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Critique of the New LSTC Faculty Statement, Part Two
by
Paul R. Hinlicky
—
June 28, 2009
What is the gospel and what does it means for us, according to the LSTC Faculty statement? We learn in this concise formulation from the beginning of their statement that the redemptive act that constitutes the good news is that Christ crossed religious and societal boundaries, including the excluded. In this Christ is said to have modeled radical love, providing an example of grace which frees God’s people in turn to do likewise...
The new LSTC faculty statement continues:
“One of the realities that becomes apparent when we see Christ is that he consistently crossed religious and societal boundaries, reached out to the marginalized and modeled a radical ethic of love. We trust that Christ and his gospel now inspire God’s people to live in ways that are more consistent with the good news and with the example of Christ. Hence, they are free to be divine instruments of grace in the world because of Christ’s redemptive acts. They have been precisely that at particular moments throughout history when the Holy Spirit, by means of the gospel, has inspired faithful individuals and communities to see the Scriptures in a new light and to implement changes that have resulted in crucial theological, ecclesiastical and social reforms.”
What is the gospel and what does it mean for us, according to the LSTC Faculty statement? We learn in this concise formulation from the beginning of their statement that the redemptive act constituting the good news is that Christ crossed religious and societal boundaries to include the excluded. In this Christ is said to have modeled radical love, providing an example of grace which frees God’s people in turn to do likewise.
Indeed, by means of this boundary-crossing gospel, the Spirit has inspired the faithful to read Scripture in new, reformatory ways through the centuries. What is stake in the current controversy, then, is nothing less than what the gospel is and means for us today, as the Statement underscores several paragraphs later: “[T]he ultimate question is whether the recommendation on ministry policies proclaims Christ [Christum treiben] and his message of grace more faithfully than older interpretations and practices.”
Unlike the cowardly dodge made by the ELCA Task Force, note well what the LSTC faculty is righly saying here. The dispute in which we are involved is about the gospel. Since the gospel is the life of the church on which it stands and falls, therefore, this dispute is not merely about reasonable ethical options among people otherwise united in faith. The bureaucratic imperative controlling the Task Force to keep the dollars flowing to Higgins Road undoubtedly inclined them to avoid the uncomfortable truth that we are on the cusp of a gospel controversy. We should be grateful therefore to the LSTC faculty for now adding, at least in this respect, intellectual honesty to this confused discussion. There are two contending theologies of reconciliation vying for the hearts and minds of the ELCA.
It is thus also sadly true, however, that the gospel which the LSTC faculty invokes is not the gospel according to Luther and the Confessions—the gospel of Christ crucified for our sins and raised for our justification—on which the real church stands and falls. The radical and reformatory principle of Lutheran confessionalism is invoked by the LSTC theologians, but the substance is ignored and instead another gospel is put forward in its place.
As we have just patiently exegeted, the LSTC faculty gives us Christ as ethical model and grace as hospitality, together with a purely secular understanding of the “marginalized.” None of these ideas, typical of the liberal Protestant theology of reconciliation, are sheerly without foundation in the New Testament. But in Lutheran theology they are logically and substantially subordinated to Christ as savior before God, grace as mercy for the sinner before God, and hospitality as our reconciliation at the Lord’s Table in anticipation of the feast to come, which comes from above. The vertical dimension of the gospel (coram deo) is vacated and replaced by a horizontal perspective (coram hominibus) in the LSTC faculty statement.
It is striking indeed that the LSTC faculty statement does not refer, as does Paul, to Christ who at the right time, while we were still enemies, died for the ungodly; as, in the words of 1 Peter, the righteous for the unrighteous; or according to the Baptist’s testimony in the Fourth Gospel, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; or even to the Synoptic Christ who gives His life as a ransom for many. In the place of this real New Testament gospel, an academically controversial reconstruction of the so-called historical Jesus’ ministry is proffered in the trappings of historic Lutheranism’s confessional principle. This move is, to put it mildly, as intellectually vapid as it is dishonest. More seriously, it is religiously deceptive. It claims the form of Lutheran confessionalism, but denies by omission its power and truth as justification of the ungodly.
When Christ as example (exemplum) is theologically elevated over Christ as gift of our salvation before God (sacramentum), even the example of Christ’s love is misunderstood. So also then are its implications for the life of the church. Here the radical love of Christ does not mean, as it does for Luther, the “love of the cross, born of the cross, which does not seek a good to enjoy, but a good to confer on a bad or needy person.” Instead, in this theology, the “marginalized” are precisely not bad or needy persons. Rather, they are the victims of bigotry. Their only need to be freed from their devaluation by others. Inclusivism becomes the operative ecclesiology-missiology. Not repentance and faith. Not the new life of obedience. Not reconciliation by the body and blood of Christ, proclaiming His death until He comes again.
When we flesh out these alternative visions of the life of the church, there is no denying that we have on our hands a battle for the truth of the gospel and what it means for us today.
Not surprisingly, this opening formulation of LSTC “gospel” theology concludes by introducing the claim that the Spirit-inspired faithful through history have read Scriptures in news way, introducing liberating reform. We shall next see that both of these claims are quite false to the historical record.
Paul R. Hinlicky is the Tise Professor of Lutheran Studies at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.
Which Gospel
Posted by
Samuel Zumwalt
at
June 29, 2009 03:50
Dear Paul,
I appreciate your courage in addressing what the Gospel is and what it does. This crisis reaches much further than LSTC, as you well know. The way out of this will be slow, and I expect things to get much worse because so many students have been taught a different gospel. Carefully contrasting this false gospel with the Good News of God in Christ is the antidote.
As I attend events like synod assembly and the required Boundaries Workshop, I find it sad that confessional subscription means absolutely nothing to many. Raising questions of fidelity to our confessions and creeds evokes eye-rolls or open mocking. I have even heard it suggested that faithful preaching could be deemed abusive.
It seems that we have arrived at a grand moment of the spirit...or, at least, the zeitgeist. The triumphalism of the '60s redivivus.
