now standing with seven horns depicting His power and seven eyes with are the seven spirits of God now penetrating all creation. He is the Lamb who forever bears the mark of nail and sphere, rich wounds in beauty glorified as the hymn puts it. He is the Lamb to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.

The Lamb alone can open the scroll which He receives from God’s own hand. When He opens it the twenty-four elders and that quartet of living creatures, strange as they are sing a new song. It is not the ancient dirge that recounts the sad and predictable saga of sin and always ends with death devouring its prey. It is not the archaic song of unbroken bondage. It is not the ponderous chorus of prisoners plodding along a path that has condemnation and death as its destiny. It is the new song. It is the Easter song that bids hearts to awake with gladness and see what this day has done. It is the song of the Paschal Lamb who sets us free for He was slain and by His blood, He has ransomed people for God of every tribe and language and people and nation and He has made us a kingdom, priests to His God and our God who will reign on earth forever.

We are not left to be slaves of sin, the property of the devil, and the victim of death. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, His open scroll reveals that His open tomb gives you a hope and a future. Some of you are anxious today because decisions will be made today and tomorrow about your future. Where will you go on vicarage, internship; where, if anywhere, you will you be called to serve as pastor? Your future is not locked up with those decisions. The scroll is open, never to be closed again. Your future is not with the Placement Committee; your future is with the Lamb who alone is worthy.  He has redeemed us that we may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity. Worthy indeed is the Lamb for He has made you a kingdom of priests to His God and Father to reign with Him forever! Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.  

Obare Sermon at the Consecrations of Nordic Bishops Väisänen and Gustafsson

Sermon preached by The Most Rev. Dr. Walter Obare, Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya, on the occasion of the consecration in Helsinki of the Right Rev. Matti Väisänen as Bishop for Finland (20 March 2010) and in Gothenburg/Sweden of the Right Rev. Roland Gustafsson as Presiding Bishop of the Mission Province (27 March 2010).

Text: St. Matthew 28:18-20

Grace and peace to you from Him who is, who was and who is to come, from Jesus Christ, who loves us and has freed us from sin by his blood. Amen.

Our text on this great occasion is the Great Commission given us by the King of kings, the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. I want to divide this sermon text into sub-topics as follows:

• All authority
• Do not disown Jesus and his Gospel
• I am in debt
• And teaching them

 May I emphasize these words in the very beginning: “All authority.”

Authority is not from men. It is not from bishops, not from your Presiding Bishop Arne Olsson of the Mission Province who is leading this consecration; not even from me as the Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya. No, the authority is from God the Father, given to his Son Jesus Christ who fulfilled the work of redemption on the Cross and is now the risen Lord.

The King Jesus Christ gives his order to his disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations!”

Bishop Elect! You are here and now a servant of God. Do not ask any authority from men, neither from civil nor from ecclesiastical authorities, not even from the global world view as most church leaders want to do so these days. You must be a faithful servant of your King and Saviour, which is Jesus Christ alone. He has given to you the sure Means of Grace: Go and baptize, go and preach the Gospel, go and administer the Lord’s Supper to his people.

Don’t Disown Jesus and his Gospel

You are saved by the Gospel. You have heard the most efficient words from the mouth of the preacher of the Gospel when you were told these words: “Your sins are forgiven!” These words were spoken to you at your Baptism, in the words of Absolution and at the altar in Holy Communion. You are saved by these very words, as Dr. Luther – may he rest in peace! – teaches us in his Small Catechism: “Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”

The same is said by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.” These are the words that will bring salvation to Finland, Sweden, Europe, Africa and even to the ends of the world.

 I Am in Debt

 Two verses previous to the text I referred to, in Rom. 1:14, Paul writes that he is obligated to preach the Gospel to all, to Greeks and non-Greeks, to the wise and to the foolish, that is, to all people, even to the inhabitants of the capital city of Rome. The famous English theologian and preacher John Stott translates the word “obligated” as “to be in debt." So Paul is in debt to the Romans and to all people.

What Paul meant then, and what I mean today is this: First the Gospel to all nations was preached to the Jews, then to the Roman world; later it was preached to the Scandinavian countries, including Fennoscandia, that is Suomi/Finland too.

And then those who were saved by God’s grace, by the Gospel of Christ’s fulfilled redemptive work, were "in debt." They were obligated to preach the Gospel to other countries, for instance to Africa and hence to us in Kenya. They had received some-thing intended “for all nations” – as the Great Commission clearly states – and it was now their duty to take this treasure and preach the most precious message, the Gospel, to those who had not yet heard it.

In Kenya we had missionaries from all Scandinavian nations and so through them myself and many of my countrymen have received the Gospel and salvation. In behalf of our church body, I am here in turn to pay our debt and so preach the Gospel, God’s power of salvation, to you. Especially your younger generation needs to be helped. They need those who will lead them into the Word of God, not into speculations of our post-modern philosophies and worldviews. Those young men who have a call from God and yet are denied the right to preach the Gospel in their own church bodies, for them I am here today with other bishops to help them to have the possibility to serve their King according to their calling. Let them be faithful servants of Christ and his Church through your work as their bishop and shepherd.

And Teaching Them

The baptized children of God need to be taught to help them obey everything the King Jesus Christ has commanded us. We are living in a time of neo-paganism. Even in the churches of Christ, all the old pagan lifestyles have been re-introduced, such as homosexual behaviour – which is really Baal worship – that is back in the church with full force. Let’s take note of its official approval in the Episcopal Church of America, in the Church of Sweden, in the largest Lutheran church body in Canada, in the Anglican Church etc. And the ELCA is even dropping one of the Lutheran “solas,” “Scripture alone,” from their doctrinal position.

What does it mean that a married pastor divorces his wife whom he has children, in order to get “married” to a person of the same sex? Or that people in a same gender relationship are ordained to the holy ministry or consecrated to serve as bishops?

But to you, my Brother and fellow Bishop, and to all listening to me here and now, clergy and laity, men and women, young and old. Remember that you are called into the priesthood of all believers, to teach and preach faithfully the Word of God: the Law of God, which kills all sinners, and the pure Gospel, which raises up those dead in their sins and gives new life to sinners in Christ the King.

The Great Blessing

The Great Commission of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not only a commandment, yes, it is that. But it ends with a great blessing. Jesus himself promised it, and he cannot lie. He said: “And surely I am with you until the end of the age.”

I know that you will have to endure many challenges in your work as a bishop. You will work among people in our paganised world. You may lack resources to run the small church you are called to serve as bishop, but remember the words of Isaiah from the Lord to the kingdom of Judah: “Emmanuel: God with us.”

He is the one promising the blessing of his presence with you to the very end of the age.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. Amen.

New? Old? Recycled? Historical Prolegomena to the New Perspectives on Paul

by Armand J. Boehme

Since the seminal essays by Krister Stendahl, the “New Perspectives on Paul” (NPP) has been contrasted with the old perspective on Paul. Some theological works, however, seem to indicate that the NPP theology is not as new as it claims to be. This brief study looks into some theological prehistory to the NPP to see what might be there.

First, a summary of various points found in the NPP’s theological spectrum is helpful. The NPP desires to free Paul from what is seen as his Lutheran imprisonment. Luther, Calvin, and other Reformation-era theologians are viewed as having erred in their understanding of justification in Paul’s theology. The NPP theologians understand Second Temple Judaism as a religion of grace rather than as one of legalism and salvation through the law. Paul did not wrestle with angst over sin as did Luther. Justification is not central to Paul’s theology. Justification is not a theology of grace in opposition to a theology of Jewish works. Rather justification is a way of emphasizing the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church. Justification is not forensic in character. Rather it is analytic, for it includes the enabling of a new, transformed, regenerated, effective, sanctified Christian life. With Christ dwelling in the individual, the Christian truly becomes righteous. There is no pious fiction of a declaration or imputation of Christ’s righteousness, for justification is a process of being made righteous over a period of time. Thus justification is more of a future hope. Positive statements about imputed righteousness (if they are made) are always tied to the inner renewal or transformation of the Christian. The great majority of the NPP theology denies any imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Entrance into God’s covenant community is by grace, but retaining one’s status depends on one’s covenant faithfulness, one’s obedient sanctified life. Faith is almost always understood to be the human faithfulness of those living in the covenant community of the church. There is a corresponding emphasis on God’s covenant faithfulness as well. The faith of Christ is emphasized more than faith in Christ. Justification has to do with liberation from sin. Paul’s theology is not as much concerned with individual conversion and salvation as it is with inclusion in the covenant community of the people of God.

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New? Old? Recycled? Historical Prolegomena to the New Perspectives on Paul [by Armand J. Boehme]

Since the seminal essays by Krister Stendahl, the “New Perspectives on Paul” (NPP) has been contrasted with the old perspective on Paul. Some theological works, however, seem to indicate that the NPP theology is not as new as it claims to be. This brief study looks into some theological prehistory to the NPP to see what might be there.

First, a summary of various points found in the NPP’s theological spectrum is helpful. The NPP desires to free Paul from what is seen as his Lutheran imprisonment. Luther, Calvin, and other Reformation-era theologians are viewed as having erred in their understanding of justification in Paul’s theology. The NPP theologians understand Second Temple Judaism as a religion of grace rather than as one of legalism and salvation through the law. Paul did not wrestle with angst over sin as did Luther. Justification is not central to Paul’s theology. Justification is not a theology of grace in opposition to a theology of Jewish works. Rather justification is a way of emphasizing the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church. Justification is not forensic in character. Rather it is analytic, for it includes the enabling of a new, transformed, regenerated, effective, sanctified Christian life. With Christ dwelling in the individual, the Christian truly becomes righteous. There is no pious fiction of a declaration or imputation of Christ’s righteousness, for justification is a process of being made righteous over a period of time. Thus justification is more of a future hope. Positive statements about imputed righteousness (if they are made) are always tied to the inner renewal or transformation of the Christian. The great majority of the NPP theology denies any imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Entrance into God’s covenant community is by grace, but retaining one’s status depends on one’s covenant faithfulness, one’s obedient sanctified life. Faith is almost always understood to be the human faithfulness of those living in the covenant community of the church. There is a corresponding emphasis on God’s covenant faithfulness as well. The faith of Christ is emphasized more than faith in Christ. Justification has to do with liberation from sin. Paul’s theology is not as much concerned with individual conversion and salvation as it is with inclusion in the covenant community of the people of God.

Download the full article (in pdf, 911 KB) by Armand J. Boehme

The New Perspective on Paul

Eastertide 2010, Volume XIX, Number 2Table of Contents

(A feature article from the journal: So You Think Luther Was a Monk? Stop It! by Kenneth Hagen)

How many times have you read in English the stereotypical line, “Martin Luther became an Augustinian monk in 1505 and was ordained a priest two years later”? However, in the same issue of Calliope Mary Morton Cowan correctly wrote, “Actually he became a friar.” 2 Here is a sample of the cliché “Luther was a monk” from the Internet and even from a published book:

 Although he would forever change Christianity, Martin Luther was a German monk who rose in his own rank to become a theologian, a reformer, and most importantly, a prominent figure who began asking deeper questions about the Bible and society.

Martin Luther (10 November 1483–18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor, theologian, and church reformer.

“How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World.”

