We know Luther’s personal aversion to use his name as tag for God’s holy Church. Bayer points out that already in 1522 in Luther’s ‘earnest Admonition to All Christians, to Keep Themselves from Rebellion and Insurrection,’ (2008, 8) he argued thus:
“In the first place, I ask that men make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine [John 7:16]. Neither was I crucified for anyone [I Cor. 1:13]. St. Paul, in I Corinthians 3, 37 would not allow the Christians to call themselves Pauline or Petrine, but Christian. How then should I—poor stinking maggot-fodder that I am—come to have men call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christians, after him whose teaching we hold. The papists deservedly have a party name, because they are not content with the teaching and name of Christ, but want to be papist as well. Let them be papist then, since the pope is their master. I neither am nor want to be anyone’s master. I hold, together with the universal church, the one universal teaching of Christ, who is our only master [Matt. 23:8].” (1999, c1962 70)
However Hopf balances this with Luther affirmation of the responsibility and even necessity to stand up for the gospel described with his surname for the very gospel’s sake (1967, 16f):
Finally, I see that I must add a good word of admonition to those whom Satan has now begun to persecute. For there are some among them who think that when they are attacked they can escape the danger by saying: I do not hold with Luther or with anyone else, but only with the holy gospel and the holy church, or with the Roman church. For saying so they think they will be left in peace. Yet in their hearts they regard my teaching as the teaching of the gospel and stand by it. In reality this kind of statement does not help them, and it is in effect a denial of Christ. Therefore, I beg such people to be very careful.
True, by any consideration of body or soul you should never say: I am Lutheran, or Papist. For neither of them died for you, or is your master. Christ alone died for you, he alone is your master, and you should confess yourself a Christian. But if you are convinced that Luther’s teaching is in accord with the gospel and that the pope’s is not, then you should not discard Luther so completely, lest with him you discard also his teaching, which you nevertheless recognize as Christ’s teaching. You should rather say: Whether Luther is a rascal or a saint I do not care; his teaching is not his, but Christ’s.
For you will observe that the tyrants are not out merely to destroy Luther, but to wipe out the teaching. It is on account of the teaching that they attack you and ask you whether you are Lutheran. Here you must be sure not to speak with slippery or evasive words but frankly to confess Christ, no matter who did the preaching—Luther, or Tom, Dick, or Harry. The person you can forget; but the teaching you must confess. Paul also writes thus to Timothy in II Tim. 1[:8]: “Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake.” If it had been enough here for Timothy to confess the gospel, Paul would not have commanded him not to be ashamed also of Paul—not of Paul as a person but of Paul as a prisoner for the sake of the gospel. Now if Timothy had said, I do not hold with Paul or with Peter, but with Christ, when he knew that Peter and Paul were teaching Christ, then he would actually thereby have denied Christ himself. For Christ says in Matt. 10, 30 concerning those who preach him: “He who receives you receives me, and he who rejects you rejects me.” Why this? Because holding thus with his messengers, those who bring his word, is the same as holding with Christ himself and with his word. (1999, c1959, 265)
At its core the question: “What is it about you Lutherans?” does not focus as much on what we think about Martin Luther and his biography – although that too is not irrelevant – but rather what does Luther stand for. It boils down to those issues Lutherans think, write and say about the divine trinity, humanity and people’s salvation, the Church, the means of grace, church and civil order etc. We can look for those answers in Luther’s table talk – or in his wide ranging correspondence – his lectures – sermons – programmatic papers – personal confessions and finally his testament. It’s a broad perspective. It narrows down considerably if we take the Lutheran standard of the Book of Concord, which posits the confessional writings collected there as norma normata – i.e. Luther’s Catechisms and the Smalcald Articles. Those make up part of the characteristic essentials of Lutheran Confessionals besides the Augsburg Confession with its Apology, the Tractatus on the primacy of the pope plus the Formula of Concord. That Book of Concord is the benchmark for Lutheran Confessionalism. It sets the standard for best practices in Lutheran preaching, teaching and living.
