Cncordia.08 Job 1

The work of Christ and the deconstruction of twentieth-century Lutheranism

Michael Root Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary Columbia, SC

This presentation was made at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN, in early 2008 and represents my thinking at the time. I still believe the descriptive judgments about soteriology and about what I call ‘standard 20th century Lutheranism’ are true. My normative judgments about what theology should look like have changed since then, marked most obviously by my entrance into the Roman Catholic Church in 2010. The discussion of what Lutheranism today should stand for

is one I now have no right to participate in, but the recent history of Lutheranism is a topic that should be open to ecumenical discussion.

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I must begin with a confession. When Dean Wenthe first asked if I would be open to speaking at this Symposium, he said that I could have significant leeway in addressing the symposium topic. I am going to make use of that freedom and use a large part of this presentation to address what I am increasingly convinced are deep problems in what my colleague David Yeago likes to refer to as “the Lutheranism of the previous century,” Lutheran theology as taught in the second half of the twentieth-century in most Lutheran institutions around the world. I do not have a set of final, carefully honed conclusions to offer. Rather, this presentation is exploratory in nature, an attempt to lay out a thesis that

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needs further development, but can only be developed by means of such a provisional attempt. As I will explain, I do believe that my discussion of twentieth-century Lutheran theology has relevance to the question of a theology of the work of Christ. Lutheran theology as pursued in much of contemporary world Lutheranism will be able to deal adequately with the work of Christ only if certain deeper problems are addressed. Let me, however, at least begin with some comments on the symposium topic and in particular, about the shape of a theology of the work of Christ.

I. The Work of Christ and the Comprehensive Plot of God’s Work A striking feature of the history of Christology is the asymmetry between the doctrine of Christ’s person and the doctrine of Christ’s work. While the patristic church developed a comprehensive and detailed doctrine of the person of Christ, formulated as binding dogma still held as normative by most churches, doctrine in the form of binding dogma about Christ’s work is quite thin. There is a rich theology of Christ’s work, surveyed in histories of teachings on the atonement,1 but that theology has resisted dogmatic formulation, certainly in the comprehensive form achieved by the doctrine of Christ’s person. This paucity is not a function of an absence of the challenges of error that usually lead to the formulation of doctrine. The history of theology certainly has its examples of dubious understandings of Christ’s work. The underlying cause of the limited nature of doctrine on Christ’s work, I would argue, is that the work of Christ has within it a complexity that resists the sort of formulation required by doctrine or dogma. Scholars have responded to this complexity in various ways. On the one hand, many treatments of the topic of Christ’s work try to get a handle on the richness of the historical material by constructing a categorization or typology of theories of the atonement. The varying things theologians have said about Christ’s work can be reduced to a limited number -----------------------------------1

A good example is still Robert S. Franks, A History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ, in Its Ecclesiastical Development (London New York [etc.]: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918).

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of basic types or sorts of understanding. The most famous (and, in the end, unhelpful) categorization is that of Gustaf Aulén in his Christus Victor.2 On the other hand, some argue that Christ’s work is not best grasped in “theories” or propositional doctrines, but in images or symbols. Such images or symbols can allegedly express a depth in what God has done in Christ that is lost in more literal language. This focus on images is often linked with the former interest in categorization, with the images or symbols grouped around a small number of leading types.3 I have myself participated in this theological cottage industry. In an essay published some years ago, I argued that the images used in the New Testament to describe Christ’s work fall into two categories: images of liberation, images which describe Christ overcoming evils we suffer (casting out demons, binding Satan, healing diseases, enlightening our minds) and images of reconciliation, images which describe Christ overcoming the effect of evils that we commit (forgiving sins, bearing the consequences of our sin, including God’s wrath).4 The New Testament often juxtaposes and intertwines these images. When, in Revelation 5, the seer is told that the lion of Judah has conquered (a liberation image), he then looks and sees a lamb that has been slain (a reconciliation image). The two images are superimposed. The Lion of Judah is the Lamb who has been slain. I argued that these two groups of images contain conflicting understandings of God and evil and yet they are both necessary, and necessary in their interrelation, to express the mystery of God’s redemptive work in Jesus’ cross and resurrection. Jesus conquers death by dying; he reconciles us to God by himself bearing the alienation from God that is the result of sin. More fundamentally, I argued in a second essay that if we want to get at the inner logic of the various ways theologians have discussed Christ’s work, neither a focus on -----------------------------------2

Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (New York: Macmillan Co., 1969). 3 The best example of this approach is still F. W. Dillistone, The Christian Understanding of Atonement (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968). 4 Michael Root, “Dying He Lives: Biblical Image, Biblical Narrative, and the Redemptive Jesus,” Semeia 30 (1984): 155–69.

