Dr Jenson on what makes for a good Bishop

These lines are in response to the request to read and comment upon the correspondence between you and Pr. Gregory Fryer. I think it will be appropriate to address my observations more directly to you, and copy Pr. Fryer.

First, I hope you will allow me to say how impressed I am with your theological seriousness, which one does not always find among mainline Protestant bishops. Nor does one encounter many pastors who would like Pr. Fryer be able to sustain such a theological exchange.

I will not go seriatim through the various points made in the correspondence. Instead I will indulge in some general discussions, and land on a few points. These considerations will be organized in three groups.

The correspondence available to me first heats up with Pr. Fryer's delineation of the classic responsibilities of a bishop, and your invocation of ELCA structures. You are the authority on the latter, but in my judgment Fryer is right about what historic episcopacy must mean in any church that claims to have it. How then are matters to be adjusted as ELCA bishops are integrated into an historic succession? That is a problem I am glad I do not have to solve; but you and your colleagues are stuck with it. My hope would be that if something is being smudged a bit, it will be the structures of the ELCA, which unfortunately were created at a particularly ideological period in the history of American political thinking, and in deliberate and explicit deference to that thinking. I know whereof I speak; I was very much on the scene at the time, as a church-political activist and a journal editor with excellent connections.

Your account of episcopacy's history does, I fear, contain a considerable error, which may somewhat skew your understanding of a bishop's role. What historical scholarship dubs "monarchical episcopacy" emerged in the second century, not the middle ages. By the end of the third century, it was universal -- those who came out of hiding to assemble at Nicea were monarchical bishops to a man. Indeed, the theory and ideal practice of monarchical episcopacy was set for subsequent history by the second-century letters of Ignatius, in which he paints a picture of the one bishop of the one church in each city -- who thus is a monepiskopos and as such bears final teaching and disciplinary authority, and so is a monarchon. In his vision we do indeed see the one bishop surrounded by his presbyters, but they do not share his magisterium, his final responsibility for true teaching and right discipline; they have a very different pastoral role.

Perhaps what you were thinking of is the development -- though this too happened before the middle ages -- of various forms of primacy: regional ("metropolitans"), super-regional ("patriarchs") and even ethnic (e.g., the katholikos of the Armenians). Primates indeed have often functioned as first among equals in a collegium -- and in my view should always -- but this has been a collegium of other bishops. There never was an ordered episcopate that was not "monarchical" or that shared final magisterium with a college of presbyters.

The only properly medieval developments in the situation which the western Reformers faced, and the only things which the Lutheran Reformers may be said actually to have rejected, were the extreme centralism of the particular western patriarchate and the disastrous political involvements of the then governing bishops. Insofar as AC 28 conditionally affirms episcopacy, this is the monarchical, there being no other kind around to affirm.

The heart of your exchange with Pr. Fryer is, however, the famous Lutheran distinction of law and gospel. I think both of you are right at some points and at least off balance on others. Instead of tediously pointing these out one by one, I will intrude a more general discussion.

Theological history displays many and different distinctions between law and gospel. For our present purposes, the one made by Paul and the one made by Luther and Melanchthon are most important. For contemporary discussion it is vital to see that these are not the same. Paul's is eschatological: the law reigned until Christ, now Christ is the sole Lord, and the gospel is the message about that. Thus the direct Pauline contrast is law/Christ. Luther's distinction is functional, and directly between law and gospel: the law has its two/three existential functions, the gospel a function defined over against these. Luther and Melanchthon, however, unfortunately thought their distinction was the same as Paul's. This mistake has generated confusions and irresolvable disputes from the very beginning, especially when the Lutheran distinction has been made a principle for exegesis of Paul and Paul so interpreted has been wielded in theological dispute, as already by Melanchthon in the Apology. Also the Gritsch-Jenson Lutheranism is not free of such problems.

