Sentire Cum Ecclesia

I have been reading The Australian lately as a change from The Age. The Australian has been full – day after day and in just about every section of the paper – of bad news and reviews of Our Kevin. The long tall and short of it all is that, if the present Labor government went to the polls right now with Kevin Rudd at the helm, it would get thrashed. The top editorial in The Australian is headed “Kevin’s real problem? He can’t see we’ve changed”. The Editorial opines:

In 2007, Australians voted for Mr Rudd as an acceptable alternative after 12 years of Mr Howard and the Coalition. His early efforts – signing up to Kyoto and offering an apology to indigenous Australians were unthreatening, easy changes. For a time, voters were even prepared to tolerate the Prime Minister’s foray into essays criticising capitalism and backing state intervention. But no longer. The RSPT [resource super-profits tax, aka the 40% mining tax] has proved a vote-changer for people who are not interested in joining unions and want to make their own decisions about spending their money. Labor’s weakening support is not driven so much by individual events such as the home insulation debacle as by a general disillusionment with the Prime Minister. It’s not Mr Rudd’s anger that worries these voters but a sense that he is driven by a residual guilt that makes it hard for him to accommodate the changes in the electorate. It is as if the boy from Nambour who is now worth millions can’t accept that his fellow Australians are equally aspirational. Instead he persists in viewing them through the outdated lens of left-wing ideology, class warfare and economic protectionism. Labor was wrong to see the 2007 win as a vote for the protected culture of the unions who funded the anti-Work Choices campaign. It was wrong to see that win as a repudiation of the Howard economic policies and a call for more government intervention. This misreading of Australia now threatens the future of Labor – and of the nation. Those in the party who understand what modern Labor stands for must decide whether Mr Rudd and Mr Swan have the capacity to listen to what the electorate is saying, and learn from their mistakes. Labor must see the nation as it is, not as it used to be.

That has it about right. In fact, I predicted the current disapppointment at the start of Kevin ’07’s inglorious reign (not that anyone was listening: see “He’s not the Messiah, he’s just our new PM…” from December 10 2007).

The list of grudges is long. The $42 billion give-away in the “Stimulus Package” (“Thanks, that’s really generous, but er, um,…”), then the emissions trading stuff up, then the insulation program disaster, and of course, don’t forget the Schools building program. On the latter point, there is this story in The Australian in their section “Schools Watch”: “First the revamp, then the school closure plan”. Try and get your mind around this (it is second only to the news that our local State Government spent $2 million putting 1 cent on 87,000 pensioner myki cards so that they would work on the trains…):

The 13-student Nagoorin School, an hour’s drive from Queensland’s booming mining hub of Gladstone, will receive a $250,000 library within weeks, using a federal government Building the Education Revolution grant approved last year… The school was given $250,000 for a library, $35,000 for “minor classroom renewal”, $9800 to enclose its front veranda and $5200 for new signage. It has spent funds extending the administration office, repainting the classrooms and buying new furniture.

But Nagoorin is only one of more than a dozen schools — mostly in Queensland — that have already used taxpayer funds on building work, painting, carpets and playgrounds, and yet are now being shut down or earmarked for closure.

This is no joke. It would be funny if it was.

There is a line in Tim Rice’s libretto of “Jesus Christ Superstar”, sung by the character Judas in “Heaven on their minds”, which could be suitably adapted by Government MP’s addressing their leader:

Listen Kevin to the warning I give
Please remember that I want us to live
But it’s sad to see our chances weakening with ev’ry hour
All your followers are blind
Too much heaven on their minds
It was beautiful, but now it’s sour
Yes it’s all gone sour
Ah — ah ah ah — ah
God Jesus, it’s all gone sour

O yes, indeedy. Sour as in Kevin0Lemon.

The wonderfully named Dr Ben Witherington III is one of my favourite contemporary biblical scholars (he has a blogspot on Beliefnet here too – I should add it to my blogroll). Yes, I know I go on and on about Tom Wright, but I do read others! BWIII is especially keen on socio-rhetorical criticism. I used his I & II Thessalonians commentary when teaching on that subject recently and have just bought his Romans commentary to prepare for the upcoming course on Romans I am doing for Anima Education.

