Seminary Ridge Review is published twice per year by the Seminary Ridge Press at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. SEMINARY RIDGE REVIEW ISSN 1526-0674 SPRING, 2017 I VOLUME 19, NUMBER 2 © 2017 by Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Subscriptions are free to libraries of theological and divinity schools and to Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg alumni/æ. Individual copies are available for $9 per issue (includes domestic postage). Contact: Seminary Ridge Press Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg 61 Seminary Ridge Gettysburg, PA 17325 www.seminaryridgereview.org Seminary Ridge Review is a scholarly journal offering perspectives which highlight the history and theology of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, eastern Lutheranism and issues that emerge in the cross-currents of theological and cultural debates. Editor: The Rev. Dr. Brooks Schramm [email protected] Managing Editor: The Rev. John Spangler [email protected] Book Review Editor: The Rev. Dr. Maria Erling [email protected] Design & Production: Katy Giebenhain [email protected] Printed by The Sheridan Press in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Typeset by Phil Wolfe Graphic Design. On the cover: A plaster cast of Sarah Hempel Irani’s “St. Joseph, the Carpenter” sits at the Griffin Art Center where she has her studio in Frederick, Maryland. The original marble sculpture for which the cast was made is located at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Potomac, Maryland. Reproduced with permission of the artist. Visit www.hempelstudios.com. CONTENTS 1 Luther’s Reformation of Suffering Ronald K. Rittgers 18 The Lutheran Art of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Wittenberg: Commemorating the Founders of Lutheran Orthodoxy and Celebrating Confessional Identity after 1592 Austra Reinis 45 American Lutherans and Suffering – Hymns of Faith and Hope Maria Erling 55 Psalm 90: Luther on Death – and Life Brooks Schramm 73 Martin Luther, Jizō and Miscarriage: An Exercise in Comparative Theology Kristin Johnston Largen 90 Consolation for Suffering in Luther and the Lutheran Confessions: Notes and Comments on the 2016 Luther Colloquy Leonard M. Hummel 101 Chapel Sermon, October 3, 2016 Ariel Williams 106 Book Reviews on Money and Possessions by Walter Brueggemann and The Paradox of Church and World: Selected Writings of H. Richard Niebuhr by Jon Diefenthaler 112 Poetry + Theology Science, Our Friend 138 Gettysburg Seminary Fine Arts Signs, Symbols and a Seminary Luther’s Reformation of Suffering1 Luther Colloquy 2016 Ronald K. Rittgers For the past fifteen years or so, I have been studying the theme of suffering in the Reformation. The theme is ubiquitous in the sources that interest me, and I have wanted to understand these sources and thus the Reforma- tion better. But I have also been studying suffering because I am a church historian who wishes to engage issues of enduring human significance, and suffering certainly qualifies. My interest in suffering is not purely academic – h w could it be? I study the past not only to understand the past and how it has shaped the future, but also to gain wisdom for actually trying to live faithfully as a Christian in the present. Like you, I am trying to make sense of suffering in my own life and in the world, and I have been looking to the Reformation, in part, to help me do so. Today I would like to share with you something of what I learned. As my title suggests, I will be focusing on Luther. Martin Luther wanted to reform the way his contemporaries under- stood and coped with suffering, and this “reformation of suffering” was an essential though understudied part of his overall Reformation agenda. In my talk today I would like to examine with you a crucial chapter in Luther’s reformation of suffering, the Indulgence Controversy and the years that followed it. I want to explore how Luther’s critique of the late medieval pen- itential system and the soteriology upon which it was based played a central role in his reformation of suffering, a reformation that was motivated by deeply pastoral concerns and that had profound implications for his pastoral theology. I hope to show how this reformation of suffering entailed both a summons to radical cross-bearing and the provision of a radical consolation. My presentation will be primarily historical in nature, but, as I have already 2 RONALD K. RITTGERS SRR SPRING 2017 3 indicated, I am interested in the normative claims that my research raises. I against Him), providing healing for the effects of sins, and protecting believe that Lutheranism has a gift for the church catholic today owing to its against future sins.6 Late medieval penitential theology taught that whereas honesty about suffering and its firm belief in the consolation of the gospel. prayer restored