Pontifications has posted a longish piece by Von Balthasar on Catholic responce/interpretation/clarifiction of the Lutheran formula simul justus et peccator (at once justified and sinner, or both justified and sinner). I commend reading of it because it is always good to hear what von Balthasar has to say. But I am also linking to it because as I read it, I found nothing in it that I as Lutheran Pietist would object to. Not only that but (technical and theological language asside) everything he said I was taught growing up in the Covenant Church. Thus it seems like something a Lutheran Pietist would say in interpreting this formula.
But I wonder if I am correct in this sense. Did I pick some of these things up elsewhere and simply mold them into the faith I was being raised in? So, I would like to know what some other Covenanter's think of von Balthasar's quote, Pastor Gaving what a try at it? would your Covenant parishoner's basicaly share von Balthasar's view or would they more share his understanding of the deficient Lutheran understanding of this formula?
Also, other protestants, what do you think of von Balthasar's exposition? Is it really far from your sense of protestant understanding of these issues? Also, it might be interesting for some Orthodox to jump in here as well, since this doesn't to my mind seem that far from understanding of theosis . Am I just conflating things here?
This passage intreagues me because my reading of it is exemplary of my experience of reading most great Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologians: I read and I think wow that is a very good exposition of my faith. It's a puzzle to me because I see my faith as being Lutheran Pietist, and yet it seems to me that in being such I am firmly within the tradition of the Church, yet divided from it.
But also, I see von Balthasar's sense of the Lutheran position as somewhat of a charicature, at least from how I perceive and interpret Luther and Lutheranism. Or perhaps more to the point as a Lutheran Pietist I see von Balthasar's view of Lutheranism as a distorted form of Lutheran theology, of those hyper orthodox Lutherans who betrayed the reformation (Yes that is perhaps a bit strong but it is pretty much how my forebears saw it, we were the "true' Lutheran's).
Any takers on any aspec of this.
Larry, perhaps it would help if you would state the Lutheran pietist understanding of justification. I think von Balthasar is working from a Lutheran confessional understanding of justification; and from what I can tell, he gets it pretty accurately.
ReplyDeleteLarry,
ReplyDeleteI find that I agree with much that is in the article. I'm not sure how much the people in my church would. When we start talking about sin and "the world" they automatically begin to think of hollywood and "those out there." When we start talking about living more holy lives they start thinking about how our society as a whole need to become more Christlike instead of thinking about the church doing so. Basically, they have been influenced by the political religious right. (Lisa comes home after church with descriptions of the scariest adult Bible study I've heard of happening while I'm teaching confirmation.) But I'm not sure how accurate my rural, Iowa Covenant Church represents the Covenant as a whole. These are mostly people without much education past a high school level and they want things in simple forms.
As for myself, I grew up Lutheran and feel, in many ways, that the Covenant Church (when it is at its best) is more Lutheran than the Lutheran Church. I like a lot of what the article says. I think that much of what he is saying was taught to me in different ways growing up (with less theological words) but one thing that I really did not experience growing up was his point number 5. I didn't come across the concept of community sin until well into my college career, and it was a foreign concept to me, which I later decided was an integral part of my understanding of sin. The concept of community sin might be a concept that I didn't come across even through college and into seminary. But growing up sin was something that individuals committed. Our Lutheran liturgy talked about sins of omission, but we didn't really take that too seriously.
So, I don't know. I think with the Covenant Church you are going to have different reactions to the article. I think that many of the statements would be counted as truths in it, but not by everyone. I hope this helps.
Pontificator,
ReplyDeleteFair enough, though I wasn't trying to take issue with von Balthasars account of the Lutheran position, just puzzeling over that I found reading what you posted from him as basically what I have believed and always beleived in some form as one raised in a Lutheran Pietist denomination the Evangelical Covenant Church.
So, I will begin with what I experienced and recieved as a child being trained in the faith.
Basically, I was raised to believe that justification, being declared just by God, was never far from sanctification the becoming reighteous in this life. My parents because of my baptism and articualtion of faith (as appropriate to a child) expected that my actions would be different from others becuase as a Christian I wasn't only justified but called to live into what that meant (again in appropriate ways to a child). I was taught that I was a new person, (even though there wasn't a whole lot of old for me to know necesarily). The importance of being justified was that it was what I could return to when I failed to live according to the call of the Christian life. I sinned (disobeyed my parrents, lied, etc)but resting on how God viewed me in Christ I was encouraged to not dwell on the sin but living a life pleasing to God.
I am putting it in these sort of prmitive terms at the moment to sort of give the begining point of my own thinking here. But now I am having trouble linking this to the von Balthsar passage.
