Because people have commented on it, I felt the need to announce a change to the BJS homepage.
The “Flashback” feature was originally designed to bring some of our “oldie but goodie” posts to your attention periodically. Unfortunately for a year or so it’s been broken — one of the WordPress upgrades broke it; I didn’t notice it immediately, and by the time I noticed it it was too late to try to figure out which update broke it.
Anyway, I finally got fed up with it and researched the problem and am pleased to announce that it’s now fixed!
You will notice the 6th box down on the homepage has the Flashback graphic on the left side of it. Each time the homepage is replotted, 10 random posts are pulled from the “Flashback” category and cycle through that box. You can use the left/right buttons to go to a post you want if you see one you want to read more of.
You can also review all of our Flashback posts by clicking here or on the Flashback graphic to the left of the slider.
We would welcome recommendations for other posts that should be placed in this category .. since it has been non-functional for so long we haven’t even attempted to classify any new posts, and we didn’t do a complete survey of all our posts when we initially came up with the idea at our last redesign of the website. I’m sure we have many posts written since we first created this blog in June of 2008 that would welcome a reread. Of course, I’m sure there are some posts that we’d all rather forget about, but that the life of a blog.
Thanks for your attention, and a very blessed Reformation celebration to you!
P.s. sorry to all those who “complained” about it not working .. yes, I read your comments; I just couldn’t fit the time in to dig into the code to figure out what went wrong.
And .. for your enjoyment, here’s a duplicate of the flashback slider as seen on the homepage:
This is a reposting of a pair of articles published last year on the origins of Easter and some Easter traditions. The sources are given so that the reader can better be able to debunk the popular “historical” nonsense about the origins of Easter.
Easter is the English/Germanic name for the Festival of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This particular Feast Day is the heart and center of the whole liturgical practice of the Christian Church Year.
Because it is at the center it is under great attack by those seeking to discredit this liturgical festival. If these people can maintain that Easter is really originally pagan, then they undermine Christ, His Passion, death and Resurrection.
In this article we will look at:
Passover as the historical Biblical origin of the Christian liturgical Church Year;
The historical development of the date of Easter/Resurrection/Passover;
Claims of Pagan Origin or Influence, including:
The origins of the pagan goddess Eostre;
The historical Lenten Fast that lead to the use of Eggs in association with Easter;
And the particularly Christian use of the hare/rabbit as a symbol for the Trinity and the Resurrection.
Passover as The Origin of the Christian Church Year
The three High Festivals of the Christian Church Year are Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. All of these days are were established in the early Church on the basis of the biblical dating of Passover. Any festivals that are tied to the dates of these Holy Days are derived from their relationship to Passover.
This means that, contrary to claims from many different sources, the choice of dates for these Festivals and those tied to them have nothing to do with pagan origins.
Let us say that again and more clearly: The dates for Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and all those church holy days that are directly tied to the dates of those holy days are all based originally on Passover. None of these days were chosen due to pagan influences. None! The actual choice for the date was based on what God declared to Moses in about 1,440 B.C. on Mt. Sinai.
There are Christian festivals that are not directly tied to these dates, those are dates such as the the commemoration of Saints. Those days were chosen for their own reasons: usually to commemorate the calender day on which a person was born or died.
But the relationship between the Passover, Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas is an historically demonstrable fact through the writings of the Church Fathers.
And this relationship to Passover is essential to understanding the theology of the Promise and Fulfillment in Christ as well as the establishing of the First Covenant and its fulfillment in the New Covenant.
About 1,470 years before the Son of God instituted His Holy Supper, that same Son of God commanded Moses and the Congregation of Israel saying:
12 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.
The ordinance for this festival and the Festival of Unleavened Bread is that the month of Abib become the first month of the religious calendar. The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are the basis in the Books of Moses for calculating the two other major festivals of the liturgical year:
the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) 7 weeks and one day, which marks remembering God’s revealing of the Covenant at Mt. Sinai at the end of those weeks (Exodus 19). The remembrance is tied together with the harvest of the Firstfruits and the requirement to offer the best of the firstfruits to God.
the Feast of Tabernacles is calculated being the full moon seventh month (a sabbath month) from the first month. All the congregation was required to gather before the tabernacle each year on these three festivals.
And just as the Passover Lamb was selected on the 10th of the First Month, the scapegoat and the sacrificial goat for the Lord were selected on the 10th of the Seventh Month–The Day of Atonement.
Everything in the liturgical year is keyed upon Passover in the Old Testament. This key event does not get put aside in the New Testament. Rather, the Passover takes on even greater significance as it is fulfilled in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ.
While Clement of Alexandria attests to the fact that there were a handful of different days of the year that people thought the world was created, the view expressed by Clement (c.150 – c. 215), Hippolytus (170 – 235), Julius Africanus (c.160 – c.240) and others at the close of the 2nd century A.D. were the most widely accepted. That view was that the world was created March 25th, Christ was conceived March 25th, and Christ was crucified March 25th. March 25th also was the equinox. Which made this date easy to calculate.
Thus we can see that the choice of this date was also a public confession of the Hypostatic Union of the Two Natures in Christ. Observing Creation, Incarnation, and Passion on the same day confessed that it is the Son of God, the Creator, who became human and so intimately united Himself with humanity by suffering as a man in humanity’s place.
We are not evaluating whether March 25th was the actual date that these events truly happened, we are demonstrating the early rationale for and the early widespread acceptance of this date in the teaching and practice of the Church.
This dating was the basis for later the work of Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 544) , and widely enough established in the late 2nd century to be used as proof by Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 AD):
And the suffering of this “extermination” was perfected within the times of the lxx hebdomads, under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the eighth day before the calends of April [March 25th], on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at even, just as had been enjoined by Moses.(An Answer to the Jews, 8.18, emphasis added)
This view formed the basis for the Alexandrian Era and held in the ancient Church up to the 7th century A.D.
The Christmas Cycle separates from the Easter Cycle
While the early church equated March 25th (the equinox) with the Incarnation of Christ, all those dates related directly to that date became fixed on the calendar. However, the Passover changed each year because it was based on the lunar cycle.
How Did Easter Get Separated from Passover?
So the problem became, when should Christ’s Passion and Resurrection be celebrated? Should it be held relative to Passover regardless of which day of the week it occurred? Or should it be held on the days of the week named in the Gospel narratives regardless of which day of the week the Passover actually occurred?
The debate is called “The Easter Controversy.” It is actually several different controversies through the centuries about the same issue. Records about this debate and from this debate date back to the early and mid 2nd century. And the question of when Easter should be celebrated and how it should be calculated led to many writings of the early chronographers and calendarists.
There were two main parts to these controversies. First, whether Passover and Resurrection should be observed on the 14th of Abib or on the Sunday following. The controversies following this had to deal with the best way to calculate the Passover accurately.
Why Sunday Weekly Worship
Sunday became the focus of Christian worship because it is the Day of the Resurrection of Christ (Mt. 28:1; Mk. 16:9; Lk. 24:1; Jn. 20:1, 19).
The weekly Sunday worship focused on the Passover given and instituted as the New Covenant fulfilling the Promise (Gal. 4). Paul testifies that the Lord’s Supper was celebrated and tithes were gathered at worship on Sunday (Acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2). Weekly Sunday worship with the Lord’s Supper is weekly observance of the Passover in Christ, but not the passover of the Old Covenant. It is the partial fulfilment of the Passover with the New Covenant. The complete fulfilment of the original Passover waits until the Return of Christ on Judgement day.
14 When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. 15 Then He said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 22:14-16)
Often moderns will make the same claim made by the Sabbath Keepers like Abram Herbert Lewis (1832-1908), that Christians cannot worship on Sunday because that is a pagan day devoted to a pagan God. The Sabbath keepers tried to argue that the early church did not worship on Sunday but that this gradually came about as Christianity gave into paganism and wordliness.
[the above paragraph is corrected. Thank you to those who pointed out my mistake.]
But worship on Sunday was considered a vital confessional practice even while the Apostles were still alive. Ignatius (30 AD – 107 AD) wrote in The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, Chapter 9 (ANF 1:62-63):
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master—how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead. (emphasis added)
And later in the same chapter:
But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week]. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, “To the end, for the eighth day,” on which our life both sprang up again, and the victory over death was obtained in Christ,(emphasis added)
It was on a Sunday that the Apostle John received the Revelation of Jesus Christ.(Rev. 1:9-10)
Justin Martyr (AD 100–ca.165) bears witness to this unity of dates and practices (also pointing out that the Mithraists copied Christian practice in his time with regard to the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church) [Apology 1:66 –ANF 1:p. 185]. Justin highlighted the significance of the day and the liturgical practice in the following passage:
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. [ibid. 67, ANF 1:186]
The First Easter Date Controversy ( up to 190AD)
So by the time the first main controversy about Easter became and issue, most congregations outside of Asia-Minor already celebrated Resurrection on the Sunday following the Passover.
But in Asia-Minor there were several congregations that maintained the practice of celebrating the Crucifixion on the 14th of Abib. These people became called “Fourteenthers” [Quartodeciman].
Eusebeus (Hist. 5:24) records the words of Irenaeus at the time:
12. “For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night.
13. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.” (NPNF2-01: 243 emphasis added)
Irenaeus stated that the difference in calendar observance was not divisive of fellowship.
There are two important things to note about this controversy:
First: The question of whether 14th Abib or the Sunday following pre-dates this controversy. The practice of a Sunday Easter service is shown by Irenaeus’ and Justin’s letters. The practice of Sunday observance of Easter probably dates back to the Apostolic times.
Second: The issue at hand was when to break the fast for the Resurrection. We have already seen that the 40 day Lenten fast pre-dates Constantine. We see here in Irenaeus that fasting traditions varied from place to place but were considered old traditions.
The choice of the Church to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on Sundays is very ancient, probably from the Apostolic period. The choice had nothing to do with Roman pagan holidays or any other pagan holiday. It had to do with making a clear Christological confession about the Christ-the suffering Servant, the God-Man incarnate who redeemed us from sin, Satan, and death itself.
The Second Easter Date Controversy (323 A.D)
This debate took place as part of the Council of Nicea where Athanasius worked against Arius. This is the council that the Easter-haters point to claiming that Constantine usurped the church and brought in pagan customs and dates.
Sunday Easter service was already the norm throughout Christianity by this time. The issue at the Council was which is the best way to calculate when Easter would occur.
The desire was to have all the congregations celebrating on the same date. But that could not happen by depending upon the rabbis fixing the month by physical observation. One of the complaints recorded is that dependency on such physical calculations might allow Passover to be celebrated twice in one solar year.
The practice was to wait until the rabbis had “set the month by observation” (קדוש החדש על פי ראיה) or by means of reckoning (קדוש החדש על פי חשבון).
[ From “Mishna Torah, Book of Times, Regulations for the Sanctifying of the Month” משנה תורה – ספר זמנים – הלכות קידוש החודש – הכול פרק ב]
The Council sought to keep the Passover in Christ from being arbitrarily decided and to have the date uniformly kept throughout the church at large. They set the equinox as the earliest possible date of Passover–already established by early tradition as the day of Creation, Incarnation, and the original Crucifixion.
Nothing in their discussions or in any of the surviving evidence suggests that these dates were chosen or influenced by any pagan practice or teaching. All the actual contemporary evidence points to a great concern that the Passover be marked accurately for the sake of confessing the Hypostatic Union of Christ and His saving work in His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection.
The Third Easter Date Controversy (c. 600 A.D)
Churches in the British Isles which had been established early were using a different method of calculation than were the churches in the Mediterranean area. The calculations used in the British Isles were using the formula from the time of the Roman occupation, the formula that the church at Rome had made improvements to.
The Easter date in the British Isles had nothing to do with pagan worship, but was based on the older method originating with the churches in the Mediterranean area. When this older method was replaced it had nothing to do with pagan practices. The churches in the British Isles were just conforming to what had been established by the Church at large in the Mediterranean world.
[Thurston, H. (1909). Easter Controversy. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved March 26, 2013 from New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05228a.htm]
Summary
The date of Easter and the rest of the High Holy Days of the Church are rooted in the observance of the Passover and have no roots in any pagan practice. The Passover was established by God nearly 1500 years before the fulfilment of the Promise in Christ’s death and resurrection. The Church sought to clarify how this date chosen in the calendar and help make the practice consistent throughout the Church.
None of the controversies surrounding the dating of Easter had anything to do with pagan practices. Essentially these controversies were either disagreements on whether to observe the 14th of Abib rather than the Sunday following, or disagreements on the best way to calculate when the Biblical 14th of Abib (the Passover) would take place.
Anyone who contends that the dates were chosen on the basis of pagan sources is making a claim contrary to all actual evidence from the actual periods.
This is a reposting of a pair of articles published last year on the origins of Easter and some Easter traditions. The sources are given so that the reader can better be able to debunk the popular “historical” nonsense about the origins of Easter.
There are three main things people attack about this Holy Day:
They claim that it is pagan because the name Easter is from a pagan goddess.
They claim that Easter eggs are a symbol of pagan worship, particularly of that false goddess in number 1.
They claim that the Easter bunny is a pagan symbol, the consort of the pagan goddess in number 1.
All of these claims are false.
That’s not to say that the materialism of modern culture hasn’t obscured the meaning of Easter through focusing on treats and bunnies. But even though factual information about the tradition of eggs at Easter is plentiful, and even though the use of the hare/rabbit has long history in Christian iconography the propaganda efforts of the anti-Easter crowd and the Neopagans through all kinds of media has overcome the truth. And the lies have found a firm footing in the social awareness of contemporary society. Through venues like the History Channel, college courses, and popular news media the lies have become accepted as historical fact.
The Name of the Holy Day: Easter
As we have demonstrated in the previous article, the choosing of the date for Easter had nothing to do with pagan practices. The original dates chosen and the reasons for adjusting the methods of determining those dates always had to do with determining when the Biblical Passover should be observed so that the festival of the Resurrection could be observed without discord.
While most languages adapt the word פסח Pesach “Passover” as the term for Easter/Passover, German and English adopted the local month name. The local month name was adopted very early, by the records it was adopted while Rome was still active.
Alexander Hislop claimed:
What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” (The Two Babylons, Ch. 3, sec. 2)
Notice how clever the argument is? Sir Austen Henry Layard just published his first works on Nineveh in 1848, 1849, and 1853. And in 1853, Hislop, who knew nothing about cuneiform or ancient Babylonian languages concludes that since the Babylonian name “Ishtar” sounds like the English word “Easter” they must be the same!
Just so that the argument can not be disproved, Hislop claims that the Druids brought Ishtar to England. This is handy, because the Druids didn’t write anything down. And those records about Druids by others don’t record any such migrations or Ishtar worship.
Note for later: Ishtar’s symbolic animals were the lion, and the horse. The symbols of Astarte (a goddess of war) were the lion, the horse, the dove, and the sphynx. And though the are considered “fertility” gods today (instead of just pornography) there were no bunnies or eggs among the symbols for these false gods.
But there is a possibility: Perhaps the word Easter does come from some pagan goddess.
Was There Actually a Pagan Goddess Easter, Eostre, Ostara?
A search of all the ancient literature left by the Germanic, Celtic, English peoples and their ancestors combined with a search of all ancient literature about those peoples by their contemporaries up to the 8th century A.D. turns up nothing.
There is nothing in any Edda, nothing in any history, nothing. And it is not for lack of written records about the religious practices and beliefs of those peoples through those years.
Note this date, the 8th century A.D. This is when the first mention of a possible “goddess” is made. The date of the Easter festival had already been long established. The use of the term Easter or Ostern (German) had already been long established.
The first mention of such a goddess comes from the Venerable Bede in his 725 A.D. De Temporum Ratione. Bede wrote:
Eostur-monath, qui nunc Paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a Dea illorum quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit: a cujus nomine nunc Paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquæ observationis vocabulo gaudia novæ solemnitatis vocantes.
The Complete Works of Venerable Bede, Bd. VI, London 1843 [https://oll.libertyfund.org/files/1917/0990.06_Bk_SM.pdf Seite 139 ff.} pp. 178-179 Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CXXIII B, Bedae Venerabilis Opera, Bd. VI,2, Turnhout 1977
English
Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.
[ Bede: The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool University Press – Translated Texts for Historians) by Faith Wallis (Apr 1, 1999) p. 54]
It would seem that Bede, who is listing out the English names of the months in this chapter, confirms that there was a goddess named Eostre. But neither Eostre nor a goddess he mentions in the previous sentence, “Hrethra,” are found in any other literature from either earlier nor later.
It is not unlikely that Bede was conjecturing about the origin of the names given that month names have been named after false gods in other cultures; e.g., July, and August, named after Julius and Augustus upon deification.
We will see a little later that there is another possibility, especially considering that all of the other English month names were seasonal descriptions or events during those times.
May=Thrimylchi, Milk the cows three times a day Month
June=Lida, Gentle
July also=Lida, Gentle
August=Vueod-monath, Month the tares/grasses
September=Haleg-monath, Holy Month
October=Vuinter-fylleth; Winter starting with the full moon Month.
November=Blod-monath, Cattle slaughter month.
December=Giul; Sun gets stronger
Claims are often made by using fake quotations preportedly from Einhard (c. 775 – March 14, 840) in his work Vita Karola Magni 817 to 833 AD.
Examples of fake quotations:
“Easter – *Ôstara) was a goddess in Germanic
paganism whose Germanic month has given its
name to the festival of Easter. Ôstarmânoth
is attested as the month-name equivalent to
‘April’ that was decreed by Charlemagne,
but as a goddess Eostre is attested only
by Bede in his 8th century work De temporum
ratione. Bede states that Ēosturmōnaþ
was the equivalent to the month of April,
and that feasts held in Eostre’s honor…
replaced the “Paschal” observance of
Passover.”
— Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, §29.
“Some scholars have debated whether or not
Eostre is an invention of Bede’s, and
theories Einhard, connecting Eostre with records of
Germanic Easter customs (including hares
rabbits and eggs).”
— Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, §29.
Both of these fake quotes are from the website easter-origins and are found repeated in dozens of websites.
