What a super lecture, thank you very much. What a delight to see the Scripture being used according to the Spirit, the sense which the Spirit intends. One little quibble. The critique of "orders of creation" as used by LCMS reactionaries is one I fully agree with, but the historical claim that the "orders" are not authentically Lutheran is not the whole truth. See on this Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, Chapter 6, "The Order of the World: Church, Household, State." Also, if I may so presume, my Luther and the Beloved Community, Chapters 6 & 9.

I too applaud Prof. Goodine's critique of the LCMS document, but I am made a bit queasy by some of her argumentation. Could not her approach as easily be used by ELCA "revisionists" to justify their position on "the full inclusion of LGBT people"? I point specifically to her "paradigm of freedom" that she proposes toward the end, and the paragraph ending p.8 and continuing onto p. 9. It would not be far-fetched to see a similar-sounding argument made by advocates of the 2009 CWA decisions; indeed, I have heard them with my own ears. I have no desire to ally myself in this with opponents of the full participation of women in the Church, but perhaps I'm just not understanding Prof. Goodine's approach correctly. Can someone (Dr. Hinlicky? Dr. Wilson?) help me out here? I'm happy to be instructed about this.

James,your reading of Prof. Goodine's treatise is shared by me. It also see a similarity in the argument she makes for women's ordination in the LCMS to that which was made for the full inclusion of LGBT persons in the ELCA. "Interpretive methods start with God in Jesus", beginning with a "God-view. . .a paradigm of freedom", are tenets of the Gospel Reductionist hermeunetic that, unwittingly perhaps, simply inverts the Law/Gospel order and ends in antinomianism, Prof. Goodine's arguments to the contrary notwithstanding.

The fallacy behind this Gospel-first, fear of legalism hermaneutic is that it is somehow free from being "man's view", free from any "fear and reactivity" and free from "a priori assumptions". But there are definite assumptions and biasis in this hermeneutic, alright. The problem is, these assumptions are seldom, if ever, questioned. Goodine's implication that man is the historical oppressor of woman in the church is never once questioned in her treatise. Rather than being a hermeneutic of Gospel and faith, the Gospel Reductionionist hermeneutic of Goodine and the LGBT lobby is one of Law and "justice". Both purposes are to achieve the entitlement (ordination) that they feel they are owed by God, yet is being withheld by man. Thus, it is entirely "works" centered. Beginning with "Gospel" sounds great, but it is in total contradiction to Scripture's testimony that a Law has been written upon the heart of all mankind, a priori! And this Law upon the heart makes this hermeneutic totally impossible.

If it is true that the Law is the first "spirit" that strikes the heart of mankind, perhaps it would be fair to question the purity of the motives at work behind victimhood pro-women/pro-gay ordination. Could it be that those who advocate these changes in the Church, in the name of the freedom of the Gospel, have a hidden envy/rage within them? Could it be that they have a certain covetousness of others in authority or an inner anger at God for their birth gender/sexual orientation that they then project upon others? Could the Great Deceiver be using this inner rage as a way to strike a blow against the True Gospel within the church, dividing us all behind a mask of "love and freedom"? Seeing that this Law is within us a priori, convicting us all, perhaps we first need to hear a word of Law: "Repent"!

I also agree that these arguments could also apply to the ordination of LGBT persons. However, I don't see this article as a "Gospel first" approach. There really isn't any Gospel present in the text. It's all Law, and it's all accusing the LCMS, though it can just as easily strike us as well. I'm not sure how much more upfront she could be about it: "because when it came to the law, [the Pharisees] were on the wrong track entirely" and "Perhaps Jesus would step into this fray, cut to the quick and remind us that the Law is made for humankind and not vice versa. The lifting up, rather than the pushing down of humanity is always the bottom line – care for the poor, the widow and the orphan – pull the child, and even the ox, out of the well!"