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propositional theories nor a focus on non-propositional images or symbols would work. Instead, understandings of Christ’s work, or better, comprehensive soteriologies, total understandings of what God has done to redeem humanity and the world through Christ and the Spirit, can be better understood in terms of the overarching plot structure they imply.5 A plot is the axis of action that forms the skeleton of a narrative, running from some tension - some lack or problem - to a resolution of that tension. Events are relevant to the plot when they advance or hinder the movement to resolution. A satisfying narrative closure comes when the initial tension is resolved in a convincing way. A soteriology, or more narrowly, a particular understanding of the work of Christ, implies some plot, some understanding of what the human problem is and then a related understanding of what God in Christ does to overcome that problem. Think of leading soteriologies in the theological tradition. For Gregory of Nyssa in his Catechetical Oration, humanity has sold itself to the Devil and Christ frees us from the Devil in a fair, but devious trade in which his humanity covers over his divinity as bait covers over a fish hook. For Anselm in his Cur deus homo, humanity has dishonored God and incurred a debt that must be paid by punishment or satisfaction, a debt which humanity cannot itself pay. In his death, a death not owed to God, Jesus offers a life of infinite value (because it is the life of the God-man) which can makes adequate satisfaction for human sin.6 In both examples (here summarized with great crudeness), the soteriology implies,or better , is a plot, which depicts the human predicament, and then tells the story of God’s work in Christ and the Spirit as the story of the solution of that predicament. I remain convinced that such a narrative approach to soteriology illuminates the way most theologians have discussed Christ’s work. The point I wish to emphasize today, however, is that an adequate analysis of Christ’s work or of how a particular theologian treats Christ’s work, must look at how that work fits -----------------------------------5

Michael Root, “The Narrative Structure of Soteriology,” Modern Theology 2 (1986): 145–58. This reading of Anselm is laid out in more detail in Michael Root, “Necessity and Unfittingness in Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo,” Scottish Journal of Theology 40 (1987): 211–30. 6

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into the total narrative of God’s ways with the world. Why does God create in the first place? What is God’s intention, his end or telos, in creating? If in Christ and the Spirit, God brings his original creative intention to completion (and I believe we must say at least that), then our understanding of Christ’s work will need to correlate with our understanding of God’s original intent in creating. What is the character of human sin? Our understanding of how sin is overcome by Christ must fit with our understanding of sin itself. How does what is accomplished once and for all in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ relate to the ongoing work of God in Christ and the Spirit in the mission of the Church, in Word and Sacrament? How is that later history necessary, but not an addition to what was completed in Christ? How does Christ’s work accomplished in history relate to the end of all things, an end that transcends history? Soteriologies, which have at their center understandings of the work of Christ, are inseparable from and rely on more comprehensive total pictures of the economy of God, stretching back to creation, fall, and the election of Israel, and forward to the outpouring of the Spirit, the life of the Church, and the consummation of all things under Christ their head. An understanding of Christ’ work that possesses the depth and complexity needed to capture what scripture and the tradition have said about that work is only possible as part of a wider theological effort that seeks to grasp, in breadth and in detail, the total reach of what God has done. It is especially true of the doctrine of Christ’s work that no theological locus finally stands alone. As is evident already in the letters of Paul, what God has wrought in Christ pushes our understanding out toward what has come to be called systematic theology. An adequate understanding of Christ’s work depends upon an adequately rich total sense of the range of what God has done, an adequately rich total theology. The assertion that I will suggest in the rest of this presentation (and do little more than suggest) is that what I will call the standard theology of 20th century Lutheranism undercuts that task. My emphasis will be on the more immediate inadequacies of that theology to meet the challenges we face, but the specific soteriological inadequacy should not be forgotten.