Here is Einhard’s actual full section 29 on Charlemagne:
29. Reforms
It was after he had received the imperial name that, finding the laws of his people very defective (the Franks have two sets of laws, very different in many particulars), he determined to add what was wanting, to reconcile the discrepancies, and to correct what was vicious and wrongly cited in them. However, he went no further in this matter than to supplement the laws by a few capitularies, and those imperfect ones; but he caused the unwritten laws of all the tribes that came under his rule to be compiled and reduced to writing . He also had the old rude songs that celeate the deeds and wars of the ancient kings written out for transmission to posterity. He began a grammar of his native language. He gave the months names in his own tongue, in place of the Latin and barbarous names by which they were formerly known among the Franks. He likewise designated the winds by twelve appropriate names; there were hardly more than four distinctive ones in use before. He called January, Wintarmanoth; February, Hornung; March, Lentzinmanoth; April, Ostarmanoth; May, Winnemanoth; June, Brachmanoth; July, Heuvimanoth; August, Aranmanoth; September, Witumanoth; October, Windumemanoth; Novemher, Herbistmanoth; December, Heilagmanoth. He styled the winds as follows; Subsolanus, Ostroniwint; Eurus, Ostsundroni-, Euroauster, Sundostroni; Auster, Sundroni; Austro-Africus, Sundwestroni; Africus, Westsundroni; Zephyrus, Westroni; Caurus, Westnordroni; Circius, Nordwestroni; Septentrio, Nordroni; Aquilo, Nordostroni; Vulturnus, Ostnordroni.
[Life of Charlemagne — Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, 19th century English translation by Samuel Epes Turner]
All Einhard says is that Charles the Great chose to keep the Germanic month names. There is nothing here that speaks about a pagan goddess named Ostara or Eostra.
There is one more name with the term Eostra in it from this general period. Eosterwine. (650 – 7 March 686) was the second Anglo-Saxon Abbot of Wearmouth in Northumbria (England).
Note that in none of these documents is there anything about who Eostra might have been, what purpose she might have served, who her consorts might have been. All the evidence shows us is that the old English had a month with the name Eostra. It shows us that a well respected writer of the church thought that the month name had pagan roots. But that name, even if used for the feast of the Resurrection, was not chosen because the Passover meal was pagan or polluted by paganism. It would be just like non Pagans today using the word Thursday for the name of a weekday.
No one heard any more about Eostra/Ostara for a thousand years.
That should be repeated: NO ONE heard any more about Eostra/Ostara for a THOUSAND YEARS!
It wasn’t until 1835 when Jacob Grimm began publishing his work on Teutonic Mythology that the name Eostra as a goddess was noticed again.
Everything that we think we know about Eostra comes from Grimm. But notice how what Grimm says is conjecture:
We Germans to this day call April ostermonat, and ostarmanoth is found as early as Eginhart (temp. Car. Mag.). The great Christian festival, which usually falls in April or the end of March, bears in the oldest of OHG. remains the name ostara gen. –un ;1 it is mostly found in the plural, because two days (ostartagil, aostortaga, Diut. 1, 266a) were kept at Easter. This Ostara, like the AS. Eastre, must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries.(Volume 1, p. 290 bold added)
After making what now would be rightly considered an illegitimate venture into etymology of the name Eostre, Grimm continues:
Ostara, Eostreseems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted to the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God. Bonfires were lighted at Easter, and according to a popular belief of long standing, the moment the sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he gives three joyful leaps, he dances for joy (Superst. 813). Water drawn on the Easter morning is, like that at Christmas, holy and healing (Superst. 775. 804) ; here also heathen notions seems to have grafted themselves on great Christian festivals. Maidens clothed in white, who at Easter, at the season of returning spring, show themselves in clefts of the rock and on mountains, are suggestive of the ancient goddess (see Suppl.). (ibid. 291 bold added)
Remember what Grimm is working with. He has only Bede and Einhard. Just like you and I have.
According to the second volume of his Teutonic Mythology, Grimm even associates the Easter egg with Eostra. Though, we shall see, that particularly Christian tradition predates any mention of Eostra by 500 years. Grimm wrote:
But if we admit, goddesses, then, in addition to Nerthus, Ostara has the strongest claim to consideration. To what we said on p. 290 I can add some significant facts. The heathen Easter had much in common with May-feast and the reception of spring, particularly in matter of bonfires. Then, through long ages there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called, which the church itself had to tolerate : I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs, and to the Easter tale which preachers told from the pulpit for the people’s amusement, connecting it with Christian reminiscences.(Volume 2, p. 780 bold added)
Again, notice the conjectural language, but also the confidence he seems to have about his notions.
Everything else about this so called “ancient” goddess Eostra/Ostara has been made up since the late 1800s. And it has been made up out of nothing.
Recently an historian has offered another suggestion. In his article Ostern. Geschichte eines Wortes [D. H. Green The Modern Language Review Vol. 96, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 247-249] Jürgen Udolph suggested that by exampled usages and historical linguistics believes that the goddess names Ostara and Eostre are false conclusions. Rather Udolph traces “Ostern / Easter” from a Nordic root ausa “to pour water,” which was proposed by Siegfried Gutenbrunner in 1966. In this way both the linguistic form of the word in Bede and Einhard along with the name Eostrewine can be maintained, the listing of seasons and seasonal tasks is maintained in Bede, there is no need to create a potential mythology. The implication is that the word Easter would actually etymologically derived from the main baptism service during Easter night.
Before all Sacramental Christians get excited about this article, we need to remember that it too is an historical conjecture. But this conjecture seems to address the evidence as evidence and requires not fanciful and imaginative mythology to be created in support of it.
The Neopagans and Wiccans have made up all kinds of claims that the Easter holiday had to do with fertility and reproduction. They claim that Ashtorah was a reproductive goddess. There is no evidence in the Bible that the asherah poles and other references to Ashera or Ashtorah had anything to do with fertility. And there is nothing that links the Ashtorah of the Bible with the old Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
Some modern archaeologists who try to show the evolution of religions in the middle-east have conjectured that ancient Ugaritic goddess named Athirat might be linked to the Bible’s Ashtorah even though many Ugaritic documents say otherwise. A few of these scholars also conjectured that this Ugaritic goddess might be the equivalent of Babylon’s Ishtar, but this is only conjecture.
So where are we with real history for “Easter”?
The word Easter comes either from the old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “to shine”-possibly to describe the months of the year when the sun began to get brighter and higher during the day. Or it may come from the word “to baptize” indicating the Baptisms which took place on Easter. In 1525 William Tyndale used the Middle-English word “ester” = “Easter” as a translation for Passover and the day of Christ’s Resurrection. The word had already been long used and understood as referring to the day of Christ’s Resurrection when Tyndale made his translation.
Despite what some modern Pagans and Wiccans wish the past might have been, there were no known pagan or wiccan celebrations of a pagan-easter in England or northern Europe in the period from the Middle Ages through the Reformation and up to the late 1800s.
So there are two modern myths that we have debunked: first, it is not true that the name of Easter came from the worship of a pagan spring goddess; second, it is not true that the Easter celebration was a celebration of fertility and reproduction.
Easter Eggs
Where did the Easter Egg come from?
There are several traditions which converge to bring us the Easter egg. And there is some modern nonsense that really has nothing to do with the use of eggs at Easter.
First, there is a sculpture on the Persepolis of ancient Iran of a line of people bearing gifts on the New Year day celebration on the Spring equinox. One of the many different gifts carried by the people in this sculpture appears to be an egg. This was carved by the old pagan Zoroastrians from ancient Persia (modern Iran).
From this sculpture modern Pagans have conjectured that Christians stole the idea of using eggs at Easter from the ancient Zoroastrians. The problem is that none of the writers in the ancient Christian church mention this tradition where they came into contact with Zoroastrians.
Still, the modern Neopagans and Wiccans assert that the egg is an ancient sign of fertility. That seems as bright a claim as saying that water is wet.
Of the traditions that actually do contribute to Christianity using eggs in the Easter celebration there are three to consider.
First: In the celebration of the Passover meal, which Christ celebrated the night before He was crucified, a roasted whole egg is placed as one of six food items on the Passover plate. The egg, called Beitzah symbolizes the Passover sacrifice that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and was then eaten as part of the meal on Seder night. The egg was introduced to the Passover meal after the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. The egg was the first dish served at Jewish funerals in the time of Christ’s ministry on earth. The egg was also used as a symbol of mourning the loss of the Temple where the Passover Lamb was sacrificed. It is usually eaten dipped in salt water which symbolizes the bitter tears of the people.
Early Christians in the first and second century continued to celebrate the Passover along with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Primarily the Passover was celebrated because of Christ’s institution of the Lord’s Supper.
Second: the season preceding Easter is called Lent. The season of Lent is a fast. In the article on Lent we saw how ancient this practice was and where it started. In both the eastern and western Church this meant fasting from meat and bird flesh–including eggs. Eggs were used to break the Lenten fast on Easter Morning. In preparation for this breaking of the fast the eggs were decorated to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the Paschal Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. The breaking of the shell became a symbol of Christ’s rending of the tomb.
Indeed, the use of decorated eggs to celebrate Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning is so widespread across the world and so closely tied with the spread of Christianity that one cannot call it anything but a Christian tradition. But that doesn’t keep the Neopagans and modern commentators from trying to claim that Christian’s “stole” this so-called “pagan” tradition.
So we turn to the third tradition:
The Easter Hare
The typical image used to demonstrate that that the Easter Bunny was the consort of Ostara/Eostra is this:
As we have seen above, Ostara/Eostra didn’t really exist. And since she didn’t exist she couldn’t have had a bunny as a consort. But where do they get this ancient looking, archaeological type statue of Ostara and the Rabbit?
The problem with the image is that it is of a Mayan goddess (Guatemalen Ixchel). This false goddess can only be dated back to the 1600s A.D. Wrong continent. Wrong hemisphere. Wrong epoch.
All those websites, videos, and well meaning people who try to argue that Easter is pagan and use this picture to do so have a basic problem with honesty.
There is an interesting doubling up of the Easter bunny with the fictional goddess Ostara. The modern ‘histories” of Easter tend to claim 1) that Easter was originally a pagan fertility holiday 2) of devotion to the goddess Ostara (Eastre, however spelled), 3) she used eggs as a symbol of fertility, and 4) she always carried a pet bunny because it was so fertile. Now, all of these 4 claims are fiction.
So where did the bunny really come from?
According to Karl Joseph Simrok’s 1855 book called Handbuch Der Deutschen Mythologie Mit Einschluss Der Nordischen, “The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.” (page 551) The old 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia cites this as proof that Christians cannot use the rabbit in celebration of Easter. But I cannot find this sentence in my copy of Simrok’s book. Perhaps mine is a different edition.
What is interesting about the rabbit or hare is that it has been used by all kinds of religions around the world as a symbol. Each religion fitting its own teaching on the symbol of the rabbit. But in most cases the symbol refers to new life. In the ancient eastern Church the rabbit was used on tombstones and as a symbol of Christ. One author points out that some early Christians viewed the rabbit’s hole as a symbol of the tomb of Christ.
Probably the most complete and systematic study to date is actually Birgit Gehrisch’s Lepusculus Domini, Erotic Hare, Meister Lampe” Zur Rolle des Hasen in der Kulturgeschichte, Inaugural-Dissertaion zur Erlangun, VVB Laufersweiler Verlag, Wettenberg, Germany, 2005.
Christian art has several examples from the early times through the renaissance of rabbits as a symbol of Christ.
To name just a few The three hare window in Paderborn, Germany and also in the monastery Muottatal in Switzerland, where three rabbits are together in a triangle with only one ear each showing, symbolizing the Trinity,
There are actually dozens of examples like this one above scattered all across Europe and Asia.
Martin Schongauer’s 1470 engraving The Temptation of Jesus has three by three rabbits at the feet of Jesus Christ.
His student Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut of 1497 The Holy Family with the Three Hares showing two hares next to each other and the other going down toward a hole with a stone rolled next to it;
Hans Baldung Grien 1512-1516 painted the altar for the Freiburg Cathedral with the second panel representing Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth where he painted the rabbits about the feet of Mary and Elizabeth;
Titan’s Madonna and Child with St. Catherine and a Rabbit which was painted in 1530.
I picked these works of art because they are all pretty much pre-Reformation. They demonstrate that the rabbit or hare was used a symbol of Christ and the Resurrection before the time of the Reformation.
America owes the use of the Easter Bunny to the Pennsylvania Deutch settlers who came from Alsace, a German and French area on the border between the two countries. Back in 1678 Georg Franck von Frankenau in 1682 wrote against the excessive eating of Easter eggs which parents would leave in the name of the Easter Hare–the Resurrected Christ. The people from this region settled in Pennsylvania and brought with them their symbolism and traditions surrounding the hare representing Christ, the egg representing the tomb, and Christ’s resurrection with the giving and breaking of eggs when the fast of Lent was ended on Easter Sunday.
Summary
Yes, Easter, the eggs, the bunny, all of them are still being perverted into something else by our own society. The devil, the world, and our own flesh don’t want to hear about Christ’s resurrection and will attack any symbols used to teach the resurrection.
But now you know enough of the real history of Easter and the symbols used by the Christian Church to celebrate this holiday.
All Saints’ Eve, All Saints’ Day: Origins and Samhain-ization
Today it seems that everyone knows that Halloween is originally a Celtic pagan holy day named Samhain [pronounced: Sow-in] which the Christian Church supplanted for the sake of forcing pagans to convert to Christianity. Obviously, in this line of thought, Christianity has nothing of it self to offer and must co-opt, adopt, adapt, and use non-Christian sources for the sake of gaining converts from the world outside of Christianity.
A read through the Old Testament will show that the people of God have many times adopted religious practices and celebrations from the pagan nations around them: Sometimes in an effort to gain peace with those nations, sometimes to attract members, sometimes so they could fit in better with surrounding nations, sometimes in outright rebellion to God. The Acts of the Apostles, their Epistles, and the book of Revelation also show various ways that the Church adopted the cultural and religious practices of the pagans around them. The writings of the early Church Fathers contain many, many documents against the adoption of pagan practices and writings against those false teachers who adopted aspects of pagan worship and faith.
So, it is not like it would be unusual for the Church to do something like stealing a pagan holy day, claim it for its own, and use this to attract those outside the Church (pagans) by making them feel more comfortable—or by coercion. Both have happened.
Some might wonder what the point is of trying to establish which came first: pagan or Christian. Indeed, one website described this kind of effort as a “pissing match” to establish who’s holy day is older. That attitude misses the point of doing the history. The issue is that Neo-Pagans and Wiccans, in an effort to discredit Christianity, have made many assertions about the history of these holy days that are patently false. Most of their claims are based on an intellectual heritage that comes through the Folklorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries—which itself was deeply influenced by the wealth of philosophy, arts, and literature from the Romantic movement (particularly Gothic fiction).
When one looks at individual claims about the supposed antiquity of the Neo-Pagan/Wiccan holy day of Samhain one finds the actual historical evidence lacking.
Of course, then some claim “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” This is supposed to prove that since we are not able to find any evidence of the observation of Samhain before the 9th century, and since lack of evidence cannot prove something was not there; the whole line of research is fallacious—NeoPagans/Wiccans therefore have the upper-hand and win! Too bad, poor Christians!
Actually their claims must be tested by evidence, not just ours. If one were to claim that NASA put a man on Mars long before the Framers signed the Constitution, most people know just enough of history to begin to question such a ludicrous claim.[Footnote 1]
So, for example, the Neo-Pagan claims “Samhain was celebrated on October 31st by the Druids all over Europe before Christianity came.” Then there are some specifics that can be examined: what kind of calendar did the Celts use? Does it have a date called “Samhain”? Was it actually a single date, or a prolonged season/time/festival/fast? If it was a single date does that date equate to October 31? Is that before or after the Gregorian calendar reforms? How is Samhain described in the earliest literature? When was that? How did it change over time? Are there records of suppression of this holy day?
On the other hand: if one were to assert: “All Saints’ Day came from non-Celtic regions, was known in the East and West, and was moved to November 1st long before there were any explicitly pagan ideas associated with Samhain.” Again there are specifics one can examine. All along the same lines of inquiry outlined just previously.
This article is an effort to gather together resources on the origin and historical development of All Saints’ Day, the evening before which is called All Saints’ Eve, or Halloween. I have tried to provide links to online versions of these resources to make it easier for the reader to go through the original documents. But many of the resources are in print editions only. The information is presented as a chronologically arranged annotated/narrated bibliography on the subjects of Samhain and All Saints’ Day.
Since so many people today believe that the origin of All Saints’ Day and Halloween are to be found in the Celtic festival of Samhain we consider it first.
Documentary History of Samhain
The ancient Celtic calendars that we actually have and know about are luni-solar. That is, the months were lunar months tied to the phases of the moon, and that an extra batch of days was added at the end or in other places to tidy up with the solar year. Because the calendar was based on the phases of the moon the claim that October 31 must be historic Samhain is patently false.
Samhain as Part of the Ancient Celtic Calendar-A.D. 2nd Century
The oldest fairly complete ancient Celtic calendar we have that includes a mention of something like Samhain is the Colingy Calendar. The Colingy Calendar was found at Colingy, Ain, France in 1887 and is now held at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Lyon, France.
The Calendar itself is dated to the late 2nd century AD on the basis of its linguistic features.
The wikipedia article on the Colingy Calendar has a good bibliography for extended research. You can see the calendar and how Archaeologists, Historians, and Linguists have worked to interpret the text at the Roman Britain Organisation’s website by Kevan White, as well as at John Bonsing’s website.
Some of the things learned from this Celtic calendar are pointed out by Kevan White;
1. “The Celtic month started at the full-moon, rather than the new-moon, probably because the full-moon is easier to observe and record. Each month alternately contained 29 or 30 days, making a Celtic year 354 days in length.
2. “The calendar took into account the differing time periods taken by the moon and the sun to circle the earth (prevalent geocentric terminology used), and reconciled the differences by inserting an extra month on a regular cycle. This method of intercalation meant that most years contained twelve months, and approximately every third year contained thirteen months. This extra month was called Mid Samonios, and was intercalated between Cutios and Giamonios in the calendar.
