Posted on

Collegial Conversation: Leadership & Authority

President Rast held a Collegial Conversation today following chapel. The Collegial Conversations are a quarterly convocation for all MDiv, AR, and deaconess students, in which the president speaks on a topic that will affect students after they leave the Seminary. For the opening quarter of this academic year, Dr. Rast presented on leadership and authority, shaping his talk around the verses of LSB 718:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“Jesus, lead Thou on
Till our rest is won.
Heav’nly leader, still direct us,
Still support, console, protect us,
Till we safely stand
In our fatherland.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Dr. Rast pointed out that, for future deaconesses and pastors, “It’s not ‘will I be a leader’ but ‘what kind of leader will I be.’” His practical advice? “Be intentional about it. Use the style that best fits you and don’t fall into the temptation of falling back on authority.” (Such as, “You must listen to me because I am the pastor/deaconess/etc.”) “As soon as you make that statement,” Dr. Rast declared, “your authority is shot because you’ve gone the way of the law.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Always the historian (besides his role as President of CTSFW, he also serves as Professor of Historical Theology), Dr. Rast looked back at the 1519 Leipzig Debate to use Martin Luther’s words for where authority rightly comes from; That, “A simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“And, I would add,” Dr. Rast immediately appended, “a pastor or a deaconess.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Two years later, in April of 1521, Luther would give his famous Here-I-Stand speech at the Imperial Diet in Worms, again on the issue of authority. “Since your most serene majesty and your high mightinesses require of me a simple, clear and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as noonday that they have fallen into error and even into glaring inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God’s word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help me! Amen.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“Ask yourself,” Dr. Rast went on, speaking of times when leadership and authority is called into question in a ministerial or service setting: “what’s at stake? Me? Or the Word of God? So be very wise.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
He ended on the Word, and the promises given to us in Jesus Christ; those same promises of mercy, grace, and peace carried by pastors and deaconesses into the world. “God works in and through us, in all the seasons of our lives,” Dr. Rast said. “That’s leadership – to understand your place, your gifts, and the gifts He has given to others. And through it all the Lord’s promise remains true: ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
After the half-hour talk (only shallowly summarized here), the students got together with their faculty mentors over lunch to discuss the topic of leadership and authority further in light of their unique roles as future pastors and deaconesses.

 

Posted on

Lutheranism & the Classics V

Dr. Nordling (far right) speaks with conference attendees.

Lutheranism & the Classics V (“Arguing with the Philosophers”) has officially drawn to a close. The conference takes place every other year, serving as a two-day learning event for those who love the study of theology, the classics, and the classical languages; there was a lot of Latin both cited and quoted throughout the presentations. This year the conference drew over 130 attendees, about 40 of whom were CTSFW students.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Dr. Nordling, who heads the conference, opened by introducing the first plenary speaker, Dr. Angus Menuge (Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, Mequon), who himself introduced this year’s topic by opening with a presentation on the Lutheran philosophy of reason.‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

Dr. Angus Menuge. “You can get a measure of a man by the books he has authored or edited,” Dr. Nordling said of Dr. Menuge, referring to his body of work.

He began by noting that Luther was known to speak harshly against Reason. “Frau Hulda…the devil’s prostitute,” Luther wrote in “Against the Heavenly Prophets (“Frau Hulda” was his way of personifying Reason), “can do nothing else but slander and dishonor what God does and says.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
However, in the “Disputation Concerning Man,” Luther also acknowledges that, “Philosophy or human wisdom defines man as an animal having reason…And it is certainly true that reason is the most important and the highest in rank among all things… It is the inventor and mentor of all the arts, medicines, laws, and of whatever wisdom, power, virtue, and glory men possess in this life…a kind of god appointed to administer these things in this life. Nor did God after the fall of Adam take away this majesty of reason, but rather confirmed it.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Thus we conclude that Luther believed in natural reason, but recognized the limitations in it. That is, that:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
1. Reason can judge earthly matters, but cannot judge in heavenly matters.
2. Reason can know God exists, but it does not know who He is.
3. Reason can argue for God, but (not knowing who He is) constructs idols.
4. Reason can apprehend the basic meaning of Scripture, but it cannot comprehend the mystery nor grasp its promises.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“Reason is a valuable servant,” Dr. Menuge said, “but it requires the right external input and guidance.”

