What Sasse Said

Fathers of the Church

2012-01-18T04:41:00.000-08:00

"It is always a sign of deep spiritual sickness when a church forgets its fathers."

From Fathers of the Church, German original in Lutherische Blaetter 6:36 (May 10, 1954) pp58-69.

Compiler's Note - I've often heard this statement misquoted as "it is always a sign of deep spritual sickness when a church forgets the Fathers." Actually, in context, Sasse's sentence refers to more than just the Fathers, although it doubtless includes them in as much as they were orthodox teachers (thus Sasse mentions the Catalogue of Testimonies, the Patristic Christological quotes appended to early editions of the Book of Concord). His main concern, however, is the fathers of the "free" Lutheran churches of Germany and abroad (Harms, Scheibel, Walther, Wyneken, Kavel and others are mentioned by name), those churchmen who, though much maligned in their day, humanly speaking rescued confessional Lutheranism from unionism. When they are forgotten by the churches they fathered, it is a sign that those churches have succumbed to a "deep spiritual sickness".

No 'Hero Worship' in the Church

2011-12-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

There's no room for the worship of men in the church of Christ. Let the world have its heroes and live by the worship of them; in the church there is no hero worship! Paul, that remarkable genius who inspired the spiritual life of church in the early imperial age, was on the same level as Apollos and the other apostles - who were probably not geniuses. That hero of faith, Luther, is to be regarded as no higher than a man of doubt who folds his hands together and prays 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief'.

From 'Mysteries of God', a sermon on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 preached in Erlangen on Advent 3, December 15, 1940.

Luther's Legacy to Christianity

2011-11-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

'In the early morning hours of the 18th of February, 1546, on a cold winter’s night in Eisleben, Martin Luther closed his eyes for ever. “I won’t live to see Easter” he had said on his sixty-third birthday. Concerned for his life, his friends and relatives saw him undertake, toward the end of January, the last journey of his life. Accompanied by his sons and Justus Jonas, he traveled to the city of his birth where he was to mediate a quarrel between the brothers who were the Counts of Mansfeld. The letters which he wrote to his “gracious dear lady of the house” during this journey, are the most stirringly human testimony to his mature, and yet childlike faith. “I fear that were you to cease your concern, the earth might finally swallow us up and destroy everything. Are you also studying the Catechism and the Creed? Pray and let God worry. For you and I are not commanded to worry for me or you. It says: ‘Cast your anxiety upon Him, for He cares for you’, Ps. 55 and many other texts.” He wrote this on the 10th of February. Four days later he preached his last sermon. On the 16th and 17th the agreement between the counts was signed and his task of peace-making was finished. Luther no longer took part in the negotiations on the last day and remained in his room. Toward evening he complained of chest pains, which then passed and returned and worsened. Toward 10:00 in the evening, after he had rested, he went to his bedroom. He took leave of his company with the words, “Pray for our Lord God and His Gospel, that things go well with Him. For the Council at Trent and the miserable Pope have a terrible grudge against Him.” Toward 1:00 am he awoke short of breath and raised his voice: “Oh, Lord God, I’m in so much pain! Oh, dear Doctor Jonas, it appears as though I shall remain here.” He still had been able to proceed to his room, and there began his last brief hour. In the presence of his son, his friends and a doctor who had been hastily summoned, at a moment of pause in his struggle with death, he spoke his last prayers, recited to himself Bible passages such as John 3:16, and Psalm 68:21, and answered the question put by Justus Jonas: “Reverend father, will you remain steadfast in Christ and the doctrine which you have preached?” He responded with an audible “Yes!” Then his soul passed into the peace of God. But in Eisleben, in the villages and cities through which his remains were carried, and especially in Wittenberg, at this burial in the Castle Church, and the funeral celebration of the University, there was a mourning which was more than the mourning of a people over the loss of one of its great men. Indeed, the man who died while the pope convened in Trent the council for the “eradication of heresy”, that is, for the elimination of the Lutheran Reformation, and while the Emperor mobilized the forces of a world power for war against the Evangelical estates, was more than a great German. He was more than a faithful guardian of the souls of his people, a man of whom one gets the impression that through his powerful prayers had averted the catastrophe which for many years had been sweeping toward Germany. As the rediscoverer of the Gospel of the grace of God, he was the Reformer of the Church, and not only the church of one land, rather the entire, the one church of God on earth.'

Trans. by Pr Matthew Harrison. This essay first appeared in the Jahrbuch des Martin Luther Bundes, 1946, pp. 38-42. It was written for the 400th anniversary of the Reformer’s death. The essay was republished in Lutherische Blätter, vol. 19, no. 90 (August 1967).

The whole essay has kindly been made available on-line at Pr Harrison's blog: http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/11/luthers-legacy-to-christianity.html

Reprise: Sasse on Walther's Churchmanship, in honour of the 200th anniversary of the latter's birth

2011-10-27T18:49:00.001-07:00

'It was the context in which Lutherans found themselves in the American Midwest - where a land quickly opened up for settlement was subsequently swamped by immigrants from all the European nations and churches - which made the Lutheran Church there a missionary church. In this context, the church had to gain her members through missionary outreach, and her congregations were, like all churches in the US, gatherings, assemblies or societies of individuals who had consciously decided to belong to the church of their choice. This is the distinctly American trait in the character of the Missouri Synod, which derives from the history of that nation, and the same trait is found in all the other Lutheran synods of western America. However, it is given its strongest expression in the Missouri Synod, for this version of Lutheranism possessed that which in a mission situation really makes a church a missionary church: the awareness of a particular calling and a firm conviction about what is to be believed (dogma), which alone makes missionary preaching possible. The self-understanding of the early Missourians of being a remnant of pure Lutheranism was refined through catastrophe and by Walther's preaching and pastoral care into a truly Lutheran consciousness of being church - an assembly standing on the foundation of justifying grace and drawing its life from the means of grace. This explains the Missouri Synod's awareness of a particular calling and the dogmatic conviction that is inseparably bound up with it - which is tied to Lutheran Orthodoxy.'

From Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 20, July 1951.

(Sasse begins this section of his essay by noting the profound influence of Lutheran Orthodoxy on the founder of the Missouri Synod, Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther.)

The Disintegration of Christendom and the Crisis of the Ministry

2011-10-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

'In Germany a candidate who refused to be ordained declared to his bishop, ‘I could perhaps preach on ordinary Sundays, but I cannot preach at Christmas and Easter; I cannot preach on myths.’ He was quite right. One cannot preach on myths. It was only logical that one of the enlightened professors of theology in Germany seriously suggested abolishing the Christmas festival altogether. In these cases, the deepest reason for the crisis of the ministry becomes evident: the loss of a living faith, the decay of the doctrinal substance which can be observed in all denominations of Christendom. One has often the impression that the same spiritual disease which the Greeks went through in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, and which began in India a little earlier, is now going through the ‘Christian’ nations in the world. The faith of the fathers is dying and is being replaced by philosophical speculations of socio-political ideologies. The ‘God is dead’ theology in America, the agnosticism which is openly confessed by Anglican priests in Australia, the transformation of the sola fide (by faith alone) and the theologia crucis (theology of the cross) into a lifeless speculation in Lutheran circles, the new hermeneutics which destroys the Word of God (‘We have lost the Word of God and cannot find it again’, as the leader of a Congregational college said) – all this is indicative of a process of disintegration that is going on in all Christendom and leads not only to numberless personal tragedies, mental breakdowns and moral conflicts but also to the dissolution of the churches. Like the great tragedies in the history of mankind, it is accompanied by a strange euphoria which accompanies certain lethal diseases. What actually may be the ruin of the church is regarded as a wonderful renewal, an unheard of resurgence of the church and its mission to the world.'

From ‘The Crisis of the Christian Ministry’, Lutheran Theological Journal (Adelaide) May 1968, pp34-46.

The 'Permanent Crisis' of the Christian Ministry

2011-10-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

'The impossible task, a commission which goes on without limitations in space and time, became possible, like the task of the prophets, only through the 'I am with you' (Matt 28:20). So they [i.e. the Apostles -MH] obeyed the call, leaving it to him how he would see to it that the Great Commission was carried out, even after the last of the eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ would have died. They were 'afflicted in ever way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in...our mortal flesh', thus showing 'that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us' (2 Cor 4:7-11). This ministry, this office which preaches the Word of God and administers the Sacraments of Christ, goes on in the history of the church until the end of all history. We ministers of Christ are not apostles - none of us is an eyewitness of the incarnate and risen Son of God. Nor are we prophets. We should be careful to avoid the great mistake often made by us ministers of comparing ourselves with the great men of God in the Bible. The task of our office is to preach the Word of God which is given to us once and for all in the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testament. It is this constant tension between a divine commission that must be carried out and the inability of man to carry it out that creates the permanent crisis of the ministry.'

From 'The Crisis of the Christian Ministry', in the Lutheran Theological Journal (Adelaide, SA) 2.1, May 1968, pp34-46.

The Burden of the Ministry of the Word

2011-10-06T17:32:00.001-07:00

'No one can understand the ministry of the Word who has not understood why the OT prophets call the 'word' a 'burden'. No one can understand it unless he knows what Jeremiah and Paul have understood:'Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel' (1 Cor 9:16).'

From 'The Crisis of the Christian Ministry', in Lutheran Theological Journal (Adelaide, SA) 2.1 (May 1968), pp34-46.

The Crisis of the Christian Ministry

2011-08-31T21:51:00.000-07:00

The deepest nature of this crisis lies in the fact that God always demands from his servants something which is, humanly speaking, impossible. One may look at the wrestling between God and Moses in the first chapters of Exodus. Why does Moses refuse to go on his errand? Why does he think up all sorts of excuses including the not very convincing argument: "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue." He refused to go because what God demands is “impossible”. Even if he succeeded in breaking through all the barriers of the police who were searching after him for manslaughter, of the courtiers and body-guards, and appear before his majesty the mighty ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, was there any likelihood that the Pharoah, who enjoyed divine honours and worshipped in his temples the great gods of heaven and earth, would accede to the alleged request of an unknown god who was worshipped by some of his slaves: ”Let my people go” (Ex 5:1)? It was impossible, but Moses went simply on the promise that the Lord would be with him.

From The Crisis of the Christian Ministry in ‘Lutheran Theological Journal’ (Adelaide), 2.1 (May 1968), pp 34-46.

[Sasse quotes from the RSV, but I have used the ESV for convenience.]

The Pious Lie (III): The Institutional Lie

2011-06-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

Alongside the pious and dogmatic lies, there stands an especially dangerous form of lie which can be called the institutional lie. By this we mean a lie which works itself out in the institutions of the church, in her government and her organization. It is so dangerous because it legalizes the other lies in the church and makes them impossible to remove. Such a lie exists, for instance, where the governance of the church grants to those who confess and those who deny the Trinity and the two natures of Christ the same rights in the church; where the preaching of the Gospel according to the understanding of the Reformation enjoys the same right as the proclamation of a dogma-less Enlightenment religion, so long as the latter appeals only to the Bible; where it is the rule that at a church with two pastoral positions one must be filled with a pastor of the "free" bent, so the "liberals" in the congregation do not have to go to an "orthodox" pastor.

From 'Union and Confession' (c.1936), trans. by Matthew C. Harrison, published by the Office of the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1997.

The Pious Lie (II) : The Dogmatic Lie

2011-06-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

"When we speak of the dogmatic lie, we do not, however, have in mind only the celebrated dogmas pronounced by the Catholic Church, through which theories are elevated to the level of ecclesiastical dogma, and have no basis in Holy Scripture, and are not true. We include here also precisely the dogmas with which modern Protestantism has been at pains to correct, to complete, or to replace the doctrine of the evangelical church, such as the false doctrine of Pietism concerning the church, or of rationalism concerning the person of Jesus Christ. What a fearful thing it is indeed that things are taught in the church which are not true, under the guise of the eternal truth entrusted to her. No atheism, no Bolshevism can do as much damage and destruction as th epious lie, the lie in the church. In this lie the power of one is made evident whom Chirst Himself calls a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44)."

From Union and Confession (1936) [trans. Matthew.C. Harrison; published by the Office of the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1997]

The Pious Lie

2011-05-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

"The most fearful thing about the pious lie is that it will lie not only to men, but also to God in prayer, in confession, in the Holy Supper, in the sermon and in theology. The pious lie always has the propensity to become the edifying lie. It was once expelled from the church when it existed in the form of legends of the saints and the fraud of relics. Then in the full view of pious eyes, it returned in a new form, such as in the Luther legends, or in pietistic times in the form of almanacs and tracts containing containing the accounts of miraculous responses to prayer and equally miraculous conversions, which either never happened, or in which the kernel of historical truth was no longer discernible. This "edifying" lie even forces its way into the sphere of the church, which teaches revealed truths of revelation. After sufficient preparation it can obtain the status of "doctrinal maturity". Thus it becomes the dogmatic lie.

We ask our Roman Catholic fellow Christians to believe that it is very difficult for us to use the word "lie" here, and we do not do so to offend them. We know that they affirm a dogma such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary out of deep conviction of faith, and they will accept the yet-awaited extension of Marian dogma from the hand of the ecclesiastical teaching office with the same sincerity. But this changes nothing of the fact that in these dogmas false doctrines are established, and that the Roman Church thus finds itself in a guilt-laden error."

From 'Union and Confession' (1936), trans. by Matthew C. Harrison, published by the Office of the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1997.

Christ Is Risen!

2011-04-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

Upon my memory there is indelibly imprinted the image of something I saw years ago at Easter time in New York City. At one of the busiest spots in the city, where day and night a vast crowd of people thronged to and fro, someone had suspended a banner between two skyscrapers with the words CHRIST IS RISEN inscribed upon it. Day and night the large letters shouted out across the sea of buildings of this world-city, so that none of the hundreds of thousands who went past it daily could ignore the message: CHRIST IS RISEN.
This has been the Easter greeting of the church since days of old: CHRIST IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED! With that greeting and reply Eastern Christendom still resounds, and not only in church, where we say it at the beginning of the Easter service, but also at home and on the street. We probably should ask ourselves whether we ought not write this greeting across our own cities by means of modern technology. Certainly, it must have had an unforgettable impact upon all those who saw that neon sign hanging over New York; they could not escape the question which comes to us today at Easter: What does the message of the resurrection of Christ have to say to our world today?
What does the message of the resurrection of Christ say to our world today? Is there any room for it in a world whose thinking is determined by modern science, in which lives are shaped by the wonders of human technology and ingenuity? Does this message make sense any more in a world of political and social revolution, when new worlviews fill people's minds? Or, does the message live today only as a remarkable monument to the religious life of a bygone age? Is it possible that in this 20th century it should conjure up any response apart from the mockery of modern "explanations" or a Faustian doubt?

From "The Incomprehensible Easter Message", a sermon preached on Easter Sunday, April 17th, 1938, in Erlangen, Germany [trans mine].

The encounter with the banner in New York probably dates from Sasse's visit to the eastern United States as an exchange student at Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut, in 1925-6.

The Praying Church

2011-04-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

Our American brethren in the faith will also learn this through painful experiences. Instead of setting up a church office in Washington, it would have been better had they equipped some place somewhere in the solitude of their immense country, where prayers would be offered day and night for their government and for the peace of the world. For the church of Christ is not a church that is always busy holding conferences, nor is she a church that does business with politicians and the press. She is ecclesia orans. And this is her main calling. Either she is ecclesia orans, as indeed she showed herself to be already in the catacombs,—or she is nothing.
Let no one say that prayer is self-evident. After all, we have services once or twice a Sunday. No, that prayer of the church which we find everywhere in the New Testament where the life of an ecclesia is spoken of, unfortunately, is not something self-evident. Who would maintain that prayer is offered in our Lutheran Churches today with a fervor, which even approaches that with which the church of the New Testament prayed “without ceasing?” (Acts 12:5.) Where today is Luther’s mighty praying with its visible answers? Where is the prayer of those pious people, of which Luther spoke in his explanation of the Lord’s Prayer in the Large Catechism, the prayer which in those days held the Devil back from destroying Germany in its own blood? Yea, despite all the criticism which the Reformation has directed at the mumblings of Catholic prayer and which the modern liturgical movement within the Catholic Church undertook (quite independently from an entirely different viewpoint) must we not finally ask where, in which church, prayer is being offered with more fervor and perhaps also with better training—for prayer too must be learned? Will the answer be the Catholic Church or the churches of the Reformation?

From Ecclesia Orans, in Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, Eastertide, 1993pp.28-33.

Lutheran Catholicity

2011-04-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in that it lays great emphasis on the fact that the evangelical church is none other than the medieval Catholic Church purged of certain heresies and abuses. The Lutheran theologian acknowledges that he belongs to the same visible church to which Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux, Augustine and Tertullian, Athanasius and Ireneaus once belonged. The orthodox evangelical church is the legitimate continuation of the medieval Catholic Church, not the church of the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council which renounced evangelical truth when it rejected the Reformation. For the orthodox evangelical church is really identical with the orthodox Catholic Church of all times. And just as the very nature of the Reformed Church emphasizes its strong opposition to the medieval church, so the very nature of the Lutheran Church requires it to go to the farthest possible limit in its insistence on its solidarity and identity with the Catholic Church. It was no mere ecclesiastico-political diplomacy which dictated the emphatic assertion in the Augsburg Confession that the teachings of the Evangelicals were identical with those of the orthodox Catholic Church of all ages, and no more was it romanticism or false conservatism which made our church anxious to retain as much of the old canonical law as possible, and to cling tenaciously to the old forms of worship.

