LIVING FAITHFULLY IN THE NEW BIRTH GIVEN TO US THROUGH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD
Brothers and sisters of the Saskatoon Conference Convention, I wish to thank you for the gracious invitation to be present in your midst and for the privilege of making a presentation to you on the current teaching of the Church on marriage and the family and sexual relationships. It is always a pleasure to return to Saskatoon, the place of my university and seminary education, the city where I met my wife, and a community and a setting that I enjoyed immeasurably. I have so many fond memories of people and places and ventures undertaken.
The invitation to speak, and the task that has been set before me, is not a simple matter considering the context in which we currently live, and the debate that is raging both in church and society. One would think that presenting the church’s teaching on marriage and the family and sexuality would be a joyous, stress free enterprise. It is not so and I long for the day when it may again indeed be so.
When our National Church Council called for presentations on the issue relating to the blessing of committed same sex relationships, we are told that not one submission was received supporting the church’s historic teaching. While it does have the odor of conspiracy, I will not speculate publicly why this was so but I do know personally some thirty or so theologically astute pastors and teachers who would have submitted presentations if they had been asked. The question why no one among that group of pastors made a presentation without a specific invitation is not at all difficult to answer.
The issue of the blessing of same sex relationships has been put forward for the last twenty-five or thirty years in our church. Whether it was actually put on the agenda or being pushed privately in the background is beside the point. It has been there and many have become sick and tired of having to deal with the issue over and over again. It is such a divisive and relationship-breaking issue that many have simply closed their eyes and hoped that some how it would go away. Not this again, has been the reaction of many a heart and soul. The last thing people of traditional biblical mindset on the teaching of marriage and sexuality want is to become involved in this heart rending and dangerous debate. Many, as I have said, have just hoped and prayed that it would go away.
When our National Bishop called for conversations on this topic, I wrote an article in the quarterly publication The Lutheran Forum entitled, “The Issues or Questions
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we should be discussing.” He had suggested other important items for discussion so I added just a few more. I also suggested that as we discuss these other issues of prime importance we remove this present same-sex debate from the agenda for the next ten years.
I suggested that we discuss with the Roman Catholic Communion how we can better express our unity in Christ now that we have agreed on a statement of Justification By Faith. I suggested that we should discuss as a small national church whether or not we would be willing to live in submission to the authority of the whole church on matters that affect the whole body of Christ thereby opening up ourselves to the genuine guidance of the Holy Spirit and genuine renewal. I suggested that we discuss how we faithfully bear witness to Christ in a society increasingly intolerant to the distinctive witness to Jesus Christ, how we become more faithful to our confessional claim of placing the Sacrament at the center of every Lord’s day service and, finally, that we discuss whether or not there is any real variance between our confession of “Sola Scripture,” and our actual teaching and practice. Others sent this article on to the Canada Lutheran but it was not printed. We apparently have such a fixation with sex that all other genuinely important issues have been shelved.
Another reason why traditional presentations on marriage and the family and sexuality have been lacking is the genuine fear that somehow any valid opinion based on Scripture or our Confessions which runs counter to the cultural disposition of so many in our age might lead to trouble and even a charge of promoting hate. Bishop Henry, one of the most articulate Roman Catholic spokesmen for the traditional teaching on marriage, the family and sexuality, has had a complaint laid against him in the courts. He has also received death threats. It can be a dangerous business to stand up against the cultural norms espoused by the lobbyists and power brokers of our day.
There is one more reason why people are so reluctant to publicly express their views. If one holds to the traditional teachings of the Church, and publicly expresses those views, one will automatically be nailed as a homophobe, even within the church.
So before I begin I would like to tell you that I asked a very competent lawyer to read through this paper to ensure that the views I expressed could not be construed as hate literature.
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Before I begin, I will tell you about some of my experiences with persons who have identified themselves as part of what is popularly called the gay community to demonstrate that my attitude is not judgmental or unsympathetic to that community.
