Free Sample Issue Special Edition LUTHERAN FORUM Free Sample Issue Special Edition
From the Editor Hagiography Still Life with Baptism St. Nenilava Sarah Hinlicky Wilson 2 James B. Vigen 27
Old Testament Global Lutheranism The Trinity in Ezekiel Lars Levi Laestadius and the Nordic Revival Robert W. Jenson 7 Hannu Juntunen 34
New Testament Beyond Augsburg The Lament of the Responsible Child Mennonites and Lutherans Re-Remembering the Past Elisabeth Ann Johnson 10 John D. Roth 39
American Lutheran History Doctrine Exploding the Myth of the Boat The Prenatal Theology of Mark A. Granquist 13 Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg Joy Schroeder 44 Lex Orandi Lex Credendi Longing for the Longest Creed Public Witness Robert Saler 16 Whether Lawyers and Judges, Too, Can Be Saved Humes Franklin Jr. 51 Seedlings How to Revive a Dying Parish And Now For Something Completely Different Brad Hales 19 The Book That Cost a Cow: A Lutheran Testimony (Of Sorts) Hymn Piotr J. Małysz 55 “Jesus Christ, Our Great Redeemer” Martin Luther 22 Cover A Thousand Years of Catholics, Lutherans, and Studies in Luther Revolutionaries in Strasbourg’s Cathedral Brother Martin, Augustinian Friar Andrew L. Wilson 64 Jared Wicks, S.J. 23
Please send editorial correspondence and manuscript submissions to: [email protected]. Editor All Bible quotations from the esv unless otherwise noted. Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Subscribe to Lutheran Forum at
Still Life with Baptism Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
In commemoration of the five hundredth anniversary American congregations on the east coast, baptized me. I of the beginning of the Reformation was his first grandchild and born the day after his birthday. and in gratitude to God for Martin Luther, Years later on his deathbed he would bless me to take up Confessor of the Christian faith the mantle of Christian ministry, to the surprise of us both. But the greater blessing was the baptism. “Sarah Ellen,” he said, scooping the water out of the shallow bowl set in the 1976 font, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the “My faith does not make baptism; rather, it receives baptism.” Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And the congregation said: I don’t remember the event I am about to report. I was “Amen.” only thirty-seven days old at the time. Then my young mother had the dubious honor of being St. Lucas Evangelical Lutheran Church, its name an the very last woman to undergo the churching of women Americanization of the Slovak Svätý Lukáš (Saint Luke), rite at my grandfather’s hands. “I don’t think I’m going to had blue windows. No stained-glass images of the good do this anymore,” he said afterward. Maybe it was the look shepherd or Moses with his curly snake, just drifting shades on her face. of blue. They cast a cooling tint over the sanctuary and When it was all over, I am told, there was an epic party. somehow made the roof of interlocking wooden beams Because— mounted atop plain brick walls look even higher. The bap- “It is of the greatest importance that we regard baptism as tismal font was straight out of a catalog, an undistinguished excellent, glorious, and exalted.” oak affair ringed round with vaguely Celtic carvings and a gold-plated lid shaped like a chess pawn. 1984 It was a Sunday because private family baptisms were already on the way out. But by the constituency of the “The power, effect, benefit, fruit, and purpose of baptism is that it congregation you might have taken it for a family baptism saves. To be saved, as everyone well knows, is nothing else than to be anyway. Baptism was a big enough deal to draw the New delivered from sin, death, and the devil, to enter into Christ’s kingdom, Jersey and Michigan branches of the family all the way to and to live with him forever.” St. Louis, all by car, hence the choice of the long Fourth St. Peter’s had brokered a deal with Citibank. The bank of July weekend for the event—definitely not any especial could build its fifty-nine-story Citicorp Center in midtown patriotism to mark my rebirth in Christ on the exact same Manhattan over the site of the old Lutheran church, on the day that America was celebrating its two hundredth birth- condition that it built the congregation a new church in the day. Everyone was there: both sets of grandparents, all five same spot, sealed off from the tower of Babel and its mam- of my uncles (as of yet no aunts), distant cousins, family mon ways. The resulting skyscraper had its supporting col- friends, and all the parishioners gladly claiming kinship umns at the sides instead of the corners to accommodate with fellow Slovaks. Jaroslav Vajda preached. the new church—a design so structurally unsound that My grandfather Hinlicky, a long-time pastor of Slovak- the year after its construction it was secretly rewelded at
2 Special Edition night over the course of three months. The general public didn’t find out the danger it could have posed till nearly twenty years later. The new church, however, was a rare case of beauty and elegance in a modern key. The ceiling soared, the vast white walls recalled the vault of heaven, right-angled blond wood pews on three sides and tangram organ pipes bespoke a conviction that the Holy Spirit would abundantly fill in the remaining space. Of great- est fascination to me was the baptis- mal font: a deep square stone pool, gently simmering and rippling across the surface. I’d seen grown men and women slide under the water at the Easter Vigil. I was excited to see my baby brother, not even a month old, undergo the same treatment. It was the eighth of January, cold and slushy outside, the baptismal water barely warm within. Not quite the full complement of uncles was in attendance this time, nor the Slovak front, though one of Will’s godpar- ents counted among the tribe. John Damm, already an old pro at immers- ing babies, took my tiny brother and me ever after was a scroll of printer 1994 plunged him in three times, once for paper, rolled up and tied with a rib- each Person of the holy Trinity. And “Thus a Christian life is nothing else than bon, presented to me ceremonially. It each time he came forth Will bellowed a daily baptism, begun once and continuing was headed: “Submitted for approval with the full force of his infant lungs in ever after.” to the committee to ensure a faith- rage and protest. My year in Slovakia was drawing to ful, honorable, and interesting life When it was all over, Damm a close. My family life as I had always for sarah ellen hinlicky.” A num- quipped, “We sure drowned the old known it was drawing to a close. I’d fin- ber of “whereby” clauses ensued, Adam out of that one!” ished high school a year early to spend detailing the history of my life thus From that day on I’ve been con- what would have been my senior year vinced that Will’s was the only fitting with my parents and brother on their God Himself stakes response to everything that baptism is: adventure of moving to Slovakia, but seizure from the clutches of death and in less than two months I’d be repatri- His honor the devil; drowning of the sinful self; ating, and less than two months after being crucified with Christ; getting that starting college. On an evening on baptism. thrust into a new life without prepara- late in May we went to dinner to cel- tion or choice; enduring the radiance ebrate my eighteenth birthday: adult- far, which then gave way to a “there- of God’s mercy while still saddled hood, or so government and culture fore”: “therefore, we, having unex- with reluctantly converted flesh. told me. I did not want to leave, I had pectedly but gladly become parents of “These two parts, being dipped under the never approved of growing up, and I this young person eighteen years ago, water and emerging from it, point to the power was unprepared for the next frontier. do bestow and bequeath everything and effect of baptism, which is nothing else Except that I was, whether I liked it upon her which she will need in order than the slaying of the old Adam and the re- or not, just as I got baptized whether to successfully conduct the balance of surrection of the new creature, both of which I liked it or not. My parents gave me her years upon this Earth.” must continue in us our whole life long.” an assortment of presents, but the My goodly heritage followed. And one that meant most and stuck with first on the list:
Lutheran Forum 3 of water you do the business in. But something about relinquishing your child over flowing waters, waters headed downstream as fast as gravity will allow, waters that will drown as easily as they will irrigate, eliminates all sanitary and sanitizing notions of “bath” and “washing” from the mind and focuses maternal anxiety squarely on “we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). Not that my dad could quite bring himself to put his first and only grand- son all the way under; he lacked John Damm’s long experience. Still, the boy went into the water, wet and cold and shocking to his eight-month-old flesh. He gasped and clenched up at each of his three semi-immersions. “—in the name of the Father,” gasp-clench, The lifelong promise given to her As it turned out, the local Luther- “and of the Son,” gasp-clench, “and of in her baptism on July 4, 1976. In ans—known in the rural corners of the Holy Spirit,” gasp-clench. But no the words of Martin Luther: To southwestern Virginia as “country screaming this time. Some deaths go appreciate and use Baptism aright, we Catholics”—were delighted at the gently. must draw strength and comfort from it prospect of not only a Lutheran but a In this way, thirty years after I got when our sins or conscience oppress us, baby getting saved in the New River. baptized by my grandfather Hin- and we must retort: “But I am bap- Each of the congregations threw us licky, whose birthday was the day tized! And if I am baptized, I have the a baby shower (due as much to non- before mine, my son got baptized by promise that I shall be saved and have acceptance of their undesired yoking his grandfather Hinlicky, whose birth- eternal life, both in soul and body.” as to exuberance on our behalf), and day was the day before his. We took when the day arrived they spontane- it as a providential pattern to confirm ously organized lawn mowing to clear the divinely arranged place of our the path from church to river and van adopted son in his new family. 2006 service for old folks who couldn’t walk Zeke’s baptism came right in time. “Baptism is a very different thing from all that far. I needed him baptized, because I was other water, not by virtue of the natural sub- Everything but the final critical floundering in the worst faith crisis of stance but because here something nobler is words took place in the sanctuary of my life. I can’t now reconstruct why, or added, for God himself stakes his honor, his the modest nineteenth-century brick what it was about, even; I remember power, and his might on it. Therefore it is not walls and red doors and red carpet only the long affliction and demoral- simply a natural water, but a divine, heav- that made up the church: godparental izing fear that none of this was true. enly, holy, and blessed water—praise it in vows (offered by my brother Will and, It didn’t do me any good anymore to any other terms you can—all by virtue of the on Andrew’s side, by our sister-in-law Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word that no Katie), flood prayer, renunciation of My small baptized one can sufficiently extol, for it contains and the devil, and creed. Then the whole conveys all that is God’s.” assembly decamped from the build- son’s witness The question was whether Andrew ing and traversed the hundred or so and I could have our son baptized in yards to the riverbank. Most everyone restored me to the river that ran behind one of the stayed up top. My dad, officiating, and churches in my parents’ two-point Andrew and I picked our way down my own baptism. parish. My dad wasn’t sure. “Pente- the stony path to the water, tucked up costals go down there all the time for our respective alb or trousers or dress, declare, “But I am baptized!” Because baptisms,” he told me, “but I’m not and waded in, with a characteristically what if baptism was—nothing? sure if a Lutheran’s ever been bap- relaxed and happy Ezekiel Zelaya in During this time Zeke was starting tized there before. Let’s see how the our arms. to talk. The first thing he learned to re- congregation reacts first.” It makes no never mind what kind cognize and love was frogs. “Froggy!”
4 Special Edition he’d shout. The second was Jesus. He could pick Jesus out anywhere, no mat- ter how varied the artwork. A wooden sculpture of Jesus’ face crowned with thorns—a stern Byzantine icon—a Reformation-era altarpiece—a senti- mental painting—a children’s Bible: he always knew it was Jesus, and he would always point, like a little John the Baptist, crying out, “Jeezy! Jeezy!” And he was always so happy to see “Jeezy.” In time, as mysteriously as the unbelief came over me it departed again, unable to resist Zeke’s joyful infant faith. That’s what healed me. Not books or thoughts or church ser- vices or my own flattened prayers. My small baptized son’s witness restored me to my own baptism. “Therefore baptism remains forever. Even though someone falls from it and sins, we always have access to it so that we may again subdue the old creature.” populations of babies and converts. Art Nouveau Lutheran church I’ve Opportunities arose to preach, and even seen. On the back wall gleams more rarely still to preside at the Sup- a Tiffany-glass Good Shepherd, and 2017 per, both of which I seized, but nary at the front is an elaborate mosaic of “To be baptized in God’s name is to be bap- a baptism. Christ did not send me to the Virgin and Child, whose pearly tized not by human beings but by God himself. baptize but to ponder Christian dis- sheen matches the white marble altar Although it is performed by human hands, it unity, which Paul could just as easily below. And also matches, somewhat is nevertheless truly God’s own act.” have written to his fissiparous congre- less fortuitously, the baptismal font: a By the time the long-anticipated gation at Corinth. life-size kneeling angel with drooping anniversary year of the Reformation Natalie, a pastor herself, knew of wings and a giant scallop shell bal- rolled around, I had been ordained my plight, and long before she had anced between white marble hands— more than a decade but had not yet the child, much less the husband, by theologically ambiguous at best. baptized one single soul into the body which to validate her promise, she The baptism took place on Epiph- of Christ. announced that I would be the one any, which fell on the eighth of Janu- I took comfort in St. Paul’s remark, to baptize her firstborn into the king- ary, the anniversary of my brother’s “Christ did not send me to baptize dom of God. I was moved by the act baptism. In the course of the service but to preach the gospel” (i Corin- of friendship but didn’t give it much I did three things I had never done thians 1:17), as if there were noth- more thought. Providence evidently ing self-evident about conjoining the took the vow more seriously. The hus- I felt I was living in two activities, Augsburg Confession band arrived in due course (informed v notwithstanding. At least so I told on an early date of the baptismal stip- an unconsummated myself whenever I felt I was living in ulation, before the marriage discus- an unconsummated ordination. sion was even on the table; he took it ordination. Circumstances had everything to well), and then the baby. And then the do with it. My one spell of parish abundance of the Holy Spirit: Natalie before: I wore a cope; I genuflected; ministry lasted less than two years, the asked me to be godmother as well as and I baptized. One of the congre- youngest members were forty years baptizer, and to baptize her nephew as gational pastors led me and the other older than me, and neither babies well as her daughter. “Instead of your godparents through our vows. Then I nor converts were to be found in our shame there shall be a double por- switched sides and finally, finally, cel- midst. I spent the next eight years in a tion” (Isaiah 61:7). ebrated the other sacrament. call to a research position in ecumeni- This time it was at the magnificent Thomas first: he was a toddler cal theology: also not known for large First Lutheran in Pittsburgh, the only already, delighted at the proceedings,
Lutheran Forum 5 splashing his hands in the angel’s shell gregational sickness and division and in short, it is so full of comfort and grace as I swept the water over his head and disunity. At times I have wondered that heaven and earth cannot comprehend it.” placed the name of the triune God on why I stick with it, why the Almighty LF him. Then Maryam, my long-awaited sees fit to entrust His ministry of rec- goddaughter, who obliged her theolo- onciliation to such egregiously unrec- Quotations in italics are taken from Mar- tin Luther’s Large Catechism in The Book gian godmother by screaming out all onciled ambassadors, myself included. of Concord: The Confessions of the Evan- the forces of evil, the devil, and all his But when I baptized—when God bap- gelical Lutheran Church, eds. Robert Kolb empty promises as I laid the true and tized through my hands and voice—it and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: everlasting promises of God upon her. was such pure, abject, radiant joy that Fortress, 2000), except for the final quotation I have spent a lot of years by now I knew I was all in, forever and ever, in the section “1994,” which comes from The struggling with the Christian faith, thanks be to God, alleluia and amen. Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangeli- cal Lutheran Church, ed. Theodore G. Tappert with the disappointments of the “Baptism is far more glorious that any- (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959). church, with bad theology and con- thing else God has commanded and ordained;
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6 Special Edition Old Testament
The Trinity in Ezekiel
Robert W. Jenson
ince as a systematic theologian I have written much series of different messages is always the same being—a Sabout the Trinity, and as a very late-blooming biblical phenomenon that appears also with other prophets.6 Per- scholar I have published a commentary on Ezekiel, it was haps we may say that this Word is a singular and active probably inevitable that I would be asked to connect the Message who enables and authorizes particular messages. two. And if the commentary is, as advertised by Brazos Is then the Word the Lord’s speech or is the Word the Lord Press, a “theological” commentary, and my theology is, as speaking? In Ezekiel’s use of the phrase, it would seem we claimed by me, biblical, this should be possible. must think of both at once. And so we encounter the very As it happens, finding the Trinity in Ezekiel is easy; no Word Who appears in John’s prologue and in developed figurative or other special reading is required, appropriate trinitarian theology. as such exegesis may be in other contexts or with other Old “The hand of the Lord” is a frequent Old Testament Testament books. All that is required is willingness to re- expression for the Lord’s impetus in His people’s history. cognize trinitarian accounts and rhetoric when they are on In Ezekiel, “The hand of the Lord was… upon me” is his the page before us—a willingness, to be sure, still not com- invariable description of the onset of prophetic vision, mon in the guild of designated biblical scholars. Indeed, which is thus felt as a forceful act of the Lord, as a sort of the more interesting question is not “Where can we find liberating blow. We are therefore not surprised to discover the Trinity in Ezekiel?” but rather “What can Ezekiel teach that when Ezekiel is in a vision, he is under the control of us about the Trinity?” “the Spirit,” the wind, ruach, of God Who through much of the Old Testament account blows Israel’s history for- ward. At least in Ezekiel, “the Hand of the Lord” and “the I Spirit” have finally the same referent. The Trinity is plainly delineated in the book’s first verses The joint work of the Word and the Hand/Spirit in Eze- that introduce the prophet and his call.1 Ezekiel first intro- kiel’s prophesying is the revelation of the Lord from Whom duces himself: “As I was among the exiles by the river Che- they come. Within that work they have each their own part: bar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. one is and enables word and the other is and enables vision, And the hand of the Lord was on me there.”2 Then an nor do they ever exchange roles. We should attend to this, editor introduces him again3: “The Word of the Lord came for Western theology has been vitiated by a persistent error. to the priest Ezekiel… in the land of the Chaldeans by the It is a necessary and ecumenically accepted doctrine that river Chebar.” Here are two different modes of revelation, “the externally directed works of the Trinity are indivis- vision and word, with their respective agents, the Hand of ible.”7 But in the West this has often been taken8 to mean the Lord and the Word of the Lord. Here also is the One that the three triune persons all do or can do the same “of ” Whom both the Word and the Hand are revelations/ thing9: that, for central example, any of the three could revealers. And—a decisive point—the editor who interpo- have become incarnate. Or—for truly bizarre sticking to lated the one introduction, with its description of verbal a bad rule—that in principle the voice at Jesus’ baptism revelation to the prophet, did not erase the other.4 In the could be the Spirit and the dove a symbol of the Father. canonical text, revelation by advent of the Word and rev- It is at least arguable that the dysfunction of trinitarian elation by impact of the Hand together make the structure of understanding in much Western churchly life10 is partly the the Lord’s revelation through Ezekiel. result of this blunder. Ezekiel knows no such abstractions Throughout Ezekiel’s book, “The Word of the Lord and we should learn from him: the works of the Word and came to me” is the regular introduction to his reception of the Hand/Spirit are indivisible in that precisely by their of a verbal prophecy, most of which begin, “Thus says the difference they make one joint work of revelation. In the lan- Lord…”5 The arriving Word is not the particular proph- guage—but too often not in the assertion—of developed ecy being enabled; rather the Word that brings Ezekiel a doctrine, the “missions” may for some purposes be distin-
Lutheran Forum 7 guished from the “processions,” but knew of an actual identifiable man, Ezekiel’s prophesying. are not other than them. with His personal story and personal There is, however, what classical name, Who shines like the figure on trinitarian teaching calls “perichore- the throne16: Jesus on the mountain of sis,” mutual interplay. In Ezekiel this II Transfiguration. Who could the man for the most part consists in the alter- Ezekiel’s call to prophecy occurs as on the throne be but He? nation and mutual reinforcement of and in a vision (1:4–3:15), in accord It is usually supposed that the tri- word and vision within the dramatic with his self-introduction. By the Bab- une second person is incarnate only sweep of the book. For Ezekiel’s book ylonian river Chebar, he sees the tre- after Mary becomes pregnant, and in does have an overall dramatic struc- mendous arrival—but on wheels!—of some pickwickian sense this must be ture, which has been noticed since God’s heavenly throne,11 whose true. But what if the man on Tabor is its earliest exegetes. There is a first earthly double was the cherubim- already on the cherubim-throne? We large group of chapters proclaiming throne in the Temple. The throne would have to rethink our notions of and envisioning judgment on Israel bears the “glory of the Lord,” which time. And indeed, can we really plot for its faithlessness (1:4–24:27), then a resolves into an “appearance” that is the life of God on any linear scheme, transitional group shifting blame and “the figure of a man” (1:26, my trans- so that the man on the throne can- punishment to the nations who were lation). Three trinitarian matters pres- not yet be the man on the mountain? the agents of judgment (25–32), and ent themselves. What in the life of God with us can finally the great oracles and visions of The first. The “glory of the Lord” be the meaning of that “after” or that restoration and eschatological perfec- in Ezekiel has the same structure “already” or that “cannot yet”? Not tion (33–48). These units match the we just noted with the Word of the that there is none, but what is it? Some history through which Ezekiel lived as Lord—and can find elsewhere in the more recondite bits of the doctrine of a prophet: prophesy during the years Old Testament with “the angel of the the Trinity are an effort to think that of exile, to a rebellious people; proph- Lord”12 and “the Name of the Lord.” through. esy against the enemies of a more This mysterious and tremendous13 The third. Let us suppose those than sufficiently punished people; and Shining Forth of the Lord is related fathers had it right. What then does prophesy of a both penultimate and to the Lord by that “of ”—rabbinic the Spirit show Ezekiel when He eschatological return to Zion. speculation even posits conversation has him in His grip? Ezekiel sees no Occasionally, however, the peri- between them. Yet the Glory is simul- abstracted or unidentified figure; choresis of Word and Hand/Spirit taneously the same as the Lord, so that he sees Jesus as the risen Christ. In is tighter and more suggestive of an when Ezekiel sees the Glory’s depar- the New Testament, the work of the interplay in the triune life itself. Some- ture from the desecrated Temple and Spirit is materially defined: “He will times messenger-words beginning the Glory’s return to the eschatologi- take what is mine and declare it to you” with “Thus says the Lord…” are com- cal Temple, what he sees is the Lord’s (John 16:14). The Spirit is not the free- missioned within a vision ruled by the own departure and return (10:18–19, floating innovator of much current Spirit; then no report of the Word’s 11:22–23, 43:1–9). The creed of Nicea Protestant—and indeed “progressive” coming is needed. Thus within the call formulated this relation by saying that Catholic—rhetoric. Just as in this key vision, the man on the throne speaks the “Son of God” is nevertheless homo- scene in Ezekiel, the Spirit shows to to Ezekiel to commission him: “Son of ousion toˉ patri. It is this unique relation His prophets Jesus as the Christ, and a man, I am sending you to the people that is the reality of the second per- those who, allegedly led by the Spirit, of Israel… and you shall say to them, son of Trinity, rather than some logos see something else are false prophets. ‘Thus says the Lord God…’” (2:3–4). asarkos14 or “Christ-principle” or other The Spirit indeed does new things, but Or in the vision of an eschatological metaphysical or metaphorical con- the fact that something is new does not Temple (40–47), after the Glory has struct. prove it is done by the Spirit; there are entered it, He speaks directly to the The second. The Glory on the plenty of other spirits around. prophet to give the laws of its service. throne looks like a man. This can be taken as a piece of anthropomor- III IV phism, in which case we have the task of explaining this “appearance” The Word of the Lord and the Hand/ Perhaps, however, the deepest level of away, or at least of demythologizing Spirit of the Lord, named at the Ezekiel’s trinitarianism is not found in it. But there is another reading, which beginning of Ezekiel’s book, are then such specific features of the revelatory requires no such expedients: fathers through the whole book the carriers action. As I have increasingly empha- of the church supposed that the Glory of the revelatory action. And there sized in more recent writing, the sote- appearing to Ezekiel looked like a is no confusion of their roles; they riological heart of trinitarian doctrine man because He is one.15 For they are not interchangeable aspects of is sheer insistence that God has history
8 Special Edition with Himself and not just with us, and the sword—whether for or against Robert W. Jenson (†2017) was the that in that history He is not other Israel, or in one case both at once. author of Ezekiel, Brazos Theological than in His history with us. As Scrip- The eschatological Promised Land is Commentary on the Bible (Grand ture in fact narrates God’s history laid out by sheer theology rather than Rapids: Brazos, 2009), among many with us, it displays three divine drama- by any conceivable earthly topogra- other books. tis personae, Whom the revealed name phy yet is nevertheless imposed on the calls Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. familiar space between the Mediter- Notes God, says the doctrine, is these three; ranean and the Jordan with its seas. 1. The present text is obviously the result of editorial interpolation, which a due regard they are personae of the life that is God. Sometimes the Lord’s appearance as for canonicity will not think to be theologically Moreover, the history of which Father, a persona within the history He ordains disqualifying. Son, and Spirit are the dramatis personae even determines the literary form: the 2. Verse 3c almost certainly belongs with v. has a plot. The doctrine drastically Lord both tells Ezekiel the great alle- 1; and its pronoun therefore should be “me” as summarizes this plot by the so-called gory of Jerusalem as a foundling and in the Septuagint, not “him” as in the Maso- trinitarian “processions”—the Father faithless bride (ch. 16) and appears retic text. We should not forget that the Sep- tuagint translation was made centuries before begets the Son, the Son is begotten as one of the figures in the allegory. I the Masoretes stabilized the Hebrew text. by the Father, the Father breathes the could go on—and reproduce much of 3. Perhaps in the course of editing a group Spirit on the Son17—and says that my commentary. of prophetic books for uniformity. these relations constitute God’s own The Lord’s personal commitment 4. Observing this sort of editing is often im- life. I could go on with further features to His history with His people, and portant in reading the Old Testament. 5. In the jargon of form criticism, a “mes- of the doctrine, but these are perhaps His compromising involvement in it, senger-word.” enough to set up the following point. have a disconcerting consequence for 6. Gerhard von Rad made this point clear, The most important way in which our understanding of God’s triunity, not only for Ezekiel but for all the prophets. Ezekiel’s prophesying demands such which may be Ezekiel’s—and the 7. If, for example, the Father did the creat- doctrine of God is its relentless refusal Old Testament’s—chief admonition ing by Himself and the Son did the redeeming to separate God’s sovereign life from in this context. When we Christians by Himself, that would make two gods. 8. By theologians, that is. His involvement in features and events come to talk of God, we tend to for- 9. This is a consequence of the view that of the history He ordains. In Ezekiel, get that the present age of His cre- the three are not only equal in deity but identical God ruling history is not other than ation is fallen, that it is conflicted and in deity. God involved within history. The fol- often violent, and that this cannot be 10. And if you don’t think this is the case, lowing sampler is arrayed more or less irrelevant for our understanding of a pay attention to the liturgy and sermon next Trinity Sunday. at random. The sovereign gratuitous Creator who rules by His Word with 11. The old rabbis noted that this is the events of revelation are carefully dated His creatures and by His historically only direct vision of heaven in Israel’s Scrip- according to a succession of this age’s active Hand upon them. Presumably ture. It thus provided the occasion for Merkabah rulers. The heavenly winged throne this God could simply abandon the or “Chariot” mysticism, the attempt to ascend of the opening vision has wheels and fallen creation—which is what any of to God through this opening; mainline Juda- trundles along on the same earth on us would have done—but if He does ism regarded this as dangerous. 12. Of the Old Testament revelations of which Ezekiel’s feet are planted—to not, His speaking and acting within the second triune identity, this is the most fre- the offense of some modern commen- it will involve Him personally with it. quent and spectacular, occuring through the tators, who assign this provision of Which, matters standing as they do, is Pentateuch and the Deuteronomic history. See earthly transport to interpolators not to say that He will precisely as triune especially the Akedah at Genesis 22. up to sublimities. The vision of the be involved in conflict and violence. 13. Otto got this right. 14. Whatever otherwise may be the need eschatological Temple, even as it tran- Therefore, if we hearken to Ezekiel, for this construction. scends what could possibly be built on we will not construe the triune life as a 15. For Gregory the Great’s amazing exe- any site in this age, harps on material serene flow of “unconditional love” or gesis, see my commentary ad loc. embodiment, insisting on providing some other such abstraction. Jesus’ cry 16. That Jesus’ glory is the very glory of detailed measurements in standard of abandonment18 is an event between God is the Orthodox interpretation; West- units, of a plan that follows the layout the Father and the Son; and it sums ern theology has domesticated the vision by making Jesus’ glory “created” glory. The East of ancient temples generally and pro- up the picture of the Lord’s conflict seems to me clearly in the right. vides for animal sacrifice. The Lord’s within history drawn by Ezekiel. Do 17. Some of us think this traditional list is ordaining of Israel’s punishments and bitter love and liberation and even incomplete, but this is probably not the place blessings is not done at a distance; if reconciliation occur in the triune life? to go into that. Israel is to be maintained within actual If we take cues from Ezekiel, we will 18. Moltmann’s exploitation of the cry is too ideology-driven to be quite right. Never- history there will be wars, and the suppose that they do, however we may theless, it is closer to Scripture than the usual Lord takes sides and personally wields further conceptualize that. LF attempts to explain the cry away.