From Here We Stand (trans. Theodore Tappert), Augsburg Publishing House, 1938, pp. 110-11.

The Task of the Church's Confession

2011-03-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

The true church is gathered not around Scripture, but around the rightly understood, the purely and correctly interpreted Bible. It is the task of the church's confession to express the right understanding of Scripture which the Church has reached. Thus pastors are helped to proclaim only the pure doctrine, and congregations are protected against the whims of the preacher and the misinterpretation of Scripture. In this sense the church's confession is servant of the Word.

From Church and Confession (1941), English translation by Norman Nagel in We Confess: Jesus Christ (Concordia Publishing House, 1984) p. 84.

Lutheran & Calvinist Christologies

2011-03-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

...the deepest divergence between Lutheranism and Calvinism may be best understood as a reawakening in the Reformation of the old christological schools. So the controversy between the Lutherans and the Reformed about the Lord's Supper became a struggle to understand Chalcedon. The question of the presence of the true body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar leads to the question whether the human nature of Christ is so united with His divine nature that it partakes of its attributes.

From The 1.500th Anniversary of Chalcedon, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 21 (September, 1951); trans. Norman Nagel in We Confess Jesus Christ (CPH 1984:64).

On Ecstatic Experiences

2011-02-20T21:33:00.000-08:00

Just as the Bibical concepts of resurrection and eternity are hardly any longer understood in modern Christianity, so also the understanding of the Holy Spirit has more and more disappeared. One does not yet know who the Holy Spirit is if one knows the workings of the Spirit or of spirits as reported in the epistles of Paul. He tells of speaking in tongues, of prophecy, of visions, of things heard, of gifts of healing, of the power to do miracles, and all sorts of gifts. Most of these phenomena do not belong only to Christianity but are found in many a religion. They are native to ecstatic religion, which is found all over the world. Here a person thinks of his powers and capacities as intensified into the supernatural because divinity is at work in him. Such primitive expressions of ecstatic religion were much prized in Corinth as evidence of possessing the Holy Spirit. Paul himself had experience of them, and yet he ranks them less than the silent working of the Spirit of Christ. In making this distinction, he does the same as the prophets of the Old Testament. They had such experiences too, and yet they decisiively marked themselves off from the ecstatic seers and professional prophets. What is the significance of this distinction? It is connected with the distinction between true and false prophets and so also the scrupulous distinction between God and man - between what is truly God's doing and what is not.

From Jesus Christ is Lord, The Church's Original Confession, in We Confess Jesus Christ (Concordia, 1984), p.29 [trans by Norman Nagel.

Where to find the Holy Spirit

2011-02-20T19:40:00.000-08:00

The New Testament's view of the Holy Spirit can be stated in one sentence: Where Christ is, there is the Holy Spirit; where the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ. Christ and the Holy Spirit belong together.

From Jesus Christ is Lord, The Church's Original Confession(1931), in We Confess Jesus Christ (Concordia, 1984) p. 31.

[Courtesy Weedon's Blog, www.weedon.blogspot.com]

Reflections on Modern Lutheranism c.1962

2011-02-17T03:30:00.000-08:00

63 Clifton Street

Prospect, South Australia

April 7, 1962

Dear Professor [J.A.O.] Preus,

It is now almost two weeks that I came back from my trip around the world, a little exhausted from the rush of the last weeks, but refreshed in the spirit by the experiences of the months abroad… The way your students listened to the old foreigner and the confidence they showed in our discussions on the most vital questions of the Lutheran Church and its doctrine has been a source of great encouragement to me. …I had to think of them when I met in Germany a different type of students, sophisticated young existentialists who did not know how to bring home to the Christian congregation the “myths” of Christmas and Easter. Which means they believe in the “message,” but not in the historicity of the narratives… I met Bornkamm (Heinrich, the church historian) and had a most moving meeting with Peter Brunner with whom I was connected in the church struggle in Hitler’s time. He is now an old man and quite disappointed with Lutheranism in the EKiD. He told me he looked back at a frustrated life because all his attempts to restore the right of the Lutheran Church within the union had proved futile. In case his church would accept the ordination of women he would withdraw from all activities in the church. He was disgusted with the new Biblical theology which destroys all doctrine. To my question why he did not write against these men he replied he was too tired for further fights. It is an enigma how this theology which destroys the historic character of almost the whole “Heilsgeschichte” and is satisfied with the “Kerygma” which it finds behind the “legends” could get hold of the youth of German Protestantism. Why is it that old men in their high seventies carry away the youth of our churches, even in America, like Bultmann and Tillich? It is probably a return to the theology of the time before 1914, a revival of that historicism which has lost the ability to think in terms of dogmatics.

The practical result is that the generation of younger pastors can hardly be accustomed to practical work. Their sermons betray the contrast between their undogmatic theology and the need to preach the doctrine of the church. These split personalities produce sermons which leave behind the impression of mere intellectual exercises of technical discussions of problems which the average congregation cannot understand. And how can it be otherwise if I preach the resurrection of Christ with the conviction that the Easter gospel is a legend… The type of professor who at the same time was a Seelsorger has died out. Where such professors still exist, they are mocked, as Professor Trillhaus in Goettingen has lately pointed out… I did not find in Heidelberg Schlink, but heard he was in Rome. So I rang him up there and on the last leg of my trip I indulged in my old dream to see the city of the apostles. We spent many hours together while seeing the sights…

With kindest regards, Yours sincerely,

H. Sasse

[Courtesy Cyberbrethren www.cyberbrethren.com]

The Doctrine of the Resurrection Takes Death With Complete Seriousness

2011-02-14T21:59:00.000-08:00

According to the doctrine of the resurrection, death is not simply the passing of the soul from one form of existence to another, as in India and among the Greeks (although it is that too), but death is the abhorrent disintegration of a human being. This way of looking at things does not making dying easy, but hard. The aim of the philosophical doctrine of the immortality is to make dying easy, but the doctrine of the resurrection takes death with complete seriousness.

From Jesus Christ is Lord: The Church's Original Confession (1931).
English translation by Norman Nagel in We Confess Jesus Christ (Concordia, 1984), p19

HT Weedon @ http://weedon.blogspot.com

The Primacy of the Apostolate Over Prophecy

2011-02-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

The recognition that the revelation in Christ is not something inconclusive or relative stands and falls with the primacy of the apostolate over prophecy. Wherever prophecy asserts its independence and power, it is a threat to the finality of the revelation that happened once in history, of which the apostolic office bears witness. Christ's church is an apostolic, not a prophetic church. This does not mean, as some today suppose, a quenching of the Spirit, a constriction of religion within an ossified institution. Rather it expresses the conviction that revelation has taken place, that the word of God is no longer only given and assigned to a human being here and there, but that the Word has become flesh.

From Jesus Christ is Lord: The Church's Original Confession (1931).
English translation by Norman Nagel in We Confess Jesus Christ (Concordia, 1984), p17

HT Weedon @ http://weedon.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-lutheran-quote-of-day_12.html

Woe to the church, which seeks a way other than confessing Christ to gain the world’s attention.

2011-01-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

“Since the time when the church entered the stream of history, it has appeared to the world as a complicated enigma, a riddle without a solution. Here are some of the questions. What is the distinct character of the church of Jesus Christ? What place does it occupy in history? How can the church’s claims be rationalized and what are proper responses to them? At what point can the question of what the church is be broached? Government officials in every country and state where the church is found have to face the question of what the church is. We are not the first ones to ask these questions. Since the time of Justin [ca. 100-ca.165] and Clement [ca. 100], of Celsus[1] [d. ca. 200] and Porphyrus[2] [ca. 232-ca. 303], philosophers have had to face them. Various modern scholarly disciplines, including historical research, psychology, sociology and the scientific study of religion [Religionswissenschaft], have examined the phenomena associated with the church in an attempt to provide a definition. So far no government has found an answer to the question of what the church is and it seems unlikely that any scientific discipline will have more success. “Their conclusions in defining the church conflict with each other.” What is the reason for their failure to come up with an answer? The answer obviously lies in the simple fact that there are no real analogous organizations which can serve as a standard or norm to which the church can be compared. Since comparisons are necessary in making definitions, it is impossible to define the church. The discipline of comparative religions, as the name indicates, compares the church with other religions. Its claims for revelation can be placed along side the beliefs and teachings of the other great world religions. The methods used in the history of religions and sociology can be used in placing the earliest forms of Christianity along side of Hellenistic Gnostic cults. This can be expanded to make other comparisons. A Catholic Church in its development can be compared with the “people” of Islam. The same comparison can be made between the social forms which have appeared in Christian history and the corresponding Asiatic world religions which appeared at that time. Recognizable parallels are easy to come by. It takes a bit of daring to take standards of the school of the history of religions, which are so obviously human conceptions, and then to use them in examining the phenomena associated with the church. At first glance such a scholarly approach holds out the promise of providing a definition of the church and what its essence is. This approach promises to deliver more than it actually does and soon proves to be deceptive. While for some phenomena connected with Christianity, some parallels can be found, for others there is neither an explanation nor a comparison. In what is beyond explanation, where there are no parallels in the history of religion (comparative religions) or in how religious associations are structured, the mystery of the church’s essence is hidden. One way out of the dilemma of explaining why the unique phenomena of the church are beyond explanation is to take refuge in the Latin axiom: “Individuum est ineffabile [What is distinctive or unique is beyond definition].” Unique individuality is not uncommon to history. This still leaves the problem of finding an answer for an historical definition, since the unique individuality of something living – like the church – cannot be so easily explained. Florenski[3] once said that the inability to come to a definition of what the church is demonstrates its living character. Looking for the answer of what makes the church the church simply goes beyond the limits of the scientific study of the history of religions and examining the structure of other human organizations. It must be conceded from the start that if the church is constituted by what its members believe, its rituals and its organizational structure, then the church should be studied along with other religious organizations which also have statements of what they believe and which have rituals. This approach leads to only one conclusion: the church’s essence is then not really distinctive. In this case the Christian church is only a peculiar or idiosyncratic historical phenomenon, as defined by the history of religions. But another such phenomenon resembling the church simply does not exist. The church has no parallels. There are no Jewish, Parsee (followers of Zoroaster), Manichean, Mohammedan or Buddhist churches. There is no church of Mithra. For the church is the body of Christ. She is not only called, but really is the body of Christ. She is the people of God in the same way that she is temple of the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as the body of Mohammed or of Buddha, or a body of Serpis or Mithra. Only under the presupposition that Jesus Christ is really the Son of God, who for the sake of us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was really made man,[4] can the church be the church. The church is church only because what the ancient creed says about the person of Jesus Christ, his birth, his death, his resurrection and his ascension, is really true. If all these things were not true, to drag up an old saying, these things are no more or less significant than any other good story. In this case the church, as we understand it, simply does not exist. The church has no other response for explaining the reason for the world’s failure to understand what she really is than by pointing out that the world does not believe in Christ. What the church believes about herself is dependent on what she believes about Jesus. If non-Christians know nothing of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, how could they possibly recognize his actual and personal presence in the world through the church? Does the church have a way of proclaiming the mystery of her existence in the world other than by proclaiming the presence of her exalted Lord? What the church is can only be shown by confessing Christ. Woe to the church, which seeks a way other than confessing Christ to gain the world’s attention.
Law and Gospel (December 1936). Hermann Sasse, Erlangen. Translated by David P. Scaer

[1] Celsus was a second century pagan philosopher. His attack on Christianity is the oldest of which portions survive. It is known to us from “Contra Celsum” by Origen which is a third century work which preserves 90% of Celsus’ original work, “Alaqh~ Logo~” or “True Word.” ODCC p. 311. MH

[2] Neoplatonist philosopher, perhaps once a Christian by definitely no longer so by the persecution of Decius in 250. Studied philosophy at Athens and was convinced of Neoplatonism by Plotinus, whom he met in Rome in 262. Studied popular religion and took a particularly negative attitude toward Christianity. He pointed out alleged inconsistencies in the Gospels and attacked the O.T. Refutations were presented by St. Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Ceasarea, Apollinarius of Laodicia, and others. ODCC p. 1309. MH

[3] George Florovsky 1893-1979, Russian theologian. From 1926 professor of Patristics at the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius in Paris and later Professor of Dogmatics. Came to the U.S. in 1948, professor and dean at St. Vladimier’s Seminary (1948-1955) and Professor of Eastern Church History at Harvard Divinity School (1956-1964), and Visiting Professor at Princeton from 1964. Played a leading part in the ecumenical movement from 1937 serving regularly as a delegate at assemblies of the Faith and Order movement and of the World Council of Churches. ODCC p. 620. MH

[4] Reference to the second article of the Nicene Creed. MH

“Gesetz und Evangelium.” Oekumenischen Rat Fuer Praktisches Christentum. Forschungsabteilung. Vertraulich Kirch, Dezember 1936. Unpublished paper. Feuerhahn Bibliography no. 36-02. This paper was written in preparation for the upcoming Faith and Order Conference at Edinburgh (1937). Sasse was at this time under prohibition of travel, as he had been when he attended a Faith and Order committee meeting in London at Archbishop Temple’s residence earlier in the year. He was also deeply involved into the open schism in the Confessing Church. The pressures he was facing at the time of this publication were enormous.

The entire article will appear soon in “The Lonely Way” vol. 3, from C.P.H. MH

HT Rev. Matthew Harrison (see 'Mercy Journeys' blog link in right-hand column)
["MH" in the notes above means Matt Harrison, not Mark Henderson!]

Scripture and Tradition in Light of 'Dei verbum' (Pt 2)

2011-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

"But there must be, we are told, an infallible teaching office to explain the Scriptures. If God wanted to reveal himself to men, he would not give them only a book which can be and is being interpreted in various ways. It is a logical conclusion that he must have provided a living teaching authority, whatever it may be, a council or a pope or a theological faculty or some church committee. What is the use of a revelation which every individual can understand at his pleasure? This was the argument of Erasmus also in his great contention with Luther. Why did this great leader of European culture and scholarship, this mastermind of his time, refuse to accept the Reformation? The encounter between the Reformer and the great Humanist was an event of the fist magnitude in the history of European culture. For it foreshadowed what was going to happen in the subsequent centuries until the present time.
In his De libero arbitrio diatribe Erasmus defended in the free will of man what was to him the dignity of man. This was threatened by Luther’s doctrine that man is a poor miserable sinner who can do nothing for his salvation. That man is weak, imperfect and inclined to all sorts of sin, Erasmus would admit. He was very realistic in his view of man after all his experience as the son of a priest. But it was the sola gratia, by grace only, which he rejected. And he defended God against Luther, God who is good and not a tyrant who condemns people who can do nothing but sin. God is light and not darkness, as his disciple Zwingli a few years later maintained against the Reformer of Wittenberg. And he attacked Luther’s treatment of scripture. The Sola Scriptura is closely linked with the Sola Gratia. To understand Scripture we need scholarship, the knowledge of the interpretation by the Fathers and the guidance of the Church. We should be careful with our own judgment. Luther, he feels, is too dogmatic. Scripture is full of mysteries. We should abstain from those ’firm assertions’ in which Luther indulges. Over against Luther’s dogmatism he confesses that he would rather side with the sceptics. In all these points Erasmus speaks on behalf of modern man who, though knowing of man’s weakness, has not given up his belief in man; who believes in grace, though not in grace alone; who wants the Bible, but not the Bible only; who wants to retain Christianity, but an undogmatic Christianity; who believes in God, in Christ, but whose faith is always intermingled with a certain amount of scepticism.
What is Luther’s answer? There is no Christian faith which is not based on the Word of God, and the Word of God we find in the Scriptures, and in Scripture only. The Fathers can err. Traditions are human. Whether they convey to me the truth. I cannot know unless I see that their content is confirmed by the Scriptures. To the objection that the Scriptures are sometimes dark, contradicting each other, and therefore in need of an authoritative interpretation, Luther replies with his doctrine of the claritas sacrae Scripturae, the clarity of the Scriptures. As a Biblical scholar, Luther knew, of course, of the problems of exegesis. The clarity of the Scriptures is not the clarity of a text-book on mathematics or of a historical work written according to the rules of modern historiography. Their clarity lies rather in their content. This content, the content of the entire Bible (Luke 24:44, cf. Acts 10:43: ‘To him all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive eternal remission of sins’) is Christ. Tolle Christum e scripturis, quid amplius invenies?’ (Take away Christ from the Scriptures, and what else will you find?)."

From Holy Church or Holy Writ? The Meaning of the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation (IVF Graduates Fellowship, Sydney, 1967, pp 20-21.)

