Thankfully, its existence was made known in Mary Todd’s book, Authority Vested, pages 163-177.  According to Todd, Rev. Prohl died in 1960 “at age fifty-three.  With his death the most vocal spokesman for a change in the status of women in the Missouri Synod was silenced, and the church was spared having to take definitive action against a dissenter.” (p. 176)

Women had not been granted suffrage in the LCMS when Woman in the Church was written and yet its content remains relevant today.  Pastor Prohl intended that his book be part of a larger conversation in the Missouri Synod about the role of women in the church.  His work includes study on 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, the order of creation and the order of redemption, Old Testament authority, husband and wife relationships, and women of the Old Testament, New Testament, and today.

Woman in the Church pdf

“The fall issue features a follow-up article by David Domsch, which takes a third look at the “Fear” that constrains pastors and people in the LC-MS. This issue also contains an essay by Carol Schmidt that responds to the proposed Koinonia Project within the LC-MS.”

Fear III by Mr. David Domsch

Unity or Uniformity in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod? by Mrs. Carol Schmidt

Synodical Observer

Introduction

From the time of the early church 1 Timothy 2:8-15 has been widely regarded as a clear prohibition of the ordination of women. That is the official position of the LCA. In raising the issue of women’s ordination afresh, our church’s theology commission is eager to reexamine the relevant texts, treating them with due seriousness as the authoritative word of God for church and society today. When Lutherans read the Bible we are committed to asking two questions: What does this text say, and what does the text mean for us today? First the text has to be explained and understood. This is the task of exegesis. Then it has to be applied to the current situation in church and society. This is the task of hermeneutics. We resist the widespread practice of lifting texts out of context and applying them without reflection to the issues and questions of today. The Bible is not a reservoir of proof texts to bolster personal positions.

Considering the historical, linguistic and cultural gap between the biblical text and the twentieth century, it is necessary to raise questions about the meaning of words and the historical setting of the text under review. That is never so true as when the meaning of a text is disputed. It is the purpose of this paper to study 1 Timothy 2:8–15 closely, paying attention to the church-historical setting to which these words are addressed, the significant words used, and the thrust of the argument. As the text is studied we will keep coming back to the most important question of all, in the light of the current debate. Are Paul’s words an apostolic directive determinative for the world-wide church until the end of time, or are they a pastoral admonition that applies only to the church in Ephesus?

Paul’s major concern

Paul’s starting point in 1 Timothy is God’s will that all people on earth be saved (1 Tim 2:3,4). In the light of that overarching concern Paul advises Timothy on matters pertaining to the worship life of the Ephesian church. First and foremost the church should offer prayers for all people, starting with kings and others in positions of authority, so that society may enjoy peace and quietness, and people more readily come to faith (1 Tim 2:1,2).

The situation in Ephesus

Problems had arisen that hindered the purpose of God at Ephesus where Timothy was a pastor. Through the early ministry of Paul and Apollos the church was established in Ephesus, starting with the conversion of about twelve Jewish men (Acts 19:7). Paul conducted an intensive three-year ministry in Ephesus, resulting in the conversion to the Christian faith of numbers of Jews, as well as gentiles who gave up their superstitious practices and their worship of the goddess Artemis (Acts 19:8-20).

This miraculous growth, however, was followed by the entry of ’savage wolves’ into the church, ‘not sparing the flock’ (Acts 20:29). It is clear from the letters to the Ephesians and Timothy that a division soon arose between a faction influenced by ‘teachers of the law’ (1 Tim 1:7) who wanted to uphold the Jewish law in all respects, abstaining from certain foods and forbidding marriage (4:3), and a libertarian faction opposed to a strict adherence to Jewish law. The promotion of false doctrine (1:3) by teachers on both sides had made the members angry and argumentative (2:8; 6:4). The libertarians held that the resurrection of the dead had ‘already taken place’ (2 Tim 2:18), and therefore the judgment was past and people could live as they pleased because salvation was assured. This resulted in wicked and godless behaviour (1:8-11; 2 Tim 3:1-5), the wearing of ostentatious clothing and jewellery by certain women (2:9), and the pleasure-seeking and gossip-mongering of some widows (5:6-15).

The place of women at Ephesus

The numerous references to women throughout 1 and 2 Timothy indicate that women were heavily influenced by the teachings of the libertarian group, and they probably formed part of its leadership team (eg 1 Tim 2:9-15; 4:7; 5:13-15; 2  Tim 3:6,7). They wanted to play a major role in the teaching ministry of the church.

