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Logia
a journal of lutheran theology
THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS & JUSTIFICATION
reformation 1996 volume v, number 4

ei[ ti" lalei',
wJ" lovgia Qeou'
logia is a journal of Lutheran theology. As such it publishes
articles on exegetical, historical, systematic, and liturgical theology
that promote the orthodox theology of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church. We cling to God’s divinely instituted marks of
the church: the gospel, preached purely in all its articles, and the
sacraments, administered according to Christ’s institution. This
name expresses what this journal wants to be. In Greek, LOGIA
functions either as an adjective meaning “eloquent,” “learned,”
or “cultured,” or as a plural noun meaning “divine revelations,”
“words,” or “messages.” The word is found in 1 Peter 4:11, Acts
7:38, and Romans 3:2. Its compound forms include oJmologiva
(confession), ajpologiva (defense), and ajvnalogiva (right relationship).
Each of these concepts and all of them together express the
purpose and method of this journal. LOGIA considers itself a free
conference in print and is committed to providing an independent
theological forum normed by the prophetic and apostolic
Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. At the heart of our
journal we want our readers to find a love for the sacred Scriptures
as the very Word of God, not merely as rule and norm, but
especially as Spirit, truth, and life which reveals Him who is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life—Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore,
we confess the church, without apology and without rancor, only
with a sincere and fervent love for the precious Bride of Christ,
the holy Christian church, “the mother that begets and bears
every Christian through the Word of God,” as Martin Luther says
in the Large Catechism (LC II, 42). We are animated by the conviction
that the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession
represents the true expression of the church which we confess as
one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
LOGIA (ISSN #1064‒0398) is published quarterly by the Luther Academy, 9228 Lavant
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Copyright © 1996. The Luther Academy. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced without written permission.
THE COVER ART features a woodblock engraving of Frederick
the Wise and Martin Luther adoring the crucified
Christ. The identity of the artist is not established. His initials
are M. S., and he was active in Wittenberg from 1530
to 1572. His illustrations appear in many of Luther’s writings
issuing from the press of Hans Lufft.
This engraving adorns the title pages of the Wittenberg
edition of Luther’s works. Published in twenty volumes
(twelve German, seven Latin, and one index) between 1539
and 1559, this first published collection of Luther’s writings
was reprinted repeatedly until 1603. The publisher was
Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, and the sponsor was John Frederick
of Saxony, the brother and successor of Frederick.
Reproduced from Volume 4 of the Wittenberg edition contained
within the Haffenreffer Library of Lutheran Dogmatician’s
Collection of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,
Missouri. Used by permission.
FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS
AC [CA] Augsburg Confession
AE Luther’s Works, American Edition
Ap Apology of the Augsburg Confession
BSLK Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche
Ep Epitome of the Formula of Concord
FC Formula of Concord
LC Large Catechism
LW Lutheran Worship
SA Smalcald Articles
SBH Service Book and Hymnal
SC Small Catechism
SD Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord
Tappert The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church. Trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
TLH The Lutheran Hymnal
Tr Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope
Triglotta Concordia Triglotta
WA Luthers Werke, Weimarer Ausgabe [Weimar Edition]

logia
a journal of lutheran theology
reformation 1996 volume v, number 4
CONTENTS
A Note to Our Readers .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
ARTICLES
The Two-Faced God
By Steven A. Hein .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Luther’s Augustinian Understanding of Justification in the Lectures on Romans
By David Maxwell .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9
The Doctrine of Justification and Its Implications for Evangelicalism
By Scott R. Murray..................................................................................................................................................................................................15
A Call for Manuscripts .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Divine Service: Delivering Forgiveness of Sins
By John T. Pless ......................................................................................................................................................................................................23
Reflections on Lutheran Worship, Classics, and the Te Deum
By Carl P. E. Springer ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 29
Patrick Hamilton (1503–1528): A Scottish Reformer with a Timeless Confession
By Bruce W. Adams .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 43
REVIEWS .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 45
REVIEW ESSAY: What Is Liturgical Theology A Study in Methodology. By David W. Fagerberg.
Worship in Transition: The Liturgical Movement in the Twentieth Century. By John Fenwick and Bryan Spinks.
Remembering the Christian Past. By Robert L. Wilken.
Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. By Leslie Newbigin.
Transforming Congregations for the Future. By Loren B. Mead.
Notes from a Wayfarer: The Autobiography of Helmut Thielicke. Translated by David R. Law.
BRIEFLY NOTED
PrEVIEW: Actio Sacramentalis—Die Verwaltung des Heiligen Abendmahles nach den Prinzipien Martin Luthers
in der Zeit bis zur Konkordienformel. Luth. Verlagsbuchhandlung Groß Oesingen, 1996.
LOGIA FORUM ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 57
The Idolatrous Religion of Conscience • The Infusion of Love • The Cross and the Christian Life
The Ship of Fools • Chapters Into Verse • Me Gavte La Nata
Utilitarian Schools, Utilitarian Churches • The Last Word on Church and Ministry
Objective Justification—Again • Praesidium Statement on Closed Communion
Is Martens Justified • From Arrowhead to Augsburg • Worship at Luther Campus • Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk
Upper Story Landing • Didache Today • Clergy Killers
INDICES FOR VOLUMES I THROUGH V ................................................................................................................ 71
Articles by Title • Articles by Author
Book Reviews by Title • Book Reviews by Author
LOGIA Forum

4 LOGIA
ANote to Our Readers
The editors wish to apologize to all of our faithful readers for the persistent lateness of LOGIA.
We have taken as many steps as we can to solve the problem, but each time we fix one problem
another arises in its place.
All of the editors are volunteers. Except for the production staff, none of the editors receives
any remuneration for his work, and the the stipends paid to the production staff barely can
be called token.
The working editors are all parish pastors or college professors, and thus have many demands
on their time. The parish pastors especially are subject to emergencies and to the increased
demands of various seasons of the church year. The callings of the editors all must take
precedence over their volunteer work with LOGIA.
We are very grateful to our readers for their continued patience. It is our hope that as LOGIA
continues to grow, it will be possible for us to increase our production staff and pay them
sufficiently so that the production of LOGIA will be more timely. Until then, we thank our
readers for their continued indulgence.
Erling T. Teigen
Coordinating editor

NOT ONLY REFLECTIVE, LEARNED SCHOLARS have pondered
the question, “What is God really like” or even more
momentous questions such as: “What does he think
about us and the problem of evil here on earth Does he care Can
we bargain with him or enlist his help in how we want to deal with
it Is he a mighty, vengeful, ‘hard-nosed’ kind of God who is really
not satisfied with anything less than perfection; or is he, rather, a
kind, merciful sort of Deity” From mature intellectuals to young,
inquisitive children, persons in every age have mulled over and
debated questions such as these. At some point in our lives, perhaps
we too have desired to take the measure of God and wondered,
“What would it be like to meet God face to face”
MEETING THE GOD WHO SAVES
The Hidden and Revealed God
Although God is always closer to us than the nose on our face,
he has not taken the wraps off and given any sinful and mortal
human being a full measure, face-to-face meeting. As God told
Moses, who requested such a meeting, the face or full splendor of
his holiness and glory would be the immediate death of any sinful
human (Ex 33:20). Out of his mercy, our God keeps himself on the
whole “under wraps,” a hidden God, but not totally hidden. He has
chosen to reveal himself at some times and certain places, and then
only to reveal aspects of himself. In early Old Testament history,
God often revealed himself as the One who is really in control of
things here on earth. Again and again he manifested his might and
power in awesome ways. In the days of Noah, it was through the
destructive flood. With Sodom and Gomorra, it was fire and brimstone.
In Egypt it was the plagues, the death of the first-born, and
the parting of the Red Sea. To those on Mt. Carmel it was fireballs
from heaven that reduced a water-drenched sacrifice and altar to
powdered ash. As much as we modern-day believers sometimes
think that a good exhibition by God today would do wonders for
the cause of true religion, these spectacular works by God never did
inspire much in the way of long-term faith and devotion. For the
most part, most of God’s mighty displays in the Old Testament
simply scared the daylights out of people. Even in the wilderness
when God first took up a glorious presence with his people in a
special tent, the children of Israel always stood outside as if saying
to Moses, “You go in and see what he wants; we’ll stay out here. You
can tell us all about it later.” It almost seems as if God’s special way
of saying hello in the Old Testament was to continually speak the
STEVEN HEIN teaches at Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois, and
is a LOGIA contributing editor.
The Two-Faced God
Steven A. Hein
5
words, “Do not be afraid.” Meetings with the sovereign God back
then were usually a rather frightening experience.
Mindful of our sinful frailty, yet possessing an all-embracing
desire to bring us into a personal relationship with himself
accented by faith and love, God has chosen to reveal himself to us
hidden in the common things of this world. Our Creator has chosen
to make himself personally known through the Word-madeflesh,
Jesus; in the prophetic and the apostolic Scriptures; and in
the word-made-visible in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With
the masks of humanity, earthly language, and the simple elements
of water, bread, and wine, God has not simply descended to us,
but condescended to us. Here he continually gives us the opportunity
to take him in with all our senses in long, slow, and unalarming
ways, face to face! God has no desire to destroy us. He wants
to love and tenderly embrace us as his own. Moreover, his burning
desire from creation on has been that we might respond to his
love with a returning love, molding a magnificent relationship
and life together. But as we know, love always complicates things
for us. It complicates things for God too. Søren Kierkegaard illustrated
God’s problem well in the following parable:
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The
king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled
before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him,
for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this
mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden.
How could he declare his love for her In an odd sort of
way, his very kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to
the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed
her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist—no
one dared resist him. But would she love him
She would say she loved him, of course, but would she
truly Or would she live with him in fear, nursing private
grief for the life she left behind Would she be happy at his
side How could he know If he rode to her forest cottage in
his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners,
that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a
cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted
her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden
and to let shared love cross over the gulf between them.
The king convinced he could not elevate the maiden without
crushing her freedom, resolved to descend. He clothed
himself as a beggar and approached her cottage incognito,
with a worn cloak fluttering loosely about him. It was no
mere disguise, but a new identity he took on. He renounced
the throne to win her hand. *

6 LOGIA
As we know, the truth in Kierkegaard’s parable entered human
history in Jesus Christ. Paul eloquently summarized the historical
version of the story in Philippians 2:
Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality
with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even
death on a cross!
The king cast off his regal robes and became a helpless baby, a
lowly footwasher, and a shameful crossbearer. Not very scary, but
that is precisely the point. God has love and courtship on his
mind. In Jesus, God meets us face to face., but incognito and
humbly, to win us over with a dying, sacrificial love to be his own
bride forever. As he conquered the forces of darkness and death,
the risen and exalted Christ is still with us, and out of his loving
designs, humbly hidden in his gospel, cloaked in mundane human
language and the common elements of water, bread, and wine.
Through these, word and sacrament, his gospel ministry of salvific
courtship with frail, sinful people continues. Only now he carries
it out through common human bodies like yours and mine. We in
his church have become part of our Lord’s humble disguise!
The king cast off his regal robes and
became a helpless baby, a lowly footwasher,
and a shameful crossbearer.
nb
It’s not very flashy or spectacular, nothing like the great Old
Testament extravaganzas. Hollywood would never clamor for the
screen rights, but here is God’s loving face as clearly as we can
receive it from him. And it is his ministry and the way he condescends
to meet us for our sake out of his mercy and love. Make no
mistake about it, God was not fooling around when he made his
Son incarnate. The cross cost him the humiliation and death of
his own Son, and all for the sake of his burning love for us sinful
human beings. In the gospel, we truly meet an honest-to-God:
God as he truly is, a loving and merciful heavenly Father.
God’s Preparatory Meeting
Honest encounters among persons human or divine, however,
always require that everything significant is out in the open. Fireballs
and smoke will not reveal a loving and gracious God on the
divine side of the meeting, and deceitfulness and dishonesty will
not do on our side. All who think they have the spiritual mettle to
request a face-to-face meeting with God must realize, as C. S. Lewis
did, that such a meeting requires that we rebellious sinners bring
only our true face to the encounter. And there is the rub that brings
the curiosity about divine matters within both child and learned
scholar to a screeching halt. We don’t have the spiritual mettle
natively within us for that. True moral self-honesty is a spiritual
virtue, but we sons and daughters of Adam are spiritually dead.
God, therefore, has another face and ministry for us and our
salvation to prepare us for the real-face-to-face meeting with him
through the gospel. Through this preparatory meeting he gives us
a true and honest face and the humility to meet him in his love
and mercy. You cannot meet God as he truly is until you have met
up with yourself as you really are. God will not be mocked by
sham meetings with faceless human beings. We must wear our
true face, and that is just what God would provide by meeting
him through his law.
Here we see one of the most unique and distinctive features
about Christianity that separates it from all the religions of man.
Most religions have a moral code that is commended to us with
the promise that through it we can all become better people. With
legal enlightenment and commitment to a virtuous sense of duty,
we can all make significant progress in overcoming our perceived
moral defects. Do-ability with sufficient resolve is the hallmark of
man’s moral precepts. “I ought, therefore I can,” said the famous
moral philosopher Immanuel Kant. He constructed a whole system
of ethics based on that assumption.
But when we stand in the mirroring light of God’s law of life, it
casts a shadow of darkness and death about us that elicits the
opposite confession: “I ought, but I don’t and I can’t.” God’s law
shows us that our problem is not at its root immorality or weak
resolve: ours is a problem of spiritual bankruptcy and death. This
is the dark truth that lies tucked away deep in the soul of every
sinner, that must be faced with all repentant honesty before we
can meet the gracious God face to face. Our idolatry and deceitfulness
of the heart must be confronted for what they are. The
gap between what we are and what we ought to be needs to be
seen as the great abyss that we are unable to cross.
Jesus expressed the pith and marrow of God’s law when he
repeated the Deuteronomic formula “You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, mind, and soul and your neighbor as
yourself.” And setting himself up as the revealed enfleshment of the
law, he commanded his disciples to “love one another even as I
have loved you.” Love is the law of the Spirit of life, for God is love
and God is life. There are two elements in full-strength law. The
first is love, the character of God and the core purpose of human
existence that God designed for us from the beginning. Love is the
core of the moral and spiritual environment that we inhabit,
grounded in God’s very being. When we love we are captivated by
another with spontaneous, joyful regard. The beloved’s needs,
desires, and concerns become the center of attention that motivate
and shape our involvement and relation to the beloved. Love’s
activity and concern is always other-directed and always freely
given. Love does not seek for the self, but for the other (1 Cor 13:5).
The second part is “law proper,” which was added because of
sin (Gal 3:19). It is the “you must—or perish.” Do it or die! Law
proper places duty and obligation before us with the threatening
penalty of death: a penalty that captivates us at the most fundamental
level of our self-love and concern, our very well-being.
Love is demanded under penalty of death. To serve the law is to
enlist in the service of legal duty and to do so out of concern for
the self, not concern for the other. Do what is required and you
will live. In other words, your duty or your death! To be moved by
legal necessity and the damning curse of the law suffocates the
freedom and spontaneity that love requires. When we are capti-

THE TWO-FACED GOD 7
vated and driven by the law, there can be no love, but when we
are grasped by love, the law’s demands and threats evaporate.
Indeed, they can even seem silly.
Imagine strolling in a park and spotting a young couple sitting
on a bench. As you watch them out of the corner of your eye for
several minutes, it becomes obvious that they are deeply in love
with one another. You can tell just by noticing how they look at
one another. Now imagine going up to them and saying, “Surely
you realize that you must love each other. It’s the law!” They would
look at you as though you were crazy, would they not Surely they
would wonder, “How must we do what we simply cannot help but
do” Love’s compulsion is tied to the beloved, but never legal
necessity. Where there is love, the force and compulsion of legal
necessity are not only absent; to lovers they seem ridiculous.
It was again Kierkegaard who understood that the two elements,
love and law, have a paradoxical “hide-and-seek” relationship
with one another. If you encounter one, the other is in hiding
and nowhere to be found. If you experience the demand—
“you must”—love is absent and nowhere to be seen. If love is a
present flowing reality, then the law has disappeared from view.
Yes, love is the law of life, but love and law are never experienced
together, for like oil and water they repel each other in our experience
of each. We are either grasped by the necessity of doing our
duty for our own good, or we are captivated by love and what is
good for the beloved.
Let’s explore the paradox further. It is certainly true that we are
always capable of being more kind and considerate of others than
we have been, and we corrupt ourselves if we do not even try.
Moreover, we will never love unless we make a conscious effort.
Nevertheless, deliberately striving to love people will not accomplish
the goal. Love is a fruit, not a work. Where love exists. it
spontaneously carries its own burden for the beloved without
strife or any sense of legal compulsion. The law of love presents
sinful humans with a paradoxical dilemma, a moral and spiritual
“catch-22.” The paradox can be illustrated by the example of a
painter who deliberately tries to become a great artist. If he does
not strive, he will never become an artist, much less a great one.
But since he makes genius in his craft a deliberate goal of striving,
he proves he is not and never will be a genius. Great artists are
such without striving. Their abilities simply unfold in their work
like the petals of a rose before the sun. Genius is a gift of God; it is
not a work; and so also is love. Love blossoms from a grace-nourished
faith in the Christian life as faith is exercised in our relations
with others. If we do not strive to love with all that is in us, we
surely condemn ourselves. But on the other hand, love is not ours
for the striving. Moreover, love is our duty, but we can never love
when we are driven by a sense of that duty.
Imagine that a husband confesses to his wife that he has been
striving to love her for the past ten years and that he plans to
redouble his efforts in the coming year. Has he not confessed to
her that he hasn’t loved her in years, that he doesn’t love her now,
and for that matter, he can’t If you were his wife, what would you
say to him Are we not tempted to tell this man to please stop
But isn’t it also true that he would stand self-condemned before
his wife if he confessed to her that he doesn’t love her and, for that
matter, he isn’t even going to try Catch-22! Checkmate! The husband
is damned if he tries and damned if he doesn’t.
Consider a second example from the late Edward John Carnell.
Imagine that it is a husband’s first wedding anniversary and he
knows how much his wife loves roses. He stops off after work and
picks up a dozen beautiful, long-stemmed, dew-dripping roses
and presents them to her when he arrives home. She naturally is
touched by his thoughtfulness and responds with warm and
affectionate gratitude. What would be her reaction, however, if in
the middle of her thank-yous he were to say; “Think nothing of it
honey, I’m just doing my duty” Do we not clearly see that the
more committed he becomes by doing his duty, the further his
heart and life will travel from real love Checkmate again! He
must love his wife; it is his duty. But the more motivated he
becomes to doing his duty, the more he destroys the possibility of
ever loving her. Duty damns if we do it, and it damns if we don’t,
for both destroy love.
The law of love presents sinful humans
with a paradoxical dilemma, a moral
and spiritual “catch-22.”
nb
Love is not ours for the striving, nor ours for the refusal to strive.
Love is our duty under the law, but commitment to duty and all
legal considerations void and destroy love. When we are captivated
by the law, there is no love. The law always reveals where we don’t
and can’t. We both understand and sympathize with the reactions
of the wife in our illustrations. And therefore, we also understand
the mind of God. Love is a fruit of faith empowered by grace,
where, of course, the law has been abolished and is nowhere to be
found. The words of St. Paul in Romans 3:19 speak to us:
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those
who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed and
all the world may become accountable to God; because by
the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight; for
through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
This is God’s central purpose of the law. He did not intend it to
be either a motivational tool to nurture a true loving heart from
one of selfishness and pride, nor did he intend it to be an exercise
guide that would enable the practitioner of the “ten principles” to
advance in the art of loving. When God added the law to his creative
design of love, he provided a potent diagnostic tool to set in
bold relief our spiritual deadness and the impossibility of transforming
ourselves back into his original plan for us in creation.
Love was the constant condition of human existence in paradise
until Adam and Eve exchanged their trust in God for trust in
themselves. When their trust was destroyed, the full contours of
love evaporated with it. At its core, human capacity became
bankrupt of the spiritual resources to center our existence around
a whole-being love and trust in God. Such an existence was paradise,
but paradise was lost. The law was given to show the sons
and daughters of Adam that we have no resources within our-

8 LOGIA
selves to return to paradise. Moral necessity coupled with the
threat of death will not generate either love or trust in God.
Attempts to enlist the law to do so will only generate a false selfrighteousness
or full-scale rebellion.
The truth about us seen in the law at full strength is painfully
hard to receive. All of our pride and sense of fleshly well-being is
crushed by the verdict it pronounces. It pushes us to a level of
self-honesty that we know would spell the end to all our selfmade
“I’m-doing-O.K.” faces. It destroys all plans and pretensions
of self-justification by doing our duty. The law condemns
us! We can be easily tempted to turn away from the full impact of
the law and try to negotiate with its demands. Some popular ways
include making the demands of the law into goals as if the law is
saying, “Become the person who can love God with all heart,
mind, and soul, and neighbor as self, and you will live.” Another
is, “Make steady improvement in the art of loving and you will
live.” And, of course, there is the popular old standby, “Be more
loving then most of the people you know and you will live.”
All of these pretentious evasions deny the full thrust of the law,
which proclaims that if we have not already and always been loving
God with everything that is in us and other humans as ourselves,
then we are dead in our trespasses already. Dead people cannot
do anything; they are out of the running! This is the curse of
the law (Gal 3:10). To finally hear this chilling truth from the God
who pronounces it places the sinner under the wrath of God at a
critical juncture. Either the sinner will become infuriated or broken.
Either one will say from the heart, “To hell with the law!”
and run from God to greater levels of loveless rebellion, or God
will turn the individual down the crushing road of repentance.
Here he wants to fashion the humble, honest face that can meet
the gracious God who saves. It is a face that recognizes the need
for righteousness, love, and unconditional acceptance. God meets
these needs in the gospel by clothing our barren and sinful condition
with the righteousness of Christ and recreating our face and
our whole spiritual being into a likeness of his Son. Through faith
in Christ we now have a face fit not simply to meet our God, but
to belong to him in love as his bride forever.
THE CHEMISTRY OF LAW AND GOSPEL
Most of us who have taken Chemistry 101 in high school or college
can recall that there is an interesting polarity in chemical
substances. Some are acidic to various degrees and others are
alkaline or base in nature. Water apparently is neutral. Perhaps we
also remember what happens if we mix acid into an alkaline solution
or visa versa. Each has the effect of weakening the strength of
the other, and if enough is added, eventually it will neutralize the
entire strength of the solution. And water, as we know, is the universal
solvent. It dilutes the strength of both. I’m no chemist, but
perhaps we could say that if we need full-strength acid, alkaline
solutions are hazardous if mixed in. They will contaminate by
producing a neutralizing effect, and the same the other way
around. Moreover, if, for example, we need both full-strength
acid and alkaline solutions, water could be considered a contaminant
because of its effect of diluting the strength of both.
There are some useful contact points here for understanding
the nature and ministry of God’s law and gospel. I do not know
who the chemist was who is responsible for discovering the dual-
ity and polarity of substances in terms of base and acid and their
effects upon one another. But it was especially the insight of
Luther that refreshed western Christian thinking by the rediscovery
that God’s word is rightly understood and divided by distinguishing
between two different words or ministries of God, law
and gospel. This is the central key that unlocks the true meaning
of the Scriptures and enables us to hear the voice of God through
them aright. From Genesis to Revelation, God addresses us in
some places with a word that is law and other places with gospel.
And like base and acidic solutions, each has its own unique properties
and characteristics that God might accomplish his purposes
with us through them, yet each also has the power to contaminate
and neutralize the other if they are mixed. Kept separate and at
full strength, however, they are powerful and potent instruments
that, when properly applied, carry out all of the things that God
would accomplish in our lives for our ultimate salvation.
We know from our own experience and from history that the
right words spoken at the right time to the right people can
have amazing and powerful effects for good and ill. As the wise
proverb says, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” By the right
word under the right conditions whole nations and peoples
have been moved to accomplish what was thought to have been
impossible. Think of the famous words of John Paul Jones during
the American Revolution, or the inspiring words of Winston
Churchill during the Battle of Britain. Or think of the simple
words “I love you,” magically spoken at the right time and place,
which transformed the life of an indifferent beloved, creating a
love-relationship that everyone including the beloved thought
impossible. But now the beloved sheepishly and with much chagrin
confesses, “I don’t know what happened, but I have fallen
in love.”
We know the power of mere human words. Imagine by comparison
the incredible power that God’s word possesses. The
entire universe was created by it! The Lord tells us that it never
returns to him void, but always accomplishes the purposes for
which he sends it forth (Is 55:11). He has entrusted his powerful
Word of law and gospel to us. We would be his arms, legs, and
mouth to proclaim his Word of law and gospel, through which he
meets sinners face to face for their salvation (Mt 28:20; Jn 15:27).
The crucial thing, however, is that these words must be delivered
unmixed and at full strength, or potency is diminished, the power
is neutralized, and the true face of God as he would reveal himself
to us evaporates.
Full-Strength Law
Let’s examine this more closely beginning with law, God’s
preparatory meeting and ministry for the saving encounter
through the gospel. The law is always preliminary and preparatory.
Full-strength and pure law is the unconditional demand first
to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul. This demand, as
Luther recognized, means that we are to “fear, love, and trust in
God above all things.” Second, the law demands that we love others
when they enter our circle of nearness as we love ourselves.
This fully potent law is to be poured into the hearts and minds of
complacent sinners to produce the awareness of moral and spiritual
bankruptcy—the checkmate of “I must” joined to “I don’t
and I can’t.” Remember, God’s purpose here is to reveal his just

THE TWO-FACED GOD 9
wrath and judgment, and in our despair of self-righteousness to
fashion the honest face of a repentant heart. The law exposes and
condemns our false gods, our self-made plans of well-being, and
our selfish, loveless treatment of God and our neighbor.
But what happens if the law is not at full strength What if it is
mixed with elements of the gospel or simply watered down
What if the word we convey is a “you must,” but we join it to the
message that God is kind and merciful, so an honest sincere
effort will do Sincere, honest effort is something that we can
muster through striving and a commitment to duty. Here a true
encounter with the holy and righteous God is neutralized and
repentance is not produced. The face of God here is a false face—
it reveals neither the God who condemns nor the God who saves
through Christ.
Dead people cannot do anything;
they are out of the running! This
is the curse of the law.
nb
Or consider the more common error of reducing the law to
simply a list of moral dos and don’ts—a plan for how we ought to
behave in daily living. What happens if we present the law only in
terms of the outward dimensions of the Ten Commandments
Do we swear, lie, cheat, or steal Which of us can claim a clean
slate here Nevertheless, we have certainly watered down the law
of love, the law of the Spirit of life. We have reduced it to outward
do-ability. The power is gone.
The law as moral principle may indeed reveal immorality on
our part, but it cannot reveal our true condition of moral bankruptcy
and spiritual deadness. It may confront us with occasional
or frequent “I don’ts” for which we may sense a responsibility to
apologize—as we often do to one another—but mere moral
principle will never bring anyone to the dead-end checkmate of “I
can’t.” There is room to maneuver with mere moral principles of
duty on the legal plane of give-and-take. We know in advance
that a sincere apology must be accepted and we can always renew
our commitment and hope to do better in the future.
Moralizing will never reveal the God who condemns, nor will
it ever produce true repentance. We apologize for the things we
have done, but we repent for the person we have been. Only fullstrength
law destroys the hope of self-righteousness and lays us
open to see the true depths of our spiritual poverty. It is God’s
checkmate that produces repentance and the honest face that recognizes
the need for a gracious God. Anything less turns the good
news into ordinary news or no news at all.
Full-Strength Gospel
Let’s turn our attention now to the ministry of the gospel.
Question: What is the difference between receiving the largest,
most valuable diamond in the world as a free gift and getting it
for a penny If we look at it on the surface, the difference is not
very much at all, just a mere penny. But let’s look at this more
closely. In the first instance we have a gift, and quite a gift at that.
What do we have, however, in the second instance Is it not true
that what we have here is an incredible bargain Notice the big
difference. Great gifts are expressions and signs of great love, if
indeed they are true gifts. The giving of gifts is the way persons,
both human and divine, express their love for one another.
Incredible bargains are different. They are usually expressions of
deception, stupidity, or shrewd business enterprise at work. How
many things do we get in the mail every week that trumpet
incredible bargains and often with the word FREE! scrawled in
big, bold print. But, as it is said, let the buyer beware! We usually
get what we pay for, don’t we Has experience not taught us that
there is a world of difference between a bargain—no matter how
great it may seem—and a true gift. Genuine gifts are expressions
of love; bargains are not.
One of the most common words used to express the gospel in
the New Testament is the word grace. It means gift. Full-strength
gospel proclaims the good news of a priceless gift that the gracious
God who loves us has appropriated and gives to us for the
sake of the saving work of his Son’s death and resurrection. It is
the gift of righteousness, forgiveness, reconciliation. It is the gift
of secured unconditional acceptance now and forever. It is the gift
of freedom, new life, and adoption into the family of God. It is
the gift of well-being now and forever. Pure gospel brings us face
to face with the loving God who, through his Son and with this
grace, brings us back into the most beautiful love-relationship
and matures our faith and love into the full stature of his Son.
But what happens to this precious gift if law is mixed into the
gospel or if it is diluted What if we attach to the gift the requirement
that we love him or our neighbor, even if just a little bit Why,
that’s not asking much for such a priceless treasure as eternal life!
Do you see what has happened The gift has evaporated and we
now have a bargain, perhaps even a good one, but there is no
longer the gift. Moreover, we have turned the face of our gracious,
loving God into a cosmic businessman or huckster who is out marketing
his spiritual wares for a little virtue or affection. Any amount
or aspect of law will neutralize the grace of God and diminish the
power of God unto salvation. Can anyone bargain for your love
God’s love and gifts can never be had for a bargain either.
Let’s look at this also from our standpoint. In our example, the
bargain of a happy forever only requires that you love a little bit.
Will we ever have any assurance of a happy forever How much
does God think is a “little bit” Have we provided enough yet, or
is more needed How will we ever know, until, of course, it is too
late And what about the quality of our love How good does it
have to be Is ours good enough Who knows Even a little bit of
law can rob us of all assurance and confidence that the blessings
of God are truly ours. And if our happy forever is on the line,
what means everything to us finally ends up depending on mere
whistling in the dark. From our perspective, bargains from God
offer no confidence or peace where we need it most: our present
and future well-being.
GROWTH IN CHRIST
When I was a young boy and would drift off aimlessly in the middle
of doing my homework from school or some chore I was
expected to do, my father was usually close at hand and did his

10 LOGIA
best to get me back on track. One of his favorite words of advice
on such occasions was, “Son, what you need here is to get your
head on straight.” Oh, how many times did I hear these words
growing up! Sometimes it seemed to me that my major problem
in life, from my dad’s perspective, was a continually off-center
head that was forever needing readjustment.
Now, many years later, I think that our heavenly Father is in
total agreement with my dad. He echoes the same words of advice
for me and all his children in his Word when it comes to the tasks
and challenges of Christian living. In 1 Peter he exhorts us to “gird
our minds for action.” David tells us in Psalm 7 that “the righteous
God tries the heart and mind” of all of us. Being “rightminded”
or in the right mind is of great importance for living
and growing in Christ.
Mind Renewal
The Christian as new creation and fleshly self really has a duality
in the mind, two minds, so to speak. Paul exhorts us to put
our heads on straight because “the mind set on the flesh is death”
and “hostile to God,” but the mind of Christ or the “mind set on
the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6). When we are drifting off in
the mind of the flesh, our heads are not on straight, and we need
to make the adjustment of putting on the new self and then walk
in the mind of Christ.
In Ephesians 4, Paul reminds us that there are two things that
we need to do continually in order to mature in Christ and fight
the inner war that is a part of our daily Christian living. The first
is to get our heads on straight by putting on the new self. The
second is mind renewal—to “be renewed in the spirit of [our]
mind.” Both tasks are also emphasized in Romans 12: “Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind.” And the purpose of this mind renewal “So we can
prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable
and perfect.”
If, as a boy, my dad was always exhorting me to get my head on
straight, I must confess that insofar as that was actually accomplished,
he must be credited (together with Mom) with performing
the lion’s share of that task. And though I needed them, his
words sometimes were very hard and painful to receive. Likewise,
our Heavenly Father, exhorting us in much the same way, carries
out, through his Son, the lion’s share of mind adjustment and
renewal that he commands of us. And again we see another
instance of what God commands, God produces. He works in the
Christian life continually to get our heads on straight—casting
off the fleshly mind, putting on the mind of Christ—and then he
renews and matures that mind.
Applying Law and Gospel
Our Lord does all this by the Holy Spirit through his ministry
of law and gospel in the word and sacraments. Through
the law at full strength, he exposes our fleshly self-made plans
for acceptability and secure personal well-being and condemns
them for the idolatrous and unworkable plans that they are.
The real checkmate here is not simply that they are wrong.
Rather, it is that they don’t work and can’t work, and those who
rely and trust in such plans are not just wrong, they are dead.
This is full-strength law!
The most penetrating law is that which is directed not to our
behavior, but to the core of the fleshly self that is in the mind and
heart. That is where the rebellious strategies and goals are lodged,
formulated, and energized for action. It is on the level of fleshly
belief, hope, and trust that the law must be applied. A mere
behavioral application can often end up as moralizing, and the
sinful self can easily adapt to a certain modicum of nice, moral
living. And in Christians it often does!
We need to be clear about God’s objectives here as we battle the
flesh. God’s ministry of law in the life of the Christian is not to
reform the fleshly self. He is out to kill it. Paul exhorts us to mortify
and crucify the flesh. Kill it! Remember, the heart and mind
of the fleshly self is organized around a rebellious answer and
strategy to solve the problem of existence itself, personal wellbeing:
What do we need that we might be secure and acceptable
human beings, and what can we do for significant, meaningful
impact in life How the fleshly self in each one of us frames out
answers to this is ground-point zero where full-strength law
needs to be directed and applied again and again.
What does effective ministry of the law do for the new self
Nothing in any direct way, but it does create a powerful hunger
and thirst for our Lord’s bread of life and living water of the
gospel. The law itself imparts no spiritual nutrition or power for
Christian living, but it is God’s great appetite builder that sends
us running for the word of life. And the ministry of the gospel is
how our Lord feeds the new creation to sustain and mature our
faith and life in Christ. The cutting edge of this building up
through the gospel involves the Spirit’s work of mind renewal for
development and maturity.
There is another paradox here. Full-strength gospel can often
be the simple gospel: “You are forgiven, God loves you and
accepts you just as you are for the sake of Christ.” Or even, “Jesus
loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” For our little ones
in Christ we must take care to feed them continually with the
pure milk of the gospel. And sometimes the simple gospel is what
we need, just the plain but full-strength words, “you are forgiven.”
Yet it is also true that the gospel is not simple. There is
more to it in its implications and applications than we will ever
grasp in this life.
As we grow and mature in Christ, the Lord also intends for us
to feed on the “meat and potatoes,” indeed, the whole nine
courses of the gospel, not simply the milk and pabulum. The
Spirit is working through word and sacrament to renew our
minds and hearts to the full stature of the mind of Christ himself.
And we need this mature understanding and trust of faith to handle
the front lines of Christ’s warfare with the powers of darkness
in our lives and in the world: maturity for battle and service at the
tough outposts of life. The milk and pabulum of the gospel alone
will not provide that kind of growth and equipping. With a fullorbed
gospel the new creation becomes progressively built up for
a fuller and deeper flow of the love and ministry of Christ
through us to those he gives us opportunity to serve. LOGIA
NOTE
* Paraphrase of Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 31–43,
by Philip Yancy, Disappointment with God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1988), 103–104.

Luther’s Augustinian Understanding of Justification
in the Lectures on Romans
AUGUSTINE’S STRUGGLE AGAINST PELAGIUS has direct bearing
upon Luther’s theology. In his Lectures on Romans,
Luther draws heavily on Augustine, citing mostly his anti-
Pelagian writings. Of these writings, Augustine’s De spiritu et littera
plays the greatest role. 1 Luther refers to it throughout his
comments on the first seven chapters. 2 This phenomenon invites
investigation concerning the influence of De spiritu et littera on
the Romans lectures. Does Luther adopt Augustine’s distinction
between Spirit and letter If so, what influence does it have on his
understanding of justification
SPIRIT AND LETTER
It may be helpful first to articulate Augustine’s view of Spirit and
letter in De spiritu et littera. The passage of Scripture to which
Augustine appeals is 2 Corinthians 3:6: “for the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life.” 3 Augustine had once understood this passage as
a license to allegorize. The literal meaning of the Scriptures kills,
so one should seek the spiritual meaning.³ But he rejects that
opinion in De spiritu et littera, or at least relegates it to a secondary
place. His new understanding is that the letter is the law
(which kills), while the Spirit is the Holy Spirit who heals the sinner
and enables him to keep the law.
The law kills because it is external. Its demands can be kept
externally, but the law lacks the power to enable one to do these
works from the heart. Augustine states,
Even those who did as the law commanded, without the
help of the Spirit of grace, did it through fear of punishment
and not from love of righteousness [amore iustitiae]. 4
Augustine here identifies the help of the Spirit as the production
of amor. For Augustine, the factor that determines whether a
work is good or bad is not the external quality of the work, but
the internal disposition of the one who does the work. Works that
are not done from amor cannot be good works, and thus they
cannot give life. The distinction between Spirit and letter for
Augustine is a distinction between internal and external. The law
is external, while the Spirit, grace, and love are internal.
Augustine does not think, however, that the letter and the
Spirit contradict or exclude each other. He stresses not only the
difference, but also the congruity (congruentia) of the Spirit with
the letter. He finds evidence of this congruity in that there were
DAVID MAXWELL is an S. T. M. student at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,
Missouri.
David Maxwell
11
fifty days between the Passover and Moses’ reception of the law
on Mt. Sinai just as there were fifty days between Jesus’ death
and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore,
the Holy Spirit, who is called the finger of God, wrote the
law on both occasions. In the Old Testament, he wrote it on
stones; in the New Testament he wrote in on hearts. Augustine
sums this up by saying,
When, to put fear into the mind of the flesh, the works of
charity [caritatis] are written upon tables, we have the law
[lex] of works, the letter killing the transgressor: when charity
[caritas] itself is shed abroad in the hearts of believers, we
have the law [lex] of faith, the Spirit giving life to the lover
[dilectorem]. 5
The congruentia between the Spirit and the letter is reflected in
that Augustine uses the same words to describe both. Both urge
caritas. Both are lex. The only difference is that the letter is caritas
written on tablets of stone (externally), while the Spirit is caritas
written on the heart (internally).
The congruity of the letter and the Spirit makes possible an
augmenting movement from the one to the other. The Spirit does
not contradict the letter, but provides a more inward and more
powerful version of the same thing. This inward movement is
also an upward movement toward God. Augustine describes this
ascent in Platonic terms:
[A man] receives the Holy Spirit, by whom there is produced
in his soul a delight and love of that highest
immutable good [summi illius atque immutabilis boni]
which is God. This happens even now when he walks by
faith, not yet by sight so that, since the love has been given
him as an earnest of God’s free gift, he might burn to cling
to the creator and be inflamed to draw near to the participation
[participatio] of that true light, in order to receive wellbeing
from the same one from whom he has being. 6
All of this activity is directed toward the highest and immutable
Good (summum et immutabile bonum). The goal is participatio
with the Creator’s light. “Participation” and the “highest and
immutable Good” are vital in the Platonic tradition. Neoplatonism
assumes a congruity between the One (or the Good) and all
things. All things have being because they “participate” in the
One to some extent. The goal of Neoplatonism is to raise the soul
to an ever higher and more intimate participation with the One.
Augustine’s use of the terms “participation” and “highest and

12 LOGIA
immutable Good” implies that he understands the Spirit’s work
as at least compatible with the Neoplatonic ascent of the soul.
This compatibility manifests itself at a number of points. First,
Augustine’s position is clearly characterized by a preference for the
internal over the external. This preference is consistent with the
Neoplatonic assumption that anything external is at a distance
from the One. Because of this distance, externality implies lack of
unity and therefore lack of power. The letter kills not because it
commands works, but because it is external and therefore powerless
to enable the works to be fulfilled. Second, Augustine
describes the work of the Holy Spirit as pouring caritas into the
heart that enkindles and draws one up towards the Good. This is
consistent with the role of e[rw" in Plotinus which is a “throwing
at” (e[fesi") the higher and the good. Finally, Augustine recognizes
a congruity and continuity between the letter and the Spirit.
He calls both Spirit and letter lex and says that both command caritas.
The difference is that the internal Spirit is more powerful and
thus able to accomplish caritas. In the same way, Neoplatonism
recognizes that while external items like matter are at a distance
from the One, they are still connected to the One by all the intermediate
levels of being that stretch down from the One.
Luther accepts Augustine’s distinction between the Spirit and
the letter. He distinguishes between the external commandment of
works and the internal fulfillment of that command which occurs
when the Holy Spirit pours love into the heart. This distinction
can be seen in the scholion on Romans 2:14. St. Paul, speaking of
the natural knowledge of God, states, “The work of the law is written
on their hearts.” 7 Luther comments,
It seems to me . . . that there is a difference between the statement
“The works of the Law [opus legis] are written on their
heart” and “The Law [legem] is written on their hearts,” for
the apostle did not want to say in this place . . . that they possessed
the Law written on their hearts, but he wanted to say
only “the works of the Law.” Therefore I believe that the sentence
“The law is written on their hearts” is the same as
“God’s love [caritatem] has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). This is, in the real sense,
the law of Christ and the fulfillment of the law of Moses. 8
In this passage, the opus legis corresponds to Augustine’s littera,
while the lex corresponds to Augustine’s Spiritus. The opus legis is a
weak external thing. Luther makes this clear a little later when he
says that the opus legis is the “the law that is written in letters concerning
the works that have to be done but not the grace to fulfill
this law.” 9 The lex itself, however, is the caritas which God pours
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Like Augustine, Luther recognizes
a congruity between the letter and the Spirit which he
expresses by using the term lex for both. The letter and the Spirit do
not contradict or exclude each other. Instead the Spirit fulfills the
letter. The operative distinction is between internal and external.
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
In his autobiographical statement from the preface to his Latin
works in 1545 Luther claims that he entered paradise through
open gates when he understood Rom 1:17, “the righteousness of
God [iustitia Dei] is revealed.” 10 Augustine’s distinction between
Spirit and letter was crucial in his struggle against the common
view of iustitia Dei. Nevertheless, as we shall see, this distinction
prevented Luther from coming to a full understanding of justification
in the Lectures on Romans.
The view that Luther rejects is articulated by Aristotle and
Cicero. According to this view, “righteousness” means “rendering
each man his due” [reddens unicuique quod suum est]. 11 When
this definition is applied to Romans 1:17, the result is that the
“righteousness of God” is that righteousness by which God punishes
sinners. This is the kind of righteousness Luther hated. In
Luther’s comments on Romans 1:17, he cites Augustine as his
champion against this misunderstanding:
By the righteousness of God we must not understand the
righteousness by which He is righteous in Himself but the
righteousness by which we are made righteous [iustificamur]
by God. This happens through faith in the Gospel.
Therefore blessed Augustine writes in chapter 11 of On the
Spirit and the Letter: “It is called the righteousness of God
because by imparting it He makes righteous people [iustos
facit], just as ‘Deliverance belongs to the Lord’ refers to that
by which he delivers.” 12
In this passage Luther’s iustificamur is parallel with Augustine’s
iustos facit. This fact indicates that Luther understood the verb
iustificare to mean “make righteous.” The exercise of God’s righteousness
is a transformative application of power rather than a
punitive application of power.
So far we have seen that Luther found Augustine helpful as an
opponent of Aristotle. But how far does Augustine’s help take
Luther If one searches through De spiritu et littera trying to find a
statement that expresses the mature Luther’s view of full forensic
justification, a passage from chapter 9 presents itself as the most
likely candidate. This is, in fact, the passage to which Luther refers
in the above quotation from the Lectures on Romans. Augustine
defines righteousness of God as “not that by which God is righteous,
but that wherewith he clothes [induit] man, when he justifies
the ungodly.” 13 The verb induit seems to have possibilities for
expressing full forensic justification. Is it possible that Augustine
and Luther are free from transformative power language when
they use this verb According to the mature Luther, the answer is
no. In the 1545 preface to his Latin works, Luther reflects on the
help Augustine gave him in understanding iustitia Dei:
Later I read Augustine’s The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary
to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God’s righteousness
in a similar way, as the righteousness with which
God clothes [induit] us when he justifies us. Although this
was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all
things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was
pleasing that God’s righteousness with which we are justified
was taught. 14
In Luther’s mature judgment, Augustine’s use of induit does not
express a correct understanding of imputation. Nevertheless, Augustine
is a great help to Luther negatively—in his fight against the
theological consequences of Aristotle’s definition of righteousness.