I will look that over again and then I think I will post some quotes from A Covenant summary of belief published a little over 20 years ago (about the time I entered jr high).
Gavin,
ReplyDeleteIt helps in that I do not feel that I am absolutely out of my mind thinking that the passage was not at variance with Lutheran teaching necesarily. Though, it is dishartening to hear what you are saying about some of you parishoners. I doubt very seriously it has all that much to do with levels of education at least that didn't use to be the issue for the Mission Friends. I wonder if assimilation has been more important than retaining a vibrant theological and spiritual life. Certainly my Great grandfather J E Nelson who was a farmer and read and got into debates with his pastor was not highly educated and did this while in the feilds (Oh that is have theological discussion with the pastor).
So, then what do you make of von Balthasar's claim and that of Catholics that something else was intended or emphasized in the formula?
oh and BTW I don't know that I came accross any articualtion of community sin growing up either, but it certainly is in the teaching of a John Weborg and a Burton Nelson who would see (I believe) such an understanding as a Pietist one.
Lastly, I am not asking if every Covnenanter would agree with von Balthasar on this point (Getting us all to agree on anything is difficult), especially since not all Covenanters are Lutheran Pietists. My question which you at least answered in part is if this statement fit with the Covenant's Lutheran Pietist center. You seem to agree that it does.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteIn looking at the people who bring the "religious right" to the discussion in our church, it is interesting to realize that they don't come from the Lutheran Pietist background. One is a Baptist, one grew up Reformed, and one grew up in a pentecostal church. At the same time, the lifelong covenanters tend to be closer to that side of the conversation than they are to mine.
I didn't mean to be too terribly snobbish about the education level of my congregation. Many are wise in many ways and we have had many conversations that show a depth in their faith. But... I have also seen a lot of people who never really look to why they believe what they do and who take Christian leadership at face value no matter what. They don't question what they are taught and they believe so much of what they believe because that's what they learned as children. I'm sure that you would agree that this is a horrible reason to believe something.
Some quotes on justification from Covenant Affimations by Donald Frisk.
ReplyDelete"If we are to be justified it can only be by an act of God himself through which he accepts us in our sinfulness, freely forgives us, and cofers upon us a righteousness we cannot achieve ourselves."
"The act involves "imputation" to the sinner of a righteousness which he or she has not achieved, a righteousness which is by faith "apart from works of law"(romans 3:28."
Frisk mentions the problems with the forensic aspect of this but "...justification is but one aspec of the Holy Sprit's work of regeneration."
"Justification... means not only that we are reckoned righteous bu tthat in osme sense we become righteous. god doe not only chage his attitude toward the sinner; he changes the sinner."
Even so "God's choces saints still pray with the publican, 'god be merciful to me a sinner.'"
Gavin,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up one of the interesting things about the Covenant and that is that we have attracted a a large number of people out of conservative evangelical church's, and the "religious right", but have failed to communicate to these people that they are attracted by the consequences of our Lutheran Pietist heritage. But that is perhaps for another post.
You bring up another issue though, also probably a seperat post and that is the accepted laxity among the laity. While it isn't necesarily bad to hold the same beliefs you were taught as a child, if one has never tested them or evaluated them as an adult that is certainly in my view a failure of Christian dicipleship. There have been times in church history where the laity was a stong force in the church in expressin and living out the truths of the Gospel, that seems less the case now, in many settings, it grieves me that the Covenant has wandered so far from this, and that following the Gospel has come to be equated with aping the "Religious Right" and American conservative evangelicalism.
But now we have wondered very far from the above topic.
though it does fit with my question because one thing I know that if the trend you describe goes on much longer in the covenant and the covenant more or less completely moth balls its Lutheran Pietist heritage, as I have said before, I will have become homeless. In some sense this anxiety(not a constant one by any means) over the future of the covenant and my sense that I do not need to convert to either Romand Cahtolicism or Othodoxy, is a large part of what leads me to ponder what I was seeking to question, just how much real distance is there between the faith I was raised in and the fiath of the Orthodox and Romand Catholicism?
Larry,
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a more rural setting. I would love to move back to the town I grew up in some day.
At the same time, I know people I graduated from school with who never left. I feel sorry for them for never having gotten out of town and experiencing the bigger world. So, I long for the simple life I grew up with and at the same time feel bad for those who never left it.
I feel the same way about people's simplistic beliefs. I believe much the same as I did as a child (though there are definitely some differences) but at the same time I feel bad for people who never get past what they were told to believe. I would rather have people choose their faith than to have them default into it.