I first met a person who I shall call John at the University of Saskatchewan when I was singing lead roles in the annual operetta productions put on by the Student Union of the University. John was an electrician who served as the stage manager for all the productions of the Student Union. He knew his trade and he managed very well. After university I remained in Saskatoon working for the Income Tax Department. When I became quite ill, John, who lived just a few doors down from me, invited me into his home and nursed me back to health. My girl friend at the time phoned me and told me to get out of there because John was making some allusions about our relationship.
Before I left, as I was sitting in a chair in the living room, John came and knelt down before me. He told me, among other things, that he was engaged in his homosexual life style because it brought him everything that he ever wanted. While he may have been attracted sexually toward me as a younger man, he did not violate our friendship and his responsibility. To this day I have always admired John, for his honesty, his competence and his honorable dealings with me, all the allusions aside.
When I served as President of what was then Augustana University College, I had the experience of working with three men who decided to follow their same sex attractions, leave their wives and families behind, and take up new same sex relationships. I particularly remember one man who actually came and spoke to me about his decision to leave his wife and family. He told me that he had known from a young age that he was different. He asked me to walk with him in this new journey. I admired him greatly for his skills and competence, for his excellent work and for the genuinely significant contribution that he was making to the university community. But, while I could recognize and appreciate the pain that he was enduring, and suffer with him, I could not walk with or encourage him in a path which I knew was sinful and would not bring him fulfillment and joy and satisfaction. If I had known then what I know now, I would have advised him and given him counsel as to the better options at his disposal.
Not too long ago I had a phone call from a former student at Augustana, now a social worker in Calgary. He told me about a young lad who was experiencing difficulties and significantly confused with respect to his sexual identity. His
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mother was distraught. The department was considering giving him counseling through a pro gay service. He asked if I knew of anyone who could deal with this young lad. I gave him the name of a counselor, who had himself had those difficulties and who ministered to that community as a part of his vocation. One year later I heard from the social worker that the mother and the lad would be forever grateful.
You may have heard the story before of the Swede and the Norwegian who were watching the ten o’clock News. The camera showed the picture of a man on top of a ten-story building threatening to jump. The Swede asked the Norwegian, “Are you a betting man?” “That I am,” said the Norwegian. “I bet you ten bucks that the guy jumps,” said the Swede. “You’er on,” said the Norwegian. Sure enough the man jumped and the Norwegian reluctantly pulled out the ten- dollar bill and handed it over to the Swede, who pocketed it gleefully. They continued to watch the news.
The Swede began to squirm and grow red with embarrassment. Finally he pulled out the ten-dollar bill and handed it back to the Norwegian. “It pains me to do this, but I must. I have a confession to make. You see, my friend, I deceived you. I was watching the six o’clock news and I saw the guy jump. The Norwegian said. “Thank you for your honesty. But one good confession deserves another. You see, I too was watching the six o’clock news, and I too saw the guy jump, but I didn’t think that he was dumb enough to jump a second time.”
I am one of those Lutherans who is just dumb enough to believe that the teaching and the principles that have guided the Lutheran Church for five centuries are as valid today as ever they have been, and that unless we hold firmly to those truths and those principles we have nothing to offer our people, the ecumenical community and the people of our world but a meal of molding and stale bread.
Karl Braaten outlined for us the seven principles of Lutheran theology in his book of the same title. I will examine the current debate in the light of those principles: The Canonical, The confessional, The Ecumenical, The Christological, The Sacramental, The Law-Gospel, and The Two Kingdoms principles. I will do this under the general theme, which comes from one of our Easter lessons. LIVING FAITHFULLY IN THE NEW BIRTH GIVEN TO US THROUGH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD.
Before proceeding with those analyses, I would like to tell you where I stand, as if you already did not know. Along with Merton Strommen (The Church and
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Homosexuality p.105) I believe that we should continue to “clearly and forcefully reject the condemnation of homosexuals.... being both a welcoming church, inviting homosexuals to be a part of the fellowship of believers-both homosexuals who are dissatisfied with their orientation and those who are satisfied with it.”. He also believes that on the basis of the research that we should reject the gay agenda that maintains that homosexuals are born that way, that they can never change, that a gay lifestyle should be affirmed and encouraged as normal and desirable. He also calls for as wide a dissemination as possible of the best research regarding the causes of homosexuality, the best reorientation therapies, that ex-gays should be allowed to tell their stories and that the risks of promiscuous homosexual life style be talked about openly.