Sam
I appreciate your courage in addressing what the Gospel is and what it does. This crisis reaches much further than LSTC, as you well know. The way out of this will be slow, and I expect things to get much worse because so many students have been taught a different gospel. Carefully contrasting this false gospel with the Good News of God in Christ is the antidote.
As I attend events like synod assembly and the required Boundaries Workshop, I find it sad that confessional subscription means absolutely nothing to many. Raising questions of fidelity to our confessions and creeds evokes eye-rolls or open mocking. I have even heard it suggested that faithful preaching could be deemed abusive.
It seems that we have arrived at a grand moment of the spirit...or, at least, the zeitgeist. The triumphalism of the '60s redivivus.
Sam
Things will get worse...
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
June 29, 2009 08:50
I agree, Sam. It is deeply depressing and distressing to see how divided we are in the ELCA about what the gospel is and what it means for us today. As I wrote some months ago, it is not about homosexuality, not really.
Silence is telling
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
June 29, 2009 04:56
Rob, read the previous post, Part One of my critique of the LSTC statement. It is not I, but the signatories who claim that unconditional welcome of homosexual persons is a gospel issue but then go on to articulate a liberal Protestant understanding of the gospel as the basis for this. The appeal to the authority of the Lutheran confessional understanding of the gospel for this purpose, but silence about its substance in the controversy before us, is, I submit, intellectually dishonest and religiously deceptive. If I have have caricatured the liberal Protestant theology of reconciliation, I am relying on H. R. Niebuhr's classic account of it in The Kingdom of God in America,of a 'God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross' -- silence or no, an apt description of the LSTC faculty statement's operating theology.
A Counter-Question to Rob
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
June 29, 2009 05:04
Would the Lutheran Confessions be able to recognize themselves in the LSTC faculty statement?
Please keep reading. My critique of the LSTC statement is coming in a total of five installments over the next week.
Please keep reading. My critique of the LSTC statement is coming in a total of five installments over the next week.
Re: A Counter-Question
Posted by
Rob
at
June 29, 2009 07:47
Prof. Hinlicky,
I'll look forward to your future posts. I assume that you'll address the issue of scriptural hermeneutics in the first paragraph of the LSTC document more extensively (since it really is the crux of the document's locations of itself within the confessional tradition, particularly in its invocation of the "Christum treiben"), as well as the document's questioning of the scientific legitimacy of overly rigid gender binaries.
It's on that matter of hermeneutics, I think, where the question of whether and to what extent the confessors would recognize themselves in the LSTC document would come to some resolution, so I'll hold off on venturing a guess on that until you've finished your critique. I would posit, though, following Cardinal Newman, that the whole notion of an intellectual/theological TRADITION suggests the presence of faithful development (arguing for this was, of course, the burden of Newman's _Essay on the Development of Doctrine_). And in cases of genuine development, those who come before cannot be expected to recognize themselves fully in later products of the tradition (for instance, asks Newman, would Paul have recognized his thoughts on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the documents of Nicea and Chalcedon? Prima facie probably not, but that does not mean that these orthodox and ecumenical councils are not faithful developments of his scriptural witness, a fact which Paul presumably would have recognized had he the chance to evaluate their content). My point is simply that vital traditions, like that of Lutheran confessional theology, surely must admit of some development over time. The more apt question is, which developments are genuine/faithful and which are corruptions? Your argument to this point would seem to indicate that the LSTC statement partakes sufficiently in the pitfalls of Protestant liberalism to be considered a corruption and not a genuine development of the confessional tradition; my point is simply that assessing the status of a development is a different enterprise than asking whether the 16th-century progenitors of a theological stream would recognize their own tradition in its 21st-century manifestations. Put differently, if Lutheran theologians have been faithful to the vitality of their tradition over these last centuries, then it is to be expected that they have done their theological best to take the theological potential of the confessional documents and spelled out their implications in ways that unfold them beyond what the finite authors of the 16th century might have seen themselves. Whether or not they have been successful in the attempt, this is the task to which I see the LSTC faculty (at least those that signed the document; you'll note that not all of them did) applying themselves.
I'll look forward to your future posts. I assume that you'll address the issue of scriptural hermeneutics in the first paragraph of the LSTC document more extensively (since it really is the crux of the document's locations of itself within the confessional tradition, particularly in its invocation of the "Christum treiben"), as well as the document's questioning of the scientific legitimacy of overly rigid gender binaries.
It's on that matter of hermeneutics, I think, where the question of whether and to what extent the confessors would recognize themselves in the LSTC document would come to some resolution, so I'll hold off on venturing a guess on that until you've finished your critique. I would posit, though, following Cardinal Newman, that the whole notion of an intellectual/theological TRADITION suggests the presence of faithful development (arguing for this was, of course, the burden of Newman's _Essay on the Development of Doctrine_). And in cases of genuine development, those who come before cannot be expected to recognize themselves fully in later products of the tradition (for instance, asks Newman, would Paul have recognized his thoughts on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the documents of Nicea and Chalcedon? Prima facie probably not, but that does not mean that these orthodox and ecumenical councils are not faithful developments of his scriptural witness, a fact which Paul presumably would have recognized had he the chance to evaluate their content). My point is simply that vital traditions, like that of Lutheran confessional theology, surely must admit of some development over time. The more apt question is, which developments are genuine/faithful and which are corruptions? Your argument to this point would seem to indicate that the LSTC statement partakes sufficiently in the pitfalls of Protestant liberalism to be considered a corruption and not a genuine development of the confessional tradition; my point is simply that assessing the status of a development is a different enterprise than asking whether the 16th-century progenitors of a theological stream would recognize their own tradition in its 21st-century manifestations. Put differently, if Lutheran theologians have been faithful to the vitality of their tradition over these last centuries, then it is to be expected that they have done their theological best to take the theological potential of the confessional documents and spelled out their implications in ways that unfold them beyond what the finite authors of the 16th century might have seen themselves. Whether or not they have been successful in the attempt, this is the task to which I see the LSTC faculty (at least those that signed the document; you'll note that not all of them did) applying themselves.