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II. The Standard Theology of 20th Century Lutheranism The turn of a century or even of a millennium is in itself an arbitrary moment, but it does provide an impetus to consider where we stand after travelling a certain distance down a certain path. The twentieth century witnessed an impressive series of explicitly Lutheran theologians - Holl, Elert, Althaus, Nygren, Aulén, Bring, Iwand, Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, Tillich, Ebeling, Peter Brunner, Robert Jenson, Lindbeck, Forde, Piepkorn, Prenter, Pannenberg, Jüngel. They responded with intelligence and energy to a politically, culturally, and theologically turbulent century. Not only did this series of theologians produce individual works of distinction, they also forged what R. R. Reno has called “a standard theology, a common pattern of thought, a widely used framework for integrating and explaining doctrine.” Reno explains: “What makes a standard theology standard is broad agreement about a general framework and a common vocabulary.”7 Far more than we usually realize (or, at least, far more than I realized) the first half of the 20th century saw a significant shift in Lutheran theology, a new set of categories became dominant and, to a degree, a new perspective on theology itself, one that was more subjective, more focussed on the situation of the person confronted by the word of God and less concerned with the broad sweep of theological loci (or, when it took up that broad sweep, it viewed other theological topics from a more subjective, more ‘existential’ perspective). There were, of course, significant differences among the theologians that I listed (and I will later note that some stand at some distance from what I am calling “standard 20th century Lutheranism”). Nevertheless, as a group they did bring about a deep shift, not only in what one might call “high-brow” Lutheranism, the theology of professors and professional theologians, but perhaps more importantly, a change also in “middle-brow” Lutheranism, the taken-forgranted assumptions of the typical pastor a few years or more out of seminary or of the well-

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R. R. Reno, “Theology After the Revolution,” First Things 173 (May 2007): 17f.

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informed lay person. This shift is so pervasive that it is almost invisible. What 20th century Lutheranism constructed is simply taken to be Lutheranism simpliciter. Let me give some examples. Last year, I asked my students in the first session of a first-year class on the Lutheran Confessions to say what they thought were the central ideas, concepts, or practices that were essential to Lutheranism. Some responses were those that have been standard Lutheran fare for centuries: justification by grace through faith, the distinction between law and gospel, an emphasis on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Many students also mentioned such phrases as

simul justus et peccator and the theology of the cross and some thought a particular strength of Lutheranism was an appreciation for paradox and ambiguity. Here they departed from most of Lutheran history and, without realizing it, spoke the distinctive language of 20th century Lutheranism. The most striking example of the linguistic and conceptual shift I am describing relates to the formula simul iustus et peccator. In a fascinating article done for the German

Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis, the historian Wolf-Dieter Hauschild describes his own “astonishment” when he carried out a task assigned to him by the group of writing a brief history of the discussion of simul iustus et peccator in Lutheran theology after Luther. He found that history to be quite short. The phrase is almost completely lacking in Lutheran theology prior to the 1920s. The impetus for its appearance was the rediscovery of Luther’s Romans lectures in, of all places, the Vatican and, ironically, it is first used again in Catholic critiques of Luther, especially that of Heinrich Denifle, for whom the simul was a sign of Luther’s theological error. As Hauschild notes, Denifle’s 1903 critique of Luther “for the first time makes the simul an independently considered theme of Luther research.”8 The theme is picked up in Lutheran theology only in the late 1920s, especially in the work of Rudolf -----------------------------------8

”Sie machte das Simul erstmals zu einem eigens beachteten Thema der Lutherforschung.” Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, “Die Formal ‘Gerecht und Sünder zugleich’ als Element der reformatorischen Rechtfertigungslehre - eine Entdeckung des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Gerecht und Sünder Zugleich? Ökumenische Klärungen, ed. Theodor Schneider and Gunther Wenz (Freiburg: Herder, 2001), 317.

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Hermann9 and Hans-Joachim Iwand.10 Prior to the 1920s, what is missing is not just the phrase, simul iustus et peccator, but, Hauschild argues, the emphasis on the reality the phrase refers to. He states that Heinrich Schmid’s handbook of Lutheran scholasticism, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church “shows that the doctrine of justification plays a subordinate role and that the simul formula and that which it refers to is totally lacking.”11 I believe Hauschild’s reading of Schmid is not totally accurate; Schmid quotes Luther on the character of concupiscence remaining after baptism as sin,12 which for Luther is the heart of the idea of simul iustus et peccator.13 Nevertheless, Hauschild is correct both that this idea plays little role in Schmid’s total presentation and that Schmid’s understanding of justification is subtly different from that which has become common in 20th century Lutheranism. Hauschild in the title of his essay calls simul iustus et peccator a “discovery of the twentieth century.” I would prefer to call it a construction; the phrase, the concepts that go with it, and the presentation of justification that results from an emphasis on the simul were a theological construction with certain theological ends in mind. What is “astonishing” about Hauschild’s historical finding is not just that the simul has such a short history, but how completely it has been taken up in Lutheranism. -----------------------------------9