LUTHER’S AUGUSTINIAN UNDERSTANDING OF JUSTIFICATION 13
Augustine frees Luther from Aristotle but does not bring him
to understand justification forensically. Therefore, if Luther’s
views are Augustinian in 1516 and 1517, one would not expect him
to teach full and complete justification in the Lectures on Romans.
To this question we now turn.
JUSTIFICATION
In the Lectures on Romans, Luther speaks of justification as an
inclination, as a sanative process, and as imputation. I shall examine
these individually to find out how Augustine’s distinction
between the Spirit and the letter influences each one.
Inclination
In the scholion on Romans 4:7, Luther states that “our righteousness
from God is the very turning [inclinatio] toward the
good and the avoiding [declinatio] of evil which is given to us
inwardly [interius] through grace.” 15 Good works are the external
fruits of this interior inclination toward the good, while evil
works are the fruits of an interior inclination towards evil. 16 Man
is poised between good and evil, and the direction he goes
depends on which way he faces.
In this conception of justification, the problem that must be
overcome in man is his inability to stay turned upward toward
God. Luther makes this point in his gloss on 1:23, which says,
“They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness
of the image of corruptible man and of birds and
quadrupeds and snakes.” 17 Luther notes,
The nature of the human mind is so changeable [mobilis]
that when it turns away from one thing, it of necessity turns
to another. Therefore, a person who turns away from the
Creator of necessity turns to the creature. 18
Here the alternative is not between good and evil, but between
creator and creature. The root diagnosis of man’s condition is not
his idolatry per se, but the fact that he is mobilis. This mobility is a
weakness. It is most un-Godlike, since God is immutable, as we
saw in Augustine. Salvation is the process of becoming more like
God. Therefore, man needs to be turned towards the creator.
Saarnivaara characterizes this turning in Augustine as a “change
of taste” or a “change in the objects of loving and longing.” 19
Implicit in this turning is that he will then move in that direction.
This kind of justification leads up towards God and away from
creation, making man more and more like God. Creation in this
scheme is to be viewed with suspicion.
Augustine expresses such suspicion when he states that the
image of God in the human soul has not been completely obliterated
“by the stain of earthly affections [terrenorum affectuum].”
20 Augustine’s diagnosis of man’s condition is that he is
too attached to the things of the earth. “Earthly affection” is a
synonym of sin. This does not mean that Augustine thinks
matter is evil in the way the Gnostics do. But it does assume
that movement towards creation is necessarily movement away
from the creator.
The letter is empty and lacking since it is external, and therefore
at a distance from the source of being. The Spirit fills up
what the letter lacks because the Spirit is more interior and hence
closer to the source of being. In Augustine and early Luther, the
force that drives the ascent is caritas. Luther states,
For we become like the things we love. “If you love God, you
are God; if you love the earth, you are earth,” says St. Augustine.
For love is a unifying force [vis unitiva], which makes
the loved and the lover into one. 21
Luther’s description of love as a unifying force (vis unitiva)
encapsulates many of the themes that we have examined so far.
First, it demonstrates that God’s saving action is an operation of
power (vis) upon the sinner. This power talk is far different
from the mature Luther’s understanding of full forensic justification.
In forensic justification, salvation does not depend on
the sinner being pulled or changed or empowered, but instead
salvation is granted whole and entire by God’s declaration. Second,
the term vis unitiva expresses the suspicion towards the
earthly that we noted in Augustine’s metaphysics. By unifying
one to God, love makes one less like earth and more like God. In
other words, love saves by rescuing the creature from his creatureliness.
Finally, vis unitiva expresses a preference for the
internal over the external. The external world is extended in
space and therefore weak. Salvation involves unifying the disparate
parts into a more concentrated powerful whole. This
occurs when one turns inward because the soul is not extended
in space like the body is.
These themes all point to a salvation which is an operation of
power by God that turns the sinner away from the earth toward
God and away from external matters to internal matters. In this
way, love pulls us up to union with God. This way of speaking
leads naturally into Luther’s second way of speaking of justification:
as a sanative process.
Sanative Process
On Romans 4:6, which speaks of God’s reckoning righteousness
(reputat iustitiam), Luther comments,
The former [the righteous] are not content with the works
they have performed and seek to have their heart justified
and cleansed [iustificari et sanari] from sinful desires, but
the latter [the wicked] care nothing for their inner life and
are content with works performed externally. 22
In this passage, Luther uses the terms iustificari and sanari as synonyms.
He views justification as a healing process. This understanding
fits well with the idea that man is being pulled upward
to God. The closer he gets, the less sin he has. This is Augustine’s
dominant way of speaking about justification throughout De
spiritu et littera.
Remission of sins in this context is not a gift bestowing declaration.
It is an act of power by God that expels sin from the sinner.
Luther states,
And thus his death not only signifies, but also does [facit] the
remission of sin as a most sufficient satisfaction. And his resurrection
is not only a sacrament [i.e., sign] of our righteousness,
but also effects [efficit] it in us, if we believe it, and is its

14 LOGIA
cause. ...This whole thing the Scholastic theologians call
one change: the expulsion of sin and the infusion of grace. 23
Luther uses facio (make or do) and efficio (effect) to describe both
the remission of sins and the effecting of righteousness. Remission
is not granted to the sinner, it is done to the sinner. Facio and
efficio suggest that forgiveness is a power that is operative on the
sinner. Implicit in such terminology is the understanding that as
long as the power is operative, the process is not complete.
Luther makes more extensive use of
imputation language in the
Lectures on Romans.
nb
This lack of completion can be seen in Luther’s use of expulsio
peccati (expulsion of sin) as a synonym of remissio peccati (remission
of sin). Remission is not a declaration of forgiveness, but a
progressive driving out of sin. The sinner undergoes a change
(mutatio) that can be expressed negatively as the expulsion of sin
or positively as the infusion of grace. Both of these expressions
assume that justification is a healing process.
Sanative justification is implicit in the congruentia of the letter
and the Spirit which Augustine (and early Luther) identify. Justification
is a move from the letter to the Spirit. The letter kills
because it lacks the vis to perform the remissio/expulsio. The Spirit
continues to heal by pouring love into the heart, which we have
seen is a vis unitiva. As the sinner is drawn closer and closer to
God, his sin is gradually expelled and replaced by love.
Imputation
The fact that sin is not expelled all at once implies a need for
non-imputation of what remains. This is the third way Luther
speaks of justification. He says that we should pray for the nonimputation
of sin. “For it is never remitted entirely, but it remains
and needs non-imputation.” 24 This non-imputation is set firmly
in the context of sanative justification.
Luther appeals to Augustine for his understanding of justification
as imputation:
But the doers of the Law will be justified. This passage is interpreted
in a twofold way by blessed Augustine in chapter 26
of On the Spirit and the Letter. First in this way: The doers of
the Law will be justified means that through justification
they will become, or be made [fient siue creabuntur], what
they were not before, doers. Second, and in a better way, will
be justified means that they will be looked upon and thought
of as righteous [Iusti habebuntur et deputabuntur], as stated
in the gloss. 25
The passage to which Luther refers is De spiritu et littera 45 (xxvi).
On the surface, Augustine seems to offer two possibilities for
defining “justify”: the first is sanative (“they will become, or be
made . . . doers”), and the second is forensic (“they will be looked
upon and thought of as righteous”). The context of the passage
which Luther quotes indicates, however, that the second option is
not in fact forensic. Augustine gives two examples of justification
that fit his apparently forensic definition “look upon and think of
as righteous.” The first is the man in the Gospel who wanted to
justify himself by asking, “Who is my neighbor” This example
does not prove that one who is not righteous may be considered
righteous by God. The man in the Gospel wanted to be justified,
but he was not. Jesus’ response to him was to tell the parable of
the Good Samaritan. The second example is the petition “Hallowed
be thy name.” But according to Augustine, God’s name is
already holy. “Hallowed be thy name” is a prayer that it be
deemed holy by us. Since God’s name is holy in itself, this example
cannot be used to argue for a forensic understanding of justification
in Augustine. Augustine concludes his discussion of the
two possible meanings of “justify” by saying,
In the one case, “sanctify” [which Augustine uses synonymously
with “justify”] means that God himself makes saints
of men who were not saints: in the other, we pray that what
is ever holy in itself may be held by men as holy, may be
feared in holy wise. 26
In neither case does Augustine have in mind God’s reckoning a
sinner as completely righteous. Instead, the implication is that if
God reckons someone righteous, it is because God is in the
process of making him righteous just as men hold God’s name
holy because it actually is holy. Thus, “hold righteous” makes no
sense apart from “make righteous.” This perhaps explains why
Augustine does not generally employ imputation language in De
spiritu et littera. The language of making and healing is Augustine’s
dominant way of treating justification in this work.
Luther, on the other hand, makes more extensive use of imputation
language in the Lectures on Romans. We have seen above
that he prefers it to fient siue creabuntur. But how is imputation
different than making righteous At some points in the Romans
lectures one is hard pressed to tell the difference. In the scholion
on 3:7, Luther discusses the statement that God is justified. He
thinks the statement most properly means that God “accounts
people righteous” (iustos reputat). 27 But Luther’s illustration of
such an accounting is an artist making others to be artists (efficere
artifices). By choosing the word efficere, he blurs the distinction
between “account righteous” and “make righteous.” As we have
seen, Luther uses efficere to denote an operation or change that is
effective but not yet complete.
This does not mean that Luther sees no distinction between the
two. Obviously he does distinguish them since he expresses a preference
for imputation language. But this example shows that the
distinction is not vital to Luther’s theology in the Lectures on
Romans. If it were, he would take pains not to blur that distinction.
On the other hand, if facio and reputo are complementary
rather than opposed to each other, then it makes sense that Luther
would not always see the need to keep the distinction clear.
The complementary role of imputation may be expressed as
divine forbearance until the sanative process is complete. This forbearance
is grounded on the confidence that God will complete the

LUTHER’S AUGUSTINIAN UNDERSTANDING OF JUSTIFICATION 15
process in the future. Luther says that he used to think that his past
sins were not forgiven because he still had them. He was delivered
from this terror by understanding the role of imputation:
Thus I was at war with myself, not knowing that it was a
true forgiveness [remissio] indeed, but that this is nevertheless
not a taking away of sin except in hope [in spe], that is,
that the taking away is to be done, and that by the gift of
grace, which begins to take sin away, so that it is not
imputed as sin [ut non imputetur . . . pro peccato]. 28
In this passage, Luther implies that there are two kinds of remissio:
one in hope, the other in fact. We may note the important
purpose clause at the end of the passage. The purpose of the
beginning of the removal of sin is so that (ut) it is not imputed as
sin. In other words, the non-imputation is grounded on the
incipient removal (auferre incipit) of sin. Conspicuously absent
is any reference to the vicarious atonement. The incipient
removal of sin displaces the atonement as the basis of the nonimputation
of sin. Sin is not imputed not because Christ has
paid for it on the cross, but because God is in the process of
removing it from the heart of the sinner.
The fact that the removal has not yet fully taken place means
that non-imputation is not justification free and clear. The
removal of sin is merely in spe, not yet in re. This is language that
Luther borrows from Augustine. 29
Thus when in the Romans lectures Luther makes statements
resembling simul justus et peccator, one should not suppose that
he means that the Christian is at once completely a sinner and
completely righteous. He is righteous only in spe. For example,
Luther states,
The fact is that he [the sick man] is both sick and well at the
same time [egrotus simul et sanus]. He is sick in fact, but he
is well because of the sure promise of the doctor, whom he
trusts and who has reckoned [reputat] him already cured
because [quia] he is sure that he will cure him; for he has
already begun to cure him and no longer reckons to him a
sickness unto death. 30
This passage is a good summary of the relation between imputation
and sanative justification in the Romans Lectures. Here we see
that the imputation is grounded on future healing. The doctor
reckons the sick man well because (quia) he will cure him. Furthermore,
we see that the man is sick in fact. To say that he is well is to
say something that is not true in fact, but that one is sure is going to
be true. Again, non-imputation is based on something that will
happen in the sinner, not something that has happened on the cross.
Saarnivaara concurs with this reading of the Lectures on Romans. 31
Thus we see that Luther’s understanding of imputation is still
captive to Augustine’s distinction between the Spirit and the letter.
Imputation is external, and Augustine’s metaphysics dictate
that anything external is necessarily weak and ineffective. The
basis of our salvation is still the internal operation of the Spirit
who pours caritas into our hearts. As long as this distinction
between Spirit and letter is operative, imputation, because of its
externality, can never be decisive.
MATURE LUTHER
The mature Luther has a different interpretation of Spirit and letter.
In 1540 Luther preached a sermon on 2 Corinthians 3:4 and
following in which he interprets the letter as the law and the Spirit
as the gospel. This differs with Augustine’s interpretation in a
number of points. First of all, Luther glories in externals. He
stresses that the writing on the hearts of the believers (the ministry
of the Spirit) is done through preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper,
and the keys. His language is earthy and physical. He preaches
that the tongue of the preacher is the Spirit’s pen. He describes the
work of the Spirit as follows: “Thus the Holy Spirit is in the tongue
and with it, and just as he speaks with the tongue, in this way he
places it in the heart that you believe. This is against the stupid
spirits who say that the external word is nothing.” 32 This glorying
in the external word is a departure from the metaphysics of
Augustine. For Augustine, all externals are far removed from the
source of being and thus are weak. The letter kills precisely
because it is external and incapable of providing the power to fulfill
its demands. Luther jumps off Augustine’s ladder of being. He
opts instead for a distinction that is not progressive and ontological.
Both law and gospel are external. For Luther the letter kills not
because it is external but because it demands. The Spirit saves, not
because he is internal but because he bestows the forgiveness of
sins. In fact, the externality of the Gospel provides the sinner a
sure anchor in the midst of his inner sin and turmoil.
The mature Luther has a different
interpretation of Spirit and letter.
nb
Another difference between Augustine and early Luther and
the mature Luther is what the Holy Spirit writes on the heart. As
we saw, Augustine has the Holy Spirit pour caritas (which early
Luther understood as a vis unitiva) into the heart. The mature
Luther, on the other hand, says that the Spirit writes “Credo in
Deum patrem, Iesum Christum, etc.” 33 and “Christus mortuus
pro peccatis.” 34 The Spirit pours not a force but the Creed into
the heart. This is a shift from salvation by an internal transformation
of love to salvation by faith in an external object, Christ. The
vicarious death of Christ, which played no major role in sanative
justification, is now central to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, we saw that for Augustine, there is congruity between
the letter and the Spirit. They both say the same thing. But for the
mature Luther they say opposite things. The letter says “Do this.
Don’t do that.” The preaching of the Spirit, on the other hand,
does not teach the Ten Commandments, but says, “God sent his
son into the flesh.” 35
When Luther jettisons Augustine’s distinction between the
Spirit and the letter in favor of the distinction between law and
gospel, he is free of the necessity of inner and upward movement
in justification. Indeed, there can be no movement from law to
gospel, because they say contradictory things. Luther rejoices in
God’s forensic declaration of forgiveness precisely because it is

16 LOGIA
external. When the externum verbum determines one’s standing
before God, there is no need for introspection and doubt based
on one’s sin.
One may also describe the distinction between law and gospel
as a jettisoning of the Neoplatonic assumptions underlying
Augustine’s distinction between the Spirit and the letter: the
power of the internal versus the weakness of the external, the congruity
of the lower and higher, and the upward pull. All of these
themes make it impossible for anything external to be decisive in
salvation. When Luther breaks free of De spiritu et littera and glories
in the externum verbum, he is rejecting the Neoplatonic
metaphysics that undergird Augustine’s thought.
The preoccupation with the internal is the root problem with
Augustine’s distinction between the Spirit and the letter. It
caused the language of inclination and healing to dominate
Luther’s understanding of justification in the Lectures on
Romans. Imputation remained supplementary since it was external.
The mark of Luther’s freedom from Augustine is the joy he
later took in the externum verbum. When the distinction
between law and gospel replaced the congruity from external to
internal, Luther found his salvation not in an internal vis unitiva,
but in the external promise of God. LOGIA
1. Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera, in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiaticorum
Latinorum 60, ed. Charless Urba and Joseph Zycha (New York and
London: Johnson Reprint Company, 1962).
2. Leif Grane, “Divus Paulus et S. Augustinus, Interpres Eius Fidelissimus,”
Festschrift für Ernst Fuchs, ed., Gerhard Ebeling, Eberhard Jüngel,
and Gerd Schunack (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1973), 136.
3. littera enim occidit Spiritus autem vivificat.
4. De spiritu et litera 13 (vii). “quicumque faciebant quod lex iubebat
non adiuuante spiritu gratiae, timore poenae faciebant, non amore iustitiae.”
Translations of Augustine are Burnaby’s unless otherwise stated.
5. De spiritu et litera 29 (xvii). “sed ad hanc prudentiam carnis terrendam
cum in tabulis scribuntur opera caritatis, lex est operum et littera
occidens praeuaricatorem; cum autem ipsa caritas diffunditur in corde
credentium, lex est fidei et spiritus uiuificans dilectorem.”
6. De spiritu et litera 5 (iii) (my translation). “accipiat spiritum sanctum,
quo fiat in animo eius delectatio dilectioque summi illius atque
incommutabilis boni, quod deus est, etiam nunc cum per fidem ambulatur,
nondum per speciem, ut hac sibi uelut arra data gratuiti muneris
inardescat inhaerere creatori atque inflammetur accedere ad participationem
illius ueri luminis, ut ex illo ei bene sit, a quo habet ut sit.”
7. Rom. 2:15. “opus legis scriptum in cordibus suis.”
8. AE 25: 187. “Videtur itaque mihi . . . Quod aliud sit ‘opus legis
scribi in cordibus’ et aliud ‘legem scribi in cordibus’. Non enim Apostolus
Voluit . . . hoc loco dicere eos habere legem in cordibus suis scriptam, Sed
‘opus legis’. Vnde puto, Quod ‘legem scribi in cordibus’ sit ipsam ‘charitatem
diffundi in cordibus per spiritum sanctum’, que proprie est lex
Christi et plenitudo legis Mosi . . . .” (WA 56: 203, 5–10). Translations of
Luther are by Tillmans and Preus unless otherwise stated.
9. AE 25: 187. “. . . legem literalem de opere faciendo, non autem gratiam
ad faciendum” WA 56: 203, 13–14.
10. AE 34: 337; WA 54: 186, 3–9.
11. Quoted by Alister E. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 107.
12. AE 25: 151–152. “‘Iustitia Dei’ non ea debet accipi, qua ipse Iustus
est in seipso, Sed qua nos ex ipso Iustificamur, quod fit per fidem euangelii.
Vnde b. Augustinus c. XI. de spir. et lit.: ‘Ideo Iustitia Dei dicitur,
quod impertiendo eam Iustos facit. Sicut Domini est salus, qua saluos
facit’“ (WA 56: 172, 4–7).
13. De spiritu et littera 15 (ix), (emph. in Burnaby’s trans). “non qua
deus iustus est, sed qua induit hominem, cum iustificat impium.”
14. AE 34: 337. “Postea legebam Augustinum de spiritu et litera, ubi
praeter spem offendi, quod et ipse iustitiam Dei similiter interpretatur:
quo nos Deus induit, dum nos iustificat. Et quamquam imperfecte hoc
adhuc sit dictum, ac de imputatione non clare omnia explicet, placuit
tamen iustitiam Dei doceri, qua nos iustificemur” (WA 54: 186, 16–20).
15. AE 25: 259. “. . . Iustitia nostra ex Deo Est ipsa ipsa Inclinatio ad
bonum et declinatio a malo interius per gratiam data . . . .” (WA 56: 271,
11–12).
16. AE 25: 259; WA 56, 271: 13–15.
17. “et mutaverunt gloriam incorruptibilis Dei in similitudinem imaginis
corruptibilis hominis et volucrum et quadrupedum et serpentium.”
18. AE 25: 11, n. 34. “Natura enim mentis humane est ita mobilis, vt
NOTES
dum se ab vno auertit, necessario vertit se ad aliud. Ideo qui auertitur a
Creatore, necessario vertitur ad creaturam” (WA 56: 13, 7–10).
19. Uuras Saarnivaara, Luther Discovers the Gospel (Saint Louis: Concordia,
1951), 15.
20. De spiritu et littera 48 (xxviii). “non usque adeo in anima humana
imago dei terrenorum affectuum labe detrita est . ...”
21. AE 25: 226–227. “Quia qualia diligimus, tales efficimur. ‘Deum
diligis, Deus es; terram diligis, terra es,’ Ait b. Augustinus. Amor enim vis
est vnitiua ex amante et amato vnum quid constitiens” (WA 56: 241, 3–5).
22. AE 25: 256. “Illi non contenti factis operibus cor etiam querunt
Iustificari et Sanari a prauis concupiscentiis, isti Vero interiora nihil
curantes externe factis operibus contenti sunt” (WA 56: 268, 11–14).
23. My translation; cf. AE 25: 284. “Et sic Mors eius non solum significat,
Sed etiam facit remissionem peccati tanquam satisfactio sufficientissima.
Et resurrectio eius non tantum est sacramentum Iustitie nostre, Sed
etiam efficit eam in nobis, si eam credimus, et est causa. De quibus infra
latius. Hoc totum Scholostici theologi Vnam dicunt mutationem: expulsionem
peccati et infusionem gratie” (WA 56: 296, 19–24).
24. AE 25: 278. “Quia nunquam remittitur omnino, Sed manet et
indiget non-imputatione” (WA 56: 291, 9–10).
25. AE 25: 184. “Sed factores legis Iustificabuntur [2, 13]. Hoc B.
Aug[ustinus] c. 26. de spi. et lit. dupliciter. Primo sic: ‘Factores legis Iustificabuntur’
i.e. per Iustificationem fient siue creabuntur, vt sint factores,
quales ante Iustificationem non fuerunt. Secundo et melius ‘Iustificabuntur’
i.e. Iusti habebuntur et deputabuntur, vt in glosa dictum est” (WA 56:
201, 9–14).
26. De spiritu et littera 45 (xxvi). “unde aliter dicimus ‘deus sanctificat
sanctos suos’, aliter autem sanctificetur nomen tuum; nam illud ideo, quia
ipse illos facit esses sanctos, qui non erant sancti, hoc autem ideo, ut quod
semper apud se sanctum est sanctum etiam ab hominibus habeatur, id est
sancte timeatur.”
27. AE 25: 205; WA 56: 220, 11.
28. AE 25: 261. “Ita mecum pugnaui, Nesciens, Quod remissio quidem
vera sit, Sed tamen non sit ablatio peccati nisi in spe i.e. auferenda et
data gratia, que auferre incipit, vt non Imputetur ammodo pro peccato”
(WA 56: 274, 8–11).
29. Cf. De spiritu et littera 51. “By faith of Jesus Christ is granted to us
both the little beginning of salvation in possession [in re], and its perfecting
which we await in hope [in spe].” “fide igitur Iesu Christi inpetramus
salutem et quantulum nobis inchoatur in re et quantum perficienda
expectatur in spe.”
30. AE 25: 260. “Immo egrotus simul et sanus. Egrotus in rei veritate,
Sed sanus ex certa promissione medici, cui credit, qui eum iam Velut
sanum reputat, quia certus, quod sanabit eum, quia incepit eum sanare
nec imputauit ei egritudinem ad mortem . . .” (WA 56: 272, 7–11).
31. See Saarnivaara, 80.
32. AE 49: 168, 28–30 (my translation). “Sic Spiritus sanctus est in lingua
et cum ea, et sicut loquitur cum ea, sic imponit in cor, ut credatis. Hoc
est contra stultos Spiritus, qui dicunt externum verbum nihil ....”
33. WA 49: 167, 37.
34. WA 49: 170, 13.
35. WA 49: 170, 26–36.

The Doctrine of Justification and Its
Implications for Evangelicalism
THE IMPORTANCE OF JUSTIFICATION TO
EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY
EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY HAS EXHIBITED widely divergent
treatments of the doctrine of justification. For some evangelicals
justification is one doctrine among many; for others it
is supremely important not merely as a doctrine but as the doctrine
by which all others are judged. These radically different
approaches certainly call into question the unity of the modern
evangelical movement. Commentators have defined evangelicals
as those Christians who hold the importance of (1) the authority
of Scripture, (2) the historicity of God’s work of salvation, (3) salvation
based on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, (4) evangelism
and missions, and (5) a renewed spiritual life. 1 Other lists of
important theological concerns have been produced, but they
will be found to be similar to the one offered above. What is really
important to the definition of contemporary Evangelicalism is
the ways in which these points may be interpreted. Lutherans,
among others, are profoundly ambivalent about being considered
evangelicals, not because they are uncomfortable with the characteristics
said to define Evangelicalism, but because they are
uncomfortable with the significance of the characteristics; it
depends on what is meant by “a renewed spiritual life.” Justification
is crucial to a Lutheran understanding of Evangelicalism.
The meaning and applicability of the doctrine of justification will
certainly affect how points one, three, and five above are to be
understood. Divergence over justification once again opens the
question, “What is an evangelical” It certainly opens the question
of whether or not a Lutheran is an evangelical in the sense
described above. 2
At its most basic level justification may be defined as “that act
of God by which He for Christ’s sake declares the world innocent
and acquitted.” 3 The doctrinal article of justification, however, is
far more significant than a mere word study on the divkaio" word
group or a purely exegetical treatment of Romans, or what a psychological
analysis might reveal. Such a process ignores the
importance of the Biblical concept of justification as revealed in a
plethora of rich Biblical testimony, including many salvation
themes. Louis Bouyer, the Roman Catholic theologian, astutely
pointed out the importance of the study of justification for an
understanding of John Henry Cardinal Newman, not to mention
the Gospel itself:
Scott R. Murray
To be sure, a Protestant exegete like Albert Schweitzer could
claim that justification was not the central point of St. Paul’s
theology—much less did it assume the all-embracing proportions
that Protestant theology has come to attribute to it.
But, if we grasp the fact that the word “justification” is
merely an abstract formula to designate the answer to the
rich young man in the Gospel: “What must I do to be
saved” then it must be admitted that the person for whom
this question no longer has meaning is by that very fact
incapable of any further understanding of the Gospel. 4
THEOLOGICAL METHOD AND STRUCTURE
If, following Luther, justification is the articulus stantis et cadentis
ecclesiae, 5 then the doctrine of justification is nothing less than
the central doctrine under the umbrella of which all other doctrines
may be discussed. 6 The article of justification can be considered
the summary of the work of Christ. This is especially the
case in Lutheran dogmatics, in which the doctrine of the person
of Christ is immediately followed by the doctrine of salvation.
Lutheran dogmaticians have seldom sharply distinguished
between the work of Christ and the doctrine of salvation.
Lutheran dogmaticians, beginning with Philip Melanchthon,
have tended to discuss the doctrine of the person of Christ,
namely, his two natures and the personal union, in the locus
treating God the holy Trinity, and later to discuss the work of
Christ under the locus of justification. 7 This method was certainly
carried on by John Gerhard in the seventeenth century. 8 In
the twentieth century Franz Pieper 9 continued this structure.
Nevertheless, a segment dedicated to the threefold office of Christ
as prophet, priest, and king is called “the work of Christ” by
Pieper. Pieper chose to call the locus on justification “the application
of salvation” in his Christian Dogmatics. 10 More recently Carl
Braaten and Robert Jenson have written and edited a two-volume
Christian Dogmatics 11 in which a locus dedicated to a discussion
of the atonement and Luther’s theology of the cross is called the
work of Christ. 12 Justification is discussed both in this locus and
in the locus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
On the Reformed side, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian
Religion also exhibits a structure that does not distinguish sharply
between the work of Christ and salvation. 13 The central importance
of the doctrine of justification was recognized by G. C. Berkouwer:
SCOTT R. MURRAY is a LOGIA contributing editor and pastor of Salem
Lutheran Church, Gretna, Louisiana.
17
The conflict between Rome and the Reformation in the sixteenth
century began at this point [of justification], but it
spread through the doctrines of sanctification, perseverance,

18 LOGIA
and assurance of salvation. This suggests the indissoluble
bond between the problems of faith and justification, faith
and sanctification, and faith and perseverance. This is what
makes justification such an existential problem; it is really
the heart of the matter. 14
More recently, J. I. Packer, the English evangelical, asserted
that the essential “foundation-principle, the substantial one, is
justification by faith only.” 15 This doctrine of justification is at
the very heart of the issue between Rome and Protestantism,
even at the very heart of western Christianity itself. Packer has
broken with the methodology of his fellow British, in that English-speaking
theologians have tended to summarize the work
of Christ under the doctrine of the atonement. 16 The British
theologians’ treatment of atonement is not equivalent to the
Lutheran concern for justification, because atonement does not
carry the metatheological import that justification has for
Lutherans. 17
Twentieth-century theology has happily
proclaimed that justification is no
longer an issue worthy of deep
theological interest.
nb
Donald Bloesch followed the pattern of British evangelicals
by characterizing the work of Christ as “atonement” in his
Essentials of Evangelical Theology. 18 He also included loci on salvation
by grace and on faith alone, however. Bloesch would not
place justification in the center of either the method or the content
of his theology. Indeed, justification itself is subsumed
under “faith alone.”
Millard Erickson employed a traditional Reformed structure in
his monumental Christian Theology. 19 The topics follow this
order: the work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and salvation. 20 Justification
is included under “The Beginning of Salvation: Objective
Aspects” and is situated after predestination and a discussion of
the ordo salutis. Thus justification is merely one among several
parts of the objective aspects of salvation, with only eight out of
more than twelve hundred pages committed to it. Erickson followed
the methodology of Theodore Beza, who established the
centrality of the doctrine of predestination in Reformed theology.
As Alister McGrath pointed out:
[Reformed] Orthodoxy tended to make the divine decrees
[of predestination] themselves the starting point for theological
speculation. All else, justification included, is therefore
a consequence of the divine decrees, decrees actualized
in time as the ordo salutis: praedestinatio—vocatio—justificatio—sanctificatio—glorificatio.
This inevitably results in justification
becoming a purely incidental aspect of the actualization
of the divine decision to elect. 21
Erickson heads the locus of salvation with a discussion of predestination,
but he fails to take into account the degree to which predestination
orders and directs his discussion of salvation. 22 Evangelical
dogmaticians have not taken into account the overarching
critical use of the article of justification, in many cases relegating
it to the fringes of their theology. Lutherans should take note of
this and ask afresh if they are indeed, in the modern American
sense, evangelicals.
ATTACKS ON THE CENTRALITY OF JUSTIFICATION
Twentieth-century theology has happily proclaimed that justification
is no longer an issue worthy of deep theological interest, for
the Biblical record has been found to be devoid of an overarching
concern with the article of justification. 23 Starting with the work
of Albert Schweitzer, modern exegetes and theologians have questioned
the centrality of the doctrine of justification for the Christian
canon. 24 It is argued that certainly justification could be said
to be important in Romans and Galatians, but hardly for the synoptic
Gospels or the book of Leviticus. Furthermore, some theologians
have now argued for a decreasing importance of justification
in theology for psychological reasons. Following an analytic
theological method, Wolfhart Pannenberg has argued that
since modern people no longer have the experience of
Anfechtung, the crisis of guilt coram Deo (before God), they can
no longer make sense of justification as an overarching theological
theme. 25 For Pannenberg the doctrine of justification cannot
make sense outside of the context of the late medieval penitential
system. 26 Brian Gerrish summarized the modern debate over justification
with these haunting words: “Much of the twentiethcentury
discussion has turned around the question whether for
one reason or another, the entire concept of justification no
longer speaks to the condition of modern man.” 27 Indeed, recent
dogmatical works have positively ignored justification. A muchheralded
book edited by Peter Hodgson and Robert King, Christian
Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, included
only a few sentences on justification in a more-than-four-hundred-page
book. 28 The well-respected Anglican John Macquarrie
included little more than a historical discussion of justification in
his Principles of Christian Theology, saying, “[E]ven so, the whole
notion of justification has been vastly exaggerated in the attention
that has been paid to it.” 29
LUTHER’S REFORMATION AND JUSTIFICATION
Scholars have debated the nature and timing of Luther’s (re)discovery
of the good news of salvation. Luther himself said that he
discovered the meaning of the righteousness of God by 1519,
beginning that odyssey in 1514 as he lectured on the Psalms. 30 Previously
Luther held a nominalist position which he had been
taught at the University of Erfurt. 31 Luther came to the conclusion
that the righteousness of God was not the holy, consuming justice
of God. In his 1514–15 lectures on the Psalms he thought that this
righteousness was a righteousness that came from God, but that it
was an inhering or personal righteousness. At this point Luther
was thoroughly Augustinian. He eclipsed the Augustinian position
during his 1515–16 lectures on Romans, when he determined that
the divinely wrought righteousness of justification was not an
inhering personal righteousness in the Christian individual, but

JUSTIFICATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR EVANGELICALISM 19
rather a forensic or declaratory righteousness. For Luther justification
was the verdict by which God declared a sinner to be not
guilty, acquitted, on account of Christ, through faith alone.
The Centrality of Justification
Martin Luther made justification central to the whole theological
program: “articulus justificationis est magister et princeps,
dominus, rector et judex super omnia genera doctrinarum, qui
conservet et gubernat omnem doctrinam ecclesiasticam et erigit
conscientiam nostram coram Deo.” 32 In the Smalcald Articles,
Luther identified the article of justification as the Hauptartikel
along with the article of the person of Christ. Justification is Christology
and Christology is justification for Martin Luther (SA II, I,
1; II, II, 25). In this confession of faith Luther used the doctrine of
justification as a critical tool to repulse every false practice and
every human pretense before God (SA III, XIV, 1; cf. LC Preface).
Three major shifts in Luther’s doctrine of justification in his
lectures on Romans from 1519 have been identified by Alister
McGrath. First, Luther said that man is pure passive (purely passive)
in his justification. This means that a man is a subiectum
patiens (suffering subject) in his conversion. 33 While previously
Luther taught that man could turn toward God in his conversion
with the help of grace, now Luther taught that God turns to
man. 34 Here Luther is attempting only to rule out all synergism.
He is not implying that man is treated by God like an inanimate
object or other created being. 35 Second, Luther declared that
man’s will was held captive to grace. Third, Luther rejected the
position of the nominalists that one can do quod in se est, a position
he had previously held. He asserted that such a position is
nothing other than Pelagian. He had now come upon “a radically
new understanding of how faith comes about in the first place.” 36
The Theology of the Cross
One of the ways in which Luther’s doctrine of justification was
different from Augustine’s was that for Luther God’s righteousness
was revealed by the cross of Christ. God’s wisdom, glory, and
strength are all revealed sub contrariis, 37 in ways that contradict
human expectations. 38 The theology of the cross was the distinctive
mark of Luther’s theology of justification. Thus Walther von
Loewenich wrote in his historic study Luther’s Theology of the Cross:
The theology of the cross is not a chapter in theology but a
specific kind of theology. The cross of Christ is significant
here not only for the question concerning redemption and
the certainty of salvation, but it is the center that provides
perspective for all theological statements. Hence it belongs
to the doctrine of God in the same way it belongs to the
work of Christ. 39
Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 included this thesis:
That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who
looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were
clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.
He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who
comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen
through suffering and the cross. 40
Theology that was not practiced under the veil of the cross was
only theology in an equivocal sense for Luther. The theology of
glory could only be theology insofar as false theology could be
considered theology at all.
One of the ways in which Luther’s
doctrine of justification was different
from Augustine’s was that for Luther
God’s righteousness was revealed
by the cross of Christ.
nb
The issue is really a question of revelation. How can God reveal
himself to humans If God is wholly other, righteous, avenging,
and consuming humans in his anger against sin, then humans
need some point of contact with God that will not cause a cataclysmic
collision between sin and righteousness. It becomes
apparent that the theology of the cross presupposes man’s fallen
state. If the wound caused by the fall is spiritually fatal, then
man’s discernment of spiritual things is fatally flawed. He cannot
discern the things of God by the powers of his own reason:
The recognition of God in his grace is a revelation from
heaven and is otherwise entirely hidden to men. ... It is a
knowledge and wisdom which the Son alone has revealed
and which all the saints from the beginning of the world had
to know. Without it they would have been lost forever. 41
How then can humans know God The wound can only be
healed from God’s side of the equation. God must reveal himself
to man, otherwise humans are left groping about for God and
finding a god constructed of the things discerned by a fallen
mind. Thus only a theologian of the cross takes sin seriously and
only a theologian that takes sin seriously can be a theologian of
the cross. The theologian of the cross never trusts his own
insights but always conforms them to God’s self-revelation. The
theologian of the cross knows that the verdict of St. Paul, “If God
is true then every man is a liar” (Rom 3:4), applies to himself as
much as to any other man. The theologian of the cross knows
that he is a sinner with a fallen intellect and will. Repentance is
the constant companion of the theologian of the cross. He never
masters theology; he can only be mastered by it and so become its
servant. Man needs a sure word of prophecy from God that he
might know God as God wants to be known.
A Revelation of Christ
Since God’s true nature cannot be reached by the study of “the
visible things of God” or from speculation and contemplation
since “their minds were darkened” (Rom 1:21), God used the foolish
and weak things to reveal himself to man, 42 putting to shame
man’s pride in his perception and intellect. God employed a concealment
in which he revealed his true self. The incarnation of
Jesus our Lord was such a concealment. God was cloaked in the

20 LOGIA
human nature of Jesus Christ our Lord. The whole state of humiliation
is a concealment of God in Christ.
There is no knowing God apart from this revelation of himself
in Christ. 43 There can be no finding God-as-he-is-in-himself.
That is the God of wrath only. Luther encouraged attention to the
larva Dei (mask of God) under which a merciful God cloaked
himself that we might grasp him in his grace:
The heathen speak with God apart from the word and
promises, according to the ideas of their heart, but the
prophets speak with the God who is invested with his
promises and his word and who reveals himself through
them. This God, invested with such a gentle and such a
pleasing appearance and such a pleasing guise [larva], so to
speak—that is, with his promises—can be apprehended
and looked at by us with joy and confidence. God the
Absolute, however, is an iron wall against which we cannot
rush without destroying ourselves. That is why the devil is
anxiously trying day and night to get us to run up against
God as such [nudi Dei], to forget the promises and benefactions
shown us in Christ, and to think about God and the
judgment of God. When we do this, we are promptly lost
and we fall into despair. 44
The theology of the cross is the theology of the incarnation.
Because God conceals himself under the cross, the revelation of
God in Christ is an object of faith. It can only be received by faith.
The Child born of Mary is God, not because he appears to be so,
but because God reveals him to be so to faith.
A Revelation of the Word
Just as God in Christ is cloaked in flesh, so too the word of
Scripture is cloaked in human words and set on the plane of
human history. There can be no supra-historical or “mythical”
word in the theology of the cross. Scripture is human words
revealing the very mind and heart of God. Only faith is capable of
receiving these words as the words of God. There can be no division
between the human words and the divine intention. All the
words and only the words are God’s revelation of himself. 45
A Revelation of the Church
Because the church resides under the cross, the church too partakes
of hiddenness. The church is a spiritual kingdom whose
weapons are spiritual and whose foes are unseen. Thus the
church can only be a kingdom of faith, both defined in extent by
faith and only perceived through faith. The kingdom of Christ is
a great offense to the human will and heart, for humans seek the
kingdom of glory and stumble over the wretched little band that
is the church under the sign of the wretched, dying God of Calvary.
Lutheranism has always taught the church’s invisibility, not
as a theological truth as separate from other truths, but as an integral
part of the theology of the cross. 46
Loewenich pointed out in his book that this is the basis for
Luther’s rejection of church tradition as a source of truth. For the
true church is hidden and has always been a “forsaken city.” 47 The
church and her cross is the jewel forgotten under the visible
church’s straw and stubble. She is the pearl of great price, the
treasure hidden under the field of the world. The true church is
identifiable by its cross. In this sense the cross and its suffering is a
mark of the church.
If the church is hidden under the cross, her true spiritual gifts
must also be hidden. Loewenich observes, “Like the reality of
Christ, the reality of the Holy Spirit is a hidden reality.” 48 Her true
good works are hidden under the cloak of suffering and are not
open to sense, indeed carnal, perception. “The Lord knows the
way of the righteous” (Ps 1:6) teaches that Christian virtue is a
thing known to God and not to human reason. 49
Because God conceals himself under
the cross, the revelation of God in
Christ is an object of faith.
nb
The suffering and cross of the church brings her to the brink of
glory, much in the same way that the continuum between insanity
and mental brilliance seem to meet at opposite ends of the
spectrum, the mad being close to brilliant, the brilliant being
close to mad. The church comes through the worst suffering to
the brink of glory. Cloaked under the forms of word and sacraments,
the church has the dowry of eternal life.
The sacraments are also a cloaking of God’s gracious presence.
Here the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ our
Lord. 50 Here the water connected with the word is a washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, not simple water
only. The theology of the cross is the Christian way of life. The
Christian is constantly “being crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20).
Being crucified with Christ takes place in two ways: inwardly
through mortification, and outwardly through the enmity of the
world. 51 Inwardly this takes place by repentance, which is the constant
use of Holy Baptism. Outwardly the Christian seeks to be
conformed to the cruciform shape of Christ and thus incurs the
enmity of the world, which seeks to shape the Christian into its
perverse form. One can certainly see the extensive use to which
Luther and Lutheranism put this pivotal concept within justification.
The theology of the cross served to norm and interpret
other loci of the faith. 52 CONCLUSION
The article of justification “contains within itself the germs of the
leading doctrines of the Christian faith.” 53 If that is true, the content
and nature of American Evangelicalism is brought into serious
question. Justification has a limiting and norming authority
among Lutherans, as it has had at critical junctures in church history.
54 This use of justification challenges the meaning of the
authority of scripture for evangelicals, who have tended to take a
biblicistic approach to the authority of the Bible. If nothing else,
Scripture and justification are coordinated principles of authority
for Lutherans. Evangelicals would only grant that justification
should have a place under scripture along with the other doctrines
taught in the Bible. Few evangelicals would be comfortable

JUSTIFICATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR EVANGELICALISM 21
with an extensive norming authority for justification in the life of
the church. If, on the other hand, justification is the doctrine by
which the church stands or falls, then the redemptive work of
Christ must not be seen as a doctrine among many with various
doctrinal theories and “tendencies” to be worked through in theology.
Justification could then only be the doctrine.
A declaratory righteousness given by a verdict of God would
be offensive to many evangelicals, who would cry that human
feeling is being trampled on by this external, juridical doctrine. 55
Furthermore, their notion of “atonement” would be considered
an inadequate analog to justification by Lutherans. Discussion
by evangelicals of spiritual renewal would also give birth to grave
conflict where faith is conceived of as pure passive. Most evangelicals
would presume this to be a Manichaean-Stoic rejection of
human responsibility. Lutherans would reject the synergistic and
semi-Pelagian notion that human response is a receptive cause of
justification. 56 Justification thus provides a clear dividing line
between Lutheranism and American Evangelicalism. American
Evangelicalism will never and can never accept the Lutheran
doctrine of justification. If Lutherans adopt evangelical methodologies,
that adoption will destroy the precious gift of justification
from God and leave them lamenting the same poverty of
faith and theology over which thoughtful evangelicals now
grieve. 57 LOGIA
1. This list has been adapted from George Marsden, Understanding
Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1991), 4–5.
2. Mark Ellingsen typifies this ambivalence in his contribution
to Donald Dayton and Robert K. Johnston, eds., The Variety of
American Evangelicalism (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press,
1991), 222–244. In this article Ellingsen wrote: “Not even the champion
of theologically conservative Lutheran orthodoxy, the
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, officially identifies with the
evangelical family usually associated with the National Association
of Evangelicals” (222).
3. Erwin Lueker, ed., Concordia Cyclopedia (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1954), s.v. “Justification.”
4. Quoted in Thomas Sheridan, Newman on Justification
(New York, 1967), 11. The watershed event in the conversion of John
Henry Cardinal Newman from the Church of England to the
Church of Rome was his lectures on justification. See Scott Murray,
“Luther in Newman’s Lectures on Justification,” Concordia Theological
Quarterly 54 (April–July 1990): 155–178.
5. The phrase “the article by which the church stands or falls”
seems to have come into common usage at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. See Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 2 vols.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 2: 193, n. 3. The
ipsissima verba have been wrongly attributed to Martin Luther.
The phrase certainly captures Luther’s own view of this doctrinal
concept. Luther denominated justification the Hauptartikel (primary
article) in the Smalcald Articles of 1537 (SA II, I, 1; cf.
Triglotta, 461).
6. Gerhard O. Forde, when commenting on Eric W. Gritsch
and Robert W. Jenson’s Lutheranism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1976), commended them for saying that justification is not merely a
doctrine but the doctrine. “The church is to pronounce, to do the
imputation, unconditionally. Particular preoccupation with or
dependence on the legal metaphor or the problems of conscience is
not the reason, dogmatically speaking, for the primacy of the doctrine
of justification. The reason is to show clearly and unmistakably
the kind of communication that must go on in the church. If
the church forgets to speak the kind of language demanded by justification,
a language that actually does what it talks about, then the
church will ‘fall’ and lose its reason for being. The sixteenth-century
reformers saw the whole of Scripture agreeing on justification,
and insisted that all doctrine be judged in the light of justification
NOTES
precisely for this reason. The point is to deliver the goods.” Gerhard
O. Forde, “Christian Life,” in Christian Dogmatics, 2 vols., ed. Carl
E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1984), 2: 422.
7. Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, 2 vols., trans. J. A. O.
Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1989). Chemnitz’s
Loci is an extended commentary on Melanchthon’s shorter work.
8. Johann Gerhard, Loci Theologici, 9 vols., ed. Eduard Preuss
(Berlin: Schlawitz, 1867).
9. A biography of Pieper by David P. Scaer, professor of systematic
theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne,
and frequent contributor to Christianity Today, appeared in Walter
A. Elwell, ed., Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1993).
10. Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans. Theodore
Engelder et al. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951), 2:
397–557. Here Pieper followed the terminology of the later seventeenth-century
Lutheran dogmaticians.
11. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, eds., Christian Dogmatics,
2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).
12. Lutheran dogmatics has been analytic in its structure since
the mid-seventeenth century. The analytic method argued effect to
cause. Previously, Chemnitz, Melanchthon, Hutter, and others
used the synthetic approach, moving from cause to effect.
13. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2
vols., trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans,
1975).
14. G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1954), 18.
15. J. I. Packer, “Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation; New
Challenges to the Gospel: Universalism, and Justification by Faith,”
in Evangelical Affirmations, ed. Kenneth S. Kantzer and Carl F. H.
Henry (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1990), 108.
16. E.g., J. McCleod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement
(London: Macmillan and Co., 1878); R. W. Dale, The Atonement
(London, 1875); Hastings Rashdall, The Idea of Atonement in Christian
Theology (London, 1919); and more recently, Leon Morris, The
Atonement (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1983).
17. Alister McGrath, “The Article by Which the Church Stands
or Falls,” Evangelical Quarterly 58 (July 1986): 212. McGrath judged
that atonement was a “much less felicitous choice than ‘justification’,”
primarily for linguistic reasons.