Lutheran Forum 9 New Testament The Lament of the Responsible Child
Elisabeth Ann Johnson
s a doctoral student in New Testament at Princeton and to every aspect of life (not only temple worship). To ATheological Seminary from 1995 to 2000, I had the use a Lutheran phrase, one could say that the Pharisees privilege of working with Donald Juel as his student and believed in “the priesthood of all believers.” They took teaching assistant. With his untimely death in 2003, the seriously God’s calling that they become “a priestly king- church lost a brilliant, passionate interpreter of Scrip- dom and a holy nation” among the Gentiles (Exodus 19:6). ture—one who was never content with easy answers and Throughout Luke’s Gospel, the consistent concern of would not allow his students to be either. He was particu- the Pharisees and scribes2 is Jesus’ seemingly cavalier atti- larly vigilant for the ways we try to protect ourselves from tude toward the law. They confront Jesus and his disciples Scripture by glossing over or explaining away its trouble- particularly about laws regarding Sabbath observance and some elements. His reading of the “Parable of the Prodigal table fellowship (e.g., Luke 5:29–6:11), two sets of practices Son” is a classic example of this vigilance and of his ability especially important to sustaining social and religious cohe- to open up a text with a fresh and often unsettling inter- sion among the Jewish people. What disturbed the Phari- pretation. sees about Jesus was that by sharing table fellowship with What follows is my attempt to communicate the essence “tax collectors and sinners” who showed no regard for the of Juel’s reading of Luke 15:11–32, based primarily on the law, he gave the impression that law observance did not “oral tradition” of his lectures on the Gospel of Luke.1 His matter. Since Jesus was gaining a following among the peo- interpretation will inevitably be intertwined with my own ple, the Pharisees viewed his recklessness about the law as musings. In so doing, I hope to convey a measure of what I dangerous, a threat to religious and social order. and countless other students have learned from him about Jesus responds to the grumbling of the Pharisees and interpreting Scripture and how Scripture interprets us. scribes by telling three parables about God’s concern for the lost. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin par- ny interpretation of a parable must consider its literary allel one another closely. In both cases, the protagonist Acontext. The parable commonly called “The Prodigal searches high and low for what is lost, and in both cases, Son” (Luke 15:11–32) is the third in a series Jesus tells in the rejoicing over finding what was lost provides an image response to the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes: of the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (15:7, 10). “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near Then comes the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” In call- to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were ing the parable by its traditional title, we are predisposed grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and to think that the younger son is the main character in the eats with them’” (15:1–2). story. We also tend to assume that this is another story For many who have grown up in the church, the mere about the joy in heaven over a sinner who repents. The two mention of “Pharisees and scribes” conjures up our worst preceding parables prepare us for this to be the point of the stereotypes of legalists concerned only with the minutiae of story, and certainly this has been the prevailing interpreta- the law. Yet Luke understands the gravity of the Pharisees’ tion in the church. Yet nowhere in the story are we told that concerns. They regarded their God-given calling to live the prodigal repents of his reprehensible behavior. Indeed, according to the Law of Moses with utter seriousness. They it is significant that the closing refrain about joy in heaven believed that the very survival of the Jewish faith depended over a sinner who repents is absent in this third parable. on preserving their traditions and distinctive way of life in Certainly the traditional interpretation focusing on the the midst of Roman occupation. They were reformers and supposed repentance of the prodigal and the gracious pietists who sought to renew the faith by applying biblical welcome of the father has brought comfort to countless laws concerning ritual purity to all Jews (not only priests) sinners. The problem, however, is that this interpretation
10 Special Edition tends to ignore the final third of the So he comes up with a plan. “I and his son responds with what Juel parable (15:25–32), the part that deals will get up and go to my father, and I called “the lament of the responsible with the elder son. If this part of the will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned child”: parable is addressed at all, the elder against heaven and before you; I am Listen! For all these years I have son is usually treated in a dismissive no longer worthy to be called your been working like a slave for way as a legalistic Pharisee who can- son; treat me like one of your hired you, and I have never disobeyed not understand grace. hands’” (15:18–19). The rehearsed your command; yet you have The fact that the parable is told speech may be interpreted as cool cal- never given me even a young in response to the grumbling of the culation rather than genuine remorse.3 goat so that I might celebrate Pharisees suggests that the elder son is The prodigal returns home, and with my friends. But when this central to the story and his concerns while he is still far off, his father sees son of yours came back, who are to be taken seriously. When his him and is filled with compassion. has devoured your property with objections are given due consider- He runs to meet him, wraps his arms prostitutes, you killed the fatted ation, the story changes significantly. around him and kisses him. The prod- calf for him! (15:29–30) Viewing the story through the elder igal begins his rehearsed speech, but son’s eyes, might we see, not a repen- doesn’t have a chance to finish it. The Can’t we feel the elder son’s righteous tant son and forgiving father, but a father calls for the best robe to be put indignation? It’s simply not fair! manipulative son and enabling father? on his son, along with a ring and san- And here we get to the heart of The younger son approaches his dals, and for the fatted calf to be killed the matter: the inherent unfairness of father with a brazen request: “Father, for a great celebration. family life. We have all seen it happen. give me the share of the property that What about this father? We can It is the problem child in the family will belong to me” (15:12). When the understand his joy at his lost son who inevitably gets the most atten- request is granted, we can imagine returning home, but really, shouldn’t tion, while responsible children are that this is not the first time the father there be some consequences for the often taken for granted. We see the has indulged his son in a manner most boy’s actions? What about tough love? same dynamics at work in the church parents would find unwise. Perhaps Isn’t the father allowing himself to be and other organizations, as well as in the elder son has watched this kind of manipulated again? Isn’t this a classic society as a whole. The responsible thing happening for years. example of enabling behavior? The people upon whom any community After taking off with his share of Greek text says that he was “overcome or organization depends—and with- the inheritance and promptly squan- with compassion” (esplanchnisthˉe), a out whom its operations would come dering it in “dissolute living,” the passive verb. It seems that he just can’t to a grinding halt—are usually taken younger son ends up in such a desper- help himself. for granted. Meanwhile a dispro- ate state that he is forced to take a job This is how the elder son sees things, portionate share of collective energy feeding pigs—an extremely shameful and he is thoroughly disgusted. Can and resources are invested in the least job for a Jewish boy since swine were we really blame him? After the party deserving: for example, in trying to considered unclean animals (Leviti- has begun, we learn that the elder son stop criminal behavior and dealing cus 11:7–8; Deuteronomy 14:8). Luke was still working out in the fields, “and with those who break the law. tells us that in the muck of the pigpen, when he came and approached the The father in the story seems to when the prodigal was so hungry that house, he heard music and dancing. reward irresponsible behavior by he would have gladly eaten pig food, He called one of the slaves and asked throwing a lavish party for his reckless “he came to himself ” (15:17). The what was going on” (15:25–26). The son. He does not take time to assess the phrase in Greek (eis heauton de elthoˉn) party is in full swing, and the father genuineness of the prodigal’s repen- is completely neutral and bears no hasn’t even bothered to send someone tance or see whether his behavior will connotation of repentance. It simply to find his elder son and invite him to truly change. In this sense, the father’s means that he came to a realization— the party! The dutiful, hard-working actions also seem irresponsible, even in this case the realization that his son has to find out what is happen- dangerous. father’s workers were better off than ing by asking one of the slaves. After The elder son’s anger and resent- he was: “How many of my father’s learning that his brother has returned ment are perfectly understandable. hired hands have bread enough and home and his father has killed the fat- He is absolutely “right” in his concern to spare, and here I am dying of hun- ted calf (or as Juel was fond of saying, for fairness and responsibility. In his ger!” (15:17). The prodigal’s realiza- the “4-H calf ”), he is “overcome with “rightness,” is he not like many of the tion shows no hint of remorse over the anger” (ˉorgisthˉe, another passive verb) people in our church pews? They are ways he has hurt others, particularly and refuses to go in to the party. the responsible, hard-working volun- his father. He is focused on filling his The father comes out to plead with teers, the faithful givers without whom stomach and improving his situation. his elder son to join the celebration, the church’s ministries would not hap-
Lutheran Forum 11 pen. These same people also tend to take to restore our family? in the party? be law-abiding, responsible members Will the elder son be set free from his Certainly we cannot free ourselves. of society without whom our com- captivity to resentment? Will he finally Our only hope is that God will not munities would fall apart. join in the celebration? The story ends take “no” for an answer. Our only Deep down, we responsible people without telling us. And what about hope is that God will not give up on us understand the elder son’s lament. the Pharisees, whose grumbling Jesus responsible children, just as God will Deep down, we resent God’s gracious- addresses in this parable? Will they be not give up on the prodigals. The story ness to the irresponsible. In theory, we set free to join in the celebration of ends not with the elder son’s lament, understand that God’s grace, by defi- God’s gracious welcome to sinners? but with the father’s gracious words: nition, has nothing to do with the wor- For most of the Jewish religious “Child, you are always with me, and thiness of the recipients, yet somehow leaders, the answer was a decisive all that is mine is yours. But we had we still like to think that we are more “no.” They decided that Jesus was too to celebrate and rejoice, because this worthy recipients than others. dangerous to be tolerated and had to brother of yours was dead and has If any true “prodigals” or high-risk be put to death. Yet Luke’s portrayal come to life; he was lost and has been sinners come near our churches, how of the Pharisees is more sympathetic found” (15:31–32). do we respond? Do we welcome them than that of the other three Gospel Our inheritance as God’s children with open arms or keep a wary dis- writers. In Luke, the Pharisees do not is always pure gift, and God keeps wel- tance? Are we willing to take the risks participate in the plot to kill Jesus. It is coming all to the party. LF that Jesus takes in welcoming sinners the chief priests and their scribes who and eating with them? Or do we circle conspire against him (20:19; 22:2). Elisabeth Ann Johnson is a pastor the wagons to protect ourselves from Herod also conspires, and some Phari- serving as Professor of New Testament the potentially unscrupulous? sees even warn Jesus of Herod’s plot at the Lutheran Institute of Theology If the prodigal is not sincere in to kill him (13:31). Jesus also shares a in Meiganga, Cameroon. his repentance, then the father in the Sabbath meal at the home of a leader story is in fact being manipulated and of the Pharisees (14:1), where he tells Notes the prodigal is taking advantage of a parable about the peril of reject- 1. Among Juel’s published books and articles there are a few discussions of Luke his father’s compassion. This means ing an invitation to the great banquet 15:11–32. The first appears in his early book, the father keeps wasting his love and (14:15–24). Luke-Acts: The Promise of History (Atlanta: John resources on this undeserving son and, As the story continues in Acts, we Knox, 1983), 38–9, 88–9. The second, origi- quite frankly, it makes the father look learn that some Pharisees become fol- nally presented at the 1991 Frederick Neumann foolish. lowers of Jesus (Acts 15:5). And of Symposium on the Theological Interpretation The great scandal of the parable— course, there is the dramatic trans- of Scripture, was published in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin Supplementary Issue No. 2 (1992): and the scandal of Jesus’ ministry—is formation of that most zealous of 56–70. His essay, “The Lord’s Prayer in the that God is willing to risk such vulner- Pharisees: Saul, the persecutor of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,” in The Lord’s ability. God is willing to risk looking church, becomes Paul, the apostle of Prayer: Perspectives for Reclaiming Christian Prayer, foolish. Like the farmer who scatters Jesus Christ (Acts 9). ed. Daniel Migliore (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, seed on the path, the rocky ground, In the story of Luke-Acts we see 1993), discusses “the lament of the responsible child” in the context of what it means to pray and among the thorns as well as on that it is possible for those held captive to God as “Father.” Juel also discusses the par- the good soil (Luke 8:4–8), God is will- by their own sense of justice to be set able in his article, “The Strange Silence of ing to risk “wasting” divine love on the free, but it will take Jesus’ death and the Bible,” Interpretation 51 (1997): 5–19, as an unworthy. God is willing to risk being resurrection to make it happen. Lib- example of the importance of oral/aural per- taken advantage of by the unscru- eration is possible only because God formance of Scripture to interpretation. pulous and being condemned by the will not take “no” for an answer. God 2. Scribes were not a party within Juda- ism but professional scholars and specialists in righteous. In Jesus, God is willing to responds to the human rejection of interpreting the law. Pharisees, Sadducees, and risk even the shame and humiliation Jesus by raising him from the dead the chief priests all had scribes associated with of the cross. (Acts 2:22–24, 32–36; 3:13–15) and them. See Calvin Roetzel, The World that Shaped The father responds to his elder by sending the Holy Spirit. The Holy the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John son’s lament by saying, “Son, you are Spirit empowers Jesus’ disciples for Knox, 2002), 46–49. 3. Juel was fond of pointing out that the always with me, and all that is mine witness, opens their eyes and hearts, Scriptures were meant to be read aloud, not is yours. But we had to celebrate and and kindles faith. silently. In “performing” this parable, he would rejoice, because this brother of yours What about all of us responsible take particular delight in voicing the prodigal’s was dead and has come to life; he was children today? Will we be set free speech in a disingenuous, calculating way. lost and has been found” (15:31–32). from our bondage to resentment? Will Many students found it unsettling that a shift Can’t you see that this is your brother? we welcome the sinner and celebrate in tone of voice could alter the meaning so drastically. Can’t you understand the risk I must God’s extravagant grace? Will we join
12 Special Edition American Lutheran History
Exploding the Myth of the Boat
Mark A. Granquist
hen contemporary American Lutherans get around mass immigration came to an end. Certainly a significant Wto discussing the topic of evangelism within their portion of this growth could be attributed to demographic denominations, the mood of the conversation usually turns factors, but this cannot fully explain American Lutheran gloomy. It is common to hear that Lutherans cannot do, or growth up to 1960 and its lack of growth since then. have never been able to do, significant evangelistic work. The “myth of the boat” seriously distorts the work of It is claimed that Lutherans only ever grew in this country American Lutherans in the nineteenth century to reach due to immigration, and that once “the boat” stopped com- out and gather in the immigrant population. This myth ing, Lutherans stagnated because they had never learned to assumes that a large percentage of those who emigrated reach out with the gospel to others. from Lutheran countries in Europe automatically entered This is what I call the “myth of the boat,” which is not the American Lutherans congregations, as if they got only wrong but destructive to the possibilities of the future off the boat and immediately went to seek out the near- for American Lutherans. On the est Lutheran church. On the con- contrary, American Lutherans American Lutheranism more trary, the ingathering of Lutheran had a vigorous program of evan- immigrants to the United States gelistic outreach through most of than doubled in membership was difficult and anything but auto- their history and learned how to matic, in any sense. Beyond the do this to a large extent through after 1920, after the era of mass extreme weakness of the immigrant interaction with other American Lutheran denominations and their Protestants. It has only really been immigration came to an end. chronic lack of pastors and con- since the 1960s that American gregations, many emigrants from Lutherans lost their habits of evangelism, in the confusion Lutheran countries were hardly eager to join an American of the era and with the idea that it might not be right to Lutheran congregation, or any congregation, for that mat- “push” our religious views on others. ter. Even further, the entire concept of having actively to There were two periods of significant Lutheran immi- join and financially to support a congregation was tremen- gration to North America, the first a migration of German dously foreign to these immigrants and a huge hurdle to Lutherans during the colonial period of the seventeenth those seeking to gather them in. Though some immigrants and eighteenth centuries, and then a much larger Euro- came to America for freedom of religion, many others pean Lutheran immigration from 1840 to 1920. Ameri- came to America for freedom from religion, especially the can Lutheranism naturally grew during these centuries, state church Lutheranism of Europe. and by 1900 Lutherans (as a denominational family) were It is hard to know overall exactly what percentage of the fourth largest Protestant group in the United States. immigrant Lutherans actually joined the immigrant By 1935 there were about 3.5 million American Luther- Lutheran denominations in the United States, but in some ans, a figure that jumped to nearly eight million American cases we have an idea that the percentages were rather Lutherans by 1960. This figure of eight million Ameri- low. In comparing the Scandinavian-American Lutheran can Lutherans remained stagnant through the end of the denominations with census data from the 1920 census, twentieth century, and has declined since then; in terms of for example, it is clear that only a minority of these eth- the total u.s. population, the “market share” of American nic immigrants and their offspring actually affiliated with Lutheranism has declined by nearly 40% in the last fifty these denominations. The figure ranges from about 29% years. of Norwegian-Americans to 17% of Swedish-Americans It is important to note that American Lutheranism more and about 9% of Danish Americans, far less than the than doubled in membership after 1920, after the era of dreamy haze of ethnic memory would admit. As low as
Lutheran Forum 13 these figures are, however, they would ingrained in them. Though much of them in good stead into the first half be even much lower if it were not for the credit for this evangelistic activity of the twentieth century. When they the strenuous efforts of ethnic pas- was due to individual entrepreneur- began to make the transition to the tors and congregations to reach out to ial pastors, their efforts were strongly use of the English language (for colo- the immigrant populations, gathering encouraged by the nascent denomi- nial Lutherans, around 1800, and for in as many of them as their limited national structures, which were begin- later immigrants after World War i), resources would allow. ning to develop evangelism strategies they continued these habits of evan- The initial lesson in evangelism within their own organizations, such gelism and borrowed even more from that American Lutherans would learn as boards of home missions. More their American religious counterparts. was to adapt their theological and than this, however, these immigrant Eastern colonial Lutherans, especially ecclesiastical traditions to the bizarre Lutheran denominations sought to in the North, borrowed widely from world of American voluntary religion, develop an entire internal culture of the revival movements of the Second in all its pluralistic glory. The volun- Great Awakening (in the early nine- tary character of religion in America By adapting to the teenth century), and Lutheran reviv- meant that no religious support would alism was widespread before the Civil be forthcoming from the government, American religious War. When later immigrants made nor would there be any social or polit- their transition to the use of English ical compulsion to be religious. This culture, and by during the interwar years, they too was a tremendous shift for immigrant adapted the evangelistic methods of Lutheran leaders, who were now practicing the habits their American Protestant counter- forced to develop arguments and rea- parts, including national boards of sons that these immigrants ought, in of evangelism evangelism to coordinate efforts, the fact, join their congregations and help commissioning of regular home mis- pay for them. In this sense they had and outreach, sionaries, the development of mater- to evangelize their ethnic compatriots ials and procedures for evangelism, all over again and provide them with these immigrant and the attempt to inculcate a habit a coherent argument about why they of evangelical outreach among pas- ought to join or even remain Christian denominations were tors and laypeople. at all. Further, Lutheran leaders had During the period from 1920 to to develop the patterns and means of developing the habits 1945 these efforts were hindered, first taking these arguments out to a scat- of all, by a lack of funds during the tered and fragmented immigrant pop- of evangelism that Depression and then by a lack of per- ulation. This was a task of herculean sonnel during World War ii. The great proportions, and that the immigrant would stand them internal upheavals of that war, with denominations grew as fast as they a massive relocation of Americans actually did is a testimony to the dedi- in good stead into to serve the war effort, had Lutheran cation and perseverance of many of denominations straining to serve a the American Lutheran leaders. the first half of the dispersed population in the military In fact, many of the Lutheran camps and new settlements of war pastors who came to North America twentieth century. workers. Much of this new outreach were trained as missionaries, saw this was coordinated on the national level continent as a huge mission field, and evangelism by lifting up and mod- by new cooperative Lutheran struc- always assumed that the immigrants eling these missionary pastors as tures, such as the National Lutheran they served needed to be, in this sense, exemplars. Council and the Synodical Con- evangelized. Up through the end of Certainly, the bulk of these nine- ference, which sought to unify and the nineteenth century, American teenth century Lutheran evangelistic maximize the efforts of individual Lutheran pastors adopted the habits efforts was chiefly focused on - apar American Lutheran denominations. of missions and evangelism, person- ticular group of ethnic immigrants This work on the denominational and ally setting up new satellite congre- and done primarily in the immi- national level was modeled on other gations around the ones they were grant language. But by adapting to Protestant efforts, and often in consul- serving and going off on mission trips the American religious culture, and tation with them. to areas that were not yet served by by practicing the habits of evange- The experiences of the early twen- their denomination. This they did lism and outreach, these immigrant tieth century came to a crescendo in often out of their own initiative and denominations were developing the the decades after 1945, as the national habits of evangelism that were deeply habits of evangelism that would stand migrations of the postwar period
14 Special Edition continued and the exploding popu- incumbent on individual pastors, now much less likely to begin new mis- lations of the baby boom generation members, and congregations dimin- sion congregations unilaterially. swelled the development of new sub- ished in importance as the turmoil of Finally, and most troubling, is the urban areas across America. Having the 1960s and 1970s gained traction. seeming loss of the idea that evange- developed the habits and machinery The importance of winning souls and listic efforts were even appropriate— of evangelism during the preceding proclaiming the gospel to new people the loss of Lutheran confidence in the years, American Lutherans went on lost out to the attempt to make the proclamation of the gospel to others. a torrent of expansion after World Christian church relevant to the social In an increasingly pluralistic Amer- War ii, starting congregations by the problems of the day. An entire new ica, with its huge variety of different thousands and drawing in impressive generation of pastors and of systems religious groups, it seems that some numbers of new members. Luther- of seminary education seems to have Lutherans had come to the conclusion anism expanded to new areas of the downplayed traditional evangelism in that it was not appropriate to attempt United States, especially the South, favor of a social gospel. to make new Christians out of those Southwest, and West. While many of Second, there was a gradual decline populations. This is extremely difficult these new congregations were prob- in the support of national denomi- to pin down, but it seems that there ably filled with migrating Luther- national structures for evangelism. was an important and very troubling ans from elsewhere, there was also a Partially this was perhaps due to the shift in this area, even if the param- number of members who came new endless rounds of merger and restruc- eters of that shift are not clear. Did to the Lutheran tradition during this turing of American Lutheran denom- American Lutherans lose their core period. Seminarians and pastors were inations (outside of The Lutheran message? trained in the practical elements of Church—Missouri Synod) after The history is clear—American evangelism and were expected to go World War ii, when familiar patterns Lutherans can do evangelism and out into the community, ring door- of support for evangelism work were have done so very well in the past, bells, and invite people to worship disrupted and restructured. There sometimes with spectacular results. in their congregations. Lay persons was, too, a loss of the original entre- They have reached out to the world were given similar encouragement to preneurial zeal of local pastors for around them and their church has contact those around them and invite such effort, with them perhaps assum- grown. This did not happen auto- them to church. There was a culture ing that it was the job of the national matically—it certainly did not happen of evangelism that was supported in denominational structures to initiate simply because boats showed up with the denominational press, which lifted and coordinate evangelism efforts. millions of European Lutheran immi- up the examples of growing congrega- Boards and structures that had been grants. American Lutherans worked tions around the country. doing evangelism efforts were some- hard and developed an impressive And then all this momentum came times combined with other agencies, record of evangelism. Perhaps it was to an end, or at least to a greatly with a resulting loss of focus. thought that this would go on forever, diminished level, beginning in the late Third, the forms of church planting or perhaps Lutherans lost the courage 1960s. The Lutheran push toward and evangelism were becoming much of their convictions. Whatever it was, evangelism slowed dramatically, more expensive by the end of the they have seemingly lost their habits beginning with a numerical stagna- twentieth century. Much of the pre- of evangelism, and their zeal for it, tion and then leading toward actual vious work had been done by means with disastrous results. numerical decline in the late twentieth of low-cost and very flexible means— If, however, one would seek mod- century. What happened? It is hard pastors were cheap and so were land els for twenty-first century American to know completely and exactly what and buildings. But with the profes- Lutheran evangelism, one might do happened, but there are some areas of sionalization of the clergy, and the well to look to the American Lutheran explanation that seem to point toward rising costs associated with them (not past and to the models of evangelistic this decline. to mention the land and buildings), it work contained therein. LF First, there seems to have been the became much more expensive to start loss of a culture of evangelism within a mission congregation and to support Mark A. Granquist is Associate Pro- Lutheran denominations. Some- them, in some cases into the millions fessor of Church History at Luther how the goal of evangelism as being of dollars. Local congregations were Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Lutheran Forum 15 Lex Orandi Lex Credendi Longing for the Longest Creed
Robert Saler
ne of my most vivid memories from my early days narratives. There were Sunday School curricula admirably Oof graduate school is of the first day of a course on concerned with how I could live out my personal faith in the theology of the Trinity. The professor, whose erudition Jesus in the “real world,” but gave me no clue that “today’s concerning patristic and medieval theology was matched challenges” are in fact quite similar to those of centuries only by the subversive dryness of his humor, strode into past. class, set down his notes, and addressed us with these But then… there was that one creed. words: “Friends, I am here today to explain to you why you That long, long creed buried somewhere in the hymnal are all Sabellian modalists… and I am not.” but nevertheless dusted off and hauled out sometimes, usu- I had enough vague recollections of previous church ally on Trinity Sunday. The one that took almost fifteen history classes to remember that Sabellianism—the belief minutes to recite, which meant either the sermon had to that the one God is not inherently triune in the sense of be shorter (a rare occurrence) or some of the hymns had having three persons but is rather one essence who appears to be trimmed. The one that seemed a lot less upbeat and in three different modes throughout salvation history— much more severe (even threatening) than the Apostles’ had been decisively condemned and Nicene creeds. The one that by nascent orthodox theologians “Friends, I am here today to explain went into excruciating detail of the patristic period. But while about exactly what we were sup- my formal education had given to you why you are all Sabellian posed to be thinking about the me sufficient information about Trinity and the incarnation. I the character of this and other modalists… and I am not.” may not have been raised know- heresies, I struggled to recall what ing all the subtleties of orthodox I had really been taught about the Trinity by the various trinitarian theology. But because of that one strange creed elca congregations that formed me in the faith. What and that one strange Sunday, I did get the sense that my was the content of the preaching, catechesis, normative church knew what it believed about the Trinity. declarations about the Trinity? Had I truly been taught There may be plenty of elca congregations where orthodoxy, or was my professor right in suspecting that my Christians young and old are being formed through the church’s “working” theology of the Trinity as manifested liturgical and catechetical experience of the Athanasian in its preaching and liturgical practices was amorphous, Creed. However, the evidence is disheartening. The creed bordering on the heretical? Would such teaching enable is nowhere to be found in the new elca hymnal Evangelical me to resist the unconscious influence of trinitarianisms Lutheran Worship, and I have not recited it in worship (even at vastly inferior to the magnificent achievements of Tertul- seminary!) since I was a teenager. Meanwhile, the signs that lian, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and Augustine? Sabellianism has never really left us are evident throughout In truth, when the Trinity was preached in church at both academic theology1 and church practice, most nota- all, often it was preached anemically. There were all those bly in the continuing modalist tendency to gloss “Father, Trinity Sunday sermons that invariably proclaimed, “The Son, and Holy Spirit” functionally as “Creator, Redeemer, Trinity is a mystery, no one really understands it, early and Sanctifier.”2 If one is to judge by the theology evident Christians quibbled over it for some strange reason, but in the day-to-day intellectual, liturgical, and spiritual life of I guess we believe it anyway.” There was the Bible study the elca, then the presence of the Athanasian Creed seems mentality, still common in many congregations, that takes close to nil. sola scriptura to mean the church catholic’s two-thousand The decision of the compilers of elw to exclude the year history of exegetical theology is either superfluous or Athanasian Creed from the hymnal is particularly dis- misleading when it comes to understanding, say, the gospel heartening in light of the fact that significant strands of
16 Special Edition American Lutheranism have here- cal trimmings.”4 More disturbingly, its logical warrant to declare the heretics tofore made a point of including it. strict and unambiguous damnatory of a given era to be outside the pos- While by no means every American clauses, which explicitly deny the pos- sibility of God’s gracious salvation, Lutheran hymnal has included this sibility of salvation to those who do the effect of both of these gaps is creed (for instance, it is absent from not hold to its specific formulations of theologically and spiritually grating. trinitarian and christological doctrine, To encounter the Athanasian Creed is The creed reminds us run contrary both to contemporary to encounter a piety that is, in many sensibilities and to the Lutheran insis- respects, both alien and offensive. And that the faith to which tence that salvation does not come by to speak it, particularly in the context human works, including the “work” of worship, is to exacerbate the alter- we are called has of acquiescence to theological or ity and the scandal. doctrinal propositions. Any Lutheran That being acknowledged, what a content and not advocating for the continued presence theological justifications remain for of the creed in the liturgical and theo- retaining the creed as a presence in simply a form. logical life of the elca must take these the life of the Lutheran church? Can concerns seriously. there be any value in encountering a the 1917 Common Service Book and the But while these obstacles are real, creed in the teaching or even the lit- 1930 American Lutheran Hymnal), several they are not insurmountable. While urgy of a congregation, if large seg- major predecessors to elw—includ- partisans of the creed such as myself ments of that congregation cannot ing the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal and the might be tempted to rely solely on tradi- assent to all of its features? I would 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship, as well tion and historical precedent in assert- suggest that it is precisely because the Wisconsin Synod titles—resisted the ing the importance of the Quicunque Quicunque provokes such an unset- temptation to let the creed fall away for Lutherans (after all, it was expli- tling encounter between the fidelity from the liturgical life of the com- citly included in the Book of Concord of the early church and our contem- munity by including it, sometimes with as one of the three creeds by which porary mindsets that retention of the explicit permission for its liturgical use the churches of the Augsburg Con- creed is so vital. This is true for several on Trinity Sunday.3 Many American fession understood themselves to be reasons. Lutheran congregations thus had offi- constituted), there are also compelling First, the creed reminds us that, cial sanction, if not encouragement, theological reasons for retaining the while Lutherans assert that it is faith for incorporating the creed into their creed in both worship and teaching. that justifies us, we also believe that liturgical life by means of a practice It is certainly the case that there the faith to which we are called has with roots reaching back to the Mid- are substantial gaps both between the a content and not simply a form. Were dle Ages. Even those hymnals which patristic period and the Reformation one to deny this by claiming, expli- did not provide explicit rubrics for and between the creed’s sensibilities citly or implicitly, that the grace of the creed’s liturgical use still made and most contemporary mindsets the Holy Spirit calls us to the “life” a positive statement of the creed’s when it comes to threatening damna- catechetical and theological value by tion for heretics. As Kelly remarks, If anything, sola fide enshrining it within their pages. “when we study [the damnatory To be fair, there are several legiti- clauses] of the creed, we should revels in particularity. mate reasons why the Quicunque (as remember that the ancient church scholars generally call it, from the first had a confident dogmatism which had So does this creed, word of its original Latin text, since it little use for the scruples which trouble was certainly not composed by Atha- us.”5 Moreover, as much as the Refor- and in that sense nasius), has such a marginal status in mation understood itself to be in con- American Lutheranism. Only a litur- tinuity with early church orthodoxy, it is a very Lutheran- gical masochist would deny that its its insistence upon salvation by grace length makes it unwieldy for a typical through faith alone (and, perhaps, its friendly document. worship service. Further, its prose (in willingness to occupy the position of English translation, at least) lacks some “heresy” for the sake of the gospel) or form of faith without any specific of the evocative imagery found in the does posit at least a prima facie chal- theological content, then such a denial shorter creeds. As J. N. D. Kelly states lenge to the strict divide between would constitute a definitive departure in his magisterial study of the docu- orthodoxy and heresy presupposed from the theologically “thick” faith of ment, “The creed hammers its points by the Quicunque. Speaking as a the Reformers and the church with home in short, didactic phrases, and Lutheran who does not believe that which they understood themselves there is an entire absence of rhetori- humans have epistemological or theo- to be in continuity. Such a mentality
Lutheran Forum 17 would exacerbate the unfortunate ten- our own theological heritage a place Christian Theological Seminary in dency of many Christians to proclaim within our worship and our teaching. Indianapolis, Indiana. that we are saved through faith with- Such welcome is, like the eucharist, a out further specifying what that faith performative enactment of the com- Notes asserts about itself. The Athanasian munion of saints. 1. Not to mention the recurrence of the tritheism (the Creed’s other target), discern- Creed is one of the church catholic’s Moreover, the didactic nature of the ible in the contemporary enthusiasm for argu- most powerful statements that the creed provides us with a prime liturgi- ments against monotheism and in favor of faith to which grace calls us is faith cal opportunity not only to welcome “divine multiplicity.” in the God of Abraham, the God of but also to learn vis-à-vis the saints 2. This piece of modalism is all the more Jesus Christ, the God who is Father, of the past, present, and eschatologi- vexing since it completely obscures the fact Son, and Holy Spirit. It declares that cal future. To recite the Athanasian that, according to both the Gospel of John and 6 the Epistle to the Colossians, it is the second Christian faith is faith in the Trinity. creed is not simply to make assertions and not the first person of the Trinity who is The Lutheran insistence upon sola fide about what the church believes. It is the primary agent of creation. does not erase the so-called “scandal also to place ourselves in a stance of 3. For a helpful account of the various of particularity.” If anything, sola fide receptivity towards the church’s past debates surrounding the creed’s inclusion in revels in particularity. So does the in all its irreducible otherness. It’s the lbw, see Ralph W. Quere, In the Context of Unity: A History of the Development of the Lutheran creed, and in that sense it is a very one thing to welcome the other; it’s Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Lutheran Uni- Lutheran-friendly document. another thing entirely to ask the other versity Press, 2003). Second, the creed’s linkage of to teach you. Here lies a profound jux- 4. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed (New York: orthodox trinitarianism to soteriol- taposition of worshipful assertion and Harper & Row, 1964), 66. Kelly’s book remains ogy reminds us that, as Christians, humbling education. As with most the single best source both for surveying vari- we believe that salvation itself is a educational settings, we may decide to ous authorship theories around the creed as well as its history in church usage. trinitarian process. As a good deal reject all or part of the claims being 5. Ibid., 72. of profound theological work asso- presented to us; however, such liturgi- 6. I say this with the awareness that several ciated with the trinitarian revival in cal “dissonance” is not necessarily a branches of the church, including “Oneness” academic theology has reminded us,7 defect in the experience. Indeed, the Pentecostalism, largely disavow the Trin- the salvation history into which God’s dissonance might well be part of the ity as it is understood by the creeds. To this I can only repeat that I do not believe that the grace invites us is constituted in and experience’s value, since it would push church should view departure from orthodoxy through the outworking of the Trin- the worshiping body to clarify its own as departure from the possibility of salvation; ity in history—in our history. To be a working trinitarian theology. however, this theologically warranted humility Christian is to take up (or better, to be I’ve always felt that orthodoxy, at does not and should not deter the church from given) a position within a triune story its best, should inspire a slightly rebel- establishing the determinate character of its of cosmic redemption. Whatever the lious streak when it comes to following own teachings. 7. See, inter alia, Robert Jenson’s The Tri- effect of the Athanasian Creed’s stric- the spirit of an age. So, if the spirit une Identity: God according to the Gospel (Eugene: tures upon contemporary ears, its of our age would have us relegate the Wipf and Stock, 2002); David Bentley Hart, prose establishes an uncompromising Athanasian Creed to the dustbins of The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian link between the reality of the Trin- catechetical and liturgical history, then Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004); Cath- ity and the nature of Christian salva- perhaps the best thing for a congrega- erine Mowry Lacugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperOne, tion. Exposure to such a link can only tion seeking to encounter the tradi- 1993); and Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, be salutary for the church of all times tion in all its strange glory would be and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Min- and places.8 an occasional subversive welcome of neapolis: Fortress, 2001). Finally, it is precisely the alien the creed into its teaching, preaching, 8. Having made this comment about the character of the creed’s orthodoxy and liturgy. Whether or not we affirm universality of the creed’s value, I must ac- which reminds a church body that is all that the saints have to teach us, if knowledge the fact that many Orthodox Christians regard the Quicunque with suspi- ostensibly committed to “diversity” we refuse to let them speak to us, we cion or even dismissal because of its insistence that opening our doors to the wit- impoverish the faith that has come upon the procession of the Holy Spirit from ness of those who would challenge before us and diminish our ability to both the Father and the Son. The filioque us by their presence does not only hand it on to those who come after. issue remains a painful one for the church, and should the various western communions ever mean expansion of the congregation LF revisit the matter with sufficient seriousness, of the living, but also entails opening the Athanasian Creed (like the Nicene) would ourselves to the witness of the saints Robert Saler is Research Professor certainly be one of the documents that might who have gone before us in the faith. of Lutheran Studies and Executive require revision. However, since that time has Talk of “diversity” and “welcoming Director of the Center for Pastoral not yet come, there is no reason for the west- the other” means nothing if this does Excellence and the Lilly Endow- ern church not to enjoy the fruits of its own not include giving the treasures of ment Clergy Renewal Programs at heritage.