An interesting thing to note is that while Witherington III sees I Thessalonians as a classic “epideictic” letter, he rejects the common categorisation of Romans in this genre, and sees it rather as a “deliberative” letter. For what it is worth, I reckon BWIII is on the money with this. I was reading our (local) Fr Brendan Byrne’s commentary on Romans last night, and found that he, along with the majority, does class Romans as “epideictic”. I think it depends on what you think Paul was writing the letter to achieve (although, there is far more stylistic evidence in 1 Thessalonians of the “epideictic” genre than in Romans). If you think he is writing to commend himself and his theology to the Romans, you might think “epideictic”. If however you stand with folk like N.T. Wright (here I go), and see that Paul is addressing a real problem among Roman Christians (the relationship between Gentile and Jewish Christians – sort of Galatians in reverse) you will agree with BWIII that it is deliberative.

Anyway, all that aside, Dr Witherington is coming to Melbourne courtesy of the “PRAXIS: Ongoing Professional Development for Ministers and Pastors”. Here are the details. I have already enrolled. If you are keen on the latest trends in New Testament exegesis, I strongly encourage you to come along too:

A morning with Ben Witherington III

An opportunity to hear from a world-renowned New Testament scholar and author on some of the contemporary Biblical issues in pastoral ministry. Join with colleagues in this interactive time of exploring contemporary patoral and scriptural issues with plenty of time for Q&A.

Friday 30th July: 9.30 – 11.30am
Churches of Christ Theological College
44-60 Jacksons Road, Mulgrave

Cost: $10 (covering Ben’s travel costs and morning tea)

Numbers are limited so get in early. RSVP admin@cctc.edu.au or 9790 1000

On this blog, both I and most of our commentators have agreed that “defrocking” – or (more technically) “laicisation” – is not necessarily the best way to deal with a clerical abuser. Now, according to this report in Zenit, exactly this has been said by Father John Beal of the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania, a canon lawyer addressing a one-day seminar May 25 on canon law and sexual abuse in an address on “Crime and Punishment in the Catholic Church: An Overview of Possibilities and Problems.”

Zenit reports that Fr Beal told the seminar participants that “in the case of priest sexual abusers, perhaps the most serious canonical punishment is not always the best one” and

cautioned that turning a priest-sexual predator loose in society by separating him from the clerical state might solve the internal problem for the Church, but could serve to worsen the issue as a whole, particularly when the chance of a successful civil trial is minimal.

This comment, about the limits of the effectiveness of canonical censure in achieving the three aims of ecclesiastical sanctions (“repair the scandal, restore justice, reform the offender”) is particularly interesting:

Father Beal proposed that censures are unlikely to be effective punishments for priest abusers.

He explained: “Since they can only be imposed after a warning, there must be evidence of an incident of abuse or at least suspicion that a particular cleric is prone to such abuse before a censure can even be threatened. Sad experience of the recent past suggests that even the sternest warnings and threats are unlikely to be effective in deterring abusive clerics from repeating their offenses. Even when a censure has been imposed, it must be remitted once the offender evidences repentance — and, as many bishops have learned to their chagrin, sexually abusive clergy can make very convincing displays of repentance when they are confronted with evidence of their offenses.”

He goes through all the other options, including the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches. He says:

Balancing the aims of restoring justice, removing scandal and reforming the offender is not an easy task. Efforts to achieve a just balance among these ends will open Church authorities to criticism from all sides just as efforts to find a balance in the secular arena has resulted in sharp criticism of secular judges, including the justices of the Supreme Court. But, in an imperfect world, one does what one can. And if we do what we can, perhaps we shall achieve in time that object all sublime of letting the punishment fit the crime.

For what it is worth, I think most of us on this blog will also agree that there is wisdom in what Fr Beal said in the conclusion to his address:

When searching for the just balance of the aims of canonical penal law, the most important consideration for decision-makers in the Church is not how best to punish the offender for past crimes but how best to protect the vulnerable from future abuse.

I have received some criticism over the years for the work that I do. “Why do you talk to those people?”, they ask. “We have the Truth, what good is there in talking to them?” they say. “Their teaching is false/idolatrous; we should have nothing to do with them!”, etc. Okay, often the objections are not put quite so bluntly, but that’s the gist of it.

Today in Cathnews there was a link to this article in National Catholic Register on the New Evangelisation. There is a video embedded in it of Scott Hahn and Fr Barron – but I haven’t watched that yet. What got me was what the author of the article, Matthew Warner, wrote at the end after the video:

I especially liked Scott Hahn’s quote he gave at the end when answering how we engage in this “New Apologetic”?

Answer: By forming strong friendships with Marxists, atheists, and radical feminists so you’re not just refuting arguments, you’re responding to friends.

