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Lutheran Tradition: Five Continuing Themes Walter R Intersections Volume 1997 | Number 2 Article 4 1997 Lutheran Tradition: Five Continuing Themes Walter R. Bouman Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/intersections Augustana Digital Commons Citation Bouman, Walter R. (1997) "Lutheran Tradition: Five Continuing Themes," Intersections: Vol. 1997: No. 2, Article 4. Available at: http://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/intersections/vol1997/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Intersections by an authorized administrator of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LUTHERAN TRADITION: FIVE CONTINUING THEMES Walter R. Bouman Lutherans are "a decent, humble people," says Garrison places where all threse arguments are -- or ought to be -­ Keillor, the Lutheran church's best knownapologete. And vigorously taking place. they may have much to be humble about. In the USA, Lutherans are in themiddle of the middle class, withlower I. The LutheranTr adition is Biblical average incomes than Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and members of the United Church of Christ, higher average Martin Luther (1463-1546) was a monumental figure in incomes than Baptists, Pentecostals, and members of Westernhistory, larger than lifein his own life-time. He is holiness churches. Only 12% of Lutherans are college of great importance to theLutheran tradition, but he is not graduates(compared with 34% forEpiscopalians), but they the founderof a religious institution in thesense in which, have a high respectfor college education. 1 My assignment forexample, Mary Baker Eddy is thefounder of the Church is to describe the Lutheran theological tradition forcollege of Christ, Scientist. He died excommunicated,5 beforethere faculty members at colleges related to the Evangelical was a "LutheranChurch. " If there is a "foundingdate" for Lutheran Church in America. the Lutheran Church it would be the Religious Peace of Augsburg of 1555.6 The text of this agreement for the I propose to carryout my assignmentby addressing what I nearly 250 political entities which made up the German believe to be themost importanttheological commitmentsof "Holy Roman Empire" also indicates that the Augsburg the Lutheran tradition. It is impossible to tell the complex Confession,not the theology of MartinLuther, is normative story of theLutheran theological traditionin the course of forthe Lutheran Church. onel ecture.2 What mighthelp to makethe task manageable is Alasdair Maclntyre'sdescription of a tradition. I II II I II I I I I I I !+++++++++++++++++++++++ A living tradition then is an historically extended, When an institution -- a university, say, or farm, or socially embodied argument, and an argument, hospital-- is the bearer of a tradition of practice or preciselyin partabout the goodswhich constitute that practices, its common life will be partly, but in centrally tradition. importantway, constituted by a continuous argument as to what a universityis and ought to be or what good farming I II I I I II I I I II II I I l++++II I I I I++++++++++ is or what good medicine is, Traditions, when vital, embody Neverthelessit is instructiveto lookbriefly at the origins of continuities of conflict. .. A living tradition then is an historically extended, socially embodied argument, and an the reformmovement which eventually became the Lutheran argument, precisely in part about the goods which Church. In 1515-16, the financialneeds of thepapacy, the constitute that tradition.3 imminent election of a new emperor, and the political ambitions of the Elector of Brandenburg combined in a 7 Albrecht of Brandenburg, newly I wantto identify five themes4 which I believe arecentral to rather sordid scheme. appointed Archbishop of Mainz, used the sale of the Lutheran theological tradition. These themes embody the"continuity of conflict"which MacIntyresays constitutes indulgencesto fmance his purchase of a papal dispensation so that, contrary to canon law, he could occupy three a tradition. I cannottrace each of themthroughout Lutheran history. But I can indicatetheir roots in the16th centuryand bishoprics. His primary salesman was an unscrupulous something of the case that can be made for them today. Dominicanmonk, Johann Tetzel. Tetzel was not allowed to peddle his wares in Electoral These are themes about which Lutherans argue, for if Lutheranism is a living tradition, it is "an historically Saxony, but he came close enough to Wittenberg, where extended,socially embodied argument." But more thanthat, Luther was professor of Bible at the recently founded university,so thatparishioners from St. Mary's, Wittenberg, these themes identify the Lutheran voice in that argument e which is thelarger Christian