Rudolf Hermann, Luthers These «Gerecht und Sünder zugleich», 2nd. ed. (Gütersloh: Güterloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1960), discussed by Hauschild, pp. 333-336. 10 See Hauschild’s discussion of the role of Iwand in propagating the importance of the simul, pp. 336-338. 11 ”. . . zeigt, dass die Rechtfertigungslehre eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt und dass die Simul-Formel bzw. die damit gemeinte Sache völlig felhlt.” Hauschild, “Die Formel ‘Gerecht und Sünder Zugleich’,” 310, n. 21. 12 Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3d ed., trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs, reprint, 1875 (Minnapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 250. 13 See David S. Yeago, “Martin Luther on Renewal and Sanctification: Simul Iustus et Peccator Revisited,” in Sapere teologico e unità della fede: Studi in onore del Prof. Jared Wicks, ed. Carmen Aparicio Valls, Carmelo Dotolo, and Gianluigi Pasquale (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2004), 655–74; and Michael Root, “Continuing the Conversation: Deeper Agreement on Justification as Criterion and on the Christian as Simul Justus et Peccator,” in The Gospel of Justification in Christ: Where Does the Church Stand Today? ed. Wayne C. Stumme (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 42–61.

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One might argue that this shift simply gave a label to what Lutherans were saying and need to say anyway. The way in which the simul has become so central to recent discussions of justification points, however, to a subtle but basic change. Imagine, for example, how a Lutheran doctrine of justification would look if the shaping emphasis fell not on the simul in its “totally-totally” form, but instead on the two kinds of righteousness that Luther expounded in his 1518 sermon of that title, the distinction between grace and gift that is repeated with far more regularity in Luther’s writings than the simul, and the distinction between sin ruling and sin ruled that plays such an important role in Luther’s Against Latomus, one of his most important texts on justification? I think justification would look subtly but significantly different than it does in much 20th century Lutheranism and more like the Lutheran theology of earlier periods. The “discovery” or construction of the simul in 20th century Lutheranism was not an isolated phenomena. It is widely known that the concept of a theology of the cross was absent from Lutheran discussion until the early 20th century and especially Walther von Loewenich’s 1929 study of the topic.14 This is generally seen as the 20th century recapturing what had been lost in the age of orthodoxy and scholasticism. I find few Lutherans fully aware, however, of the thin textual basis for claims that a theology of the cross, in a technical sense. is central to Luther or Lutheranism. The phrase “theology of the cross” appears, as far as I can tell, only six times in Luther’s work, all but one occurring in the late winter and spring of 1518. His use of the phrase is, I believe, less than theologically clear, pointing forward to his mature theology of justification, but also pointing backward to a humility piety that does not reflect a Reformation understanding. Nevertheless, the statement that Lutheran theology is or should be throughout a theology of the cross (understood rather differently by different authors) is now a part of the “standard theology” of Lutheranism. In his useful recent survey of the history of the theologia crucis in the 20th -----------------------------------14

Walther von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976).

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century (limited, however, entirely to the German language literature) Michael Korthaus concludes, in the heading to the next to the last section of the book, that theologies of the cross are “the inheritance [Erbe] of the 20th century,” but in the last section he states that the theologia crucis, is “the not-to-be-given-up [unaufgebbare] inheritance of evangelical theology.”15 It is essential to Lutheran theology, even if Lutheran theology for most of its history did not discuss it. Closely related to the emphasis on the simul (especially the way it is emphasized in its ‘totally-totally’ form) and the theology of the cross is a tendency less characteristic of formal Lutheran academic theology, but pervasive in much recent Lutheran discourse, the celebration of paradox and ambiguity. A group of ELCA theologians concerned with mission recently referred to “the Lutheran gift of dialectic, which might be called a gift for ambiguity.”16 Celebrations of a Lutheran tolerance for ambiguity are now part of the boiler plate of Lutheran church leaders. And yet, “ambiguity” is always for Luther a negative term. Every reference to ambiguity in the Index to the American Edition of Luther’s Works is negative. A typical comment is: "Quintilian warns most properly that an ambiguous word should be avoided like a rock" (LW 8, p. 195). Ambiguity undercuts the clarity of the gospel in scripture, which for Luther is essential. Ambiguity and paradox are often group together, although they are linguistically distinct. Luther does frequently use paradox, but his paradoxes are often rhetorical. They are a odd juxtaposition of words that brings one up short to make a point, a point that can also be made in a non-paradoxical way. A good example is the statement “every good work is a sin,” which Luther discusses at length in his Against Latomus. This sounds like a contradiction, a material paradox, but as he explains the statement, it becomes clear that no contradiction exists. To resist by the Holy Spirit the impulses of the Old Adam and Eve -----------------------------------15