In light of our Lord’s examination of his disciples: “Who do you say I am?” [cf. Mt.16,15], St. Peter admonishes his readers: “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1Pe 3:15 ESV). How much more does this hold for us as Lutheran teachers and bishops, pastors and missionaries, who are called and ordained in the Church to be ambassadors of his reconciliation [cf. 2.Cor.5,18-20] and are to teach everything he has entrusted to us [cf. Mt.28,20], that we fully understand, know and do, what Luther lists as basic elements of a pastoral service in his “Instruction to the visitors in Saxony”, namely “how one teaches, believes, loves, how one lives a Christian life, how to care for the poor, how one comforts the weak, or punishes the unruly, and whatever else belongs to such an office.” (1999, c1958, 270)
Therefore confessional Lutherans are those people, who with one accord teach and hold, that mode, structure (Elert 1958) and form of life in thought, word and deed, which abides both in theory and practice [de iure et de facto] or better still “in name and in fact” [nomine et re] (Kolb, The sheep and the voice of the shepherd. The ecclesiology of the Lutheran Confessional Writings 2010, 332) by the authoritative benchmark set by the Book of Concord [1580] as the true and normative exposition of God’s word which was inspired by the Holy Spirit and recorded in that same spirit by the apostles and prophets of old in both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible.
Robert Kolb from St.Louis points out that:
Lutherans look to their confessions of faith for the bedrock of their theology, its foundation for meeting the questions and needs of their day – but not for a finished and final edifice. Therefore, the Book of Concord contains relatively few prescriptions for the details of living out the life of the church… (2010, 325)
and a bit down his article he continues
In the end, searching the Book of Concord for specific proof passages to guide the twenty-first century church in solving pressing problems will lead to frustration in many instances and occasionally to an abuse of the historical intent of its authors. (337)
Yet, confessional Lutherans are agreed that it makes good sense to learn, digest and apply the “Wittenberg way of doing things” or as Kolb formulates “the Wittenberg theological method” (2005) cf (Bayer, Theology the Lutheran way 2007 ), i.e. how their namesake, his colleagues and fellow reformers, worked, suffered and was carried through their life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in holy Scriptures. He – like all saints of the Church – “may be remembered in order that we imitate their [his] faith and good works, according to our calling” (Kolb, R. et al 2000, 59,1). Even more so, they hold that the Lutheran confessions contained in the Book of Concord have give the true and authoritative Christian response and judgment at vital junctions in the life of the Church, which guide, bind and empower it on its theological way forward.
Confessional Lutherans hold that their existence is under similar compulsion and persuasion (cf. 1. Cor.9,16) as expressed by Luther at the diet of Worms in 1521, when he was pressurized to revoke the evangelical standpoint by the emperor Charles V before the German nobility:
Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God’s word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us. On this I take my stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen. (http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/english233/Luther-Diet_of_Worms.htm)
The papal bull “Decet romanum pontificem” by pope Leo X excommunicates Luther from the community of faithful believers on the 3rd January 1521. This excommunication has not been revoked up to date and affects you and me as confessional Lutherans too. This demonstrates that even our sincerest and most heartfelt confessions don’t go unchallenged, but are rather severely contested even if not always by such high and mighty authorities in human realms. That makes theological decisions, ecclesial conflicts and dogmatic conclusions/judgements inevitable and even unavoidable, even though they weigh so heavily on us up to the point of tearing up families, tribes, nations and even continents as it did between the Arian heretics and the orthodox Nicene Fathers in the 4th century, then again between East and West around the turn of the 1st millennium, when Rome and Constantinople excommunicated each other and lastly when the one, holy Roman German Empire broke apart in and after the Reformation. Lastly not even the pope could hold this disparate entity together despite all the efforts of the misguided emperor. Their time was gone and their authority was no more. It was as W.B. Yeats describes in “The second coming” and is quoted by Achebe: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” (1958)
We all live our life coram Deo and in eschatological responsibility – and that is the highest, absolute and final authority. Him we owe our life and our everything. That is why Luther continues to confess the truth – be it like at Worms in the early days of the reformation, be it in the middle of his life, when he wrote in his “Confession concerning the Holy Supper” [1528] even before the Catechisms were published:
I see that schisms and errors are increasing proportionately with the passage of time, and that there is no end to the rage and fury of Satan. Hence lest any persons during my lifetime or after my death appeal to me or misuse my writings to confirm their error, as the sacramentarian and baptist fanatics are already beginning to do, I desire with this treatise to confess my faith before God and all the world, point by point. I am determined to abide by it until my death and (so help me God!) in this faith to depart from this world and to appear before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence if any one shall say after my death, “If Luther were living now, he would teach and hold this or that article differently, for he did not consider it sufficiently,” etc., let me say once and for all that by the grace of God I have most diligently traced all these articles through the Scriptures, have examined them again and again in the light thereof, and have wanted to defend all of them as certainly as I have now defended the sacrament of the altar. I am not drunk or irresponsible. I know what I am saying, and I well realize what this will mean for me before the Last Judgment at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let no one make this out to be a joke or idle talk; I am in dead earnest, since by the grace of God I have learned to know a great deal about Satan. If he can twist and pervert the Word of God and the Scriptures, what will he not be able to do with my or someone else’s words? (Luther, LW Vol.37: Word & Sacrament III 1999, c1961, 360)
This confessional and eschatological seriousness does not disappear in Luther. We note it again, when he’s once more contemplating his end due to severe illness and is tasked to write a Lutheran testament for the envisioned and never realised free Church Council in Mantua. He does so with his “Smalcald Articles”:
I would indeed very much like to see a true council, in order to assist with a variety of matters and to aid many people. Not that we need it, for through God’s grace our churches are now enlightened and supplied with the pure Word and right use of the sacraments, an understanding of the various walks of life, and true works. Therefore we do not ask for a council for our sakes. In such matters, we cannot hope for or expect any improvement from the council. Rather, we see in bishoprics everywhere so many parishes empty and deserted that our hearts are ready to break. And yet, neither bishops nor cathedral canons ask how the poor people live or die—people for whom Christ died. And should not these people hear this same Christ speak to them as the true shepherd with his sheep? It horrifies and frightens me that Christ might cause a council of angels to descend upon Germany and totally destroy us all, like Sodom and Gomorrah, because we mock him so blasphemously with the council.
In addition to such necessary concerns of the church, there are also countless important matters in worldly affairs that need improvement. There is disunity among the princes and the estates. Greed and usury have burst in like a great flood and have attained a semblance of legality. Wantonness, lewdness, extravagant dress, gluttony, gambling, conspicuous consumption with all kinds of vice and wickedness, disobedience—of subjects, servants, laborers—extortion by all the artisans and the peasants (who can list everything?) have so gained the upper hand that a person could not set things right again with ten councils and twenty imperial diets. If participants in the council were to deal with the chief concerns in the spiritual and secular estates that are opposed to God, then their hands would be so full that they would forget all about the child’s games and fool’s play of long robes, great tonsures, broad cinctures, bishop’s and cardinal’s hats, crosiers, and similar clowning around. … I, therefore, have provided only a few articles, because in any case we already have received from God so many mandates to carry out in the church, in the government, and in the home that we can never fulfill them. What is the point, what is the use of making so many decretals and regulations in the council, especially if no one honors or observes the chief things commanded by God? It is as if God had to honor our buffoonery while in return we trample his solemn commands underfoot. In fact, our sins burden us and prevent God from being gracious to us, because we do not even repent and moreover want to defend every abomination.
O dear Lord Jesus Christ, hold a council of your own and redeem your people through your glorious return! The pope and his people are lost. They do not want you. Help us who are poor and miserable, who sigh to you and earnestly seek you, according to the grace you have given us through your Holy Spirit, who with you and the Father lives and reigns, forever praised. Amen. (Kolb, R. et al 2000, 299)
A conscience taken captive and bound by God’s word is not free in a libertarian or pluralistic sense, but rather is compelled to think, speak and act subject to the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit in his revealed word of Holy Scripture. He works faithful conversion, renewal and conviction through this verbal instrument and means of grace so that the faithful believer is brought to the living Christ and remains in, with and under him in true faith, hope and love as he lives in this world, even while not being part of it. That is the evangelistic goal of Christian missions – and not primarily democratization, political empowerment, social liberalization, economic development, westernization or even globalization – even if these may be positive side-effects welcomed by some. Faithful Christians do not only take care of theology as an utopian ideology, but are engaged also in the “countless important matters in worldly affairs that need improvement”. Yes, the “participants in the council [members of the Church/Christians] are to deal with the chief concerns in the spiritual and secular estates.” Therefore Christians and the Christian Church are not isolated in some detached ivory tower, but are rather called, placed and instituted to serve the people in the country, province, municipality, city, town and village in whatever calling, challenge, situation and context God has placed them.