These statements are not about Jesus' dying and resurrection because we have failed to live up to God's Law, but about the content and approach to that Law in the first place. And she finds the LCMS sorely wanting. IF this isn't First Use, what is? And is the LCMS able to repent?

Very observant, Peter. . .You are starting to see how Gospel Reductionism's "Gospel first" approach operates. . . It isn't exactly spread about universally, is it. No, by no stretch of the imagination. You now see that it isn't so much a sans Law for everyone, just certain groups of people who consider themselves to be part of the great victimhood of historical Christianity. Gospel Reductionism, then, is really quite selective. Only the enlightened are given the get-out-of-free, exemption card from God's Righteous Will, while all the while it continues to sow guilt (Law) everywhere else. And, although Goodine targets the LCMS as the real Pharisee, in her heart, me thinks she is really targeting the Law Giver.

Henry,

Goodine's critique sounds a lot to me like the very thing Pr Wilson is lamenting is lacking in her most recent post-- the First Use of the Law preached in fullness. I don't think that makes her sinless or that just because she is right in this application of the Law, that she thinks or says that she is right in all of her behavior before God. Indeed, I'd expect quite the opposite. And considering her audience, I don't think looking at the anger resulting from said treatment would resonate in too many hearts there. Certainly, she is probably guilty of anger over the treatment of women, and that sin (hopefully) drives her to Christ. However, her sins don't discredit what she is saying (and if they did, wouldn't that make it impossible for anyone to preach the Law?), and her charges need to be addressed. Whether or not she is also angry at the Law-giver doesn't change the Law that is spoken. But focusing on other Laws is certainly a useful tactic Satan gives us for trying to dodge the Law ourselves. Shouldn't the response be repentance for the charges where they apply to us? After that, then move on to consider other violations of the Law, such as anger.

Peter, your comments clearly illustrate the confusion (obfuscation?) that exists in Lutheran dialogue, particularly when it comes to understanding the difference between "justice" and "mercy" or the difference between an "entitlement" and a "gift". By definition, advocates of justice for a particular group feel that some "Law" against that group is unjust, rendering that group not guilty! This pre-emptive nullification of the Law does not come as a result of Christ's Mercy, Peter. It is an exemption, which is often the result of some new scholarly-derived interpretation of Scripture.

In Goodine's case, it is her "God-view of justice and freedom" hermeneutic that is used to achieve this exemption. But curiously, these new scholarly understandings of Scripture always seem to render their verdicts against historical imperatives, not promises. And coincidentally, these imperatives just happen to be the same ones that make the scholar the most uncomfortable! Why is it, Peter, these new understandings of Scripture are never, ever rendered in opposition to historical, comfort-inducing promises that are found in Scripture? If I were a skeptic, I might think there is a little bias here.

And, once one group achieves some measure of success using this tactic of exemption from the Law, other disgruntled groups or individuals will find some sympathetic scholar to help create a conscience bound argument for some perceived injustice of their own as well. Social documents for justice are then drafted, denomination-wide pity parties are organized, and theology is democratized so that congregations can then vote for themselves what does and what does not constitute a "sin". Before long, the Church becomes nothing more than an institution that uses false guilt to enable victims to achieve their perceived justice. Yet the heart remains hardened, because God's Grace is so insufficient!

Perhaps our demand for Justice (and freedom from the Law) has outstripped our desire for Mercy in the Lutheran Church. Our praises to God seem to end as soon as His Word conflicts with our desires. So we find ways to alter his Word and demonize our opponents so that we can resume our praise of God guilt-free! But it is in this way that we convict ourselves: We follow a God of our own making!

How deep would we deem Abraham's faith to have been, Peter, had he, prior to acting upon the command to sacrifice his only son, rationalized that God's imperative was not at all in keeping with His loving, justice and attributes, and, considering this imperative to be unjust, the Law-Giver rather Pharisaical, and the demand un-Christlike, opted to disregard His command? Would not a sacrificial ram be rendered insignificant? A hermeneutic that starts with God's Gracious Will taking precedence (as opposed to pre-eminance) over His Righteous Will is what Gospel Reductionism, and Dr. Goodine's treatise, is all about! Faith in God's Omniscience and His Mercy are the unfortunate casualty of such theology!