Michael Korthaus, Kreuzestheologie: Geschichte und Gestalt eines Programmbegriffs in der evangelischen Theologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 405, 412. 16 Richard H. Bliese and Craig Van Gelder, eds., The Evangelizing Church: A Lutheran Contribution (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005), 7.

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within us is a good work, truly pleasing to God, but because such efforts betray that we are still divided and do not love God with the undivided heart and mind that the Law requires, such good works are also sin. The simul itself is precisely such a rhetorical paradox. It contains no genuine internal contradiction.17 It involves no embrace of ambiguity. These elements of standard 20th Lutheranism often come as a package. For example, an Old Testament professor at a Lutheran seminary is quoted in the brochure for an ELCA New England Synod pastor’s conference as saying: “I was attracted [to Lutheranism] by the centrality of the theology of the cross and the liturgical traditions. I love the Lutheran capacity to embrace ambiguity: we're both saints and sinners.”18 It is this Lutheranism that is, for better or worse, a 20th century construction . I think this standard 20th century Lutheran theology became so widespread for a variety of reasons. It could be both subtle (think of the work of Elert, Ebeling, or Jüngel), but could also be easily summarized in memorable catch phrases. I can say from my own earlier life that it teaches well; students can pick it up and many find it illuminating. For many theologians and pastors, this Lutheranism offered an option other than what seemed to be a liberalism that did not take theological concepts seriously, an equally empty pietism, and a repristinating orthodoxy. I would suggest that some of the success of 20th century Lutheranism is also owed to its social or social-ecclesial functions (and all I can do here is suggest; I cannot demonstrate what I am about to say and am not altogether sure how I would go about making such a demonstration). First, 20th century Lutheranism justified the continued existence of a distinct Lutheranism and distinct Lutheran churches and theological faculties, especially over against Catholicism. The contrast-type which functions in the background of 20th century Lutheranism is almost always Catholicism. Lutheranism is to be interpreted in such -----------------------------------17

See the essays on the simul cited above (note 13) by Yeago and Root. Accessed online: http://www.nesynod.org/CarePacket/Sept_2007/Convo_brochure_2007.pdf 18

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a way that its contrast with Catholicism will be clear. Hauschild describes the way in which he was taught the simul. “I myself learned already as a student from my academic teachers that the paradox that [the simul] states in a particularly relevant way the difference between the Evangelical and the Catholic doctrines of justification and that therefore the simul formula is unacceptable to Roman Catholicism.”19 I would suggest that this contrast was part of what made the simul attractive. It was effective in setting off Lutheranism and Catholicism from each other. Similarly, whatever disputes there might be about what constitutes a true theology of the cross, it has always been clear in the Lutheran discussion who represented the false theology of glory, viz., Rome, Vatican I, or even Aquinas. The celebration of ambiguity and paradox often has more than Rome as its target; often Conservative Evangelicals are the contemporary contrast case, but Rome is at least among those allegedly plagued by a concern for certainty. Twentieth century Lutheran theology, among other things, was effective in underwriting a distinct Lutheran identity and since Catholicism was the most prominent alternative to Lutheranism in Germany and the Nordic countries, a sharp contrast with Catholicism was desirable. When contrast with another tradition of the Christian faith becomes a shaping constituent of theology, impoverishment is almost always the result, as both Ephraim Radner and R. R Reno have convincingly argued.20 Attention is driven away from the Christological and Trinitarian foundations of the faith (neither of these can define what makes a Lutheran Lutheran or a Catholic Catholic) and toward that which defines our own group, which is usually more marginal. When the doctrine of justification is an indication how to rightly, evangelically, understand what God accomplishes in us by grace and the Spirit, it points to something fundamental, but when our identity hangs on whether -----------------------------------19

