Excommunication and the Power of the Ministry

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[edit] Introduction

In a recent issue of Concordia Journal,[1] the systematics departments of the two LCMS seminaries in St. Louis and Ft. Wayne published a paper containing some “affirmations” (243) on “The Office of the Holy Ministry” to address some ongoing concerns regarding this topic in the LCMS. The following remarks are offered as a contribution to this highly important debate.

[edit] Preliminary Considerations: Doctrine and Practice

By way of introduction, the two departments muse on the difficulty of putting into practice what one has recognized as true. Interestingly, the statement is made that “there is no disagreement and confusion about what constitutes the Lutheran articles of doctrine. There is, however, much disagreement and confusion about how we should embody these articles in our lives” (242). In other words, we agree on doctrine, but not on the practical ramifications of a given doctrine. Thus, all agree on AC XIV; problems emerge, e.g., when there are many shut-ins in a congregation (243). Accordingly, then, all the bitter conflict in the LCMS in recent years has to do with the (lesser) practical question of how, not with the (crucial) substance question of what.

Framing the situation in this way suggests that more love and patience with one another are crucial for resolving our conflicts. Luther, for one, had this to say about distinguishing doctrine and life in an ecclesiological context (AE 41:218):

This we say about doctrine, which must be pure and clean, namely, the dear, blessed, holy, and one word of God, without any addition. But life, which should daily direct, purify, and sanctify itself according to doctrine, is not yet entirely pure or holy, so long as this maggoty body of flesh and blood is alive. But as long as it is in the process of purification and sanctification, being continually healed by the Samaritan and no longer decaying in its own impurity, it is graciously excused, pardoned, and forgiven for the sake of the word, through which it is healed and purified; thus it must be called pure. This is why the holy Christian church is not a whore or unholy, because it continues to hold to and remain with the word (which is its holiness) without blemish and with strength.

However, the question is whether this important passage in Luther is really applicable to the issues at hand. It appears that Luther has the daily sins of the Christians in mind, their sins of weakness and ignorance which are excused, while they are being increasingly eliminated in the “process of purification.” Yet does, e.g., “lay ministry” belong to the category of sins of weakness? Was it instituted in haste, without thorough discussion? Perhaps. Yet have no serious doctrinal concerns against it been raised ever since so that we today could claim practical ignorance in this matters? This is not the case.[2] Robert Preus offers this interesting and pertinent characterization: “perceived emergency has led to bad practice in the LCMS; and then bad practice has led to a vitiation and a virtual denial of AC XIV.”[3] In other words, bad church practice, especially when maintained in force over years against clear doctrinal objections, can do what the Christians’ daily sins of weakness condoned above by Luther cannot do: vitiating and denying a true doctrine by powerfully “embodying” a false doctrine.

I merely adduce this case, brought into the discussion by the joint seminary paper, to suggest that full-blown, untested affirmations of full doctrinal unity are, to say the least, premature at this point in the history of the LCMS. (If we all agree on doctrine, why do we need doctrinal “affirmations” by seminary departments?) Let us therefore first examine whether we in fact “believe, teach, and confess” the same things or whether the apparent practical differences among us are not in fact reflective of different doctrines held among us.[4]

[edit] The Authority of the Pastoral Office: Is Excommunication Part of It?

Another case in point, on which the department affirmations elaborate in greater detail (249-254), is the question of authority of congregation and pastoral office. It is certainly commendable and heartening in light of recent attempts at replacing the office by the priesthood of all believers that the seminary departments affirm that the pastoral office has authority; they prove this from Scripture and the confessions. Pastors, after all, are called to “govern” their churches (Tr. 30; AC XIV (German); LC I:158), not apart from the Word or against it like tyrants or kings, but according to it and, in fact, by it (Ap. XXVIII, 13-14).[5]

This authority certainly does not abrogate the right and duty of every Christian to examine the doctrine taught by these men and, if necessary, avoid them and their false teaching (cf., e.g., Ap. XXVIII, 20-21); after all, as Luther noted, “no one can die for another” (AE 51:70). Yet this truth did not lead the confessors to do away with the office entirely, as the seminary paper points out: both the office and the church hold the keys (250), but this does not “make the office of the holy ministry unnecessary or merely useful” (253). Chief exercises of the office of the keys given to the church as a whole are private absolution offered by one Christian to his brother or sister[6] and the call of a well-suited man into the pastoral office (250f.).[7]

In what does the authority of pastors consist? The department paper rightly quotes not only AC XXVIII, 5 (244), but also AC XXVIII, 21; Ap. XXVIII, 12-13 (251), both of which elaborate on the familiar short list of preaching God’s word and administering the sacraments. Here we learn that pastors’ authority to preach the word and to administer the sacraments includes also the authority to excommunicate obstinate sinners from the congregation.

However, what this really means in practical terms – and this is, at least in part, what the faculty paper is about: practical “embodiment” – is not elaborated. This is not helpful because of the peculiar LCMS interpretation given to these passages of the confessions.[8] Some, following C. F. W. Walther, would likely temper these passages by stating that the pastor is here only in view as mouthpiece of the supreme congregational assembly of laymen (and pastors).[9] Others would reject this as lay-meddling in the authority Christ has given to the pastoral office. To be sure, the paper’s header of section 4 – “The whole church’s possession of the power of the keys relativizes neither the necessity nor the authority of the office of the holy ministry …” (249) – could be read as indicating a siding with the latter position, but this is, given the fact that Walther represents the official LCMS-position, maybe only conjecture.

