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10-2012 Whatever Became of ?: Selective Critical Reflections on Carl Braaten's Because of Christ: Memoirs of a Lutheran Theologian Gary M. Simpson Luther Seminary, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Simpson, Gary M., "Whatever Became of Carl Braaten?: Selective Critical Reflections on Carl Braaten's Because of Christ: Memoirs of a Lutheran Theologian" (2012). Faculty Publications. 57. http://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/faculty_articles/57 Published Citation Simpson, Gary M. “Whatever Became of Carl Braaten?: Selective Critical Reflections on Carl E. Braaten’s Because of Christ: Memoirs of a Lutheran Theologian.” Currents in Theology and Mission 39, no. 5 (October 2012): 374–85. https://luthersem.idm.oclc.org/ login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001933789&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty & Staff choS larship at Digital Commons @ Luther Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Luther Seminary. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Whatever Became of Carl Braaten? Selective Critical Reflections on Carl E. Braatens Because o f Christ: Memoirs o f a Lutheran Theologian

Gary M. Simpson Professor o fSystematic Theology, Luther Seminary

Carl Braaten as “a Lutheran theologian” review his understanding of the vocation is one thing, but Carl Braaten as “a Lu- of a Lutheran theologian; second, I will theran theologian” is quite another! Just stipulate certain traits of each of the Carls; so, some commemorate his influence with third, I will chart the career path of the joy; others remember him less cheerfully. two Carls; and finally, I will take a deeper This situation neither surprises nor much look at the toll on others, and on Carl, that disturbs Carl— I’m going to say “Carl” one of the two Carls has exacted. because we have been friends, not bosom Memoirs, of all possible genres, de- buddies or even close personal friends, but serve especially to be read and commented friends nevertheless. He has also been for upon through a hermeneutic of respect and me an important mentor, one- or two-steps generosity, that reverential posture of first removed, so to speak. resort, ofshalom, of gratitude, even of joy. Carl candidly admits this ambivalent Only as a necessary last resort ought readers estimation and perhaps even sees it as a of memoirs observe that duty entailed in a mark of a theologian. After all, claims hermeneutic ofsuspicion to bear a posture Carl, “the idea of a noncontroversial of critique in order to protect others from theology [is] an oxymoron” (M em oirs, harm. Still, even this duty of suspicion 58)! Still, a second factor contributes to embedded in the responsibility to protect “Braaten-ambivalence,” and it resides in must meet the norm of respect. Carl himself, in the rhetorical modes and moods that he has honed. Simply put, Vocation of a Theologian, two Carls show up in his vocation as a Lutheran theologian. In order to come and Lutheran Too to grips with “the two Carls,” first, I will “The theologian’s task,” asserts Carl, “is to turn the spotlight of the gospel on the 1. Carl E. Braaten, Because o f Christ: intellectual challenges of our time and to Memoirs of a Lutheran Theologian (Fortress keep the from crossing the line from Press, 2010) [hereafter referred to in an un- orthodoxy into heresy” M ( em oirs, vii). conventional manner as M em oirs with page Having so stated this twofold assignment, numbers in parentheses in the text]. Braaten taught for twenty-three he turns immediately to elaborate a little years at the Lutheran School of Theology at on heresy. Heresy is “debilitating.. .causes Chicago [hereafter L ST C ]. spiritual anemia... [and] substitutes ideol­

Currents in Theology and Mission 39:5 (October 2012} Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