Henry,

The problem with your analysis is that you leave out sin, and how that twists institutions. Advocates of justice are not looking to find a not guilty verdict against themselves so much as confront the sin twisting people and institutions. That starts by applying the Law to isolate and find the sin, which I think Goodine does pretty well. What's missing from her critique is the Gospel. Maybe it's a hardness of heart on her end as to why it isn't present. Maybe instead, though, it's a hardness of heart on the end of those hearing the Law, as the first thing a hard heart does is to rationalize that it is not the Law speaking to them, that they do not need to change. As you know, there is no perceived need for a Gospel in that situation. I think if those she criticized did say 'yes, we have sinned in this regard', they would find her ready with the Gospel. Nor would I, in her position, withhold any and all absolution until they came to that on that issue, though I am not her, and can't speak for her.

As to Abraham's questioning, it's interesting that you skip Sodom, where Abraham does stand before God and argue with Him and Abimelech, where he lies. And yet God keeps God's promises.

Peter, my critique of Goodine's critique and those who agree with her has to do with her Gospel Reductionist hermeneutic and the shallow theological thinking of those who argue for its adoption among Lutherans. Believing in "justice" or the rightness of her cause, however, she and other advocates are pulling on the heartstrings of the faithful for them to adopt a purer hermenetic which does not start with Romans chapter 1, but starts elsewhere.

But when I pick up Goodine's "God-view of love, justice and freedom" lens to read Scripture, I notice that it has fingerprints all over it. Someone's been messing with that lens, and I don't think it is the Holy Spirit. It is not a loving and pristine hermeneutic as she imagines, but one that is driven by anger.

Bringing the Law to those we feel have hurt us with words of "repent" is one thing, Peter. But inverting the Law/Gospel paradigm in order to make the "Gospel" antecedent to our Scriptural interpretations in order to achieve "justice" is antinomian, pure and simle.

Henry,

I don't think Goodine has inverted Law/Gospel here. It's all Law with no Gospel, beginning or end. Just because she starts with her understanding of how Jesus interpreted the Law doesn't mean she's starting with the Gospel. She's saying that the LCMS understands the Law in the same way some of the Pharisees did: that they get so focused on minutiae of the Law that they have twisted the Law to say something it does not. Nor do I see differences from Romans 1 in what she says. In what ways do you think she departs from Romans 1? As I read Romans 1, it could as easily be addressed to the LCMS, especially v19-21 and 31-32. And Romans 1:18-32 is all Law.

I think that "God-view of love, justice and freedom" is best understood entirely as Law, much as Jesus saying that anger at one's brother is murder is not Gospel, but a sharpening of the Law. It is Law that leaves no escape for the LCMS and those opposed to women's ordination, which is what I think drives the need to discount what she says as Law. Because if it isn't Law, there's no need to change. The craziest part about this is that they are part of an organization that says when the Law does convict you, you will be shown mercy if you repent and trust the Gospel. So why is there no repentance on the side of the LCMS?

Very astute observations, Peter! You are absolutely correct in your reading of Goodine. Her Gospel reductionism, like all Gospel reductionism, is all Law and no Gospel! However,her "starting with Jesus" gives the illusion of Gospel to the reader/hearer, whether it was her deliberate intention or not. Human Sentiment, masquerading as "Gospel", is then able to subvert any Law which offends, and presumably gives Goodine the license to pre-empt and nullify that Law she feels is so oppressive towards women in the LCMS.

Let's looks at another example of Goodine's antinomian confusion of Law and Gospel, Justice and Mercy. She states . Redemption [Gospel], that is Christ, is Already in our midst and therefore justice [Law] must be real in the present. . . .The Lamb of God is bearing our sins right now [Gospel], not later. . . Paul underscores that hierarchies [Law] are abolished not in some later order, but in the present. . . . Christ came to fulfill the Law [Gospel], not later, but in real time -- even then, and even now!
Christ is the fulfillment of the law -- He alone is our guide.