That really hits home. And that’s one of the reasons I love new media. It gives us a great opportunity to break out of our isolated bubbles and go out and put a personal face on those we disagree with. Personalism. When we get to know those we disagree with – whether it’s about faith, politics or anything else – we are far more likely to attempt to understand them before we coldly demonize them from afar. That builds communion. That opens minds and allows the Holy Spirit to work miracles. And that is our simple task.

The blog is very much about apologetics, but I have no time for polemicism. I like to see all our commentators here as friends around the after-dinner table passing round the port bottle. The New Apologetics must be the apologetics of love, not enmity.

Hence it must also be a dialogical apologetics. Dialogue is what I do for my bread and butter (some people find this hard to believe!). I love to make friends with people who have different ideas to me – as long as they are really interested in searching for the truth and living by it that is. I would rather spend time in conversation with a Buddhist, or an Atheist, or a Muslim or a Feminist who actually seriously is seeking the essential things of life, than with someone who has no interest at all in reflecting upon their life and its meaning and what it means to live and to die well.

In my work and in my leisure, I am not interested in winning arguments. I am interested in “responding to friends”.

Readers of this blog know that I have declared that I will believe the rumours of George Cardinal Pell’s “upcoming appointment” to the Congregation for Bishops WHEN IT HAPPENS. On this blog we know the difference between a rumour and a fact.

So, taking the orignal rumour with a grain of salt, what is one to make of gossip published in the press that the rumour is false BECAUSE of a previous unsustained and legally dismissed allegation? Other, much better read bloggers than I, have taken both the rumours and the gossip seriously.

We stick with the official version from the Archdiocese of Sydney, neatly tucked away at the bottom of Barney’s article in The Age: Cardinal Pell’s office has “never confirmed that he was a candidate for the bishops’ appointment, let alone being withdrawn.”

A curious story in the Hun this morning: Hungry Pope sneaks out for a snack

Pope Benedict XVI snuck out of the Vatican in secret to enjoy a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant. The Pontiff, who is normally guarded by a huge security entourage, reportedly tucked in to a fish dinner in a small, family restaurant 150 yards from the Vatican walls, Italian media reported today. He apparently timed his unofficial trip to coincide with the Italian soccer team’s first World Cup game against Paraguay so that he could slip unnoticed through the empty streets as locals concentrated on the game.

The claims, confirmed by a shocked waiter, were the subject of fevered speculation in the Italian media after they first appeared in a gossip column yesterday. However bosses at the Al Passetto di Borgo, reportedly one of Benedict’s favorite dining haunts before his ascent to the papacy, dismissed the claims today, Italian news agency ANSA said. The restaurant’s manager also scoffed at suggestions that the Pope would order sole, claiming the 83-year-old Pontiff preferred to eat spaghetti carbonara or German dishes.

“Vatican sources” also poured scorn on the suggestions, which appeared in Italian paper, Il Foglio, telling ANSA they were “entirely untrue”. The sources said there were no specific rules preventing the Pope from popping out for a bite to eat but said he had simply not chosen to do so since taking office. However they told ANSA that his predecessor, John Paul II, had regularly ‘escaped’ the Vatican for walks in the countryside around Rome.

One likes to think that this is a true story, and that the Holy Father likes to break free every now and again. It was one of the endearing habits of JPII, as the story notes, and even Pope Benedict shocked his minders on the day after his election by going for an unguarded stroll across St Peter’s Square to his old digs.

There are times when Papa Benny just nails it. There are times when his teaching and his homilies – and even his ad libs (I am waiting eagerly for a full translation of his Q&A session with priests from the vigil in St Peter’s – a summary is here on VIS) – come straight from his heart and from his great ability to communicate the truths of the faith in simple and personal ways.

Pope Benedict’s Homily to the priests gathered for liturgy of the Sacred Heart last Friday in Rome is one of these occasions. The entire homily is worth reading. Of course many will be interested in it for what he had to say about The Scandal – and he did say some words on this topic (it was obviously not far from his mind throughout the whole homily) – but there was much more than that. I can’t put it all here, but here are some snippets:

Had the Year for Priests been a glorification of our individual human performance, it would have been ruined by these events. But for us what happened was precisely the opposite: we grew in gratitude for God’s gift, a gift concealed in “earthen vessels” which ever anew, even amid human weakness, makes his love concretely present in this world. So let us look upon all that happened as a summons to purification, as a task which we bring to the future and which makes us acknowledge and love all the more the great gift we have received from God. In this way, his gift becomes a commitment to respond to God’s courage and humility by our own courage and our own humility. The word of God, which we have sung in the Entrance Antiphon of today’s liturgy, can speak to us, at this hour, of what it means to become and to be a priest: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29)…

God personally looks after me, after us, after all mankind. I am not abandoned, adrift in the universe and in a society which leaves me ever more lost and bewildered. God looks after me. He is not a distant God, for whom my life is worthless… It is fine and consoling to know that there is someone who loves me and looks after me. But it is far more important that there is a God who knows me, loves me and is concerned about me. “I know my own and my own know me” (Jn 10:14), the Church says before the Gospel with the Lord’s words. God knows me, he is concerned about me. This thought should make us truly joyful…

“Your rod and your staff – they comfort me”: the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.

