Lutheran Fun?!

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Mark Ellingsen had me hooked with the words freedom, spontaneity, and fun, terms he uses to round out his explanation of what it means to follow Jesus along Lutheran paths.  Quite honestly when I hear “Lutheran,” those are not the first words that come to mind. Bach chorales, perhaps, but that’s a rather rarefied form of fun and hardly spontaneous.  Yet in considering further Ellingsen’s claims, I thought of the old man himself, the Luther we know through the informal Table Talks, the husband, father, friend, and theologian who said to guests around the supper table, “Our loving Lord God is willing that we eat, drink, and be merry, and make use of his creatures, for therefore he hath created them.”  There and elsewhere, Luther points to a theology of freedom, spontaneity, and fun.

It was surprise and a delight to experience how Ellingsen evokes neurological structure and brain chemistry to explain the joyful effects of walking in the way of Jesus, a framing that helped me to think about Luther’s Freedom of a Christian in entirely new ways. Doing good won’t save us – Christ has already done so – but it feels good to perform acts of Christian love.  Luther knew nothing about dopamine and oxytocin as brain chemicals that mobilize our happiness, but he knew how to be a serious biblical exegete and find joy at the same time.  Joy in a different key converted me to Pentecostal ways, but it was joy, nonetheless.  Maybe Pentecostal practices like dancing in the Spirit, praise breaks, or running the aisles also stimulate the synapses in ways I hadn’t thought about.  Hallelujah! What an important insight this is— that it’s possible to find joy, spontaneity, fun and freedom as we follow Jesus through life, a possibility often buried under Christian tendencies to take ourselves too seriously.

My evocation of Luther in the first paragraph of my comments here makes me wonder what it’s like to be a part of an eponymous Christian tradition, even when, as Ellingsen says, the appellation “Lutheran” was intended as a diss of Luther’s followers.   (This question anticipates our discussion of another eponymous Christian movement, the Wesleyan.)  As Ellingsen reminds us, in many places the proper term for Lutheran is “evangelical,” yet the old reformer’s name is also attached to Lutheran denomination in the U.S. and other places around the world. How much of a presence does Luther occupy in the imagination of Lutherans? And to what degree is the founder’s way of following Jesus reproduced in the body of Christians now called by his name, Lutheran?  Is the reverence for Luther among Lutherans an aide to piety, as if Martin Luther himself becomes a kind of Protestant saint to be revered and emulated? Or can the towering father figure of Luther sometimes be a stumbling block?

Ellingsen’s explanation of Lutheranism includes a heavy dose of attention to the formal confessions that are so prominent the tradition.  Pentecostals have confessions too, but they are local, varying from one congregation to another, and are of recent vintage. What do terms like Augsburg and Formula of Concord and Large and Small Catechism evoke in the lifeworld of everyday Lutherans?  A dim memory from confirmation classes, perhaps?  Or do these creeds and documents, intended to amplify insights and injunctions from scripture, really set the terms of following Jesus for Lutherans?  I’m really asking about the lived experience of Lutherans.  How much of that experience is linked to historical artifacts like these confessions?

I ask these questions with an eye on the reality that much of this Christian tradition, like so many others, took shape in a European context five hundred years ago and has spread globally by following (and sometimes resisting) efforts to colonize and convert.  European colonization began at roughly the same time that Luther’s reform emerged.  Luther’s memory, along with early Lutheran sermons and confessions (and ways of reading scripture), rode this wave around the globe.  It’s this protracted process that helps explain why there are more Lutherans in Tanzania than in Sweden.  What has this global spread contributed to understandings of being Lutheran and following Jesus on Lutheran paths?  How do those at a long temporal and geographical remove from Wittenberg and Augsburg see faith, piety, and politics?  Have they recast old Euro-American Lutheran theological and liturgical arguments, or do the divisions follow the trails that Mark outlines here?   Have the relationships between the colonized (or formerly colonized) and the colonizers and their descendants given Lutherans new insights into how to follow Jesus?  What happens now, as it seems likely, that Lutheran Churches in Europe and the United States continue to decline?

So far, ritual, ceremony, and liturgy have been consistent themes in our postings – no surprise, given that we kicked off the discussion with the Orthodox and Catholic conversation partners.  Ellingsen, too, appreciates this line of inquiry, and I’m grateful for the ways in which he calls our attention to the variety of Lutheran sacramental theologies and practices.

One artifact of modern Lutheran thinking that has enlightened me over the years is the Nairobi Statement, a 1996 declaration by the Worship and Culture Study Team of the Lutheran World Federation.  I assign it to my worship students, because at the center of its attempts to understand the dynamic relationship of worship and culture is the question:  Is there an essential core to Christian worship, a core that is transcultural?  The signers of the Nairobi Statement insist there is, and it includes the Sunday service of word and table, the Bible and its narratives about Jesus the Christ, and the performance of two sacraments instituted by the Lord – baptism and Eucharist.  Although the Nairobi Statement was intended for a global audience of Lutherans attempting to negotiate the cultural realities I mentioned above, the proclamation gained some traction in ecumenical circles as well.  Its skillful framing of the relationship between Christianity and “culture” might be instructive for us too, as we continue our respectful conversations.  To me, the question – is there a core to Christian worship? – can be extended in adjacent ways:  Is there a core to Christian life, a core that is transcultural and transtemporal?  A core meaning to following Jesus?

Whatever the cacophony of responses – even the multitude of conflicting voices from within my own tradition – I’ll be sure to take the question seriously but myself less so, as I follow Father Martin’s invitation to enjoyment of this life: “eat, drink, and be merry.”

 

Can Mennonites and Lutherans Experience Grace, Faithfulness, and Even Fun Together?

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Can Mennonites and Lutherans, once bitter enemies, have fun together? Though the journey is challenging, that’s a question Mark Ellingsen’s take on Lutheranism in “Lutheranism: An Evangelical Catholic Way to Follow Jesus” stirs for me.

Noting that, as was true for Anabaptists, the label Lutheran was originally applied by critics, Ellingsen wants to highlight such names as “evangelical” and “catholic.” He explains that Lutheranism incorporates many strands, including Pietistic, Confessional, or the “Neo-Confessional” he names Evangelical Catholicism. He also stresses that most Lutherans can at least agree “that the Christian life must be rooted in God’s grace.”

Where does my Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition fit into this? I resonate with John J. Friesen’s take that we owe much to Lutheranism—which helped create space for the Anabaptist rejection of Roman Catholic indulgences, commitment to the Bible (sola scriptura) above tradition, belief that Scripture should be accessible to the common person rather than only privileged priests, and the ensuing affirmation of the priesthood of all believers.