Thank you, Roy
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
June 29, 2009 08:46
I accept this clarification of your question, Roy. Thank you. I agree that the more apt question is which developments are genuine/faithful and which are corruptions. But, as you will see, on the question of hermeneutics, I hold with Luther and the 16th century confessors that the text of Scripture has a formative role in this process of the development of doctrine, setting boundaries that cannot be transgressed. The test question, Was Christum triebet, therefore refers to the Jesus Christ delivered to us in the canonical Scriptures, not some reconstructed Jesus of history, as it seems to me, as invoked in the LSTC statement at the expense of the canonical witness to His life of solidarity with sinners and atoning death on the cross. If the latter omission was not intended by the LSTC signatories, let them correct this rather massive oversight and rigorously employ it in behalf of the development in doctrine they support. I doubt that this can be done, but I am open to seeing the attempt.
reply to Rob
Posted by
Son of WMC
at
June 29, 2009 11:33
Rob,
You said, "I would posit, though, following Cardinal Newman, that the whole notion of an intellectual/theological TRADITION suggests the presence of faithful development (arguing for this was, of course, the burden of Newman's _Essay on the Development of Doctrine_)."
To put it succinctly, "faithful development" is the key. You cited the development regarding the dogma of the Trinity. The seeds of which were undeniably present in Paul's time and the full bloom of which did not in any way contradict either Paul or the early Church in their understanding of the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God nor their understanding rooted in the Old Testament Shema that the Lord is One.
The difference with the so-called gospel of inclusivity is that it overturns what has always been called sin and now says we don't know or that it isn't. It takes the Gospel which says Christ died for all (which is radical by any standard) and makes it into a gospel of Christ dying to validate what anybody wants to do (justifying sin and not merely the sinner). This is not faithful development but a complete overturning of the Gospel of the Apostles not to mention of the Lutheran reformers. Development of doctrine, for it to be Christ centered, cannot deny the truth of the past and now claim it to be false or even uncertain, otherwise it is not faithful, and it is not apostolic as we profess in the creed. This is why Prof. Hinlicky has it as an either/or between these competing gospels.
Where I come down is that even 500 years ago, the seeds for challenging long held catholic dogma and magisterial authority (properly descended from the Apostles) when it sought to defend that dogma were sown by those termed reformers, rather than just advocating for the housecleaning after those who abused power and perverted long held catholic dogma. Thus the flower of the gospel of inclusivity has come to bloom because no long held catholic dogma is above challenge by some who choose to arrogate to themselves the power to interpret Scripture and determine doctrine even if it contradicts what has gone before. This blatantly flies in the face of II Peter 1:20 and I Timothy 3:14-15. And thus we have the problems we have today.
You said, "I would posit, though, following Cardinal Newman, that the whole notion of an intellectual/theological TRADITION suggests the presence of faithful development (arguing for this was, of course, the burden of Newman's _Essay on the Development of Doctrine_)."
To put it succinctly, "faithful development" is the key. You cited the development regarding the dogma of the Trinity. The seeds of which were undeniably present in Paul's time and the full bloom of which did not in any way contradict either Paul or the early Church in their understanding of the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God nor their understanding rooted in the Old Testament Shema that the Lord is One.
The difference with the so-called gospel of inclusivity is that it overturns what has always been called sin and now says we don't know or that it isn't. It takes the Gospel which says Christ died for all (which is radical by any standard) and makes it into a gospel of Christ dying to validate what anybody wants to do (justifying sin and not merely the sinner). This is not faithful development but a complete overturning of the Gospel of the Apostles not to mention of the Lutheran reformers. Development of doctrine, for it to be Christ centered, cannot deny the truth of the past and now claim it to be false or even uncertain, otherwise it is not faithful, and it is not apostolic as we profess in the creed. This is why Prof. Hinlicky has it as an either/or between these competing gospels.
Where I come down is that even 500 years ago, the seeds for challenging long held catholic dogma and magisterial authority (properly descended from the Apostles) when it sought to defend that dogma were sown by those termed reformers, rather than just advocating for the housecleaning after those who abused power and perverted long held catholic dogma. Thus the flower of the gospel of inclusivity has come to bloom because no long held catholic dogma is above challenge by some who choose to arrogate to themselves the power to interpret Scripture and determine doctrine even if it contradicts what has gone before. This blatantly flies in the face of II Peter 1:20 and I Timothy 3:14-15. And thus we have the problems we have today.
reply to Son of WMC
Posted by
Rob
at
June 29, 2009 12:03
Son of WMC,
I certainly agree with your points about the Trinity - hence my citation of the Trinty as Newman's chief exemplar of a development that is genuinely faithful, and not corrupt, according to his seven notes of genuine development (preservation of type, continuity of principles, power of assimilation, logical sequence, anticipation of its [the doctrine's] future, conservative action upon its past, and chronic vigor).
Again, my worry about the possible presence of arguments from silence is that, on my read, there is nothing that prevents a Lutheran hermeneutic from a dual diagnosis regarding sinfulness: that is, saying that the victims of, say, the structural systems of racial oppression that have plagued this nation and others are BOTH victims of (structural) sin AND perpetrators of sin in need of the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ, through the cross. It is in that sense that I see no need for either/or thinking.
In other posts, Professor Hinlicky has admirably and compellingly argued that homosexual persons are vulnerable to a great deal of hatred and violence in American society. Can we not say that they are BOTH the victims of sin (by virtue of these structures of hatred) AND sinful humans in need of redemption (by virtue of being fallen sons and daughters of Adam)? I see nothing in the confessions that would prevent this both/and statement of sin and its effects.
Finally, some of us unapologetic Protestants, of course, think that the "seeds for challenging long held dogma and magisterial authority," as you put it, have over the years flowered into good and salutary fruits as well as rotten ones (in both the Roman Catholic and the various Protestant communions). But that is perhaps a discussion for another time.
I certainly agree with your points about the Trinity - hence my citation of the Trinty as Newman's chief exemplar of a development that is genuinely faithful, and not corrupt, according to his seven notes of genuine development (preservation of type, continuity of principles, power of assimilation, logical sequence, anticipation of its [the doctrine's] future, conservative action upon its past, and chronic vigor).