22 LOGIA
18. Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, 2
vols. (San Francisco: Harper, 1978).
19. Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1987).
20. Erickson, 761–1024.
21. McGrath, “The Article by which the Church Stands or
Falls,” 208. The use of the analytic method by Lutheran dogmaticians
of the later seventeenth century also led to an introduction
of an ordo salutis among the Lutherans. David Hollaz, Examen
Theologicum Acroamaticum (Rostock and Leipzig, 1707). Robert
David Preus said of Hollaz: “He was somewhat influenced by
Pietism, and we observe in Hollaz the tendency toward synergism,
so common in Pietism, and the preoccupation with psychology in
working out an ordo salutis.” Robert D. Preus, The Theology of
Post-Reformation Lutheranism, 2 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1970), 1: 65.
22. See Erickson, 927–928.
23. Henry Hamann Jr. pointed out: “In one of his justly
famous Gesammelte Aufsätze entitled Die Rechtfertigungslehre im
Lichte der Geschichte des Protestantismus Karl Holl quotes the
scholar Lagarde as declaring that the doctrine of justification was
dead—this was in 1873—and that no one lived by it any longer.
The far more pressing task, moderns tell us, is to show to modern
man that there is a God. Whether there is a God at all is the problem
he has to face, not something about God, say, that God justifies.
To this criticism of the very raison d’être of this study we
should reply that justification concerns questions which are perennially
alive. No generation of men can be indifferent about the
questions: How do I stand with God How is God disposed toward
me A doctrine which answers these questions cannot be temporally
parochial. It must be in its very nature eternally valid. The
God who justifies is what this generation needs, not merely the
truth that God exists.” Henry Hamann Jr., “Justification by Faith in
Modern Theology,” Concordia Theological Monthly 29 (1958): 25.
24. Packer, 127. Recently E. P. Sanders claimed that the Pauline
corpus misrepresented the religion of the Jews as a legalistic striving
for divine recognition, maintaining instead that first century A.D.
Judaism was a religion of grace characterized by a covenant freely
given by God. Therefore Paul’s treatment of Judaism, as an attempt
to attain righteousness coram Deo, was false, and Paul overemphasized
the forensic character of the divine justification of humans. E.
P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1977). For a discussion of Sanders and his critics, see Peter
Sedgwick, “‘Justification by Faith’: One Doctrine, Many Debates”
Theology (Jan.–Feb. 1990): 5–13.
25. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Protestant Piety and Guilt Consciousness,”
in Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1983), 13–30. Peter Sedgwick summarized: “Common to modern
existentialist writing is the meaninglessness of the Reformation formulas
of forensic judgement and imputed righteousness in
describing our human plight.” Sedgwick, 11.
26. This judgment should certainly lead evangelicals to reassess
the preaching of justification apart from a developed use of the
sacrament of individual confession and absolution. Indeed Lutherans
are reintroducing individual confession and absolution to their
churches. The 1982 hymn book of the Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod included an order for individual confession, while the
The Lutheran Hymnal of 1943 had none. See The Commission on
Worship of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Lutheran
Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982), 310–311.
27. Alan Richardson and John Bowden, eds., Westminster Dictionary
of Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), s.v. “Justification,”
by Brian Gerrish.
28. Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, Christian Theology,
2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).
29. John Macquarrie, Principles of the Christian Theology, 2nd
ed. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1977), 342–343.
30. Iustitia Dei 2: 4.
31. Alister McGrath characterized Luther’s nominalist position
this way: “Luther’s early understanding of justification (1513–14)
may be summarized as follows: man must recognize his spiritual
weakness and inadequacy, and turn in humility from his attempts
at self-justification to ask God for his grace. God treats this humility
for faith (humilitas fidei) (WA 3: 588, 8; 4: 127, 10; 4: 123, 7; 56: 282,
9–13) as the precondition necessary for justification under the
terms of the pactum (that is, as man’s quod in se est), and thus fulfills
his obligations under the pactum, by bestowing grace upon
him (WA 3: 124, 12–14; 4: 91, 4–5). It is clear that Luther understands
man to be capable of making a response towards God without the
assistance of special grace, and that this response of iustitia Dei is
the necessary precondition (quod in se est) for the bestowal of justifying
grace.” Iustitia Dei 2: 5.
32. WA 39 1 : 205. Luther’s quote translates: “The article of justification
is master and prince, lord, president, and judge above all
kinds of doctrine. It preserves and guides every churchly doctrine
and cheers our consciences before God.”
33. Robert D. Preus, “The Significance of Luther’s Term Pure
Passive as Quoted in Article II of the Formula of Concord,” Concordia
Theological Monthly 29 (1958): 562.
34. Iustitia Dei 2: 6.
35. Robert Preus pointed out that “Chemnitz chose in his Loci
Theologici to discuss the entire matter of synergism under the question
whether the will is purely passive in conversion, for everything
revolved around this point [see Chemnitz, 1: 247–251]. The term
pure passive to Chemnitz applied only in the case of man’s spiritual
powers, in a contributory, not in a psychological sense. This had to
be explained again and again by him and the other orthodox
Lutherans. A synergist is blind to the difference between
Manichaeism and monergism, between coercion and a gracious
drawing of man’s will by God, blind to the fact that it is the will of
man that is acted upon in conversion. Therefore the synergist
insists that the monergistic doctrine violates the personality and
will of man and that God forces man to become a Christian against
his will. This was precisely the position the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine
took.” Preus, “The Significance,” 567.
36. Iustitia Dei 2: 6, emphasis original.
37. See Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1985), 165–175.
38. Iustitia Dei 2: 8.
39. Walther von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross,
trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976), 18.
40. AE 31: 52.
41. WA 46: 669.
42. Luther’s theology of the cross plied the water between the

JUSTIFICATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR EVANGELICALISM 23
Scylla of mysticism and Charybdis of works righteousness. “So we
are taught here to believe in hope against hope. This wisdom of the
cross is today exceedingly hidden in a deep mystery. Nor is there
any other way to heaven than this cross of Christ. Therefore we
must beware that the active life with its works and the contemplative
life with its speculations do not lead us astray. Both are very
attractive and peaceful, but for that reason also dangerous, until
they are tempered by the cross and disturbed by adversaries. But
the cross is the safest of all. Blessed is he who understands it.” WA 5:
84; quoted in Loewenich, 120.
43. Reformed theology is a theology of glory in its rejection of
the doctrine of the personal union. Reformed theology reasons
from an abstract view of God, resulting in a functional dissolution
of the unio personalis. The same problem arises in the Reformed
doctrine of predestination which seeks to pry into the hidden will
of God, to get beyond the cloak of revelation into the pandora’s box
of God-as-he-is-in-himself.
44. WA 40 2 : 392–393.
45. The rejection of the personal union shows up again in the
cloak of old-fashioned liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, which both
purport to find the hidden meaning behind the words of the text.
They are both theologies of glory, and ultimately they lead away
from the cross and the gospel.
46. Therefore there can be no succumbing to the desire to
measure the success of the church’s mission outreach like one
counts cattle at the stock yards, by the head. Kurt Marquart,
“Church Growth” as Mission Paradigm: A Lutheran Assessment
(Houston: Luther Academy, 1994), 119–120.
47. AE 17: 186; quoted in Loewenich, 127.
48. Loewenich, 116.
49. Therefore all appeals to objective instruments for pointing
out spiritual gifts are illegitimate. All false spirituality stumbles on
the offense of the cross.
50. The visible church must continue to place itself under the
suffering of the cross if it is to remain a church of the cross. As
Luther points out, the church must continue to practice in accordance
with the suffering that the cross brings. Facile answers, leading
to false and lax practice in the church, do not bear the cross.
51. Loewenich, 121.
52. The Swiss Reformed theologian Emil Brunner, even
though he was committed to an unhappy, albeit mild, existential-
ist personalism, was constrained to admit the centrality of the
article of justification in theology. He agreed with Luther that justification
is the center of the faith and takes precedence over “all
other articles of faith” [WA 28: 271]. If in fact the articles of faith
“are to be expressions of faith, they must proceed from this centre
(justification) and refer to this as their point of origin. The special
thing about faith in justification is just the coincidence of god’s
self-communication and man’s self-understanding, the identity
of the objective-historical element of revelation and the existential-subjective
element of self-understanding. This coincidence,
however, means nothing less than a description of the fundamental
form of statements of faith in general; namely, that they must
at the same time be related to history and be existential. Anything
that has not this fundamental form is thus not a statement of
faith at all.
This means on the one hand that all statements of faith must
be Christological, developed from the centre, Jesus Christ. ...
From this standpoint the whole programme of Christian doctrine
can be seen as an expression and unfolding of justifying faith.” Emil
Brunner, Dogmatics, vol. 3, The Christian Doctrine of the Church,
Faith, and the Consummation, trans. David Cairns and T. H. L.
Parker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), 209–210.
53. McGrath, “The Article by which the Church Stands or
Falls,” 213.
54. McGrath lists these four consequences of the normative
nature of the article of justification: “(1) the saving action of God in
Christ is declared to be at the heart of the Christian faith, and the
priority of soteriological considerations in matters of theology,
ethics and piety thereby asserted; (2) any necessary presuppositions
or consequences of the article must be regarded as being de fide; (3)
any doctrines which are necessarily excluded by the article must be
regarded as non-Christian or anti-Christian; (4) any matters on
which the principle has no direct bearing must either be regarded
as adiaphora, or as matters to be resolved by the application of
other, secondary, criteria.” “The Article by which the Church
Stands or Falls,” 213.
55. See Bloesch, 1: 163–64.
56. See Bloesch, 1: 185, 201.
57. See David F. Wells, No Place for Truth: Or, Whatever
Happened to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans,
1993).

24 LOGIA
A CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS
The editors of LOGIA hereby request manuscripts, book reviews, and forum material for
the following issues and themes:
ISSUE THEME DEADLINE
Holy Trinity 1997 The Office & Offices February 15, 1997
Reformation 1997 Melanchthon: Anniversary Issue May 1, 1997
Epiphany 1998 Luther and the Fathers July 1, 1997
Eastertide 1998 Liturgy as Pastoral Care September 1, 1997
Send all submissions to the appropriate editors and addresses as listed on the inside back
cover. Please include IBM or Macintosh diskette with manuscript whenever possible.
(Specify word processing program and version used.)

THE DEBATE OVER THE USE OR NON-USE of traditional
Lutheran liturgical forms has emerged as a hot topic in the
life of American Lutheranism. In the Summer 1994 issue of
dialog, Ted Peters characterized it as “worship wars.” For some, no
doubt, what I have to say will create more heat. My intention,
however, is not to enflame the debate but to shed light. I shall
attempt to speak as forthrightly as possible, not to offend, but to
set the issue before us with clarity.
Contra David Luecke, the current controversy is not a matter
of “style” versus “substance.” It is clear from the apostolic church
as well as from the Evangelical-Lutheran Reformation that the
substance of the gospel shapes and defines the style of that
gospel’s delivery. Further, I believe it is spiritually dangerous to
equate liturgy with adiaphora. Liturgy will always confess or deny
the gospel, and the gospel is never an adiaphoron. This brings me
to the major thesis of this essay: The crisis over the liturgy is a
result of confusion over the forgiveness of sins. As such, it is a
doctrinal issue and, therefore, ultimately church-divisive.
LITURGY IS DIVINE SERVICE
The “high church/low church” labels may have their usefulness
within Anglicanism, where churchmen are identified as “high
and crazy, broad and hazy, or low and lazy.” These titles are inadequate
for the Church of the Augsburg Confession, however.
Liturgical renewal movements in the early part of this century
(such as the Society of St. James and the old Una Sancta magazine)
may bear part of the blame for our present predicament, as
some of their champions tended toward a liturgical romanticism
that was long on aesthetics and short on doctrine. Thirty-five
years ago, Hermann Sasse opined “that the great tragedy of the
Liturgical Movement was its inability to face doctrinal issues.” 1
For Lutherans, liturgy is not a matter of aesthetic sensitivities or
antiquarian preferences, but of doctrine, of confession.
Article VII of the Augsburg Confession “defines the church
liturgically,” to borrow a phrase from the Australian Lutheran
theologian John Kleinig. Article VII confesses that “it is sufficient
for the true unity of the Christian church that the Gospel be
preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that
the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine
Word” (AC VII, 2; Tappert, 32). Notice that the Augustana does
not define the church on the basis of the mere presence of word
and sacrament, but by the fact that the gospel is purely preached
JOHN PLESS, a LOGIA contributing editor, is campus pastor at University
Lutheran Church, Minneapolis.
Divine Service
Delivering Forgiveness of Sins
John T. Pless
25
and the sacraments are rightly administered in accordance with
the divine word. Preaching of the word and administration of the
sacraments require liturgy. Word and sacrament are not static
commodities, but means through which the Lord himself is
working to constitute and sustain his church. To be sure, Augustana
VII holds that the true unity of the church is not grounded
in the uniformity of ceremonies instituted by men, but these
humanly devised ceremonies are not the liturgy.
The liturgy is Gottesdienst, 2 divine service, the Lord’s service to
us through the proclamation of his word and the giving out of his
body and blood. In the theology of the Lutheran Confessions,
God is the subject, not the object of liturgical action. The trajectory
is from the Lord to his church and then from the church to
her Lord. In Luke 22:27, just after he had established the Supper of
his body and blood, the Lord says, “I am among you as one who
serves.” This verse embodies the Lutheran understanding of the
liturgy; it is the service that Jesus renders to his church, given by
grace and received through faith. Rome had reversed the flow
with the insistence that the Mass is essentially a sacrifice that the
church offers to God. Reformed Protestants likewise define worship
as human activity, namely, the church’s obedient ascription
of praise to the majesty of a sovereign God.
Gordon Lathrop 3 and the framers of “The Graceful Use of the
Means of Grace: Theses on Worship and Worship Practices” 4 are
representative of a stream in contemporary American Lutheranism
that sees liturgy as ritual re-enactment. Here we have
shades of ancient mystery religions. In the Winter 1996 issue of
dialog, Roy Harrisville, in his typically humorous manner, pokes
fun at such ritual performance, calling it “liturgical hocus pocus”
and “cult magic.” 5
For confessional Lutherans, liturgy is not about human activity,
but about the real presence of the Lord who stoops down to
put his words into our ears and his body and blood into our
mouths. Liturgy, as it is divine service, delivers the forgiveness of
sins. The liturgy does not exist to provide edifying entertainment,
motivation for sanctified living, or therapy for psychological distresses,
but the forgiveness of sins. In his treatise “Against the
Heavenly Prophets,” Luther writes:
If I now seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the
cross, for I will not find it given there. Nor must I hold to the
suffering of Christ as Dr. Karlstadt trifles, in knowledge or
remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will
find in the sacrament or the gospel the word which distributes,
presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which
was won on the cross (AE 40: 214).

26 LOGIA
In the liturgy God himself is present to forgive sins. The real
presence of Christ, the forgiver of sins, in his words and with his
body and blood has shaped the cultus, the liturgical forms of confessional
Lutheranism.
CONFUSION ABOUT FORGIVENESS
At the present time, Lutherans are being invited to trade off a
liturgical form shaped by the real presence of Christ the Forgiver
for another form. The form that we are invited to make our own
has its roots in American Evangelicalism. The forgiveness of sins
has no real presence within the theology of Evangelicalism. At
best, troubled sinners are pointed back to Calvary. The problem
is, as Luther has reminded us, that forgiveness was achieved at
Calvary but not delivered there. Calvary is back there in time
almost two thousand years ago. At its worst, Evangelicalism turns
the troubled sinner inward to his own conscience. This is a gross
mishandling of law and gospel, as Dr. Walther reminds us in Thesis
IX of his Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel:
the Word of God is not rightly divided when sinners who
have been struck down and terrified by the Law are directed,
not to the Word and the Sacraments, but to their own
prayers and wrestlings with God in order that they may win
their way into a state of grace; in other words, when they are
told to keep on praying and struggling until they feel that
God has received them into grace. 6
This subjectivism is embodied in the hymnody and liturgical practices
of Evangelicalism. The cultus of Evangelicalism exchanges the
absolution for assurances of grace, the gospel as the efficacious
Word of salvation for a gospel that invites and requires a human
decision, and the supper of the Lord’s body and blood for a
symbolic recollection of the upper room. Where is the forgiveness
of sins
Lutherans are being invited to trade off
a liturgical form shaped by the real
presence of Christ the Forgiver for
another form.
nb
As I stated earlier, the crisis over the liturgy stems from confusion
regarding the forgiveness of sins. Evidence for this assertion
can be seen in a new book by Timothy Wright, one of the pastors
at the ELCA’s Community Church of Joy in Phoenix. In his book
A Community of Joy: How to Create Contemporary Worship, 7
Wright attempts to answer the question “How can we use worship
to attract and hold irreligious people” Wright finds the structures
of Lutheran liturgy to be a roadblock in the evangelistic task. At
the very least, Wright urges Lutherans to “warm up the liturgy”
with a visitor-friendly campus, name tags, careful directions, and a
corps of well-trained greeters and ushers. But more is needed. The
confession of sins will have to go. Wright says:
Some congregations begin the worship service with a time
of confession and forgiveness. Long time churchgoers may
appreciate opening with this important liturgical rite, but
starting the service with confession and forgiveness says to
the guests: “You are sinners!” For years some people have
stayed away from church, fearing such condemnation.
Finally, having the courage to come, they hear from the start
how bad they are—that they cannot worship until they
confess their failures and shortcomings. 8
We are told to “watch out for religious phrases in hymns.” All this
talk about “cherubim and seraphim bowing down before him”
and “a bulwark never failing” will only confuse visitors. Preachers
are instructed to remember “in preparing a message, the question
is not, ‘What shall I preach about’ but ‘To whom shall I preach’”
Therefore preachers get this advice from Wright: “The how-to
section of a bookstore provides a great resource for relevant sermon
ideas. The psychological and self-help sections prove especially
helpful. Written to meet the needs of people (and to make
money), the authors focus on sure-fire concerns.” When it comes
to the sacrament of the altar, Wright has this to say on closed
communion: “This policy will not work in a visitor-oriented service.
‘Excluding’ guests will turn them off. It destroys the welcoming
environment that the church tried to create.” 9 Again, my
question: Where is the forgiveness of sins
Wright would have us abandon Lutheran liturgy for the sake of
“cross-culturalism.” He is, in effect, inviting us to abandon the
means-of-grace-centered culture of Lutheranism for the increasingly
pragmatic culture of American Evangelicalism. 10 This is an
invitation that we must decline for the sake of the gospel.
THE AMERICAN CONTEXT
What is to be done First, let us recognize that the ecclesial-religious
culture of North America is Evangelicalism. This culture
has its roots first in Puritanism, which is basically Calvinistic,
and secondarily in the great revival movements of the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. The ethos of American
Evangelicalism is at home in North America. As Nathan Hatch
has pointed out in his book The Democratization of American
Christianity, 11 the Jeffersonian ideas of individual freedom and
equality are congenial to Evangelicalism’s emphasis on conversion
as a personal decision and the church as a spiritual democracy.
Evangelicalism’s stress on the autonomy of the believer and
the immediacy of spiritual experience apart from sacramental
means has shaped a religious culture that accents individual faith
over churchly life and tends to characterize baptism, absolution,
and the Lord’s Supper as externals at the periphery of the Christian
life, at best. Subjectivity, coupled with a suspicion of the
intellect, has produced a religious culture that elevates heart over
head, emotion over intellect. Lutherans can no more compromise
with this culture than Luther could strike an agreement
with Zwingli or than the confessional Lutherans of the nineteenth
century could join the Prussian Union. Evangelicalism is
of a different spirit.
In a culture that has been so deeply influenced by Evangelicalism,
it is imperative that we emphasize our Lutheran distinctiveness.
As the Formula of Concord confesses:

DIVINE SERVICE: DELIVERING FORGIVENESS OF SINS 27
We believe, teach, and confess that in a time of confession, as
when the enemies of the Word of God desire to suppress the
pure doctrine of the holy Gospel, the entire community of
God, yes, every individual Christian, and especially the ministers
of the Word as leaders of the community of God, are
obligated to confess openly, not only by words but also
through deeds and actions, the true doctrine and all that
pertains to it, according to the Word of God. In such a case
we should not yield to adversaries even in matters of indifference,
nor should we tolerate the imposition of such ceremonies
on us by adversaries in order to undermine the genuine
worship of God and to introduce and confirm their
idolatry by force or chicanery (FC SD, X 10; Tappert, 612).
At the time of the Formula, the challenge was an attempt to impose
Roman ceremonies on Lutherans in order to give the impression of
unity. Today the challenge is from the other side of the fence as
some Lutherans give the impression that there are no substantial
differences between themselves and American Evangelicals.
Actually, this is not a new challenge to the Missouri Synod.
The so-called American Lutheranism championed by Samuel
Simon Schmucker in the last century caused C. F. W. Walther
to write:
We refuse to be guided by those who are offended by our
church customs. We adhere to them all the more firmly
when someone wants to cause us to have a guilty conscience
on account of them .... It is truly distressing that many of
our fellow Christians find the differences between
Lutheranism and papism in outward things. It is a pity and
dreadful cowardice when one sacrifices the good ancient
church customs to please the deluded American sects, lest
they accuse us of being papistic! Indeed! Am I to be afraid of
a Methodist, who perverts the saving Word, or be ashamed
in the matter of my good cause, and not rather rejoice that
the sects can tell by our ceremonies that I do not belong to
them . . . With this we are not insisting that there be uniformity
of perception or feeling or of taste among all believing
Christians—neither dare anyone demand that all
should be minded in this as he is. Nevertheless it remains
true that the Lutheran liturgy distinguishes Lutheran worship
from the worship of other churches to such an extent
that the houses of worship of the latter look like lecture halls
in which hearers are merely addressed or instructed, while
our churches are in truth houses of prayer in which Christians
serve the great God publicly before the world. 12
Thus it is for good reason that the Constitution of the Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod follows Walther in making a condition
for membership in the synod the “exclusive use of doctrinally
pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms in church and
school.” 13
THE LUTHERAN CURE
There are several implications for congregational life and pastoral
practice. Rejection of the “alternative worship movement” is not
an affirmation that all is well in congregations that stick to the
hymnal. Kenneth Korby has commented that there are three
kinds of churches: (l) churches with the liturgy, (2) churches
without the liturgy, and (3) liturgical churches. There are congregations
that never depart from page 5 or 15 in TLH or page 158 in
LW; they have the liturgy, although they really don’t know why.
Then there are congregations that have abandoned the liturgy
altogether. Genuinely liturgical churches, however, are at home in
the liturgy; it is the source and center of their life.
Congregations should expect the
seminaries of the synod to provide pastors
who are fully at home in
the liturgy.
nb
I have no doubt that one of the reasons “alternative worship
forms” have been so eagerly embraced by many in the Missouri
Synod is that the liturgy was never taught, and the richness of our
hymnbooks was left largely untapped. It is not the liturgy that is
the problem, but the way it has been misused. In his chapter
“Liturgical Renewal in the Parish” in Lutheran Worship: History
and Practice, Arthur Just writes:
A chapter on liturgical renewal suggests that the liturgy is in
need of renewal....Perhaps what is wrong is not the
liturgy but those who use the liturgy. The targets of liturgical
renewal are the clergy and the congregation. 14
Congregations should expect the seminaries of the synod to provide
pastors who are fully at home in the liturgy. At the present
time, our seminaries require only one course in liturgy. This is
hardly sufficient in preparing pastors who must be equipped to
understand the theology of the divine service and plan and lead
liturgy accordingly. A basic course in the theology of the liturgy
should be foundational for at least two other required courses in
the mechanics of the divine service: (1) the rubrics and the actual
conduct of the service, and (2) liturgy as it relates to pastoral care,
namely, the occasional services. A strengthened curriculum in
liturgical theology needs to be set in the context of a vibrant liturgical
life on campus. The chapel should model the absolute best
of our heritage.
If we get the forgiveness of sins right, we will get the liturgy
right. Luther writes in the Large Catechism:
We believe that in this Christian church we have the forgiveness
of sins, which is granted through the holy sacraments
and . . . in short, the entire Gospel and all the duties of
Christianity. ...Therefore everything in the Christian
church is so ordered that we may daily obtain full forgiveness
of sins through the Word and through signs appointed
to comfort and revive our consciences as long as we live (LC,
II, 54–55; Tappert, 417–418).

28 LOGIA
For Luther and the confessions, the church is constituted in the
liturgy—that is, she receives her life from Christ in his words and
gifts, which deliver the forgiveness of sins. No wonder, then, that
our confessions place sermon and sacrament at the center, insisting
that our churches have not abolished the Mass but celebrate it
every Sunday and on other festivals (Ap XXIV).
Our concern for the liturgy is not fueled by a traditionalism
that is intent on merely preserving the past. It is a concern that
the forgiveness won by our Lord in his suffering and death be
proclaimed and distributed in their truth and purity for the salvation
of sinners. Liturgical texts and practices are to be evaluated
from this perspective.
Our historic, Lutheran, liturgical orders are Christ-centered as
opposed to man-centered; they reflect the theology of the cross
rather than the theology of glory; they center in special revelation
not natural revelation; they tie us to the means of grace; they
appeal to faith instead of emotions; and they anchor us not in
myth but in the incarnation.
Two comments on the importance of teaching are in order.
Let the pastor begin by teaching the board of elders or church
council. Why not build in forty-five minutes to an hour of study
time to each meeting of the board of elders Over the period of
a year, the pastor could work through the basics of our doctrine
and practice of liturgy on the basis of the Scriptures and the
confessions. 15 Any liturgical changes that are to be made in the
worship life of the congregation must be undergirded with substantial
teaching.
The teaching of the liturgy is a key
component in the catechesis of new
members.
nb
The teaching of the liturgy is a key component in the catechesis
of new members. I have argued elsewhere that catechesis is
the lively link between evangelism and liturgy. 16 The liturgy is
not readily understandable or accessible to the unbeliever.
Through catechesis the unbeliever is transported from the culture
of this world to the culture of God’s colony on earth, the
holy church. 17 The culture of God’s colony has its own language,
the language of faith. The language of faith is the language of the
liturgy. Drawing on Neil Postman’s analysis of entertainment,
Cornelius Plantinga Jr. of Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids,
describes what happens when Christians forget this basic fact
and fashion services in the mode of entertainment:
Naturally, services of this kind give an impression of a religion
somewhat different from historic Christianity. One
could imagine a visitor walking away from such a service
and saying to himself: “I had it all wrong. I had thought
Christianity included a shadow side— confession, self-
denial, rebuke of sin, concern with heresy, willingness to
lose one’s life for the sake of Jesus Christ. Not so, apparently.
The Christian religion isn’t about lament or repentance
or humbling oneself before God to receive God’s
favor. It’s got nothing to do with doctrines and the struggle
to preserve the truth. It’s not about the hard, disciplined
work of mortifying our sinful self and learning to
make God’s purposes our own. It’s not about the
inevitable failures in this project and the persistent grace
of Jesus Christ that comes so that we might begin again.
Not at all! I had it all wrong! The Christian faith is mainly
about celebration and fun and personal growth and five
ways to boost my self-esteem. And especially, it’s about
entertainment. 18
The language of the liturgy, the language of faith, aims not
for entertainment but edification. Catechesis teaches the convert
this language. Three books are essential to this catechesis:
the Holy Scriptures, the Small Catechism, and the hymnal. The
doctrine that is drawn from the Scriptures is confessed in the
catechism and expressed doxologically in the liturgy and
hymns.
CONCLUSION
Remember the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32 The children
of Israel, fresh out of Egypt, are encamped in the Sinai
wilderness. They do not know what has become of Moses. The
people go to Aaron with the request for “new gods.” Aaron is
responsive to their “felt needs” and fashions for them a golden
calf, a “worship form” that was culturally relevant to their
Canaanite context. This was entertainment evangelism at its
best, as we read that “the people sat down to eat and drink and
rose up to play” (Ex 32:6). Even though Aaron called it “a feast
to the Lord” (Ex 32:5), God called it idolatry. The apostle Paul
writes: “Now all these things happened to them as examples,
and were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the
ages have come. . . . Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry”
(1 Cor 10:11, 14).
The opposite of idolatry is faith in Jesus Christ. Indeed, faith is
the highest worship of God, as the confessions so often remind
us. No forgiveness of sins, no faith. The liturgy delivers us from
self-chosen forms of worship, drawing us out of idolatry to
repentance and faith. The introduction to Lutheran Worship gets
it right:
Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what
is most true and sure. Most true and sure is his name,
which he put upon us with the water of our Baptism. We
are his. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the
Divine Service. Where his name is, there is he. Before him
we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness.
His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven,
acclaim him as our great and gracious God as we
apply to ourselves the words he has used to make himself
known to us. 19 LOGIA

DIVINE SERVICE: DELIVERING FORGIVENESS OF SINS 29
NOTES
1. Hermann Sasse, “The Liturgical Movement: Reformation or Revolution,”
Una Sancta 17 (St. Luke the Evangelist 1960): 18.
Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
11. Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New
2. For a fine exposition of Gottesdienst see Norman Nagel, “Whose 12. C. F. W. Walther, Essays for the Church (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1992), 1: 194.
Liturgy Is It,” LOGIA 2 (Eastertide 1993): 4–8. Also see Lutheran Worship:
History and Practice, ed. Fred Precht (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing 13. Handbook of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (St. Louis: The
House, 1993), 44–57.
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 1992), 11.
3. See Gordon W. Lathrup, Holy Things (Minneapolis: Fortress 14. Arthur Just, “Liturgical Renewal in the Parish,” in Lutheran Worship:
History and Practice, 21.
Press, 1993).
4. See Lutheran Forum 29 (August 1995): 18–24.
15. Additional resources for the teaching of the liturgy include
5. Roy Harrisville, “On Liturgical Hocus Pocus,” dialog 35 (Spring Lutheran Worship: History and Practice; Roger D. Pittelko, Worship and
1996): 150.
Liturgy, Touchpoint Bible Study (St. Louis: CPH, 1995); Harold L.
6. C .F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, Senkbeil, Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness (St. Louis: CPH, 1994);
trans. W. H. T. Dau (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1928), 2. Also Harold L. Senkbeil, Sanctification: Christ in Action—Evangelical Challenge
see Robert Schaibley, “A Lutheran Strategy for Urban Ministry: Evangelism
and the Means of Grace,” LOGIA 3 (Holy Trinity 1994): 6–13.
1989); John T. Pless, Real Life Worship Reader (Minneapolis: University
and Lutheran Response (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House,
7. Timothy Wright, A Community of Joy: How to Create Contemporary Lutheran Chapel, 1994).
Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 24.
16. See my GEM module entitled Catechesis: The Lively Link between
8. Ibid., 42.
Evangelism and Worship.
9. Ibid., 46, 86, 102, 122.
17. I would argue, along with David Wells, that much of Evangelical
10. See the following critiques written from within Evangelicalism: Os worship is reflective of “the world’s view.” Lutheran worship is reflective
Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with of “the Christian view.” Also see Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times
Modernity (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993); Douglas Webster, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994); Philip J. Lee, Against the Protestant
Gnostics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Dean O. Wen-
Selling Jesus: What’s Wrong with Marketing the Church (Downers Grove,
IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992); Michael Scott Horton, Made in America: The the, “Entrance Into The Biblical World View: The First and Crucial
Shaping of American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, Cross-Cultural Move,” LOGIA 4 (Easter 1995):19–23.
1991); David Wells, No Place for the Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical
Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); and David Wells, God in of Sin (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 193.
18. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary
the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand 19. Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994).
1982), 6.

Reflections on Lutheran Worship,
Classics, and the Te Deum
IN THE COURSE OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY, American
Lutherans have, with only sporadic resistance, consented to
adopt new alternative forms of worship, designed to appeal
to a broad cross-section of a national population with little
appreciation for the rich tradition of the historical liturgy and
hardly a trace of feeling for what J. P. Koehler called “the wonderful.”
1 Advocates of “contemporary worship” in our circles
have argued that we can and should abandon our Lutheran style
while still preserving Lutheran theological substance. 2 Some
have invoked Luther’s name as one who was willing to borrow
freely from the popular culture of his own day, while others
have gone so far as to hint broadly that those who resist these
developments may be impeding the progress of the gospel in a
world, such as our own, which is more attuned to Hollywood
than the holy.
It is true that the blunt language of traditional liturgical components
such as the Kyrie, to say nothing of the arresting
melodies and rhythms of the Lutheran chorale (see, for
instance, Luther’s powerful setting of the first verses of Isaiah 6,
the German Sanctus), strike many today as irrelevant and hopelessly
old-fashioned. It is true, too, that even among Lutherans
of a previous generation (when these classic forms of worship
were still paid grudging respect), it did not necessarily follow
that they had much more than symbolic value. Indeed, most
Lutheran congregations have long since grown accustomed to
more “contemporary” church music, ranging from toothsome
nineteenth-century hymns to sentimental ballads written in the
style most often associated with Country Western music.
It is this author’s firmly held conviction that style is not so
easily detached from substance, and he remains convinced that
Lutherans who adopt the forms of worship favored by the shallow,
ahistorical, and entertainment-oriented culture that now
surrounds us will be ineffective in faithfully proclaiming the
content of the gospel to that culture—in the short as well as the
long run. Instead, this essay’s radical presupposition is that the
best answer to American Lutheranism’s current malaise is to
embrace, not to ignore or compromise, our distinctive Lutheran
CARL P. E. SPRINGER is Professor of Classics at Illinois State University
and a LOGIA contributing editor. Portions of this paper were delivered
at the summer meeting of the Protes′tant Conference in Mishicot, Wisconsin,
June 1995, the International Conference on Patristic Studies,
Oxford University, August 1995, and a pastoral conference of the Central
Illinois District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, November
1995. It owes much to the comments, critical and appreciative, made
by the auditors on all three occasions.
Carl P. E. Springer
31
style. We should delve, the following pages argue, with renewed
energy into our own deep, historical, and classic Lutheran liturgical
tradition—like the householder of Jesus’ parable who
brought forth “out of his treasure things new and old” (Mt
13:52). This paper makes special reference to the Te Deum, one
such ancient treasure of our rich liturgical heritage, which present-day
Lutherans, it is hoped, may learn to appropriate for
reenergized use in our worship today.
I.
The classic Lutheran liturgy’s is indeed old, if not old-fashioned.
Its historical roots stretch back to forms and language used in
worship services in the synagogue, the early Christian basilicas,
the soaring cathedrals of the Middle Ages, and the churches of the
Lutheran reformation. It includes sizable sections taken directly
from the Scriptures themselves, as well as collects written by
Damasus, hymns penned by Ambrose and Bernard of Clairvaux,
and chorales composed by Martin Luther and his contemporaries.
3 If antiquity is one of the hallmarks of the classics, the
Lutheran liturgy is certainly qualified to be considered in that
select group. The classics have stood the test of time. Inferior
works, however popular they may have been for a short time,
have had their moment in the sun and have passed away.
The fact that they are not new is the classics’ greatest strength
and also, at least in this country, their greatest weakness. In
America, a nation that was born out of revolution against the old,
classics are regarded with suspicion. We are a frontier people,
convinced that we must break with the past, eager to “reinvent”
ourselves, and sure that the most important century of all is the
twenty-first, the one just around the corner. As Americans we are
obsessed with novelty and variety. Water is boring. But a new
brand of Pepsi or the latest software product—how intriguing!
Our young people are spellbound by the newest music and video
games. We adults are intrigued by the latest news about a
celebrity’s sexual escapades or the trendy seminar leaders who
promise to provide us with new (and usually effortless) ways to
lose weight, save our marriages, or learn a foreign language. We
are like the Athenians, who “spent their time in nothing else, but
either to tell, or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21). Our dedication
to the “news,” whether it is delivered by TV, radio, or newspaper,
is itself a kind of addiction, with its daily dose of the novel
and its emphasis on the sensational at the expense of that which is
constantly interesting.
And in church Americans are bored, too, not just with the
chorale, or pipe organs, or the hymnal—but also with the gospel.
After all, it, too, is old. We are bored with the idea of being cruci-

32 LOGIA
fied with Christ. 4 We fail to see anything particularly wonderful
or miraculous about the gospel—and this is why we do not or
cannot sing about it with much enthusiasm. This is why we
Lutherans tire of the Lutheran chorales and write no new ones of
our own. It is not where our treasure is. In fact, One suspects the
traditional liturgy is unpopular, in large part, not just because of
its unfamiliar style, but because of its all-too-familiar doctrinal
content. It is the old-fashioned message, as well as the old-fashioned
medium, of the Agnus Dei or Luther’s hymn Aus tiefer Not
(“From Depths of Woe”) that offends the unconverted heart. 5
Unbelievers in the church, whether they are visitors or long-time
pew occupants, feel uncomfortable and even angry when they are
presented with the great issues of judgment and mercy. We need
to remember that the gospel, so comforting to stricken sinners,
also arouses the hostility of the devil, the world, and our flesh.
And we should ask ourselves whether our present reluctance to
use the traditional liturgy does not stem, at least in part, from our
unholy desire to be as inoffensive as possible, to please man
rather than God, to be considered successful in the world’s
terms—rather than its “offscouring.” 6
Now it is very difficult to have anything
resembling a sensible discussion of class
or the classics in America, where our
Declaration of Independence pronounces
all men to be created equal.
nb
Just as we Americans are bored with God’s plan of salvation,
so, too, one could add, are we bored with all of his creation in
general. We are most fortunate indeed that God is not so easily
bored with what he made. Otherwise we would never see another
rose or sunset or rainbow! The rhythms of nature that we know
so well, the rising and setting sun, the cycle of the seasons, the
design of a leaf or a tree, the pattern of ripples on water—don’t
we take all of this, too, for granted The child, by contrast, does
not pass over these miracles lightly. Of such is the kingdom of
heaven! There is too little of the child—or of the artist—in us
grown-up Lutherans. One of the authors of Proverbs, the littleknown
Agur, observes (chapter 30): “There be three things which
are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not. The way of
an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a
ship in the midst of the sea and the way of a man with a maid.”
When was the last time you were struck with wonder by the way
of a bird in the air
II.
“Classic” suggests that a thing is not only old, but that it is also
considered to be the best. The word comes from the Indo-European
verb root kal-, as in Greek kaleo, or Latin clamo, or the English
call. In ancient Rome the people were called together for public
assemblies and there divided into different groups for voting
purposes. These groups were called classes. And there were differences
among the classes. People with enough money to buy a
horse, for instance, were put into one class. Those who did not
have enough were grouped together in a lower class. At the top
were the nobiles, the patricians of old, distinguished families who
often possessed great wealth. They were the first class. “Classic”
comes, therefore, to mean not only old, but also the highest class,
the first-rate, the elite, the noble, the best.
Now it is very difficult to have anything resembling a sensible
discussion of class or the classics in America, where our Declaration
of Independence pronounces all men to be created
equal. 7 Many of the early revolutionaries who signed this document
felt uncomfortable with their dependence upon what they
considered to be outworn traditions of excellence, quality, and
class. These old distinctions should not hold true in America,
they felt, where what mattered was not supposed to be breeding
and background, but native wit, good will, and the willingness
to work hard. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence, and even Noah Webster, the influential
lexicographer, along with many others before and since, urged
schools to teach only practical subjects (not Latin, for instance,
which was traditionally associated with the ideal of a liberal
education reserved for gentlemen). 8 With the advent of Andrew
Jackson’s presidency, this egalitarianism became even more radical.
Good manners became a liability. Bad taste became good
taste. After the Civil War and the demise of the southern aristocracy,
classlessness grew even more prevalent. In our own
century, the followers of John Dewey have developed an educational
system that “polishes pebbles and scuffs jewels” with
frightening efficiency.
Christianity is certainly not just for aristocrats. “Not many
wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are
called.” Our Lord himself was born into a carpenter’s family and
spent much of his time with fishermen. Paul was a tent-maker.
Luther’s father was an iron-worker. But we Americans would do
well to remember that Christianity is not necessarily democratic,
either. The earliest Christians were communists who did not do a
lot of voting. Democracy can, in fact, be an oppressive kind of
tyranny, especially if one is not in the majority. The only view that
really counts in America today often appears to be the one that
the greatest number of people have. Concern for numbers outweighs
practically every other consideration—in business, politics,
education, and the church. Our statesmen consult polls constantly—not
only on how popular they are, but on what they
should be doing. The assumption is that the people, the average,
ordinary people, know best. Truth does not exist anywhere else.
What should we do about welfare Ask the people. What should
we do about Bosnia Ask the people. The only trouble is that
most Americans have trouble finding Bosnia on a world map—
or even spelling it. 9
One result of this militantly democratic atmosphere in America
is that questions relating to value or quality, especially as they
relate to matters of style, are now almost impossible to ask or
answer. We have been raised not to be critical or judgmental. We
instinctively shy away from pronouncing Bach better than Bob
Dylan, or Dickens better than Doonsbury—even if some of us
hold (silently) such graduated judgments to be true. And when

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 33
some verdict of taste must be rendered, we make it with the
utmost diffidence, repeating (in unconscious self-defense) the
self-evident phrase “I think,” or using the approximating expression
“like,” or turning the assertion into a question, with a wavering
lift of the voice where an emphatic period should be. Is every
single style just as good as every other style The answer, of course,
is obviously not, at least to anyone who has thought seriously
about aesthetics. Is any and every style equally appropriate for
Christian worship Again, the answer is obviously not, at least to
anyone who is deeply immersed in the Holy Scriptures. In the
pages of both the Old and the New Testaments it is made amply
clear that God is not well pleased with sacrifices of prayer and
praise that are perfunctory, cheap, less than the best, or hastily
patched together. One thinks, for example, of the parable of the
king’s wedding feast in Matthew 22:1–14, in which one of the
guests apparently assumed that wearing a proper wedding garment
was just a matter of style and decided not to bother. The
king was not nearly so tolerant with the guest as we might be. He
ordered him bound and sent off into outer darkness.
Our traditional liturgy has served for
centuries to help those who are young
and inexperienced, children and visitors
to our churches, to learn who God
is and what he has done for us.
nb
One is not necessarily born with an appreciation for the highest
quality, for the finest, for the best. This is one of the reasons we go
to school and become “educated.” Education is a word that comes
from a Latin root meaning “to lead out.” School is supposed to
lead us out of ignorance into knowledge, so that we become better
informed and make better choices and turn into better citizens.
This is also one of the reasons why we go to church: to be led out
of darkness into light, into his marvelous light. To grow from
babes who need milk into mature Christian adults who appreciate
meat. To grow more and more in the image of the perfect Son of
God. To be liberated from the vulgar tyranny of the low culture
that surrounds us. 10 Christianity may be popular, but it is never
vulgar. Of course, educators need to meet those who are to be
educated “where they are.” They must not, however, stay there
with them! They are to lead their charges outward and upward—
to where they, the educators, are supposed to be. Such “education”
can happen when we travel abroad, comparing other cultures with
our own, and discovering that things do not necessarily have to be
the way they are where we live. It happens also when we study history.
Historical study frees us from the tyranny of the present. It
frees us to place our own times, thoughts, and values into a much
longer context, and offers us a longer perspective on the follies and
foibles of our own world. And we are most completely liberated
when we enter the world of the Bible, when through careful study
of his ancient Word, which is still so new, we make God’s thoughts
and God’s language and yes, God’s style, our own.
III.
Our traditional liturgy has such an educative function. It has
served for centuries to help those who are young and inexperienced,
children and visitors to our churches, to learn (directly
and indirectly) who God is and what he has done for us. It is not
obviously pedagogical, but often the best education is the kind
that is not self-conscious. The patterns and sensibilities for worship
that the traditional liturgy develops in the young, even the
very young, may last their entire life. Much of the impetus behind
Luther’s own liturgical writings came from his conviction that the
liturgy was so useful
especially for the immature and the young who must be
trained and educated in the Scripture and God’s Word daily
so that they may become familiar with the Bible, grounded,
well versed, and skilled in it, ready to defend their faith and
in due time to teach others and to increase the kingdom of
Christ. For such, one must read, sing, preach, write, and
compose. 11
Now, our treasure is not supposed to be put into moth balls,
preserved as an archaic museum piece, or practiced as a historical
exercise without application to the present. We are not to repeat
what is old in our worship of God just because it is old. If our
interest in the past rises from our reluctance to engage the present,
as though there were something holier about the sixteenth
century than our own, then this interest is an idolatry of sorts. In
fact the liturgy is classic because it has appealed to so many generations
of believers and because it has been used and reused, translated,
modified, and improved continually. It is, therefore, not
just for the third century or the sixteenth—but for eternity. Our
liturgy, in fact, is filled with biblical language and biblical patterns
for worship, and, just as the Scriptures are living and not dead, so,
too, the liturgy is not a lifeless form or vehicle, but sharper than a
two-edged sword, filled with applicability, charged with significance
for you, today. 12
Our worship should also be done, it need hardly be said, with
great eagerness, delight, and even enthusiasm, rightly understood.
Liturgy is not synonymous with lethargy. Our worship
should not be frivolous or unearnest, but it must also not be
perfunctory or flat. It is true that one does not need to stop and
think about every word or phrase in the Lord’s Prayer every
time one prays it. This applies as well to the liturgy. Part of its
efficacy is that it is always the same. Week after week, year after
year, generation after generation, we repeat the same words, the
same cadences, for instance, “therefore with angels and
archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify
Thy glorious name, evermore praising Thee and saying . ...”
What a treasure these ringing words are! They cannot be taken
from us; they cannot be damaged or diminished by moths or
rust. But just because the liturgy is always the same, let us not
imagine that we can race through it without proper preparation
or a due sense of decorum. The liturgy is never boring, but there
are plenty of liturgists who are bored and who, as a result, make
the liturgy boring.
The liturgy may be modified, but we must remember that if a
classic is changed too radically, it loses the very essence of what

34 LOGIA
makes it great: its ability to communicate to more than one generation.
If parents and children cannot recognize each other’s
forms and language of worship, they will be unable to understand
each other when they speak about God, even though they live in
the same house. Hence the grave danger of constantly revising the
wording of the Scriptures, the Small Catechism, and our hymns,
so that they sound more modern. The problem, in a world in
which the English language is changing so rapidly, is that what
seems modern today turns out to be hopelessly dated and even
faddish tomorrow—and must be changed yet again.
According to the oldest and most popular
tradition, the Te Deum was composed
(on the spot) by Ambrose and
Augustine on the occasion of the latter’s
baptism in Milan.
nb
The liturgy may be improved, but we must make sure that we
are really making improvements. In this, as in so many other
respects, let us follow Luther’s example. He lived in a time of dramatic
change, and the liturgy of his day had some serious problems.
Unlike other contemporary reformers, however, Luther
excised only what was really offensive to the gospel, in particular,
the canon of the mass, the list of saints who were supposed to
intercede on behalf of the worshipers. If an element of the traditional
liturgy did not involve false doctrine, Luther’s assumption
was that it could stay. It is important to keep in mind that Luther
did not consider himself a reformer in the usual sense of the
word. 13 He built on tradition—when the tradition was sound. 14
And it is clear, too, that Luther did not believe that the Holy Spirit
had been asleep during the entire Middle Ages. Many of his great
chorales are translations (some quite literal) of ancient Latin
hymns. Where other liturgical reformers, of Luther’s time and
since, have not followed his conservative approach, it has meant
an enormous loss, because the forms of worship they have substituted
for the traditional ones are, almost without exception, shallow
and uninspiring, focused on man instead of God, and without
a sober appreciation for the beauty of God’s holiness.
IV.
Now, one such example of a liturgical classic that deserves to be
dusted off and sung once again with feeling by the Lutheran
Church is the Te Deum, one of the most venerable of all Latin
hymns. 15 It was once sung at the coronation of kings and the installation
of bishops, the election of the pope, the end of a council, or
even a great military victory. Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Te
Deum sung after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Frederick
the Great—himself something of an anti-cleric and a friend of the
rationalist philosopher Voltaire—had it sung in Dresden after one
of his military triumphs. The “Marseillaise of the church,” 16 as it
has been called, was so well known that it inspired numerous spin-
offs and parodies. In the Middle Ages, someone wrote a Te Matrem
laudamus in honor of the Virgin Mary, and the Counter-Reformation
produced Te Lutherum damnamus. 17 Many of the great composers
of the modern period have tried their hand at rendering this
Latin hymn in polyphony or in classical or romantic style. (These
include Palestrina, Purcell, Handel, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart,
Berlioz, Bruckner, Verdi, and Vaughn Williams.) Luther himself
prized the Te Deum for its succinct combination of praise, confession,
and prayer. He put it in third place after the Apostles’ and
Athanasian Creed in his book on The Three Symbols or Creeds of the
Christian Faith (1538) and declared it to be “a fine symbol or creed
(whoever the author) composed in the form of a chant, not only
for the purpose of confessing the true faith, but also for praising
and thanking God.” 18 And Luther published both a prose and verse
translation of the Te Deum (1531). The great Lutheran hymn of
praise “Nun danket Alle Gott” (Martin Rinkart, 1644) owes much
to the Te Deum. At least until fairly recent times, the Te Deum was
an important part of the Lutheran liturgy, where it was traditionally
used in the service of Matins, as well as in the service for festival
days such as All Saints’ and Thanksgiving and occasional services
like confirmation and marriage. 19
If the Te Deum itself is famous, the question of who wrote it is
shrouded in obscurity. By the beginning of the sixth century, it was
possible for Bishop Cyprian of Toulon to declare that the Te Deum
was known “throughout the entire world.” It was prescribed to be
sung weekly by Caesarius of Arles (512) and was included in the
famous rule of Benedict (546)—to be sung by his monks every Saturday
night. No mention, however, is made of its author in these
early references. In the earliest manuscripts, too, the hymn is unattributed.
20 According to the oldest and most popular tradition, the
Te Deum was composed (on the spot) by Ambrose and Augustine
on the occasion of the latter’s baptism in Milan. Although other
names appear here and there in the manuscript tradition, it was the
story of Ambrose’s and Augustine’s improvisatory composition
that maintained its grip on the popular imagination well into the
early modern period. Luther had his doubts about the veracity of
this colorful legend 21 and, not surprisingly, prosaic nineteenth- and
twentieth-century scholars have rejected it altogether.
In 1894 Dom Germain Morin proposed the idea that it was
Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana (modern Bela-Palanka in former
Yugoslavia) in the late fourth century, who had composed the Te
Deum. 22 Nicetas was a popular name among Christians in the
fourth century—there were churchmen in Vienne (c. 379) and in
Trier (527–566) as well as in Aquileia (died 485), each of whom
bore the name—but Nicetas of Remesiana (c. 340–414) seemed
the logical choice to Morin, because he was known to have concerned
himself with the composition of psalms and hymns. Paulinus
of Nola admired Nicetas’s talent as a hymn writer, wanted
him to visit the church of St. Felix “with psalm-singing and
hymns,” and imagined Nicetas teaching the sailors on board the
ship that would carry him over the Adriatic to sing hymns in chorus.
23 Morin’s idea was accepted by such notable church historians
as Theodor Zahn, Ferdinand Kattenbusch, and Henri
Leclercq, and the English scholar A. E. Burn defended the thesis
with special enthusiasm. In 1958, however, Ernst Kähler published
a study of the Te Deum that essentially demolished the work of
Burn, who, it turned out, had been a little overzealous in his quest