As Ellingsen notes, “Lutherans . . . join with most Protestants in embracing the idea that all who are baptized, all who follow Jesus, are priests. Christians who follow Jesus are priests, for they have been dedicated to living lives in which they perform the sacrifice of dying to their sin and rising to serve Christ and the neighbor (Luther’s Works, Vol.31, p.53; Ibid., Vol.36, p.145; Apology of the Augsburg Confession, XXIV.26).”

On the other hand, casting a shadow Ellingsen doesn’t address, Luther became a vitriolic opponent of Anabaptists. How did this come to be?

Through establishing Lutheranism as a state church. As Friesen summarizes, “When Luther opted for the state-church model, placed the Lutheran church under the authority of the state, and persecuted minority churches, Anabaptists believed that Luther had betrayed the teachings of the Bible.” Anabaptists rejected models in which church and state together policed the boundaries of acceptable Christianity.

In contrast, Anabaptists, purveyors of the Radical Reformation, believed that the commandments of Scripture and particularly the teachings of Jesus trumped the state if church came into conflict with state. Surely, thought Anabaptists, there was conflict  if the church demanded, contra Jesus, killing enemies, swearing oaths, infant baptism not optional but coerced, upholding civil order and established norms if they blocked following Jesus. Surely there was almost unbearable conflict when not only did the state go against Jesus’ teachings but the very Martin Luther who celebrated grace countenanced the possibility that the state should execute Anabaptists for sedition and blasphemy.

Although they based it more on New Testament practices than a formal take on the priesthood of believers, Anabaptists, and their Mennonite branch, were also often more radical in blurring the line between laity and clergy. I experienced this as a seminary graduate trained in an American Baptist seminary (where Lutherans were classmates) whose professors advocated a moderate setting-apart of ordained ministers within a larger commitment to the priesthood of all. My first pastorate was at Germantown Mennonite Church, oldest Mennonite congregation in North America, established in Philadelphia in 1683 by Mennonites and Quakers. By 1980s a faithful remnant of some 25 congregants was expressing commitment to the priesthood of all through a leadership team that included ordained but unpaid ministers plus several congregants. As a paid minister, I would stretch the pattern.

My first Sundays careful attention was paid to where I stood when preaching. At the front of the historic building was a raised platform and pulpit many congregants’ saw as too prominent, evidence prior generations had strayed from true radicality. With heart pounding I went to the pulpit instead of the humble portable lectern. Whoever was right or wrong, the resulting controversy had roots reaching down to the early days of Anabaptism, not to mention Lutheranism.

But as with all human traditions, Mennonites are complicated. The same understandings that could be understood as discouraging trained professional priests/pastors exercising authority over Christians also generated structures that sometimes straitjacketed individual freedom of conscience. There were reasons for this; as Astrid von Schlacta observes, “Yes, sola scriptura implies that the meaning of Scripture does not depend on interpretation by a priest. Yet Anabaptists believed that collective interpretation of the Bible by the community of believers was indispensable.” True enough. But then in the name of the community others in the community, often themselves paradoxically following the authority of the leaders they trusted, might ban those they considered out of bounds.

This has led to circumstances in which Mennonites seeking to be “without spot or blemish” have generated communities that have policed boundaries of the quest, excommunicated congregants perceived to be non-repentant sinners, and risked crushing grace under law. In her memoir The Merging (DreamSeeker Books, 2000), my aunt Evelyn King Mumaw tells how her parents helping establish an early 1900s Sunday school. In that Mennonite context, this was perceived as violating church norms. Mumaw describes the day the bishop came to put her family out, an event which cast lifelong shadows over the family, including her younger brother who was my father:

Attendees were warned to discontinue their involvement. Those who continued attending there were finally excommunicated. Limerick Sunday school was closed. All persons who were put out of church were to confess that they had sinned in order to be  reinstated. Some would only confess they had disobeyed a conference decree. I still remember that chilly morning when the little Bishop with the cold sharp eyes came driving up our lane in his boxlike Model-T Ford. I think it was the time he had come to tell my parents that the people who kept on attending Limerick after they were told to stop were going to be put out of the church. And that included my parents. The people who went through this experience were deeply hurt.

This takes me back to Ellingsen and the gospel of grace. One could underscore the shadows of Lutheranism. One could claim, as I’ve heard Mennonites do and sometimes done myself, that Lutheranism purveys a cheap grace. One could suggest, and I see some value in this, that those who wrap their commitments around faithfully following Jesus, often rooted in the Gospels, may experience formation complementary to that of those who particularly celebrate sola fide and sola gratia, frequently rooted in Pauline epistles.

But after 500 years, Lutherans have asked forgiveness for persecuting Anabaptists. Ellingsen underscores that there is an ethical component to Luther, who believes “you only sin bravely when you do not give into concupiscence, when you boldly live a sacrificial, sin-denying life (live your baptism), but do so with the awareness that even then you are still sinning, that all good done is a function of God working in and through you (Complete Sermons, Vol.4, p.367).” And Ellingsen paints moving word pictures of the gifts of grace:

When you live in a family, with a lover whose love works on you, the loved one does not have to tell you what to do to please him/her.  You just sort of know.  True human love is spontaneous.  Imagine then what God’s love can do to you.  In fact, when you are in love (fall in love – note the passivity) it is like an ecstatic experience.  You lose yourself.  Should we not expect it to be that way in the arms of Jesus?  This is another reason why Lutherans claim that there is no need to teach Christians how to follow Jesus.  It will just happen spontaneously when you are living with Jesus. 

Here I still want the Mennonite formation that says human commitments are never fully whole so that, like couples who may not always feel love but want to receive and offer it nevertheless, we need teachings and a community that create disciplines of right living—whether or not these spontaneously emerge. On the other hand, how those Limerick Mennonites yearned for a more ecstatic church than the one offered by the cold-eyed bishop. How importantly Lutheranism, drawing on the Pietistic strand Ellingsen embraces, reminds us that with

awareness that everything we do is a sin, it follows that the best Christians can be is simul iustus et peccator (100% saint and 100% sinner) (Romans 7:14-18; Luther’s Works, Vol.32, p.111; Ibid., Vol.27, p.230).    This is a freeing insight, as it entails the awareness that we are loved by God, even despite all our sin and selfishness.

And how helpfully we can collaborate on the Way. As von Schlacta sees it,

The Anabaptists were part of the Reformation and shared basic convictions with Lutherans and Reformed. Yes, sola gratia means we do not attain salvation through works. But living the faith was important for all. The Anabaptists called this discipleship. For Luther it was “new obedience.”

Perhaps together, then, amid grace and forgiveness for the sins evident in both (and all) traditions, we can say a celebratory yes when Ellingsen asks, “Can the rest of the catholic tradition also embrace the freedom, spontaneity, and fun which Lutherans often associate with following Jesus?”          