Even such a respected and established scholar as Scott Hendrix has Luther as “monk” plastered all over his book: “He was a sixteenth-century monk, priest, and professor in Wittenberg.” Confusion? Yes. Consider this: “Luther addressed his Latin treatise to his brother monks of the Augustinian order in Wittenberg” (AE 36: 130). “Brother monks”? Talk about an oxymoron.

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The dictatorship of relativism strikes back—and goes nuclear

Some ecumenical thoughts at Holy Week 2010 from John Stephenson

The secular press has had it in for Joseph Ratzinger for going on three decades. Before his election as Pope in the spring of 2005, he was routinely derided in his homeland as the Panzerkardinal (“tank cardinal”) and caricatured in North America as the “Enforcer” or even the “Rottweiler.” The roots of this negative reputation stretch back at least as far as the book-length interview he granted to the Italian journalist Vittorio Messori that catapulted him to global fame when published as The Ratzinger Report in 1985. Prior to that juncture, as a heavyweight German academic who had leapfrogged over a major episcopal see (Munich-Freising) to become a leading official in the Roman curia (as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) under the still new John Paul II, Ratzinger’s was hardly a household name.

But shrewd observers must wonder about the startling disproportion between the enormous hue and cry artificially whipped up by the media and the softly spoken real life figure who seems always to have avoided hyperbole like the plague. Even though the curial department over which he presided for almost a quarter century is the direct heir to the 16^th-century Inquisition, the disciplinary measures dealt out by Ratzinger against barely a score of wildly Modernist (actually mostly apostate) theologians over more than two decades add up to a string of fairly mild censures, gentle slaps on the wrist in most cases. Hans Küng lost the right to teach theology as an accredited representative of the magisterium (as his missio canonica was stripped from him), but (despite his clear disavowal of the divinity of Christ!) retained his status as an incardinated (=rostered) Roman Catholic priest, and he has, well, greatly profited in fame and fortune from his much trumpeted role as Rome’s chief dissident. Had he rather than Ratzinger landed in the chair of cardinal prefect back in the early 1980s, the media would have shown no sympathy for the advocates of traditional Christianity that a totalitarian liberal such as Küng would have hounded to the remotest margins of Church life; ironically, there is no more illiberal force on earth than a liberal with his hands on the levers of power.

 Moreover, when someone takes the trouble to examine Ratzinger’s huge opus over close to six decades as a professional theologian, they make the discovery that he occupies a centrist position in the constellation of modern Roman Catholic theology; he is at most mildly “conservative”, the “ultra-conservative” label routinely affixed to him by most sections of the press being sheerly laughable.

As I set forth the Roman Catholic reality in our St. Catharines Religious Bodies (Comparative Symbolics) course, I point out the current uneasy coexistence of three groupings in that vast church body.

Modernism on the rampage (or the elephant actually destroying the living room)

In the one corner are the media-supported Modernists, those who do not acknowledge the definitive quality of God’s unsurpassable self-revelation in Christ, and who thus regard faith and practice not as givens to be handed down intact but as man-made constructs to be refashioned at whim according to the capricious desire of succeeding generations. Roundly condemned and solemnly proscribed by Pius X (1903-1914) and still held back to a great extent by Pius XII (1939-1958), the Modernists crawled out of the woodwork during the reign of John XXIII (1958-1963), and Modernism swiftly rose to a dominant position in Roman Catholic theology in, with, under, and around the (sixteen) officially promulgated documents of Vatican II (1962-1965).

As a young theologian, Ratzinger attended Vatican II as a peritus (=expert) of somewhat “progressive” tendencies. By Council’s close he was uneasy over the tone and content of its last document, Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World. Shocked to the core by the virulently anti-Christian positions embraced even by theology students (led by such figures as the radical Tübingen exegete Ernst Käsemann) in the student uprisings of 1968 (Achtundsechziger [“68ers”] is an actual word in modern German), Ratzinger firmed up his centrist credentials and switched his support from the left-leaning magazine Concilium (the house organ of Küng & Co.) to the middle of the road Communio (the substitute publication of von Balthasar and friends).

Clearly, the Modernists who surged forth to theological dominance in the wake of Vatican II have never forgiven Ratzinger for his “betrayal” of their cause; in their books (literally, in the case of Küng’s interminable memoirs) he is and remains a cross between Brutus and Judas Iscariot. At least some of his media woes are attributable to the Modernists’ insatiable thirst for revenge for, say, his pointed critique of Gaudium et spes written ten years after the close of the Council. But these pages of sober commentary are surely sweet music to orthodox Lutheran ears. Yes, Vatican II was infected by the dementedly schwärmerisch optimism of the Kennedy era (Principles of Catholic Theology, 372; 383). Yes, Gaudium et spes considers the “world” a positive entity, with which it seeks dialogue and cooperation with a view to building jointly with it a better global state of affairs (Principles, 379f.). Had he lived much longer, Hermann Sasse, who was careful to register both the strengths and the weaknesses of Vatican II, would surely have added his Yea and Amen to Ratzinger’s analysis of Gaudium et spes.

As they still pretend that everything in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic garden is fine and dandy, the Modernists undoubtedly continue greatly to resent Ratzinger’s telling Vittorio Messori in the early 1980s how “we must speak …of a crisis of faith and of the Church” (Ratzinger Report, 44; “the gravity of the crisis,” 62;  “in this confused period, when truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith,” 105). Later in the same decade I headed the first chapter of CLD’s Eschatology volume “General Apostasy: the Sign of our Time.” Guess what? Ratzinger, the GAFCON Anglicans, and I are spot on. Might there be something slightly fishy in the direction ELCA, ELCiC, TEC (the US Episcopalians), and the Anglican Church of Canada have been heading lately? The Modernists and their media allies would much prefer that no one notice these developments.

The traditionalist rump

In the opposite corner to the Modernists who can do no wrong in the eyes of the mainstream media stands the numerically much smaller traditionalist minority that can do no right. When did you last read a fair account of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) in the “quality” press? When did you ever read there an objective appraisal of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) that Lefebvre founded to withstand the Modernist juggernaut that came out of the Council? But the sainted Professor Marquart would have rejoiced at the clear profession of Ac 4:11-12 (“no other Name”) with which the SSPX politely responded to Benedict XVI’s address at the Jewish synagogue in Rome on Sunday 17 January 2010 (http://www.dici.org/en/?p=4263). After Archbishop Lefebvre (without papal permission) ordained four bishops in 1988 to continue his work, he and they incurred automatic excommunication, with the result that the SSPX has (paradoxically, given its deepest intent) been out of communion with Rome since that date.

With his vast breadth of learning and his generosity of spirit towards the Orthodox and the heirs of the Reformation (especially the Lutherans: “The Lutherans are to Ratzinger what the Orthodox are to John Paul: the separated brethren he knows best, and for whom he has the greatest natural affinity.” John Allen, Cardinal Ratzinger, 231), Ratzinger is far removed from the wavelength of the SSPX and of the former members of that body who have returned to full communion with Rome under the auspices of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). Of course, these groups are well aware that it is humanly impossible for them to face a more favourable occupant of the papal chair in the foreseeable future, with the result that the SSPX has lately toned down its anti-papal polemics and willingly begun to participate in a theological dialogue with the CDF.

In the centre receiving shots from both (all) sides

Ratzinger belongs to the centrist mass of Roman Catholics who accept Vatican II, but decline to see the Council (as do Küng & Co.) as a brutal rupture with the foregoing tradition. To understand his papal programme (inasmuch as we may talk of such a thing), we must realise that he is endeavouring to steer his massive ecclesial ship back into a centrist channel after a good forty years of disastrous leftward lurch—just consider the pitiful liturgical shambles that emerged from Paul VI’s Novus Ordo of 1969, causing Hermann Sasse to remark in his last years how Rome had suddenly “canonised St. Zwingli.” A few years ago, in his new capacity as Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger coined the phrase “hermeneutic of continuity” to describe an approach to Vatican II that seeks to interpret its documents in harmony with what went before. A major task awaits orthodox Lutheran theology in the shape of updating Chemnitz’s Examen Concilii Tridentini by performing the same service for the documents of Vatican II. Applying the hermeneutic of continuity to these texts, a Chemnitz of our time would discern areas of interconfessional agreement and rapprochement, on the one hand, and of ongoing dissent and debate, on the other.

As, in company with his predecessor on the papal throne, Ratzinger has occupied Rome’s middle ground, significant differences of interpretation and emphasis have certainly existed between the close colleagues. With his undying commitment to Gaudium et spes, Woytyla was some degrees to the “left” of Ratzinger, who is very much a man of Lumen Gentium, the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. As he approved my copious quotations from Ratzinger in the CLD volume on Eschatology, the sainted Robert Preus commented to me that Raztinger (whom he respected) was “more Catholic in the best sense” than the Pope under whom he served.

By the way, the world still hates, loathes, & detests Christ and His Church!

In addition to the unremitting hostility directed at him from the Modernist wing of his own Communion, even prior to his election as Pope, Ratzinger was a favourite target of the unbelieving world’s impassioned hatred for Christ Jesus our Lord and the members of His mystical body. Some years ago, the British Daily Telegraph (which at one time had the reputation of being a “quality” newspaper) reported that the then cardinal had committed a terrible “gaffe” by publicly expressing hope for the conversion of the Jews. Fancy that, a Christian wishing salvation for a sizeable group of his neighbours, a faux pas indeed! A Google search has confirmed my memory that British journalists were likewise incensed by the then cardinal’s comparison of Buddhism with spiritual autoeroticism. How scandalous that a Christian spokesman should speak candidly of religions that offer a spurious salvation!

The Canadian mainstream media were frenziedly sharpening their knives against Joseph Ratzinger in the weeks when he was a strong candidate to succeed John Paul II. His papacy was barely a few hours old when the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) evening news ran a segment on an aged Italian woman (a “good Catholic”, of course) who stood crestfallen amid a jubilant crowd as Benedict XVI appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s, walking dejectedly away as she realized that women’s ordination, contraception, sexual licence, abortion on demand, and all that good stuff would still be denied the papal seal of approval. That bloody hatchet job had been carefully prepared way ahead of a cardinal’s booming “Habemus papam—reverendissimum dominum Josephum Cardinalem Ratzinger” from the balcony!

Reason was thrown to the winds and sheer hysteria set in on Benedict XVI’s second visit to his German homeland, when he delivered a thoughtful lecture to the University of Regensburg in his capacity as emeritus professor of its faculty of theology. How sheerly outrageous that Ratzinger dared quote a harassed Byzantine emperor to the effect that Islam first conquers and then sustains itself by the sword! As the media, with the BBC in the forefront, stoked Islamic wrath and liberal outrage, they failed to state that the orchestrated acts of violence that rapidly broke out from one end of the Islamic world to the other only corroborated the simple, incontestable fact that Islam is, well, not quite a religion of peace as President Bush once fantasised.