3. “The month was divided into two parts, a ‘light’ half, and a ‘dark’ half, each approximately of two week’s duration; the division marked by the word Atenoux ‘returning night’ on the Coligny fragments. This confirms that the new-moon also played a part in the Celtic calendar, and very likely had some religious significance. This also bears-out the impression we get from the traditional Celtic folk-stories which maintain that the normal period of Celtic timekeeping was the fortnight.”
Both White and Bonsing have done calendar calculations attempting to synchronize this ancient Celtic calendar with our current system. A very important point to note is that for the years worked out AD 24 to AD 54 the first day of Samhain never occurred on October 31. It occurred on November 1 only once in that span of years in AD 38.
Also, there is no mention of or description of any calendrical festival cycle that would in any way compare to the Neo-Pagan and modern Wiccan “Wheel of the Year”.
See also the bibliography on the Colingy Calendar at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar
Finally, there is no explicit mention of a holiday called Samhain in this calendar. No such holiday is mentioned until 1,000 years later.
Now, we must admit, we can not claim that this one calendar actually represents a uniform practice of all the different areas where Celts lived. They may, as was in ancient Greece, have had different calendars for each area. In which case, we can not say for certain anything about a pan-celtic or even local practice until such evidence can be found.
Welsh King Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) reigned 880 AD to 950 AD. The earliest copies of laws attributed to his rule are from 1285 AD. In this calendar the “calends of winter” = Samhain is used to fix an end to an economic activity. No festival is mentioned. Of course, King Hywel Dda lived in a time after the festival of All Saints’ Day had been introduced to the British Isles. The manuscript comes from well after the November 1st date had been established in the region.
Tochmarc Emire (“The Wooing of Emer“) maybe 10th century AD, certainly older than the 15th c.
from the Ulster Cycle in Irish mythology.
The earliest manuscript is from the 15th or 16th century A.D. Some scholars conjecture that the story may go back to the 10th or 8th century AD. But there is no manuscript evidence for this. In any event, this is after the Christianization of Ireland and after the celebration of All Saints’ Day had been introduced in that land. In this document the word Samhain is understood to mean “the end of summer.” While this document describes druids working ritual at Beltane, there is nothing mentioned of ritual at Samhain. Even if the story goes back to the 10th century this is still after the festival of All Saints’ Day had been established on November 1st in the region.
Serglige Con Culainn (“The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn”), written maybe the 10th or 11th century A.D.
Also known as Oenét Emire (“The Only Jealousy of Emer:) is a narrative from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. This is the oldest reference from the medieval period and it comes from a 12th century AD manuscript. Note that this is well after All Saints’ Day is established on November 1st in the region.
This text mentions a festival in connection with Samhain:
“EVERY year the men of Ulster were accustomed to hold festival together; and the time when they held it was for three days before Samhain, the Summer-End, and for three days after that day, and upon Samhain itself. And the time that is spoken of is that when the men of Ulster were in the Plain of Murthemne, and there they used to keep that festival every year; nor was there an thing in the world that they would do at that time except sports, and marketings, and splendours, and pomps, and feasting and eating; and it is from that custom of theirs that the Festival of the Samhain has descended, that is now held throughout the whole of Ireland.”
Samhain in the Early Folklorists-16th Century and Later
Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, c1569-c1644
Irish Roman Catholic priest, poet and historian from County Tipperary
Keating wrote what looks like an observation of folk customs:
“there the Fire of Tlachtgha was instituted, at which it was their custom to assemble and bring together the druids of Ireland on the eve of Samhain to offer sacrifice to all the gods. It was at that fire they used to burn their victims; and it was of obligation under penalty of fine to quench the fires of Ireland on that night, and the men of Ireland were forbidden to kindle fires except from that fire; and for each fire that was kindled from it in Ireland the king of Munster received a tax of a screaball, or three-pence, since the land on which Tlachtgha is belongs to the part of Munster given to Meath.” (p. 247)
Keating’s account of the Feast of Tara and his treatment of Samhain has been found to be creative anachronistic fiction by Daniel. Binchy pp 129-130 of his 1958 ‘The Fair of Tailtu and the Feast of Tara’, Eriu, 18:113-38.
Grimm, Jacob 1785-1863
German philologist, jurist and mythologist who was very creative in his association of ideas and imaginative in his conclusions.
1883 Teutonic Mythology, Volume 2, Tr. James Steven Stallybrass, from the 4th ed. 1877, George Bell and Sons.,
-p. 614 in his discussion of religious fire his claim is based on sources which repeat Keating;
First Professor of Celtic at Oxford University. Citing Keating and his experience in contemporary folklore, Rhys was the first to suggest that Samhain was the ‘Celtic’ new year celebration.
Hutton notes two recent authors who have revived Keating’s fiction.
Gantz, Jeffrey.
1981 Early Irish Myths and Sagas. London: Penguin Books picks up Keating’s story and conjectures about a possible ancient mythological nature of Samhain.
MacCana, Proinsias
1970 Celtic Mythology. New York: Hamlyn, bases some mythological conclusions on the same discredited evidence.
[Hutton, Stations of the Sun, 361f, 508]
Frazer, James 1854-1941
Scottish social anthropologist very influential in the early stages of the modern studies of folklore, mythology and comparative religion, especially with respect to his 1890 publication, The Golden Bough.
Frazer was the first to suggest that Samhain was an ancient pan-Celtic festival of the dead that had been taken over by the Church.
Frazer’s comparative religion and folklore research methods and analytical methods have been largely discredited today.
At this point we are up to the 20th century and there is no real credible evidence that Samhain was any kind of ancient pan-Celtic festival of the dead, or that it was a new years celebration, or that it was even a fixed festival.
Documented Origins of All Saints’ Day
Earliest record of an annual commemoration of martyrs.
The earliest surviving record of an annual commemoration of a saint or saints dates to the 2nd century A.D. There is no reference to any pagan festival. The purpose of the day is to remember the testimony to faith in Christ that the saints gave with their lives and deaths. Polycarp’s martyrdom ties together both Rome and Smyrna on the southwestern edge of modern Turkey.
The documentary evidence laid out below demonstrates that the practice of a day dedicated to All Saints originates in non-Celtic regions well before documentary evidence of a festival of Samhain begins, and that this festival is established on November 1st without any reference to pagan practices relating specifically to Samhain.
Origins of annual commemoration of martyrs in the East
Through the persecutions of the early centuries so many Christians were killed because of their faith, that churches in different areas began setting aside a particular day of the church year dedicated to All the Saints and Martyrs.
According to the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia Ephrem notes the observance of an annual Festival of All Saints’ in Edessa on the thirteenth of May. We are looking for an English translation.
Canon 51 established that the annual commemoration of Saints’ days (their nativities) that take place during Lent should be held on the Sabbath or Sunday following so that they can be commemorated with the full Liturgy rather than with the partial liturgies that were prescribed for weekdays in Lent.
NPNF2-14: p. 156 [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.viii.vii.iii.lvi.html]
St. Basil of Caesarea AD 379 a city in Central Anatolia, Turkey.
Also noted in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Basil chose a day when the churches of his bishopric would honor the memories of all Saints known, and unknown, alive or in heaven. We are looking for the reference.
Mershman, F. (1907). All Saints’ Day. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved October 30, 2013 from New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm
John Chrysostom, died AD 407 of Constantinople.
The Reference typically given is to his 74th Homily, or his Homily for the First Sunday after Pentecost. In this referenced sermon Chrysostom wrote that a festival of All Saints was observed on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Constantinople during his episcopate.
See especially;
2006 John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints: Select Homilies and Letters. Introduced, translated and annotated by Wendy Mayer and Bronwen NielSt Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
[This book is helpful in understanding how important and widespread in the Church the commemoration of the martyred Saints had become at such an early date.]
Canons 60-61 prescribed that Christians should not celebrate Greek feasts or go to improper entertainments or the games at the circus, especially if those celebrations coincided with the memorial of a Martyr, a Sunday, or a Church Festival.
NPNF2-14: p. 473 [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xv.iv.iv.lxi.html ]
Council in Trullo (The Quinisext Council) AD 692 in Constantinople
Documented celebrations of the festival in the West
Readers should be aware that the East and the West were not isolated from each other. Even before Polycarp’s martyrdom, he and others before him had traveled to Rome. And others from the West had traveled to places in the East. We find documents from Rome that the annual celebration of an All Saint’s day which was widespread in the East was also the practice in Rome and the West.
Pope Boniface IV in AD 610
All Saints Day commemoration celebrated May 13 at the dedication of Sancta Maria ad Martyres
Ferri, G. (1904). Le carte dell’Archivio Liberiano dal secolo X al XV. Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria (in Italian) 27.
There was also liturgical contact between Rome and England. Under Boniface IV, Mellitus, the first Bishop of London, went to Rome “to consult the pope on important matters relative to the newly established English Church” Bede, H. E., II, iv.]
Standardizing the Date in the Western Church
While an annual celebration of All Saints was widespread throughout the east and the west from very early, the dates chosen for this festival differed. The documentary evidence we have shows a movement as early, and possibly before AD 740 to celebrate the festival on November 1.
Pope Gregory III, died AD 741
Gregory dedicated a chapel in Saint Peter’s, Rome, for the relics “of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world.”
[“All Saints Day,” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edition, ed. E. A. Livingstone, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 41-42
Arno, bishop of Salzburg (†821), had it adopted by a synod in the year 798.
Alcuin (†804) mentions the date in a letter of that year,
Manuscripts of the Martyrology of Bede have it on November 1st as marginal addition at about the same time.
A November commemoration of All Saints was already widespread in Frankish lands during Charlemagne’s reign (†814).
Pope Gregory the Fourth, under Gallican influence, ordered the observance of the first of November as a feast of All Saints,
Early ninth century an English calendar (of Oxford) on November 1st ranks the day as a principal feast. There were over twelve hundred ancient church dedications to All Saints in England,
In Ireland
Saint Óengus of Tallaght ( Oengus the Culdee) died c. AD 824
Félire Óengusso (The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee) 8th or 9th century
A metrical martyrology ascribed to Oengus which contains a note on All Martyrs on the seventeenth of April and of All Saints of Europe on the twentieth of April.
The earliest Manuscript for this from the early 15th century. Internal evidence, the names of the particular kings listed, indicates the text was originally written before 833 AD.
A narrative martyrology ascribed to Oengus which also confirms the practice of this festival in Ireland before the end of the first millenium.
1857 Calendar of Irish saints, the martyrology of Tallagh, with notices of the patron saints of Ireland, and select poems and hymns (Google eBook) Matthew Kelly, Tallaght abbey, J. Mullany,
All Saints’ Day is included in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, from 1549.
Note:
Footnote 1: Ironically, the parallel to this example is very close. Wicca and NeoPaganism is a mid-20th century invention, having no demonstrable historical ties to any ancient or medieval pagan religions—but having very clearly demonstrable origins through the writings and works of people like Eliphas Levy, Alistair Crowley, Gerald Gardiner, Robert Cochrane, Doreen Valiente, Margaret Murray, Alexander Sander, Zusana Budapest, Starhawk, the Buckleys, Margo Adler, and many others.
First, Objective Justification and Subjective Justification are not two different justifications, but rather two parts of the act of Justification. My brother David has put it well: Objective Justification = God justifies the sinner [through faith]. Subjective Justification = [God justifies the sinner] through faith.
Objective Justification refers to the work of God in Christ as well as the proclamation of the gospel and administration of the sacraments. Subjective Justification refers to faith, which is created by that proclamation and receives the benefits. Subjective Justification does not refer to the administration of the means of grace. While it is true that when we speak of the application of the the accomplished act of Christ we certainly speak of faith, nevertheless the application of the righteousness of Christ in the means of grace as such is objective. God, in Christ, reconciles the world to himself… entrusting the word of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19). It is all one motion. This is why the pastor can pronounce absolution on a sinner even though he does not know for sure –outside of the sinner’s confession — if he truly has faith.
Article three of the Formula of Concord lists the necessary parts of justification (SD III, 25): the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and faith, which receives the righteousness of Christ in the promise of the gospel. The grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the promise of the gospel are all part of Objective Justification. Faith receiving the righteousness of Christ refers to Subjective Justification.
Obviously the means of grace are involved when we discuss Subjective Justification, since it is in them that faith receives the righteousness of Christ. Similarly, the plan and work of our redemption are discussed as well. After all, they are not two different justifications. However, when we speak of Objective Justification, we are not only speaking of what God did back then, but also what he declares today in the promise of the gospel. When we speak of Subjective Justification, we are speaking specifically of faith receiving what is objectively given.
The discussion of Objective and Subjective Justification is simply a distinction within one act. God quenches our thirst. This is one act. Nevertheless, we can distinguish between God preparing the water and pouring it into our mouths on the one hand, and us receiving it in our mouths on the other. It doesn’t change the fact that it is one act. The fact that a sinner can know that he is justified through faith presupposes that the righteousness of Christ is accomplished for all sinners and offered to all sinners.
We are pleased to announce the videos are now available from the recent Brothers of John the Steadfast 2015 Conference held at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, IL on Feb 20-21st. Thanks to Peter Slayton for helping getting these recordings ready and published.
To view them on youtube click here to view all 7 videos.
To listen to the audio presentations, click here (it may be easier to listen to these files if you have a slow internet connection)
About a year ago one of my professors gave me the lecture notes of my grandfather, Robert Preus, from when he taught a course on Justification at St. Catharines back in the 80’s. According to Dr. Jackson, Preus was an adherent of Objective Justification at that time, but Jackson claims that he demonstrates in his essay “Justification and Rome” that he had a breakthrough and realized that this is not a Lutheran teaching. The lecture notes consist of twenty pages of quotes from the Lutheran Church Fathers on Justification, and most of these quotes are found in his “Justification and Rome.” One of the quotes comes from Abraham Calov’s Apodixis articulorum fidei (Lüneberg, 1684, p. 249), and Jackson cites this quote in Preus’ book as proof that he denied Objective Justification by the end of his life. Here is the quote (quoted in “Justification and Rome, 131, n74):
Although Christ has acquired for us the remission of sins, justification, and sonship, God just the same does not justify us prior to our faith. Nor do we become God’s children in Christ in such a way that justification in the mind of God takes place before we believe.
Now, Jackson also likes to point out what Preus wrote on page 72:
When does the imputation of Christ’s righteousness take place? It did not take place when Christ, by doing and suffering, finished the work of atonement and reconciled the world to God. Then and there, when the sins of the world were imputed to Him and He took them, Christ became our righteousness and procured for us remission of sin, justification, and eternal life. “By thus making satisfaction He procured and merited (acquisivit et promeruit) for each and every man remission of all sins, exemption from all punishments of sin, grace and peace with God, eternal righteousness and salvation.” [quoting Quenstedt] But the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner takes place when the Holy Spirit brings him to faith through Baptism and the Word of the Gospel. Our sins were imputed to Christ at His suffering and death, imputed objectively after He, by His active and passive obedience, fulfilled and procured all righteousness for us. But the imputation of His righteousness to us takes place when we are brought to faith. (72)
So Preus discusses here the distinction between procured and imputed righteousness. Jackson evidently does not see the procuring of Christ’s righteousness for all as part of Objective Justification. I suppose he is right that Quenstedt does not specifically say that God justified the world in Christ. Calov never used the term justification apart from faith. But this does not mean that they did not understand and teach the concept of Objective Justification. Preus gives a good explanation for the lack of outright Objective Justification language in the Lutheran Church Fathers. In his lecture notes, he writes (pg. 11):
Although the orthodox Lutherans do not make a great point out of a concept of universal justification, as they do against the Calvinists in the case of universal grace, universal atonement, redemption and reconciliation, they nevertheless do assert the doctrine when they believe the Scriptures demand it. Or they do so in passing when speaking in all sorts of contexts about the consequences of the work of Christ.
Preus then goes on to show that Sebastian Schmidt confesses the concept of Objective Justification in his Romans commentary (Hamburg, 1704, pg. 350). Schmidt, in discussing Romans 5:18, finds a distinction between dikaioma and dikaiosis. The former is a justifying righteousness which came to all men; the latter, set in opposition to katakrima (act of condemnation), is “the very act of justification whereby God justifies us.” Preus also quotes Schmidt in Latin earlier in his notes (pg. 8): “Christ was given up for the sake of the sins of the whole world. In like manner he was risen for the sake of our justification, hic est of the whole world.” (Schmidt 328) Christ became the righteousness of all; His resurrection proves it.
Jackson acts as if Preus had a huge breakthrough in his “Justification and Rome,” failing to realize that the Calov quote was in his lecture notes long before he wrote his essay; in these lecture notes he clearly confessed Objective Justification. If one believes Jackson that Robert Preus used this Calov quote in support of an apparent denial of Objective Justification, one would expect Preus to follow up this quote with such a denial. However, he instead shows the significance of what Calov is saying (“Justification and Rome” n74, pg. 131; c.f. Quenstedt Systema), showing that the Roman Catholics could not speak of forgiveness and righteousness as “objective realities which are offered in the Gospel.” For the Catholics, as opposed to the Lutherans, righteousness and forgiveness are only possibilities which become realities when one begins the process of justification/sanctification. The Gospel therefore is efficacious because it delivers that reality of righteousness and forgiveness already procured to all. Preus, then, demonstrates the reality of justification before faith, only that it is not imputed to me personally prior to faith. The only way one can conclude from “Justification and Rome” that Preus denied Objective Justification is if one reads it not in the context of his theological and scholarly life, but rather in light of one’s own presuppositions and reasoning.
XIV Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.