On two chief counts this was unthinkable. First of all, the founding members of the church were converts from Judaism (R Strelan 1996: 153-55). For them it was a question whether women could even be instructed in the scriptures, let alone become teachers. Paul’s saying that women could learn (2:9) would have represented a major and troublesome step forward for them. Rabbinical instruction in the Torah was generally speaking out of bounds to women.

Secondly, other newcomers formerly lived as hedonists, magicians, and idol worshippers (Acts 19:18-27). Much of the appeal of the new faith lay in the gospel of grace that Paul promoted but their instruction in the faith was not thorough enough to make them appreciate that the Christian way involved making a clean break with their wicked past. They had gained the mistaken impression that Christ’s ministry meant immunity from the wrath of God. They wanted to teach and so flaunt their newly acquired status, they would wear whatever gaudy clothing they desired and so flaunt their freedom. But such ostentation was totally out of step with mainstream society. As newcomers to the faith and poorly instructed, it was important that they continue to learn, but not become involved in teaching. They were neophytes. They had a long way to go. They did not know the scriptures. They had picked up those snatches that took their fancy. For them Paul’s words, that they may learn quietly but not teach, would have been a troublesome step backward.

Universal ban or local restriction?

How can we ascertain whether a biblical command remains in force in the church today? If the text says explicitly that the command is in force in perpetuity there can be no doubt that that is so (eg Matt 26:29; 28:20; 1 Cor 11:26). The chief criterion is that the command stands in service of the gospel. On the other hand, the text may exhibit signs that the command applies to the specific situation for which it was intended. The church has decided not to enforce hats for women (1 Cor 11:2-16), prayers offered by men only with hands raised (1 Tim 2:8), and abstaining from meat with blood in it (Acts 15:29). What follows is the evidence that 1 Tim 2:8-15 has special application to the local situation Paul confronted in Ephesus and should not be necessarily applied to the church in every place till the end of time.

(a) When Paul says, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach’ (2:12), he is giving a ruling for all the places of worship in Ephesus (‘in everyplace’, v 8). He does not say that the instruction should be observed ‘in all the churches’ or ‘until the Lord comes’, thereby universalising and absolutising the admonition. Nor does he speak of his command as a command of the Lord. It is Paul’s directive for the specific situation that pertains in Ephesus.

(b) On every occasion that the verb ‘to permit’ is used elsewhere in the New Testament, with or without a preceding ‘not’, it refers to a highly specific situation, limited to the time and place where the order is given (Matthew 8:21; 19:8; Mark 5:13; John 19:38; Acts 21:39,40; 26:1; 27:3; 28:16; 1 Cor 16:7; Heb 6:3). It is not used in any of these texts for commands of our Lord or his apostle that are meant to be binding on the church for all time. Therefore it is highly unlikely that the situation is different when the word is used at v 12 in connection with women speaking in church.

(c) Throughout our text Paul uses terminology drawn from contemporary ‘rules for the household’ (see Eph 5:21–6:9; Col 3:18–4:1; 1 Pet 3:1–7) which likewise spoke of modesty, decency, piety, respect, and an external deportment that reflected moderation in all things. Behaviour that deviated from these ideals undermined the mission of the church. Paul is therefore at pains to advocate a Christian life – style that conforms as closely as possible to codes of behaviour current in the society of his day (Phil 4:8). Adjustments must be made for a situation where totally different norms prevail. A church that behaves in ways at odds with best current practices will not be heard.

(d) Two concepts surround and control the text: quietness (vv 2,11,12) and salvation (vv 3,4,[5,6],15). In a quiet setting, both within society and the church, God’s saving mission is most effectively accomplished. The word ‘quiet’, used twice in our text (vv 11,12), is not the Greek word for absolute silence but the word for respectful quiet or tranquility. It speaks of a mood of gentleness and an attitude of humble receptivity (Acts 22:2; 2 Thess 3:12; see also 1 Tim 2:2; 1 Pet 3:4). In an environment that frowned on female rowdiness it was essential that Christian women hold their tongues and not disrupt the ‘quiet and peaceable life’ (v 2) in which the gospel has free course.