Remarkably, when the press manufactured further storms of outrage on his lifting of the excommunications still hanging over the four remaining SSPX bishops in January 2009, one of the strongest defences made of Benedict XVI in his homeland came from the word processor of Germany’s leading orthodox Lutheran theologian. Gottfried Martens once told me that he shares Joseph Ratzinger’s appraisal of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, namely that he also takes the view that the laboriously achieved document does not in fact represent an authentic, deeply based agreement on the topic in question. And yet, with much greater clarity and conviction that most German Roman Catholic spokesmen could muster, Dr. Martens pointed out in his parish newsletter that the Pope had simply smoothed the way for talks between the SSPX and the CDF by graciously lifting the excommunication of the four renegade bishops; he had not granted them a recognized public ministry in the Roman Catholic Church—they remain unrostered, to use our terminology; and least of all did he knowingly “rehabilitate” a Holocaust denier. But instead of surfing in search of better information to http://www.logia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79&catid=39:web-forum&Itemid=18, the mainstream media take every opportunity to add the charge of “rehabilitating a Holocaust denier” to their already lengthy list of Ratzinger’s many sins. The day after his election to the papacy, the headline of a British tabloid read, “From Hitler Youth to Papa Ratzi!” For as is well known, conscripted teenagers forced into the collapsing armies of the Third Reich shared all the guilt of the worst war criminals, especially if these young men happened to be German nationals.

The negative reaction aroused already by the Ratzinger Report laid bare the sheer fury shared by Roman Catholic Modernists and the unbelieving world in general against anyone who dares to intimate that the historic Christian religion is, to put it bluntly, true. Neither apostates within Holy Christendom nor naked unbelievers outside her borders will ever forgive Ratzinger for the grave breach of secularist, pluralist etiquette involved in the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth. It goes without saying (and around the Holy Week of each year the several forms of mainstream media say it loudly, often, and emphatically) that Jesus was an ordinary man, a wacko apocalyptist, or a failed political revolutionary. Stones must fly and clubs be brandished against a learned man fully familiar with all the “Jesus of history” literature from Reimarus to the present, who winsomely draws on believing scholarship of all confessions to offer a calm and cogent argument that the real, actual Jesus is the one who meets us in the Gospel record. Where the North American liberal intelligentsia can offer no refutation, they spit contempt. And a Western Europe sunk in a new heathenism and undergoing Islamic takeover can only howl at this attempt to arrest its suicidal downward slide.

Preaching the homily at the opening Eucharist of the 2005 papal conclave, an address that he likely regarded as his swan song before heading back to private life in a Bavarian retirement, Ratzinger dared to call a spade a spade by drawing attention to la dittatura del relativismo, a now familiar phrase that surely needs no translation. So, as even more lamentable reports surface of the horror of sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests and religious brothers, it goes without saying that the secular press has tried, convicted, and executed Ratzinger for a string of alleged cover-ups as archbishop, cardinal, and Pope. The declining John Paul II may indeed have been somewhat remiss in addressing this evil, but the press, spoon-fed by Roman Catholic Modernists, cannot be expected to highlight insignificant details such as the fact that Benedict XVI has vigorously addressed this issue from the first days of his papacy (remember the disciplining of Fr. Maciel, once the protecting hand of the former Pope was withdrawn?). The Manchester Guardian (another allegedly “quality” newspaper from the UK) announced the other day that, for twenty-four years, Ratzinger failed to act on clerical sexual abuse of children; its journalists forgot to mention that the issue was only directly handed to his congregation in 2001! (Check out http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/keeping-record-straight-benedict-and-crisis ) When guilt is foreordained and execution already carried out, mere supporting evidence is of no account. Barely a week ago the New York Times headlined the “news” that, as cardinal prefect in 1996, Ratzinger quashed the canonical trial of a priest of the Milwaukee archdiocese accused (and believably guilty) of unspeakable crimes. There is no likelihood of the NYT apologising for its barefaced lie, uttered after it declined to interview the canon lawyer who presided over the judicial proceedings in Milwaukee. http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601 According to him, the canonical process was still in full swing when the accused priest died; we can’t expect the secular press to get the point that the case then moved to the final court of appeal.

Christendom as a whole is under attack

In a letter to the Sunday Telegraph published in that newspaper’s 28 March 2010 edition (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7528487/The-religious-rights-of-Christians-are-treated-with-disrespect.html), five Evangelical bishops of the Church of England have politely drawn attention to the increasing volume of persecution of Christians in England and, in a governessy sort of way, insisted that the antichristian forces in British society cease and desist forthwith. The bishops’ reproach fell somewhat short of white-hot prophetic vigour: “We are deeply concerned at the apparent discrimination shown against Christians and we call on the Government to remedy this serious development.”

As the bishops’ letter begins with a protest over the case of a middle-aged English nurse dismissed for insisting on displaying, when on duty, a crucifix that she has worn since her confirmation decades ago, it demonstrates how British society in particular (along with European society in general) has lurched dramatically back to a stage prior to the work of the much maligned Constantine the Great. While the bishops’ concern is genuine and the issue they address real, one wonders whether they are taking the right approach. Can we picture Peter and Paul, around the year 68, stamping their feet and stressing the paramount need for Nero to respect the human rights of the nascent Christian community in Rome? Can we get our hands on evidence that the bishops and other ecclesial spokesmen of the day adopted the tone of these Anglican Evangelical prelates toward Decius and Diocletian? More to the point, can we imagine Diocletian, Decius, and Nero meekly agreeing to “remedy the serious developments” that had occurred on their respective imperial watches? Rather than issuing impotent appeals to the successive beasts that arise from the earth, bishops are to prepare and equip the Christian faithful to undergo the fires of tribulation that the Lord permits to come their way. For, make no doubt about it, the days of Diocletian and Decius and perhaps of Nero also are fast returning to the Western world.

Not in the same ballpark as Leo X & Co.

Orthodox Lutherans would have to be churlish in the extreme if they could not spare an ounce of affection for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as perhaps the first Pope in history to have a good idea what the Lutheran Reformation was and is all about, and, moreover, to have at least a shred of sympathy for its core concerns. In his writings Ratzinger routinely quotes Luther from the Weimar Edition and the Confessions from Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht’s edition of the Bekenntnisschriften; not all Lutheran professors of theology do the same. His aversion to the philosophical trajectory of Karl Rahner took concrete form in Ratzinger’s preference for the Bible and the Church Fathers, especially Augustine, over Thomas Aquinas (see Milestones, 44, 52f., 128f.). Isn’t this how we too want to do theology?

The following quotations randomly chosen from a couple of his works show that Ratzinger “gets it” in a way that the Renaissance (and Tridentine?) Popes did not. For starters, some words from the Ratzinger Report on sacramental confession, where the cardinal spoke of “the seriousness of the encounter between two persons aware of being in the presence of the shattering mystery of Christ’s forgiveness that arrives through the words and gestures of a sinful man” (Ratzinger Report, 57). And then:  

...at the inmost core of the new commission [Mt 18:15-18; Jn 20:23], which robs the forces of destruction of their power, is the grace of forgiveness. It constitutes the Church. The Church is founded upon forgiveness. ...The Church is by nature the home of forgiveness, and it is thus that chaos is banished from within her. She is held together by forgiveness …she is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness (Called to Communion, 64).

And:

…we are all in need of forgiveness, which is the heart of all true reform. …The Church is not a communion of those “who have no need of the physician” (Mk 2:17) but a communion of converted sinners who live by the grace of forgiveness and transmit it themselves. …I believe that the core of the spiritual crisis of our time has its basis in the obscuration of the grace of forgiveness (Called to Communion, 148f.).

Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue got off to a skewered start at the very outset when Luther proposed a discussion on soteriology only to have Sylvester Prierias (in terms of curial office the 1981-2005 Ratzinger of that day) use ecclesiastical strong-arm tactics with a distorted account of Scripture and tradition by way of response. If a formal dialogue were ever to take place between the orthodox Lutheran Churches of the world and the Holy See, some critical questions would certainly need to be posed, and spirited discussion would certainly ensue. Perhaps another perspective might be offered on the 11^th-century Cluniac Reform from the account given by Benedict XVI in his catechesis of 11 November 2009: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20091111_en.html. And maybe we might explore a little further Ratzinger’s rationale for priestly celibacy, in the course of which he made the barbed remark that the married clergy of the East are not real pastors, just liturgical ministers (Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millennium, 199). Ouch! Should a panel of our theologians ever sit down with a group of their Roman Catholic counterparts, concern might be raised that Benedict XVI has been somewhat profligate in his granting of indulgences, a form of bounty that all Lutherans will forever denounce as counterfeit spiritual currency. As Easter of 2010 approaches, though, if for no other reason than that we remember Martin Niemöller’s post-war regret at not having spoken up for the Jews in due season, we might fitly major in sympathy, understanding, and prayer for the courteous and learned aged prelate who is right now a walking target for innumerable hellish darts launched by theological Modernists and by the unbelieving world that have between them zero tolerance for any crisp, clear, and confident confession of Christ Jesus our Incarnate God.

The Church’s Right to Perform Marriages in Light of the Norwegian Marriage Act of 2008

Editor's note—I opened an address to the 2003 meeting of the North European Luther Academy, held in Hango, Finland (subsequently published as “The Church and the End” in Logia XVI: 35-39), with the remark that,“Canada and Scandinavia have more in common than northerly latitudes and cold weather.” The cultural developments I had in mind include an avalanche of anti-family and anti-life legislation made possible by the gradual marginalization and suppression of Holy Christendom in the public life of these nations. An ecumenical working party in Norway (consisting with one exception of figures outside the established Church of Norway) has lately explored the implications for the Churches of that country’s decision, in legislation enacted in 2008, to follow Canada in the promulgation of same sex marriage. One of the authors of the report printed below, which was sent to me already translated, tells me that conservatives in the Church of Norway have expressed strong dissent from their conclusion that clergy should surrender their longstanding right to perform weddings on behalf of the State. The question here addressed is acutely relevant to contemporary Canada, and is becoming increasingly topical in the United States also as we head into the second decade of the twenty-first century. My hunch is that the report’s analysis and conclusions are equally valid on this side of the Atlantic. —John Stephenson

 Introduction

The changes in the institution of marriage that result from the new Norwegian Marriage Act of 2008 break with the Christian understanding of marriage and family life. Christians have therefore asked what implications this legislation will have for registered religious denominations to which the Norwegian government grants by delegation the right to solemnize marriages [den vigelsrett som ved delegasjon er gitt kirkesamfunnene], thus providing an alternative to a purely secular ceremony. 

About twenty private persons from different denominations met in Oslo in May 2009 to discuss this situation. Representatives of various Christian communities met in Bergen in August to discuss strategy. During a meeting in Oslo in October, a committee was appointed to report on the consequences of a renouncement of the ecclesial right to perform marriages.

 The committee, consisting of Pastor Jan Bygstad, Vicar-General Roald N. Flemestad, Professor Bernt T. Oftestad, Pastor Reidar Paulsen, and Professor Helge J. Thue, herewith presents its report, stating the reasons for its recommendations.

 The report begins with an ideological criticism of the new marriage law. Then it sketches the Christian understanding of marriage. As a consequence of the real opposition between the governmental marriage ideology and the traditional view of marriage, we then clarify juridical alternatives for a church wedding ceremony independent of the state. Finally, we encourage Christian denominations and congregations to surrender the right to perform marriages recognized by the state. 