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 35
to find verbal parallels between works we are certain that Nicetas
of Remesiana wrote and the Te Deum. 24 Kähler examined (and
rejected) twenty-one such “parallels” and stated in his concluding
remarks with characteristic emphasis: “From the texts at any rate
it cannot be demonstrated that Nicetas of Remesiana had anything
at all to do with the Te Deum.” Furthermore: “It is no more
possible to make the case that Nicetas of Remesiana was the
author or editor of the Te Deum than it is for any of the other
names that have been connected with the Te Deum.” Kähler’s
caveat is still generally accepted and, indeed, there has been little
substantive discussion of the authorship question since the late
1950s and early 1960s. In many of the hymnals in which the Te
Deum is included today, Nicetas is listed as the author, but a
question mark follows his name.
Kähler made some telling observations but failed to face the
following question squarely: 25 How did the tradition of Nicetas’s
authorship, mentioned in just a dozen or so of the numerous
manuscripts, ever arise in the first place The development of the
pious legend about Ambrose and Augustine is easy to understand.
Ambrose was the most famous of all Christian hymn writers,
and Augustine was arguably the most authoritative of the
four great Latin doctors of the church. How better to explain the
origin of such a widely used hymn than to suggest that it took two
great church fathers to compose it 26 It is far more difficult to
explain the appearance of the name of Nicetas in the manuscript
tradition. Although Nicetas of Remesiana was a contemporary of
Ambrose and Augustine, he was not nearly so famous. There was
no monastic order that bore his name, or churches dedicated to
his memory. He is supposed to have written hymns, but they do
not survive, and his other works that have come down to us were
not all that influential.
One possible explanation for the presence of the problematic
word Nicetas in some of the manuscripts of the Te Deum, which
Kähler did not consider, is that it may not refer to a man of that
name, but is rather an infelicitous transliteration of the familiar
Greek word nikhthv", meaning “victor.” The word in its original
form would not, therefore, have designated the author of the
poem, but rather its dedicatee, most likely in the dative case, tw'/
nikhth'/ (“to the victor”). 27 The appearance of Nicetas as a proper
name in tenth-century manuscripts could, then, be the result of a
translator’s failure to understand that the word he saw before him
was a common noun (as opposed to a person’s name) in Greek. If
the first part of the Te Deum originally existed in Greek, as some
scholars have suggested (on the basis of its textual connection
with the Gloria), this would make especially good sense. 28 We do
have a number of manuscripts (some as early as the ninth or
tenth centuries) that contain the first twelve verses in Greek.
V.
It is quite likely, in fact, that we shall never know for certain who
wrote this hymn. While this will mean dashing Burn’s pious hope
“that in time to come Nicetas’s name will be a household word
among the Christian congregations whose hearts are stirred in
every generation by his matchless hymn of praise,” it is perhaps
appropriate that this hymn’s author or authors be designated
“anonymous.” One suspects, indeed, that whoever did write the
hymn was not nearly so interested in getting credit for composing
it as we moderns are in assigning the Te Deum an author. We, of
course, assign great importance to the claims of the author (rigorously
enforcing plagiarism and copyright regulations to protect his
rights), and are seriously concerned with the question of originality,
but it was not always so. It was not always thought that a great
idea or phrase or musical line was the sole possession of anyone
(one need only think of the ancient Greeks’ regard for the power of
the Muses as sources of inspiration). Johann Sebastian Bach (an
original genius, if ever there was one) copied the music of Italian
masters whom he admired. It is sometimes hard to detect where
they leave off and he begins. We might note, too, that Bach also
dedicated his own work to the glory of God and not himself. Some
of his longer compositions were never even performed in his lifetime—and
Bach may very well have known that they might never
be performed at all when he composed them. He was not concerned
about himself, but about his music. The artist who sees
himself in the service of a higher power, who is overmastered by the
great ideas he helps to bring to expression, and who is not driven
by a passion for self-exaltation, is a rare commodity today.
Our best sermons, it has been said, are
those in which we do not preach
Christ, but in which Christ
preaches himself.
nb
Since World War I, modern artists have tried desperately (and
to a large degree unsuccessfully) to break with the past, to find
new forms of expression, new, original messages. Indeed, this
attempt to break with the past could be said to be the very essence
of modernism. By and large these efforts have produced works
that are overly sophisticated and decadent, increasingly removed
from tradition and nature (for example, Cubism or Brutalism),
and addressed only to an elite audience. It is interesting, by the
way, to see how the pendulum has swung in recent years (some
historians have called our epoch “post-modern”)—back to classical
architectural forms (such as the Greek column), 29 to representation
(even photo-realism) in the plastic arts, to melody in
music, to narrative in literature, and traditional meters and
rhyme (mirabile dictu!) in poetry.
In the kingdom of heaven there is no such heavy stress on originality.
C. S. Lewis observes astutely:
Our whole destiny seems to lie in the opposite direction, in
being as little as possible ourselves, in acquiring a fragrance
that is not our own, but borrowed, in becoming clear mirrors
filled with the image of a face that is not ours.
In his High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prays that we may all be
one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given

36 LOGIA
them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them,
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and
that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast
loved them, as thou hast loved me (Jn 17:21–23).
To be one with Christ, a branch on his vine—this dependence is
the basis for our independence. To lose ourselves and to be found
in him, not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness
that is through faith in him, to die to our old selves and to be
reborn again in his image—this is the only really original thing at
all in this tired old world of ours.
Like the Apostles’ Creed and other symbols
of the church, the Te Deum sums
up all of our faith, not just one aspect
of it, in very few words.
nb
Our best sermons, it has been said, are those in which we do
not preach Christ, but in which Christ preaches himself. Augustine
puts it colorfully when he speaks of the preacher “belching”
(the Latin verb is eructare) the gospel. It springs up from within
us, in other words, naturally and spontaneously, even in spite of
ourselves—from the fullness of the heart, where the word of
Christ dwells richly. Preaching should not, therefore, be considered,
as it often is, a virtuoso performance by a great orator standing
before an audience. In a very real way, it is the word of God—
from which not a jot or a tittle will pass away—as much as the
word of the preacher. The preacher should not regard his sermon
as some kind of personal achievement any more than anything
else in our Christian life is really solely our own. Everything we are
and have is a gift from above. Even Jesus was careful to point this
out about his own authoritative teaching: “My doctrine is not
mine, but his that sent me.” A good sermon will be original, all
right—how could the freshly minted word of God applied to life
be anything else—but any originality that the preacher has comes
not from himself, but from the one who sent him.
VI.
Luther called the Te Deum a symbol. What did he mean by that
Like the Apostles’ Creed and other symbols of the church, the Te
Deum sums up all of our faith, not just one aspect of it, in very
few words. It is comprehensive and compact. It includes a song of
praise, a confession of faith, and a prayer for help, all in fewer
than two hundred words. One of the most powerful and expressive
of all Christian symbols is simply two lines that cross each
other at right angles, yet it stands for the crucifixion, for our salvation,
for our redemption. Like the cross, the Te Deum is profound
yet simple. Little children are able to sing it. The greatest
weaknesses of some of our best modern attempts at hymnody
(Martin Franzmann’s otherwise admirable hymns come to mind)
is that they are too complex, too literary—they are designed to
be sung by adults. Luther said of his own preaching:
When I preach here I adapt myself to the circumstances of the
common people. I don’t look at the doctors and masters, of
whom scarcely forty are present, but at the hundred or the
thousand young people and children. It’s to them that I
preach, to them that I devote myself, for they, too, need to
understand. If the others don’t want to listen, they can leave. 30
Hymns, like the Te Deum, which can be understood by the simplest
without being trite or vulgar and which address the greatest
truths in the utmost seriousness without being pompous or
sentimental—these are truly rare treasures and not to be lightly
discarded.
The Te Deum, like the other great symbols of the early church,
is also Trinitarian. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine
of the Trinity was hammered out on the anvil of controversy,
as early Christians were forced to articulate their beliefs visà-vis
a variety of heresies, each of which were distortions of the
truth. This doctrinal focus is made explicit in the words of the
hymn itself (for example, the triple Sanctus), but it seems also to
have permeated the structure of the Te Deum. The hymn is
divided into three parts. This tripartite division is not simply a
matter of style or ornamentation, but it is, rather, integrally connected
with the substance of this Trinitarian composition. The
first thirteen verses praise God the creator of heavens and earth in
his celestial majesty; the next six verses confess in credal fashion
the Son who came to earth to save us; the last ten verses consist of
petitions that we pray through the assistance of the Holy Spirit
(cf. Rom 8:26–27). This tripartite structure is reinforced by musical
settings (as in The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941) that shift from a
major key at the beginning, to a minor key in the middle, and
then return to a major key at the end.
Central to Trinitarian debates in the early church was the correct
understanding of the relationship of the Son to the Father
and to the Holy Spirit. Some heretics (like Sabellius) insisted that
the Son was the same as the Father and that God had not become
man, but had simply adopted the form of a man. Arius, on the
other hand, maintained that the Son was not equal in power with
the Father because he was not coeternal. Many of the first orthodox
hymns, especially those written by Ambrose, appear to have
been reactions to Arius’s false teaching. When the Te Deum was
first sung, the expression “the eternal Son of the Father” probably
received special emphasis. These were fighting words in the
fourth century—and, indeed, they still are, or still should be.
(One need think only of the absurdities sponsored by the Jesus
Seminar or the predictable conclusions drawn by recent sociological
studies devoted to the so-called quest for the historical
Jesus. 31 ) In fact, the verse Tu Patris sempiternus es filius is the fifteenth
in the Latin version, the exact center of the twenty-nine
verses that make up the traditional Te Deum. The very structure
of the piece says something about what those who sing it believe.
Christ is the center of this hymn, just as he is the center of everything
else, too. What he did for us is the great turning point of
salvation history. His incarnation is the center of time. (Despite
some attempts among the politically correct to alter the practice,
it still is customary in most circles to measure human history in
terms of “Before Christ” and Anno Domini.) And Christ is the
center of our individual Christian lives, too. What Jesus did for us

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 37
in his death and resurrection means that we are transformed into
his image, that he lives in us, and that his love for us animates us
entirely. This is the center of our Christian lives; without it we are
as lost as sailors at sea without a compass. 32
The emphasis in the Te Deum is on the
one praised (“you”) rather than the
ones (“we”) doing the praising.
nb
The structure of the Te Deum, it should also be noted, is oriented
vertically rather than horizontally. This hymn has a downward
momentum. It starts in heaven with the cherubim and
seraphim, descends to earth in the historical incarnation of the
Son, and concludes with petitions for divine assistance in the
conduct of our daily lives (per singulos dies) on earth. The direction
of this hymn’s line of thought, from above to below, is worth
pointing out, because there are many today who argue or simply
assume that religion is essentially horizontal. They focus not on
the transcendent God and his holy will, but on people. The
church, according to this way of thinking, exists primarily to satisfy
people’s “felt needs.” We are supposed to shape our theology,
our worship, even the design of our church buildings to satisfy
what the “customers” say they want. Some mission developers do
a neighborhood poll and after examining the results announce
that they are starting a neighborhood church that corresponds
with the poll’s results. This horizontal orientation turns fundamental
Christian theology on its head. God is the Creator; he isn’t
created by us. We are the clay; he is the Potter. We do not always
know what we need, but he does. Everything starts with him.
“For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom
11:36). Our piety, our love for God, our warm feelings for our
neighbors—none of these save us. Our brilliant preaching and
energetic evangelism don’t “grow the church” either. Our mystic
insights, our labors of spiritual discipline, none of these practices
so commonly stressed in other religions (vertically oriented, it is
true, but directed upward), necessarily bring us closer to the God
who justifies the ungodly. The Holy Spirit “grows” the church.
Jesus has all power in heaven and on earth, and our power, such
as it is, comes from him. The Te Deum has its theological directions
straight.
VII.
The most striking word in the entire Te Deum is probably the
first in the Latin original: te (“you”). One of the great virtues of
the Latin language is its flexible word order. It is possible to
take the most important word in a sentence, even though it is
the object of the verb, as it is in the phrase Te Deum laudamus,
and to put it first—for emphasis. The emphasis in the Te
Deum is on the one praised (“you”) rather than the ones
(“we”) doing the praising. The first person plural (“we”) is not
expressed in a pronoun form at all, but is represented in the
last syllable (-mus) in the verse, meaning that it is unemphatic.
The contrast with much of contemporary Christian worship in
this regard is striking. One has only to compare some typical
first lines of a few popular hymns today: “I bless you,” I only
want to love you,” “I’ll seek after you,” “I have found,” “I just
want to praise,” and so on. 33 (The qualifying word “just,” by the
way, found so often in Christian spontaneous prayer and praise
today that one might be justified in describing it as a formula,
does not occur anywhere in the Te Deum.) Lutheran worship is
not devoid of feeling or emotion, but such subjective experiences
are not the point of worship. The liturgy is not supposed
to direct us to our own feelings, no matter how sanctified they
may be, but to God’s grace. Whether one feels anything afterwards
is hardly the question.
Hymns should be objective, not subjective. There is something
fierce, rather than sappy or nostalgic, about the way a Lutheran
chorale sounds. We are still part of the church militant, it should
be remembered, not yet ready to enjoy the glorious rest of the
church triumphant in heaven. Our warfare with sin, death, and
the devil is not yet over. And our hymns should not be jingoistic,
either, as though the Christian church were some sort of worldly
institution whose success can be measured in worldly terms. No,
our wisdom is folly; our victories are defeat; our life is death. But
our Father’s kingdom, which is not of this world, will never
decline and fall; from this kingdom we can never be disenfranchised;
this kingdom can never be taken away from us.
And take they our life,
Goods, fame, child and wife,
Let these all be gone,
They yet have nothing won;
The kingdom ours remaineth (TLH 262: 4).
Does the Te Deum fail to meet our needs because of its focus
on God instead of us Hardly. We praise God, not only for his
glory but also for our own good. 34 We need to be thankful. It orients
us. Most of the world’s recent history could be described as
the result of a dynamic tension between two vices that have nothing
to do with praise or thanksgiving: greed and envy. Greed has
expressed itself in our century, in a collective way, as capitalism,
while envy has fueled the rise of socialism. “If you can have that
much, why can’t I too” “If I can’t have that much, you can’t
either.” But Christians are to be thankful, not greedy or envious,
even when a sleek Mercedes Benz roars past our Chevy Cavalier
on the highway; even when we compare our two-bedroom ranch
house with the enormous piles of stone sprouting up in our treeless
suburbs; even when we realize that a number of Americans
make ten times more from the interest on their savings than we
do from our job. Our response Te Deum laudamus. We don’t
complain or sputter—but we praise you, O God, and thank you
that we have a car, and a roof over our head, and a job at all. And
we should mean it, too. Because all things really do work together
for good to those who love God.
“We praise.” There are a number of first person pronouns in the
Te Deum, but they are all, except for the last occurrence, plural,
not singular. In this individualistic country of ours we do well to
remember that Christianity involves bearing each other’s burdens,
not just our own. Our hymns, too, should be collective, not indi-

38 LOGIA
vidual, written in the plural and not the singular. The Psalmist
says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
Jesus taught us to say: “Our father, who art in heaven.” The Holy
Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian
church on earth. We gather together physically to worship God
and we gather our thoughts and words and voices together to sing
his praises—as a group, not just as individuals. We are not to go
off by ourselves on Sunday morning, as though it were possible for
us individually to commune with the Bridegroom without coming
into contact with his “leprous bride,” the church. There are
fewer hypocrites, no doubt, to be confronted by those who (in the
words of William Cullen Bryant) “in the love of nature hold communion
with her visible forms” out in the woods, but you will not
find the communion of saints on a nature hike.
In America the lowest common
denominator is not only widely
accepted, but has actually been
turned into our one great virtue.
nb
Our worship of God is not just a set of ceremonies reserved for
Sunday services. Our entire attitude, way of life, Weltanschauung,
should be one of worship. It is the way we speak to God and it
should characterize our discussion of God as well. Is this not true,
that when we talk about God in our churches and schools and
even in our homes, our language becomes philosophical and
abstract and detached, as though theology were a matter of analyzing
God, as though he were something created and we were
the creators Is not this the idolatrous sin of so much of
Lutheranism that has traditionally touted its possession of the
pure doctrine This attitude stifles and kills worship pure doctrine
spirit and in truth. Our God is a living God, the Creator of
heaven and earth and you and me. He is not a sculpture made
with human hands or a doctrine constructed by the human
mind. We cannot change or limit or fully define the One from
whom and through whom and to whom are all things.
Theological discussion should never be completely detached
from the language of praise and confession and prayer. Our
proclamation of the gospel, whether it be a dinner conversation
or an essay such as this or a cantata sung in a cathedral, must have
worship as its ultimate aim. This is the only adequate description
of the One who is beyond analysis; this is the only adequate
response to the One who humbled himself unto death and whose
glory is now set above the heavens. Think of all the emphatic prescriptions
in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Scriptures to this
effect: “O come, let us worship the Lord.” “Bless the Lord, O my
soul.” “O give thanks unto the Lord.” “Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col 3:16). These are all imperatives,
that is to say, divine commands, to be taken just as seriously
as the Ten Commandments.
All the earth, angels, heavens, cherubim, and seraphim join in
this praise. The psalms speak of the world blessing God, the
floods clapping their hands, the hills and the woods rejoicing
before the Lord. The worship of God goes far beyond us personally.
We take part in it, and it is important that we do so, but we
would do well to remember that it goes on also without us. God’s
name is indeed holy of itself. His praise and worship is larger than
us. A story is told of an Orthodox priest in Jerusalem whose congregation
gradually died out until only a handful of worshipers
were left. Finally the last worshiper died. But the priest just kept
right on holding services. This certainly makes no sense to critics
of “maintenance ministries,” but the worship of God, just like the
peace of God, passes all human understanding. It dare not be
judged solely by human criteria such as bottom lines, or numbers,
or efficiency.
The word Sanctus (“Holy”) is repeated three times in the Te
Deum (as it is in Isaiah 6:3). The threefold repetition not only
reminds us of God’s triune nature, but also serves to emphasize
the concept that is being repeated. The holiness of God (not his
chumminess) is something the church needs to declare with
emphasis to the culture that surrounds us. We have a transcendent
as well as an immanent God. After some two hundred years
of “radical immanentalism,” as one critic has described the American
experiment, there has been a tremendous leveling effect in
our nation—and in the world at large. Today’s popular culture is
a far cry from that of Luther’s day. In America the lowest common
denominator is not only widely accepted, but has actually
been turned into our one great virtue. Mediocrity is actively promoted
and defended against the great bogeyman elitism. And the
mighty and holy God has had to be leveled, too. God has to be
like us—or, even worse, God has to be us. That God is other than
us, that his ways are not our ways, that he is holy and hates sin
and saves those who repent of sin—this message is hardly ever
heard clearly today, not even in Lutheran churches.
VIII.
The apostles, the prophets, and the martyrs join in this hymn of
praise. In this next part of the Te Deum we move away from the
realm of timelessness into history. Christianity is about anamnesis
(remembrance), not amnesia (forgetfulness). Indeed, one
could say that the Trinity himself is all about history: the Father,
who created the world at the beginning of history; the Son, the
Alpha and Omega of history, who was present at creation as the
Word of God just as he will preside at the end of the world as
judge, who was also, in the fullness of time, born in time and
space of the Virgin Mary, and who suffered under the historical
Pontius Pilate; the Holy Spirit, who does his calling, gathering,
and enlightening not only in the present, but in the past as well.
And we are surrounded by a cloud of historical witnesses, as the
letter to the Hebrews puts it, whose faith we follow. G. K. Chesterton
characterized Christianity as “the democracy of the dead.” 35
This is why we must study history—our history. History is mostly
bunk, as Henry Ford so memorably put it, if by “history” we mean
only the study of the facts and dates of the past as a series of random
and chaotic events that have no inner, purposive connection
or higher meaning. But history, as we understand the word, is the
story of God’s grace, as he has called, gathered, and enlightened

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 39
every believer (not just us here and now), coupled with the story
of his judgment, past finding out, on individuals (“He searches the
hearts and the reins”), as well as nations (“Behold, the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”).
Our individual histories are inextricably woven into this
great tapestry of the history of God’s mercy and judgment.
The second major section of the Te Deum (beginning Tu rex
gloriae, Christe) is time-bound. It is essentially the second article.
What exactly happened when the fullness of time was come
What did God do about our human dilemma One of the most
thrilling lines in this hymn is: “when Thou hadst overcome the
sharpness of death.” This, I would suggest, is the climax of the Te
Deum. This is why we can praise our holy God and pray to him.
His Son did not stay in the heavenly stratosphere, but instead
became man and entered the womb of a virgin. He died in order
to overcome death, and he opened the kingdom of heaven to
those who believe, and now sits at the right hand of the Father.
This Christological section of the Te Deum is undoubtedly also
the most controversial. Praising God is common to religions
other than Christianity. And even atheists start praying when
they are in the foxholes. But to confess that our salvation centers
around Jesus Christ, that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
and that no man cometh to the Father but by our Lord—this is
foolishness to some and a rock of stumbling to others. But to
those who believe, it is the power of God unto salvation. Our
Lord’s vicarious death and his victory over sin and the devil is the
reason we can praise God and pray to him.
If the Te Deum was originally dedicated to a victor whose
name was not explicitly mentioned, as suggested above, who is a
more likely candidate than the Savior Our Lord is often assigned
this epithet in early Christian literature. Augustine describes
Jesus’ crucifixion as a victoria in Tract. in Joh. 51, 2, while the cross
itself is described in victorious terms by Peter Chrysologus in
Sermo CL, 9: victoriossimum vexillum crucis. Christ is also portrayed
as a victor in early Christian art, as, for instance, in the catacomb
of Cosmas and Damian, where he is shown with a crown
on his head. Already in the New Testament, the verb nika'n is
applied to Christ, as in John 16:33: “In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome [nenivkhka] the
world.” and Revelation 17:14: “These shall make war with the
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome [nikhvsei] them: for he is
Lord of lords, and King of kings.” Such a dedication would certainly
help to clarify the appositional accusative in the first line.
The word Deum in Te Deum laudamus is not, according to such a
reading, a reference to the Triune God, or to God the Father, but
specifically to Christ, who is (perhaps polemically) declared to be
God: “We praise you who are God.” 34 We know from a letter that
Pliny wrote to Trajan (x. 96) that hymns were addressed “to
Christ as God” in the early second century. It was this bold confession
that caused problems for the early Christians, both with
their Jewish neighbors and the Roman authorities.
IX.
The Te Deum reserves petitions for our own needs till last. 36
There is no doubt a reason why Jesus answered as he did the
question about the greatest commandment. We are to love the
Lord our God first and foremost, and then, second, we are to love
our neighbor, and only in the third place—and this is simply
taken for granted—ourselves. How sadly astray we have gone
from this fundamental ordering of priorities: God first, neighbors
second, ourselves last. Such a concept runs counter to human
nature, but it is especially alien to Baby-Boomers. Our selfabsorbed
generation takes seriously all kinds of therapists, educators,
even pastors who urge us to take care of “the wounded child
within,” to cultivate our own self-esteem, to look out for “number
one.” We have succeeded in turning “self-denial” into a completely
negative category. That we have adopted a kind of idolatry
of self is nowhere more manifest than in a popular commercial
that features an attractively slim model declaring that she imbibes
a certain kind of soft drink because, as she says, “I believe in me.”
Everything else, whether it be obligations to the state, family
responsibilities, or even one’s own children (born and unborn),
must be sacrificed on the altar of “me,” our modern equivalent of
the insatiable Moloch.
This last section (beginning Te ergo quaesumus) reminds us of
the Holy Spirit and his daily work in us and among us in the
church militant, until at the last day he will raise the dead and give
all believers in Christ eternal life. For the time being, however, we
are still bound in time, and our daily prayers reflect this limitation.
“Day by day.” The Te Deum takes us from the eternal and the historical
to the every day. Our daily life, our daily routine: getting up
in the morning, going to bed at night, Sunday through Saturday,
January through December. The eternal God does care about us,
even though we are no more permanent than grass, and he
responds with his tender love to our daily worries and problems
and fears, just as he cares for the sparrow. And just as our daily
concerns are fresh and new and urgent for us “this day” and every
day, so, too, are his mercies new to us every morning.
Much of the focus of Christianity in
this century has been concentrated
on making the world we now live
in a better place.
nb
“Have mercy on us” (Miserere nostri). Here is the essential petition,
the prayer of prayers, an appeal to the other side of God’s
holiness, namely, his desire to forgive. He did not stay in heaven,
aloof and remote from us, but was made flesh and dwelt among
us. He is not just the holy and mighty God, but also the God who
is with us, who saves his people and blesses his inheritance. What a
comforting preposition “with” is! “Immanuel, that is, God with
us.” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me,” the familiar words of the
Twenty-Third Psalm remind us. “O Lord, in Thee have I trusted;
let me never be confounded.” We are so easily confounded. The
final petition in the Te Deum is for divine assistance on our pilgrimage
through this world to the next, because we have an adversary
who walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour. We should remember that our worship of God never takes

40 LOGIA
place in a vacuum; it is in defiance of Satan. Luther pointed out
that when we baptize an infant we should be aware of what a powerful
enemy we are creating for it. Are we prepared to help this
new Christian Baptism is not an empty ceremony. When we worship
God, when we hallow his name, the name that is above every
name, this also is not just vain repetition—it is the controversial
proclamation that God’s goodness and mercy is superior to everything
and everyone else in the world. And this message is dangerous.
This will arouse the enmity, or at the very least the ridicule, of
the world, the devil, and our own flesh.
In heaven there will be hymns like
the Te Deum.
nb
Wrestling with the devil is serious business, but it should not
make us unremittingly somber. Not the long-faced Puritans with
their interminable and joyless Sabbaths, but Luther should be our
model in this respect. Even in his grimmest contests with the
powers of darkness, he did not forget to sing 37 —nor did he lose
his sense of humor. On one occasion, for example, Luther related
that he advised the tempter: “Teufel, willst du mich fressen, fing
hinten an.” There is a note of defiant humor in these words that
bespeaks Luther’s lively trust in the power of God to sustain him
through the worst spiritual crises. Even while Luther sat imprisoned
and helpless, to all appearances, in the Wartburg, the gospel
had free course. (Luther did more for church growth in those
nine months in captivity—he translated the New Testament into
German—than an army of experts armed with survey forms and
phones could have done in a lifetime.) Indeed, it is precisely when
we are wrestling with Satan, going into battle, wearing the helmet
of righteousness and bearing the sword of the Spirit, as Paul says
in Ephesians, that we will find true peace, not as the world giveth
it, but the peace that passeth all understanding and joy and happiness.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute
you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you” (Mt 5:11–12).
The last word of the Te Deum in Latin is almost as striking as
the first: aeternum. Few questions today are considered sub specie
aeternatis. Indeed, much of the focus of Christianity in this century
has been concentrated on making the world we now live in a
better place. The current interest in ecology and “justice-love,” as
it is termed, in liberal churches, as well as the emphasis laid on
the practical benefits the gospel can provide for family stability
and material prosperity in conservative churches, have this much
in common: they are both more concerned with constructing a
temporal kingdom on earth than storing up eternal treasures in
heaven. Christianity Today publishes articles about the dangers of
billboards that advertise cigarettes, as though this were one of the
great spiritual issues of the day. Important as our stewardship of
the world and its resources may be, of even greater importance is
our citizenship in heaven. Are we not those upon whom the ends
of the world have come “Our conversation is in heaven; from
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil
3:20). The great petitions of the Te Deum (for example, “Vouchsafe,
O Lord, to keep up this day without sin”) are oriented
toward the spiritual, not the physical, toward heaven, not earth.
Paul warns us: “This I say, brethren, the time is short: it
remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had
none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that
rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though
they possessed not; and they that use this world as not abusing it:
for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:29–31). This
lively sense of living in the end times, this sensorium for the eternal:
is not this what the church needs today more than anything
else So much of our fruitless and unedifying discussions in the
church (such as whether women should vote or not) are simply
irrelevant in the light of eternity. In heaven there will be no voting
or counting of votes. In heaven there will be nobody who suffers
from lung cancer. But in heaven there will be hymns like the Te
Deum, and it is our fervent prayer that we may join there with the
cherubim and seraphim, the apostles and prophets, and the noble
army of martyrs, in ceaseless praise of you, O God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, forever! LOGIA
APPENDIX
Latin Original of the Te Deum with English and Luther’s Translation
(sixteenth-century German; WA 35: 458–459).
1. Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur.
We praise Thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
Herr Gott, dich loben wir, / Herr Gott wir dancken dir.
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
Dich Vater ynn Ewigkeit / Ehrt die welt weit und breit.
Tibi omnes angeli, tibi caeli, et universae potestates:
To Thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein.
All engel und himels heer, / Und was dienet deiner ehr.
Tibi cherubim et seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry.
Auch Cherubin und Seraphin / Singen ymmer mit hoher stim:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth!
Heylig ist unser Gott, / Heylig ist unser Gott, / Heylig ist unser
Gott, der Herre Zebaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae.
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory.
Dein Göttlich macht und herrligkeit / Geht uber himel und
erden weit.
Te gloriosus apostolorum chorus,
The glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee;
Der heiligen zwelffpoten zal, /
Te prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee;
Und die lieben Propheten all.

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 41
Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
The noble army of martyrs praise Thee;
Die thewren Marterer allzumal,/Loben dich, Herr, mit grossem schal,
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur ecclesia,
The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee:
Die gantze werde Christenheit / Rhumbt dich auff erden allezeit.
Patrem immensae majestatis;
The Father of an infinite majesty;
Dich Gott Vater ym höchsten thron, /
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum filium.
Thine adorable true and only Son.
Deinen rechten und einigen Son,
Sanctum quoque paraclitum Spiritum.
also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
Den heiligen geyst und tröster werd, / Mit rechtem dienst sie
lobt und ehrt.
2. Tu rex gloriae, Christe.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Du könig der ehren, Jhesu Christ, /
Tu Patris sempiternus es filius.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
Gott Vaters ewiger Son du bist,
Tu, ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti virginis
uterum.
When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man, Thou didst humble
Thyself to be born of a virgin.
Der Jungfraw leib nicht hast verschmecht, / Zurlösen das menschlich
geschlecht.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst
open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Du hast dem tod zerstört sein macht / Und all Christen zum
hymel bracht.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria patris.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
Du sitzt zur rechten Gottes gleich / Mit aller ehr yns Vaters reich,
Judex crederis esse venturus.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our judge.
Eyn richter du zukunfftig bist / Alles das tod und lebend ist.
3. Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine
redemisti.
We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast
redeemed with Thy precious blood.
Nu hilff uns Herr, den dienern dein, / Die mit dem thewren blut
erlöset seyn.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.
Lass uns yhm himel haben teil / Mit den heiligen ynn ewigem heil.
Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine heritage.
Hilff deinem volck, Herr Jhesu Christ, / Und segen, das dein
erbteil ist.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Govern them and lift them up forever.
Wart und pfleg yhr zu aller zeit / Unnd heb sie hoch ynn ewickeyt.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te;
Day by day we magnify Thee.
Teglich Herr Gott wir loben dich /
Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
And we worship Thy name ever, world without end.
Unnd ehrn dein namen stetiglich.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
Beht uns heut O trewer Gott / Für aller sund und missethat.
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
Sey uns gnedig, O Herre Gott, / Sey uns gnedig ynn aller not.
Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus
in te.
O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon us, as our trust is in Thee.
Zeyg uns deine barmhertzigkeit, / Wye unser hoffen zu dir steht.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.
Auff dich hoffen wir, lieber Herr, / Inn schanden las uns nimmer
mehr. Amen.
1. J. P. Koehler, “Das Wunderbare in Luthers Poesie,” Theologische
Quartalschrift 21 (1924): 1–22 and 81–104. See now the translation of Marcus
Albrecht in Faith-Life 66 (1993): 2–23. For a brief overview of the historical
roots of “alternative worship” see Frank C. Senn, “Worship Alive”:
An Analysis and Critique of Alternative Worship Services,” Worship 69
(1995): 194–224.
2. Literature on the Church Growth Movement and the “pop-culture
packaging” espoused by the new “mega-churches” abounds. For a recent,
mostly positive assessment, see Charles Trueheart, “Welcome to the Next
Church,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1996, 37–58. For a critical discussion of
the “style” versus “substance” argument, see the author’s “On Church
Growth, Lutheran Style, and Wittenberg Beer,” Faith-Life 66 (1991): 1–14.
NOTES
3. The reader should be advised that here and elsewhere in this paper, I
use the term “traditional” or “classic Lutheran liturgy” in a fairly broad
sense to include not only the traditional forms of worship used in the
medieval Latin mass tha were inherited by the Lutheran reformation, but
also the chorales, written by Luther and others, many of which were
designed to be sung as part of his German Mass, or which were to be sung
at specific festivals or seasons of the church year. Still worth consulting on
the development of the Lutheran liturgy and its various forms is Luther
Reed’s The Lutheran Liturgy (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1947). For
some more recent perspectives, see the articles in Lutheran Worship: History
and Practice, ed. Fred. L. Precht (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1993).

42 LOGIA
4. The theology of the cross does not accord well with the assumptions
and aspirations of “the American dream,” which someone has aptly
described as the desire to be born again without suffering.”
5. For some sensible and timely observations on teaching the Kyrie,
see Dale Meyer’s recent article in LOGIA 5 (Epiphany 1996): 80–84.
6. This “success” is frequently measured exclusively in numerical
terms. One indication of how crassly (or blissfully) ignorant some advocates
of Church Growth really are of such biblical concepts as the remnant
or the doctrine of election is their disparaging use of the term “maintenance
ministry” to describe those congregations that are not growing
numerically. Do they really mean to suggest that a country parish pastor,
faithfully preaching the word and administering the sacraments to a dwindling
group of white-haired saints on the last leg of their earthly pilgrimage,
is not performing a great service in God’s eyes
7. Just because we say that all men are created equal does not, of
course, make it so. In all social arrangements the world has ever known,
including the most aggressively egalitarian, some people have always
turned out to be “more equal” than others. Indeed, our founding fathers
themselves, steeped in the classics as they were, were far “above average.” It
is significant that they didn’t ask just anybody (an illiterate farmer, for
instance) to write the Declaration of Independence. It was Thomas Jefferson,
one of the best educated men of his day, who penned this “popular”
manifesto. Our nation’s constitution was the creation in large part of
James Madison, another member of the leading, elite, well-educated class.
Even though it starts out “We, the People,” the constitution was not written
by the people. Today, too, after two hundred years of American plutocratic
equality, there is a decided gap (which seems to be increasing)
between the stated ideal and the actual reality.
8. For a good overview of these developments, see Meyer Reinhold,
Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984).
9. There used to be a popular game show in this country called “Family
Feud.” The challenge was not to guess anything that is actually true (as
in “Jeopardy,” where contestants must know specific information, such as
the capital of Ireland), but what Americans thought was true. Why should
our uninformed public opinion matter so much Why would anyone be
even remotely interested in surveying what most Americans consider their
favorite vegetable The answer, of course, is that American popular taste
(however degraded or uninformed) is of great interest, not only to politicians,
but also to merchants, educators, and church leaders, who are
increasingly competing with each other in trying to shape and satisfy the
public’s “felt needs.”
10. See Leonard Payton, “The Pride of Simplicity,” Modern Reformation,
July–August 1995, 30–31.
11. From the preface to Luther’s Deutsche Messe und Ordnung Gottes
Dienst. AE 53: 62.
12. “Liturgical correctness”—often adopted in reaction to the excessive
casualness of church growth emphases—can be a form of slavery, too.
One Lutheran church recently added a clause to its constitution stipulating
that the Lord’s Supper be celebrated every Sunday. While frequent celebration
of the Eucharist is desirable and certainly in accordance with what
we know of the practice of the earliest church, we must be careful not to
turn the gospel into a new law. “Where the Spirit is, there is freedom.” The
truth does not ever enslave us. It sets us free. If our desire to preserve a tradition
such as the liturgy does not have everything to do with making it
live again for yet another generation of believers, then this desire is not
God-pleasing. The treasure does not exist for its own sake or to satisfy the
curiosity of antiquarians. And the householder does not just hoard the
treasure or catalogue it, but he brings things forth from it. The gospel has a
purpose. It is “for you.”
13. Heiko Oberman makes this point particularly well in his Luther:
Man Between God and the Devil (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), passim.
14. “It is not now nor ever has been our intention to abolish the liturgical
service of God completely, but rather to purify the one that is now in
use from the wretched accretions which corrupt it, and to point out an
evangelical use” (AE 53: 20).
15. Although I use the word “hymn” loosely to describe the Te Deum,
it has neither the stanzaic structure of Ambrose’s compositions nor the
more classicizing features of Prudentius’s Cathemerinon hymns. It might
be more accurate to use the term “rhythmical prose” to describe the
accentual cadences of this composition.
16. Albert Gerhards, “Te Deum laudamus—Die Marseillaise der
Kirche” Liturgisches Jahrbuch 49 (1990), 65ff.
17. The former has been attributed to Bonaventura (see the discussion
in John Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, 1135).
18. See the authoritative discussion in WA 35: 249–254.
19. AE 53: 171–173.
20. The Antiphonary of Bangor (c. 690) and Vat. Reg. Lat. 11 (Queen
Christina’s psalter; first half of the eighth century).
21. He remarks: “Das drit Symbolon sol Sancti Augustini und
Ambrosi sein und nach S. Augustini Tauffe gesungen sein. Das sey also
oder nicht, so ists on schaden, ob mans gleube oder nicht.” As cited in
Ernst Kähler, Studien zum Te Deum und zur Geschichte des 24. Psalms in
der alten Kirche (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958), 137 (referred
to hereafter as Kähler).
22. G. Morin, “Nouvelles recherches sur l’auteur du Te Deum,” Revue
Bndictine 11 (1894): 59–60.
23. On Nicetas’s attitude toward music and chant, see V. Messana,
“Quelques remarques sur la liturgie du chant selon Nictas de Remesiana,”
Ephemerides Liturgicae 102 (1988): 138–144.
24. For example, Burn suggests that Nicetas’s De symbolo 7: “sedes,
dominationes, universae caelorum virtutes” is parallel with the Te Deum’s
“Tibi omnes angeli tibi celi et universae potestates.” In fact, the passage in
De symbolo looks just as close to Colossians 1:16: “sive throni sive dominationes
sive principatus sive potestates”; and it is this New Testament verse
(or another text, perhaps liturgical, based on this verse) that probably
served as the common source for both passages here cited. W.A. Patin,
Niceta von Remesiana als Schriftsteller und Theologe (Munich: J. Lindaursche
Buchhandlung, 1909) does point to a reference in De symbolo 10:
“Angeli virtutes, potestates supernae,” which is somewhat more apropos
for Burn’s argument. The passage has at least two words in common with
the phrase in the Te Deum!
25. Kähler does recognize that his arguments would be strengthened if
he could offer an explanation for how the name entered the manuscript
tradition in the first place: “Natrlich wre die These von der Verfasserschaft
des Nicetas am Te Deum noch eindeutiger als unhaltbar erwiesen, wenn
man nun eine Erklrung dafr geben knnte, wie es zu den Angaben der
Handschriften, auf die sie sich grndet, gekommen ist. Ich sehe zunchst
keine Mglichkeit, hier etwas Wahrscheinliches zu sagen” (130).
26. Hilary of Poitiers, too, whose name appears in at least two manuscripts,
was renowned as the first of the Latin hymn writers and would be a
logical candidate.
27. Dedications in the dative case, of course, were not at all uncommon
in ancient literature. Pindar’s Odes, for example, are prefaced by dedications
to the victors, by name, whose athletic accomplishments they celebrate.
There are even closer precedents in the poetry of the Bible. A number
of psalms, forty-four to be precise, begin in Latin translation with the
dedication Victori. In Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew as well as some
Spanish versions of the Vetus Latina this is the dubious rendering of the
Hebrew jæXen"m]l" . I have developed this idea at greater length in an article that
is forthcoming in Studia Patristica.
28. Klaus Gamber, “Das Te Deum und sein Autor,” Revue Bndictine 74
(1964): 320: “Falls das Te Deum, was nicht ausgeschlossen ist, auf einen
griechischen Text aufbaut—und dafr spricht besonders die textliche Verwandschaft
mit dem Gloria ....”
29. There is now a journal, The Classicist, published by the Institute of
Classical Architecture, whose refreshing credo it is that “a familiarity with
traditional form is an objective which transcends stylistic debate, and that
modern practitioners can only enhance the quality of their work—regardless
of the idiom in which it is expressed—for having learned about architecture
from the classical perspective.”
30. AE 54: 235–236.
31. See now Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided
Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San
Francisco: Harper, 1996).

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 43
32. Luthers version, with its division of the Te Deum into five parts
consisting of twenty-five lines, also has Christ at the center. The verse on
the Incarnation is exactly in the middle of the hymn with twelve complete
verses following it and preceding it. An outline follows:
Stanza a: 5 verses=angelic song of praise, culminating in the triple
Sanctus.
Stanza b: 6 verses=praise of Trinity by apostles, prophets, martyrs, and
all Christians.
Stanza c: 5 verses=confession of faith in Christ. (The verse on the
Incarnation forms the center, preceded and followed by
twelve complete verses.)
Stanza d: 4 verses=prayer for salvation.
Stanza e: 5 verses (same melody as first)=petitions for Christian life.
For further details, see the discussion in AE 53: 171–173.
33. For these and other examples, see Michael Horton, Are Your
Hymns Too Spiritual Modern Reformation, July–August 1995, 27–29.
34. Of course, worship has a primary purpose that goes far beyond
the didactic. God distributes his gifts to us and we respond to his grace by
thanking and praising him publicly for his goodness. This activity must
be done for its own sake. If our worship converts the ungodly, instructs
the novice, and edifies the faithful, well and good. But these are by-products,
not the ultimate end, of worship.
35. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (New York:
Doubleday, 1959), 48.
36. If it seems strange, as it did to Burn (cxxiii), that the first verse of
the hymn should be regarded as addressed to the Son, when verse 2
includes the words aeternum Patrem, one need only point to the
description of the Prince of Peace as the “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah
9:6, which was regularly applied to Christ in early Christian exegesis.
Such a reading would, of course, dilute somewhat the Trinitarian quality
of the Te Deum. On the question of the addressee see also J. Jungmann,
“Quos pretioso sanguine redemisti,” Zeitschrift fr Katholische Theologie
61 (1937): 105–107.
37. In the earliest manuscripts in which the Te Deum is to be found,
there is little unanimity as to how the composition should conclude after
the verse Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. Most of the following
lines are taken from the Psalms and were probably not part of the
earliest version of the Te Deum. It is clear, however, that these additional
verses were appended fairly early on (they are in the Bangor Antiophonary
of the seventh century) and that they have been regularly sung
by the church through the ages as an integral part of the Te Deum. These
beautiful, appropriate, and scriptural lines have unfortunately been
eliminated in the versions of the Te Deum to be found in current
Lutheran hymnals. One suspects that the motives behind this abbreviation
of the Te Deum were not exclusively the desire to return this hymn
to its pristine form. Congregations used to worship services that last less
than forty-five minutes are unlikely to possess the patience to sing a
composition of this length.
38. Luthers deep regard for music (next to the word of God, music
deserves the highest praise) is evident in the high quality of his own compositions.
For one of his best-known discussions of music, see his preface
to Georg Rhaus Symphoniae Iucundae (AE 53: 321–324).

Patrick Hamilton (1503–1528)
A Scottish Reformer with a Timeless Confession
IN AN AGE IMMERSED IN THE LATEST FADS and fantasies, there
is a dire need for Lutherans to recover a sense of history, from
which springs a renewed vision informed by Scripture and a
mellowed sense of continuity. Within a climate of ecumenism and
an engaging shallowness of doctrine, evangelical Lutherans are
challenged to reassert the enduring truths of the catholic faith
reasserted by Doctor Luther during the Reformation. The saving
truth of God revealed in Scripture must never be surrendered by
compromise, neglect, or historical amnesia. Within a militant secular
milieu, confessors must remain alert to “guard what was committed
to your trust” (1 Tim 6:20). If our heritage is not to be swallowed
up by a self-focused cult, then our churches must affirm the
past, which motivates vision, hope, and stability.
Within the ancient university town of Saint Andrews in Scotland,
an unpretentious memorial commemorates the sacrifice of
four reformers who died at the stake in the early days of the
Reformation in Britain. One name imprinted in stone is that of
Patrick Hamilton, the titular abbot of Fearn (or Ferne) in Rossshire.
The martyrdom of this young and talented Lutheran confessor
took place outside Saint Salvator’s college, where the simple
“PH” engraved in the cobblestones marks the place of his death
on February 29, 1528. The godly life, piety, writing, and “infectious
smoke” of the youthful scholar and reformer is engaging the
interest of some modern thinkers. Holy Scripture bids faithful
Christians to “Remember your leaders, who spoke the Word of
God to you” (Heb 13:7). Though with Christ, Abbot Patrick
Hamilton continues to speak to God’s Church.
Patrick belongs to that breed of uncommon men whose love
for Christ and the doctrine of grace alone fails to dim with age. As
the proto-martyr of the Lutheran Reformation in Britain, his witness
to God’s truth in Scripture punctures the apathy of the most
complacent. He proved to be the leader of the Saint Andrews
Lutherans, and later beyond, in Denmark and Germany. According
to Professor Gerhard Müller, Hamilton
is to be placed in the entire picture of the German Reformation
of the 1520s and he does enrich it. Moreover he represents
a link between Scotland and Germany, which later
became weaker through Knox, but which historians and
theologians ought not to forget or underestimate. 1
It remains the conviction of this writer that confessional
Lutherans are being called upon in these apostate times to exem-
BRUCE W. ADAMS is a pastor emeritus of the Lutheran Church of Australia,
residing in Glengowrie, South Australia.
Bruce W. Adams
45
plify Hamilton’s commitment to the infallible Word of God with
its doctrine of faith alone and to the blessed sacraments. He
stands for that historic link between the German, Anglo-Saxon,
and Scottish reformers. This unfortunately has been neglected in
modern Lutheran circles.
PRIVILEGES AS RESPONSIBILITIES
Like Saint Columba of Iona (521–597) who was an abbot-prince
of the old Celtic Church and a man of rare talents, Patrick was an
heir to privilege. He was the son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavel,
a nephew of the Earl of Arran as well as grandson of King
James II of Scotland. His education was meant to prepare him for
some high office in the realm. Like many Scots, he regarded privilege
and learning as grafted to the service of God and man.
Granted an endowment from the Augustinian abbacy at Fearn,
Patrick set out for the University of Paris in 1517. He resided in the
College of Montaigu, a strict religious and monastic community
with an emphasis upon a disciplined life of study and worship.
The morning office starting at four A.M. consisted of a rhythm of
reciting the offices of the church, attending Mass, listening to lectures,
taking part in university life, and retiring to bed at eight
P.M. in winter.
The essays of Erasmus and his publication of the Greek New
Testament had made an impression upon the University of Paris.
But by 1519 another voice was heard that shocked the elite doctors
of the Sorbonne. Luther’s strong arm appeared to be shaking the
gates of the University. Graduating with a Master’s Degree in
1520, the youthful Hamilton journeyed to Louvain, where Robert
Barnes, prior of the Augustinian House in Cambridge and later
eminent English Lutheran, was in residence.
Records of the University of Saint Andrews reveal that Patrick
Hamilton was incorporated there on June 9, 1523, as a postgraduate
student and consequently a tutor. The English reformer John
Frith wrote of Hamilton’s becoming a priest that he might preach
the Word of God in purity. His scholastic gifts found expression
in a composition for nine voices in honor of the angels to be
directed by the composer. It was sung in the great cathedral.
Touched by his study of the Scriptures and moved by the writing
of Martin Luther, Hamilton could no longer be silent.
In 1500 Saint Andrews was a flourishing town of 14,000 people.
It had evolved into the ecclesiastical heart of the Scottish
church, boasting of a magnificent cathedral which housed some
relics of Saint Andrew the apostle, who was martyred in Patras,
Greece, in 69 A.D. A factious man, James Beaton by name, was
both the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Chancellor of the
kingdom. Hearing of the teaching of the young abbot, Arch-

46 LOGIA
bishop Beaton accused him of being “inflamed with heresy . . .
maintaining the diverse heresies of Martin Luther.”
Patrick decided to leave Saint Andrews for Wittenberg in the
company of two friends. He listened to the eloquent preaching of
Martin Luther, as well as attended services in the Castle Church.
From Wittenberg he moved to the newly founded University of
Marburg, studying under Francis Lambert of Avignon. In Marburg
he prepared a treatise in Latin titled Loci Communes, later translated
by John Frith into the English language. This small manifesto
of Biblical doctrine, deemed by Frith to contain “the pith of all
Divinity,” became known as “Patrick’s Places.” Soon it proved a best
seller, making an impact upon those seeking a reformation in the
church in England. Lambert wrote of his student that “I can truly
say that I have seldom met with anyone who conversed on the
Word of God with greater spirituality and earnestness of feeling.” 2
Returning to his beloved Scotland in 1527, Hamilton used the
privilege of his learning and office to proclaim the grace of God
in Christ to his relatives and the congregation in the royal church
of Saint Michael’s Linlithgow. But such a “Lutheran missionary
with royal blood in his veins” presented a problem for Archbishop
Beaton. Alesius, one of Hamilton’s later friends, claimed
that the reformer “taught and disputed openly in the university of
all points in which he conceived a reformation to be necessary in
the church’s doctrines, and in the administration of the sacraments
and other rites.” James Beaton decided to silence Hamilton,
charging him with heresy on thirteen counts and pronouncing
him guilty. (Reformed scholars have conveniently ignored the
fact that the Lutheran scholar was not found guilty of denying the
Real Presence in the Eucharist.)
On the last day of February 1528, the sainted Patrick Hamilton
died by burning outside Saint Salvator’s College, the Saint
Andrews’ theological school! His last words included, “Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit.”
THE PURE GOSPEL PROCLAIMED
ACCORDING TO GOD’S WORD
The years between 1517 and 1546 are referred to as the “Lutheran
phase of the Scottish Reformation.” The Scottish Reformation’s
Calvinism was a later development that crushed Luther’s teachings,
in a different way from Rome, though never in their
entirety. Hamilton’s preaching, the teaching of his Theses, and
the effect of his martyrdom persisted. Pious Lutherans not only
confessed the “theology of the cross,” they lived by it. As in Germany
and in England, the Augustinian Order in Scotland particularly
contributed to the cause of the Reformation. Alexander
Alane, also known as Alesius, a canon regular of the Augustinian
Priory, was an eminent convert, later becoming a Doctor of
Theology and twice Rector of the University of Leipzig. 3 Scholars,
monks, lairds (that is, Scottish lords), poets, and people
imbibed Luther’s teaching. They were ready to suffer for the
Gospel of Christ.
“Patrick’s Places” consists of a series of logical syllogisms
expounding the truth of Scripture, law and gospel, faith and
works. Gerhard Müller has shown how “The sola scriptura of the
Reformation applies without reservation” in this work. 4 Central to
Hamilton’s thought is faith and justification:
Whosoever believes or thinks to be saved by his works denies
that Christ is his Savior, that Christ died for him, and that all
things pertain to Christ. For how is he your Savior, if you
might save yourself by your works, or whereto should he die
for you, if any works might have saved you
Having mixed in university circles not untouched by the unbelief
and humanism of the Renaissance movement, the reformer was
quick to point out the dangers of atheism. While faith makes God
and man friends, “incredulity is the root of all evil—makes them
deadly foes. Brings them asunder.”
This Scottish abbot and his friends stood in the apostolic and
orthodox tradition of the church catholic, just as the Augsburg
Confession was later to set forth the faith in 1530. Thus the Confession
of Augsburg and the pristine faith of the British reformers
share a common source and a common theology. Showing
that there can be no dichotomy between faith and works, Hamilton
urges his readers: “O how ready would we be to help others,
if we knew his goodness and gentleness towards us! He is a good
and gentle Lord . . . Let us, I beseech you, follow his footsteps,
whom all the world ought to praise and worship. Amen.” 5
Repeatedly he called his hearers to “repentance for sins and faith
in the blood of Jesus.” He envisaged as part of God’s grand
design the faithful people of God following Christ’s footsteps,
out into the world with the message of God’s grace alone in
Christ Jesus, whom all the world ought to praise and worship. To
this Scottish champion of Lutheran reform, Dr. J. E. McGoldrick
extends the following tribute: “Patrick Hamilton was the first
native Scotsman known to have embraced Lutheran doctrine,
and he therefore deserves recognition as the father of the reformation
in his homeland.” 6 EPILOGUE
In recent years there has been a renaissance of patriotism among
people of both Scottish and non-Scottish descent in the western
societies. Scottish history, culture, literature, dress, films, and
even the ancient Gaelic language are undergoing a revival. Such
revival calls for more research and study of Luther’s influence
upon the early Scottish reformers by confessional Lutheran scholars,
as it touches upon the very genesis and mission of the
Lutheran Church in Australia and beyond. LOGIA
NOTES
1. Gerhard Müller, “Protestant Theology in Scotland and Germany
in the Early days of the Reformation,” Scottish Church History Records 22
(1986): 116.
2. Peter Lorimer, Patrick Hamilton: An Historical Biography (Edinburgh:
Thomas Constable & Co., 1857), 93.
3. For an outline of the life and list of his works, refer to A. F.
Mitchell, The Scottish Reformation (Edinburgh: William Blackwood,
1900), 239–283, 301–307.
4. Gerhard Müller, 105.
5. The Loci Communes, or “Patrick's Places,” trans. John Frith (n.p.,
1528). Cf. John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments (n.p., 1644).
6. James E. McGoldrick, Dictionary of Scottish Church History
and Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993), 499.