Hauschild, “Die Formel ‘Gerecht und Sünder Zugleich’,” 304. See, more broadly, Ephraim Radner, The End of the Church: A Pneumatology of Christian Division in the West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); and more narrowly, R. R. Reno, “The Debilitation of the Churches,” in The Ecumenical Future: Background Papers for In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 46–72. 20

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concupiscence is or is not sin, then our emphasis has been misplaced and our theology weakened. Second, I would suggest that standard twentieth century Lutheran theology also underwrote a certain kind of accommodation with the modern world. I wish here to be tentative; a serious moral criticism is embodied in this suggestion, a criticism that should not be made lightly. The re-interpretation of justification that accompanied the new stress on

simul iustus et peccator made a vigorous doctrine of the Christian life, of holiness, of sanctification, difficult to articulate, especially at the “middle-brow” level that I have mentioned. Emphasis falls again and again on the “totally sinner” side of the simul and a theologian such as Gerhard Forde repeatedly criticized any language that suggests sanctification as moral progress.21 This difficulty in articulating sanctification is not characteristic of classical Lutheranism. Within a larger ordo salutis, Schmid describes sanctification as a renovation in which “by the influence of divine grace the sin still cleaving to man disappears, more and more, and gives place to an increasing facility for doing what is good.”22 A nineteenth century Lutheran theologian such as the sadly neglected Ernst Sartorius of Königsberg can lay out the Christian life in attractive detail and integrate it with the central emphases of Western and Reformation theology in his The Doctrine of Divine

Love.23 Twentieth century Lutheranism has inculcated a deep suspicion of sanctification. The question that I find myself forced to ask is whether that was an unforeseen and undesired side-effect of the typical emphases of twentieth century Lutheran theology or was it an unacknowledged intention? Lutheranism in most of its forms, through most of its

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For example: “Above all, the simul iustus et peccator brings with it an understanding of sin that undermines all ordinary ideas of progress according to moral or legal schemes” Gerhard O. Forde, Justification by Faith - A Matter of Death and Life (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 43. Unfortunately, Forde never specifies what progress might be in an evangelical scheme, beyond some useful but abstract hints, see p. 49. 22 Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 487. 23 Ern[e]st Sartorius, The Doctrine of Divine Love, or Outlines of the Moral Theology of the Evangelical Church, trans. Sophia Taylor (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1884), esp. 241–355.

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history, has been an established faith, encompassing entire populations. In the Lutheran heartlands of central Europe, to be a Lutheran did not distinguish one from one’s neighbors, since they were almost certainly Lutheran also. To be a Lutheran did not mean that one lived differently from the surrounding population. In an increasingly secularized world, in which the moral strictures of the Christian tradition have less hold on the wider population, is part of the attraction of the Lutheranism I have been describing its tendency not to ask persons to live very differently from the neighbor, whether that neighbor is Christian or not? After all, we are all “totally sinful” and the stress falls on not claiming works righteousness. Moral questions are ambiguous; who can be certain? David Yeago has noted that for all of the claimed radicalism of the theology of Gerhard Forde, his theology actually doesn’t call for a behavior much different from that of others in our culture. One is to take up a different attitude toward our lives, our successes and failures, but one isn’t really called to a fundamental change of the concrete actions that make up those lives. Is that part of the attraction of 20th century Lutheranism? When my students are quick to echo Forde’s insistence that the only correct answer to the question “What must I do to be saved?” is “nothing,”24 I suspect that “nothing” is just the answer they want to hear. (When I point out that the biblical answer to the question “What must I do to be saved?” is “Repent and be baptized” [Acts 2:38], and then try to begin a discussion of just what is entailed in repentance, they begin to lose interest.) Lutheranism has always feared the pride of works righteousness, but especially in its recent form has it programatically embraced sloth? Let me summarize: in the course of the twentieth century, Lutheran theologians enacted a subtle re-definition of Lutheranism, not by inventing something new out of whole cloth, but by shifting emphasis in a way that recast Lutheran perspectives. This re-definition proved highly successful in that it became the standard theological vocabulary of most Lutheran theology, both academic and popular. Investigation is needed, however, into the

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Forde, Justification by Faith, 22.

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relation of this re-definition of Lutheranism to the earlier forms of Lutheranism, to the Confessions, to Luther, and, dare I suggest it, to Scripture.