On the 9th of March, 2001, I and two other pastors of the Lutheran Church of Australia were summoned to St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Box Hill by the President of the Victoria District to give an account of our Roman ideas to 18 other specially invited pastors.

You will find my complete submission here, on my Year of Grace Blog, along with the reply that was given by Pastor Peter Kriewaldt, a senior and well-respected pastor.

In this series of posts, I am “revisiting the Summit” almost a decade later to see what, if anything, I have learnt since. This post deals with the second question in my submission and Pastor Kriewaldt’s response. Click here for “Revisiting the Summit I”.

My Second Question:

2) The Lutheran Church holds that the true church is present wherever the Word and Sacraments (the liturgy of the church) are celebrated. If the church does not have an organic reality apart from the event of the celebration of the liturgy, what happens when it abandons on a large scale the very liturgy that is supposed to bring it into existence?

Pastor Peter Kriewaldt’s reply:

2) The Sacraments and liturgy are not synonymous. Nor is the reality of the church based on the historic liturgy. The liturgy does not bring the church into existence; that is the task of the word and Sacraments (Eph 2, R 10:14-15; Titus 3). Scripture does not restrict the church to one historic liturgy; it simply gives us a skeletal sketch of the liturgy (Cf Col 3). The early church did not have the ecumenical creeds, for example. David, however, rightly warns the church not to abandon the historic liturgy.

I remind the reader first of all that I was limited in the space I was allocated in which to summarise my “questions” at the Summit: one side of one A4 piece of paper. It was an almost impossible task, so I had to abbreviate and be concise. Here, however, I can expand on what was behind “Question II”.

The Augsburg Confession states in Article 7 that:

The Church is the assembly of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. For the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike.

As an “evangelical catholic” Lutheran, I had always interpreted references in the confessional books of the Lutheran Church to “the Gospel/Word and Sacraments” to refer to the liturgical life of the Church. As I read it, Article 7 was speaking of an “assembly” in which and action took place, namely the reading of the word/proclamation of the Gospel and the celebration of the Sacraments. The pre-eminent “Word & Sacrament” action around which “the congregation” assembled was, of course, the Eucharistic liturgy. Given the fact that the Word does not preach itself “rightly” nor do the sacraments administer themselves “rightly”, I presumed that implicit in Article 7 of the CA was a reference also to the sacred ministry. I therefore came to see, in the ecclesiology of the Augsburg Confession, the ecclesiology of St Ignatius of Antioch, who said: “Let that be considered a certain eucharist which is under the leadership of the Bishop, or one to whom he has entrusted it” and “Wherever the Bishop appears, there let the multitude of the people be; just as where Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church”.

Now I was also at this time concerned about what I called the “event ecclesiology” of the Lutheran Church (it has since been explained to me that this is an inaccurate notion, but I still think it is true as far as it goes): namely, that since the true Church is an “assembly” or “congregation” among which the Word is preached and the Sacraments are administered (“rightly”, mind you), and since these very Word and Sacraments are in fact to be taken as the “marks of the Church”, it seemed logical to me to conclude that in Lutheran theology the Church is exists and is present when this action of preaching and administration is taking place. But the problem this raises is: what if this is not done? Does that mean that the Church does NOT exist, is NOT present, even if the Church in which this is not done is a Lutheran Church?

Because at the time, I regularly experienced (and indeed have since experienced) Sunday “liturgies” in Lutheran parishes in which the Sacrament of the Eucharist was either celebrated in a questionable manner or not even celebrated at all. There was such experimentation going on that I could never be certain, if I attended a Lutheran parish other than my own, that I would actually receive the “word rightly preached” and “the sacrament rightly administered” on any given Sunday. If the Lutheran Church indeed had an “event ecclesiology” rather than an “ecclesiology of hierarchical communion”, what happened to “the Church” when the Eucharistic liturgy was no longer celebrated?