REVIEWS
“It is not many books that make men learned . . . but it is a good book frequently read.”
Martin Luther
Review Essay
What Is Liturgical Theology A Study in Methodology. By David
W. Fagerberg. A Pueblo Book. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical
Press, 1992. 342 pages. Paper. $22.95.
■ Lutherans don’t do liturgical theology; rather, we communicate
biblical theology in our liturgy. This conclusion is the product
(although not the purpose) of the profoundly prepared and
skillfully presented book by David W. Fagerberg, What Is Liturgical
Theology A Study in Methodology. Our distinctly Lutheran
emphasis on a gospel-driven theology even (particularly) in our
worship life became appreciatively clearer as I read this informative—and
formative—book.
David Fagerberg, a former Lutheran pastor who teaches at
Concordia College (ELCA), Moorhead, Minnesota, brings a
conscientiously critical eye to Lutheran liturgical and theological
studies. (In his introduction Fagerberg explains that the book
was written during his Lutheran pastorate, but is being published
after his entrance into Roman Catholicism.) Yet he also
opens up and underscores in an ecumenical context the real
value of a truly Lutheran theology in relationship to our
Lutheran liturgical heritage.
The relationship between worship and theology has been recognized
for centuries and in recent years has had renewed interest
in many circles. One needs only note the frequent references
to the phrase lex orandi . . . lex credendi (even by those who
never took a class in Latin!) in pastoral conferences and groups
discussing worship and evangelism. It is this phrase that Fagerberg
helps to clarify by distinguishing how the phrase is understood
in various Christian communions.
Fagerberg illustrates the distinctive ways in which theology
and liturgy are viewed in several mainline Christian denominations:
Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Orthodox.
Through his search for a method for understanding liturgical
theology, he draws numerous resources together that illustrate
denominational distinctives. Although it was not the intent of
his study, I appreciated Fagerberg’s ability to show the clarity and
distinctiveness of Luther’s theological method (and that of all
Lutherans who seek to follow Luther) in dealing with the liturgy.
Fagerberg differentiates three approaches to liturgical worship.
His pursuit throughout the book is to discover the unique
method of “liturgical theology” as distinct from “theologies of
worship” (illustrated by Regin Prenter and Vilmos Vajta) and
47
“theologies from worship” (illustrated by Peter Brunner and
Geoffrey Wainwright). Fagerberg distinguishes the three concepts
in the following ways: “The concern of theology of worship
[practiced by Prenter and Vajta] is worship, while the concern
of liturgical theology is liturgical rite as an instantiation of
the Church’s lex orandi” (67). “[Brunner’s and Wainwright’s
works] exemplify theology from worship because of how they
go about their dogmatic task: they quarry a doctrine of worship
from the texts of the worship event. Having done so, they feel in
the position to offer theological critique of the event” (133).¹
Neither “theologies of” nor “theologies from” worship are precisely
what Fagerberg defines as liturgical theology, yet the distinction
is crucial for much of the worship discussion that
occurs in pastoral conferences and colloquiums on worship and
evangelism.
Fagerberg is asking a methodological question that, in many
ways, is not relevant to Lutherans. He repeatedly illustrates that
Lutherans do not have or practice a “liturgical theology.” Fagerberg
takes a stand that contradicts our distinctively Lutheran
practice by repeatedly arguing “Lex orandi establishes lex credendi
and not vice versa” (195). Such apparent irrelevance and
contradicting is quickly overlooked when he goes into his
detailed analysis of the three approaches toward the liturgy. As a
matter of fact, Fagerberg indirectly offers a gift that is extremely
beneficial for Lutherans as we cherish the theological heritage
that has affected and will continue to affect our worship practices
and vice versa. Others who desire to know what is happening
in ecumenical circles will also find that the methodological
inquiry about “liturgical theology” is informative.
The distinction between these three categories—liturgical
theology, theology of liturgy, and theology from liturgy—is the
essence of the book, although Fagerberg admits that his own
work actually falls into a fourth category, that is, an analysis and
observation of the methodology of “liturgical theology.” Aidan
Kavanagh’s On Liturgical Theology falls into this latter category
also, since it is not the liturgical event that is studied but “observations
about liturgical theology” (12).
A Brief Overview
After introducing his study, Fagerberg illustrates two theologies
of worship. He discusses the foundation studies on Luther’s theology
of worship by Regin Prenter² and by Vilmos Vajta.³ (Fagerberg’s
careful review and summary of these works alone are
worth the price of his book.) Fagerberg illustrates the difference

48 LOGIA
between liturgical theology and a theology of worship in the following
way: “The concern of theology of worship is worship,
while the concern of liturgical theology is liturgical rite as an
instantiation of the Church’s lex orandi” (67). Or another (and
Lutheran!) way of saying this is that our theology of worship is
concerned with the gospel’s reception, while liturgical theology
is ordered around the law’s observance. In a Lutheran theology
of worship, the lex orandi . . . lex credendi model is understood
as vitally reciprocal; the doctrine and the worship affect each
other most profoundly. This is central in our Lutheran understanding
of worship life.
This distinction is most important for us to understand in all
the discussions on worship and evangelism occurring throughout
many Lutheran communities. What we do in our Lutheran
worship services affects our theology, and our theology will be
evident in our liturgical practices. The contents of our songs
and prayers as well as our sermons are vital communication
points that either convey the Christ-proclaiming truth of God’s
Word, or are law-ridden moral discourses and diatribes that
bring no hope to a lost world. If our songs and hymns only
affirm the sovereignty of God without emphasizing his graciousness
in Christ, we will continue to experience a creeping
encroachment of Calvinistic covenant theology in our Lutheran
congregations. If our prayers and liturgical rituals become magical
means that our people mechanically perform to support
their law-oriented spirituality, we can expect to observe a subtle
return to the monastic mindset of medieval mysticism.
Lutheran worship has been liturgical because our theology is
gospel-centered in word and sacrament. When we shift our
focus away from gospel proclamation to methods of getting
people to come to church or social-action projects in which we
want our members to enroll, our worship practices will reflect
this change. These worship changes will then also affect our theology.
The two cannot be separated.
In the next chapter of his book, Fagerberg presents two theologies
from worship. He first looks at a Lutheran dogmatic theology
by Peter Brunner.⁴ While admitting that Brunner wrote a
theology of worship, Fagerberg confesses that he only uses the
second part of Brunner’s book, where Brunner treats the meaning
of the various acts in the actual Lutheran liturgical rite,
which can be identified as a theology from worship. In making
this admission, Fagerberg underscores again the fact that a “theology
of worship” is a hallmark of Lutheranism.
The other theology from worship is the well-known systematic
work Doxology by the Methodist theologian and professor of systematic
theology at the Divinity School of Duke University, Geoffrey
Wainwright.⁵ Although Fagerberg initially suggests that both
Brunner and Wainwright present a reciprocal view of the lex
orandi . . . lex credendi relationship, this reciprocity is not what
Wainwright actually presents, Fagerberg concludes. Wainwright,
in good Protestant form, sees doctrine shaping and pruning worship.
In his final analysis and critique of the theologies from worship,
Fagerberg rejects Wainwright’s Protestant position that the
lex orandi is shaped by the lex credendi and urges instead that the
church’s worship ought to shape its theology.⁶
This two-part analysis now brings us to the major theme and
heart of Fagerberg’s work, liturgical theology. The Eastern
Orthodox perspective of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, who taught
at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary for years, is the exemplar
extraordinaire for Fagerberg’s definition of “liturgical theology.”
In Schmemann’s liturgical theology, Fagerberg finds the source
for a valid method of doing liturgical theology. Schmemann
wrote, “liturgical theology is the attempt to grasp the ‘theology’
as revealed in and through liturgy” (144). Readers of LOGIA who
are familiar with Aidan Kavanagh will note Fagerberg’s recognition
of Kavanagh’s own attempts at liturgical theology.⁷ In liturgical
theology, he writes, “the lex orandi which establishes lex
credendi is not located on the pages of prayer books but in the
dynamic action of the liturgy” (170). He concludes that “the
task for liturgical theology is . . . to give voice to the lex orandi
of the leitourgia. To do so will be to hear simultaneously the
Church’s lex credendi, for it lies here and nowhere else” (179).
This definition of liturgical theology is at the heart of Eastern
Orthodoxy; it is the practice of theology in the liturgy. This,
then, is the object of Fagerberg’s search and the subject of his
methodological enterprise.
Since the central location of such a theology is in the people,
we need to take a brief review of what Fagerberg calls in chapter
five the “topography” of liturgical theology, through which he
emphasizes the community of worshipers. He is adamant in distinguishing
the leitourgia from the liturgy and bemoans the fact
that the community orientation of the concept of leitourgia has
been obliterated by the modern emphasis upon the mere outward
activity of liturgy or worship. Fagerberg levels a self-critical
warning at all who are so enamored with “doing the liturgy”
that they fail to involve the people or to enable the priesthood of
all the people to participate in the gospel-centered liturgical
activities.
Within this chapter, Fagerberg also speaks of “a look-alike
variant of liturgical theology” in which “the church establishes
both rite and theology” (198). He notes particularly by name that
“the Lutheran liturgy could be reformed according to a liturgical
hermeneutic contained in its own confessions” (206). Fagerberg
hereby again recognizes the uniqueness of our Lutheran liturgical
heritage, but rejects it because of his perception of its
uniquely reciprocal interrelationship between theology and worship.
He fails, however, to see that the biblical basis and the
strong christological direction of Lutheran theology also enables
Lutherans both to be close to liturgical theology, yet to be distinct
from it in practice and purpose. Earlier in the book Fagerberg
had asserted that “when theology is liturgical, then it
remembers its reason for speaking” (150). Lutherans could
rephrase this and say that when the church’s theology is evangelical,
then it remembers its reason for speaking.
Chapter six provides two examples of liturgical theology.
Although the Orthodox writings of Fr. Schmemann are the
major focus for this chapter, Fagerberg is careful to show that
Schmemann did not produce a novelty or a uniquely peculiar
“liturgical theology.” Therefore, the first example of liturgical
theology is that of the fourth-century catechist and historian St.
Germanus, who included a major section on worship practices
of the early church in his Ecclesiastical History. Although Germanus
was commenting on the allegorical significance of the
church’s worship life, he displays an early Eastern view of the

REVIEWS 49
liturgy as an enactment that makes Christ present to the people.
In so describing this view, Fagerberg correctly points out that the
role of theology is to bridge the old and the new—to teach the
old and to relate to the new. He cites Fr. Robert Taft’s positive
evaluation of St. Germanus as being “what every theologian
must be: a man of tradition and a man of his times” (240).
Father Alexander Schmemann’s commentary The Eucharist
serves as the chief model for liturgical theology, according to
Fagerberg, because Schmemann “finds elements of the liturgy to
be multifaceted.... The entire Divine Liturgy is a single act, a
common task” (280). The whole purpose of doing liturgical theology
is to uncover the meaning and essence of the interrelationship
between the assembly, the Eucharist, and the church, according
to Schmemann (257, 285). All participants at worship may
appreciate the verbal icon of Christ in the gospel book at the
beginning of the liturgy, but then the assembly as the Body of
Christ becomes a “closed assembly of the Church” at the
Eucharist, where all and only the faithful together realize the
priesthood of Christ (264). This chapter reviews the Sacrament of
the Faithful in the Orthodox tradition from the Great Entrance,
through the Anamnesis and Epiclesis, to the actual Communion.
Fagerberg concludes his review of Schmemann’s analysis of the
Orthodox liturgy with a comment by Fr. Schmemann: “the lex
orandi of the Church is a single diamond with multiple facets, not
a series of beads on a string which can be removed and studied in
isolation” (285). In Fagerberg’s schema, liturgical theology is not
liturgics, but liturgy that is theology.
The final chapter underscores several “consequences” Fagerberg
sees in a his search for a thorough method of doing liturgical
theology. “One consequence of liturgical theology would be
to create more theologians, a true empowerment of the laity”
(294). To quote Fagerberg one more time (and to illustrate the
literary style and picturesque imagery he uses throughout the
book), he writes:
The grammar of faith weekly exercised in liturgical rhythms
establishes itself in a life, even if one cannot put it in second-order
propositions. One’s life will have been steeped in
the Christian lexicon, formed by the Christian story, and
one can exercise the Christian grammar even if one cannot
reflectively articulate it.
Liturgical experience will have capacitated a theological grammar.
(300)
Doing liturgical theology, according to Fagerberg, would
enable all Christians to speak and live in terms of their faith as
experienced in the liturgy and not merely be an exercise of the
academic theologian or even resident theologian (the pastor).
Lutheran Theology in, with, and under the Law
Lutherans have always expounded a theology for liturgy—in,
with, and under the liturgy is our theology. Our theology of
liturgy is not distinct from, but answers the questions how theology
influences liturgy and how liturgy communicates the
gospel. To worship in a Lutheran church that utilizes the liturgy,
one will hear and experience the central doctrines of Scripture—the
Trinity, confession and absolution, the incarnation,
the centrality and authority of Scripture, the proclamation of
the gospel, justification by grace through faith, the means of
grace, the sacramental presence of our Savior, the two natures of
Christ, to name a few of the many articles of doctrine that are
integral to our weekly liturgies. Where Lutheran theology is not
central, there the liturgy will also be cast aside for alternate services
from other denominations with differing theological
emphases and detrimental consequences to our gospel-centered
proclamations.
Conclusion
Readers of LOGIA will appreciate the wealth of information from
various liturgical perspectives and the detailed analyses of
Lutheran theologies of/from worship. The six chapters of this
stimulating book are sensibly constructed and skillfully developed
as the author defines, lays out, and exemplifies what he
perceives to be a truly “liturgical theology.” In his introduction
he distinguishes between “theologies of worship,” “theologies
from worship,” and “liturgical theology.”
Fagerberg provides an outstanding resource for Lutherans to
review and evaluate our “theology of liturgy. “ Although he is
critical of Prenter, Vajta, and Brunner concerning their methodology,
he does not disagree with the substantive qualities of their
work. In addition, his overviews of Prenter’s several articles and
books, including Creation and Redemption, of Vajta’s Luther on
Worship, of Peter Brunner’s Worship in the Name of Jesus, and of
Geoffrey Wainwright’s Doxology, are extremely thorough, providing
not only quotations from each of these notables in the
area of worship and theology, but also an analysis of their
methodological and liturgical consequences.
In the final analysis, I am convinced that Fagerberg’s
methodological critique will be beneficial for Lutheran liturgical
studies. If there were to be only one major consequence of
his study, I would hope that Lutherans would comfortably conclude
that we do not have to “do” liturgical theology, but rather
that we can boldly and confidently practice biblical (christocentric,
law-gospel, grace-filled) theology in our liturgy. The
reciprocity that Lutherans have cherished and that has helped
maintain Lutheran orthodoxy (in both senses of the term—
right teaching and right praising) is not to be abandoned for a
rigidly legalistic understanding of the interrelationship of worship
and doctrine in both the Orthodox and Calvinistic
extremes. In Lutheranism, our theology forms and informs our
worship, while at the same time our worship forms and
informs our theology, so that the good news can be heard as
good news.
NOTES
1. Although Brunner is a Lutheran theologian, Fagerberg correctly
points out that his methodology in the second half of his book is more
similar to Anglo-Protestants (like Wainwright) than to Luther and his successors,
that is, Prenter and Vajta.
2. Regin Prenter, Creation and Redemption (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1968); “Liturgy and Theology” and “Eucharistic Sacrifice according
to the Lutheran Tradition,” in Theologie und Gottesdienst Gesammelte Aufsatze
(Göttingen: Forlaget Aros Arhus, 1977), 139–151, 195–206.

50 LOGIA
3. Vilmos Vajta, Luther on Worship (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press,
1958); “Creation and Worship,” in Studia Liturgica 2 (1963): 29–33.
4. Peter Brunner, Worship in the Name of Jesus (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1968). Although categorizing the second part of Brunner’s
work under “theologies from worship,” Fagerberg speaks of this
book in most instances as a “theology of worship.”
5. Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology—The Praise of God in Worship,
Doctrine and Life: A Systematic Theology (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1980).
6. Fagerberg, 128, states, “It is within Protestant traditions that one
sees the strongest and clearest examples of doctrinal control over worship.
... It was the Calvinists who most severely reshaped ritual structures
and texts ....” And on page 195, Fagerberg boldly states his major
thesis: “This is why lex orandi establishes lex credendi and not vice versa.”
7. Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (New York: Pueblo Publishing
Company, 1984).
Timothy Maschke
Concordia University Wisconsin
Mequon, Wisconsin
Worship in Transition: The Liturgical Movement in the Twentieth
Century. By John Fenwick and Bryan Spinks. New York: Continuum,
1985. 197 pages.
■ Some people think there has been too much talk about worship
in recent years. Others thrive on liturgical discourse. Like it
or not, the current interest in liturgical theology and practice
will continue. In under two hundred pages, Fenwick and Spinks
show how the present level of interest in things liturgical is, to a
large extent, the result of a movement whose beginnings go back
to the turn of the century.
Every denomination has been affected by the Liturgical
Movement. Its influence has been worldwide. Its influence has
touched most congregations. Its impact on American
Lutheranism has been profound. The authors have done a
remarkable job in surveying the vast historical terrain, isolating
the major themes, and addressing key issues. Chapter 2 summarizes
the primary characteristics of the movement: “the
struggle for community” in society and the church, the new
emphasis on the participation of the laity in the liturgy, a
recovery of the early church as a model, a rediscovery of the
Bible, a rediscovery of the eucharistic, an emphasis on the vernacular
and contemporary language, the rediscovery of other
Christian traditions, and an emphasis on proclamation and
social involvement.
Historically the Liturgical Movement was a Roman Catholic
movement. Three chapters describe its development through
both its pre- and post-Vatican II phases. The flow went from
Trent to Vatican II, from the continent (France-Belgium-Germany-Rome)
to England to North America. The pastoral problems
that gave rise to the movement were not unique to Europe
alone. “It is not surprising, therefore, that the insights of this
Catholic movement had parallel stirrings in other Churches,
and in turn influenced, and then were developed in non-Roman
Catholic ways in other Churches” (37). Three chapters survey
the liturgical movement in the Anglican Church and South
India. Any Lutheran pastor with a volume by Luther Reed or
Gregory Dix on his shelf appreciates the influence the Anglican
Church has had on the Lutheran liturgy. Both Fenwick and
Spinks are priests in the Church of England. Some Lutherans
will be familiar with Bryan Spinks’s excellent book Luther’s
Liturgical Criteria and His Reform of the Canon of the Mass
(Grove Liturgical Studies 30). Every Lutheran pastor should be
familiar with it.
Chapter 10 looks at how the Eastern Orthodox churches provided
the inspiration for much of the reforming work of the
Liturgical Movement. According to Fenwick and Spinks, such
insights as worship as the “collaboration” of the entire community;
the shift to an “emphasis upon the resurrection and glory
rather than upon the piety of the suffering of Christ of the west,”
the epiclesis, the passing of the peace, the anaphora of St. Basil,
reconsideration of infant communion, and other emphases are of
Eastern origin. They write, “It is extraordinary how many
involved in the Liturgical movement owe at least some of their
thinking to Eastern contacts” (97).
Chapter 12, “Behind the Consensus on the Eucharist,”
begins, “A comparison of the majority of new eucharistic liturgies
reveals that the Liturgical Movement has left behind a
remarkable degree of consensus on the structure and content
of the eucharistic liturgy” (115). Again, “The amount of crossfertilization
that has taken place between the Churches has
blurred the distinction between their rite”. ... In one sense, to
have read one new rite is to have read them all” (116). Rome
followed the path of streamlining and restoration in the reform
of the liturgy. The Anglican church followed the path of “radical
reshaping” (117), which centered on Gregory Dix’s fouraction
shape. “Dix’s theory has been influential in the Lutheran
Book of Worship as well as in practically all other Anglican revisions”
(128). This is a very important observation in light of the
remark in chapter 5 that “Dix’s arguments and evidence are
flawed” (51). The remark is footnoted with a reference to an
article by Bryan Spinks titled “Mis-Shapen: Gregory Dix and
the Four-Action Shape of Liturgy” (Lutheran Quarterly 4 [1990]:
161–177).
This book will undoubtedly be included on the reading list of
liturgics courses at many seminaries. The chapters are brief and
clearly written. Many chapters will lend themselves nicely as topics
for monthly pastoral conferences: chapter 11 looks at the relationship
between the Charismatic Movement and the Liturgical
Movement; chapter 13 is titled “The Changing Face of Baptism
and Confirmation”; chapter 14 raises some very important and
insightful questions on the language of worship; and chapter 15
looks at inculturation.
Chapter 16, “Opposition and Reaction,” offers valuable
insight and analysis. The chapter begins, “Almost from its very
beginnings the Liturgical Movement has provoked opposition.”
The new language and re-ordered church buildings produced a
“sense of loss,” “bewilderment,” and “bereavement” for many
people. In the section titled “Loss of doctrinal purity” the
authors write, “Liturgy expresses what Christians believe. To
change the liturgy therefore runs the risk of changing doctrine—or
at least those doctrines which worshipers regularly
hear and absorb and which become part of their Christian
identity” (169). Fenwick and Spinks raise a very important
question: “How much of the doctrinal content of a liturgy

REVIEWS 51
should be timeless, and how much should it reflect the concerns,
insights and context of a particular age and culture”
(169). Again they observe,
Interestingly, both Catholic and Protestant critics are
united in their suspicion of a watering-down of the more
demanding elements of Christianity in favor of a lowdemand
liberalism. Both sides would point to the comparative
absence from the new rites of contrition and wrath,
for example. In places the charge is a fair one. How far is it
possible to go in the direction of “user friendliness” without
sacrificing the scandal of particularity and a broad and
balanced doctrinal basis (170).
What about the dominance of the third and fourth centuries in
the Liturgical Movement Hippolytus and the Apostolic Tradition
have been influential, “perhaps to the point of nausea” (130). Further
negative reaction stems from the “loss of the transcendent”
so indicative of the new rites in which
The drama where heaven and earth meet has been
replaced by the dynamics of a committee meeting with
hymn. The westward celebration of the Eucharist creates a
closed human circle from which God is excluded. Those
attending now expect to be entertained, and their commitment
held with constant novelty. Features such as
liturgical dance smack of sensuality and exhibitionism.
The accusation of indulgent man-centeredness is often
made (173).
The book allows only eight pages for “Snapshots of the Movement
in North America” (chapter 18). Not bad, given the
immense amount of material it addresses. The authors write
from the perspective of the Church of England, yet it is amazing
how relevant the book is to the liturgical realities facing Lutherans.
One page is given to Lutherans in North America. The book
mentions the Missouri Synod withdrawal from the pan-Lutheran
production of the Lutheran Book of Worship, and correctly notes
that the LCMS “felt that the 1978 book [LBW] made too many
departures” from traditional Lutheran liturgy and doctrine in a
Rome-ward direction. ... Both books show the influence of the
Liturgical Movement, but Lutheran Worship is more conscious of
adhering to classical Lutheran forms and, for example, is more
reluctant to adopt eucharistic prayers resembling the classic pattern
of the fourth and fifth centuries” (193).
No denomination in America exists safely scaled off in a linguistic,
ethnic, theological, and liturgical ghetto. Like it or not,
the Liturgical Movement (as well as countless other movements—
Charismatic, Church Growth, Feminist, and Liberation,
to name a few) continues to effect the worship of local
congregations. For those willing to talk about it, Worship in
Transition makes an invaluable contribution to the fair and
balanced ongoing discourse.
Timothy C. J. Quill
Drew University
Madison, New Jersey
Remembering the Christian Past. By Robert L. Wilken. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. 180 pages. Paper.
■ Robert L. Wilken is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the
History of Christianity at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.
Remembering the Christian Past brings together
eight of Professor Wilken’s essays for the stated purpose of
“remembering aspects of Christian tradition that have been
forgotten.” To accomplish this, Professor Wilken marshals
voices from the early church fathers whose words “touch on
issues that are currently under discussion.” In this fashion,
Wilken discusses such issues as religious pluralism, Christian
apologetics, the biblical roots of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
the integrity of biblical language and semantics, and the
role of the passions in religion.
While very much a collection of Wilken’s own thoughts on
these issues, what is most interesting and striking is Wilken’s use
of the early church fathers both to illustrate and carry forth the
discussion. Wilken’s scholarship and familiarity with the literature
of the fathers is impressive, and his writing provides a veritable
vade mecum of patristic thought as he ranges across his various
topics. Readers who delight themselves in the early church
fathers will find the book gratifying solely on this count.
Gratifying as well is to find in Wilken a sympathetic voice
from academia for the conscientious espousal of religious convictions
within scholarly circles. Wilken’s first essay in the collection,
“Who Will Speak for the Religious Traditions” is
refreshing in its assertion that “there is no reason for the
scholar as scholar to shed her or his convictions to exercise the
vocation of scholar.” He decries the modern phenomenon in
academia of “an intellectual climate that discourages, if not
prohibits, the scholar from speaking as a member of a religious
community.”
As with any anthology, the reader’s interest will likely vary
among articles. For this reviewer, selections four (“Not a Solitary
God: The Triune God of the Bible”) and eight (“Memory
and the Christian Intellectual Life”) were the most arresting.
Confessional Lutheran pastors and teachers will find Wilken’s
discussion of the church fathers in connection with the Holy
Trinity reinforcing, particularly with respect to the integrity of
biblical words for God in the face of inclusive language efforts to
neuter those terms. Similarly, confessional hearts will be
warmed by Wilken’s observation in selection eight that “As necessary
as it is to ‘translate’ the Bible into the thought patterns of
our age, it is also the case that Christians in every generation
must learn afresh how to think and imagine in the language and
idiom of the Scriptures.”
Remembering the Christian Past thus brings to current theological
discussions a voice steeped in the thought of the early
fathers so that reading Wilken offers the confessional Lutheran
pastor the opportunity to broaden his thinking toward the
issues discussed with Wilken’s depth of patristic insight and language.
Yet for all this, one misses what is often missed (at least
by this reviewer) in the fathers with rare exception, namely, the
forcefulness, directness, and scriptural connectedness of a
Luther, a Chemnitz, or a Walther. Although Wilken adds the
voices of the early fathers to matters of current discussion with

52 LOGIA
felicity and deftness (Wilken is a good writer), one can find the
same points more forcefully made by other more confessionally
Lutheran voices. Thus, without intending to be pejorative, one
finds Wilken perhaps most valuable in providing what are
essentially patristic “sound bites” for particular issues that may
be valued in the same way that the “Catalog of Testimonies” is
valued in the Book of Concord: good corroborating voices, but
not essential to settling the issue. And finally, however good
such gravy may taste, it is the meat and potatoes beneath that
one seeks to eat.
Charles L. Cortright
Martin Luther College
New Ulm, Minnesota
Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship.
By Leslie Newbigin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. 105
pages. Paper. $7.99
■ Leslie Newbigin speaks from the experience of the mission
field of India as former bishop in the Church of South India
and also from ecumenical effort as associate general secretary
of the World Council of Churches. His task in this book is to
steer a course between the labels of liberal and fundamentalist
and come to the real meaning of Christian faith in the postmodern
age.
A brief overview of the history of Christian apologetics lands
one in the Enlightenment at the feet of Descartes, who
bequeathed to Europe a false confidence that certain knowledge
could be achieved without reference to God. The scientific
method has since captured biblical scholars who unwittingly
adopt it as their creed, most noticeably in the study of Holy
Scripture.
Against this position Newbigin introduces Hungarian scientist-turned-philosopher
Michael Polanyi, who rejects the objective/subjective
dualism of knowledge and asserts that all objective
knowing of reality involves the subjective personal commitment
of the knower, which we commonly call faith. The truth claims of
scientists are not irreformable and indubitable claims to possess
the truth, says Newbigin; rather, they are claims to be on the way
to the fullness of truth. The debate between science and the
Christian faith has for too long been overdramatized and radically
skewed by those who want to propose science as the replacement
of an outworn faith. This dependence on science has led to
modern despair.
According to Newbigin, the cure is putting confidence not in
the content of our knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability
of the one who is known. “I do not possess the truth, so that I do
not need to be open to a new truth; rather, I am confident that
the one in whom I have placed my trust, the one to whom I am
committed, is able to bring me to the full grasp of what I partly
understand” (67).
Modern liberalism is at fault in its definition of truth as a product
of thought. Augustine said, “I believe that I may know.” We
affirm the objectivity of a truth by committing ourselves to live
and act in accordance with this claim.
The fault of fundamentalism is seeking a certainty that does
not acknowledge the certainty of faith as the only kind of certainty
available. This leads to a kind of rationalism that is
remote from grace. “Christian faith is not a matter of logically
demonstrable certainties but of the total commitment of fallible
human beings putting their trust in the faithful God who has
called them” (98).
One quote is especially noteworthy in relation to the pitfalls of
both fundamentalism and liberalism. “It is less important to ask a
Christian what he or she believes about the Bible than it is to
inquire what he or she does with it” (87). The truth of this statement
is evidenced in the present debate over the role of liturgy in
the church.
The postmodernists recognize the world is full of stories, but
no overarching truth by which they can be assessed. The
church’s affirmation is that the story it tells, embodies, and
enacts is the true story and that others are to be evaluated by
reference to it. The telling and living out of the story of Christ
takes place in his Divine Service and in the lives of those it
serves.
Readers believing the Holy Scriptures to be the authoritative
source of truth, but hesitant to apply the term inerrancy as it is
pronounced in the fundamentalist tradition, will enjoy this book.
James F. Wright
Pacific Hills Lutheran Church
Omaha, Nebraska
Transforming Congregations for the Future. By Loren B. Mead.
Bethesda, MD: The Alban Institute, 1994. 139 pages. Paper.
■ This is the third volume in the Once and Future Church
Series. The first volume, The Once and Future Church, is reported
to have been a reading assignment for the biennial Joint
Faculty-Council of Presidents (LCMS) meeting at St. Charles,
Illinois, in August 1993. This third volume was sent to all the
members of Conference of Congregational Services of the synod
as, again, a reading assignment for its September 1995 meeting in
St. Louis. Mead seems to be getting an increasing popularity
among us.
Unlike many other similar books and articles, Mead does not
see the cause of declining membership in doing or not doing certain
programs, various controversies within church bodies, style
of worship, performance of pastors and church officials. Rather,
“the character of the culture surrounding the congregations” is
suggested to be the main factor, noting the similar pattern of
membership decline among the listed mainline denominations
(Episcopal, ELCA, Presbyterian, UMC). In addition to loss of
members, the picture Mead offers is the church of diminishing
funds, vanishing boundaries, the possibility of losing tax-exempt
status, rising incidents of litigation, the high cost of theological
education, and rising numbers of unemployed or underemployed
clergy. Mead sees a “serious storm . . . buffeting the churches.
The storm is so serious . . . that it marks the end of ‘business as
usual’... and marks a need for us to begin again building from
the ground up.”

REVIEWS 53
What does Mead mean by “building from the ground up”
Mead bases his argument on such selected passages as Luke
4:31–37 (healing of a demon-possessed man), Mark 8:1–9 (feeding
of four thousand), and John 2:1–11 (water turned into wine)
in order to bring up his definition of “the good news” and
“vocation” of Jesus. “For Jesus, good news was always in dialogue
with bad news. Good news is profoundly contextual,”
says Mead.
For a blind man, good news is sight. For a lame person, good
news is the ability to leap and dance or even walk. For the guilt-ridden,
good news is being forgiven. For the person in prison, good
news is getting out of prison. For the lonely, good news is community.
For the person—or society—crushed by oppression, good
news is freedom. For a person possessed by demons, good news is
to be released from their power. For hungry travelers, good news is
food before they face the journey home. For a marriage running
short of wine, good news is a few buckets of good wine.
The “vocation” of Jesus was to bring a specific good news to
a specific need. From this, Mead argues that the vocation of the
congregations is to follow Jesus, doing exactly what he was
doing. Here Mead brings up examples of Martin Luther King
Jr. and Billy Graham in order to prove that both King and Graham
were offering the same good news only differently. Because
the bad news each one saw was different, the good news each
brought were distinct. For Mead, however, both were doing
exactly the same thing. They followed Jesus in bringing contextual
good news.
There are two tasks necessary for the congregations sharing
this “vocation” of Jesus. They are (1) to help members to identify
the bad news around them, that is, to nurture sensitivities to realize
the pains of the world whatever they may be, and (2) to help
members to know and use their unique gifts for the purpose of
responding to those needs, and also, very importantly, to send
them out to the world (“apostolate”).
For those tasks of the congregations to be fulfilled, ordinary
members of the congregations first have to be turned “disciples.”
Then those disciples need to be transformed to be “apostles”
so that they can act out in the world. The process of transforming
ordinary people to disciples is done in the context of
“four functions, traditional to congregational life,” that is,
koinonia, kerygma, didache, and diakonia. As we might expect,
Mead’s understanding of each of “the four functions” is quite
pietistic in nature. The statement “we need congregations that
take the experience of God as the norm” tells it all. When those
members who are discipled within the congregations are sent
out, they become “apostles.” The process of discipleship and
the apostolate “depend on interaction with each other . . . to
remain alive.”
The heart of this book lies in Mead’s strong argument that in
order for churches to grow it is not necessary to develop any new
program. Rather, the congregations themselves have to be transformed
so that “passive observers of mission” may be turned into
“active participants in it.”
Therefore, the key for such success is how strong a center of
“discipleship” and “apostolate” the congregations can become.
Here is the thesis of Mead: “The stronger the center, the
stronger each individual will be in proclaiming (contextual)
good news.” Pastors’ primary job, now, is to manage this transformation
process of their members, keeping their members
aware of their “gifts” and their “call.” The role of the pastors is
“to help the congregation establish and hold its center” of discipleship
and apostolate.
Mead, finally, calls readers for commitment to such transformation
and change of “the structures that surround congregations—the
judicatories (districts), the national structures
(synod), the seminaries, and educational institutions.” All the
environment that surround the congregations is expected to
build “skills in new ways, ready to help transform congregations
from what they are to what they must be as centers of apostolic
ministry.”
This book, a classical example of Church Growth Movement,
tells us a couple of very important things. First of all, we
can learn again that the primary principle of Mead and other
proponents of the movement is American Pragmatism. In the
case of Mead, his desire for the church to grow and recover has
become the working hermeneutical principle of the Scriptures.
Theology is subordinated to pragmatism. Mead has very superficial
and different doctrines of the church and ministry, man
and society, and pastors and laity. These and other doctrines
adjust themselves to his main thesis, “how can the passive
observers (‘ordinary members’) be changed into active participants
(‘apostles’)”
It looks as if his understanding of the good news (gospel) has
determined his whole thesis of “transforming congregations for
the future.” Indeed, his peculiar definition of the good news dominates
his theology. Mead, however, never offers any serious work
of exegesis that should have brought him to his theory. The book
is not guided by theology but by pragmatism. The Scriptures
were merely used to serve his thesis.
Second, if the church is guided by what Mead suggests, she
will eventually be shaped by something alien to herself rather
than by her nature and character. The theology of Mead will
influence the primary theology of the congregations that use
this book as their textbook for church life and ministry. Those
congregations will become more pietistic, law-oriented, mancentered,
audience-driven, and pragmatic community
churches. The congregations will become only training centers
of “apostolate.” “The transformation” will become a new mark
of the church. Furthermore, if the structures of districts, synod,
and even curriculum of the seminaries are to be changed
because of this theory, or because of the reality of the congregations,
the church will be run by what Guinness calls “bottomup
causation,” replacing the “top down causation of God and
the supernatural.”
One thing positive from this book is a call of the author to
return to “the basics.” Here we do not need to buy “the basics” as
Mead sees it. We should be reminded of keeping justification and
real presence as two foci of the Church of the Augsburg Confession,
as Hermann Sasse points out. Here law and gospel are
properly distinguished. The sound doctrines of all the articles of
faith are maintained. The church exists to distribute to everyone
through word and sacrament forgiveness, life, and salvation won
by the sacrificial Jesus on the cross. The effort of “evangelism”
remains to bring people to the presence of the risen Lord so that

54 LOGIA
our neighbors too may receive the gifts. And the church will be
engaged in vigorous practice of catechesis while deep reverence
to the real presence is preserved within the community. The life
of the baptized is shaped by the mystery.
Yes, as Mead strongly suggests, the transformation of the congregations
may be necessary. But the transformation to what
The goal is not man-centered, therapeutic, and managerial congregations
driven by a “paradigm” that originates in sociology
and social science. We are given much more and much greater
than that. The congregations should return to the confessional,
evangelical, and sacramental way of both theology and practice.
Nothing should harm or get rid of the treasure of the church. The
Lord’s Supper should not be a peripheral thing or even an obstacle
to the mission work. It is the “heaven on earth.” This wedding
celebration of the Lamb is already going on here on earth whenever
the bread is broken and the wine is shared. Indeed, the whole
church may need “transformation for the future.” Each congregation
needs to deepen its understanding of what an unthinkably
wonderful thing is happening in the Divine Service of word and
sacrament every time it meets. What we need in this day and age
is not some new ideas or paradigms, but the deepening of faith in
the mystery created by the same pure gospel. This is the process
of liturgy, preaching, and catechesis.
Let us, then, go back to “the basics” as Scriptures and confessions
understand it. If we have been doing a poor job in keeping
boomers and reaching to an ever-increasing immigrant population,
let us be faithful to the gospel and the sacrament all the
more. As in the case of the Japanese, in the mystery itself hides
not only the treasure of Christ, but also a bridge of transmitting
his kingdom, because only in the pure gospel the true comfort
of our soul is offered and found. The church must not become
what she is not. May our humble services to the ones in the fold
and to the ones outside it be shaped by the mystery!
Naomichi Masaki
NJ District (LCMS) Missionary to Japanese
Megumi Evangelical Lutheran Church
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Notes from a Wayfarer: The Autobiography of Helmut Thielicke.
Translated by David R. Law. Foreword by H. George Anderson.
New York: Paragon House, 1995. 422 + xxii pages. $29.95.
■ This autobiography of Helmut Thielicke constitutes an
important “source” for contemporary history, since he was an
engaged eyewitness and reported on leading events and prominent
people of his time. He describes German life between the
wars, during the Third Reich, and in the period after World War
II. He gives his own eyewitness accounts of Nazi oppression, of
the bombing raids on Stuttgart, and of the hunger, the cold
winters without fuel, some unfair allied pressures, and other
hardships the people endured (161ff.).
Of great interest are Thielicke’s criticisms of the theology of his
former teacher and colleague Karl Barth, in which he notes that
Barth, by eliminating the doctrine of the natural knowledge of
God, created a dangerous vacuum. Barth denied what Thielicke
calls “a natural anthropology,” and thereby weakened the church’s
assault on the anthropology and the worldly areas that the Nazis
claimed for themselves (66–68). He also criticizes Barth’s attacks
on Luther and his false claim that there was a direct line from
Luther to Hitler (71). Although he opposed much in the theology
of Barth, Thielicke subscribed the Barmen Declaration of 1934;
this brought him disapproval by Elert (74–75). Still, he is keenly
aware of the shortcomings of the Confessing Church movement
(67–68). He criticizes their negativism (235) and finds members
of this group also responsible for some of the postwar problems
in the German churches (383–384).
Thielicke has a big ego. One notes a very critical attitude toward
his father and other authority figures (62, 80, 90). He speaks of his
Doktorvater, Althaus, in a condescending manner. Thielicke presents
himself as a student who came to Erlangen with a very arrogant
attitude. Anyone who knew Elert will not be surprised that
there were clashes between the two men. Elert could be very testy
at times, and he simply didn’t allow his students to push him
around. Thielicke refers to several conflicts with Elert. And then
he attacks Elert for twice refusing him a position in the Erlangen
theological faculty. Although Thielicke ascribes this only to their
difference over the Barmen Declaration (80), one should assume
that Elert’s reluctance to support Thielicke was related to his
Reformed Church background. Until 1971, professors at Erlangen
(other than incumbents of the Reformed chair) were required to
subscribe the Lutheran Confessions. Besides, Thielicke was in bad
standing with the Nazis, with whom Elert was desperately trying
to avoid a showdown. Thielicke criticized Elert: “I regarded his
stubbornly Lutheran, polemical denominationalism as hackneyed,
obsolete, and anachronistic” (80). In spite of his Reformed background,
Thielicke managed to hold prominent positions in
Lutheran circles, but his autobiography nowhere suggests that he
forsook the Reformed faith or became a confessional Lutheran.
Confessional differences seem unimportant to him. He often tells
of preaching and sharing the Lord’s Supper in Reformed churches,
particularly in America.
Thielicke’s genius as a theologian did not compare to that of
Elert. More important than his degree of theological competence
was his uncommon ability to communicate profound theology to
non-theologians. Already during the early 1940s, when he
preached and held lectures for the laity in a large church in
Stuttgart, literally thousands of people packed the building to
overflowing, in spite of Nazi disapproval. Later, when he
preached at St. Michael in Hamburg, the large church was regularly
packed with three thousand people on Saturday evenings in
a city where church attendance was usually very low. He leaves
the impression that wherever he went in foreign countries as well,
halls were always filled to standing room only. Many of his sermons
have been published in English, and they show us much
reason for his immense drawing power.
Thielicke was a man of great personal courage. During the Third
Reich he fearlessly defied the Nazis. After the war, he just as fearlessly
opposed the unfortunate de-nazification program led by the
Americans and their allies. He pointed out that to “survive,” the
Germans had to prove that they had been against Hitler, and that
this tragically prevented them from facing their errors, confessing
their faults, and repenting. During the communist-inspired stu-