If we now wish to appropriate this part of the Lutheran heritage, what we have to try to do is bracket out Luther's and Melanchthon's mistake about themselves, and the confused arguments that have resulted, and ask how Luther's distinction actually worked in his theology. So far as I can make that out, "law" and "gospel" functioned systematically for Luther not as labels for two subject matters or kinds of questions, but as labels for the two ways in which God rules his creation. God always, according to Luther, creates and governs by speaking. When God rules by so speaking to us as to mandate righteousness, Luther calls that "law;" and when God rules by so speaking to us as to share righteousness, Luther calls that "gospel." If we wish to think with Luther, we will not sort out "law-issues" and "gospel-issues," since God may speak about some aspect of righteousness in both ways and even in both ways at once. Thus as Luther wields the language, "the law" is not coterminous with ethics or "the gospel" with doctrine as something other than ethics; these supposed equivalencies were invented very recently, to accommodate late-modern America's antinomian impulse by making it appear that ethical decisions cannot impact doctrinal faithfulness.

Thus whether homoerotic practice, and unions constituted in that practice, are good or bad can very well be a doctrinal question, even a decisive one. Of course this observation does not yet determine that the question in fact is or is not doctrinal, or how it ought to be resolved. And the teaching that a practice which invariably appears in Scripture as a moral calamity is nevertheless ok can very well be a doctrinal error, and be known as such without recourse to "fundamentalist" arguments.

Fryer is certainly right in what is perhaps his chief contention. Contrary to common opinion, for Luther not only is the law ordered to the gospel but first and foremost the gospel is ordered to the law: God's gospel-speaking fulfills itself precisely when it creates "Lust und Liebe zu alle Gebote Gottes." Moreover, in the treatise on Christian liberty we discover -- to many Lutherans' surprise -- that this particular Liebe and faith are the same thing, so that God's commands belong to the object of faith.

Finally in this exposition, by Gebote Gottes Luther meant something quite concrete, God's speech in its mandating mode, as the church hears God so speak in Scripture. That Luther regarded the Gebote as more or less coterminous with natural law does not impinge on his understanding of the Gebote as God's speech, since for him "natural law" did not mean what it means in modernity. Western modernity's "natural law" is law that we discover for ourselves from observation, deduction, or an inner voice, and which we therefore must ourselves construe, necessarily from inside the historical process we inhabit. For Luther, that there is "natural law" and that the biblical commandments comport with it, meant simply that God can and does speak his commands by and to also those outside his covenant people, so that being addressed by God is "natural" to his creatures, and that commands so received may be expected to come out the same as the biblical commandments. Thus when Luther in his catechisms expounds the law for believers, he without further reflection lays out the Ten Commandments from Scripture, which is where the church turns to hear God speak. Accordingly, the Commandments are in the catechisms neither reduced to function -- the "uses" indeed hardly appear -- nor relativized by natural law.

In the current Lutheran situation, antinomianism often results from the mistaken supposition that by "natural law" Luther means modernity's "natural law," with its basis in human autonomy and consequent inevitable historical variability. It is said that since the commandments are expressions of natural law which we discover, they must be subject to the historical variation which characterizes our law-finding. As Luther-interpretation, this is simply a boner. Moreover, law that we autonomously construe, according to how we judge our historical role, must eventually end up as no law at all. This is not only a theoretical point; it is also a description of Western modernity's history.

One may not -- again insofar as I can figure Luther out -- so concentrate on the functions of Scripture's law as to relativize its content. "You shall not commit adultery" can have its "theological" and other functions only because adultery is in fact against the will of God, and because the appearance of this commandment in Scripture is God's voice telling us that. Etc.

All this history of episcopacy and Luther-interpretation do not, of course, themselves settle whether a churchly decision to bless same-sex union or ordain those involved in them is in fact a doctrinal decision or if so a right one. Yet your and Pr. Fryer's differing judgments of these matters are both the occasion of and a constant presence in your correspondence, so I must take this up also. From here on, I have to speak in my own voice and not as an interpreter of Lutheranism.

The position now dominant among the institutional elites of the old "mainline" churches is, I think, in great part rooted in a presumed sort of answer to a question you early raise: How can Scripture's law serve as "norm and standard" for "gays and lesbians?" The theologically straightforward answer is: the same way as for the rest of us. The law, divine or human, is never about "orientations" but about practices. And after all is said and done, Scripture is brutally clear about homoerotic practice: it is a moral disaster for anyone, just as adultery is a crime for anyone -- the McGreevy incident is a nice case in point, of a gay whose transgression is adultery, just as if he were not gay. Of course every mandate of the law is harder on some, with their predilections, than on others with theirs. In this fallen world, that is always true of law, divine or human. Does God's law then mandate frustration for those unattracted or repelled by the opposite sex? I fear it does, just as, given the fall, each of us, with his or her predilections, will be blocked by God's law in some painful -- perhaps deeply painful -- way. If each of us obeys a norm adapted to his or her predilections, there is no law at all.