(e) Teaching as an exercise of female authority over men was probably excluded at Ephesus, but not necessarily throughout the church of the first century. It has become popular to argue that it is not teaching by women itself that Paul rules out, but teaching in a domineering way, or in a way that violates the truth (eg Barrett, Fairbairn, Guthrie, Dibelius and Conzelmann, Kelly, Simpson, Payne). It is pointed out that the verb translated ‘to have authority’ (authentein) appears only once in the NT, and outside the NT it usually refers to aggressive, assertive and even violent behaviour towards others. But the traditional translation ‘to teach and to have authority over a man’ is most likely correct. It has been ably demonstrated (see Koestenberger: 179) that in extra-biblical literature the word oude (nor), that connects ‘teach’ and ‘have authority’, always connects two verbs that are positive or two verbs that are negative, not a positive and a negative verb. Since ‘teach’ is always positive in the letters to Timothy, ‘to have authority’ must be positive also. It cannot mean ‘to domineer’. The evidence remains compelling, however, that women taught in the early Christian assembly. Admittedly Priscilla and Aquila first took Apollos aside before explaining to him the Christian faith ‘more accurately’ (Acts 18:26). But Paul tells the older widows who were responsible for Christian instruction ‘to teach what is good’ (Tit 2:2). And the Corinthian prophets, among whom women were included, had a catechetical role in public worship (1 Cor 14:19). On balance it is probable that Paul ruled out all female teaching at Ephesus because of the problems it created. Elsewhere women did teach publicly in the New Testament church, so a general prohibition is impossible.

(f) As for Paul’s call for female subordination in our text, it is vital to note that he does not speak of women being subordinate to men. The submission, or obedience, of women has more to do with them knowing their proper place in church and society, and taking it. It has to do with conformity to social standards. The first converts to Christianity were predominantly Jewish, so Paul was eager to avoid offending people raised in the Jewish faith. In Judaism only men were allowed to learn the Torah and teach it. Women took their place in society alongside slaves and children, not as the equals of men. When they converted to Christianity women were obliged to maintain a respectful silence, let men take the lead, decline to contradict or argue with the male leaders of the congregation, appreciate that the domestic arena was the proper place for women, and adorn themselves in good works that would attract more converts to the Christian faith and do the church a power of good. That is what Paul means by subordination. It does not have to do with conforming to the structure of existence supposedly embedded in creation.

(g) It is inconsistent of the church to enforce the prohibition on women teaching in worship and then ignore other prescriptions and restrictions that are of equal weight in the Timothy text. The church has not seen fit to enforce the instruction in our text directed to men, that they pray ‘lifting up holy hands’ (v 8). Yet that is Paul’s will and it is expressed in words no weaker than ‘I do not permit a woman to teach’ (v 12). Similarly, Paul tells the Ephesians that men only should pray (v 8), yet it is rare for the church to forbid women from praying in public worship. In a different situation, Paul assumes that women do in fact offer prayers in church (1 Cor 11:5). No less weighty is Paul’s prohibition on braided hair, gold, pearls, and expensive clothes (v 9), but this is not enforced in most churches today. Consistency requires that these regulations be reintroduced if we are to maintain the ban on women preaching and teaching in public worship. We cannot pick and choose among instructions that carry equal weight in the biblical text.

Summary

Our text addresses a double audience at Ephesus: strict Jewish Christians steeped in the traditions of their faith, and more progressive converts from Judaism and the Greek world of the first century AD. The Jewish Christians, probably representing the founding members of the Ephesian church, had to be jolted into a new appreciation of the equality and liberty of the gospel as it applied to women. But Paul was willing to move slowly, one step at a time. Women are to be permitted to sit quietly and respectfully at the feet of the teachers and preachers and learn the scriptures. To go further and adopt a teaching role would be to cause undue offence. The strictures of Judaism had formed the mind of those embarking on this new faith venture. The time would come when the shock of having women take a more upfront position would abate. The time would come when women were sufficiently versed in the scriptures to do so. For the time being, and to avoid offence Paul’s pastoral admonition is that women maintain a low profile. Some converts on the other hand, both Jew and gentile, had to be urged to take things slowly. Excited by the freedom of the gospel and the equality of all people that it implied, some women were moving into teaching roles without thorough instruction, without appreciating that the Christian faith did not allow for libertarian excesses in terms of conduct and behaviour, and without due recognition of the offence they were causing in the church and the scandal they were creating in society at large. Paul advocates a middle position that has the effect of moving the Judaisers forward and restraining the progressives. This does not represent compromise, but concern for that which is of ultimate importance – stability and peace in church and society, so that the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ may be proclaimed and take root in human hearts without let or hindrance.