As Luther once stated, “The Antinomians have invented a new method by which grace is to be preached first and after that the wrath of God. The word Law is not to be spoken at all with in earshot of Christians. That is a pretty seesaw, which pleases them wonderfully, because by this trick they can turn the Scriptures up or down and think they have become lux mundi [a world’s marvel]. . . . But they put the shoe on the foot the wrong way, trying to teach us the Law after the Gospel and wrath after grace. I am well aware of the devil’s aim. I see what abominable errors he is bent on introducing by means of this exegetical teeter-totter. But I cannot treat of them at this time.” Wieder Die Antinomianer, Martin Luther, 1539

Goodine is right about one thing. There is fear in the LCMS over the role of women's leadership in the church. But the question is, is it a power play/hierarchical sort of fear, as she asserts, or is it a matter of the LCMS simply taking Paul's admonitions in Titus and Timothy about church leaders falling into the same condemnation as the devil less cavalierly than say, the ELCA? Perhaps the LCMS sees this admonition as trumping Goodine's heart-wrenching, accusatory Gospel reductionist approach. A hermeneutic which seeks to have its way using the serious allegations rather than substance: Fear-inducing allegations that would have other denominations all but buckling at the knees!

And it's not as if Goodine doesn't acknowledge some fear regarding church leadership herself. She states, "For good or for evil, we are responsible and we will be held accountable for the implications of our theological doctrines. As leaders in the Church, it is critical that we be on the right track." Curious, isn't it, that given her audience, she has the hutzpah to use the pronoun "we"?

All in all, I find Goodine's hermeneutic of love, justice and freedom more in keeping with Saul Alynsky's Rules for Radicals: "Pick the target, Freeze it, Personalize it, and Polarize it"!

Henry,

As far as I can tell, the paragraph from Goodine that you cited is as good an example of the Law's Third Use as any, and as such, not an inversion of Law/Gospel, but a proclamation of the Law to Christians who have erred. I think the key passage is the summary line: "Christ is the fulfillment of the law -- He alone is our guide." That locks the earlier paragraph solidly into Law. Were it Gospel, it would speak to Christ's fulfillment of the Law on the cross and His life-giving resurrection. Instead, it's Christ as guide to correctly fulfilling the Law. I see the Gospel-words there not as the words of forgiveness that they usually are but as context placing this speech as one directed to Christians who have previously heard Law and Gospel in the past and once again need to hear the Law that they may be driven anew to the Gospel. A daily drowning of our Old Adam or Eve that acknowledges where we are at, and heightens the terror of the Law.

If the LCMS believes that the correct understanding of the Law is their reading of Titus and Timothy, I can only see three responses. One is that they and she have a different understanding of the Law, in which case they better try to resolve the difference with all diligence in the event that she is a prophetess and they, as fallible humans are wrong. If she is wrong, and can be shown thus, it is also important for her to repent. That requires more reflection than 'doesn't match our position, so it must be wrong'. Second option is that she is not speaking Law or Gospel at all. In which case she can be safely dismissed, but it isn't correct to say that she is speaking all Law and no Gospel here. That she can pull laws from the Bible and show how the LCMS has failed in those laws argues against this, though I doubt anyone can clearly show how her statements are not, in fact, grounded in the Law. The third option is that everyone agrees that she IS speaking the Law, in which case there is a sore need for repentance and the Gospel. So far as I can tell, it seems option #2 is favored here, though perhaps the relative silence of many LCMS posters is a result of reflection and consideration of option #1, or dare I hope, #3.

I think she used "we" because of her involvement at either Concordia wherever or the theological conference itself.