REVIEWS 55
dent revolution in Hamburg, Thielicke again showed his unbending
courage by opposing their radicalism and supporting his beleaguered
colleagues. The radical students countered with a demonstration
during a service in St. Michael Church in 1968. Aware of
what was coming, Thielicke and the church council made careful
preparations, and successfully foiled the demonstrators. When they
tried to disrupt the service and shouted blasphemies and obscenities,
the faithful congregation joined in singing chorales and the
protesters were drowned out by the sounds of the powerful organ.
An important battle had been won. This was a tribute to the
courage of Thielicke and those who backed him in the standoff.
Thielicke takes a very partisan position regarding the theological
controversies in the Missouri Synod. He calls J. A. O. Preus a
“super-Lutheran fanatic,” and tells that seminary professors were
driven from their positions. He refers by name to his former pupil
Edward Schroeder, saying that “on the basis of the education he
had received in Germany, Schroeder denied the doctrine of the
verbal or literal inspiration of Holy Scripture,” and was therefore
deposed from his chair at Concordia Seminary. He continues:
“After his dismissal, Schroeder opened his own seminary, the
‘Seminex’ (seminary in exile).” Others, however, “fell victim to this
‘super-Lutheran’ fanatic”[Preus] (366). In the accounts of other
writers, not Schroeder but Tietjen was the leader of Seminex.
Thielicke was a great man who moved easily among other great
men and experienced astonishing success in his profession. He
drops the names of many prominent people with whom he was
invited to visit, including Konrad Adenauer, Theodor Heuss, and
Jimmy Carter. These visits in turn opened the door to other important
scholars and world leaders. He includes important comments
on people such as Rudolf Herrmann, Julius Schniewind, Rudolf
Bultmann, Karl Jaspers, Theophil Wurm, Karl Heim, Ernst Fuchs,
Adolf Koeberle, Carl Goerdeler, Paul Tillich, and John W. Doberstein.
Because of the hundreds of significant names that Thielicke
mentions, the book should have been given an index of persons. In
this age of the computer, such an index could easily have been provided
and should still be added in future editions.
Although I have not seen the original German text, the translation
by David R. Law is fluent and appears to be well done.
There are some inaccuracies, however, that trouble the reader or
even make it hard to follow: although all state churches in Germany
were abolished in 1918, Landeskirche is translated as “state
church.” From the translator’s statement that Thielicke preached
in the “cathedral” of Stuttgart, it is impossible to tell which of the
big churches was the actual location; Stuttgart did not have an
historic cathedral, and Law seems to consider any big church to
be a cathedral. Was it the Stiftskirche Leonhardskirche
Spitalkirche Law also translates Pfarrer or Pastor as “priest,” a
usage unknown in Lutheran Germany (148), and the reader is
not always certain what actual position was involved. At the end,
he appends a list of Thielicke’s publications in English; since
Americans who read German would not want to buy this book
in both languages, it would be helpful if a German bibliography
were added, including at least the major books with their original
titles and dates of publication.
Lowell C. Green
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
BRIEFLY NOTED
Luther’s Family Devotions. Edited by George Link and Translated
by Joel Baseley. Dearborn, Michigan: Mark V Publications, 1996.
Hardcover. 688 pages.
■ Originally published in German in 1877 by George Link in St.
Louis, this devotional treasure has been rescued for a new generation
of Lutherans by Pastor Joel Baseley of Emmanuel Lutheran
Church in Dearborn, Michigan. Luther’s Family Devotions is structured
according to the historical Christian year. The daily readings
are drawn from the corpus of Luther’s works and are coordinated
with a scriptural text and hymn verse. In comparison with the wellknown
Day by Day We Magnify Thee, the readings in Luther’s Family
Devotions are about two to three times as long. The more Luther
the better! Luther’s Family Devotions also has the advantage of
fresh, clear translations that resonate to American ears. Scriptural
and topical indices enhance the usefulness of this splendid volume.
The American Evangelical theologian Mark Noll comments,
“For whatever reason, in the ineffable wisdom of God, the speech
of Martin Luther rang clear where others merely mumbled.”
Thanks to the efforts of Pastor Baseley, the speech of Martin
Luther is allowed to ring clear in Luther’s Family Devotions. In contrast
to the majority of contemporary devotional collections available
today, Luther’s Family Devotions provides substantial Luther
pericopes that are reflective of the realities of God’s work in Christ
and his delivery of that work in gospel preaching, baptism, absolution,
and the Lord’s Supper. You may order your copy of Luther’s
Family Devotions for $22.00 per copy. (See advertisement on page
70 for details.)
Rule of Prayer, Rule of Faith: Essays in Honor of Aidan Kavanagh.
Edited by Nathan Mitchell and John F. Baldovin. Collegeville,
Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996. Paper. 358 pages.
■ The Benedictine liturgical scholar Aidan Kavanagh has
enjoyed a long and distinguished career that has included posts at
Notre Dame, where he participated in the founding of the Center
for Pastoral Liturgy, and at the Yale Divinity School, where he
taught liturgics for over twenty years. In this festschrift, such wellknown
liturgical scholars as James White, Bryan Spinks, Paul
Bradshaw, Nathan Mitchell, Thomas Talley, Louis Weil, David
Power, and Kevin Seasoltz offer essays on a variety of liturgical
themes, both theological and historical. Lutherans especially will
be interested in Thomas Schattauer’s chapter, “The Reconstruction
of Rite: The Liturgical Legacy of Wilhelm Loehe.”
Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation.
Edited by Maxwell E. Johnson. Collegeville, Minnesota: The
Liturgical Press, 1995. Paper. 420 pages.
■ This volume contains twenty essays investigating various
aspects of baptism and confirmation. Among the more noteworthy
contributions are Bryan Spinks’s “Vivid Signs of the Gift of

56 LOGIA
the Spirit The Lima Text on Baptism and Some Recent English
Language Baptismal Liturgies,” Georg Kretschmar’s “Recent
Research on Christian Initiation,” and Maxwell Johnson’s “From
Three Weeks to Forty Days: Baptismal Preparation and the Origins
of Lent.” Living Water, Sealing Spirit is must reading for
those who desire to understand the theological rootage of the
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RICA).
A Commentary on 1 Peter. By Leonard Goppelt. Translated by John
E. Alsup. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993. Hardcover. 385 pages.
■ English-speaking readers have been familiar with Munich’s
Leonard Goppelt through his Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times,
Theology of the New Testament, and Typos. Now his commentary
on 1 Peter, first published in German in 1978, is available in English.
Goppelt sees 1 Peter as an epistle written in the Apostle
Peter’s name to address “eschatological existence in the context
of living as foreigners and accepting duties within the institutions
of society” (20). The reader need not agree with all of Goppelt’s
isagogical assumptions to benefit from his many rich
exegetical insights into 1 Peter.
Liturgy in Dialogue: Essays in Memory of Ronald Jasper. Edited
by Paul Bradshaw and Bryan Spinks. Collegeville, Minnesota:
The Liturgical Press, 1993. Paper. 227 pages.
■ This volume contains contributions by eleven scholars in
memory of the late Anglican liturgist and architect of the Alternate
Service Book (1980), Ronald Jasper. As the title indicates,
most of the chapters center on “liturgy in dialogue” with theology,
culture, ceremonial, ethics, technology, ecumenism, history,
language, society, and other disciplines. Bryan Spinks provides
a very helpful introduction to the connection between
liturgy and culture in his essay “Liturgy and Culture: Is Modern
Liturgical Revision a Case of Not Seeing the Wood for the
Trees” Spinks concludes: “It is my contention, therefore that
the crisis Western liturgists allege exists in the modern liturgies
is more a problem of perspective than failure to interact with
culture. If anything, the problem is to guard against the modern
liturgies being just a religious gloss on developing Western
culture . ... If there is a crisis, the fault is probably not that the
liturgies are not modern, but possibly because, in affirming
culture, they have obscured the mystery and transcendence of
God” (49).
Lights in the Darkness: Forerunners of the Liturgical Movement.
By J. D. Crichton. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press,
1996. Paper. 176 pages.
■ An overview of post-Reformation precursors of the Liturgical
Movement, which came to culmination in the reforms of Vatican
II. The final chapter is a concise history of the Liturgical
Movement from 1909–1962.
JTP
PREVIEW
Actio Sacramentalis—Die Verwaltung des Heiligen Abendmahles
nach den Prinzipien Martin Luthers in der Zeit bis zur Konkordienformel.
Luth. Verlagsbuchhandlung Groß Oesingen, 1996.
(Distributed by Jürgen Diestelmann, Thunstr. 19 C, D- 38110
Braunschweig.)
■ Preliminary Remarks: Since 1954 I have been engaged in
studying the doctrine of consecration of the Lord’s Supper by
Luther 1 and the Lutheran Theology in the sixteenth century. At
this opportunity I was able to collect quite a lot of archive material,
hitherto hardly known. During my increasing activity as an
active pastor I was unable to utilize the material. However when
becoming a pensioner I could continue and finish this substantial
work just in time for the “Luther-Jahr 1996,” when the book Actio
Sacramentalis was issued. 2
1. “Sic ergo definiemus tempus vel actionem sacramentalem, ut
incipiat ab initio orationis dominicae, et duret donec omnes
communicaverint, calicem ebiberint, particulas comederint, populus
dimissus et ab altari discessum sit.” 3 With these words Luther
gave in 1543—in a letter addressed to the Eislebian Pastor Simon
Wolferinus 4 —a definition of the actio sacramentalis, the action
that Christ instituted “in the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23)
as the Lord’s Supper.
2. There is a definition of the actio sacramentalis in the Formula
of Concord too: “und heißet allhie usus oder actio, das ist
Gebrauch oder Handlung, fürnehmblich nicht den Glauben,
auch nicht allein die mündliche Nießung, sondern die ganze
äußerliche, sichtbare, von Christo geordnete Handlung des
Abendmahls, die Consecration oder Wort der Einsetzung, die
Austeilung und Empfahung oder mündliche Nießung des gesegneten
Brots und Weins, Leibs und Bluts Christi.” 5
3. Both definitions refer to the formula “Nihil habet rationem
sacramenti extra usum a Christo institutum” bzw. “extra actionem
divinitus institutam.” 6 In the Formula of Concord it is marked as a
“useful rule and guide” (nützliche Regel und Richtschnur). Therefore
it is constituted as an important norm for the doctrine of the
Lord’s Supper.
4. Bjarne W. Teigen in 1991 has examined the importance of this
so-called “Nihil Rule,” 7 which is particularly mentioned in the
Formula of Concord (SD VII, 73), because misunderstandings and
dissensions had arisen among some teachers of the Augsburg
Confession (“Meinungsverschiedenheiten zwischen einigen
Lehrern des Augsburgischen Bekenntnisses”) 8 on this common
rule. In his essay he emphasizes: “It is the thesis of this paper that
one can determine quite precisely what the Fathers of the Formula
meant in SD VII, 73–90.” Also E. F. Peters 9 had been engaged in
explaining this rule and added various references in a dissertation.
5. There was a space of three decades between the definitions
under 1 und 2 mentioned, in which various dissensions of the

REVIEWS 57
above-mentioned sort were going on. The best-known is the socalled
Saligersche Streit, expressly demonstrated by Wiggers 10 150
years ago. In recent years the dispute was particularly demonstrated
by Jobst Schöne 11 in the light of recently discovered
printed items. Most of the researchers used mainly these two representations.
Only Tom G. A. Hardt 12 used more sources than
Wiggers and Schöne. I myself was able to present in Actio Sacramentalis
some more handwritten sources too, partly from the
possession of Flacius und Wigand. In this way some errors and
misjudgements about the Saligersche Streit could be corrected.
6. Further diversities of opinion are for example the case of Tileman
Crage, Superintendent in the town of Hildesheim 1553–1557.
He lost this office, having a dispute with the rest of the pastors and
the Town Council about the Sacrament of the Altar and other matters.
Immediately before the Saligersche Streit the so-called
Danziger Streit took place. All these quarrels were concentrated in
confusions regarding the importance of the consecration within
the actio sacramentalis and its consequences, arising from the different
opinions on the “Nihil Rule.”
7. The main root and crucial point in all these diversities had
shown in 1543 already when Simon Wolferinus, pastor of
St. Andreas at Eisleben, took side with Melanchthon’s theses,
which had been strictly repudiated by Luther in two letters.
Melanchthon had interpreted the “Nihil Rule” in another way:
Luther wanted it to be referred to customs only “relative ad
extra,” for example, when the sacrament would be kept longer
than the actio sacramentalis for use in processions. Melanchthon,
however, used this rule in order to define limitations within the
Real presence, even within the actio sacramentalis.
8. It became obvious that Melanchthon could not even speak of a
consecration of the bread and wine by the sacrament-administering
pastor, as he was of the opinion that the order of consecration
lies in the words “take bread and eat . . . and drink . ...” On the
other side, Luther saw the order of institution in the action,
which is described by the words “Do this . ...” And even towards
Karlstadt (and later on) Luther had stressed the creativity of the
words of Christ spoken by the consecrating pastor. For Luther it
was beyond any doubt: The bread consecrated is Christ’s body,
while for Melanchthon only the words spoken during the establishment
by Jesus promised that his body and blood were
received. Luther used the “Nihil Rule” as description of the action
established and ordered by the Lord. Within this actio the Verba
Testamenti, spoken by the pastor, create the Real Presence, ending
with the sumptio by the communicants. Melanchthon, on the
other side, takes the Nihil Rule as a description of duration of the
Real presence, so that for him it ends with the end of the actio
sacramentalis.
9. From this divergence of opinions, consequences arise in adminstrating
the Sacrament. For example, Luther demands (a) that only
as much bread and wine should be consecrated as will be required
within the actio sacramentalis, and (b) nothing should remain
beyond it, as in this case there might arise endless, indissoluble discussions
about the end of the Real presence. For Melanchthon,
however, the sumptio of the reliqua Sacramenti is rather a question
of piety. Further consequences followed, regarding the valuation of
the doctrine of transsubstantiation, the possibility of the adoration
of the Sacrament etc.
10. Luther rejected the conceptions of Wolferinus (and therefore
of Melanchthon too) as Zwinglianismus. Also he called the
young chaplain Adam Besserer a Zwinglianer, for he had roused
public diasapproval through a careless administration of the
sacrament. Besserer had to undergo disciplinary proceedings,
and in the same manner others who did so too. This shows that
the administration of the sacrament according to Luther’s doctrine
was a matter of fact in the churches of the Wittenberg
Reformation.
11. On the other side, Melanchthon’s authority as Präceptor Germaniae
after Luther’s death, his being considered as trustee of he
Wittenberg reformation, and his conception of the “Nihil-Rule”
were spreading. Johann Hachenburg, pastor at St. Michael in
Erfurt, as a genuine Lutheran demonstrated in his two books this
development and complained of it strenuously. Melanchthon
called him Esel zu Erfurt (donkey at Erfurt)—and also he called
Joachim Mörlin and other opponents to the “Zwinglianism”
Zänker und Friedenstörer (quarrelers and peace-disturbers).
12. The Saligersche Streit comprises three periods:
a. the Lübecker Dispute of 1568 on the question of Nachkonsekration
(reconsecration),
b. the Rostocker Dispute of 1569, leading to Saliger’s dismissal
by the so-called Abschied by the Mecklenburg
Dukes, and
c. the Lübecker Dispute of 1574, fought by the town surgeon
Lambert Fredeland, not by Saliger himself. The
result was that the pastors of Lübeck and Rostock
tended to Melanchthon’s opinion of the actio sacramentalis
as the whole Abschied. Saliger upheld Luther’s consecration
doctrine, despite some exaggerations, so his
dismissal was an injustice.
13. The Braunschweig town-superintendent Martin Chemnitz,
being just at that time engaged in establishing the Formula of
Concord, managed to reconcile the pastors of Lübeck and Lambert
Fredeland and to acknowledge Luther’s doctrine of the Consecration
in the so-called Reconciliatio of 1574. He even added one
part of the Abschied of the Mecklenburg Dukes into the Formula
of Concord, but adjusted with his improvements into Luther’s
opinion of the consecration. So Luther’s doctrine of the consecration
is saved obligatorily in this Formula.
NOTES
1. In 1960 already appeared the brochure Konsekration. Luthers
Abendmahlsglaube in dogmatisch-liturgischer Sicht. An Hand von Quellenauszügen
dargestellt (Berlin: Luth. Verlagshaus,1960).
2. Actio Sacramentalis—Die Verwaltung des Heiligen Abendmahles
nach den Prinzipien Martin Luthers in der Zeit bis zur Konkordienformel
(Luth. Verlagsbuchhandlung Groß Oesingen, 1996). Distributed by Jürgen
Diestelmann, Thunstr. 19 C, D- 38110 Braunschweig.

58 LOGIA
3. Translation: “In this way let us define the time or the sacramental
action, that it begins with the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer and will
last until all will have communicated, emptied the communion-cup,
eaten up [the rest of] the Holy Bread, folk will be dismissed and have
left the altar.”
4. WA Bfw. 11, Nr. 3894, S. 348.
5. SD, VII, 86.
6. So in SD VII, 85. Translation: “Nothing has the character of a
sacrament apart from the use instituted by Christ, or apart from the
divinely instituted action.”
7. Bjarne W. Teigen, “The Nihil Rule Revisited,” The Confessional
Lutheran Research Society Newsletter. Trinity 1991—Letter No. 24.
8. SD, VII, 73: “dissensiones quaedam inter aliquos Augustanae Confessionis
theologos.”
9. E. F. Peters, Origin and Meaning of the Axiom: Nothing Has The
Character of a Sacrament Outside Of The Use, in Sixteenth-Century and
Seventeenth-Centuy Lutheran Theology. (Th. D. Diss., Concordia Seminary,
St. Louis, MO., 1968) This dissertation was available to me in the
form of a Microfilm.
10.Julius Wiggers, “Der Saligersche Abendmahlstreit in der 2. Hälfte
des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Z. f. hist. Theol.XVIII, 1848, S. 613–666.
11. Jobst Schöne, Um Christi sakramentale Gegenwart. Der Saligersche
Streit 1568/69, Berlin, 1966.
12. Tom G. A. Hardt, Venerabilis et adorabilis Eucharistia. Eine Studie
über die lutherische Abendmahlslehre im 16. Jahrhundert, Forschungen
zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Band 42, Göttingen 1988. Swedish
Original: Venerabilis et adorabilis Eucharistia. En Studie i den lutherska
Nattvardsläran under 1500-talet. Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis, Studia
Doctrinae Christianae Upsaliensia 9 (Uppsala 1971.)
Translated by A. Hofmann, Braunschweig

LOGIA Forum
SHORT STUDIES AND COMMENTARY
THE IDOLATROUS RELIGION OF
CONSCIENCE
Part 1 of Randall C. Zachman’s The Assurance of Faith (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress, 1993) should be placed on your “mustread”
list. His exposition of Luther’s treatment on the conscience
is immensely revealing and practical for the parish pastor in everything
from confessional counseling to liturgical coordinating. He
demonstrates how conscience develops its own “creative worship”
depending on internal feelings rather than the external Word and
Spirit. This then is one way in which the theology of the cross and
the theology of glory can be identified and properly distinguished.
Here are few select passages from pages 32–33, 36–39.
In sum, the legal or general knowledge of God is derived from
the awareness that God is an omnipotent and omniscient Creator
and judge who commands us to worship and to call upon
God in our distress. The knowledge of God as Creator, judge,
and refuge is derived from several major premises given to the
conscience in the natural law. However, it is critical to note that
the conscience is provided only with the major premises regarding
the existence and nature of God and has no idea what the
minor premises might be.
The conscience knows that God exists, but it does not know
who that God is; it knows that God is to be worshiped, but it
is in the dark as to how. “They call God a helper, kind, and forgiving,
even though afterwards they are in error as to who that
God is and how He wants to be worshiped” [AE 3: 117]. In the
same way, the conscience knows that God is a refuge, but it
does not know for whom God is a refuge, nor who this God
ARTICLES FOUND IN LOGIA FORUM may be reprinted freely for study and
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should understand that views expressed here are the sole responsibility
of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the editors.
59
is [AE 19: 54–55]. The major premises of the natural law to
worship and call upon God raise the question of the existence
and nature of God and of God’s worship, but no minor
premises are given from which the conscience might come to
conclusions about the nature and will of God. Unlike the
natural law that is given to govern the affairs of men coram
hominibus, the natural law regarding our life coram Deo is only
formal and not material.
We must not imagine, however, that the conscience is satisfied
with this rather abstract and formal knowledge about God, or
that it would wait patiently until God revealed himself more fully
to the conscience in the Word. If God does not tell us who God
is and how God is to be worshiped, the conscience will tell itself
who God is and how God is to be worshiped. If the natural law
will not provide us with the minor premises with regard to the
identity and worship of God, then the conscience will invent
these for itself. ...
The religion of conscience, therefore, is fundamentally a theology
of glory....
The religion of conscience, with its theologia gloriae cannot
succeed in its undertaking. It cannot place the person before a
gracious God; it cannot attain the certain and final judgment of
conscience that makes the person saved before God. Indeed, the
religion of conscience does not lead toward faith in a gracious
God, but rather further and further away from it. The theologia
gloriae leads not to confidence in God’s mercy, but rather to
indifference, presumption, or despair. ...
Nor does the religion of conscience lead us to believe in God.
We believe God when we acknowledge the truth of God’s Word
to us and deny all that would challenge that truth. It might seem
as though the conscience would be receptive to the Word; for, as
seen earlier, the conscience knows only that God is to be worshiped.
However, as already noted, the conscience portrays God
and God’s will to itself, and thus is certain that it already knows
who God is and how God is to be worshiped; it portrays to itself
a God who is pleased by works of the law.
When the Word tells the conscience that God wishes to be
worshiped by faith alone and not by works, reason and conscience
reject the Word as an outright lie and falsehood. “See, this
is the virtue of the light of nature, that it raves against the true
light, is constantly boasting of piety, piety, and is always crying
‘Good works! Good works!’ but it cannot and will not be taught
what piety is and what good works are; it insists that what it
thinks and proposes must be good and right” [AE 52: 59].

60 LOGIA
THE INFUSION OF LOVE
Luther’s “Cross-Theology” is something different than what we
today generally refer to as “Theology of the Cross.” His early concepts
[sic] later fall like scales from his eyes as he sheds his Augustinianism
for the unfettered Gospel. You can begin to get a sense of
this by reading Regin Prenter, Spiritus Creator: Luther’s Concept
of the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1953), pages
3–5, 8–9.
In Luther’s lectures on the Epistle to the Romans during 1515–16,
we read in the notes on Romans 2:15: “From this I believe that
the sentence ‘let the law be written in their heart’ says the same
thing as ‘Love is infused into the heart through
the Holy Spirit.’ It is in the same sense both the law of Christ
and the fulfillment of the law of Moses.” [WA 56, 203, 8]
This is the young Luther’s fundamental formula for the
understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is in complete
accordance with the traditional way of expression, especially in
the Augustinian sense. When the young Luther speaks of the
work of the Holy Spirit he very often uses Augustinian terminology
and he often quotes Augustine directly. The work of the
Holy Spirit is to infuse into the heart the true love of God so
that obedience to the command of the law is brought about
not by fear of punishment but because of a free and happy love
to God.
Has this carried us beyond a purely Augustinian way of
thinking
It has often been stated that in Luther’s lectures as a young
man his doctrine of justification bears a definitely Augustinian
mark, and that it can best be characterized by the idea of a progressive
and healing Gerechtmachung (process of justification)
through the Holy Spirit’s infusing of the true love to God. Is that
not the true explanation of the problem Does this bring out any
new statement about the work of the Holy Spirit, different from
the traditional Augustinian thinking
In answering this question it is not sufficient to note an apparent
agreement in terminology. We must study the connection in
which the apparently identical formulas are found in Augustine
(and in scholasticism) and in Luther. Then we find that a new
content has been put into the forms which Luther has taken over
from Augustine.
We begin by asking what sort of caritas it is that according to
Luther is infused into the heart by the Holy Spirit.
In answering this question we are led right into the heart of
Luther’s theologia crucis, and it becomes apparent that behind
the similarity in the vocabulary of Luther and Augustine there
is a deep and decisive difference.
Augustine says that love to God is similar to the amor sui (love
of self) rightly understood. Luther may state it in almost the same
way: “For to love means to hate oneself, to condemn oneself, to
wish ill to oneself according to the words of Christ: ‘He that
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.’ Whoever
loves himself in this way loves himself truly, for his love of
self is not of himself but of God, i.e. according to the will of God
which hates and condemns and wishes evil to all sin, i.e. to us all”
[WA 56, 392, 20].
The radicalism with which Luther carried through his
thought about odium sui and condemnatio sui (hatred of self
and condemnation of self) made his teaching about the love
of God differ from Augustine’s definite conception of amor
Dei as amor summi boni which proceeds from the anthropologically
founded caro-spiritus dualism. But is Luther’s view
of odium sui and conformity to the will of God not more
closely related to mysticism Is not that which Luther produces
simply a radically absorbed Augustinian view about the
infused love penetrated by the theologia crucis of mysticism
Was it not the mystics who spoke so radically about odium sui
and condemnatio sui
The purely historic question regarding the time and extent of
the influence of mysticism on Luther not only has appropriated
some of the terminology of mysticism but also that he actually
has been influenced by several of the spokesmen of mysticism.
His writings show how deeply he studied the mystics such as
Tauler during the years his own theologia crucis was being
formed, and also that at times he accepted the view of the mystics.
However, we must not draw too comprehensive conclusions
on the basis of the similarity in choice of words.
THE CROSS AND THE
CHRISTIAN LIFE
Walter von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing House, 1976), translated by Herbert
J. A. Bouman from the original Luthers Theologia Crucis (Witten:
Luther-Verlag, 1967). This excerpt is from pages 123–125. References
in parentheses are from WA unless indicated otherwise.
It may be useful to demonstrate in individual concrete points
the hiddenness and character of suffering of the Christian life,
which we have presented in general.
1. The loveliest gift accompanying the Christian life is peace.
Through faith we have peace (3, 567, 12ff.). But this happens
through faith! The theology of the cross cannot dispense with
that. If pietism demands more, it only shows that it has moved
a considerable distance away from Luther. For that very reason
it is so easily exposed to psychological distortions. Christian
peace has nothing to do with such peace. The contrast “harm
onious and inharmonious nature” lies beneath the peace which
surpasses all understanding. But for that very reason this peace
is an object of faith and therefore a hidden treasure (56, 246,
11ff.; AE 25: 232; W. Br. 1, 47, 27ff.). The world sees nothing of
this peace, and feeling and experience go away empty-handed.
Here, too, the cross proves itself to be a great sign of concealment
(56, 424, 27ff.; AE 25: 415; 56, 425, 8ff.; AE 25: 416f.).
The way of peace is the way of the cross; God himself is hidden
under the cross, and therefore peace is to be found only under
the cross and suffering (1, 90, 6ff.). One who seeks peace misses
the true peace; one who shuns the cross will not find peace (5,
318, 34ff.). Peace is not to be sought by way of empirical experience,
as pietism thinks. According to Luther, that would be

LOGIA FORUM 61
tempting God. For in that we would forsake the stance of faith
and attempt to have peace in physical reality rather than in faith.
But we also have Christ, who is our peace, only by faith (1, 541,
5ff.; AE 31: 100). But this peace brings with it discord in external.
The world’s enmity is the dowry of the peace hidden in God (2,
456, 31ff.; AE 27: 170).
2. We may expect to find a similar line of thought as we ask
about the nature of joy in the Christian life. Faith brings joy just
as it brings peace (3, 57, 34ff.; AE 10, 70). God hates sadness (43,
335, 1ff.; AE 4: 278). Sadness is an indication that God has forsaken
us, at least for a time (42, 535, 39ff.). Why should we not
rejoice when we look to God (1, 173, 31ff.)
But this already touches the other side of the matter. It has to
do with joy “in the Holy Spirit” (3, 57, 34f.; AE 10: 70). God’s
promises are the cause of joy; the certainty that God does not lie
in his promises makes glad the heart (4, 360, 35ff.). Joy is based
not on some earthly thing but in hope (56, 465, 1ff.; AE 25: 457).
Hence it cannot be understood as an expression of our inner
mood. On the contrary, the joy we are dealing with here rises up
precisely above sadness. This joy arises only when we despair of
ourselves and experience nothing but displeasure and sadness in
ourselves (1, 173, 24ff.). One who finds the cause of his joy in
himself surely does not have the support of the word of God (56,
423, 23ff.; AE 25: 415). But this joy can be understood just as little
on the basis of our external situation, for the Christian lacks
everything that gives the carnal man occasion for joy (5, 178,
21 ff.). Also our joy partakes of the character of hiddenness in our
Christian life. All of this is comprehended in the sentence: our joy
is a work of the Holy Spirit (7, 548, 4f.; AE 21: 300).
3. Also the Christian’s happiness is hidden. Luther expresses
himself on this subject in detail in his already mentioned explanation
of the first psalm in his Operationes in psalmos. Under
Luther’s hand the text reaches a far greater depth than it originally
possessed.
All people, says Luther, are concerned with the question
about happiness. But neither the answer of philosophy nor
general opinion satisfies (5, 26, 30ff.; AE 14: 287). The answer of
Scripture, however, is placed in opposition to all others (5, 27,
5ff.; AE 14: 287). If we strip the answer of its Old Testament
form, we arrive at the sentence that only the life under the
cross can bring true happiness. But then this happiness is a
hidden one, perceptible only to faith and experience (5, 36,
15ff.; AE 14: 298f.). Consequently, what the psalmist says about
the prosperity of the godly dare not be understood in the physical
sense (5, 41, 27ff.; AE 14: 304). The psalmist is here speaking
“in spirit”; he wants to be heard “in faith” (5, 42, 27ff.; AE
14: 305). For we take the greatest of all miracles upon our lips
when we speak of the happiness of the godly (5, 41, 31ff.; AE 14:
304). Also the psalmist defines happiness as being free of evil;
the only difference is that the world takes this with reference to
earthly things, while the psalmist refers it to faith. Precisely
because it is not meant in a physical sense, one can speak about
it only figuratively and allegorically (5, 36, 29ff.; AE 14: 299).
With all of this we are again moving in lines of thought that
are thoroughly eschatological in their orientation. It is thus the
final mark of the blessed man that he lives in hope (5, 38, 6ff.;
AE 14: 300).
THE SHIP OF FOOLS
Sebastian Brant (1458–1521) became one of the leading exponents of
Humanism in the days of Luther's early studies. Here is one excerpt
from his work, which was enormously successful in his day. His prologue
is introduced: "For profit and salutary instruction, admonition,
and pursuit of wisdom, reason, and good manners: also for
contempt and punishment of folly, blindness, error, and stupidity
of all stations and kinds of men: with special zeal, earnestness, and
labor compiled at Basel by Sebastian Brant, doctor in both laws."
This excerpt is found on pages 31–33 of German Humanism and
Reformation, edited by Reinhard P. Becker with foreword by
Roland Bainton, published in 1982 by the Continuum Publishing
Company, 575 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022. This selection
was translated by Edwin H. Zeydel.
All lands in Holy Writ abound
And works to save the soul are found,
The Bible, Holy Fathers’ lore
And other such in goodly store,
So many that I feel surprise
To find men growing not more wise
But holding writ and lore in spite.
The whole world lives in darksome night,
In blinded sinfulness persisting,
While every street sees fools existing
Who know but folly, to their shame,
Yet will not own to folly’s name.
Hence I have pondered how a ship
Of fools I’d suitably equip—
A galley, brig, bark, skiff, or float,
A carack, scow, dredge, racing boat,
A sled, cart, barrow, carryall—
One vessel would be far too small
To carry all the fools I know.
Some persons have no way to go
And like the bees they come a-skimming,
While many to the ship are swimming,
And each one wants to be the first,
A mighty throng with folly curst,
Whose pictures I have given here.
They who at writings like to sneer
Or are with reading not afflicted
May see themselves herewith depicted
And thus discover who they are,
Their faults, to whom they’re similar.
For fools a mirror shall it be,
Where each his counterfeit may see.
His proper value each would know,
The glass of fools the truth may show.
Who sees his image on the page
May learn to deem himself no sage,
Nor shrink his nothingness to see,
Since none who lives from fault is free;
And who would honestly have sworn
That cap and bells he’s never worn
Whoe’er his foolishness decries

62 LOGIA
Alone deserves to rank as wise,
Whoever wisdom’s airs rehearses
May stand godfather to my verses!
He’d injure me and have no gain
If he would not this book retain.
Here you will find of fools no dearth
And everything you wish on earth,
The reasons why you’re here listed,
Why many fools have ay existed,
What joy and honor wisdom bears
And why a fool in danger fares,
The world’s whole course in one brief look—
Are reasons why to buy this book.
In jest and earnest evermore
You will encounter fools galore.
The wise man’s pleasure I will win,
While fools speak oft of kith and kin,
Fools poor and rich, high-bred and tyke,
Yes, everyman will find his like,
I cut a cap for every chap,
But none of them will care a rap,
And if I’d named and then apprized him,
He’d say I had not recognized him.
I hope, though, men who’re really wise
Will find a deal to praise and prize,
And out of knowledge say forsooth
That I have spoken but the truth.
If I were sure that they’d approve
I’d care not what the fools reprove.
Naught else but truth the fool must hear,
Although it pleases not his ear.
Terence asserts that truth can breed
Deep hate, and he is right, indeed,
And he who blows his nose too long
Will have a nosebleed hard and strong ...
CHAPTERS INTO VERSE
Browsing the files at the local public library, I came across the twovolume
collection Chapters Into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired
by the Bible, edited by Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993). This work juxtaposes scripture
verses with analogous poetry and does so in a way that might positively
or negatively jar something loose in our minds. We might
regret not finding any of Franzmann’s verse herein, but this is a
start. Here is an excerpt from the introduction.
Ezra Pound once tweaked T. S. Eliot for preferring Moses to the
Muses. Pound’s witty remark reminds us of English poetry’s two
great heritages: the classical and the scriptural, or (as Matthew
Arnold named them) the Hellenic and the Hebraic. Poetry
inspired by classical Greek and Latin models has dominated the
poetic landscape for so many centuries that most readers now
consider it the only literary tradition. Although the scriptural tra-
dition in English poetry is every bit as venerable as the classical, it
has never received the attention accorded its chosen twin. Like
Ishmael and Esau, it has led a shadow existence. We hope that
this collection will finally bring the scriptural tradition out of the
shadows and into the light.
Chapters into Verse, therefore, is more than just another
anthology of English-language poetry. It is (so far as we know)
the first collection ever assembled of poems inspired by the Bible.
Its two volumes survey and define a literary legacy that has lived
and at times flourished in the wilderness, unremarked by the
reigning literary culture. All of the poems selected for both the
Old Testament and New Testament editions respond to specific
passages of scripture. Arranged in Biblical order from Genesis to
Malachi (in Volume One), from Matthew to Revelation (Volume
Two), every poem is preceded by at least the kernel of the appropriate
chapter and verse. Whenever possible, we print a poem’s
Biblical source in full; at other times, to save space, we have
excerpted chapter and verse . ...
Although each volume of Chapters into Verse contains a wide
variety of poetic forms, readers may discover that—aside from
theological dissimilarities—there are some notable differences
between the two books. Poets attracted to the Old Testament
apparently prefer a larger scope and a more impassioned, or
rhapsodic, language: they will exult in the glory of creation,
reimagine the songs of Moses, of Deborah, David, Solomon,
Hezekiah; they will compose dramas, chivalric romances, verse
essays, and epics. The poetry of the New Testament is largely
lyrical and meditative, verse that seems better suited to the
more inward and private response encouraged by the spiritual
quest of Jesus.[!] The Old Testament, on the other hand, invites
a more public, less personal and introspective, poetry. In addition,
far more of the Old Testament poetry is composed of
paraphrase, a difference explained by the fact that the Hebrew
Scripture is in many ways a poetic work, with approximately
one-third of its text taken up with psalms, songs, lamentations,
and various forms of narrative or prophetic verse. In contrast,
the New Testament is essentially a prose work, encompassing
many types of prose forms—biographies, encomiums, sayings,
parables, letters, epistles, rabbinical stories and episodic narratives
....
The history of the Bible in English runs parallel to the development
of English poetry. John Wycliffe, who made an English
Bible from the Latin Vulgate, was a contemporary of Friar Herebert.
The first translation from the original tongues into English
was undertaken by the unfortunate English Catholic priest,
William Tyndale. He perished at the stake after falling into the
hands of the Inquisition in the 1540s, the same decade that saw
the deaths of the first English sonneteers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Besides Englishing Petrarch, Wyatt also translated the Seven
Penitential Psalms before his execution for leading a rebellion
against the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor; Surrey verse-paraphrased
Ecclesiastes. ... By the time James I’s committee dedicated
the first official English Bible in 1611, Shakespeare’s life was
nearly over and John Milton was about to be born. By the eighteenth
century literature and scripture had pretty much parted
company.

LOGIA FORUM 63
ME GAVTE LA NATA
A renowned semanticist, Umberto Eco is also known for his fiction,
the most familiar work being The Name of the Rose. Insights are
available to readers who may note postmodern passages in society’s
thinking or windows exposing one’s own thought. Foucalt’s Pendulum,
translated by William Weaver (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1989), page 50.
Incredulity doesn’t kill curiosity; it encourages it. Though distrustful
of logical chains of ideas, I loved the polyphony of ideas.
As long as you don’t believe in them, the collision of ideas—
both false— can create a pleasing interval, a kind of diabolus in
musica. I had no respect for some ideas people were willing to
stake their lives on, but two or three ideas that I did not respect
might still make a nice melody. Or have a good beat, and if it
was jazz, all the better.
“You live on the surface,” Lia told me years later. “You sometimes
seem profound, but it’s only because you piece a lot of surfaces
together to create an impression of depth, solidity. That
solidity would collapse if you tried to stand it up.”
“Are you saying I’m superficial”
“No.” She answered. “What others call profundity is only a
tessaract, a four-dimensional cube. You walk in one side and
come out another, and you’re in their universe which can’t coexist
with yours.”
UTILITARIAN SCHOOLS,
UTILITARIAN CHURCHES
In this excerpt, David Hicks laments the cosmetic approach to educational
reform. This approach simply emphasizes teaching primarily
for the sake of doing rather than for the sake of becoming. While
we might concur with Hicks’s diagnosis and shudder to see the attitudes
he exposes running rampant among many administrative
officers and synodical board members, we can also note the Calvinistic,
Neoplatonic idealism in his prognosis.
Still, we must point out how these trends have so infected our
congregations which think of church work and liturgy as primarily
“doing” things rather than learning to ask the important questions—and
delighting in what is received in Christ. So long as stewardship,
missions, and evangelism staff persons inundate us with
“how-to” literature for doing projects, and as long as college departments
and seminary professors prefer a shallow utilitarian track, the
Lord’s people will be subjected to a serious lack of understanding,
faithful intuition, and depth of character. David Hicks, Norms and
Nobility: A Treatise on Education, pages 156–157.
Both state and marketplace accelerate the trend toward utilitarian
learning that in turn encourages a cosmetic approach to reform.
The typical criticism leveled at the school by business and government
is: you have not taught the young to do anything. Contrary
to Aristotle, who wanted education to teach the young how
to use their leisure for reaching the full stature of their humanity
and how to realize their greatest happiness in the life of virtue,
business and government view education as a preparation for
work and indoctrination into the practical life via the enticements
of the life of pleasure. The modern educator accommodates
by adding vocational courses to the curriculum or by
requiring more classes in composition: it is a simple matter of
determining what skills are presently in demand.
But ironically, the young can do nothing because as the effort
intensifies to prepare them for the practical life, they are not
learning the rudiments of thinking in terms of the essential
dialectic that we have discussed. The young are not learning to
ask important questions, for the normative questions opening up
a life of virtue are methodically barred from the classroom. Nor
are they getting a chance to discover the wonderful connection
between life and learning because their utilitarian instructors
ignore their major human concerns.
THE LAST WORD ON CHURCH
AND MINISTRY
The ongoing debate in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
about the relationship between church and ministry has officially
been terminated. At least that is the impression one receives after
reading the report on the LCMS President’s visit to the Fort
Wayne seminary [Reporter 22 (June 1996): 1]. C. F. W. Walther’s
book Kirche und Amt is declared to be the official position,
because it achieves a moderate position between the excesses of
Loehe and Grabau on one side and Hoefling on the other.
The argument of “moderation” is rhetorically useful, but logically
unconvincing. There is no doubt that Walther had keen
insight into the problems of North America, where there was no
Christian prince to finance and counsel the church. A Lutheran
church owned and ruled solely by a corporation of clergy is
clearly contrary to Luther and the Confessions. This problem has
suggested various confessionally responsible answers, one of
which includes LCMS polity.
The problem with canonizing Kirche und Amt is that Walther
contradicts Luther in a number of key places, forcing the theologian
to choose between the two. That is an unhappy choice,
which leads “Lutherans” to avoid this topic, lest they be accused
of pointing at the father’s nakedness, like Ham pointed at Noah.
“Waltherians,” on the other hand, seem to be blissfully unaware
of the contradictions, of which three follow.
First, Walther states that ordination is only an apostolic ordinance,
not divinely instituted (C. F. W. Walther, Church and Ministry
[St. Louis: CPH, 1987], 247–248; Ministry VIB). Luther, on the
other hand, states that ordination was instituted on the authority
of the divine Scriptures (AE 40: 11). Luther’s criticism of ordination
was not directed at its divinity, but at the bishop’s claim of sole
right to ordain (see Tr 61–72), as well as at the many errors that had
crept into the Roman rite of ordination.
Second, Walther argues that whatever spiritual rights are possessed
by the whole church are also possessed by each individual
(Walther, 268–270; Ministry, VII, 1). Luther, on the other hand,

64 LOGIA
states that the right of distributing the word and sacraments is a
community right (AE 40: 34), whose exercise is not given to each
individual but only to the one chosen for that purpose. Walther’s
argument suffers from a definitional ignorance of the term “public,”
illustrated by the absurdity of villagers carving up their public
park into private plots.
Third, Walther argues that a case of necessity proves the
essence of a thing; therefore every layman has the essential right
to distribute the word and sacraments (Walther, 272–273; Ministry,
VII, 2). Luther, on the other hand, states that a case of
necessity does not alter the rule, because “Necessity breaks all
laws and has none” (AE 39: 310). Luther teaches that laymen
must baptize and teach the Word to their families in cases of
necessity, but the Eucharist should not be celebrated in such
cases, because it is not necessary like baptism and the Word
(AE 40: 9). So who has the last word, Walther or Luther As I
said, an unhappy choice.
Martin R. Noland
Oak Park, Illino
OBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION—AGAIN
I received an unsolicited newsletter in the mail last week titled
The Lukewarm Lutheran Report. It purports to clarify the doctrine
of “objective justification,” but actually muddies the waters
even more. Apparently officials in both the Wisconsin Synod and
Missouri Synod have dealt with cases in which “objective justification”
was the object of contention. In my opinion, the problem
is not heresy or even minor doctrinal error, but a logical and
semantic whirlpool that sucks into its maw the theologically
unsophisticated. Theology is not a parlor game, but analogous to
rock-climbing—certain cliffs and routes are too difficult for the
inexperienced, whose ill-advised traverse often leads to tragedy.
The logical problem associated with “objective justification” is
easier to resolve than the semantic one. “Objective justification”
refers to those Scripture passages in which God is described as
“acquitting all men” (Rom 5:18) and “reconciling the world”
(2 Cor 5:19); also to the Confessional passages that state that the
“human race is truly redeemed and reconciled” (FC SD, XI,
15–18). The logical problem here comes from confusing the parts
with the whole, that is, in thinking that what applies to the whole
class also applies to each individual. It does not follow that
because the human race is reconciled to God that each and every
individual is reconciled.
The semantic problem requires an extensive study of how
Scripture and Confessions use the terms “justify,” “justification,”
“reckon or account as righteous,” “reconcile,” “forgiveness,”
“acquittal,” “redemption,” and so on. The most competent study
to date remains that of Martin Chemnitz, who demonstrates that
these all express the same fundamental idea of standing before
the judgment throne of God and being declared innocent (Martin
Chemnitz, Loci Theologici [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1989], 2: 475, 483–485; Locus 13, D, 3. Cf. Martin Chem-
nitz, Justification [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985],
61, 72–73). The usage of such terms in the Confessions reflects the
reformers’ lexical flexibility on this point.
There is one other problem that defies resolution, at least under
“realistic” modes of thought. The problem is that God’s justification
of the sinner is a “legal fiction.” It doesn’t “really” happen, at
least not in the sense that the believer “really” becomes a saint on
earth. An analogy can be found in the gardener who believes that
an alignment “really” belongs to him because of where the fence
is located. If he is not convinced by the plat map, then the neighbor
will have to take him to court. There the judge will prove that
the “legal fiction” is more real than the fence, and the gardener
will be forced to concede.
Treating a group of individuals as a class, which is the “objective”
part of justification, is also a “legal fiction.” But if objective
justification is rejected because it is a “legal fiction,” then forensic
justification in general must also be rejected. That is why there
continues to be concern about this issue among orthodox
Lutheran clergy and theologians.
Another analogy summarizes the issue: a surgeon in the emergency
room can boast that he saved the crash victim, even
though many individual parts of the victim’s body were amputated.
Even so, the human race has been saved from condemnation
in God's court, not just certain “elected” individuals; though
many individuals will regrettably be “amputated” on the Day of
Judgment. The “justification of the world” is the language of military
victory, which weighs the attainment of critical objectives
and the adversary’s casualty list against one’s own casualty list.
“Objective justification” proclaims that Christ has redeemed the
essential and most important parts. Denial of the same reflects
the sectarian mindset that the whole world is going to hell in a
handbasket. Faith accepts what God has declared about the
world, not what the eyes see !
Martin R. Noland
Oak Park, Illinois
PRAESIDIUM STATEMENT ON
CLOSED COMMUNION
The Praesidium of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod adopted
this statement on August 21, 1996.
We, the members of the Praesidium of The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod, wish to express our joy in the fellowship the
members of the Synod enjoy with one another in the true faith.
We thank God for this blessing. We treasure the wonderful
opportunities God gives our Synod to reach out to the world
with the Gospel, bearing witness to the truths of God’s Word,
in a bold confession of our Lutheran faith. We recognize as part
of this opportunity the responsibility to administer the Sacrament
of the Altar in a faithful manner, being mindful of the
need for careful instruction to those who desire to commune
at the Lord’s table. In accord with the Scriptures’ and the Confessions’
teaching about the Lord’s Supper, and the nature and

LOGIA FORUM 65
basis of church fellowship, our Synod continues to reaffirm the
historic, confessional church practice of close(d) communion.
We are keenly aware that our Synod faces a critical moment in
the history of the Lutheran church in America. Decisions are being
contemplated by other churches to enter into eucharistic fellowship
with one another, without the resolution of the long standing
and critical differences that divide the Reformed and Lutheran
churches. This is a time for our Synod to affirm boldly the great
truths of our Lutheran confession and to offer an alternative to an
increasingly pluralistic and secularized view of the Christian faith.
Rather than being caught up in the times in which we live, we as
a Synod are able to offer a unique and faithful Lutheran witness to
those struggling with questions about truth and the meaning of
what it is to be a Lutheran church in our world today. Rather than
conforming to the spirit of our age, we have before us the opportunity
for faithful confession and catechesis.
We recognize the pastoral responsibility the church has not
merely to accept minimalistic concessions to ill-defined and
unexamined confessions of the faith, but instead to lead people
into the truth of the Scriptures, so that they may enjoy the fellowship
of the church as it gathers at the altar to receive her Lord’s
body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Because of our great respect for our Synod’s fellowship in the
Faith, and because of the opportunities which are presenting
themselves to us to be and remain a strong, confessional Lutheran
church in this country, and a voice for genuine confessional
Lutheranism around the world, we must express our fraternal
concern with the document “A Declaration of Eucharistic Understanding
and Practice.” We regret the fact that some members of
our synodical family have persisted in their public advocacy of an
erroneous position in regard to close(d) communion. Sadly, they
have done this in spite of the fraternal, pastoral and faithful
admonition of our Synod’s president, and of our Synod’s district
presidents, who have counseled with them about this situation.
Therefore, we affirm and commend to our Synod, the pastoral
application of the faithful and evangelical resolution
adopted by our Synod in convention last summer reaffirming
our Synod’s scriptural position on close(d) communion, Resolution
3-08. We ask that all members of the Synod, both church
workers and congregations, receive, respect and conform their
practice to this resolution. We, as the Praesidium of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, commit ourselves to its
implementation among our fellowship and support our district
presidents as they do the same. We recognize that it is the
responsibility of the district presidents to maintain the integrity
of our fellowship in our faith as they correct and reprove error in
the discharge of the duties of their office. We offer our fraternal
encouragement to them as they carry out their duty of doctrinal
supervision in this matter.
We pray for God’s continued blessing on our Synod. May He
keep us ever steadfast and faithful, for the sake of our stewardship
of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This statement of the praesidium is to be read in the context of
Resolution 3-08 of the 1995 Synodical Convention of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, “To Reaffirm the Practice of Close[d]
Communion.
Preamble
Our teaching and practice of the Lord’s Supper begin with the
clear words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself regarding His gift
in the Supper: “This is My body, given for you.” “This cup is My
blood of the new testament, shed for you for the forgiveness of
sins.” (Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:14–20; 1 Cor.
11:17–29). Therefore we believe, teach and confess that the Lord
Himself gives to each communicant His very body and His true
blood in, with and under the forms of bread and wine for the forgiveness
of sins (Real Presence—AC X, XXIV; Ap XIII, XXIV; SC VI;
LC V; FC VII, Ep and SD). This “Real Presence” is not simply a
general presence of Christ in the Supper, but refers to the fact that
Christ’s true body and blood are truly present in the consecrated
bread and wine and received in the mouths of the communicants
(1 Cor. 10:16). The presence of Christ’s true body and blood does
not depend on the faith of the recipient nor on the character of
the one administering the Sacrament, but on the Word of Christ
Himself, whose last will and testament the Supper is. By the power
of His own Word He gives His body and blood (FC VII, Ep & SD).
Though all communicants receive the body and blood in the
bread and wine, only those who believe Christ’s Word of promise
regarding the Supper receive its benefits, namely, the forgiveness
of sins. “He who believes these words has what they say and
declare, namely, the forgiveness of sins.” (SC VI, Tappert, p. 352;
See also AC XIII). In other words, the Lord has provided His Supper
for sinners who believe His promise: “This is my body. This
cup is my blood of the new testament shed for you for the forgiveness
of sins.” Accordingly, the Sacrament is more than a simple
assurance of grace. Rather, the body and blood of our Lord in the
bread and wine are gifts by which our Lord Himself offers, gives
and seals to us the forgiveness of sins.
A responsible Lutheran practice surrounding the Lord’s Supper
will take into account the fact that the Supper is also an
expression of the oneness of the congregation in Christ and in
His Gospel. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26
RSV). One who eats and drinks at an altar confesses what is
taught from that altar (1 Cor. 10:21). Each communicant is called
on to examine himself before God (1 Cor. 11:28), to avoid creating
divisions within the assembly (1 Cor. 11:17ff.), and to hold no
malice toward fellow communicants (Matt. 5:23–24). In addition,
those who commune without discerning the body of the Lord or
faith in Christ’s promise eat and drink judgment on themselves
(1 Cor. 11:29). They are guilty of profaning, not bread and wine,
but the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27). This is why the
Confessions of our church assume a careful pastoral practice in
connection with the Lord’s Supper: “The custom has been
retained among us of not administering the sacrament to those
who have not previously been examined and absolved.” (AC
XXV Tappert, p. 61).
Our desire to honor and obey the Word of Christ leads us in
our pastoral practice to reserve the Sacrament for those who
share this desire and confession. Since fellowship at the Lord’s
Table is a confession of faith in the Lord’s promises professed at
our altar, it would not be truthful for those who affirm Christ’s
gift of His body and blood in the bread and wine and those who
deny it to join one another at the table. The last will and testa-