Again, my worry about the possible presence of arguments from silence is that, on my read, there is nothing that prevents a Lutheran hermeneutic from a dual diagnosis regarding sinfulness: that is, saying that the victims of, say, the structural systems of racial oppression that have plagued this nation and others are BOTH victims of (structural) sin AND perpetrators of sin in need of the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ, through the cross. It is in that sense that I see no need for either/or thinking.
In other posts, Professor Hinlicky has admirably and compellingly argued that homosexual persons are vulnerable to a great deal of hatred and violence in American society. Can we not say that they are BOTH the victims of sin (by virtue of these structures of hatred) AND sinful humans in need of redemption (by virtue of being fallen sons and daughters of Adam)? I see nothing in the confessions that would prevent this both/and statement of sin and its effects.
Finally, some of us unapologetic Protestants, of course, think that the "seeds for challenging long held dogma and magisterial authority," as you put it, have over the years flowered into good and salutary fruits as well as rotten ones (in both the Roman Catholic and the various Protestant communions). But that is perhaps a discussion for another time.
reply to Rob 2
Posted by
Son of WMC
at
June 29, 2009 22:48
Rob,
Sure we can say that homosexuals are both victims of persons sinning against them as well as being in need of redemption themselves. Everybody falls into both categories in that sense. But I don't think Prof. Hinlicky was suggesting anything either to deny the reality of social discrimination against homosexuals nor was he advocating for that. The dueling gospels Prof. Hinlicky writes about have to do with one justifying sinners and the other justifying sins (the latter allowing the policy changes proposed for the ELCA). This is where it is an either or situation. These dueling gospels are mutually exclusive.
You are welcome to your unapologetic opinion, but how do you reconcile the Scriptures I cite with denominations that for all practical purposes are moving towards theological pluralism in the name of inclusivity? The ELCA Constitution speaks of the Word of God as the norm for its life and faith, but practically speaking it doesn't keep to that standard. Sola Scriptura doesn't work. Needed is the authority of the magisterium to preserve and defend the Word within the whole of the Tradition of the Church, thus preserving and defending the long held dogmas of the Church (and not just any magisterium, but the one authorized by Christ succeeded from the Apostles to whom was given the authority and gifts of the Holy Spirit to do as necessary). And I'm not suggesting perfect people make up the magisterium, but what I am suggesting is that God, who is capable of inspiring (breathing) his Word such that it communicates as he intended is also capable of inspiring those whom he authorizes to properly interpret that Word and to properly discern and defend the dogmas that come to us through Scripture and Tradition (in spite of having to work with and through fallible human beings). Otherwise, why are there 30,000+ Protestant denominations in existence today (most of whom believe in Sola Scriptura)? You would think they could all agree on the teaching of faith and morals if Sola Scriptura actually worked.
Sure we can say that homosexuals are both victims of persons sinning against them as well as being in need of redemption themselves. Everybody falls into both categories in that sense. But I don't think Prof. Hinlicky was suggesting anything either to deny the reality of social discrimination against homosexuals nor was he advocating for that. The dueling gospels Prof. Hinlicky writes about have to do with one justifying sinners and the other justifying sins (the latter allowing the policy changes proposed for the ELCA). This is where it is an either or situation. These dueling gospels are mutually exclusive.
You are welcome to your unapologetic opinion, but how do you reconcile the Scriptures I cite with denominations that for all practical purposes are moving towards theological pluralism in the name of inclusivity? The ELCA Constitution speaks of the Word of God as the norm for its life and faith, but practically speaking it doesn't keep to that standard. Sola Scriptura doesn't work. Needed is the authority of the magisterium to preserve and defend the Word within the whole of the Tradition of the Church, thus preserving and defending the long held dogmas of the Church (and not just any magisterium, but the one authorized by Christ succeeded from the Apostles to whom was given the authority and gifts of the Holy Spirit to do as necessary). And I'm not suggesting perfect people make up the magisterium, but what I am suggesting is that God, who is capable of inspiring (breathing) his Word such that it communicates as he intended is also capable of inspiring those whom he authorizes to properly interpret that Word and to properly discern and defend the dogmas that come to us through Scripture and Tradition (in spite of having to work with and through fallible human beings). Otherwise, why are there 30,000+ Protestant denominations in existence today (most of whom believe in Sola Scriptura)? You would think they could all agree on the teaching of faith and morals if Sola Scriptura actually worked.
Law and Gospel, Both/And
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
June 30, 2009 05:45
Rob--
You correctly write that:
"... there is nothing that prevents a Lutheran hermeneutic from a dual diagnosis regarding sinfulness: that is, saying that the victims of, say, the structural systems of racial oppression that have plagued this nation and others are BOTH victims of (structural) sin AND perpetrators of sin in need of the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ, through the cross. It is in that sense that I see no need for either/or thinking.
In other posts, Professor Hinlicky has admirably and compellingly argued that homosexual persons are vulnerable to a great deal of hatred and violence in American society."
I appreciate very much your careful reading of my posts. I do hold to both/and, more precisely theologically, both to Law and Gospel. We have a divine commandment, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, that absolutely forbids bigotry, and it applies to sexual minorities. The movement for greater justice in society in this regard is divine. I can and do say that theologically.
But, as Son of WMC rightly sees, this divine movement for greater justice on behalf of a minority, is not the Gospel by which the Church stands and falls. The gospel by which the Church stands and falls must also offer a specific counsel of repentance to gay and lesbian persons, that their sexual unions fall short from God's will and purpose for His people, even as it offers the abundant mercy and power to bear this cross, if it must be born, in constructive ways short of the kingdom's coming when we will all be freed from sorrow, freed from sin.
You correctly write that:
"... there is nothing that prevents a Lutheran hermeneutic from a dual diagnosis regarding sinfulness: that is, saying that the victims of, say, the structural systems of racial oppression that have plagued this nation and others are BOTH victims of (structural) sin AND perpetrators of sin in need of the redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ, through the cross. It is in that sense that I see no need for either/or thinking.
In other posts, Professor Hinlicky has admirably and compellingly argued that homosexual persons are vulnerable to a great deal of hatred and violence in American society."