18 Special Edition Seedlings
How to Revive a Dying Parish
Brad Hales
he figures seem ominous. Over 70% of Lutheran Other evangelistic models had their day in the sun, Tchurches have plateaued in membership or are declin- too. Entertainment evangelism centered on an mtv-type ing. The average age of a Lutheran congregant is about of worship experience. If we could entertain people, we sixty. In the elca, 28% percent of the national member- reasoned, they would certainly be attracted to the gospel. ship worships on any given Sunday morning. Why? Has This evangelistic endeavor may have included starting the present culture wrought havoc on the church’s mission new, alternative worship experiences, the use of electronic in the world? Has the church failed to be relevant to the instruments or lighting, and the institution of dramatic complexities of today’s society? Have the darkness and the presentations within the worship encounter. demonic so hardened hearts that there is less response to the Marketing evangelism was the use of mass media to gospel? Have church leaders lost their zeal and passion for share the good news. This could include television com- sharing the good news? Have congregations become luke- mercials, radio spots, websites, social media, print publi- warm in their knowledge of God’s word and the Lutheran cations, or glossy mailings to the local community. One Confessions, which in turn, has stifled their enthusiasm for Christmas, the church where I served sent out hundreds of Christ and his church? The reasons proferred are many. postcards to the nearby zip code zones, inviting residents to But what should be the response? Will the church continue Christmas Eve worship. I actually saw people walking into to operate with “business as usual,” floundering through the building with the postcards in hand. One attendee even the stormy waves of an unpre- waved the card in the air and said, dictable culture? Or will it stand If congregational renewal is not “Is this my ticket to come in?” firm upon the transforming Still another form of outreach power of God’s word, renewing strictly centered upon God’s word, was target evangelism, the inten- and reviving to be a clear wit- tional targeting of a specific group ness to Jesus the savior? sharing Jesus Christ as savior, there for evangelistic purposes. Several Through the years Ameri- years ago I was the part of a con- can churches have employed cannot be long-lasting revival. gregation that was awarded a fast differing evangelical methods growth grant from the elca to call to promote both numerical and devotional growth. The part-time staff to help nuture the spiritual and numerical Church Growth Movement focused on getting as many growth of the congregation. Once the grant commenced, people as possible to fill the pews. If this meant using I received a three-ring binder from the elca’s division of media, music, and microphones, so be it. We were told to outreach with specific information on how to invite gay follow the successful pioneers in the field such as Willow and lesbian families into the parish; one of the suggestions Creek, Saddleback, and the Community Church of Joy. As was to place a rainbow flag in front of the church. This is long as we attended their conferences and adopted their an example of target evangelism. cookie-cutter approaches, the people would come. But that These evangelism models have certainly brought seek- did not always happen. These national models for ministry ers into the church. But have they substantially renewed neglected regional and local needs. And even when we had and revived the local body of Christ? I don’t believe so. individuals come through the front door, they quickly left If congregational renewal is not strictly centered upon again through the back door. In our zeal to have people God’s word, sharing Jesus Christ as savior, there cannot be attend, we neglected to provide them depth in both the long-lasting revival. More seriously, if a parish is dying, it teaching of God’s word and the Confessions. Further, we often means there has been resistance to faith development did not always identify people’s spiritual gifts and use these and authentic mission. So when a process for congrega- gifts for the furtherance of the kingdom. tional transformation begins, it must be understood—and
Lutheran Forum 19 said aloud—that the participants are a catalyst in the continued revival in It’s a great opportunity to share Jesus entering a period of “spiritual war- my current congregation. Following and the direction of the church, learn fare.” The forces of darkness and the James 5:13–16, we offer the laying-on about families, and hear other con- devil do not want such a church to be of hands and anointing with oil for cerns. For years now we’ve been told resuscitated. Evil will do everything healing. The great thing about prayer that people do not want to be visited in its power to derail the revitaliza- is that it can be incorporated in all in their homes anymore. It is said that tion. I was once asked to speak to a aspects of the church’s life. We now individuals value their privacy and few Lutheran churches about congre- have members who will openly pray detest being intruded upon. I vehe- gational growth, and I centered my for others and over the phone. mently disagree with that assertion. remarks on growing in God’s word Another important part of the spi- In this internet, corporate, impersonal and our relationship with Jesus. Dur- ritual is the study and knowledge of age, people crave meaningful real-life ing a break, one of the participants lit- holy Scripture. As it is written in ii contact. They appreciate when some- erally got into my face and demanded Timothy 3:16–17, “All Scripture is one cares enough to come and listen. that I stop talking about Jesus. After the breathed out by God and profitable If the pastor is not making these visits event, a pastor wrote me an incendi- for teaching, for reproof, for correc- and developing trust relationships, it’s ary letter, accusing me of being Billy tion, and for training in righteousness, going to be difficult for the renewal Graham! When I first met the coun- that the man of God may be compe- process to gain traction. cil in my present congregation, I was tent, equipped for every good work.” Outreach is an essential component extremely clear that the demonic In my New York congregation, I had of the turnaround church. Years ago, would attack the moment they moved an eighty-year- old member named I was part of a team that went door to from “maintenance” to “mission.” Willard. He had been baptized and door in the local village. The purpose They should expect possible anger, confirmed and had raised his family of these visits was solely to invite oth- division, and upset at the change of in the same church, but never spent ers to worship. I vividly remember one direction. That’s why parish renewal much time in biblical study until his house where I stopped. A woman came is hard and not for the faint of heart. later years. One day he pulled me to the door with a phone in her hand. But the rewards are great. Just imag- aside and said, “Pastor, I have never She asked if I could wait a moment. ine how many more people will come learned so much about God’s word Within a few minutes, she came back to know Jesus Christ as their loving and Jesus. It has greatly impacted my with a stunned expression upon her savior. How wonderful it will be to life.” During the renewal process, the face. Tears rolling down her eyes, she have congregations centered upon study of the Scriptures and the Con- shared with me that she’d been on the God’s living word, serving and shar- fessions must be paramount, because phone with her brother, praying that ing Christ with others. whenever the Lord’s word goes out, it the Holy Spirit would lead her to a As a pastor involved in redevelop- will never come back empty. It will do church where she could worship the ing congregations throughout my something. I realize that not all people Lord! Outreach can happen in many career, I’ve learned a few important may be open to study of the word. In different ways, but the message is still steps along the way. First and fore- one congregation I served, a church the same: the intentional invitation to most, people’s hearts are only changed council member publically confessed worship the living savior Jesus Christ by the grace of God through the Holy at a meeting disbelief in the miracles of Nazareth. If the local church is Spirit. We can only be used as God’s and healings of Jesus as reported in going to be changed, then the mem- vessels to help bring about change in the Scriptures. But that did not deter bers need to invite their friends, rela- the kingdom. And the Lord has pro- us! When more individuals are open tives, associates, and neighbors. This vided us definite direction on how to to God’s word, discipleship grows alone will tell you about the health of do that. It all begins with the spiritual. and the mission of Christ’s church your present congregation. Ask the Long ago, right before I was called to becomes clear. current membership why they are be the pastor of a small, struggling Pastoral visitation is another vital inviting others to the church—or why church in central New York state, I aspect of congregation revival. Just the not. This will tell you how people per- learned that there had been a weekly other day I visited some new members ceive and experience what is happen- prayer group meeting, praying for of the church. These lifelong Luther- ing in the ministry. Jesus invites us to revival, growth within the congre- ans shared with me that this was the “come and see.” Through outreach, gation, and for the Spirit to send an first time a pastor had ever visited we invite others to “come and see” the evangelical pastor. Prayer is one of the their home. But visiting with people Lord Jesus. greatest tools for the renewal process. in their homes, workplaces, health- As a church begins its journey on It makes no difference if it’s interces- care facilities, restaurants, and other the road to transformation road, a sory prayer, corporate prayer, or heal- locations is the lifeblood of ministry significant portion of its task will ing prayer. Healing prayer has been where open relationships are built. be connecting with the community.
20 Special Edition As the community finds out what is be involved in an area-wide service make grateful use of the blessings that going on in the life of the church, the project or have its members sit on gov- the Lord has already given you! news will spread like wildfire. So how ernmental boards. The opportunities Congregational revitalization is do you connect? My present parish abound and community connections extremely difficult. It’s not like a started out as a small, older congre- should be forged. light switch that you can flip on just gation, not known in the wider area. A final tool for congregational like that. Renewal takes hard work, On my first Sunday before worship, renewal is just plain using what God time, effort, a determination never to the Holy Spirit drove me out to the gave you. When I worked part-time give up, and always reliance on Jesus’ sidewalk in front of the rented build- for the Virginia Synod, I would fre- strength. For years I’ve heard the sen- ing, and I began waving to the passing quently visit congregations in need timent “as long as we are faithful,” cars on Main Street. I know this may of revival where I heard people say meaning the basic tasks of preaching sound strange and even simplistic, again and again that the only way the the word, celebrating the sacraments, but the Lord blessed this act above all church would grow is if they attracted and being open on Sunday as sufficient measure. People began to beep their children, youth, and young families. obedience to God’s will. But it should horns and wave at me. Some stopped But that doesn’t necessarily follow (or mean so much more. Being faithful for prayer and counsel. One man had work). In my present congregation, participants in Christ’s church means just come out of the state penitentiary we started with a majority of older confronting the darkness, enthusiasti- and wondered if he would be wel- adults. So we used what God had cally sharing God’s word, serving the comed. Many came to worship and given us and began an ecumenical living Lord, and intentionally making have become active disciples in the mature adult ministry. We sponsored Jesus known to others. It’s expecting body. Congregational members now Bible studies, learning opportunities, that Christ will renew the church. join me on the sidewalk. When our speakers, educational trips, fellowship Many of our Lutheran congrega- members invite others to worship at gatherings, and even a senior vaca- tions need revitalized right now. So let Reformation, a typical description of tion Bible school for people over fifty. us take up the challenge. The power the place is, “That’s the church where Astonishingly, the more we focused of Jesus Christ will bring about the they wave.” This is just one example on this ministry, the more the church revival. LF of connecting with the community. grew. Older adults joined; we also wel- A congregation may decide to have a comed baby boomers, younger adults, Brad Hales is Pastor at Reform- booth at a town festival or walk in the teens, and children. Instead of wishing ation Lutheran Church in Culpeper, local parade. Maybe the parish will for something you don’t already have, Virginia.
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Lutheran Forum 21 Jesus Christ, Our Great Redeemer
Soprano & ˙ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ 1. Je˙ - sus Christ ourœ great Re - deemœ - er˙ Who has turned a - way God’s 2. That we ne - ver should for - get it He gave us his flesh to 3. Who will draw near to that ta - ble Must take heed, all they are 4. God the Fa - ther praise thou du - ly, That he would feed thee so S j j & œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ œ. œ w an - œ ger,˙ Suf - fered death with - out com - plaint eat it, Hid in bread this gift di - vine. a - ble. Who un - worthy - y thi - ther goes, tru - ly And for ill deeds by thee done S œ j & œ œ œ ˙ ˙ œ. œ œ And saved us from hell’s bit - terœ pain.˙ ˙ Let us drink his blood in the wine. Drinks to their death, not life, they know. Up un - to death has giv’n his Son.
5. Have this faith, and do not waver, 8. “Hadst thou any claim to proffer, It is food for all who crave it, Why for thee should I then suffer? Who, their hearts by sin oppressed, This table is not for thee, Can no more for its anguish rest. If thou wilt set thine own self free.”
6. Such kindness and such grace to get 9. “If with faith thy heart possesses, Seeks a heart with agony great. And the same thy mouth confesses, It is well with thee? Take care, Fit guest then thou art indeed, Lest thou unknown some evil bear. And this food thine own soul will feed.”
7. He doth say, “Come hither to me 10. Bear love’s fruit, and gladly labor I will heal ye, wholly, truly. Help with love thy needy neighbors No physician can heal all That food to them thou canst be The sorrows of the suff ’ring soul.” As God Himself is food for thee.
