LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 394

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394 ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

us. When human “order” is put on a par with divine “faith,” the
latter is lost. The Lima paper Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry is a
good illustration. The section on the ministry, with its episcopal
“sign,” takes up more space than do the sacraments put together—
and their treatment waffles on all dogmatic issues.

If it is true, for instance, as Loyola University Philosophy Pro-
fessor Thomas Sheehan wrote in the 14 June 1984 New York Re-
view of Books, that the dominant “liberal consensus” in Roman
Catholic seminaries is that “Jesus of Nazareth did not assert any of
the messianic claims that the Gospels attribute to him and that he
died without believing that he was Christ or the Son of God”—
then what is the point of discussing the niceties of episcopal forms
and structures? In this time of unparalleled dogmatic dissolution,
can we afford the luxury of wasting time on trivia? Why bother
about a “sign” when it is the substance that needs recovering?

Global Confessional Implications

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PORVOO LIES NOT in its novelty—its ap-
proach is not new—but in the scope and clarity with which it ex-
emplifies the ruling “ecumenical” paradigm.

Most of the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches already had
various arrangements for intercommunion and even intercelebra-
tion with Anglican and other churches. This piecemeal clutter is
now being replaced by a tidy and elegant uniformity.

Purely as a historical development the Porvoo pact makes per-
fect sense. Its member-churches have similar histories as Refor-
mationally transformed remnants in northern Europe of the Con-
stantinian establishment. As ecclesiastical appendages of modern
secularized societies and states, their very existence is anomalous
(see John Kent, End of the Line ?). The church is undoubtedly hid-
den also under these bureaucratic structures (“spiritual police-dis-
tricts” Sasse called them), but the structures as such have for the
most part long ceased to be or to behave as confessional churches.
Why should they not join together, as the British Study Guide puts
it, “at a time when Europe is growing together socially, politically
and economically”? (p. 9).

What is simply taken for granted is that “visible unity” is para-
mount. The symptom, “the scandal of division among Christians
(1 Cor. 1:11-13, 1 John 2:18-19)” (Porvoo Common Statement, p.
15), is taken to be the ultimate evil, while the real trouble—apos-
tasy or heresy—is blithely ignored. Texts like Rom. 16:17 or Gal.
1 are beyond the document’s horizon. There is only the steady
drumbeat for union: “Christians can never tolerate disunity” (ibid.).
Very well, but can they tolerate falsehood and doctrinal compro-
mise and pretense?

The question of truth is addressed, or rather evaded, in terms of
“unity” and “diversity,” in other words, precisely according to the
Lutheran World Federation’s (1977) ecumenical recipe of “Recon-
ciled Diversity.” That means that everyone keeps his confession,
only the differences are no longer considered divisive. The Porvoo
application is that there will be unity in externals, above all in “The
Historic Episcopal Succession as Sign” (p. 27), while differences
over doctrinal substance can be accommodated as legitimate “diver-
sity.” In this way the purity of the Gospel and sacraments is made to
trade places with adiaphora. The essential has become the periph-
eral, and vice versa. Total confessional relativism rules if it is true
that “all existing denominational traditions are provisional” (p. 13).

Already looming directly ahead is the next step: a dramatic ges-
ture—now delayed—originally planned to coincide with the 450th
anniversary of the Council of Trent’s Decree on Justification
(1547). The Lutheran World Federation hoped, at its assembly in
Hong Kong in 1997, to adopt a joint declaration with the Vatican
regarding justification, which would have mutually withdrawn the
16th century condemnations as no longer applicable (Lutheran
World Information, 17/96). There was, however, the awkward pos-
sibility of a one-handed handshake, if the expected official Vati-

2001 Convention Workbook

can confirmation were withheld. Again, the clear and unambigu-
ous confession of the Gospel would be set aside in favor of com-
promise formulas for the sake of a semblance of unity. With justi-
fication out of the way as a stumbling-block to reunion with Rome,
and the sacramental presence re-negotiated with Canterbury and
then Geneva, the way will be clear for “full communion” every-
where, and whatever anyone may choose to make of the Gospel
and sacraments, it will all be fully warranted as apostolic by the
“sign” of a joint episcopate.

Where what the Book of Concord confesses about the church
as an article of faith is heeded, there the glass beads of illusions
and counterfeits will not be allowed to pass for the real treasures
of the church. That is the ecumenical stand Lutherans are called
upon to take humbly, soberly, and globally. The life-giving truth
of Christ must take precedence over everything else—and the very
gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

On the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, 1997

Dr. David P. Scaer, Chairman
Department of Systematic Theology
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Dr. Charles Arand

Department of Systematic Theology
Concordia Seminary

St. Louis, Missouri

References

ANDREWS, James E. and Joseph A. Burgess, eds. 1984 An In-
vitation To Action: The Lutheran-Reformed Dialogue Series II
1981-1983. Philadelphia: Fortress.

BAPTISM, EUCHARIST AND MINISTRY 1982 Faith and Order
Paper No. 111. Geneva: World Council of Churches.

COCKSWORTH, Christopher J. 1992 Evangelical Eucharistic
Thought in the Church of England. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.

EDWARDS, D.L. 1958 Not Angels But Anglicans. London:
SCM Press.

HARDT, Thom G .A. 1996 Church Fellowship in the Ancient and
in the Lutheran Church. Riga: Unpublished lectures, 20-21 May.

HILLERBRAND, Hans J., ed. 1996 The Oxford Encyclopedia
of the Reformation, 4 vols. Oxford University Press.

HUNWICKE, John 1995 “Porvoo or not Porvoo?” New Direc-
tions, published in London by Forward in Faith in association with
the Church of England Newspaper, vol. 1, no. 2 (July), pp. 7-8.

KENT, John 1982 End of the Line? The Development of Chris-
tian Theology in the Last Two Centuries. Philadelphia: Fortress.

LIVINGSTONE, E.A., ed. 1990 Dictionary of the Christian
Church. Oxford University Press.

LUTHER, Martin 1960 “A Treatise On the New Testament,
That Is, The Holy Mass,” in Helmut T. Lehman, ed., Luther’s
Works (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press), vol. 35, pp. 79-111.

LUTHERAN-EPISCOPAL DIALOGUE. SECOND SERIES
1976-1980 1981 Cincinnati: Forward Movement Publication.

LUTHERAN WORLD INFORMATION 1996 Nos. 16 and 17,
22 August and 5 September.

RAWLINSON, A. E. J. 1958 “Theology in the Church of Eng-
land,” in The Genius of the Church of England (London: S.P.C.K.),
pp. 7-22.

SASSE, Hermann 1952 “Ueber die Einheit der Lutherischen
Kirche,” in F. W. Hopf, ed., Jn Statu Confessionis (Berlin: Die
Spur, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 244-258. Our translation.

1956 “Apostolic Succession,” in N. Nagel, tr., We Con-
fess the Church (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986), pp. 84-107.

SCHAFF, Philip 1896-1899 The Creeds of Christendom. New

York: Harper.