LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 344

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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).