The Canonical Principle: During the stressful period of leaving Augustana College, my wife thought I might need an additional friend and companion so she left a copy of Herman lying around and when I wanted to see the humorous side of life I picked up Herman and flooded the house with laughter. One caption sees Herman giving advice to a young man and explaining that maturity comes when we discover that everything we have ever thought is wrong.
That is what St. Paul discovered when he met Jesus Christ on the way to Damascus. All he ever thought had to be reworked. He was blind and became blind in sight so that led by the reigns of Christ he could be led into the light of Christ. Luther too remarked that he was a blind horse led by the reigns of Christ into the light of the Gospel. Luther discovered that all he had ever thought had to be reworked because he met Christ by the power of the Spirit in the words of St. Paul. He raced through the Scriptures and discovered that they were indeed the cradle in which Christ lay. He found the gracious God in Christ whom he had hitherto refused to trust and obey. Because of his own experience with the Scripture and the Holy Trinity, seen through the person of Christ, Luther insisted that the Bible become available to every person in contemporary translation and the entire church, as hierarchy, congregation and pastor, and individual believer become subject to the Scripture as the sole norm in matters of faith and life with the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins given freely through the person and work of Christ to be received by faith, the chief hermeneutical principle.
The Lutherans made the Scripture the sole arbiter in matters of faith and life. We have promised that we will do this, and we still claim that we do just that. In a recent article, “A Second Thought About Inspiration,”(PRO ECCLESIA – FALL 2004, p. 397) Robert Jensen makes the following comment, “It was a great maxim of all pre-modern interpretation: that very Word who is incarnate as Jesus was not
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first heard when he “became flesh and dwelt among us.’ God speaks through the life of Israel and in her Scriptures; and when he speaks this utterance is not another than that same Word who is named Jesus. That is, when God speaks to Abraham or one of the Judges or by a prophet, he does it - in the language of the earliest Trinitarianism – in persona Verbi.” He speaks in the person of the Word. In all of Scripture we hear Christ speak and we listen to none other.
The Word was there at the beginning and all things were made through the Word. We are told with great clarity that we were made in the image of God, male and female, and that through the union of male and female (we are to become one flesh) we are to become co-creators with God. As the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit live faithfully in submission and in union one with another, so are the co-creators of this world to live faithfully in submission and union with one another, male and female, husband and wife.
What a gift and treasure we have been given. God made us in his own image, and co-creators with him, so that in union with God and in faithfulness to his will we might produce for God the children of God. The children that some day, in the world that is to come, will be like the angels of God, redeemed, holy and without spot or blemish.
. The gift of male and female, of marriage and the family, are at the very heart and center of the created order. It is both for God and for us that this world came into being. The first order of creation is the family, for in and through it come the family of God.
Marriage and the family are so central, so essential, to the created order that it is no wonder that the Word when He came among us reaffirmed what had been stated in the beginning. “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” (Matthew 19:4-5)
The centrality of marriage and the family in the created order is evident on every page of Scripture. Idolatry, or unfaithfulness to God, is likened in human terms to unfaithfulness to the marriage vow. And the Church which is the body of Christ is called the bride, with Christ as the groom, we the church being united with him in his death and resurrection, one body.
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When Jesus, the Word became flesh, lived among us, he lived in submission to the Father’s will in creation. He honored marriage by performing his first miracle at a wedding, providing wine for the celebration. As the one set aside to be the suffering servant, he himself lived in celibacy so that he could bring to salvation all of the children that we co-creators with God were bringing into this world. He affirmed, as does all of Scripture, the centrality of the marriage of male and female, co-creators with God, and the beauty and authenticity of the celibate life, the only alternative to marriage.