Excommunication thus seems to be a prime case of apparent agreement in doctrine corresponding to disagreement in practice: We all agree on what the powers of the ministry are; we just do not all agree on how they are to be exercised in practice. Yet maybe this is not the case; maybe we disagree on what the powers of the holy ministry are; maybe, therefore, our differences in how to regulate their exercise in practice stem from doctrinal disagreement.

[edit] Walther on the Right of Excommunication

Let us therefore first take a look at how C. F. W. Walther grounds his interpretation theologically.[10] Walther distinguishes between arriving at a decision to excommunicate and the public enforcement of this excommunication. The former is the duty of the whole congregation (ministers and hearers); the latter – along with the temporary suspension from communion[11] – is the duty of the pastor only. The latter is based on AC XXVIII, 21; Ap. XXVIII, 13-14; and Tr. 60.[12] The former is based on Tr. 74-76 and, obviously the trump card, the German translation[13] of Tr. 24 that, beyond the Latin original, speaks of the “highest and last judgment” given by Christ to the church.[14]

[edit] Melanchthon on the Right of Excommunication

It is worth noting that Melanchthon’s critique of the abuses of the bishops and their bureaucrats, in Tr. 74-76, is framed by these two sentences: “It is certain that the common legal authority to excommunicate those guilty of manifest crimes belongs to all pastors. … it is right to restore this jurisdiction to godly pastors and to take care that it is exercised legitimately for the amendment of morals and the glory of God.” This is consistent with what he wrote in AC and Ap.: The authority to excommunicate was to be retrieved from distant episcopal bureaucracies to local pastors who were expected to exercise it legitime (ordenlicherweise), “legitimately” (“in an orderly manner”). What is meant here? First, it seems that Melanchthon has here in mind his earlier distinction between kings and tyrants (see Tr. 74, 76!) on the one hand and genuine bishops (and pastors, Tr. 61) on the other hand. The latter “have a definite command, a definite Word, which they ought to teach and according to which they should exercise their jurisdiction” (Ap. XXVIII, 14). Any judgment without or against God’s word is illegitimate and therefore disorderly. It is therefore spiritually, that is, before God, invalid. The power of the office does not go beyond God’s word.

Yet this grievance seems to imply more because in Tr. 74 a complaint is lodged that the bureaucrats of the bishops act sine ordine judiciorum (ohn rechtliche Erkanntnus) which could be translated as “without orderly trials” (“without legal cognition”).[15] What would have been orderly trials? Walther, by quoting Tr. 24 (German), seems to suggest that those would be such in which the laity officiated as the (numerically superior) co-judge of the pastor.

[edit] Luther on the Right of Excommunication

Luther, in his 1530 writing “On the Keys,” addresses a situation similar to the one discussed by Melanchthon, which is why Walther also quotes the pertinent passage from this treatise.[16] Since Melanchthon in the context does not really elaborate on what kind of orderly trials he had in mind, perhaps Luther can help us out here. Luther, first of all, harshly criticizes the arrogated authority of the bishops and their officials who thought they had the right arbitrarily to excommunicate people without any public conviction by God’s word. As an alternative way of dealing with sins, he points to Christ’s rule in Matthew 18:15-18: first brotherly punishment of the sin in question in private; if this does not win the brother back, then eventually an involvement “the whole congregation” was necessary (AE 40:371).

How did Luther envision this public and collective punishment in practical terms? The problem of the established practices was that the bishops “excommunicate people before a congregation ten, twenty, or thirty miles distant, although these people have never been condemned, accused, or convicted in their own congregation and before their own pastor” (ibid.). The alternative? “If a bishop or his representative desires to excommunicate someone, let him or his representative go to the pastor of the congregation where the person is to be excommunicated.[17] Justice must be done to him according to these words of Christ.” This is to be done “for the sake of the congregation. In dealing with one of its members who is under the ban it should be sure of the reason it thinks him to be deserving of excommunication as the words of Christ in our text direct. … it should be consulted if one of its members is to be excommunicated, as Christ commands. … in this case, where souls are at stake, the congregation shall have a place as judge and helper” (371f.).

Thus, the congregation is to be the place where an excommunication should be carried out in public before all; in fact, the congregation should be “consulted” and “have a place as judge and helper.” How would this look like, again in practical terms? Here the last of Luther’s famous 1522 Invocavit-Sermons is helpful. First, he states that the biblical practice prescribed in Matt. 18, while practiced in the early church, is currently in abeyance. He paraphrases this practice as follows (AE 51:97): “when anybody committed a sin publicly or with other men’s knowledge, he was accused before the congregation. If he abandoned his sin, they interceded for him with God. But if he would not listen to the congregation [häuffen], he was cast out and excluded from the assembly, so that no one would have anything to do with him.” Accordingly, the public accusation before the congregation is tantamount to hearing the entire congregation speak.