References

• Koestenberger, Andreas J.
  1993 ‘Syntactical Background Studies to 1 Timothy 2.12 in the New Testament and Extra-biblical Greek Literature’, in Discourse Analysis and Other Topics in Biblical Greek, Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson eds, Sheffield Academic Press.
• Moo, Douglas J.
  1980 ‘1 Timothy 2:11-15: Meaning and Significance’, Trinity Journal 1, 62–83.
• Payne, Philip B.
  1981 ‘Libertarian Women in Ephesus: A Response to Douglas J. Moo’s Article, “1 Timothy 2:11-15: Meaning and Significance”,’ Trinity Journal 2, 169-97.
• Strelan, J. G. and Pfitzner, V. C.
  1994 ‘Do 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 clearly support the LCA’s stance on the Ordination of Women?’, an exegetical paper presented to the Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations (LCA), 6 October.
• Strelan, Rick
  1996 Paul, Artemis, and the Jews in Ephesus, Berlin, New York, Walter de Gruyter.

Thank you to Dr. Peter Lockwood and The Women’s Ministry Network in Australia for allowing us to reprint this study.  It is available with links to the Biblical passages at wmn.org.au .

by Carol Schmidt

“Doing theology” involves observing the effects of theological assumptions and doctrines on the lives of people and asking many questions.  Today I wonder what justification means for a person whose voice is not allowed to be heard in the church and I wonder if the church that silences people believes in the gracious God revealed to us in Jesus Christ or if it remains under Law.

In Genesis 3, grace remained in the Garden even as Adam and Eve attempted to hide in fear from God.  God was still with and calling them.  When questioned by God, when each was asked to give an account for what he and she had done, the humans set in place the hierarchical chain of blame.  The man blamed the woman and the woman blamed the creature.  In the failure of each to take his or her own responsibility before God, the rule of man over woman began and the woman’s voice was silenced.

In the temptation of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 4, I see a reversal of the chain of blame.  Jesus refused to exploit nature, to throw himself down, or to elevate himself above others, acknowledging that God is God and people are not.  God alone is to be worshiped and served (vs. 10).  The faith of Jesus caused him to remain on level ground with other people.  He refused helpless resignation and the power to rule over other people, thereby reversing the sin of Adam.  The faith of Jesus is then displayed in his ministry.

“After they had gone away, a demoniac who was mute was brought to him.  And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.’  But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.’”  Matt. 9:32-34

The healing of Jesus Christ involves not only eyes to see and ears to hear what God is doing in the world, but also voice to proclaim salvation that is presently effective.  The Pharisees, remaining in the sin of Adam, attributed this healing act of Jesus to “the ruler of the demons.”  They failed to recognize that God’s power is not to be used to silence other people and rule over them, but to free voices to speak and participate fully in this new life initiated by Jesus Christ.

Faith in Jesus Christ involves the healing of the whole person.  Therefore, does a church that silences the voices of women attempt to delay the justification of women until a final day of judgment after life on earth has ended?  Do they think that women are saved in the end by their obedient silence to men while men are presently saved in their rule over others?  Where is the faith of the church that allows men to stand above the cross and to nail any woman who dares question their authority to a cross?  Where is the faith of women who speak only to affirm that they should be silent in accordance with the rule of men?  In whom do we place our trust?

Until women refuse to throw themselves down in silence and men refuse power to rule over women, we continue to test God and refuse to worship and serve the Lord, Jesus Christ.  We, as a church, reject the good news that there is one Lord and no others when we refuse to stand on level ground at the foot of the cross, where no voice is silenced.  We remain under Law and reject the Grace of God freely given to us in Jesus Christ.

(Written for The Daystar Journal, September 2006)

by Carol Schmidt

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that the one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:14-17)

When by means of legalistic religion the soul is tormented by the demand for impossible perfection and obedience to religious law, there is no cure or salvation in sight except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. But what do those words mean, and why do we insist that people believe them when the church that calls for such belief denies the grace of God by its demand for unquestioning conformity to its tradition and interpretation of Scripture?

I was raised in a church whose main teaching was the fear of hell and what I must do to avoid the eternal fires of hell. From my earliest memory, I lived in fear of sudden death where there would be no instant before death in which I could pray for forgiveness. Twelve was a particularly perilous age because it was the normal age for baptism, but before being baptized a person had to work up the desire within her/himself to repent. About a month after my twelfth birthday, I was baptized and clearly recall the desire that I had to die at that moment because I was certain, according to all that I had been taught, that I would never again be as pure or assured of salvation as I was in that moment.