375 ogy for real theology... [having] stricken along with well-known theologians from large segments of in Europe” numerous Protestant seminaries and divin- [Memoirs, vii-viii). He then notes: ity schools, nearly all senior white males. But I am not interested in pinning the He notes that “the conversation changed label "heretic" or "apostate" on any so drastically” when younger scholars, theologian. Oh, well, there may be a who were “mostly liberationist, feminist, few such, especially those in outright postmodern, post-Christian, and pro the denial of the divinity of Christ or the LGBT ideology,” were invited in for the resurrection of Jesus. Memoirs ( , viii) second phase of the project. The entire experience for me was an eye- W ill This Predicted opener. It became unmistakably clear Temperance Hold or Not? to me that liberal Protestant theology had come to a dead end, and that for Commendably, Carl tells us that Christo- in America to have centricity has always been “the center of a future, it would need to move in an my existence as a Christian theologian” entirely different direction. (Memoirs, (M em oirs, viii). He finds this in Martin 116) Luther’s memorable “was Christum treibt” (“what conveys Christ”) and in the Lu- As we will see, this experience played a theran Confessions’ “ propter Christum ’ crucial role in the emergence of “the two (“because of Christ”), the main title of Carls.” Carl points out that several peer Memoirs. Theologians are called to stand Lutheran theologians, some of whom he on the shoulders of the great theological himself had mentored, have taken leave traditions. It is not their task “to invent a of their Lutheran and become new Christianity out of his or her religious Roman precisely because of the experience and imagination.” Already in contamination of American the Preface he begins to excoriate “radical by liberal . Still, “I have never theological feminists” for doing the latter been able to imagine myself as other than {Memoirs, ix). Lutheran under the existing conditions of Carl notes, “These memoirs relate church division” M( em oirs, ix). my struggle to reclaim the original intent of the Lutheran ...[that is,] to summon the church to become Tlie Two Carls: Treatiser truly evangelical, catholic, and orthodox” and Tractator {Memoirs, xi). In point of fact, his own self-understanding is: “ evangelicalviixhowt W ho are the two Carls? There is Carl-the- being Protestant, catholic without being treatiser and Carl-the-tractator. 2A treatiser Roman, and orthodox without being writes treatises; a tractator writes tracts. Eastern” {Memoirs, xi). As he progresses Carl-treatiser writes and edits quite won- through Memoirs, “Protestantism” increas- derful books as well as articles in journals ingly becomes more and more his favorite and chapters in books edited by himself pejorative, especially when coupled with and others, many of which 1 myself have “liberal.” In M emoirs at least he more assigned as required reading in my classes. often caricatures “liberal Protestantism” than analyzes it {Memoirs, 166-171). 2. I use these now archaic English In the mid-1970s Carl participated in nouns; see Oxford English Dictionary On- a Vanderbilt University writing project line at: http://www.oed.com/. Simpson. Whatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

376 Carl-tractator writes editorials, delivers as well as when comparing and contrast- conference speeches, composes short es- ing different theologians ( M emoirs, xiii). says and pithy, indeed, fiery letters. And For instance, Carl-treatiser examines yes, Carl-tractator shows up prominently the deficiencies of someone’s particular throughout Memoirs. theological claim (the N on) and likewise W hat is a treatise and what is a tract? highlights the strengths and soundness The classic 1897 American Encyclopedic also entailed within a claim (the Sic). He D ictionary notes that a treatise “may then regularly takes up in like fashion describe a composition of any length...” someone else’s related claim. This sets up and then cites William Gilpin’s succinct rich, textured, evenhanded, and fruitful description: “W hen we write a treatise, contrasts and comparisons that promote we consider the subject throughout. We the educational appeal of a treatise to strengthen it with arguments— we clear “consider the subject throughout,” as it of objections— we enter into details— Gilpin classically put it. “So it went,” for and, in short, we leave nothing unsaid that example, “ I could not come down hard on properly appertains to the subject.”3 This one side and ignore the other. In modern describes a significant portion of Carl’s theology there was Kahler against Ritschl, and I learned from both” (M emoirs, xiii). Vintage Carl-treatiser! é é Τ'could not come was Carl’s dissertation adviser, and his influence shows up A down hard on especially in Carl-treatiser’s Sic-et-Non approach ( M emoirs, 27-41). I myself, as one side and ignore a young pastor and aspiring theologian, learned a ton from Carl’s many treatises, the other. In modern both the book-length and the essay-length ones. I learned not only the breadth of theology there was theological content and the depth of a Gospel-grounded analysis, but also I Kähler against Ritschl, came to appreciate evermore deeply the Sic-et-Non mode and mood of theologi- and I learned from cal inquiry and rhetoric— a dialectically serious and critical, yet careful, generous, both” {Memoirs, xiii). reverential and flourishing discovery of the evangelical “because of Christ”! Trea- tises generally embody a kind of social- emotional mood, a poise that respects, published work, though surely not its even reverences, the potential fruitfulness entirety. within the God-given created particular- Carl-treatiser commonly moves “dia- ity of real embedded humans, of flesh lectically between Sic et Non [ Yes a n d No] ” and blood theologians— finite, fallible when considering a particular theologian and fragile candidates for G od’s mercy. While not the only possible approach for 3. “Treatise,” in American Encyclopaedia D ictionary; eds., Robert Hunter, J. A. Wil- producing treatises, Carl-treatiser’s Sic- liams, and S. J. H . Herrtage (Chicago: R. S. et-Non dialectical mode and mood does Peale and J. A. Hill, 1987). offer an admirable, even artful and ethical, Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

