Thoughts on an Unconditional Confessional Subscription

(first part of several to follow)

I have to apologize; I was not playing nice in my previous post.

I wrote:

What makes a subscription to the Book of Concord unconditional?

(1) When, in its entirety and without any exceptions, the Book of Concord is acknowledged as the belief, teaching, and confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the sixteenth century - ?

This statement sounds good, and in and of itself, it is certainly true. Most who call themselves "Lutherans" today will acknowledge that the Book of Concord contains the beliefs, teachings, confessions, and practices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the sixteenth century.

And yet, (this is where I was not playing nice), this nice-sounding statement does not go far enough; it intentionally stops short. It answers the question: "What did they believe?" It does not say anything about me. For my part, I am not making an unconditional subscription unless I say, "Put my name right after theirs. It is my belief, teaching, confession and practice today as well." That is where you see a great divide among Lutherans today, on the question of the extent to which their sixteenth century confessions are still binding for us today.

As an example of this division, we might consider a recently formulated position released by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (Thanks for the heads-up to Cyberbrethren with the post entitled, "The Situation of the 16th Century No Longer Applies in the 21st Century"; the referenced ELCA news release is also available here). The press release indicates that the ELCA's Church Council "repudiated":

statements in the Formula of Concord and declared that condemnations in the Augsburg Confession directed at the Anabaptists do not apply to today's Mennonite Church USA. The Formula of Concord and Augsburg Confession are among the Lutheran confessions written in Europe in the 16th century.

From the declaration itself, pay particular attention to the following:

The Augsburg Confession's condemnations of the Anabaptists in the matter of baptismal faith and practice (CA IX) and participation in the police power of the state (CA XVI) are properly the subject of future conversation between our churches. We note that Lutheran churches in France and Germany have adopted statements declaring that these condemnations are not church-dividing and that they do not apply to Mennonites in their countries. The Lutheran World Federation has begun conversations with the Mennonite World Conference and we support their efforts to ascertain whether the differences that remain between our two churches in these matters are in fact church-dividing.

What is the point in highlighting these things? It would seem to me that the ELCA wishes to declare that what was believed, taught, confessed, and practiced in the sixteenth century is no longer relevant for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the twenty-first century. Why? We live in a different context, and things have changed. Rather than maintaining divisions because of doctrine, we should set aside the doctrine, or at the very least, say that it doesn't matter any more.

I would maintain that it is not enough for one who wishes to subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions "unconditionally" to merely acknowledge that the Book of Concord relates what "they believed" in the sixteenth century. If the sentence that follows "this is what they believed" is not "and it is our belief, teaching, confession, and practice, too", then you are looking at some form of a conditional subscription.

PLEASE NOTE: The press release and the declaration of the Church Council of the ELCA both failed to indicate where the Lutheran Confessions actually urge governmental violence against those who held/hold to Anabaptist teachings. (I am not aware of any such urgings.) The word "condemned" is not always used (nor, I suspect, was it exclusively used in the sixteenth century) to mean "capital punishment", "imprisonment, exile, and execution". Dictionary.com kindly highlights several of the ways in which the word "condemn" is used; please consider the following:

1. to express an unfavorable or adverse judgment on; indicate strong disapproval of; censure.

3. to give grounds or reason for convicting or censuring.

4. to judge or pronounce to be unfit for use or service.

7. to declare incurable.