Gender-neutral marriage is incompatible with the Christian faith

With the new marriage law that took effect on 1 January 2009, persons of the same gender have the opportunity to enter into marriage. This has caused changes in the Law on Biotechnology and the Child Law to the effect that women living in lesbian relationships now have the right to conceive children by artificial insemination. Furthermore, the father’s rights in relation to children conceived by artificial insemination have been revoked, as these are given a “co-mother” instead of their biological father. Thus the institution of marriage is altered to be a state recognition of “love” (cf. Odelsting Proposition. no. 33, 2007-2008) between two people, regardless of their gender, sexual attraction, or biological capability of procreating their own children.

Rejecting marriage as a social arrangement based on biological realities tied to the family as the fundamental social cell, the new marriage law breaks with the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights of 1996. The convention, which was adopted as internal Norwegian law in 1999  (The Human Rights Act of 21 May 1999 no. 30), is based on the assumption that marriage involves both man and woman, and that the family as the basic unit in society is entitled to the protection of the state. Other human rights conventions as well as innumerable special conventions on marriage involve only heterosexual relations.

The biblical belief in Creation understands marriage in a similar way. God established the fellowship of one man and one woman before the Fall as a means of procreation. In this way the polarity of the sexes is one of the most fundamental characteristics of human life. The physical embrace of man and woman serves God’s purpose. Corporeality is God’s good gift to man; there is therefore no ontological dualism between the spiritual and the material.

The idea of a same-gender marriage separates sexual intercourse from the natural order. Unrelated to procreation, the sexual act is understood as a kind of “pure love” without any other basis than the erotic. The individual thus seeks intimacy outside the framework of the family. If in such a relationship the desire to have a child should arise, it cannot be realized in a natural way. Detached from the polarity of gender, the child must be constructed by means of medical technology.

When human biological identity is denied, artificial insemination appears as “Mankind coming of Age”—man’s dominion over nature—a kind of victory for spirit over matter. The corporeal is understood as a barrier that humans as spiritual beings try to overcome, wishing to achieve their full potential. The ideology in the new family legislation therefore decisively breaks with the fundamental idea of the Bible that God has created humans as man and woman, so that they together “become one flesh” (Gn 2:24, Mt 19:6).

A biblical perspective on marriage

That humans are created as man and woman is an important aspect of the creation of humans in the image of God (Gn 1:27). This gender difference is fundamental both for the creation of humans and for their self-understanding, and is therefore not accidental, but an expression of God’s creative will.

Marriage is founded by God (Gn 2:24), and is understood in accordance with the Holy Scripture as a public covenant of fidelity agreed to by one man and one woman. In this union God realizes His will, creating new life through the conception of children. Children are God’s most precious gift. The family, understood as the fellowship of mother and father and children, shall take care of the child’s right and need to know its biological parents and receive care from them as far as this is possible. Similarly, the family constitutes, as a God-given institution, the foundation of the rights and responsibilities of the parents. If the state intervenes in the authority of the family, it goes beyond its right.

Christian marriage is established  “in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:39). The life together of the two spouses has its model in the mutual love of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32). Thus the spouses are living out their calling in their daily life and under God’s promise (Col 3:23). Husband and wife shall honour and love each other and help each other “as being heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7). The Christian family is therefore called “the little church.” 

The right to perform marriages as a problem 

The marriage institution has both a private and a public side. In our modern society, people marry in accordance with regulations in public legislation. Moreover, in Norway we have the arrangement that a person conducting a wedding ceremony within a registered religious body can be given the right to perform marriages on behalf of the State.

The laws passed in 2008 radically changed the institution of marriage and the position of the family in society. They made it possible for persons of the same sex to marry and also enabled women in lesbian relationships to have children through artificial insemination while abolishing the father’s rights and duties in relation to children thus conceived.

Consequently, Norwegian legislation is no longer in agreement with the order of nature. Furthermore, the effects of the law not only break with the Christian faith and perception of reality, but also with our history and tradition.

It has thus become an unacceptable arrangement for churches to perform marriages on behalf of the state. Christian Churches cannot administer legislation that fundamentally breaks with Christian faith and teaching. This necessitates a reevaluation of the marriage practice of the churches, and raises the question whether religious communities may still collaborate with and assist the state in establishing marriage. In this situation the challenge for the Churches will be to find an ecclesiastical marriage practice that is theologically and juridically valid. 

Entering into marriage

Churches and congregations that give up the right to solemnize marriages must still ensure that spouses achieve a legal and economic structure for their married lives. In a number of countries the religious ceremony functions as an addition to civil marriage.

In the light of such a division, two models seem to be of particular interest.

One solution would be for the bride and groom first to be married by a judge. After this civil marriage, a full Church wedding would follow. This solution implies that the Church ceremony would “validate” the civil marriage as a legitimate Christian union. The newlyweds would thus get two marriage certificates, but the Church certificate would only have a religious and ecclesiastical validity.

A second possibility would be for the bride and groom to go through a full Church wedding without any registration with the civil authorities. The marriage would thus be founded on the Church community’s understanding of the meaning and obligations of the marriage vows. On this basis the Church community would issue a marriage certificate. Before the wedding, the bride and groom must have entered into a legally binding agreement on the main economic aspects of their marriage.

In the choice between the two models we would recommend the first-mentioned solution, since a heterosexual marriage recognized by the State is recognized abroad to a much greater extent than is cohabitation. 

Concluding recommendations

We encourage the Christian Churches and congregations that share our understanding of the new marriage and family legislation to give up the right to perform marriages on behalf of the State. There is a limit to how far Christian Churches and congregations can collaborate with a state that in a fundamental way breaks with both generally accepted and Christian norms for marriage.

Instead of a churchly right to conduct weddings by delegation from the State, we have in the foregoing sketched two alternative models for Christian marriage. The recommended solution is that the bride and groom first register a civil marriage with a judge followed by a fully valid Church wedding.

Another possibility is to have a Church wedding without civil registration, which means that the marriage would take place in a church, the legal and economic aspects of the life together first having been secured through relevant legislation and civil law agreements.

Both models presuppose that Christian religious communities prepare their own registers of weddings and marriage certificates. In the longer term one should attempt to make the authorities recognize the legal effect of a Church wedding without authorization in the present Norwegian family legislation.

Bergen and Oslo, 21 December 2009. Jan Bygstad (sign), Roald N. Flemestad (sign), Bernt Oftestad (sign), Reidar Paulsen (sign), Helge J. Thue (sign) 

Who’s afraid of a Minaret?

An article by Gert Kelter, translated by Wilhelm Torgerson, submitted and edited by John Stephenson, Registrar & Professor of Historical Theology at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St Catharines, Ontario.

Editor's note—This article appeared in the first 2010 issue of SELK Informationen, the monthly news service of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany. The author, Gert Kelter, is the pastor of Holy Ghost Church in Görlitz, which is geographically the easternmost parish of the SELK. Pr. Kelter also serves as Provost (Propst) of the Eastern Region (Sprengel Ost) of the SELK and as his church body’s spokesman on Ecumenical Relations. Provost Kelter’s article has been translated by Wilhelm Torgerson (“Torgy”), himself a retired pastor and provost of the SELK who was until recently director of the Wittenberg Project.

As the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano reported in its 11 December 2009 edition, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has criticized Switzerland’s decision not to allow the building of any more minarets on its territory. According to the Vatican newspaper, the second most important man in the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church maintains that the decision taken in the Swiss referendum arose from fear [Angst]. In Bertone’s view, “Plebiscite decisions should emerge from a certain perspective and be directed towards a positive goal.” Incidentally, the cardinal made his comments while being filmed in the Vatican by the Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera. In the referendum of 29 November 2009 about 58% of Swiss voters had approved a prohibition on the further construction of minarets in their country. Already before the referendum, Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the papal council on immigrants, had rejected the idea of a ban on minaret building. With Islamic states in mind, the archbishop went on to say that this principle stands even where there is no reciprocity with respect to rights and freedoms. [On 25 February 2010, Libya’s Colonel Gadaffhi branded Switzerland an “infidel state” and called for a jihad against it!—Tr.]. 

It pertains to the nature of Islam to divide the world into an “area of Islam” and an “area of war.” The Islamic community (umma) is called, indeed obliged, to wage so-called Holy War in order to achieve the gradual incorporation of the “area of war” into the “area of Islam.” Islam neither knows nor wants any distinction between politics and religion, between state and faith.

Of course, “holy war” can be waged peacefully and by all sorts of different means, but when necessary also by force. The full existence and orderly development of the Islamic umma in the form prescribed by the Koran can only occur when sharia, Islamic law, determines a society and achieves absolute validity within it. All effort directed towards expanding the area of Islam into the “area of war” consequently has the goal of establishing this sharia-determined order of society. Not only in Cairo, but equally in Cologne or Bern.

And for that you need majorities. Numerical and—eventually—political majorities. These can come about, as I mentioned before, completely without the use of force by way of the democratic process or of simple demographic developments.

“Minaret” simply means light tower. Its only function is to provide the muezzin with a platform from which he issues a call to prayer five times a day. The often forgotten catch in all this, though, is that we are not dealing here with a mere call to prayer, but with a proclamation of Islam’s claim to absoluteness. Conversely, ringing a church bell is actually “merely” a call to prayer. To make a direct comparison you would have to imagine a Christian verger (sexton) loudly chanting the Athanasian Creed from the church tower seven times a day (according to the schedule of the seven offices of prayer): “Whoever will be saved shall, above all else, hold the catholic faith. Which faith, except everyone keeps whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally”!

I’d like to see the German or European Court that would in this case plead the cause of freedom of religion if Muslims or atheists should feel harassed and insulted.

Even silent minarets speak volumes. The poster put up by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which advocated the ban on minarets, depicted them in the form of rockets perforating the Swiss flag. A rather demagogic image, to be sure. Yet it aptly illustrates the statement made a few years ago by the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, that minarets are “the bayonets of Islam.” Just think about that one for a moment!

By the way, why do minarets or even mosques in Western Europe have to look as if they came out of A Thousand and One Nights?  Manifestly, Islam has no intention of adapting itself or its architecture to our culture; it does not want to integrate; rather it wants to export its culture and order of society.

The old cigarette factory in the City of Dresden looks like a mosque with minarets, but it is a factory with chimneystacks and everyone considers it rather charming. And it certainly is true that the style of architecture is ultimately unimportant. What counts is who does the building and with what intent.

In 2002 the Church Leadership [Kirchenleitung—Governing Council] of the SELK published a document entitled Guide for Evangelical Lutheran Christians for Life Together with Muslims in Germany. It contains this crisp and clear statement: “(36) As a matter of principle Islam knows no distinction between the religious and the secular, or between service to God [Gottesdienst] and politics. The Koran and the sharia strongly aim to order the world under Islamic law. On account of this attitude the danger exists of mosques becoming places where appeals are issued to change the free and democratic order of our society. Yet not every mosque or mosque association aspires to such goals. (37) But the Christian faith cannot see even in the peaceful, moderate mosque ‘the beloved sister in faith.’ Rather, it sees itself summoned to witness before the mosque. And as every mosque is said to be ultimately a mission centre for Islam, so every Christian worshipping assembly should be a ‘city on the hill that cannot be hidden’ (Mt 5,14). The debate must be understood in spiritual terms and be determined not by power and honour, but by the cross of Christ and His sacrificial love.”

