I asked it once here, but now the iMonk asks it again here:

Why can’t the Lutherans and [Episcopalians] get their act together? Imagine how many young evangelicals would seriously consider these churches if they would (in the ECUSA’s case) embrace orthodoxy or (in the LCMS case) embrace something that looked like a missional approach to new churches and evangelism? I know that real Christians will drive through sleet, hail and snow to find that little cadre of faithful Lutherans/Anglicans, but wouldn’t it be great if the zeal of the SBC for growth and evangelism could find its way to the churches that actually have some connection to the historic Christian faith.

He was responding to Pirate here:

I have this theory that a large plurality of evangelicals who become Roman Catholics think they’re becoming Lutherans. I mean, a lot of them think they’re getting a historic liturgy, ancient practice, and an evangelical understanding of grace with a sacramental package providing assurance. But what they’re really getting is crappy Marty Haugen rites, medieval novelty, and dogmatic doubt. I mean, you almost never see evangelicals swimming the Tiber because they’re really excited about being able to get indulgences, sacrificing Masses to get their grandmas out of purgatory, or doubting whether they’re in the state of grace.

Ouyang Xiu and One-Pointed Concentration

Given the overwhelming response I got for my previous post about Shusun Tong, I know you are all waiting with bated breath to hear Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (also spelled Ou-yang Hsiu, pronounced "Oh-yahng she-oh") give another side of the Eastern Classicist ethos in his biography of Feng Dao. (Seriously, my blog is now the tops for English-language references to Shusun Tong on Google. Pretty impressive, eh?)

Well, here it is -- and I'll even make a point about Lutheranism at the end . . .

Feng Dao 馮道 was a Confucian official of the tenth century. This was a time when North China ran through five dynasties in as many decades, while ten kingdoms divided up the southern half of the country.* While the generals were fighting for the throne, the Confucian officials were trying to maintain some kind of order. Ouyang Xiu (that's a page from his collected works in the picture) was writing a century later when the Heartland, China, had been almost all unified under the Northern Song. From the chaos of ruptured family relations and shattered dynasties he wanted to learn something about how for over a half-century men had been incapable of escaping this nightmare and returning to the Way set forth in the Classics.

As Ouyang Xiu begins his biography -- and I cite here Richard Davis's distinguished translation, pp. 438-443 -- Feng Dao appears to be the exemplary official writers of his own time had taken him to be. Ouyang Xiu writes:

Dao*** could be frugal to the point of severe self-deprivation. When the princes of Jinn and Liang [rival commanders, one a Shatuo Turk and the other a renegade peasant rebel, fighting over the corpse of the defunct Tang dynasty] faced off from opposite sides of the Yellow River, Dao lived in a thatched hut within the military compound and slept simply on bundles of straw, rather than on a sleeping mat. And whenever receiving a salary, he found quiet contentment in lavishing it on servants, permitting them to enjoy the same food and wine as he. Commanders then given to abducting the beautiful girls of the vanquished often presented some to Dao, who could not well reject them, so he would furnish a separate room as accommodation while inquiring about their original father or husband, discreetly returning the women.

Taking leave as academician to mourn for his father, he found his native Jingcheng plagued for years with famine, so Dao relinquished all his possessions to relieve the villagers, retreating to the wilderness to till the land and haul his own firewood. When others let their own lands grow wild or lacked the strength to till themselves, he would quietly proceed at nighttime to till for them. Such persons might later express embarrassed gratitude, yet Dao saw nothing particularly noble in his deeds.

But as Ouyang Xiu goes on, we notice Feng seems to be lacking something:

Dao served Emperor Mingzong [ethnically, a Shatuo Turk, and emperor of the Latter Tang dynasty] as minister for more than ten years, and after Mingzong expired, he ministered to Emperor Min. In the wake of the Prince of Liu's rebellion at Fengxiangfu, and Emperor Min's flight to Weizhou, Dao led official multitudes in welcoming the usurping Prince to the capital. The Prince became Emperor Fei, Dao ministering to him. Emperor Min was still alive and at Weizhou at the time of Fei's accession, but perished in an act of regicide three days later. Emperor Fei subsequently transferred Dao locally as governor of Tongzhou, extending honors as duke a year later. Dao likewise served the the Latter Jinn** after its conquest of the previous Latter Tang** dynasty, the Jinn monarch, Gaozu, naming him dignitary for public works with ministerial powers, honorary dignitary of education, and concurrent director of the Secretariat, while elevating his noble status to Duke of Lu. He ministered to Emperor Chu once Gaozu passed away, receiving honors as grand marshal and Duke of Yan as noble rank; reassignment to the Kuanggguo and later Weisheng governorships later ensued.

