November 2022 Newsletter
Does Doctrine Matter?
Does doctrine matter? That is a question that has been asked again and again in the Church. Sometimes, the question is asked because doctrine seems so dry and boring. It seems so much like academic hair splitting. A second reason is because doctrine divides. During the 17th Century, central Europe endured the 30 Years War, leading to the death of up to one-third of the population of Germany. That war was driven by doctrinal differences between Catholics, Lutherans, and the Reformed.
When the war was over, a movement arose called Pietism. Many saw it as a Second Reformation. Pietism emphasized many things that have become part of our common heritage as Christians. The man considered the founder of Pietism, Philip Jacob Spener, made six proposals to improve the life of the Church. One of them was this:
We must beware how we conduct ourselves in religious controversies.
Being at war with one another, either literally or verbally, does little to spread the Gospel. Non-believers are turned away from the Church when they see how divided we are. In particular, when they perceive that Christians are lacking in love for one another, they wonder about the truth of the Gospel. After all, didn’t Jesus teach that the greatest commandment was to love God and one another?
That is all true, but it’s not so easy to dismiss doctrine. In the Lutheran Church of the 17th Century there was another movement that emphasized doctrine. It is known today as Lutheran Orthodoxy. They spent a great amount of time disputing with Catholics and the Reformed over proper theology. At its best, Orthodoxy was not obsessed with doctrine for its own sake, as if one is saved by having the right answers to abstract theological questions. Rather, Orthodoxy understood that the purpose of doctrine is to preserve the pure preaching of God’s Word and the proper administration of the Sacraments.
Why does this matter? Because it is through the Word and the Sacraments that God gives us forgiveness, life and salvation. For instance, there is the question, “Is the Bible the Word of God?” You might be surprised to hear that question. Both the Pietists and the Orthodox held the Bible in high regard. In fact, Jacob Spener’s complaint was that there wasn’t enough Bible reading in the Church, particularly among the laity. Meanwhile, Catholics, the Reformed, and Lutherans all agreed that the Bible was the Word of God. They only disagreed on how it should be interpreted.
That is not the case today. In the past year, I have heard an ELCA pastor declare that the Bible is not the Word of God. Instead, he said that Jesus is the only Word of God. The Bible, he said, is a Word about God, but it is not the Word of God. The reason he did this is that he finds parts of the Bible to be offensive, outmoded, and oppressive. Rather than turning to the Bible on questions of faith and life, he would prefer that we ask ourselves what we think the “real Jesus” would do. In doing this, he drives a wedge between the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus that we supposedly “know in our hearts.”
What does Lutheran doctrine teach? It certainly does teach that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God. However, it also teaches that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is in and through the Written Word that we encounter the Incarnate Word. In fact, Lutheran doctrine teaches that the Word of God comes to us in three forms: 1) the Incarnate Word, 2) the Written Word, and finally 3) the Preached and Sacramental Word.
This is where doctrine becomes practical, and not only practical, but a matter of life and death. Think of the question of the forgiveness of sins. If your sins are forgiven, you have life and salvation. If your sins are not forgiven, you will be condemned eternally. So, how do you know your sins are forgiven? How can you be sure? The answer that Lutheran doctrine gives is that you will know for sure when a Preacher announces to you, “Your sins are forgiven.” You will also know for sure when you are Baptized and when you receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
“But wait a second,” you might say, “how do I know that Preaching, Baptism and Communion do these things?” The answer is very important. You know because it says so in the Bible. Can a human preacher really announce the forgiveness of my sins? Yes! Go read John 20: 22-23 and Matthew 16:18. Does Baptism really save me? Yes! Go read Mark 16:16 and 1 Peter 3:21. Do I really receive forgiveness, life and salvation in Holy Communion? Yes! Go read Matthew 26:27-28.
It all depends on what we believe about the Bible. If it is God’s Word, then we can be comforted with the knowledge that our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. If it is only a human word, we are left to figure it out for ourselves. Lutheran doctrine tells you that you can be confident that the Bible is GOD’S WORD. As the beloved children’s songs says:
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the BIBLE tells me so.
May God give all of us the childlike faith to believe those simple words.
In Christ,
Pastor David Charlton
A Review of Think.Believe.Do
A concerned member of the ELCA contacted me, asking me to do a review of a new curriculum from Augsburg Fortress’s Sparkhouse. That curriculum is entitled T.B.D.: Think. Believe. Do. Sparkhouse touts it as their newest youth curriculum. A blogpost describes T.B.D.
as a new small group series that gives students the tools to articulate, investigate, and test out their beliefs on a broad range of topics that connect to their daily lives. However, the goal isn’t to come away from each series with a settled idea about the topic. Although they might feel more settled than they did before. Instead. T.B.D. focuses on how students think, not just what they think.