A Muslim who wants to be faithful to the Koran cannot therefore but cherish the wish and intention to establish an Islamic community in the place where he lives. The minaret does not automatically achieve this goal, but it does symbolize it. And the rulers in most Islamic states are well aware of the reverse impact: The building of churches is strictly prohibited on their territory. And one of the reasons for this policy is the symbolism such churches would project to the world around.

We have to decide what we want when we are confronted by the question of whether minarets are to be allowed. Viewed in isolation we are merely dealing with a building which—depending on one’s taste—we might consider beautiful or ugly, in harmony or disharmony with our city architecture. But from the viewpoint of Islamic theology minarets are the border posts of the Muslim umma placed in the non-Islamic “area of war.”

Fear? This is never a good advisor when decisions must be made on a rational basis. But in the case at hand it is not unfounded.

And we cannot counter this fear other than by the re-Christianizing of Europe. Islam has a good conscience—and from its own viewpoint justly so—when it advances into formerly Christian regions. What it finds there are for the most part not exactly deeply convinced supporters of the “religions of the book” as the Koran appraises them. Rather, it confronts the irreligious and—according to both Islamic and pristinely Christian tenets—immoral masses.

Thus it is quite understandable when the Islamic community is not terribly impressed by protests coming from those who are “unbelievers” not only according to Islamic principles.

But it is regrettable when we hear nothing from the churches but politically correct protests pandering to majority views and references to a certain “fear” that Rome too deems unfounded. Or should the cardinal’s words be understood differently?

Or perhaps the Cardinal Secretary of State was simply full of “fear” to do other than vent cheap indignation against the voters of Switzerland before the cameras of Al-Jazeera.

Book Review: A Little Book on Joy

Book Review: A Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Goods News Life in a Bad News World. By Matthew C. Harrison. Fort Wayne: Lutheran Legacy Press, 2009. 212 pages. Paperback. $9.99; quantity discount. Review by Robert C. Baker.

Reverend Matt Harrison’s newest book, A Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Good News Life in a Bad News World, could not have come at a better time. Ongoing political strife, regardless of one’s party or affiliation, an economy still severely weak in the knees, declining membership and shrinking bank accounts among mainline denominations, massive personal and governmental debt,  distrust of politicians and the political process, and the crushing power of nature—think Port-au-Prince—might give us cause for having no joy at all. But in steps Harrison, brushy mustachoed and bespectacled, Rough-Rider ready to storm the hill of gloom and despair. Bully! Or rather in the words of St. Paul, “Rejoice. . . again I say, rejoice!” It’s that refrain from Philippians 4:4 that reverberates throughout A Little Book of Joy.

Here, I must admit the appearance of this joy-filled book caught me a bit off guard. First, I was surprised at its release so soon after Harrison’s previous erudite tome, At Home in the House of My Fathers (Lutheran Legacy, 2009). I confess that I still have not finished reading many of the delightful and edifying essays from our Lutheran forefathers in that work, many of which were translated by Harrison from the German. Second, the title of A Little Book on Joy is itself a surprise since Lutherans, especially those claiming to be orthodox in both doctrine and pilsner, are often a dour bunch. Surely it is self-evident that Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee was written by a Presbyterian, not a Lutheran, although in defense we do have Bach cantatas and lutefisk and plenty of coffee. Yet A Little Book on Joy proves that when it comes to joy, other traditions have not cornered the market.

After a generous and rich “Prelude to this Ode of Joy” by the Rev. John Nunes, Harrison divides his newest work into twenty manageable chapters, each covering an aspect of joy and each taking an average reader 6-8 minutes to read. Peppered throughout are humorous illustrations by the Rev. Kurt D. Onken (Onken boldly captures the author on p. 152). The chapters are chock-full with Scripture, historical references, personal stories, and occasional explanations of Greek terms. Clearly, Harrison has done his homework. While the style of writing is conversational and engaging, A Little Book of Joy is no puff piece one might find in the spirituality shelves in the local Christian bookstore. Rather, Harrison writes as a husband, father, and pastor, covering a breadth of topics related to joy without sacrificing theological depth. Here systematic and applied theology are successfully wedded for the edification of the reader. Harrison is transparent, one might even say vulnerable, as he candidly tells stories from his own past. To reinforce the spiritual insights, each Scripture-drenched chapter ends with thought-provoking study questions penned by Professor John Pless. Yet, the book has even more surprises. Although subtitled, The Secret of Living a Good News Life in a Bad News World, closer inspection reveals a “secret” in each chapter. Take worship, for example. With his customary humility (although he is a big man, he is not proud), in chapter eleven Harrison expresses “surprise and wonder of not being rejected by Christ” (p. 80). Which theologian alive today would utter such a confession, much less publish it? Obviously, this theologian does. Here Harrison connects us to the historic liturgy of the Church, in which the Old Adam is crucified in repentance and the new man emerges full of Spirit-given faith and vigor. It is such man who can rejoice, as Harrison does, in the surprise and wonder of it all: “It’s the delight of being invited into his presence—not to perform or recount my deeds, but to be forgiven and accepted. . . Greatest wonder of wonders, the Lord rejoices precisely over sinners” (p. 80).

Such a confession, both of sins and sins forgiven, can only be forged in the crucible of experience, in being crucified with Christ. For those called by the Lord to serve the Church, that also occurs within the Church. Readers will find that A Little Book on Joy is no flight of fancy to a mystically and perfectly emerging, organic, and missional Church (apart from the Gospel preached and administered) this side of heaven. Rather, the paradox of holy Church in an unholy world is laid bare. Expounding upon Ephesians 5:25-27, 1 Timothy 3:15, and 1 Corinthians 12:1ff, Harrison writes, “[The Church] only appears in this world hidden under the guise of poor sinners, flawed leaders, tensions, divisions, and even false teaching. This is at once both disturbing and comforting” (p. 166). Disturbing to be sure, but as I often say, “The Gospel liberates us from the bondage of denial.” We can look pain, suffering, and death in the face with confidence, fortified with the sure knowledge of sins forgiven because of Christ, and radiating with the power of His resurrection. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus, we can endure our crosses because of the awesome joy God sets before us: eternal life with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth (Hebrews 12:2).

A Little Book of Joy closes with two unique features not commonly associated with devotional books. First, there is an afterword by reconciler Bernie Seter. Concerning the book Seter writes, “Matt kept his promise and didn’t try to give us a ‘joy-o-meter’. . . or ‘Ten Sure-Fire Ways to Put Joy into Your life.’ What he gave us was. . . Jesus.” Seter’s assessment is accurate. A second and final feature is a section consisting of daily Scripture texts and prayers that individuals or groups could use from Ash Wednesday through Pentecost, or any 90-day period upon which to reflect upon joy. If I have only one critical comment about the book, it is this: it is little. Although at 212 pages, the trim size does not permit a more exhaustive treatment. Harrison should consider expanding the work so that it contains 52 chapters, one for each week of the year. Additionally, I could see how some of the chapters could be arranged according to topics, from which a sermon series could be developed. However, for now A Little Book of Joy packs a big punch against the devil’s schemes to rob us of the great, spiritual gift of joy, and this little book does so by giving us Christ.

Robert C. Baker is Senior Editor of Adult Bible Studies at Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri

Book Review: A Giant Sleeper?

A book review of Waking the Sleeping Giant: The Birth, Growth, Decline, and Rebirth of an American Church. By Gerald B. Kieschnick, Concordia Publishing House, 2009. 288 pages. $16.99. By a contributing editor.

In the 15th century, a hodgepodge was a stew made from whatever vegetables and meat was on hand. In the case of the stew, the ingredients might or might not go together on their own but were cooked until they blended into a thick paste. In the case of Gerald Kieschnick’s Waking the Sleeping Giant, the book is a hodgepodge of stories, letters, emails, bullet points, convention overtures, Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) documents, statistics, quotations from the Lutheran Confessions, and the Scriptures thrown together and stewed into a book of 288 pages, including the appendices.

Perhaps anticipating potential questions why Kieschnick, a man not known for his literary works, was writing a book a few months before the 64th regular convention of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), he writes, “My life and ministry have been tested in the crucible of nearly 40 years of ministry in various roles in the LCMS. I believe I have something worth saying” (15). Indeed, most authors feel that they have something worth saying or they would not undertake the endeavor of ink to paper. Yet Kieschnick explains further, “a book is a vehicle in which information may be shared in a way that clarifies misunderstandings and refutes misinformation about many matters, including what this church body and its president believe, teach, and confess” (15). Precisely, what misinformation and misunderstandings he has in mind must be left to the reader’s inference from the topics he chooses to address.

One of Kieschnick's main points is that doctrine is a strength of the “sleeping giant” while dogmaticism is “non-productive,” that is, “becoming our own worse enemy.” In chapter two, Kieschnick produces a 29-point list of the “major theological positions of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod” that have made “our church the theological giant it has been since its inception” (30). His list includes the five pillars of Christian fundamentalism plus statements on the ethics of abortion, homosexuality, the nature of marriage, etc. In the next chapter, Kieschnick proclaims, “We have so much more that unites us than divides” (36).

He next produces historical examples of how the practice of doctrine did not keep up with the rapidly changing world. His list of seven includes: the purchase of life insurance, questions of membership in the Boy Scouts, Lutherans being excommunicated for dancing, the forbidding of Lutheran musicians from performing in the weddings or funerals of non-Lutherans, the forbidding of Lutheran pastors and laity from praying with non-Lutherans, the forbidding of men and women from sitting together in church, and conflict over the use of English in formerly German congregations.  While C.F.W. Walther in his Pastoral Theology did caution against seductive society, unsupervised get-togethers between the sexes, and indecent games, he nowhere speaks of excommunicating people for dancing. In fact, Walther’s counsel is not much different than that given by pastors and church fathers since the earliest days of the church. No doubt we would be better off today if we heeded the calls of our forefathers toward more modesty. Other parts of the list are if not historically inaccurate, are greatly exaggerated. Kieschnick’s list is troubling not only because it is presented without any historical explanation why the church issued such cautions (nor does he acknowledge that the majority of Christian churches in the 19th century said exactly the same sorts of things), but also because these apparently unreasonable and unfathomable concerns become the straw man or foil for his list of “doctrines” some in the Missouri Synod do not agree on today.

According to Kieschnick, the five areas of doctrinal disagreement, or in his words, “The slumbering and snoring of the giant,” in the Missouri Synod today can be summarized impiously as wine, women, and song. Regarding wine, Holy Communion, Kieschnick states the disagreement is over who should be admitted to the Lord's Supper. His characterization of the conflict and strife portrays two groups: one group allows and encourages anyone who believes, is baptized and agrees with some minimal doctrinal statements to commune regardless of church membership, the other group are those who “hold that only ‘card-carrying members’ of the LCMS should commune in our Congregations” (43). He addresses these two “ends of the spectrum” not with an exegesis of pertinent Biblical texts or with as a study of the Lutheran Confessions (although Appendix C excerpts 32 pages of the Tappert edition of the Book of Concord; one wonders why not the Concordia edition produced by CPH?), but samples of communion statements from various churches in the Missouri Synod, quotations from Synodical Convention overtures and CTCR documents. In fact, every doctrinal matter is treated in the same manner, with Synodical Convention overtures cited as the primary sources for a doctrinal position with CTCR statements following close behind—an approach that has much akin to the citing of Canon Law by Rome. As for the doctrinal concern over who is admitted to Holy Communion, Kieschnick is content to place “the principal burden of this decision upon the prospective communicant.” (49) If such an analogy were extended into the medical field, patients would diagnose and medicate themselves with prescription drugs under their own responsibility, whether or not such treat was actually beneficial or, worse yet, harmful. Whom the Lord invites to His Table is not something for us to review or revise, as Kieschnick seems willing to consider.