Feng Dao even served the Kitans [a Mongolic people who had invaded from the northeast] after they had annihilated the Jinn, meeting [their ruler] Yelü Deguang for an audience in the capital . . . Dao followed Deguang upon his return north, as far as Changshan then reverted to the new Latter Han** dynasty upon the accession of its Emperor Gaozu, serving as grand preceptor with the prestige-rank of fengchaoqing. He further served the Zhou Dynasty when it conquered the Han, Emperor Taizu of Zhou** honoring him as grand preceptor and concurrent palace secretary.

Now after this recital, the historian thinks it justified to tip his hand and draw some conclusions:

A youthful Feng Dao succeeding in making a name for himself by dint of contrived manners, and as high official, strove to impress others with his staid demeanor. Having served four royal houses and ten sovereigns, he increasingly presumed upon bygone merits to glorify himself. Yet courtiers of the age, the wise and witless alike, all celebrated Dao as senior statesman and heaped praises on him. Yelü Deguang once asked of him, "How are we to render assistance to the commoners throughout the world?" Dao responded with a riddle, "Times like ours would be hard to salvage even for the Buddha, should he appear. Only a man like Your Majesty will do." The Kitan decision not to exterminate the commoners of the Heartland [that is, North China] is uniformly attributed to the goodwill fostered by Dao through such deeds -- deeds of flattery.

To do Feng Dao justice, Ouyang Xiu explains how he discouraged at least for a few months the Zhou dynasty's founder, a successful general, from usurping the throne and deposing his Han dynasty predecessor.

Having once thwarted Taizu in his ambitions, Dao tends by observers to be exonerated of complicity in the demise of the Jinn and Han dynasties. Yet he never seemed especially upset at witnessing the death of rulers or the dissolution of empires.

Then Ouyang cites Feng Dao's own words to draw a portrait of him that makes him the true Lutheran living out the doctrine of vocation, doing his duty while recognizing that the good things of this world were created for our enjoyment. He draws this picture -- and shudders with revulsion:

In a world beleaguered by the universal chaos and alien invasion that gravely imperiled the fates of all living souls, Dao adopted "Old Man of Eternal Joy" as his pen name. He even composed a letter of several hundred words celebrating service to four different houses, plus the Kitans, only to find glory in the offices and titles acquired. "I have been filial to family and loyal to dynasty" he proclaims, "and experienced being a son, brother, official, teacher, husband, and father, as well as a begetter of sons and grandsons. In occasionally opening a tome or drinking a draft, but also in consuming food, savoring songs, or enjoying human beauty, I have always found contentment with the times. And with age, I found contentment within. What joy could be greater?" And so goes the language of his autobiography!

A spirit naturally Lutheran! Enjoying the good things of life, trying to help out where he can, and bending with the times. Whichever general murders the emperor, he will find Feng Dao, the truly conscientious civil servant doing his best to administer government in a fair and humane fashion. But whether the dynasty lasts or not, whether one general kills the emperor and takes his place -- that's not my department!

To Ouyang Xiu, Feng Dao had everything but principle. Feng Dao was proud that he had survived and even thrived in an age of chaos, without losing his own rectitude -- to Ouyang Xiu it was too much flexible bending with the times that made the chaos. Looking back from the stable Song dynasty, he saw men of the Five Dynasties had allowed chaos to happen because they refused to follow the principle of loyalty:

Without integrity everything is acceptable, without shame anything is done. When ordinary men are so disposed every sort of catastrophic turmoil and devastating defeat can occur. Worse yet, when high officials will accept or do anything, chaos for the world and peril to empire can scarcely be eluded.

Indeed to his shame the generals and vigilantes were more principled than the scholars, whom the classics should have trained:

For the entire Five Dynasties era, I found three officials of complete virtue and fifteen to die honorably in service -- rather than serve the enemy of their lord. It is perplexing that a great many literati presented themselves as Confucians and claimed to study antiquity, enjoyed the remuneration of mankind -- by receiving a public salary -- and served its empire. However, inasmuch as those to act on principles of righteous loyalty hailed solely from the ranks of military leaders and warriors, it only affirms the total absence of peers within Confucian ranks. Did literati of less lofty virtue so disdain the times that they dared not surface, their revulsion for the prevailing tumult notwithstanding? Or were monarchs then too undeserving to reach them?