Dr. Roland Ziegler on “Double Truth? Daniel Hofmann and the Discussion on the Relation of Theology and Philosophy.”

The final keynote presentation by Dr. Roland Ziegler (The Robert D. Preus Associate Professor Systematic Theology and Confessional Lutheran Studies here at CTSFW) also spoke on this question of authority, and the use of reason in religion. You have the philosophers (“The patriarchs of heathens according to carnal wisdom,” Dr. Ziegler described them) who claim that philosophy must interpret Scripture, versus St. Paul, who says the mind must be captive to Scripture. 2 Corinthians 10:5:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
And so we have a clear answer to our argument with the philosophers. There is value in reason and philosophy, but: “Philosophy,” Dr. Ziegler explained, “has to be in submission to Holy Scriptures.”‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

One of the sectionals taking place in L-7. Dr. C.J. Armstrong (Concordia University, Irvine) presenting his paper “Dear Prudentius: A Classical Contradiction in Beza’s Triumphant Exposition of Predestination Dogma.”

The longer plenary presentation are not available, but you can still access and read the abstracts from the sectionals at https://www.ctsfw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/LC-V-Sectional-Papers.pdf. Dr. Sarah Byers and Dr. Christian Kopff were the other keynote speakers, though I was unable to attend Dr. Byer’s session to take notes (and Dr. Kopff had to cancel due to health issues; we prayed for him in chapel this morning). You can learn more about all four keynote speakers here: https://www.ctsfw.edu/ctsfw-events/lutheranism-the-classics/.

Posted on

Convocation: Lutheranism in the UK

There’s a lot of extra learning opportunities on campus this week, from Lutheranism & the Classics (a two-day, bi-annual conference for those interested in the conjunction between theology and the study of classical antiquity) today and tomorrow, to the Christ Academy: Confirmation Retreat coming up this weekend. But the learning first started this week with a convocation on Wednesday, when Dr. Cynthia Lumley, Principal of Westfield House of Theological Studies in Cambridge UK, lectured on “Lutheranism in England.”