“…it is with those who are legitimately chosen and called by God through the church, therefore with the ministers to whom the use or administration of the ministry of the Word and the sacraments has been committed.” Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Volume II, p.97
…[I]t is the response of the Lutheran theologians to the charge that John Eck made in his 404 Propositions that the Lutherans denied the existence of the sacrament of orders, called it a figment of human invention, and asserted that any layman at all can consecrate churches, confirm children, and so on (Wilhelm Gussmann, D. Johann Ecks Vierhundertvier Artikel zum Reichstag von Augsburg 1530 [Kassel:Edmund Pillardy, 1930], nos.267 to 268, pp.134 and 177-78). The Lutheran response is that laymen are not admitted to the really crucial tasks of publicly and responsibly proclaiming the Gospel and of administering the sacraments. Arthur Carl Piepkorn. “The Sacred Ministry and Holy Ordination in the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church.” in Michael P. Plekon and William S. Wiecher. The Church: Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn. (Delhi, NY: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau Books, 1993); p.62
…the word rite in rite vocatus implies in the normal terminology of the 16th century a formal ordination as something over and above a mere calling. Both vocatio (“calling”) and ordinatio (“ordination”) are extensively used in this period to describe the whole process of election and ordination. […] [T]he Confutatio pontifica accepted Article 14 in principle. It would not have done so if it had understood the article as suggesting that ordination was not necessary. The particular point on which the Confutatio insisted was that a bishop perform the ordination. This is clear from the Apology on Article 14. […] The Apology makes it clear that it has no quarrel with ordination or even with episcopacy, but that Episcopal ordination is not available to the proponents of the Augsburg Confession. The implication is that they may have no alternative but to avail themselves of ordination by clergymen in presbyter’s orders. Arthur Carl Piepkorn. “The Sacred Ministry and Holy Ordination in the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church.” in Michael P. Plekon and William S. Wiecher. The Church: Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn. (Delhi, NY: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau Books, 1993); pp.62,63
Since the meaning of the public office is lost, ministry is limited to the private sphere. Willy-nilly Christianity becomes simply a private cult and the rationale for ordained ministry in Lutheranism threatens to disappear altogether. Here I expect is a major reason for the erosion of the understanding of ordained ministry among us. When the church becomes merely a private cult it is difficult to say why just any Christian cannot perform most if not all the functions ordinarily assigned to the ordained. It appears presumptuous in a democratic society to suppose that some are raised to a different level by ecclesiastical monkey business. And since it is, after all, only a “private” matter, what difference does ordination make? Furthermore when members of the clergy themselves capitulate and no longer do what can be called public preaching, teaching, or absolving but rather just make a public display of private emotions and experiences or invest most of their effort in private counseling, what does one need ordained clergy for? What matters is not the public exercise of the office but what “personal skills” or what kind of a (private) person the leader is. There is no way that ordination automatically imparts any skills or makes a person nice. So what is it for? Cannot properly sensitized or trained lay persons do just as well, or better? Gerhard O. Forde. “The Ordained Ministry” in Todd Nichol & Marc Kolden (ed.) Called and Ordained: Lutheran Perspectives on the Office of the Ministry. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990); p.126
The great majority of our theologians, Luther in the forefront, believe that the holy Supper should never be administered privately by one who is not in the public preaching office, by a layman. That is partly because no such necessity can occur with the holy Supper, as with Baptism and Absolution, that would justify a departure from God’s ordinance ( I Cor 4:1; Romans 10:15; Heb 5:4); partly because the holy Supper “is a public confession and so should have a public minister”; partly because schisms can easily be brought about by such private Communion… C.F.W. Walther. Pastoral Theology. Trans. John M. Drickamer. (New Haven: Lutheran News Inc, 1995); p.134
And what must the Christians do who are held captive in Turkey? They cannot receive the sacrament and have to be content with their faith and desire which they have for the sacrament and the ordinance of Christ, just as those who die before baptism are nevertheless saved by their faith and desire for baptism. What did the children of Israel do in Babylon when they were unable to have public worship at Jerusalem except in faith and in sincere desire and longing? Therefore, even if the church would have been robbed completely of the sacrament by the pope, still, because the ordinance of Christ remained in their hearts with faith and desire, it would nevertheless have been preserved thereby, as indeed now in our time there are many who outwardly do without the sacrament for they are not willing to honor and strengthen the pope’s abomination under one kind. For Christ’s ordinance and faith are two works of God which are capable of doing anything. Martin Luther. “The Private Mass and the Consecration of Priests” (Luther’s Works, AE:38; p.207)
In the Formula of Concord’s denial that, “No man’s word or work, be it the merit or speaking of the minister,” brings about the real presence is not to deny that the body and blood are, “distributed through our ministry and office” FC-SD, VII.74-77.
How the congregation organizes itself, for this no prescriptions are given, just as there are none for how the church’s ministry is to be organized. The apostles came to recognize that it would be helpful for their ministry if they were relieved of the work of caring for the poor and attending to money matters. So the office of the deacons was created as an auxiliary office. But the church was the church already before this office was created. So the church can at any time create auxiliary offices to meet the needs of the time. Examples of this in the history of the church are the office of an episcopate, or superintendency, or any other offices, whatever they may be called. But all these offices have their right of existence only insofar as they serve the one great office of the preaching of the Gospel and the administering of the sacraments. A bishop may be entrusted with the task of seeing to the running of a great diocese. But the meaning of such an assignment can only consist in this, that he thereby gives room and support to the church’s ministry. His actual office is the office of pastor, also when he is a pastor for pastors. By human arrangement he may have the work of superintendency. By divine mandate he has solely the office of preaching the forgiveness and justification of sinners for Christ’s sake. Hermann Sasse. “Ministry and Congregation” (1949) in We Confess the Church. Trans. Norman E. Nagel. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1986); pp 71,72
Pastor Charles Henrickson passed along this timely summary of a report given to the synod back in 1961 when structural changes were being considered. It was written by LCMS historian August Suelflow and is summarized for us here by Dr. Ken Schurb, formerly the assistant to synodical president Al Barry.
As you read Dr. Schurb’s summary of this report notice how things have changed in our synod. Notice that there was formerly much more emphasis on doctrinal supervision. Notice how the role of the circuit counselor (originally called the “circuit visitor”) has morphed from a doctrinal supervisor to an administrative promotional man for the district and synod, a great loss indeed. Notice too that the synod formerly paid the salaries of its college and seminary teachers. These days, they have all been forced to support themselves financially setting the stage for individualism and a lack of unity. It used to be the case that each district was responsible to pay dues to the synod so that the proceedings of their district convention, particularly the doctrinal paper, be sent to all other members of synod so that all would know what was going on in each district. (Notice that those doctrinal papers were reviewed by the St. Louis Seminary faculty for doctrinal purity. Today we have a beauracratic board – the CTCR – doing the work that should be done by our seminaries.) This practice of inter-district communication has long been lost. As a matter of fact, district conventions do not even have doctrinal papers presented anymore. Look for these and other changes as you read this insightful paper.
The synod of the past was far from perfect but there is a clear sense that the synod of old made doctrinal purity and theological unity top priorities. Let’s remain vigilant by learning more about what is going on in the synod today so that we can be informed participants. BJS will be providing more resources along these lines in the weeks to come.
Be sure to check out comment #16 on the “Being Steadfast Includes Being Vigilant” string for some more excellent resources on LCMS structure. Thanks to Rev. Jack Bauer for pointing these out for us. Pastor Wilken has given a firm endorsement for the “Three Walls” article listed there.
Also, if anyone has any news about proceedings at the convocation in St. Louis, please post your news and reflections here.
I had the opportunity to hear an excellent presentation this afternoon from a neighboring pastor (Rev. Shawn Kumm of Zion, Laramie) on Lutheran worship. One of the best points that he made was related to how worship is meant to prepare the Christian for death.
I have often found that all theology finds its best expression on the deathbed. It is there that Lutheran teachings become so distinct from others that one can really see the pure Gospel versus impure ones. What struck me about this worship leading to death thing is the difference between liturgical and “contemporary” services.
Liturgical worship seeks through repetition to not only give the gifts of God to the believer, sustaining his faith in the here and now and into the hereafter. It has an eternal perspective on things, which is reflected in its rich heritage. It is fitting for those at the beginning of life who cannot read and yet through the constant repetition can still learn, all those in between, and even those at the end of life who have lost their minds in relation to most things but still remember the things which they repeated each week in Church. Opposite to that, and lacking eternal focus, CoWo tends to feed an always changing “milk” at best (avoiding deeper concepts/teachings which may drive people away), with the goal of making all people feel comfortable and excited about what is going on (certainly striving so that they may never feel bored [where does boredom with God’s Word reside, in a worship form or in an undisciplined, Old Adam loving heart?]. CoWo does not teach the children, it does not help those who have lost their reason or senses. It is exclusive. There is not the repetition of the Scriptures as you find it in the liturgy, but instead a constant changing in order to keep relevant to the individual and the whims of the visitor (because if the visitor or age determines the worship, it will have to change). I often wonder if underlying these two very different things in worship isn’t the focus of God vs. man, the changeless from the always changing, the trustworthy and reliable vs. the unreliable.
There is another key – relevance. CoWo is meant to be relevant to the here and now, with forms that change and messages that pertain to “real life” here and now. Liturgical worship is meant to be relevant to the then, here, now, and even times to come. It prepares a soul to have a full library of texts, tunes, and prayers housed inside of it to be recalled at later times. These later times could include the deathbed, but also all those steps that we must take in this vale of tears to that point. One thing the pastor noted today was the question: “how many praise bands have you seen at the nursing home?”
Liturgical worship allows the Christian to be prepared to make his confession. The Words are familiar, ones which he has been taught and confessed before. CoWo forces the Christian to say words that he may not believe (or make the spot discernment to not confess something). Pastors who like to “tinker” with the liturgy, you may want to consider how your tinkering forces your sheep to confess things which they have had no prior warning that they would be confessing. Does such constant changing instill anything of value to your people? (other than catechizing them to grab onto the new, follow their emotions, and don’t dare to learn anything deeper or ancient)
Pastors who use CoWo, what is your pastoral care at the nursing home look like? Do you sing them the most popular and relevant songs of the day, or do you then and there return to the solid pattern of words that was taught by the hymnals which these saints have used for years? What will you do for those young ones now feeding off of constant change when they are experiencing your visit while they await death? What well can you possibly draw from when all you dug were puddles that changed as the seasons went by? What does your message sound like when talking to one undergoing great trial and tribulation? Is it there that you put aside the theology of glory and go back to the cross? In the end (of life that is) it seems that CoWo falls flat and actually shows a good amount of spiritual neglect in the scope of preparing souls to go to their Maker.
A passage comes to mind in this: 2 Timothy 3:1-7
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
I think many of those things in that passage could do with CoWo theology, but the one that I have really started to key into is the “always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth”. With all of the constant changes, there is always learning going on, but no one ever gets something solidly sunk in, so that when they approach death they can have such a vast deposit of knowledge to draw upon.
If you are a layperson under the influence of CoWo teachings, consider what will happen when your reason and senses start to go (after all you are dying too). What will remain of all the varied and many things that you have experienced? What will have been engrained into your mind as to remain when various ailments take the things which did not get reinforced in this life?
Ecclesia semper reformanda est – I don’t know who coined that phrase, but it’s ever so true. And always has been – see Galatians. In this sense, there has never been a golden age and we should not be disheartened by the mess our little patch of the una sancta finds herself in. The Missouri Synod is indeed by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed: the worship wars, Seminary Lite (SMP), a few charismatics here, a few would be women-ordainers there, usw.
So where to begin? What should Confessional Lutherans be focusing on in Missouri? I appreciate the work that folks like the ACELC are doing – but we need focus. You can’t move on all fronts at once. We need an issue that captures the attention of all Confessional Lutherans and one that is theological (not political), clearly based in the Scriptures and the Confessions, and as objective and black and white as possible.
It just so happens that we have this issue: Missouri’s 1989 revision of the Augsburg Confession sans Article XIV (it is the shortest article, so it’s a small revision, right?). “Lay ministry” – the intentional, “licensed,” and ongoing practice of having men who have not been called to and placed in the Office of the Ministry administer the Sacraments and preach the Word in our parishes. This is simply contrary to the Scriptures, contrary to the Confessions, and contrary to all the practice of historic Christianity.
If Confessionals cannot unite to undo this wrong, then what is the point of being Confessional? Let us make 2013 the Year of AC XIV.
Gottesdienst is getting the ball rolling with a one day conference on AC XIV and Lay Ministry in Kearney, Nebraska, on July 25th. While the whole Synod is affected by this problem, the Great Plains and the Northwest are the epicenters. Pastors, lay people, district officials, and the lay ministers themselves are invited and encouraged to attend.
Especially if you are in Nebraska or Kansas, please make plans to attend. If you know folks in those areas, tell them to attend. If you are for or against the Missouri Synod’s present practice, come and join us to study this issue. Here is the full conference information:
AC XIV and Lay Ministry Zion Lutheran Church, Kearney, NE July 25, 2012
Schedule
9:00 – Registration (Coffee and rolls)
9:30 – Matins
10:00 – Presentation and breaks
12-1:30 – Lunch (at local establishments of your choice)
1:45 – 3:00 – Panel Discussion
3:00 – Gemuetlichkeit
Registration fee: None. The offering at Matins will defray Zion’s costs.
To register email Rev. Micah Gaunt mgaunt2000 at yahoo dot com.
For Lutherans, the central teaching of the Bible is justification by faith apart from the works of the law. The classic expression of this doctrine is found in Article IV of the Augsburg Confession, “Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4.” Lutheran theologians often speak of justification as having two aspects, objective and subjective. Objective justification is “God’s verdict of ‘not guilty’ upon the world for the sake of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.” Subjective justification means that the benefits of God’s verdict of ‘not guilty’ become yours through faith.
What is the basis of Objective Justification?
Jesus has redeemed all people. John the Baptist declared, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) This statement, which we sing in the “Agnus Dei,” declares Jesus to be “objective justification personified.” 1 Paul also wrote to Timothy, that Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:6).
Where is Objective Justification taught in the Bible?
2 Corinthians 5:19: God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. “The only possible antecedent of ‘their’ in that sentence is ‘the world,’ and the world certainly includes all men.”2
Romans 4:25: He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. “To refer to the words: Who was raised again for our justification,” to the so-called subjective justification, which takes place by faith, not only weakens the force of the words, but also violates the context.”3
Romans 3:22-24: There is no difference, for, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. The key word here is “all.” All have sinned and all those sinners are justified- there is no difference. “All have sinned. The verb ‘justified’ has the same subject, ‘all.”4
Romans 5:18: Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. “By raising [Christ] from the dead, [God] absolved Him from our sins which had been imputed to Him, and therefore He also absolved us in Him, that Christ’s resurrection might thus be the case and the proof and the completion of our justification.”5 “Because in Christ’s resurrection we are acquitted of our sins, so that they can no longer condemn us before the judgment of God.” 6
Do the Lutheran Confessions teach Objective Justification?
While the term “objective justification” does not appear in the Lutheran Confessions, the teaching of objective justification may be found there. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession teaches that a refusal to believe that our sins are forgiven by God is to call God a liar. “And what else is the refusal to assent to absolution but charging God with falsehood? If the heart doubts, it regards those things which God promises as uncertain and of no account. Accordingly, in 1 John 5, 10 it is written: He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.” (Apology XII:62) “Therefore, if any one be not confident that he is forgiven, he denies that God has sworn what is true, than which a more horrible blasphemy cannot be imagined.” (Apology XII: 94) The Large Catechism teaches us that our sins are forgiven prior to our acceptance of such forgiveness. “Therefore there is here again great need to call upon God and to pray: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not as though He did not forgive sin without and even before our prayer (for He has given us the Gospel, in which is pure forgiveness before we prayed or ever thought about it). But this is to the intent that we may recognize and accept such forgiveness.” (LC III:88) The Formula of Concord declares, “That the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ, who, by His faultless obedience, suffering, and death, has merited for us the righteousness which avails before God, and eternal life.” (FC SD XI: 15).
How are Objective and Subjective Justification connected?
Objective justification is the basis for subjective justification. “An essential prerequisite of justification by faith, or of subjective justification, is the objective justification (the reconciliation) of all mankind.” 7 “If God had not in His heart justified the whole world because of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction, and if this justification were not offered , there could not be a justification by faith.” 8 “The relationship of objective justification to the other so-called justification can expressed in this way, that in the latter the appropriation of the former occurs.” 9 “Only those who believe the gospel are justified subjectively. But faith always has an object and that object is Christ Jesus and the objective justification He achieved.” 10
ELS Pastor Ron Pederson warns, “Both objective and subjective justification need to be taught together. If you leave one or the other out no one will be saved.” 11 His warning echoes that of former WELS President Carl Mischke, “A word of caution may, however, be in place. It may be well to remind ourselves not to divide ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ justification as if they were two totally different things which can be treated in isolation from one another. They are rather two sides of the same coin, and there can be no ‘saints’ or salvation without faith. To teach otherwise would indeed be universalism.” 12
What are the dangers of denying Objective Justification?
Denying objective justification may lead to falling into the error of limited atonement, that Jesus paid only for the sins of believers. “Not all men, indeed believe this glorious fact, wherefore, they do not become partakers of the righteousness which Christ earned for them and which God gives them in the gospel. But it is nothing else than Calvinism to deny, as so many still do, that God has in Christ ‘reconciled the world unto himself’ (2 Cor 5:19), atoned ‘for the sins of the whole world’ (1 John 2:2) and thus justified all men.” 13
Denying objective justification can turn faith into a human work. “All those who deny the objective justification (the objective reconciliation) will, if they be consistent, also deny that subjective justification is brought about by faith; they will have to regard faith as a complement of Christ’s merit- a human achievement.” 14
Denying objective justification makes faith a cause of justification. “It is not strange that those who emphasize man’s faith at the expense of the objective validity of Christ’s Gospel and His work of justification should go astray in the doctrines of Conversion and Election, so as to give man’s faith there also an entirely unscriptural importance.” 15
Denying objective justification diminishes the glory of the Gospel: “the ‘objective justification’ of all men is denied by many within the Lutheran churches and neglected by still more, so that the full light of the Gospel does not shine forth in their teaching and preaching.”16
1 Ronald Pederson, “Objective Justification,” Lutheran Synod Quarterly, Vol. 52, Nos. 2-3 (June-September 2012), p. 163.
2 Siegbert Becker, “Objective Justification,” Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Winter 1986:4.
3 Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, II:321
4 Richard D. Balge, “Justification- a Brief Study.” Essay delivered at the Wisconsin Association of Lutheran Educators, Wisconsin Lutheran college, Oct. 26, 1984, 1.
5 Johann Gerhard, Annotations in epist. Ad romanos, Jena ed. 1666, p. 156
6 Johann Gerhard, Disputationes theologicae, Jena, 1655, XX, p. 1450
7 Pieper II: 508.
8 Ibid.
9 Ph. D. Burk, Rechtfertigung und Versicherung, p. 41
10 Pederson 166
11 Ibid.
12 C.H. Mischke, The President’s Newsletter WELS, June 1982.
13 George Lillegard, “Doctrinal Controversies of the Norwegian Synod,” Grace for Grace, Lutheran Synod Book Company, 1943, p. 149.