When sin came into this world, it should be a surprise to no one, that sin would manifest itself the most devastatingly in the very center of the created order, the union of male and female and the family. Where sin reigns the family disintegrates and the children who we are called to bring to glory are the most damaged and affected for life. In our world sex has become a commodity, the family simply one option, fetuses pulled from the womb at whim, and adultery, incest, sexual abuse, homosexual practice, and numerous other sexual practices the norm for many. As Bishop Henry stated so beautifully, “When seen within the perspective of faith, marriage is a covenant and a special friendship, in which a man and a woman not only share a deep love for one another, but are invited to become partners with God in creating a new person of precious dignity destined for eternal life.”
Paul and Luther, blinded horses, when confronted with Christ, had to admit that everything they thought was wrong. We who have been blinded by our culture must also be led once again by the reigns of Christ, not only into salvation by faith, but also into a restoration in our midst of the beauty and sanctity of marriage and the family, the call to bring children to glory, living faithfully in the new birth granted us through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
In the Scripture we have the revelation of the word of God, to which we are bound as the sole authority in matters of faith and life. There is another revelation that comes to us in nature. We are told that “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.” God’s handiwork is to be seen everywhere, and never in its full brilliance as in the creation of man and woman. The older I grow, the more I marvel at the way God has put us together, man and woman, child and elder. When one considers the human body everything that we see and know from experience tells us that sexual union is natural only between male and female.
There is a substantial and growing body of research. I recently perused the research identified by the Family Research Council.(Getting It Straight) as well as that referred to by Merton Strommen. That research would indicate that the size of the
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homosexual community is less than three percent; that the cause of homosexuality is not genetic, but exceedingly complex, including many developmental factors; that it is seldom a free choice, usually involving factors the homosexual did not choose; that a large number, getting close to fifty percent, were molested in one way or another as children; that it is a community at significantly greater health risk, and finally, that reparative therapy and reorientation is possible, although not in all cases.
We all need to grow up into and live faithfully within our new life granted us in the resurrection of Christ, hearing Christ speak to us in Scripture, awake and alert to the continuing revelation and research in nature, filled with compassion for all God’s creatures, welcoming all and daring to speak the truth in love, trusting in the power of God to renew and make whole.
The Confessional Principle: Can you believe it? We require subscription to the whole six hundred and fifty pages in the Book of Concord which contain our confessions, not in so far as, but because they are in agreement with Scripture, but always subordinate to Scripture. We have a wonderful legacy of statements, formulated in crisis, which will always be relevant because of their breadth and because they focus so clearly on the central issues of Christ and the Gospel. As a witness to the Gospel and the catholic consensus of the faith and as an interpretation of Scripture they give freedom to confess the faith in the midst of the new crises that every age will bring, including the crisis that confronts us.
The confessions argue that justification by faith is the central issue and a true summary of the Gospel. They speak of the terrified conscience, the experience of the wrath of God, the consolation of the Gospel and of ensuring that Jesus Christ is not robbed of his glory as the only mediator between God and humans. If this be not the central issue Lutherans will be forced to confess that everything they thought and taught was wrong. In this the bloodiest of all centuries and the most nakedly idolatrous age the wrath of God and the terrified conscience are with us still, but in new guise. This century calls for as radical a doctrine and proclamation of the justification of the ungodly by faith alone as ever before.
We are confronting the question as to whether or not we shall bless committed same sex relationships, and even developing a rite for the same. Let us listen to what Luther has to say in the confessions in the Large Catechism. In his explanation to the second commandment, “You shall not take the name of God in vain,” he says, “Let us learn and take to heart how much is at stake in this commandment and diligently guard against and avoid every misuse of the holy
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name as the greatest sin that can be committed outwardly. Lying and deceiving are themselves great sins, but they become much more serious when we try and justify and confirm them by invoking God’s name and thus make it into a cloak to hide our shame. Thus one lie becomes two, indeed a whole pack of lies.”(Book of Concord – p. 393)
And as for marriage, the Augsburg Confession states clearly, “Not only God’s command urges, compels, and insists upon this, but also God’s creation and order direct all to the state of marriage who are not blessed with the gift of virginity by a special work of God, according to God’s own Word.... ‘It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper as his partner.’”(Book of Concord – p. 84) It is most interesting to note that both the Scriptures and the Confessions recognize the necessity of marriage not only as the center of the created order, but also as a protection to help us guard against the powerful, carnal and deceitful sexual urges that afflict all of human kind.