‍‍‍‍‍Our former Associate Director of Deaconess Formation, Dr. Lumley makes the trip back to CTSFW nearly every year to talk to the students about studying abroad at Westfield House. Westfield House exists alongside Cambridge, as seminarians in Britain are expected to go to an academic college to earn an academic theology degree, while simultaneously attending a house of their specific denomination, which teaches them their doctrine and how to interpret the things they’re learning in their academic degree. Westfield House is a sister seminary of the LCMS, as we are in partnership with the ELCE (Evangelical Lutheran Church of England).
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The Lutheran presence in the UK is small, as it has always historically been. Great Britain is, in fact, rapidly changing into a mission field for all denominations, with 70% of 16 to 29-year-olds identifying no religious affiliation as secularism becomes the dominant cultural force. Only 5% of the population attends church (25% of whom are Anglican, 22% Catholic, while Lutherans fall into the “other denominations” category).
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Christianity first came to Britain in the early AD’s, with legend claiming that Joseph of Arimathea came to England’s shores in 63 AD. The English hymn “Jerusalem” by William Blake (considered, by many Brits, to be England’s unofficial national anthem) refers to this. The first recorded British Christian was St. Alban, martyred in AD 209, while the oldest archaeological evidence of Christianity is a Chi-Rho wall painting from AD 350. However, much of England fell to paganism for the next couple centuries, though Christianity remained in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. These Christians refused to try and convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons (according to Dr. Lumley they legitimately wanted them to burn in hell), they also did not stand in Augustine’s way when the first archbishop of Canterbury came as a missionary in the 600s, allowing him to reintroduce Christianity to the lost.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Skipping forward nearly 1,000 years to the introduction of Lutheranism:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Within four weeks of October 31, 1517, the 95 theses had been smuggled into the east coast ports from Antwerp and were being debated in pubs, particularly by the White Horse Inn Group. Henry the VIII declared Luther a heretic and the pope rewarded him with the title of “Defender of the Faith.” The pope took back the title when Henry VIII broke with Catholicism and declared himself head of the Church of England so that he could divorce his wife, but parliament later voted it back in again. “Defender of the Faith” has been one of the official titles of every ruling monarch since and is on all English coins, generally abbreviated as Fid. Def. or simply F.D.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Henry VIII had at least one Lutheran Queen and maybe two: Anne of Cleves and possibly Ann Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth re-established the Church of England (mother church of Anglicanism), which remains the only protestant faith that has not splintered into separate denominations. However, it has done so by housing many diverse and often opposing beliefs within it. “Because it tries to be everything to everyone,” Dr. Lumley explained, “the Church of England has no clear statement of faith.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
However, the Augsburg Confession can be found in the 39 Articles of the Church of England; five of the articles are almost identical to the Augsburg Confession and another 11 are rewritten versions. Furthermore, the Anglican forms of communion, marriage, confirmation, baptism, and burial were influenced by early Lutheran orders.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The first official Lutheran church in Britain began in 1672, and 17 years later the Toleration Act of 1689 permitted the existence of Protestant groups outside of the Church of England as long as they accepted the doctrine of the Trinity. There was actually a Lutheran King as well: George I in 1714, who was, by royal duty, simultaneously the head of the Church of England. He spoke German and no English, and his presence brought a lot of German immigrants into the court. Lutheranism became the third most common religion at court, though it remained foreign to the common people. By 1728, there were five Lutheran churches in London.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
As to the history of the ELCE (Dr. Lumley added, with some amusement, that at every conference their two congregations in Scotland and Wales try to vote “England” out of the Synod’s official name), began on January 1, 1954, though it can trace its roots back to 1896 and six German bakers. These six founders asked Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for a pastor, each of them pledging a fifth of their weekly 25 shillings pay to support him. They were members of the LCMS Atlantic District from 1911-1954, until they were able to establish their own Synod in 1954 with the help of the LCMS. Rev. Norman Nagel was installed as their first pastor on January 3, 1954.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Rev. Nagel had been called to the ELCE to Cambridge to get a Ph.D. and to establish a seminary. He managed to obtain prime Cambridge property for Westfield House by following a rumor. He had heard that a professor was thinking of retiring and so boldly knocked on the man’s door to ask if this were true. He invited Rev. Nagel in for tea (“Apart from the pub,” Dr. Lumley noted, “all the best conversations happen over tea.”) and agreed to sell the property to the church. Though the doctor later received several higher offers, he stuck by his original promise. Westfield House’s first chapel was a shed some of the students cleaned out.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
At this present time, the ELCE has 14 congregations, 6 missions, and about 800 members spread across the UK. Their 11 pastors hail from 9 different countries, and many of their students come to Westfield House through study abroad programs. Westfield House is a training center for those who have no seminary, including African and East Europe.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The Lutheran church in the UK faces a lot of struggles because of its small size. There are vacant pulpits – not simply because of a lack of pastors, but because of a lack of funds – and pastors often take on dual parishes. Challenges that face Lutheranism in the UK includes:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
1. Historically, Germans were persona non-grata after both wars, and Lutheranism is – or, perhaps more accurately, WAS – seen as a German denomination.

2. Size. Their small numbers outreach difficult.

3. Lutheran worship does not feel familiar. ELCE churches’ use the LSB as their hymnal, which means even the spelling of Savior (Saviour) is immediately foreign and unfamiliar to their eyes; it seems like a small thing, but it’s not.