Kieschnick also touches on the role of women in the church, the proper form of worship (formal, liturgical, traditional on one pole and “blended,” “contemporary,” and praise teams on the other), inter-Christian relations, and the proper relation between laity and clergy. In brief summary, Kieschnick says little on the role of women, deferring to recent Synod Convention overtures that “honor the gifts of women and encourage those gifts be used in appropriate ways.” In regard to worship, Kieschnick notes that pastors tell him the “overwhelming majority of new members are first introduced to the congregation through the informal, blended, or contemporary services rather than through the traditional, formal services of worship” (61). He mentions that he has “never worn a miter, carried a crosier, or swung an incense pot,” which is probably true for the majority of pastors in the Missouri Synod, including those who use Lutheran Service Book every Sunday. A major point of his discussion on worship was the interpretation of the LCMS Constitution, Article VI, “Exclusive use of doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms in church and school.” Apart from encouraging “great care” in worship matters, Kieschnick concluded this section by reproducing a convention resolution from 2004, “To Affirm Responsible Use of Freedom in Worship.”

In regards to church relations and the LCMS’ historic position that renounces “unionism and syncretism of every description,” Kieschnick writes, “these requirements have the appearance of sectarianism and communicate the wrong message to Christians from other denominations” (67). Kieschnick tells a couple of stories on how the non-participation of LCMS pastors in community prayer services, etc. have communicated the wrong message, “Instead of presenting a faithful witness to the truth of the Gospel, in many cases the message communicated by non-participation is one of exclusivity or aloofness, telegraphing a false spirit of being ‘holier than thou’” (71). Kieschnick concludes this section by saying, “In the present and into the future, the LCMS must rethink its position in this regard” (80). A couple of chapters later, Kieschnick reopens the discussion of the infamous Yankee Stadium event from 2001 by likening President David Benke’s prayer to a giant encountering another giant or Elijah responding to the opportunity given him by the prophets of Baal. This is one of the few times Kieschnick cites Scripture that was not previously quoted in a Convention Resolution or CTCR Document. Kieschnick reaffirmed that President Benke made a “pastoral decision to participate in the Yankee Stadium event, doing so with my counsel as ecclesiastical supervisor” (142). Considering that this issue has been on a low simmer, if not lukewarm, it is surprising that the Yankee Stadium event received such treatment in Kieschnick’s book. Apparently, this is one of the matters Kieschnick felt where misunderstandings needed clarifying and misinformation refuting.

Other sections of the book deal with the declining demographics of the Missouri Synod and what Kieschnick thinks needs to be done to reverse some of these trends. He also treats the topic of funding the mission of the church. These chapters mention the various initiatives begun during the Kieschnick administration such as “Ablaze,” One Mission. One Message. One People.”, the “Blue Ribbon Task Force on Structure and Governance” (BRTFSSG), et al.  He quotes the BRTFSSG where it says, “We also acknowledge in our report that the divisions in our church over the last 30 years have hampered our effectiveness no less than the factions in Corinth emptied that first century church of the power available to them. Add to that the fact that our structure has been created piecemeal over the last 100 years and needs to be addressed for the maximum efficiency of the Lord’s resources… This new way of ‘operating together’ will not happen overnight” (123). While not explicitly stated, part of Kieschnick’s vision for waking the sleeping giant involves restructuring and reorganizing the Missouri Synod in a way he considers more efficient.

Kieschnick closes his book with the metaphor of a 160-year-old woodpile that is seasoned and ready to burn. “It is full of potential to bring the light and warmth of Jesus Christ to a cold, gloomy, sin-filled world. And yet, too often, ignition that could lead to a roaring blaze is doused by our own hand. We pour water on our own wood. We pour water on another’s fires because we don’t like the way our brother is going about building and burning his. It’s not exactly how we would do it, and so for some reason it isn’t right. We meddle in so many other fires that we fail to tend to our own” (196). In his analogy, doctrine and practice is the neatly stacked pile of wood that can either be used for the “slow, smokeless burning decay” or for the “light and warmth and energy produced by a roaring fire.” The proper burning of the Missouri Synod’s wood will make the giant rise.

Due to Waking the Sleeping Giant’s hodgepodge, the book was difficult to review. A variety of metaphors and similes were employed through the book, metaphors that frequently did not mix well or blend into a stew. In places rather than a clear thesis statement, a section would end with a metaphor or story, leaving the reader with the task of discerning the point. Although Kieschnick states in the preface, “the observations regarding life, ministry, and vision for leadership articulated in the chapters that follow are applicable to an audience not limited to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod” (13), it is difficult to imagine anyone outside of the Missouri Synod desiring to read this book. For that matter, the book while purporting to articulate a vision for leadership, the book does is not inspirational or devotional in any sense. It is not unfair to say that the book is a convoluted compilation of various short speeches and addresses given by President Kieschnick at a variety of venues over the past 9 years, mixed with Synodical Convention Resolutions and CTCR statements. Indeed, there may be some people who find such things stimulating or interesting. Apart from the value of having President Kieschnick’s vision for the future on paper and a historical overview of the events that occurred during the past decade of President Kieschnick's tenure, most pastors and laity within or without of the Missouri Synod would gain little from reading the book.

Bless Saint Mary

A sermon Rev. Ronald F. Marshall
Text: Luke 1:48

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you, in the name of God the Father, Son (+) and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we come to this consecrated church to keep the Sabbath Day holy. And we do that by worshipping God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the holy Trinity. We thank him for his goodness and mercy and reach out to him for his wisdom through his holy Word. Today we learn from that word that we are to honor St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ – the Blessed Virgin.

All Generations

In Luke 1:48 we’re told that all generation are to call Mary blessed because of the good things God has done for her. And yet close to a quarter of the two billion Christians on the earth today refuse to do so. I know about that personally. When I grew up in a Lutheran church in Tacoma, WA, we worshiped across the street from a Roman Catholic parish – and we all but threw rocks at them for worshiping what we thought was an infallible pope and a divine virgin. But that was a poor witness. Those attacks weren’t constructive (1 Corinthians 8:1). Ironically, my first sermon honoring St. Mary was called “crap” in a letter by a life-long Lutheran attacking me (Myron Warren, August 27, 1980)! No, the most constructive way to proceed would simply be to follow Luke 1:48 on this score and call St. Mary blessed – and leave it at that.

Beyond Biology

But what is the best way to bless St. Mary? Knowing that we should bless her is one thing, but knowing exactly how to do that, in the right way, is an altogether different matter! The best way forward here, I think, is simply to find out what exactly God’s blessing was that he bestowed on the Blessed Virgin. What exactly was it that God did for her that was so wonderful, and inspiring of our celebration on this Feast of St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord?

Most Christians would say it was her virginal conception and the birth of Jesus – the only Son of God. And that would be right to a degree, but it wouldn’t be the whole answer – strange as that may sound! For we wonder what could be greater than the towering miracle of the Virgin Birth!? Now Martin Luther (1483-1546), our “most eminent teacher” [The Book of Concord (1580), ed. T. Tappert (1959) p. 577] helps explain just what that would be:

When the Virgin Mary conceived and bore Christ, Christ was certainly a real, physical, visible man and not only a spiritual being; yet she conceived and bore him spiritually also. How? In this way: She believed the word of the angel that she would conceive in her womb and bear a son. With the same belief in the angel’s word she conceived and bore Christ spiritually in her heart at the same time as she conceived and bore him physically in her womb. If she had not conceived Christ spiritually in her heart, she would never have conceived him physically.... Now what did she conceive in her heart? Nothing else than what the angel’s words declare.... Since she grasped the word and through faith became pregnant with it in her heart, she also became physically pregnant with that which the word in her heart said to her.... [Therefore] the physical conception would have been of no avail to her if it had taken place without the spiritual conception (Luther’s Works 37:89-90).

So Mary didn’t conceive by way of a divine, male impregnation, as in Greco-Roman mythology [Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception (1973) p. 62]. It therefore would be wrong to call God Mary’s husband. If he were in fact her husband, she couldn’t then have been the mother of our Lord – as odd as that too may sound.

The Logic of Motherhood

This crucial point hinges on the very logic of what it means to be a mother. Again, it is Luther who helps us figure this out. He explains that God could have

made Christ’s body from her body in her sleep, without her knowing it, as he made Eve from Adam, but then she would not have been his mother, just as Adam was not Eve’s mother (LW 37:89).

Now this explanation establishes the superiority of the spiritual conception over the physical one, and moves the matter of what’s so glorious about St. Mary beyond biology onto the matter of faith. For it was her faith that made her pregnant – period. For when she heard that she was to bear the Savior of the world, she famously said, “Let it be” (Luke 1:38). In that acclamation was her great moment of faith – and also the greatest miracle of her life!

So Mary’s conception did not occur by a physical or sexual insemination of any kind whatsoever. No, it simply was the result of an odd, verbal insemination, if you will. Luther again explains:

How did... Mary become pregnant? Although it is a great miracle when a woman is made pregnant by a man, yet God reserved for him the privilege of being born of the Virgin. Now how does the Mother come to this?.... The angel Gabriel brings the word: “Behold, you will conceive... and bear a son, etc.” With these words Christ comes not only into her heart, but also into her womb, as she hears, grasps, and believes it.... The power comes through the Word [although] no one knows how it comes about (LW 36:341).

This verbal insemination assures that Mary remains a virgin, for even if the sexual, physical insemination were from God the Father himself, as the Muslims erroneously surmise it would have had to have been (Qur’ān 6:102; 72:3), her virginity would be lost because of the male involvement by God the Father. So the truth regarding the virgin birth of Jesus can have nothing to do with sexual insemination – even if it comes from God! Mary’s conception instead happens, as Luther further explains, at

that moment when Mary assented to the angel Gabriel’s announcement.... In that hour when she said, “Be it unto me according to your word,” she conceived and became the mother of God; and Christ, therewith, became true God and true man in one person [Luther’s House Postils, ed. E. Klug (1996) 3:290].

So the great miracle of the incarnation is not some mixed form of divine and human parthenogenesis – to exalt her against her “consent” (LW 51:213), but simply her faith. Therefore as Luther said, if we truly believe that Christ is our Savior and Lord – as Mary did – then we “shall not fail to love the mother Mary” (LW 51:216)!

A Sea of Bitterness

Mary’s faith is a great witness to us, because without it, she never would have been able to withstand the avalanche of scorn and misunderstanding that came her way from being chosen to be the mother of our Lord. No sooner did Joseph find out about her pregnancy, than he wants to divorce her (Matthew 1:19)! What choice did he have? He doesn’t know anything about a virginal conception – and if he did, he couldn’t understand it (LW 36:343). And so, as a rationalist, he regards her as a promiscuous fornicator – condemned under the law of God (Exodus 20:14; Ephesians 5:5).