Following adult confirmation and twelve years of membership in a congregation of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, the indoctrination of my youth remained with me even though I had heard the word “grace” many times. The word itself and the formal teaching of it did not mean anything to me, and I felt a certain amount of guilt because of my inability to grasp this concept.

I have considered the re-establishment of communication with the pastor who confirmed me no coincidence. Through several years of conversation with him, grace began to become a reality. It was not only his teaching that facilitated understanding but also his example of patience with me, his love for and acceptance of me. He allowed me to write and say anything to him, and I trusted him more and more. I have found that this is the way it is also with God, in prayer. The Word of God is living and active. Through the Holy Spirit the words of the Bible come to life and have meaning. It is as if they jump off the page into the heart and mind of a person, changing him or her forever. The grace of God cannot be found in words of teaching alone, but it is a gift of God that must be experienced; it must be lived. The life of Christ in us displays the grace of God to others in this way. I will always be grateful to my former pastor for his teaching of grace that leads to the assurance of eternal salvation and the belief that there truly is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.

Once this certainty and trust in God is formed in a person, she then asks, “What now? Lord, what is it that you would have me do?” The love of God cannot remain contained within a person but must go out to others, and the person filled with this love must look to the Source of love for direction. She must follow Jesus Christ and go wherever he leads her. It is at this point that some women come into conflict with the beloved teacher and are forced to choose between pleasing him or following Christ, for some women are called by God to teach and prophesy in the same way as men.

The gifts of God are not rationed by men but are given freely by God according to God’s will. When by the grace of God faith is formed in the female, she is a new creation, and Christ lives in her. There can be no other Lord in her life except Jesus Christ. When religious leaders deny this reality and demand that she return in obedience to their lordship, they attempt to build a wall between her and God to replace the curtain torn through the cross of Christ. Should she attempt to return and appease the men while saying to God, “Surely there is something else that I can do for you that will also be pleasing to men,” she will find that any work she attempts to do under these conditions will be as nothing because she cannot serve two masters. She is effectively sidelined, silenced and separated from the life of God when she accepts the teaching of men that God will not speak to her in the same way that God speaks to men. Retaining the belief that she is eternally saved while allowing this wall to stand between her and God, she is returned to a state of wishing for death because there is no life apart from God. She waits for the end of time and prays for Christ’s return while sinking in the emptiness of bargaining with God for gifts intended for others and the rejection of gifts given to her. She has been returned to the law and rule of men because she fears the disapproval of men more than she fears God. She believes the words of men rather than the Word of God when she believes their teaching that she will lose her reward in heaven if she is disobedient to them, to their traditions and interpretation of Scripture.

We will each stand before God to give an account of how we have used the gifts given to us. How can men instruct women to bury certain gifts as if God mistakenly gave them to us? When a man says to a woman, “It’s a shame you aren’t a man. You would have been a pastor if you were one,” he is acknowledging that gifts for pastoral service have been given to the woman. Why does he not say along with Acts 15:8-10, “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?” Why do you keep us under the law and refuse to release the captives so that we may serve the Lord? Why do you go against Christ by setting yourselves as walls between people and God?

What man who is a pastor would resist the will of God that he use the gifts he has been given for the building up of the Church? It is the same for women. We who believe in Christ can only follow and go where Christ leads. The church that refuses the gifts given to women to fulfill the duties of the pastoral office is in danger of idolizing the physical form of the male and has even allowed some of its leaders to publicly proclaim that God is male.

There is no going around the wall of separation created by men, but the Gospel demolishes the wall. In the cross of Jesus the curtain is torn. There are no barriers between us and God. When we do not believe this, we allow people to build barriers, and we remain contained, refusing the grace of God that is constantly and persistently pursuing us. To fail to refuse the grace of God is to believe that God is able to save us and that salvation begins now, in this moment, and to believe that God’s grace and mercy are new every moment. It is to believe that there really is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. This is the freedom in which we live, trusting that, even though we are weak and not yet perfected, God does indeed break those barriers. In Luther’s words, we sin boldly. We move, trusting in God’s grace.

The mission of the Church is to proclaim the Gospel freedom that we have through Christ to all people. How do we proclaim a message we do not believe? It is a gift from God to believe the spoken Word even when the visible evidence in the practice of those speaking is contrary to it. To be healed by Jesus Christ is to move; it is to progress and follow him. We can no longer sit by the gate begging.

“It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence” (2 Corinthians 4:13-14). Jesus Christ is Lord! We also believe and therefore speak.