4. The deeply British value of toleration, which has been taken so far that it’s almost becoming intolerant to Christianity.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
On September 25, 2010, following the Dedication of Luther Hall, Dr. Norman Nagel wrote the following to his “Dear Friends of Westfield House”:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“How super abundant are our Lord’s blessings. He brought us through the lean years when some people were willing to let Westfield House die. But the faithful staff and loyal Friends of Westfield House held on. And today we celebrate the lives of our Lord will bless through their lodging and studying in this building. My heart is with you with overflowing and joyful gratitude.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Thanks be to God for His faithfulness. It was a pleasure to have you with us, Dr. Lumley, to teach us about the history of Lutheranism in the UK, and to help us to better know our brothers and sisters in Great Britain. Thank you!

Posted on

ILC Conference: Rast Presentation

President Rast presented at the International Lutheran Council (ILC) World Conference today in Antwerp, Belgium. This morning the ILC welcomed seventeen new church bodies into membership, ten from Africa, three from Europe, and four from Asia, bringing the total number of church bodies in the ILC to 54, now representing 7.15 million Lutherans.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The ILC Executive Secretary, Rev. Dr. Albert Collver who is also Director of Church Relations in the LCMS and Assistant to President Harrison, introduced the conference theme of “Ecclesiology and Ecumenism,” followed by our own Dr. Roland Ziegler (Professor of Systematic Theology and Confessional Lutheran Studies here at CTSFW).
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
President Rast later spoke on the topic “Turning Points: A History of the Fellowship Issue in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.” Papers from the World Conference will be published on the ILC website in October and rumor has it that there may be an audio recording available of President Rast’s presentation. However, as these are not yet available (we will let you know here on our Facebook page once we have links to share), the following is a small excerpt from his presentation:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“[In the 1800s, America] was a radically “churched” culture and becoming more so all the time. In this peculiar context, so different than the one that we face today, first allow me to say what the Missouri Synod’s purpose was not. The LCMS was NOT formed to establish the truth of Christianity. For most Americans in 1847, Christianity was the true religion and its Bible was the Word of God. As such, Missouri was relieved of the burden of making arguments for Christianity’s truthfulness. Rather, what was thrust upon it and what it took up willingly and vigorously was to establish the superiority of the Lutheran confession among the various confessions of the churches. And then beyond that to demonstrate the superiority of its doctrinal understanding and practical application of the Lutheran Confessions among the myriad of Lutheran synods in the United States.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“My point is this: we have struggled, are struggling, and will continue to struggle with the implementation of biblical truth within rapidly changing historical contexts. That has always been the Church’s problem and it will continue so to be until our Lord returns. What this small study hopes to do is to locate a portion of that tension in the question regarding church fellowship. It is perspectival and does not pretend to be exhaustive. It simply seeks to offer an overview with a few explicit examples of how the Synod has faced its ‘turning points.’”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
He then presented the following turning points:

1. Coming to America
2. Forming the LCMS
3. Working Toward Confessional Lutheran Union
4. Picking Up the Pieces after the Predestination Controversy
5. Riding the Ecumenical Roller Coaster
6. We have Met the Enemy…
7. Quo Vadis Missouri?
8. (Also titled Turning Point #?) What’s Next?
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
President Rast concluded:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“The [LCMS] was from its beginning committed…to unity in the truth. Church unity is bound to unity in doctrine and is possible because of the theological unity, which has its basis in the complete truthfulness and clarity of Scripture. False teaching…and false teachers have to be avoided. On this, there is agreement throughout the history of the LCMS. But there is also significant difference of opinion on how to carry that out. Too often we claim a simple historical consensus on the part of Missouri Synod on this question. The reality, not surprisingly, is far more complicated. It is always that way in families and, I expect, it will be that way until our Lord returns. For our part, we live in the here and now with hope and expectation, always relying on the mercy of our gracious God, who has provided salvation for us in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
You can learn more about the ILC (and especially this conference, including the new member churches), on their news page at https://ilc-online.org/news/.