Here's an idea. Maybe someone could inform Dr. Goodine that women who suffer under the LCMS's hermeneutic of oppression have an option that the women who live under the Taliban's hermeneutic of oppression do not. The women in the LCMS, blessed to be living in the USA, have the freedom to leave their oppressors and join a church community that is more accepting of a Gospel reductionist hermeneutic that embraces women's ordination. And if it is a "Lutheran" church she seeks, well she might be encouraged to know that, thanks to CWA-09, there are now two more "Lutheran" denominations that do not fuel the disrespect and violence toward women that the LCMS does!

Henry,

Legally, she could leave. Socially, it's more difficult, but also possible. Theologically, I doubt she can, though, from a lot of potential angles. Unity of the Body of Christ being first and foremost. If you can see the LCMS bound to its present course by Scripture, don't you think she's also bound by that same Scripture to working within the LCMS to reform it? Did not all of Israel's prophets (save Jonah) proclaim repentance within Israel instead of just leaving? For all the schisms the Lutheran Church in America has had, Luther only left once the Catholics threw him out. Nor would her leaving solve the transgression against the Law, regardless of whose transgression it is. Or does leaving a church body suddenly absolve you or those remaining of sins?

You didn't say anything about Third Use here. Do you not think it is, and if not, why not? What would Third Use look like in this situation if this isn't it?

My bad. . .I should have known better. The Unity of the Body of Christ has a model of Christian love working its way through the ELCA right now with its opposing "bound consciences" paradigm. The clarity, peace and comfort Gospel reductionism gives the church trumps that hermeneutic of fear used by biblicists every time. And it is every bit as Scriptural! "For it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Luke 4:10-11. Perhaps this Freedom in Christ to demand "justice" for victims should be called the 4th use of the Law?

Dear James, Thanks for your response; this is in reply to your concerns. First, it helps to have some background for this debate in the LCMS. It is intimately connected with an "orders of creation" theology, which itself comes in many guises, and some of them are more pernicious than others. Dr Goodine is responding to a variety that is tied to rigid social ordering, intent on keeping people "in their place." This is usually applied only to married couples (keeping the wife subordinate to the husband) and to church leaders; i.e., inconsistently applied. It also generally presumes a return to the origin of a lost paradise where everybody was in their place and happy about it. Flourishing all depends on being and staying in your place. To me it sounds much more like Pseudo-Dionysius's celestial hierarchies than Martin Luther's Freedom of a Christian. I don't find any common ground between this type of argument and one that finds biblical proscriptions about homosexuality to still be in effect. It is not about keeping homosexuals in their place; they are not analagous situations. One is about ontological order, the other is about moral behavior. But I think it will behooves "traditionalists" on the issue to ask if they have any constructive proposal as to how homosexual Christians can live in hope and freedom before their Lord. If the only answer is "don't do that," there has been a profound failure to take seriously the full gospel that does genuinely effect new life, joy, hope, and freedom in people's lives.
You may also want to look at a blog post I wrote around the time of the 2009 churchwide assembly:
http://www.lutheranforum.org/sexuality/how-this-is-not-like-the-ordination-of-women/

Perhaps the homosexual "Christian" who understands the Gospel message as being all about "justice", rather than mercy, who ties their Christian identity with their own self-actualization, does share common ground with the woman who ties her Christian identity with her level of self-actualization. Both groups seek a Christ who brings them peace on their own terms, not a sword. Neither group is very interested in a Lutheran denomination that believes in a God who's thoughts are not their thoughts or has ways that are somehow past finding out. They tend to be either indifferent or offended by the faith of that other type of Christian woman or closeted, struggling gay person who have found true freedom and peace from "don't do that", cause it was that very word of Law that led them to seek Christ's mercy, rather than the world's understanding of peace and justice. Rather than despise the Law, these Christians actually love it! For it has crushed their pride and prepared their hearts to declare, "God be merciful to me, a sinner" and "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom"!

But she fails to mention Ephesians 5:22-33 in light of Galatians 3. Thus, this is why people will label her a Gospel Reductionist.