Scripture and Tradition in Light of 'Dei verbum' (Pt 1)

2011-01-17T00:28:00.000-08:00

Is the new constitution* acceptable to the churches of the Reformation today, or can it at least be regarded as a step in the direction towards a solution of the controversy? Our answer must be: It presents a good starting point for a serious dialogue between Rome and the evangelical churches, but not more. It helps to clarify the issues to formulate the real status controversiae. What is the point at issue? We do not deny the existence of a living tradition in the church. The doctrine is not simply passed on by passing on a book. As the prophetic and apostolic writings have grown out of the oral proclamation of the prophets and apostles, so they are passed on not only as written or printed books, but as the basis of the preaching and teaching of the Church. Such tradition must have existed already in the time of the Old Testament….

[For the sake of brevity, we have omitted here a portion of Sasse’s address where he talks about the likely conduits of ‘oral tradition’ among the people of God in the OT, culminating in the meditations of the pious common people.]

When we speak of tradition we should not only think of the apostolic tradition in the New Testament, but also of the tradition which kept the written Word of God alive in the centuries before Christ. There are, of course, traditions of various natures. There were in Jerusalem the traditions of the Sadducees who regarded only the Torah as God’s word and had very strong liturgical interests. There was the tradition of the Pharisees, and again among them various schools of thought. There was the tradition kept in the Rabbinic schools. There were the simple people in whom the hope of the fathers lived. Mary and Joseph, Zacharias and Elisabeth, Simeon and Hannah may be found among them. In these circles the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis were sung. They were the first to recognise the Messiah while the guardians of Jewish orthodoxy put him to death.

Tradition stood against tradition. The psalms, the prophets were interpreted differently by the different traditions, just as later the Petrine texts of the Gospels were differently interpreted by the traditions of the East and the West. It is the same with the oral teaching of the prophets. Jeremiah proclaimed the destruction of Jerusalem. He was denounced as a false prophet. Had not Isaiah prophesied just the opposite and been vindicated by the events? Jeremiah regarded the prophets of a happy end at his time as false prophets. The people at Jerusalem were confused. Where was the divinely appointed infallible teaching office to decide this issue with authority? Who was to decide in the earthly days of our Lord whether his claim was right or wrong? If a clear decision might have been expected anywhere, then it was in the Sanhedrin where the learned doctors of Scripture and the most eminent religious leaders of God’s people constituted the highest spiritual authority which existed in the world at that time. Their decision was wrong.

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* The new constituion being Dei verbum, the 'Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation' approved by Vatican II and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 18 Novemeber, 1965.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? The Meaning of the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation IVF Graduates Fellowship, Syndey, 1967, pp.19-20.

Concerning the Unity of the Lutheran Church

2011-01-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Would it not be appropriate at this time, that people on all [different] sides should first pause and study again the Lutheran confession, and honor it? It is, indeed, still a powerful force in the churches of our faith in America. Behind the formulas of the old orthodoxy, which is still vital there, and of modern fundamentalism, which attempts to seep into Lutheranism from the Reformed environment; lies buried the Lutheran faith, which can still distinguish between Law and Gospel, and which knows what the means of grace are. But nobody knows what will become of the next generation, if the fleeting agreement of [various] theological schools, with its pseudo confession made [only] for the [present] moment, takes the place of consensus of the Church which lasts over time, as the Lutheran confessions express it. It is a false concept of unity in doctrine, if a complete uniformity in the explanation of all passages of the Bible with dogmatic content is demanded, and if this demand is justified with the warning of Paul, That you at all times speak unitedly, and do not let divisions be among you, but rather hold firmly to one another in one mind and in one belief. (1 Cor. 1:10). It is the same false concept of doctrinal unity, if one directs the warning That you watch those, who start divisions and disagreements contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and avoid them. (Rom 16:17) toward every brother in faith who has a different theology. The teaching which Paul mentions in both passages is clearly the pure doctrine of the gospel, the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the doctrine of justification of the sinner, which he announced in Corinth with Peter and Apollos, although he did not come from the same theological school as these men. These passages, and equally the great passage about the unity of the church in Ephesians 4, which are the basis for article 7 of the Augsburg Confession, really assert clearly nothing else at all than that which the Lutheran Church has found in them, the consensus de doctrina evangelii et de administratione sacramentorum. But what is here called doctrina should really be clear: not a theological theory about the gospel together with a system of theories about all the questions connected with it, but rather the teaching or the gospel itself, which happens in the church in the pulpit and lectern, in the confessional and in pastoral counseling. There, where the unity of the church of Christ is at all, there is also the unity of the Lutheran Church to be sought. Thus the great satis est of the 7th article of the Augsburg Confession is also the foundation of all unity among Lutherans. What this satis est includes in particular, what the consensus about the teaching of the gospel is in detail, this is what the confessions of our church tell us. Therefore, these confessions are, as they are collected in the Book of Concord, the only means of real ecclesiastical unification for the Lutherans of the world.

Letters to Lutheran Pastors, No. 25, Concerning the Unity of the Lutheran Church Pentecost 1952 (Trans. by Rev. Matthew Harrison)

Available on-line here:
http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/unitylut.htm

Sasse to Hebart, Christmas 1948

2011-01-01T01:13:00.000-08:00

Due to the pressure of pastoral duties at this time of year, our regular posting schedule here at 'What Sasse Says' has been interrupted. In order to fill the void I am posting a fascinating letter Sasse wrote to Dr Siegfried Hebart in Australia in December, 1948. "Doc" Hebart, as he was affectionately known here by his students, completed his doctorate under Werner Elert at Erlangen before WWII and doubtless was known to Sasse from that period. He was later instrumental in bringing Sasse out to teach at Immanuel Seminary in Adelaide, where Hebart was Principal for many years. Sasse alludes to this development in his letter. Sasse also mentions developments in the American Lutheran Church following J. Michael Reu's death in 1944. The United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia and the ALC were in fellowship, and Dr Reu had been a correspondent with Sasse and also with many UELCA leaders (owing to political and geographical factors, during World War I and for some time after a pastor in Queensland served as treasurer for a mission in Papua New Guinea which the Iowa Synod supported and which Reu was deeply involved in).

This letter is Matthew Harrison's translation and was first posted on his blog (link provided in right hand column under 'Other On-Line Sasse Resources'). We hope Rev Harrison doesn't mind us repeating his posting here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prof. D. Hermann Sasse Erlangen, December 23, 1948[1]
Rathsberger Strasse 4

The Rev. Dr. Siegfried Hebart
Principal, Immanuel Theological Seminary
104 Jeffcott Street
North Adelaide

Highly Honored, Dear Brother Hebart!

As I wrote to Dr. Stolz, it was my intention as soon as I could to send you a Christmas greeting. But the great work load during the semester already ended because of the shortage of coal, and the terrible agitation which accompanied the fate of my students who are members of the Schwabach Convent, I failed to write. Thus you receive this greeting in the new year.

May this coming year be for you, your dear wife and for the entire Lutheran Church of Australia a blessed year, an Annus Domini in the deepest sense. If God wills, this year will bring us into the fellowship of work at your seminary. We have prepared ourselves should this be our last Christmas in Germany.

If I could wish only one thing for your church, then it is this, that you very clearly hold the course laid out for you by your origin and your history: to be a Lutheran church clear in Confession, and independent from the political powers of the world, ecumenical and confessionally true in the sense of the 7th article of the Augsburg Confession, in oder to face the great questions of modern humanity.

That is the deep distress of our American sister churches, that they either live in a ghetto or that they sink into modernistic Americanism. I am deeply troubled over the development of the ULC in respect to theology since the dismissal and death of Knubel. What has occurred in Maywood, Springfield and Mount Airy, which I have visited again, can only cause concern for the future of these important branches of American Lutheranism. And in the ALC the decline is evident since Reu’s death. Bodensieck has taken his place. He’s a dear man but in respect to dogmatics he advocates a Lutheranism which hailed the completely unionistic decisions of Treysa II as a miracle of the Holy Spirit…. You can inquire of Behnken or Elert, if you hear any political slander about me

Your faithful, H. Sasse

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Huss/Feuerhahn Collection. Trans. Matthew Harrison.

What Made Me Lutheran

2010-12-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

The thing that enabled my generation (I was ordained exactly thirty years ago) to enter the preaching office - even after we'd had to bury in the battlefields of Flanders the religious philosophy which as students we had learned instead of genuine theology - was the conviction that we were to proclaim not our religion, but the simple word of the Bible, on which we had learned to depend and trust. What made Lutherans out of some of us - maybe even many of us - was the realisation that gradually dawned upon us as we studied the Bible and prepared our sermons that Christendom had never been given a purer, more profound exposition of Holy Scripture than in the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 14, On the Doctrine of Holy Scripture, (August 1950).

A Confession Is Nothing, Unless It Is Confessed

2010-12-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

… In every church there can be and exists error, and even heretical opinions may occur. Every church is confronted with the problem how to deal in an evangelical way with such errors. What matters is, whether or not a church is prepared to maintain its doctrinal standard, whether it regards its confession as a real confession, and not only as a statute valid before men. I can assert a confession only if I believe it. …Training future pastors belongs to the highest ecclesiastical functions. The confessional obligation of the faculty of St. Louis is obviously different from that of Upsala where the chair of church history was occupied by a Methodist, to take only this example. Here lies for me the root of all differences between Missouri and the LWF churches. For you a confession is nothing, unless it is confessed…

Hermann Sasse, in a letter to Dr John W. Behnken, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, March 1, 1958.

HT Rev. Matthew Harrison
http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/12/sasse-to-behnken-for-you-confession-is.html

The Primacy of Scripture

2010-12-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

If there is no Bible - as God's Word, as Scripture - in which and through which God speaks to men, then there is no theology, which is man's speaking about God. And if Holy Scripture does not exist as the source and norm of church doctrine, then there is no church doctrine, and therefore there is no church. For this reason then, there is no more burning issue for the Evangelical Lutheran Church today than the doctrine of Holy Scripture.

From Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 14 (1950), On the Doctrine of Holy Scripture

Why Are There Different Interpretations of Scripture?

2010-11-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

How it is possible for Christians who really want to obey this Word, and seriously ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten them, to arrive at contradicting conclusions as to the meaning of a certain passage no one can know. The reason is not, as the Catholic churches claim, the lack of an infallible teaching office which through the unfailing enlightenment of the Holy Spirit is able to decide authoritatively which exegesis is right and which is wrong. Otherwise, one should expect that the churches which reject the sola Scriptura, the church of Rome and the Eastern churches, would agree which that infallible teaching office is. The reason is rather to be found in the nature of God's revelation. God's Word always comes to us hidden in his humanity. Thus, not by our own reason, but rather by the grace of the Holy Spirit, can we perceive the divine truth in faith. This applies also to the understanding of God's Word by the Reformers. Thay are fallible like us.

From This Is My Body, Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Revised Australian Edition, Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide, 1977) p.232.

This comment occurs towards the end of the chapter which features Sasse's reconstruction of the Marburg Colloquy, at which Luther and the Swiss reformer Zwingli famously failed to reach doctrinal agreement on the Lord's Supper. Such doctrinal disagreements among churches generally classified as Protestant are often pointed to by Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox as evidence of the practical failure of the Reformation's formal or scripture principle. Sasse's response is in line with the response of classical Lutheran dogmatics to these criticisms, viz. to draw attention to the difference between the objective clarity of scripture, which cannot be denied, and the degree of subjective clarity gained by the interpreter under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which will often be imperfect and even subject to error. For a further, helpful elucidation of the confessional Lutheran position on the clarity of scripture, see the discussion in chapter three of Principles of Biblical Interpretation in the Lutheran Confessions by Ralph Bohlmann (rev. ed. CPH, 1983; pp53-63.)

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The doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church of Australia on Scripture and Inspiration, which was approved in 1951 and to which Dr Sasse contributed significantly, can be found here: http://www.lca.org.au/resources/cticr/dsto1a17a19.pdf

Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper

2010-11-23T02:13:00.000-08:00

In his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, Calvin tries to find the via media between Luther and Zwingli. Already in the first edition of the Institutio, which appeared in the year of the Wittenberg Concord, his doctrine was almost complete. Without mentioning names, he rejects the understanding of the Words of Institution held by Luther on the one hand, and by Zwingli and Oecolampadius on the other hand. Neither is the bread the body or the body is the bread, nor is the bread a mere sign or figure of the body. In the Sacrament 'we are spiritually fed', that is, our souls are fed with the body and blood of the Lord. There is no Real Presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament, as Luther believes, for the body of Christ exists, locally circumscribed, in heaven.

From This Is My Body, Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Revised Australian Edition, Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide, 1977), pp261-262.

Compiler's note: These words are a masterpiece of condensation - Sasse succeeds, in about 150 words, where others who have written books on the subject have failed - he has pinned down Calvin's doctrine of the sacrament.

Extra-Scriptural Marian Revelations

2010-11-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

I am not a Catholic, but a simple Lutheran who reads and meditates daily on the Bible and Luther's Catechism. As such I have so much love and respect for the mother of my Lord that I cannot believe that she, the humble handmaiden of the Lord who became the 'Theotokos', the Mother of God, could ever give such messages. The mouth who spoke the Magnificat could not say, 'I am the Immaculate Conception', to confirm the dogma of Pius IX. Still less could she say what the Madonna of Fatima said, referring to the punishments of God in World War I:

In order to stop that I shall come to ask for the consecration of the world to my Immaculate Heart...The outlook is gloomy. But there is a ray of hope: My immaculate heart will triumph.

One is reminded of the messages from beyond allegedly given through a spiritistic medium by great men of history whose mind seems to have deteriorated in the world of the spirits. Whatever that holy occultism of Lourdes and Fatima may mean - in both cases politics were involved, the politics of the Second Empire in France, and the politics of Portugal and the Pyrenean peninsula and even of European Catholicism as a whole since 1917 - in any case these revelations were not divine. Not the true and living God has spoken in these events, but human beings or, what is still worse, superhuman minds through the mouths of weak children.

From Holy Church or Holy Writ? The Meaning of the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation (Sydney, IVF Fellowship (Australia) 1967).

The Lutheran Church Has No Dogma of 'The Sacraments'

2010-11-09T04:04:00.000-08:00

"It is noteworthy that the Reformed confessions used to have an article on the Sacraments before dealing with the individual sacraments. The Lutheran Church has no dogma de sacramentis. In the Augsburg Confession an article on the use (or purpose) of the Sacraments follows the articles on Baptism, the Lord's Supper, Confession and Penance. At any rate, the attempts to understand the Sacrament of the Altar from the general concept of a sacrament should be abandoned; they have no biblical foundation. It is really astonishing that the churches which claim the sola Scriptura so emphatically, as e.g. the Calvinistic churches, have accepted so much from Augustine without asking whether or not these doctrines are truly scriptural. How amazing is the power of tradition in the church!"

From This Is My Body, Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, footnote 10, p 21 (Revised Australian Edition, 1977, Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide).

Blog Editor's Note: This footnote, which begins on page 19 of the Australian edition and continues over three pages, is a short essay in itelf, and must be one of the most remarkable footnotes in modern theology. Sasse concludes that Augustine's influence on Calvinistic, Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of the sacraments has been disastrous.

Why is Luther the Greatest of the Church's Teachers?

2010-11-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

...exactly why is Luther the greatest in what has been a long line of teachers in the church who have proclaimed the Word of God from generation to generation? It is because none of the others understood the Word of God so profoundly. The Word of God is greater than human words, which have limitations. The time will come when nobody remembers Homer, or Shakespeare or Goethe, but the Word of God will endure forever. Human words can certainly accomplish much - the command of a powerful ruler or of a general can decide the fate of nations, but sooner or later their power ceases to be. No mere human word is almighty. But God's Word is always living and active because it is the Word of the eternal, almighty God, the Word through which all things were created. It is the Word of the Judge of all who live. It is the Word of forgiveness, the Word of redemption, the Word which no human word can contradict. It is the Word which, as John says, has become flesh in Jesus Christ. He is himself the eternal Word of God; 'his name', it is written in Revelation (19:13), 'is called the Word of God'. To proclaim the Word of God is to proclaim Jesus Christ. 'To him all of the prophets bear witness', according to the apostle Peter (Acts 10:43). 'We preach Christ crucified' says Paul in regard to the preaching of the apostles (1 Cor 1:23). He, Jesus Christ, is the content of the church's preaching - that he is the Redeemer and the Lord is the proclamation of the teachers of the church from its very beginning. That is the message which has been handed down from one generation to another. The proclaimers come and go, but the proclamation itself remains the same: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. That and nothing else is the content of the Christian proclamation. Luther again and again reminded the church of this - a church which had forgotten it, and indeed which had almost buried the one Word of God under so many human words of religion and philosophy.