In his response, Peter “nails me” (as Pastor Henderson put it) in the very first sentence: “The Sacraments and liturgy are not synonymous.” Well, that is true. Even Catholics would agree. A quick glance at the second part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will show you that sacraments are to liturgy as water is to rain (or to a river). That is, the seven sacraments are the core divinely given constituant of a broader divine gift to the Church, namely the Church’s liturgical life. Yet Peter is answering from a Lutheran perspective, in which there are “the sacraments rightly administered” – which are instituted by Christ himself – and the Liturgy – which is a matter of “human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men”.

The “not so subtle” difference is brought out by Peter’s next couple of sentences: “Nor is the reality of the church based on the historic liturgy. The liturgy does not bring the church into existence; that is the task of the word and Sacraments (Eph 2, R 10:14-15; Titus 3).” I ask the reader to compare this to the title of Pope John Paul II’s very last encyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”: the Church from the Eucharist. Now, of course, there is a wonderful ambiguity in the word “Eucharist”. It is BOTH the Sacrament of the Altar, the Lord’s Supper, the “Sacrament” proper, AND the Liturgy in which this Sacrament is celebrated and administered (in proper order following the proclamation of the Word!). In this Encyclical, the Holy Father wrote:

48. Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no “extravagance”, devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first disciples charged with preparing the “large upper room”, she has felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy of so great a mystery. In the wake of Jesus’ own words and actions, and building upon the ritual heritage of Judaism, the Christian liturgy was born…

49. With this heightened sense of mystery, we understand how the faith of the Church in the mystery of the Eucharist has found historical expression not only in the demand for an interior disposition of devotion, but also in outward forms meant to evoke and emphasize the grandeur of the event being celebrated. This led progressively to the development of a particular form of regulating the Eucharistic liturgy, with due respect for the various legitimately constituted ecclesial traditions.

In actual fact, I have never been able to accept the idea that what Pastor Kriewaldt called “the historic liturgy” was a “human invention”. Pastor Kriewaldt was right to say that “Scripture does not restrict the church to one historic liturgy; it simply gives us a skeletal sketch of the liturgy (Cf Col 3)” – I could have added “cf. Luke 24 and Acts 2:42 et aliter”. But Pastor K. was thinking in terms of particular “rites” – the Liturgy of the Church is something that in fact transcends any particular “rite” in which it might be expressed. The Liturgical Ordo is in fact witnessed to in scripture itself: the reading of the word and its explication, followed by the celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. There are many different “rites” by which this is legitimately done, but it is not done legitimately by subverting these rites, abandoning these rites, or attempting to “administer the Sacraments” apart from any rites at all.

Perhaps the Catechism of the Catholic Church gets it best when it talks of the Liturgy in terms of the “Mystery” and the “mysteries” of the Paschal Event. The sheer fact of the Mystery in itself should give us pause when we come to tampering and messing around with the form in which the Mystery/mysteries are expressed in our liturgical lives. The Eastern Churches have always had what they called a “Eucharistic Ecclesiology”, ie., one which is profoundly Eucharistically based (again, in line with both St Ignatius of Antioch and – interpreted in a particular light – Augsburg Confession Art. 7).

Nor was Pastor Kriewaldt without some sympathy for this case, as he at least acknowledged that “David, however, rightly warns the church not to abandon the historic liturgy”. The question which I still ask myself today is “Why would my warning be ‘right’? Why would this matter, if the liturgy is not commanded by Scripture or if it is merely the invention of men?” I believe that many Lutheran pastors – like Pastor Kriewaldt – in fact can see quite clearly that the Church “stands or falls” (as they like to put it) on the basis of the “historic liturgy”, because they know that it is in the faithful celebration of the liturgy alone that the Word and Sacraments are preserved “rightly”, and that it is precisely from such faithful celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy that the Church draws her very existence.

If you have been to the Sistine Chapel as a tourist recently (and not for a liturgical event or perhaps a conclave), you will have found it disconcertingly filled with a crowd of rowdy tourists (self-excluded, of course).

Now you can get the full Sistine Chapel experience ONLINE here – and with really nice streaming music too! The only feature I would like to see added is a zoom and the ability to move the point of reference around. But it is still really cool. AND empty!

Almost ten years ago, on the 9th of March, 2001, I and two other pastors of the Lutheran Church of Australia were summoned to St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Box Hill by the President of the Victoria District to give an account of our Roman ideas to 18 other specially invited pastors.

Two of us had in fact already given notice of our resignation from the ministry and our intention to seek communion with the Bishop of Rome. So in fact, whatever purpose the Summit was supposed to serve, it was hardly going to change our own decisions. Rather, I think it was to serve to help our brother pastors understand our decision.