A little later, Luther restates this practice in greater detail (97f., emphases added):

When you see a usurer, adulterer, thief, or drunkard, you should go to him in secret, and admonish him to give up his sin. If he will not listen, you should take two others with you and admonish him once more, in a brotherly way, to give up his sin. But if he scorns that, you should tell the pastor before the whole congregation, have your witnesses with you, and accuse him before the pastor in the presence of the people, saying: Dear pastor, this man has done this and that and would not take our brotherly admonition to give up his sin. Therefore I accuse him, together with my witnesses, who have heard this. Then, if he will not give up and willingly acknowledge his guilt, the pastor should exclude him and put him under the ban before the whole assembly, for the sake of the congregation, until he comes to himself and is received back again. This would be Christian.

There are thus five parties involved in the proceedings according to Matthew 18: there is the sinning brother; there is the accuser who seeks to win him back by admonishing him, first alone, then with witnesses; there are the witnesses; there is the judge, the pastor; then there are the people assembled to hear the ban pronounced by the pastor according to God’s word and based on reliable witnesses of the sin. Luther thus seems to be drawing on 1 Tim. 5:19f. in his interpretation of Matt. 18; Apostle Paul here says to Pastor Timothy: “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.” The pastor thus is to excommunicate the impenitent sinner before the congregation. The role of the congregation of laymen is here limited to hearing the biblical sentence and heeding it for their own good; it does not pronounce it itself or vote on it.

It is thus apparently not merely a preliminary procedural step that, as Luther suggested in 1530, the bishops or their emissaries should contact the local pastor; he is the local judge (cf. AE 41:133-135) in charge of deciding on the case brought by the bishop against one of his congregants. And even though the congregation as a whole seems to be largely silent – it neither accuses nor judges – Luther sees it nonetheless as involved in the proceedings: both in the public accusation of the witnesses as in the public sentence of the pastor the whole congregation itself speaks and acts and is to be heeded on pain of eternal damnation (Matt. 18:17). In this sense, then, the congregation is “consulted” and has its place as “judge and helper.” Being present in silence, that is, without openly protesting, is obviously viewed as an act of public approval. Besides, and rightly understood, the pastor is also servant of the congregation (2 Cor. 4:5), that is, he publicly and officially speaks and acts in its name, even without explicit authorization of individual acts.

This interpretation is confirmed by two weighty pieces of evidence. First, there is Luther’s interpretation of the Eighth Commandment in the Large Catechism where he again discusses Matt. 18. Important for a proper understanding of his interpretation is the distinction between those who hold an office of authority in God’s three holy hierarchies[18] (house – parents, state – magistrates, church – pastors) and those who do not (LC I:274, cf. I:158, 180-182).[19] While the former, in their God-given office, may and must speak “evil” of a person – obviously without confusing the two kingdoms and the proper tools and purposes given them by God (in the church: AC XXVIII, 21: sine vi, sed verbo, cf. SA III, 9) – the latter may not, unless summoned to appear as witnesses in a public trial. According to Luther, the proper distinction between “authorities” and “laymen” (in all three hierarchies) touches on the First Commandment and God’s own office (LC I:26f., 267f., 274).[20] This is true especially, but not exclusively, in the case of individual congregants taking it upon themselves to judge their orthodox pastor by slandering or simply leaving him (I:262, 289).[21]

On this basis, Luther then demands in his interpretation of Matt. 18 that when a Christian sees his brother sin, he is to confront him first privately, then with witnesses; first if and when this does not yield the desired results of repentance and renewal in the faith, the case with witnesses is to be taken “publicly before the community” (offentlich fur die Gemeine), “either before the civil or the ecclesiastical court,” so that “the judge can base the decision and pass sentence” (I:280). Unless a person is willing to take the matter publicly before “the proper judge,” he is to remain silent (I:270). And the proper judge in the “ecclesiastical court” would ordinarily be the one holding office of authority in the ecclesiastical “hierarchy,” that is, the pastor.

The second confirmation for this interpretation – “listen to the church” = “listen to the pastor excommunicating in the presence of the congregation based on God’s clear word” – is found in Luther’s own consistent practice of excommunication: He, after due private admonition, either excommunicated a unrepentant sinner in public himself or requested that other pastors should do the same; in the latter case he practically assumed the responsibilities of an evangelical bishop.[22] There do not seem to be any records suggesting that Luther, who spoke frequently of the congregation’s duty and right to judge doctrine, called for an active involvement of laymen (beyond that of accuser and witnesses) in order to arrive at a conclusion as to whether a notorious and hardened sinner was to be excommunicated.[23] And, assuming that Luther’s practice was consistent with his doctrine, this practical confirmation means something: Like preaching, baptism, and communion, the “small excommunication” – that is, the excommunication without any civil penalties attached to it – was to be carried out by pastors (SA III, 9). – “He who hears you, hears me,” here too (Luke 10:16; cf. AC XXVIII, 22 with Ap. XXVIII, 18-19).