They knew well of the sexual thoughts and desires of our day for they were present in their day as they have been present in every day. But they were not willing to salve the terrified conscience with blessings. There is only one power to forgive and to heal and that is in Christ alone. They were not willing to rob Christ of his glory as the only mediator, nor should we.
Dr. Ted Jacobson has just completed a reply to an article entitled, “Adiaphora, the Article by which the Church Stands or Falls, and the Blessing of Same-Sex Relationships.” He concludes his reply with the following four points: “1. Whenever the Scripture touches on the subject of homosexuality it is with disapproval. Even the most clever interpretation cannot remove this reality. Therefore a ceremony to bless such a relationship would be basically contrary to the Word of God.
2. Such a ceremony would be unbearably offensive to those who, on the basis of their understanding of the Scripture, regard homosexual behavior as a sin, which obviously should not be blessed. 3. It threatens “pure doctrine of the holy gospel,” and other doctrines, teachings, understandings and practices related to it, which have been held in common (albeit with acceptable variations) by this Christian fellowship to which we belong.
4. It is difficult to see how such a ceremony would be beneficial to the church since it threatens to cause divisions.”
The Ecumenical Principle: Robert Jensen in his book Unbaptized God describes the frustration of the ecumenical movement’s inability to move beyond the current
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impasse and lethargy. Every dialogue, he complains, when it reaches a point of convergence discovers a new reason to disagree. Be that as it may, the Lutheran ecumenical principles are rooted in its experience of confessing the Gospel under the ban of the pope and the threat of the Emperor. We are catholic Christians, they said, and our teaching is what the church has taught everywhere. We only wish to reform the abuses that have developed, abuses in teaching and practice condemned by God’s Word. They defined the church as, “the assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught purely and the sacraments administered rightly,” and they said that for the true unity of the church it was enough to agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. This definition was not a maxim but the very essentials for the existence of the church itself.
The confessions also state unequivocally that the Lutherans will do whatever is in their power to strive for and achieve true unity within the church.
The blessing of committed same-sex relationships and the ordination of those in the same relationships has become the most divisive issue of our day within denominations. Its full impact on the whole church is yet to be fully realized. In the Anglican Communion the Episcopal Church in the US and the Westminster Diocese in Canada are under censure. The Lutheran community may also be rent asunder. In the Bukoba Statement produced by the Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, a Statement on Globalization and Sexuality, we find this statement modest in comparison to the other things that are said therein, “We admonish all human communities that to endorse, legalize or encourage homosexuality in any form is to reject natural ethical codes that humanize society. It is thus to violate God’s creation.”
As we all know, by and large the vast majority of the ecumenical community is unalterably opposed to endorsing anything other than the marriage of male and female. If we care not for the unity of the our own national church and the whole church and if we are convinced that we are being led by the Spirit apart from the consent of the church catholic and we move to bless same sex marriages, we stand in danger of becoming a schismatic body. In the judgment of the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”
I remember speaking with my friend Bishop Bob Jacobson before he made the decision to become a Roman Catholic. He told me then that he feared that the move to the blessing of homosexual relations in our church was irreversible. He, who had been so much abused and maligned because of his strong witness and
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confession on this issue had no hope for the church he have loved and served. My good friend, Pastor Paul Quist, and his family were received into the Roman Catholic fold at an Easter vigil service in Australia. He said that he was going home. He mentioned in his letter of being tired of being one of the only voices that had the courage to stand up at meetings and confess and proclaim what the church really taught on marriage and the family. A friend of mine told me the other day that if our church moves in this direction we can assume that up to twenty five percent of our members will eventually leave to find a home in some other church, one in which they feel a part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
The Christocentric Principle: Full many shall come from the East and the West To sit at the feast of salvation With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the blest Obeying the Lord’s invitation Have mercy upon us O Jesus.
Then heaven will ring with an anthem more grand Than ever on earth was recorded When all of the saved shall receive from his hand The crown of the victors awarded
Have mercy upon us O Jesus.