377 rhetorical practice. Tracts, on the other hand, are usually The tractator’s faux apocalyptic typically briefer than treatises, though that is not trades on thinly argued but nevertheless their most salient characteristic. As one tenaciously orated narratives of decline. scholar once put it, tracts are rhetorically Tractators manufacture these incessant bent “to b e.. .argumentative [rather] than worst-case scenarios whereby every day in educational.”4 Especially since the mid- 1980s, Carl has also power-walked thepath of tract proliferation. It is this, especially, that has led to widespread Braaten-ambiv- it is true that alence, a level o f ambivalence induced far beyond the verity that a “noncontroversial X the ELCA has theology [is] an oxymoron.” Tractators not only routinely fall short become just another of the educational bar, but they also regu- larly exceed the salutary bounds of fruitfulliberal Protestant argumentative discourse. Tractators travel beyond the salutary in three ways. First, denomination, that is a they strive at all cost to establish urgency where they perceive that the lackadaisical, condition tantamount the unreliable, the inept, the renegade, or even the traitorous have taken over. To do to heresy.... I wish so, tractators traffic in apocalyptic. Rather, they deal in a kind of faux apocalyptic, I could deny it” often indistinguishable from the run-of- the-mill rhetoric of ranters and alarmists.1 {Memoirs, 167). Faux apocalyptic prematurely posits the imminent end of all things as we know it. As one well-regarded analyst of apocalyptic every way everything is getting worse and rhetoric has noted, worse. Carl-tractator employs this mode it is very human to vociferate apoca- and promotes this mood right from the lyptically when something that we get-go in Memoirs. I have “witnessed.. .the prize is taken away from us, whether a near collapse of confessional theology in baby rattle or a bank account, whether Lutheran seminary education, the eclipse our sense of class or national pride, of catechesis in Christian education, mas- or our sense of how things should be sive ignorance of doctrine on the part of generally. The true apocalyptic seizure laity, and wanton disregard of church is something different from apoplexy!6 discipline among bishops and pastors” {Memoirs, ix). 4. See A. R. Buckland, “Tract,” in Ency- Carl-tractator peppers M emoirs with clopaedia Britannica, 11th Ed., (New York: unsubstantiated innuendos of worst-case Cambridge, 1911), XXVII, 117/2.

5· Braaten himself notes the prevalence Ancient and Modern Apocalyptic,” Inter- o f false apocalypticism in Carl Braaten, p reta tio n 25 (October 1971): 440. Braaten “From Apocalyptic to Somatic Theology,” himself has an important essay on “The Sig- D ia lo g 13 (Autumn 1974): 297-301. nificance of Apocalypticism for Systematic 6. Amos N. Wilder, “The Rhetoric of Theology” in the same issue of this journal. Simpson. Whatever Became of Carl Braaten?