The format was that each of the three of us were to put our concerns onto one side of an A4 piece of paper. These papers were submitted ahead of time to three other specially appointed “respondants”, whose task it was to reply to our questions. You will find my complete submission here, on my Year of Grace Blog, along with the reply that was given by Pastor Peter Kriewaldt, a senior and well-respected pastor. I believe that Peter did a valiant job of replying to my concerns – in so far as he gave the standard Lutheran answers to my questions. The problem was that my questions were NOT Lutheran questions, and were inadequately served with mere restatements of the classical Lutheran doctrines. My ten questions were, as Peter demonstrated, technically invalid within the framework of confessional Lutheran theology. Nevertheless, the questions made sense in and of themselves, and, I think, deserved an answer.

I was reminded of the Summit recently by a comment that Pastor Mark Henderson left on that particular post on my Year of Grace blog. He wrote:

I remember my impression at the time was that Peter Kriewaldt nailed you on each of your points, David, and reading it again ten years later I still think the same. His was the best response of all of them, I think. …But I still don’t see why you became a Catholic!

So, I thought, why not revisit both my own questions and Pastor Kriewaldt’s responses now, and see if my experience and understanding gained in the last ten years might through some more light on the puzzle that was the movement of God’s Spirit in my heart during that “year of grace”.

TEN KEY QUESITONS THAT HAVE LED ME TO WHERE I AM TODAY.
David Schütz for the Summit at St Paul’s, Box Hill on 9th March, 2001

Question One:

In ecumenical theology, two ecclesiologies are possible: 1) The true Church of Christ on earth is a visible reality which is manifested and recognised by certain “marks” and is to be identified with a particular denomination to the extent that it preserves these “marks” in their fullness/purity; or 2) the true Church of Christ is an invisible reality that consists of the spiritual communion of true believers who are known only to God, and who may be found in any denomination, or indeed, even beyond the bounds of organised Christianity.

I do not believe the second option to be valid: the church is the body of Christ, and Christ is incarnate (he is not “the invisible man”). It is my understanding that historically the Lutheran Church (and even more specifically, the LCA) has held the former definition, and has regarded itself to be the true church because it alone has perfectly preserved the true Word and Sacraments. For this reason, we have been wary of entering into communion other churches, because of a perceived lack of purity in the preservation of these marks.

If so, is the Lutheran Church not claiming to be the one holy catholic church, and, if so, how is this claim to be justified?

In his reply, Peter Kriewaldt refers to something called “The Theses of Agreement”. These theses were the agreed doctrinal statement upon which Lutheran ecclesial unity was achieved in Australia in 1966. They may be viewed here. Here then, is Peter’s reply to my question:

A Response to: ‘Ten Key Questions That Have Led Me To Where I Am Today’. for the Summit on March 9, 2001

Introduction.

This paper has raised some important issues for discussion. Interestingly, I believe that most of them are well covered and answered by the Theses of Agreement (TA). Here, too, we find the scriptural and confessional references that enable us to grapple with the ten key questions.

Reply to Question One:

TA-V demonstrates that we do not hold to the first ecclesiology mentiond in the paper: ‘The Church, essentially or properly so called, the One Holy Christian Church, the Una Sancta, the Church Universal, is the people of God (1 Peter 2:9), the communion or congregation of saints, which Christ has called, enlightened and gathered through the Holy Spirit by the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, which he has thus created to be his Spiritual Body’ V.1. Many scriptural references follow. No denomination can claim exclusive title to the one, holy and catholic church. The LCA has never made this claim of exclusivity. The RCC, however, makes this claim in ‘Dominus Jesus’ when it says that ‘the Church of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians, continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church’. Non catholic churches ‘derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church’ (para. 16). It admits that ‘the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church’ (para. 17). But then it says that if they have not ‘preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery’, they ‘are not Churches in the proper sense’ (para. 17). Although the TA use the term ‘invisible’ to describe the true church, it also uses the term ‘hidden’, a much better description. The body of Christ is known only to Christ, who himself is hidden from our eyes, albeit ‘revealed’ in word and sacraments. The LCA has been wary of entering into communion with other churches not because it believes it is the only true church, but because it believes that true unity is centered in the pure preaching of the gospel and the right institution of the sacraments (CA 7).

In re-reading this, and in re-reading the relevant passages from the Fifth Article of the Theses of Agreement, I see that in fact, I was wrong to say in my original question to state that “the LCA has held the former definition, and has regarded itself to be the true church because it alone has perfectly preserved the true Word and Sacraments.” To be completely fair, the Lutheran Church of Australia rejects both the idea of the Church as strictly “visible” and the idea of the Church as strictly “invisible”. The LCA teaches that it is, rather (as Peter says), a “hidden reality” whose presence can be identified from visible “marks” but even then only seen with the eyes of faith.