14 Pieper II: 508
15 Lillegard, Grace for Grace, p. 151.
16 Ibid.
My church has “forever” had communion every Sunday, but at alternate services. Early service for the 1st and 3rd Sundays, and late service for the 2nd and 4th Sundays. So people who wanted every-Sunday communion could do it by simply alternating which service they attend each week.
I’m pleased that as of Easter Sunday 2011, we moved to communion in every Service. We spent a year working with the congregation talking about the change (We are Lutherans .. we don’t like change!), which included using CPH’s book, The Blessings of Weekly Communion.
I can say that after several months, the congregation has fully accepted the practice and we are all enjoying the benefits of communion offered at every service.
Here is the article written by our pastor from our April 2011 church newsletter; mailed out to all congregation members prior to the change. I thought it well written to describe the reasons for making the change, and perhaps useful for other congregations who are interested in moving towards every Sunday communion.
Your Pastors and Elders have been studying the biblical wisdom of having Holy Communion at every Sunday and Wednesday service for well over a year now. During this time the Board of Elders and Pastors have read and discussed a very persuasive book entitled, “The Blessings of Weekly Communion” filled with convincing reasons why we should restore this practice of every service, every Sunday Communion.
To appreciate the Sacrament of the Altar, and desire it regularly, you first have to understand what it is, and why Christ wants us to receive “often”. Far too many regular church-goers don’t understand. They think that they are doing God a service by coming to church. While they’re willing to do this for an hour or so each week, they’re unsure whether they want to commit to the longer Communion worship format each week. They feel like we are asking them to “up” their commitment to the Lord by asking them to stay in church twenty minutes longer every other Sunday morning or Wednesday evening.
But attending church is not a service we perform for God’s benefit. It’s the other way around. God is doing us a far greater service when we come to church. For God has gifts that He wants to give to us in the divine service. Gifts found only in His Word and Sacraments. God’s reason for wanting you in worship is so that you can freely receive His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. For worship is where God gives us these gifts in His Word and Sacraments.
Long ago, Jesus Christ won forgiveness and peace with God for us by His cross. Then Jesus Christ gave us eternal victory over our enemies sin, death, and the devil by His resurrection. We call this good news — the Gospel. Christians gather weekly to hear this Gospel preached to us, and to receive this very same Gospel visibly, tangibly, and personally by receiving Christ’s body and blood. God wants to give us a double portion of His love and grace for us in Christ in worship centered on His preached Word and distributed Supper of forgiveness.
As Christians we gather weekly in the confidence that Christ is present among us in His Word and Sacrament. For these, along with Holy Baptism, are the means of grace by which Christ has chosen to save us. Just as we come to church in order to hear about what Christ accomplished for us by His obedient suffering and death, so we come to receive with our lips that same Christ who comes to us in His own true body and blood.
Like the sermon, the sacrament is the way that Christians shed their sins, receive God’s mercy and Christ’s forgiveness. Do we have to receive the Sacrament of the Altar weekly? Of course not. But should the church make the Lord’s Supper available for those who do desire it that frequently? Yes. When you realize that the Lord’s Supper is God’s gift to His people in Christ to strengthen faith, to forgive sinners, to turn hearts back to God, and to bring us Jesus — making it available every Sunday and every Wednesday really seems like a “no brainer”.
Luther and the Lutherans after him thought so too. In our Lutheran Confessions, which all Lutheran Pastors and Congregations are sworn to uphold, we learn that during the Reformation Era and after, it was the practice of every Lutheran congregation to celebrate the Lord’s Supper at every service on every Sunday because of the extremely high importance that Lutherans have historically placed on the Gospel comfort that Holy Communion provides. The early Lutherans understood that as sinners Christians are constantly in need of what the Lord wants to give us in the Lord’s supper.
It’s unfortunate that in the years following the Reformation that this church practice of offering the Sacrament of the Altar in every service faded away and was forgotten. Pietism and other spiritual movements within Christianity lessened the importance of the Lord’s Supper in the life of the Lutheran Church. When these lower views of the Sacrament became dominant, it lessened the frequency of a Christian’s desire to receive the Sacrament. People even became afraid of the Sacrament which God had intended only to bring abundant comfort and reassurance to believers. At this, the Lutheran Church’s lowest theological point, the Sacrament was only celebrated four times a year so that members did not run what they considered the great risk of receiving it unworthily. This happened as strict spiritual preparation for the Lord’s Supper became more important than the Gospel intent of the Lord’s Supper. Over time our Biblical understanding of the Lord’s Supper as Gospel, and the frequency of its use have made a comeback in Lutheran congregations.
Most of the arguments against the practice of every Sunday, every service Communion are really not biblical objections at all, but rather utilitarian concerns such as: “Won’t it take too long?” Others will worry that it will take away from the specialness of the Lord’s Supper. However, we preach the Gospel every Sunday without any similar concern or objection. Others will fear that it will turn into a form of legalism by making members feel that they must come forward to the altar every time the Lord’s Supper is offered. However, we want it to be abundantly clear that our congregation is only making the Sacrament available to those who may desire it on a given Sunday, without making any judgments about those who will continue to prefer taking it less often. Finally, there are some logistic concerns that we need to work out. We are concerned that the service not run too long. We are also concerned with how to continue to fit in the children’s message. We ask for your love, your prayers, and your patience as we work through these details to get them right.
I am thankful to serve a congregation in our more secular times which still recognizes the biblical importance of the Lord’s Supper and treasures its Gospel reassurance. I hope you are thankful to belong to such a church.
God’s Steward of the Mysteries of God,
Pastor Mark Elliott
St John Lutheran Church
Champaign, IL
Complaints are a part of life in a fallen world. Add to that a culture of personal opinions and tastes, and complaint can become of increased importance. Complaints can be necessary. They also hold the power to utterly destroy people and congregations. The following is meant to help the church (congregations especially) start to grow away from a culture of complaint and more towards godly conversations and reconciliation among the baptized. It should be noted that public sin is not the issue in this posting.
Matthew 18:15-20
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
From this text it is very important to note the personal and private nature of complaints. Some complaints do not rise to the category of “sin” but some do. Matthew 18 forbids the anonymous complaint. Unless we are talking about legal matters (ex. Sexual Misconduct) the complaints of anyone ought to be such that the person’s name is to be used. Anonymous complaints are not of God.
Some fruit of anonymous complaints:
No reconciliation (opportunity for apology/confession and absolution is lost) – This is by far the worst aspect of the anonymous complaint.
Violation of Matthew 18
Violation of the 8th Commandment (no defense or best construction)
No accountability (not responsible for your words/accusations)
No pastoral care allowed (complaints often are symptoms of greater spiritual problems)
No opportunity for instruction in God’s Word (many complaints can be cleared up using God’s Word for instruction)
No opportunity to clarify the nature of the complaint
Culture of suspicion and distrust (pastor, people, boards)
Unnecessary or frivolous complaints (again, no one responsible for their words increases the number of complaints and also decreases their value)
Exaggeration (anonymity almost needs company in order to preserve anonymity; this is lying)
ACTION – If you are presented with a complaint about a person/practice under the authority of a person the following should be the course of action:
ASK – Have you talked to this person/the person in authority over this about this?
If they have, ASK about the response.
If they have not, ENCOURAGE them to do so and do not address this until they have.
If they do not wish to, then EXHORT them to forgive the other person and move on. Love covers a multitude of sins.
Remembering the 8th Commandment in your interactions with others.
The Eighth Commandment
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.
When discussing anything with another person whose complaint is being raised against someone else, please remember that this commandment tells us to defend, speak well of, and explain everything in the kindest way (best construction). Again, the first thing in any complaint is to make sure that the complainer has already brought this to the proper person (complainee). If not, the effort to complain is nothing more than gossip and possibly much more (slander, betrayal).
Some other helpful passages of Scripture to help in this:
Ephesians 5:11-13
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,
Proverbs 20:19
Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.
Galatians 6:1
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
1 Cor 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Ephesians 4:29-32
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
1 Peter 4:8-11
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
James 3:1-12
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
Here is a posting that we found on the Vocation in the Valley (yamabe.net) written by Brian Yamabe, one of the commentors on this site. (Vocation in the Valley has been a past Issues Etc blog of the week.) While the arguments put forth below may not convince someone with a contemporary mindset, it will give people with a confessional bend some issues to use in an attempt to retain traditional services at their church. Brian was a delegate to the CNH district convention, and has some insights on that he has posted to his blog.
I’m not a scholar and I’m only a theologian in so far as “everyone is a theologian,” but I’ve been trying to write a paper comparing and contrasting the “traditional” and “contemporary” services that we have at my congregation, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church. Continue Reading…
In this Fall’s edition of “Concordia Seminary,” the magazine of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, it is reported that the professors remind the students that “it’s more about the ‘heart’ knowledge than it is about the ‘head’ knowledge” (p. 21).
This sounds like something one might hear from a Methobapticostal seminary rather than the historic bastion of objective truth and the pure Gospel expressed in the historic liturgy known as Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. It is my personal opinion that the faculty of the St. Louis Seminary, on a whole, is characterized by professors who are either captivated by silly post-modern notions of “contextualization” and/or consumed with making the Scriptures and Lutheranism compatible with the emotion laden spirituality of the American Evangelicals.
The quote in the first paragraph is taken from an article titled “Beyond the four walls.” It is an interview with a second year alternate route student from the Pacific Northwest who according to the article has a “passion for mission” and is on a quest to give people answers and reach them through “their passions and interests.”
I don’t know if the professors actually teach that heart knowledge (whatever that oxymoron might be) is more important than head knowledge. I hope not. The Scriptures do not allow us to pit one against the other. The Gospel is an objective fact of “head knowledge” and is grasped by the Holy Spirit moving our wills to true faith and trust. The real point of this story, and one that is indisputable, is that in the Fall of the year of our Lord, 2011, Concordia Seminary published a fancy, full color rag with the above quote in the tag line and as the heart of the article.
Getting back to the professors, I would not be surprised if they do actually teach this however, since the St. Louis seminary has recently introduced contemporary worship and small group “ministry” into the routine of spiritual exercise at the institution. Both of these tactics are born out of the narcissistic culture of the 1960’s – 90’s in which traditional, noetic rooted denominations have been caving right and left to this Methabapticostal pitting of emotion against reason and practice against doctrine. There are clear signs that Concordia, St. Louis is entering that race to relevance and emotive based spirituality.
We Lutherans certainly know from our Augustinian heritage (Luther was an Augustinian monk) that the Scriptures teach that the Holy Spirit’s moving of the will to trust and faith is essential to salvation. In this sense, the will (seat of the emotions?) is crucial in the salvation of the individual. In the hands of the liberals of the 20th century (Bultmann and the like) this led to the hermeneutics of “impact” preaching in which the important thing was the existential condition of the individual. To them, it mattered not if the Scriptures were true. They failed to combat the onslaught of the empirical methods of science that undermined the truth of Scripture. Their response was to elevate the “impact” of the preaching of the “word.” They taught that it doesn’t matter if the Gospel is true. What matters is that it moves the hearer to existential meaning. They are wrong and their teaching did great harm to the church.
In the 1970’s courageous and truthful Lutherans such as J. A. O. Preus led Concordia Seminary St. Louis in the charge against such false pitting of emotion against knowledge. They steadfastly defended the common sense truth of the Scriptures.
Today the threat in Confessional Lutheranism is not so much from the “impact” liberals who are retiring and dying out. The threat is from a new generation of people who pit the heart against the head in a psychological way in contrast to the philosophical approach of Bultmann. They favor the heart because of the need to tickle the ears of the current generation which is steeped in emotion and relevance. This is a threat to the Scriptural understanding of the pure Gospel which is true beyond my feelings and even despite my feelings. The Gospel is comforting because it is true that God loves me even when I don’t feel as if He does. The objective fact of the cross remains whether I like it or like it not. The Gospel is comforting because, even when it does not seem relevant to my daily struggles, it is the one thing that I really need, the forgiveness of sins.
Pray that this article from the seminary about the alternate route student is an anomaly and join us in continuing to steadfastly work so that the truth prevail in our beloved LCMS.
The “Best Practices for Ministry” description is brief on the convention website. “A FREE conference encouraging pastors, church workers and lay people as we reach out with the Gospel of Christ. For those who love: the local church, the unchurched, the LCMS.” They also say that they’re “Bible-Based, Gospel-Centered, Mission-Driven, & Future-Oriented.”
That sums up the official information. It’s no secret, however, that this has become a popular destination for members of the Missouri Synod who are “missionally” minded. Why not? The well-organized conference is teeming with professional speakers at every turn, helpful volunteers, and delicious cookies.
But this place isn’t about the externals. Spiritual things are happening. Here a deeper understanding of “ministry” is cultivated and reinforced. It quickly becomes apparent that there is not one ministry. Ministries are everywhere and they potentially belong to anyone who has a heart for it. These ministries are the fundamental activity of the church. It’s an externally oriented movement that continually adapts to the world’s circumstances so it can draw outsiders into a visible assembly of people who experience God. This is the church. Ministries are what it does. Why? Because the world is in crisis, and church’s ministries are its last hope. How does this work? Outsiders are brought in through relationships which are initiated through these ministries. Whatever the method of outreach, it’s about making a personal connections with people in a dying world. Once they’re in the door, they have an opportunity to deepen and grow into a new, experience laden, relationship with God.
Out in the Synod that they so love, there’s opposition from the “confessionals” who challenge the very biblical basis for such a model. But here at “Best Practices” they’ll find reprieve from the nagging attacks that ceaselessly spring from the lips of the doctrine lovers and orthodoxy hounds. Sure, doctrine is important, but not all that necessary to talk about, especially when it comes to practical things, like outreach and ministries. Here they’re empowered and equipped to return to their congregations with renewed zeal and vision. There’s advice form one worker to the next on how to implement the latest changes of governance to facilitate the pastor’s role as a leader. They’ll learn how to disciple their followers and cultivate them into leaders so they too can establish and operate various ministries. The laying on of hands is common. Prayers are offered. Applause often reverberates through the gymnasium after a powerfully moving message and prayer. If I recall, there were nearly 1500 attendees. The sheer number of like-minded church workers offered the consolation that they’re not alone. Far from it. They are vast. They might even be growing.
The language and themes that permeated from one room to the next revolved around empowerment, equipping, affirmation, and discipleship. In Bill Woolsey’s plenary session on “Giving Away Authority and How that Blesses Leadership,” they learned that authority cannot be appealed to, it must instead be given away to equip others, like the younger millennials, for ministry. “Start new, reach new.” Right? What that might say about those who appeal to the authority of God’s Word and the confessions, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound good.
I’m a typical Fort Wayne grad. I’ve drunk from the streams of our confessional theology and delight in orthodoxy which is Jesus’ doctrine. Thus, much of the conference’s language and argumentation eluded me. This is a problem because I’m often in conversation with fellow pastors who use this wildly different ecclesial vocabulary. Church and ministry simply do not mean the same things between us. But these languages are not two equally valid options for articulating the same thing. One rests on the foundation of Scripture and the confessions. The other you can find in business seminars and the self-help section of the bookstore. The laity need to know this. They have to know that leadership principles and tips on interpersonal relationships are not to be equated with the Gospel, the holy ministry, or faithful pastoral practice. I came and heckled with Twitter, if you can call tweeting heckling. I thought it would be good if both the pastors and laity saw that the permeating themes of the conference are not approved by everyone in the Synod. Far from it.
The tweets didn’t last long. One of the organizers explained that my use of their hashtag was harmful. It necessarily tied the reputation of the conference to many and various opinions of the speakers. The thought is that the conference was free to just about anybody, anyone could come and present, so it’s not fair to tag the conference in direct connection with the teaching of its presenters. Thinking back on it, I could have stood my ground and argued that nobody owns hashtags. They’re a way to identify your comments in relation to a place or idea. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done. Feelings were hurt and the good vibes of solidarity and peace were shaken.
Someone explained to me that the reason so many attendees were upset with my comments was because they were there to be “rejuvenated and renewed.” By calling attention to problems with the conference and its presenters, it made it hard for these church workers to relax. After thinking about this comment, I became incredibly sad. I realized that many of these church workers, pastors, and laity had been fed program after program to implement by these folks in the past, but with limited to no results. Who do you blame when you come up short? They beat themselves up and head back out to Phoenix. Then they hear about the new, statistically proven program that grows congregations, and the next popular movement that’s bringing the most people into the church. When they hear this, they’re invited to jump on to the cusp of the wave of relevance. They’re equipped with more tools, more visions, and PowerPoint after PowerPoint of diagrams that show them how everything they’ve been doing wrong and the new plan to fix it.
This is bondage to the Law. Pastors especially, who have suffered under their congregations’ criticism and feel the pain of losing member after member to secular society, come here to reload the magic bullets that are supposed the solve the numbers and money problem. This inevitably leads to a desire to change their behaviors and attitudes, reworking their own personality to become a better leader. It will also mean reorganizing whoever they have left in the pews to do the work of ministry for them, probably because they’ve proven themselves insufficient in making enough personal relationships to grow the church. Either way, by coming back to this conference, their consciences are being soothed with a false hope, a hope found in the ingenuity and strength of men.
These pastors and church workers need to hear that Satan is raging against them. That he’s snatching one member after another from their congregations. The church is going to be assaulted by new winds of false doctrine and the cleverly devised myths of culture. Yes, the Lord has promised that his Church shall endure (Matt. 16:18), but that doesn’t mean that she’ll not suffer.
When our churches suffer from loss of any type, this is the time for examination and repentance. Under the glare of God’s Law we’ll see all our good intentions and efforts at outreach have been laced with pride and vanity from the start. Terror and sorrow are soon to follow for the person who does not harden himself against the truth. But now what? Where do we find help? Do we wander the path of the Law, by seeking out new programs and visions to implement?