tradition. Extending this point whereLuther was alsoone of thepreach rs andconfessors, even farther, these themes are the way Lutherans are returned with indulgence documents which, they thought, involvedin the argumentabout what it meansto be human. gave themforgiveness for future as well as past sins. Luther The collegesand universities related to the ELCA arespecial denounced this outrageous distortion of the church's Intersections/Winter 1997 4 traditional teaching on indulgence in an eloquent sermon reformed. All of this was done in the name of the authority earlyin 1517. Seven monthslater, on October 31, he posted of the Bible versus the teaching authority of certain 95 Latin thesesfor debate in theacademic communityon the institutions in the church. trueteaching about repentance, confession, and forgiveness. By theend of thecentury and the beginningof what came to The 95 Theses arenot a declarationof independence. Luther be known as the "Age of Orthodoxy" (I prefer the term proposed debate on them "out of love and zeal for the truth "Scholasticism" to "Orthodoxy"), the authority of the Bible and the desire to bring it to light,. 118 Luther was a complex came to be regarded as foundational and essential to the person, and we know more about his thoughts than we do intellectual defense of Protestantism. It was supported by about any other pre-modem historical figure. 9 But his the (non-Biblical) doctrine of the Bible's direct inspiration concern for "the truth" about Christian teaching, worship, by Godthe Holy Spirit. Its divine origin was contrasted with and life is a constant throughout his long and stormy career. all othersources of knowledge and information,which were said to be of humanorigin. Because the Bible was regarded to be of divine origin, its literal statements were held to be It was this concernfor "the truth" which led him to challenge infallible, inerrant,on all matters about which it spoke. "No many developments in medieval doctrine and piety, error, even in unimportant matters,no defect of memory, not especially if these developments seemed to be in conflict to say untruth, can have any place in all the Holy withwhat Lutherbelieved to be the apostolic gospel. It was Scriptures. "10 not long before Luther, in a 1519 debate with Johann Eck, one of his most severe critics, found himself asserting the The idea that Holy Scripture was inspired and inerrant was primacy of the Bible over against the teaching authority of common groundfor Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Calvinists, popes and councils. and Anabaptists. They argued over interpretation. All regarded the theological interpreters of Holy Scripture as Luther did not claim, as did some of his reforming having primacy on university faculties. Theology was contemporaries,that only what is Biblical can be regarded as "Queen of the Sciences," remembering that scientia is Christian. He had a healthy regard and appreciation for simplythe Latin term for knowledge. But the claim that the many developments in Christian history, for the creeds and Bible was inerrant in matters of history, geography, the dogmatic formulations of the ancient church, for music, naturalsciences, languages, and indeed any area of learning hymnody, and liturgy, for the memory and example of the was a claimwaiting to be challenged. Making the claim led saints, forthe sacramental power of the Eucharist, Baptism, to the dissolution of the age of scholasticism and its Confession, and Ordination, for the visual arts and replacement by the Enlightenment at the beginning of the iconography of the church. 18th century. But he did claim that these developments could not be I I I I I I I I I I I I II!+++++++++++++++++++++++ uncriticallyaccepted on thebasis of the teaching authority of Can the Lutheran tradition still carry on an argument thepopes and thecouncils. Only those developments which about authority, especially the authority of the Bible? were not opposed to the gospel could be accepted. By the ++I I I I I I I I I I I!++++++++++++++++++++++++ middle of the next decade serious reforms were introduced inthe churches of various German principalities and cities, But "replacement" is too mild a term. The scholastic reformswhich soon spread to other parts of Europe, largely doctrine of the Bible was used by the theologians to mount because of Wittenberg University. fierceopposition to anynew discoveries and learningswhich seemed to disagree with Biblical information. The Mass was celebrated inthe vernacular language. The chalice consequence was thatalmost all of the new disciplines in the was restored to the laity at communion. The prayers which natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities made theMass anoffering to Godinstead of a gift
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