This is in fact my second go at writing this post. Between my first and second draft, I have decided to change what I originally wrote from this point onwards. Because, in fact, I believe that I have been able to see that I have moved on from my understanding of “ecumenical theology” in 2001. Upon revisiting the Theses of Agreement, I think we can actually find a point of agreement, albeit with a strong central disagreement, which would have been very helpful to have identified back at the original Summit.

It is worth quoting the relevant passages of the Theses of Agreement in full and actually directly dialoguing with these.

I. The Church, essentially or properly so called, the One Holy Christian Church, the Una Sancta, the Church Universal, is the people of God (1 Peter 2:9), the communion or congregation of saints, which Christ has called, enlightened and gathered through the Holy Spirit by the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, and which He has thus created to be His Spiritual Body. Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12f; Eph. 1:22f; 1 Tim. 3:15; Acts 2:41; 5:14; John 11:52; Eph.5:25-27. Cat. Minor, Art. III; Cat. Maior, II, 47-51; Augsburg Confession VII-VIII; Apology VII-VIII, 11-15; Smalc. Art. III, 12.

Basically there is nothing in this statement to which I cannot say “Amen”. I point out, however, the characteristic reluctance of Lutherans to speak of (and note the use of capitals in the original) “the One Holy CatholicChurch”. For Catholics, to speak of the “One Holy Catholic Church” is to speak of the “One Holy Christian Church” – no distinction. Note that in his reply to me, Peter uses the abbreviation “the RCC”, by which he means “the particular confessional denomination” which he calls “the Roman Catholic Church”. Dominus Iesus (from which he quotes, and which was a very fresh document then) however does not speak about a denomination called “the Catholic Church” (let alone “the Roman Catholic Church”) for which it claims identity with “the One Holy Christian Church”. Such a claim would be perposterous. Rather, it recognises a real identity between the universal communion of true particular Churcheswhich is called “the Catholic Church” and the spiritual reality called “the One Holy Catholic Church”.

The TA goes on to discuss the visible and spiritual dimensions of the One Holy Christian Church in Lutheran ecclesiology:

5. Since the kingdom of God comes not with observation (Rom. 14:17; Luke 17:20f ), and since no man can unfailingly identify those who have become and still are true believers and therefore truly members of the Church, the communion of saints, and since the Church cannot be identified with any visible, eternal church body, the Church is an article of faith. In this sense the Church has rightly been called invisible by Luther and Lutheran theologians. To the Lord, however, the Church is always visible. 2 Tim. 2:19.

Note the adamant assertion that “the Church cannot be identified with any visible, eternal church body”, and that “the Church is an article of faith”. The only problem with this doctrine is that it cannot actually be found in the Scriptural or Patristic Tradition. The two texts cited to support the doctrine of the invisible Church both refer to “the Kingdom of God”, which is not the same thing as “the Church” (although note in the next paragraph below the straight out identification of “The Church” with “The Kingdom of Christ” – an identification which Catholic ecclesiology does not make). The evidence is that the ancient Christians, while recognising that it was impossible by outward appearance alone to tell would and would not be among the elect on the day of judgement, nevertheless regarded “the Church” as a clear and concrete social reality both in terms of the particular local Churches (after all, Paul was able to “visit” and to “write” to these Churches) and in a universal sense, since the whole communion of these particular Churches could be represented by the bishops (the pastors) of these particular Churches in communion with one another. And this is precisely where we can find both the agreement and the disagreement on ecclesiology between Lutherans and Catholics. This fact is demonstrated in the next paragraph of the Fifth Article of the TA:

6. Nevertheless the Church is not a Platonic or an imaginary state, not a geographic division or political organization, not an external polity bound to any land, kingdom, or nation (Apology VII-VIII, 10) or to any particular form of church government, but it is the kingdom of Christ, the mystic Spiritual Body of Christ, an essentially spiritual communion or fellowship of saints, which yet has real, concrete existence, and is both hidden and manifest, not of the world and yet in the world. Apology VII-VIII, 15, 18, 20.