III. The Problems of Twentieth Century Lutheranism and their Solution I have already begun the third section of my presentation, why this re-definition is problematic and how do we find our way out to a better grasp of the faith. The problems of the sort of theology that I have described are probably evident to much of this audience. A common element, I believe, in much 20th century Lutheran theology has been a tendency to hold closely to the perspective of the person addressed by the gospel and not to take up what one might call a more sapiential perspective, which views the topics of theology more objectively. Otto Hermann Pesch famously contrasted Luther’s existential theology with the sapiential theology of Aquinas.25 Already in the works of Melanchthon, however, Lutheranism found a more middle road, one that did not abandon the first- and second-person perspective of Luther, but which was able to deal with the full range of theological topics in an adequately objective way.26 Luther himself did not protest this turn, but applauded Melanchthon’s work. Lutheran orthodoxy and much 19th century Lutheran theology continued such an approach. What I have called standard twentiethcentury Lutheran theology, however, with its fear of the “Melanchthonian blight,” has turned to an intensified form of what Pesch called the “existential” form of theology. I will not dwell here on the problems of this approach. It drains away just that richness of the wider narrative that needs to be in place if we are to be able to discuss any theological matter with sufficient nuance and care. An example of such a draining is the reduction of law to a functional contrast with gospel, so that “law” is always a negative term,

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Otto Hermann Pesch, “Existential and Sapiential Theology - The Theological Confrontation Between Luther and Thomas Aquinas,” in Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther, ed. Jared Wicks (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970), 61–81. 26 I have tried to update Pesch’s argument in Root, “Continuing the Conversation”.

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something God overcomes in Christ.27 The complexity of the concept “law” in the Bible and the Lutheran Reformers is lost; the possibility of a “third use” of the law is eliminated, despite the difficulty of then making sense of such texts as Luther’s Catechisms when they discuss the 10 Commandments. The conceptually impoverished level of the discussion of sexuality in the ELCA is a witness to what results (and I believe this poverty is suffered by almost all sides in the debate). In relation to the theme of this conference, I would emphasize that without a sufficiently rich wider theological context, one cannot produce an adequate doctrine of Christ’s work. Because of the way an understanding of Christ’s work interrelates with so many theological loci, inadequacies in other areas of theology inevitably affect how the work of Christ is understood. It is important to focus directly on the work of Christ, but that focus is not sufficient itself to correct problems in soteriology. I would guess that this audience largely agrees that the sort of theology I have discussed is problematic, whether or not you agree that it has become standard in much Lutheranism in the contemporary world. Let me emphasize a further point on which there may be less agreement. I believe the challenges presented by what I have called standard 20th century Lutheranism go far deeper than is usually perceived. They are not usefully understood as problems of “liberalism.” Perhaps one can construct a definition of “liberal” that will take in Elert, Forde, Ebeling, and Jüngel (the theologians who perhaps most clearly represent standard 20th century Lutheranism), but that label would not help us understand the inner dynamic of their theologies. More problematically, such a label might support the fundamentally false belief that the solution is simply “conservatism.” The problems with

-----------------------------------27

On this tendency in modern Lutheranism, see David S. Yeago, “Theological Impasse and Ecclesial Future,” Lutheran Forum 26, no. 4 (November 1992): 37; and David S. Yeago, “Gnosticism, Antinomianism, and Reformation Theology: Reflections on the Cost of a Construal,” Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993): 41.

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standard 20th century Lutheranism have little to do with being liberal or conservative in any general way; they have to do with the specificity of the sort of Lutheranism being proposed. In the present situation, a response that has in many ways served Lutheranism well, a response that probably is not just second-nature, but even genetic to the Missouri Synod, the response of confessionalism, will not, I believe, suffice. The problem with Elert or Forde is not that they are insufficiently confessional, or at least not in any straightforward way that would be argumentatively fruitful to pursue. Their construals of Lutheran theology fall, it seems to me, within the range of hermeneutically plausible possibilities, especially if one is willing to allow the theology of Luther an interpretive role in describing what it means to be Lutheran. The theology of the Reformation, like the theology of any age, has its limitations and I believe those limitations have become increasingly visible in 20th century Lutheranism. At least some of the problems of 20th century Lutheranism are exaggerations of tendencies already present in the 16th century and especially in Luther himself. “Forward to Luther,” as Anders Nygren famously proclaimed at the first assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in 1947,28 will not lead out of the present situation. (For example, many persons within the ELCA who would understand themselves as “conservative” or “confessional” are drawn to the theology of Gerhard Forde, but if my analysis is correct, then the sort of theology represented by Forde is central to the ELCA’s problems, not a formula for their solution.) If some form of confessionalism is not the solution, then what is? I would note that in the list of 20th century Lutheran theologians I gave above, the ones who I believe share least in the re-description of Lutheranism that I find problematic are those who were most open to or involved in ecumenical discussions, especially with Catholicism: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Peter Brunner, George Lindbeck, Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Robert Jenson,

-----------------------------------28

Jens Holger Schjørring, Prasanna Kumari, and Norman A. Hjelm, eds., From Federation to Communion: The History of the Lutheran World Federation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 426f.