The “Freedom, Spontaneity, and Fun” of Following Jesus

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One problem with trying to serve as the representative of “the Pietist tradition” is that Pietism is not so much an ecclesial or even theological tradition as a religious ethos that leavens other Christian traditions. That includes the Baptist denomination that sponsors my rather pietistic university, the Brethren churches that draw on Pietism and Anabaptism alike, and (arguably) the traditions growing out of the ministry of John Wesley. But Pietism is most closely linked to Lutheranism.

For example, I’m a Pietist who attends an ELCA church and holds primarily to Lutheran theological tenets. I grew up in the Evangelical Covenant Church, a pietistic American denomination that broke with the Augustana Lutheran Synod in 1885, yet still affirms the Augsburg Confession, sings Lutheran hymns, celebrates Reformation Sunday, and (in my upbringing, at least) uses Luther’s Small Catechism to catechize its confirmands. The Covenant grew out of a Swedish renewal movement that called itself “evangelical” in the sense of both of its 19th century European senses: it was revivalistic, and it was Lutheran. And, of course, Pietism began in German-speaking Lutheran churches in the 17th century, under the leadership of Lutheran pastors like Philipp Jakob Spener, whose most famous work cites Martin Luther and other Lutheran theologians regularly.

So in several respects, I feel like I have very little to do with this month’s essay save nod along. Not only do most of Mark Ellingsen’s theological emphases feel familiar to me, but he even describes a “Pietist strand” within Lutheranism. In describing it briefly, I think Ellingsen does at least some of my work for me:

Although virtually all Lutherans pledge fidelity to the teaching of the Lutheran Confessions (esp. the 16th-century document The Augsburg Confession), the Pietist strand tends to focus so much more on the spiritual life with a program for following Jesus. This strand is also less focused on the role of the Sacraments and liturgy in Christian nurture, and is more inclined to identify Lutheranism with Protestantism.

I wouldn’t have thought to make that last claim (save to affirm that Pietism has often had a strongly ecumenical bent), but the other two elements of Ellingsen’s description ring true. I’ve already made overly clear in my responses to our Orthodox and Traditional Catholic participants the Pietist wariness of a Christian “formalism” that risks reducing the sacraments and other elements of worship to rote ritual. I pray with Ellingsen that the sacraments and liturgy do “transform us into people who joyfully, spontaneously live as the kind of people God wants the faithful to be.” Pietists maybe just don’t see that result as often as they’d like, and so tend to look beyond the rhythms of Sunday morning to find more “spiritual” ways of following Jesus outside of the large congregation and the institutional church. More on that in my own essay…

What’s more surprising to me is that Ellingsen describes a “Liberal Protestant” strand of Lutheranism as both growing out of pietistic Lutheranism and now forming a “coalition… with the relatively smaller group of remaining Lutheran Pietists” to make up “the Lutheran majority in Americans pews” today. If that seems mystifying to me, it’s probably just my own unfamiliarity with the complicated dynamics of Lutheranism in America. But if Ellingsen is correct, such a “coalition” exists in tension with a different claim that I’ve heard from pietistic Lutherans: that Pietism is treated with hostility, scorn, or indifference by those I’d associate with this “Liberal” wing — and sometimes Ellingsen’s own “Confessional” Lutherans.

For example, the Lutheran poet and hymnodist Gracia Grindal once participated in a roundtable discussion here at Bethel University, debating the “useable past” of Pietism for American denominations. A product of a pietistic tradition descending from the Norwegian revivalist Hans Nielsen Hauge, Grindal complained that “in the current ELCA the liturgical, confessional and now politically engaged Lutherans run almost all of the institutions built by the sweat of our pietistic grandparents’ brows…. If the current leaders of any of these institutions know or even recognize the word Pietist, they would nod and say they have moved beyond it into a different kind of engagement with the world…”

[Grindal’s comments and the rest of that roundtable can be found in the August/November 2012 issue of The Covenant Quarterly.]

While Pietism was for Grindal, me, and our forebears an “authentic biblical Christianity… engaged in relieving suffering, bringing Christ to the world, a devotional life that nurtures and feeds and helps in their daily lives with their families,” it became for most other Lutherans a byword for anti-intellectualism, quietism, or legalism. Grindal thought this unavoidable: “a personal and individual experience simply cannot be passed on to the next generation through doctrine or structure. It tends to go cold. Later generations inherit this living Christianity as a set of rules; it becomes a legalistic way of life that irritates and enrages those who have not had that original experience of the living God.” 

That tendency for Pietism’s notion of “a new life in Christ” to decay into legalism left me more than a little sympathetic to the closing section of Ellingsen’s essay. Luther’s Pietist descendants sometimes forget his insight that we remain at once sinner and saint, set free from the demands of the law by the undeserved, transformative mercy of grace. If they don’t fully embrace the perfectionism that Ellingsen finds hinted at in Spener, Pietists can nonetheless fall into the trap of expecting that the truly “converted” or “regenerate” — not just declared justified, but living out an increasingly Christ-like life — will make known their piety through good works that they’re tempted to measure against the yardstick of Ellingsen’s “guidelines, commands, or discipline.”

The great German Pietist A.H. Francke, for example, published a list of nearly a hundred “rules of life.” Writing the history of the 19th century Swedish revival, the Evangelical Covenant scholar Karl A. Olsson contrasted the followers of Pietisten editor C.O. Rosenius, who “exhorted sinners to ‘come as you are,’” with pietistic “legalists” whose emphasis on contrition and repentance stemmed from the teachings of Lutheran pastor Henrik Schartau.

(With tongue only partly in cheek, Olsson once told a group of Moravian seminarians that a “pietist is a person who deprives himself of the adiaphoric pleasures and begrudges their availability to others. He does not dance frivolously or become bibulous in bars.” For the record, the Pietist writing this response will be attending an Oktoberfest celebration tonight at his Lutheran church. Let the reader decide if this constitutes “bibulous” behavior.)

If Pietists, at their legalistic worst, refuse to “sin bravely” when it comes to Christian practice and experience, they do tend to cherish “freedom, spontaneity, and fun” when it comes to Christian belief. Recentering the Bible as highest authority and decentering creeds and confessions, Pietists may approach the work of theology differently than do our Lutheran cousins whose faith is bound up with the Book of Concord.

As church historian Philip Anderson wrote of the Swedish Lutherans who founded what’s now the Covenant Church, those “Pietists traced their pedigree to the dissenting movements of all ages: the introspection and ecstasy of the mystics; the courage of the left-wing reformers who fought for their believers’ churches and the rights of individual Christian conscience and freedom; the spirituality of the great Puritan divines; the ‘heart religion’ of the Moravians and the Methodists—all trying to resuscitate with the new life of the Spirit the churches which they believed were increasingly comatose.” They stood, concluded Anderson, “in both a ‘catholic’ and a ‘free church’ tradition as seen through the eyes of the Reformation.”

