LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 421

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ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 421

trines of Zwingli and Calvin were only lightly touched upon in the
course of the debate.”

It is also true that the Lutherans specifically refused to include
“entire churches” in their condemnations of error (Preface to the
Book of Concord). When the ELCA theologians opine, however,
“nor are Roman Catholics excluded by Lutherans from Lutheran
fellowship, including Holy Communion, even to this day,” they are
indulging in an unhistorical, woolly ecumenism. The Formula of
Concord, understands the Smalcald Articles as having properly ex-
plained the Augsburg Confession, and given ample grounds “for
having no communion with the papists, and for neither expecting
nor planning to come to an understanding with the pope about these
matters.”*°

Despite Roman misrepresentations of justification, C. F. W.
Walther cited Luther that the church has been preserved under the
papacy because Roman Catholics have what Luther calls “Christ’s
ordinances and gifts”: Baptism, the reading of Gospel in the ver-
nacular, absolution in private and public confession, the Sacrament
of the Altar though it was administered at Easter and under one
kind, the call or ordination to the pastoral office, and lastly prayer,
the Psalms, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and many fine
hymns.*’ We are encouraged that in our country, Roman Catholics
are offered and many receive the Lord’s Supper every Sunday and
in many dioceses under both kinds.

Conclusion

We can do no better than to conclude with the judgment of our
late president, colleague, and friend Robert Preus, whose timely
book, Justification and Rome, has just been published by Concor-
dia Publishing House:

The settlement is an amalgam of the old Lutheran and Roman
Catholic definitions, or rather, a pasting together of the two disparate
sets of definittons—sort of like a treaty. Neither side gives up its set of
definitions and meanings. The treaty provides that the Lutheran and the
Roman Catholic will no longer battle over words, meanings, and defin-
itions, but each will keep his own.*

David P. Scaer, Chairman
Richard Muller, Secretary
Kurt E. Marquart

William C. Weinrich, Adjunct
Lawrence R. Rast Jr., Adjunct

Notes

1. Following the directive of the LWF Executive Committee,
General Secretary Ishmael Noko asked the 124 member churches
to answer the following question regarding the approval of the Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JD) by May 1, 1998:
“Does your church accept the conclusions reached in 40 and 41 of
the JD and thus join in affirming that, because of the agreement of
the fundamental meaning and truth of our justification in Christ, to
which the JD testifies, the condemnations regarding justification in
the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching on justifica-
tion of the Roman Catholic Church presented in the JD?” Joint De-
claration on the Doctrine of Justification: A Commentary by the
Institute of Ecumenical Research (Hong Kong: Clear-Cut, 1997)
was distributed in May 1997. This document is hereafter referred to
as A Commentary.

2. The General Synod of the Church of Norway accepted the
Declaration on Nov. 14, 1997 and urged its pastors to acquaint their
people with the decision. In Finland, the church delayed final ap-
proval until May 1998.

3. Edited by Karl Lehmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, trans-
lated by Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).

4. Translated and first published by Oliver K. Olson with Franz
Posset in Lutheran Quarterly 5 (Spring, Autumn,\ and Winter

1991), and later in book form (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Luther Acad-
emy, 1992).

5. Wilbert Rusch remarks that the attempt to articulate suffi-
cient agreement on justification to warrant declaring “inapplicable”
the 16th century condemnations was undertaken “at an original
suggestion from the ELCA” (“The Ecumenical Task of the Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church in America: Some Personal Observa-
tions,” Lutheran Forum 30 [September 1996]: 22). Rusch does not
provide details.

6. Harding Meyer, “Nicht mehr unueberwindlich,” Lutherische
Monatshefte 36 (September 1997): 27; Carl Braaten, “Confes-
sional Integrity in Ecumenical Dialogue,” Lutheran Forum 30
(September 1996): 25.

7. Note must be taken also of two documents: Evangelicals &
Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium
(First Things 43 [May 1994]: 15-22), and The Gift of Salvation
(First Things 78 [Jan. 1998]: 20-23), in which Lutherans had no
hand. The Gift of Salvation is a document agreed to on October
6-7, 1997, by a group of Evangelicals and Roman Catholics, in-
cluding Harold O.J. Brown, James Packer, Avery Dulles, and
Richard Neuhaus. It expressly affirms “agreement with what the
Reformation traditions have meant by justification by faith alone
[sola fide].” This document is not the object of our critique, but it
has fine points. For example, “In justification, God, on the basis of
Christ’s righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer rebellious
enemies, but forgiven friends, and by virtue of His declaration it is
so.” It also speaks of “justification [as] central to the scriptural ac-
count of justification.” Both documents laid down a common
agreement on certain issues, but were also forthright in setting
down disagreements. Among these are “the meaning of baptismal
regeneration, the Eucharist, and sacramental grace; the historic uses
of the language of justification as it relates to imputed and trans-
formative righteousness; the normative status of justification in re-
lation to all Christian doctrine; the assertion that while justification
is by faith alone, the faith that receives salvation is never alone; di-
verse understandings of merit, reward, purgatory, and indulgences;
Marian devotion and the assistance of the saints in the life of sal-
vation; and the possibility of salvation for those who have not been
evangelized.” This could also be taken into our critique of a Decla-
ration. The earlier document, Evangelicals & Catholics Together
also affirmed a basic agreement in faith. Such concerns are also ap-
plicable to the Declaration.

8. “A Call for Discussion” was the product of six professors and
not the entire faculty of Luther Seminary, St. Paul. The faculty,
however, passed a resolution May 22, 1997, which said the Decla-
ration touched on the central Lutheran doctrine and questioned the
legality of the proposed action. A vote on the Declaration “would
run the risk of signaling that the ELCA is not serious about its own
confessional heritage or its relationship to the Roman Catholic
Church.”

9. The Strasbourg Institute A Commentary notes that, “No
Catholic condemnations relate to the law-gospel distinction as
such” (41).

10. Eberhard Jiingel, “Um Gottes willen—Klarheit! Kritische
Bemerkungen zur Verharmlosung der kriteriologischen Funktion
des Rechtfertigungsartikels-aus Anlass einer—kumenischen
‘Gemeinsamen Erklarung zur Rechtfertigungslehre,’” Zeitschrift
fiir Theologie und Kirche 94 (1997): 394-406.

11. See footnote 15.

12. See also the explanation in FC, SD, III, 19 and 20.

13. “U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue, Justification By
Faith,” Origins: NC Documentary Service, 13 (October 6, 1983):
298.

14, Alister E. McGrath, Justitia Dei: A History of the Christian
Doctrine of Justification, from 1500 to the Present Day (Cam-

2001 Convention Workbook