In this calling to live in this world as faithful Christians and confessional Lutherans does not leave us without failure, suffering and hateful sin. That is part of our human heritage from the sinful beginning. However together with all Christians, the faithful believer is kept with and in Christ through the daily forgiveness of sins. Obviously we poor, miserable sinners are sorely tempted to cut the salvific lifeline instrumentalized for our benefit by the Holy Spirit in his evangelical means of grace as we again and again are tempted to liberate ourselves: “Look – no hands!” – only to fall back on to the never-ending goodness of the Lord, who pulls us mercifully from the stormy waves. In view of our susceptibility we pray: “God help me!” We know that even while standing, we are bound to fall [again]. Yet we are confident that he hears our prayer. As Luther encourages us in the explanation of his Large Catechism:
But the efficacy of prayer consists in our learning also to say Amen to it—that is, not to doubt that our prayer is surely heard and will be answered. This word is nothing else than an unquestioning word of faith on the part of the one who does not pray as a matter of luck but knows that God does not lie because he has promised to grant it. Where there is no faith like this, there also can be no true prayer. (Kolb, R. et al 2000, 456, 119f)
In that vein we gladly learn and faithfully comply: “Yes, yes, it shall be so” (LSB 2006, 325) for “thus it cannot happen that the prayer is not answered.”cf. (Bayer 2008, 348)
Confessional Lutherans believe, hold and teach that the source and cause of all God pleasing theology, true and saving faith plus holy and sanctified living is the holy word of God. That is why all other philosophies, ideologies, cultures, traditions, religions, myths and so-called scientific thought patters remain subject to this higher criticism of ultimate truth. This holds true not only in the secular realm, but also in the ecclesial holy of holies, because not only was and is the most illustrious Pope, but are the inclusive global community of Bishops and even the most reverend church or congregational councils, synods and ecumenical convocations are wretchedly fallible and have disastrously erred publicly as Luther is finally pushed to conclude for the first time during the argument in Leipzig against Dr. Eck in the early days of the evangelical reformation. He writes to his superior Spalatin in 1519:
In rebuttal I brought up the Greek Christians during the past thousand years, and also the ancient church fathers, who had not been under the authority of the Roman pontiff, although I did not deny the primacy of honor due the pope. Finally we also debated the authority of a council. I publicly acknowledged that some articles had been wrongly condemned [by the Council of Constance], articles which had been taught in plain and clear words by Paul, Augustine, and even Christ himself… Then I proved by the words of the council itself that not all the articles which it condemned were actually heretical and erroneous. (1999, c1957, 322)
Yet, we confessional Lutherans confess with great consensus that the Book of Concord is not one of these dismal church failures, but rather one of those glorious glimpses of heavenly light shining mercifully in the darkness of our world bringing divine forgiveness, grace and peace to lost sinners and thus effecting their salvation and granting them a new life. It – and especially its first and main Article of Justification – are not to be condemned as the Council of Trent did for instance in canon 12 on Justification: “Si quis dixerit, fidem uistificantem nihil aliud esse quam fiduciam divinae misericordiae peccata remittentis propter Christum, vel eam fiduciam solam esse, qua iustificamur: anathema sit.” (Denziger 1976, 379). This condemnation has finally be revoked in JDDJ 1998 in so far as it originally did not authentically describe the Lutheran position i.e. supposedly it represented a rather sad “misunderstanding” and was thus solved by an updated “hermeneutics”. Well, very concrete and real issues were side-stepped and not solved by this inter-denominational consensus as the LCMS points out in its response to this documentation between Rome and Geneva:
three types of differences that remain: differences of language, of theological elaboration, and of emphasis in the understanding of justification. But here an important question arises about JDDJ’s own claims. How can there be a genuine consensus on basic truths if the language, the elaborations, and the emphases differ? (St.Louis 1999)
In contrast to praising this theological conundrum as partial success and even victory, confessional Lutherans hold that the precious diadem and divine crown jewel of our faith in the Justification of sinners by grace alone as formulated in Augsburg 1530 is still to be commended, confessed and propagated unequivocally, explicitly and boldly as the true exposition of the holy word of God. This Lutheran creed and Christian confession remains the common foundation, the all permeating life source of truth that confessional Lutherans thrive on with magnificent unanimity – even if not uncontested as the opposition from Trent and the ongoing confusion from LWF/Rome shows. It is the universally valid, but also decisive/divisive standpoint, to which they were called by grace alone:
“Speaking of this summary of our Christian teaching in this way only indicates that there is a unanimously and commonly held, reliable form for teaching to which all our churches commonly pledge themselves. The extent to which all other writings are to be approved and accepted shall be judged and evaluated on the basis of and according to this form, for it is taken from God’s Word.” (Kolb, R. et al 2000, 529,10)
This confident and joyful conviction of confessional Lutherans is bound and caught up in the knowledge that we stand not so much accountable before human authorities and trials, but rather before the living God himself (cf. 1.Cor.4,1-5), who judges without fail and prejudice and will do so, when we like everybody will face at the end of time at the final judgment. His measure will be everything that he taught, entrusted to and mandated his disciples (cf. Mt.28,20). His word in law and gospel, in prescription and promise, in demand and gift, accusation and forgiveness, in blame and grace is the true treasure of the one, holy Christian Church as Luther writes in the 62nd Thesis: “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” (1999, c1957 31) That is what keeps the faithful here on earth both humble and confident, contrite and trusting, subdued, but also exuberant in this life, but also there and then beyond death’s final grip. We realize with the dying Luther that we are truly beggars (Bayer 1999, 280-301), but beggars, who have been saved, accepted and divinely familiarized and who will finally reach our eternal destination being at home with our heavenly father, seeing what we have believed by his surpassing grace and never ending goodness. This eschatological dimension of our existence ultimately relativizes daily experience, pressures, conflicts and temptations. (Peters 2009, 20.37) That is why we don’t despair even though we face the somber bottom line as emphasized in Luther’s introductory paragraph to his Lenten sermons held in response to the raving masses of Bilderstürmer/Iconoclasts in Wittenberg, which recalled him out political refuge and exile on the Wartburg:
“The summons of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Every one must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. We can shout into another’s ears, but every one must himself be prepared for the time of death, for I will not be with you then, nor you with me. Therefore every one must himself know and be armed with the chief things which concern a Christian.” (1999, c1959 , 70)
See, it is at the open grave, facing death that Christians are called to profess their living faith as the apostle Paul teaches us:
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1.Cor.15,54-58 ESV)
The result of this unshaken confessional stance faithfully facing death does not lead into a passive detachment to utopia, but rather to an very active abundance in the Lord’s work, because he lives and rules and we too are to live in his way of doing things, which are not in vain, but bring forth eternal fruit (cf. Joh.4,35-38). It is this overpowering reality of facing the living God and depending solely on the work and merit of Jesus Christ to survive this divine confrontation, that makes Luther and also confessional Lutherans bold in the face of human trial and earthly affliction:
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us: The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure, One little word shall fell him. (LSB 2006, 656,3)
Luther’s Catechisms are living proof to this overwhelming confidence in the power of Jesus Christ’s gospel to save us from death – us and our children and their children too.
That’s why Lutherans taught their offspring earnestly to know as much as every Christian should know to achieve eternal life and salvation. That’s why even common Lutheran laborers and handymen from rural areas like Hermannsburg and Neuendettelsau went out of their comfort zone to preach this basic Christian gospel to far-off nations – be it to the aborigines in Australia, the Batak in Indonesia, the Gala in Ethiopia, the Lapps in Finnland, the Delaware Indians out West, the AmaZulu in Zululand and the BaTswana on the Transvaal High- and Lowveldt right up to the Limpopo. That is why Luther’s Catechisms are translated into many, many languages. The faith in God’s goodness, grace and mercy, which he has shown, given and preserved for us in creation, salvation and sanctification creates confessing confidence and opens a way forward even across cultural, national, racial and confessional borders and into those unknown areas, where this true and pure faith is not yet known, professed or proclaimed. However crossing this border of faith with the gospel of Christ has never put to shame, but has brought forth fruits of faith – sometimes little, sometimes more – but always it has been God’s miracle of his effective word creating faith out of nothing.
Hermann Sasse for one answered this pertinent question in a remarkable fashion in the noteworthy booklet: “Was heißt Lutherisch?” (1936), which was later translated by Tappert into English: “Here we stand” (1979). Together with his colleague, friend and brother in the ministry Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf, Sasse stood in line with that neo-confessional reawakening of the mid-nineteenth century, in which pastors like Johann Gottfried Scheibel [Breslau]; the brothers Ludwig and Theodor Harms [Hermannsburg]; Wilhelm Löhe [Neuendettelsau]; Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther [St.Louis] and August, Friedrich, Christian Vilmar [Marburg] stood for some of the most influential theologians for the later generation of confessional Lutherans in Southern Africa.