Text: Martin Luther (1483–1546) JESUS CHRISTUS NOSTRA SALUS Trans. George MacDonald, alt. (1824–1905) 8878 Studies in Luther Brother Martin, Augustinian Friar
Jared Wicks, SJ
his contribution comes from a long-time member of tionally avoiding the term “monk.” I have already made a Ta Catholic religious order who has also carried out point of not calling the Erfurt house a “monastery.” These research on Luther, his theological teaching, and his reform latter terms occur regularly in biographies of Luther and of the church and of Christian spirituality. Here I invite in accounts of his passage to the Reformation, but their Lutheran readers to consider with me some little-known use does not stand up to closer historical examination. To aspects of Luther’s personal formation and life as a mem- speak of Luther as once being “a monk” who experienced ber of the Augustinian order. I do this in order to show “monastic life,” even “monastic silence,” is not correct his- some deep roots, precisely in Luther’s life as an Augustin- torically, in spite of such terms being widespread in works ian friar, of what he became as he matured as a theologian on him and on the history of the Reformation.1 Luther and then publicly emerged as a church reformer beginning himself did use this terminology, but historical accuracy in 1517. demands that we today understand more precisely what he I offer this consideration of Luther as Augustinian friar meant. Our incorrect terminology obscures from our sight as something to keep in mind as we approach the fifth the roots of what Luther became and what he gave to the centenary, in 2017, of Luther’s reforming intervention on church and the world. indulgences. Some aspects of that intervention, I believe, Luther was a “friar,” and his first Augustinian residence need reconsideration from the perspective of Luther’s in Erfurt was a “friary,” in conformity with the standard being formed spiritually in terminology concerning reli- the Augustinian order. To speak of Luther as once being gious orders in the Christian Five hundred years ago, in west.2 The “monastic” orders early 1508, the twenty-four- “a monk” who had experienced of “monks,” in the western year-old Martin Luther was Christian tradition, are the a newly ordained priest and “monastic life” is not correct historically. Benedictines, Cistercians, Car- member of the Augustinian thusians, and Trappists, who Hermits, living with some fifty other Augustinians in the take their ideals of life from St. Benedict and his Rule in the order’s house in Erfurt. Martin had gained his m.a. from early sixth century. These are “monks,” in the proper sense the University of Erfurt in 1505 and on July 17 of that of the term, and their residences are correctly called “mon- year had become a postulant seeking entry into the order. asteries.” But the thirteenth century saw the foundation of Within weeks, in September 1505, Martin began wearing several new and quite different religious orders, the “men- the Augustinian habit and following the program set down dicant” orders of preaching friars, such as the Dominicans, for new entrants, or “novices,” under the direction of an Franciscans, and, yes, the Augustinian “Hermit Friars.”3 experienced older Augustinian. This period of trial and The communities of these mendicants did not hold tracts early formation ended one year later with his formal incor- of land from which revenue accrued for their support, as poration into the order through his profession of the vows did most monastic orders, but they were instead dependent of poverty, chastity, and obedience according to his order’s on alms given to them as beggars (mendicantes) by those to traditions. whom they preached and ministered in other ways. But there is more to the story. The Augustinians first came together in Tuscany under the approval of Pope Alexander iv in 1256. Their connec- tion with St. Augustine lay in their adoption of the rule of “Friar” and “Friary” as Correct Terms life attributed to St. Augustine. Naturally, the North Afri- My title already suggests what may seem an innovation, by can doctor’s writings on God’s grace as well as his Scrip- speaking of Luther as an “Augustinian friar” while inten- ture commentaries became objects of special study and
Lutheran Forum 23 interpretation, leaving many marks on benefit of others, even of the whole The fraternal common life of the fri- the preaching carried out by the mem- church, of a way of prayer and life ars was to set an example of Christian bers of the order that began bearing shaped by the founder. Formation in community for Erfurt’s citizens and Augustine’s name. the spirituality of the order was a per- for men and women living in the vil- sonal enrichment of the member’s life, lages around the city. The lifestyle of but what the member received was the Augustinians, thus, aimed to fos- The Augustinian Order’s Spirituality also to be given to others, to be com- ter a concentrated ethos and a spi- The new thirteenth-century orders municated in the ministries staffed by ritual milieu in the friary, which would did not seek out the rural isolation of the members of the friary. They lived enrich the whole area in which they most monasteries of the older orders. under the rule of Jesus’ word, “To ministered.4 The latter had sought quiet locales to whom much is given, much will be ward off disturbances of their rounds required” (Luke 12:48). Scripture as the Source of the of the liturgical hours and their work, The Dominican ideal of ministry Augustinian Life—and Luther’s whether manual or intellectual. But links contemplation with the hand- the new orders gravitated to the cit- ing on to others of the fruits gained In the Augustinian order’s official ies, aiming to become a leaven in the in contemplative prayer. The Jesuit documents, the source of their spirit urban life of late medieval Europe. ideal, forged in the sixteenth century, and spirituality was in fact Holy Scrip- This was true of the Augustinians, highlights missionary availability and ture. The Augustinian rule of the life, in spite of their carrying with them, mobility in order to serve anywhere, that is, the order’s Constitutions, had as a historical, institutional recollec- especially for the cultural advance- been formulated in the late thirteenth tion of their beginning, the name of century and passed on in manuscript “Hermits.” Along with their other The primary trait of copies. But they were printed for the thirteenth-century foundations, their first time in Nürnberg in 1505 or 1506 community life was ordered by a rou- Luther’s order was not when Luther’s sometime-mentor, tine of common prayer, largely the Johann von Staupitz, was beginning recitation of the Psalms. But this dif- solitude in monastic to govern many of the order’s houses fered from properly monastic prayer, in Germany. The Augustinians’ Con- for the friars’ prayer aimed to support prayer and silent work stitutions, in fact, recently came out as and animate their ministry, especially part of Staupitz’s collected works, and that of preaching to townspeople. The but instead brotherhood so their Latin text can be consulted Erfurt Augustinians, we know, not only without great difficulty. preached to citizens of Erfurt in their in community. In the Constitutions, chapter 17 is friary church, but they also cared for of special importance for understand- thirteen chapels outside the city. In the ment of people through education. ing Luther’s earliest formation, since city and its surroundings, they passed But what about the Augustinians? it sketches the program of education on their spirituality to the members of The best research on the Hermit for life in the order that was given to three lay confraternities based at the Friars of St. Augustine indicates the new novices under the direction of Erfurt friary. prevalence of a spirituality animated the novice master. Here we have the A person enters a religious order, by the image of the first Jerusalem official account of the guidance that both in Luther’s day and in our own, community, as described in Acts 2:42. Martin Luther was receiving in 1505– to be personally formed in a particular The elements, thus, are “the apostles’ 1506. Among other aspects, it lays Christian spiritual tradition, embrac- teaching and fellowship, the break- down this far-reaching guideline that ing a characteristic ideal and method ing of bread, and the prayers.” The “the novice is to read Scripture avidly, of personal prayer, of disciplined liv- primary trait of Luther’s order was hear it devoutly, and fervently lay hold ing, and—outside the strictly monastic not solitude in monastic prayer and of it,” so as to be imbued with the orders—of a ministry shaped in a way silent work but instead brotherhood biblical message and biblical content.5 unique to the order. The handing-on in community. The Augustinians, like This prescription, we can be sure, of the order’s ideals, thus, does not the Franciscans, called each other had a personal and lasting impact on reach its end in the devout spiritual “brother” (frater, from which comes Luther during 1505–1506, when he life of the well-formed member but “friar”). Buzt this community life was a novice in Erfurt. leads to further communication in pointed beyond the confines of the Luther’s Table Talk includes an the church and the world. This point, friary, for it looked to spill over for account of how, before entering the too, is rarely noted in biographies of the benefit of lay people by means of friary, he had one day come upon a Luther. Members of the orders of the friars’ pastoral outreach, both in Bible, most likely a copy of the Latin preaching friars are bearers for the Erfurt and in the surrounding area. Vulgate, in the university library, and
24 Special Edition he began reading it with no little for the governance of some thirty fri- of His influences may be hidden from fascination. Luther found a freshness aries in Germany. Luther mentioned easy analysis, even hidden beneath and vigor in Scripture that was lack- that Staupitz used his authority to contrary experiences, as when Jesus ing in his university studies. We know order that in these houses, the Bible on the cross felt forsaken by God and that the University of Erfurt at the was to be read while the friars took prayed Psalm 22. For us the hidden time offered a program centered on their meals in silence.8 In time, Stau- God is very close, for instance, in the the works of scholastic masters such pitz, as Luther’s superior in the order, paradoxical moment of grace that is as John Duns Scotus and William of designated him for further studies in the confession of my own sin, as by Ockham. Luther said that when they theology, so that Luther would suc- Psalm 51 or by the tax collector in the mentioned Scripture, their interpre- ceed him in the vacated teaching chair temple (Luke 18:13). tations of texts in fact came from the in Wittenberg. For Luther this meant Luther taught, based on Psalms philosophy of Aristotle.6 further developing the familiarity with and Romans, a penitential spirituality When Luther became an Augustin- Scripture begun in the novitiate. of reversal under God’s word, which ian novice, as he recalled several times, one expresses in a word of self-accu- sation of sin. But the reversal, in a Luther as Communicator of a new self-evaluation, occurs so that we When Luther read Spirituality, 1513–1517 can face life’s great task. This in fact and reread his Bible Friar Martin received his doctorate in is God’s work in the believer, which theology from the University of Wit- Luther took from St. Paul to be the with delight, he was tenberg in October 1512, and soon therapeutic application of his divine after took over the biblical chair in the healing from endemic sinfulness. only carrying out theology faculty. The first course he First you have to admit your need, as gave interpreted the Psalms (1513–15). the early chapters of Romans insist. what was prescribed He continued on Romans (1515–16), Galatians (1516–17), and Hebrews Luther taught, based on for his order’s novices. (1517–18), before he offered a second course on the Psalms (1518–20). Psalms and Romans, he was given a Bible, a Vulgate with a Members of the guild of Luther red cover, which he read and reread scholars have devoted scores of stud- a penitential spirituality with delight, even memorizing whole ies to these early Wittenberg biblical passages. In this, we know now, he was lectures given by Luther. My own of reversal under God’s only carrying out what was prescribed work on them, as a doctoral candidate for his order’s novices. When Luther in Münster in the 1960s, focused on word, in a word of passed from being a novice to his life the guidance that Luther regularly as a vowed friar, he had to hand in the drew from the texts as instruction in self-accusation of sin. Bible for use by another novice. But in spirituality. He did interpret the texts his free time he regularly went to the with an eye to showing how biblically- But the reversal occurs friary library to read further in a copy formed Christians should shape their of Scripture. He quickly gained no lives of prayer before God and their so that we can face small expertise with the Bible, being struggle to move on under God’s ever- able to find texts and phrases quickly. present influence toward the salvation life’s great task. His confreres dubbed him the textua- God offers. Luther, as a friar-professor, lis (the “text man”), who could supply did communicate a spirituality during Luther interpreted the need as based precise biblical terms and verses in the his early lectures—just as his order’s on the baneful inheritance of the old midst of discussions. At times, Luther ideals indicated that he should.9 Adam that your lifestyle has left deeply relates, an especially meaningful verse In his lectures on the Psalms, Luther lodged in your heart. would occupy his thoughts for the repeatedly took these prayers of David But God does not call believers to whole of the day.7 as written for the spiritual struggle into struggle alone, on their own, and in In Luther’s recollections of his early which we all are thrown. Jesus prayed solitude. God is near, ever near, to heal Bible reading, he mentions Johann von the Psalms when opposition cropped their malady. Luther can celebrate this Staupitz, who had held the chair of up against his teaching and when his work of God, as the psalmist and Paul Scripture study at the new University disciples learned so slowly from him. record their outbreaks of joyful con- of Wittenberg. But Staupitz left this He prayed the Psalms intently during fidence and delight in serving God. post when he was elected the Vicar his passion. But the God of the Psalms These moments are not a person’s of the Augustinian Superior General is not distant, even though the pattern own achievement but instead works
Lutheran Forum 25 of God’s healing gifts in human hearts prayer for God’s purifying influence. 3rd ed., eds. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone that have become susceptible to the For the present, it can be a great gain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 131. 4. Many particulars on the Augustinians work of the divine therapist. In one to know how the Augustinian order are given in the modern encyclopedia of reli- place in his Romans course, Luther formed Luther as a person avid and gious orders, in the entry by B. Rano, “Agostin- calls Jesus “our Samaritan” who iani,” in Dizionario degli Istituti di perfezione, vol. has left us under treatment until he Luther’s early lectures 1, eds. Gerrino Pelliccia & Giancarol Rocca, returns, and the treatment does have 10 vols. (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 1974–2003), its moments of effectiveness. 278–381. So far I have never seen this entry present us with his on Luther’s order cited in recent works on his Luther’s early lectures present us early life and development, but I look forward with his personalized version of a spir- personalized version of to reading Luther und das Monastische Erbe, eds. ituality akin to what Bishop Augustine Christoph Bultmann et al. (Tübingen: Mohr preached to the Christians of Hippo, a spirituality akin to Siebeck, 2007). and so Luther was very much in the 5. Citing from “Constitutiones osea pro ref- ormatione Alemanniae,” ed. Wolfgang Günter, larger Augustinian tradition. True to what Bishop Augustine in Johann von Staupitz, Sämtliche Schriften, eds. the obligation of further communi- Lothar Graf von Dohna and Richard Wetzel, cation, Luther’s first published book preached to the vol. 5, Gutachten und Satzungen, Spätmittel- of his own teaching, brought out in alter und Reformation 17 (Berlin & New York: spring 1517, was a German translation Christians of Hippo. de Gruyter, 2001), 194. of the seven penitential psalms, along 6. Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung bis 1519, ed. Otto Scheel, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Sie- with Luther’s commentary offering to zealous to live, pray, and teach from beck, 1929), nos. 190 (p. 73) and 394 (p. 145), readers many themes he had devel- Scripture. His teaching, especially as it giving Table Talk, nos. 116 and 3767, on read- oped in his early biblical lectures. One first emerged from his biblical courses, ing a Bible in the university library. Then no. astute interpreter of Luther’s develop- remains a treasure and, quite possibly, 253 (p. 99), giving Table Talk, no. 1745, on the ment, Oswald Bayer, called this small a source of spiritual guidance—in the university practice of understanding Scripture according to Aristotle. book the “authentic compendium of penitential life under God’s healing 7. Ibid., nos. 190 (p. 73), 439 (p. 159), and Luther’s theology” during the years grace—for Christians of all confes- 538 (p. 206), giving Table Talk, nos. 116, 5346, 10 of his emergence, 1513–1517. This sions in our day. LF and M. Mathesius’s account of Luther’s early is quite true, though at the same time life, on his intense bible study as a novice. Also such a publication was entirely in Jared Wicks, SJ, is a theologian and no. 422 (p. 154), giving Table Talk, no. 4691, keeping with what was expected of writer residing at John Carroll Univer- on Luther becoming “ein guter textualis,” who knew where to find biblical passages. Again, an Augustinian friar, namely, the com- sity in Cleveland, Ohio. no. 190 (p. 73–74), at the end of Table Talk, munication to others of a spirituality no. 116, on Luther pondering a weighty pas- to deepen their Christian prayer and Notes sage all day. living. 1. One recent example is Richard Marius, 8. Ibid., nos. 439 (p. 159), 445 (p. 161), and Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death Luther’s teaching on the penitential 538 (p. 210), giving Table Talk, nos. 5346, (Cambridge: Belknap, 1999), with ch. 3 on 5373, and Mathesius, on Staupitz ordering life of a Christian, ever under God’s Luther’s “Flight to the Monastery” and ch. 4 Bible reading at table in the friaries. healing work in one’s heart, became on “Years of Silence,” pp. 43–78, which betray 9. I set this forth at length in Man Yearning the basis of momentous developments the author’s neglect of any investigation into for Grace (Washington: Corpus, 1968 and Wies- in 1517–1518, when Luther began the specific spiritual ideals of the Augustinian baden: Steiner, 1969). A more compact account contesting the high view of human order that Luther entered in 1505. is in Luther and His Spiritual Legacy (Wilmington: 2. Use of the proper terminology of “fri- abilities before God then being taught Glazier, 1983), ch. 4, “Luther’s Theology of ars” and “friary,” regarding the Augustinians the Cross, 1513–18.” More recently, “God and by some “scholastic” theologians of and their houses, is one of the many positive His Grace according to Luther, 1509–1517,” the day. Furthermore, the spirituality aspects of the most recent full-length study of in Luther Bulletin 10 (2001): 83–105, which was of ongoing purification, based in the Luther’s mentor Staupitz by Franz Posset, The also published in compact form in Luther Digest Psalms and in Paul, also gave Luther Front-Runner of the Catholic Reformation: The Life 11 (2003): 131–34. and Works of Johann von Staupitz (Aldershot & a touchstone by which to evaluate the 10. Oswald Bayer, Promissio: Geschichte der Burlington: Ashgate, 2003). reformatorischen Wende in Luthers Theologie (Göt- preachers of indulgences in 1517, 3. This is the terminology of the always- tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 144. whom he found to be undercutting a reliable Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, life animated by confident yet urgent
26 Special Edition Hagiography
St. Nenilava
James B. Vigen
he Lutheran Church in Madagascar (Fiangonana Loter- days! Sometime after this, Malady had a vision in which Tana Malagasy, flm) is among the fastest growing in the he saw his daughter as a high priestess, and so he ceased to world. It is growing not only numerically but also in the spi- engage in those traditional practices. ritual depth of its witness to the gospel of Jesus the Christ. Many well-to-do men sought to marry Volahavana Ger- The flm can also be lifted up as one in which a true indi- maine, speaking to her father about the matter. In Mala- genization of the Christian faith has taken place. All of gasy tradition, marriages are always arranged between these positive qualities are attributable not solely to, but to families rather than being decisions made on an individual a large extent because of, the incredible life and work of or romantic basis. Again, breaking strongly with tradition, a woman named Volahavana Germaine, better known to Volahavana Germaine refused even to consider any of the the world by the name by which her followers called her, men who spoke to her father. Nenilava. Finally, after being pressured by her parents, she agreed The impact that this woman has had upon the church to marry an aged Lutheran catechist named Mosesy in Madagascar is quite amazing, given the fact that the Tsirefo in 1935. Mosesy was a widower with several chil- Lutheran church there has steadfastly refused to ordain dren from his first marriage. However, prior to marrying a women into the ministry of Word and Sacrament—yet cathechist, Volahavana Germaine was required to become nearly everyone within the church will proudly name her a a Christian. She was instructed in the faith by the local pas- prophet. Her rise to leadership of an indigenous-led revival tor, Ramasivelo, and when her studies were complete just movement with an international reach is almost inexpli- two weeks later, he baptized her. It was at the time of her cable, humanly speaking, as she had practically no formal baptism that young Baolava took on her new name and education of any sort. Another amazing thing about her identity as Volahavana Germaine. Only afterwards did her influence is that the revival movement that she led for fifty- marriage to Mosesy Tsirefo take place. The marriage lasted seven years, known as the Fifohazana or “awakening,” has ten years, until Mosesy died in 1945. never departed from the church whence it emerged. Volahavana Germaine’s spiritual awakening and call to ministry took place four years prior to Mosesy’s death. One olahavana Germaine was born around 1918 in a little of his daughters got sick and was thought to be possessed Vvillage close to the town of Manakara on Madagas- by evil spirits. A local catechist named Petera de Vohidrafy car’s southeast coast.1 As was the case with most Malagasy was trying to cast the demon out of the girl but to no avail. of that period, she was born at home and given the name Volahavana Germaine was in another room cooking when Baolava. There is no official record of her birth, nor did she heard a voice commanding her to go and do something anyone take any particular note of the day or even the for the poor suffering girl. Volahavana Germaine hesitated exact year! She was the third of four girls in the family. to move, but an invisible force pushed her into the other The child was not born into a Christian home. Indeed, room, right in front of the child writhing on the floor and her father, Malady, was a petty chieftain of the Antaimoro insensate. Volahavana Germaine took hold of the child, people group and also a practitioner of traditional medi- embraced her, and would not let her go. At length, the cine, making use of charms, reading the sikidy (“omens” spirits possessing the child declared “we are going to leave or “portents”), telling people’s fortunes and perhaps even because the one who is stronger than we are is coming.” calling down curses upon someone’s enemy. Later in That was on August 1, 1941. The same night Jesus life, when telling about her youth, she indicated that she was said to appear to the three people present at the heal- never approved of her father’s work and at a young age ing: Volahavana Germaine, Mosesy Tsirefo, and Petera denounced it publicly. For a young woman to speak out de Vohidrafy. Jesus commanded them to “get up, preach against her own father was practically unheard of in those the good news to the whole world. Chase the demons out.
Lutheran Forum 27 Commit yourselves and do not delay. Followers in the revival were and are The time has come for the Son of consecrated as mpiandry (“shepherds”) Man to be glorified in the Maritanan- after a two-year period of training ana and Ambohibe tribes. I have cho- under the supervision of a local pas- sen you for this mission. I command tor and approval by a local committee you to carry it out.”2 of elders in the movement. All mpi- Both catechists immediately assent- andry candidates are trained by the ed to the Lord’s command. Volaha- pastor in their own area. The rules vana Germaine, however, did not. of the revival state that no preaching, She protested that she was too young, teaching, or healing can be done with- too uneducated—she could not read out the presence of the local pastor. or write, having never attended In this way the revival has been kept school—and that she did not know the closely aligned with the flm, though Scriptures, so how could she possibly a good number of people from other preach? But Jesus continued to appear denominational backgrounds have insistently to Volahavana Germaine. become mpiandry, including Roman She relented when Jesus promised that Catholics. he himself would give her instruction Nenilava When doing their “work”5 the mpi- and the words to speak. For the rest of andry wear special robes identical to her life, Volahavana Germaine never followers in the revival movement usu- the white Geneva preaching gowns spoke in her own name. She always ally refer to her as Neni or “mother.”4 worn by pastors of the flm, but with- said it was Jesus’ word she was sharing. The early phase of Nenilava’s out the stole. Female mpiandry always Volahavana Germaine’s Spirit- ministry, roughly from 1941 to 1953, wear headgear similar to what Roman filled ministry thus began when she was marked by a certain amount of Catholic nuns used to wear. A toby was only twenty-one years old, in her conflict between her movement and will have a certain number of mpi- home region among the Antemoro Lutheran church authorities, mission- andry living within its confines who people of the Manakara region. These aries, and their home agencies. Some minister to all who come there for people are among critics were opposed to her because of healing, both physical and spiritual. her lack of formal education. Perhaps Other mpiandry live and work out- the strictest taboo-based ethnic they feared what had occurred already side the toby but travel there to do group in Madagascar. It fol- in other African countries: revival their work. No one who comes to a lows a male dominated culture; movements splitting people off into toby is ever charged for their food or it is [the] man who is the head African Indigenous Churches and for any other care given to them. The of a group, a family, a village. away from the foundations laid over toby are largely self-sustaining, receiv- He holds a power which makes many years by the missions. Others ing no financial assistance from either him accepted and respected… were suspicious of the focus on demon the indigenous church or from mission women are seen as the thread possession and exorcism. Such critics agencies but only donations. following the needle… It is heard and repeated stories of a per- Nenilava and her followers estab- amazing to know that in a male son with a fatal disease being misdiag- lished a toby near her native village in dominated culture such as the nosed as possessed. But gradually she Ankaramalaza, which is located about Antemoro culture, our Lord won over most of her critics, indig- fifty kilometers from Manakara. The Jesus Christ elected and called enous Malagasy church leaders and village is only accessible by taking a a woman such as Nenilava to be missionaries serving alongside them. canoe ride across a wide, crocodile- an influential leader.3 infested river. The nickname “Nenilava” was first enilava and her co-workers fol- It didn’t take long for Nenilava’s given to Volahavana Germaine by Nlowed the model of earlier revival fame to grow. She spent thirty years people of her region, who mocked her movements in Madagascar, especially in a ministry of itinerant evangelism, for presuming to take a leadership role that of the mpianatry ny tompo (“Disci- traveling all over Madagascar. Every- as a woman. The name means “tall ples of the Lord”) who had established where Nenilava went she took with her mother,” and she was certainly tall a toby at Soatanana in the Fianarant- a letter of introduction from the pas- for a woman, standing slightly over soa region of the Central Highlands. tor of the Ankaramalaza toby, which six feet tall. She accepted the name, A toby (pronounced too-bee) is a dedi- served as her introduction to church though, because she saw it as a sym- cated spiritual center or camp analo- authorities in the villages, towns, and bol of her persecution as a follower of gous to the monasteries of the early cities she visited. In just about every Jesus Christ. Her spiritual children or monastic movement in Europe. place she visited a toby was formed.
28 Special Edition There are today fifty-six such centers are all invited to vest, process, and On their way out of the country, around the large island nation, with be seated in places of honor together the Quanbecks stopped in the capi- the toby of Ankaramalaza serving as with the ordained pastors. I believe tal city of Antananarivo to pay their headquarters for the movement. Each that the mpiandry actually function as respects to the church leadership and year new mpiandry are consecrated a fully recognized form of the diacon- say their goodbyes. Little did they at Ankaramalaza, usually numbering ate within the flm. know that Nenilava had been working in the hundreds, sometimes over a behind the scenes to have the tobys thousand. espite significant scholarly docu- designated as health clinics of the Nenilava’s work centered on three Dmentation of the Fifohazana, church! The national church leader- things: proclaiming the gospel, cast- the story of how Nenilava influenced ship of the flm asked the Quanbecks ing out demons, and laying on hands health care in Madagascar has not to become leaders of a new, central- for healing, within the toby and with- often been told. ized health department of the church out. To emphasize that the revival In the late 1970s Stan Quanbeck, a with headquarters in the capital. movement was not to be thought of doctor, and his wife Kathie Quanbeck, After praying over the matter for as an independent church, originally a nurse, resigned from their work in some time, Stan and Kathie decided the ministry of the mpiandry did not southwest Madagascar because of to “try it for two years.” They ended take place during the Sunday morn- the frustration of trying to run Ejeda up staying for twenty-five years and ing liturgical service. Instead, special Hospital while under the constant and building up the health ministry, which services were announced for the after- petty interference of the local flm now serves the whole country and noon or evening, and anyone who synod president. Stan was a third- does work in almost all the larger wanted to could come seek the minis- generation missionary to Madagascar tobys, some of them having grown trations of the mpiandry.6 At any high and had gone to medical school with into full-fledged health clinics. Almost church festival, such as an ordination the sole intention of serving as a medi- all of the physicians and most of the or church anniversary, the mpiandry cal missionary. nurses and other medical personnel
Ankaramalaza toby
Lutheran Forum 29 Malagasy revival meeting working in the Lutheran Department tested that he was still only a first-year came with him. After several years of Health (salfa) are consecrated mpi- medical student. Nenilava said to him, as a South-South missionary, Mamy andry themselves. “You are already a doctor for me.” asked permission to train in the One key intervention of the Quan- She later urged him to get consecrated United States not as a doctor of tropi- becks was to arrange for special train- as a mpiandry, which he did. Nenilava cal medicine but to become a pastor! ing for the salfa personnel to help also informed him during Holy Week Today he serves as the pastor of Jour- them identify psychotic issues with a 1986 that he was going to America. ney Lutheran Church in Onalaska, medical basis. The staff also learned Mamy did his internship in Fian- Wisconsin. Nenilava’s prophecy about to prescribe drugs necessary to calm arantsoa at one of the new clinics him came true! Nenilava also proph- down highly emotional or possibly opened by salfa serving the poor esied that one of Mamy and Honore’s psychotic persons long enough for the in the city as well as theological stu- daughters would become a pastor. spiritual ministrations of the mpiandry dents and faculty at the flm’s national This, too, came to pass.7 to be carried out with some hope of seminary. While still in Fianarantsoa, success. Having trained medical per- Mamy applied to and was accepted enilava herself traveled and wit- sonnel working hand in hand with the at the School of Tropical Medicine Nnessed internationally. In 1973, tobys also tempered the criticism that in Belgium but lacked the funds to at the invitation of several American health problems were worsened by a attend. He asked Stan Quanbeck churches and the Norwegian Mission- diagnosis of demon oppression when whether there might be a scholar- ary Society, she visited both countries the real problem was a medical condi- ship, but there was none. But Quan- and even received an audience with tion—or, as most Malagasy mpiandry beck had another proposal: “How the king of Norway. She again trav- would suggest, both! would you like to serve in Papua New eled abroad in 1980, this time to the In another case of symbiosis Guinea?” Mamy had to be shown on small village of Pouru Saint Rémy in between toby ministry and health a map where exactly that was—not, as the Ardennes forest near the Belgian care, a young medical student named he first assumed, somewhere in Africa! border. She and two female co-workers Mamy Jocelyn Ranaivoson was Mamy served for several years stayed there for three months. The attracted to the movement and volun- in Papua New Guinea through an many Malagasy living in France who teered with other medical students to elca program called South-South knew about her work wanted her to work in the toby at “67 Hectares,” a Exchange, which provides the salary come and minister to them and give poor neighborhood of Antananarivo. and logistical support for one south- them guidance about forming a toby He and the others treated the sick ern hemisphere country to serve the of their own. These plans, first prayed who lined up each day at the toby for needs of another. Mamy and his about and planned in 1980, came basic care. On the first occasion that wife Honore had a great impact both to fruition in 1997 when the toby of Mamy was introduced to Nenilava, through his medical work as well as Pouru Saint Rémy was inaugurated.8 she greeted him as “Doctor.” He pro- through the mpiandry ministry that Another example of Nenilava’s
30 Special Edition international influence upon the Richard, a mpiandry who worked told her while she was there that this church is one of her early followers, for the Malagasy equivalent of the was exactly the type of church that Péri Rasolondraibe, who earned a Social Security administration and should be built at Ankaramalaza. At doctorate in systematic theology from later became the treasurer of the flm, that time, almost all the buildings at Princeton Theological Seminary. He went to Nenilava for a wife. He ini- Ankaramalaza were built with local taught for a period at Luther Semi- tially refused her suggestion because materials found on the coast: sticks, nary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and then the woman didn’t have a job, while bamboo, and banana fronds for the became Director of the Lutheran he was a fairly high-ranking govern- roof. The church in Harstad, how- World Federation’s Department for ment official. Not only that, they’d ever, was of stone, steel, and concrete. Mission and Development, serving never even met! A year later, though, Besides being located on a faraway from 1995 to 2005. he consented to the marriage, trust- island, Ankaramalaza was far from During the years 1973 through ing that Nenilava’s choice came from any main roads for materials trans- 1980 Nenilava had to limit her trav- God. He admitted that, of course, port—to say nothing of the cost els due to health concerns of her there are problems in every marriage, involved. Nenilava asked the Norwe- own. She lived mainly at the new toby even those arranged and blessed by gian Missionary Society to assist in the in the capital in 67 Hectares and at Nenilava, but that his marriage had building of this chapel. They refused the Ambohibao toby, which opened been abundantly blessed.9 until the project was drastically altered in 1987 and houses a large medical Another example of Nenilava’s not to be an exact copy of the church clinic. She returned each year, though, matchmaking is Modeste Rakoto in Norway. The church, however, was to Ankaramalaza for the annual con- Endor, the immediate past president of built!10 During the last several years, vention of the Fifohazana, which the flm. His wife Jeanette was one of many prominent mpiandry with the always meets from July 27 to August Nenilava’s spiritual children. Modeste means to do so have built modern, 2 to commemorate the beginning of Rakoto Endor’s family was quite Western-style homes for their use dur- Nenilava’s ministry. There is also a prominent in Fort Dauphin, whereas ing the annual gathering in Ankara- toby named for her, Toby Nenilava in Jeannette was an orphan who, like malaza. The wealth issues involved Fort Dauphin, which opened in 1980. Nenilava herself, had almost no for- are glaring in a society that suffers And there are tobys of various sizes in mal education. The two spouses are from such extreme poverty. just about every major city and town also from very different ethnic groups. The second issue is far more seri- of Madagascar. Prior to becoming the president of the ous. In 1983 it became known that the With her itinerancy restricted, flm, Modeste Rakoto Endor received leaders of the movement had decided Nenilava took on a new role: as a doctorate from the Lutheran School that, in fulfillment of a divine com- matchmaker. Not only did the Mala- of Theology at Chicago in New Tes- mand Nenilava had received from gasy bride and groom traditionally tament and was a professor at the flm Jesus, she would be invested as “Chief not choose for themselves, but mar- seminary in Fianarantsoa. Jeannette Prophetess,” wearing a robe and riages were never arranged between only learned to read while singing in crown following the exact descrip- different people groups or between church, when she began to make con- tion of high priest Aaron’s vestments couples considered to be unequal in nections between the words she was in Exodus 28 and 29. Many objected social status. For example, a woman singing and what she saw written in to this idea, especially within the from a family of andriana, or nobles, the hymnal. While resident in Chicago missionary community and, indeed, would never be paired with someone she became fluent in English and took though many expatriate mission per- not from a noble family. Likewise, a a leadership role among the graduate sonnel were very favorably disposed young man with slave ancestry would student spouses’ group at lstc. toward the movement—and some never be able to marry a woman even consecrated as mpiandry—no whose lineage had never been in a espite her many accomplish- missionaries took part in the event.11 state of servitude. Dments and successes, Nenilava’s Lotera Fabien, a pastor and the di- In the Fifohazana movement, how- work was not always free of contro- rector of the seminary in Fianarant- ever, many young mpiandry went to versy, even long after the initial years soa, has insisted that this event did not Nenilava and precisely not to their of skepticism. Two cases stand out, consecrate Nenilava as a high priest biological parents to ask for a spouse. one relatively minor and the other but simply recognized her role as a Nenilava was said to ask Jesus directly more problematic. prophet.12 Despite the controversy, for the proper prospective spouse. The less controversial case took even after the consecration there was Nenilava invariably arranged mar- place when Nenilava traveled to Nor- no change in Nenilava’s actions nor riages between persons of different way. She visited a Norwegian state in the movement itself. The matter ethnicities, social ranks, and educa- church congregation in the town of slowly faded from memory. Her gown tional levels. For example, Andreas Harstad. Nenilava believed that Jesus and crown were, for a time, able to be
Lutheran Forum 31 viewed in a small historical display in ers around the world is nothing short ventured out. She died at Ambohibao Ankaramalaza but at the present time of astounding. While no statistics have in 1998. Her body was transported to they are kept in a secure location and been kept, anecdotal evidence sug- Ankaramalaza, where she was bur- only displayed on special occasions.13 gests that probably well over 90% of ied. No “successor” has emerged in While these were the only two dis- all the pastors and other leaders of the her ministry. The Fifohazana move- putes between the Fifohazana and the flm are mpiandry or have otherwise ment that she led for so many years is national church or missionaries, there been greatly influenced by the move- directed now by a committee of elders has been a good deal of controversy ment. If you travel to Madagascar chosen from within. The flm some on the ecumenical front. The larg- and inquire about Nenilava’s influ- years ago created an official Depart- est Protestant church on the island, ence, you will hear story after story ment of Revivals! a union church known as the fjkm,14 of her healings, prophecies foretold In the meanwhile, there has been has complained bitterly because entire and fulfilled, lives changed in the most no evident lessening of Nenilava’s congregations of theirs have officially dramatic ways after meeting with her. influence or of the movement she petitioned to become congregations And yet, by every account, Nenilava’s co-founded so many years ago. She of the flm instead! The stated rea- basic character as a very modest and was not only a “tall mother”; she was son is always that the people of those soft-spoken woman never changed. a woman who stood tall in the faith congregations have been deeply influ- Nobody who ever came to her for a given her at baptism, and she reached enced by the Fifohazana and they felt blessing or advice got turned away. heights of both spiritual and human that the Lutheran church was sup- They may have had to wait for hours influence attained by few others in the portive of their spiritual awakening behind those who’d gotten there first, history of the church. LF while the fjkm was not. but she turned no one away. For the last decade or more of her James B. Vigen served as a missionary espite these matters, the over- life Nenilava was mostly homebound in Madagascar from 1978 to 1996 and Dwhelming body of evidence is in her quarters at Toby Ambohibao. is now Pastor at Orangeburg Lutheran that Nenilava’s influence upon the Visitors still came to see her and seek Church in Orangeburg, South people of Madagascar and many oth- blessings from her, but she seldom Carolina.
