Lutheranism for Non-Lutherans

FROM THE BOOK

“Like many American Protestants outside of the Midwestern United States, throughout my younger years I knew almost nothing about Lutheranism other than the fact that it had some connection to Martin Luther, and that Lutheran services were vaguely similar to the Roman Catholic Mass—“Catholic light” as Lutherans have been called. It was not until I was studying theology in college that I came into contact with a serious and committed Confessional Lutheran. In my Reformed education, I had heard occasional comments about Lutherans. Some protested that the church bearing Luther’s name had departed from his teachings, and that Calvinists were the true heirs of the Reformation. Lutherans, some of my Calvinistic teachers claimed, followed Philip Melanchthon, who supposedly abandoned the more rigorous theology of his colleague for one of compromise and synergism. This all played into the perspective that to be a serious and theologically rigorous Protestant was to be Reformed. There were no other options.

But this Lutheran I met challenged me by pointing to the Lutheran Confessions in the 1580 Book of Concord, telling me about some of the notable Lutheran theologians who wrote after Luther. My prior love for Luther’s writings, combined with my curiosity, prompted me to explore these later authors alongside the Lutheran Confessions. I began seeking out Lutheran literature, working through the few non-Luther texts available in my college’s theological library. As I studied the Lutheran confessions, I realized how many of my prior assumptions about Lutheranism were based on shaky misrepresentations. As I considered my own path after college into higher education, it became apparent that God was disrupting my plan to attend Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. I was convinced of the veracity of Lutheran theology.

Assimilation into Lutheran culture was difficult in some ways. Having grown up in New England, I was an outsider to the Midwestern German culture inherent within much of American Lutheranism. Beyond these cultural challenges, I quickly learned that Lutherans often use different language than Calvinists do while speaking about theological concepts. Correspondingly, Lutheran Christians often ask different questions than Reformed Christians do when discussing doctrine. During my investigative period, I spoke with several Lutheran pastors, but my clarifying questions were often met with confusion or with the simple response, “What does that question mean?” As similar as the Lutheran and Reformed traditions are on many important issues, their driving concerns differ. This leads to divergence in the fundamental bases of both systems. Anyone attempting to understand a different theological system than their own must try to recognize the concerns and questions which underlie that other system, rather than assuming one’s own established framework. 

Luther’s primary concern was motivated by the question, “Where can I find a gracious God?” Steeped in a harsh form of late medieval piety, the young Luther viewed God as a righteous judge who was ever ready to punish sinners who violated his law. In Luther’s religious upbringing, Jesus was depicted more often as the arbiter of the final judgment than as the sacrificial Lamb who suffered in the place of his people. Luther developed a strong sense of his own sin and of God’s demands of holiness set forth in the divine law. The young monk fell into a spiritual crisis. How was a sinner who failed daily to keep God’s commands considered righteous in God’s sight? Is such a thing even possible, or does God merely delight in playing games with his fallen creatures, eagerly waiting to bring down the hammer of his wrath wherever possible? Through the aid of St. Paul, his spiritual father Johann von Staupitz, St. Augustine, and the Rhineland mystics, Luther would come to see God as more than pure power or justice, but as a gracious Father who desires the redemption of his fallen children. This gracious God is most evidently displayed in the person of Christ. Lutheranism is unique in its Christocentric focus. For the Lutheran Church, the love of God as revealed in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the lens through which all Christian knowledge of God is perceived. This Christological approach is the reason why some questions that other theological traditions ask frequently are given relatively little treatment among Lutheran theologians. For example, Lutheran dogmaticians do not write extensively on the relation between the divine decree and the human will although this topic is featured in many Reformed treatises and books. On the other hand, Lutherans tend to incorporate sacramental theology into their writings on almost every subject, whereas the Reformed usually relegate the sacraments to one locus in their systematic theological textbooks. These are only two examples of divergence in emphasis between the two branches of the Reformation. These differences sometimes lead to frustration among the Reformed about the Lutherans’ consistent appeals to mystery in the reconciliation of divine truths. Lutheran dogmatics do not consist in the unweaving of logical puzzles, but in the proclamation of the truths of God as revealed in Christ for the sake of sinners.” – From the Introduction