To illustrate his point, Ouyang Xiu presents a story of the widow of an official returning home from a distant assignment of her husband's where she had been when he died. She travelled with her son and the corpse of her husband to bury at their home town. If one woman can evince such moral girth, he argued, then surely the age produced others gone unnoticed by history:

Heading eastward, she passed through Kaifengfu and stopped at an inn, where the keeper refused her lodging owing to the suspicious spectacle of an unaccompanied woman with child in hand. [Was she a prostitute? perhaps he was thinking]. The sun had already set and Woman Li refused to leave, so the innkeeper grabbed her arm to evict her. The woman now let out a long wail of protest in peering at the heavens, declaring, "How have I, the wife of another man, failed to protect my chastity by allowing this arm to be touched by another? And surely, I cannot permit a single arm to defile my entire body!" So, drawing an axe, she lopped off her own arm. [In a twisted kind of way, this reminds you of something, doesn't it? See here and here] Roadside observers then surrounded and comforted her, some pointing their fingers accusingly at the innkeeper as others wept. Upon learning of the matter, the custodian of Kaifengfu informed the court and tapped official funds to provide medicines to cover the wound. He extended generous relief to the Woman Li, and had the inkeeper flogged with a light rod.

Ouyang Xiu comments:
We lament: Literati lacking similar regard for their moral repute, men suffering shame for the simple sake of survival should be considerably ashamed to learn of this woman's integrity.

A while ago, I present two portraits, of a Lutheran champ and a Lutheran chump. What I was hoping one of my commenters would point out is that the Lutheran chump seemed, well, much more Lutheran. Fond of the good life, genuinely kind and humanitarian, aiming for peace, wary of pressing his opinion on things above his pay grade, Elector John George was a wonderful person and a complete failure either as a defender of German rights or of Lutheran existence. As for the champ, Gustavus Adolphus, with all his activity, his combination of soaring rhetoric and willingness to see blood shed in rivers, his intensity and restlessness -- in general it strikes me, as it did his contemporaries, as vaguely Reformed, in temperament, if not in doctrine.

The temperament advocated by Lutheran leaders savors powerfully of Feng Dao. Uwe Siemon-Netto has been calling for Lutheran political leaders in America. He has set before us a portrait of an exemplary Lutheran:

There is no Lutheran law – no Christian law – against earning a decent wage. We are not called to asceticism. We are not called to eschew a good glass of wine, a tasty meal, the blessings of a lovely home and an excellent car.

You can be rich and still heed your calling out of love for your neighbor, centering on the You rather than the Me. One of those was my former boss, the German newspaper magnate Axel Springer, a confessional Lutheran. He was a self-made billionaire.

He owned a villa in the best section of Hamburg, a castle in northern Germany, a manor house in Berlin, a sumptuous property on Sylt Island in the North Sea, an island in Greece, a ski lodge in St. Moritz and a town house in London. Se he was no pauper.

Still, Axel Springer bore a heavy cross. In the 1960s and 1970s he was subjected to terrorist attacks, and constant demonstrations by extreme left-wingers, not because of his ample bank account but for the unfashionable things he did for the wellbeing of his readers, his staff, and his fellow Germans, and the world community.

Then the world thought Berlin was lost, he moved his company headquarters from Hamburg right to the Berlin Wall. When all others seemed prepared to write off 17 million East Germans, he set himself up for public ridicule by campaigning relentlessly for Germany’s reunification.
When others paid no more than lip service to the reconciliation between Germans and Jews, he pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into this cause.

He donated huge amounts of money to Israel and made every one of his journalists sign a covenant promising to work for this reconciliation – and for a transatlantic partnership with the United States, a partnership the German left tried to undermine since 1968.

Axel Springer was clearly a Lutheran with a sense of calling, working out of love for his fellow man.

As far as personality goes, I was born to be, at my best, a John George, a Feng Dao. I look at Woman Li and see an escapee from the insane asylum. On this question, I have long ago recognized that I don't have freedom of the will.