66 LOGIA
ment of Christ cannot be interpreted in contradictory ways. Pastors
are called by God through the congregation to be faithful
“stewards of the mysteries” (1 Cor. 4: 1–2), that is, faithfully to
administer the Sacrament according to the Lord’s institution.
Love also requires that pastors and congregations keep from the
Lord’s Table those who by their profession (or lack of it) show
that they could be eating and drinking judgment upon themselves
(1 Cor. 11:27). As part of this practice the pastor will seek to
prevent a profession of confessional unity in the faith where there
is, in fact, disunity and disagreement.
In 1983 the CTCR reminded the Synod that “In keeping with
the principle that the celebration and reception of the Lord’s Supper
is a confession of the unity of faith, while at the same time
recognizing that there will be instances when sensitive pastoral
care needs to be exercised, the Synod has established an official
practice requiring that ‘pastors and congregations of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, except in situations of emergency
and in special cases of pastoral care, commune individuals of only
those synods which are now in fellowship with us’” (CTCR, “Theology
and Practice of the Lord’s Supper,” p. 22; 1967 Res. 2-19; 1969
Res. 3-18; 1981 Res. 3-01); therefore be it
Resolved, That the Synod reaffirm 1967 Res. 2-19 that “pastors and
congregations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, except
in situations of emergency and in special cases of pastoral care,
commune individuals of only those synods which are now in fellowship
with us”; and be it further
Resolved, That the Synod reaffirm 1986 Res. 3-08, “that the pastors
and congregations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
continue to abide by the practice of close communion, which
includes the necessity of exercising responsible pastoral care in
extraordinary situations and circumstances,” and beseech one
another in love to remember that “situations of emergency and
special cases of pastoral care” or “extraordinary situations and
circumstances” are, by their nature, relatively rare; and be it further
Resolved, That the Communion Card statement of the CTCR
be recommended to the member congregations of Synod for
guidance:
The Lord’s Supper is celebrated at this congregation in the
confession and glad confidence that, as He says, our Lord
gives into our mouths not only bread and wine but His very
body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of
sins and to strengthen our union with Him and with one
another. Our Lord invites to His table those who trust in
His Words, repent of all sin, and set aside any refusal to forgive
and love as He forgives and loves us, that they may
show forth His death until He comes.
Because those who eat and drink our Lord’s body and blood
unworthily do so to their great harm and because Holy
Communion is a confession of the faith which is confessed
at this altar, any who are not yet instructed, in doubt, or
who hold a confession differing from that of this congregation
and The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and yet
desire to receive the Sacrament, are asked first to speak with
the Pastor or an usher. For further study, see Matt. 5:23ff.;
10:32ff.; 18:15–35; 26:26–29; 1 Cor. 11:17–34; and be it finally
Resolved, That because we are “eager to maintain the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), any members of the Synod
who advocate a different practice of Holy Communion be fraternally
reminded of the commitment all the members of the Synod
make to one another by subscribing the Constitution of Synod to
honor and uphold its doctrine and practice and, where there is
disagreement, to follow the proper channels of dissent as outlined
in the synodical Bylaws 2.39 c.
IS MARTENS JUSTIFIED
LOGIA contributing editor Dr. Gottfried Martens’s published dissertation
is beginning to get the attention that it deserves (Gottfried
Martens, Die Rechtfertigung des Sünders—Rettungshandeln
Gottes oder historisches Interpretament Grundentscheidungen
lutherischer Theologie und Kirche bei der Behandlung des Themas
"Rechtfertigung" im oekumenischen Kontext (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1992). ISBN 3-525-56271-3). This book belongs
in every German-reading Lutheran theologian’s library. Order it
now while it is still in print! At a recent pastor’s conference of the
Northern Illinois District (LCMS), the veteran ecclesial diplomat
Joseph Burgess noted how Martens’s dissertation has forced
many to realize that the Roman Catholics and Lutherans have
been “talking past each other.”
Our sister journal has published a recent review essay by the
even more seasoned dialoguer George Lindbeck of Yale, and a
response by the always intriguing Gerhard Forde of St. Paul
(George Lindbeck, “Martens on the Condemnations—Review
Essay,” and Gerhard Forde, “Response” Lutheran Quarterly 10
(Spring 1996): 59–69). One is reminded of the truth of Robert
Preus’s parting comment at the 1995 St. Catherine’s Sasse Symposium,
that Martens was the most intelligent student he ever taught.
Although Martens did not directly address the present proposal
to lift the sixteenth-century mutual condemnations
between Rome and Wittenberg, the proposals are based on the
same dialogues analyzed by Martens: Regensburg (1540), LWF at
Helsinki (1963), Leuenberg Concord (1973), Malta Report (1971),
U.S. Justification by Faith (1985), and the Lehrverurteilungen
(1986; the response of the Göttingen faculty to this dialogue is
available through LOGIA books under the title Outmoded Condemnations).
Martens’s conclusion is that the dialogues have
focused on the varied historical definitions of the doctrine of justification,
to the exclusion of the universal reality of God’s work
of justifying the sinner. Therefore real consensus on the hauptartikel
has not been achieved or even approximated. Is Martens’s
conclusion justified
Lindbeck has several criticisms to which I wish to respond. First,
he defends the dialogues’ use of progressive-developmental language,
so that they could speak to an audience accustomed to this
way of thinking. The fact is that when progressive-developmental

LOGIA FORUM 67
language is used to describe church dogma (which by definition
transcends particular linguistic expressions), it is an implicit surrender
to the Roman doctrine of progressive revelation normed by
the magisterium. In Forde’s terms, that is “playing the game on
their [Roman] turf.” Second, Lindbeck agrees with the German
critics, that Martens’s argument is hermeneutically naïve. Perhaps.
It is more likely that Martens has not been beguiled by the epistemologies
of German idealism, historicism, and existentialism,
which argue that perception and interpretation are irreparably
subjective experiences. When such epistemologies are applied to
church dogma, it is “playing the game on Liberal Protestant turf.”
Third, Lindbeck believes that church fellowship does not
depend on a common confession, but on the absence of condemnations.
This should alert the reader to the real intent of the
ELCA assembly in 1997, namely, fellowship between the ELCA
and the Roman church. Although condemnations are admittedly
distasteful, they are a necessity in certain cases. In Romans 12:9,
St. Paul commands, “Let love be genuine; abhor what is evil, hold
fast to what is good.” This definition of agape needs to be reconsidered
in our age, which confuses absolute tolerance with love.
Condemnations are warning signs placed at strategic spots to
protect the ignorant and naïve—for example, “Beware of dog.”
Forde makes some interesting comments about the eschatological
import of any formulation or discussion of justification.
Here one is reminded of Martin Chemnitz’s words:
It must be diligently considered why the Holy Spirit wanted
to set forth the doctrine of justification by means of judicial
terms. Worldly, secure and Epicurean men think that justification
of the sinner is something easy and perfunctory,
therefore they are not much concerned about sin and do
not sincerely seek reconciliation with God, nor do they
strive with any diligence to retain it. However, the peculiar
nature of the word “justify” shows how weighty and serious
an action before the judgment seat of God the justification
of the sinner is. Likewise, the human mind, inflated with a
Pharisaical persuasion when it indulges in its own private
thoughts concerning righteousness, can easily conceive a
high degree of confidence and trust in its own righteousness.
But when the doctrine of justification is set forth
under the picture of an examination and of the tribunal of
divine judgment, by a court trial, so to say, those Pharisaical
persuasions collapse, vanish, and are cast down. Thus the
true nature of the word “justify” preserves and defends the
purity of the doctrine of justification from Pharisaical
leaven, and from Epicurean opinions (Martin Chemnitz,
Examination of the Council of Trent [St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1971], 1: 476–477; Topic 8, Sec. 1, ii, 10).
The Preface of the Book of Concord explains the issue of the condemnations
best:
With reference to condemnations, censures, and rejections of
false and adulterated doctrine . . . these have to be set forth
expressly . . . that everybody may know that he must guard
himself against them. . . . [W]e mean specifically to condemn
false and seductive doctrines and their stiff-necked
proponents and blasphemers. These we do not by any means
intend to tolerate in our lands, churches, and schools, inasmuch
as such teachings are contrary to the expressed Word
of God and cannot coexist with it (Tappert, 11).
Here is the rub. False doctrine and the Word of God cannot
coexist, therefore there can never be true pluralism in the church.
Although the majority of Martens’s dissertation committee
opined that he had formulated a false dichotomy between the
classical Lutheran view of justification and the plurality of its
historical “expressions,” the sixteenth century confessors would
have felt that his formulation and concerns are justified.
Martin R. Noland
Oak Park, Illinois
FROM ARROWHEAD TO AUGSBURG
Craig A. Parton, a lawyer in the Santa Barabara, California, area,
has been composing some very timely and poignant pieces that
would distinguish Lutheranism from mainstream Protestantism.
His title refers to Arrowhead Stadium, a place typical of Bill Bright’s
crusades, and Augsburg, where the steadfast Lutheran confession was
made. The following is an excerpt from an article by the same title
found in the quarterly journal for church leadership Reformation &
Revival 5 (Winter 1996), pages 82–94. Check out the entire article!
Bill Bright is president of perhaps the largest evangelical “parachurch”
ministry in the world—Campus Crusade for Christ.
Recently Mr. Bright informed those who read his “Bright Side”
newsletter that he and others in the Crusade leadership would
embark on a forty-day vigil of fasting and prayer. Friends and
supporters were urged to send prayer requests.
After forty days of denial, the long expected report came. Others
within the circle of Campus Crusade leadership, such as vicepresident
Steve Douglass, according to the “Bright Side,” got
“into the Jet Stream of what Bill was praying for . . . .” And what
did the “Jet Stream” of the Lord reveal to Dr. Bright
Well, I’m personally still a bit unclear what the Jet Stream did
say, at least initially. Of greater importance is what the God of the
Burning Bush, who terrorized Moses, Isaiah, and Luther with His
holiness, whose Word leveled Saul of Tarsus to the ground, whose
law demands perfect obedience to all His commandments, did
not say to Bill Bright. The Jet Stream did not speak to Bill Bright
about his sin. Didn’t need to. As Bright put it in the “Bright Side,”
“Since I learned how to breathe spiritually many years ago, I
frankly do not have that much to confess.”
Let me see if I’ve understood correctly After enough years of
“spiritual breathing” your sins decrease. One enters an experience
where sins of heart, word and deed (of both commission
and omission) are numerically reduced.
Bill Bright’s approach to the Christian life appears to be,
strangely enough, classically medieval. Only certain terms are
altered; the content remains thoroughly Roman. The “ladders of

68 LOGIA
ascent” (prayer, fasting, penance, etc.) developed by the monastic
orders in great detail during the Middle Ages (and which were well
known and practiced aggressively by the young Luther) now reappear
in our day under different phrases like “spiritual breathing.”
Luther, however, provided an entirely different answer to questions
of sin:
Thou, my Lord Jesus, art my Righteousness; I am Thy sin.
Thou has taken from me what is mine and given me what is
Thine. Thou hast become what Thou wert not and madest
me to be what I was not. Beware your ceaseless striving after
a righteousness so great that you no longer appear as a sinner
in your own eyes, and do not want to be a sinner. For Christ
dwells only in sinners. (See C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction
Between Law and Gospel, tr. W. H. T. Dau, p. 110,
St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1929.)
Bill Bright and other victorious life teachers of the past century
say that over the course of your life you should succeed in slaying
more and more sins through “spiritual breathing” and other such
ladders. Luther, on the other hand, came to actually welcome his
sins in one sense, allowing them to drive him daily to Christ, the
“only ladder of God.” (See Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets,
St. Louis ed., XX, esp. p. 199ff.) The Christian life, wrote Luther, is
a life of continual repentance. Luther’s search ended with finding
a Christ ready to save even the sinning Christian. Luther discovered
that Christ had no interest in, and offers nothing to, righteous
people. It is not surprising then that the old Lutheran service of
the Divine Word requires the confession of sin in the first sentence
of public worship in the service.
WORSHIP AT LUTHER CAMPUS
The following declaration and appeal was made by the faculty of
Luther Campus, Adelaide, Australia in March of 1995. It testifies
admirably to the Divine Service as the work of God. There are still
phrases that would grant some gainsayers their point that worship
is something we do for God and for others—and the fourteenth
statement betrays the outcome of such tendencies.
Christian worship glorifies the name of our Triune God; it builds
up the faithful; and it expresses our unity in the faith. On the
basis of these convictions, and with the welfare of the church at
heart we make the following declaration and appeal to the pastors
and people of our church.
1. Christian public worship takes place in the presence of God,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; we are present in the
heavenly sanctuary of the Triune God. The Heavenly Father
offers the riches of his grace in Jesus Christ through the working
of the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Spirit we approach the
Father through and with the Son. The Spirit leads and empowers
us in our response to God’s presence and activity.
2. Christ leads us in our worship. He invites and brings us into
the holy presence of the Father. He mediates the Father’s forgiveness
and grace through his word and sacrament. This releases the
pastor from being a liturgical performer, from carrying the
liturgy, and from having to create worship.
3. So Christian public worship is something different from the
everyday. It takes us into the realm of the sacred. The holy God
shares his holiness with his people. We are invited into the presence
of the Holy One, and we approach with our shoes off, as it
were. We worship with an awareness of the tremendous mystery
which is at the heart of Christian worship. The liturgical bearing
of the pastor, the clear demarcation of sacred space, and the
drama of the liturgy itself all present a clear message that we are
in the presence of the holy God. This is the time and place for
reverence, awe, and wonder.
4. The heart of worship is God’s own service to God’s people.
Worship is always divine service, because in worship God serves
us. Divine service is God at work, giving to us as he forgives,
renews, sanctifies, blesses, empowers, and equips us for service.
What God requires of us before all else is a listening ear, receiving
hands, and a believing heart. In worship we hungry beggars
come to be filled.
5. Christian worship is itself a gift of God. It is not a human
invention. It has biblical warrants and foundations It centres on
the spoken and acted word of God as revealed in the Scriptures.
It obeys the Lord’s own instructions to baptise, to preach, to
teach, to absolve, to eat and to drink, to bring offerings, to give
thanks, and to pray. It speaks the language of the Scriptures, not
only in sermon and sacrament but also in the responses, acclamations,
cries for help, prayers of the liturgy, psalms, hymns and
spiritual songs. These link us with the people of God of both the
Old and New Testaments, whose worship is a guide and model
for us. Our worship is thus biblical, even though its order is not
fixed by any biblical prescriptions.
6. We are not the first people to whom God gave the gift of
worship. Rather we follow in a long line of faithful men and
women who recognised that worship was not their creation but
a gift from God to be received with joy and handed on with
integrity to the next generation. When we worship we confess
our oneness with God’s people in all times and in all places. The
catholic nature of worship helps us see that it happens in a context
which is far broader than our own time and space knowledge
and understanding.
7. In worship we join not only with God’s people of all times
and places, but also with the angels in offering praise to our gracious
God. We join with the heavenly hosts in celebrating the
mighty acts of God, and we anticipate the time when the whole
of creation will perfectly adore God in heavenly glory.
8. Thus our worship happens in this world, but its content,
language, and participants are never only of this world. Our worship
is culturally specific, so that all are addressed as saint and
sinner in their cultural context. Yet our worship is transcultural
and it transcends all cultures. In worship, heaven and earth meet.
9. What we do in worship is given to us by God. The particular
way we worship is determined by such factors as the patterns we
have received from our mothers and fathers in the faith; what is
theologically right; what is ritually effective; what is culturally
appropriate; and what is suitable in view of local conditions and
circumstances.

LOGIA FORUM 69
10. Our worship says what we believe. What we believe determines
how we worship. The language and actions of the liturgy
publicly express and enact our common faith. Our worship is
therefore Christian, and confessionally Lutheran. What we confess
as Lutherans determines how we worship as Lutherans. What
is preached from the pulpit is enacted in the liturgy Our worship
is therefore of such a nature that others who share our confession
know at once that they are one in faith and confession with us,
and so may confidently participate in full unity of faith.
11. Our worship is intentionally evangelical. Our liturgy deals
with the reality of sin, so that the sinner is addressed by both law
and gospel, both of which do what they say: kill and make alive,
wound and heal In the liturgy of word and sacrament, God gives
us his gracious, healing and saving gifts. Our faith does not create
the gifts; it simply receives them.
12. Public worship is personal, but not individualistic. Every
aspect of divine service corporate. All are addressed as sinners
and saints. All are reassured that they belong to the baptised family
of God. All are built up through word and sacrament into the
body of Christ. All are united in common adoration, in confession
of their faith, in thanksgiving, and in prayer.
13. Our corporate worship is public witness to the world, not
a private act. It is done in public view and with the public in
view. In our ministry of priestly intercession we bring the world
to God, and through his ministry to us, God authorises and
equips us to bring him in all his saving mercy to the world.
14. In worship we offer God the best we have to offer. We use
the best words and the best forms, the best music and the best
arts. Only the best is appropriate in the divine service in which
God gives us his best.
These, then, are the principles which guide our worship on
Luther Campus. It is our hope and prayer that these principles
will be affirmed by the whole church and followed by its pastors
as they initiate God’s people into the divine liturgy.
CRAZY TALK, STUPID TALK
Goethe once commented, “One should, each day, try to hear a little
song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it is possible, speak a
few reasonable words.” From radio and television hosts to church consultants
and pastoral conference presenters, we hear a lot of religious
talk—not all of which is particularly reasonable. In his book Crazy
Talk, Stupid Talk, Neil Postman discusses the semantic environment
in which we find ourselves. A “verbal empire of intricate dimension”
is being built by many people in our congregations today that threatens
to move our churches into a kind of behavior that would have
been deemed crazy not all that long ago. Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk by
Neil Postman (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1976), pages 3–5.
Stupidity is words. It is not something people “possess,” like their
kidneys. Stupidity is something we speak, sentences that do not
“make sense” or are self-defeating. We may speak such sentences
to others or only to ourselves. But the point is that stupidity is
something we do with our larynx.
What our larynx does is controlled by the way we manage our
minds. No one knows, of course, what “mind” is and there are
even those who think it wise to avoid discussing it altogether. But
this much we can say: The main stuff of the mind is sentences.
“Minding” and “languaging” are, for all practical purposes, one
and the same. When we are thinking, we are mostly arranging
sentences in our heads. When we are thinking stupid, we are
arranging stupid sentences.
I will go so far as to say that the entire subject matter of stupidity
is encompassed by the study of our ways of talking. Even when we
do a nonverbal stupid thing, like smoking a cigarette (one of my
own cherished stupidities), we have preceded the act by talking to
ourselves in such a way as to make it appear reasonable. One might
say that stupid talk is the generative act from which all the Higher
Stupidities flow. The word, in a word, brings forth the act.
Moreover, stupidity is something of a linguistic achievement.
It does not, I believe, come naturally to us. We must learn how
to do it, and practice how to do it. Naturally, once having learned
and practiced it, we find it difficult, possibly painful, to forget
how to do it. Speaking, after all, is a habit, and habits, by definition,
are hard to break.
Craziness is much the same thing. Crazy behavior is produced
by our generating certain kinds of sentences which we have nurtured
and crown to love. When, for example, Lynnette Fromme
was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to assassinate
Gerald Ford, she said, “I want [Charles] Manson out. I want a
world of peace.” Considering the hideous circumstances by
which Manson came to be imprisoned, and considering what
most people mean by “peace,” you might say that Ms. Fromme
exhibited an almost wondrous creativity in putting those two
sentences together. We can fairly assume that she sees a connection
between them. There are, no doubt, several unspoken sentences
by which she has formed a bridge between Manson and
peace. Even further, there must be still more sentences by which
she connects Manson and peace to the assassination of Ford.
Crazy acts are not illogical to those who do them. But the point is
that in order to do them, you must first build a verbal empire of
intricate dimension. A great deal of crazy talk must be processed
before assassination will appear as a reasonable thing to do.
UPPER STORY LANDING
A Review of Upper Story Landing compact disc by Jeffery Neal
Larson and The Scent of a Flower We Know cassette tape by Jeffery
Neal Larson. Order from Jeffery Larson, 37645 Farwell Drive, Fremont,
CA 94536.
Some years ago Solzhenitsyn, at that time an exile from “godless
communism,” characterized western culture as “a world split
apart” from its Christian roots. Indeed we are. Cut off from solid
moorings in the eternal verities of God, our world has gradually
been emptied of values, increasingly adrift on a sea of subjective
human feeling. Few contemporary artists have the moral
courage, the spiritual depth, and the intellectual integrity to look

70 LOGIA
into our chaotic times and speak the truth. Still fewer have the
artistic ability to translate eternal Truth into contemporary
dialect without compromise.
The work of Jeffery Neal Larson is a refreshing exception. Jeff,
an LCMS layman from Fremont, California, brings theological
perception to artistic endeavor. Adept in both the visual and
musical arts, Jeff is equally adept at pen and ink as at guitar and
microphone. His work in both media is shaped by the incarnational
dimensions of the Lutheran Reformation.
In his Christian pilgrimage, Jeff sought spiritual direction
deeper and more solid than the fluff served up by current American
spirituality. He found that depth and reality in the writings
of Martin Luther. A self-taught scholar, Jeff is an avid collector
of Luther biographies and an ardent student of the Reformer’s
original works.
His fascination with the Lutheran Reformation is perhaps
most apparent in his graphic art. Working in the medium of ink
and watercolor, Jeff reflects for our own generation something
of the clarity and simple complexity of the woodcuts of Dürer
and Cranach. His drawings may be found as the core illustrations
in the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau prayer book series,
For All the Saints.
Recently a Dutch recording company released Jeff’s first CD,
Upper Story Landing. It contains seventeen of his original songs,
some of them recorded in live performance. Larson’s style is both
musically intricate and artistically compelling. Ranging from ballad-like
simplicity to the driving rhythms of rock, Jeff’s secular
songs are undergirded with the same Lutheran conviction as his
religious art: namely, that all the arts should be used in the service
of the God who gave them—in the service of truth, that is.
Whether portraying the complex pain of a broken heart or the
enigmatic joys of romantic love, Jeff’s music aptly describes our
turbulent times, yet with an air of solid confidence. Here is an
artist who truly knows how to redeem the time, though the days
be evil. This is First Article music, describing the reality of things
as they are, be that beauty or pain. Here is musical testimony to
Köberle’s maxim: “Whosoever has looked into the heart of God
through His son, may look upon His face in His creation” (Adolf
Köberle, The Quest for Holiness [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing
House, 1936], 132).
Take, for example, the unflinching honesty of “Broken Fallen
World:”
shattered is the looking glass
empty are the why’s we ask
in a broken fallen world
harken to a better day
romanticize the truth away
and you can’t even feel
what is truth the poets ask
ideas lost and answers cast
finding what is real
victories of the hard and wise
can win amongst the many cries
of a broken fallen world
somewhere in the midst of pain
a candle burns in the rain
of a broken fallen world
This is honest music. “Christian Contemporary Music,” it’s
not. But Christian it is. Luther’s dictum rejects the saccharine
hypocrisy of those who call good evil and evil good: “A theologian
of the cross calls a thing what it actually is.” Jeff Larson is a
troubadour of truth, hence a true theologian of the cross.
His theology is more obvious in The Scent of a Flower We Know.
In this, his first venture into spiritual song, Larson provides us
with eight original compositions ranging from a happy guitar
romp in “The Cheerful Garden” (inspired by Luther’s letter to his
son Hans about the joys of paradise) to the ethereal sonority of
“Angels of Heaven.” For good measure, Jeff adds a sprinkling of
Luther’s hymns: a lute-like instrumental blend of “From Heaven
Above” and “A Mighty Fortress” as well as a compelling vocal setting
of “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word” in which Jeff
superimposes a Gregorian tonality on his own vocal style.
Jeff’s original tunes are appealing, though probably not workable
for congregational singing. But then, this music is not composed
as hymnody, but as contemplative prayer. And on that level,
this music succeeds admirably in both its theological integrity and
meditative quality. Included are songs on sacramental themes:
“Water and the Word” and “In, With, and Under” as well as a
haunting original setting of Luther’s favorite Psalm: “I Shall Not
Die but Live.” My own favorite is “Salvation unto Us Has Come,”
a ballad-like meditation on the person and work of Christ. Here
at last is music of integrity that sings timeless truth in contemporary
tones. M.A.D./Embryo will release the material from this tape
plus some of Jeff’s newer spiritual compositions on compact disc
as The Scent of a Flower we Know, vols. 1 and 2, in March of this
year (CD NCompass Music BMI 1996).
No stranger to the “style-substance” debates of our day, Jeff
offers the following perspective on his work: “I came from a
depressed, not to mention iconoclastic, evangelical church life.
It was the beauty and the structure of liturgical worship that
attracted me to Lutheranism and its theology. Today many Liturgical
churches are moving to a more praise oriented gathering and
forsaking much of the beauty and theological depth of their heritage.
Sadly, the saying is true that we are what we sing! Sadly as
well, those of us who lament this fact are the first to close the door
on new offerings of music rather than nurturing its progress.”
Despite his artistic vitality and theological vigor, Larson has
been reluctant to try his hand at liturgical music. In this
reviewer’s opinion, he has not yet provided us with music fit for
Divine Service. But it is music in service of the divine, and that
is reason enough for us all to urge him on.
The cassette jacket (embellished with Larson’s own drawing
of Luther’s coat of arms) provides Jeff’s rationale:
The “Flower” is the Lutheran church, the “Scent” is hopefully
the hint of what this music hopes to achieve. My main intention
with this project is to encourage those of us who are
Christians, Lutheran or otherwise, as well as musicians and
artists, to begin work in these areas once again. In doing this
we will hopefully be able to take things one step further concerning
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19).
Also appended is the following wry wit from Luther’s own
pen: “We sing as well as we can here at table and afterward. If we

LOGIA FORUM 71
make a few blunders, it is really not your fault but our ability,
which is still very slight even if we have sung (the piece) over two
or three times.” To this Larson adds his own “Amen.” We do, too,
Jeff. Keep on singing!
Harold L. Senkbeil
Elm Grove, Wisconsin
DIDACHE TODAY
Over the years, the Rev. John T. Pless has developed an adult
catechetical work. He refers to his catechetical sessions at University
Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis by the name Didache in
accord with the doctrinal corpus of early Christian church that
bears the same name.
This work continues in the same apostolic tradition by bringing
together the Scriptures, liturgy, and hymnody together with
Luther’s Small Catechism to teach the Christian faith. It is now
published as a fifty-eight page workbook and is available to those
who would like copies.
Copies of Didache may be ordered for $5.00 plus postage ($1.50
for one copy; $2.00 for 2–4 copies, $3.00 for 5 or more copies).
Send your order along with your check to University Lutheran
Chapel, 1101 University Ave. SE, Minneapolis MN 55414. Payment
must accompany order.
CLERGY KILLERS
From Restoring the Soul of a Church: Healing Congregations
Wounded by Clergy Sexual Misconduct, Nancy Myer Hopkins
and Mark Laaser, editors. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, pages
79–81. The descriptions found in this citation may seem so characteristic
of some parishes that readers might begin to imagine clergy
sexual misconduct behind the scenes of many troubled congregations.
Such intimations could easily be more harmful than helpful.
Whatever the root cause might be in such clergy-killer congregations,
how do you think such situations should be handled Is some
sociological method likely to be the solution What about the proper
distinction and application of law and gospel
The bishop shook his head as he walked to his car. It had been a
long meeting with the lay council of Faith Church, where they
had just lost their third pastor in five years. Clearly, there were
some tenacious patterns in the congregation’s life. Somewhere
within those patterns, the bishop thought, was a circumstance,
an issue, a dynamic that would explain the rapid turnover of pastors.
The bishop mentally reviewed the congregation’s recent history,
beginning with the first premature pastoral departure.
After the first pastor left, one of the bishop’s staff did the
vacancy consultation and heard a long recitation of the faults of
the departed pastor. They had to get rid of this pastor—he was
never in the office, never made house calls, preached terrible sermons,
was too liberal, spent too much time on community
issues, didn’t return phone calls quickly enough, and had gravely
offended some of the pillars of the congregation by his sympathetic
posture about AIDS. The litany of complaints sounded
legitimate if a bit exaggerated. Although the members of the lay
council had diverse opinions as to the deficiencies of Pastor One,
all agreed that a new pastor would make the difference.
A second pastor was called. Within a year, word was out that
Pastor Two was too scholarly, preached too long, was not a
warm person, didn’t pay attention to the older members,
couldn’t get people to give enough money, and made too many
changes in the worship. Besides, she was too young. She spent
too much time with her family. In fact, there was speculation
that she had serious marital troubles—the family seemed to
need quite a lot of time and attention. They needed an experienced
pastor, someone who knew how to work with older members,
someone who was more traditional. Someone who was
more the “old time” model of a pastor—always available, always
generous with his time.
The bishop recalled an exit interview he had held with Pastor
Two, who reported episodes of obstructionism, back stabbing,
and power plays. People made decisions and did things without
any communication. She had come to the church one day to
find that the locks had been changed without anyone’s knowledge.
Inquiring about that, she was told that “there seemed to
be some strangers hanging around outside the church, so we
just called a locksmith to take care of it.” There were secret
meetings to gather criticism from the older members, open
hostility to any discussion of new ideas, and veiled references
to a long-ago pastor who was so warm and friendly that everyone
in the community spoke of him fondly. Pastor Two
lamented that people would complain about not being visited
in the hospital, but their hospital admissions were never
reported to the church office.
In the face of criticism about pastor skill, Pastor Two was
bewildered. These folks seemed to have no trust of clergy. Without
trust, pastoral care was impossible. People withheld from the
pastor any of the life issues that pastoral care addresses. The
bishop remembered Pastor Two’s desperate search for another
post: “I have to get out of this church before I lose all sense of my
own gifts and skills. I’m already feeling at the end of my rope and
my family is tired of seeing me beaten up.”
When Pastor Two left and Pastor Three was called, there was
much enthusiasm. Here at last was the person who would get
this congregation moving. The honeymoon period lasted almost
two years. During the third year, the congregation quietly
slipped into isolation. No one represented the parish at the
Annual Missions Fair held each year. The pastor stopped going
to denominational gatherings. Attendance began to fall. People
would make and then break commitments to various parish
projects and activities. The long-time secretary quit, complaining
that people expected her to do everything. No material was
turned in for a monthly newsletter except for the items written
by the pastor.
An unsuccessful stewardship campaign yielded a bare-bones
budget, barely enough to cover the pastor’s salary and the building
utilities. The only energy in the congregation came from a

72 LOGIA
small group of people who clamored for a new pastor; someone
who would bring in new families, get church programs running
again, put out a more interesting newsletter, and bring back some
of those generous donors who had drifted away.
At that point, denominational staff suggested a consultation
process. But the congregation insisted that nothing was wrong
with them. Those fancy high-priced consultants with their
newsprint and psychobabble Not for them! They just needed to
get the right pastor in there, someone who would inspire them.
They only wanted the denomination to get them some good
names for their search process, not the kind of weak pastors they
had seen before. Why did the denomination keep suggesting
their inadequate clergy to them
The bishop shook his head again as he eased his car out of the
parking lot. This place was a “clergy-killer.” They seemed like nice
people. They sounded sincere. One at a time, the members were
talented, gracious, and bright. But when they got together in a
group, they alternated between hopelessness and a state of organizational
chaos that made every decision, however small, a battle
of wills. Why do some congregations seem to chew up and
spit out their clergy And why do some congregations persist in
self-defeating patterns that endure over several pastorates
There are many subtle and complex reasons why congregations
are “clergy-killers” or seem to suffer from tenacious patterns
of organizational chaos. The surrounding community
may have experienced a significant transition (e.g. flood, fire),
possibly abrupt and traumatic. It may be that the congregation
itself was born in anger, a breakaway group that had left to
establish itself in protest. Perhaps a powerful family’s iron grip
on the church has stifled its creativity. There may have been
denominational upheavals that left the congregation depleted
and battle weary. A too-ambitious project may have failed, leaving
people embarrassed or burned out. Or patterns of conflict
avoidance may have settled in, causing an accumulation of bad
feelings that festered under a veneer of artificial congeniality.
When these factors are part of the congregation’s history, people
will usually be able to point to them and discuss them without
much anxiety.
But for some congregations, a pattern of organizational distress
and anticlericalism is rooted in a painful, unacknowledged
secret that has been hovering invisibly within the congregation.
Like radioactive waste, the toxin of the secret infects the organization,
sapping energy, distorting perceptions, and scrambling
normal life processes. Like radioactive waste the toxin works at
an imperceptible level, showing its effects cumulatively and over
the long term. And like radioactive waste, it eludes detection
until someone with astute diagnostic skills (and more than a little
courage) considers the possibility that is so hard to talk about—
that there is a history of sexual misconduct that was never
acknowledged, never resolved.

The Angels Are Aware . . . and We Are Too, Paul R. Harris, 4:1, 21
Angels Unaware, Paul R. Harris, 3:1, 35
Atonement Motifs in the Formula of Concord, Paul Lehninger, 4:3, 3
The Authority of Scripture: Luther’s Approach to Allegory in
Galatians, Timothy H. Maschke, 4:2, 25
Baptism in the New Testament, Clarence Priebbenow, 4:3, 49
Bible Hermeneutics and Modern Linguistics, Mark E. Sell, 4:2, 3
Called and Ordained: Reflections on the New Testament View of
the Office of the Ministry, William Weinrich, 2:1, 20
Catechesis for Life in the Royal Priesthood, John T. Pless, 3:4, 3
The Christian Philosophy and the Christian Religion, Martin R.
Noland, 4:2, 43
Church and Ministry Part I: Exegetical and Historical Treatment,
Jobst Schöne, 2:1, 4
Church and Ministry Part II: Systematic Formulation, Jobst
Schöne, 2:2, 35
The Church and the Word of God, Hermann Sasse, (Matthew
Harrison, trans.)2:4, 9
Church Fellowship and Altar Fellowship in the Light of Church History,
Martin Wittenberg, (John Bruss, trans.), 1:1, 23
The Church in AC VII: An Exegetical Overview, Randy Asburry,
5:3, 45
Church Music at the Close of the Twentieth Century: The Entanglement
of Sacred and Secular, Richard C. Resch, 2:2, 21
The Church’s Confession, Hermann Sasse, (Matthew
Harrison, trans.), 1:1, 5
The Church: Hospital or Gymnasium, Ken Schurb, 1:1, 17
The Church-State Relationship and Augustana XVI in the Writings
of C. F. W. Walther and S. S. Schmucker, James D. Heiser, 5:2, 5
Commemoration Sermon for Dr. Robert D. Preus, David P. Scaer,
5:3, 9
Communion in Holy Things in the Old Testament , Alan
Ludwig, 5:1, 5
Concerning Church Fellowship, The Church of the Lutheran
Confession, 1961, 5:1, 41
Conditional Forgiveness and the Translation of 1 John 1:9, John M.
Moe, 3:1, 11
Confessing the Faith in the Language of America, David Jay Webber,
4:3, 39
A Confessional Lutheran Encounters American Religion: The Case
of Friedrich C. D. Wyneken, David A. Gustafson, 2:3, 44
Confessional Lutheranism versus Philippistic Conservatism, Erling
T. Teigen, 2:4, 32
Index of Articles by Title
Volumes I through V
73
Conversation between Two Lutherans Concerning Church Organization,
Herman Fick, 5:2, 50
Creation ex Nihilo: The Way of God, William C. Weinrich, 4:2, 37
Cybernetics in the Church: The Spiritual Gift of Church Government
and Administration, Hans-Lutz Poetsch, 3:3, 38
Declining Denominational Loyalty, Ken Schurb, 2:4, 45
Divine Service: Delivering Forgiveness of Sins, John T. Pless,
5:4, 23
The Doctrine of Justification and Its Implications for Evangelicalism,
Scott R. Murray, 5:4, 15
Dr. Herman A. Preus: In Memoriam, Robert D. Preus, 4:4, 55
Ecclesia Orans: Letters Addressed to Lutheran Pastors, Hermann
Sasse, 2:2, 28
The ELCA: Its Past, Present, and Future, David A. Gustafson,
5:2, 41
Entrance into the Biblical World: The First and Crucial Cross-
Cultural Move, Dean O. Wenthe, 4:2, 19
Ephesians 4:11‒12 Reconsidered, Philip J. Secker, 5:2 59
The Epiclesis and Lutheran Theology, William E. Thompson, 4:1, 31
Eujaggelisthv": Evangelist, John M. Moe, 2:3, 4
First Corinthians 11:29—“Discerning the Body” and Its Implications
for Closed Communion, Ernie V. Lassman, 3:1, 15
Forgiveness of Sins and Restoration to Office, James A. Nestingen,
2:1, 28
Gender Considerations on the Pastoral Office: In Light of 1 Cor
14:33–36 and 1 Tm 2:8–14, Robert W. Schaibley, 3:2, 45
Grabau and Walther: Theocentric versus Anthropocentric Understanding
of Church and Ministry, Lowell C. Green, 5:2 25
Hermann Sasse and EKiD—1848: The Death of the Lutheran
Church, Matthew Harrison, 4:4, 41
Hermann Sasse and North American Lutheranism, Ronald R.
Feuerhahn, 4:4, 11
Hermann Sasse and the Australian Lutheran Scene, J. T. E.
Renner, 4:4, 37
Hermann Sasse in His Letters, Tom G. A. Hardt, 4:4, 5
The Holy Things for the Holy Ones, Joel A. Brondos, 5:1, 15
How Christ Is Denied, C. F. W. Walther, Trans. John Nordling,
2:3, 49
Hymnody and Liturgy Across Cultures: A Case Study: Papua New
Guinea, Gregory Lockwood, 3:2, 40
“Inerrancy”—The oJmoouvsion of Our Time, John R. Stephenson,
2:4, 4
In Memoriam: Robert David Preus, David P. Scaer, 5:3, 7

74 LOGIA
The Integrity of the Christological Character of the Office of the
Ministry, David P. Scaer, 2:1, 15
Interim Theology and Confessional Integrity, William E.
Thompson, 2:4, 38
J. A. O. Preus, Leigh Jordahl, 5:2 45
Johann Michael Reu’s Conception of the Sunday School, Paul I.
Johnston, 3:4, 25
Johannes Bugenhagen & the Lutheran Mass, Dennis Marzolf, 2:2, 14
The Language of Faith, Burnell F. Eckardt Jr., 4:2, 32
Law and Gospel in Hermann Sasse, Jobst Schöne, 4:4, 25
Law and Gospel: The Lutheran Ethic, Scott Murray, 4:3, 15
The Law and the Gospel in Lutheran Theology, David P. Scaer, 3:1, 27
Law-Gospel Preaching: Giving the Gifts, Timothy Quill, 3:4, 45
Let Us Pray: A Historical Examination of the Collect of the Day,
David P. Saar, 3:3, 13
Liturgical Uniformity in Missouri, Michael Hinrichs, 5:2 15,
Liturgical Worship for Evangelism and Outreach, James Tiefel,
2:3, 28
LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology— An Introduction, LOGIA
Editors, 1:1, 1
Luther Battles the Fanatics, Arnold J. Koelpin, 5:3, 23
Luther on Verbal Inspiration: A Critical Review, Tom G. A. Hardt,
2:4, 15
Luther’s Augustinian Understanding of Justification in the Lectures
on Romans, David Maxwell, 5:4, 9
Lutheran Confessional Optimism after World War II: Hanns Lilje
and Theodore Graebner, Edward A. Engelbrecht, 5:1, 25
Lutheran Hymnody: Is it Possible or Even Necessary Anymore,
Paul J. Grime, 3:2, 8
A Lutheran Strategy for Urban Ministry: Evangelism and the
Means of Grace, Robert W. Schaibley, 2:3, 6
Lutherans and Rome on Justification: “Fundamental Consensus”,
Burnell F. Eckardt Jr., 3:3, 43
Martin Luther on Coming to God from “Below” in Its Implications
for the Church Today, Lowell C. Green, 4:3, 11
Medicine of Immortality and Antidote against Death, Norman E.
Nagel, 4:4, 31
Medicine of Immortality, David G. Schoessow, 4:1, 37
The Method of Meta-Church: The Point of Truth and the Points
that Trouble, Kenneth W. Wieting, 2:3, 14
Music: Gift of God or Tool of the Devil, Richard C. Resch, 3:2, 33
Ne Desperemus, Ronald R. Feuerhahn, 4:4, 3
New Directions, Charles J. Evanson, 4:1, 3
The Office of the Holy Ministry in the Life of the Church: A View
from the Parish, Roger D. Pittelko, 2:1, 33
On American Lutheranism, Hermann Sasse, 4:4, 49
Only Playing Church The Lay Minister and The Lord’s Supper,
Douglas Fusselman, 3:1, 43
The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship, Rick Stuckwicsh, 5:3, 39
The Outer Limits of a Lutheran Piety, Steven A. Hein, 3:1, 4
Patrick Hamilton (1503–1528): A Scottish Reformer with a Timeless
Confession, Bruce W. Adams, 5:4, 43
Paul Gerhardt: Confessional Subscription and the Lord’s Supper,
Gerald Krispin, 4:3, 25
Preaching and Teaching the Creed: The Structures of the Small
Catechism’s Explanations as Guides, Alan Ludwig, 3:4, 11
Preaching on Preaching: Postils, the Predigtamt, and the People in
the Lutheran Reformation, 1546–1600, Patrick T. Ferry, 3:4, 35
Preaching to Preachers: Isaiah 6:1–8, Donald Moldstad, 3:1, 13
Reaching the TV Generation: Meeting the Challenge of Short
Attention Spans, Ken Schurb, 2:3, 22
The “Realist Principle” of Theology, Kurt Marquart, 5:3, 15
Reflections on Lutheran Worship, Classics, and the Te Deum, Carl
P. E. Springer, 5:4, 29
Reflections on the Appropriate Vessels for Consecrating and Distributing
the Precious Blood of Christ, John R. Stephenson,
4:1, 11
Robert David Preus: In Memoriam, 5:1, 3
Robert David Preus: In Memoriam, Wilhelm W. Petersen, 5:3, 11
Robert Preus, Historian of Theology, John Stephenson, 5:3, 13
Selective Fellowship, Hermann Sasse, 5:3, 29
A Sermon on Revelation 7:13‒17, Dr. Robert D. Preus, 5:3, 5
Solus Christus, Daniel Preus, 5:3, 17
The Strict Lutherans, W. J. Mann, 5:2 54
That the Unlearned May Be Taught, Dennis W. Marzolf, 3:2, 4
Toward a Confessional Lutheran Understanding of Liturgy,
John T. Pless, 2:2, 9
The Two-Faced God, Steven Hein, 5:4, 3
Two Sermons on the Holy Supper, Martin Luther from the House
Postil, 1:1, 59
The Uniqueness of the Christian Scriptures: The Scriptures in the
Context of History, Arnold J. Koelpin, 4:2, 13
The Universal Priesthood in the Lutheran Confessions, Erling
Teigen, 1:1, 9
Using the Third Use: Formula of Concord VI and the Preacher’s
Task, Jonathan G. Lange, 3:1, 19
A Victorian Legacy: The Translating of German Hymns, Alan C.
Hoger, 3:2, 18
We All Believe in One True God: Luther’s Liturgical Confession of
the Church’s Continuity of Doctrine ... , Jon D. Vieker,
3:2, 26
What Is Ministry, Bruce Bitter, 3:3, 23
Whose Liturgy Is It, Norman Nagel, 2:2, 4
The Word as Means of Grace, Leiv Aalen, (Charles J. Evanson,
trans.), 2:4, 26
Worship: The Activity of the Trinity, Jim Bushur, 3:3, 3