I appreciate very much your careful reading of my posts. I do hold to both/and, more precisely theologically, both to Law and Gospel. We have a divine commandment, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, that absolutely forbids bigotry, and it applies to sexual minorities. The movement for greater justice in society in this regard is divine. I can and do say that theologically.
But, as Son of WMC rightly sees, this divine movement for greater justice on behalf of a minority, is not the Gospel by which the Church stands and falls. The gospel by which the Church stands and falls must also offer a specific counsel of repentance to gay and lesbian persons, that their sexual unions fall short from God's will and purpose for His people, even as it offers the abundant mercy and power to bear this cross, if it must be born, in constructive ways short of the kingdom's coming when we will all be freed from sorrow, freed from sin.
helpful clarification
Posted by
Rob
at
June 30, 2009 07:46
Prof. Hinlicky,
This last post is a helpful clarification of your point for me, since I think it highlights the more charitable line of critique against the LSTC document.
I think that your claim here is that the real problem lies, not so much with the fact that the LSTC faculty authors (again, that percentage of the faculty that signed the document) do not explicitly discuss those aspects of the confessions' view of the gospel that have to do with the atoning death and resurrection of Christ that frees sinners from bondage, but that the document's support of the ECLA's move to "justify sin," as Son of WMC puts it, actually places the theology in such contradiction to that gospel that appeal to the confessions would be vitiated EVEN IF the document had opened with a more adequate (in your estimation) account of the confessional stance.
In short, the problem has much more to do with what the document does say rather than what it omits. Is that a fair summary? If so, then I think, frankly, that this focus on the problematics of what is SAID rather than what is left unsaid is in fact the most charitable strategy of critique available to you. Because I know several signers of the document quite well (as, I suspect, do you), I can attest that they have spent decades teaching the gospel of justification through the cross of Christ and the need for a rigorous law/gospel dialectic. The issue, I think, from your [Prof. Hinlicky's] perspective would (realistically) be less that the signers don't KNOW the confessional stance (pace your rather bothersome suggestion in the first post that, say, K. Hendel might need a "crash course in remedial Lutheran thehology") but rather that they quite consciously hold to an opinion on sexuality which you find irreconcilable with that confessional stance.
With that small suggestion and plea for a hermeneutics of charity amidst the rabies theologorum, I will leave off posting until you have finished your series.
This last post is a helpful clarification of your point for me, since I think it highlights the more charitable line of critique against the LSTC document.
I think that your claim here is that the real problem lies, not so much with the fact that the LSTC faculty authors (again, that percentage of the faculty that signed the document) do not explicitly discuss those aspects of the confessions' view of the gospel that have to do with the atoning death and resurrection of Christ that frees sinners from bondage, but that the document's support of the ECLA's move to "justify sin," as Son of WMC puts it, actually places the theology in such contradiction to that gospel that appeal to the confessions would be vitiated EVEN IF the document had opened with a more adequate (in your estimation) account of the confessional stance.
In short, the problem has much more to do with what the document does say rather than what it omits. Is that a fair summary? If so, then I think, frankly, that this focus on the problematics of what is SAID rather than what is left unsaid is in fact the most charitable strategy of critique available to you. Because I know several signers of the document quite well (as, I suspect, do you), I can attest that they have spent decades teaching the gospel of justification through the cross of Christ and the need for a rigorous law/gospel dialectic. The issue, I think, from your [Prof. Hinlicky's] perspective would (realistically) be less that the signers don't KNOW the confessional stance (pace your rather bothersome suggestion in the first post that, say, K. Hendel might need a "crash course in remedial Lutheran thehology") but rather that they quite consciously hold to an opinion on sexuality which you find irreconcilable with that confessional stance.
With that small suggestion and plea for a hermeneutics of charity amidst the rabies theologorum, I will leave off posting until you have finished your series.
No, not quite, Rob
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
July 01, 2009 02:27
Two items in brief reply to your latest, Rob.
1. If anyone actually does know Lutheran theology at LSTC, then they are doubly guilty for signing this document. Why? You cannot consequently cite Gal. 3:28, as does this document in its epigraph (a statement about the new unity of those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection), invoke the Lutheran confessional principle and urge that Christ himself is at stake in this decision, as does the LSTC opening paragraph, and then operationally ignore Christ’s death and resurrection on behalf of helpless sinners, thus sin and grace revealed by law and gospel. It is this actual ignoring of the real Christ and His work of reconciliation with which I have charged this document. It will not then likewise be a different “opinion” on sexuality which separates me from any of its signatories, but a difference treatment of authoritative biblical texts, taken up as central in the Augsburg Confession, like Genesis 1:26-28.
2. You have noted repeatedly that only some LSTC faculty have signed this statement. Why is that? It appears on LSTC stationary, on the LSTC website, and was apparently drafted on behalf of the whole community. True, I see the disclaimer at the end, and I note the glaring absence of certain names. What gives? Unlike the cowardly dodge made by the Task Force telling us that this controversy is simply a matter of different ethical opinions, this LSTC statement rightly sees that our theology of reconciliation is at stake here. This is a controversy about two contending, if not conflicting theologies of reconciliation. Did others, fearing that this ups the ante to the level of gospel controversy, prefer the cowardice of the Task Force? Perhaps you can enlighten us.
1. If anyone actually does know Lutheran theology at LSTC, then they are doubly guilty for signing this document. Why? You cannot consequently cite Gal. 3:28, as does this document in its epigraph (a statement about the new unity of those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection), invoke the Lutheran confessional principle and urge that Christ himself is at stake in this decision, as does the LSTC opening paragraph, and then operationally ignore Christ’s death and resurrection on behalf of helpless sinners, thus sin and grace revealed by law and gospel. It is this actual ignoring of the real Christ and His work of reconciliation with which I have charged this document. It will not then likewise be a different “opinion” on sexuality which separates me from any of its signatories, but a difference treatment of authoritative biblical texts, taken up as central in the Augsburg Confession, like Genesis 1:26-28.