But maybe it's my "hard Puritan" ancestry, but somehow I can't get it out of my head that people who make other people uncomfortable, who cut off their hands and put out their right eyes, and do justice and let the heavens fall (so often on the heads of people who had nothing to do with the matter at all), who seem to be afflicted by principles the rest of us have only a nodding acquaintance with, that such people are the kind who can actually listen to Jesus and do what He says.

At least, that is, when they're not actually insane.

*Curious sidelight: three of those dynasties were founded by commanders of the Shatuo Turks whose descendants later converted to Christianity in the eleventh century, a story I've written about here and here.

** Tang, Jinn (Tsin or Chin) Han, Zhou (or Chou): if you know a little of Chinese history, you may recognize these as names of great dynasties -- but in fact these are all pathetic epigones, who adopted the dynasty names of glorious predecessors to catch a gleam of their reflected glory.

***Dao by the way is his given name. Chinese put the family name first, but then use only a person's given name for abbreviation in writing.

Reformed and Roman Catholic doctrine as compromise platforms

What is the difference between the Reformed and the (Ausburg) Evangelicals on the Lord's Supper and Baptism? I'm not going to talk about the actual issues, except to say that I think some of the Reformed -- maybe not a majority, but not a tiny minority either -- actually in their hearts agree with us. I know because I used to be one; I spent about a year in a PCA church, finding nothing in Luther's Small Catechism or Babylonian Captivity of the Church to be other than what I believe about baptism and the Lord's Supper, and only vaguely suspected that others would disagree. The Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper famously said that he would rather worship with Lutherans than in a church that demanded Zwinglianism.
So why doesn't union happen, at least with such as Abraham Kuyper? Because most of the Reformed are not on our page, are in fact Zwinglians. And the crypto-(Augsburg) Evangelicals among them don't agree with us on one crucial principle: that rejecting Zwinglianism is a necessary part of affirming the Evangelical faith. And in fact it is; you can't do one without the other.

That's why the language of Calvinism is so complex -- it has to give a formula which explicit Zwinglians and inconsistent, crypto-Lutherans can both agree upon so as to remain in fellowship. Nor can Calvinist language really nourish Eucharistic devotion the way Lutheran language does -- it is always lamed and crippled.

I have the impression that the same is true of Tridentine Catholicism -- it is a compromise formula so that those with real evangelical faith can continue in the same church with those who believe in Jesus (and even all the supernatural things about him asserted in the creeds) as a mere historical fact, and who then (as a separate matter) try really hard to be good people.

I was reminded of this by a blog commenter at "All Too Common" (to whom Bill Tighe directed a bunch of his correspondents for his actual defense of Luther and Evangelicals from misrepresentation.) The Common Anglican wrote:

[Luther] did define faith as a complete trust (fiduciary), such that this is a knowledge and reliance upon Christ alone for salvation. It is much more than knowing about Christ, for Luther. As the Catholic Encyclopedia records (on Justification),

According to Luther (and Calvin also), the faith that justifies is not, as the Catholic Church teaches, a firm belief in God’s revealed truths and promises (fides theoretica, dogmatica), but is the infallible conviction (fides fiducialis, fiducia) that God for the sake of Christ will no longer impute to us our sins, but will consider and treat us, as if we were really just and holy, although in our inner selves we remain the same sinners as before. (CE, Just.)

Another commenter added:

The question I have, is how is Lutheranism -- like other forms of Protestantism -- not gnostic? Regardless of whether or not there is a complete separation between justification and sanctification in Lutheranism, it still depends on fiduciary faith, does it not? Or I should say, Whom you know?

Well, innocent as charged. Yes, Evangelical faith depends on fiduciary trust in Christ. Simply knowing Christ -- in the sense of resting on Him and His work as offered to you in Word and Sacrament -- makes you different, transforms you. That's the experience of my life, that's the faith I was baptized in and, God willing, the faith I will die and go to heaven in. Yes, that's "gnosticism" if you will, but only in the sense that not being such a gnostic makes you a Judaizer. Gnosticism found haven in Christian churches precisely because compared to Phariseeism and conventional morality, Christian truth is gnostic -- a knowledge that once you believe it, changes you.

So apparently, educated and theologically-minded Catholics have ample warrant to construe their teaching to say that those are justified who merely believe, as a set of facts that has nothing essentially to do with their lives, the church's creed, as long as they sincerely try to be a good person (as defined by Christian moral teachings) and avoid mortal sin.* Such people we all know (and they are not uncommon in Evangelical churches either, sad to say, despite the vast efforts of the church and faithful pastors to disabuse them of any saving results from a purely historical faith).