Salvation has been created and won in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but the words sound so quaint, so ancient, so out of touch with the drama of modern life. Human kind has replaced God at the center of the universe, and there is simply no room in the human story and in the modern world view for ideas such as sin and hell and salvation and Jesus with the victor’s crown.
Many forms of pluralism are in ascendancy. Jesus is just another way, just a spoke in the wheel with Buddha and others leading to the transcendent; or even the transcendence that resides within the human species. Many within Christendom deny that God can be known adequately through Jesus only. Others call for an end to the exclusive claim that Jesus Christ is different.
Many believe that the age of pluralism and dialogue with world religions and peace on earth demand that Christianity abandon the idea that Jesus is the only way.
The Christocentric principle will not allow us to blink. We must leave the end and the judgment to God. We must proclaim Jesus only and rest on God’s mercy and let the mystery of God’s self-disclosure wait until the consummation. We are
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bound to Word and Sacrament because of God’s promise and command. God is not bound, however, to our limitations in addressing the world.
Our difficult task is not to demythologize the Bible but to demythologize the world view of the last two centuries. Human despair, human greed and rapaciousness, human lust and human bondage are all around us. That is a part of the real story. We have the name of Jesus and in that name the power to console, comfort, absolve, heal and free from every bondage. We have the power, in that name, to believe and be granted eternal life. That is a part of the real story.
When the United Church of Canada made the decision to both bless and ordain those in so called committed same sex relationships,(one follows the other like day and night), they did so against the objection of ninety percent of their congregations. They became the fastest declining denomination in the West. This has as much to do with Christology as it does with the approval of homosexual activity.
When we deal with marriage and the family we are dealing with one of the fundamental orders of creation. The Word that was made flesh was there at the beginning and that order and all other orders came through Him. The Word became flesh through that order. When one ceases to honor that order one stands in the precarious position of dishonoring the Word through whom the order came into being. It is not surprising to find in the United Church, at the highest levels, a reluctance to affirm the Christology of the church catholic and a preference for one of the pluralisms of the day. That is also true of at least one of the esteemed Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the US, Bishop Spong.
The Barmen Declaration written in 1934, states the issue with great clarity. It says, “Jesus Christ as testified to us in the Holy Scripture, is the One Word of God to which we have to listen; to which in life and in death we have to trust and obey.”
The Sacramental Principle: My grand daughter, who was five years old at the time, was ecstatic with her birthday and Christmas celebrations being only two days apart. She vacillated between childhood handsprings and homespun adult life philosophizing. On the way to the Christmas Eve service she asked her parents, “Is this Lord going to come down here tonight, or is He going to stay in heaven where he belongs?”
Luther won the battle, but Zwingli won the war, and the western intellectual tradition has since separated symbol from reality. There is even doubt in
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intellectual circles of the ability of linguistic symbols to describe reality. The Lutheran sacramental principle insists that the finite does comprehend the infinite and that the symbols of bread and wine do convey reality, for the Word even became flesh and dwelt among us and the bread and wine do become flesh among us. This is not an intrusion of the sacred into the real world, or a miraculous intervention. This is the real world and the real creator. We receive what the words convey. The creator and redeemer is not in heaven where God belongs. God is here feeding us, sustaining us, in our battle against the evil within and the evil without. The power and life of the cross and the resurrection are our meat and drink.
God is not in heaven where God belongs. God is present in all creation and especially in the Word and the Sacraments. Israel drank from the rock in the wilderness. The rock was Christ. The rock into which we have been baptized and from which we eat and drink is Christ. The finite does comprehend the infinite.
Marriage is a sacrament among the vast majority of Christians in this world, and the Lord God, the Word, is as present to bless those who enter into that estate as God is present in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper. While we in our Lutheran tradition have not declared it to be a sacrament because of the nature of our definition of the sacrament, we recognize the sacramental nature of that union. Marriage was instituted by God, the Word. It was blessed by God and the visible sign is that the two become one flesh. Luther, in the large Catechism, went so far as to declare that “God has given this walk, fatherhood and motherhood, a special position of honor, higher than that of any other walk of life under it..... he distinguishes father and mother above all other persons on earth, and places them next to himself.”(Book of Concord – p. 400)
The sacramental character of marriage radiates from every detail of the union. In the Augsburg Confession we are told that penance and holy orders can be considered sacraments, with holy orders being the ordination into the pastoral ministry or the priesthood. Is it not an utter delight to hear Martin Luther describe father and mother as the priests and bishops in their homes, set aside from the beginning, to bring their offspring, their sons and daughters, to glory? It is a holy order like no other order.