Posted on

Convocation: Hermann Sasse

Author of the Concordia Commentaries on Leviticus and Hebrews, Dr. John Kleinig from the Lutheran Church of Australia has been on campus this week to teach a Continuing Education course on the Theology of Worship in Hebrews. There was a standing invitation for students to drop in as their schedules permitted, plus a special convocation hour this morning on Hermann Sasse.

Dr. Pless began the convocation with a history of who Hermann Sasse was and his work in the church. Dr. Kleinig then followed up with personal stories about his old professor.

Rev. Sasse is considered one of the foremost Lutheran theologians of the 20th century, having survived Nazism through the 1930s and 40s, despite living in Germany as a very loud and active voice of dissent against the Nazi party. “It was a miracle—a number of miracles—that he wasn’t killed,” Dr. Kleinig said. He went on to explain that Sasse had been an officer in WWI and still had a number of friends among the German army. He was a marked man, but the Nazi party couldn’t touch him without getting into trouble with the army, who already had a tenuous relationship with Hitler. Professor Sasse later served as liaison for the de-Nazification of the University in Bavaria before accepting a call to teach at Luther Seminary in North Adelaide, Australia, in 1949.

Dr. Kleinig studied under Sasse at Luther Seminary in the 60s, and the convocation was a chance to hear him reminisce and tell stories of his time learning under the theologian. “He was a truth-sayer,” Dr. Kleinig recalled. “Very warm and wickedly witty. He made friends with people easily but inevitably he would fall out with them because he always told the truth. And he could be devastating with his one-liners. But even though he was a truth-sayer, he was very generous in his appraisals. He was always inclined to see what was good instead of the bad.”

‍One of Dr. Kleinig’s classmates once began a question to the professor with, “This may be a stupid question, but…” but Sasse simply said, “Mister—” he always called the students Mr. and their last name, Dr. Kleinig explained “—only stupid people don’t ask questions.” And he had a gift for finding something profound to say about every question.

His students took it as a challenge. One day during class a student said to him, “So I have a girlfriend.”

“Good, good,” the professor replied.

“And we go to church together.”

“Even better.”

“As we sit in the pew together…are we allowed to hold hands in church?”

And Professor Sasse immediately cried out in a fierce voice, “It would be very, very wrong…NOT to hold her hand.”

“It was the only time he answered a question with a single sentence,” Dr. Kleinig recalled fondly.

Besides telling a number of other stories about his old professor, Dr. Kleinig explained why he was still worth reading. He referred to Sasse as a “theological journalist” – someone whose best work was in his letters and short articles. He also passed on some of the lessons from the theologian. Like:
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

Dr. Kleinig teaches during his CE course. The class had around 30-40 attendees, not counting student drop-ins. During the convocation there were quite a number more, though it’s hard to tell from the pictures as, like good Lutherans, they were all sitting in the back.

1. We shouldn’t just read our friends because they agree with us. We need to read our enemies. You learn more from your enemies. They challenge us and show us where we lack in understanding.

2. Before you dare criticize someone, make sure you understand them within their own context and in their own terms. Then criticize or engage with them on a topic from their point of view. Rather than asking what’s wrong with this person, we should ask what’s right with this person.

3. Pay attention to the little groups. The significance of a church or denomination doesn’t depend on its size. The most significant things happen in the smallest congregations. What the Orthodox forgets is often rediscovered by a fringe group, which then needs to be reclaimed.

4. All the great movements across the church (and even society) are ecumenical, meaning related to church unity, and they need to be understood ecumenically. This was of particular importance to Dr. Sasse, who put much of his time and effort into uniting the two Lutheran church bodies in Australia. He could see the strategic role of Australia; as a European outpost in Southeast Asia, they were in the right place to serve as the base for mission to Asia.

