# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2001_S344 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 344 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS Faith Active in Love Human Care in the Church’s Life A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod February 1999 INTRODUCTION The proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments create faith and thereby constitute and continually recon- stitute the church, the body of Christ. The central task of the church, therefore, is to proclaim that Gospel by which it lives and through which the Holy Spirit seeks to draw all people into Christ’s body. Faith created by the means of grace is always active in love. “After a person has been justified by faith, a true living faith be- comes ‘active through love’ (Gal. 5:6). Thus good works always follow justifying faith and are certainly to be found with it, since such faith is never alone but is always accompanied by love and hope” (FC Ep, III, 11). The Formula of Concord also cites Luther’s vivid formulation in his introduction to Romans (1522): Faith kills the Old Adam, makes us enlirely different people in hearl, spirit, mind, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with il. Oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, so that it is impossible for it not to be constantly doing what is good. Likewise, faith does not ask if good works are to be done, but before one can ask, faith has already done them and is constantly active (FC SD, IV, 10-11). The Board for Human Care Ministries of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has asked the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) to “reflect on the role of Christian care in the overall life of the Christian community.” Because the central task of the church is the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments, distinetively Christian care is like- wise always centered in this task. But because faith is always active through love, questions about Christian care also lead us to ask how a Christian congregation organizes to help its members express the energetic love and hope that accompany a true living faith. From the beginning we must guard against a nonbiblical soul/body dualism that sometimes infects our reflections on this question. Many religions and philosophies, both Eastern and West- em, teach a radical distinction between a material, bodily life and a nonmaterial, soul or spiritual life in which the soul ts viewed as good and the body as evil. In opposition to this view. the Bible teaches in the doctrine of creation and in the doctrine of redemption that God addresses us all as whole persons, both body and soul. Because of sin, the whole person is under God’s judgment. Because of Christ, the whole baptized person can confess faith in “the for- giveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlast- ing” (Apostles’ Creed). The ministry of Word and sacraments, therefore, is addressed to the whole person, not merely to body or to soul. The forgiveness won by Christ and offered in the Gospel saves the whole person, body as well as soul. Consider, for example, Mark 2:2-12 which instructively links our Lord’s proclamation of forgiveness with the healing of the body, an anticipation of the resurrection.’ Matthew 8:17 interprets Jesus’ healing ministry in the light of Isaiah 53: “This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’” (see also Matt. 11:1-6 and Isaiah 35). Christian care is finally and always addressed to the whole person redeemed by Christ. Thus, the question we are to examine—how a Christian con- gregation organizes to help its members express the love and hope that accompany a true living faith—is not about caring only for bodily life. Persons who expect the resurrection of the body do not stop simply with meeting current bodily needs. Living faith, active 2001 Convention Workbook in love, addresses the needs of whole persons, persons loved by those who know themselves loved by God in Christ. A further focusing of the question before us requires that we ex- amine how, in the presence of the church-constituting proclama- tion of forgiveness in Christ. believers (both individually and cor- porately) integrate their loving concern for the neighbor into the: life of faith. It is in this sense that we speak of “human care” and “Christian care” in the church’s life and examine the necessary connections between this care and the church’s Word and sacra- ment ministry. Questions about Christian care in the Christian community are closely related to how a congregation organizes to help its mem- bers speak on issues of social concern. The Synod in 1983° raised this question, and the CTCR’s 1995 report Render Unto Caesar ... and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State addressed the question in detail. This new report reflects on “the role of Chris- tian care in the overall life of the Christian community” in the light of the 1995 report. Two Contrasting Lines of Thought The question before us is not whether Christian care, the active love and hope that accompany a true living faith, will characterize the Christian community. Such love simply does accompany faith. Rather, the issue is this: to what extent and on what basis will the church, organized corporately in congregations and in regional, na- tional and international church structures, help its members express the love and hope that accompany a true living faith. As a matter of fact, the church as in a variety of ways orga- nized corporately to facilitate active expression of Christian care. The book of Acts and New Testament reports of Paul’s collection for the poor in the Jerusalem church demonstrate that the church has cared for its widows and orphans and the poor from the begin- ning. Over the centuries churches have established great institu- tions of human care: hospitals, retirement homes, agencies of local and world relief, etc. As we have noted. the Synod currently inain- tains a Board for Human Care Ministries to assist all its members in the organized expression of Christian love. The facts are plain. Not only have individual Christians been energetic in love that serves the neighbor, but the church has orga- nized corporately to help its members express the active love and hope that accompany a true living faith. Two contrasting lines of thought in the Synod, however, challenge us concerning the way in which churches organize for Christian care. 1. One line of thought argues that the church should much more systematically organize itself for the provision of Christian care. This thinking urges a. that Christians be much more systematically instructed in how to show Christian care as individuals, and b. that the corporate life of congregations, Districts, and the Synod be more energetically organized to provide Christian care. N The other line of thought argues that the church acting corporately has no specific mandale and often lacks the competence to organize for the provision of Christian care. This thinking suggests a. that the Christian care lived out by Christian individuals in their diverse callings in home, career, and community, is often minimized or overlooked by people who criticize the church for failing to instruct its members in Christian care, and b. that pastors—called to proclaim the Gospel and administer the sacraments— and other church leaders have not been summoned by God also to organize inslitutional efforls to address social concerns. Indeed, even if paslors have wisdom for such efforts, they owe to their calling devotion “to prayer and to the minisiry of the word” (Acts 6:4).