2. You have noted repeatedly that only some LSTC faculty have signed this statement. Why is that? It appears on LSTC stationary, on the LSTC website, and was apparently drafted on behalf of the whole community. True, I see the disclaimer at the end, and I note the glaring absence of certain names. What gives? Unlike the cowardly dodge made by the Task Force telling us that this controversy is simply a matter of different ethical opinions, this LSTC statement rightly sees that our theology of reconciliation is at stake here. This is a controversy about two contending, if not conflicting theologies of reconciliation. Did others, fearing that this ups the ante to the level of gospel controversy, prefer the cowardice of the Task Force? Perhaps you can enlighten us.
brief response
Posted by
Rob
at
July 01, 2009 10:18
Prof. Hinlicky,
Here I must beg forgivness for breaking my promise to stop posting until you had finished your series...I've always been the one to speak too often and for too long in class. At least the readers of this blog are not a captive audience; they can choose to spend their time doing something more productive than reading my musings.
Regarding your latter point, no, I certainly have no privileged access to the minds of those who did not sign the statement. Were I to hazard a guess, though, I would assume that the absence of their signatures has more to do with their not agreeing, in whole or in part, with the document's claims rather than any sort of "cowardice" on their part. As you know, few institutions feature complete intellectual conformity among their faculty; it seems reasonable to think that LSTC is no different.
Regarding the first point: the Lutheran confessions are clear throughout that they understand themselves to be normed, ultimately, by Scripture. You are certainly correct that such texts as Genesis 1:26-28 and others play a decisive role in, among other things, the ethical mandates offered by the confessional documents. No one could dispute that, I think.
I think that the strategy of the LSTC document, however, is to suggest that, to the extent that the confessional tradition is to be normed by scripture, a different set of texts should now be placed into the foreground of the church's thinking. I realize that such a move is precisely the sort that you are opposing; however, what I am less clear on is why you seem to think that the notion of Jesus as a social "boundary-crosser" who moves towards inclusion of those who are vulnerable to social and religious exclusion (inclusion, not as an ultimate goal, but as an important step towards God's realization of God's kingdom) is a modern invention of liberal Protestantism rather than a reality depicted repeatedly and with great emphasis in the Gospel texts themselves.
In short, on my reading of the LSTC document, it sees the situation this way: the confessional tradition is normed by scripture. The confessional texts highlight one set of scriptural principles that lead to specific conclusions about marriage, sexuality, etc.; however, in these times, for reasons stated in the document, a different set of texts leading to a different set of conclusions are becoming normative, over and against the CONTENT of the confessional documents but not over against the PRINCIPLE of the normativity of scripture insisted upon by those documents.
Please understand, I am not trying to convince you that the LSTC document is correct, since you've been quite clear as to why you think it is not. I am, however, trying to suggest that the crux of the document's appeal to "confessionalism" is a). the fact that the confessions see themselves as subordinate to scripture, and b). the real disagreement here has to do with WHICH texts of scripture are decisive. The latter disagreement, however, seems like one that could take place between two parties (such as yourself and the signers of the LSTC document) who both have a legitimate claim to operating under the rubric of "confessional" theology. Indeed, what sort of theological dispute could be more faithful to the Lutheran confessions than that which takes Scripture seriously enough to ask, "how are the texts of Scripture to be interpreted such that they can most accurately interpret us?" That seems like the kind of argument that "confessional" theologians can and should be expected to have.
I think that that is the sort of dispute in which you and the LSTC document are engaged; if so, then it seems that both you and the document are operating as "confessional" theologians, albeit with serious differences.
Here I must beg forgivness for breaking my promise to stop posting until you had finished your series...I've always been the one to speak too often and for too long in class. At least the readers of this blog are not a captive audience; they can choose to spend their time doing something more productive than reading my musings.
Regarding your latter point, no, I certainly have no privileged access to the minds of those who did not sign the statement. Were I to hazard a guess, though, I would assume that the absence of their signatures has more to do with their not agreeing, in whole or in part, with the document's claims rather than any sort of "cowardice" on their part. As you know, few institutions feature complete intellectual conformity among their faculty; it seems reasonable to think that LSTC is no different.
Regarding the first point: the Lutheran confessions are clear throughout that they understand themselves to be normed, ultimately, by Scripture. You are certainly correct that such texts as Genesis 1:26-28 and others play a decisive role in, among other things, the ethical mandates offered by the confessional documents. No one could dispute that, I think.
I think that the strategy of the LSTC document, however, is to suggest that, to the extent that the confessional tradition is to be normed by scripture, a different set of texts should now be placed into the foreground of the church's thinking. I realize that such a move is precisely the sort that you are opposing; however, what I am less clear on is why you seem to think that the notion of Jesus as a social "boundary-crosser" who moves towards inclusion of those who are vulnerable to social and religious exclusion (inclusion, not as an ultimate goal, but as an important step towards God's realization of God's kingdom) is a modern invention of liberal Protestantism rather than a reality depicted repeatedly and with great emphasis in the Gospel texts themselves.
In short, on my reading of the LSTC document, it sees the situation this way: the confessional tradition is normed by scripture. The confessional texts highlight one set of scriptural principles that lead to specific conclusions about marriage, sexuality, etc.; however, in these times, for reasons stated in the document, a different set of texts leading to a different set of conclusions are becoming normative, over and against the CONTENT of the confessional documents but not over against the PRINCIPLE of the normativity of scripture insisted upon by those documents.
Please understand, I am not trying to convince you that the LSTC document is correct, since you've been quite clear as to why you think it is not. I am, however, trying to suggest that the crux of the document's appeal to "confessionalism" is a). the fact that the confessions see themselves as subordinate to scripture, and b). the real disagreement here has to do with WHICH texts of scripture are decisive. The latter disagreement, however, seems like one that could take place between two parties (such as yourself and the signers of the LSTC document) who both have a legitimate claim to operating under the rubric of "confessional" theology. Indeed, what sort of theological dispute could be more faithful to the Lutheran confessions than that which takes Scripture seriously enough to ask, "how are the texts of Scripture to be interpreted such that they can most accurately interpret us?" That seems like the kind of argument that "confessional" theologians can and should be expected to have.