[edit] Summary

Drawing some conclusions thus far, it seems that when Melanchthon speaks of the pastors’ duty and right to excommunicate the impenitent from the congregation, he actually means what he says: pastors alone excommunicate the impenitent. Their responsible decision need not be validated by a lay-element according to passages where he attributes the keys to the church. The fact that Melanchthon, in his private writings, does advocate for an advisory participation of theologically astute laymen in synods and in consistories adjudicating more complex cases of church discipline with legal implications[24] is telling in that it indicates that, apparently, on a congregational level there was no such regular lay-participation, according to Melanchthon. This is confirmed by Luther’s confessional and private writings[25] as well as by his actual practice.

While this is the original Lutheran position, it is quite evident that the Reformed, beginning with Martin Bucer (1491-1551) in Strasburg who later influenced John Calvin (1509-1564), defined the authority of pastors more narrowly. In part out of political considerations, they explicitly advocated a stronger lay-participation in the government of the church, including excommunication by a mixed consistory.[26] When comparing their writings to the Lutheran confessions, the differences become obvious.

[edit] Historical Excursus: Church Polity in Post-Reformation Lutheranism in Germany

If what Walther quotes from later Lutheran theologians concerning a stronger “lay-involvement” (e.g., in the form of consistories) is accurate, then this would already reflect a growing influence of the government on the church’s business – perhaps following Reformed precedent – culminating in the direct subordination of the church to the state in the caesaropapism exercised by the absolutistic rulers of the 17th and early 18th century. This development, obviously, was not simply benign; and it was recognized as problematic by the Lutheran theologians early on.[27] During the 18th century, under the influence of both Pietism and Enlightenment, the theory of “collegialism” was developed that, like competing “territorialism,” understood the church basically as a contractual society or (religious) association of equals (collegium). However, while territorialism employed this notion to integrate the church into the state more fully under the absolute supremacy of the sovereign, collegialism used this notion to carve out, in the long run, more independence for the church as a society independent from the state. While early collegialist theoreticians still retained the notion of divine institution (jus divinum) regarding the church as such and regarding the office and its functions, their late-18th century followers basically transformed the church into a voluntary human association fully subject to the free conscience and reason of man and the corresponding rule of the majority. Collegialism thus also prepared the increasing disengagement of church and state under the pressure of the liberal-bourgeois reforms and revolutions of the first half of the 19th century. Mainly Catholic and neo-Lutheran theologians[28] protested against the humanistic nature of the collegialist understanding of the church.[29]

While the 1803 Napoleonic reforms affecting the churches in Germany, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, and the ensuing restoration of the monarchical order at the 1815 Congress of Vienna did not essentially alter the way Protestant churches were governed in Germany (if anything, these events increased state control) – typically by a consistory under the supervision of the sovereign as summus episcopus (later often delegated to the ministry of the interior) – the emergent liberal movement in society and politics in the following years did have a major impact on church government. It was at this point that democratic ideas[30] began to stream into the church, chief of which was, also in Lutheran churches like Bavaria, the establishment of synods with both lay and clergy delegates and the vesting of the same with supreme legislative authority in the church, thus supplanting the consistory (and sovereign). This represents a contemporary adaptation of the traditional Reformed approach to church government going back to Bucer and Calvin, which considered as divinely mandated the participation of lay-elders[31] alongside pastors, doctors, and deacons in congregational presbyteries and regional synods. One difference is that now the delegates understand themselves as representatives of the people (now based on “the priesthood of all believers” gradually reformulated accordingly during the age of collegialism)[32] charged with administering the business of the church; no longer did they see themselves as those charged by Christ with supervising the sanctification of the congregants. Before long and in analogy to emergent political parties, ecclesiastical parties among the delegates were formed as well.[33] – As is well known, the office of lay-elder, and its concomitant offices on all levels, also found its way into Lutheran churches in America that trace their origin back to the 19th century.[34]

It was then first after the disestablishment of the church in Germany in 1918 that some theologians saw the great historical opportunity to break free from these variations of collective church government and to return to an unadulterated episcopal polity, not out of historical or Romanizing nostalgia, but out of theological necessity.[35]

[edit] Outlook and Summary: Doctrine and Practice

Having thus established the doctrine and outlined its history, there are indeed “practical” considerations to be kept in mind before pastors now start blindly to throw anathemas about. Luther saw clearly that administering the ban according to Matt. 18 requires, on the one hand, “fine, courageous, joyful, and understanding pastors, experienced and well versed in spiritual matters.” On the other hand, it also requires mature congregants that are willing to be disciplined, and to discipline each other, according to Matt. 18.[36] After all, excommunication is to be carried out according to God’s word; and it is usually[37] to be carried out first after due admonition of the sinner by his fellow Christians. For the time being and as at the time of Luther, genuine church discipline, at least as far as the life of the Christians is concerned, often must remain in abeyance (cf. Ep. XII, 26). Yet this is not an excuse for being unclear, or wrong, in our teaching on the matter. For whatever we teach here will have an impact elsewhere.

In summary, one of the general questions raised by the recently published “affirmations” of the joint dogmatics departments of the two LCMS seminaries has to do with the relationship between doctrine and practice. Is agreement in doctrine really possible without agreement in practice? Does not rather persistent disagreement in practice point to a deeper disagreement in doctrine? Using the today often rather academic question of excommunication as an example, an attempt was made to show that different practical approaches seem to give evidence of different doctrinal positions. For the practical difference at hand are in reality significant differences in ecclesiastical law (written or oral) and should not be confused with daily sins of weakness and ignorance that happen in the daily administration of the duties of the pastoral office.