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Wolfhart Pannenberg. And that larger movement within Lutheran theology that has most recently made the cleanest break with the patterns of 20th century Lutheranism, viz., the Finnish school of Luther interpretation, has grown out of ecumenical engagement with Orthodoxy. I don’t think this is an accident. Lutheranism is most vital when it takes seriously its engagement with the wider theological world. That engagement must be more than simply our explaining the Lutheran truth to others. At the very least, an engagement with Catholicism and Orthodoxy should remind of us aspects of our own tradition that we have forgotten (e.g., an attempt to understand Aquinas on merit led to me back to the surprisingly vigorous understanding of merit in the Apology, an idea that has almost entirely disappeared from Lutheranism.29) Simply as an empirical judgment, I would say that a constructive and open engagement with the Catholic and Orthodox traditions has produced a better Lutheranism. We need the critical distance on our own tradition that an open encounter with other Christian traditions can produce. Such engagement can provide the needed corrective to limitations of present tendencies in Lutheran theology. Lutheran (and more generally Protestant) theology produced between 1600 and 1800, much of which can be described as a form of scholasticism (which should not be a pejorative term), is one of the most understudied areas of our past, a neglect that contributes to the thinness of much present Lutheran theology. Part of the problem is linguistic; most of this material remains in Latin and few theologians read Latin well enough to pick up, say, a volume of John Gerhard and read an entire locus. An engagement with Catholic scholasticism should be an impetus for Lutherans to rediscover our own tradition. We cannot simply return to the 17th century, but that is no excuse not to

-----------------------------------29

Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 169–73; much of this section is from the later, octavo edition of the Apology and thus the usual paragraph numbers do not apply. On Aquinas and merit, see Michael Root, “Aquinas, Merit, and Reformation Theology After the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 5–22.

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learn from it. At the very least, we can learn how different standard 20th century Lutheranism is from most of the Lutheran tradition. Most deeply, a Lutheran engagement with the wider tradition could aid us in addressing our deepest need: a more fruitful engagement with Scripture. The ELCA has begun a new national program to engage the Bible. In discussions leading up to the program, an emphasis fell on finding a “Lutheran hermeneutic.” But why should we think that an explicitly Lutheran hermeneutic is what we need in our present situation? The most hermeneutically impressive book I have read recently is Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth.30 The pope displays a flexibility in dealing with both recent historical and pre-modern readings of the biblical text, all in the service of a truly evangelical and edifying interpretation of the gospels. It is one of the best examples of the recent attempt to recapture a truly theological and ecclesial exegesis of the Bible. We can learn far more from attending to the kind of hermeneutic typified by the pope in this book than we can from a concern with a Lutheran hermeneutic (particularly a Lutheran hermeneutic shaped by the commitments of standard 20th century Lutheranism).

IV. Conclusion As I warned you at the outset, I have wandered from the set theme of the conference and, at some points, perhaps simply wandered. I wanted, however, to make a first run at a question that has increasingly come to concern me and this symposium seemed like the right setting to make this first essay. The normative texts of theology - the Scriptures, the creeds, doctrinal texts such as the Confessions - do not determine all aspects of theology. There is always a task of construction, of order, of emphasis, which can be of decisive importance. Twentieth century Lutheranism, as I have described it, has been quite successful in convincing a wide range of the church that its construction simply is Lutheranism. I have -----------------------------------30

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

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become convinced both that this construction is in certain important ways quite different from much of the earlier Lutheran tradition, including the Confessions, and that this construction has severe limitations as an exposition of the Christian faith for the life of the church and the life of the individual Christian. The contemporary and future task is one of deconstruction and reconstruction. I don’t believe that the needed reconstruction is best attempted as another enterprise in the long project of Lutheran confessionalism, but is better carried out in explicit engagement with other traditions, especially traditions that have been conscious of the need to preserve the riches of the pre-modern church. Lutheranism has something to teach, but it also has things to learn.

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