LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 424

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424 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

tification by grace alone through faith alone,” since it is not our
faith per se that justifies us, but Christ (in whom we have faith)
who justifies us.

The manner in which the Gospel is connected to the Office of
the Holy Ministry could also prove misleading: “[I]t became an of-
fice whereby the pastor was responsible for delivering the gifts of
Christ in Word and sacrament to those brought to faith by the Holy
Spirit.”“5 This sentence seems to separate the work of the Holy
Spirit from the Ministry. of Word and Sacrament. Yet the delivery
of Christ’s gifts in Word and Sacrament is not conveyed simply to
those who have previously (through some other means?) been
brought to faith by the Holy Spirit, but these delivered gifts are the
very (and only) means whereby the Holy Spirit works to bring peo-
ple to faith and to sustain them in that faith.

These distinctions are much more than semantic. They indicate
the necessary place and purpose of the Ministry for the sake of the
Gospel (and saving faith in the Gospel). The divine establishment
of the office, the divinity of the Call, and divine grace conveyed in
the Gospel should forestall any efforts to manipulate them by
human arrangements.

Administering a Call
Determination of Candidates for a Call

In the exposition of the “Formation-Preparation-Education”
process, the Commission’s Report states: “For the Gospel to be
conveyed effectively in a given age, the preacher must therefore be
able to identify those aspects of it that the persons in his audience
especially need.”** These words are prone to serious misunder-
standing.

The word “effectively” along with the curious dissection of
“those aspects of the Gospel” imply some criteria over-and-above
the Gospel itself. The search for this perfectible human technique
(as in Methodism) lays the burden or responsibility upon the
preacher to “make the Gospel work.” Such an approach is another
form of man-centered works-righteousness which confuses Law
and Gospel.

The Gospel itself is efficacious. The true Gospel is not mere
inert, dry information that requires the preacher to “add water”
through his own skills and methods. The Holy Spirit always works
in and through the proclamation of the Gospel. The preacher can
bring no power, ability or technique of his own to make it “effec-
tive.” He can, however, render it ineffective by preaching a false
gospel—by confusing Law and Gospel, or by failing to preach the
Gospel faithfully.

In any event, there is only one Gospel. It comes wholly in the
person and work of Jesus Christ. The preacher has no authority or
capability (nor does anyone else, for that matter) to dissect the
Gospel and parcel it out by bits and pieces to targeted, segmented
and segregated groups.’’ This flawed logic of specialization re-
garding the Word of God and the means of grace opens the door
to humanly engineered “specialized calls and ministries.”

Examination/Certification—and the Proposal for “Ongoing
Examination”

“Certification” is a humanly established procedure. Whether a
seminary or a synod certifies him or not, a congregation always re-
tains the power to call a man subject only to the requirements of
Holy Scripture. Lutherans can and should acknowledge the legiti-
macy of that man’s Call to the one office of Holy Ministry as truly
divine.

Yet the constitutional “covenants of love” between congrega-
tions in a voluntary synodical relationship may lead them to deny
altar and pulpit fellowship with a congregation served by a man not
acknowledged on their synodical “roster.” In that event, such a de-
termination may be reached through their doctrine of fellowship
rather than through the theology of the Divine Call.

2004 Convention Workbook

In those institutional church bodies characterized by a more
episcopal (hierarchical) polity, the Bishop or President will play a
larger role in the call process. His involvement in evaluating semi-
nary graduates and interviewing candidates before congregations
are permitted to extend a call—or the candidate to accept the con-
gregation’s call—can lead (or compel) the pastors and congrega-
tions under his authority to increasingly take on the flavor of his
unique personality and individual preferences. The congregation’s
understanding of the Divine Call suffers from the impression that it
belongs not to them, but to the Bishop or President to fill the of-
fice of the Holy Ministry. The pastor will be tempted to view the
authority of his Call as owing more to winning the favor of the
Bishop/President rather than from God’s divine action.

Where congregations relate to one another on a voluntary basis
(as in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod), the understanding
of the Divine Call is reinforced by the strong sense of mutual com-
mitment and obligation that the congregation and its pastor can ex-
pect to enjoy with one another. Neither need worry about outside
interference when the orthodox faith is being taught and pro-
claimed, and also heard and honored. The voluntary fellowship can
help to isolate unorthodox peculiarities and preserve fidelity to the
Scriptures and Confessions: unfaithful men will find that faithful
congregations will not call them, and unfaithful congregations will
find faithful men unwilling to serve them.

Congregations in a synodical fellowship relationship with one
another may. mutually agree upon a minimum educational require-
ment for certification and ordination. Curriculum requirements are
understood to be the product of human judgment; their detailed
specifics are not themselves divinely mandated.

Speculation that “‘a person [!] who has a call may not be as apt
to teach as he once was (as determined by the church)'** would
seem to invite ongoing scrutiny for potential reasons to remove a
man from office. Such reasoning could easily start congregations,
pastors, and others down a subjective and slippery slope toward an
automatic “sunset” requiring renewal. More questions must be an-
swered to justify the suggestion that “[i]t is possible, and perhaps
even advisable, that a more formal evaluation could take place.”

Call practices cannot be justified by appeals to the “human and
institutional side of the church” alone. There are cogent objections
in particular to the inclusion of “psychological profiles” as an in-
strument for evaluating a candidate’s fitness for the office of the
Holy Ministry. These should be investigated further before such
secular tools are routinely used and even mandated as part of the
“certification and rostering” processes.

The Commission’s Report asserts that “such ongoing theologi-
cal examination does not undermine the divine nature of the call.”
Here, an objection noted above becomes fully manifest: the Com-
mission’s Report tends to explore what is permitted by the theology
of the Divine Call, rather than to delineate what is actually re-
quired.

The reminder that “certification and rostering must be distin-
guished from a call and ordination”*' is welcome, but will it ade-
quately restrain flawed proposals? Certainly the failure to keep this
distinction clear would confuse the practice of the Divine Call with
institutional polity. The Divine Call is drawn from Holy Scripture
and applies to all congregations and pastors at all times. Institu-
tional polity is a voluntary, mutual human arrangement of expedi-
ency.

The distinction certainly applies to the proposal for “ongoing
theological examination”: it could only pertain to holding mem-
bership on the clergy roster of Synod, and not to retaining the office
of the Holy Ministry in a congregation. What would the Synod do
if it found itself with a host of congregations whose pastors are no
longer “rostered” because they have “failed” the ongoing theolog-
ical examination?