Consecration of shepherds at Ankaramalaza
32 Special Edition church. Personal correspondence with Lotera Fabien, January 2017. 7. Personal correspondence with Mamy Jocelyn Ranaivoson, January 2017. 8. The Fifohazana: Madagascar’s Indigenous Christian Movement, ed. Cynthia Holder Rich (Amherst: Cambria, 2008), 34. 9. Edgar R. Trexler, “The Prophetess of Madagascar: Selecting mates, sending shep- herds and exorcists—all in a day’s work for Neni-lava,” The Lutheran (September 27, 1999): 13. This article was written at the time of the one hundredth anniversary of American Lutheran missionary work in Madagascar. The elca’s first presiding bishop, Herbert Chilstrom, and the editor of The Lutheran, Edgar R. Trexler, attended the festivities. Chil- strom met with Nenilava during that visit and toured a toby. 10. Kjetil Aano, “The Missions and the Fifohazana: Cultural Clashes and the Ques- tion of Power,” in The Fifohazana, 68. 11. Ibid., 64. Nenilava among friends 12. Lotera Fabien, “Healing Ministry,” 3, Notes 3. Lotera Fabien, “The Healing Ministry and personal correspondence. 1. While the exact date is not certain, some of Ankaramalaza,” Africa Theological Journal 13. Personal correspondence with Andri- scholars put the year at 1920. See Berthe Ram- 35/1 (2015): 5–6. anasolo Jaona, General Secretary of the inosoa Rasoanalimanga, “Rainisoalambo, 4. Ibid., 2–3. Ankaramalaza Revival Movement, January Ravelonjanahary and Volahavana Germaine 5. I have placed the word “work” in quota- 2017. (Nenilava): Revival Leaders of Madagascar,” tion marks not to question its legitimacy but to 14. The Fiangonan’i Jesoa Kristy eto Mada- Journal of African Christian Biography 1/7 (2016). indicate that this is a literal translation of what gasikar (fjkm) is often described as a church in The date engraved on Volahavana Germaine’s the mpiandry themselves call what they do, the Reformed family. While this may be how grave is July 14, 1920. However, many earlier their asa. It consists equally of preaching, heal- it self-identifies today, the denomination was works place her birth sometime in 1918. ing, and giving spiritual guidance or pastoral originally formed as a union of congregations 2. Zakaria Tsivoery, “Ny Tantaran’ny Fifo- care (dinidinika in Malagasy). Nenilava herself established by many different mission societies, hazana Ankaramalaza,” in Ny Tantaran’ny Fifo- always emphasized the priority of preaching including the Society of Friends, the congre- hazana Eto Madagasikara Soatanana, Farihimena, above all else. gations formed out of the London Missionary Ankaramalaza (Antananarivo: Trano Printy 6. At a meeting of the Church Council Society, which was congregational in polity, Loterana, 2001), 190. The English translation of Madagascar some years ago, the Komity and congregations formed by the Paris Evan- used here is from Rasoanalimanga, “Rainiso- Maharatra amin’ny Synoda Lehibe decided gelical Missionary Association. alambo Ravelonjanahary, and Volavana Ger- that these healing ministries could take place maine (Nenilava),” 17. also within the Sunday morning liturgy of the
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Lutheran Forum 33 Global Lutheranism Lars Levi Laestadius and the Nordic Revival
Hannu Juntunen
aestadianism, a conservative revival movement that successor as the vicar of Pajala parish was his son-in-law, Lbegan in the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia in the Per Lorens Norborg. Laestadius pioneered the alphabetiza- nineteenth century, is still an active force in contemporary tion of the Lule Sami language4 and published a book of Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Its core area is the Nordic Bible stories in it. He also studied Finnish, which he did not region, with about 300,000 adherents (the exact figure is know when he came to Karesuando, but upon which he uncertain) divided into a number of distinct groups.1 In was almost entirely dependent during his later years. Finland, Laestadianism is the largest revivalist movement Laestadius also became a respected scientist—a bota- when measured by the number of its supporters. Laesta- nist and expert on the flora of Lapland.5 In 1838–1839 dianism has increasingly become an international spiritual he was invited to join a scientific expedition to Greenland movement, and it may be the largest religious movement to and other Arctic areas financed by the French Admiralty have emerged from the Nordic countries. and led by the French naturalist Joseph Paul Gaimard Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861), the founder of the (1793–1858). Laestadius joined the expedition as a special- revival movement bearing his name, was a pastor of the ist in mountain flora. He was able to sell several thousand Lutheran state Church of Sweden. Laestadius served as specimens of mountain plants to Gaimard. He also wrote a vicar in Sweden’s northernmost parish, Karesuando Histoire et mythologie des Lapons at Gaimard’s request. This (1826–1849), and subsequently in Pajala (1849–1861); book was never actually published in French, but the Swed- both villages are close to the Finnish border.2 ish version appeared in 1959.
Early Life and Education Laestadius’s Theology Laestadius was of both Swedish and Sami3 origins, and Laestadius’s most important work was a theological dis- grew up in a Sami area. His family name comes from the sertation entitled Dårhushjonet (“The Madhouse Inmate”), little village of Lästad in northern Sweden. Some of his which was not published in his lifetime. The book is a ancestors and relatives were clergymen, but his father Karl hybrid of religion and philosophy—theology combined was a hunter and fisherman in Arjeplog in Swedish Lap- with theories of psychology that were regarded as empiri- land. The family lived on the edge of poverty because of cally founded in the 1830s. The text should be understood Karl’s alcoholism. Lars and his brother Petrus were able to as Laestadius’s way of opposing the dominant philosophi- attend school because of financial assistance from an older cal paradigms of mid-nineteenth-century theology. The half-brother, Karl Erik Laestadius, who was a Lutheran work was not published until in the middle of the twentieth pastor at Kvikkjokk in northern Sweden. Laestadius mar- century but has attracted increasing attention since then. ried Brita Catharina (Kajsa) Alstadius (1805–1888) in Laestadius wrote almost all his sermons in Finnish, and 1827. They had twelve children. The death of their son they have been reprinted in collected form many times. It Levi, who died at the age of four in 1840, was a great trag- is also possible to check the published versions of the ser- edy for them. mons against the original manuscripts; one can now use all Laestadius studied botany as well as theology at Uppsala 466 of Laestadius’s extant sermons as source material. University. A gifted student, he began his ministerial studies The core of Laestadius’s theology is an anthropologi- immediately after matriculating in 1820. He was ordained cal argument in which he sought to prove through empiri- in Härnösand in 1825 together with his brother Petrus. cal observation that human behaviors are governed by the After completing the examination required for ecclesi- human heart. After Adam’s fall, the human heart became astical promotion, Laestadius was made the dean of the wicked and could not be purified by human will. Therefore, chapter of the Härnösand diocese in 1843. Laestadius’s divine redemption must be realized in the believer’s heart
34 Special Edition through the stages of the ordo salutis. Laestadius’s basic theological concept of justification combined the forensic imputative with the ontic view of the doctrine. He used the anthropological argument to claim that a subjective sense of redemption in the believer’s heart is necessary for justi- fication. In his thought, the forensic and ontic aspects of justification are not in opposition. Laestadius regarded pietism as the correct interpreta- tion of Lutheran teachings; accordingly, he held that pure Lutheran doctrine had been supplanted in the thinking and preaching of the Swedish church. To be the true church, the Church of Sweden must teach true Lutheran doctrine, guide people to subjective experiences of faith, and pro- mote revival within the church. The historic church exists to awaken living faith.
Laestadius as Pietist Theologian and Revivalist Laestadius’s understanding of the phenomenon of “living Christianity”—the reason for the church’s existence—was manifested in pietistic revivals, including his own revival movement but not only in his. Laestadius emphasized repentance above all else. In his thought, the sacrament of baptism does not occupy the same fundamental position as it does in traditional Lutheran orthodoxy. It is instead referred to as a covenant, Sketch of Laestadius made for the report of 1838–1840 expedition and its sacramental character has been weakened. In order of the French-led Commission Scientifique du Nord, for which he to lead his communicants to proper penitence and repen- was chosen due to his knowledge of both botany and Sami culture. tance, Laestadius used the conceptual framework of a covenant of baptism broken by sin. Laestadius’s preach- the Spirit through the preacher. Real contrition, real weep- ing of repentance is situated within the pietistic tradition. ing, and real lamentation were demanded; a revival sermon Further indications of his belonging to this tradition are his must have visible effects. Laestadius’s concept of repen- intense interest in the order of grace, the various spiritual tance was often connected to outward manifestations that conditions of believers, and the direction of his religious one might achieve despite one’s limited ethical freedom. It teaching. may therefore be called outward repentance and consists Laestadius’s preaching of Christ’s atoning death is not first and foremost in a proper confession—a detailed recital guided by the forensic metaphor of Lutheran orthodoxy. of sins made before the assembled congregation. Further, He is instead concerned to bring his listeners to look upon penitents must be reconciled with those nearest to them the suffering Savior and thus be brought to penitence, and must renounce all willful sins. repentance, and the new birth. His emphasis on the new Laestadius thought that genuine Christians have the birth is an extension of the stress he places on the spiritual right to examine others with respect to their spiritual state power that characterizes true Christians. and to impel them in this way to the requisite confession When Laestadius began his work as a revivalist, he was of their sins. His teaching seems to have been that grace is apparently aware that he was offering an alternative to the given only to those who are able to receive it. He empha- traditional methods of evangelism used in his church. This sizes that true spiritual judgment must take place—a judg- is particularly true of the new kind of confession practiced ment to be carried out by one’s fellow Christians. These in Laestadian groups—a variant originated and introduced Christians are believers sufficiently experienced in the by Laestadius himself. The pietistic emphasis, which had order of grace to know when a person is in the proper spi- previously been only latent, took concrete form in the ritual state to receive grace. Laestadian movement: the order of grace was embodied Laestadius’s preaching and practice left room for assur- in their groups. ance of grace in connection with the work of the spiritual Laestadius expected the fruits of preaching to take the priesthood in the congregation. Laestadius claimed that form of what he called “conviction and repentance.” These the power to forgive sins really has been placed in human terms were understood in a concrete fashion as the work of hands; in his own church it is the true Christians who
Lutheran Forum 35 Below: Altar triptych featuring Laestadius in the Jukkasjärvi Kyrka, Sweden, by Bror Hyort (1958). Credit: Creative Commons 4.0, lin208. exercise this power. The Spirit works ing a visitation of the Ǻsele parish istics of the pietist movements of the directly in the heart of the repentant in Swedish Lapland, and Milla, who early 1840s. From a historian’s per- sinner, who may receive a “sign of belonged to a group known as the spective, the essential origin of the grace” through a vision, an audible “Readers,” asked to talk with him Laestadian revival is to be found in message, or a virtually indefinable after the service about her conversion this new emphasis. feeling of being in the “joyful state” experiences and her faith journey. The revival emerged in the Kare- of grace. Researchers who have studied suando parish by the end of 1845. It Laestadius have interpreted the signif- was not only a religious rebirth but icance of this encounter with Milla/ also brought a social resurrection to Beginning and Growth of the Maria for Laestadius and his spiritu- an area that had been devastated by Laestadian Movement ality in various ways. He had by this alcoholism. Laestadius’s emphasis on The parish of Karesuando was a time lost his father, two of his children, the evils of drinking, which was in part Sami congregation; as such, it had a and the half-brother who had helped derived from his childhood experience number of distinctive characteristics. to provide an education for him and of an alcoholic father, was a recurrent A particularly noteworthy feature his brother Petrus. Laestadius’s grief theme in his sermons. A passage from was the observation of general days may have made him more than ordi- an 1857 sermon on Psalm 115 is typi- of prayer, which had to be concen- narily receptive to a spiritual awaken- cal: trated during the winter months when ing of his own. In any case one can The drunkard’s favorite god is the nomadic Lapps were temporarily say that Milla led Laestadius to his the visible flowing liquor, rum, settled in the vicinity. The custom of personal revival. She does not seem or whatever his name may be, “village prayers” led by laypeople was to have influenced Laestadius’s -for which we call the devil’s shit, for also the rule in the parishes along the mal theology, and his sermons did not the devil teaches people to ruin Swedish-Finnish border. The litera- change in a radical fashion, but she God’s grain and to make it harm- ture used on these occasions included did become a role model for him of ful to body and soul. The people collections of sermons and other a deep experiential relationship with forms of devotional literature. God. Laestadius’s sermons began Laestadius was associated with to advocate the very these pietist movements and literary character- productions. In January 1844 Laesta- dius met a Sami woman named Milla Clementsdotter (1813–?), also known as Lapp Mary or Maria of Lapland. Laestadius had been con- duct-
36 Special Edition who drink it become animals. to continue as the vicar in Pajala, bers today.7 Laestadian enclaves can And what is the favorite god of although his bishop asked him in 1853 be found in Canada and other coun- the liquor merchant? Why, noth- to hold two separate worship services tries as well. At the turn of the twenti- ing other than that round liquor each Sunday, one for the Laestadians eth century, the European movement barrel, on which the liquor devil and the other for the more conven- split into three main factions: the sits astride, as the heathen have tional communicants. Conservative, the Reawakening, and painted him in their pictures.6 The movement spread widely in the Firstborn. Further splintering Laestadius’s own lifetime in the north- occurred during the course of the Laestadius himself as well as his lay ern parts of Sweden, Finland, and twentieth century. Today seven major assistants held village prayers in Kare- Norway, where it is still a major reli- Laestadian groups may be identified. suando and its environs. The lay gious and cultural factor. After Laesta- The Laestadian community soon preachers had many manuscripts and dius’s death, the leadership of the became rather exclusive in its charac- copies of Laestadius’s own sermons to movement was assigned to lay preach- ter. The distinction between “Christ- draw upon as their teaching materials. ers, the most remarkable of whom ians” (that is, Laestadians) and Copies of Laestadius’s sermons were was the catechist Juhani (or Johan) outsiders was made clear. Although frequently used in the revival move- Raattamaa (1811–1899). The greatest the movement spread over a wide ment for years after his death. expansion of Laestadianism began in expanse of northern Scandinavia, its Laestadius had many conflicts the 1860s, and it spread rapidly as far internal unity remained very strong. with ecclesiastical and social authori- as southern Finland and even into St. Its cohesiveness did not, however, lead ties in the early years of the revival. Petersburg in what is now the Russian to separation from the state churches. He was accused, for instance, of spi- Federation. The sacraments were still received in ritual ecstaticism and stirring up the During the following decades the accordance with Lutheran ecclesias- emotions of the people. The charges movement spread practically every- tical order. For example, Laestadius were partially unfounded. Laestadius where that Finnish was spoken. Emi- always used wine when celebrating answered his critics in published arti- gration brought the revival to North the eucharist even though he was cles as well as during episcopal visi- America, where believers founded otherwise a teetotaler. From the tations. In any case, he was allowed their own bodies, the largest of which 1870s onward Laestadianism has had is the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, many members of the clergy of the with approximately ten Lutheran churches among its support- thousand ers, including several Finnish bishops. mem-
Lutheran Forum 37 “spiritual priests” seems to have long been a guiding principle in the move- ment’s groups of believers. LF
Hannu Juntunen is a retired Secre- tary of the Bishops’ Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fin- land and a Docent at the University of Helsinki.
Notes 1. There are still a number of distinct groups of Laestadians as of 2015, with three groups active in North America: the Laesta- dian Lutheran Church, with thirty-two congre- gations in the u.s. and Canada (www.llchurch. org); the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church; and the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America, which has six thousand communicant mem- bers (www.apostoliclutheran.org). 2. Karesuando (present population about 350) is separated only by a small river, which serves as the boundary between Sweden and Finland, from the Finnish village of Karesu- “Pastor Laestadius Preaching to the Sami,” by Francois Auguste Biard (1840). vanto (population 140). According to local tra- dition they are considered one and the same village. Characteristics of Laestadianism claimed that this kind of absolution is 3. The Sami people are an indigenous characteristic of Laestadianism. But Finno-Ugric people living in the Arctic regions The main characteristics of Laesta- it can hardly be called unconditional of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola dianism were from the beginning when we have such express conditions Peninsula of Russia. They are usually referred rigorous repentance sermons, oral for absolution and “grace promised,” to in English as Lapps or Laplanders. 4. Sami is a Uralic language most closely confession of sins and absolution, and as is in fact the case here. This is not related to Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. It the so-called liikutukset (the Finnish an unconditional absolution in the is written in the Latin alphabet and has about word for emotional outbursts of a reli- sense of Lutheran orthodoxy. The two thousand native speakers as of 2015. gious nature). Laestadius called these pattern is instead to be found in the 5. There are several plant species named liikutukset “marks of grace” but not as pietist tradition, in which believers are for Laestadius, including Salix laestadiana, Carex laestadii, and Papaver laestadianum. According to preconditions for grace. Liikutukset are assured of the grace of God on the the International Plant Names Index (ipni), semiecstatic phenomena, and they basis of certain external signs. Laestadius identified and named sixty-four were typical of Laestadian revivals The fact that this movement was other species of Arctic plants. until very recently. Usually these lii- able to continue as a movement must 6. “A Sermon of Laestadius Given on the kutukset appear in Laestadian prayer be ascribed to Laestadius’s willpower Fourth Day of Rogation in 1857,” translated meetings when some people may and his ability to organize the move- into English and cited online at Sami Culture,
38 Special Edition Beyond Augsburg Mennonites and Lutherans Re-Remembering the Past
John D. Roth
n the fall of 1538, bystanders in the Dutch town of Rot- For Lutheran readers, it may seem odd to begin an Iterdam overheard a young widow singing an Anabap- account of Mennonite-Lutheran ecumenical dialogues tist hymn. City officials immediately arrested her on the with this story. Ecumenical discussions, after all, generally charges of sedition and heresy and in short order sentenced focus on confessional texts and the subtleties of theological her to death. Her crime? The fact that she had been bap- doctrine, not stories drawn from dusty seventeenth-century tized as an adult. On January 24, 1539, Anneken Jans was tomes. Yet to a significant degree, Mennonite understand- executed by public drowning. ings of Christian faith are inextricably rooted in story and Anneken’s story is only one of nearly a thousand simi- memory.2 In sharp contrast to the teaching authority of the lar narratives still remembered among Mennonites today Catholic magesterium, the doctrinal precision of Calvin’s thanks in large part to a massive book called The Martyrs Institutes, or the enduring power of the Augsburg Confes- Mirror. First published in the Netherlands in 1660, The sion within the Lutheran tradition, Mennonites have not Martyrs Mirror traces the doctrine of believers’ baptism back generally anchored their ecclesial unity in institutional to the time of the early church and recounts a long list structures, propositional doctrines, or confessional state- of martyrs, beginning with ments. Although they do Christ himself, who died Mennonites have not generally anchored not disdain these forms, for their convictions. In the Mennonites are much more 1685 edition of the volume, their ecclesial unity in institutional inclined to frame their the Dutch engraver Jan understanding of faith in Luycken gave added poi- structures, propositional doctrines, or the medium of stories—sto- gnancy to Anneken’s story ries of God’s presence in with an etching that cap- confessional statements, but are much more history as revealed in Scrip- tured a particularly pain- ture, but also stories of the ful and dramatic moment inclined to frame their understanding of formative events of their in the account. Just before origins in the Anabaptist Anneken was led away to faith in the medium of stories. movement of the sixteenth her execution, we see her century and of the ordinary holding out her infant son, along with a purse of money, to lives of Christian disciples today. Mennonites tend to think anyone in the crowd who will promise to care for the boy. about their faith in incarnational terms—God made visible Like many of the other martyr accounts, her story is also in human form. etched in living memory through the words of several let- Thus, Mennonites were a bit bewildered at how to ters that she wrote immediately prior to her death. On the respond in the late 1970s when Lutheran church leaders evening before her execution, Anneken penned the follow- in Germany invited them to participate in a celebration ing admonition to her only child: commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. On the one hand, Mennonites and Luther- My son, hear the instructions of your mother; open ans have lived peacefully alongside each other for several your ears to hear the words of my mouth… Do not centuries. They have joined together in local service proj- regard the great number, my child, nor walk in their ects, participated in community worship events, attended ways… but where you hear of a poor, simple, cast- each other’s seminaries, and cooperated in providing aid off little flock, which is despised and rejected by the to victims of natural disasters around the world. Nonethe- world, join them; for where you hear of the cross, less, the Augsburg Confession of 1530 “condemns” the there is Christ; from there do not depart.1 Anabaptist forebears of contemporary Mennonites in at
Lutheran Forum 39 least five different articles. And for where the Augsburg Confession con- bers of the Commission, of course, Mennonites those condemnations are demned the Anabaptists, the authors this proposal was inconceivable. The inevitably associated with historical of the text were simply misinformed Augsburg Confession—along with the memories of persecution, suffering, about Anabaptist teachings. At other larger body of documents gathered and martyrdom. points, they agreed that isolated Ana- in the Book of Concord—is a foun- In the decades following that awk- baptists may have indeed held to a dational and authoritative historical ward encounter in 1980, Lutherans belief condemned by the Augsburg document central to the ecclesial unity in several different countries invited Confession, but these teachings were of the Lutheran church. The text of Mennonites into conversation regard- never part of the enduring Anabaptist the “Unaltered Augsburg Confession” ing the Augsburg Confession. Bilat- and Mennonite tradition. cannot be casually amended. eral dialogues between Lutherans However, regarding the doctrines Lutherans, for their part, suggested and Mennonites in France (1981– of baptism (Article ix) and the Chris- early on that the whole matter might 1984), Germany (1989–1992), and tian’s relation to the state (Article be resolved if Mennonites would the United States (2001–2004) all xvi), the Commission recognized that simply distance themselves from the explored the contemporary relevance the condemnations in the Augsburg “Anabaptists” named in the Confes- of the condemnations of the sixteenth Confession could not be set aside so sion: condemnations of sixteenth- century and sought ways to heal some easily, since Mennonites have contin- century “Anabaptists” did not apply to of the painful memories of the past. ued to embrace teachings that are in contemporary “Mennonites.” Men- These dialogues provided the founda- tension with the positions set forth in nonites, however, found this to be an tion for an International Study Com- the Lutheran Confessions. Menno- mission, convened by leaders from nites, for example, believe that bap- Because our churches the Lutheran World Federation (lwf) tism should follow public repentance and the Mennonite World Confer- of sin and include a conscious state- were born in the ence (mwc), to review the findings of ment of commitment to the congrega- the national dialogues and to “con- tion of one’s readiness to follow Jesus cauldron of conflict, sider whether condemnations of Ana- in daily life. This, they believe, is not baptists articulated by the Augsburg something that an infant can do. Most we have each developed Confession (1530) apply to Mennonite Mennonites also continue to regard World Conference member churches.” the use of all lethal violence—even patterns of memory that Between 2005 and 2008, members of by the police or military—as incon- the Study Commission gathered each sistent with Christian discipleship. have helped to reinforce summer for nearly a week of intensive On these points, contemporary Men- conversations in Strasbourg, home to nonites generally remain “guilty” of our convictions that the Lutheran Institute for Ecumenical the charges made against them in the Research as well as the central offices Augsburg Confession. we were on the right of the Mennonite World Conference. So how should the condemnations The focal point of those conversa- of the Anabaptists on these points side of history. tions was the Augsburg Confession, be interpreted today? Initially, both written by Luther’s closest associates sides were quick to propose solutions equally untenable solution. Although in 1530 in an attempt to persuade the that revealed a lack of understand- much has changed from the time of the Holy Roman Emperor of the theo- ing about the essential characteristics Reformation, Mennonites nonethe- logical orthodoxy of their emerging of the other group. If portions of the less continue to think of themselves as evangelical movement. Because the Augsburg Confession were factually being in direct theological continuity writers of the confession were intent wrong—or were no longer relevant, with the Anabaptists of the sixteenth on distancing themselves from any or were theologically inconsistent with century. The stories of the Anabaptist hint of heresy, they were especially current beliefs—then, Mennonites martyrs are an especially important emphatic about disassociating their suggested, Lutherans should simply element of Mennonite ecclesial iden- movement from that of the Anabap- change the wording of the text. Men- tity. Anchored in the model of Jesus— tists, whom the Diet of Speyer only a nonites have embraced various con- the first martyr—and rooted in a long year earlier had determined to be so fessions of faith through the centuries train of witnesses who suffered for dangerous to public order that they and they are generally quite ready to their commitment to follow Christ, could be executed without a trial. revise the language of these statements the Anabaptist martyrs remind con- As with the national dialogues, as the cultural context shifts or as they temporary Mennonites that they have members of the Study Commission are led to a fuller understanding of a faith worth dying for. Remembering quickly noted that, in several instances God’s word. For the Lutheran mem- the martyrs is a way of giving voice
40 Special Edition to those whose tongues were torn out Because our churches were born in hether or not our joint retelling before their deaths or who were forced the cauldron of conflict, we have each Wof Anabaptist-Lutheran begin- into silence by iron tonguescrews. developed patterns of memory that nings has the potential to transform Their stories of nonresistant suffering have helped to reinforce our convic- our communities remains to be seen. caution Mennonites against the temp- tions that we were on the right side of But the commitment to “right remem- tation to justify violence in the name history; and, whether consciously or bering” has made my own telling of of Christ; they witness to the possibil- not, we have also tended to view each the familiar Anabaptist story much ity of “enemy love” even in the most other through the lens of the past in more complicated. ways that help to justify the rightness First, although this did not come as Some Lutheran of our cause. How we remember that a new insight, I was reminded again past—a story filled with passionate of the fluidity and diversity of early theologians—notably conviction, acrimonious debate, reli- Anabaptism. The grassroots charac- gious courage, political upheaval, and, ter of the movement, combined with Johannes Brenz— for Mennonites at least, memories of the challenges of communication and imprisonment, torture, and execu- the need for secrecy in the face of per- joined the Anabaptists tion—continues to shape our under- secution, meant that outsiders were standing of the present. As the great justifiably confused about Anabaptist in their insistence that Southern novelist William Faulkner teachings in the late 1520s. Rumors once wrote: “The past is never dead. abounded, information was hard to religious beliefs should It’s not even the past.”5 verify, and the movement itself was not Thus, rather than attempting to always unified. So some of the accusa- not be coerced. reconcile the theological differences tions regarding Anabaptist beliefs that that may still divide us, the Study appear in the Augsburg Confession extreme circumstances; and they call Commission first set itself the task of simply reflected the general confusion Mennonites to a life of compassion writing a joint history of our begin- of the times. and humility, while reminding them nings with the goal of “right remem- In a similar way, writing the story that nonresistant love is not likely to bering.” “Right remembering” meant with a view to the Lutheran perspec- be rewarded.3 The English edition of a mutual commitment to recount the tive gave me a new appreciation for the The Martyrs Mirror, reprinted nearly historical details as honestly and accu- fragility of the evangelical movement twenty times in the past century, con- rately as possible, in such a way that in the first decades of its existence. tinues to sell several thousand copies each of us could recognize ourselves One central goal of the Augsburg each year. Throughout the 1990s, a in the story that emerges. “Right Confession was to refute the Catholic traveling exhibit on The Martyrs Mir- remembering” also committed us to charge that they, like the Anabaptists, ror itinerated in more than sixty Men- allow our stories to be judged by the were trying to create a new church. nonite and Amish communities across larger drama of God’s movement in When the authors of the Augsburg North America, accompanied by local history, alert to the ways in which the Confession condemned the Anabap- lectures, children’s activities, and dis- gift of God’s grace that we rightfully tists, their primary concern was not cussion groups. A recent collection of celebrate within our traditions can- to develop a carefully nuanced theo- Anabaptist martyr stories has been not be separated from repentance and logical refutation of Anabaptist doc- translated into nine different lan- confession. trine but rather to convince Catholic guages and found an eager readership Finally, a commitment to “right authorities that they had nothing to do among the global Mennonite church.4 remembering” should transform us. If with the heresy of “rebaptism.” Thus, the Commission needed nothing changes in our attitudes, con- Third, although today the princi- to move forward in a way that both victions, or practices as a result of our ples of religious liberty and freedom honored the enduring authority of encounter with each other’s version of conscience are firmly established the Augsburg Confession within the of the past—if ecumenical dialogue in the constitutions of most Western Lutheran tradition while also recog- is little more than church theologians democracies, assumptions regarding nizing the historical continuity that hammering out the nuances of doc- religion and politics were radically joins the Anabaptists condemned by trine so as to reach some minimal different in the sixteenth century. To the Augsburg Confession with con- linguistic agreement—then we prob- be sure, some Lutheran theologians— temporary Mennonites. This meant ably have not remembered “rightly.” notably Johannes Brenz—joined the that the journey toward theological “Right remembering” should make Anabaptists in their insistence that convergence on church-dividing issues all of us better Christians, drawing us religious beliefs should not be coerced. would need to begin by addressing into closer communion with God and But for more than a millennium, questions of history and memory. with each other. European Christendom had simply