378 scenarios of decline. Examples abound but propter hoc (“after this therefore because here are a few: “If it is true that the ELCA of this”), to which too many people com- has become just another liberal Protestant monly succumb. This fallacy cunningly denomination, that is a condition tanta- conflates correlation and causation— e.g., mount to heresy... .1 wish I could deny it” after the 1960s therefore because of the {Memoirs, 167). “[T] he kind of Lutheran- 1960s. The popular fallacy loads up the ism I learned.. .and taught in a Lutheran narrative of decline with historical causality parish and seminary for many years is for the rendezvous with doomsday, thus now marginalized to the point of near performing its apocalyptic service. In extinction” (M em oirs, 167). The ELCA M em oirs, as we will see below, it is “after has “embark[ed] on a trajectory that leads the mid-1980s Commission for a New to rank antinomianism” ( M em oirs, 169). Lutheran Church, which wrote the con- “Each person and each congregation will stitution of the new ELCA, and therefore do what they deem fitting and appropriate because of the Commission for a New in view of the apostasy that looms on the Lutheran Church.” For Carl-tractator, the horizon of our beloved Lutheran Church” ELCA as constituted is itself the effective {Memoirs, 170). And the following: cause of decline. Point blank. In looking for evidence that could Once so armed with historical causa- convincingly contradict the charge tion, tractators search out the narratively that the ELCA has become j ust another undernourished and dole out just enough liberal Protestant denomination, it morsels of truth to get them to come back would seem reasonable to examine for another morsel, always accompanied by what is produced by its publishing the relentless revving up of the narrative’s house, theological schools, magazines, rhetorical decibels. By so doing, tractators publications, church council résolu- aspire to rally troops for political battle in tions, commission statements, task a zero sum, take-no-prisoners, winners- force recommendations, statements take-all theater, first by radicalizing the and actions by its bishops. The end leadership, then by creating a sense of result is an embarrassment; there is belonging for frontline troops, and finally not much there to refute the charge__ [A] 11 that is left of the Reformation by lending spine to true believers who in a heritage is the aroma of an empty bottle. pragmatic culture like North Americas are {Memoirs, 167) forever tempted to do little. Establishing urgency and mobilizing troops requires Without question, reasonable examina- tractators to stay on message: repeat, tion is the rhetorical mode and mood that repeat, repeat; rehash, rehash, and rehash Carl-treatiser would undertake. “There is again the apocalyptic narrative. not much there” is the faux apocalyptic Narrating the imminent rendezvous rhetoric that Carl-tractator in fact employs. with the final fall leads tractators to betray Indeed, Carl-tractator packed all of these both the educational and the argumenta- examples into his 2005 open letter to tive in a second way. Faux apocalypticism Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, which turns tracts Manichaean. Like Mani’s du- he then includes in M emoirs (165—171). alism of old, tractators habitually reduce Tractators routinely reach into their the state of affairs to stark binary oppo- rhetorical quiver in order to arm their se- sites— good versus evil, angels vanquishing lectively plotted narratives of decline with demons. Rich, textured continuums of the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo careful reflection no longer exist. Flere Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

379 especially, in this dualistic environment {Memoirs, xi)? D id he dilute his own sum- with its amplified decibels ever increasing, moning with surges of tractarian fire water Carl-treatiser’s Sic-et-Non mode and mood in a desperate, ironic strategy to stem the finds no room in the Manichaean inn. rising tide of the decline of theological The controversy between Carl-tractator competence? and Carl-treatiser is joined. And on the Lutheran landscape, at least, Carl-tractator Going Tractator shoves Carl-treatiser outside the gate. The tractator temptation did not gain a The tractator’s penchant for the hold on Carl all at once. In his earliest years apocalyptic and the Manichaean leads to a as a theologian he highlighted a number of third characteristic of tracts. Apocalyptic, crises that the Lutheran church faced and Manichaean polarization goes totalistic. addressed them in treatiser fashion. Even You either concurin toto with the tractator’s his early editorials for Dialog: A Journal claim or you turn apostate in toto. Crucial o f Theology display, despite their brevity, distinctions between heresy, on the one treatise-like traits. Three things fueled his hand, and theological disagreement, defi- early crisis posture. First, he began his ciency, flaw or imperfection, on the other, teaching career during the early years of seem to dissipate under the white heat of the 1960s, a time of cultural tumult on apocalyptic fire and Manichaean purism. a range of issues. Second, he had studied Because of their totalism, tractators traffic and inwardly digested German crisis theol- notoriously in innuendo. They hunt for ogy during the first half of the twentieth heresies, and invariably for heretics. Ifyou century. Finally, he tells us that his own oppose me on one point, you oppose me seminary teachers had remained aloof on all points, all the way down. Because from, or perhaps even unaware of, the tractators want to rally troops, they name rich reflections on faith and life under- names, not only unacceptable theological taken across the breadth of German crisis formulations. They name the angels for theology and other emerging theological reverence and the demons for scorn. By movements. demonizing individuals, they warn the Carl was determined not to waste the troops to avoid anything that comes out signs of the times in the emerging “crisis of demonic mouths. Thus the tractator’s in the church,” the title of the first issue totalism! of Dialog: A Journal o f Theology— he was But why, especially when the land- the founding editor-in-chief. He titled scape looks Lutheran, did Carl give up his 1962 essay, “The Crisis of Confes- on Carl-treatiser and devolve into Carl- sionalism,” even though today he feels tractator? Perhaps there is a hint in the it necessary to say that he does “not now following. “W hat lies behind the watering think that there was much of a crisis [in down of the theological curriculum in 1962], certainly not as compared with today’s seminaries is the fact that many Lutheranism in America today” {M em- students, perhaps most, are ill prepared for oirs, 53). A disavowal of that sort seems the academic rigors of theological study” necessary once Carl-tractator commits {Memoirs, 22). Did Carl-treatiser finally to his 1980s-induced faux apocalyptic despair that a treatise’s mode and mood narrative of decline. From the early had become impotent for summoning 1960s on, Carl-treatiser analyzed a spate Lutheran students and pastors “to become of crises: from crisis of law and a crisis of truly evangelical, catholic, and orthodox” hope to an ecumenical crisis, a secularism Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