Index of Articles by Author
Volumes I through V
Aalen, Leiv, The Word as Means of Grace, Charles J. Evanson,
trans., 2:4, 26
Adams, Bruce W., Patrick Hamilton (1503–1528): A Scottish
Reformer with a Timeless Confession, 5:4, 43
Asburry, Randy, The Church in AC VII: An Exegetical Overview,
5:3, 45
Bitter, Bruce, What Is Ministry, 3:3, 23
Brondos, Joel A., The Holy Things for the Holy Ones, 5:1, 15
Bruss, John, trans., Church Fellowship and Altar Fellowship in the
Light of Church History, by Martin Wittenberg, 1:1, 23
Bushur, Jim, Worship: The Activity of the Trinity, 3:3, 3
The Church of the Lutheran Confession, 1961, Concerning
Church Fellowship, 5:1, 41
Eckardt, Burnell F. Jr., Lutherans and Rome on Justification:
“Fundamental Consensus”, 3:3, 43
Eckardt, Burnell F. Jr., The Language of Faith, 4:2, 32
Editors, Robert David Preus: In Memoriam, 5:1, 3
Engelbrecht, Edward A., Lutheran Confessional Optimism after
World War II: Hanns Lilje and Theodore Graebner, 5:1, 25
Evanson, Charles J., New Directions, 4:1, 3
Evanson, Charles J., trans., The Word as Means of Grace by Leiv
Aalen, 2:4, 26
Ferry, Patrick T., Preaching on Preaching: Postils, the Predigtamt,
and the People in the Lutheran Reformation, 1546–1600, 3:4, 35
Feuerhahn, Ronald R., Hermann Sasse and North American
Lutheranism, 4:4, 11
Feuerhahn, Ronald R., Ne Desperemus, 4:4, 3
Fick, Herman, Conversation between Two Lutherans Concerning
Church Organization, 5:2, 50
Fusselman, Douglas, Only Playing Church The Lay Minister and
The Lord’s Supper, 3:1, 43
Green, Lowell C., Martin Luther on Coming to God from “Below”
in Its Implications for the Church Today, 4:3, 11
Green, Lowell C., Grabau and Walther: Theocentric versus Anthropocentric
Understanding of Church and Ministry, 5:2, 25
Grime, Paul J., Lutheran Hymnody: Is it Possible or Even Necessary
Anymore, 3:2, 8
Gustafson, David A., A Confessional Lutheran Encounters American
Religion: The Case of Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken, 2:3, 44
Gustafson, David A., The ELCA: Its Past, Present, and Future, 5:2, 41
Hardt, Tom G. A., Luther on Verbal Inspiration: A Critical
Review, 2:4, 15
Hardt, Tom G. A., Hermann Sasse in His Letters, 4:4, 5
75
Harris, Paul R., Angels Unaware, 3:1, 35
Harris, Paul R., The Angels Are Aware . . . and We Are Too, 4:1, 21
Harrison, Matthew, Hermann Sasse and EKiD—1848: The Death
of the Lutheran Church, 4:4, 41
Harrison, Matthew, trans., The Church and the Word of God, by
Hermann Sasse, 2:4, 9
Harrison, Matthew, trans., The Church’s Confession, by
Hermann Sasse, 1:1, 5
Hein, Steven A., The Outer Limits of a Lutheran Piety, 3:1, 4
Hein, Steven A., The Two-Faced God, 5:4, 3
Heiser, James D., The Church-State Relationship and Augustana XVI
in the Writings of C. F. W. Walther and S. S. Schmucker, 5:2 5
Hinrichs, Michael, Liturgical Uniformity in Missouri, 5:2, 15
Hoger, Alan C., A Victorian Legacy: The Translating of German
Hymns, 3:2, 18
Honig, James, “If Stones Cried Out,” 3:2, 44
Johnston, Paul I., Johann Michael Reu’s Conception of the Sunday
School, 3:4, 25
Jordahl, Leigh, J. A. O. Preus, 5:2, 45
Koelpin, Arnold J., Luther Battles the Fanatics, 5:3, 23
Koelpin, Arnold J., The Uniqueness of the Christian Scriptures:
The Scriptures in the Context of History, 4:2, 13
Krispin, Gerald, Paul Gerhardt: Confessional Subscription and the
Lord’s Supper, 4:3, 25
Lange, Jonathan G., Using the Third Use: Formula of Concord VI
and the Preacher’s Task, 3:1, 19
Lassman, Ernie V., First Corinthians 11:29—“Discerning the
Body” and Its Implications for Closed Communion, 3:1, 15
Lehninger, Paul, Atonement Motifs in the Formula of Concord, 4:3, 3
Lockwood, Gregory, Hymnody and Liturgy Across Cultures: A
Case Study: Papua New Guinea, 3:2, 40
LOGIA Editors, LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology – An
Introduction, 1:1, 1
Ludwig, Alan, Communion in Holy Things in the Old
Testament, 5:1, 5
Ludwig, Alan, Preaching and Teaching the Creed: The Structures
of the Small Catechism’s Explanations as Guides, 3:4, 11
Luther, Martin, Two Sermons on the Holy Supper, 1:1, 59
Mann, W. J., The Strict Lutherans, 5:2, 54
Marquart, Kurt, The “Realist Principle” of Theology, 5:3, 15
Marzol, Dennis, Johannes Bugenhagen and the Lutheran Mass,
2:2, 14
Marzolf, Dennis W., That the Unlearned May Be Taught, 3:2, 4

76 LOGIA
Maschke, Timothy H., The Authority of Scripture: Luther’s
Approach to Allegory in Galatians, 4:2, 25
Maxwell, David, Luther’s Augustinian Understanding of Justification
in the Lectures on Romans, 5:4, 9
Moe, John M., Conditional Forgiveness and the Translation of
1 John 1:9, 3:1, 11
Moe, John M., Eujaggelisthv": Evangelist, 2:3, 4
Moldstad, Donald, Preaching to Preachers: Isaiah 6:1–8, 3:1, 13
Murray, Scott R., The Doctrine of Justification and Its Implications
for Evangelicalism, 5:4, 15
Murray, Scott, Law and Gospel: The Lutheran Ethic, 4:3, 15
Nagel, Norman E., Medicine of Immortality and Antidote against
Death, 4:4, 31
Nagel, Norman, Whose Liturgy Is It, 2:2, 4
Nestingen, James A., Forgiveness of Sins and Restoration to Office,
2:1, 28
Noland, Martin R., The Christian Philosophy and the Christian
Religion, 4:2, 43
Petersen, Wilhelm W., Robert David Preus: In Memoriam, 5:3, 11
Pittelko, Roger D., The Office of the Holy Ministry in the Life of
the Church: A View from the Parish, 2:1, 33
Pless, John T., Catechesis for Life in the Royal Priesthood, 3:4, 3
Pless, John T., Divine Service: Delivering Forgiveness of Sins, 5:4, 23
Pless, John T., Toward a Confessional Lutheran Understanding of
Liturgy, 2:2, 9
Poetsch, Hans-Lutz, Cybernetics in the Church: The Spiritual Gift
of Church Government and Administration, 3:3, 38
Preus, Daniel, Solus Christus, 5:3, 17
Preus, Robert D., A Sermon on Revelation 7:13‒17, 5:3, 5
Preus, Robert D., Dr. Herman A. Preus: In Memoriam, 4:4, 55
Priebbenow, Clarence, Baptism in the New Testament, 4:3, 49
Quill, Timothy, Law-Gospel Preaching: Giving the Gifts, 3:4, 45
Renner, J. T. E., Hermann Sasse and the Australian Lutheran
Scene, 4:4, 37
Resch, Richard C., Church Music at the Close of the Twentieth
Century: The Entanglement of Sacred and Secular, 2:2, 21
Resch, Richard C., Music: Gift of God or Tool of the Devil, 3:2, 33
Saar, David P., Let Us Pray: A Historical Examination of the Collect
of the Day, 3:3, 13
Sasse, Hermann, Ecclesia Orans: Letters Addressed to Lutheran
Pastors, 2:2, 28
Sasse, Hermann, On American Lutheranism, 4:4, 49
Sasse, Hermann, Selective Fellowship, 5:3, 29
Sasse, Hermann, The Church and the Word of God, trans.,
Matthew Harrison, 2:4, 9
Sasse, Hermann, The Church’s Confession, trans., Matthew
Harrison, 1:1, 5
Scaer, David P., Commemoration Sermon for Dr. Robert D.
Preus, 5:3, 9
Scaer, David P., In Memoriam: Robert David Preus, 5:3, 7
Scaer, David P.., The Integrity of the Christological Character of
the Office of the Ministry, 2:1, 15
Scaer, David P., The Law and the Gospel in Lutheran Theology,
3:1, 27
Schaibley, Robert W., A Lutheran Strategy for Urban Ministry:
Evangelism and the Means of Grace, 2:3, 6
Schaibley, Robert W., Gender Considerations on the Pastoral
Office: In Light of 1 Cor 14:33–36 and 1 Tm 2:8–14, 3:2, 45
Schoessow, David G., Medicine of Immortality, 4:1, 37
Schöne, Jobst, Church and Ministry Part I: Exegetical and
Historical Treatment, 2:1, 4
Schöne, Jobst, Church and Ministry Part II: Systematic
Formulation, 2:2, 35
Schöne, Jobst, Law and Gospel in Hermann Sasse, 4:4, 25
Schurb, Ken, Declining Denominational Loyalty, 2:4, 45
Schurb, Ken, Reaching the TV Generation: Meeting the Challenge
of Short Attention Spans An Interview Moderated, 2:3, 22
Schurb, Ken, The Church: Hospital or Gymnasium, 1:1, 17
Secker, Philip J., Ephesians 4:11‒12 Reconsidered, 5:2, 59
Sell, Mark E., Bible Hermeneutics and Modern Linguistics, 4:2, 3
Springer, Carl P. E., Reflections on Lutheran Worship, Classics,
and the Te Deum, 5:4, 29
Stephenson, John R., “Inerrancy”—The oJmoouvsion of Our
Time, 2:4, 4
Stephenson, John R., Reflections on the Appropriate Vessels for
Consecrating and Distributing the Precious Blood of Christ, 4:1, 11
Stephenson, John, Robert Preus, Historian of Theology, 5:3, 13
Stuckwicsh, Rick, The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship, 5:3, 39
Teigen, Erling T., Confessional Lutheranism versus Philippistic
Conservatism, 2:4, 3
Teigen, Erling, The Universal Priesthood in the Lutheran
Confessions, 1:1, 9
Thompson, William E., Interim Theology and Confessional
Integrity, 2:4, 38
Thompson, William E., The Epiclesis and Lutheran Theology, 4:1, 31
Tiefel, James, Liturgical Worship for Evangelism and Outreach,
2:3, 28
Vieker, Jon D., We All Believe in One True God: Luther’s Liturgical
Confession of the Church’s Continuity of Doctrine ..., 3:2,
26
Walther, C. F. W., “How Christ Is Denied”: A Sermon, trans., John
Nordling, 2:3, 49
Webber, David Jay, Confessing the Faith . . . : The Historical Context
. . . of the Henkel Translation of the Book of Concord, 4:3, 39
Weinrich, William C., Creation ex Nihilo: The Way of God, 4:2, 37
Weinrich, William, Called and Ordained: Reflections on the New
Testament View of the Office of the Ministry, 2:1, 20
Wenthe, Dean O., Entrance into the Biblical World: The First and
Crucial Cross-Cultural Move, 4:2, 19
Wieting, Kenneth W., The Method of Meta-Church: The Point of
Truth and the Points that Trouble, 2:3, 14

Index of Book Reviews by Title
After Christendom How the Church Is to Behave if Freedom, Justice,
and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas, Stanley Hauerwas, 5:1, 60
After the Apostles: Christianity in the Second Century, Walter H.
Wagner, 4:4, 70
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, 4:4, 72
An Introduction to Western Rite Orthodoxy, Fr. M. Trigg, ed., 4:2, 63
Anatomy of a Merger: People, Dynamics, and Decisions that
Shaped the ELCA, Edgar R. Trexler, 2:1, 46
Anglican-Orthodox Pilgrimage, F. Billerbeck, ed., 4:2, 63
The Apostles’ Creed: A Faith to Live By, C. E. B. Cranfield, 3:3, 63
Are All Christians Ministers John N. Collins, 4:2, 61
Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World,
John MacArthur Jr., 3:4, 56
Augustine Today, Richard John Neuhaus, ed., 5:2, 72
Battling for the Modern Mind: A Beginner’s Chesterton, Thomas
C. Peters, 4:2, 62
Becoming Orthodox and Coming Home, P. E. Gillquist, ed., 4:2, 63
Beyond Charity: Reformation Initiatives for the Poor, Carter Lindberg,
3:3, 60
Biblical Interpretation: The Only Right Way, David Kuske, 5:2, 66
Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological
Reflection on the Christian Bible, Brevard S. Childs, 3:2, 64
The Book of Acts in its Graeco-Roman Setting, David W. J. Gill
and Conrad Gempf, eds., 4:4, 68
C. F. W. Walther, American Lutheran Pastoral Theology, John M.
Drickamer, trans., 4:2, 65
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 5:1, 66
Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant: A Doctrinal Comparison of Three
Christian Confessions, Gregory L. Jackson, 3:2, 66
Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church, World, and Living
in Between, Stanley Hauerwas, 5:3, 68
Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal (Review Essay), 3:2, 54
“Church Growth” as Mission Paradigm, a Lutheran Assessment,
Kurt Marquart (Review Essay), 3:4, 53
The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline
Theology, N. T. Wright, 2:2, 43
Commentary on Song of Songs, John F. Brug, 5:2, 66
A Common Calling: The Witness of Our Reformation Churches in
North America Today, Keith F. Nickle and Timothy F. Lull,
eds., 3:1, 59
Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 1530–1580,
Robert Kolb, 1:1, 70
Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics: Eschatology, John Stephenson,
2:3, 66
The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction,
Eugene H. Peterson, 4:3, 62
Volumes I through V
77
Counseling at the Cross: Using the Power of the Gospel in Christian
Counseling, H. Curtis Lyon, 4:2, 60
Courageous Churches: Refusing Decline, Inviting Growth, Paul T.
Heinecke, Kent R. Hunter, David S. Luecke, 3:4, 57
Credible Christianity: The Gospel in Contemporary Society, Hugh
Montefiore, 4:4, 74
Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False
Religions, F. Schaeffer, 4:2, 63
Dietrich Bonhoeffer—His Significance for North Americans, Larry
Rasmussen, 3:3, 61
The Doctrine of the Call in the Confessions and Lutheran Orthodoxy,
Robert D. Preus, 2:4, 69
Doing Well and Doing Good, Richard John Neuhaus (Review
Essay), 5:2, 63
Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness, Harold L. Senkbeil, and
Dying to Live: A Study Guide, John T. Pless, 4:2, 57
The Emperor and the Gods, Daniel N. Schowalter, 4:3, 60
Evangelicalism and the Liturgical Movement and Their Effects on
Lutheran Worship, Charles J. Evanson, 2:1, 43
The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth, Uwe
Siemon-Netto, 5:1, 61
The Fatherhood of God from Origen to Athanasius, Peter Widdicombe,
4:1, 59
The Foolishness of God: The Place of Reason in the Theology of
Martin Luther, Siegbert Becker, 1:1, 70
For All the Saints: Changing Perceptions of Martyrdom and Sainthood
in the Lutheran Reformation, Robert Kolb, 2:2, 46
Fortress Introduction to Lutheranism, Eric W. Gritsch, 4:1, 54
The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck,
Abraham J. Malherbe and Wayne A. Meeks, eds., 3:3, 62
Galatians: A Continental Commentary, Dieter Lührmann, 5:3, 67
The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, Peter Jones, 5:2, 68
Gnosticism and the New Testament, Pheme Perkins, 5:2, 68
The Goal of the Gospel: God’s Purpose in Saving You, Philip M.
Bickel and Robert L. Nordlie (Review Essay), 2:1, 41
God and Caesar Revisited, John R. Stephenson, 5:2, ed., 71
God with Us: Pastoral Theology of Matthew’s Gospel, Mark Allan
Powell, 5:1, 65
God’s Word: Today’s Bible Translation That Says What It Means
(Review Essay), 4:4, 61
The Healing Presence: Spiritual Exercises for Healing, Wellness and
Recovery, Thomas A. Droege, 2:1, 45
Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian
Literature, Robert M. Grant, 3:3, 65
The Hilarity of Community, Marva J. Dawn, 3:4, 61
The Hindu Connection: Roots of the New Age, Victor Raj, 5:1, 64

78 LOGIA
The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life, Karl Barth, 4:3, 56
Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology, Gordon W. Lathrop, 3:3, 57
How to Reach Secular People, George G. Hunter, III, 2:3, 65
Hymnal Supplement 1991, Robert J. Batastini and John Ferguson,
eds., 3:2, 63
The Impact of the Reformation, Heiko A. Oberman, 4:4, 66
Is There a Synoptic Problem Eta Linnemann, 3:3, 59
Jonah, James Limburg, 4:3, 60
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, Marva J. Dawn, 3:4, 61
The Land and the Book: An Introduction to the World of the Bible,
Charles R. Page II and Carl A. Volz, 5:2, 69
The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of the Law,
Thomas R. Schreiner, 4:1, 55
The Lord’s Supper in the Theology of Martin Chemnitz, Bjarne W.
Teigen (Review Essay), 2:2, 41
The Lord’s Supper: Toward an Ecumenical Understanding of the
Eucharist, Philippe Larere, 4:4, 71
Luther and Liberation, Walter Altmann, 2:4, 68
Luther’s English Connection: The Reformation Thought of Robert
Barnes and William Tyndale, James McGoldrick, 2:2, 46
Luther, Man Between God and the Devil, Heiko Oberman
(Review Essay), 2:3, 59
Lutheran Worship: History and Practice, Fred L. Precht, ed., 3:4, 61
Lutheranism and Pietism: Essays and Reports 1990, Lutheran Historical
Conference, Vol. 14, Aug. R. Suelflow, ed., 5:3, 64
Lutherans in Crisis: The Question of Identity in the American
Republic, David Gustafson, 2:4, 66
Many Gifts, One Lord, Harley G. Schmidt, 4:1, 59
Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, J. A. O. Preus, trans., 4:2, 64
Martin Luther: Reformer in the Making, Edwin R. Scharf, 2:2, 46
Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional Crisis, John
Tietjen (Review Essay), 1:1, 65
Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament
in Early Christianity, Donald Juel, 3:1, 61
Ministry in the New Testament, David L. Bartlett, 3:3, 64
Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Christian Worldview, Gene
Edward Veith, 3:2, 66
Motivation for Ministry: Perspectives for Every Pastor, Nathan R.
Pope, 3:2, 65
No Other Gospel! Christianity among the World’s Religions, Carl
Braaten (Review Essay), 3:3, 53
No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical
Theology, David F. Wells (Review Essay), 4:1, 48
Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose,
Monk D. Christensen, 4:2, 63
Notes from a Wayfarer: The Autobiography of Helmut Thielicke,
Dawid R. Law, 5:4, 52
On Being Christian, Henry P. Hamann, 4:1, 56
One Ministry Many Roles: Deacons and Deaconesses through the
Centuries, Jeannine E. Olson, 3:1, 60
The Ongoing Feast: Table Fellowship and Eschatology at Emmaus,
Arthur A. Just Jr., 4:1, 50
The Other Song Book, David Anderson, comp. (Review Essay) 5:1, 55
The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship: Reclaiming Our Heritage
of Diversity, David S. Luecke, 5:3, 64
Pastoral Care and the Means of Grace, Ralph Underwood, 3:1, 58
Patriarchal Politics and Christoph Kress 1484–1535, Jonathan W.
Zophy, 2:4, 67
Paul Schneider: The Witness of Buchenwald, Rudolf Wentorf,
(Franklin Sanders, trans.), 4:1, 57
The Politics of Prayer: Feminist Language and the Worship of God,
Helen Hull Hitchcock, ed., 4:4, 73
Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporaty Thought
and Culture, Gene Edward Veith Jr., 4:1, 52
Preach the Gospel: A Textook for Homiletics, Joel Gerlach and
Richard Balge, 4:3, 58
Prepare Your Church for the Future, Carl George (Review Essay),
2:4, 61
Proclamation: Advent/Christmas, William H. Willimon, 3:4, 59
Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship,
Leslie Newbigin, 5:4, 50
Raising Up a Faithful Priest: Community and Priesthood in Biblical
Theology, Richard D. Nelson, 3:4, 63
Rechtfertigung und Schöpfung in der Theologie Werner Elerts,
Sigurjón Arni Eyjólfsson, (Review Essay), 4:2, 51
Reformed Reader: A Sourcebook in Christian Theology, George
Stroup, ed., 5:1, 59
Remembering the Christian Past, Robert L. Wilken, 5:4, 49
The Revelation of John: A Continental Commentary, Jürgen
Roloff, (John E. Alsup, trans.), 4:3, 57
Salt, Light, and Signs of the Times: An Intimate Look at the Life
and Times of Alfred Rip Rehwinkel, Ronald W. Stelzer, 4:3, 59
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll, 5:1, 63
Scripture within Scripture, Bruce G. Schuchard, 2:3, 66
The Second Martin: The Life and Theology of Martin Chemnitz,
J. A. O. Preus (Review Essay), 4:3, 53
Sermon Texts, Ernst H. Wendland, ed., 4:4, 67
Speaking the Truth in Love to Mormons, Mark J. Cares, 3:4, 59
St. Paul at the Movies: The Apostle’s Dialogue with American
Culture, Robert Jewett, 4:3, 61
Studies in the Augsburg Confession, John Meyer, 5:3, 66
Teaching God’s Children His Teaching: A Guide for the Study of
Luther’s Catechism, Robert Kolb, 2:1, 44
Testing the Boundaries: Windows to Lutheran Identity, Charles P.
Arand (Review Essay), 5:3, 61
Themes and Variations for a Christian Doxology, Hughes
Oliphant Old, 2:3, 64
A Theology of the New Testament, George Eldon Ladd, 4:3, 55
Transforming Congregations for the Future, Loren B. Mead, 5:4,
50
Translating the Bible: An Evaluation of the New Revised Standard
Version (NRSV) (Review Essay), 3:1, 55
Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard,
Dennis Tamburello, 5:2, 70
Vogel’s Cross Reference and Index to the Contents of Luther’s
Works, Heinrich J. Vogel, 2:2, 46
What Is Liturgical Theology A Study in Methodology, David W.
Fagerberg, (Review Essay), 5:4, 45
Why Catholics Can’t Sing, Thomas Day, 2:1, 43
The Word Goes On: Sermons by Dr. Siegbet W. Becker, James P.
Becker, compiler, 5:3, 65
Worship in Transition: The Liturgical Movement in the Twentieth
Century, John Fenwick and Bryan Spinks, 5:4, 48
Worship: Adoration and Action, D. A. Carson, ed., 4:2, 59

Index of Book Reviews by Author
Altmann, Walter, Luther and Liberation, 2:4, 68
Anderson, David, compiler, The Other Song Book (Review
Essay), 5:1, 55
Arand, Charles P., Testing the Boundaries: Windows to Lutheran
Identity (Review Essay), 5:3, 61
Barth, Karl, The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life, 4:3, 56
Bartlett, David L., Ministry in the New Testament, 3:3, 64
Batastini, Robert J. and Ferguson, John, eds., Hymnal Supplement
1991, 3:2, 63
Becker, James P., compiler, The Word Goes On: Sermons by Dr.
Siegbet W. Becker, 5:3, 65
Becker, Siegbert, The Foolishness of God: The Place of Reason in
the Theology of Martin Luther, 1:1, 70
Bickel, Philip M. and Nordlie, Robert L., The Goal of the Gospel:
God’s Purpose in Saving You (Review Essay), 2:1, 41
Billerbeck, F., ed., Anglican-Orthodox Pilgrimage, 4:2, 63
Braaten, Carl, No Other Gospel! Christianity among the World’s
Religions (Review Essay), 3:3, 53
Brug, John F., Commentary on Song of Songs, 5:2, 66
Cares, Mark J., Speaking the Truth in Love to Mormons, 3:4, 59
Carson, D. A., ed., Worship: Adoration and Action, 4:2, 59
Childs, Brevard S., Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments:
Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible, 3:2, 64
Christensen, Monk D., Not of This World: The Life and Teaching
of Fr. Seraphim Rose, 4:2, 63
Collins, John N., Are All Christians Ministers, 4:2, 61
Cranfield, C. E. B., The Apostles’ Creed: A Faith to Live By, 3:3, 63
Dawn, Marva J., Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, 3:4, 61
Dawn, Marva J., The Hilarity of Community, 3:4, 61
Day, Thomas, Why Catholics Can’t Sing, 2:1, 43
Drickamer, John M., trans., American Lutheran Pastoral
Theology, C. F. W. Walther, 4:2, 65
Droege, Thomas A., The Healing Presence: Spiritual Exercises for
Healing, Wellness and Recovery, 2:1, 45
Evanson, Charles J., Evangelicalism and the Liturgical Movement
and Their Effects on Lutheran Worship, 2:1, 43
Eyjólfsson, Sigurjón Arni, Rechtfertigung und Schöpfung in der
Theologie Werner Elerts (Review Essay), 4:2, 51
Fagerberg, David W., What Is Liturgical Theology A Study in
Methodology (Review Essay), 5:4, 45
Fenwick, John, and Spingks, Bryan, Worship in Transition: The
Liturgical Movement in the Twentieth Century, 5:4, 48
George, Carl, Prepare Your Church for the Future (Review Essay),
2:4, 61
Gerlach, Joel, and Balge, Richard, Preach the Gospel: A Textook
for Homiletics, 4:3, 58
Volumes I through V
79
Gill, David W. J. and Gempf, Conrad, eds., The Book of Acts in its
Graeco-Roman Setting, 4:4, 68
Gillquist, P. E., ed., Becoming Orthodox and Coming Home, 4:2, 63
Grant, Robert M., Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity
in Early Christian Literature, 3:3, 65
Gritsch, Eric W., Fortress Introduction to Lutheranism, 4:1, 54
Gustafson, David, Lutherans in Crisis: The Question of Identity in
the American Republic, 2:4, 66
Hamann, Henry P., On Being Christian, 4:1, 56
Hauerwas, Stanley, After Christendom How the Church Is to
Behave if Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad
Ideas, 5:1, 60
Hauerwas, Stanley, Christian Existence Today: Essays on Church,
World, and Living in Between, 5:3, 68
Heinecke, Paul T., Hunter, Kent R., Luecke, David S., Courageous
Churches: Refusing Decline, Inviting Growth, 3:4, 57
Hitchcock, Helen Hull, ed., The Politics of Prayer: Feminist Language
and the Worship of God, 4:4, 73
Hunter, George G. III, How to Reach Secular People, 2:3, 65
Jackson, Gregory L., Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant: A Doctrinal
Comparison of Three Christian Confessions, 3:2, 66
Jewett, Robert, St. Paul at the Movies: The Apostle’s Dialogue with
American Culture, 4:3, 61
Jones, Peter, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, 5:2, 68
Juel, Donald, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of
the Old Testament in Early Christianity, 3:1, 61
Just, Arthur A. Jr., The Ongoing Feast: Table Fellowship and
Eschatology at Emmaus, 4:1, 50
Kolb, Robert, Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church,
1530–1580, 1:1, 70
Kolb, Robert, For All the Saints: Changing Perceptions of Martyrdom
and Sainthood in the Lutheran Reformation, 2:2, 46
Kolb, Robert, Teaching God’s Children His Teaching: A Guide for
the Study of Luther’s Catechism, 2:1, 44
Kuske, David, Biblical Interpretation: The Only Right Way, 5:2, 66
Ladd, George Eldon, A Theology of the New Testament, 4:3, 55
Larere, Philippe, The Lord’s Supper: Toward an Ecumenical
Understanding of the Eucharist, 4:4, 71
Lathrop, Gordon W., Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology, 3:3, 57
Law, Dawid R., Notes from a Wayfarer: The Autobiography of Helmut
Thielicke, 5:4, 52
Limburg, James, Jonah, 4:3, 60
Lindberg, Carter, Beyond Charity: Reformation Initiatives for the
Poor, 3:3, 60
Linnemann, Eta, Is There a Synoptic Problem, 3:3, 59

80 LOGIA
Luecke , David S., The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship:
Reclaiming Our Heritage of Diversity, 5:3, 64
Lührmann, Dieter, Galatians: A Continental Commnentary, 5:3, 67
Lyon, H. Curtis, Counseling at the Cross: Using the Power of the
Gospel in Christian Counseling, 4:2, 60
MacArthur, John Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church
Becomes Like the World, 3:4, 56
Malherbe , Abraham J., and Meeks, Wayne A., eds., The Future of
Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck, 3:3, 62
Marquart, Kurt, “Church Growth” as Mission Paradigm, a
Lutheran Assessment (Review Essay), 3:4, 53
McGoldrick, James, Luther’s English Connection: The Reformation
Thought of Robert Barnes and William Tyndale, 2:2, 46
Mead, Loren B., Transforming Congregations for the Future, 5:4,
50
Meyer, John, Studies in the Augsburg Confession, 5:3, 66
Montefiore, Hugh, Credible Christianity: The Gospel in Contemporary
Society, 4:4, 74
Nelson, Richard D., Raising Up a Faithful Priest: Community and
Priesthood in Biblical Theology, 3:4, 63
Neuhaus, Richard John , ed., Augustine Today, 5:2, 72
Neuhaus, Richard John, Doing Well and Doing Good (Review
Essay), 5:2, 63
Newbigin, Leslie, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty
in Christian Discipleship, 5:4, 50
Nickle , Keith F. and Lull, Timothy F., eds., A Common Calling:
The Witness of Our Reformation Churches in North America
Today, 3:1, 59
Noll, Mark, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, 5:1, 63
Oberman, Heiko A., The Impact of the Reformation, 4:4, 66
Oberman, Heiko, Luther, Man Between God and the Devil
(Review Essay), 2:3, 59
Old, Hughes Oliphant, Themes and Variations for a Christian
Doxology, 2:3, 64
Olson, Jeannine E., One Ministry Many Roles: Deacons and Deaconesses
through the Centuries, 3:1, 60
Page, Charles R. II and Volz, Carl A., The Land and the Book: An
Introduction to the World of the Bible, 5:2, 69
Perkins, Pheme, Gnosticism and the New Testament, 5:2, 68
Peters, Thomas C., Battling for the Modern Mind: A Beginner’s
Chesterton, 4:2, 62
Peterson, Eugene H., The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the
Art of Spiritual Direction, 4:3, 62
Pless, John T., Dying to Live: A Study Guide, 4:2, 57
Pope, Nathan R., Motivation for Ministry: Perspectives for Every
Pastor, 3:2, 65
Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 4:4, 72
Powell, Mark Allan, God with Us: Pastoral Theology of Matthew’s
Gospel, 5:1, 65
Precht, Fred L., ed., Lutheran Worship: History and Practice, 3:4, 61
Preus, J. A. O., The Second Martin: The Life and Theology of
Martin Chemnitz (Review Essay), 4:3, 53
Preus, J. A. O., trans., Loci Theologici, Martin Chemnitz, 4:2, 64
Preus, Robert D., Doctrine of the Call in the Confessions and
Lutheran Orthodoxy, 2:4, 69
Raj, Victor, The Hindu Connection: Roots of the New Age, 5:1, 64
Rasmussen, Larry, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—His Significance for
North Americans, 3:3, 61
Roloff, Jürgen, The Revelation of John: A Continental Commentary,
Alsup, John E., trans., 4:3, 57
Sanders, Franklin, trans., Paul Schneider: The Witness of Buchenwald,
Rudolf Wentorf, 4:1, 57
Schaeffer, F., Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the
Age of False Religions, 4:2, 63
Scharf, Edwin R., Martin Luther: Reformer in the Making, 2:2, 46
Schmidt, Harley G., Many Gifts, One Lord, 4:1, 59
Schowalter, Daniel N., The Emperor and the Gods, 4:3, 60
Schreiner, Thomas R., The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline
Theology of the Law, 4:1, 55
Schuchard, Bruce G., Scripture within Scripture, 2:3, 66
Senkbeil, Harold L., Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness,
Harold L. Senkbeil, 4:2, 57
Siemon-Netto, Uwe, The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of
the Shirer Myth, 5:1, 61
Stelzer, Ronald W., Salt, Light, and Signs of the Times: An Intimate
Look at the Life and Times of Alfred Rip Rehwinkel, 4:3, 59
Stephenson, John R., ed., God and Caesar Revisited, 5:2, 71
Stephenson, John R., Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics:
Eschatology, 2:3, 66
Stroup, George, ed., Reformed Reader: A Sourcebook in Christian
Theology, 5:1, 59
Suelflow, Aug. R., ed., Lutheranism and Pietism: Essays and
Reports 1990, Lutheran Historical Conference, Vol. 14, 5:3, 64
Tamburello, Dennis, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the
Mysticism of St. Bernard, 5:2, 70
Teigen, Bjarne W., The Lord’s Supper in the Theology of Martin
Chemnitz (Review Essay), 2:2, 41
Tietjen, John, Memoirs in Exile: Confessional Hope and Institutional
Crisis (Review Essay), 1:1, 65
Trexler, Edgar R., Anatomy of a Merger: People, Dynamics, and
Decisions that Shaped the ELCA, 2:1, 46
Trigg, Fr. M., ed., An Introduction to Western Rite Orthodoxy, 4:2, 63
Underwood, Ralph, Pastoral Care and the Means of Grace, 3:1, 58
Veith, Gene Edward Jr., Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to
Contemporaty Thought and Culture, 4:1, 52
Veith, Gene Edward, Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Christian
Worldview, 3:2, 66
Vogel, Heinrich J., Vogel’s Cross Reference and Index to the Contents
of Luther’s Works, 2:2, 46
Wagner, Walter H., After the Apostles: Christianity in the Second
Century, 4:4, 70
Wells, David F., No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to
Evangelical Theology (Review Essay), 4:1, 48
Wendland, Ernst H., ed., Sermon Texts, 4:4, 67
Widdicombe, Peter, The Fatherhood of God from Origen to
Athanasius, 4:1, 59
Wilken, Robert L., Remembering the Christian Past, 5:4, 49
Willimon, William H., Proclamation: Advent/Christmas, 3:4, 59
Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in
Pauline Theology, 2:2, 43
Zophy, Jonathan W., Patriarchal Politics and Christoph Kress
1484–1535, 2:4, 67

Index of LOGIA Forum
Volumes I through V
The 44 of ’45 in ’95, 4:3, 70
4000 Hymnals to Go, Please, 4:1, 70
All the World’s a Stage, 2:1, 52
Allegorical Worship, 2:2, 47
Alternative Worship, 5:1, 75
An Anthology of Reu’s Sermons, 4:2, 80
April Fools, 2:2, 56
Arbeit Macht Frei, 4:4, 84
As Go the Schools, So Goes the Synod, 3:3, 81
At Life’s End, 3:2, 79
Augustinians Anonymous, 3:3, 73
Battle for the Gospel, 5:3, 74
Bedside Manners, 2:4, 80
The Body of Christ Illustrated, 4:1, 70
Brave New Church, 1:1, 80
A Broken Net, 2:4, 71
Building Marriage & Home, 5:2, 82
Casting a Vision, 3:3, 85
Catechetical Hymns, 3:2, 71
certus sermo, 2:1, 51
Change for Change’s Sake, 2:1, 57
Chapters Into Verse, 5:4, 60
The Church Enters the Cola Wars, 2:4, 73
Clergy Killers , 5:4, 69
Colloquium Viatorum, 4:1, 71
The Common Priesthood, 3:1, 67
Community of Joy, 4:3, 78
Confess Christ or Celebrate Schweitzer,
5:3, 72
Confessional Lutherans in Kenya, 3:4, 72
Confessional Lutherans in Latvia, 4:1, 73
Confessional Stewardship, 3:1, 75
Confirmation: A Coat of Many Colors, 3:4, 70
Constitutional Horror, 4:3, 72
Consumerism & the Church, 1:1, 75
Conversation & Consolation, 5:1, 69
Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, 5:4, 67
Creedal Catholicity, 2:2, 59
The Cross & the Christian Life, 5:4, 58
Cross Theology & the Theology of the
Cross, 4:4, 80
The Crucified One Has Risen Indeed, 5:2, 79
TheCulture of Interpretation, 4:2, 77
Dangerous Liasons, 4:1, 67
Death as a Mother, 3:3, 79
Demand & Delight, 3:1, 67
A Devil in the Pulpit, 2:4, 73
Did You Get Your Convert Last Year, 5:2, 82
Didache Today, 5:4, 69
Discerning the Body, 4:1, 75
Doctrine & Practice, 3:1, 80
Dogma & Probability, 4:2, 72
Doing Without Liturgy, 2:2, 50
Doing Without Truth, 4:2, 73
Dotty About Women in the Church, 4:2, 74
Early Church VBS, 4:2, 79
Easter Buffoonery & Effective Ministry, 2:2, 49
Easter Devotions, 3:2, 73
Effective Fishing, 2:3, 71
Either/Or, 2:3,
ELCA: Concerning the Confession, 4:2, 86
Empty Hearing, 2:4, 78
England Divided, 2:4, 81
Except for Rituals, 4:3, 79
Falsehood, Violence... & Mother’s Day, 5:1, 73
Fearful Proof, 3:1, 68
Fictional Ethics, 1:1, 76
Figures from Within, 4:4, 82
Forming the Priesthood, 4:4, 91
Frederick Manfred & the Hospital Chaplain,
4:2, 77
Free Recourse to Joy, 4:1, 61
The Freedom of Pigs, 3:3, 72
Friends of Westfield House, 3:2, 82
From Arrowhead to Augsburg, 5:4, 65
From Mega to Meta, 2:4, 80
Fruit of the Vine, 4:1, 75
Gift-Bearing Greeks & Geeks, 3:2, 82
Gladly in the Midst, 3:1, 73
TheGlamour of Worship, 3:2, 80
God Damned It, 4:1, 68
God’s Service to Us, 2:4, 78
The Gospel Isn’t Fair, 5:2, 76
Gottesdienst & Evangelical Identity, 2:3, 72
Grace-Full Use, 4:3, 76
Have Gift, Will Travel, 4:3, 74
Herman’s Gnosticism, 3:3, 74
The Holiness Quest, 5:1, 71
Hollywood Squires, 3:2, 71
Holy Communion Needs No Delta Force,
4:1, 69
A House Dividing Reflections on GCC ’93,
3:1, 77
House of Prayer or Den of Thieves, 3:2, 75
How Lutheran Hymnals Are Revised, 4:4, 87
The Hyperactive Church, 3:2, 76
Myths About Worship, 3:2, 76
The Idolatrous Religion of Conscience, 5:4, 57
81
If We Confess Our Sins . . . , 2:1, 49
In the Name of the Father, 3:3, 71
The Infusion of Love, 5:4, 58
Instruction or Religious Entertainment,
2:3, 70
Instructions for the Visitors of Parish
Pastors, 4:4, 94
Is Martens Justified, 5:4, 64
It’s All Russian to Me, 3:3, 82
It’s Time to Celebrate!, 3:4, 76
The Joy of the Divine Service, 2:3, 73
Just a Big Misunderstanding, 1:1, 78
The Last Word on Church & Ministry, 5:4, 61
The Law in Christian Sanctification, 5:1, 72
Lay Celebration of the Sacrament of the
Altar, 2:1, 55
The Laymen’s Movement, 5:2, 73
Lenten Sermon, 5:1, 74
Lex Orandi Revisited, 4:1, 65
A Little Yeast, 4:1, 62
Liturgical Hermeneutics, 4:2, 85
Logomachy, 2:1, 53
Löhe’s Nightmare, 1:1, 75
Luther Lite, 4:4, 83
Luther on Vocation, 3:3, 76
Luther’s Hausandacht, 2:1, 53
Luther’s Hausandacht, 2:2, 51
Lutheran Hymnal, Jr., 2:4, 77
A Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning,
4:4, 79
The LWML Pledge, 4:3, 69
Me Gavte La Nata, 5:4, 61
The Means for Mission, 2:4, 72
Meta-Church: Pastors as CEO’s, 2:3, 75
Ministry a la Mode, 4:1, 72
TheMinistry in Genesis, 5:3, 71
Ministry’s Office From Luther’s Pulpit, 3:4, 73
The Ministry: Professional or Confessional,
2:4, 74
A Minority on Minorities, 3:4, 78
Misconceptions in Evangelism, 2:3, 76
A Missionary Catechism, 3:4, 68
Mothers as Fathers on Mothering Sunday
1994, 3:3, 77
Neo-Baalism, 5:2, 75
A New Gospel Dynamic, 2:4, 75
The New Measures, 4:1, 72
Next to Theology, 3:2, 70
The Night of the Living Reconcilers, 2:3, 78

82 LOGIA
Not By Morals, 5:3, 74
Not Many, But Much, 4:1, 64
Nothing But Fig Leaves, 4:1, 61
O Lord, Help My Unbelief, 5:2, 81
Objective Justification—Again, 5:4, 62
The Offense of Closed Communion, 4:3, 73
On Being Put, 5:3, 78
On Silencing the Lord’s Song, 3:3, 85
On the Public Reading of Scriptures, 5:2, 78
Once & Future Church, The, 3:1, 69
One Song, One Voice, 3:2, 81
Open Communion as Ex Opere Operato,
2:4, 74
Ordaining Women: Has the Time Come,
4:2, 83
Oreos, 2:1, 50
Our Daily Calling, 4:1, 66
Out of Africa, 4:3, 73
Outmoded Condemnations, 2:4, 75
Pastor, Couldn’t We . . . , 3:1, 64
Pastoral Style & God’s Gifts, 2:2, 47
The Path Not Taken, Ministers as Administrators,
4:4, 85
Pearls before Swine, 2:3, 69
Penance for Returning Warriors, 4:2, 75
The Ph.D. in the Parish, 4:4, 88
Pieper on Holy Communion, 5:2, 74
Pietism for Evangelism & Missions, 2:2, 49
The Power of the Keys, 5:3, 75
Praesidium Statement on Closed Communion,
5:4, 62
Praying the Catechism, 4:4, 81
Prefacing the Catechisms, 3:4, 69
The Priestly Rule of Discipline, 3:3, 75
The Problem with A Mighty Fortress, 4:3, 67
Profiles in Ministry, 3:1, 70
Promise Keepers, Losers Weepers, 4:3, 81
Protestant Sacerdotalism , 5:3, 72
Psychology & the Spiritual, 3:4, 77
Public Absolution, 4:2, 76
Public Worship & Concord, 2:1, 52
The Quest for God, 4:1, 69
The Quest for Urban Hope, 2:3, 74
Reading Mania, 5:2, 78
Real Life Worship Readers, 3:4, 77
Real Presence in the Liturgy, 5:2, 75
The Real Wiseacres, 5:2, 76
Reflections on the Office, 3:2, 78
Reforming the Ceremonies, 4:1, 73
Report: Forward in Faith, 5:1, 79
Resourcing the Resource, 3:1, 73
Sasse & a Pastor, 4:4, 77
Sassedotalism, 4:4, 79
Sauer Note, A, 4:1, 71
The Scent of a Flower We Know, 4:2, 88
Scripture & Confession, 2:4, 83
A Search for Greener Pastures, 1:1, 77
A Secret Report, 3:2, 80
The Service is Divine, 4:3, 75
Sexuality as Aliquid in Homine, 2:1, 56
Shared Voices / Different Vision, 3:1, 81
The Ship of Fools, 5:4, 59
Should Confessions Condemn & Exclude,
4:2, 81
Silent Women, 5:3, 76
Sound Concepts or Double Standards, 3:2, 71
A Spiritual Perversion, 4:1, 63
St. Matthias’s Day, 4:4, 78
St. Michael & All Angels, 3:3, 83
The State of Denominations, 4:3, 72
Straw Epistle or Hermeneutical Hay, 4:2, 71
Style, Style, Style, 5:1, 70
A Sure Word, 5:3, 74
Surfing the Internet, 2:4, 80
Surrender to Secularism, 2:2, 50
A Synod Worthy of the Name, 5:2, 77
Synod X and Synod Y, 3:1, 72
Taglines, 5:1, 84
Tappert’s Omission, 4:1, 76
Taps Bugled for Church Management, 3:3, 77
Teaching the Kyrie, 5:1, 80
Tell Me, Pastor, 2:3, 79
That Same Old Manna, 4:1, 64
Theses on Open Questions, 2:4, 76
Timely Communion Practice, 5:3, 79
Tinker, Tinker, 2:1, 50
To the Diaspora, 2:1, 55
To the Diaspora: Another Perspective, 2:2, 54
Tombstones & Epitaphs, 3:2, 72
Too Much to Read, 3:1, 67
Toppling Satan’s Bulwarks, 3:4, 69
Translation Watch, 4:1, 74
Treason & Tradition, 3:2, 73
Turn Back, You Folks, 4:1, 65
The Tyranny of the Familiar, 4:3, 72
Unfinished Business, 4:2, 85
Upper Story Landing, 5:4, 67
Uppsala Colloquy + 400, 3:1, 68
Utilitarian Schools, Utilitarian Churches,
5:4, 61
A Vision for Growing Churches, 4:4, 86
Walter Sundberg’s Vision, 2:2, 56
We Confess, He Builds, 4:4, 94
What Does It All Mean, 3:3, 84
What Is an Evangelical Lutheran, 3:4, 75
What Is Catechesis, 3:4, 79
What’s in a Name Eucharist or Lord’s Supper,
2:2, 48
Wheels within Wheels, 2:1, 52
When the First Article Cannot Come First,
2:1, 57
When the Gospel Isn’t Working, 3:3, 72
Where Is The Mote, 1:1, 80
Who for Us Men, 5:3, 77
The Wittenberg Society, 5:2, 73
The Word Made Flesh, 4:2, 71
The World & the Ordination of Women,
4:4, 79
Worship at Luther Campus, 5:4, 66
Worthy Reception, 2:2, 50
The Year Luther Quit Preaching, 3:4, 67
You May Be a Meta-Growther If . . . , 5:2, 79
Your God Is Too Big, 2:3, 69

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Ulrich Asendorf—Pastor, Hannover, Germany
Burnell F. Eckardt Jr.—Pastor, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Kewanee, IL
Charles Evanson—Pastor, Redeemer Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
Ronald Feuerhahn—Professor, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO
Lowell Green—Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo, NY
Paul Grime—Executive Director, LCMS Commission on Worship,
St. Louis, MO
David A. Gustafson—Pastor, Peace Lutheran Church, Poplar, WI
Tom G. A. Hardt—Pastor, St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Stockholm, Sweden
Matthew Harrison—Pastor, Zion Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
Steven Hein—Professor, Concordia University, River Forest, IL
Horace Hummel—Professor Emeritus, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO
Arthur Just—Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN
John Kleinig—Professor, Luther Seminary, North Adelaide,
South Australia, Australia
Arnold J. Koelpin—Professor, Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN
Lars Koen—Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Peter K. Lange—Pastor, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Concordia, MO
Alan Ludwig—Pastor, Concordia and Immanuel Lutheran Churches,
Cresbard and Wecota, SD
Cameron MacKenzie—Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary,
Fort Wayne, IN
Gottfried Martens—Pastor, St. Mary’s Lutheran Church, Berlin, Germany
Kurt Marquart—Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN
Scott Murray —Pastor, Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA
Norman E. Nagel—Professor, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO
Wilhelm Petersen—President, Bethany Seminary, Mankato, MN
Hans-Lutz Poetsch—Pastor Emeritus, Lutheran Hour, Berlin, Germany
Daniel Preus—Director, Concordia Historical Institute, St. Louis, MO
Clarence Priebbenow—Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Oakey,
Queensland, Australia
Richard Resch—Kantor, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
David P. Scaer—Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort
Wayne, IN
Robert Schaibley—Pastor, Shepherd of the Springs, Colorado Springs, CO
Jobst Schöne—Bishop, Selbständige Evangelishe Lutherische Kirche,
Germany
Bruce Schuchard—Pastor, St. James Lutheran Church, Victor, IA
Harold Senkbeil—Pastor, Elm Grove Lutheran Church, Elm Grove, WI
Carl P. E. Springer—Professor, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
John Stephenson—Professor, Concordia Seminary, St. Catharines,
Ontario, Canada
David Jay Webber—Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Brewster, MA
William Weinrich—Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary,
Fort Wayne, IN
George F. Wollenburg—President, Montana District LCMS, Billings, MT
STAFF
Michael J. Albrecht, Copy Editor—Pastor, St. James Lutheran Church,
West St. Paul, MN
Joel A. Brondos, Logia Forum and Correspondence Editor—Pastor,
Zion Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, IN
Charles Cortright, Editorial Associate—Professor, Martin Luther College,
New Ulm, MN
Gerald Krispin, Editorial Associate—Professor, Concordia College,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Martin Noland, Editorial Associate—Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church,
Oak Park, IL
John Pless, Book Review Editor—Pastor, University Lutheran Chapel,
Minneapolis, MN
Tom Rank, Editorial Associate—Pastor, Scarville Lutheran Church,
Scarville, IA
Erling Teigen, Editorial Coordinator—Professor, Bethany Lutheran
College, Mankato, MN
Jon D. Vieker, Editorial Associate—Pastor, St. Mark’s Lutheran
Church, West Bloomfield, MI
SUPPORT STAFF
Dianne Bisbee, Advertising, Book Distribution, and Subscription services—Cresbard,
SD
Brent W. Kuhlman, Development Manager—Pastor, Faith Lutheran
Church, Hebron, NE
Alan Ludwig, Proofreader—Pastor, Concordia & Immanuel Lutheran
Churches, Cresbard & Wecota, SD
Patricia Ludwig, Layout and Design—Cresbard, SD
Timothy A. Rossow, Treasurer—Pastor, Bethany Lutheran Church,
Naperville, IL
Robert V. Roethemeyer, Art Consultant—Art Curator, Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis, MO
E-MAIL ADDRESSES for some of the LOGIA staff:
Mike Albrecht: sjlcwspmja@aol.com
Joel Brondos: stimme@aol.com
Gerald Krispin: gkrispin@elcocomp.com
Charles Cortright: cortricl_fac@mlc_wels.edu
Alan Ludwig: journal@mdex.net
Martin Noland: 75113.2703@compuserve.com
John Pless: lsf@gold.tc.umn.edu
Daniel Preus: chi@trucom.com
Tom Rank: tlrank@juno.com (Note change)
Robert Roethemeyer: cslroetherv@crf.cuis.edu
Erling Teigen: 74022.2447@compuserve.com
Jon Vieker: j.vieker2@genie.geis.com