Lutheran Forum 41 assumed that secular and religious relations with other groups in stark, zens in times of war for their nonresis- authority would be intertwined. In the dualistic language: as either intoler- tant convictions. In a modern context sixteenth-century context, a Christian ant persecutors or heroic victims— that celebrates assimilation, many prince had an obligation to maintain thereby reducing the complex story Mennonites today yearn for accep- the unity of the church and to pro- of the sixteenth century to a simple tance in the mainstream. tect innocent souls from the infection morality tale in which historical actors It is not surprising, then, that Men- of heresy. Anabaptist teachings on are easily identified as either Christlike nonite responses to Lutheran overtures baptism, along with their criticism of or evil. Most of the most bitter con- of reconciliation have been deeply the oath and the Christian use of the flicts in the world right now—whether emotional. In June of 2009, several sword, seemed to undermine the very in the Middle East, Iraq, India, or the thousand Mennonite participants at foundations of political, social, and u.s.—are fueled by precisely this sort the biannual assembly of Mennonite religious order.6 Moreover, an impe- of selective, and often triumphalist, Church usa in Columbus, Ohio, lis- rial law ratified at the Diet of Speyer memory. tened in rapt silence as Michael Trice, in 1529 made it illegal for any prince The historical portion of our work an ecumenical officer of the elca, in the empire to tolerate Anabaptists attempts to incorporate these insights, expressed “profound regret” for the in their territories. All this does not along with an equally careful and crit- condemnations and enmity that char- justify the juridical execution of nearly ical reading of the Lutheran response acterized our communions in the six- three thousand Anabaptists; but it to the Anabaptists, as a step in the teenth century. His words were met does make the response of authorities direction of “right remembering.” with sustained and fervent applause, a bit more understandable. with many in the audience vis- Further, “right remembering” for s Lutherans around the world ibly weeping. That same reaction was Mennonite historians means that we Aprepare to gather for the upcom- repeated only a few weeks later when will need to be much more precise ing world assembly of the lwf in Ishmael Noko, general secretary of in our descriptions of those respon- Stuttgart this July, Mennonites recog- the lwf, expressed similar sentiments sible for the execution of Anabaptists. nize that the condemnations of the of regret and a request for forgiveness Although the condemnations in the Anabaptists in the Augsburg Confes- at the gathering of the Mennonite Augsburg Confession certainly made sion will not be the most important World Conference in Asuncíon, Para- it easier for Lutheran princes to exe- item on the agenda. We also recognize guay. Indeed, the emotional highpoint cute Anabaptists, still, in comparison that Mennonites and Lutherans are of the entire assembly came immedi- to Catholic and Reformed authorities, likely to react to formal statements ately following those words when six Lutheran princes were comparatively regarding the condemnations very dif- thousand attendees watched in awe mild in their treatment of the Anabap- ferently. Most Lutherans are likely not as two sons of Zimbabwe—Ishmael tists—only a relatively small number even aware of the condemnations of Noko and Denisa Ndlova, the incom- of Anabaptists was actually executed Anabaptists in the Augsburg Confes- ing president of mwc—embraced within Lutheran territories. Indeed, sion and would not normally associate each other on stage. For a tiny group even after Philip Melanchthon made those condemnations with contem- that has lived under the shadow of a strong case that Anabaptists should porary Mennonites, Hutterites, or persecution, such expressions of rec- be executed on the grounds of blas- Amish.8 onciliation are profoundly moving. phemy as well as sedition, Philip of For Mennonites, by contrast, the sto- The document submitted by the Hesse—who had signed the Augsburg ries of persecution and suffering from Study Commission and approved by Confession—chose not to follow his the sixteenth century have remained the lwf General Council in October counsel.7 central to their self-understanding, of 2009 is not perfect. Undoubtedly, Finally, conversations with Luther- in both positive and negative ways. it will elicit a range of opinions from ans revealed ways in which the Men- For much of their five hundred-year theologians, historians, pastors, and nonite focus on the martyr heritage history, groups in the Anabaptist- laypeople in both the Mennonite and can easily become unhealthy and even Mennonite tradition have lived with Lutheran communities. Moreover, sinful. At times, cultivating a memory the “anxiety of difference.” As a the document frankly acknowledges of victimhood has fostered in Men- minority, Mennonites carry with them our ongoing differences in several im- nonites a sense of self-righteousness a sense of being out of step with his- portant areas of faith and practice. and arrogance that blinds us to the tory. For centuries they were brushed But the report of the Study Commis- human frailties that are deeply woven aside in the standard church history sion marks a historical step forward in also into our tradition. On occasion, textbooks as the “deformation of the the history of our two communions. remembering the Anabaptist martyrs Reformation”: caricatured as wild- It is our fervent hope that rightly has reinforced a deeper tendency in eyed anarchists, dismissed as irrelevant remembering our shared story in the Mennonite theology to think of their idealists, or denounced as disloyal citi- future will, with the help of the Holy
42 Special Edition Spirit, mark a step in the healing of his articulate defense of the voluntary church tyrs (Intercourse: Good Books, 1990). this part of the broken body of Christ and the gospel of peace. Although some Euro- 5. William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (New pean groups continued to refer to themselves York: Random House, 1951), 92. and offer an authentic witness to the with other variations (e.g., Taufgesinnten; Doops- 6. Schriften von Evangelisher Seite gegen die freedom that comes through Christ in gezinden; Anabaptiste; Täufer), the general term Täufer, ed. Robert Stupperich (Münster: mutual vulnerability and forgiveness. “Mennonite” eventually came to dominate, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1983). LF especially in North America. Today the word 7. For a photomechanical reproduction of “Anabaptist” has no pejorative overtones the text of Melanchthon’s memorandum to in English and, indeed, has become a useful Philip of Hesse, along with an English trans- John D. Roth is Professor of His- umbrella term to encompass a wide variety of lation, see “Whether Christian Princes are tory at Goshen College in Goshen, groups within the Mennonite World Confer- Obligated to Apply Physical Punishment and Indiana. ence (including, for example, the Brethren in the Sword Against the Unchristian Sect of the Christ). Anabaptists (1536),” trans. Leonard Gross, Notes 3. As historian James Juhnke has written, Mennonite Quarterly Review 76 (2002): 315–335. 1. Thieleman J. van Braght, The Bloody the martyr stories “prepare us for the possibil- 8. The Hutterites, whose origins date back Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christ- ity of persecution and marginalization in our to the early 1530s, were a group of Anabap- ians (Scottdale: Herald, 1950), 453, 454. own time—especially as our pacifist convic- tists characterized by the distinctive practice 2. A word of clarification may be helpful tions become unpopular in a war-crusading of community of goods. Today approximately here regarding the term “Mennonite.” Because America.” “Rightly Remembering a Martyr 45,000 Hutterites live in some four thousand the word “Anabaptist” (German Wiedertäufer, Heritage,” unpublished paper presented to the colonies scattered across the western states of literally “rebaptizer”) was so closely associated elca-Mennonite Liaison Committee dialogue the u.s. and the provinces of Canada. The with heresy and sedition in its popular usage in held in Sarasota, Florida, February 28, 2003, Amish, who take their name from an early the sixteenth century, those within the move- p. 1. leader, Jakob Ammann, emerged in the 1690s ment used other terms to identify themselves. 4. For more on the traveling exhibit, as a renewal movement among the Swiss Ana- Over time, the influence of Menno Simons— see www.bethelks.edu/kauffman/martyrs/, baptists. Their hymnal, the Ausbund, dates back a former Catholic priest, a theologian, and accessed January 6, 2010. See also the book to 1564 and contains many martyr ballads that an influential Dutch leader—spread to other written to accompany the exhibit, John S. are still sung today. branches of the movement, thanks especially to Oyer and Robert S. Kreider, Mirror of the Mar-
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Lutheran Forum 43 Doctrine
poenitentiam agite The Prenatal Theology of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg
Joy Schroeder
lessed be the fruit of the womb of Mary, Jesus Christ! the Thirty Years’ War there had been a general tolera- “BBlessed be all the fluids and all the moisture! Blessed tion of Lutherans in Austria, but in the mid-seventeenth be its growth and formation from minute to minute, from century there was a Jesuit-led process of “aggressive re- moment to moment!” With these exuberant words, the Catholicization.”4 Greiffenberg’s family was part of a Lutheran devotional writer Catharina Regina von Grei- beleaguered Protestant remnant. In Lower Austria, which ffenberg (1633–1694) began her detailed literary adoration was ruled by a Roman Catholic monarch, Lutheran noble- of the prenatal Christ, enumerating each of his developing men and women were permitted personal confessional lib- body parts and praising “this blessed fruit from the top of erty, but they were not allowed to have Lutheran pastors His head to the soles of His feet” (276; sw 3:280).1 or teachers. Several times a year, Lutherans made ardu- Greiffenberg, an Austrian baroness and poet, was ous journeys to places such as Pressburg, Hungary (now renowned during her own lifetime but is little known to Bratislava, Slovakia), to receive communion.5 Eventually later generations. Remaining loyal to her Lutheran faith most Lutherans—including Greiffenberg herself—emi- in a Roman Catholic soci- grated to Lutheran lands. ety that was generally hos- Deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary— Catharina was born into a tile toward her religious Lutheran family that owned tradition, she composed within Lutheran parameters—and to the Seisenegg castle and baroque verse and inspira- estate, located in the north- tional prose that appealed to the incarnation and passion of Christ, eastern region of Austria, Roman Catholics as well as bordering the lands that are Lutherans.2 Deeply devoted Greiffenberg expressed theologically now Slovakia and the Czech to the Virgin Mary—within Republic. Before Catha- Lutheran parameters—and sophisticated concepts in poetic language rina’s birth, her pregnant to the incarnation and pas- mother, Eva Maria, Baron- sion of Christ, she expressed that abounded with heartfelt emotion. ess von Pranck zu Reinthal theologically sophisticated und Frondsberg (d. 1675), concepts in poetic language that abounded with heart- was afraid that the child would be miscarried. Inspired by felt emotion. While interpreting the Bible, she drew upon the vow of Hannah to offer Samuel to the Lord i( Samuel numerous theological works, including patristic literature 1:9–28), Eva Maria made a similar promise, dedicating and the writings of Martin Luther, as well as her own expe- her unborn daughter to God’s service.6 Eva Maria’s own rience as a woman. As a female Lutheran theologian, poet, piety shaped Catharina, who believed she was destined and biblical interpreter, Greiffenberg speaks to present-day to serve God as a celibate virgin. Their fortunes changed readers with a seventeenth-century voice that is unique. after the death of Catharina’s father, Johann Gottfried von Greiffenberg (1575–1641). Like many widows at that time, Eva Maria had to contend with her deceased husband’s A Lutheran Noblewoman aggressive creditors. Johann Gottfried’s half-brother Hans When Greiffenberg3 was born into a baronial family in Rudolf von Greiffenberg (1608–1677) took on the role of Lower Austria in 1633, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) protector, settling debts by selling a portion of the inher- was still raging. The Peace of Westphalia, negotiated in itance. Hans Rudolf also served as guardian for his two 1648, granted each territory’s leader the right to choose half-nieces, Catharina and her sister Anna Regina.7 religion for the region’s inhabitants. This treaty had pro- Catharina was about seven years old at the time of her found effects on the course of Greiffenberg’s life. Prior to father’s death. Her uncle oversaw her studies. Since she
44 Special Edition was female, she could not attend a order to keep Hans Rudolf in or con- was only able to attend communion university, but Catharina received an vert him to their faith. Lynne Tatlock, services several times a year after extensive humanistic education from who translated a portion of Greiffen- expending great effort to travel to private tutors and personal study of berg’s corpus, comments on Hans Lutheran worship. In response to her the contents of her family’s substan- Rudolf ’s affections: inner awakening, she felt called to glo- tial library. She studied Luther’s trans- rify God through her devotional verse Did her uncle really love her? lation of the Bible. As a young woman and prose. Using printers in Nurem- Their contemporaries thought she learned Latin, Italian, French, and berg, she published a collection of so. Indeed, it does not require a Spanish. Later in her life she also stud- sonnets and other poetry (1662), large stretch of the imagination ied Greek and Hebrew.8 She had read meditations on Christ’s passion and to suppose that Hans Rudolf the works of the church fathers, Ber- suffering (1672), meditations on Jesus’ might have become very fond nard of Clairvaux, Johannes Tauler, incarnation and youth (1678), and of the woman whose intellectual and more recent texts such as Johann development and literary talent Arndt’s proto-Pietist book, True Christ- he had fostered… Yet in aristo- As a biblical interpreter, ianity. She also read widely in science, cratic circles, material consider- anatomy, and physiology, works that ations and not affection typically Greiffenberg consciously she later drew upon when discussing constituted the decisive factor in the fetal development of the unborn marriage choices. In this case, attended to the stories of Christ.9 marriage of niece and uncle Though relatively few seventeenth- prevented a division of the Grei- women’s roles in the life century women received this sort ffenberg property and promised of humanist education, it was not a bit of financial stability for the of Jesus, particularly unheard of. Elsewhere in Europe, entire family. Hans Rudolf no especially in Italy, wealthy families doubt had multiple reasons for at the times of his engaged in “conspicuous consump- loving Catharina so ardently.13 tion” by educating their daughters birth and his death. In in the apparently unpractical (for Catharina refused her uncle’s mar- women) subjects of Latin, Greek, phi- riage proposals for many years. Finally, her 1672 Meditations losophy, and literature.10 Such learn- in 1663, aware that her uncle—who ing was regarded as ornamental in had become very ill from “lovesick- on the Passion and females. Learned men (especially mid- ness”—was considering becoming dle-class literati who sought the patron- Roman Catholic, Catharina decided Death of Jesus Christ, age of wealthy families) hyperbolically that she was called to marriage for the praised these learned women, particu- sake of her uncle’s physical and spi- she used the gospel larly when the girls were still young ritual health.14 She wedded him in a and unmarried.11 Eventually Catha- Lutheran ceremony in 1664. By this narratives to defend her rina herself acquired such a devoté, time Catharina was thirty-one. The the humanist Sigmund von Birken marriage, performed in Lutheran gender and justify her (1626–1681), who remained a loyal territory near Nuremberg, provoked friend throughout her life.12 numerous legal problems—including own writing. Hans Rudolf, thirty years older than Hans Rudolf ’s arrest—when the cou- Catharina, delighted in providing his ple returned to Lower Austria. The meditations on Jesus’ life and teaching young niece with an education, but newly wedded Catharina interceded (1693). Greiffenberg also worked on a his attention was a mixed blessing, for effectively on her husband’s behalf.15 book about Christ’s resurrection and he also began to discuss the possibility An amorous letter written by Catha- ascension, but the manuscript—like of marriage to her. Catharina, con- rina to her groom suggests that she the majority of her writing—is lost.17 vinced that she was called to celibacy had overcome her aversion to marital At various points in her life she and troubled by the prospects of wed- relations.16 However, the couple never made visits to Vienna, unsuccessfully ding a close blood relative, continually had any children. attempting to gain an audience with resisted her uncle’s pressure to marry. Greiffenberg, deeply devout, expe- Leopold i, Holy Roman Emperor Strictly speaking, marriage between rienced a profound spiritual rev- and Archduke of Austria, for the pur- an uncle and niece was not permit- elation while receiving communion pose of trying to convert him to the ted in either Protestantism or Roman at a Lutheran service in Hungary. Lutheran faith.18 Following her hus- Catholicism, but officials on both sides Her eucharistic devotion was prob- band’s death in 1677, Greiffenberg were willing to grant a dispensation in ably heightened by the fact that she lost the family’s castle to creditors. In
Lutheran Forum 45 1680 she emigrated to Nuremberg, Greiffenberg asserts that the pres- was criticized by men but defended by a Lutheran city, where she found fel- ence of these loyal women in the Christ (69; sw 9:14–15). She also used lowship and actively participated in scriptural record is no accident, for the domestic imagery of spinning and literary societies during the final four- the “trusty recorder, the Holy Spirit” weaving (combined with a classical teen years of her life. According to ensured that the deeds of Mary Mag- reference to Ariadne’s thread in the Kathleen Foley-Beining, “[t]here her dalene and the female followers of labyrinth) to describe her literary pro- unhindered religious and literary life Jesus would be remembered (129; sw duction: “Let these swaddling clothes and the early Pietist, devotional meet- 10:899). Greiffenberg asserts: “This of Jesus be the thread that winds Thy ings with her ‘innig freünde’ (intimate happens perhaps because poor wom- glory out of the labyrinth and suffers friends) made her last years in exile the enfolk, on account of being com- it to be worshiped by the entire world. best of her life.”19 She died in 1694 on pletely despised and defamed by most If I have achieved this, then I have Easter Monday.20 men, seek and find their honor in the achieved enough and well invested apologia of the Holy Spirit” (130; sw my time and industry, which have my 10:900). We find another defense of whole life long spun and woven this Theology and the Female Voice women in Greiffenberg’s meditation thread and these swaddling clothes” As a biblical interpreter, Greiffenberg on Elizabeth’s greeting of Mary at the (158; sw 3:iv, b). But God, too, is a consciously attended to the stories visitation (Luke 1:42). The meditation weaver—the “Eternal Weaver” Who of women’s roles in the life of Jesus, created humanity (149; sw 10:941). particularly at the times of his birth Furthermore, at the incarnation, God and death. In her 1672 Meditations on the Son lingered in Mary’s womb as the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, she “the embroidery and tapestry of this used the gospel narratives to defend holy humanity was worked” (184; sw her gender and justify her own writ- 3:107). ing: “The panacean seed of woman Some of Greiffenberg’s praise of did not reject women, refusing to be the Blessed Virgin Mary rivals the served by them. Since He dignified accolades offered by Roman Catholic them by his own being made flesh of writers. Mary is a “Wonder-Mother” a woman, He therefore also found [Wunder-Mutter] (236; sw 3:237). She them worthy to witness his death. is “blessed above all the empresses He wanted to begin His life emerg- and queens on earth” as “the bride ing from this sex and to end it in their of God the Father, a mother of God company” (69; sw 9:13). Greiffenberg the Son, and the workshop of the notes the loyalty and faithfulness of Holy Spirit” (172; sw 3:84–5). Fol- Jesus’ female followers in the Gospels, lowing classical Lutheran tradition, commenting on the large number Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg Greiffenberg assumes the perpetual of women who followed Jesus from virginity of Mary and her “corporal Galilee (Matthew 27:55), “Not merely includes a veritable roll call of female integrity”—an unbroken hymen dur- a few, but many women were stand- saints, martyrs, and other exemplary ing and following Jesus’ birth (181; sw ing with those intimates afar off. The women such as Agnes, Catherine of 3:101). She believes in Mary’s lifetime female sex has always been devoted Alexandria, Paula of Rome, Perpetua, abstinence from sexual relations with and attached to our dear Lord Jesus” and Felicity, demonstrating that “not Joseph despite their lawful marriage.22 (110; sw 10:827). She uses the pres- only Elizabeth but innumerable other She imagines the conception of Jesus ence of the women at the crucifix- women have been filled and will yet to have been a mystical experience for ion to criticize misogynists who say be filled with the Holy Spirit” (209; Mary: “As God entered her body, her that women are “incapable of salva- sw 3:154). It would be anachronistic spirit must have flown away into God. tion” (111; sw 10:827).21 Greiffenberg to call Greiffenberg a feminist but, like As the spirit of God wrought the body argues that, in fact, women are usually many women writers of her era, she of Christ in and from her body, her more faithful than men: “But in gen- defended the female sex from what spirit must have brooded God’s praise eral the fear of God has always found she felt were unjust accusations that and glory… The power of the Most more of a place with women’s simplic- women were innately immoral and High over her, the Son of God in her ity than with men’s cunning, and they intellectually inferior. body, and the Holy Spirit in her spirit have always followed Christ in greater Greiffenberg compared her own must have moved her so that she was numbers and more frequently, as did life and her writing on Christ’s passion nearly immobile and breathless from then these women from Galilee” (111; to the nard poured out by the woman worship, love and laudation” (200; sw sw 10:827). in Mark 14:3, whose act of devotion 138–39).
46 Special Edition 24 Greiffenberg repeatedly speaks of unnatural nature unique to Him (278–79; sw 3:283–84). Praising the the Blessed Virgin in exalted terms, alone. So they remained intact unborn Christ’s newly forming body, but she carefully defines the Protestant and unquenched—the water she blesses his brain’s various “cham- limits. She puts words into the mouth of humankind in the midst of bers,” his nose, temples, and the “art- of Christ’s mother, who defends her- the fire of divinity in the sea of ful hourglass of the ears… that spiral self against too much praise. Greiffen- humankind… (270; sw 3:266) in and go to the smith and workshop berg’s Mary asserts, “And even if over of hearing, which is enclosed between the centuries people should arise who Greiffenberg then praises Christ two walls or membranes” (279–80; sw praised me for my person and not just anatomically. Every imaginable body 3:284). Greiffenberg attends to Jesus’ merely and purely for the divine grace part of the prenatal Christ is lauded developing arms, sinews, muscles, car- [that I received], but instead wanted tilage, fingers, ribs, thighs, loins, liver, to ascribe the slightest part of it to Every imaginable aorta, and pulmonary artery. Kathleen my merit, I hereby aver—with divine Foley-Beining remarks, “Interweav- true knowledge, in complete illumina- body part of the ing the symbolic and spiritual with tion of spirit—that I would not favor the anatomically exact, she creates an it. Nor would it please me; rather it prenatal Christ impassioned exaltation imbued with would offend and pain me if the tini- richly layered levels of meaning.”25 est speck of dust of God’s honor were is lauded for its Throughout her praise, Greiffen- to be taken from Him and attributed berg demonstrates knowledge of fetal to me” (223–4; sw 3:185). The chief own sake and also development that became current in reason to honor the Virgin Mary is the seventeenth century—a modern her role in the incarnation, conceiving for the devotional view that contradicted earlier beliefs and giving birth to Jesus. As we will that “the adult human already exists in see, Greiffenberg regarded the devel- or symbolic lesson complete form and in miniature in the opment of Christ’s body in Mary’s sperm and thus simply increases in size womb to be a source of profound it portrays. From in the uterus.”26 Foley-Beining notes, wonder and mystery. “Greiffenberg was well informed Greiffenberg’s about contemporary understandings of the physiological processes involved Christ’s Incarnation in the growth of a fetus, adhering to and the Fate of Stillborn Babies perspective, Christ’s the modern theory of epigenesis and Greiffenberg was intensely interested time spent in the rejecting the outmoded theory of pre- in what Lynne Tatlock has termed the formation of the fetus which Luther “interuterine Christ.”23 In her 1678 womb had pastoral had espoused.”27 publication, The Incarnation, Birth, and From Greiffenberg’s perspec- Youth of Jesus Christ, Greiffenberg is implications for tive, Christ’s time spent in the womb effusive in her praise of the mystery had pastoral implications for par- and paradox of the incarnation, as parents whose babies ents whose babies were miscarried, Jesus—simultaneously divine and stillborn, or died unbaptized shortly human—developed in the womb of were miscarried, after birth. Greiffenberg dealt with Mary. She articulates a sophisticated the question of salvation of infants incarnational theology in poetic terms stillborn, or died who die unbaptized. Ever since the using the metaphor of water for Jesus’ time of Luther, Protestant pastors had humanity and fire for his divinity. unbaptized shortly endeavored to offer comfort to moth- ers whose babies were miscarried, still- He is thereby a God-with-us. Not born, or died before baptism, assuring that God turned into humankind after birth. them that parents need not despair. At or humankind turned into God; for its own sake and also for the devo- a time that experienced a high infant rather, he was united with it. tional or symbolic lesson it portrays. mortality rate, Greiffenberg offers a Also not that He devoured it like For instance, she blesses “the glassy compelling rationale for the salvation a consuming fire or that the light moisture in the lovely little eyes that of unbaptized infants of Christian of His divinity was extinguished thereby makes the glass of our weak- parents. Addressing these concerns, by it like a sea; rather God-with- ness [hard] like steel” and “the lovely she speaks of Christ’s own incarna- us so that both natures persisted little milk teeth from which the sweet tion, his nine months in Mary’s womb, substantially in a unity and in an milk of the Gospel sprang forth for us” and John the Baptist’s prenatal inter-
Lutheran Forum 47 action with the unborn Jesus (Luke their God.”29 As proof of the efficacy tions draw upon many of the argu- 1:44). Parents who lost children before of parental prayers, Luther also pro- ments that Luther himself had used baptism need not despair, for Christ’s vided examples of children healed by to defend infant baptism against Ana- “lying in the womb” sanctified other Christ due to the parents’ requests.30 baptist arguments. For instance, in babies in their own mothers’ wombs. Thus, in a pastoral response to 1528, Luther had written, “When they the anguish of mothers who suffered say, ‘Children cannot believe,’ how For this reason Christian par- miscarriage or whose babies were can they be sure of that? Where is the ents should not be too saddened stillborn, Martin Luther had asserted Scripture by which they would prove it by the loss of their unborn, and that God might accept the mother’s and on which they would build? They thus unbaptized, children. God desire for the unborn child’s eventual imagine this, I suppose, because chil- is not limited by His own condi- baptism as an unspoken but heartfelt dren do not speak or have understand- tions and means; to be sure He prayer. He said that “it is to be hoped” ing. But such a fancy is deceptive, yea, can hold dispensing with bap- altogether false, and we cannot build tism against a person if baptism on what we imagine. There are Scrip- is disparaged, but not when it is Greiffenberg’s ture passages that tell us that children impossible to carry it out. His may and can believe, though they do lying in the womb saved those assertions about not speak or understand.”32 Luther in the womb as well; if He had then uses the example of John the not intended thereby to benefit the salvation of Baptist—who believed in Christ while them, then perhaps he would in his mother’s womb—to posit the have come into the world in unbaptized children possibility of an “infant faith” that a another way. But for the sake of baptized baby could experience. He babes lying in the womb He too of Christian parents asserts, “And St. John was a child in lay in the womb, thereby intend- his mother’s womb [Luke 1:41] but, as ing to make them holy and to are more confident I believe, could have faith.”33 Luther take them into heaven. (204; sw continues, “What if all children in 3:146–47) than Luther’s. baptism not only were able to believe More than a century earlier, Martin Interestingly, her but believed as well as John in his Luther had written a treatise to com- mother’s womb?”34 Since Christ, who fort women whose babies were miscar- assertions draw is present, “speaks, and baptizes, why ried or stillborn. Luther had inherited should not his Word and baptism call and rejected the teaching about limbo, upon many of the forth spirit and faith in the child as which asserted that babies who are then it produced faith in John?”35 stillborn or die unbaptized are not arguments that In her interpretation of the story punished in hell but, nevertheless, of the visitation, Greiffenberg goes would not receive the full blessedness Luther himself had beyond Luther’s claims, attributing of the beatific vision enjoyed by the to unborn infants a dynamic, vibrant baptized. In his 1542 treatise, Com- used to defend infant faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit. fort for Women Who Have Had a Miscar- Paul’s insistence that the Spirit inter- riage, Luther said that “because the baptism against cedes with sighs too deep for words mother is a believing Christian it is (Romans 8:26) means that babies and to be hoped that her heartfelt cry and Anabaptist arguments. even unborn infants offer prayer and deep longing to bring her child to be praise to God. baptized will be accepted by God as that a merciful God might have The Holy Spirit is not bound to an effective prayer.”28 Knowing that mercy on the child for the sake of this human reason, age, tongue, or many newborn infants die only a few prayer.31 Though his attempts to com- mouth but so free in His move- hours or days after birth, Luther said fort mothers express hope, Luther is ments that He can communicate that God certainly had not rejected somewhat cautious in his assertions— them to children before they Israelite boys who died prior to their perhaps because he does not find a have acquired reason and the circumcision on the eighth day: “Who clear and distinct promise about it in use of their mouths and tongues. can doubt that those Israelite children Scripture. The Holy Spirit can make God’s who died before they could be circum- Greiffenberg’s assertions about the praise peal forth from those who cised on the eighth day were yet saved salvation of unbaptized children of are not yet capable of speak- by the prayers of their parents in view Christian parents are more confident ing and make not only those in of the promise that God willed to be than Luther’s. Interestingly, her asser-
48 Special Edition the cradle but those lying in the a real human being. God the interprets Scripture with female expe- womb liven and quicken, as he Father, the Almighty Creator, rience, addressing the joys, sorrows, does here with the unborn John. forms its body within its moth- and fears of women, especially moth- (202; sw 3:143) er’s belly. Jesus Christ strength- ers. Twenty-first-century readers— ens it with His holy body and particularly those who seek Lutheran Even though his body was not com- blood while it is still in the womb women’s voices in history—can draw pletely formed, the prenatal John and rules mothers so that pre- inspiration from this remarkable offered praise to his Savior. cisely when they can bring along thinker. She characterized her compo- such a dependent little guest they sitions as a sort of handiwork woven The Holy Spirit sets a half- most prefer to go to Holy Com- in Christ’s honor. Greiffenberg her- grown, still premature babe munion. Probably many a child self would hope that any admiration ablaze with joy just as he once leaps in the womb then, and I evoked by her writings would redound did a glorious king so that he heard from one of my friends to the glory of God alone. LF danced before the Ark of the herself that her child quickened Covenant. The Spirit suffers the and stirred for the first time at Joy Schroeder is Professor of Church little legs and limbs, which are the moment she received the History at Trinity Lutheran Seminary still quite soft and incomplete, to holy sacrament. (203–4; sw and Professor of Religion at Capital move and leap for joy toward the 3:145) University in Columbus, Ohio, where Savior. Before the little feet have she holds the Bergener Chair in Theo- their little footsteps, toes, and Here Greiffenberg draws upon female logy and Religion at both institutions. little nails, they desire, through conversation and experience, inter- the driving force of the Spirit, weaving it with her biblical interpreta- Notes to walk toward their Savior, who tion, to offer comfort to other women. 1. Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, is still younger and even less “The Incarnation of Jesus Christ,” in Medita- She uses principles from Luther about grown. (203; sw 3:144) tions on the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of Jesus infant faith to make an argument for Christ, ed. and trans. Lynne Tatlock (Chicago: John’s leaping in his mother’s womb prenatal faith, but she offers a more University of Chicago Press, 2009), 276; demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is vigorous and positive assertion about Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, “Der active and working within the unborn the salvation of the babies of Christ- Allerheiligsten Menschwerdung, Geburt und child to inspire faith. Greiffenberg ian mothers. Jugend Jesu Christi,” in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 3, eds. Martin Bircher and Friedhelm Kemp offers a charming description of the (Millwood: Kraus Reprint, 1983), 279–80. unborn baby as a “dependent little A Lutheran Woman’s Voice This article will employ Tatlock’s translation. guest” of the pregnant mother, who Parenthetical citations from the translation will is especially moved to receive commu- Greiffenberg was widely read by her be followed by the page numbers from Sämtliche nion during her pregnancy. The fetus contemporaries but, particularly after Werke, the facsimile edition of the seventeenth- century German printed edition of Greiffen- itself benefits from the eucharist when baroque poetry went out of fashion, berg’s writings, here abbreviated as sw. the pregnant mother communes. she became virtually unknown to all 2. Ute Brandes, “Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg expects that many other except experts on seventeenth-century Greiffenberg,” in Women Writers in German- women, like Elizabeth, feel their chil- German literature. Recent interest in Speaking Countries: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical dren leaping in the womb as they women’s history—and especially the Sourcebook, eds. Elke P. Frederiksen and Eliza- encounter Christ, who is bodily pres- publication of an English translation beth G. Ametsbichler (Westport: Greenwood, 1998), 172. ent in the Lord’s Supper. In fact, every of some of Greiffenberg’s writings— 3. I will usually refer to Catharina Regina pregnant mother who comes to com- may occasion renewed attention to von Greiffenberg by her surname, but for the munion is a sort of Elizabeth. Grei- this remarkable woman. Her life story sake of clarity I will use her first name in dis- ffenberg reports that a pregnant friend provides an example of faith during cussions of other members of the Greiffenberg was receiving communion and felt her difficult circumstances. As a Lutheran family. 4. Lynne Tatlock, “Volume Editor’s Intro- baby’s first kicks or movements—just Christian, Greiffenberg testifies to duction,” in Greiffenberg, 5. as John the Baptist leaped in Eliza- God’s grace, shown to humans in the 5. Ibid., 6–7. beth’s womb as she greeted Mary. incarnation and passion of Christ. 6. Ibid., 14. As a poet and theologian, she speaks 7. Horst-Joachim Frank, Catharina Regina As soon as a child is alive and about God’s mysteries using language von Greiffenberg: Leben und Welt der barocken Dich- even before it has a little mouth, that is simultaneously controlled and terin (Göttingen: Sachse & Pohl, 1967), 14–16. the Holy Spirit emits sighs for 8. Flora Kimmich, Sonnets of Catharina von exuberant. As a scholar well-versed in eternal life from it. Indeed, the Greiffenberg: Methods of Composition (Chapel Hill: many disciples, she applies her scien- entire Holy Trinity is active University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 9. tific learning to the task of theology. For a more extensive discussion of Greiffen- within the child before it is fully As a female reader of the Bible, she berg’s early education, see Frank, Greiffenberg,
Lutheran Forum 49 17–18. argued that women were morally and intel- 23. Tatlock, ix. 9. Tatlock, 14. lectually inferior to men. Women responded to 24. In the 1678 edition, the words unnatürli- 10. Holt N. Parker, “Introduction,” in these literary attacks with works of their own. chen Natur are printed in larger letters than the Olympia Morata, The Complete Writings of an Here Greiffenberg joins the growing ranks of rest of the words on this page. Italian Heretic (Chicago: University of Chicago “female defenders of women” such as Amelia 25. Foley-Beining, 68. Press, 2003), 17. Lanyer (1569–1645), author of the frequently 26. Greiffenberg, 284, n. 228. 11. Ibid., 23. anthologized Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (in which 27. Foley-Beining, 66. 12. Kimmich, 11–14. Pilate’s wife defends the entire female sex), 28. Martin Luther, “Comfort for Women 13. Tatlock, 15. and Lucrezia Marinella (1571–1653), who Who Have Had a Miscarriage,” in Luther’s 14. Kathleen Foley-Beining, The Body and authored The Nobility and Excellence of Women Works, American Edition, 55 vols., eds. J. Eucharistic Devotion in Catharina Regina von Grei- and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Pelikan and H. Lehmann (St. Louis and Phil- ffenberg’s “Meditations” (Columbia: Camden Anne Dunhill (Chicago: University of Chicago adelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955ff.) House, 1997), 2–3. Press, 1999). [hereafter cited as lw], 43:247–8. 15. Brandes, 171. 22. The Latin translation of Luther’s 29. lw 43:249. 16. Foley-Beining, 3. Smalcald Articles calls Mary “ever-virgin.” 30. lw 43:250. 17. Brandes, 175. See The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the 31. lw 43:247. 18. Frank, 78. Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds. Robert Kolb 32. Martin Luther, “Concerning Rebap- 19. Brandes, 172. and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: For- tism,” lw 40:241–2. 20. Frank, 130. tress, 2000), 300, n. 20. Also see the Formula 33. lw 40:242. 21. In the seventeenth and preceding of Concord, Solid Declaration viii, in The Book 34. Ibid. centuries, numerous male-authored treatises of Concord, 620. 35. lw 40:242–3.