On the Real Possibility of Theosis

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Dear Mark,

Thank you for your well thought out and articulate description of how people in various strands of Lutheranism understand how to follow Jesus.  I appreciate how you are always trying to find points of contact with other expressions of Christianity.

It certainly is interesting to learn that Luther allowed a continuation of more of the historic tradition than most of his followers eventually did – such as his openness, as you say, to the seven sacraments (I had thought he only tried to continue the Sacrament of Confession among the other five traditional sacraments); his affirmation of Mary as the Mother of God; and his affirmation, as you note, of the Church as our Mother.

It’s also wonderful to see Luther affirming the possibility of a kind of mystical communion with the Lord that can be taken, perhaps, as first steps towards a full-scale understanding of theosis.

In light of allowing that possibility, it seems so sad that, it would seem, he then cuts off that possibility by asserting that no matter how much good we’re doing, we’re always sinning.  For theosis/deification involves the gradual process of being purified from sin, with one’s thoughts and actions gradually becoming more and more free from sin.  It also involves becoming more like the sinless One, through participating in His sinless Energies.

And if I may ask, if everything good that we do is accomplished by grace alone, as you also say Lutherans insist upon, why can’t the Lord’s grace do the job completely?  Why can’t He make it, or arrange it, so that we’re doing the good without concupiscence/selfishness, or any kind or taint of sin?

And if I may further ask, does it make sense for Jesus and all the NT writers to give commandments that can never be completely fulfilled since, as the Lutherans say, all our efforts to obey them will be inevitably tainted with sin?  What sense, then, can we make of Jesus commanding us to “be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48)?

And if I may also ask, if people are convinced that they can do nothing that’s not tainted with sin, how will at least some of them not be tempted to not even try to grow in “holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14), as St. Paul states?

You’re asking all of us about how our traditions can relate to the Lutherans’ understanding of joy, even “fun,” in following Jesus.  Yes, surely, as Nehemiah says, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10); and St. Paul certainly says, “Rejoice in the LORD always, again I say rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4).  But yet, as Solomon says, “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:4).  Surely whatever the particular circumstances are at the moment will affect our emotional response to those circumstances.

And the Orthodox understanding of “joy in the Lord” is that it’s something very profound and deep, not something superficial or light.  It includes an inner certainty that the Lord is still in control no matter what’s happening around us or with us; this is ultimately what enables us to be joyful, even in the face of tragedy or impending death.  But yet there’s still a tinge of sadness, always, as we make our way through this life—in this world which is so often called “a vale of tears”—due to the grievous tragedies and injustices that abound in this life, in this very fallen world.  This is why the Orthodox often talk about “bright sadness”—a paradoxical expression that reflects the simultaneous reality of a dark world into which the light of Christ is constantly streaming.

Thank you again, Mark, for your insightful contribution to this Conversation.

Yours, in Christ,

David Ford

P.S.  This quote from a 20th century holy Orthodox elder (who lived in Russia and America), I think, is very relevant to our discussion of faith and good works: “It goes without saying that good works are essential for success in the spiritual life, for they demonstrate the presence of good will in us, without which there is no moving forward.  In turn, good works themselves strengthen, develop, and deepen this good will” (Archbishop Averky (Taushev), The Struggle for Virtue: Asceticism in a Modern Secular Society, p. xi).

The Lutheran Way: Blending the Confessional and the Pietistic

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I found Mark Ellingsen’s essay on Lutheranism to be both informative and fascinating. I certainly identify with Mark’s early acknowledgement that Lutheran is a title, a label attached to his faith by critics of the movement early on. The followers of Joseph Smith came to be known as the “Mormonites” or the “Mormons.” Unfortunately the latter title stuck, and we as a people have been stuck with it for just short of two hundred years.

As recently as the Church’s October 2021 general conference in Salt Lake City, one of the senior leaders of the church put it this way: “Mormon [a prophet-leader in the Book of Mormon] is not our Savior. Mormon did not suffer and bleed and die for us.” Joseph Smith said it well: “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven [1 Corinthians 15:1-4]; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.” This is why we are seeking to be known as the Church of Jesus Christ.

Members of my faith would generally not speak in terms of the Confessional and the Pietistic facets of the faith in the same way that Mark does about Lutheranism (pages 1-3). We do have, however, what I think is a close approximation to those distinctions: the difference between the doctrine (orthodoxy) of the faith and the spirituality or daily practice (orthopraxy) of the people in everyday life. First of all, for Latter-day Saints correct doctrine or theology is crucial. The correctness of a teaching or writing is determined by holy scripture and by what is taught (by way of scriptural commentary or interpretation) by our senior Church leaders.

The fifteenth President of the Church, Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008), said: “I have spoken before about the importance of keeping the doctrine of the Church pure, and seeing that it is taught in all of our meetings. I worry about this. Small aberrations in doctrinal teaching can lead to large and evil falsehoods.” As to the power of correct doctrine in the minds and hearts of the people, another prominent leader within our faith, Boyd K. Packer (1924-2015), taught: “True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel.”

As to Pietism, Latter-day Saints would be prone to speak of an individual’s personal spirituality. The depth of one’s spirituality is a result of such practices as personal purity, daily personal prayer, daily scripture study, regular church attendance, partaking weekly of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, fasting from bread and water—all of which bring one into closer communion with the Savior. Further, we believe that God’s barometer of righteousness is the heart. The extent to which a woman or a man is drawing closer to Christ may be discerned largely by how that individual manifests what the Apostle Paul called the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25), an expanding love and concern for people all about us.

Latter-day Saints are taught repeatedly of the importance of both sides of the equation. For example, a person can have a profound depth of understanding of the gospel, even be a brilliant biblical scholar or theologian, and yet be a complete jerk, one who is proud, self-seeking, and almost blind to the needs and feelings of others. On the other hand, one can be a marvelous example of Christlike service to everyone within reach, but at the same time know very little about the doctrine of Christ. That is, they do not possess a reason for the hope within them (1 Peter 3:15). In other words, they are severely limited when it comes to defending the faith or presenting a message that is as stimulating to the mind as it is soothing to the heart. Striking a proper balance here is extremely difficult. During my years as dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University, I sensed that I had two interrelated responsibilities: (1) to assist, encourage, and provide support for 70 full-time faculty members in their study, research, and publication efforts; and, at the same time, (2) to caution them regularly to never yield to academic arrogance.

In the fourth paragraph of Mark’s paper (page 2), he mentions that the Confessional side of Lutheranism “has more of an appreciation of the Sacramental heritage than does Pietism, and it may emphasize salvation by grace more than Pietism does.” This expression stumped me. I would think that the principle that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone would be especially emphasized among those striving for greater piety. Mustn’t Pietism be built upon a complete reliance on the merits, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ? Or is it that that the doctrine of the grace of God is taught and emphasized more within the Confessional strand than the Pietistic. I’m sure the answer is simple and that I’m missing something, but I would appreciate a brief clarification from Mark, if possible.