380 crisis, and a racial crisis that presented authority.” He really ratcheted up his the church with a crisis over the public tractarian mode and mood while serving significance of the church and Christian on the Commission for a New Lutheran vocation. These treatises established him Church. He was opposed “from the start” as a promising theologian, and he con- to the so-called “quota system modeled tinued in this mode and mood during on the principles of the left wing of the the 1970s as new crises arose. Democratic Party.” The “quota system” soon During the late 1970s, as a conse- anchored the narrative of decline because quence of the Vanderbilt writing project, it was out to “emasculate the old boys’” Carl took a decided turn toward what who had furnished theological authority in some might describe as a more conservative Lutheran theological direction. During the the ELCA’s two largest predecessor bodies 1960s and into 1970s he had freely engaged (Memoirs, 123,122). Here, quite plainly, is emerging issues in theology, especially the primal source of Carl’s apoplexy gone around liberation themes. As increasing wild, that is, gone tractarian!8 numbers of churches Already in 1989 Carl-tractator and theologians learned more and more bemoaned the initial assembly of the about liberation theology and progressively ELCA: “What we have witnessed in this leaned in more liberationist directions, convention was one more step forward Carl took on a more polemical posture in the making of an American Protestant toward liberation theology and its growing denomination,” which for him means, foothold within mainline Protestantism. “one more step backwards.”5 In 1991 What began in 1976 as “the challenge of Carl-treatiser investigated full-fledged liberation theology” turned by 1984 into “apostasy in American theology” but naming “the Trojan horse of liberation Carl-tractator used that inquiry to al- theology” within liberal Protestantism, lege “the il/legitimacy of Lutheranism in culminating in 1985 with the suggestion that “apostasy” and “heresy” were surely America,” in which “the confessional core in the wind.7 During this same period of Lutheranism was vanishing before our Carl-treatiser was still engaging new crises, eyes” {Memoirs, 140), hopelessly deluged notably a Christological crisis brought on by an “antinomian...neo-pagan gnostic by certain prominent advocates of religious pluralism. Carl-treatiser argued vigorously 8. Much of what Carl objected to he and rightly, I believe, for the uniqueness blames on the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC), the moderate and universality of Jesus. As Carl notes in congregations and pastors that The Lutheran his Preface, heresy is “especially” at stake, Church— Missouri had driven out for instance, “in outright denial of the of its denomination during the late 1970s. divinity of Christ” M( em oirs, viii). The AELC vigorously pressed the Ameri- Carl-tractator, however, was now on can Lutheran Church and the Lutheran the rise. What began in 1983 as a frantic Church in America to join in forming a search for “the [Lutheran] magisterium” new Lutheran church in the . became by 1984 a full-bore “crisis of Candidly speaking, the AELC is the church body into which I was called and ordained 7. The words in quotation marks are as a Lutheran pastor in 1977. Carl’s, and they appear as essay titles or parts 9. Carl Braaten, “The Making of an thereof; see his own bibliography (M em oirs, American Protestant Denomination,” D ia lo g 180-202). 28 (Autumn 1989): 244. Simpson. Whatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