That oral sex, mutual masturbation, etc. are practiced by both straights and gays is nothing to the point. For Scripture's horror at homoerotic practice is obviously not at doing these particular things but at doing any sexual act with someone of the same physical gender. As to why physical gender is decisive, perhaps I may be allowed to save labor by referring to my Systematic Theology, II:73-94, which I gather is available to both you and Fryer. Karl Barth is the great modern teacher here. Or again, of course it is better to stay with one homoerotic partner than to cruise. Which in no way means that the church can regard such an arrangement as more than the lesser of evils -- a sort of affirmation which the gay movement emphatically does not want and which the synod's resolution does not make. A churchly blessing never says that something is the lesser of evils, but that it is a positive good.

Finally, I hope you and others responsible for doctrine and discipline in the ELCA will take Pr. Fryer's lamentation over the denomination with the seriousness it deserves. After teaching in seminary for twenty years, I have some acquaintance among the pastorate. The theologically most serious among those I know survive only in the kind of anguish Fryer manifests, or by isolating themselves and their congregations from the denomination's doings, or by avoiding parish ministry. Or, indeed, they leave.

This is an excellent letter by one of the most brilliant theologians in present day Lutheranism. Dr. Jenson presents an overview of the development of the episcopacy, how that impacted the Reformers understanding of the office of Bishop; and how that office should apply both Law and Gospel in today's crisis of moral sexual revisionism.

The link to the article will lead to a page with a left sidebar providing further links to correspondence and documents prior and subsequent to this treatise

ELCA Bishop of NY, Stephen Bouman, on gay and lesbian committed unions (excerpts from linked correspondence):

http://www.holytrinitynewrochelle.org/yourti97891.html

June 15, 2004

What are gay and lesbian Christians to do with their sexual orientation? One direction the church is exploring is this: they are to do the same thing with their sexual orientation as Christians with a heterosexual orientation. They are to remain chaste in celibacy or chaste (faithful) in a union. . . .

http://www.holytrinitynewrochelle.org/yourti97893.html

August 29, 2004

I do not believe that human beings were created in accordance with a literalistic understanding of Genesis 1-2. I do not think that there was a historical “fall.” I do not think that death is a punishment for human sinfulness. And I do not think that every expression of homosexuality is sinful. . . .

I can find no passage of Scripture which prohibits the committed union of two gay or two lesbian persons. . . .

To state therefore that homosexual committed unions involve practices which “deviate from the norm,” to claim that they are sins for which persons are to be admonished to repent, is to use the Bible in a way which does not honor its authority, but perverts its authority in a fundamentalistic way. . . .

To change is traumatically difficult, if not impossible for most persons who experience their homosexual orientation as not self-chosen. To require celibacy contradicts Augsburg Confession Article XXIII. To enter into a committed union that is intended to be life-long may be the best or certainly the least bad alternative for gay and lesbian Christians. And I can find no passage in the Bible which forbids such a committed union. . . .

So, I see the LCMS as my "escape hatch" and have been visitng LCMS churches in the last few months...is theological liberalism lurking there as well?

We have a music director at my church who grew up as the son of an LCMS pastor. He is a wonderful musician and has been in the LCMS all of his life until he moved to our ELCA church recently. He is probably the most liberal person on our staff, except for the senior pastor. He is very much in favor of the changes to support non-celibate gays as clergy; he does not want to do a choral piece during our God and Country service that honors our veterans because he opposes war (who doesn't oppose war??).

I am surprised that someone with his background would have these views...how common is this in the LCMS? How do I know if that is what I am getting into when I choose a church?

The LCMS has its share of pseudo-Lutherans, mainly of two types: liberals and church growthers. The growthers right now are the bigger problem. The two groups, libs and growthers, have made an unholy alliance, since they have in common the desire not to be shackled by traditional Lutheranism.

I am a conservative, confessional, liturgical, sacramental LCMS pastor. I can probably direct you to a solid LCMS church in your area. You may have to drive past two or three loosey-goosey LCMS churches to get there, but people can usually find a fairly decent congregation within an hour's drive.

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