As one believes, so one acts; as one acts, so one believes. In other words, the fruits of the tree always point back to what is in a person’s heart and mind. Concretely, e.g., the question of whether “emergency situations” or “the American situation” serve as valid qualifiers (or nullifiers) of doctrine might point to a faulty doctrinal hermeneutic that gives too much weight to “the situation” to the point of significantly distorting the doctrine as actually taught by Luther and the Lutheran confessions.

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑ CJ 33 (2007): 242-255. Simple page numbers refer to this publication. From the simultaneously published issue of the Concordia Theological Quarterly (CTQ 70 (2006):97-111), one learns that the author of the paper is Joel Okamoto, but that the paper “represents a consensus of these departments on the subject” (ibid., 97).
  2. ↑ Cf., e.g., Robert Preus, “The Doctrine of the Call” (1991), in: Church and Ministry Today, ed. J. Maxfield (St. Louis: Luther Academy, 2001), 38-41. Cf. also the detailed study by N. Masaki, “Augsburg Confession XIV: Does It Answer Current Questions on the Holy Ministry?” CTQ 70 (2006): 123-162, where he rejects the splitting-up of “office” and “functions” underlying lay-ministry programs.
  3. ↑ Preus, “Doctrine,” 38.
  4. ↑ Another case in point would be “closed communion.” Some maintain that all agree on the what of the Lord’s Supper, but just not on the how. We confess the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in bread and wine, but we disagree on who should receive this blessed food. However, first of all, e.g., Francis Pieper taught as doctrine revealed in Scripture who should be admitted to the Lord’s Supper (Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis: CPH, 1953), 3:381-391); and, second, a sampling of communion statements in churches where open communion is practiced reveals at times significant aberrations from the doctrine of the real presence. Luther (WA 30.3:567) and Walther (Thesis 9 of his Communion Fellowship with Those who Believe Differently) observed that the doctrine of the real presence goes hand in hand with an affirmation of the doctrine (and ensuing practice) of closed communion; where the former is denied, the latter matters little and will soon be gone too. Light is shed on differences in our understanding of what worship is all about in this study.
  5. ↑ Cf. H. Lieberg, Amt und Ordination bei Luther und Melanchthon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 292 with note 119, 298f.
  6. ↑ So long as it did not conflict with that administered by the pastor, absolution given by laymen was not to be limited to emergency situations, according to Melanchthon, cf. Lieberg, Amt und Ordination, 263f.
  7. ↑ Thus not the “full use” of the office of the keys that is discussed as “power of bishops” or “power of the church” chiefly in AC / Ap. XXVIII, cf. Lieberg, Amt und Ordination, 300.
  8. ↑ Cf. esp. C. F. W. Walther, Church and Ministry (St. Louis: CPH, 1987), 321-331 (Thesis IX C), where pastoral excommunications “without having first informed the whole congregation” are branded as “tyranny.” “Informing” certainly can mean many things. Walther (322) clarifies this to mean that “although the public enforcement of excommunication belongs to and must remain with the incumbents of the ministry of the Word …, nevertheless it must be carried out … only after the whole congregation (that is, the minister and hearer) has considered and made the final judicial decision on the matter” (emphasis added). See Walther’s discussion of Thesis V on the ministry where, as one learns in Thesis IX, based on the confessional texts quoted above apparently only the “public enforcement” of a joint lay-pastoral excommunication is meant. This is echoed in the synodical catechism, Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (St. Louis: CPH, 1986), 225f.; significantly, no biblical text is cited to support the assertion: “The called minister must carry out the resolution of the congregation …” It is part of the “explanation” of the three questions regarding the office of the keys included in the catechism, according to which the power of the keys is given to the church and exercised by the “called ministers of Christ,” even as “they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation” (ibid., 27; cf. R. Hinckley, “Andreas Osiander and the Fifth Chief Part,” Logia X, 4 (Reformation 2001): 37-42.).
  9. ↑ Whatever Walther’s rationale for his stance (see below), at about Synod’s centenary this power-sharing agreement is said to have been put into place to generate greater lay participation in congregations; cf. the telling quote: “By putting real power into the laymen’s hands the founders of the Missouri Synod nurtured and developed a sturdy and informed laity. The laymen learned by doing. The difficult problem of teaching men and women who had been brought up in the State Church of Germany the task of paying for the maintenance of the Church was solved by giving laymen the privilege and the duty of making important decisions in the Church. … The zeal which the early Missouri Synod laymen showed for their Church in that they attended meeting after meeting was produced, no doubt, in part by the fact that these men knew that their decisions were final” (C. S. Mundinger, Government in the Missouri Synod: The Genesis of Decentralized Government in the Missouri Synod (St. Louis: CPH, 1947), 218-219, emph. added).
  10. ↑ Commendably, he at least does that. On the other hand, e.g., the November 1985 CTCR report Church Discipline in the Christian Congregation apparently no longer sees the need for this but simply states: “Ordinarily the third step [cf. Matt. 18] … takes place in our modern day voters’ assembly, the group usually charged with administering the spiritual and temporal affairs of the congregation.” Who charged them?