proper order in the penitent’s relationship to God, and The trick is to persuade Lutherans to share this gift with other Christians. works of mercy did the same with regard to neighbor, fasting brought order Before we turn to Luther, a brief word about late medieval penitential theol- to the penitent’s relationship with himself, primarily by battling concupis- ogy and its view of suffering is in order. cence of the flesh. Suffering was viewed as a species of fasting; it was a work of satisfaction that atoned for the penalty of sin, healed the effects of sin, and helped to prevent further sin. Penitents were regularly instructed to ask Late Medieval Background their confessors to apply to them not only the merit of Christ and their own In the later Middle Ages there was widespread agreement among theologians good works, but also any sickness or adversity they had endured, along with about a distinction that was absolutely central to the church’s understanding the daily toil they experienced in providing for their basic needs. One popu- of penance and suffering: the guilt or debt of sin versus the penalty or pun- lar late medieval handbook for confession instructed penitents to make the ishment for sin.2 The debt of sin – culpa – referred to the burden of guilt following request of their confessors: human beings incurred initially as a result of the fall (i.e., original guilt), and then subsequently as the result of each post-baptismal sin. The penalty I ask you lastly […] that you would now place on me a small and brief for sin – poena – denoted divine punishment for both original sin (i.e., sacramental penance that I can perform already in this hour or on this eternal damnation and the partial tainting of human nature) and for post- day. I also ask that you would apply to me, counting it as a penance, baptismal sin (i.e., suffering in this life and the next).3 The majority view on the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ’s suffering […] along with all my the eve of the Reformation was that Christ’s death had atoned for original good works, or those which others have done for me (be they prayers, guilt and eternal damnation, the benefits of which were communicated via fasts, alms-giving, pilgrimages), plus all the grace and indulgence I baptism, but the tendency toward sinning – the fomes peccati (tinders of have obtained, and also all the sickness and adversity I have suffered, and, sin) – remained for humanity to contend with until the resurrection of the finally, all of the concern and work […] by which I meet my material dead. When late medieval Christians gave in to their dark side and sinned, needs. Apply to me all of these things as a satisfaction for my sin. 7 they were instructed to turn to the Sacrament of Penance to relieve the new burden of debt and punishment they incurred. Not to seek divine grace for Thus, according to late medieval penitential thought, suffering, if humbly sin was to risk an eternity in hell, if the sin were mortal, or, more typically, accepted and patiently endured, could be treated as a form of penance that to face an extended period of time in Purgatory, where one would suffer the would redound to one’s eternal benefit. In this system, suffering could actu- remaining poena for one’s venial sins, along with the yet unfulfilled works ally be seen as an expression of divine grace, because it provided one with of satisfaction one had been assigned in this life, and thus be purified before an opportunity to shorten one’s stay in purgatory and also to be conformed one entered heaven. Only priestly absolution communicated through the more closely to the image of Christ and the saints. Suffering was redemp- Sacrament of Penance could forgive the debt of sin, but it was up to the tive, even salvific. (The late medieval church held that suffering had other penitent to deal with the penalty for sin, in cooperation with the Latin important roles to play in the Christian life; here I am focusing on just one church’s many forms of assistance, which included indulgences – indul- of these roles – suffering as a species of penance.) gences were about penalty not guilt, at least in theory.4 By virtue of their possession of the keys, priests could transform the penalty one deserved to suffer in Purgatory – where the pains were unspeak- Luther’s Critique able, if temporary – into a more bearable form of penance one could endure Luther engaged this view of suffering and the penitential theology behind in the here and now. This penance, or work of satisfaction, typically took it in the famous Indulgence Controversy, which catapulted him onto the one of three forms: fasting, prayer, or works of mercy.5 These three were public stage of early modern Christendom in a way that caught the monk- held to fulfill the definition of a work of satisfaction, which involved mak- professor largely by surprise.