The first sentence of this paragraph is not very well edited. The authors clearly wanted to say that although the Church is NOT “a geographic division or political organization,…an external polity bound to any land, kingdom, or nation, or to any particular form of church government”, and although it IS “the kingdom of Christ, the mystic Spiritual Body of Christ, an essentially spiritual communion or fellowship of saints”, NEVERTHELESS “the Church is NOT a Platonic or an imaginary state”. It “has REAL, CONCRETE existence”, which can be seen by particular “MARKS”. Note too the statement that the one of these “marks” is most definitely NOT “any particular form of church government”. THAT’s where we part company, of course. Most of the rest of the stuff in the Theses of Agreement we can, in fact, “agree” with (with the exception of the identification of the “Una Sancta” with the “Kingdom of God”)! . Here is the next paragraph:

8. ‘The pure doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Gospel of Christ’ (Apology VII.VIII, 5, 20; XIV, 27), through which the Church is created and preserved, are also the outward marks (notae) by which the existence of the Church at any time or place can be recognized… But the means of grace are the only and essential notae infallibly indicating the existence of the Church on earth, for these are the essential, the only, and the unfailing means by which Christ through the Holy Spirit creates and preserves faith in the hearts of men, and by which the true Church, though ‘hidden among the great mass of the godless’, becomes manifest on earth. 1 Peter 1:23,25, Eph.5:26; Rom. 10:17; Mark 16:15f; Luke 22:19f. Faith knows and trusts that wherever the essential marks of the Church are present, there the true Church is [my emphasis], inasmuch as God has promised that His Word shall not return unto Him void. Isa. 55:10,11.

In fact, Catholics can, I think, entirely agree with this last statement. It is, in fact, nothing other than what Catholics themselves say concerning the way in which we can affirm that the Church of Christ (the “Una Sancta”, the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church”) “subsists” within “the Catholic Church”. It is precisely because we affirm that ALL “the essential marks of the Church are present” in the Catholic Church, that we assert that “there the true Church is”! The point of disagreement is on what actually entails “the essential marks of the Church”.

A simple question for revealing the difference is to ask: What is the Catholic Church? The Second Vatican Council, in Lumen Gentium §2, gave the answer: “This Church [ie. “the sole Church of Christ” – what the LCA’s “Theses of Agreement” call “the Una Sancta”], constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him”. At one point, this contradicts what the Lutherans say – after all, it identifies the “Una Sancta” with a particular form of Church Governance – but on the other hand it affirms what they say: The Church is NOT “a geographic division or political organization, not an external polity bound to any land, kingdom, or nation…but it is …the mystic Spiritual Body of Christ, an essentially spiritual communion or fellowship of saints, which yet has real, concrete existence, and is both hidden and manifest, not of the world and yet in the world.” The only difference between Lutheran and Catholic ecclesiology is the question of what the “essential marks” of the Church actually are. Catholics say that the communion of bishops in apostolic succession in communion with the successor of the chief of the apostles IS an essential mark, which in fact makes “visible” the “invisible”. Lutherans say not.

And yet, to go back to my original question in 2001, I stated that the Lutheran Church “regarded itself to be the true church because it alone has perfectly preserved the true Word and Sacraments”. Why did I think this? Because, in the next paragraph of the Theses of Agreement, the LCA had declared in 1966:

‘The pure doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Gospel of Christ’ (Apology VII.VIII, 5, 20; XIV, 27), through which the Church is created and preserved, are also the outward marks (notae) by which the existence of the Church at any time or place can be recognized.

What they don’t say, but what they want you to understand and what every Lutheran is not in any doubt of, is that the Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church ALONE has indeed preserved “the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Gospel of Christ”! Of course, other congregations and other people in other denominations may also have preserved (more or less) these “marks of the Church”, and thus are part of the true Church insofar as these “marks” are present – but this is hardly to say anything else than the Catholic Church herself teaches, when she says:

“Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth” [LG 8# 2] are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements” [UR 3# 2; cf. LG 15]. (Catechism §819).

In the end, therefore, I think, after almost ten years, I can be a little less dogmatic than I was way back then. I can recognise, and I hope my readers can also, that Catholic and Lutheran ecclesiology is not all that different in basic shape and approach.

Both agree that the Church is a spiritual communion of saints that has a “real, concrete existence” in the world, and which may be recognised by certain “essential marks”. Both assert of themselves that these “essential marks” are fully present in their own communion, and yet may also be found beyond the borders of that communion, and – in so far as these marks ARE found elsewhere – the true church is there too. Nevertheless, we part company on the matter of what those “essential marks” are. The Catholic Church includes a particular form of governance – bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome – in the list of “essential marks”; Lutherans expressly exclude this. And it is that “communion” of bishops which makes the Catholic Church a “visible society” upon the earth in the way that perhaps the Lutheran Church is not.