381 culture.”10 Having apocalyptically hiked the handwriting on the wall was so clear, the decibels on his narrative of liberal I felt a person had to be blind not to see Protestant decline, Carl-tractator’s only it. For me it seemed hardly necessary to remaining vocation was to promulgate a provide chapter and verse to prove” her- heroic, all-or-nothing “call to faithfulness” esy—, he cites six, one being “the twin tenets that can be either heeded or renounced. of, American culture religion, gnosticism No discussion needed. and : antinomianism,” to which we will In the Lutheran landscape from the return below (M em oirs, 140—141). W hat mid-1980s forward, Carl appeared fully are : we to think when someone who has dressed in tractator attire, treading well- long deplored the absence ofa magisterium worn trails blazed by droves of self-styled and : the loss of episcopal discipline seems apocalyptic tractators. He candidly records himself to have so cavalierly dismissed a the concerns voiced by various ELCA bish- specific ; reprimand about serious matters ops that he had indulged in and inflamed given , directly by the Presiding Bishop of others to join in widespread “Higgins bash- , one’s own ecclesial body? Can it really be ing”— Higgins Road being the location of morally adequate if there is a case of seri- the ELCA’s churchwide offices. He even ous , heresy for a prominent theologian of admits that bashing “certainly went on” the church to warrant his point of view by in the “call to faithfulness” conferences— blithely referring to personal perceptions “bashing” being popular shorthand, of , of handwriting on the wall? course, for the tractator’s mode and mood The second for Carl- {Memoirs, 140). He also mentions, but tractator’s mode and mood follows: “We without bearing any particular responsi- are, after all, in a fierce struggle for the bility himself, that “the atmosphere was soul of Lutheranism as a confessing move- charged with rancorous criticism of almost ment; and we are contending, not against everything going on” in the ELCA (M em- flesh and blood, but against powers and oirs, 130). Many succumbed to tractarian principalities that are stronger and more mode and mood. “I have not,” noted Carl numerous than we are.”12 Ought theolo- on another occasion, “acquired a great gians of the church knowingly succumb reputation for communicating theological ! to the utilitarian manner of justifying ideas at room temperature.”11 the employment of problematic means Carl-tractator proceeded to j ustify his by citing the righteousness of one’s ends? own tractarian mode and mood in two Sadly, for many who have learned much ways. First, there is really no need to get from Carl-treatiser, myselfsurely included, specific about the dissemination of heresy, ( Carl-tractator’s accommodation to the something that Carl-treatiser would never culture of American incivility, innuendo, countenance. In 1991 then Presiding allegation, and ridicule seems nearly Bishop Herbert Chilstrom pleaded with complete, at least when Carl writes for Carl “to be specific” about allegations of Lutheran landscapes. “mutations of the gospel,” Carl’s admit- ted euphemism for heresy. Carl-tractator Pinning the Antinomian insists bluntly, “From where I was sitting, Label 10. Carl Braaten, “The Il/legitimacy of Carl: fits his 1991 resignation from LSTC Lutheranism in America?” Lutheran Forum snugly within his standard tractator narra- 28 (1994): 43. !

11. Ibid., 38. 12. Ibid. Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

382 tive of decline, and he does so by endorsing “Radical theological feminism” also figured his long-time friend and colleague Robert prominently in “the straw that broke Jenson’s apologia: rhe camel’s back” leading directly to his resignation, an incident regarding the What made Carl Braaten overturn his life is a judgment: seminaries of the appointment of LSTC faculty, which is ELCA are now institutions emphati- too complicated to unravel here (M emoirs, cally inhospitable to theological work 128-130). and instruction, and are likely to The second factor dominating his remain so for the foreseeable future. decision to resign from LSTC was the (Memoirs, 127) “radical transformation of the ethos and modus operandi of the school” (M em oirs, Beyond Carl-tractator’spost hoc ergo prop- 121). At the heart of what Carl calls the ter hoc construal of the formation of the “radical transformation” was the addi- ELCA as the across-the-board cause of tion of nine Christ Seminary— the Lutheran devolution into the evils of faculty at LSTC. In Carl’s telling, this liberal Protestantism, which you can also is a story about how “in due course” a hear in Jenson’s apologia, two other factors seminary (LSTC) that had been “a mi- conspicuously appear in the story line of his crocosm of ethnic pluralism in American resignation. First is the “various forms of Lutheranism” became “dominate[d]” heresy emanating from radical theological by the “German background” of these feminism,” which he first encountered in “like-minded” Seminex facultyM ( em oirs, 1972 when Rosemary Radford Ruether 120). Having myself been a Seminex wrote “a stinging rejoinder” to a 1971 student, I can tell you that they were not essay on women’s liberation that he had like-minded. It would not take much written for Dialog: A Journal o f Theology for Carl-treatiser’s Sic-et-N on mode and (Memoirs, 109). The heretical potential mood to figure that out. becomes actual in liturgical God-language. On the one hand, Carl indicates, While Carl-treatiser is perfectly capable “These things happened [at LSTC] not of tackling these issues (M em oirs, 112), because of any conspiracy, but simply the temptation to tractator mode and because of the personal competence and mood seems at times to overwhelm him. energetic leadership of these Seminex col- leagues” who “were all intelligent and well Carl recalls how in the late 1980s he just educated, with an impressive work ethic” plain “quit going to chapel” at LSTC (Memoirs, 120). O n the other hand, there is after writing a letter of protest to the a decided air of consternation in his telling administration at what he notes was the that begins to tweak the mode and mood very “first time” that a “blatant” excising of Carl-tractator. It begins with sentences of trinitarian language took place in the like: “the old guard at LSTC was marginal- LSTC morning chapel ( M em oirs, 109).13 ized” and “soon the day-to-day administra-