5. You can’t isolate yourself from the big movements across the churches. If you quarantine the body from infection, you only make it more vulnerable to the infection because you haven’t built antibodies against it. Silencing discussion doesn’t help. People need to see and understand the consequences of a movement.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
“He believed that the future of confessional Lutheranism – really the whole church catholic (meaning the universal church) – stands or falls with the Missouri Synod,” Dr. Kleinig said of his teacher. Sasse also believed strongly in engaging with those outside the Lutheran church, urging his students to “engage with those confessional Lutherans in other church bodies”—those who may not call themselves Lutheran, but are scripturally confessional in their beliefs.

You can watch a recording of the convocation here:

https://youtu.be/-grwTCSKphs

Posted on

CE: Formula of Concord

Dr. Masaki led one of the last continuing education courses of the summer nearly three weeks ago, teaching on the Formula of Concord to a little over 20 participants at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “As always, so enjoyable to teach the Book of Concord, this time the Formula,” he said of the class.

St. Paul’s has a Music Conservatory program, and more than 100 students. This young lady performed a classical guitar version of a piece by J.S. Bach during lunch break.

His class was made up of pastors, a missionary to Togo, two young women who will be joining us here at CTSFW as deaconess students in just a few short days, “saints of St. Paul’s congregation” (as Dr. Masaki put it), Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Southern Africa and Rector of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Pretoria, South Africa. Dr. Masaki also caught up with their director of music, whose wife was Dr. Masaki’s second child’s grade school teacher during the days of Zion Lutheran Academy in Fort Wayne. Truly the Gospel connects His people through time and across nations.

Pictured here is most of Dr. Masaki’s class; there’s often a bit of come-and-go during a CE course as people work the classes into their schedules.

 

Posted on

CE: Hermann Sasse

We see here a class of stalwart learners from the Continuing Education course at St. Jakobi Lutheran in Shawano, Wisconsin, held last week. Dr. Pless taught on the topic of “Hermann Sasse as Pastoral Theologian.”

Hermann Sasse was a Lutheran pastor and author, one of the foremost confessional Lutheran theologians of the 20th century. Born in 1895 in Germany, Sasse saw both the rise and fall of the Nationalist Socialist Party (more commonly known as the Nazi Party), remaining a vocal critic of Hitler. He moved to Australia in 1949, and died in 1976. You can find quite a number of resources written by him over the course of his lifetime.

Posted on

CE: Early Christian Mercy to the Secular Culture

For our locals looking for some theological learning this summer, in two weeks we’re hosting a Continuing Education course on “Early Christian Mercy to the Secular Culture” here on our campus. This course actually manages to hit an intersection between several topics: history and evangelism in a non (and in some ways anti) Christian society.

Attendees will take a look at the early Christian Church, from the words of the apostles to such examples as Clement of Alexandria, a Greek convert to the faith who taught Christianity in the late 100s and early 200s AD, only a handful of generations after Jesus’ death and resurrection. There are pretty strong parallels between our modern day society and his: what we think of as “New Age” thinking (such as “I’m spiritual, not religious” and the postmodern idea of “my truth is my truth, and your truth is your truth”) is actually another play on Gnosticism, a popular and heretical philosophy of Clement’s time that “rests on personal religious experience” (if that sounds at all familiar).

Rev. Chad Kendall, adjunct professor here at CTSFW, will use Scripture to consider how Clement and now we in the Church today can draw people of a postmodern society into the Church, by countering the idea of no absolute truth with the absolute truth of Scripture.

Posted on

Field Education Conference

Last Thursday, May 3rd, CTSFW hosted the Field Education Supervising Pastors conference, funded by a grant from the Association of Theological Schools. Thirty-five of our fieldwork supervisors attended the conference, where they heard presentations from CTSFW faculty as well as several supervising pastors who have demonstrated expertise in mentoring students.