Yet it is likewise obvious that there are many Catholics who actually have fiduciary faith, who actually rest on Christ for salvation and whose works flow out of that fiduciary faith.

So just as with Calvinism on the sacraments, the Tridentine formulas on justification are compromises intended to keep in one communion those who are (from the Evangelical point of view) fundamentally non-Christian and those who are fundamentally Christian. Again, as with Calvinism, that's why it has to be so complicated, compared to the simplicity and directness of (Augsburg) Evangelicalism. And that complexity can't help but have baleful effects on fiduciary faith among the congregation, just as Calvinism damages the Eucharistic faith even of those who truly believe in the Real Presence.

*UPDATE: Fr. Al Kimel in the comment box disagreed with the phrasing here; I've made a small change, but I don't think it makes a material difference in my point.

*FURTHER UPDATE: More objections by Dave Armstrong to this phrasing which can be seen in the comment box. Let me just stipulate that this "sincerely try to be a good person (as defined by Christian moral teachings) and avoid mortal sin" is indeed seen, as the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "not, like good habits in general, the outcome of repeated acts or the product of our own industry" but rather is "directly implanted in the soul by Almighty God," "outstrips the limits of the created order," and "transforms of a faculty for the performance of functions essentially outside its natural sphere of activity." But the key point is that this faith, love, and hope are all three defined as relating to God in general: faith in the entire content of the revealed truth, love of God for all of His being and works, and hope because all of the means of grace placed at our disposal. I guess from one perspective this can look like so much more than the limited Evangelical idea of faith as being fiducia -- trust in Christ's death for me -- but from another perspective, it can look like crucially less than Evangelical faith, love, and hope.

*FURTHER, FURTHER UPDATE: I've rephrased the offending phrase from "Catholic teaching explicitly says" to "educated and theologically-minded Catholics have ample warrant to construe their teaching to say." This is clearly true, and emphasizes again precisely how traditional Catholic teachings for all their dogmatic subtlety leave open a very wide variety of attitudes, and is also in a way more alarming: that you can have people who seemingly glory in the fact that their church teaches "we don't need or want fiduciary faith."

UPDATED DOCUMENTATION
In my comments I added some documentation:

1) I think the way I stated is clear enough, but let me just repeat:

I know that justification in traditional Catholic teaching demands not just faith (=assent) but also love and hope.

I also know that these are seen as being all three given by God's infused charity, and that without all three no one is justified.

Let me repeat, I know those two points, I knew them before, and I certainly know them now.

But what I am asserting is that in traditional Catholic teaching faith is assent, not fiducia (trust in the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake). And here I'm still going to stick to the Catholic encyclopedia, because it is a great resource, and because it's part of the ordinary magisterium. In the words of Thomas Aquinas: faith (scroll down to "definition of faith") is defined as "the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God."

Note: that faith refers to ANY divine truth, not specifically the death of Christ on the Cross.

2) Now what is love? Well, I read here:

"a divinely infused habit, inclining the human will to cherish God for his own sake above all things, and man for the sake of God."

I find no reference to the death of Christ on the cross in the lengthy description of love in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

3) Hope is "a Divine virtue by which we confidently expect, with God's help, to reach eternal felicity as well as to have at our disposal the means of securing it." Again no specific reference to Christ's death on the cross.

As Fr. Kimel says, this definition of Hope is the closest you're going to get to Evangelical fiducia -- reliance and trust that Christ died for YOUR salvation and will ensure it. The closest, yes, but it's still not the same.

Now, it is true that the THEOLOGICAL virtues of faith, love, and hope are distinguished from the mere human, habitual virtues, e.g. "Hope, such as we are here contemplating, is an infused virtue; ie., it is not, like good habits in general, the outcome of repeated acts or the product of our own industry." To that extent, my picture of Catholic justification could be objected to as being superficial. But as a practical pastoral matter the distinction of the two is hard to see in any given parishioner. As I made clear, this is of course equally a problem in Evangelical churches. If someone wants to say "Evangelicals believe that you are saved just because you think Christ died for you personally, and then show your sincerity by living a decent life" I would recognize that as a valid outsider's description.