I think that that is the sort of dispute in which you and the LSTC document are engaged; if so, then it seems that both you and the document are operating as "confessional" theologians, albeit with serious differences.
Thank you, Rob!
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
July 01, 2009 16:00
Your patience and disciplined speculation on what the signatories must have meant by appealing to the Lutheran confession is much appreciated. It is their own silence that is stunning.
I don't really concede your point, however. You give a rationale for what used to be called a quatenus (in so far as it agrees with Scripture) rather than a quia (because it agrees with Scritpure) subscription. Given proper nuancing, the only subsription worth anything theologically is a quia subscription. Historically, for Lutheranism, it is not the Bible but the Bible rightly interpreted which is authoritative, and that has very much to do with impelling the Christ who died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Of course, you can make a hero out of the Galilean prophet, and start a cult around him (as the hypothetical Q or proto-Gnostic Gospel of Thomas), Church without Boundaries, let us call it. But that's not Christianity, let alone Lutheranism. It is intellectually dishonest and religiously deceptive to think, let alone to say otherwise.
I don't really concede your point, however. You give a rationale for what used to be called a quatenus (in so far as it agrees with Scripture) rather than a quia (because it agrees with Scritpure) subscription. Given proper nuancing, the only subsription worth anything theologically is a quia subscription. Historically, for Lutheranism, it is not the Bible but the Bible rightly interpreted which is authoritative, and that has very much to do with impelling the Christ who died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Of course, you can make a hero out of the Galilean prophet, and start a cult around him (as the hypothetical Q or proto-Gnostic Gospel of Thomas), Church without Boundaries, let us call it. But that's not Christianity, let alone Lutheranism. It is intellectually dishonest and religiously deceptive to think, let alone to say otherwise.
Hinlicky response to LSTC faculty statement
Posted by
Kurt K. Hendel
at
July 02, 2009 11:14
Since you present yourself as an articulate theologian and incisive thinker, one must assume that you do not simply misunderstand the statement of the LSTC faculty but that you are intentionally misinterpreting it. You have surely chosen to put the worst rather than the best construction on what the faculty has said.
While I could respond to many of your claims and your supposed theological and historical corrections, I will only focus on one of your critiques. It is true that the statement does not define the gospel. However, by reminding our church of its confessional commitment, by insisting that the gospel is the hermeneutical key to Scripture, by asserting that that same gospel must ultimately inform the church's policies and by focusing on "was Christum treibt" it should be quite apparent to an objective and fair reader that the gospel to which the statement refers is the radical and gracious good news of God's redemptive acts in Jesus Christ. That good news is, in fact, the only gospel.
The faculty statement does not define the gospel as the quest for justice, as you claim. Rather it insists that this quest must be consistent with and inspired by the gospel. Furthermore, the statement does not assert that Jesus is simply a model for faithful living. What it does affirm is that our Redeemer should also be the ultimate model as believers express their faith in loving service of God and the neighbor.
You obviously have the right to argue your theological perspectives. However, basic honesty, respect for the integrity of sisters and brothers in Christ, love for the church and, above all, faithfulness to God's dialectical word of law and gospel should dissuade you from intentionally and polemically misinterpreting the theology and objectives of sisters and brothers who strive to be faithful to the same message of judgment and of grace and freedom in Christ that you seek to proclaim.
While I could respond to many of your claims and your supposed theological and historical corrections, I will only focus on one of your critiques. It is true that the statement does not define the gospel. However, by reminding our church of its confessional commitment, by insisting that the gospel is the hermeneutical key to Scripture, by asserting that that same gospel must ultimately inform the church's policies and by focusing on "was Christum treibt" it should be quite apparent to an objective and fair reader that the gospel to which the statement refers is the radical and gracious good news of God's redemptive acts in Jesus Christ. That good news is, in fact, the only gospel.
The faculty statement does not define the gospel as the quest for justice, as you claim. Rather it insists that this quest must be consistent with and inspired by the gospel. Furthermore, the statement does not assert that Jesus is simply a model for faithful living. What it does affirm is that our Redeemer should also be the ultimate model as believers express their faith in loving service of God and the neighbor.
You obviously have the right to argue your theological perspectives. However, basic honesty, respect for the integrity of sisters and brothers in Christ, love for the church and, above all, faithfulness to God's dialectical word of law and gospel should dissuade you from intentionally and polemically misinterpreting the theology and objectives of sisters and brothers who strive to be faithful to the same message of judgment and of grace and freedom in Christ that you seek to proclaim.
Reply to :rofessor Hendel
Posted by
Paul Hinlicky
at
July 03, 2009 03:56
Prof. Hendel: You are quick to defend your own honor by impugning mine, yet slow to defend the actual text that you and your colleagues produced and signed. You know very well how hard I have struggled to understand you, but you play the passive-aggressive game of objecting to the way I say things so that you can accuse me of polemical misinterpretation and avoid answering my many detailed criticisms. I take this tact to be a way of intimidating dissenters and avoiding rational accountability. Instead you issue a few flat denials of my criticisms of your text for placing it’s argumentation in the historic pattern of liberal Protestant thinking rather than of confessional Lutheranism. Your denials amount to mere assertions. Saying so don’t make it so. Rewrite the argument of your text using a true and rigorous law and gospel analysis, necessitating Christ as per Galatians 2:21, and get your colleagues to sign onto that – then you might have a case.
The one defense you make is that there is enough Lutheran code language in the text to make it obvious that the reference is to “radical and gracious good news of God's redemptive acts in Jesus Christ… [as] in fact, the only gospel.” This in turn, I say, is pious boilerplate which begs the questions I raised about the text’s operational theology. It was, as you may recall, Robert Bertram who taught us critical thinking skills in theology, that is, to look past code language and see what the real motor which drives the thinking. Tell me with a straight face that this text of yours is a sample of confessional Lutheran theology at work and the whole world will be able to see the gulf which is emerging in the ELCA.