(Written for The Daystar Journal, 2005, edited by Robert Schmidt and included in A Daystar Reader, 2010, edited by Matthew L. Becker)

Lutheran Theological Journal

Volume 39 No 1 May 2005

Peter Lockwood, editor

“Six papers specially prepared by the Lutheran Church of Australia’s Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations presenting the arguments for retaining the ordination of men only and the arguments for introducing the ordination of women”

With gratitude to Dr. Peter Lockwood, editor of Lutheran Theological Journal, for allowing us to make available here this invaluable resource for beginning a discussion in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod about the ordination of women.

Special thanks also to our sisters and brothers in the SELK associated with Initiative Frauen Ordination (INFO) at frauenordination.de , where we found this LTJ edition online.

The Future of Theology by Robert Schmidt

An Argument for Women Pastors and Theologians by Dr. Matthew Becker

Fear II by David Domsch

Unity or Uniformity in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod? by Carol Schmidt

by Frederick Niedner

(Our gratitude to Dr. Frederick Niedner and The Cresset http://thecresset.org/2011/Advent/Niedner_A2011.html , a publication of Valparaiso University, an independent Lutheran University in Northwest Indiana, for permission to reprint this article.)

At the heart of Valparaiso University’s public statement of identity and mission stands a phrase that describes a necessary pre-requisite, perhaps even a foundation, for a church-related institution of higher learning, namely “the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith.” These days, as the various Lutheran bodies in the United States grow ever smaller and more distant from each other, many at Valparaiso want very much to assist the Lutherans in this country, and perhaps elsewhere, to find both common ground for shared ministry and a more clearly communicable notion of what it means to be Lutheran in today’s world.

Folks with such aspirations should know how large a stone they hope to push up a steep, old hill. Although one could say this of any Christian group, Lutherans have rarely agreed in circles wider than their own families about what it means to be Lutheran. Indeed, the Formula of Concord of 1580, the last of the foundational “confessions” of the Lutheran Reformation, even as it presumes to settle a score of controversies that had wracked the Reformation churches of Europe, seems, at the same time, to predict that more such disputes will inevitably arise and that whatever future this movement might have will include plenty of fighting.

At Valparaiso University, we occasionally remind ourselves that the Lutheran Reformation grew, at least partly, out of the ferment of learning that went on in a university, most particularly the emperor’s new university at Wittenberg where Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon served as young faculty members. We hope that universities today, including ours, can continue to serve as places where the continual reformation a healthy church requires draws some of its energy. Although Valparaiso University has always been an independent university, not owned or operated by any Lutheran church body, it sees itself as intimately connected to the church. It needs the church, most particularly because its thriving depends in part on having students in whom the church has formed a baptismal identity. Much of the time, however, the churches act as if they do not need a university. While they may need training institutions and programs of indoctrination and professional formation, it often seems they do not want their young people studying where no questions lie out of bounds.

In what ways do Lutherans today see themselves as beneficiaries of scholarship and the scholarly life? In what ways do Lutherans see themselves as free? Do Lutherans who repeat the shibboleth about “faith alone” really live by faith, or by something else? For almost seven decades I have lived among and watched Lutherans closely. The history I have witnessed and shared suggests that we Lutherans have a complex relationship with the rhetoric by which we publicly identify ourselves. Like most others in the world, our walk does not consistently match our talk.

Consider this story—one quite typical for my generation, I would wager.

The Nebraska town in which I grew up had three churches, two Lutheran congregations and one Roman Catholic parish the size of the Lutheran groups combined. In those Cold War days, relations between the Lutherans and Catholics had all the warmth of those between Washington and Moscow. Parents whose offspring married someone from the other side spoke of having lost a child and wondered openly about the errant youth’s salvation.

Despite the frosty veils between them, these ecclesial communities served each other. St. Mary’s parish at the top of the hill supported a convent whose sisters staffed a Catholic elementary school, high school, and the region’s only hospital and “old folks’ home.” Despite persistent rumors that the nuns secretly baptized as Catholic every baby born in the hospital, the Lutherans were grateful to have excellent healthcare so close to home.

Except for certain merchants, the Lutherans didn’t do much for the Catholics, but the two congregations, one Missouri Synod and the other part of the old American Lutheran Church, performed an invaluable service for each other. On paper, the only difference between them had to do with “lodges” or secret, fraternal organizations. The Missouri Synod forbade membership, while the ALC congregation tolerated it. Since there were no Shriners, Lions, Moose, Elks, or anyone else with a secret handshake within sixty miles, this distinction hardly seemed relevant.