No. This is the time for the Gospel. These pastors need to hear that they have come up short, but that Jesus’ promise of mercy has not abandoned them. True rejuvenation begins with absolution found at an orthodox altar. Repentance, not restructuring, the Lord’s promises, not new programs are what’s needed. It’s only from this starting point that both pastors and laity can relearn both the identity and the purpose of the Christian church. Upon this rock of atonement, forgiveness, and grace, they’ll learn that the church is not a fluid movement that defined by leaders and followers. The church is a rock, a holy institution of Christ where there the ministry of Law and Gospel preaching never changes. Yes the circumstances in the world change, but the Jesus’ own instituting words are never abandoned for the sake of relevance. There’s more than ample opportunity to talk about edifying practices, but this is pure poison if Jesus’ doctrine and institutions are not retained. The pastor must find his consolation in the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins, not the newest path to success that he can implement through his own works.
While many of these sectionals would be fine as a secular seminar on interpersonal communication and business advice, I’m afraid that their place in the church corrupts and changes the very language that should be used to describe and think about the body of Christ. Orthodoxy, after all, is a conformity of language, a familiar pattern of expressing the faith that would be recognizable to both Christ’s apostles who first preached the Scriptures and our Lutheran fathers who confessed them.
The best practices were established by Jesus, his preaching and sacraments which impart forgiveness and life, and these never change.
A few weeks back, I contacted Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller for information regarding the beautiful baptismal certificates I saw him advertising here. He responded quickly, and carefully laid out the details of the ordering process. A few days later, electronic versions of customized baptismal certificates for our congregation arrived in my inbox. Along with the certificates, I received a helpful FAQ document explaining the purpose of these certificates and providing helpful hints and instructions on how to make the most of them.
I couldn’t be more pleased with these certificates. First, they are absolutely beautiful! The artwork and Scripture passages which appear on them serve to teach the marvelous treasure which belongs to all who have received the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Second, these customized certificates now belong to our congregation. Having paid the one-time fee of $35, we own the rights to these certificates and can print as many as we like and use them however we see fit – forever. No more periodic ordering of baptismal certificates for us! Third, the ease of using these certificates is a treasure in itself. You simply fill in the appropriate info on your master pdfs and you’re ready to go. They are designed to print on 11×17 paper, but if your printer does not have that capability, you can save the master pdfs to a flash drive, CD, etc., take them to a local copy shop, fill in the appropriate info, and make your copies. Lastly, the beauty and high quality of these certificates make for wonderful and treasured keepsakes. They look absolutely gorgeous framed and hanging on a wall. And because we own the rights to our certificates, we do not have to limit our use to future Baptisms, but can offer to print certificates for those who have received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in the past, which they can hang as a beautiful reminder of the eternal blessings they have as beloved children of God.
I highly recommend these certificates and encourage everyone to follow the link above to give them a look and consider ordering. I am very thankful to Pr. Wolfmueller and his partner in this endeavor, Jason Hanson (the clever combination of their names results in “Wolfson Creative”), for providing the beloved gift of these wonderful certificates to the Church.
Go now and check them out. You won’t be disappointed. They are awesome!
Sincerely,
In Christ,
Rev. Thomas C. Messer
Peace Lutheran Church
Alma, MI
In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther encouraged Christians to retain the practice of making the sign of the cross. The Missouri Synod, following Luther’s advice, has encouraged Christians to continue making the sign of the cross, notably at a number of places during the Divine Service. Several of these are indicated in Lutheran Service Book by the symbol, though there are a number of places in the liturgy where Christians have crossed themselves that are not indicated in LSB (see #3, 5, 6, and 7, below). Before we look at why the cross may be made at these places, first a word on how to make the sign of the cross.
The practice of crossing one’s self is an ancient practice and is derived from such passages as Deuteronomy 6:8, Ezekiel 9:4, Revelation 7:3, 9:4, and 14:1. The practice of tracing the cross on objects and one’s body is discussed by such church fathers as Tertullian (v. 6), Jerome (“Epitaph Paulae”), and Cyril (par. 36). There are differences in tradition on how to make the gesture, both with respect to the shape of the hand and also what direction to trace the cross from shoulder to shoulder.
The three main variations of finger position are 1) to use two fingers (either index & middle or thumb and index) to indicate the two natures of Christ; 2) to bring the tip of the thumb, index, and middle finger together to signify the three persons of the Trinity; or 3) to extend the thumb, index, and middle finger while folding the ring and little finger back against the palm, thus indicating both the Holy Trinity and two natures of Christ (as seen in the mosaic to the right).
The other consideration when making the sign of the cross is the question of which direction to make the motion. There is (almost) agreement regarding the first two steps, beginning at the forehead and then going down to the sternum (or navel, in the East). Then the question is whether to go from right to left, or from left to right. The right to left pattern appears to be the more ancient practice and is the method most commonly found in the Lutheran rubrics (it is also used by the Orthodox). Theologically, this follows from the biblical preference of right over left (sheep on the right, goats on the left [Matthew 25:33] and Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of the Father [Acts 5:31]). The left to right pattern is the dominant method in the Roman church and is a reminder that Jesus first descended into hell (as indicated by beginning with the left) before ascending to sit at the right hand of the Father.
Enough about procedure. There are various points in the liturgy where the sign of the cross may be made. The placement of the cross at these locations is not haphazard, but rather has theological significance. Much more could be said about this than what follows, but here are some thoughts to get you going.
The sign of the cross may be made at the Invocation (“In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit). That, of course, is the Name into which Christians are baptized, and St. Paul teaches that it is into the death (cross) of Christ that we are baptized (Romans 6:3-5). To be “baptized into Jesus’ death” means all the benefits of the cross (forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation) are applied to you personally in Holy Baptism. The first time the sign of the cross is placed on Christians is in Holy Baptism (“receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your + forehead and upon your + heart to make you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified”). Thus, it is especially appropriate to make the sign of the cross over yourself when the pastor speaks the baptismal Invocation, since to trace the cross on your body is to confess that the cross and all of its benefits are yours by virtue of Holy Baptism.
Christians may also cross themselves during the Absolution when the pastor says, “I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Note again the use of the baptismal formula, so everything that was said above about the Invocation also applies to making the sign of the cross during the Absolution. Jesus has not commanded us to re-baptize the repentant Christian after they sin. He has, however, given His Church the ability to forgive sins on earth (Matthew 16:19), which is the means by which we continually experience the cleansing benefits of Holy Baptism (see “fourthly” in Luther’s Small Catechism).
The celebrant may also make the sign of the cross (with his right thumb) on his forehead, lips, and heart just prior to the reading of the Holy Gospel as a sort of prayer that he would know, say, and believe nothing except Christ crucified. This is reflected in the traditional prayer that is said by the celebrant just prior to the reading: “May the Lord be in my heart and on my lips, that I may worthily and rightly proclaim His Gospel, in the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
It is also appropriate to make the sign of the cross at the words “and the life + of the world to come” in the creed, for it is the cross which gives us the hope of everlasting life in the restored creation.
Sometimes pastors will cross themselves as they begin their sermons while speaking the Invocation, since the Christian sermon is a proclamation of God’s saving Name (congregations may follow suit by crossing themselves and responding by saying, “Amen”). The comments in #1 and #2 above also apply here, since the sermon is, in many ways, an extended Absolution.
Christians have also made the sign of the cross at the words “Blessed is He” during the Sanctus. Those words were spoken by the crowds on Palm Sunday as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on His way to the cross, thus the practice of crossing yourself at this time (Matthew 21:9). In addition to crossing themselves, Christians have also bowed during the Sanctus (more on that shortly).
The sign of the cross may also be made at the words “deliver us from evil” (or: “from the evil one)” in the Lord’s Prayer (see the seventh petition). The rationale here is similar as it was for the Creed (see #4, above). The cross is that which fulfills this petition, delivering us from evil and giving us the hope of a blessed end. The Mond Crucifixion (Raphael) Note especially the two angels catching the blood of our Lord in chalices, highlighting the connection between the cross and the Sacrament of the Altar
Christians may also cross themselves during the Verba (“this is My + body,”; “this cup is the new testament in My + blood”) and the dismissal (“Depart + in peace”). At the altar, you receive the body and blood which Jesus gave and shed for you on the cross (see the Raphael painting at the left).
Finally, the cross may be made during the Benediction (“and + give you peace”), for the peace and communion we have with God is possible only through the cross. Recall the song of the angels at the birth of Jesus (which we sing in the Gloria in Excelsis): “Glory be to God on high, on earth, peace,” (Luke 2:14).
Making the sign of the cross, while certainly not required, can be a very helpful practice and carries with it a great deal of theological significance. It is a reminder that in all things, “we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23) and that the Christian life is one of bearing the cross (Matthew 16:24).
A Word on Bowing/Genuflecting:
In Ceremony and Celebration, Paul H.D. Lang offers the following comments on bowing and genuflecting:
Bowing and genuflecting are very closely related. A genuflection is merely a more profound bow. When genuflecting, one touches the ground with the right knee at the place where the foot was and then stands upright again at once in a continuous action. Bowing and genuflecting are reverences or, when directed to people, signs of respect. Giving form and expression to inner devotions, reverences help to make our worship meaningful and impressive. Books on ceremonies distinguish between head bows and body bows. In head bows, only the head is inclined. An example of this kind of bow is the one an officiant makes to the people at the response, “And with thy spirit.” In the body bow, the head and shoulders are bent forward. It is always made in expressing reverence to God, (61).
Christians have also sometimes bowed their heads whenever the name of Jesus is spoken and also when we speak of worship during the liturgy (“we worship Thee” in the Gloria in Excelsis and “is worshipedand glorified” in the Nicene Creed).
Christians may also genuflect during the Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”, which appears both at the end of the Introit and Nunc Dimittis), and also while singing the words of the seraphim from Isaiah’s vision of God in the Temple in the Sanctus (Isaiah 6:1-3). As an expression of reverence, it is appropriate to bow when the Divine Name is spoken (which reminds us of the importance of keeping God’s Name holy and using it rightly; cf. the 1st Petition & 2nd Commandment). The Sanctus (see also #6, above), with its related ceremonies of genuflecting and crossing, is particularly appropriate at this point in the Service of the Sacrament, for like the seraphim and the crowds on Palm Sunday, we are also in the presence of God (cf. Isaiah 6 & Matthew 21).
Christians have also bowed at the words “and became man” during the Nicene Creed. It is appropriate for us to bow as we confess the Incarnation, even as the magi fell down and worshiped the Incarnate Lord (Matthew 3:11).
Luther, in his typically colorful fashion, relates the following story about genuflecting during the Creed:
The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made man” were being sung in church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said: “May hell consume you! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang: ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only to my knees but my whole body to the ground! And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!
Whether this story is true or not, it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith. With this instructive story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth the revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation; they wanted us to open our eyes wide and ponder these words well,” (AE 22:105-106).
The most profound genuflection occurs during consecration and distribution as an act of worship to the bodily presence of Christ with us in, with, and under the bread and the wine. Communicants typically bend both knees (double genuflect) when receiving the Sacrament. A helpful discussion of the relationship between genuflecting and theology of the Sacrament can be found over at Gottesdienst.
(This is the final post of a five part series on worship in the LCMS.)
What is the future of the LCMS in the aftermath of the last two decades of worship wars within our church? I’m going to explain why I think that the worship wars might be coming to an end in less than 700 words even though, justly, it should require 700 pages.
Despite the continued worship wars within our synod I am fairly optimistic that in another generation these conflicts will subside and we will enjoy peace around a relatively uniform Divine Service. Why do I think this?
First, I am convinced that the vast majority of pastors and congregations in the synod do love the liturgy and the theology behind it. We are Lutherans. When we say “grace alone” we mean that God graciously blesses his church through the means of grace alone, not through human efforts or the emotional experiences postulated by American Evangelicalism. For a discussion of the worship theories of American Evangelicalism see my last four blogs.
Second, I am convinced that those who love the historic liturgy while at the same time flirting with the worship style of Evangelicalism will slowly come to realize that you can’t have it both ways. I know that I did. These Lutheran pastors and churches will recognize that the worship is receiving the gifts of God offered in the gospel. They will reaffirm that the gospel does not need the embellishment of zippy attention getting pop tunes or well polished bands. We believe that the Gospel is God’s power unto salvation, not merely that it can be God’s power when it has popular music. Most importantly our church will rightly conclude that the historic liturgy is simply the best instrument we have in carrying the gospel to God’s assembled people.
Third, I am convinced that our synod is beginning to see American Evangelicalism as a threat to the church. In years past Lutherans, rightly, were suspicious of all things uniquely Roman Catholic because we saw the Roman church as a threat to Christ. We are entering a time in which we will increasingly conclude the same about American Evangelicalism. We will see the damage it has done to us as a synod by the encroaching influence of Reformed theology and without any force or any convention resolutions we will avoid any appearance of Evangelicalism. In short we will reclaim our rich Lutheran heritage.
Fourth, I am convinced that in the near future we will be blessed with leadership at the highest levels of the synod which actually attempts to unite our church rather than divide it. What is needed is not a compromise between two different styles but a candid discussion which is intended to bring about the type of worship uniformity which we used to have and desperately need to have. This will mean that some will have to sacrifice things they love while others will have to tolerate things they dislike. The result will be too broad for some and two narrow for others but both for the sake of love will agree. This can happen only if all sides in the worship wars have confidence in leadership which makes uniformity and unity happen. I am convinced that the synod is ready for that leadership.
Fifth, I am convinced that the number of pastors and congregations which have discarded the liturgy entirely is really not that large. Surveys indicate that less than 5% of the synod uses no hymnal at all. Of course a huge percentage of the new missions in many district use no hymnal and that is a serious problem that profoundly affects our future peace and unity. But the makeup of the synod is still liturgical in the whole. This small number of congregations would not likely agree to a process which actually attempts to achieve peace through unity and worship uniformity and would most likely leave the church if such a process were to take place. That leaving would be tragic but probably necessary. Walking together is only possible for those willing to place limits on their own freedom.
Will all this happen? I actually believe it will. But it will require honest and trusted leadership. But that is the topic of another story.
In our conversations with many of you we have sensed a need for a resource to explain our Biblical practice and the theology behind Closed Communion. In response we have just added two individual pamphlets that you may use in your own congregation for this purpose. If you would like to take a look at them, you can find them here or later under the Teaching Materials tab on the toolbar at the top of each page.
You may use them as your own however you like, personalize them for your own setting or situation, and, please, without any attribution to us. We pray you will find this resource to be helpful.
Yours in Christ,
The Congregations and Associate Members of the ACELC
Is It Closed or Close?
The first question you might have is, “Why closed Communion?” Many, particularly in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, have heard it called “close Communion.” It was explained to them along the lines of a close family meal. That is nice sounding, but it has nothing to do with the idea of not letting some people commune at your altar. This practice comes from the early church. There, the deacon would declare that all those not in fellowship with their altar should leave. Then he closed the door.
A Historic Practice that Still Goes on Today
In the first four centuries of the Church, the rule was this. If you believed it really was the Body and Blood of Christ on your altar, you practiced closed Communion. If you did not believe it was the Body and Blood of Christ really, actually present on your altar, you practiced open Communion, that is, you let people decide for themselves whether or not they should take Communion. An analogy to these practices in life today is found at your pharmacy. The pharmacist keeps under lock and key, certain medicines. You cannot have them unless you have a prescription. That is because those medicines are the real deal. If you take them wrongly, if you take them when they are not meant for you, they can harm you or even kill you. Doesn’t St. Paul say the same thing about misusing the Holy Communion? “For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep” (I Corinthians 11:29-30). A faithful pharmacist keeps his or her real, powerful medicine under lock and key and doesn’t distribute it to everyone who wants it. What about sugar pills? Who cares who takes a sugar pill? It can’t do anyone any harm and who knows it might do them some good. If you don’t believe the Body and Blood of Christ are really in Holy Communion, if the living Lord Jesus doesn’t come into contact with anyone, why should you care who takes Communion? But if you believe it’s really the Lord Jesus Christ present under the forms of Bread and Wine, that’s another matter, isn’t it?
But Shouldn’t it Be up To Me to Decide if I go to Communion?
“Ah,” some of you who know your Bible are saying, “He didn’t quote verse 28, the one right before St. Paul’s warning about communing wrongly. Verse 28 says, A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” Yup, that’s what it indeed says, but St. Paul wasn’t talking about the Methodists visiting the Lutherans, or the Presbyterians, Catholics, or Episcopalians visiting the Lutherans. He was writing to members of his own Church, not visitors from different Churches! I do say to my members what St. Paul said to his, “Let each of you examine yourselves, and so come to the Lord’s Table.” I don’t say that to visitors and neither did St. Paul.
What Would Open Communion Say to Our Kids and Potential Members?
Say, for a minute, that I was to commune Catholics, Orthodox, or high Anglicans. Lutherans admit that these denominations also have the Real Presence. Or, say I was to commune those who are members of denominations who don’t teach that Christ is really present on their altar in the Holy Communion though they themselves believe He is. What I would be saying is that visitors to my Church don’t need to be instructed in our faith before communing, but our children who have grown up in this Church do need to be instructed before communing. Wouldn’t that be nonsense? What point would there be in making people go to instruction classes before joining our Church? If I communed Catholics who pray to Mary, Baptist who don’t baptize their babies, Presbyterians who believe Christ only died for some, how could I stop someone from joining our Church who believed these things?
The Difference Between Fellowship and Friendship
There is one critical distinction you must make, the distinction between friendship and fellowship. Fellowship is not between individuals but altars. Fellowship is not between my heart and your heart but between your altar and my altar. Friendship is about you liking me and me liking you. Fellowship is about whether or not we believe, teach, and confess the same things.
We Take Your Confession of Faith Seriously
Since I can’t look into you heart to see what you really believe, I can only go by the confession you make with your mouth. When you say, “I’m a Presbyterian,” or, “I go to St. Mary’s Catholic Church,” you are making a confession of faith. Lutherans and Presbyterians, Lutherans and Catholics, Lutherans and whatever denomination, do not believe, teach, or confess the same things. We can’t pretend we do. To go to the same altar together says one of two things: Either A) neither of us take our confession seriously. Or B) we’ve agreed to disagree. If a person believes his or her doctrine is in agreement with the Word of God, does he or she ever have a right not to take it seriously or to agree to disagree? If you believe that your doctrine is in agreement with the Word of God, where does God give you permission to set it aside or to join it with a contrary teaching?