At the mission school of Bleckmar (Bergen) Lutheran theologians and missionaries were schooled by Hopf and others in the theology of confessional Lutherans. In my estimation this post-war schooling played no small part in the confessionalization of the two sister churches in Southern Africa – the Lutheran Church in Southern Africa and the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod in South Africa.
This confessional stance was propagated in their joint-venture, the confessional cooperation called “Mission of Evangelical Lutheran Free Churches”. The theological course of both these churches and their mission operation was in line with the confessional course outlined by both Hopf and Sasse in their various publications: Missionsblatt; Lutherische Blätter; Briefe an Lutherische Pastoren etc. These young confessional Churches had either a bishop – Rev. Georg Schulz DD – or a president – Rev. Günter Scharlach – who served them influentially for almost a quarter century, where previously Rev. Christoph Johannes jr had served as Superintendent of the joint mission for nearly half a century. There is no doubt in my mind, that they together with their pastors and missionaries, evangelists and teachers harmoniously towed the confessional line penned down in cooperation with their colleague and teacher in the teamwork effort of the “Festschrift” for the 75th anniversary of the Bleckmar Mission (Hopf, Lutherische Kirche treibt Lutherische Mission 1967) – just a bit into the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
The “other” Lutherans, who in the course of the past century joined in ELCSA, did so under the unionistic conditions of their mother churches, who were part of the evangelical Church in Germany [EKD]. Already in 1953 the confessional Lutherans explained in a joint-declaration signed both in Bleckmar and in Itshelejuba that cooperation with these “other” Lutherans was only imaginable as “goal and fruit of [doctrinal] negotiations, but not preempting their outcomes” (Hopf, Erklärung zur Frage nach der Zusammenarbeit lutherischer Missionen in Südafrika 1967, 166). That is very much the tone set for the constitution of the Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, which was formally adopted in 1967 and stated positive and negative conditions for church unity and fellowship:
1.3 By virtue of being bound by Scripture and Confessions, the LCSA is aware of the unity of faith with the Church of the Apostles and orthodox Christians of all times. The LCSA is therefore in fellowship with the Lutheran Churches in the whole world, in so far as these churches abide by the teachings of the Lutheran Confessions and act accordingly.
1.3.1 There is no church fellowship with congregations and churches which stand on a different foundation or, who on their part, have fellowship with those that accept teachings contrary to Scripture. (Africa 2010)
This basic confessional foundation of the Church is determinative. That is why the founders of the LCSA rejected the suggested name: “Lutheran Bantu Church of the Republic South Africa”, which would have erected tribal, racial and national barrier and rather elected to be called “Lutheran Church in Southern Africa” – emphasizing the essential confessional character of this ecclesial body, which ideally was without racial, ethnic or national apartheid and was in confessional unity with the one, holy Christian Church of the Apostles and orthodox Christians of all times and around the world “in so far as these churches abide by the teachings of the Lutheran Confessions and act accordingly.”
However the question remains even as we are well into the 21st Century: What do we do about this foundation? Is it our way of faith and life? Does that determine our existence as Church, congregations and Christians? Or does this only describe our history, which was partly determined by foreign colonization and dominance by outsiders? Do we and our congregations believe, confess and teach this even today? What answer do we offer as we face the very similar challenge Laurence L. White addresses in his paper on “offering a good confession” (1997, 10), which he describes as proclaiming the gospel of salvation, defending the truth of God’s word and to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. What does that mean for us and our people in our context? To put it bluntly, it can’t be done with a pileup of some confessional writings from the past in some vault or storage cabinet. It surely must be more than just a repetition of sentences, paragraphs or constitutions voiced long ago and far away. Therefore it’s can’t just be about repristination as a restoration of an original cultural condition or traditional position reigning in German congregations of rural and pre-modern Bavaria, Lower-Saxony or even Prussia can it?
Closer to the biblical truth and appropriate Lutheran confession would be a way of faithfully living in God’s word and promise, being kept graciously by faith in Christ’s lord- and fellowship, and being forgiven, called, gathered and sent forth by the Holy Spirit’s guidance in his most holy liturgy and service of word and sacrament to serve as light to the gentiles and salt of this world, bringing forth fruit patiently in post-modern, pluralistic and very diverse and multi-cultural Southern Africa.