This Marian trauma, if you will, is so heavy, that she cannot bear it without her faith in Christ (1 Peter 5:9). For Mary is “so poor and despised a mortal” (LW 21:322) that she can’t make it on her own. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – that Danish admirer of Luther – elaborates upon Mary’s shame in his pseudonymous book, Fear & Trembling (1843), which is his classic text on the trial of Abraham in Genesis 22 (Kierkegaard’s Writings 6:64-65):

Who was as great... as that favored woman,... the Virgin Mary?....To be sure, Mary bore the child wondrously, but she nevertheless did it “after the manner of a woman,” and such a time is one of anxiety, distress, and paradox. The angel was... not a meddlesome spirit who went to the other young maidens in Israel and said: Do not scorn Mary, the extraordinary is happening to her. The angel went only to Mary, and no one could understand her. Has any woman been so infringed upon as was Mary, and is it not true here also that the one whom God blesses he curses in the same breath? [LW 2:5].... She is by no means a lady idling in her finery and playing with a divine child.

Luther therefore rightly notes that the name Mary means “a sea of bitterness,” which shows that

there is in her not merely a drop, nor a stream, but a whole sea of bitterness; a deluge of suffering inundates her, so that she is well named “Mary,” a “bitter sea” (LW 52:120).

God, however, doesn’t leave her high-n-dry in this most painful shame and distress. She suffers alright – but not by herself.

“This encourages us,” Luther notes, “to believe that henceforth He will not despise us poor lowly ones, but graciously regard us also” (LW 21:323):

[For] the exceeding riches of God joined in her with her utter poverty, the divine honor with her low estate, the divine glory with her shame, the divine greatness with her smallness, the divine goodness with her lack of merit, the divine grace with her unworthiness (LW 21:323).

Blessing St. Mary on this day then will mean entering into the fray with her – fighting the good fight of faith with her (1 Timothy 6:12). It’ll mean trusting in the Lord to carry us through the hard times (Matthew 11:28) – just as he helped St. Mary out.

Just One Saving Death

But how does Christ help us, strengthen and sustain us? Galatians 4:5 says he does this by redeeming us from the law. And Galatians 3:13 says this is crucial because the weight of the law is a curse. The way Jesus redeems us is not by changing the law so that it no longer threatens us. No, he redeems us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us himself. He does this by dying on the cross – whereby he “cancels the bond which stood against us with its legal demands” (Colossians 214). He is punished in our place that we might become righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). For indeed,

God.... gives Himself to us, so that... we... may cast our weakness off on Christ. If I am a sinner, Christ is righteous; if I am poor, Christ is rich; if I am foolish, Christ is wise; if I am a captive, Christ is present to set me free; if I am forsaken, Christ takes me to Himself; if I am cast down, Christ consoles me; if I am weary, Christ refreshes me (LW 17:28).

No wonder then that Luther rejects the view that St. Mary is some sort of “divine being” (LW 21:324)! No, she instead directs us to Christ – that is her only “worthiness” (LW 21:327)! “She traces all to God, lays claim to no works, no honor, no fame” (LW 21:329).

For Jesus is the one redeemer, the one mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). No one else – nor we ourselves – can save us (Psalm 49:7-9; Acts 4:12) – for salvation “comes completely from the outside and is foreign” (LW 25:136). That’s because Christ alone sacrificed himself for our sins (Hebrews 9:26; 1 John 2:2) – performing his “mightiest work” on the cross (LW 21:340). “Mary.... did not redeem” us (LW 22:146). “Mary.... was not crucified... for us” (LW 69:262). Only Jesus delivers us from sin and death (Romans 7:24, 6:23). Even though his blood was partially intermingled with Mary's in utero, she never shed that blood on the cross for sinners.  So Mary, weeping at the cross, didn’t somehow join “herself with [the] sacrifice [of Jesus] in her mother’s heart” – somehow mixing her tears with his blood for our salvation [contra the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition (1999) §964]. No, never!

Only Christ can carry us into the kingdom of God (Colossians 1:13). The law of God can point us in the right direction – like a hand signaling the way to go – but it can’t get us there. For that we will need “feet, a wagon to travel in, or horses to ride on” (LW 22:143). And Christ alone is that transportation for us – only he has the feet to carry us into God’s kingdom. For if it is true that

God became man,... yet without sin, it then follows that as far apart as God and man formerly were from each other,... they now belong closely together; therefore, no kinsman... is as closely related to me as is Christ, the Son of the everlasting Father [Luther’s House Postils, 3 vols, ed. E. Klug (1996) 3:211].

Pleasing Mary

Rejoicing in this salvation through faith in Christ, we also struggle to live lives that are pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:6) – knowing that we are saved “for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). These deeds will not save us – but we do them precisely because we have already been saved by faith in Christ:

Yes, clothed in Christ’s... righteousness, I can... begin to love God and my neighbor. Where I still lack and fail, I have a precious “umbrella” in Christ who shades me with his fulfillment.... Hitherto, I thought that it was up to me to keep the Law; now I realize that’s impossible for me.... Under Christ,...I am always covered; and so, I am as pure and innocent as the sun, but always on account of Christ in whom I believe [who] has paid my account (LHP, 1:186).

On this feast day, then, dedicated to St. Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, let us do these works in honor of our salvation in Christ.

First, Luther says that “nothing would please St. Mary” more than to turn from “all lofty things on which men set their hearts” and “gladly associate” with things of “low degree” (LW 21:323, 315; Romans 12:16). So hanging around with – or even wanting to be involved with – the rich, influential and powerful isn’t the Christian way – and that is in large part why God didn’t select Caiaphas’ daughter instead to be the mother of our Lord (LW 21: 314). We all know that we secretly hanker after the benefits these associations bring us – like fine food, fancy surroundings, and choice entertainment. But on this feast day – in thanksgiving for St. Mary and in honor of Christ – let us purge our hearts and minds of these thoughts and “put to death” all such longings (Colossians 3:5). In Luther’s treatise on The Magnificat (1521), he elaborates this point most helpfully. Ungrateful people, he explains,

despise the good gifts of God which are showered so abundantly upon them and which they overlook – such as life, body, reason, goods, honor, friends, the ministrations of the sun and all created things.... They act as they do because they look above them and not beneath them; if they looked beneath them, they would find many that have not half of what they have and yet are content in God and sing His praise. A bird pipes its lay and is happy in the gifts it has; nor does it murmur because it lacks the gift of speech. A dog frisks gaily about and is content, even though he is without the gift of reason. All animals live in contentment.... Only the evil, villainous eye of man is never satisfied.... It always wants the best place at the feast as the chief guest (Luke 14:8) (LW 21:320).

And secondly let us recite daily the Hail Mary, those venerable lines from Scripture about St. Mary – absent the last words about praying for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, since they go against the Scriptures [contra the Catholic Catechism, §2677]:

Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee; bless-ed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ [Luke 1:28, 42] (LW 43:39).

Luther argued that we should neither turn the Hail Mary into “a prayer nor an invocation,” but leave it as a mediation on the “grace God has given her” (LW 43:39-40). So even though “blessed Mary prays for the church,” we must not invoke her or trust in her to “appease Christ” for us (BC, pp. 232-233)! That’s because we “would necessarily be guilty of eternal death if Jesus Christ... did not still intercede and plead for us as a faithful, merciful Mediator, Savior, and the only Priest and Bishop of our Souls” (LW 37:362)!

Finally let us on this day do whatever we can to get the good news out about Christ to generations everywhere – either by going to the ends of the earth ourselves, or by praying for and financially supporting those who travel hither and yon (Isaiah 61:9; Matthew 28:19-20). And let our efforts in this regard find inspiration in Luther admonitions from his 1523 sermon on 1 Peter:

We live on earth only so that we should be a help to other people. Otherwise, it would be best if God would strangle us... as soon as we were baptized and had begun to believe. For this reason, however, he lets us live that we may bring other people also to faith as he has done for us [Luther Texts on Mission, ed. Volker Stolle (2003) p. 20].

May all three of these good deeds – associating with the lowly, reciting the Hail Mary, and promoting Christ among all generations – be a joyous part of our blessing of St. Mary today. Amen.

(Preached by the Rev. Ron  F. Marshall on the Feast of St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord, August 17, 2008, at First Lutheran Church of West Seattle).

Confessional "change" you can believe in...and collect

Dear Readers,

Check out this effort to advance Reformation Numismatics. Who knew it was possible to "render unto Luther..."?

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What in the World is God Doing?

A sermon by John T. Pless delivered Tuesday in Epiphany I, 12 January 2010, at Kramer Chapel of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sermon text: Isaiah 43:8-13.

I think that Isaiah must have read Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will.  They do sound a like. If you are troubled with Luther’s assertions about God working all things out of His divine necessity, then you cannot but find Isaiah’s portrayal of the Lord’s epiphany as anything but offensive for here God asserts that He alone is the Lord. He puts the peoples of earth on trial, inviting them to enter into disputation with Him. This is the God who determines the rise and fall of nations. This is the Lord declares that that there is no Savior beside Himself. He is the God who does His work and none can deliver from His hand or overturn what He has accomplished.

We get jittery and protest anything that sounds like determinism because it puts us out of control. Root of the problem is that we think we are more reliable, more trustworthy than God Himself. I don’t know if God can be trusted but I can trust myself. Pro-choice is not just a political slogan; it describes the old Adam. We are all pro-choice! We insist on having our say, making our choice, and exercising our free will. We might be persuaded to deliver our lives into God’s hands, but God’s absolute insistence that He is God in all that He does robs us of the freedom to do things our way. Instead we are bound and determined make a god that we can live with, a tamed deity who knows his place and will not interfere with our precious freedom.

But such a God is not the Lord who is made manifest in Isaiah’s preaching. This is the God who says “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior. Isaiah knew what the Apostle Paul would later write in his first letter to the Corinthians that an idol has no real existence and although “there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth as there are indeed many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords” – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (I Cor. 8:5-6).

Gods and lords abound. One need not look only to Hindu temples well populated with idols fashioned by hearts and hands. There are the counterfeit gods cranked out by our hearts, that idol-factory as Calvin called it. No mass production, no one-size fits all here. This idol-factory is creative and imaginative, specializing in custom order gods.

It is not enough to speak of our culture’s false gods or to smugly critique atheisms old or new. Enshrined in our own hearts of darkness is the will in bondage to itself, enslaved to the notion of its own lordship. Such a lord might do many things. It might inflate your self-esteem or give you a reason to live. It might motivate, inspire, and empower you for an ethical life and it is not unlikely that it has the power to make you feel good about yourself. But make no mistake about it; such a god can never be a Savior. Live with such a god and you will be at the mercy of its future and you will suffer its fate.

There is only One who can announce “I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior.”

He is the One who stands in Jordan’s stream and of whom the Father says “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Here is the Lord who determines your future with a certainty that does not terrify but gives consolation in His good and gracious will. His future is your future. His cross is your cross. His resurrection is your resurrection. His baptism is your baptism. His sonship is Your sonship for in Him you are a child and heir of His Father. This Lord has done for you just what Isaiah promised. He has redeemed you by His blood and called you by name. You are His. You did not choose Him; He elected you to be His own in time and for eternity.  

The First Commandment forecloses on all other gods for God is a jealous Lord; He will share you with no other. Having this Jesus as your Lord, you have the only God you need. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting.    

