CONCORDIA JOURNAL Volume 29 January 2003 Number 1 CONTENTS EDITORIALS Editor’s Note ................................................................................. 2 Theological Observer .................................................................... 4 ARTICLES “Following” Matthew 18: Interpreting Matthew 18:15-20 in Its Context Jeffrey A. Gibbs and Jeffrey J. Kloha ......................................... 6 The Gospel According to Graham Greene in The End of the Affair Francis C. Rossow ...................................................................... 26 Ready or Not, Here They Come Victor Raj ............................................................................... 36 The Meaning of Participation: A Case for Speaking in the Public Square Timothy E. Saleska ................................................................. 39 Preaching in a Changed Public Glenn A. Nielsen ..................................................................... 50 New Questions, Old Answers William Schumacher ................................................................ 63 Is There a God-Pleasing Purpose to War?: An Introduction to Just War Concepts David Wollenburg .................................................................... 65 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and the Public Square: C. F. W. Walther and the First Generation Timothy Dost ......................................................................... 70 HOMILETICAL HELPS ..................................................................... 75 BOOK REVIEWS ............................................................................... 99 BOOKS RECEIVED .......................................................................... 117 INDEX OF HOMILETICAL HELPS ...................................................... 118 CONCORDIA JOURNAL/JANUARY 2003 1 Editorial Editor’s Note On September 24-25, 2002, Concordia Seminary held its annual Theological Symposium. The theme of the symposium was “In ________ We Trust: The Public Ministry in the Public Realm.” The symposium sought to address issues facing our Synod today, issues that emerge when considering under what circumstances and in which contexts pastors and church officials may participate in secular-religious events or in events involving religious leaders of different Christian denominations and non- Christian religions. Concordia Journal in its October 2002 issue published a timely article on this general topic by Dr. David L. Adams titled, “The Church in the Public Square in a Pluralistic Society.” To further assist the church in working through the issues currently troubling it, members of the seminary faculty were invited to offer reflections on some of the issues raised at the Theological Symposium regarding the role of a church body officially opposed to unionism in general secular and religious events. In keeping with our commitment to assist the church in theological and practical ecclesial matters, five articles are included in this issues that speak to our church’s present concerns. In his article, “Ready or Not, Here They Come,” Dr. Victor Raj relates some of the differences in religious circumstances in India and America. He notes how contemporary Christianity has to respond to the increasing presence of non-Christian religions in our country, to the desire to use religion for spiritual fulfillment and monetary gain, to attempts to discredit traditional Christianity, and to the rapid growth of Christianity in non- western countries. These changes challenge us to speak the truth of Scripture and the Confessions in a social context very different from our Lutheran forebears. Dr. Timothy E. Saleska in “The Meaning of Participation: A Case for Speaking in the Public Square” discusses some of the latest research being done on human communication and how a communicator’s behavior and message can affect the way in which his participation in the public arena is perceived and interpreted. Since we are obligated to proclaim the Word of God to our world, he concludes with some considerations that must be taken into account in determining when it is appropriate to participate in public events that involve religion. In “Speaking in a Changed Public,” Dr. Glenn A. Nielsen advocates the continued need to proclaim both Law and Gospel in sermons to contemporary audiences that believe that almost everyone, especially people who die as victims of terrorists’ attacks or in tragic accidents, is translated immediately to heaven. He illustrates how the Law and Gospel can be proclaimed fully and rightfully by illustrating the issues that must 2 be addressed in terms of a sermon that he preached on Reformation Day following the events of 9/11/01. Professor William Schumacher, in “New Questions, Old Answers,” addresses the issue of correctly understanding categories, such as church and state, two-kingdom doctrine, public versus private religion. He notes the trend in America of privatizing most things, including religion. In a changing environment we cannot assume that answers to old questions can be applied to new questions in a shifting social context. In “Is There a God-Pleasing Purpose to War?: An Introduction to Just War Concepts,” Professor David Wollenburg traces the theory of just wars back to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and then lists some of the views which Dr. Martin Luther held on the subject. He also addresses the question of when a state can declare a war that is not defensive and the restrictions that should be observed during the waging of a war. This is a very timely subject in light of the possibility that our nation may become involved in a war with Iraq over concerns about weapons of mass destruction. Finally, Dr. Timothy Dost in “The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Public Square: C. F. W. Walther and the First Generation” reflects on one of the presentations at the symposium. The presentation has to do with Walther’s views on the legitimacy of rebellion against an established government by liberal democratic movements, inequities in the social order, slavery, and the relationship of church and state. While Walther’s views may be somewhat different than views held today, it must be remembered that circumstances are different today from what they were in Walther’s time, and these differences must be taken into account as we decide the appropriateness of our involvement as Lutherans in certain public events. Quentin F. Wesselschmidt CONCORDIA JOURNAL/JANUARY 2003 3 Theological Observer Contemporary Americans Make Poor Confessional Lutherans Part 2 In Part 1 of my observations on Americanism and Confessional Lutheran theology (Concordia Journal 28 [October 2002]: 358-359), I lamented our contemporary society’s devotion to rampant liberty of individuals as an all-pervasive influence upon its thought. Why was this situation not the case heretofore? On the one hand, it was not so because other cultures, including those of Europe, did not embrace such a radical idea (note that one of the slogans of the French revolution was fraternité) and that our forefathers were products of those other cultures. To put it another way, the early founders and members of the LCMS, though they may have become or been American citizens, were really “Europeans in disguise.” Indeed, it is not coincidental that as the LCMS became a more indigenous American, rather than an immigrant European, church in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, conflicts over freedom of thought and action increasingly arose. On the other hand, and much more fundamentally, the founding fathers of our country did not believe in exalting liberty over the other unalienable rights. That was so for three reasons. First, they, too, were Europeans in their background, and, though they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors for the cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they could not lay the values of their heritage aside. Second, they saw our unalienable rights as intimately connected to one another, neither as isolated, unrelated rights, nor as one right, with all other rights starkly subordinated to it. Third, and by far the most important, they understood all unalienable rights, including the right to liberty, in a largely unarticulated context. It might be best and clearest to do a deconstructionist analysis of this latter point. Building upon the structuralist insight that binary oppositions inform all of human life (e.g., life/death, male/female, exogamy/endogamy, freedom/slavery), as well as upon the post-structuralist insight that the binaries of human existence have strong cultural components and are not simply part of the natural order, an important strain of deconstructionism has seen that one component of binary oppositions is normally suppressed and, therefore, invisible to the casual observer. Furthermore, it asserts, the suppressed binary component tends to control and to be most critical The “Theological Observer” serves as a forum for comment on, assessment of, and reactions to developments and events in the church at large, as well as in the world of theology generally. Since areas of expertise, interest, and perceptions often vary, the views presented in this section will not always reflect the opinion of the editorial committee. 4 in the understanding of what is really going on. An example is free-market capitalism, whose binary opposite is governmental interference. A deconstructionist insight is that governmental interference is vital to free- market capitalism in the form of anti-trust legislation