04-2 Hermeneutics.pdf

LOGIA FORUM 81man. It is the only resource that presents all of Reu’s English-languagesermon outlines, sketches, and fully-developed sermons to enablescholars to examine Reu’s theological presuppositions and historicalinsights as he applied these to preaching.The editor and translator is The Reverend Dr. Paul I. Johnston,who has been published widely in the areas of Reu’s theology and hisphilosophy of Christian education. He currently serves as pastor ofGrace Ev. Lutheran Church of Liberal, Kansas, and as director of circulationand development for Lutheran Quarterly.A special price for pastors is $99.95 for the complete two-volumeset, while the Library price is $109.95 per volume. Order from MellenPress, PO Box 450, Lewiston, NY 14092–0450, phone (716) 754–2788),but hurry! The offer expires at the end of June 1995. Inquiries may bedirected to Rev. Johnston at PO Box 1253, Liberal, KS 67905, phone(316) 624–5900.SHOULD CONFESSIONS CONDEMNAND EXCLUDE?We cite this timely piece from Theodore E. Schmauk’s The ConfessionalPrinciple and the Confessions of the Lutheran Church asEmbodying the Evangelical Confession of the Christian Church.Originally published in 1911 by the Board of Publication of the GeneralCouncil of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America,this work has been reprinted in Concordia Publishing House’s HeritageSeries, although it appears that this 943-page volume is onceagain out of print, not being found in the editor’s copy of the CPHcatalog. If you can get your hands on one, do so! The following paragraphsare drawn from pages 38–49.Many complicated causes contribute to the modern feelingthat the Church should be sufficiently broad and liberal, not toraise its voice in condemnation of error, nor its hand in excludingeven the unworthy and the reprobate from its membership.The spirit of universal toleration, which is indifferent to doctrine,and regards it rather as a dead heirloom from a historicalpast, and more or less of an incubus to the Church of the present,than as the dynamic of faith and life; and which substitutes thecommon sense and personal judgment for the voice of the Churchas recorded in its Confessions, is a prime cause for this feeling. Butthere are others.One of these is the existence of many rival Protestant organizations,each claiming by the fact of their separate existence (andmany of them repudiating their own claim by laxity of word andact), that they are the true Church, and that their confession anddiscipline are decisive. This spectacle does not in itself disprove thatthere really is some one Church which possesses the true doctrine,for the truth is nearly always surrounded by approximations andcounterfeits of itself; but, in view of the fact that human nature isprone to regard itself as right, and to set up an exclusive claim ofright for its own party, and to condemn all who are outside of itsparty—which the pages of history illustrate abundantly— theworld today feels that even the true Church should be modest andslow to condemn others’ errors and sins, since, very likely, at least apart of the condemnatory act is to be attributed to the ordinaryfrailty of human nature, found even in the true Church, and not tothe purity of doctrine which it rightly claims to emphasize.Still another prejudice against Confessions that condemn is tobe found in the emphasis which our modern life places upon theindividual, as being of more importance than the institution, andupon the low views of the congregation of Christ which are currentin our country. This is a serious thing. The general public hasalmost ceased to regard the Protestant Church as a divine institution,but looks on it as a voluntary human association into whichindividuals enter when they desire, in which they remain as long asthey please, and from which they are privileged to withdraw, asthey would from any other mere society, as a matter of course andof right, whenever they wish to do so, for any or no cause whatsoever.Each individual brings to the congregational society his sensitivepersonality, together with his “doctrinal views and opinions,”which must be respected not only in discipline, but also in preaching,and which will resent any rebuke or allusion to them as error,even though the admonition be of the mildest kind.The doctrine of the church as the Communion of Saints hasfallen so low, that the Church is no longer regarded as a realbrotherhood subject to the teaching and the discipline of a commonScriptural life. Not the doctrine of the Confessions, but the“sentiments,” “opinions” and “views” of pastor and members,which are influenced rather by contemporary philosophical discussionthan by a searching of the Scriptures or an assimilationof the Confessions, prevail in the congregation. There is a dispositionto allow the pulpit, and the mind of the hearer, to be openand untrammeled on all sides, and to accept such ideas as seemto each individual to be most helpful to his own spiritual life.Hence each member is to be left to regulate his faith and life byideas that appeal to him, rather than by the strict doctrine that isrevealed in Scripture.We reach one deep root of the matter when we say that theChurch of this age, with all our other institutions, is affected by areaction which the spirit of democracy is awakening against allauthority. Whether the authority is good and lawful or not makesno difference. There is, especially in our nation, something in thenature of a universal protest against constraint or discipline of anykind. The disinclination to admit and to use authority, and the difficultyin which officials find themselves in administering theirauthority justly, without making a far-reaching mistake, or involvingthe cause which they represent in destructive consequences,have become exceedingly great. The feeling exists that “truth ismighty and will prevail.” Give it a fair opportunity to fight its ownbattles, and stand back far enough, and it will win. What a pity itdid not win in the Garden of Eden! Calvary and the Cross wouldthen have been unnecessary. It will prevail indeed—in the end,when God shall be all in all. Meanwhile members of the Churchare growing up with the idea that saving faith consists in subjectiveindividual sentiment, and in the acceptance of the privileges of religion,without the acceptance of the duties and burdens andresponsibilities which the Church must, if she is true to her Lordand to her members, impose upon all.There is little willingness in the modern spirit to accept rebukeeither for sin or for error. The Protestant idea of the individualright of conscience is carried so far that the Church, in its collectivecapacity, as representing God, cannot speak out against a torpid