In these posts and subsequent discussions I have made my own claim to the legacy of Lutheran confessionalism clear. 1) Divine movement for greater justice on behalf of a minority is not the Gospel by which the Church stands and falls. The false witness of bigotry against gays and lesbians must be countered with the true witness of Mark 10:2-12, invoking Genesis 1:26-28. The gospel by which the Church stands and falls must therefore also offer a specific counsel of repentance to gay and lesbian persons, that their sexual unions fall short from God's will and purpose for His people, even as it offers the abundant mercy and power to bear this cross, if it must be born, in constructive ways short of the kingdom's coming when we will all be freed from sorrow, freed from sin. 2) You cannot consequently cite Gal. 3:28, as does this document in its epigraph (a statement about the new unity of those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection), invoke the Lutheran confessional principle (based on Gal. 1:6-9 and 6:15-16) and urge that Christ himself is at stake in this decision (based on Gal. 2:21), as you do, and then operationally ignore Christ’s death and resurrection on behalf of helpless sinners, thus sin and grace revealed by law and gospel as the decisive framework in which to treat of all controversies in the life of the church. It is this actual ignoring of Christ crucified and His work of reconciliation with which I have charged this document, not your intellectual ignorance of these ideas.
The one defense you make is that there is enough Lutheran code language in the text to make it obvious that the reference is to “radical and gracious good news of God's redemptive acts in Jesus Christ… [as] in fact, the only gospel.” This in turn, I say, is pious boilerplate which begs the questions I raised about the text’s operational theology. It was, as you may recall, Robert Bertram who taught us critical thinking skills in theology, that is, to look past code language and see what the real motor which drives the thinking. Tell me with a straight face that this text of yours is a sample of confessional Lutheran theology at work and the whole world will be able to see the gulf which is emerging in the ELCA.
In these posts and subsequent discussions I have made my own claim to the legacy of Lutheran confessionalism clear. 1) Divine movement for greater justice on behalf of a minority is not the Gospel by which the Church stands and falls. The false witness of bigotry against gays and lesbians must be countered with the true witness of Mark 10:2-12, invoking Genesis 1:26-28. The gospel by which the Church stands and falls must therefore also offer a specific counsel of repentance to gay and lesbian persons, that their sexual unions fall short from God's will and purpose for His people, even as it offers the abundant mercy and power to bear this cross, if it must be born, in constructive ways short of the kingdom's coming when we will all be freed from sorrow, freed from sin. 2) You cannot consequently cite Gal. 3:28, as does this document in its epigraph (a statement about the new unity of those baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection), invoke the Lutheran confessional principle (based on Gal. 1:6-9 and 6:15-16) and urge that Christ himself is at stake in this decision (based on Gal. 2:21), as you do, and then operationally ignore Christ’s death and resurrection on behalf of helpless sinners, thus sin and grace revealed by law and gospel as the decisive framework in which to treat of all controversies in the life of the church. It is this actual ignoring of Christ crucified and His work of reconciliation with which I have charged this document, not your intellectual ignorance of these ideas.
gospel of inclusiveness
Posted by
Lee Dryden
at
July 17, 2009 14:04
Hinlicky says: “Instead, in this theology, the “marginalized” are precisely not bad or needy persons. Rather, they are the victims of bigotry. Their only need to be freed from their devaluation by others. Inclusivism becomes the operative ecclesiology-missiology. Not repentance and faith. Not the new life of obedience. Not reconciliation by the body and blood of Christ, proclaiming His death until He comes again.”
The version of the Christ’s Gospel propounded by the LSTC marshalls the gospel against the exclusion, devaluation and bigotry that has been the plight of many homosexual persons. This is a good thing, but it is radically incomplete. What it misses is the extent of the problem of sexual sin in the life of all: homosexual, heterosexual, male, female, young and old.
Speaking only of the heterosexual men I know, how many are lustful? covetous? consumers of pornography? sexually promiscuous? sexually tyrannical with their wives? have a “wandering eye”, plead guilty to multiple divorces? All men that I know, including myself, are serial offenders. Dostoyevsky called us “sensualists”.
If confessional Lutheran pastors, as defenders of orthodoxy, were to condemn sexual sin where they have some special pastoral responsibility for it (right in their own lives and congregations) rather than focusing on the sinfulness of the homosexual, the inadequacy of the gospel of inclusiveness would be abundantly clear. There is no lasting consolation to be found in breaking down barriers between myself and other sexual sinners if we cannot free ourselves from our own personal enslavement. Only the gospel of repentance, forgiveness, and regeneration offers the sinner a way out.
The version of the Christ’s Gospel propounded by the LSTC marshalls the gospel against the exclusion, devaluation and bigotry that has been the plight of many homosexual persons. This is a good thing, but it is radically incomplete. What it misses is the extent of the problem of sexual sin in the life of all: homosexual, heterosexual, male, female, young and old.
Speaking only of the heterosexual men I know, how many are lustful? covetous? consumers of pornography? sexually promiscuous? sexually tyrannical with their wives? have a “wandering eye”, plead guilty to multiple divorces? All men that I know, including myself, are serial offenders. Dostoyevsky called us “sensualists”.
If confessional Lutheran pastors, as defenders of orthodoxy, were to condemn sexual sin where they have some special pastoral responsibility for it (right in their own lives and congregations) rather than focusing on the sinfulness of the homosexual, the inadequacy of the gospel of inclusiveness would be abundantly clear. There is no lasting consolation to be found in breaking down barriers between myself and other sexual sinners if we cannot free ourselves from our own personal enslavement. Only the gospel of repentance, forgiveness, and regeneration offers the sinner a way out.
Question
Prof. Hinlicky, why do you see this as an either/or? Or, more specifically, do you expect the readers of the LSTC document to recongize that document's authors in such a claim? On my reading of the LSTC statement, nowhere is there a denial that those who are the victims of oppression are also themselves sinners in need of redemption. Such a claim would be, as you point out, rightly erroneous, which is (I assume) why the authors of the LSTC statement do not make it.
My concern is that to attribute this notion to the LSTC faculty (or, more precisely, the ones who signed the document) seems to be more of an argument from silence, or at least the attribution of a caricature of 19th-century Protestant liberalism, than an actual exegesis of the LSTC text. But perhaps I am misunderstanding you.