In paragraph 11 (page 4), Mark mentions that Luther “was open to invoking angels and Mary (whom he called the Mother of God). . . . All the Saints may pray for us, he claimed.” I really should know more of the life and ministry of Martin Luther than I do, but I am interested in Luther’s attachment to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I would be surprised to learn that, of all the things Luther opposed or rejected within the Roman Catholic Church, one of them was not a rejection of an overmuch veneration of Mary. Or did that come decades or centuries after Luther’s time? Most Evangelical Protestants or Mainline Christians that I know today would not be comfortable with Mariology. How would most Lutherans feel about this emphasis today? How would they feel about Luther’s spiritual attraction to Mary?

In paragraph 13 (page 5), Mark indicates that “even embracing theosis would raise no problems from the Evangelical Catholic wing of Lutheranism, as Luther himself seems sometimes to have endorsed the concept.” This was not new to me, since one of the doctrinal topics we pursued as a part of the Mormon-Evangelical dialogue (2000-2022) was theosis or deification, a variation of which is a belief held by Latter-day Saints. As a part of our readings for that particular dialogue, we asked Veli-Matti-Karkkainen at Fuller Seminary to lead our two-day discussion. We read Velli’s short book, One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (2004), as well as some writings by Latter-day Saint scholars on the topic.

It was while reading that book that I encountered statements from Martin Luther on the topic of theosis. I have two questions: (1) Do we know to what extent Luther had interactions with Eastern Orthodoxy and their perspectives on deification? and (2) How would the doctrine of theosis be understood or received by the typical Lutheran woman in the pew or the everyday Lutheran man on the street? How would people in the congregation react if the local Lutheran pastor were to quote “If one knows himself, he will know God and knowing God will become like God” (Clement of Alexandria) or “The word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods” (Athanasius)?

On page 8 Professor Ellingsen addresses the Lutheran belief in humanity’s fallen and lost condition as a result of Adam and Eve’s actions in Eden, as well as one’s individual sinfulness. I am in complete agreement that it is absolutely necessary for an individual to understand the nature and impact of the Fall (the problem) in order to grasp the need for redemption and reconciliation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (the solution). One must know the seriousness of the malady in order to fully appreciate the Medication.

At the same time, if all that a person ever hears in church or reads in religious literature is how broken, warped, twisted, and evil the members of the human race are, won’t some individuals (maybe many) simply give up, throw in the towel, and conclude that they are not spiritually capacitated to go to heaven hereafter? I know that the solution is to teach them of the life, ministry, atoning work of the Savior and His grace, but what about those who simply miss that part of the sermon or were texting at the time the pastor or teacher was glorying in the Lord’s Atonement? What if those who are told repeatedly that they are totally depraved never return to church or never become involved in mid-week Bible study?

Please forgive my ramblings. I have just encountered so many men and women through the years who choose to disassociate themselves with organized religion. Today they are called “the nones.” They insist that rather than being elated about the “good news” of the Christian message, they feel they have been fed an ever-present diet of “bad news” relative to their spiritual condition. (By the way, I don’t believe the answer is to deliver the good news like Robert Schuller or Joel Osteen might do.) Is there a more effective way, a more hopeful way to teach the plight of fallen humanity and the need for a Savior in a manner that listeners or students do not feel hopeless, do not see themselves as being beyond the pale of saving grace? There must be.

I appreciate very much Mark Ellingsen’s excellent distillation of Lutheranism. It has broadened my perspective, corrected some misconceptions, and prompted me to do some serious reading.

Another way of Being Evangelical Catholic

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Several years ago, my first entry into ecumenical dialogue was to participate in the final round (rounds lasted for several years) of dialogue between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the United Methodist Church (UMC). One member of the Lutheran half of the dialogue introduced himself by saying that Lutherans were “doctrinal bulldogs.” Perhaps previous rounds of this dialogue had some dog fights, but the round in which I participated kept finding things in common. The one doctrine that was met with real suspicion was John Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification (especially perfection). Wesleyan Methodists understand that while justification is the essential basis for salvation, sanctification is also important. Like justification, sanctification is a gift received by grace through faith.

In reading Mark’s posting, I had the same sense I did years ago of what we share. Mark describes the Lutheran way of following Jesus as Evangelical Catholic, while Wesleyan Methodists are rooted in the theology of John Wesley that was described by historian Albert Outler as “evangelical catholicism” because it brings together being saved by grace alone through faith with holy living. Ellingsen and Outler may not be using words “evangelical” and “catholic” with exactly the same meaning, but the desire to acknowledge the full scope of what we take into account as we follow Jesus feels similar. We share together the way we understand grace to come before (preveniently) anything we do in response. John Wesley does not seem to have been well acquainted with Luther’s writings, but he certainly embraced justification by grace through faith.

Within this common ground, there are some differences that may be in part verbal and in part matters of emphasis. Wesleyan Methodists agree wholeheartedly that we are free from the Law so works of the law are excluded as the basis for our justification. However, Wesleyan Methodists have a tradition following Wesley to affirm that the Law is established by faith. Wesley understood that the Law that faith establishes for us is to love God and neighbor. This is the Law we would follow to know what to do in any “situational ethic.” Because this Law is established by faith, what we do to show love for God and for neighbor is transformed from “works of the Law” into “faith working by love.” The point of saying that the Law is “established” is to say the saving work God does in us becomes active in our lives so that we live according to love.

Wesleyan Methodists stress (not separate) sanctification as a distinct and important aspect of salvation, which Wesley saw as a “present thing” that transforms our lives and not just a heavenly destination after death. For him, God’s salvation does something for us (forgives us by justifying us) and God also does something in us (heals us by sanctifying us). This healing is the renewal of our fallen nature, not in every respect because we remain finite and mortal; but renewed in the love for which God created us and by which we reflect God and share the mind of Christ—in other words, enabling us to follow Jesus. The goal of sanctification is perfect love, not “achieved” by us, but given by God. The doctrine of perfection does not express confidence in ourselves but rather confidence in God’s power to heal. Wesley thought about sanctification as a real change in us. When we follow Jesus, we really become more loving. Even if we do not fully arrive at the goal of perfect love in this life, the expectation of it is important for keeping us focused on the one we follow.

As he matured in his thinking and as he watched what happened in the lives of Methodists, Wesley’s understanding of sin became increasingly nuanced. He recognized both inward (in our hearts) and outward (expressed in action) sin, and he knew that even when Methodists did not sin by willingly and openly violating God’s commands, they still struggled inwardly with unloving feelings (for instance impatience, envy) that could lead to unloving behavior (for instance gossip). He began to reflect on sin after justification and the need to acknowledge and repent of it. While it is doubtful that he would ever use percentages to express his ideas about being saint and sinner, he did recognize that Christians stand in need of Christ’s atonement even after being justified. He also warned those who claimed entire sanctification that they too stood in need of Christ’s atonement. It seems that in Wesley’s theology, a deeper sense of God’s love brings about a deeper sense of sin (our own unlovingness) and appreciation for the gift of grace.