 Prof. John T. Pless+

Latin American and U.S. Latino Lutheranism

Epiphany 2010, Volume XIX, Number 1Table of Contents

(Introduction by Leo Sanchez)

As a vicar in Caracas, Venezuela, I ventured every so often to one of the largest Roman Catholic bookstores downtown to peruse various collections of dogmatic treatises. On one of my visits, I started a casual conversation with a Venezuelan priest who asked about my background. After learning that I was a Lutheran seminarian, the priest, somewhat perplexed, exclaimed something like, “Latino Lutheran? That is not possible. You cannot be Latino and Lutheran.”

Prior to his ordination into the priesthood, my confounded conversation partner had been a sociologist. Although we did not make time to go a bit more deeply into the topic at hand, I could only imagine how easy it might have been for a sociologist to think of Lutheranism mainly as a German transplant in the Americas, a form of Christianity for a few immigrants of German background, a Protestant movement with no historical or religious roots in the minds and hearts of Latin Americans.

The priest with a sociological streak had not been entirely wrong. If one reads Rudy Blank’s article on Lutheranism in Venezuela, one will find stories of German immigrants or American (meaning South- and North-American) missionaries of German roots establishing Lutheran congregations in predominantly Roman Catholic territory. Some years ago I taught a course at Seminario Concordia in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I was graciously hosted by pastors with last names like Franck, Fischer, and Meyer. Needless to say, similar stories can be told of the origins of the Lutheran churches in Argentina or Brazil.

Where the Venezuelan priest had not been entirely on target was in his somewhat naive assumption that  Spanish Catholicism had overwhelmingly won over the hearts and minds of the evangelized peoples of the Americas. Undoubtedly, after centuries of presence in the Americas, the Roman Catholic Church has  defnitely left marks among the people. Doug Rutt’s article points in particular to the image of the dying Christ who suffers along with us — an image with medieval Roman Catholic roots — as the dominant symbol that historically has captivated especially the suffering masses of Latin Americans. However, Rutt also implies that the popular appropriation of the dying Christ by the people, in spite of its accompanying fatalism and not always clear soteriological meaning, has functioned among the masses as a form of silent protest in the face of oppression. By identifying with us in his innocent human suffering, Christ shows his solidarity with those who suffer unjustly.

...read or download the rest of this article here (free, PDF)

...purchase the full journal here

A Review of A Little Book on Joy

Book review by Dr. Albert Collver

A Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Good News Life in a Bad News World. By Matthew C. Harrison. Fort Wayne, Indiana: Lutheran Legacy Press, 2009. Individual copies: $9.95; bulk (5 or more copies): $5.99.

 A Little Book on Joy is a very fitting title in a world that seems to have so little joy. At first glance, there would seem to be little to say about joy. A search on Amazon.com turns up remarkably few books on the subject of joy, many of which deal with mental health or Eastern religion. It seems that “joy” is not even a topic popular for a self-help type of book. If the self-help book market has relatively little use for “joy,” what of the Christians? While there are some Christian authors writing on “joy,” it seems that Harrison’s got it right. “So many churches, so many pastors and Christians have so little joy today . . . These are difficult times” (p. 2). Indeed, these are difficult times for many as the news media has titled the first decade of the 21^st century, “The Noughties.” Even in the Church, outside of the Christmas season with “Joy to the World,” when is the message of “joy” heard?

“To my exuberant surprise, I found joy everywhere” (p. 3), Harrison writes after mining the Psalms, Moses and the Prophets, the Gospels, and the letters of Paul. His search for joy continues through Martin Luther, Walther, and the church fathers. Joy it seems, turns up over and over in the lives of those touched by the Gospel. As Harrison writes, “where there is Jesus, there is joy” (p. 8). In contrast to the run-of-the-mill, ten-step books that promise to deliver if their exercises are followed, A Little Book on Joy offers no such formula. Instead, it guides the reader to find “joy in the mud”—that is, to see how Jesus comes to us where we are at, not afraid to muddy himself in our mess. In the recognition that Jesus is right there with us, we find joy. There is comfort in Ambrose’s observation, “Even Job on his dunghill was not deserted by the Lord.” Harrison’s secret for joy is profoundly simple: “If we seek Jesus, we shall be engulfed and inundated by joy, and quite by surprise” (p. 9).

The book itself contains twenty chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of joy. After the first chapter reveals that joy is all over the place in both the Scriptures and the lives of the saints (Luther, Walther, the church fathers, et al.), the next chapters connect us with “joy” as expressed, revealed, and gifted to us by the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Chapters 2, 3, 4). Chapters 5 and 6 guide the reader to find joy in repentance and in the reconciliation brought to us by the righteousness of Christ. In other words, there is joy in confession and absolution. Chapter 7 brings us to the “community of joy,” that is, the church where “all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

Chapters 8 through 20 constitute a second part of the book, describing joy in everyday life. These chapters find joy in marriage, family, humor, worship, life, creation, in the pastoral office, in giving, in weakness, and in everyday life. Throughout the book, but especially in these sections, Harrison demonstrates that he is an engaging and vivid storyteller. (See, for instance, the wife/snowmobile and the BB gun stories.) No surprise to anyone who has read other works by the author (such as At Home in the House of My Fathers), Harrison also finds great joy in Lutheranism (Chapter 19). This should do much to help put to rest the notion that confessional Lutheranism is dead, dry, or heartless. Instead of so-called “dead orthodoxy,” Harrison finds “the joy of generous, faithful Lutheranism” (p. 167). In the final chapter, joy gives us hope for the future, hope in the promises of Christ, and ultimately in our resurrection because Christ himself rose on the third day.

If this were not enough, A Little Book on Joy gathers a selection of biblical texts into a concluding section titled, “The Great Ninety Days of Joy after Joy.” This is a meditative and devotional guide to joy beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding with Pentecost. This wonderful appendix makes the book an excellent resource for both congregational and personal devotions during Lent and Pentecost. Portions of the book could even become a Lenten mid-week sermon series. Each chapter closes with study questions written by Prof. John Pless designed to lead the reader or small group into a further exploration of joy.

The forward by Rev. John Nunes, President of Lutheran World Relief, is both erudite and accessible; it is a joy itself to read. The afterward by Rev. Bernie Seter describes joy from the perspective of a parish pastor and a congregational reconciler. Also impressive is the plethora of quotations of what people all over the world are saying about A Little Book on Joy—from laypeople and churchmen, including district presidents, bishops, seminary professors, and pastors from Myanmar, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, India, Canada, Australia, Latvia, Africa, and the United States. Another final charming aspect of the book is the artwork by Rev. Kurt Onken at each chapter head. Particularly endearing is the illustration of Martin Luther playing his lute while his dog, Klutz, howls away.

To say it was a joy to read A Little Book on Joy is more than a trite truism. Joy is also found in the reasonable price of the book at $9.99 for single copies and $5.99 in bulk. No doubt this book will provide its readers with joy for many years to come and serve as an excellent resource for both personal and congregational use.

 Order the Book from http://logia.org/alittlejoy

 Albert B. Collver
St. Louis, MO

For the Nuns of 1523 who Fled to Wittenberg

by January Pearson

For the Nuns of 1523 who Fled to Wittenberg

I'll tell you a story
of such blessed serendipity
it could be myth,
but it is true.

Twelve nuns broke
solemn vows and
escaped a convent.
It could have been nine or thirteen

but twelve, the perfect symbol
for this little church,
this lowly nation. It was Easter Eve, no less,

when the wagon arrived
stocked with dead fish;
the nuns piled in and
one whispered "Jonah,"

causing quiet overflowing
laughter to lift them like water.
They shivered
in their modest habits,

criminals to the state,
to the outsider, peculiar,
speaking rarely a word
as they held hands

and gripped a prayer
and went to a place
where lilies bloom
from the stones.

When they arrived
the Reformer diligently
settled them in homes
and marriages --none was left destitute.

But that night
as they huddled like children
in the dark, in this hideaway,
this sanctuary,

chanting alleluias before the vigilant air,
they didn't know what lay beyond
the cobbled road – they only knew
they left a life, a home, a name,

to become beggars,
so that they might be free
and given to
by Christ alone.

January Pearson teaches college composition courses and is a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Hacienda Heights.

What Do You Do With the Body?

A sermon preached by John T. Pless on Tuesday in Pentecost 18, 6 October 2009 at Kramer Chapel, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Sermon text: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

"May God the Father, who created this body; may God the Son, who by His blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh." These words are, of course, the words spoken at the committal in the Service of Christian Burial. At that most sober and somber moment they proclaim the truth about the body of the believer; it is body created by the Maker of heaven and earth, purchased with the blood of Christ, and hallowed by the washing of the water with the Word. It is not a left-over carcass to be tossed aside but a body given by God and now rendered back to Him.

The body is yours; it is uniquely you. Yet it does not belong to you. You did not create yourself. While we read of the wizardry of post-human futures with synthetic parts that replace worn out limbs and organs, we finally cannot transcend the reality that we are flesh and blood which will perish. We may view the body as a pod that houses our creative (and free) will. We may treat the body as an instrument of our hedonisms, as a plaything for our pleasure. Then we need not be surprised that once the toy of the flesh breaks down we seek ways to be relieved of the burden. Enter assisted suicide and euthanasia. If we can't finally master the body and control the suffering of disease or old age, we will put an end to it at the time and place of our own choosing. We speak of the person committing suicide as "taking their own life" as though it were theirs to take. We think, at least, we will be done with burden of the body.

What do we do with the body? That's a question faced not just at the time of death but here and now as we live in the body. When the spirit of the age is mistaken for the Holy Spirit, the body will be thought of as incidental to spirituality. Such was the case with the super-spirituality of the Corinthians who apparently thought that something as bodily as sexual intercourse could not affect life in the Spirit. Freedom in the Spirit translated into a life unhampered by restrictions, boundaries or limitations. Homosexual practice, prostitution, and even incest were fair game. Perhaps they reasoned that the bounds of Christian liberty were wide, expansive and permissive since "food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both." It could be that they mistakenly thought that the Gospel is message of liberation from the body. The glue that binds us together, we are told, is the Gospel, Baptism, and mission. Something as mundane as a sexual ethic should not get in the way of these! We need an ethic that is more relational and less "physicalist" was the argument advanced by one of the proponents of change in the debates within the ELCA leading up that church body's adoption of novel policies that run counter to the Sacred Scriptures this past August.

The Apostle takes a position and asserts an ethic that is physicalist indeed for "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." What you do with your body does matter. Listen again to Paul: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" It is a matter of ownership. You can't take the body which belongs to Christ-bought with His blood and washed by His Spirit in Holy Baptism and join that body to a prostitute. To do so, Paul says, is to sin against your own body. Hence he says "flee sexual immorality" for every other sin a person commits outside of his body-but this sin is against your body- the very body that God has created, redeemed and sanctified.

Christ Jesus will not have the body that belongs to Him rendered unclean; desecrated by fornication and enslaved by a fleshly union to one who is not your spouse. Christ Jesus would not have you live in bondage to another lord for He has made you His own. He has purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death that you may live under Him in kingdom ad serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness just as He in His body is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity. Your body belongs to this Lord so the Apostle says "glorify God in your body" for your body is the place of His Spirit and it is destined for the resurrection of the flesh. So now present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your spiritual worship. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep you in body and soul to life everlasting.

-Prof. John T. Pless