But the difference is, justification in the traditional Catholic teaching consists of assent to general divine truths, love of God (not specifically as revealed in Christ) and man, and hope in eternal felicity through the variety of means placed at our disposal by God -- no essential priority is given to faith in Christ's death on the cross.

Again my original point was that fiducia can actually be sort of shoe-horned in here. If you have faith -- and particularly in Christ's death, love God and man -- and particularly because Christ died for you, and hope for salvation -- particularly because you know Christ died for you -- well you've got a Catholic version of Evangelical fiducia. But such a fiducia is NOT demanded for justification, and you can write long canons and articles about justification and its component parts without ever once mentioning the death of Christ on the cross for you (as Dave just cited for justification, and you can see by following my citations for love and hope).

That's the difference. It's real.


SECOND COMMENT

As for my statement that in traditional Catholic teaching, the faith that is part (just part!) of justification is not fiduciary faith, but assent:

Could you please present me with an authoritative pre-Vatican II statement that I'm wrong? I've give you a quotation from Thomas Aquinas that defines faith as: "the act of the intellect assenting to a Divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God." You can't seriously be saying that Aquinas is not authoritative enough to define traditional Catholic doctrine!

I looked for a similarly clear and precise definition of "faith" as it is understood in Catholic teaching in the Council of Trent, but couldn't find it. If you can, I'd love to see it.

Now, as the Catholic Encyclopedia discusses, this assent is not an easy thing, because it is about a supernatural truth. The discussion is quite interesting and helpful, about how because such assent is to something beyond our fallen natures it is difficult and always subject to challenge by the flesh -- hence such assent must be supernatural in origin.

However, even such supernaturally infused assent is not fiducia -- and the article notes and discusses fiducia precisely in the course of saying "that's not exactly what we mean". Evangelical fiducia assumes Aquinas's assent and then adds to it

1) that the assent is in particular to the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, and

2) that one believes this forgiveness is for me personally.

Again presenting material on how faith plays a part in justification does not tell us what is actually meant by faith.

THIRD COMMENT

The Pontificator concludes thus:

"I do not know how many Catholic preachers preach faith in this way. Perhaps only a minority. But what is important is that this preaching is possible and permissible within the Catholic Church. No dogma excludes it. No Pope prohibits it. This is the freedom of Catholicism."

Have I ever said otherwise? People insist on reading what I wrote as saying that "Trent dogmatically excludes real faith." No, that's not what I wrote. Josh S so far seems to be the only person who actually understood that point.

Can you be Evangelical without being Lutheran?

That might sound a strange question, but it's not. I am not asking "Can you be a Bible-believing, born-again, Spirit-empowerd Christian without going to a Lutheran church?" -- the answer to that is obviously "Sure, but why would you want to be?"

What I am asking is can you believe in Evangelical theology, that is, the doctrines characteristic of the (Augsburg) Evangelical Reformation, without being tied by human history and traditions to the churches of Scandinavian and German origin that in America we call Lutheran?

What are these doctrines? 1) Justification by faith alone; 2) baptismal regeneration; 3) the real and substantial presence of Christ's body and blood in Holy Communion; 4) the relative indifference of polity as defining the being of the church; 5) Scripture as the only binding norm of faith and practice.

This is of course a very minimal list, but the funny thing is, these five alone perfectly define not just Augsburg Evangelicalism, but Lutheranism as well. In other words, in practice, every congregation which affirms these five also affirms the whole kit and kaboodle of the Lutheran tradition, from the Book of Concord to Law and Gospel sermons to Waltherian congregationalism to Reformation Sundays to Concordia Press to beer. As far as the Book of Concord goes, I think this is because pretty much everything in it, despite its great length, can be related to these central points. But the further we go down the list of specifically Lutheran religious culture the less that is obvious. The question I'm asking is, what would/should the Lutheran attitude to Evangelical congregations of the above sort be -- assuming they were to exist? (I'm assuming further of course that these Evangelical congregations would also be orthodox both on the pre-Reformation controversies -- the Trinity and Christology -- and also on the post-Reformation controversies -- sexual morality, male-female roles, and inerrancy.)