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50 Special Edition Public Witness Whether Lawyers and Judges, Too, Can Be Saved
Humes Franklin Jr.
n 1523 Martin Luther wrote to his prince, the Duke of sleep with the nobleman. After the nobleman had lain with ISaxony, a treatise called “Temporal Authority: To What the wife, he had the husband beheaded—and gave him to Extent It Should Be Obeyed.” The duke was apparently her as a corpse. troubled by two passages of Scripture. In Matthew 5:25 The woman, quite distraught, laid the case before Duke and 40, Jesus said, “Do not resist evil, but make friends with Charles. The duke summoned the nobleman and com- your accuser; and if any one should take your coat, let him manded him to marry the woman. When the wedding have your cloak as well.” And in Romans 12:19, Paul— day was over, the duke had the nobleman beheaded, gave hearkening back to Deuteronomy—said, “Vengeance is the woman possession of the nobleman’s property, and mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” restored her to honor. Those two passages had been used throughout the cen- Thus, Luther says, “he punished the crime in a princely turies to argue that Christians should not resist evil and way.” The duke’s action was a perfect example of how a that repaying someone for evil deeds is not the purview Christian placed in a position of temporal authority and of Christians but of God. Some argued that Christians acting as God’s servant should wield that authority wisely. should not wield the temporal sword at all. The Duke of Saxony was uncertain of the extent of his temporal author- A Lawyer and a Christian—at the Same Time ity. Could he, should he, wield the sword or not? Luther, of course, steered him in the right direction. I’m a lifelong Lutheran Christian and a member of a fam- Luther cited Romans 13:1, where Paul says, “Let every ily with deep Lutheran roots. For thirty years I was a lawyer person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is in private practice. For the past twelve years I’ve served the no authority except from God, and those authorities that Commonwealth of Virginia as a circuit court judge, hav- exist have been instituted by God.” He also cited i Peter ing been appointed to that position in 1997. I am here to 2:13: “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every talk about how a judge who also happens to be a Christian human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, struggles to practice my vocation, in Luther’s words, “in a or of governors, as sent by God to punish those who do wise and princely way.” wrong.” Luther understood that princes and lords, consta- My dad, who was also a lawyer, loved to tell the story of bles and magistrates, all of those holding temporal author- the time he represented a lady of the evening in court. My ity, are God’s servants on earth. They must be obeyed; they dad knew that the judge before whom the case was being certainly can use the sword; and they can even sentence tried was a frequent client of the woman. When the judge evildoers to death. If not, said Luther, “the world would began sternly to lecture the woman in order to look respon- drop into chaos.” sible, she leaned over to him and said, “Now be careful On the other hand, those in temporal authority must what you say here, Louie.” So I learned early on that it’s exercise their authority with wisdom, Luther said. He ends pretty dicey being a judge. his letter to the Duke of Saxony with a good example of When you enter the legal field, you enter a profession just that—the account of a virtuous woman and Duke that is the target of a million jokes, is regarded by some Charles of Burgundy. The story goes like this. with very low esteem, and immerses you in a variety of eth- A certain nobleman took an enemy prisoner. The pris- ical dilemmas. For example, lawyers don’t always represent oner’s wife came to ransom her husband. The nobleman innocent people in court; quite often they represent clearly promised to return the husband on the condition that she guilty people, people who have done horrible things. In my would lie with him. The woman was virtuous, yet wished years as an attorney, I saw it all. I represented murderers, to set her husband free; so she asked her husband whether adulterers, child molesters, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, she should do this thing in order to free him. The husband and gang members—you name it. On the one hand, you wished to save his life, so he gave his wife permission to know that everyone is entitled to their day in court and
Lutheran Forum 51 legal representation. On the other ethic. I’ve heard the arguments of ernment that, according to Romans hand, you wonder whether you should those in pacifist traditions. Pacifists 13 and i Peter, has been instituted by be swimming around with such messy argue that Jesus called his followers God for the punishment of wrongdo- people and perhaps providing them to a way of life of sacrificial love; that ing, the protection of right, and the the opportunity to escape account- Christians must return good for evil; preservation of temporal peace. ability for what they’ve done. that we must individually love our Luther’s colleagues built on his Let me say, however, that in spite enemies and freely give to those who insights. Melanchthon spelled out in of all the jokes and justified criticism hate us; and that we should demand Article xvi of the Augsburg Confes- of lawyers, there are many faithful the same from our governments. Paci- sion how Lutheran Christians under- Christians and people of other reli- fists remind us that many Christians stand the role of civil government. He gious traditions in the legal profession in the early church refused to join the wrote, “It is taught among us that all who act as God’s faithful servants on Roman army, and that many of those government in the world and all estab- a daily basis. People of faith do make who converted to Christianity while lished rule and laws were instituted a difference in the legal profession. in military service were instructed to and ordained by God for the sake of Believers are steeped in a religious refrain from killing, to pray for forgive- good order, and that Christians may tradition that doesn’t disappear when ness for past acts, and to seek release without sin occupy civil offices or serve they meet with clients or walk into the from their military obligation. as princes and judges, render deci- courtroom. One of my former col- sions and pass sentence according to leagues, a very devout Roman Cath- imperial and other existing laws, pun- A Lutheran Understanding olic, said about his faith: “You can’t ish evildoers with the sword, engage of Civil Government wash it off.” You don’t stop being a in just wars, and serve as soldiers.” person of faith when you become a As a judge I’m particularly grateful Lutherans are big on doing things lawyer. for the Lutheran part of my Christian for the sake of good order, and the Now, if you encounter ethical identity because it has given me a Reformers embraced the good order dilemmas when you become a law- proper framework for understanding of civil law. yer, you run into even more diffi- what I do for a living. Three things in The final piece that Lutheran cult dilemmas when you become a particular shape that framework. Christians bring to the table in shap- judge—because as a judge, you play In 1526 Martin Luther wrote a ing a framework for professions like God. Judges determine guilt and inno- treatise titled, “Whether Soldiers, Too, mine is what Lutherans call the doc- cence. They mete out sentences that Can Be Saved.” Luther understood trine of the two kingdoms. Now, I’ve alter people’s lives and the lives of the dilemma of a Christian engaged been told that there is no official docu- their families. Judges make decisions in a profession that looked to some ment called “The Lutheran Doctrine regarding custody that can change a as anything but Christian; but unlike of the Two Kingdoms” in our confes- child’s life in a heartbeat. We can keep those in the pacifist traditions, he had sional writings. I’m also told that there people behind bars and we can set a significantly different take on the is no treatise in Luther’s works that them free. And of course we can sen- matter. Luther wrote, “When I think goes by that name. But Lutherans do tence people to death—in some states of a soldier fulfilling his office by pun- nonetheless live their lives with a very at least. If none of that worries you ishing the wicked, killing the wicked, clear understanding that God exerts as a judge, if you don’t lose sleep over and creating so much misery, it seems his will over human affairs in two that, you’re not paying attention. And an un-Christian work completely con- ways: through the earthly kingdom if as a judge you also happen to be a trary to Christian love. But when I and through the spiritual kingdom. Christian, the dilemma becomes more think of how it protects the good and The earthly kingdom refers to that sharply drawn. keeps and preserves wife and child, dimension of our lives in which we You ask yourself, “Should I, as a house and farm, property, and honor live in society and are ruled and gov- follower of the one who declared, and peace, then I see how precious erned by human laws. The spiritual ‘Repay no one evil for evil,’ be a mem- and godly this work is, and I observe kingdom refers to that dimension of ber of this profession that does indeed that it amputates a leg or a hand, so our lives lived in the church, where repay evil for evil?” You ask yourself, that the whole body may not perish.” we are ruled by forgiveness. The best “Am I able to sentence someone to Luther separated himself from example I ever heard of the way in death if that is what I’m called to do? pacifism and affirmed the moral legit- which these two kingdoms operate in Can I have someone’s death on my imacy of the military profession. He our lives was in a Sunday school class conscience for the rest of my life?” called it “a legitimate and godly call- taught by Pastor Lou Smith. Lou was I know that Christians are called to ing and occupation.” The occupation talking about the doctrine of the two be in the world but not of it. I know of a soldier, he said, is a function of kingdoms and someone asked, “Can that we are called to an alternative the temporal sword and temporal gov- you give us an example of how you
52 Special Edition as a pastor live out your life as both earthly kingdom to make sure that law and objectives that need to be taken a person of the earthly kingdom and has the final word. into consideration when we contem- the spiritual kingdom?” plate the proper sentence. We are to Lou never ducked a challenge. fashion a sentence that protects soci- Some Case Studies from the Bench “Suppose one of my parishioners,” ety, deters the defendant from repeat he said, “visits me in the church office I am a judge in the circuit courts, offenses, upholds respect for the law, on a Monday morning and confesses the level above the district courts but provides retribution to the offender, that they’ve just robbed the supermar- below the appeals court and the state and removes the offender from society ket down the street. What do I do? supreme court. Circuit courts handle whenever that is necessary. We have to Well, as a pastor,” Lou said, “I invite civil cases like auto accidents, criminal take into consideration the nature of them to confess their sin of breaking trespassing, and personal injury. They the offense, the injury to the victim, the seventh commandment and in also handle felonies, appeals of misde- whether or not a weapon was used in the name of Jesus I absolve them of meanors, spousal abuse cases, divorce the crime, the offender’s motive, any their sin. And then I invite them to settlements, child custody, spousal past history of juvenile offenses and accompany me to the police station support, and visitation. attempts at rehabilitation, prior drug where they can turn themselves in Let me now take you “beneath or alcohol use, marital history, health, and receive the temporal punishment the robe,” as it were, and give you employment history, job skills, educa- for their sin. That way,” Lou said, “I some examples of cases in which I tion, social stability, and the likelihood properly function as a person who have tried as a servant of God in the of recidivism. That’s in the book, and stands in two kingdoms, one spiritual earthly kingdom to wield my temporal sometimes we observe it to the letter. and one earthly. In the spiritual king- authority in “a wise and princely way.” But my job is probably like yours dom, forgiveness has the final word; in I usually pray when I get to chambers a lot of the time. There are times the earthly kingdom, law has the final at the start of the day. I don’t necess- when it’s appropriate to do things by word.” arily pray about specific cases; I sim- the book and other times when you For me, the doctrine of the two ply pray that the Spirit might guide have to fly by the seat of your pants. kingdoms takes away any doubts me to do what is right and fair. In the We have been appointed to make I might have about whether I as a pulpit of Grace Lutheran Church decisions based upon our knowledge, Lutheran Christian can serve as a in Waynesboro there’s a plaque that judgment, and experience; and that’s judge. Of course I can; and in fact I reads: “Sir, we would see Jesus” (John exactly what we do. must. God has called me to this voca- 12:21); it stands as a reminder to In the fall of 2007 I sentenced a tion in the earthly kingdom. Through the pastors who step into that pulpit seventeen-year-old young man to life this vocation, in Luther’s words, “God what their job is. On the bench in my in prison without parole. There were regulates the outward affairs of men, courtroom sits a plaque that reads: letters in the newspaper saying that so that we may lead quiet and peace- “Remember that they call you ‘Your my sentence was far too harsh; there able lives here upon earth.” Luther Honor’ to remind them of theirs.” were outbursts in the courtroom; understood that “the governing What I do is always exposed to there was a threat to my life. But as an authority is God’s servant,” and that public scrutiny. Quite often after a instrument through which God metes “when the magistrate punishes, God trial there will be letters to the editor out justice, the sentence was a no- Himself punishes.” in our local newspapers. Sometimes brainer. The seventeen-year-old was For the sake of good order I render there will be editorials by the newspa- a gang member who shot and killed decisions, pass sentences, and punish pers themselves. The general public a twenty-two-year-old at a gas station evildoers to keep the world from col- knows very little about the specifics simply because the man was wear- lapsing into chaos. And so I see myself of the case. More to the point, people ing a blue bandana—the colors of a not as a human being who just hap- know very little about the person who rival gang—and he wouldn’t take it off pens to be a judge who acts totally on has been sentenced and the specifics when the seventeen-year-old told him his own and throws out judgments of that person’s life. to. After the youth was convicted of from the bench willy-nilly. No—I Most people don’t know how easy first-degree murder and awaiting sen- see myself as an instrument through it is to spot guilt and innocence in tencing in jail, he wrote nine rap songs, which God metes out justice and cares the courtroom. The saying among including one that bragged about how for this world by keeping it in good judges is that “a blind man on a trot- proud he was of killing a member of order. I am guided by this sense of ting horse can spot guilt and inno- the rival gang. In a second song he vocation. In the same way that pas- cence.” The hard part is what you do told about how he couldn’t wait to get tors are called in the spiritual king- once guilt has been established. Judges out on the street and kill again. At his dom to ensure that forgiveness has the have a manual on sentencing, of sentencing this young man showed final word, I am called to serve in the course. There are guiding principles absolutely no remorse about what he
Lutheran Forum 53 had done. In fact, he was quite defi- of themselves. And yet sometimes sto- indeed carry out their calling in “a ant, flashing gang signs to some of his ries of justice and redemption can be wise and princely way.” friends in the courtroom. found even in the midst of the broken- In closing, let me mention two I know that a sentence of life with- ness of divorce. things that, more than anything else, out parole is harsh. It’s the full extent Some years ago a young man stood steady my ship and keep me honest of our guidelines—it’s the letter of the before a judicial colleague of mine as a judge who also happens to be a law—and in this particular case it was and received the temporal punish- Christian. I regularly read the clas- the right thing to do. ment for his sins; he was convicted sic daily devotional My Utmost for His On the other hand, sometimes I look of a felony. He served his time and Highest by Oswald Chambers. I’m like a pushover. This past spring one rejoined society. When his marriage particularly taken by the comments of the Interstate 64 shooters appeared failed, he and his wife fought for the he makes about Paul’s words in ii Cor- before me for certain offenses that he custody of their only child. You can inthians 5:10, “We must all appear committed in my jurisdiction—not imagine that a convicted felon doesn’t before the judgment seat of Christ.” the shootings that terrorized drivers stand much of a chance of getting Chambers writes: “If you will learn on the highway in March 2008, but custody of his child, and he didn’t. here and now to live under the scru- shots fired in Waynesboro. I gave this Full custody was given to his soon-to- tiny of Christ’s pure light, your final seventeen-year-old a sentence that be former wife. The father wasn’t even judgment will bring you only delight was criticized by the local papers as given visitation rights. It was a victory in seeing the work God has done in being far too lenient. A look into this for the wife, who presented herself in you. Live constantly reminding your- young man’s life revealed solid signs court as the responsible parent over self of the judgment seat of Christ, for the hope of the amendment of his against her irresponsible husband. and walk in the knowledge of the holi- life, however, and so I was guided by Well, parents can hide a lot of ness he has given you.” that hope. Not all lives are lost to the things from the light of truth in a six- I feel myself under the scrutiny bad decisions we make. or eight-hour custody hearing. But of that light on a regular basis at A specific instance of amendment over the long haul the truth about church. The congregation where I am of life: several years ago a young man who is going to act in the best inter- a member, Zion Lutheran Church in stood before me, guilty of the crime est of the child is revealed. And so the Waynesboro, has intercessory prayers of which he had been accused. When judge in charge filed an order giving every Sunday, as I’m sure your congre- it came to sentencing, however, I saw full custody to the mother on a tem- gation does. My pastor has arranged it something in him that I thought would porary six-month basis. During those so that on a regular basis the assisting be wasted if he were to be saddled with months I had a very close view of the minister prays the words of this classic a felony charge. I convicted the man three people involved—not as a mem- prayer: “Almighty God, you sit in judg- but refused to sentence him. Instead, ber of the judiciary but as a member ment to declare what is just and right. I put him on five years’ supervised of the church. It became clear to me Bless the courts and the magistrates probation. At the end of five years I that while the mother was a loving in our land. Give them the spirit of vacated the guilty finding and entered and caring parent, there was no valid wisdom and understanding, that they a judgment of not guilty. In those five reason to exclude the father from his may perceive the truth and administer years the man graduated from high daughter’s life. Temporal law had the law impartially as instruments of school, found gainful employment, been applied, but my faith led me to your divine will. We pray in the name got married, started a family, and is believe that justice had not been done. of Him who will come to be our judge, now a productive member of society. So, as the judicial canon of ethics your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” I took an educated chance in his case. allows, I had a conversation with my That always keeps me on my toes, I trusted a power greater than that colleague. reminding me that I am an instrument of human beings—I was guided by To make a long story short, and to of God for the sake of good order. I the redemptive spirit that can amend be purposely vague about the details pray that you have something that lives, and it paid off. out of respect for those involved, a keeps you on your toes as well. LF By far the most difficult cases I mother and a father now have joint handle are those dealing with child custody of a very sweet child who is Humes Franklin Jr. was chief judge custody. Divorce is a horrible trauma regularly brought to church where of the 25th Circuit Court of Virginia in and of itself, and when children she hears a word from God that Jesus until retirement. This essay is adapted are involved, the pain and suffering Christ is able to make all things new. from his presentation of the annual become even worse. It is very difficult She is a child who has seen that new- Crumley Lecture in Church and Soci- fashioning judgments that are in the ness in her own life. Such a story is ety, delivered on April 2, 2009, at Roa- best interest of the child, especially proof that some lives can be turned noke College in Salem, Virginia. when their parents are thinking only around, and it is proof that judges can
54 Special Edition r omething ompletely ifferent fo S C D w o The Book That Cost
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d a ow utheran n C : A L A Testimony (of Sorts) Piotr J. Małysz
i. The Book fictitious), and also one for the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Each sermon was preceded by the text The book held pride of place in one of the kitchen cabi- of the Gospel lesson given according to the lectionary, of nets. You could see it very well through the glass door: its which the sermon was an exposition. In the earliest edition, thick black covers, the paper yellowish with age. Life at my a woodcut accompanied the Gospel narrative. grandparents’ house revolved around the kitchen, where Once my grandmother was seated, she would lead what the most basic necessities of life were always present, where in effect was a house service or extended devotion, cen- life itself happened. The book belonged to the basic stuff tered on the Gospel lesson and its sermonic proclamation. of life. She would hold the postil with great solemnity and read the On Saturday or sometimes Sunday mornings (especially sermon to great dramatic effect. A picture of Luther was when, because of old age, my grandparents were not able used as a bookmark. There were prayers and sometimes to make it to church), my grandmother would walk over also a hymn. Hymns, especially the much-loved ones, were to the cabinet, take out the heavy tome, and solemnly take generally known by heart. Not only “A Mighty Fortress” a seat at the head of the table. Only a loaf of bread was with its four stanzas but also a favorite from the nineteenth handled with similar care: you made the sign of the cross century: “The paternal home is a veritable paradise, a gift on it with your thumb to thank God for His daily provi- of the Heavenly Father; were you to travel far and wide, sion before you sliced it. The family, and whoever else was more beautiful is none other.”2 present, would already be seated. We watched my grand- House services at my grandparents’ belong to my most mother attentively, even though we all knew the ritual. I cherished childhood memories. The image of my grand- had been brought up to know that the book was special: it mother (never my grandfather) with the Dambrowski postil had been purchased by my grandmother’s grandparents, is the first picture that comes to mind when I think of my and at that time its price was as much as a cow! Whatever own journey of faith. Now, as a Christian, as a thinker, a else that sum meant, it clearly was a lot of money. A lot of lot of the time an over-thinker, I do of course reflect on money for mountain folk trying to make a living from their my own journey of faith. Much of this reflection belongs meager land. to prayer. Not all of it is as idyllic as the image I have just What was the book? Well, it was not the Bible. The Bible depicted. Much of it is deeply personal, intimate, and for and the hymnals, both Polish and Slovak, had their place this reason has the character of a confession. So let me con- in the living room. This book bore the rather ponderous fess something else before I go on. I do not even remotely title, typical of the time when it was first published in the have Augustine’s persistence, insight, eloquence, or talent seventeenth century, Sermons, or Expositions of the Holy Gospels for self-reflection—a talent for giving an account of one- [as those are] Orderly Appointed for the Sundays throughout the Year. self in which every moment of delight and every moment Gathered from Holy Scripture and the Doctors of the Church, accord- of excruciating self-confrontation point unambiguously ing to the ancient teaching and order of the true Christian Church, to beyond themselves to God’s pursuit of the sinner, to God’s the honor and glory of the Mighty God and the Savior Jesus Christ. goodness, to God’s promised rest. As a Christian, I do reflect By the Reverend Samuel Dambrowski, shepherd of the Evangeli- on my faith journey. How could I not? But as a Lutheran cal Church of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, etc.1 It was a Christian, I also worry (and this is just one of my worries) Lutheran postil: a collection of sermons covering all the about the ease with which even a well-intentioned narra- Sundays, feasts, festivals, and saints’ days of the year. Later tive of one’s faith journey can get all wrapped up in the on, to my surprise, I found there was even a sermon for self; caught in a raptured, nostalgic, and even voyeuristic the feast of Corpus Christi and another for the feast of thrall to the self. St. Barbara (a saint, as we now know, who was very much Especially when these narratives are told in a worship
Lutheran Forum 55 context, I worry that God’s work may turn into a pretext for a well-told story that has it all: love and betrayal, sex and jealousy, money and drugs, beautiful women, powers and dominions—as if the great scriptural arc of salvation didn’t already have most of these in the first place! As a Lutheran Christian, my clear preference, rather than to preach about myself, is to proclaim God’s work where it took place deci- sively—at the cross. My preference is to announce God’s work where it now still takes place unambiguously—in the midst of the worshipping assembly. My preference is to point to God where He promises always to be without fail, where He offers himself to us. This is my Lutheran instinct: I know nothing but Christ and him crucified!3 Christ crucified, certainly! Yet it is I who know him. It is I who have come to know him. Can my story be told, too? I believe it very much can. But since telling the story, as opposed to merely reflecting on the story, is a new genre to me, I cannot do it without simultaneously reflecting on what the story is and how it is being told. My goal here, in other words, is to present you with certain biographi- cal images (to speak as a Christian) and to offer a running commentary (to speak to those images also as a theologian). This goal will lead me to consider testimony under three rubrics: proclamation, community, and history.