Luther is one of the great Christologists, the great witnesses to Christ in the church. Like the great theologians of the early church - an Irenaeus or an Athanasius - he stood in reverence before the great mystery of God's revelation: 'the Word became flesh' (John 1:14); 'great is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16). All of his life Luther stood prayerfully and reverently before the incomprehensible mystery of the person of Jesus Christ, 'where God and man meet and all fullness appears'. What the Greek fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries acquired by deep study of Holy Scripture with reverent and prayerful meditation, what the ancient church confessed in her ecumenical councils and stated contrary to the reasoning of philosophy - that Jesus Christ is true God, God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, of one being with the Father, and at the same time true man - Luther thought through these powerful truths and took them even further in his theology in connection with the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. However, he tried to speak of these things so clearly and simply that even the simplest Christian - yes, even a child - could grasp them. 'He whom the world could not contain, lies on Mary's lap. He who upholds all things becomes a little child'. That is the teaching of Nicea. Or we think of how Luther expressed the doctrine of Chalcedon, the teaching of the two natures of Christ, in his catechism - 'I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord...' This explanation of the second article of the creed has been called by some the most beautiful sentence in the German language - it is the most beautiful sentence in the German language, but not only because of its structure, which reveals a master of language, but also because of its content. Here we find the eternal Word of God, the eternal Gospel: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

From a sermon given on Reformation Day 1943 in Erlangen, Germany.

Reformation Day

2010-11-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

When Evangelical Germany celebrated Reformation Day for the first time, on the eve of the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, October 31st, 1617, the sermon text in many churches was our epistle text from the 13th chapter of Hebrews. We can read in the old reports of this festival, and the later commemorations in the 17th century, how our fathers then understood the festival of Reformation Day and how they commemorated it. It certainly wasn't then what it was to become in the 18th and 19th centuries, that is, a celebration honouring the work of man. No, they didn't celebrate the Reformation as a human accomplishment, but as the work of God. If people thought of Luther, it was not as a national hero, nor a genius, but as the instrument of God, the faithful servant through whom God restored the Holy Gospel to Christendom. Because they didn't honour the man, but gave the glory to God, this festival was a day of praise and thanksgiving, just as the 17th century - the most difficult time in German history - was the century of great praise and thanksgiving hymns.

From a sermon given in Erlangen, Germany, on Reformation Day, 1943.

Synergism & Catholicism II

2010-10-25T20:27:00.001-07:00

This synergistic character of the cult of Mary has become more and more evident, especially since the titles of co-redeemer and mediatrix of all graces have been given to her. Since Benedict XV, a feast and mass of Maria mediatrix omnium gratiarum (May 31) have been granted to many dioceses, and the proclamation of the corresponding dogma is demanded by a growing number of Catholics.

From This Is My Body, Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Original edition published by Augsburg, Minneapolis 1959; quote taken from 'Revised Australian Edition', Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide 1977, p.17, footnote 8.)

Note: A few years after Sasse's words were published, the Vatican II document Lumen gentium referred to Mary has Christians' "Mediatrix", a title which was repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994). John Paul II often referred to Mary as "co-redemptrix" in his public utterences, a belief apparently shared by Benedict XVI, given his occasional references, since ascending the papal throne, to Mary as "co-operating in the mystery of our redemption". it is known that several million signatures have been collected in petition for this belief to be defined as a dogma, but ecumenical considerations seem to have prevented that from happening to date (see http://www.zenit.org/article-5650?l=english).

Synergism and Catholicism

2010-10-18T22:54:00.001-07:00

"If we ask how it is possible that the 'tradition' of the sacrifice of the mass could arise, and gain such an authority that up to the Reformation practically no theologian and no Christian, except a few Waldensians, had any doubts about it, our answer can only be this: The whole idea is another expression of that synergism which entered the church so early, and which became the most characteristic feature of Catholicism, Eastern and Western. Just as the sola gratia and sola fide of the New Testament were abandoned in favour of the theory that in the process of salvation God and man, divine grace and human freedom must cooperate; just as Mary's fiat(Luke 1:38) was regarded as the necessary human answer to God's redeeming will, so the mass became a sacrifice in which Christ the High Priest and the human priest work together."

From This Is My Body, Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Augsburg Publishing House 1959; publication rights assigned to Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide 1975; qoutation taken from the Revised Australian Edition 1977, page 17.)

As I write this, Mary MacKillop, Australia's first Roman Catholic 'saint', is being canonised in Rome. It seems to me that if Sasse were writing today, he would be pointing to the continued practice of canonising saints as evidence for Rome's continued adherence to synergism. For Rome the saints, through their exhibition of "heroic virtue", have perfected grace and merited final justification, and thus gained immediate entry into heaven upon death.

Why the Missouri Synod Was A Missionary Church

2010-10-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

"It was the context in which Lutherans found themsleves in the American Midwest - where a land quickly opened up for settlement was subsequently swamped by immigrants from all the European nations and churches - which made the Lutheran Church there a missionary church. In this context, the church had to gain her members through missionary outreach, and her congregations were, like all churches in the US, gatherings, assemblies or societies of individuals who had consciously decided to belong to the church of their choice. This is the distinctly American trait in the character of the Missouri Synod, which derives from the history of that nation, and the same trait is found in all the other Lutheran synods of western America. However, it is given its strongest expression in the Missouri Synod, for this version of Lutheranism possessed that which in a mission situation really makes a church a missionary church: the awareness of a particular calling and a firm conviction about what is to be believed (dogma), which alone makes missionary preaching possible. The self-understanding of the early Missourians (lit. the Stephanite church) of being a remnant of pure Lutheranism was refined through catastrophe and by Walther's preaching and pastoral care into a truly Lutheran consciousness of being church - an assembly standing on the foundation of justifying grace and drawing its life from the means of grace. This explains the Missouri Synod's awareness of a particular calling and the dogmatic conviction that is inseparably bound up with it - which is tied to Lutheran Orthodoxy*."

*Sasse begins this section of his essay by noting the profound influence of Lutheran Orthodoxy on the founder of the Missouri Synod, Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther.

From Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 20, July 1951 [trans. mine].

On the early history of the Missouri Synod and the genesis of its distinctive polity, see Carl Mundinger, Government in the Missouri Synod, CPH 1947). Sasse gives high praise to this book in the essay; it had no doubt helped him to a better understanding of the Missouri Synod, which represented a style of churchmanship quite different from what Sasse was used to in the state churches of Germany. Sadly, this interesting book is no longer in print; one wonders if CPH could not re-print a heritage edition?

We do not mean by the title of this post to imply that the Missouri Synod is no longer a missionary church. The original impetus to home missions that marked the early decades of the Missouri Synod has since blossomed into a concern to foster confessional Lutheranism internationally, including close connections to infant churches on the African and Asian mission fields - witness the significant presence of leaders from these chuch bodies at Pr Matthew Harrison's recent installation as president of the LC-MS.

The Missouri Synod's Missionary Endeavours

2010-09-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Lutheran Church does not exist merely to be the church of those who happen by accident of birth and upbringing to bear the stamp "Lutheran". Rather, it is her calling to proclaim the Gospel, as it was re-discovered during the Reformation and is witnessed to in the Lutheran confessions, to all the people she can possibly reach. This is being done by Missouri today in a particularly effective, impressive way in the world-wide, missionary radio program The Lutheran Hour. In a similar way, the school system of the Missouri Synod gives evidence of this will to engage in missionary endeavours. A large percentage of the children who attend the excellent congregational schools of this church rather than the public schools come from non-Lutheran backgrounds. In this way each congregation is a centre of missionary activity and is indeed conscious of itself as such. This accounts for the steady growth of the Missouri Synod in all parts of America, as well as the fact that this church body more than any other Lutheran church is able to attract those of other confessions and the unchurched. These undeniable realities ought to move other Lutheran church bodies to study the Missouri Synod instead of getting agitated over the fact that Missouri is not asleep like they are!

From Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 20, (July 1951); [trans. mine]

The Missouri Synod and Heterodox Lutheranism

2010-09-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

"The Missouri Synod Lutheran cannot understand why a rightly called but heterodox pastor, one who is thus Lutheran in name only, is allowed to lead an entire congregation, even an entire generation of the flock that has been entrusted to his care, into heterodoxy or even apostacy, while the ecclesiastical authorities stand silently by or even maintain that the congregation is after all still Lutheran because the doctrine (publica doctrina) of the Lutheran Church still has official standing in it. Who can disagree with the Missouri Lutheran on this point? Who has the right to prevent the Gospel being preached to souls deceived by others?"

Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod, Letters to Lutheran Ppastors No. 20, July 1951).

Sasse goes on to note that conflicts often arose when other Lutherans perceived the Missouri Synod to be proselytising, but also notes Missouri's willingness to be self-critical in this matter ("to confess its sins") and concludes that the mistakes sometimes made by the Missouri Synod stemmed from her recognition of the missionary imperative of the Lutheran Church, which meant that she could never rest content with a merely "historical" Lutheranism.

For background on the different approaches to the Lutheran confessions in American Lutheranism, see Charles Arand, Testing the Boundaries: Windows to Lutheran Identity (CPH, 1995). In a period where other Lutherans were slowly moving to relativise the confessions on historical grounds, thus weakening their doctrinal authority, Missouri sought to maintain the confessions as doctrinal norms, the norma normata, adherence to which distinguishes orthodoxy from heterodoxy.

Sasse on the Missouri Synod: A Missionary Church

2010-09-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

"With its roots in the agricultural region of the Midwest, where in some parts Lutheranism is almost more "of the people" than in many so-called "people's churches" (Volkskirche) of Europe, the Missouri Synod, like every true missionary church, has grown far beyond her historical origins. But she is a missionary church in a sense which cannot be said of any other Lutheran church. This is one of her most profound characteristics...Missouri is the church of home missions among Lutheran churches. Where other Lutheran churches, following the older Lutheran ethos, always have in view the Christian in his "state" (Stand), to which belongs not only his nationality and vocation but also his religious home, the Missouri Synod instead sees the individual soul, which is to be converted to Christ and incorporated into the church."

From Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No.20, July 1951 (originally published in German in the Lutherische Blaetter).

--+--

Compiler's Note: This is a profoundly sympathetic observation by Sasse, in which he goes to the essence of what distinguishes the Missouri Synod from almost every other Lutheran church body - its zeal to see the pure Gospel have free course to impact the world, which makes Missouri a truly evangelical church. It's a remarkable insight for a German theologian raised in a state church and educated in the German university system, although by this time (1951) Sasse had been a member of a Lutheran freikirche in Germany and was teaching at Immanuel Seminary in Adelaide, the theological institution of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (UELCA). But this church body was not necessarily sympathetic to the Missouri Synod, being an amalgamation of diverse and sometimes disparate strands of German and Scandinavian Lutheranism that had come together slowly over 80 years
(1846-1921) in various mergers, often in conscious opposition to the local Missouri-aligned church body. Sasse's essay, then, must have raised some eyebrows not only amongst Lutherans in his native land but also in his newly adopted church body, although it undoubtedly gained him an appreciative audience in the Synodical Conference in the US and in the local Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (ELCA), which was then in fellowship with the churches of the Synodical Conference.

--+--

As an Australian Lutheran writing today, one is compelled to note that the tensions Sasse pointed out as existing at the time between "Missourian Lutheranism" and "World Lutheranism" (my terms) continue to exist not only on the world stage but also in microcosm in the Lutheran Church of Australia, which formed in 1966 through a merger of the aforementioned UELCA and ELCA, a union to which Sasse contributed substantially. These tensions are exemplified by the LCA's current associate membership in both the Lutheran World Federation and also the LC-MS sponsored International Lutheran Council.

--+--

God willing, we will post some more excerpts from this fascinating essay on the Missouri Synod. It seems a fitting topic to focus on following the installation on the 11th of September of the Sasse scholar, Pr Matthew Harrison, as President of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod.

The Reformed View of the Lutheran Church

2010-09-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

"The Reformed conception of an evangelical church embracing both Lutherans and Reformed has come to have considerable importance in the history of the church. It has determined the ecclesiastical policy which the Reformed Church has adopted in its dealings with Lutherans from the days of Zwingli and Calvin down to the present. This explains the persistent struggle of Calvin and his followers for recognition, in the Religious Peace of 1555, as adherents of the Augsburg Confession. This explains the opposition of the "Great Elector"to the distinction between the "Reformed" and the "adherents of the Augsburg Confession" in the Peace of Westphalia, and his advocacy of the term "Evangelical" as a common designation for both Lutheran and Reformed. This explains too, why none of the German Reformed princes had any conscientious scruples at all about converting, or merging, the Lutheran Church of their territory into a Calvinistic church...for every genuine Calvinist, the Lutherans do not form another church, but only a backward part of the one evangelical, refomed church, which needs help to finish what is still wanting to make it completely reformed."

Hermann Sasse, Here We Stand, Nature and Character of the Lutheran Faith (trans T. Tappert), Augsburg Publishing House, 1946, rights later assigned to Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide.

Ecumenism or Unionism?

2010-08-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Allow me to clarify the dogmatic-confessional problem of the Lutheran Church by noting one of the many ecumenical plans which in our day, especially on the mission field and in the great lands of immigration such as Australia, are supposed to solve the church's problem. The "World Council of Churches" indeed assures us that it does not desire to be a "super church," and that it also refused to be, as Dr. Leiper says, a "marriage beaurue" for churches. Thus in the theses of Toronto regarding the ecclesiological significance of the World Council of Churches, III.2, it states: "The task of the Council is not to facilitate union between churches. Such negotiations can only be carried out by the churches themselves at their own initiative. Its task is to bring the churches into a living perception of each other, and thus to promote study and the discussion of questions of church unification." (Translated from "The Ecumenical Revue" III, No. 1, Oct. 1950, p. 48). This thesis is explained by the following: "By its very existence and activity the Council bears witness to the necessity of a clear manifestation of the unity of the church of Christ. But it remains the right and duty of each individual church on the basis of its ecumenical experience to come to those conclusions which they themselves believe they must come to on the basis of their own convictions. No church, therefore, needs to fear that the Council will necessitate decisions from them regarding unification with other churches" (ibidem). It is stated thereby that the World Council is in fact something like a match-maker, where the partners are brought together and encouraged to express decisions regarding future marital agreements. The ecumenical movement, which a quarter century ago facilitated the encounter of the churches, the new ordering of their mutual relationships and their common consciousness of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church as confessed in the Nicaenum, has in large measure thereby become a union movement in which the tragedy of all such union movements is repeated: Instead of reducing the number of churches, the number is increased through the founding of new churches, just as after 1817 in Germany out of the Lutheran and Reformed [Churches] something like five union churches of various confession had been created. And the unification is not unification in faith, but rather unification in doubt, namely the famous "agree[ment] to disagree" [ Sasse's original states this in English. Trans.]. Just what such a church looks like is shown by the plan for a "Reunited Church" of Australia, which on the basis of the Union of South India and the plan for other union churches in the far east has been worked out by the "Commission for Faith and Order" with the "Australian Council of the World Council of Churches" and in fully official manner set before the ecumenical sessions of this year, especially the Faith and Order Conference in Lund, and commended to the churches of Australia.

The "Reunited Church" is to consist of member churches which, to a certain extent, retain their independence, but mutually acknowledge each other's faith and the validity of their respective offices. Each particular church delegates certain powers to the larger church [Gesamtkirche]. This has already been realized in Germany in the EkiD, and this is why the EkiD enjoys such great favor through the ecumenical movement.

From The Deconfessionalization of Lutheranism, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 22, New Year, 1952. Translation by Rev. Matt Harrison, graciously made available to Confessional Lutherans Australia and avilable in full at their website here: http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/deconfes.htm

Compiler's comment: The "Reunited Church" in Australia which Sasse mentions did not eventuate, one of the principal reasons being the then numerically dominant Anglican Church's insistence on a three-fold ordering of ministry. In 1977, however, in frustration with the lack of progress towards external unity, the majority of Australian Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists united and formed the Uniting Church of Australia. A significant number of confessional Presbyterians, and a lesser number of independent-minded evangelical Congregationalists and Methodists, remained out of the union,and have prospered since. Thus it was that the formation of the "Uniting Church" actually led to two or three new denominations dotting the Australian ecclesiatical landscape, depending on whether one counts the Congregationalists as a denomination.

More recently, the same Uniting Church has been plagued by conflict and division between its evangelicals and liberals over the matter of the approval of homosexual relationships. Thus, differences over the authority of scripture and methods of interpretation which were papered over in 1977 in the interests of union have since been revealed in all their starkness. Rather than serving as a light on the hill of unity, as originally envisaged, and drawing others to itself, the Uniting Church now serves as a beacon warning those with eyes to see of the rocks on which the hopes of unionism can be dashed.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church: A Lamp Stand for God's Word & Gospel

2010-08-09T01:18:00.000-07:00

It so happens that the people who lived in the Age of the Reformation knew and understood certain truths which were later forgotten and had to be learned from them again. The loyalty of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is accounted for by these experiences. We are faithful to this church, not because it is the church of our Fathers, but because it is the church of the Gospel; not because it is the church of Luther, but because it is the church of Jesus Christ. If it became something else, if its teaching were something other than a correct exposition of the plain Word of God, it would no longer be our church.
It is not the Lutheran liturgy that matters. The church can get along without it if it must. It is not the Symbolic Books that count. If it should ever be demonstrated that they contain essential errors, we would be the first ones to cast them into the fire, for our norma normans, the standard by which we judge doctrines, is the Bible alone. Nor is it the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as a separate church in Christendom, that matters. The moment it becomes anything else than the stand on which is put the lamp which alone is a light upon our path, it becomes a sect and must disappear. We would not be Lutherans if we did not believe this!

