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Called to Common Mission: a Lutheran Proposal?

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Called to Common Mission: a Lutheran Proposal? Called to Common Mission: A Lutheran Proposal? Mark D. Menacher j Called to Common Mission has been vocal and unremitting. In response, ELCA advocates of (hereafter CCM), the full-communion agreement between CCM have affirmed the Lutheran Confessional relationship to H the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the “episcopal succession” in a variety of ways. Congruent with CCM Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. Both the passage and the imple- paragraph , Michael Root, a professor at Trinity Lutheran mentation of CCM have been acclaimed by many Lutherans and Seminary and a member of the ELCA’s CCM drafting team, stat- Episcopalians as ecumenical milestones that have “made history.” ed in the journal dialog just prior to the ELCA’s passage of CCM: CCM initiates between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church an unprecedented level of cooperation and interchangeability that The Confessions are clear: the Lutherans were explicitly will- promises to enhance their common mission. ing to preserve the traditional episcopal order if they could These historical events have been made possible because the do so consistently with their evangelical commitments. The ELCA and the Episcopal Church have agreed to share an ecclesial Reformers did not wish to create a new church; they did not tradition called the “historic episcopate.”¹ The “historic episco- wish to break fellowship with the wider church; they explic- pate” in CCM refers to the sign of unity in the form of a tactile itly confessed their “deep desire” to preserve the traditional succession of bishops that ostensibly stretches back to the early polity (Ap , )....As Dorothea Wendebourg of times of the church. Permission, as it were, for the ELCA to adopt Tübingen has recently shown in detail (in a paper in Visible an “historic episcopate” has been granted by CCM paragraph , Unity and the Ministry of Oversight, the Church of England- which reads: Evangelical Church in Germany conversations), the Reformers made great efforts to preserve a traditional epis- “Historic succession” refers to a tradition which goes back to copal order, but this was so politically difficult as to be prac- the ancient church, in which bishops already in the succes- tically impossible in the Holy Roman Empire of the six- sion install newly elected bishops with prayer and the laying- teenth century. on-of-hands. At present The Episcopal Church has bishops Further on he says: in this historic succession, as do all the churches of the Anglican Communion, and the Evangelical Lutheran Some opponents of CCM are insisting that the ELCA will Church in America at present does not, although some violate its commitment to the Lutheran Confessions if it member churches of the Lutheran World Federation do. The adopts CCM. For at least some of us who support it, the issue Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of /, the ecumeni- is precisely the reverse. On the issue of ministry, the cal policy of The Episcopal Church, refers to this tradition as Confessions call us to embrace the opportunity CCM offers.² “the historic episcopate.” In the Lutheran Confessions, Article of the Apology refers to this episcopal pattern by Similarly though more robustly, David Yeago, a professor at the phrase, “the ecclesiastical and canonical polity” which it Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, argued in an article is “our deep desire to maintain.” written for Lutheran Forum: By thus equating the Anglican (Episcopalian) understanding of We must say No to polemics, which claim to represent true “historic episcopacy” with the polity mentioned in the Apology to Lutheranism, but obscure the clear endorsement in our the Augsburg Confession, CCM paragraph cleared the way for Confessions of that body of practice now called the historic the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly to adopt CCM. episcopate as a bond of communion between the Churches: Despite the stated relationship between “historic succession” in “On this matter, as we often testified at Augsburg, we desire the episcopal office and the ranks of clergy mentioned in with the greatest eagerness to preserve the polity of the Article of the Apology, opposition to CCM within the ELCA Church and the degrees of office in the Church, even if these were established by human authority. For we know that the Church’s order was set up by the Fathers in this way, as the M D. M is pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Au Grés, ancient canons describe, by a good and helpful plan” Michigan. (Apology , ).”³ Finally, Carl E. Braaten, of the Center for Catholic and tolic succession in the office of diocesan bishop could have no Evangelical Theology, in a more recent edition of dialog also binding power.” Referring to research by Georg Kretschmar,⁸ addressed the matter. Whereas Braaten first appears to aid the Wendebourg proceeds with the statement that when the notion of opponents of CCM when stating, “In the sixteenth century there “apostolic succession” had been “rediscovered” and had become a was no discussion whatsoever about the ‘historic episcopate.’ . marginal topic in rapprochement negotiations at Worms and at The same goes for the term ‘episcopal apostolic succession,’”⁴ he Regensburg (–), the “Wittenberg Reformers reacted to it then turns on such opponents and remarks: with a sharp rejection: With the theory of apostolic succession in the episcopate, the church would be made dependent upon the The folks linked to the Word Alone Network claim that the succession of the bishops.”⁹ Notably, although Wendebourg adoption of the episcopal office in apostolic succession employs the term “apostolic succession” in the body of her paper, would contradict the Lutheran Confessions. If this were the the primary source from Melanchthon to which she refers speaks case, why did the primary authors of the confessions— plainly of the pattern of Episcopos successisse and of successionem Luther and Melanchthon—express their “deep desire” to ordinariam as something that Melanchthon considered to be retain the episcopal office? Why did they call it “good and fraught with errors.¹⁰ useful?” The fact is that they saw no such contradiction, nor do the majority of Lutheran theologians around the world and most of the seminary faculties of the ELCA.⁵ The historical claims made in and made In a variety of ways, these ELCA scholars have sought to certify that the concept of “episcopal succession” of whatever description congruent with paragraph are with- either was operational or was so integral to the office of bishop out historical foundation. that the Lutheran Reformers were referring to it when the nb Augsburg Confession and its Apology were written by Philip Melanchthon in –. In fact, without this support from the Lutheran Confessions it is highly unlikely that most people in the Third, in her next paragraph Wendebourg cites Ap , and ELCA would have taken CCM seriously as a viable ecumenical explains how the Reformers desired to maintain the constitution agreement. Therefore, it will come as a surprise to many in the and ranks of clergy in the church. From the context of these three ELCA that the historical claims made in and made congruent with paragraphs in Wendebourg’s paper, it should be clear that the CCM paragraph are without historical foundation. The rest of Reformers’ desire to retain various ranks of clergy as per Article this essay examines CCM paragraph in relation to four topics: of the Apology included no desire to accept the pattern of “epis- academic credibility, historical reality, intellectual integrity, and copal succession” as both CCM paragraph and the proponents ethical accountability. of CCM opine. Root’s misappropriation of Wendebourg’s research to support CCM AND ACADEMIC CREDIBILITY his position on CCM has not gone completely unnoticed. In certain respects, the proponents of CCM cited above are correct Elsewhere, Wendebourg herself indicates that she is both aware of when they state as per Article of the Apology that the Lutheran and also disapproves of Root’s citing her in ways reversely to her Reformers desired to maintain the episcopal office as it then exist- historical research. Wendebourg rejects Root’s assumption that ed. These proponents, however, do not explain clearly what this the change in political circumstances since the Reformation peri- meant for the Reformers. Since Root cites Dorothea Wendebourg od somehow obliges Lutheran churches today to accept the in support of his position, perhaps the fruits of her research might medieval episcopal order, including the so-called historic episco- offer clarification on the matter at hand.⁶ Three points will be pate. On the contrary, the Lutheran Reformers were necessarily made from three successive paragraphs in Wendebourg’s paper. obliged to break with the then existent ecclesial order so that they First, when Wendebourg states that the Wittenberg Reformers could maintain “apostolic continuity.”¹¹ Thus, according to strove emphatically to preserve the episcopate in its traditional Wendebourg, the single office of ministry in Lutheran churches order, and when she further remarks how striking it is that they exists as a legitimate ecclesial development that occurred under sought to do so with such persistence and readiness to compro- the guidance of the Holy Spirit.¹² mise, Wendebourg refers chiefly to the political motivation of the To make this point absolutely clear, Wendebourg’s research as Reformers to retain the office or estate of bishop as an entity reported in her essay in Visible Unity and the Ministry of Oversight within the Holy Roman Empire. As Wendebourg comments, demonstrates that when the Lutheran Reformers began to ordain “One did not want to place oneself outside the legal structures of pastors regularly in , candidates for the ministry of word and the empire.”⁷ Clearly, the Reformers’ activities had already made sacrament were ordained to the single office of pastor as bishops.¹³ their predicament in the Holy Roman Empire precarious Wendebourg further shows that the Reformers’ ordination prac- enough.
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