ii. Proclamation Let me begin with proclamation. As I reminisced about the Frontispiece from Dambrowski’s Postil devotional services at my grandparents’ place, I was struck by how quickly the center of that image shifted from the a reversal became transparent: my story was recognizably kitchen, the table, my grandmother at the table’s head— included in God’s story! God’s story wasn’t just an incident to the word. The word understood with utmost specificity: within mine, something I got to hear about every now and we didn’t gather simply to talk about the Scriptures, we then. It was rather my story that belonged to the story of didn’t just study the Scriptures to get a better grasp of the God’s faithfulness; my story belonged within the story of text. Scripture wasn’t just being exposited, expounded, and divine grace and mercy. explained so that we might all go away richer in knowledge, A Christian, theologically speaking, does not really have intellectually stimulated, and morally encouraged, each of a story of his or her own—at least not in the conventional us sent away with a gobbet to chew on for the next couple sense. For God has looked upon my story and understood of days. No, the word was being proclaimed. And what it better than I could ever understand it myself: “O Lord, that meant in the first place was that this house service was thou hast searched me out and known me, Thou knowest a time of rest. We were at rest, and something was being my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my done to us. A Gospel narrative was read, and then in the thoughts long before” (Psalm 139). And God has relieved words of the sermon, through the mouth of my grand- me of the burden, even tyranny, of my past: God Himself mother, the word repeatedly announced itself, saying: “All has assumed responsibility for my story’s missteps, loose this is for you! All this for you!” ends, dead ends, twisted plotlines, and unresolved conflicts, What still strikes me in that image even after all these its vain dramas and needless sensationalism. When God years is the overwhelming sense of peace. The kitchen— said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), it was also my story that the kitchen!—seemed no longer a welter of activity and came to an end upon that hill. And now it is God Who tells the busy hub of farm life. We were no longer in martial- my story, and as He tells it to me, so it is: “God has set my law Poland (1981–1983). Something was taking place in feet upon the rock, and ordered my goings” (Psalm 40). our very hearing. God was speaking His “Let there be!” “[Thou, O Lord, shalt] lead me forth beside the waters of and His “Amen!” When I think back to this image, very comfort… Thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me much part of my story, I realize now that much more took all the days of my life” (Psalm 23). What then is a Christ- place on those weekend days than God speaking His story ian’s story but a proclamation of the work of God? within my own. For as God did so, as God spoke His story, We can see this transition from story-as-burden to story-
56 Special Edition as-proclamation, from my story to observation points to another aspect As the rulers converted, so did their God’s story, in Luther’s own autobio- of Christian testimony: it proclaims, subjects, and by the late 1500s the graphical ac-count, which he wrote but proclamation does not happen in entire duchy was Lutheran. Lutheran- down a year or so before his death.4 a vacuum. Rather, where proclama- ism became the confession even of the Reflecting on his Reformation break- tion happens, a community also forms peasant folk living in remote hamlets through, Luther begins the whole nar- as the gathering of those called into in the mountain valleys. But tragedy rative as very much his story: “I lived God’s peace. struck in less than a century: in 1653 as a monk without reproach.” Now, When I think back to the house ser- the ducal line became extinct. The there’s very little sex, drugs, and rock- vices in my grandparents’ home, I see duchy then passed into the hands of and-roll here; there is rather more floor- not only the immediate family and the the Austrian Hapsburgs. As staunch scrubbing, earnest study, and soul- occasional friend seated in the kitchen. Catholics, the Hapsburg rulers man- searching. But it is very much Luther’s The postil, the book that had once cost dated that the entire population con- story. And for this reason, as we sud- a cow, handed down from generation vert back to Roman Catholicism. denly become aware, the story’s to generation, was itself testimony The Lutherans lost all their churches. trajectory is by no means a given. that God’s faithfulness transcends the Lutheran worship was banned. Pas- Actually, the story is about to run into confines of the kitchen: in space, to be tors were expelled. It took sixty years the ground under its own weight, like sure, but also in time. My grandpar- for the Hapsburg emperors to permit, a television series that falls prey to ents did buy religious books. But the grudgingly, the construction of one overconfidence in its own meandering most important books, the Bible, the non-Catholic church in the entire ter- plot. There is no doubt what the criti- hymnal, and the Dambrowski postil ritory, provided it was outside the town cal reception will be: thumbs down! had been in the family for several gen- center, had no steeple, and its entrance This leads Luther to confess: “I hated erations. They were used often, and did not face the street.5 Another cen- the righteous God who punishes sin- each use was, as it were, a glimpse into tury and a half was needed before ners.” “I was angry with God,” he the church triumphant. The faithful Lutherans were granted confessional bursts out; God, the seemingly never- departed were implicitly recognized as equality. satisfied critic and judge! those who had passed on the faith and The memory of the persecution, And then suddenly we come upon now rested in the final victory of God. especially in the sixteenth and seven- the words, “At last, by the mercy of If God had seen them through their teenth centuries, remains very much God…” What Luther came to under- race, then we too could be assured of alive to this day. In my hometown stand while wrestling with Paul’s the outcome of our pilgrimage. And of Ustroń, there is still a place in the Epistle to the Romans is that divine what a race they had had to run! woods close to the top of one of the righteousness is an attribute that God The first edition of the Dam- mountains, Mount Równica, that is communicates, bestows, and makes browski postil came out in 1620, and remembered as the location of secret into His gift. “Here,” Luther says, it was followed by many others. It Lutheran services in the seventeenth “I felt that I was altogether born gradually became the beloved book of century. The spot is marked by a rock again and had entered paradise itself Polish-speaking Lutherans in Silesia, with a book and a chalice carved in through open gates!” And having said and by the early 1900s almost every it, along with the words of God to that, Luther now goes on to proclaim household owned a copy, even though Moses, “Remove your shoes, for the “the work of God; that is, what God the books were prohibitively expen- place where you are standing is holy does in us; the power of God, with sive. In the course of more than three ground” (Exodus 3:5). In the remote which He makes us strong; the wis- hundred years, the postil contributed past, news probably traveled by word dom of God, with which He makes decisively to the preservation of the of mouth and in deepest secrecy that us wise; the strength of God, the sal- people’s faith, and coincidentally also an itinerant pastor was coming and a vation of God, the glory of God.” In to the preservation of the Polish lan- service would be held “at the stone” other words, though Luther began guage: all this in an environment that (as people referred to the place). I with a story of his own, he now pro- not only was rather hostile to Luther- picture a group of men and women claims the story of God, which God anism, but where the powers-that-be huddled together under the rustling shares with us, the only story that can also demonstrated a clear and forceful canopy of beech trees, the men shel- see our story through to a happy, ripe, preference for the German tongue. tering their wives and children from and glorious conclusion. To give a better perspective here, we the cold mountain wind. All of them need to go for a moment as far back as serious-faced, determined, with many iii. Community the Reformation itself. The dukes of faces furrowed by the hardships of life, Cieszyn (the area where I come from) yet all somehow joyful and profoundly My story, then, belongs within the converted to the Wittenberg theology grateful. I picture them listening atten- story of God’s faithfulness. This in the middle of the sixteenth century. tively. I picture them with their heads
Lutheran Forum 57 bowed down in prayer. Then the bread when the strong wind comes, when for God in its own memory, hankering and cup would be passed around. fears rise, faith, mere faith, will seem after the spiritual elation of the past Probably no baptisms: in those days, weak, all too human, easily over- and desperately trying to conjure up infants were likely to be baptized by whelmed. Faith has no strength of its its spirit. Faith does not simply grasp their fathers or the midwives; life was own. And it won’t find such strength God within itself, but it always grasps too precarious and child mortality too by rummaging for a memory of its God outside of itself, where God is at high to risk the uncertainty of a long former intensity, a memory of greater work, still at work for us. If this were wait for a pastor. and easier days. No! Faith must be not true, Christian churches would be We can look at this image both as a taken out of itself, out of its precari- little more than societies of mutual cherished memory and an underlying ous confidence in itself. It must cling admiration. Now, what applies to the historical reality. Either way, what it to Christ and to his strength. It must believer applies to the community emphasizes is the community of faith cling not to the God it remembers, itself. The community is not to be in space and time. These are not just God within faith, but to God as He self-referential, any more than is the disparate believers, cherishing their calls and works outside faith and for individual believer. One of the great faith in the depths of their hearts. Nor the sake of faith. God at work, still at temptations that God’s people face is is this meeting simply a community of work—now—in the places where He to dwell on the faith of the ancestors resistance or of human solidarity in promises we can find Him. and to try and kindle its spirit, its zeal, the face of oppression. No, it is rather The Silesian Christians, who its very motions in ourselves. If they a community that recognizes that the braved the wind for over sixty years had it, why can’t we? What happens gospel is more than a message. The and the more metaphorical tempests as a result is a dehistoricization of his- gospel is the risen Lord at work among of life, understood what Peter did not tory: history loses its historical aspect. his people: through the mouth of the understand. Up in the mountains, It now becomes a law for us, the ideal preacher who points to the cross; who secretly gathered at a place marked by of which we fall short and to which we by God’s command speaks the absolu- a rock, they sought the nourishment must live up. Instead of history, we get tion; who consigns the past to the past of their faith in the work of God on nostalgic moralism. and opens up God’s future. The gos- their behalf. There, with God in their But the cost is even higher, and God pel is the risen Lord touching through midst, calling, touching, and feeding, pays the price. When history is history, the water, burying and raising, birth- they became a people of God. They it belongs to God, Who is the God of ing a people for himself. The gospel is became God’s church. history. When history is history, it tells the risen Lord, offering his body to eat the story of God’s work in the lives of and his blood to drink. God at work, many. When history is history, it tells iv. History still at work! the story of God’s faithfulness: of ser- When I think of my forebears, the Testimony, as we have seen, is ultimate- vants sent time and again to a rebel- community gathered at the stone, I ly proclamatory. And proclamation lious vineyard (Matthew 21:33–46); of am struck by their profound insight, brings with itself not just an individual God’s Son killed like a common crimi- or instinct, rather. Faith, however story but the story of the community nal and raised from the dead by the strongly it believes, however fierce its of faith: many stories embedded in Father. It tells of powers and domin- commitment, however uncompromis- God’s story. To the community of ions conquered, of lives transfigured ing its stance, does not live by itself; it faith belong not only those presently by grace, of courage trusting in God’s cannot live by itself. Faith does not look gathered but also the entire cloud of help, of God speaking through human to itself. Faith does not build on itself. witnesses who also once proclaimed mouths, distributing the benefits of Rather, faith is only that which grasps, and passed on the faith. The church’s the cross in the most unlikely places. clings to another. Faith lays hold of historical dimension is inescapable: it History tells of God’s faithfulness from another and this other’s strength. stretches as far back as God’s own faith- generation to generation. The very The apostle Peter understood fulness. That historical connection, ex-istence and persistence of the com- only some of this truth at first (Mat- like my grandmother’s postil, like the munity attests to this faithfulness of thew 14:22–33). He understood that rock on Mount Równica, can some- God. The community must recognize it is God Who draws out faith. God times be very tangible. But what does it, but the community dare not live alone commands that one step out this history mean for us as individual from this history. If it tries to do so, of the boat and enables one to do so. Christians and as communities? Speci- its own past will tyrannize it. It will God’s promise, implicit in God’s call, fically, what does history mean for us be stuck within itself, delivered to its is what makes the impossible possible. who are telling our stories within it? own judgment upon itself, navel-gaz- It makes possible trust against all odds. This is the third and final aspect of tes- ing with no way out, God’s work long What Peter did not yet understand is timony that I would like to reflect on. brushed aside by the community’s that faith is not a thing unto itself. For Faith, as I have said, does not look quest for itself.
58 Special Edition What we must all remember is coction of dramatic ingredients. It glimpses, and a Lutheran reflection that we do not, in the end, stand on does not represent a sort of tragedy on what it means to testify. If I have the shoulders of giants. Not at all! We with a silver lining intended to elicit a left you with too little drama, too few stand by the faithfulness and mercy of cathartic reaction from the audience. narrow escapes, it is by design. When our God, new to us every morning. Rather, when the story is told well, it is I tried to tell about myself, I realized The great cloud of witnesses in the the announcement that God is still at this narrative was a story about Christ Epistle to the Hebrews is only that: work, even among us, even at the elev- proclaimed right from the get-go. I a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews enth hour. God is still at work, calling realized further that the story makes 11:1–12:2). The witnesses are not us to walk on the water and saying no sense without the faithful com- models to imitate; their lives are very “Trust Me!” This is a story of grace munity of which I was a part. And I much their own. But they all alike tes- upon grace. realized that the very presence of the tify to the ongoing work of God, to I remember Saturday mornings community testified to the ongoing God’s provision, to God’s grace. Their when I was seven and eight years old. work of God, faithfully distributing lives are not held up before us so that I had to walk to church for religious His gifts again and again from genera- we might hijack them for the purposes instruction just as a cartoon version tion to generation. If I’m leaving you of our own soul-searching and self- of Don Quixote was playing on tele- unsatisfied, I have good news for you. improvement. They are presented to vision. And I was annoyed. I remem- The story isn’t over yet! For God is still us to highlight God’s involvement in ber my great-grandmother teaching at work, and He will see it through history, His lordship over it, His judi- me prayers, and I remember the joy to the appointed end! His will be the cial “No!” to it, and His resounding of being able to repeat the words after final Amen! And I praise God that we “Yes!” to His people. For if God was her. I remember my mother read- are now in this story together. LF with them, how can He not be with ing me Bible stories in the evening. us? I remember the painting of the Last Piotr J. Małysz is Assistant Professor Awareness of history is crucial to Supper above the altar in our church, of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School testimony. When history is history, it the creases in the white tablecloth ren- in Birmingham, Alabama, and an tells of God’s grace. But when history dered with perfection, and Jesus seated Associate Editor of lf. This essay was is reduced to example, it is always judg- in the midst of the disciples. Ever since originally delivered as a chapel mes- ment: the present is now made to bear I could remember, I was surrounded sage for Beeson’s Christian Testimony the burden of past events to live down by saints, younger and older, who in series in the spring semester of 2014. or to live up to. To testify is to pro- the rather bleak reality of Communist claim the work of God as historical, as Poland believed with quiet persistence. Notes ongoing. The Almighty showed mercy And I remember one more thing: I 1. Samuel Dambrowski, Kazania albo wykłady porządne... (Toruń, 1620), followed by to those who fear Him from genera- remember becoming aware that Jesus some fifteen editions, the last in 1896. tion to generation; and now He has Christ was not just their God but also 2. “Ojcowski Dom, to istny raj,” written by also done great things for me (cf. Luke mine. My Lord and my God! In the the Silesian poet Jan Kubisz (1848–1929). 1:49–50). To testify is therefore not to core of my being; mine, because He 3. Compare i Corinthians 2:2 and ii Cor- fit into a genre, to try to find your own had first claimed me. I was awakening inthians 10:5. story in someone else’s. Abram under to the fact that the word spoken over 4. Martin Luther, “Preface to the Com- plete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings” the starry sky, Saul blinded on a dusty me in baptism years before was indeed (1545), Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 road, Augustine the refined sex addict, God’s promise to me, and that God had vols., eds. J. Pelikan and H. Lehmann (St. Luther the pious God-hater: they all actually long since made good on it. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and For- tell their stories in a way that rever- And I remember peace. The rest is tress, 1955ff.), 34:336. berates through history. But there are history. And because it is history, it has 5. This was the Jesus Church (Kościół Jezusowy) in the town of Cieszyn. Its construc- countless Christians whose quiet lives, forgiveness, lots of forgiveness; and tion began in 1709 on the basis of the Treaty whose daily struggles, whose weak- mercies, mercies new every morning. of Altranstädt (1707) between the King of nesses forgiven, whose sins pardoned, But I won’t bore you with the details. Sweden, Charles xii, and the Holy Roman whose earnest seeking for God’s face Emperor, Joseph i. tell this story just as well and just as v. A Final Word eloquently. When told well, the story does not rest on conformity to a bio- This essay has been both a testimony, graphical genre with a requisite con- or at least some autobiographical
Lutheran Forum 59 continued from page 64 stones ceased to cry out with the same proper pulpit in the nave, a jewel of over a hundred little ones, each with insistence. So the burghers called Gothic miniature, ringed with the its benefactor, each with its patron in a preacher, an impassioned ora- requisite evangelists and apostles, tiny saint, each tiny table lovingly adorned tor, Johann Geiler (1445–1510) from niches lurking with orthodox bishops. with candles and swaddled by masses nearby Kaysersberg. He preached in The heavens, too, were put to work and prayers. It was a public place as the cathedral’s St. Lawrence chapel for the sake of this evangel: at solar well: a refuge from the driving rain, until the crowds, eager to hear their noon on the equinoxes, a greenish ray a beggar’s stoop, a merchant’s meet- very own Jeremiah bawl his exposés strikes the pulpit’s cross—an event still ing room. The inside was filled with of priestly debauchery and lay lax- announced in the local papers. booths and sometimes the warm and ity, grew too large. The city built a Partly due to Geiler’s groundwork, pungent smell of animals. If the inside was a harbor for the Christ’s passion, surrounded by stories from the Bible and beyond, on the central portal. faithful, the façade was a message to the world proclaiming Strasbourg’s greatness. The three gaping portals are positively toothy with statues. On the left, Christ is born and the virtues stand victorious over the vices. In the center, flanked by his apostles, Christ is crucified; surrounding them the Bible’s greatest hits roll out on tiered archivolts. On the right Christ stands in judgment as his angels blow their trumpets, tombs are emptied, the fool- ish virgins weep, and the wise ones stand smugly by. Above this Scripture carved in stone a great rose window blooms, streaming out in white and blue and yellow—pure aesthetic pleasure with- out figures or faces. Perched high above and to the side, mounted upon chargers in their niches, stand epic sta- tues of the city’s patron kings: Clovis, Dagobert, and Rudolph of Habsburg. Each year at Schwörtag, swearing-in day, the burghers took their oath of civic loyalty before God and these His earthly deputies. When finally in 1439 its spire topped out at 466 feet, Our Lady of Strasbourg was the tallest building in Europe. What simpler metaphor for greatness than height? In all the world only the pyramids of Egypt sur- passed it, and only by a few feet. Rival steeples destroyed Strasbourg’s record until lightning destroyed them. Our Lady crowned Europe again for over two hundred years, until Ulm and Cologne finally seized first and second place late in the nineteenth century.
hey’d built the building to proclaim Tthe glory of God, but in time the
60 Special Edition the Reformation won Strasbourg even Calvin once or twice. But much the four seasons of life march before over in 1524. Though most of the continued as before. Catholics were Death. At local noon, Death sounds cathedral’s decoration was spared allowed to worship in the choir— his bell twelve times; then, above, the the iconoclasm that ravaged churches Strasbourg has a long tradition of twelve apostles promenade, turning to elsewhere, the reformers purged the confessionally partitioned and shared face a blessing Christ. At Peter’s pas- space to fit their new confession. The church buildings—and a Protestantly sage, a cock begins to crow. Beneath remaining side altars were suppressed, reorganized Oeuvre Notre Dame con- this allegorical dance an “ecclesiasti- along with the mass; prominent sta- tinued to maintain the building. cal computer” calculates festivals and tues of St. Christopher and the Virgin And added to it, too. The broken days, the sun and planets circle in were moved to less offensive locales. medieval clockwork was replaced their spheres, eclipses are presaged. In Geiler’s place now preached Bucer, with a new mechanical marvel. On Nothing, not even time, escaped the Capito, Oecolampadius, Zell, maybe each quarter hour, struck by an angel, jurisdiction of this church. For one hundred fifty years the edifice was Lutheran. In 1681 Louis xiv took Strasbourg for France and the cathedral for his confession. The reinstated Catholics returned the dis- placed art and installed a new high altar conforming to the rubrics of the Council of Trent. Later, a laureled King Louis upon his battle stallion was installed opposite Clovis on the façade. It was the French Revolution that left the most destructive wake. In 1792 the Jacobins took out their rage by smashing two hundred and thirty- five statues. They evicted the Baroque high altar and in its place erected a stylized mountain topped with a fig- ure of many-breasted Nature. The cathedral was repurposed as a Temple to Reason. The cooler heads of the town council managed to stave off the threatened hewing of the cathedral’s spire—its single elevated spire, lack- ing its double, was judged by certain revolutionary officials to be an offense to égalité—by offering to cover it with a gigantic Phrygian cap. For several years the steeple’s cross hid beneath a sheet-metal tuque painted an appro- priate revolutionary red. Catholic worship was restored in 1798, but the building remained state property (and does to this day). Its height made it a natural site for France’s first optical telegraph, which for fifty years transported messages through the air from Paris to points east. While thurifers inside raised their messages to God on clouds of billow- ing incense, operators above yanked their pullies, shifting the semaphore’s black and white arms, sending mes-
Lutheran Forum 61 sages of doom for regions soon to be porting the southeast corner of the ur culture is obsessed with penul- razed by Napoleon’s roaming armies. spire, evidently the victim of rotting Otimate goals. Against this stands piles far beneath. For years to come, the cathedral of Strasbourg—along conoclasts and Jacobins did spotty even through the First World War, with those of other cities—whose geo- Iwork at best. But nature never ceases men of Strasbourg braced and jacked logical origins and celestial orientation her attacks. Lightning was the cathe- and dug and poured concrete to rein- demand from us a much, much longer dral’s most constant and dramatic force the crumbling pier and save the term. It shows us, too, how a beloved scourge—a preaching point, for sure. spire from tumbling down. object can invite the efforts of many More than once storms knocked the Even without this drama, the lives, of many epochs, and somehow topmost spire askew. The freakish weather chips away at the stone relent- be faithful to them all. America’s squall of 1568 sent lightning skitter- lessly, the wind rounds off the sta- energies flow generously into other ing across the leaden roof, setting off tues, rain erodes the delicate tracery. things—mobile phones and feature a flood of molten metal that splashed Crockets crack and flutes crumble. A films, biotech cures andsuv s. It would onto the pavement below before stop- steady staff of masons and sculptors be futile to lament it. But contemplat- ping up the mouths of several peptic are constantly cleaning or restoring ing the architectural outgrowth, the gargoyles. In 1624 a bull’s-eye bolt bits of something, working up new embodied creative energy of a single blew the spire to smithereens, asperg- vaults or statues to replace the crum- city, I wonder what we might create ing bits of sandstone cross over a bling old ones, which are often auc- were our minds similarly steered. radius of five hundred feet. tioned off to pay for the new. Who Each night throughout this sum- The most urgent menace crept up knows how much of what we see is mer’s millennial festivities for the from below. In 1903 acting lead archi- original. The Oeuvre still has its prop- cathedral, digital projectors beamed tect (for a proper cathedral always has erties, its rents, its annual income. a postmodern fantasia upon its façade one on staff) Johann Knauth noticed And it must, for keeping a cathedral and southern flank: earthquakes fissures in a critical pillar, the one sup- upright is a never-ending task. trembled, dragons flapped, flowers
One thousand years after its foundation, Strasbourg’s cathedral still dominates the city skyline and the surrounding Rhine valley.
62 Special Edition bloomed, and rockets launched across its expanse while frozen statues took vivid color and angels took to flight The thousandth anniversary of the cathedral has (front cover). The building is not dead or relegated to the prompted a spate of new books on the topic, but pathetic status of “heritage.” It continues to speak, to be the classic work, used as a reference in this article, is adapted to new forms. the enormous La Grâce d’une Cathédrale: Strasbourg, ed. The barges of today have more and greater human Joseph Doré, rev. ed. (Strasbourg: La Nuée Bleue, signs to see—dams, locks, bridges, whizzing wonders of 2010). machinery zipping by above and humming below. The Rhine itself is not the river it once was: now it’s straight and narrow, diked and tamed by human hands. But in and All photographs in this article and on the cover are around the din of highways, airports, train stations, and © 2015 Andrew L. Wilson. high-rises, the cathedral remains, standing tall and delicate, stately, airy, unmoved, and very beloved. If it’s a window on the past, it’s also open to the future. A thousand years from now, little else here today is likely to be standing. LF
Andrew L. Wilson is lf’s Production Editor and the author of Here I Walk: A Thousand Miles on Foot to Rome with Martin Luther (Brazos, 2016).
Lutheran Forum 63 On the Cover One Thousand Years of Catholics, Lutherans, and Revolutionaries in Strasbourg’s Cathedral Andrew L. Wilson
loating down the Rhine from Basel, a medieval barge- Rebuilding commenced at once. The choir and half a Fman would have seen few monuments of any size. Fish- transept were built again in Romanesque. But then another ermen and ferries would ply their trade; smoke would rise style took over: the nave and the rest soared upward in daz- from forest huts. At Briesach he could admire the grand zling, unruly Gothic. Set against the restrained Roman- St. Stephan’s church upon the hill, skirted by that fortress esque, the Gothic comes off as all nobs and crockets, finials city’s walls. Some vineyards and some fields would show on and pinnacles, writhing beasts and beastly gargoyles. By distant slopes. But mostly he would float, the dark line of some transcendent feat, an architectural transubstantia- the Black Forest rising to the east, the Vosges Mountains its tion, the Gothic mind managed to spin tons and tons of mirror image to the west. pinkish sandstone into a gossamer veil across the heavens. Nearing Strasbourg he would spy a different sight, some- The nave was built in a single push: just forty years to make thing angular and unnatural, a dusky smudge erupting up the buttresses fly. from the plain, the only sign of the great city teeming below. By the late 1200s the bishop’s power waned; the city’s And at last, off the Rhine and through the tollhouse of the waxed. The burghers now took the reigns of the build- river Ill, he would raise his eyes and see that spindly mass ing plan. To pay the workers they consolidated farms— of heaven-piercing height, the Cathedral of Our Lady. bequests from the faithful, bits of forest, other buildings and their rents. They channeled piously purchased indul- thousand years ago, in 1015, the first foundation stone gences into the coffers of an independent foundation, the Awas laid for Strasbourg’s cathedral. It started as a bish- Oeuvre Notre Dame, still in existence all these centuries op’s project, an alliance between later. Werner Habsburg and his good By some transcendent feat, Fed by this fertile stream friend Henry ii, Holy Roman of revenue, the building Emperor. The two together placed an architectural transubstantiation, grew yet grander. New the cornerstone from which would architects were hired, and rise a great monument to God and the Gothic mind managed to spin masons, too. New quar- a sign of their prestige. Unlike ries were opened. From modern minds—who might have tons and tons of pinkish sandstone field, from grove, from searched for proper bedrock— mine, the cathedral added they built upon the site where into a gossamer veil across the heavens. yearly to its splendor and its Christ’s name was first honored in height. Light that refracted Strasbourg. The quaggy soil required the driving of thou- through great expanses of tinted, glittering glass told tales sands of piles to support the church’s weight—moist roots, of God’s providence. The northern wall of windows was if you will, for the almost animate mass soon to grow above. populated by potentates—Charlemagne, Charles Martel, Over the course of the eleventh century, a sturdy Pepin the Short, Louis the Debonair, Conrad, Philip, Fred- Romanesque basilica of Euclidean perfection grew, all erick—emperors all, bearers of the Roman orb, safeguards arcs and pillars and barrel vaults, set in golden means. The of Christendom. The southern windows depict Bible tales transept was octagonal—a reminder of the resurrection, in gruesome verisimilitude. The entire building broadcasts and of Charlemagne’s basilica in Aachen. Subtle beasts scenes and images from the world above, seen through the and peering faces stared from its historiated capitals, tiny glass dimly. heralds calling mortals to contemplate eternity amidst the This was a church for the people. There was no high resounding harmonies of the spheres. Until it caught fire altar to begin with; ringed round the aisles stood well four times and finally toppled, frail and perishable after all. Continued on page 60
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