13. Carl-tractator takes over, for tion of LSTC was firmly in their hands.” instance, where he lumps together various Likely, Carl would say that these were just feminist theologians into the category of facts. But soon the decibels get elevated in “post-Christian feminism” when some are clearly not “post-Christian,” even though by then well-honed mode and mood? Hard he assures his reader that this is “accurate” to know from a distance, but surely it is part (M em oirs, 109). And, how bound up is “So and parcel o f Carl-tractator’s stylized narra- I quit going to chapel” with Carl-tractator’s tive of decline in M em oirs. Sim pson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

383 the narrative of decline: “ [Seminex faculty as] advocates of progressive agendas;” “the That might lead readers to as- poison of political correctness spread into sume that “the label” would be pinned every aspect of seminary life; ” “the cult of only on those who deny the uniqueness egalitarianism drove out every remnant of and universality of Christ, like the thor- elitism;” “Orwellian shades of 1984 had oughgoing religious pluraliste, or who arrived” M ( em oirs, 120-121). After so outright reject the , like certain elevating the decibels it seems that Carl- post-Christian feminists. treatiser himself even finds it necessary Now, however, in the sentence im- to interrupt, however momentarily, the mediately following the generic allegation predominant tractator mode and mood ofantinomianism atLSTC, Carl-tractator’s with the disclaimer that all “this was not apoplexy springs a second, more lethal unilaterally the work of Seminex faculty,” leak. He names names, the source of the the “this” being “the transformation of heresy: Robert Bertram and Edward Schro- LSTC into a modern Protestant seminary, eder, two Seminex professors of systematic hospitable to the many isms of American theology, Carl’s own specific discipline culture” M ( em oirs, 121). at LSTC. Only Bertram had come to But momentary it is! The tractator LSTC in 1983. He had been a prominent temptation remains alive and tempting theologian and member of both the U.S. and presses in relentlessly on Carl. Over Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue team and the next three paragraphs, Carl-tractator’s the Faith and Order Commission of the consternation turns absolutely apoplectic. World Council of Churches. Carl-treatiser First, he alleges a general statement that on had once even lauded Bertram by putting the face of it implicates LSTC as a whole. him on his “short list” of three prominent “The theology that backed up the ‘para- Lutheran theologians who kept the doctrine digm shift’ at LSTC was either antinomian of justification by faith alone vibrant on the or a close relative” (Memoirs, 121). All U.S. scene.14 Bertram and Schroeder both the reader gets for substantiation for this taught, says Carl-tractator correctly, that generic allegation of heresy is ironic false Lutheran confessional theology, and Luther modesty: “This is merely the opinion of as well, does not teach what is often called, one faculty member who taught at LSTC and meant to be, a “third use of the law,” for thirty years” M ( em oirs, 122). Bad which, beyond the first two uses, guides enough, this tractator mode and mood, the Spirit-led new creature in Christ. a reader might think! However, as already The “third use of the law” issue has noted in our opening section, Carl had been a neuralgic question for some time in sought in his Preface to quell his readers’ Lutheran circles, and it is also more com- jitteriness regarding the theologian’s task plicated than can be addressed thoroughly of “keep[ing] the church from crossing the in this setting. In M emoirs Carl-tractator line from orthodoxy into heresy” with this offers no analysis of the question; he offers assurance: only single-sentence definitions of each use, definitions too vague to be analytically But I am not interested in pinning the label “heretic” or “apostate” on any 14. Carl Braaten, Justification: The theologian. Oh, well, there may be a Article by Which the Church Stands or Falls few such, especially those in outright (: Fortress, 1990), 17. The other denial of the divinity of Christ or the two on Carl-treatiser’s short list are Robert resurrection of Jesus Memoirs ( , viii). Jenson and Gerhard Forde. Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