Christian Weber adds another dimension, when he develops the confessional missionary perspectives in the Congo and elsewhere against reigning pessimism in the ecclesial missions by putting them in the perspective of “plain discipleship on Jesus’ way of suffering” (Weber 2009, 79) clarifying that this confessional endeavor of ecclesial missions in Jesus’ name can’t be oriented on success or even prosperity [horribile dictum] , but must rather be focused entirely on being faithful and obedient stewards of the good and gracious gifts of their Lord.
Perhaps it is typical to answer a question about today’s Church with reference to a glorious past long gone. What has Luther to do with us in Africa – or South Africa other than that we share his name? Is the Church called “Lutheran” really characterized by Luther’s gospel outlook? Do we confess before princes and kings as proclaimed in Ps.119,46 (Kolb, R. et al 2000, 31) and as the reformers did in Augsburg, while Luther was living outlawed [“vogelfrei”] on the Coburg?
Allow me to mention but a few sticky points for discussion – not necessarily in order of importance – and their relevance in light of the 10 commandments of our God :
- African Renaissance as a revival of traditional religion: “Africa can only resume its proper role via a return to the ways of the ancestors” [Mbeki] – Compare also the ideology or better still traditional religion behind “Freedom Park”, which has a worship area for the ancestors.
- Political or civil religion as a revival of hero worship: “Oliver Tambo was crucified for us” – “Nelson Mandela is our Jesus” – “Shembe is the way”
- The genocide in Zimbabwe (Gukurahundi massacres); Xenophobia in South Africa; Discrimination of the San-people in Botswana;
- Gender issues, rape, sexual discrimination, prostitution and human trafficking
- Fraud, corruption, and mismanagement amongst South African leaders;
- Poverty, land-claims and –distribution; unemployment; water and electricity;
- Legalization of abortion and same-gender marriages.
Where are our words and their supportive actions? We must realize that we are but a small voice in the wilderness. No doubt about that. We are but a few thousand so-called confessional Lutherans in Southern Africa. LCSA counted 25, 000 members in 1992. In 2010 this number has dropped to about 5, 000. The FELSiSA has somewhere between 2-3, 000 members. So together these make up not even 10,000 people of a population of 45 million or less than 0,02%. We are beggars that is true. However is that reason enough to remain silent with regards to political injustice and blatant crimes against the people of Southern Africa?
Well, the publication of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod in South Africa is called “Bekennende Kirche” [Confessing Church]. Do these confessions reach the ears of the public forum, the market place, never mind the ungodly, heretics or enemies of the Church? These questions are not only rhetorical, but in my view of some importance. Are we able to address issues of faith on the basis of our common faith that the bible is the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth as the confessors of the Solid Declaration and the Epitome both under the cover of the Formula of Concord managed to do and thus unite over 5, 000 pastors in subscribing to this mandatory truth? And do we abide in word and deed by the teachings of the Lutheran Church as we promised at our ordination or have we accepted the hermeneutical principle of Leuenberg that denominational and theological practices and teachings, that were previously considered to be divisive of Church unity are only various modes, paradigms and thought systems of a larger unity and ecclesial harmony, which is no longer divided as before, but unites the faithful at a higher [?] level by synthesizing thesis and anti-thesis in a truly enlightened fashion? Well, Erasmus and other reformed peace mongers celebrate their renewed victory, whereas the confessors of 1580, who had toiled for years to promote true gospel unity are again repelled – and again by people calling themselves “evangelical”, and are at heart irenic, but still not Lutheran.
Do we manage to speak out as confessional Lutherans in our own midst even if it comes to infant baptism, the real presence of Christ in his Sacrament of the Altar, the efficacy of absolution in his name, the office of the ministry only rite vocatus or do we rather keep silent and thus promoting a precarious peace in our congregations and churches? To me it seems as if our own people sing the praises of Pentecostals, Prosperity adherents or other heretical sects and use their methods/intonations/mannerisms just a bit too willingly, but are just a wee bit too bashful about being Lutheran, never mind confessional Lutheran.
It is time again to join in with Philipp Spitta: „Es gilt ein frei Geständnis in dieser unsrer Zeit, ein offenes Bekenntnis bei allem Widerstreit, trotz aller Feinde Toben, trotz allem Heidentum zu preisen und zu loben das Evangelium.“ (EG 1994, 136,4), which freely translated means: “It’s time for free confession in this our present age, an open declaration opposing evils rage, against grim provocation and pagan sick illusion to praise and laud the gospel – that saving truth with Christ’s own seal.”
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