From Here We Stand, Nature & Character of the Lutheran Faith (E.T. Theodore Tappert, rights assigned to Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide, 1979)

The Confessional Conscience & The Lutheran Church

2010-07-26T04:40:00.000-07:00

Nowhere is the secularization of the Lutheran Church more visible than in the loss of her confessional conscience. In these letters we have often recounted that and why the Lutheran Church is a confessional church kat exochen. The confession means for her more than it does for the Reformed, indeed, in many respect even more than for the [Roman] Catholics. The Reformed Churches can survive if the confession is relativized, when it is stated: "We do not know precisely whether next Sunday we will continue to interpret Scripture in the way we do today." Catholicism actually celebrates a triumph when a dogma is proclaimed by the pope, the correctness of which is doubted by many of the best Catholics and which they then in worthy obedience accept, though they themselves know that the proof of tradition is defective and therefore doubtful. Both these groups [Reformed and Roman] lack that ultimate seriousness regarding the question of truth, which was the proprium of the Lutheran Reformation. We Lutherans are quite happy to boast about this virtue, but perhaps no longer with justification, just as the Swiss still boast of the bravery which their fathers showed on the battle fields of Europe centuries ago. Indeed, the church does not live on from the faith of the fathers. The confession can have a purely historical significance like the flags and uniforms of Hannover. If it is correct that the confessio, the confession of the faith, is indissoluably connected with confessio in the sense of the confession of sin and of the praise of God, is not then our lack of repentance and our lack of joyful praise of God in newer hymns a notable parallel to the regression of the dogmatic confession [of the faith]?

From The De-Confessionalisation of Lutheranism?
Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 22, New Year 1952
Translation by Rev Matthew Harrison graciously made available to 'Confessional Lutherans Australia'. Available on-line here: http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/deconfes.htm

Compiler's Note - Take note of what Dr. Sasse writes about the confession of the faith being indissolubly linked with the confession of sin and doxology. Could it be that the declining sense of sin and the consequent lukewarm praise of God among Lutherans today are intimately connected with the decline of confessionalism? Yes! Whereever the hardened conscience is broken open by the law and the praise of God flows with tears from the forgiven heart, there the Lutheran confessions and their witness to the pure, saving Gospel will never dare be relativised.

The Secularisation of the Church

2010-07-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

...a single illness threatens the Lutheran Churches of the world. It is the very secularization of the church itself. If 25 years ago the secularization of culture was recognized as the great illness of the time, then it is soberly to be asserted today that secularism is now the illness of the church. It is gripping to see that, in order to fulfill the missiological goal of calling the peoples of the west back to the Christian faith, the church itself must first be turned back to this faith. "Sweden's people are God' people." That was the solution a generation ago. Today the question is to what extent the Church of Sweden is still the church of God? And so it is in all nations. Great missionary endeavors and evangelization efforts will still be carried out, but it is precisely the most serious evangelists who are coming to the conviction that the gospel preaching church must be the first object of their evangelization. This understanding was already once given as a gift to German evangelical churchdom. The consequence of the theology of Karl Barth in the time of his great influence in the first half of the 1930's was based upon this recognition. That was the meaning of his struggle against Dibelius and his "Century of the Church." That was the most profound power of the "Confessing Churches" of all persuasions in Germany, however they may have differed from each other as Lutherans, Reformed, or United [Churches]. That was really the renewal of the Reformation; for Reformation is indeed the repentance of the church.

From The De-Confessionalization of Lutheranism?
Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 22, New Year 1952
Trans. by Rev. Matthew Harrison
Available on-line here: http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/deconfes.htm

Note - Sasse wrote these words almost half a century ago. What would he say today when almost everywhere the Lutheran Church has lost its inner spiritual power and in some places has imported secular methodologies into its mission and evangelism 'programs'? The call to repentance is perhaps more relevant and urgent now than when Sasse urged it upon the church of the 1950s.

The De-Confessionalization of Lutheranism?

2010-07-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Brothers in the Office!

Three years have passed since the first of these letters came into your hands. That letter sought to depict, in brief strokes, the situation faced by the Lutheran Churches as it made note of the two-fold tendency in the most recent history of our church: a strong external ascendance of Lutheranism, which is accompanied by a threatening diminution of the dogmatic-confessional substance. Most of you will agree with me that the developments of the past three years have corroborated this viewpoint. It is to be feared that the meeting of the Lutheran World Federation in Hannover will not contradict this view. How pleased would we all be, all of us who are so very concerned for the future of our church, if this meeting would prove us wrong, if it shall have revealed something of an ascendancy of the inner spiritual life of the church, of a renewal of the old faithfulness to the confession of the eternal truth, which once found a home in Lower Saxony. But from what one reads in "Lutherischen Rundschau" of the preparations in Hanover it appears to be much like the massive marches and manipulating demonstrations which the evangelical churches of Germany inherited from the Third Reich, which satisfy a deep psychological need of modern masses. There is no doubt hat the Hannover session of the Lutheran World Federation will be just as beautiful and enchanting as the Berlin Kirchentag of the EkiD and as the great royal nuptial celebrations of Hannover in previous years. The very same men who in Berlin were so enthused over the unity of the Evangelical Church in German [EkiD] ("We are still brothers!"), will be enthused in Hannover over the Lutheran Church. And they will proudly allow the church banners to stream, among which also is the banner of the LWF with Luther's seal, just as at royal weddings the old Hannoverian flags suddenly fluttered again and the old uniforms of the Hannoverian army of 1866 experienced a remarkable resurrection. What a testimony of loyalty that was! Only it was forgotten that it was all merely a beautiful show [see note -compiler]. The princes no longer rule. The flag of a state was displayed which has long since gone under. The people passionately celebrated a loyalty, which had long since been violated. That is the genius loci of Hannover. Should it also rule the session of the Lutheran World Federation in August? If not, then it is time to exorcise it. We theologians in any case will remain sober and guard ourselves from the enthusiasm which in every form is the mortal enemy of the true faith. With Lutheran sobriety, which means for us at the same time with constant faith in the reality of the Church of God, we desire to seek to understand the situation of Lutheranism regarding a few essential points at the beginning of this fateful year.

From Letters to Lutheran pastors No. 22: 'The De-Confessionalisation of Lutheranism?'(1952); trans. by Rev Matthew Harrison and available in full here: http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/deconfes.htm

Compiler's Note - Sasse must have had in mind the nuptial celebrations of 5th September, 1951, when Prince Ernest Augustus of the House of Hanover married Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The wedding was attended by many royal figures, including the heads of the houses of Saxony, Hesse, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, and Baden, all of whom had long since been deposed from their thrones. The wedding was followed with a reception at Herrenhausen, the only part of Hanover's former palace still intact in the aftermath of World War II. Sasse suggests that the essential meaninglessness of the pomp surrounding such celebrations is comparable to that which surrounds great ecumenical gatherings like the Berlin Kirchentag and LWF Assemblies. It is something which theologians have a responsibility to resist with 'Lutheran sobriety'.

The Historical Context of the 19th Century Church Awakening

2010-06-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

"Talk about the church is every where today. Every one has an inkling that 'Church' is no mere name."[2] With these words Wilhelm Löhe, now nearly 100 years ago in December of 1844, began the forward to his Three Books About the Church. It was a time of questioning about and seeking after the church, the likes of which had not been experienced since the days of the Reformation. It was a time when the modern Roman Catholic Church, in its pilgrimage to Trier,[3] stood before the German nation after its victory over the Enlightenment and national churchism. Friedrich Wilhelm IV[4] called the general synod in Berlin. Lutheranism came to a new realization of its ecclesiastical heritage and its ecumenical task. The Tractarian Movement[5] in Anglicanism experienced its high point and its crisis with the conversion of its great leader, J.H. Newmann, to the Catholic Church. In the Disruption of 1845[6] the Church of Scotland experienced the rebirth of the Reformed Church, and Reformed Protestantism of the world devised its ecumenical program in the Evangelical Alliance.[7] A generation had passed since the end of the Napoleonic wars.[8] In these thirty years the awakening (lasting all in all some forty years) reached the high-point in its rediscovery of the church.

From The Lutheran Doctrine of the Office of the Ministry , c. 1943-44.

[Translated by Pastor Matthew Harrison and available on-line here: http://www.clai.org.au/articles/sasse/offminst.htm]

Note - This is classic Sasse, placing theological developments in their wider historical context and linking disparate church movements together to reveal how the movement of the Spirit oft-times effects all confessions -MH.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes by Pr Matthew Harrison

[1] [This essay is the translation of Die lutherische Lehre vom geistlichen Amt. As of January 1995 it had never been published and was by and large unknown. It had been given in its original type-written manuscript form to Bishop Jobst Schöne by Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf, and Schöne in turn graciously sent a copy to the translator. It was likely written ca. 1943-44, and delivered at a Bavarian pastors' conference.]

[2] [Löhe's Three Books About The Church, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, translated by James Schaff, is again available in print shop form from Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 6600 N. Clinton, Ft. Wayne, IN 46825. Sasse had made a thorough study of this work while studying at Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford Connecticut, in 1924-25.]

[3] [Trier is a Prussian city with an ancient history as a Roman outpost. It is located in a heavily Roman Catholic district and is the seat of the bishop. The city was famous in the nineteenth century for a relic supposed to be the cloak of Christ, and millions made the pilgrimage to view it in 1844 and 1891. Meusel, Handlexikon, v. VI, p. 746.]

[4] [King of Prussia 1840-1857; son of Frederick William III; forced to grant constitution by the revolution of 1848. On July 23, 1845 he issued the "Generalkonzession" which permitted Lutherans who remained separate from the Prussian Union to organize free churches. Concordia Cyclopedia, p. 312. "Viewed from the perspective of the church, Friedrich Wilhelm IV was not only an Evangelical Christian who uprightly confessed his Lord and also had an understanding for the right of confession (as shown by one of his first acts as king, the emancipation of the separated Lutherans), he was absorbed totally in the question of the church." Meusel, Kirchliches Handlexikon. In Verbindung mit einer Anzahl ev.=lutherischer Theologen, Leipzig: Verlag von Justus Naumann, 1889.]

[5] [Roman Catholic revival in the Anglican Church which began at Oxford with the publication of Tracts for the Times. Ninety in all appeared written by Newmann, Froude, Keble, Marriott and Pusey. Newman resigned the Church of England in 1843 and was received in to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. The Tractarian Movement brought a revival and strengthening of the High Church Movement and its emphasis on worship, sacraments, doctrine. The Evangelical Alliance was formed in opposition. , p. 774.]

[6] ["The Free Church of Scotland, largest and most influential, came into being on a national scale in 1843. Those who left (or "came out") of the Established Church in what is called The Disruption claimed to be the true Church of Scotland and made their organization independent of the state, holding that the spiritual liberty and independence of the church were at stake." Concordia Cyclopedia, p. 634.]

[7] ["Formed in London in 1846, among those attending the organizational meeting were F.A.G. Tholuck and S.S. Schmucker. Purpose of the Alliance was to unite ev. Christians, champion liberty of conscience and tolerance, and oppose Roman Catholicism and Tractarianism. Doctrinal articles adopted: 1. the divine inspiration, authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures; 2. the right and duty of private judgement; 3. the unity of the Godhead and the Trinity of divine persons; 4. the total depravity of human nature as a result of the fall; 5. the incarnation of the Son of God, His work of redemption for sinful mankind...; 6. justification only by faith; 7. the work of the Holy Spirit in converting and sanctifying the sinner; 8. the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the final judgment by the Savior, receiving the righteous into eternal life and condemning the ungodly to eternal perdition; 9. the divine institution of the office of the ministry and the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper). The Alliance did not try to unite the churches organically but simply to bring about a closer fellowship of individual Christians. Every member was asked to pray for the common cause on the morning of the 1st day of every week... Concordia Cyclopedia, p. 279-80.]

[8] [Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815.]

Collective Guilt

2010-05-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

The writer of this article remembers a correspondence he had with Cardinal Bea* when the issue** was still under discussion. He asked him not to forget what the Bible teaches about the sin and guilt not only of individual men, but of whole communities and nations, from the preaching of the prophets to the threatening words which Jesus spoke over Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum (Matt. 11:20ff), from the tears he shed over the Holy City (Luke 19:41ff) to the last "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem" (Matthew 23 [:37-39]). Almost every page of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation knows of what we may call with a modern term "collective guilt"...The church can never do without the concept of a collective guilt. Otherwise, we would deny the original sin. How can Adam's sin, as even the Council of Trent teaches, be my own (unicuique poprium) sin if sin and guilt belong only to the individual?

From Ten Years After the Council, Some Thoughts for Ecumenical Discussion, in the Reformed Theological Review (Melbourne), 35:2, May-August 1976.

* Augustin Cardinal Bea (1881-1968), a prominent Roman Catholic Biblical scholar who contributed to the initial renewal of Catholic Biblical studies in the 1930s & '40s and later in his life an influential figure at Vatican II.

** Anti-semitism in the church generally and the lifting of the charge of deicide against the Jewish people by the Roman Catholic Church in the Vatican II document Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Sasse supports that lifting, but is concerned about the theological significance of one of the arguments used by the Council Fathers, viz. that the personal guilt of the Jewish leaders who pressed for the death of Christ cannot without distinction be transferred to their countrymen at the time or their descendants. It is worth noting here that Sasse was one of the first in the German church to speak out publicly against the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis not long after Hitler came to power in 1933. See the 'Bethel Confession', co-authored by Sasse and Bonhoeffer in the second half of 1933 (http://www.lutheranwiki.org/Bethel_Confession).

Note - While acknowledging the validity of Sasse's theological concern here, we might also wonder whether behind this concern with collective guilt there was not also the collective German experience in the aftermath of World War II. We cannot underestimate the moral impact the question of responsibility had on Germans who lived through the war.

Vatican II Not Just a 'Pastoral' Council, But Also a Dogmatic One

2010-05-27T18:27:00.001-07:00

What Pope John* perhaps did not fully realise is the fact that even a mere pastoral council cannot avoid entering the field of the dogma of the church, least of all in the Roman Church, where not only the constitution, but also every ethical decision is rooted in an unalterable dogma. What was possible and what John's council would do in a remarkable way is the avoidance of anathemas which previous councils hurled so liberally against anything which was suppoosed to smell of heresy, from socialism to Bible societies. However, not even the humblest and friendliest of Popes and a truly spiritually minded council can avoid far-reaching dogmatic decisions. So at least two of the documents issued are by nature dogmatic - the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium "light of the nations") and the Dogmatic Constitution on the Divine Revelation (Dei verbum "the Word of God"). Both contain very important doctrinal decisions which every Catholic is obliged to accept, thought it is never stated which articles are to be accepted fide catholica ("as the Catholic Faith").

*Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), the Pope who called the Second Vatican Council and presided over its first sessions before his untimely death.

From Ten Years After the Council, Some Thoughts for Ecumenical Discussion, published in the Reformed Theological Review (Melbourne), 35:1, January-April 1976.

Sasse's Entry: Australian Dictionary of Biography

2010-05-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

SASSE, HERMANN OTTO ERICH (1895-1976), Lutheran pastor and theologian, was born on 17 July 1895 at Sonnewalde, Lower Lusatia (Lausitz), Germany, eldest of five children of Hermann Sasse, pharmacist, and his wife Maria, née Berger. Young Hermann began reading theology and ancient philology at the University of Berlin in 1913. He later maintained that war was his tutor in practical theology: in World War I he was one of only six from his battalion to survive trench warfare in Flanders.

Ordained on 13 June 1920 in St Matthew's Church, Berlin, Sasse worked in several Brandenburg parishes and in 1923 took the licentiate in theology (Berlin); in 1926 as an exchange student at Hartford seminary, Connecticut, United States of America, he obtained a master's degree. On 11 September 1928 in St Nicolai's Church, Oranienburg, Germany, he married Charlotte Margarete Naumann (d.1964). They had three children. During the Depression, Sasse was Sozialpfarrer (pastor with social duties) ministering especially to factory workers in Berlin.

A participant in the ecumenical movement, Sasse was also a delegate and interpreter at the first world conference of the Faith and Order Movement (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1927) and attended the disarmament conference in Geneva (1932). Among the earliest to speak out against Nazism, he was an active if critical member of the Confessing Church Movement, promoted by Martin Niemoeller. In 1933 Sasse and his younger colleague Dietrich Bonhoeffer were among the small but growing church opposition to Hitler. Together they produced the Bethel Confession, which clearly addressed discrimination against the Jews. Next year Sasse left the synod that produced the Barmen Declaration, objecting that the Confessing Movement was wrongly arrogating church authority for itself. In 1933 he had accepted a professorship in church history at the University of Erlangen, Bavaria. His passport was withdrawn in 1935 but his popularity as a lecturer and protection from the dean of the faculty helped him to retain his university post through the Nazi era.

In 1948 Sasse protested at the formation of the Evangelical Church in Germany. His opposition to its policy of restoration rather than renewal, and unease over state-supported university faculties of theology led him to join the Lutheran Free Church. Receiving a call to teach at Immanuel (Luther) Seminary, North Adelaide, he migrated in 1949 to South Australia, where he swung his weight behind efforts to unite Australia's divided Lutheran churches. He devoted his energy and his teaching and writing skills to this cause, and was deeply involved in formulating new agreed doctrinal bases; the church union occurred in 1966. Involved in the German Lutheran community in Adelaide and Melbourne, he assisted many immigrants with pastoral advice and care.