There is nothing sacramental in any form of homosexual activity, no holy orders, no honor commanded, no blessing promised, only prohibition.
The Law-Gospel principle: Karl Braaten in his discussion on the Law/Gospel principle quotes from a preacher and theologian in Germany who said, “If by any
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chance a peddler of indulgences were to appear among us, he would not do a good business; for nobody has a disquieted or alarmed conscience.”(p. 112) Braaten continues by making the comment that everyone is looking for a good deal and we are helping them.
For Luther and our confessions the Law/Gospel distinction is the most important distinction in interpreting the Scriptures and in the preaching of the Gospel. I asked Jim Nestingen for a brief statement on this distinction and here is what he said. “The Gospel is both the end of the law and its establishment. It declares the benefits of Christ Jesus unconditionally as an out and out gift, thereby silencing the law’s accusations. But just so, while stripping the law of its ultimate claims, the Gospel puts the law in its place. While the law can’t judge the quick and the dead, it can order human community, providing some protection, pointing to peace and justice”.
He continues, “So in the rubbing chaos of human sexuality, where love and desire compete, the Gospel sets out the last word. It says, amidst all the dominance and submission, exploitations and self-assertions, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But with the last word spoken, there is still a penultimate word:: ‘You shall,’ ‘you shall not.’ To universalize the gospel as policy, to in its name undermine the penultimate but necessary claims of the law, is a Corinthian style enthusiasm which treats people as categories rather than persons and surrenders the calling of the church to serve sinners in their predicaments.”
We are not here to haggle nor to provide a good deal for any one. We are here to call people to repentance and to faith. We are here to ask them, nay, challenge them, to live faithfully in the new birth, given through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We are not here to mince words and prance over definitions. We are not here to soothe and pacify the conscience of those who first should be made uncomfortable. We are here to first make people uncomfortable, expose the terrified conscience, and bring the true consolation of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. We are not here to rob Christ of his glory. We are here to proclaim that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, justifying the ungodly.
In this current crisis, while we are called to welcome and have compassion on all sinners, of which, of course, we are always ourselves the chief, we are not to confuse the clear distinction between Law and Gospel. When we do that there is no bread for anyone. When we fail to maintain this clear distinction, “Your sins are forgiven,” “You shall not,” we are Lutheran in name only and we have nothing to offer any one.
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The Two-Kingdoms principle: My nephew and his wife attended a catholic wedding and participated in the Eucharist, she coming out of the Catholic tradition. The priest by-passed their two children, who had accompanied her. Little Jacob began to cry and his sister Hanna drew herself up to her full five years of height and proclaimed, “What kind of church is this? You don’t even give bread to children.”
There is no tradition within Christendom which has not at some time denied bread and basic human rights to the poor and the outcast. There are, of course two kingdoms in conflict, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, and we experience the power of the evil one in numerous ways. Thanks goodness, at the end, when the Lord Jesus returns, there will be one kingdom only and evil perhaps not even a distant memory.
But there is another distinction of vital importance and that is the contrast between the two ways of divine activity in the world. There are two spheres and two modes of activity reflected in Luther’s comments on God’s right hand and God’s left hand. On the one hand God is at work in this world through the structures and principles operative in every phase of societal and cultural life and indeed in the life of the planet and the cosmos. It is here that we hear the groans of creation itself suffering under the weight of human oppression and sin and other cosmic forces, as well as the cry of the poor for bread and the oppressed for justice. On the other hand God is at work through the Spirit in the church, offering the bread of reconciliation, forgiveness and eternal life to those who will believe in the Son.
The two kingdoms are not two separate realms but two modes of God’s activity, one in the realm of law and principle and the life of society and the planet and the cosmos, the other operative in the calling of a people. One is operative in the promotion of all that is good in society, the other in seeking the lost, in seeking to restore human beings into that intimacy that transcends all intimacies, fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The two kingdoms are also the spheres for human activity and human vocation.