God gives us means to use so we may stay on this path of love, the principal ones being prayer, searching the Scriptures, and receiving the Lord’s Supper. Wesley also called these “works of piety.” Mark Ellingsen says that rites of the church change the believer or at least put the believer in a new context to nurture a new way of behaving. Wesley also saw that works of piety could have this effect. In his context, there were some Methodists who had been influenced by the “stillness” of the Moravians. These Methodists feared that by praying, searching Scripture, or receiving communion they might be depending on works rather than faith for salvation, so they stopped doing these things. To them, Wesley said God gave us these means of grace, so they are gifts of God that should be used.

Wesley also thought that works of mercy could be means of grace. He wrote a sermon “On Visiting the Sick” to encourage Christians to stretch beyond what was comfortable to show love of neighbor. His text was Matt. 25:36 “I was sick and you visited me.” By “sick” he meant all who are afflicted in mind or body, and “visit” meant seeing them in person, not just sending aid. Our supposed compassion for others is tested when we come face to face with them, especially in unpleasant circumstances. Facing the unpleasantness in order to follow and serve Jesus aids our growth in humility, patience, tenderness, and sympathy. These are “works of mercy” that become means of grace as God works through them to increase our thankfulness to God and our sympathy for others.

Wesleyan Methodism has encouraged intentionality in following Jesus rather than stressing spontaneity. To be sure, there is an inner impulse to serve when you live with Jesus and want to follow, but the sin that remains in us can put up barriers to following. For instance, as noted above, we may substitute giving money for building relationship. Furthermore, just as brain research is confirming selfishness, we are also learning more about implicit bias. Our blind spots can prevent us from seeing what is most helpful in a situation. Even in close, healthy families, blind spots can lead to misunderstanding. We may not “just know” what God wants us to do in a situation because what we “just know” is shaped by assumptions from our own lives. Intentional learning (for instance to understand the needs, hopes, and obstacles of those from other backgrounds rather than assuming their situation is identical to ours) is crucial for responding to our neighbors in love in the most helpful way. Not paying attention to those differences can lead to harm rather than comfort and hope.

Wesleyan Methodists have been concerned with “doing” but not in a way that puts our own actions before God’s work in us. Although the General Rules that governed the early Methodist societies contain examples, they are in fact general: Do no harm, do good, and attend upon the ordinances of God (use the means of grace). These rules are in effect a restatement of the Law that is established by faith: Pay attention to loving God by using the means God has provided for you to grow in relationship with God, and love neighbors by seeking their welfare and avoiding hurting them.

Freedom, Law, Sin, and Concreteness in Christian Ethics

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Mark Ellingsen’s elegant presentation of Lutheran theology and ethics — of Lutheran ways of following Jesus — is an absolute treat. I will confine my remarks here to engaging a couple of issues that I consider especially interesting for my specific discipline of Christian ethics, understood, of course, in (my-kind-of) Baptist perspective. As my title suggests, I want to dig around a little at the nexus of issues around moral freedom, divine law, human sinfulness, and the concreteness of moral obligations.

Glen Stassen and I argue in both editions of Kingdom Ethics (2003/2016) that Jesus offers concrete moral teachings that should be understood as retaining a law- or rule-like dimension.

When Jesus teaches that we are to forgive those who wrong us, he means that extending forgiveness is part of the rule of life of those who wish to follow him. We are not free not to forgive, if we would be his people.

When Jesus teaches that we are to pray, fast, and give alms, and to do so in ways that do not involve attention-seeking from others for their piety, he means that concretely. His followers should indeed pray, fast, and give to the poor, without seeking attention from others. Numerous other examples could be cited.

Glen was concerned, as am I, about concreteness in Christian ethics. We think that Jesus taught a “way” to be followed, and that he taught specific elements of that way with sufficient clarity and concreteness that in most cases you can be fairly clear whether you are living that “way,” and obeying his teachings, or failing to do so. The danger of more abstract ethics — an ethic of principles, or even of Christian freedom in situational discernment — is that it is not clear to believers what following Jesus might actually require or forbid. There is a huge yawning gap between the love of God, or our effort to love God and neighbor, and the question of how to make the right decision in this particular situation.

Human sinfulness is such a wily thing that unless people have clear direction as to what following Jesus requires, we can easily be tempted to justify the unjustifiable and rationalize wrongdoing. The Decalogue certainly helps, with its clarity and concreteness, mainly concerning acts prohibited but in a few cases acts commanded. But Jesus’ teachings, especially in concentrated form in the Sermon on the Mount, offer considerable additional content for concrete Christian obedience.

The Christian community is to be the place in which the teachings of Jesus are taught, their implications considered, and sisters and brothers in Christ together try to work out what obedience requires in all concreteness and specificity. There is freedom there, for sure, both for individuals and congregations, but there are also clear boundaries set by the teachings themselves and by our personal adult commitments to follow Jesus as Lord.

I continue to be concerned that the structure of Luther’s ethics, with his great concern about legalism, and his emphasis on loving, essentially situational discernment, does not provide adequate concreteness for struggling, tempted people in everyday life. People need clearer direction than this.

For example: What exactly does this parishioner do in relation to this unhappy marriage? Is she allowed to leave her spouse if she is merely unhappy, or is some specific “cause” required? What are the boundaries and options as I care for my dying father? Am I allowed to discontinue medical care? What about actively assisting him to end his own life?

I believe that to say that all human acts are tainted by sin, that there is no sin-free path for any human being, is, to coin a phrase, “simultaneously true yet dangerous.” It is true that none of us are innocent. But it is also true that some courses of action are morally right and others are morally wrong, full stop.

It is dangerous to efface the distinction between right and wrong, or even better and worse, when it comes to moral actions. It is important for Christians to be able to make the best possible, the best available, or the clearly right decision, and having done so not to trouble themselves overmuch with any taint of sin that might have gotten into the mix along the way. We need clarity about what we are to do and peace of mind that we have done it, when we have indeed done it. I think we can leave to God to discern into our marrow and judge whatever might not belong in the heart of a true Christian. Meanwhile, we need guidance concretely as to what following Jesus demands of us.

I do agree with the Lutheran tradition on this last point, however — the first word is grace, and the final word is grace. It was by God’s grace that we were invited into a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is by grace that our journey is sustained. And it is by grace that we, with our many mistakes, errors, and sins, will be greeted by Jesus at the end of our discipleship journey.