The reason I think the question is worth asking right now is because of the on-going Anglican shipwreck. Among all the churches trying to survive this disaster (a summary is here), one would think that some of them might be open to affirming with us Evangelical theology. I know that it is precisely the more Protestant Anglicans who are likely to disagree on items 2-3, tending in a more Calvinistic direction. But surely there are some Anglican congregations with evangelical tendencies who would be interested in exploring the possibility of a fuller understanding of baptism and the Lord's Supper. And on question 4, if they insist on apostolic succession of bishops as part of the bene esse of the church, surely we can accept that as a legitimate option, as long as they accept the legitimacy of our ministry as well? Given that our worship and liturgy are pretty similar, isn't there room for real discussion aiming at full altar fellowship?

What would the benefits be? First, the imperative of unity with all who profess the Gospel rightly taught and sacraments rightly administered (again assuming that there is unity on the big issues of 2-4 and the points dependent on them). Second, non-Lutheran Augsburg Evangelicalism, even if small in scale, could be an important way to illustrate a point that the two (Lutheranism as a tradition/culture and Augsburg Evangelicalism as a teaching and practice of the Gospel) are not the same thing, despite being present in the same place. And from the point of view of the Anglican communities the larger resources of the LCMS and other confessional Lutheran bodies would presumably be beneficial. Again, much would need to be worked out, especially on the question of orders, but the Church of England has a long and well documented tradition of respecting the ministry of non-episcopal churches on the Continent. Disagreement on 2-3 is much more likely to be the real sticking point.

Are any such discussions happening? Does anyone sense this as an opportunity?

UPDATES: John Fenton of Conversio ad Dominum has made some comments about this proposal, seeing it as "Least Common Denominator Confessionalism". He takes particular exception to my reading of the polity question. I would only say that what the Augustana has to say about the church has to be read firstly in the context of the Catechisms and then of the Smalcald Articles:

I believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and congregation of pure saints, under one head, even Christ, called together by the Holy Ghost in one faith, one mind, and understanding, with manifold gifts, yet agreeing in love, without sects or schisms. I am also a part and member of the same, a sharer and joint owner of all the goods it possesses, brought to it and incorporated into it by the Holy Ghost by having heard and continuing to hear the Word of God, which is the beginning of entering it. For formerly, before we had attained to this, we were altogether of the devil, knowing nothing of God and of Christ. Thus, until the last day, the Holy Ghost abides with the holy congregation or Christendom, by means of which He fetches us to Christ and which He employs to teach and preach to us the Word, whereby He works and promotes sanctification, causing this community daily to grow and become strong in the faith and its fruits which He produces.

For, thank God, to-day a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd. For the children pray thus: I believe in one holy catholic/Christian Church. This holiness does not consist in albs, tonsures, long gowns, and other of their ceremonies devised by them beyond Holy Scripture, but in the Word of God and true faith.

There is the call of the congregation and there is laying on of hands and there is the office of the steward of the mysteries of God, all mentioned in the Scriptures, but anything beyond that is merely for the convenience of the church.

Secondly, Thomas Adams at "Without Authority" has a must read about Prussia and the "generic Protestantism." He bases it on a new book Iron Kingdom, which I really wish I'd gotten for Christmas (although what I did get is great too). Short version: Prussia originated "generic Protestantism" because her Reformed monarchs wished to transform a Lutheran people. We LCMS-ers have heard the story before, but what makes it interesting this time, is not how this affected us, but how central this experience was to building the idea of Prussia as Prussia -- the land of order, of public, of the universal over the particular.

Let me add also that another point of the book (I read large chunks of it in Barnes and Nobles) is that the Prussian ideal was by no means all reactionary junkers in pointy helmets, but one of planning, of peace and order, and of the common good above individual choices that form one of the mainspring of present-day European social democracy. The notorious Austrian corporal who got his political start in the rowdy beer-halls of Bavaria had only a most ambiguous relation to what made Prussia Prussia.

What Are We Standing For: A Disembodied Ideal or "Actually Existing Lutheranism"?

The post below on Charles Porterfield Krauth raised two issues that I think have lurked around the latest string of posts [at Here We Stand] on the name game: Lutheran, evangelical, catholic, or FFSCCOTTS.

Eric Phillips noted that Krauth had a stance on the Sabbath that doesn’t seem in line with confessional Lutheran ideas today (or the Augsburg Confession). FDN found Krauth’s triumphalism tedious and unhelpful. Thomas and Josh noted that they didn’t have a whole lot of connection to the LCMS as a body as opposed to the ideas of the Lutheran confessions and particular congregations that embody them. To me all of these questions revolve around the one of loyalty: is Lutheranism primarily a body of pure doctrine that is embodied here and there in congregations, some of which might not have the proper alphabet soup attached after the name? Or is it primarily a definite living community whose practices, despite being a mix of good and bad like all human communities, are worthy of some degree of respect and deference on the sole grounds that they are the traditions of our fathers in the faith?