  11. ↑ Cf. Americanisch-Lutherische Pastoraltheologie, 3rd ed. (St. Louis: Barthel, 1885), 161-164, even though the Lutheran theologians in their “private writings,” and only such Walther can adduce, are divided: some grant this right to the pastor; other deny it. With whom should we side and why? Luther, at the beginning of his 1520 “Sermon on the Ban” has this to say (AE 39:7, emph. added): “Since … the sacrament of the holy body of Christ is a sign of the community of all saints, we must now learn what the ban is which is exercised through the power of the spiritual estate in Christendom. For its principal, real function and power is to deprive a sinful Christian of the holy sacrament and to forbid it to him. That is why the one cannot be understood without the other as long as they stand in opposition to each other. The Latin word communio means ‘fellowship,’ and this is what scholars call the holy sacrament. Its opposite is the word excommunicatio, which means ‘exclusion’ from this fellowship, and this is what scholars call the ban.” This ban is to exclude from communion, that is, from church fellowship, but not from hearing the sermon (ibid., 22).
  12. ↑ Cf. Church and Ministry, 213f. The quotation from the Treatise includes a strange square bracket (214): “this command is given alike to all [believers] who preside over the churches, whether they are called pastors or elders or bishops.” Is this Donatism (cf. AC VIII) or democracy?
  13. ↑ Lieberg, Amt und Ordination, 301 note 163 detects a “spiritualizing tendency” in Dietrich’s German translation of the Treatise.
  14. ↑ Cf. Walther, Church and Ministry, 323f.
  15. ↑ The translation ibid., 323, “without due process of law,” is perhaps too strongly reminiscent of civil rights accorded to American citizens and thus misleading.
  16. ↑ Cf. ibid., 324f.
  17. ↑ The translation of this sentence in Walther, Church and Ministry, 324 reads: “If a bishop or some other official desires to excommunicate a person, let him go or write to the congregation and its pastor that such and such a person should be excommunicated …” This translation ever so slightly tilts the balance between congregation and pastor toward equilibrium, for the passage in question reads in SL 19:951: “… so gehe oder schicke er hin in die Gemeine und vor den Pfarrherrn …” (… let him go or send into the congregation and before the pastor …). The preposition “before” is not unimportant, as will become evident below. WA 30.3:502.19f. similarly reads: “… so gehe odder schicke er hin jnn die Gemeine und fur den Pfarher …” (cf. ibid., ln.s 15-17).
  18. ↑ On Luther’s doctrine of the three governments / hierarchies and its medieval background cf. W. Maurer, Luthers Lehre von den drei Hierarchien und ihr mittelalterlicher Hintergrund (Munich: Bayerische Akad. der Wissensch., 1970). On the pastoral office in this context he states (ibid., 29): “The proclamation of the gospel thus does not only have a pneumatic, but also a legal aspect. One must not pit the one against the other.” Distinguishing Luther’s approach from sociological models, Maurer writes (ibid., 34): “Thus, Luther neither wants to describe the social reality of his time nor offer a social theory. He rather represents God’s creation that effectively determines our life whether we recognize this or not. The three orders are an expression of God’s majesty as Creator and, at the same time, means in his hand to enlist every man to serve him responsibly and to exercise the Christian thereby in sanctification.” This doctrine the reformer developed and asserted especially in the years of unrest around 1530 when, as Luther saw it, no one was content with their God-given place in life (vocation), ultimately desiring to be God (ibid., 26). The three holy orders, as taught by Luther, are thus polemically directed against self-chosen forms of service, as exemplified in the monastic orders of his day (ibid., 3).
  19. ↑ This foundational distinction does not play any role in the May 2006 CTCR report Public Rebuke of Public Sin, a fact that significantly decreases its value for the church.
  20. ↑ Cf. the insightful remarks by A. Peters, Kommentar zu Luthers Katechismen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 1:197-200, 282f.
  21. ↑ Cf. Lieberg, Amt und Ordination, 128-130.
  22. ↑ See above AE 40:371: “If a bishop or his representative desires to excommunicate someone, let him or his representative go to the pastor of the congregation where the person is to be excommunicated.”
  23. ↑ Cf. the study by R. Götze, Wie Luther Kirchenzucht übte: Eine kritische Untersuchung von Luthers Bannsprüchen und ihrer exegetischen Grundlegung aus der Sicht unserer Zeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959?). While theologically confused herself and therefore rejecting Luther’s approach to church discipline, she at least provides an overview of the pertinent texts concerning Luther’s practice.
  24. ↑ Cf. the circumspect remarks by Lieberg, Amt und Ordination, 293f. note 122 and 295f. note 129.
  25. ↑ As his 1520 “Sermon the Ban” shows, there is significant consistency in Luther’s teaching on the matter. For there too the ban, as instituted by Christ in Matt. 18, is “exercised through the power of the spiritual estate in Christendom” (AE 39:7), that is, through “bishop or pope” (ibid., 8). And yet it is also true that in this way the sinner’s “mother, the holy church [acts, who] wants to show her dear son this unbearable damage of sin, by way of the punishment of the ban, and thereby wants to bring him back from the devil to God again” (ibid., 10). The spiritual tyranny of the bishops Luther attacked here and elsewhere consisted, not in their imposing the ban, but in that they “seek nothing but their own power, respect, and profit in it” (ibid., 13).