The Lawyer and the Monk

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Response to Mark Ellingsen, “Lutheranism: An Evangelical Catholic Way to Follow Jesus”
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, Reformed Tradition

The Lawyer and the Monk

Martin Luther was a monk. John Calvin was a lawyer. That contrast in vocational callings is the clearest way to consider the differences between how the Lutheran and Reformed traditions follow Jesus. Those differences, in my view, are more matters of style than of serious substance. Of course, theological distinctives can be uncovered and explored. But in the end, the Reformed tradition’s response to Lutheranism can be framed by the way a brilliant lawyer and a passionate monk, each fearlessly committed to following Jesus would relate to one another.

In the past four decades, that relationship has begun to flourish as each have lived more deeply into what it means to be the church catholic. In 1997, the “Formula of Agreement” was officially adopted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and three Reformed partners, the Reformed Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ. This ecumenical agreement was reached after 32 years of dialogue over theological differences which had persisted between the Lutheran and Reformed churches since the Reformation.

The Formula Agreement established “full communion” between these denominations. That means they each agreed to:
• recognize each other as churches in which the gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered according to the Word of God;
• withdraw any historic condemnation by one side or the other as inappropriate for the life and faith of our churches today;
• continue to recognize each other’s Baptism and authorize and encourage the sharing of the Lord’s Supper among their members;
• recognize each others’ various ministries and make provision for the orderly exchange of ordained ministers of Word and Sacrament;
• establish appropriate channels of consultation and decision-making within the existing structures of the churches;
• commit themselves to an ongoing process of theological dialogue in order to clarify further the common understanding of the faith and foster its common expression in evangelism, witness, and service;
• pledge themselves to living together under the Gospel in such a way that the principle of mutual affirmation and admonition becomes the basis of a trusting relationship in which respect and love for the other will have a chance to grow.

This is an ecumenical agreement which is having real consequences. Pastors in the RCA, the PC(USA), and the UCC can be called to serve congregations in the ELCA, and vice versa. This happens readily and has opened fresh opportunities for ministry. I was privileged to be General Secretary of the RCA when the Formula of Agreement was adopted. Beyond sharing at the pulpit and table, it has nurtured mutually enriching relationships between the RCA and the ELCA, as it has done for the other Reformed partners. And this continues. Next month I’ll be preaching and presiding over communion at an ELCA congregation, as has happened hundreds of times with Reformed and Lutheran Ministers of Word and Sacrament. All this would have been highly problematic before the Formula of Agreement declared full communion between us.

Given this, it would seem to violate the spirit of our full communion for me, from the Reformed tradition, to bring any sharp critique of Mark Ellingsen’s excellent presentation of how the Lutheran tradition follows Jesus. We spent 32 years in theological dialogue to determine we could now go forward together, following Jesus, based on what we hold in common, which I want to strongly affirm.

In the spirit of “affirmation and admonition” that is part of the Formula of Agreement, however, I can point to distinctives in our two traditions, but choose to frame these more as contrasting styles and points of emphasis, reflecting the dispositions of a lawyer and a monk. One notable example is how each tradition appropriates “freedom from the law.” Mark Ellingsen writes that Luther’s understanding of this truth led “the first Reformer and his tradition to avoid exhorting the faithful how to live with guidelines, commands, or discipline…. for good works are spontaneous.”

The Reformed tradition would demur. Its high emphasis on teaching comes from the conviction that Scripture instructs us how to live as those saved by grace. This comes, of course, through study, discernment, and the work of the Spirit, but results in some clear ways to behave, and rules to follow. Of course, my tradition often makes these onerous, excessive, and guilt-producing. But there’s a reluctance to say that good works are “spontaneous.” However, think about this. Lawyers place treasure and trust in words and rules. Monks place treasure and trust in spiritual practices.

Mark Ellingsen describes in a very helpful way the various streams that flow within the broad Lutheran tradition. He personally identifies with the “Evangelical Catholic” stream which places a central emphasis on the sacraments and liturgical practice. For those carried in this stream, “the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglo-Catholic heritages are regarded as the closest allies of Lutheranism.” Protestantism, as such, may even be rejected.

That can make those in the Reformed tradition uncomfortable. We’d ask, “Where is the role of preaching?” Pastors in both our traditions, after all, are Ministers of Word and Sacrament. The Reformed tradition highlights the centrality of the Word being proclaimed from the pulpit. That’s even reflected in the traditional architecture of Reformed congregations, with the pulpit at the center. Admittedly, it also has meant that the sacramental life in traditional Reformed worship often has been impoverished—a trend now being reversed in some Reformed congregations.

Mark Ellingsen wonderfully underscores the Lutheran commitment to the church catholic, and its ecumenical understandings. But my guess is that he and those in the Evangelical Catholic stream of Lutheranism might be more enthusiastic about the Lutheran ecumenical dialogues with the Episcopal Church, Orthodox Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church than with Formula of Agreement. Nevertheless, within the U.S. context, the ELCA has played a major ecumenical role in reaching out in all these directions with intentional commitment and theological depth. A similar role is played globally through the Lutheran World Federation.

A final word of affirmation for the Lutheran tradition, in helpful contrast to my own, comes in art and aesthetics. For various reasons probably rooted in sacramental theology and practice, the Lutheran tradition never divorced itself from work of the Spirit through aesthetics, and the senses— “smells and bells” and much more. You often see the difference even today when entering a Lutheran, versus a Reformed congregation. My tradition, to the extreme, often eliminated any “distractions” in art or images that would prevent congregants from simply hearing the Word. The Lutheran tradition, historically, has been more aesthetically inviting. But here again, I see the legacy of a monk and a lawyer.

The Reformed and Lutheran traditions are mutually enriching. Thankfully, in recent decades we’ve become far more intentional in opening our doors to this gift of the Spirit. John Calvin and Martin Luther never met one another in person. But the legacies of the lawyer and monk are intersecting each other today in ways that help both to follow Jesus more faithfully.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

The Lutheran Way–Informing Both Evangelicalism and Anglicanism

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Mark Ellingsen’s taxonomy of the different strains of Lutheranism is very helpful for understanding a tradition that is indeed internally diverse, and one that has long captured my interest. Martin Luther himself, of course, is a complex and, for many, a troublesome figure, especially his rhetoric about Jews. But for all his warts, Luther is an arresting man—raw and visceral and all-too-human, very much in contrast to the cool, almost detached rationality of John Calvin, even though the two of them shared similar theological insights. Luther ranted and stormed and threw inkwells at the devil, whereas Calvin comes across as measured and oh-so-rational.

Calvin’s systematic theology was essential for the broad theological enterprise of Protestantism, but he drew on Luther’s breakthrough, his “rediscovery of the gospel,” rescuing it (as he understood it) from the maw of medieval scholastic theology. Salvation by grace, as Mr. Ellingsen writes, remains at the center of Lutheranism.

As a historian, not a theologian, I cannot begin to respond to (let alone match) Mr. Ellingsen’s astute theological reflections. The Lutheran theological tradition is indeed rich and textured—and diverse.