384 helpful. Still, Carl-tractator states: “They doubt.” He did, however, plant his flag, [Bertram and Schroeder] reject[ed] the however aslant, and argued, “it would third use of the law.... [and along with] be better not to speak of a third use [m] any modern Lutherans.. .have jumped of the law.”161 say “aslant” because he from the frying pan of legalism into the attributes this caveat against the third fire of antinomianism....[Bertram and use to “many minds.” Still, he goes on Schroeder] moved in a straight line from to adopt the resulting argument as his the rejection of the third use of the law to own point of view, even noting that the support of the gay/lesbian agenda that we discover “a link” between taking has since taken the ELCA by the throat” Christ as our example and “the first (Memoirs, 121 ).15 use of the law.” “The neighbor is the Antinomianism is quite rightly a link.” There is no mention whatsoever serious issue. However, it seems that Carl- of antinomianism. tractator simply alleges “antinomianism” 2. In 1983 Carl-treatiser skirted alto- or “a close relative [to antinomianism] ” or gether the third use of the law issue “rank antinomianism” when Carl-treatiser in his Principles o f Lutheran Theology.17 has produced little to refute those who dis- Was the neuralgia too much? Or the agree on any grounds whatsoever with the question too complicated? Or what? historic norm of heterocentrism and the 3. In his 1987 essay honoring the very moral condemnation of same-sex sexuality. vocation of Robert Bertram, Carl-trea- This is especially true when he conflates tiser planted his flag more vigorously those who reject a Lutheran teaching of on the third use of the law question: the third use of the law with antinomian “this [Carl’s own point of view] is not heretics, as he does with Bertram and so much the third use of the law as the Schroeder. Both of them, like Carl himself, second use of the gospel.”18 Here Carl- follow moral reasoning on treatiser makes no mention whatsoever questions ofsexuality. Bertram himself, in of antinomianism. fact, never did suggest a new sexual norm. 4. Robert Benne, himself a frequent critic Conflating the third use of the law is- of the ELCA, especially of its 2009 sue with antinomianism is a Carl-tractator position on same-sex sexuality, and a thing, and a mistake. I offer the following former LSTC colleague of Carl’s, said as food for thought. the following in 1998 on the third 1. In 1966 Carl-treatiser noted that use of the law: “For the mainstream “Lutherans are found to be far from Lutheran ethical tradition, however, a consensus” on the third use of the there is no third use of the law that law. He even notes, “Here we do not stipulates a specifically Christian wish to raise the historical question form of existence replete with distinc- whether Luther and the Lutheran 16. Carl Braaten, “Reflections on the confessional writings actually taught Lutheran Doctrine of the Law,” Lutheran a third use. Enough has been written Q uarterly 18 (February 1966): 80—81. on that to keep the matter forever in 17. Carl Braaten, Principles o f Lutheran Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 15. Dear readers, let me alert you again 1 27 -1 3 3 . that I am invested here, since Schroeder and Bertram were my dissertation advisors, 18. Carl Braaten, “Whatever Happened which also vests me with first-hand knowl- to ,” Currents in Theology edge of their . and Mission 14 (April 1987): 117. Simpson. W hatever Became o f Carl Braaten?

385 tive patterns of obedience.” He even 1first and second uses of the law, they also defends this mainstream Lutheran teach 1 the second use of the gospel and criti- ethical tradition against the allegation cize1 a third use of the law. They are thereby of “antinomianism.”19 i in no way antinomian. Carl-treatiser’s own Ifledgling thoughts on the third use remain -reliable than Carl-tractator’s allega נ Not until Carl-tractator’s faux apocalyptic, more Manichaean, totalistic mode and mood ,tions in Memoirs. generally steamrolled Carl-treatiser on So, caveat lector—reader beware— of the Lutheran landscape, and especially !Carl tractator’s farraginous Memoirs. Still, -God and thank Carl for Carl ן over sexuality, does Carl-tractator allege a praise “straight line” from critics of the third use treatiser, , the better herald of Lutheran of the law to the heresy of antinomianism. , theology! Bertram and Schroeder not only teach the

19. Robert Benne, “Lutheran Eth- ics: Perennial Themes and Contemporary Challenges,” in Karen Bloomquist and John Stumme, eds., The Promise o f Lutheran Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 16.

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