  26. ↑ Cf., e.g, the 1536 Confessio Helvetica Prior, in which Martin Bucer had a hand, teaches in art. 19 (20) that excommunication is carried out by ministers of the word and Christian magistrates (cf. on Bucer’s far-reaching ideas on social reform – they required the involvement of the Christian magistrates which led to a proliferation of lay-offices in the church held by government officials – M. Greschat, “Martin Bucer,” in: Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte, ed. M. Greschat (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1984), 6:13f.). Similarly, John Calvin teaches in the final edition of his Institutes: While teaching elders (pastors) were free to use the keys in preaching (IV, 11,2), the presbytery (teaching and disciplinary elders), or consistory, as a whole was responsible for excommunications (11,5-6): while Matt. 16 and John 20 apply to the former, Matt. 18 applies to the latter scenario. The alternative to adopting this ordination of Christ’s Spirit is, in Calvin’s view, clerical tyranny leading straight back to Rome. (On the distinction between teaching and disciplinary elders see note 31 below.) It is noteworthy, however, that this assertion of a divine institution (divine right!) of a mixed consistory appears to be first part of a compromise – inspired by Martin Bucer during Calvin’s exile in Strasbourg –that enabled Calvin to return to Geneva in 1540/41; he had held earlier that pastors alone had the right to excommunicate, a belief for which he was exiled from Geneva in 1538 (cf. R. Stauffer, “Johannes Calvin,” in: Gestalten, 6:217, 220). Not surprisingly, the decisive passages concerning the establishment of a mixed consistory by divine right in the fifth and final (1559) Latin edition of the Institutes are missing in the two (1536, 1539) editions prior to the third edition of 1543 (cf. Joannis Calvini Opera Selecta, ed. P. Barth, G. Niesel (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1936), V:195-202). If Calvin reportedly signed the Augsburg Confession while in Strasbourg in 1539 / 40 (cf. F. Bente, Historical Introduction to the Book of Concord, repr. (St. Louis: CPH, 1965), 174), then this too fits into this time frame.
  27. ↑ They were aware of the temptation of the princes to lord it over the church apart from God’s word (they were, however, not in principle opposed to the princely cura religionis – so long as orthodox theologians set the princes’ course). E.g., conflicts between lay leaders and clergy in Nuremberg over the power of the ban broke out as early as 1528 when the local church order stipulated that the ministers had to consult civil authorities prior to imposing the ban, that is, barring unrepentant sinners from the sacrament of the altar, a position of lay-superiority that can be traced back to anti-papal reformer Marsilius of Padua in the 14th century; the magisterial 1533 Brandenburg-Nuremberg Church Order (authored by Brenz and Osiander, with the approval of the Wittenbergers) did give the clergy the right of excommunication in conjunction with the mandatory pre-communion examination in the faith (cf. R. K. Rittgers, The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge, MA; London, England, 2004), 13, 105f., 116f., 122-132 -- Rittgers also chronicles how the imperial city of Nuremberg and its council had, just prior to the reformation and by means of significant payments of money, gained far-reaching ecclesiatical autonomy from the pope vis-a-vis the bishop of Bamberg, see ibid., 18-22). Being also present at the 1530 Augsburg diet, Brenz speaks out in favor of an episcopal polity (cf. Ap. XIV, 1, 5) as a buffer between parish pastors and overbearing but theologically ignorant princes (cf. J. M. Estes, Peace, Order and the Glory of God: Secular Authority and the Church in the Thought of Luther and Melanchthon, 1518-1559 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 167f.). Luther, for his part, in 1543 rejected a Saxon disciplinary order which – quite in keeping with the contemporary model developed by Bucer/Calvin – put secular officials in charge of imposing and enforcing excommunication (ibid., 208). Clearly, the external pressures on pastors grew, especially after the 1555 Peace of Augsburg that, by imperial law, awarded the jus reformandi to the princes; Württemberg under Brenz’s superintendence provided an alternative model that pleased Melanchthon (ibid., 172-176).
  28. ↑ Special mention deserves here F. J. Stahl (1802-1861).
  29. ↑ Cf. the instructive overview provided by K. Schlaich, “Die Kirche als Anstalt und Verein: Zur Kollegialtheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in: Das Recht der Kirche, ed. G. Rau, et al. (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser, 1995), 2:174-192.
  30. ↑ The simultaneous influx of highly popular national ideas demanding the unification of all Germans in one nation state (implying the demand for the resignation of all territorial sovereigns) was, no doubt, in part responsible for the fact that the various union movements in various German territories made major strides at the beginning of the 19th century, since the ecclesial-confessional divisions were still seen as hindering a greater national unity.