Sasse retained his wider connections and perspectives—he was known as 'Mr Lutheran' in the U.S.A. A correspondence including regular doctrinal and pastoral 'Letters to Lutheran Pastors' across the globe was supported by continuous research, particularly in Scripture as Word of God, and the Eucharist. His reputation for strongly defended conservative stances was balanced by lively personal contacts across denominational boundaries. He involved himself in the Australian Roman Catholic-Lutheran dialogue from its inception. Retiring from the seminary in 1969, in 1972 he was appointed to the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Among Sasse's 479 publications were Here We Stand, published in translation in Minneapolis, U.S.A., in 1946, and This is My Body (Minneapolis, 1959), written in English. He died on 9 August 1976 in a fire at his home in North Adelaide and was buried in Centennial Park cemetery. Two sons survived him. An obituarist described Sasse as 'Australia's most distinguished acquisition from the Continental theological scene'.

Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm

-- + --

Note: This entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, published by the University of Melbourne Press, was authored by Dr Maurice Schild, Sasse's successor in the chair of church history at Luther Seminary, Adelaide. Dr Schild, who completed his doctorate at Heidelberg University in the early 1960s, was my lecturer in church history and Lutheran Confessions at Luther Seminary 1998-2002; I must say that for all his eccentricities, or perhaps because of them, he was one of my two favourite lectuers at the seminary.

During those years at the seminary my family and I lived 50 metres from the site of Sasse's accidental death. As I passed the site almost every day, I often thought of obtaining permission to place a commemorative plaque at the site (historical sites and personages are thus commemorated in Adelaide), but never had the funds to bring this idea to fruition...one day, perhaps. Incidentally, a visit to the seminary today would never indicate that Sasse ever lectured there, although several lesser lights are commemorated; it is almost as if he is a persona non grata. I was once asked, on the grounds of the seminary, by Matthew Harrison, Sasse's LC-MS champion and translator, why this was the case. I responded that I thought it was because Sasse pricked the consciences of the powers that be; his ardent confessionalism conflicts with the course the LCA has charted since Sasse's death in 1976. This course, in my opinion, is explained not so much by theological imperatives as by the mind-set of German-Australian Lutherans, who value nothing so much as acceptance by and recognition from the Anglo mainstream culture in this country.

Be that as it may be, to my mind, the most intriguing aspect of Sasse's life mentioned here is that which we necessarily know least about, his pastoral work with German migrants to Australia in the post-war years.

Sasse's Gardener

2010-05-09T04:13:00.001-07:00

Would you believe that just the other day I had Sasse's one-time gardener in my car?
Seriously.
Ah, the stories!

Mary's Perpetual Virginity

2010-05-06T22:59:00.001-07:00

The problematic question of Mary's perpetual virginity is connected with the notion of "the virgin inviolate". The ancient church decided, against Helvidius (whom even Zwingli continued to regard as a heretic for this very reason), that Mary remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Jesus, although this was never dogmatically defined. This notion of the perpetual virginity of Mary (semper virgo ) has on occasion been set forth in Roman Catholic doctrinal works, but it was a long-standing theological opinion which Luther and Zwingli simply accepted as a matter of course. It also found its way into the Lutheran confessions, where the semper virgo flowed from the pen of the Latin translator of the Smalcald Articles, who rendered the phrase "of the pure, holy Virgin" with "ex maria pura, sancta, semper virgine" (SA 1/IV). The semper virgo is taught in the Solid Declaration (SD VIII/24)*, but it is certain that this theological tradition cannot be a dogma of the Lutheran Church because it has no scriptural basis. Hollaz made a correct judgment when he wrote that "whether (Mary)...can be called semper virgo also after the birth cannot be incontrovertibly demonstrated from scripture."

From 'Liturgy and Confession, A Brotherly Warning Against the High Church Danger', first published in Lutherische Blaetter, Christmas 1959.

Note - In point of fact, SD VIII/24 does not use the phrase semper virgo: ...quod de virgine, inviolata ipsius virginitate, natus est. Unde et vere Theotokos, Dei genitrix, est et tamen virgo mansit. This appears to have reference to the Virgin Birth rather than to Mary's perpetual virginity. In any case, Sasse is correct that the perpetual virginity of Mary is not a dogma of the Lutheran Church; it remains a pious opinion.

The Marian Cult

2010-05-05T13:35:00.001-07:00

Piepkorn*, at the beginning of his devotion, mentions the Roman Catholic excesses of the cult of Mary, which as they developed clearly began to parallel the Christological doctrines until finally arriving at the doctrine of Mary as the mediatrix of all graces and the co-redemptrix (and also we mention the cult of Mary's heart.) These things not only perplex some pious Catholics, but even Rome looks askance at them!** But this is all the necessary outworking of the cult of Mary in the ancient and medieval church, which many people regard as harmless. Indeed, the poetic, beautiful and highly religious spirit of the simple Marian piety of the past was the road to Christ for many who came out of paganism, just as, for example, Arianism was the road to the orthodox Christian faith for the Germanic peoples; but this does not justify the cult of Mary, which is an aberration of the Christian faith. Our Lord himself rightly limited the veneration of Mary, which was beginning already in his time, when he responded to the woman in the crowd who blessed his mother with the words, "Rather, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it" (Luke 11:27-28, cf. 8:21 & 2:19).

From Liturgy and Confession: A Brotherly Warning Against the High Church Danger, first published in Lutherische Blaetter, Christmas 1959.

*See previous post for biographical information on A.C. Piepkorn.

** It is difficult to know exactly what Sasse means here, since it would seem that Rome has seldom officially sought to quell the excesses of Marian devotion; perhaps he is thinking of private conversations with Roman prelates or theologians. Only five years after Sasse wrote this, Rome officially acknowledged the place of Mary as Mediatrix of graces in Catholic devotion:

"This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix." [Lumen Gentium (Nov 21, 1964), Ch 8, paras 61 & 62].

In this statement of Vatican II, one can clearly see the undertones of synergism that accompany the cult of Mary throughout history and which Sasse criticised elsewhere.

High Churchism, Mary and the Gospel

2010-05-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

A devotion written by Professor A.C. Piepkorn of St Louis* is an especially disturbing indicator of the dangers of the 'High Church' tendency. It is entitled 'Blessed Art Thou Among Women'**, and is an attempt to set forth the true Lutheran position on Mary in opposition to the extremes of Roman Catholic cult of Mary (Marienkult) on the one hand and modern Protestantism's 'excessive downgrading of the Mother of God' (Piepkorn's words) on the other. This is indeed a worthy task, and the three Marian festivals set down in the old Lutheran church calendar, which are simultaneously Christological celebrations, provide ample opportunity to do this. But in light of these celebrations we must note that the position taken on Mary will always be a reliable indicator of the presence of a true or false understanding of the Gospel. In modern Protestantism the Nestorian denial of the doctrine of the Theotokos reveals that this position, even if it bears the name 'Lutheran', no longer understands the doctrine of the person of the God-man. On the other hand, the confession that Mary is indeed the Theotokos isn't yet solid evidence of a true understanding of Christ - for it can be combined with the veneration of Mary, which is always a sin against the 1st Commandment and a challenge to the unique mediatorship of Christ. The cult of Mary (which also took root and grew among the Nestorians), along with the Marian doctrines which have grown from it, is most definitely to be rejected as being in contradiction to the Gospel***.

From Liturgy and Confession, A Brotherly Warning Against the 'High Church' Danger, first published in Lutherische Blaetter (Christmas 1959). [trans. mine]

* Arthur Carl Piepkorn (1907-1973), a scholar and theologian of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, sometime professor of historical theology at the Concordia, St Louis seminary, translator of some of the Lutheran confessional documents for the Tappert English edition of the Book of Concord, and an official participant in the early rounds of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue in the US. Piepkorn was a man of prodigious learning who served as a mentor to a number of LC-MS pastors who later styled themselves 'Evangelical Catholics', some of whom would convert to Roman Catholicism, notably Richard John Neuhaus.
** This devotion is available in the compilation of Piepkorn's essays, 'The Church, Selected Essays By Arthur Carl Piepkorn', edited by Plekon and Weicher and available from the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau.
*** Why, in Sasse's opinion, is Mariology and Marian piety in contradiction to the Gospel? Elsewhere, Sasse links the Marian doctrines and piety directly with synergism, the view that man co-operates with God's grace in obtaining salvation. Sasse believed that the Roman and Orthodox churches, along with some Anglicans, held Mary up as a model of such co-operation.

The Anglican Church Has Lost Her Confession

2010-04-30T17:10:00.001-07:00

The Church of England does not know the Reformation's confession of the Gospel anymore. It is the tragic fate of this church, which is not a "bridge church" but rather an island church, that it can no longer say what the Gospel is with any finality. The various reformations through which this church has passed have perpetuated themselves today in various parties, and each of these parties has in turn broken into still more factions. While the "Low Church" has guarded the Scripture principle, more or less (perhaps less!), the "High Church", especially since the Tractarian Movement of 1833 by which the spirit of Catholicism was revived, has injected the Catholic concept of tradition into the life of this church again. And it is not only the Anglo-Catholics who have given up the sola scriptura, but many in the broad middle church as well. Whenever Anglicanism, with its "High Church" ideas, has influenced Lutheranism there the inheritance of the Reformation has sooner or later been lost.

From Liturgy and Confession, A Brotherly Warning Against the "High Church" Danger. Originally published in the Lutherische Blaetter, Christmas, 1959 [trans mine].

Comment: Is this too harsh a judgment, both on the Church of England and on those Lutheran church bodies influenced by Anglicanism? In the decades since 1959 the accuracy of Sasse's view of the Church of England, and by extension surely Anglicanism in general wherever it is found, as an "island church" rather than a "bridge church" (as she views herself) has become more justifiable. However, more recently the tide of liberal Anglo-Catholicism has receded somewhat, while the influence of the Anglican evangelicals who consciously regard themselves as heirs of the English Reformation has grown. It remains to be seen whether this will result in a genuine renewal of the Reformation Gospel in Anglicanism.

The Evangelical Church is the Catholic Church Purged of Heresy and Abuses

2010-04-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

“Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in that it lays great emphasis on the fact that the evangelical church is none other than the medieval Catholic Church purged of certain heresies and abuses. The Lutheran theologian acknowledges that he belongs to the same visible church to which Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux, Augustine and Tertullian, Athanasius and Ireneaus once belonged. The orthodox evangelical church is the legitimate continuation of the medieval Catholic Church, not the church of the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council which renounced evangelical truth when it rejected the Reformation. For the orthodox evangelical church is really identical with the orthodox Catholic Church of all times. And just as the very nature of the Reformed Church emphasizes its strong opposition to the medieval church, so the very nature of the Lutheran Church requires it to go to the farthest possible limit in its insistence on its solidarity and identity with the Catholic Church. It was no mere ecclesiastico-political diplomacy which dictated the emphatic assertion in the Augsburg Confession that the teachings of the Evangelicals were identical with those of the orthodox Catholic Church of all ages, and no more was it romanticism or false conservatism which made our church anxious to retain as much of the old canonical law as possible, and to cling tenaciously to the old forms of worship.”

Hermann Sasse, Here We Stand, Augsburg Publishing House, 1938, pp. 110-11.

Note: By 'Evangelical' Sasse means Lutheran; in German 'Evangelische' is/was a synonym for Lutheran or more generally for Protestant.

Comment: If the Evangelical Church is the medieval Catholic Church reformed, then the distinctly Roman Catholic Church begins with the Reformation, or more specifically with Rome's authoritative response to the Reformation, the Council of Trent. Roman Catholicism surely reaches its 'apotheosis' with the promulgation of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility at Vatican I in 1870. This doctrine, which exalts the Pope over scripture and history, stands in absolute contrast to the Evangelical rule of faith, which is that scripture alone establishes doctrine (see the relevant entries at 'Lutheran Catholicity' [link from this blog] for patristtic testimony to the primacy of scripture).

Confession & Liturgy

2010-02-07T05:05:00.000-08:00

Confession and liturgy belong inseparably together if the church is to be healthy. Liturgy is prayed dogma; dogma is the doctrinal content of the liturgy. The placement of liturgy above dogma, for which one hears calls in the liturgical movements of all confessions with the well-known saying "lex orandi lex credendi"..., has been opposed in the Roman Church by the present Pope Pius XII] in his encyclical "Mediator Dei", in which he points out that one can also turn this saying around and that in all circumstances dogma should be the norm for the liturgy. If that is already known in Rome, how much more should it be known in the church that makes...the right understanding of the Gospel also the criterion for the liturgy.

Hermann Sasse, The Lutheran Understanding of the Consecration, in We Confess the Sacraments, trans N. Nagel, Concordia, 1985.

Hiatus

2009-12-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

'What Sasse Said' will be in hiatus until late January while I am in transit to a new call and enjoying some holidays.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (8)

2009-12-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

In this context the third of the objections raised against the original draft* must be understood. The traditional understanding of Scripture and Tradition as two sources of revelation of equal rank must make any union with Protestant churches, including the Anglicans, impossible. Just as Rome can never accept the Sola Scriptura, so the churches of the Reformation can never accept Holy Tradition as a second source of Christian doctrine beside Holy Scripture. This is the result of the great theological 'dialogue' which has been going on since the sixteenth century between the major branches of Western Christendom, both in polemical controversies and in the irenical attempts at peaceful co-existence. For all great theology in the Western world has been a constant dialogue between Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and the various Reformed groups, as their learned theological works show.

Holy Church of Holy Writ? The 1967 Annual Inter-Varsity Lecture in Queensland
(see previous entries for bibliographic details).

* I.e., the original draft of the document Dei verbum, The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, the initial drafting of which was under the supervision of the conservative Cardinal Ottaviani, which was the subject of intense debate at the early sessions of Vatican II in November, 1962, as it preserved the 'two-source theory of revelation' promoted by Trent in response to the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura. It required the intervention of Pope John XXIII for the original schema to be rejected and a new draft to be called for, which was placed under the supervision of Cardinals Ottaviani and Augustin Bea (a Jesuit) and which resulted in the final document promulgated by Paul VI on 18 November, 1965. Sasse's lecture begins with a consideration of the drama surrounding the production of this document and the lecture elucidates what Sasse considers to be its significance for Protestant-Roman Catholic relations.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (7)

2009-12-16T21:59:00.000-08:00

The advantage of the Roman plan over those of Canterbury-Lambeth and Geneva is its feasibility. It would include Rome in the process of reunion which could never reach its goal as long as the largest church of Christendom remained outside.

Holy Church of Holy Writ? The 1967 Inter-Varsity Fellowship Annual Lecture in Queensland (for full bibliographic details refer to the first in this series of posts.)

Comment: Sasse was writing amidst the first flush of optimism that the entry of Rome into the ecumenical movement at Vatican II brought. To put this quote and this lecture into perspective, it should be remembered that this attitude of openness to the possibility of rapprochement between the churches was a complete reversal of the isolationism that Rome maintained for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. It can reasonably be said that much of the promise that this development contained has failed to come to fruition. While dialogue has contributed to the removal of caricatures and increased mutual understanding, the actual goal of reunion presently seems as far off as ever.
Indeed, it might be observed that there is presently an intra-Roman struggle to define Rome's stance towards ecumenical engagement, with Cardinal Kasper representing the optimism of Vatican II and Pope Benedict XVI representing a repristination of the Roman conservatism of the past, albeit with a radical face: witness the special provisions for Traditional Anglicans announced in 2009, which really represent a 'Western uniatism' parallel to Rome's Eastern uniate churches. To what extent does this represent Rome's future approach, that is, not to seek communion with, so much as absorbtion of the orthodox remnants of Protestantism?
Which brings us to the observation that it is the moral and doctrinal dissaray of Anglicanism and much of Protestantism which explains Rome's shift; it can now position itself as a 'rock' (petra!) of stability in comparison with the shifting sands of Protestantism, and turn its eyes towards reunion with the Orthodox East, recently liberated from the shackles of communism.
What is the confessional Lutheran answer to the questions these developments propose to us today, forty years after Sasse delivered this lecture? Some Lutherans are open to the 'uniate' option, seeing it as a lifeboat in which to escape the sinking ship of Protestantism. Check back for Sasse's answer as the remainder of the lecture, in edited form, is posted here! Comments welcome.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (6)

2009-12-14T20:45:00.001-08:00

This entry of Rome into the Ecumenical Movement of our time has completely changed the ecumenical situation. We are all now no longer confronted only with the Anglican concept of a future Re-united Church, based on that minimum of doctrine which East and West, Catholicism and Protestantism have in common, and with the concept of church unity that underlies the World Council of Churches. These concepts presuppose that Rome would eventually give up her claims and cease to be Roman. We are now confronted with a plan for reunion in an ecumenical church in which all churches, without giving up any of the treasures each of them possesses, but spiritually and theologically renewed and enriched by what they can mutually accept, would come together under the renewed office of the supreme shepherd of all Christians, who would rule the Universal Church together with the universal college of bishops.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? The 1967 Anuual Inter-Varsity Lecture in Queensland (Australia) (for full bibliographic information, see the first post in this series.