Nevertheless, each congregation served as a haven for refugees from the other. Whenever a family feud boiled over, most often after a contested will, migration occurred between Grace and St. Paul. The poor Catholics were simply stuck with each other when a fighting spirit descended on one of their clans. Fissiparous Lutherans could go their separate ways and consign each other to the vast, ecclesial dumping ground called the “invisible church.”

Those of us who attended the Missouri Synod congregation’s parochial elementary school learned all about Martin Luther and the Reformation. Much of the rhetoric had to do with grace, faith, work-righteousness, and freedom. So far as I could tell when comparing my life to that of the Catholic kids in my neighborhood, Lutheran freedom consisted of not praying with rosary beads and not having to go to confession. Of such foolishness we were free.

Mostly, however, being Lutheran involved a host of obligations. We had to believe, for the sake of our salvation, that the Bible was inerrant, which in turn meant we had to believe as well that the earth was created in six, twenty-four-hour days less than ten thousand years ago, that a flood had once covered the entire planet to a height that overwhelmed even Mount Everest, and that at Joshua’s command the sun had once stood still in the sky for an entire day. Such feats of belief proved difficult. My dad, a Missouri Synod pastor, was also an amateur astronomer who built his own telescopes and taught me the workings of the heavens. I had seen Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s rings and knew all about stars and galaxies and the millions of light years between us and some of them. The spiritual obligations inherent in Lutheranism’s official cosmology and physics, coupled with language about salvation by faith, led me to conclude that saving faith was the ability to believe unbelievable things having to do with physics, geology, and biology.

At the German-style gymnasium (high school and two years of college) where my pre-seminary studies commenced, my contemporaries learned a host of new obligations. We endured stiff penalties for missing the morning and evening chapel services that punctuated our days as well as for walking on the grass instead of the sidewalks, littering, or at any time being less than eighteen inches from a student of the opposite sex. One zealously righteous professor roamed the campus with a yardstick he had cut in half and occasionally measured the distance between student couples who crossed his path. Woe unto those he caught too close.

Nothing, however, approximated the strength of the prohibition against dancing. The school conducted “play party games,” which most others called “square dancing,” but strictly forbade ballroom dancing and the various aerobic activities performed to the accompaniment of rock ‘n roll music. One Friday night, a faculty member working late at his office witnessed two couples dancing “sock hop” style in an empty classroom to Doo-Wop music played on a transistor radio. The four students were suspended for two weeks and sent home. The next week, school officials canceled a full day of classes and put the rest of the student body through seminars conducted by area clergy on the evils of dancing. One pastor sternly explained that dancing did not fall into the category of behavior Lutherans identify as “adiaphora,” that is, things that in themselves are neither good nor evil, but might become one or the other given the circumstances or motives of those who engage in them. No, dancing was purely immoral, an act of openly defiant sin, and damnable. Another pastor informed us that in the course of his ministry, he had never known a married couple to dance who did not also later end up divorced.

We received periodic reminders that we were saved not by our works, but by grace, through faith. Much more effectively, however, we learned that we were saved by being right—right about moral issues like dancing and right about biology, physics, and the age of the universe.

Eventually, I would learn what an inconsistent and disintegrated working theology I had inherited. Teachers at the Missouri Synod’s Concordia Senior College and at its seminary in St. Louis taught us to read the scriptures and the Lutheran confessional documents, along with works like Luther’s On Christian Liberty, in ways that helped us discover for ourselves the genuine freedom of the gospel of the crucified Christ.

My aged, paternal grandfather, a retired Missouri Synod pastor who lived not far from the seminary, served as my teacher, too. Like so many old, lonely people do when memory remains clear but one’s body no longer allows much activity, my grandfather brooded about things he wished he had done differently, or things he once had said but would now take back. He, too, had pangs of conscience that started in a story about dancing.

Soon after he graduated from the same seminary I attended, while still in his twenties, a young woman in the Kansas parish he served died in a collision at a railroad crossing on her way home from a dance. Despite the family’s devastation and despair, the elders of the congregation informed their young pastor that in his funeral sermon, he would tell the congregation that the young woman was now in hell. Such was the consequence of dancing and not having time to repent. “That’s what I preached,” my grandfather told me, deep sadness in his voice, “but I didn’t even believe it myself as I said it, and I hadn’t the courage to defy my elders.” How often, he whispered, he wished he could find that family and take back those words, preach to them the true gospel, and remind them of God’s promise in that young woman’s baptism.