It strikes me that the two traditions that have most shaped me and my experience of the faith, evangelicalism and Anglicanism, have each, in turn, been shaped by Lutheranism, although each amplified one dimension of Luther’s thought and all but ignored another.

Evangelicals seized on Luther’s emphasis on preaching; the reformer understood that a populace educated in the rudiments of Protestant theology was crucial to the success of the Reformation. For that reason, virtually every evangelical gathering culminates with the sermon, which can last anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes, sometimes longer. Evangelicals by and large have not followed Luther’s example on the sacraments, however. True, Luther’s theological understanding of Holy Communion was something less than the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation—but not much. Evangelicals, on the other hand, adopted Ulrich Zwingli’s memorialist understanding of the Lord’s Supper: We take this bread and wine (well, grape juice, but that’s another story) to remember the life and death of Jesus. And for that reason, evangelicals rarely partake of Holy Communion.

(An informant told me a while back that Willow Creek in South Barrington, Illinois, offered plastic, thimble-sized containers of grape juice with a wafer sealed in foil for congregants in the narthex. The faithful could, if they chose, pick up the tidy packages and partake on their way to the parking lot. I expect even Thomas Bramwell Welch might be uneasy about that.)

The Anglican tradition moved in the opposite direction, toward an embrace of Luther’s sacramental theology (more or less), but a relative neglect of preaching. That’s not to say that Anglicanism (the Episcopal Church in the United States) hasn’t had good preachers (Phillips Brooks and Barbara Brown Taylor comes to mind, among many others). But for Anglicans, the sermon (or homily) is a way station on the way to the crescendo of the service: Holy Eucharist. (I intentionally keep my sermons short because I do not want to detract from the “main event,” the Eucharist.)

One obvious way to chart this divergence is to consider both ritual and architecture. In an evangelical gathering, the pulpit stands at the center, and the service culminates in the sermon (or “message”). In the Anglican tradition, the altar is central, the pulpit typically to the side, and everything culminates in the Eucharist.

Perhaps Lutheranism can teach both traditions, evangelical and Anglican, a better way, one that places value on both preaching and sacraments.

What I learned from other Christian traditions

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Greetings in the name of Christ the King!  

Once this project was underway and I was able to read the bios of all my Conversation Partners, I joked with Harold Heie that it seemed a bit of a conspiracy to make the Catholic Church look bad, with only a housewife as Her representative!  I am not a scholar, a theologian, teacher or leader in my tradition the way all of you are, and so I thank you for the patience and care you took to read and respond to my posting.  While I have done what I can to represent my own experience and move toward first the Roman Catholic Church, and then to a more traditional community within the vast sea of Roman Catholics, I’m sure my efforts have fallen short when it comes to speaking for the Church broadly.   

It was a pleasure to read all of your thoughtful responses.  Thank you for your honesty and your willingness to connect your own experiences of following Jesus with mine where possible, but also to address areas of disagreement frankly.  The questions and critiques you raise are honest and fair.  Most reveal to me that 1500 words (even with an additional 1000 added on!) are really not enough to explain both my journey and the broad scope of Catholicism when it comes to following the Lord.  It would take another tome to address the theological differences that came up around things like the Eucharist and transubstantiation, the role of Mary the Mother of God and the saints, the all-male priesthood in the Catholic Church, Rome’s take on the priesthood of all believers, and certainly the implementation of social justice through the Catholic Church in a fallen world (to name only a few).  There were also more political issues raised, both in the realm of church politics and state politics, which would perhaps turn the conversation down a different path if I were really to ‘explain myself.’  

Instead, let me mention a hope I have for my efforts at this daunting task.  First, I hope it has come through that I would characterize the Roman Catholic Church as a church in crisis.  Please know that there is a kind of humility built-in to the nature of being Catholic in 2021 because of the very real shortcomings of the Church evident to the whole world, since they make the headlines of major newspapers on a regular basis.  This bride of Christ is sullied, tattered and torn, bruised and beaten from within and without.  And yet, one of the weird things about being a faithful Catholic is that we are bound to stay Catholic.  When we converted, I had no real idea that part of the call on our family would be to fast and pray for Holy Mother Church, and to wear a thorny crown of humiliation, which we must offer up as one more sacrifice that helps us to become like our Lord.  He did warn us, to be fair, that it would be this way.

Reading all of your postings was certainly fruitful for me.  I learned about traditions I’ve scarcely heard of!  I learned (perhaps again) about that push and pull we feel when we explore other traditions, and allow them to be held up as a mirror against our own.  I learned more about some of the documents that the Roman Catholic Church has been working on with many of your churches, which I’ve only heard mention of through the years.  Perhaps most important, I’ve tried to really hear and mull over the shortcomings some of you identify in my tradition.  I hope that the responses to your postings I can offer over the next several months will help to further flesh out our differences, and our common ground.  

I want to leave you with the words (in translation) of a very old song that Christian pilgrims would sing together as they marched along the way.  Our kids love to belt it out in Latin with their friends under the stars, as it would have been done long ago.  It is from a very old medieval manuscript collection, The Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, prepared around 1399 A.D.  I share it because I sincerely believe we are all fellow pilgrims on this road to Christ and toward the Parousia we so look forward to.  I hope it captures some of the wonder that the vast array of humanity is invited to in Christ, and through his Blessed Mother. 

In the love of our Lord,

Christina Wassell

 

Stella Splendens

(The melody is haunting, and worthy of a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67jKdP4BowE )

Chorus:

Splendid star on the serrated mountain,

with miracles shining like a sunbeam, hear the people.

 

From all around they rally, rejoicing,

rich and poor, young and old,

they assemble here to see with their own eyes,

and return from it filled with grace.

 

Rulers and magnates of royal stripes,

the mighty of the world, having obtained indulgence

for their sin, they cry out and beating their breast

they kneel and cry thus: Ave Maria.

 

Prelates and barons, famous counts,

all kinds of monks and priests,

soldiers, merchants, citizens, sailors,

burghers and fishermen are recompensed here.

 

Peasants, ploughmen and also scribes,

advocates, stone-masons and all carpenters,

tailors and shoemakers, and weavers as well,

all kinds of craftsmen rejoice here.

 

Queens, countesses, illustrious ladies powerful 

and maidens, teenagers and girls,

virgins, old women and widows equally,

climb this mountain; so do nuns.

 

All these groups assemble here to present themselves,

to remember their vows and keep them as well

by enriching this temple so that all may see this

adorning it with jewels, and return home released. 

 

Therefore, everybody, male and female,

beseeching and cleansing our minds, 

let us devoutly pray that we may really experience the glory of the Virgin,

the clemency of the Mother, and her gracefulness in heaven.

 

Translation by Dick Wursten http://www.dick.wursten.be/Vermell_originaltexts_translations.htm