Note: A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since Sasse delivered these comments, but with the recent (i.e. 2009) announcement of special provisions for Anglicans who wish to enter communion with Rome, including the provision of their own bishops and Anglican liturgical usages, offered by Pope Benedict XVI, one can see how prescient Sasse was even at this early date after Vatican II.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (5)

2009-12-14T01:00:00.001-08:00

If it were really God's will that all Christians should be united in one visible ecclesiastical organisation, if this were the meaning of Christ's 'ut omnes unum sint', then Rome's ecumenical program would be the only realistic one, and it could hardly be understood why it should not be adopted by the non-Roman churches within the Ecumenical Movement. It could be that with the Second Vatican Council, Rome has taken over leadership of this movement.

Holy Church or Holy Writ, the 1967 Inter-Varsity fellowship lecture in Brisbane, Queensland (for full bibliographic information, see the first post in this series.)

Holy Church or Holy Writ (4)

2009-12-03T02:54:00.000-08:00

(We should not) think that this crisis of the Roman Church will lead to a wonderful ecumenical church in which every Christian and every community which calls itself church could find a proper place after the terrible dogmatic attitudes of former centuries have finally been overcome. Such a 'church', as certain ecumenical enthusiasts envision it, the great future Reunited Church, based on a minimum of Christian faith and on a maximum of ecclesiastical and secular politics, would most certainly not be the Church of Christ, but the kingdom of Antichrist, while the true Church of Christ, as the little flock to which our Lord has promised the Kingdom (Luke 12:32), would pray in its catacombs the 'Marana tha' (1 Cor 16:22) of the first Church, 'Amen, Come Lord Jesus', in firm belief in his promise:'Surely, I am coming soon' (Rev 22:21).

Holy Church or Holy Writ?
The 1967 Annual Inter-Varsity Fellowship Lecture in Queensland
(For full bibliographic details see post no. 1 in this series.)
Note: In the original lecture, this paragraph continues directly on from the paragraph quoted in post no. 3 of this series.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (3)

2009-12-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

The accession of John XXIII marks the turning point. The Roman Church as we knew it, the Church of the Syllabus, of the First Vatican Council, the Church which was always at loggerheads with the modern world, has come to an end. A new era began of which no-one can know where it will end. The exciting debates, the passionate controversies, the obvious breakdown of a centuries old discipline within Roman catholicism, the revolutionary excesses in the Catholic Churches in America and the Netherlands, are indicative of a deep spiritual crisis within the largest church in Christendom which may well end in the breakdown of its organisation, in the disintegration of the vast body of the Roman Church...in future centuires the Pope, the Patriarch of the West, may share the destiny of the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, or Constantinople, without, of course, ceasing to be for the faithful remnant of the Roman Church the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ with all the prerogatives of primacy.

Holy Church of Holy Writ?
The 1967 Inter-Varsity Fellowship Annual Lecture in Queensland
(see the first post in this series for full bibliographic details.)

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (2)

2009-11-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

Today we all know of this common destiny that binds us together. Even the great theological issues are everywhere the same. To many it was a great surprise that the Second Vatican Council had to deal with exactly the same problems, ecclesiastical and theological, that are on the agendas of our synods and conferences. This is no surprise to the church historian. For he knows that this has always been so. What is new is that the churches have begun to draw their conclusions from these facts; unfortunately, as the sad history of the Ecumenical Movement shows, often wrong conclusions.

Holy Church or Holy Writ? The 1967 IVF Annual Lecture in Queensland
(see the post Holy Church or Holy Writ (1) for full bibliographic details.)

Holy Church or Holy Writ? (1)

2009-11-30T01:55:00.000-08:00

The dramatic story of this document* shows how important the problem it tries to solve is to the Roman church, and not only to this church. The question of the nature and the authority of the Word of God is today, along with the question of the church, its nature, its authority, its unity, foremost in the minds of all Christians on earth.

*The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation adopted by Vatican II and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 18 November, 1965, the tortuous history of which provides the opening to Sasse's lecture. The extent to which this document saw Rome eschew the "two sources of revelation" theory which was taught by the Council of Trent, Rome's official response to the Reformation, remains a subject of discussion today.

Holy Church or Holy Writ, The Meaning of the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation, the 1967 Inter-Varsity Fellowship Annual Lecture given in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
(Published by the IVF Graduates' Fellowship, Sydney, 1967, p.4.)

The Church Union of South India as a Question for the Lutheran Church

2009-11-29T04:24:00.001-08:00

...the new union movement on the Protestant mission fields runs the risk of becoming a tool of Asian-African nationalism and anti-colonialism. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) already has to contend against the accusation that the great confessional federations, unlike the World Council of Churches (WCC), perpetuate “a kind of churchly colonialism” (Report on New Delhi in Lutheran World, May 1962, p. 121). This is the language especially of the churches in East Asia whom missionaries talked into believing that the church’s dogma is “Western” thinking, as if Athanasius and Augustine had not been Africans and the Cappadocians, Chrysostom and Cyril, had not been Asians.

The Union of South India as a Question for the Lutheran Church
Letters to Lutheran Pastors, No. 56
Translated by Holger Sonntag and published here with his kind permission.

Information on the Church of South India is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_South_India

Church vs. State

2009-11-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

When a state court can decide that the church has to tolerate heresy in its midst, then the teaching office of the church is destroyed, and it ceases to be church.

Lambeth 1958, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 48
Translated by Holger Sonntag and published here with his kind permission.

Note: At this point in the Letter, Sasse has been discussing the famous 'Gorham Case' of 1850, where a civil court, the Privy Council, ruled against a bishop seeking to uphold baptismal regeneration as the doctrine of the Chruch of England. One hundred and fifty years after the Gorham case, and fifty years after Sasse wrote the Letter, Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical leaders signed the 'Manhattan Declaration' on November 20, 2009, affirming their intention to resist, through civil disobedience if necessary, any state encroachment on the right of the church to define doctrine in regard to the sanctity of life, the dignity of marriage between a man and a woman, and the liberty of conscience.

New Anecdote

2009-11-17T02:23:00.000-08:00

Dr Sasse was once asked in class by a seminary student if he thought it was a sin for a young man and his fiance to hold hands during church. Dr Sasse frowned and thought a while before answering, "I think it would be a sin", and he paused before proceeding, "if that young man and his fiance did NOT hold hands during church!".

The Inner Plight of Christendom

2009-11-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

Contrary to the opinion of some church politicians, the failure of one church is by no means an opportunity for another. As the great persecutions of our century do not know any difference between the confessions, even if this at times appears to be the case, so the inner plight of Christendom too is basically everywhere the same. If the Protestant churches fail, then this does not mean that Catholicism has to rise, and vice versa (e.g., in Latin America). This is true for the relation between all churches, even within one denomination. The relation is not governed by the law of scales where the decline of the one means the ascent of the other, but rather by the law of communicating tubes in which increase and decrease of the level always correspond to each other. The greatest examples of this law are the Enlightenment of the 18th and the awakening of the 19th centuries. Behind this historical law stands the divine mystery of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church which lives hidden in, with, and under the earthly churches wherever the gospel and the sacraments of Christ are.
'Lambeth 1958', Letters to Lutheran Pastors Number 48
Translated by Holger Sonntag and published here with his kind permission.

Liturgy and Freedom to Order Ceremonies

2009-11-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

“We Lutherans know nothing of liturgy that is prescribed by God’s Word. We know that the church has freedom to order its ceremonies and that it can therefore preserve the liturgical heritage of Christendom, as long as it is consistent with the Gospel. Indeed, our church in the Reformation placed the greatest value on preserving as much as possible this heritage that binds us with the fathers. But these ceremonies do not belong to the essence of the church or to the true unity of the church, as Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession and Article 10 of the Formula of Concord teach. Löhe knew this when in his Drei Bücher von der Kirche [Three Books on the Church], right where he speaks of the beauty and greatness of the Lutheran liturgy, he protests against overestimating it: ‘The church remains what she is even without liturgy. She remains a queen even when she is dressed as a beggar’ (Book 3, chap. 9 [p. 178]).”

The Lutheran Understanding of the Consecration
Letters to Lutheran Pastors Number 26, July 1952
Trans. by Norman Nagel, published in We Confess the Sacraments, Concordia, 1986, p.117.

Satis est

2009-10-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

The great ‘It is enough’ (satis est) is clearly directed against Rome. For the unity of the church Rome required more than unity in the faith; it required the acceptance of human traditions and ceremonies. Satis est does not then postulate a minimum of agreement, a consensus, which we achieve in the course of our discussions, but a maximum: ‘. . . that [with one accord, einträchtiglich] the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word.’ Not the agreement in doctrine—the Roman church has a consensus in doctrine, the Baptists also have one; every church has some sort of consensus, even if it is a consensus in agreeing that doctrine is not important—but only the consensus in the pure doctrine and in the right administration of the sacraments is the consensus demanded in the Augsburg Confession. That is the ‘great unanimity’ (magnus consensus) with which the first article of the Augsburg Confession begins, a consensus not made by men but given by God, the consensus in the right faith, which only the Holy Spirit creates.

From Article VII of the Augsburg Confession in the Present Crisis of Lutheranism, Letters to Lutheran Pastors, No. 53, April 1961, in We Confess the Church, trans. Norman Nagel, Concordia, 1986.

The English Church & Rome

2009-10-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

At one point, the English church had been the most faithful daughter of Rome; the first Germanic church where the pope truly ruled and from where the continent was Romanized since Boniface; the church of the cult of St. Peter … and of pilgrimages to Rome. No people loved St. Peter as much as the English; no people was then humiliated as much as the English by the successors of St. Peter when Innocent III turned England into a papal fiefdom. Since then the “no popery,” the English equivalent of the German “away from Rome,” sounds forth through the history of England. Only think of Wycliffe’s polemics against the papacy as the antichrist who during the last years of Wycliffe’s life lived in Rome and in Avignon.

From Letters to Lutheran Pastors #48, "Lambeth 1958"
Translated by Holger Sonntag and posted here with his kind permission.

Anecdotes (Updated 20.10.09)

2009-10-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Progress on this blog may be slow for some time to come while I work on other projects - alas, I only have so much spare time at my disposal. Here are several anecdotes regarding Dr Sasse to tide you over until the next post.

A student cautiously approached Dr Sasse after chapel at Luther Seminary one day and nervously blurted out, "Dr Sasse, I have a problem." To which Dr Sasse replied, "Good!"

It was Dr Sasse's custom to take students from his classes at Luther Seminary in North Adelaide on what we might today call field trips to hear outdoor preachers in the nearby parks on a Saturday morning. One day, one of these preachers singled out Dr Sasse in the crowd and addressed him, "And what about you, Sir, have you found your Saviour!?" All eyes turned to Sasse, and he characteristically scratched the side of his nose with his index finger before replying in his thick German accent, "I did not know he was lost!"

Visitors to Dr Sasse's small residence in North Adelaide were often astonished to find several typewriters loaded with paper around the main room, each with a different essay or letter partly completed on it, some in English, some in German, some in Swedish. (What could he have done with a laptop and the internet?)

Seminary students assigned to tend the front garden of Dr Sasse's North Adelaide house after morning classes would invariably find themselves invited inside part way through the afternoon to share a bottle of Sauterne, a sickly sweet French wine. Did the gardening ever get finished?

In 1935, while a member of the stellar theological faculty in Erlangen, Sasse got into an ongoing debate in the religious press with his Erlangen colleague Hermann Strathmann over the extent to which Lutherans could co-operate with the Reformed in opposition to Hitler. The dispute was referred to among the faculty as "Die Hermann Schlacht", which translates as "The Battle of the Hermanns".

During World War 1, Sasse served in the German Army, reaching the rank of sergeant in the infantry. In the Battle of Passchendaele, which concluded in early November, 1917 with half a million casualties on both sides, Sasse earned the Iron Cross (2nd Class), the second highest battle honour in Germany at the time.

Sasse Rejects Brunner's Neo-Orthodox Doctrine of Scripture

2009-10-07T00:39:00.000-07:00

"We have nothing whatsoever to do with Brunner's teaching* on the Word of God. For us Scripture is the Word of God, as the bread in the Lord's Supper is the body of Christ."

(The two bolded and italicised occurences of "is" in the above quote are underlined in the original.)

From a letter written by Sasse in 1952 in response to a review by a theologian of the Wisconsin Synod of the Theses on Scripture and Inspiration (1951), which formed part of the Theses of Agreement preparatory to the union of the two Lutheran church bodies in Australia in 1966. In the course of the discussions on scripture in Australia, Sasse's position on scripture moved decisively in a conservative direction. Sasse's words represent a decisive rejection of Barth and Brunner's "neo-orthodoxy" and related hermeneutical approaches represented among European Lutherans; this was an important legacy that he, along with others involved in the union discussions, bequeathed to the Lutheran Church of Australia.

The letter is contained in the section Additional Notes Concerning Holy Scripture, in the book Scripture and the Church: Selected Essays by Hermann Sasse , a monograph published by Concordia Seminary, St Louis in 1995.

* Emil Brunner (1889-1966), a Swiss Reformed theologian, usually associated together with Karl Barth in the so-called "neo-orthodox" (new orthodox) school of Protestant theology prominent from the 1920s up to about 1960. Brunner rejected the traditional doctrine of the verbal inspiration of scripture and located revelation instead in the personal encounter between the individual and God, which scripture may mediate, thus in such circumstances scripture becomes the Word of God, but it can never be identified as the Word of God in a static, formal sense. As a result of the translations of his writings by Olive Wyon, Brunner's influence in the English-speaking world was reaching its zenith at the time.

Concerning the Hearing of God's Word

2009-09-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

"Be doers of the word, and not just hearers." We should not misunderstand these words as saying that hearing and doing are opposites - as if to say "Here people just listen to the Word, but over there it is really acted upon"...,or "Here is a merely theoretical Christianity, but over there is real practical Christianity". If this were so, the letter of James would indeed be an "epistle of straw". The writer wasn't as foolish as the Christian intellectuals of our own day, who with their famous social gospel would free us from the deep seriousness of Christian repentance and faith. The epistle knows that there is no Christian life, teaching or act that is not accompanied by God's Word. The ancient church knew that, even when it didn't anymore know the unfathomable depth of the Christian faith as did Paul and John. It is only from hearing, from the complete submission of the self to the Word of God, that an act that is obedient to God's will can come. The self-deception that James warns us about is a hearing that remains only hearing - and certainly not a right hearing at that. Such superficial hearing in the church is unfruitful and useless. Therefore, "be doers of the word, and not just hearers."

From Concerning the Hearing of God's Word, a sermon preached in Erlangen, Germany on Rogate Sunday, 18th May, 1941 [trans mine].

Concerning the Hearing of God's Word

2009-09-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

Isn't it the case that we all - and I include myself here - complain so often about the sermon without ever asking whether the real basis for our discontent doesn't perhaps lie within ourselves? When a hearer gets nothing from a sermon it is not always the sermon or the preacher that is to blame. Listening to sermons is like work, or better yet an art that one must learn. Fruitful listening requires a measure of Christian formation and spiritual receptivity that few seem to possess anymore (in fact, I dare say that I have only seen it today in 'simple' people, in farmers and labourers in country areas). The lack of this formation cannot be compensated for by the thundering rhetoric or the emotional eloquence which most people seem to expect nowadays from preachers if they are to stay alert.

From 'Concerning the Hearing of God's Word', a sermon preached in Erlangen, Germany on Rogate Sunday, 18th May, 1941 (Text: James 1:22-27)[trans. mine].

Concerning the Hearing of God's Word

2009-09-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

Why is there such a deep aversion to this word "sin"? Is it because we have heard it so often? Then why is it that we have not yet had enough of what we have heard proclaimed incessantly for two centuries now - namely, that humanity is good?
"Humanity is good"...
Why don't we find that boring?
Because we like to hear it!

From 'Concerning the Hearing of God's Word', a sermon preached on Rogate Sunday, 18th May, 1941, in Erlangen (Text: James 1:22-27).

The Lutheran Understanding of the Consecration

2009-08-31T04:47:00.000-07:00

“Even the Pope has reminded his bishops that the Masses that are secretly celebrated in prison camps, without any pomp, in utter simplicity, come very near to the Mass of the ancient church and are not inferior to a pontifical Mass. In Lutheran Germany, however, one can today hear theologians — even some who come from unliturgical Wuerttemberg — say that there is a form of the divine service that belongs to the essence of the church, even that Gregorian chant belongs essentially to the Christian liturgy. It is high time that the liturgical movement in the Lutheran church wakes up from its romantic dreams and subordinates itself to the norms to which the whole life of the church must be subject: the norma normans of Holy Scripture and the norma normata of the church’s confession. And this applies to all the Lutheran churches in the world, for the Scandinavian, in which the Anglican influence is so great, and for the American, in which the ideas of the European liturgical movement have now gained a footing. If this serious reflection does not take place, then the liturgical movement will become what it has become already for many of its adherents: the end of Lutheranism and the road to Rome.”