But What if I’m a Member of the ELCA?
“What about me? I’m a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I commune at Missouri Synod Churches all the time.” I believe you do, and that is sad. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has never at any time been in fellowship with the ELCA. The ELCA was formed when the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and The American Evangelical Lutheran Church merged in 1988. For a short time the LCMS was in fellowship with the ALC, but in 1983 the LCMS broke fellowship with the ALC citing serious doctrinal differences. These doctrinal differences persist and have grown worse in the ELCA. By 1998 the ELCA entered into full fellowship with the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church. The first two have never wanted anything to do with the Body and Blood of Christ really being present on their altar. Furthermore, the ELCA as a church body publicly supports abortion, homosexuality, and women pastors. If you don’t believe me, just read the books they publish.
Because you won’t commune me does that mean you think I’m going to hell?
Of course not. I don’t commune some of my own children, and I don’t think they are going to hell. I regard all who belong to the Holy Christian Church by faith in Jesus Christ as saved, forgiven, and part of the Body of Christ. When I don’t commune you, I am saying one of two things. Either A) you have not been instructed in the Lutheran Faith or B) you belong to an altar that believes, teaches and confesses contrary to the faith believed, taught, and confessed at our altar.
Christian Men and Women Can Disagree Without Sending Each Other To Hell
I have found that those who take their confession of faith seriously do not want to commune at an altar that stands for something they don’t believe in. If you are not sure what you believe, if you are not sure whether your conscience is being governed only by God’s Word, then you should study these things. Compare what your Church teaches with what the Bible says. Compare what we teach with what the Bible says. Join the one that agrees with what the Bible says.
Okay, so prove to me your practice of closed Communion is found in the Bible?
Good question. I could argue from the fact that when Jesus instituted this Meal He only invited those whom He had instructed during the previous 3 years. He didn’t even invite His own mother! I could argue from Romans 16 where St. Paul lists those house churches with whom He is in fellowship. I could argue that the Bible commands Christians to separate from those who hold to teachings that are contrary to what the Bible teaches, and St. Paul warned not about BIG doctrinal errors but the small ones saying in I Corinthians 5:6, “Don’t you know a little yeast ferments the whole dough.” Here are some other Bible passages for you to consider: Romans 16:17, “I urge you fellow Christians to watch those who cause disagreements and make people fall by going against the teaching you learned. Turn away from them.” II Thessalonians 3:15, “If anyone will not listen to what we say in this letter, mark him, and don’t have anything to do with him, so he will feel ashamed. Don’t treat him like an enemy, but warn him like a brother.” Titus 3:10,11, “A man who chooses to be different in his teachings warn once, and a second time, and then don’t have anything more to do with him because you know such a man condemns himself.” II John 9-11, “Anyone who goes too far and doesn’t stay with what Christ has taught doesn’t have God. If you stay with what He taught, you have the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and doesn’t teach this, don’t take him into your home or greet him. If you greet him, you share the wicked things he does.” Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets. They come to you dressed like sheep, but in their hearts they’re greedy wolves.” I John 4:1, “Dear friends don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God. Many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Where Do I Find Out More?
Instruction in what our Church teaches begins in August and January each year. These classes meet from noon to 1:30 PM on Sundays. The class takes about 14 weeks to complete. All with questions, a desire to know more, or who think they might like to join our fellowship are encouraged to attend.
When a congregation begins toying with the idea of contemporary worship, one of the usual driving factors is an attempt to be more “inclusive.” “The Church needs to appeal to more people than the gray-hairs that attend every Sunday. Get rid of that tired plodding organ and get some more lively instruments in there! Why force modern Americans to sing nothing but 16th century German hymns?” The impression that advocates often give is that contemporary worship is something that opens the church up and broadens it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than providing a breath of fresh air, contemporary worship is a narrow and constrictive force that can strangle a congregation.
First, the contention that traditional Lutheran hymnals are simply a collection of music that only old people could like is rather dubious. Consider: The commonly used Lutheran hymnal (LSB) includes songs dating back from almost two thousand years ago all the way to today. Most of its hymns were written centuries before any of our elderly were even born. If they enjoy it, it cannot possibly be because it was the music of their generation–something that only they would like. Generationally exclusive music is, however, precisely what contemporary worship seeks to impose. Rather than selecting the best from a broad ocean of church music that spans cultures, continents, & thousands of years of history, contemporary worship restricts music: first to the last few decades, then to America, then to a subset of the youth. Towards the end of his book, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism, James K. A. Smith describes a “radically orthodox” church service that he considers to more “catholic” than the services we may be used to. Nevertheless, the mishmash of eclectic chairs, jazz bands, and Anne Sexton poetry he advocates would only appeal to the neo-hipster, Whole Foods, communitarian demographic. That’s about as far from universal as you can get. In the name of being inclusive, contemporary worship excludes everyone but the young and hip by trading the rich heritage found in the liturgy for a handful of passing fads.
Second, Contemporary worship restricts music’s capacity to communicate. Every age has its own insights & blind-spots, and its preferred styles reflect these. One advantage to a broad hymnody is that the excesses of one age cover often the deficiencies of another. Contemporary worship lacks this safeguard. If you compare hymns written in the past 75 years or so to the hymns that preceded it, you’ll quickly notice some general differences in the lyrical structure. Older hymns tend to be built around sentences and make statements. Modern hymns, on the other hand tend to be built around phrases and are designed to give an impression. While the former style serves a variety of purposes (confession, catechesis, prayer, praise, etc), the latter style is suited almost exclusively toward praise and self-expression (it’s no accident they’re usually called ‘praise bands’). Now, while self-expression has very little place in the divine service, there’s certainly nothing wrong with singing praise songs in church. Beautiful Savior, for example, is a classic hymn that makes use of this kind of phrase-based songwriting for precisely this purpose. The problem arises when almost every hymn is like that. Practically speaking, restricting a congregation to contemporary songs restricts them to praise music. By neglecting the ability to make meaningful statements in music, the hymnody begins to forget why we’re responding to God with praise in the first place. When this goes on long enough, all that remains is a desperate attempt to use music to manipulate the emotions into producing what once flowed naturally from what God has done for us.
Finally, contemporary worship generally doesn’t make people feel more comfortable or welcome–at least not in Lutheran churches. In the movie Better of Dead, there’s a scene in which John Cusack’s family invites a French exchange student over for dinner. In order to make her feel more welcome, the hostess serves a meal consisting of French fries, French toast, and French bread. Needless to say, regardless of the hostess’ efforts, the student did not exactly feel comfortable. Frankly, this is pretty much how Lutherans come off when we pander to those young, hip Americans of whom we have only the most shallow understanding by attempting to adopt their musical styles in church. Those we pander to might (or might not) be too polite to say that such imitation looks more like a bad parody, but they’re often thinking it.
Perhaps there’s another thing we might learn from this analogy when we seek to invite unbelievers into the church. The Church is in the world, but not of it. No matter how we arrange our music, unbelievers who visit us are in a foreign land. The last thing an exchange student is looking for is a grossly inferior version of their own culture. The entire point of being an exchange student is to be immersed in something other. If the Church tries to make herself look like the world, not only will she do a poor job of it, but she will deny those who come to her the opportunity to find something more than what they already have. Our heritage is something any generation can be brought into. If we seek to be more inclusive and welcoming, we would do well to embrace it.
During my past 9 years of pastoral ministry the discussion with Evangelicals that has resulted in the most confusion, tension, and conflict is most definitely the dialog over infant baptism. Otherwise stated, in my humble opinion there is nothing more offensive to our Evangelical brothers and sisters (those who believe that it is only proper to baptize those who are able to make a profession of faith) than the Lutheran view of infant baptism.
Now, for you lifelong Lutherans you may find this hard to believe, how a precious gift from God can cause such strain, but it is true that it does. My wife and I have unfortunately lost friendships over ‘the infant baptism’ talk. Furthermore, at one point in time I too was very indifferent towards the sacraments and rather antagonistic towards those that boldly cherished them. But you may ask, “Why the offense? What could possibly be so threatening about sprinkling water on a cute and helpless baby?”
In a previous article on Steadfast Lutherans titled, There Are Two Perspectives On Delayed And Legalistic Baptisms, I covered the basic confusion over the sacraments between many Lutherans and what I will call ‘Credobaptist’ Evangelicals. I stated,
Which way is the arrow aimed when it comes to the sacraments? What? In other words, are the sacraments something that we do toward God as a way of showing our obedience OR are the sacraments the way that God shows His commitment to us and gives grace to us? Are the sacraments things that we observe in response to hearing the Gospel (i.e. fruits of faith) OR are the sacraments ways that God responds to our sinfulness with the Gospel; are they a result of His compassion and pursuit of sinners? Do the sacraments belong in our discussions on man’s obedience OR do the sacraments belong in the discussion of God’s justifying grace? Who does the verb in the sacraments?”
While these confusions are very prevalent in conversations with Credobaptist Evangelicals and may cause conversational tension, there is something that is not mentioned in the previous paragraph, something that is much more offensive and something that repeatedly upsets the theology of Credobaptist Evangelicals. That something is infant baptism itself; it is the ‘infant’ part that causes tension. I believe that the reason for strain is due to infant baptism being the quintessential picture of divine monergism. Monergism, as you know, is completely contrary to any and all free will theologies, thus the reason why infant baptism is so difficult for many Credobaptist Evangelicals to accept.
The most common criticism that I have heard against infant baptism is that it doesn’t allow for the baby to make a ‘decision’ for Christ or a ‘profession of faith.’ (At this point we could devote our time to show how the tenets of the Enlightenment have tainted this view of faith, but that can be saved for another time.) Many will protest that it is unjust to baptize a baby before the child can profess faith in Jesus and/or make a decision, therefore, one must wait until the baby reaches an older age.
So, why would it be unjust to baptize a baby before they are able to make their decision? Generally speaking, it is unjust in credobaptist theology because infant baptism infringes upon, violates, and overthrows the doctrine of free will; it takes the child’s ‘choice’ in salvation away. To say that an baby is saved in infant baptism when no choice/decision/profession has been made comes across as extremely scandalous for theologies that embrace the doctrine of free will and it is very offensive towards the old Adam. The old Adam in all of us can’t stand monergism and he especially can’t stand the sacrament of infant baptism. The reason why, in infant baptism the old Adam has no room to play and exercise his supposed free will, but can only drown.
Advertently or inadvertently to guard the doctrine of free will, many Evangelical denominations and many Evangelical movements will postpone baptism until the child is able to make a choice. However, this rationale creates additional problems. How should one handle original sin and consider children when they sin between conception and their decision of faith? To counteract children’s sinful nature from conception until the time they make a decision of faith, an age of accountability status is developed, thus granting the child a period of grace. The age of accountability status embraces that children below a specific age who perish are not held responsible for their sins because they were incapable of understanding wrong from right and were unable to comprehend Jesus’ death on the cross. Furthermore, some Revivalistic and Pietistic traditions can also fall prey to this ideology. They will rightly baptize the child in the name of our Triune God, gifting the child faith and grace, but the baptism is only viewed as a grace that extends until the child can make a decision for Christ at a later point. At that point of decision, the decision then takes the place of the child’s baptism as the location of assurance. Both the Pietist’s view and the Evangelical’s view are ways that attempt to: protect free will theology and avoid the divine monergistic qualities of baptismal regeneration.
So is infant baptism really that radical? One needs to keep in mind that infant baptism is not some rogue theology that is inconsistent with the rest of the scriptures. Take for example the miracles of Jesus. Individuals were not ‘mostly’ blind, but powerlessly blind from birth (e.g., Matthew 9). Individuals were not ‘kind of’ paralytic, but hopelessly and entirely paralyzed (e.g., Matthew 9). Individuals were not ‘partly’ leprous, but helplessly full of leprosy (e.g., Matthew 8). Individuals were not ‘almost’ dead, but dead-dead (e.g., John 11). These individuals are just like an infant, helpless. Yet in these miracles we see the power of the Word, a performative speech from Jesus, that speaks these miracles into existence. Jesus proclaims, “Let it be done to you! Stand up and walk! Be Cleansed! Come out!” The individuals, like an infant, contributed nothing to their healing. Just as the world was spoke into existence in Genesis, Christ spoke these healing miracles into existence. Furthermore, God’s word still speaks faith into existence today (e.g., Romans 10:17). The Word is performative; the Word works faith and this is even true with infants.
As Lutherans we believe, teach, and confess that infant baptism does not work regeneration apart from faith (e.g., Mark 16:15-16, Romans 4:20-25). With that said, we also believe, teach, and confess that faith is not a product of the man’s intellect, or a result of mankind’s will, or conjured up by a person’s arousing feelings. Faith is a gift, a gift worked by the Holy Spirit through the Word (e.g., Romans 10:17, Ephesians 2:8). Thus, Luther rightly taught that the Word is in and with the water making baptism’s efficacy entirely dependent on the Gospel promises, promises that are connected with the water (e.g. 1 Peter 3:21, Acts 2:38). Otherwise stated, because the Gospel is attached to baptism, baptism is an effective means through which the Holy Spirit works faith and gives grace to infants, apart from any works of righteousness that they do or may do (e.g., Titus 3:5).
As we converse with our dear Evangelical brothers and sisters on this subject, may we not forget that there is a silver lining. As we discuss infant baptism and its ramifications on free will theology may we boldly confess,
I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want ‘free-will’ to be given to me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavor after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities, and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground and hold fast my ‘free-will’; because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labor with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God. Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt as to whether it pleased God, or whether He required something more. The experience of all who seek righteousness by works proves that; and I learned it well enough myself over a period of many years, to my own great hurt. But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him.” (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will)
So why do many Evangelicals find it difficult to accept infant baptism? It is difficult for many to accept because it is bad news for the old Adam and presents a difficulty for decision/free will theology. In infant baptism faith cannot be misconstrued into an act of the free will—faith does not make baptism but receives its. With infant baptism salvation is most clearly seen as a gift of God descending to a helpless baby, rather than the old Adam using baptism as a token of his obedience. Alas, it is now very understandable why conversations on this subject will result in confusion, tension, and unfortunate conflict.
Regardless of the possible blowback due to our Lutheran baptismal theology, may we graciously esteem our most excellent Baptism as our daily attire in which we walk constantly, that we may always be found in the faith, for infant baptism is not only the quintessential picture of divine monergism, but is divine monergism—rich life-giving water with the Word that works faith, delivers forgiveness of sins, rescues us from the jaws of death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation making us God’s own apart from any and all man-made contributions. In a very literally sense, via infant baptism, we do not wash ourselves but are washed by God. Praise be to God! May we and our Evangelical friends grow ever more appreciative of this great gift.
When my wife Karla and I were first married, over twenty years ago, I invited her to join me for the banquet at our annual LCMS district pastor’s conference. The food was great, but the banquet speaker was not. His topic was on “church growth,” how the Missouri Synod is in decline, and how if we don’t do something about it—like being more ecumenical, having women elders and lectors, having women pastors, and introducing contemporary worship—we won’t have a church to pass on to our grand kids.
Karla has a lot of common sense and is a good judgment of character. Till that point she had never heard a “church growth” speech. Her evaluation of the banquet on our way home that evening was something like, “Do you pastors have to listen to that sort of speech all the time? I don’t think he really knows what he’s talking about.” I had to agree.
Everyone knows that the number of people who claim to be members of mainline churches in America is suffering a significant decline. Even more significant is the fact that the number of people who claim to be “Evangelical” is enjoying numerical growth. The Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Survey of 2007 found that these two general trends continue to hold true (see Religious Landscape Study,Chapter 1, pp. 17-18 here). The same survey reported that, among American Protestant denominations, the Missouri Synod is now among the top ten in membership and is ranked at #7 overall (see ibid., Chapter 1, p. 16).
More to the point of that banquet speech twenty years ago: How are we Lutherans doing in retaining our children in our churches when they become adults? The same survey reported that the best faiths in the category of retention rate are the Hindus (84%), Jews (76%), Eastern Orthodox (73%), Mormons (70%), and Catholics (68%) (see ibid., Chapter 2, p. 30 here:.). Lutherans are among the top three Protestant Religious groups, when it comes to child-to-adult retention rates, with Baptists at 60%, Adventists at 59%, and Lutherans at 59% (see ibid., Chapter 2, p. 31). I think our LCMS dedication to children’s ministry, with parochial schools, high schools, Sunday School, and catechism class, has a lot to do with that, though I would like to see how we compare to the ELCA on that score.
I think this should put at ease most fears that our grandchildren won’t have a Lutheran church to attend. After all, after twenty years, many of those grandchildren are already attending our churches.
Still it is true that most congregations are faced with issues that are a result of decline in membership at their place. There are not as many volunteers to staff Sunday School, committees, guilds, and service groups as there used to be. Some congregations are eliminating an extra service on Sunday. Some congregations have had to close their school or form a multi-parish school. Some congregations have to “downsize” their staff. Some congregations have even closed permanently. All congregations are feeling the “pinch” due to the recession.
What should we do about this decline? Blame the preacher? That is the natural response, I think. I have been reading: Durwood Dunn, Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community 1818-1937 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988). Chapter 4 is titled “Religion and the Churches,” and it tells the stories of the three congregations that were in Cades Cove, now part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These were a Methodist, Missionary Baptist, and Primitive Baptist church. One of my distant relatives was a vacancy preacher at the latter church before the Civil War, which is how I became interested in these churches.
Dunn points out how the Primitive Baptist congregations had an independent-congregational polity. The tendency was to blame the preacher for any problem in the congregation; and the solution to that problem was always to fire the poor guy and find a new one. Since the preachers were illiterate, held other jobs, and were rarely paid, finding another illiterate guy who already had a paying job was not that difficult. Not surprisingly, with this sort of system, few preachers had a long tenure. Not surprisingly, the real root problems in the church and community were never addressed. Not surprisingly, Cades Cove and its churches remained a living stereotype of backwards illiterate “hillbillies” until the National Park service bought up the properties in 1937.