I vote for the latter, for "actually existing Lutheranism" (to borrow a phrase from Rudolf Bahro) as that to which we need to be loyal. Who knows what is the chicken and what is the egg here, but the fact that I love Krauth, and Walther too and the fact that denominational loyalty is also very important to me both seem connected to my vote on this issue. It is good to have ideals, but not good to have them to the extent of coming to feel that no church in a 100 mile radius actually embodies much of your ideal. But then, I have to deal with the fact that Eric implicitly raised: Krauth and Walther were not in communion, so what is this this "actually existing Lutheranism"? Can actually existing Lutheranism go against Scripture and the Book of Concord and still be Lutheran, as ELCA does today? Or is it just the LCMS? Or just the ELS/WELS communion? Maybe I’m muddled, but I believe that there is a true middle ground between accepting anyone with the mere name Lutheran and on the other hand, for example, dividing over technicalities of theories of ministry. The LCMS, WELS, ELS, and once upon a time the American Lutheran Church (which upheld Krauth’s legacy before its final capitulation to modernism and ELCA) were all truly formed by the Book of Concord not just positively but also negatively by a rejection of what was hostile to that confession, whether it be Schmucker’s American Lutheranism, or Prussia’s Union church. Their differences never should have been church dividing and they attained communion in the 1950s, but due to our sins and the ravages of liberalism in the ALC have now fallen out.

But why do we need to bother with this alphabet soup, and these sub-Lutheran LCMS congregations, and the Lutheran church members who seem to not know the difference between what they believe and "generic evangelicalism" or "bland Protestantism"? To answer that question, I would hope people would read this story about two churches, Catholic and Lutheran, in a midwestern town targeted by fundamentalists. (I highly recommend this testimony for anyone who cares about the future of his or her church.) The Lutheran church lost large numbers of its parishioners, but the Catholic church didn't. One reason was, the Catholic church, hearing of the impending fundamentalist start-up, began a sermon series focusing on how oppressed Catholics have been by the Protestants, and then in later sermons moving on to the Catholic distinctives. As the priest himself explained, the kind of "us vs. them" sentiment produced by the first "they're out to get us" sermons was not exactly what he wanted in the way of long-term true spiritual insight, but it was essential both in keeping the less involved, less doctrinally aware members on board during the crisis, and in focusing the more involved, more doctrinally aware people on the issue at hand.

Maybe in an ideal world, team loyalty would play no part in our feelings toward religious truth. We would all work at a level of high theory and pure doctrinal commitment. But this isn't an ideal world. Churches have members who aren’t too involved right now, who aren’t really interested today, but might become interested tomorrow if we can "hold" them till today. Churches that don't inculcate in their members some measure of "triumphalist" thinking, that don't inculcate practical loyalty to the concrete, actually existing church body, well, such churches are sitting ducks for - - for Catholic triumphalism, for Bible-church triumphalism, for Eastern Orthodox triumphalism, for non-denominational triumphalism. In that situation a little "We ARE LUTHERANS" can stiffen your spine even when you feel like slouching.

None of this is to excuse bigotry or saying false things about other churches. Convictions about truth and loyalty to a real community are not incompatible with each other or with human sympathy for all people and Christian sympathy for all fellow Christians--Greg’s contributions on the comment threads of this site is an illustration of this.

Anyway, this is why I not only don't object to, but identify strongly with "Protestant," with "evangelical," and "Lutheran." These are the terms that helped hold together the Christians in America’s Church of the Augsburg Confession in the 19th century, under Walther and Krauth, and kept her alive so that she could take me in today as my mother today when I was fleeing the false mother of Calvinism. I am always struck by how much better our situation in America is than our beloved fellow Lutherans in England. Why? Because we had millions of Germans and Scandinavians coming over to help us, and because we had church founders like Walther and Krauth who kept those Germans and Scandinavians LUTHERAN. Without them what would we have? At the time, maybe keeping "on message" meant triumphalism and "Johnny one note" repetition, but that’s why being a pastor and being an academic are two different things. If they were happy to be Lutherans, evangelicals, and Protestants, what objection can I have to those names?

Originally posted at Here We Stand