From “The Lutheran Understanding of the Consecration”, Letters to Lutheran Pastors No. 26, July 1952, in We Confess the Church (pp117-118), Concordia, 1985.

Reformation Day, 1917

2009-08-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

I still remember* that cloudy, misty Autumn morning in northern Germany. The Divine Service in the open air would be for many of those present their last celebration of holy communion. Straight after the celebration, we were plunged into one of the bloodiest battles of Flanders**...Surely that Jubilee deserved something better. But with it there arose a new appreciation of the central article of faith of the Lutheran Reformation. It is as though the tremendous gravity of war, the encounter with death and the experience of God's judgment that it brought, were needed for modern man to grasp again the message of the Reformation: the justification of the ungodly by faith alone.

*Sasse is writing in 1942, reminiscing about Reformation Day, 1917, the 400th anniversary of the Reformation.
** There were three great battles in Flanders during WW1; Sasse is referring to what is known to English speakers as The Battle of Passchendaele, which concluded in early November, 1917 with half a million casualties on both sides. During this battle, Sasse, a sergeant in the German infantry, earned the Iron Cross (2nd Class), the second highest battle honour in Germany at the time.
Since soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) were heavily involved at Passchendaele, it is possible that Sasse saw action against his future countrymen.

From The Message of the Reformation in Changing Times, a talk given in Erlangen, Germany on 10th November, 1942 [trans. mine].

The Message of the Reformation in Changing Times

2009-08-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

In the...Spring of 1940 I received two letters in the one week from the Far East. The first one came from Hanhan, from 'The Church of the Righteousness by Faith', as the Lutheran Church in China is called. The Chinese Christians, who have been forced to fight a war against an invading Japanese army for several years now, have nevertheless maintained their church through great sacrifices. They asked whether more could not be done from Germany to provide them with good Lutheran literature in which the faith is taught.
The other letter came from Japan, from a Lutheran conrgegation in Tokyo and it contained a similar request. The Evangelical Lutheran Japanese, who for the most part come from the upper classes of their nation, want both Luther's writings and works about the Reformation in the Japanese language. To this purpose they seek advice and help from the homeland of the Lutheran Faith. The man who wrote this letter had once been fully immersed in the practise of Buddhism, but then became an Evangelical pastor. He explained to me why people in Japan need the Lutheran Faith: because it proclaims Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners and not just as another religious teacher. They have always had teachers of religion and morality in the East, but they need a Saviour.
Thus in the Far East, on both sides of the Yellow Sea, on both sides of a difficult war which has engaged these nations for years now, people are seeking the Lutheran Faith because they are seeking Jesus Christ.

From 'The Message of the Reformation in Changing Times', a talk given in Erlangen, Germany on 10th November, 1942.

Second Sunday After Trinity (2)

2009-08-13T21:31:00.001-07:00

Why has this doctrine* held such power over people? Why have people regarded it as gospel? Precisely because it seeks to be a Gospel, a message of salvation demanding the response of unquestioning faith! This faith is no longer faith in Jesus Christ, but in that which put itself forward to humanity as an alternative to him for the first time in the days of the French Revolution. For one hundred and fifty years now this doctrine has, with great conceit, set itself up as both Judge and Redeemer of the world. It has made itself the standard against which all things are measured, the Lord of humanity, demanding the worship of the whole world. It can never forgive the Christian church because it refuses to offer such worship.

* I.e. the doctrine of the radical equality of all human beings associated with the French Revolution.

From a sermon given on the Second Sunday after Trinity, 18th June, 1939 (Text: Romans 10:1-13).

Second Sunday After Trinity

2009-08-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

In these months the Frech are celebrating the 150th anniversary of their great revolution of 1789. We Lutheran Christians in Germany, in whose vocabulary the word 'revolution' scarcely exists, probably have difficulty in understanding how people can celebrate an event which, from the purely human perspective, was a terrible outbreak of sin, and from a Christian perspective, was a dreadful judgment on humanity. But the French revolution is one of the most powerful events in world history, which has affected all Western nations, including Germany, and even the whole world. The revolution threw an idea into the world like one would throw a match into a pile of kindling. It is an idea which has burned in the hearts of millions of people for the 150 years since, which they took to as to a new Gospel, so that the idea directed their lives and whole nations gambled their destiny on it. It is the idea of the equality of all people.

According to this idea, all people are by nature created equal. The differences among people that give rise to hardship are human constructs. So, let us do away with them! Everybody should be equal - in power, wealth, and destiny. If someone should surpass his contemporaries in his achievements, off with his head, that all may be equal again! This doctrine of the French revolutionaries, like the doctrines of the Bolsheviks, seems to us to be ridiculous.

From a sermon preached on the Second Sunday of Trinity, 18th June, 1939.
Text: Romans 10:1-13.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (6)

2009-08-07T22:19:00.001-07:00

Did Luther know of only an invisible church then? An ideal with no earthly reality? A Platonic entity? This is what his opponents sneered. Is he a proponent of the doctrine that there are two churches, one visible and one invisible, to which the elect alone belong? No! This teaching is sometimes set forth by the Reformed Churches, but it is not Luther's teaching. He occasionally spoke of an invisible church, it's true. He could occasionally also speak of there being two sides to Christendom: an "internal, spiritual Christendom" and an "external, bodily Christendom"; but straight away he added, "not that we would want to separate the two, but rather hold them together, just like we also speak of a person and say that his soul is spiritual and his body material". There are not two churches for Luther, one visible and one invisible, but one church with both a hidden and a revealed aspect.

From a talk given at Erlangen, Germany on 8th August, 1943.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (5)

2009-08-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

In contrast to all the learned speculation about the church, Luther set this simple sentence: "A child of seven knows what the church is, namely holy believers and the little flock which hears the voice of its shepherd." ...the church is the holy Christian people in which Christ works, rules and lives. This people of God, Christendom as Luther called it, is the work of God created by his will, in which every day great wonders happen, like the forgiveness of sins, the defeat of death, the bestowing of righteousness and eternal life - things seen only by faith.

From a talk given in Erlangen, Germany, 8th August 1943.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (4)

2009-08-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

In answering this charge*, it will not do just to make things easy for ourselves. We could, if we wanted, pose a counter question: But what about the unity of the church prior to the Reformation? Half a century earlier, a Pope sent a Bull of Excommunication to be placed on the high altar of the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the most holy place of the Greek Church. This schism between East and West continues to this day...can Luther be blamed for that? Again,around 1400, the unity of Western Christendom was torn apart, rent asunder by the existence of three Popes, each one excommunicating the others...can Luther be blamed for that? But such counter-charges are not an adequate response to the accusation being made. One cannot excuse oneself merely by pointing to the faults of others. The question still remains: What did Luther believe about the unity of the church? What did he understand by "the church"?

It may actually be that Luther understood the church more profoundly than his opponents, and that he did so because he understood it, not on the basis of human speculation, but on the basis of God's Word. Therefore, it may actually be that the truth which Luther discovered could benefit all of Christendom, and that it knocks on the very doors of the Church of Rome and seeks entrance there also.

* I.e., that Luther destroyed the unity of the church, even the church itself.

From a talk given in Erlangen, Germany on 8th August, 1943.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (3)

2009-08-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today...when in German Catholicism there is increasingly a better and more profound understanding of Luther*, when it is acknowledged that Luther was protesting against a corrupt hierarchy and a worldly church, there is still this charge that Luther went too far, that he placed his judgement above the judgement of the whole Church and her highest authority, that he is the author of modern subjectivism and individualism, and therefore, albeit against his will, the destroyer of the Church and her unity.

The legitimacy of this charge seems to be confirmed by what Protestantism itself has said. Has not Protestantism, since the beginning of the Enlightenment, hailed Luther as the liberator of the individual from the chains of the Church? "The individual soul and God", that is the religion of Protestantism, or at least, that's what I was taught by my dogmatics professors. There was no more talk in Protestantism of a church of Christ, or a communion of saints, and even the great church historian Harnack delighted in telling his students that Protestantism could exist without a church.

*Sasse is writing in 1943, referring to the revision in German Catholicism's view of Luther initiated by Joseph Lortz's Die Reformation in Deutschland, in which for the first time a Catholic scholar set aside counter-Reformation polemics and engaged with Luther sympathetically as a profoundly religious man, albeit one who succumbed to subjectivism.

From a talk given in Erlangen, Germany on 8th August, 1943.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (2)

2009-08-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

No more serious charge has been made against Luther than that he destroyed the unity of the Church; even more, that he was the great destroyer of the Church itself. The charge is, of course, also levelled against those who align themselves with the Lutheran Reformation, and at the church which calls itself the Evangelical Lutheran Church. That was the reason why the Evangelicals of Augsburg had to endure so much before they were able to celebrate the Peace in 1650.**
It was certainly not only the evil within human nature which drove their fellow Catholic citizens to fight against the Evangelical cause, although the passions and sins of men did indeed play their part in the conflict. No, in the struggle of the Jesuits of Augsburg against the Reformation there was genuine concern for the unity of the Church. The unity of the Church, even its very existence, seemed to be threatened by Luther and his Reformation. Only the person who shares this great concern for the unity of the Church can appreciate the concern for the Church evidenced by both sides in this conflict, and only such a person can understand both the Church's greatness and her wretchedness.

Note
* The Peace of Augsburg was a treaty between Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Schmalkald League, an alliance of Lutheran princes, ratified on September 25, 1555, in the imperial city of Augsburg (in present-day Bavaria, Germany). It provided the legal basis for the co-existence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in the Empire, a co-existence which proved harder to establish on the ground, as the ensuing Thirty Years War (1628-1648), during which Augsburg itself was the subject of bitter fighting, shows. The Peace of Augsburg was first celebrated in the city in 1650 and is to this day celebrated as a holiday there on the 8th August each year, celebrating religious pluralism.

From a talk given in Erlangen, Germany, on 8th August, 1943.

Luther's Faith in the One, Holy Church (1)

2009-08-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

Ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia, "Where Christ is, there is the church". With this saying one of the oldest church fathers spoke of the mystery of the church. The saying also sums up Luther's faith* in the church. It is not the power of our faith, nor the holiness of our life that constitutes the church, but rather that "Where Christ is, there is the church". When the church is called a holy people, a communion of saints, it is not to be understood in the way it has often been understood in the history of the church: "the church should be a holy people, therefore only the holy shall belong to her. Away with all the unholy! The honour of Christ demands it!" When the worst of sinners must be excluded from the fellowship, one must then begin to classify sins in order to determine which ones lead to exclusion. How often has not that been attempted, both in the past and more recently. How imposing was the strictness of the ancient church, when people sought to create a holy and pure church (as also happens now). Or consider the Donatists, who demanded that at least the clergy should be free of mortal sin. Whenever the attempt has been made to create an ideal church, the end result has always been bitter diappointment. The community of saints turns into a community of Pharisees.

*"Faith" in the sense that the church is an article of faith; see the Augsburg Confession, Articles VII & VIII - M.H.

From a talk given in Erlangen, Germany on the occasion of the Festival of the Peace of Augsburg, 8th August, 1943. Translation mine.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-24T05:53:00.001-07:00

Which error is worse, that of Rome or that of modern Protestantism? However we answer, one thing is clear: Rome can interpret but not revoke one of its doctrines; they are "irreformable" and must abide until the Last Judgment. But what of Protestantism? A Church of the Reformation is, or ought to be, a repenting church. Can our churches still repent? Or is their day for repentance forever past? Thank God, if they will "hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches", they can yet return, by His grace, to the Word of God.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

Bishop Hans Lillje recently noted the significance of the conversion to Rome of Professor Heinrich Schlier of Bonn. This outstanding disciple of Bultmann, one of the most learned New Testament scholars in Germany, confessed that it was Bultmann's approach to the New Testament that led him in this direction. "What tribunal is to make decisions about these various strata of tradition which have been worked out, and who is to decide about their relative value? He preferred to attach himself to a tradition historically established as that of the Church of Rome rather than trust himself to the unsure path of conflicting human opinions" (Lutheran World,Sept.1961,p135)...Such facts point up the sad condition of modern Protestant theology which has lost the Bible as the Word of God. The Church of the Reformation lives and dies with the Sola Scriptura.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture , an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-24T05:12:00.001-07:00

This loss of the authority of the Scriptures deprives modern Protestantism of its power to discuss doctrine with Rome. Roman Christians ask their "separated brethren" in the Protestant churches, if you reject the doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception as unscriptural, then why do so many of you reject also Christ's virgin birth, a doctrine which your fathers confessed with the Church of all ages and which undoubtedly is based on Holy Scripture?

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture , an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

Note: Sasse was writing before the Second Vatican Council had been convened (it was convened on 11 October, 1962). While that council did not alter Rome's dogmas, it did permit the entry of a liberalising spirit into Roman theology, particularly in its attitudes to scripture. This development was especially notable in Western Europe, North America and Australasia, such that in those places at least, Sasse's imaginary Roman interlocutors questioning modern Protestantism's liberal approach to scripture might be just that, imaginary!- M.H.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

Because it is no longer understood, the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture has been abandoned by the theologians in the majority of the Protestant churches. It is regarded as untenable. But the Biblical doctrine of the fact of inspiration must not be confused or equated with Augustine's and Gregory's theories of the method of inspiration. Unfortunately, the psychological speculations of of the Fathers have been accepted uncritically by theologians of the older Protestant groups. Strangely enough, it is a theological tradition of the Western church that has prevented the churches of the Reformation from understanding the inspiration of Scripture as a work of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, a work which defies all psychological explanations.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

The Protestantism of those days* was not a negative protest against Roman errors. Rather, it was a positive witness to the authority of Holy Scripture as the only source and rule of all doctrines of the Church. To these Protestants Holy Scripture was the Word of God. We must recognise that the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation depends on the firm belief that the Bible is the Word of God. Where this belief is shaken or even abandoned, the authority of Scripture collapses. This is the tragedy of modern Protestantism. We can not deal here with the process of this collapse. We only note that first the theologians and then one after another of the churches severed Scripture from the Word in their official statements of faith. They were satisfied with the assumption that this Word is only contained somewhere in the Scriptures, or that the Scriptures are only a record of a past revelation in the mighty acts of God which were the true Word of God. Or we hear that under certain circumstances the Bible can become the Word of God.

*Sasse is referring to the time of the Reformation and the period of theological orthodoxy which followed in the 17th century.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, an article publsihed in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Scripture

2009-07-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

Protestants have always recognised the tragic development of Roman theology since the juxtaposition of Scripture and Tradition by Trent in 1546. Have they realized, however, the corresponding tragedy that has overtaken the Churches of the Reformation? Do we perhaps behold the mote in our brother's eye but do not consider the beam in our own? That the mariological doctrines, which (as many Catholics expect) may some day be followed by the definition of the dogma of Mary as the co-redeemer and mediatrix of all graces, are not only unbiblical but also interfere with Christ's honour as the only mediator is certainly true. But why, in 1950, was the protest against the dogma of the Assumption so unimpressive? Why do our modern Protestant criticisms of Rome all lack the authority which characterised the doctrinal statements of our fathers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The answer is clear enough.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

However deep and irreconcilable are the doctrinal contrasts between Rome, Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva and Canterbury, these types of Christianity showed considerable agreement in their common acceptance of the teaching of the Nicene Creed including its doctrine of the Scriptures. Only from this perspective can we understand the various confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as attempts to interpret not define Holy Scripture. It is really moving to note how they all had "the aim", as the Council of Trent puts it, "that errors may be removed and the purity of the Gospel be preserved in the Church".

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture , an article published in the American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

The Bible, despite all contradictory interpretations thereof, is the great unifying factor of Christendom. Christians have the content of Scripture in common. More than this, as long as they recognise the Scriptures as the Word of God they recognise a divine authority to which all must submit, an objective truth which transcends all subjective interpretations.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, an article published in the American evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-22T22:58:00.001-07:00

It is strange indeed that the common possession of all Christendom should always be the centre of disunity. All churches agree that the Bible is the Word of God. But what is the Bible? Not only the Canon but even the text of the Scriptures differsd in East and West, in Rome and in the Protestant churches. This difference, incidentally, already existed in the Church of the New Testament, which used side by side the Septuagint and the Hebrew Old Testament.
But even where the same books and the same text are read, deep differences exist concerning crucial questions. Does God's revelation come to us in the Scripture only, or also in the unwritten traditions of the Church and in an inner experience of the soul? Is Scripture its own interpreter or did Christ institute in his Church a teaching office which has to interpret Scripture with binding authority? These fundamental differences of opinion produce so many interpretations that the Bible has been called the book wherein everybody looks for his own views and finds them. Of what value, then, is the common conviction that the Bible is the Word of God?

From The Inspiration of Scripture, an article published in the American evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.

The Inspiration of Holy Scripture

2009-07-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

The doctrine of the divinely inspired Scriptures is so closely linked to the central doctrines of the Creed, namely the doctrines on the Trinity and the Person of Christ, that any decay in understanding the Holy Scripture as God's Word leads necessarily to decay in believing in the God-Man Jesus Christ and in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The tragic history of modern Protestantism corroborates this relationship.

From The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, article published in the American evangelical magazine Christianity Today, March 16, 1962.