What should we do about decline, where it exists in our congregations? Blame the lay leaders? That doesn’t do any good either. Pastors and lay leaders need to face their problems together. Our pastors who have an M.Div. degree–even the guys straight out of the seminary–have lots of knowledge that is useful to a congregation, not just about theology and the Bible. All our pastors have practical classes not only in worship and preaching, but also in evangelism, counseling, religious education, missions, administration, organizational management, and religious pluralism. They have also been taught how to analyze community situations in order to determine the best ways to minister and deliver the Gospel.
Lay leaders have the advantage of knowing “the lay of the land” in a community. They have connections to community leaders and organizations. They know who is the best person or company to turn to for help or contracts. They know how communication actually works locally; and how the religious history of the community affects the work of their congregation. In addition to these critical matters of local wisdom, lay leaders also bring their talents and strengths to bear through volunteer service, work on boards, as officers, etc.
We don’t need to “be more ecumenical, have women elders and lectors, have women pastors, and introduce contemporary worship” in order to hold our own, or even grow. Compared to our fellow Protestants we are already holding our own, and in fact, passing up other mainline churches in total membership! Could we be doing better? Of course.
I think the biggest improvements that we could make at the present time is for: 1) pastors and lay leaders to stop blaming each other for problems in their congregation, and start working together on them; 2) congregations stop being so independent, or even hostile, to their fellow LCMS Lutherans, and start working together for their common good. An outward-focused congregation that works together to serve its own members, as well as non-members in the community, will always survive the hard-times and grow in the good times, because that is the sort of congregation that most people want to join.
What I mention in this article is my opinion and thinking out loud. It was prompted by the Synod President’s comments after the same-sex marriage decision of the Supreme Court (see his interview with Issues Etc.). He stated that student loans may become a problem which would greatly affect the Concordia University System. Here is a way around it I offer as merely a starting idea (which would of course require all sorts of expertise to actually make happen). I know many people are tied to their colleges and they have served a good purpose in the past, but if we are looking at losing the whole system, it may behoove us to be forward-thinking enough to prepare to sustain something for the good of the church.
Time to disconnect from the government’s provisions (that money comes with strings attached, and we will see them very clearly in the future). This means likely that we could sustain only one University/Seminary on our own and keep it viable. The solution then is to sell off/rearrange/reallocate the Concordias.
The trick would be to pick which one to keep. An obvious suggestion would be Concordia Austin as it resides in a state that has shown itself more protective of religious freedom than others. Another probable situation would be the Fort Wayne campus, which has room to expand, but also has some stipulations that it reverts back to the original donor if Synod tries to close it down or sell it. (there would be financial gain from selling Austin). There are probably other properties with similar arrangements, but I don’t know of them.
The sell off would be interesting. We have a lot of premium property. There is a lot of money that could be raised for the support of the new single Concordia University and Seminary. This would still be in keeping with the purpose of the Concordias because the goal is to have one that is sustainable without government funding.
The rearrangement of staff could also be good. There have been problems reported from the Concordias in regards to teaching and the need for more Lutheran teachers. A consolidation of universities into one allows for the “cream of the crop” to become the new faculty. Imagine a theology faculty built from the best of the two seminaries and Concordias? Other departments would benefit as well from such a centralization. The result would be a quality Lutheran education taught by outstanding Lutheran teachers no matter what major.
The reallocation is the biggest question mark for me. No doubt, many gifts and endowments have been given to the various Concordias. How they all get moved to the new one is a legal matter I have no expertise over, but someone out there has it, and honestly the point of this article is to get people thinking about how to get “lean and mean” as a Church, starting with one of the areas that will likely be hit first.
Think of other possibilities. The headquarters for the LCMS could also be housed in this new campus, and the current corporate headquarters could be sold and its proceeds could help support the church’s work in the new place.
The changing landscape of American culture should stir us to forward thinking about how to prepare. If we wait to react on many of these kind of things, it will be too late.
This is all just ideas. The Synod Convention is an opportunity for some of these ideas (or others) to be brought forward to be acted on (even if study is necessary as a first step). Please feel free to comment with ideas about the Concordia Universities below.
(Editor’s Note: Pastor Otten writes the BJS regular column “Steadfast Lessons from the Past.” The columns are archived here. Walter Bouman, well known liberal, of whom he writes here left the LCMS and became an ALC pastor in 1977. He died in 2008. The lesser known pastors and laymen that brother Otten brings to our attention are the real heroes.)
“Brother Rossow you want two columns a month under the theme STEADFAST LESSONS FROM THE PAST?”
His reply, “Yes, old man, just dig into your files!”
That digging revealed those who were “steadfast” in the past.
The March 19th, 1967 issue of THE LUTHERAN WITNESS REPORTER indicated that the Board of Control of Concordia Teachers College of River Forest, Illinois was considering giving tenure to Dr. Walter Bouman, a member of the faculty. The REPORTER indicated that the Board of Control was asking for information from the church at large concerning Dr. Bouman.
Two years earlier THE LUTHERAN WITNESS REPORTER reported on a presentation that Dr. Bouman had given at the Northwest Indiana Pastor’s and Teacher’s Conference held at Valparaiso, Indiana. The conference dealt with the theme “Evolution and/or Creation.” Besides Dr. Bouman two pro evolution professors from Valpo were participants, as well as Dr. John Klotz, Dr. Paul Zimmerman and Professor Rusch, all creationists. The REPORTER article included the words, “In his theological analysis Dr. Bouman advanced arguments supporting the thesis that the conflict in the evolutionissue is not posed by science or by the nature of the Bible texts or by the position of the Lutheran Confessions, but ‘by a theological opinionabout the nature of inspiration.'” The article continued, “He found fault with the ‘theory of inspiration’ held by Lutheran dogmaticians which makes inspiration the ‘direct communication of otherwise unknowable information.'”
Dr. Bouman’s actual words at the conference were “If, in the process, he (the scientist) discovers facts which do not support the world view of the biblical writers, the church today really has very little difficulty living with both the fact that is discovered and with the Scriptures which is still continues to listen to…The point I’m trying to make here is this. That where the scientific research confronts us with a fact, there we can manage to find a new way to interpret the Scriptures even though a man as revered in our own tradition as I’m sure all of us revere Dr. Pieper thought otherwise.”
Dr. Bouman had said essentially the same thing in an article he prepared for the 1965 LUTHERAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION YEARBOOK. In his unedited copy he wrote, “The evangelical approach, because it hears the Word of God as Law and Gospel, is neither bound to Biblical cosmology nor deaf to the Word of God as expressed through biblical cosmology.” In that article, which evaluated Lutheran education materials, he wrote of the Primary Religion Series for the 8th grade,
“In the 8th grade one of the objectives is that the children accept the ‘biblical account of creation’ and receive ‘the courage to support and defend it.’How sad. Our children deserve something better than this. If one begins with Law and Gospel, then learns something about the literary history and the literary nature of the Genesis prolog…then we should have no fear of theories which can possibly expand our vision of God’s working.”
What did the Board of Control hear from the church at large when it asked for information concerning granting tenure to Dr. Bouman, when hehad so publicly written and spoken? Who would teach us a lesson of STEADFASTNESS?
There were seventeen “letters of protest.” The names of those who wrote such letters of protested are perhaps not know by many, now forty one years later.
Four of the seventeen letters came from laymen. Their names are here mentioned out of deep respect for these Brothers of John the Steadfast, who for the most part are now in the presence of Him Whom they confessed and served. Three of the four were from the Northern Illinois District. One was Gerhardt Freundt, a consulting engineer. If the open hearing that preceded the 1962 Cleveland convention of the Synod was recorded, and that recording were still available, one today could hear his evangelical and dramatic appeal to Dr. Martin Scharlemann to no longer hold the views that he expressed in his controversial essays. (Dr. Scharlemann eventually recanted his views and became a staunch supporter of conservativism but prior to that had embraced elements of the liberal higher criticism.)
Another who protested was Karl Heinecke of Western Springs, Illinois. Karl served his Lord in a most unassuming way. It was he who was most responsible for THE WEST TOWNS DAILY CHAPEL over station WTAQ. For many years the Gospel was broadcast daily on this program from this station at 8:00 a.m. It reached all of Chicagoland and Northern Indiana. Countless homebound Christians were daily sustained by it. It was he who organized and scheduled 10 Missouri Synod pastors for their biweekly Gospel broadcast.
Another layman, who sent a letter of protest, was a dear friend of this writer, Marv Toepper, deeply committed to Christ, Christian education and Lutheran confessionalism from his earliest days at Grace Lutheran Church of Chicago. Grace was then served by Pastor Elbert, a member of the old Chicago Study Club, whose members read THE CONFESSIONAL LUTHERAN with gratitude.
The one layman who protested, who did not come from Illinois, was Ralph Lohrengel. His home was in Michigan. Ralph alone remains as the one of the four laymen who still serves as a “steadfast” servant in the church militant.
Five of the “letters of protest” came from pastors of the Northern Illinois District. Pastors Robert Kamphoefner of Immanuel in Dundee; Pastor Martin Lopahs of St. Paul, Round Lake;Pastor John Lutze of Immanuel, Downers Grove; Pastor Ray Wessler of St. John, Calument City; and Pastor Harold Krueger of Lake Zurich all dear friends wrote urging the Board of Control of the River Forest college not to grant tenure to Dr. Bouman. One of these pastors and his congregation, St. Paul’s of Round Lake, left the Synod after the 1971 Milwaukee convention of synod for the failure of that convention to fully address and faithfully confess all the issues then facing the synod. Dr. Bouman was still on the River Forest faculty, with tenure.
Four congregations, either via their voter’s assembly or board of elders, submitted “letters of protest.” The board of elders of Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Chicago, served by Pastor A.O. Gebauer\ and the board of elders of Holy Cross Lutheran Church of Cary, Illinois, served by Pastor Robert Hess urged the Board of Control not to grant tenure. St. Andrews Lutheran Church of Chicago, served by Pastor Martin Frick and St. Paul Lutheran Church of Brookfield, Illinois, served by this writer, also so urged that tenure not be granted. St. Andrews of Chicago, and their pastor, Martin Frick, would also leave the Synod after the Milwaukee convention for the same reasons as did St. Paul of Round Lake.
Four “letters of protest” came from outside Illinois. Pastors Richard Borchers of Fairmount, North Dakota; Pastor Harold Braun of St. Paul, Minnesota; Pastor C.A. Rathjen of Muscoda, Wisconsin; and Pastor Waldo Werning of Milwaukee all expressed their desire that Dr. Bouman not be given tenure.
There were fifteen “letters of commendation.” With one exception these were letters from individuals. The one exception was a letter from the church council of Ascension Lutheran Church of Riverside, where Dr. Martin Marty held membership. Ascension Lutheran Church would leave the LCMS in the Seminex days.
Individual “letters of commendation” came from Dr. Alfred Fuerbringer, president of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. In his letter he told the Board that Dr. Bouman had taught summer courses at the St. Louis Seminary.
Dr. Arthur Repp, the Academic dean of the St. Louis Seminary also wrote a “letter of commendation.” He also mentioned the fact that Dr. Bouman had taught at the seminary.
The executive director of the CTCR, Dr. Richard Jungkuntz, urged the board to grant tenure, as did the former President of the Northern Illinois District, Pastor Erwin Paul. The word “former” in identifying Pastor Erwin Paul has much to do with Dr. Walter Bouman, but that’s for another column.
It was forty one years ago so the fact that some of these letters were handwritten is not unexpected. Such a letter was received from the President of the Minnesota District, urging tenure. It was written by President Alfred Seltz.
The Dean of the Chapel at Valpo, Pastor William Buege, also urged the Board to grant tenure, as did Dr. Bouman’s own pastor, Dr. F. Dean Lueking of Grace Lutheran Church of River Forest, a congregation that also left the LCMS.
The chairman of the Theology Department of Concordia Teacher’s College of River Forest wrote similarly. That chairman was Dr. Ralph Gehrke, who himself was found guilty of teaching contrary to the Word of God.But that’s another story.
A “letter of recommendation” came from the Secretary of Campus Ministry, Pastor Reuben Hahn.
Other pastors who supported the granting of tenure were Pastor Kurt Grotheer of the Lutheran Church of St. Luke in Itasca, Illinois, Pastor Daniel Fuelling of Zion, Bensenville, Illinois, Pastor Walter Lamp ofMount Olive in Rockford, Illinois, Pastor Dennis Schlecht of Christ the King in Schumberg, Illinois, and Pastor James Manz of First St. Paul, Chicago.
Space and time do not permit comments on the content of all the letters. Some of those supporting tenure were very careful in what was said. To share the contents of these letters would be most revealing, but hopefully the source for all of the above “BOOK 1, MATERIAL FOR THE ELECTORS of CONCORDIA TEACHERS COLLEGE, River Forest, Illinois, MEETING, MAY 23, 1967, 2:00 P.M.” is available at Concordia Historical Institute and not only in the files of this writer. Many of those letters reveal even more clearly the issues that gave birth to Seminex than the Blue Book.
President Oliver Harms was ultimately involved in the matter. The May 23rd meeting did not find the Board granting tenure. President Harms subsequently wrote to those opposing tenure to supply adequate documentation for their opposition to the granting of tenure. “BOOK 1, MATERIAL FOR THE ELECTORS of CONCORDIA TEACHERS COLLEGE” contains a 20 page response to the request of Dr. Harms. That response is most revealing. But this 20 page document did not stop the granting of tenure, it was ultimately granted. To some it seemed that the granting of tenure was unnecessarily long delayed. The Board heard from those concerned about the delay. One such letter came from Pastor Rueben Spannaus, head of Lutheran Child and Family Services.
But who were the “STEADFAST” ones in this matter. Werethe church leaders the steadfast ones? Was it the Seminary President or the seminary Dean, or the CTCR executive secretary? Were they the “steadfast” ones? Were the District Presidents the “steadfast” ones? Was the chairman of the theology department “steadfast?” No, rather the response of these men revealed the deep theological and confessional dilemma the Synod was facing.
Who were the steadfast ones? They were laymen and “just” pastors of congregations, yes, one was a district Stewardship Exec, but the others were pastors without any position in the Synod except a “divine call” to serve a Christian congregation.
And now, as Paul Harvey says, for “the rest of the story.” In a paper delivered April 9th, 2002 entitled “CONFESSIONAL LUTHERAN RESOURSES FOR ADDRESSING THE STUDY OF HUMAN SEXUALITY” Dr. Bouman, by then a member of ELCA, not because he had been disciplined by Missouri, employing the same theological principles he did in the 1965 LEA YEARBOOK, discusses homosexuality, and those theological principles are for still another column. It is a 30 page paper, heavy with footnotes. He says that there are three options or alternatives suggested for the one who is homosexual or lesbian. One of the suggested alternatives is “celibacy.” He writes, “The one alternative which is not open to the Lutheran tradition is the requirement of celibacy.” He supports his assertion that celibacy is not an option by quoting a famous theological source which says “No human law or vow can nullify a command or institution of God.” From whence does this assertion of Dr. Bouman come? It comes from the Augsburg Confession. Where is it found? It is found in the article on the Marriage of Priests. He writes of this quotation of the Augsburg Confession “This seems to be equally applicable to the situations of persons with homosexual orientation.” So we cannot expect a homosexual to be celibate.
About a year ago one of my professors gave me the lecture notes of my grandfather, Robert Preus, from when he taught a course on Justification at St. Catharines back in the 80’s. According to Dr. Jackson, Preus was an adherent of Objective Justification at that time, but Jackson claims that he demonstrates in his essay “Justification and Rome” that he had a breakthrough and realized that this is not a Lutheran teaching. The lecture notes consist of twenty pages of quotes from the Lutheran Church Fathers on Justification, and most of these quotes are found in his “Justification and Rome.” One of the quotes comes from Abraham Calov’s Apodixis articulorum fidei (Lüneberg, 1684, p. 249), and Jackson cites this quote in Preus’ book as proof that he denied Objective Justification by the end of his life. Here is the quote (quoted in “Justification and Rome, 131, n74):
Here are some quotes when considering 
I had the opportunity to hear an excellent presentation this afternoon from a neighboring pastor (Rev. Shawn Kumm of Zion, Laramie) on Lutheran worship. One of the best points that he made was related to how worship is meant to prepare the Christian for death.
What is justification?
Complaints are a part of life in a fallen world. Add to that a culture of personal opinions and tastes, and complaint can become of increased importance. Complaints can be necessary. They also hold the power to utterly destroy people and congregations. The following is meant to help the church (congregations especially) start to grow away from a culture of complaint and more towards godly conversations and reconciliation among the baptized. It should be noted that public sin is not the issue in this posting.
The “Best Practices for Ministry” description is brief on the convention 
A few weeks back, I contacted Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller for information regarding the beautiful baptismal certificates I saw him 
of the cross, notably at a number of places during the Divine Service. Several of these are indicated in Lutheran Service Book by the 
symbol, though there are a number of places in the liturgy where Christians have crossed themselves that are not indicated in LSB (see #3, 5, 6, and 7, below). Before we look at why the cross may be made at these places, first a word on how to make the sign of the cross.
The practice of crossing one’s self is an ancient practice and is derived from such passages as Deuteronomy 6:8, Ezekiel 9:4, Revelation 7:3, 9:4, and 14:1. The practice of tracing the cross on objects and one’s body is discussed by such church fathers as 
The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made man” were being sung in church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said: “May hell consume you! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang: ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only to my knees but my whole body to the ground! And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!
When my wife Karla and I were first married, over twenty years ago, I invited her to join me for the banquet at our annual LCMS district pastor’s conference. The food was great, but the banquet speaker was not. His topic was on “church growth,” how the Missouri Synod is in decline, and how if we don’t do something about it—like being more ecumenical, having women elders and lectors, having women pastors, and introducing contemporary worship—we won’t have a church to pass on to our grand kids.
What I mention in this article is my opinion and thinking out loud. It was prompted by the Synod President’s comments after the same-sex marriage decision of the Supreme Court (see his interview with Issues Etc.). He stated that student loans may become a problem which would greatly affect the Concordia University System. Here is a way around it I offer as merely a starting idea (which would of course require all sorts of expertise to actually make happen). I know many people are tied to their colleges and they have served a good purpose in the past, but if we are looking at losing the whole system, it may behoove us to be forward-thinking enough to prepare to sustain something for the good of the church.