Luther's Truths: Then And
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Journal of Lutheran Mission September 2015 | Vol. 2 | No. 4 Table of Contents Sermon: A Song of Joy by Michael Kumm ..................................................................................................... 2 Luther’s Truths: Then and Now by Robert Kolb ...................................................................................... 5 Reformation in New Lands and Tongues by Lawrence R. Rast, Jr. .................................................... 16 The Message of the Reformation by Matthew C. Harrison. .............................................................. 23 Reformation Jubilees: Is There Cause for Celebration in 2017? by Werner KlÄn ................................................................................................................................................. 26 Decline in American Lutheranism: A Study by James Arne Nestigen ............................................. 44 The Lutheran Reformation’s Continuing Importance for the Church Today: Celebrating the Reformation Rightly — Repentance — An African Perspective by Joseph Ochola Omolo................................................................................................................................. 52 The Reformation and Asia: Another Battleground of Confession and Liturgy by Naomichi Masaki ................................................................................................................. 62 Europe: Deflection from the Confessional Base and New Signs of Its Vitality by Darius Petkunas ................................................................................................................... 67 Reformation Truth in the Global Church: Latin America by Ricardo Rieth ............................ 72 The Lutheran Reformation and the North American Inheritance by Gerhard Bode ............. 76 From Repentance to Rejoicing by Albert B. Collver III ..................................................................... 80 Enduring Hope: The West and Beyond by Roland Gustafasson ........................................................ 85 Celebrating the Reformation Rightly: Remembrance, Repentance and Rejoicing by Joseph Makala ............................................................................................................................................... 88 Lutheran Witness in Turkey by Ville TyppÖ ............................................................................................ 91 The Lutheran Church in Africa: Thirty Years of Growth by Mike Rodewald ........................... 95 Book Review and Commentary: The Forgotten Ways— Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch and The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imangination and Practice for the 21st Century Church by Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim by Albert B. Collver III .................................................................................................................................105 © 2015 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Editorial office: Published by The Lutheran Church— Reproduction of a single article or column for parish 1333 S. Kirkwood Road, Missouri Synod. use only does not require permission of The Journal St. Louis, MO 63122-7294, Please direct queries to of Lutheran Mission. Such reproductions, however, 314-996-1202 should credit The Journal of Lutheran Mission as the [email protected]. source. Cover images are not reproducible without This journal may also permission. Also, photos and images credited to be found at sources outside the LCMS are not to be copied. www.lcms.org/journalo flutheranmission. Member: Associated Church Press Evangelical Press Association (ISSN 2334-1998) A periodical of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Offices of National and International Mission. Luther’s insights into the Word of the Lord can be translated as he translated Scripture and the Luther’s Truths: tradition of the Church: into our times and our places, as different Then and Now as they are in our several corners by Robert Kolb of God’s world. t is quite amazing — it is the rarest of occasions indulgences in 1517, they created the first modern media in human history — that people around the world event, a public relations happening like none previously are spending so much time, energy and money to experienced in European civilization.2 This media event Icommemorate a simple, ordinary academic exercise. initiated a series of events that captured minds and hearts No one five hundred years from now will celebrate or as it produced a fresh redefinition of what it means to rail against a faculty forum held at Concordia Seminary be Christian. This new definition transformed the way in 2015. In 1517, Desiderius Erasmus was much more Christians understand who their God is and who they are. influential than the young Wittenberg professor who The ripple effect of this redefinition continues to make an simply wanted to explore a question of pastoral care in impact — often in ways unintended by Luther and con- the normal way academicians explored new ideas in tradictory to his intentions — today. their disciplines, by posing theses Recent Luther scholarship has for debate. Erasmus’ contemporary, emphasized the continuities of the Johann Eck, trying to make a career A living and lively Wittenberg reformer’s thought with for himself at another new, small historical memory elements of medieval teaching and university in Ingolstadt, may have been is a great blessing, practice. It certainly is important to more intelligent than his Wittenberg particularly when it is recognize these continuities and the colleague in terms of his command roots of much of Luther’s thinking of scholastic theology, although directed toward God’s in medieval antecedents, both in the Martin Luther was no amateur at the work of blessing His scholastic tradition and in the monastic scholastic arts. Church with the tradition of teaching and practicing But with around ninety-five Gospel. the faith. Indeed, it is only when we — depending on how the printers recognize how Luther took what was divided them — theses on the practice familiar to his contemporaries and of indulgences, Martin Luther began a Church-chang- reworked the way key medieval terms were defined ing, world-altering series of events that shaped the world and key concepts recast that we can appreciate how far beyond the little frontier town of Wittenberg. What radically the core of his understanding of being Christian Thomas Kuhn labeled in 1962 “a paradigm shift,” in his critiqued medieval constructions of the faith and how The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, produced what fundamentally he set the church on new paths.3 It should some call the Copernican revolution in theology: Luther’s 2 new characterization of being Christian.1 When print- “How Luther Went Viral,” The Economist, 17 December 2011, 93–95. Luther did recognize the potential of the printing press quickly and ers pirated Luther’s proposals for debate on the issue of imaginatively employed its possibilities for spreading his message. 3 Volker Leppin, “Luther’s Transformation of Medieval Thought, Continuity and Discontinuity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Martin 1 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Luther’s Theology, ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and Lubomir Batka University of Chicago Press, 1970). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 115–124. Journal of Lutheran Mission | The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod 5 not surprise us that an individual never loses completely from Scripture and placed them within the structures of all the old forms of thinking into which his mind has been traditional Germanic, Celtic and Slavic religions. Those pressed by his instructors. New ideas that catch hold in religions did not have elaborate doctrinal systems but society always take form within an older way of thinking, instead understood the relationship between the gods, so that those who receive these new ways also retain some their concept of the Ultimate and Absolute, and them- footing in the old way of thinking. Medieval Christianity selves largely in terms of ritual. The relationship was was Christian. But Luther recast the framework for initiated by and flowed out of human performance of that reading Scripture and proclaiming its message as he which pleased the gods, and what pleased the gods was worked within the old system of thinking to come to chiefly the execution of sacred religious activities. Proper significantly new foundations for thinking and living in implementation of ritual depended on priests; the people biblical fashion. of Europe had no problem accepting the religious author- A framework used in the discipline of compara- ity of a hierarchy endowed with powers beyond that of tive religions or the history of ordinary human beings when religions may help make clear Christian priests were introduced what Luther accomplished with Luther’s understanding into the village. Thus, in 1500, his new definition of being that the basic problem of Christianity for most Europeans Christian. Religions have six consisted of proper performance of common elements, according life, our failure to fear, love ritual in the domain of a hierarchy to this theory: doctrine (the and trust in God above that they experienced in the person fundamental principles govern- all things, opens the way of their local priest and that they ing the perception of reality in to settling anxieties and knew culminated in the supreme 5 the specific religious system of bringing peace. For it teaches