We are in a period of major transition and we do not see the end. The structures of the modern world and its intellectual and moral underpinnings are crumbling. When the Government feels that it is its responsibility to re-engineer an institution that is more fundamental to human life than the state itself, we know that our intellectual and moral underpinnings are indeed crumbling. And when the church is incapable of addressing the government with clear and forthright
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recommendations for the restoration of order, lacking both the moral and the intellectual capacity to do the same there will soon be no bread for any of the children.
In an article by Stanley Kurtz entitled Slipping Toward Scandinavia,(NRO Feb. 02 2004), he carries on an argument with an opponent attempting to demonstrate that in some areas of Norway same sex marriage has helped hasten the decline of marriage in that country. The article ends with three questions, the first one being, “Is it mere coincidence that in districts of Norway where de facto gay marriage (your phrase) is most accepted, marriage itself is virtually dead?”
Thank the Lord for the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches in Canada and other religious leaders who have no difficulty in admonishing the state to maintain its intellectual and moral underpinnings. Bishop Henry has no difficulty telling the Government that it has a solemn obligation to protect the institution of marriage. In a recent rally in Calgary Bishop Henry pointed to recent studies that indicated that a great majority of young people (90%) see traditional marriage, family and children as absolutely essential to their happiness.
The United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of Rights for the Family recognize the fundamental and inalienable rights of the family as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society.”(Art.16) As Bishop Henry stated, “There is no need to change this fundamental social structure in order to protect individual rights and to assure all citizens of social benefits. The state certainly has the power to authorize social benefits for any of its citizens without redefining marriage.”
The Lutheran Church has an extraordinary theological and intellectual heritage because of its commitment to Scripture and its commitment to confess the faith in the midst of crisis and danger, clinging faithfully to the evangelical principle and the heritage of the church catholic. But in the midst of the current debate in society we are silent. Rather than leading the way and ever confessing the faith boldly and with clarity we have thrown the towel to a church convention and placed before them the most divisive and deceptive recommendations possible. All that our ecumenical partners and the world will hear from us are the muffled roars of a house divided against its self.
Samuel S.Schmucker was a very gifted pastor and theologian who was responsible for the establishment of the first seminary in North America. Led by the spirit of his age he wished to develop a Lutheranism much more compatible with the
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Protestantism of his day. There were five errors that he noted in the confessions, one being the regenerative power of baptism and the other, the real presence in the Lord’s supper. There was a split in the church, but what emerged was a strong and energetic confessional Lutheranism. The Lutheranism that emerged was a vibrant force in North American life for over a century.
In this moment of time, we are being directed again, this time by the powerful lobbyists of our day to adopt a Lutheranism much more compatible with our culture. The error that we are to correct is our whole teaching on marriage, sexuality and the family. It would move us away from Scripture, from the Confessions and from the Lordship of the Word. There is not one principle of Lutheran Theology that would remain standing if this were the direction the church chose to move. What would remain is a schismatic body only calling itself Lutheran.
Jesus once told us that a house divided against itself will not stand. Perhaps the Lord God is using this moment in time, through our suffering and bitter division, through our impotence and impending financial meltdown to lead us all to repentance and faith, to make no provision for the flesh, to be conformed only to Christ, to live faithfully in the new birth given us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Can you imagine Lutherans, who talk so readily about returning in daily repentance to baptism, actually donning sackcloth and ashes and pleading for mercy before the Lord? We have allowed this to happen. We are accountable before the Lord.
A Church that stands on biblical and confessional authority cannot maintain its identity and mission with two opposing and irreconcilable views on an issue of such importance. This issue will not go away as some had hoped. It must be dealt with. We have no alternative but to renounce one of those opposing views, or separate, as did Lot and Abraham, and each go their way with their flocks.
Thank you for the privilege of speaking to you today. ___________________________
Rev. Glen Johnson, Ascension Lutheran, Calgary, Alberta Presentation to the Saskatoon Conference convention, April 22, 2005
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