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| Comfort Zones | | Date Created: Sep 26, 2003, 10:06 PM |
We Reformed Christians and pastors tend to isolate ourselves from other Christians. Perhaps this is a problem in every church community. We don't have the same sort of doctrinal and ritual hedges that many branches of the church do, but we have enough to keep us effectively walled off from other Christians. What this means, for one thing, is that our views about other Christian demoninations are often laughably stereotypical. Reformed Christians, for example, are often baffled when we are face to face with a flesh-and-blood Lutheran.
I'm always dismayed in presbytery examination committee meetings when we ask candidates to either describe some aspect of the theology of another denomination or ask them why they aren't Lutheran or Episcopalian. They almost always answer with a cliché or slogan. It's obvious they don't know much about these other branches of the church. Best not to, I guess, otherwise life would be too complicated and our own sacred certainties might unravel at bit.
One of my favorites is to begin asking Reformed seminary graduates about the doctrine of justification by faith--it's nature, importance, and function, etc. They love to do this. They'll almost always refer to Luther and to his GREAT commentary on Galatians. Luther, Luther, Luther, Luther. After they're done talking, I'll ask them, "That's wonderful, so why aren't you a Lutheran?" After an initial look of horror, they will remember this one point: "Oh, they believe in consubstantiation." Then I say, "What's that?" Another panicked look. If they say anything, it's usually an attempt to link the Lutherans with the Roman Catholics in their doctrine of the sacraments.
But then I'll say, "You know, I've been doing graduate work in a very conservative Lutheran seminary for 9 years now and all the Lutheran professors I know will say that they do NOT believe in consubstantiation. Will you become a Lutheran now?" Finally, we get a confession that they have never really read any Lutheran theology or even visited a Lutheran church. But they're still quite sure that they could not be a Lutheran--they just KNOW that they are bad.
In my experience, our seminarians have little if any clue what other denominations really teach and how they order their communities. It's all slogans and cliches that they have learned from Evangelical and Reformed books or from professors who are just as ignorant as they are on these points. Most have never really taken the time to read something written by a Lutheran or to visit a Lutheran church with an open mind. We already KNOW that they are wrong.
And I've noticed that Lutherans have the same attitude and ignorance about Reformed churches! It really has been fascinating to see these sheltered Lutheran students and professors interact with me. They would like to put me in a box, but I don't fit. And it's not just me, it's the fact that they really don't know much about Reformed theology or churches.
Interestingly, I have visited and worshiped with Lutheran students and professors at their churches on numerous occasions. Of course, I am always careful not to take communion. But I have invited students and professors to come to my church sometime and experience our service firsthand. They will say, "Oh, sure I'd like to do that." Most of these men, including professors, have nver worshiped in any Reformed church. So I say, "Why don't you come by and see for yourself." And you know what? Not one of them has ever darkened the door to my church. Not even those that I get along with quite well and consider friends. I have to wonder if they are frightened to death. Are they afraid of discovering that their supposedly inviolable confessional documents and traditions might be in need of revision--something which I am always pointing out to them in class whenever we come across something clearly indefensible in the Book of Concord. It is their pacifier, their security blanket.
Don't misunderstand me. We Presbyterians hve our security blankets, too.
I've seen entire classes reduced to fist-clenching anger because of something I said. I'll give you an example. I was in a seminar class on the Formula of Concord some years ago. The teacher really is a world-class Reformation historian. I really like him. He's had a lot of contact with Reformed Reformation scholars, so he's more balanced than most. But he's still a Lutheran with a capital "L." Who could he teach at Concordia if he wasn't? Anyway, during one of his classes he was talking about the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms. You know, the kingdom of the left and right hand of God. He was trying to explain how it developed in 16th century Lutheran theology given the political and social context in Germany. He himself is a strong conservative Republican. And he used himself as an example. The Gospel is for church and my relationship with God. But in the world, according to my understanding of natural law, I am a staunch republican. I confess the Gospel in church (the kingdom of the right hand) and as an individual Christian, but I argue natural law in the marketplace and politics (the kingdom of the left hand). I keep the Gospel and my politics separate, the kingdom of the right hand is different than the kingdom of the left, etc.
Well, I was about ready to explode. So I spoke up. The bottom line of my (respectful) question was: are you telling me that the earliest Christian confession, "Jesus is Lord," had no political implications in the Roman world? Man, you should have seen and heard the reactions I got. After about 1/2 hour of discussion and argument, the professor stopped everyone and said, "Well, that's why it's always healthy to have at least one Reformed student in the class. He'll keep us honest. I guess I've never really thought of it like that before. . ." But he was being much nicer than the rest of of the class. They were all gnashing their teeth at me or whispering under their breath.
As soon as the class was over I was surrounded by the wolves. They were so angry that I "appeared" to damage their little doctrine of the two kingdoms. They wanted to make sure that I knew that my argument was superficial and failed to take into account the careful nuances of Lutheran theology. They resorted to their fallback defense: if you're not a Lutheran you can't understand how all these doctrines stand or fall together. This is the way they think: every Lutheran doctrine is really about the Gospel. You attack "closed communion," for example, and you attack the Gospel. You attack the two kingdoms doctrine and you attack the Gospel. And conversely if you don't understand the Gospel you can't understand these doctrines. And since you are not a Lutheran, it is impossible for you to understand the Gospel or anything else in our concatenated system. They think this should appeal to me. But I think, man, you may as well be saying: Welcome to my nightmare; won't you come on in?
Just to be clear: it is just this sort of lead-insulated theological community that I pray we avoid as Reformed Christians. Please don't take my off-the-cuff comments above as hateful to Lutherans. I count them as fellow believers and would love to have our churches work together. But being in other ecclesiastical circumstances makes one aware of one's own church's problems. Theological and ecclesiastical isolation is dangerous and unproductive for the advance of Jesus' kingdom. |
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