Not until well into my seminary studies did the full brilliance and liberating quality of Luther’s distinction between law and gospel become clear to me. God’s law wasn’t merely rules, nor the gospel a source of dispensations doled out to those who confessed and repented of violating those rules. Rather, the law of God to which the scriptures bear witness is the very righteousness of God that exposes us as hopelessly selfish sinners and frauds with no righteousness of our own whatsoever. Indeed, trying to keep the rules we find within God’s law only makes things worse, as our tortured brother Paul, the apostle, describes so well in Romans 7. In the words of a Scandinavian theologian (whose name I cannot recall) my late colleague David Truemper often quoted, “God’s law demands that we be the kind of people who don’t need God’s law to demand that we be that kind of people.”

Into that hell of hopelessly deepening alienation and indebtedness comes the crucified Christ. He comes to preach, says 1 Peter 3:18–20, and from Martin Luther I learned that what he proclaims is, “This place is undone. You are free. Come with me.” That is the gospel, which Article IV of the Apology to the Augsburg Confession describes as the message that both honors the death of Christ as totally necessary and fully sufficient for God’s reconciliation with humankind and also comforts penitent hearts rather than casting them back on their own rightness as a condition of that reconciliation.

Even as I learned all that from teachers at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, the school was under investigation for false teaching. By the time I had finished some of my graduate studies there, the majority of the faculty members were condemned first by church officials and then by a church convention for teachings “not to be tolerated in the church of God.” Instead of teaching that the scriptures were law and gospel, those who condemned them wanted the teachers to teach that the scriptures were science and history. That is, they were supposed to teach that the story in Genesis 2–3 not only exposes humankind as shamefully disobedient creatures bent on being their own gods and covering their shame with excuses and lies, but that all of Genesis 1–4 is a transcript of something one could have caught on videotape had such equipment been available in 4004 bc. The investigators wanted additions to the gospel, too. It would never do merely to trust Christ’s word of invitation and thus to have the gift of righteousness. In addition, one must believe that women cannot proclaim that message or serve in the role of leading a congregation in acting out that word in the rites of baptism and Holy Communion.

The Lutheran denominations of which I have never been a member have their own versions of these battles, and while they may differ in some or even many details, they appear to me as versions of the one I have witnessed my whole life. Despite all our talk about the freedom of the gospel, we Lutherans still love the confinement of rules and the satisfaction of knowing that we are right and others are wrong. We are willing in some general way to affirm that all those others out there who call themselves Christians and claim to put their trust in Christ might actually be Christians and part of some elusive, invisible church. But the only church we really care about is our own club, the collection of like-minded souls who follow our set of rules and add-ons to the gospel. When we fight—and we do love fighting—we almost never fight about how effectively and truly we honor the death of Christ or comfort penitent hearts. Instead, we fight about keeping, or changing, our club rules.

In my decades of watching Lutherans, I have also witnessed the gospel at work in powerful ways, most often at funerals and in other crisis moments in the lives of a community. I have read in the family archives some of the funeral sermons my grandfather preached in the years after that fateful, God-forsaken preachment in Kansas, and he consistently comforted families and friends with the gospel of the crucified Christ who joins us, who reconciles us to God, even in the places of our most awful cussedness and despair. My father once told me that of all the things required of him as a pastor, he felt most capable at comforting the dying, conducting funerals, and counseling the bereaved.

Those are the moments, of course, when the only hope we have is the gospel, and even back in the dark ages of my youth, I never heard a pastor say at a funeral, “Well, at least old Herman, our dearly departed, never danced.”

I have also witnessed Lutherans of all kinds come together to respond in mercy and generosity when tragedy of large proportions strikes somewhere in the world. Then, like the Catholics and others, we don’t ask whether you take Genesis as history or science before we help you find food and shelter, nor do we quiz you on the Athanasian Creed as a condition for bandaging your wounds.

I would love to believe that all of us Lutherans could come together around the conviction that we can do these two things very well and without fighting. We can console the frightened, the dying, and those who mourn with the news of the crucified Christ, and we can show mercy to the battered and broken—all of them. In the first of those we live out our freedom; in the second we live out our vocations.

Officially, on paper, that is what it means to be Lutheran. To all else besides those things we cling only loosely, and study carefully, with as many questions as we can think of as a university community that draws its charter in part from values like scholarship, freedom, and faith. Maybe our efforts can help.

Frederick Niedner is Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University.