  31. ↑ Cf. Calvin, Institutes (1559) IV, 11,1: “In the Epistle to Timothy, also, [Paul] mentions two kinds of presbyters, some who labour in the word, and others who do not perform the office of preaching, but rule well (1 Tim. 5:17). By this latter class there is no doubt he means those who were appointed to the inspection of manners, and the whole use of the keys.” See also Calvin’s Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, tr. W. Pringle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), on 1 Tim. 5:17: “there were chosen from among the people men of worth and of good character, who, united with the pastors in a common council and authority administered the discipline of the Church, and were a kind of censors for the correction of morals.” For the considerable development of this teaching in Calvin see note 26 above. The commentary on First and Second Timothy was published in 1548; it thus fits well into the chronological framework established there.
  32. ↑ Cf. Schlaich, “Kirche,” 189, where he points out that, while the early collegialists still taught the office as a divine institution, their later followers viewed “in the teachers of the church mere officers of the society of the local congregation or association chaplains and in the priesthood a right transferred by the church to certain persons that were to be called.” This (revocable) “transfer” of power includes that to the sovereign as summus episcopus (ibid., 188). This idea eventually paved the way for a smooth institutional transition out of this phase of church government in the latter part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century in Germany.
  33. ↑ Cf. the overview provided by J. Mehlhausen, “Kirche zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft: Zur Geschichte des evangelischen Kirchenverfassungsrechts in Deutschland (19. Jahrhundert),” in: Das Recht der Kirche, ed. G. Rau, et al. (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser, 1995), 2:193-271.
  34. ↑ For C. F. W. Walther, for one, the office of “lay elder” was important in matters of church discipline as well. Like Calvin (see note 26 and 31 above), he based this office on 1 Tim. 5:17, thus emphasizing “preaching and teaching,” not “labor” (cf. Pastoraltheologie, 355-363). As seen above, he too viewed pastoral solo excommunications as “tyranny.” For this interpretation Walther claims agreement with Chemnitz and Gerhard. However, the passage in Chemitz’ Examination of the Council of Trent adduced by Walther (part 2, locus 13, sect. 2, ed. E. Preuss, 476a), while quoting 1 Tim. 5, explicitly understands both kinds of presbyters to hold the one office of word and sacraments (cf. Luther on 1 Tim. 5:17, AE 28:347f.); they are thus clearly ordained ministers, not laymen (cf. also part 4, locus 3, sect. 2, ch. 2, ed. Preuss, 816b, on the early-church office of penitentiary presbyter). After all, as Chemnitz is careful to point out against Roman episcopalism and in keeping with Tr. 61-63, the office and duties of presbyters and bishops were identical in the time of the apostles (part 2, locus 13, sect. 4, ed. Preuss, 482b-483a). – It is then Gerhard (locus 23, para. 232, ed. Preuss, VI:151), who, with the mixed consistories of his day in view (like in Geneva, they consisted of pastoral and political leaders and were charged with church discipline) and with an emphasis on the disciplinary role of the non-teaching elders – and unlike Chemnitz – views the disciplinary elders as laymen who, at Paul’s time, took the place of the heathen magistrates. To support this view, he (and Walther after him) quotes the same passage from Ps.-Ambrose’s (Ambrosiaster) commentary on 1 Timothy that appeared a couple of generations earlier in Calvin’s Institutes (IV, 11,6). As especially well-suited for the American situation, Walther approvingly quotes from a 1762 American church order by H. M. Mühlenberg which assigns to these “ruling elders,” among other things, the duty of overseeing the pastors (Pastoraltheologie, 363), thus making these laymen the real bishops of a local congregation. – For the broader context of this church order in (pre-revolutionary) America, cf. N. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, London: Yale, 1989), 171: “People nursed at least four related complaints against Reformed orthodoxy: its implicit endorsement of the status quo, its tyranny over personal religious experience; its preoccupation with complicated and arcane dogma, and its clerical pretension and quest for control;” and, summarizing his findings, ibid., 213: “… a central force [driving American Christianity] has been its democratic or populist orientation … American Christians … refused to bow to tradition or hierarchy.” See note 18 above.
  35. ↑ See, e.g., W. Elert's collection of essays, Ecclesia Militans: Drei Kapitel von der Kirche und ihrer Verfassung (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1933), esp. pp. 30-40, where he raises the question: "Can a Consistory Receive Forgiveness of Sin?" Elert answers it in the negative: consistories or synodical assemblies are legal subjects but not moral subjects; by their very nature, they are therefore outside of the church. This leads to the strange construct that a church governed by a collective body is governed by something that is not even part of the church. According to Elert, collective bodies can have a meaningful role in the external administration of the business of the church, but not when the essential functions of the church -- the pure preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments -- are at stake. E.g., supervision over the teaching of pastors, if such is desired, must fall to an individual man, the bishop (understood as theologian and head shepherd): only he can call to repentance and, more important yet, forgive the sins of the pastor.
  36. ↑ Cf. the quotes assembled by Götze, Kirchenzucht, 128-131, here 129, and esp. also Walther, Pastoraltheologie, 315-322.
  37. ↑ Cases of manifest public sin may be treated differently, LC I:284; Walther’s call to love and private admonition also in these cases should certainly be considered, where possible, cf. Pastoraltheologie, 325f.
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