Currently, T.B.D. offers six topical courses on Prayer, Sin, Mission, Salvation, and Bible, broken up into four sessions each. Each session begins with a “Provocative Statement” before moving through three major sections: Think, Believe and Do. After answering a series of thought provoking questions in their journals, students watch a video and reflect on two Bible Passages. Following this, they come up with an honest statement of what they believe as individuals and as a group. Finally, the group brainstorms a low risk way to test out that belief in the following week.
The Video
In the videos that accompany each session, a young person wrestles with questions about the topic of the session. This is very interesting. Like many people today, both young and old, the character in each video turns to the internet, searching for an answer. As you would expect, answers come from all quarters. The internet search yields many quotes from the Bible. Quotes are also given by Luther, Augustine, Calvin, Bonhoeffer, St. Benedict, and other Christian teachers. Others come from more dubious places, like Bart Ehrman and Richard Dawkins. This is what you would expect from an internet search. The character in the video is left with more questions than answers as a result. Pastors and catechists are very familiar with the kind of idiosyncratic views that people develop from their use of the internet.
Values Clarification
The question is where to turn. The answer is more than a little surprising. After pondering challenging statements, watching the video, and looking up two Bible verses, the students are immediately asked to formulate their own responses to the questions. The result is something very similar to the kind of “values clarification” that was practiced decades ago. It’s almost as if the students are told, “You’re on your own. The Bible is unclear and unreliable. The Christian tradition is too varied and contradictory. Who’s to say what is true. You need to chart your own path.”
As a person who grew up in the 1970s, I am quite familiar with this way of teaching. I learned to ask open ended questions and to accept the challenge to decide for myself. Fortunately for me, I had pastors and college professors who pointed me to the answers. (I attended a Lutheran college.) Otherwise, I would have been lost. During my senior year of college, the process of asking open questions and deciding for myself overwhelmed me. I realized that I was drowning in a sea of meaninglessness and purposelessness. In the midst of this, I became acutely aware of my sinfulness. It was then that I turned to the things I had learned from my pastors and professors. In particular, I remembered what I had learned about the Cross and the Resurrection. If I had been left entirely to my own resources, I don’t know where I would be.
A Third Resource?
In T.B.D., youth are presented with two resources with which to interpret the Bible: 1) the confusing diversity of answers given by the internet and 2) their own wisdom and the wisdom of their peers. It’s too bad that a third resource is not introduced into the discussion, namely, the wisdom of the Creedal and Lutheran tradition of interpreting the Bible. If the person teaching this curriculum is a pastor or a well catechized lay person, T.B.D. might not be harmful. The same would be true if it was used with well catechized youth. As one reads the lesson book and watches the video, it is easy to identify answers to the questions that are raised.
For instance, in the unit on Prayer, the video character, a young woman, wrestles with the meaning and purpose of prayer. What does the Bible teach? How is one to pray? Does prayer change things? Why pray if God already knows everything? As I watched, I thought to myself, “It’s too bad the Lutheran tradition doesn’t have a simple but profound explanation of the meaning of prayer; or even better an explanation of the Lord’s Prayer.” At one point, the character finds a link to an article on St. Benedict. She decides to download his daily prayer schedule to her calendar, only to be shocked by the notion that it calls for prayer seven times a day. Again, I found myself thinking, “Too bad Luther didn’t simplify the seven hours of prayer on behalf of the laity, reducing them to two or three times a day.” At another point, the character does a search for the Ten Commandments, hoping that there is something there about prayer. She concludes that the Ten Commandments are no help, since prayer is not mentioned. As one knows, however, Luther’s interpretation of the Second Commandment has a lot to say about prayer.
Unanswered Questions
After reflecting on this curriculum, I am left with a final question. Is the failure to use the catholic and Lutheran tradition a bug or a feature of T.B.D.? In other words, do the developers of T.B.D. assume that teachers and facilitators will make use of the Great Tradition and the Lutheran Confessions? Have they simply forgotten to explicitly remind facilitators of these resources? Or is the intent to encourage students to utilize the widest possible resources, from St. Benedict to Richard Dawkins, to formulate their own system of beliefs? If so, the result will not be formation in the Christian faith, but instead in an eclectic post-Christian form of spirituality.
Ironically, I can remember a time when Augsburg Fortress was criticized for being too Lutheran, too Confessional, too heavy in doctrine. Other publishers, like Group Publishing and Youth Specialties, were preferred because they were more user friendly, more engaging, and more broadly Evangelical. To see a curriculum that makes such sparse use of the Catechism and the Lutheran Confessions is surprising, and not an improvement.