By learning and practicing in a congregational setting alongside academic study, seminarians immerse themselves in the life of the Church and by it gain practical experience in such things as public Scripture reading, leading appropriate portions of the Divine Service, and preaching Christ-centered sermons in which Law and Gospel are rightly distinguished. They also care for the sick and aged, and many learn to reach out to inactive members or the unchurched in the community, and to teach at a variety of age levels (from Sunday school to youth catechesis to adult Bible Class).

For, after all: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

Presentations included such topics as preaching (Rev. Peter Brock; St. John, Bingen), leadership/administration (Rev. Patrick Kuhlman; Immanuel, Avila), and pastoral visitation (Rev. James Voorman; Zion, Decatur). Rev. Roy Olsen (Emmaus, Fort Wayne) also presented, as did Dr. Zieroth (director of vicarage and internship), Prof. Roethemeyer (associate professor of Pastoral Ministry & Missions), Dr. Grime (dean of Spiritual Formation), and Prof. Pless (director of Field Education).

Posted on

Convocation: Pastoral Care and Preaching in Light of the Hidden God

This morning, Dr. Joshua Miller, instructor in religion at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, spoke at our last public convocation for the academic year on the topic of “Pastoral Care and Preaching in Light of the Hidden God.” The talk covered, in short, an age-old, spiritually troubling question: Why would a good, perfect, loving God allow (or even will) evil and suffering?
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Dr. Miller began with Luther’s observation that God does and wills many things that He does not show us in His Word. Though the God revealed to us in Scripture promises to save us by taking away sin and death, sin and death yet remain. So we find ourselves dealing with a contradiction: God’s promise is a Word that does what it says, but billions still suffer, die, and go to hell. Life is one of war, famine, disease, and catastrophe. How is God’s existence justified in the kind of world in which we live?‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

A range of philosophies over the course of human history have attempted to answer this question: that God does the best He can but evil is outside of His control; evil is the absence of good much in the same way that darkness is the absence of light; God will not/cannot violate free will; God is not all powerful and so cannot keep His promises; God uses evil to teach you how to obey; or the more active response: that it does not matter. Our duty is to be moral in the face of immorality, and by it you can change the world (though this philosophy cannot then answer the question of how a person is moral in the face of impersonal, amoral catastrophes, like hurricanes and earthquakes).
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
All of these philosophies lead to bad answers. Or, as God said in rebuke to Job’s friends: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7b).

Oswald Bayer, a German Lutheran theologian, pointed out that you get bad answers because you’ve started with a bad question. The question ought to be: is God keeping His promises? For suffering and evil are not philosophical problems but real ones. And the answer to this question? Lament.‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

Lament is not an argument about God, but an argument with God. It is faithful backtalk. Crying out to God to do something about evil and suffering on the basis of His promise is a faithful expression of belief in that promise. In crying out, you accuse God based on what God has promised. Lament is thus the greatest form and confession of faith; it is trusting that God will honor His promise.‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍

Dr. Fickenscher and son, seminarian Daniel Fickenscher.

Faith holds onto the promise in spite of its contradiction. This is Jacob wrestling with God, refusing to let go until God blesses him. These are the laments in the psalms, Moses intervening on behalf of the Israelites God has just vowed to destroy, Jeremiah’s Lamentations, and Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
We live in the end times between Jesus’ first and second advents, caught between the old age and the new age, the already and the not yet. The first advent was the answer to lament, when Christ came into the world to put on creation, “for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:22). His second advent will complete what was begun, when all will pass away.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
Until we enter into glory, a pastor cares for His flock by taking evil and suffering seriously, and taking the promise seriously. He is not called to silence the voice of lament, but to lament together with those suffering (what the Smalcald Articles in the Book of Concord refer to as the “mutual consolation of the saints”). Pastors thus stand at the altar and pray the promise of His Word back to God on behalf of God’s people.