From Bailing Water - On Worship

Freddy Finkelstein said...
Anon @3/4/09-10:53PM,

At your suggestion, I pulled Volume III of The Wauwatosa Theology off my bookshelf last night and read August Pieper's essay, "The True Reconstruction of the Church" (pp. 295-345). He addresses the modern call of his day, the call for “reconstruction” in the church, and addresses this call by focusing the Ministerium on the efficacy of the Word alone. Definitely an interesting and worthwhile read. Even though it was written in 1919, it seems to have direct application to our day – even the cultural impact of the political and economic realities that he appeals from his time, in many ways seem to echo today's situation. For the benefit of others on this blog, I'll quote some sections from this essay that I thought were compelling, and include my summary and thoughts where it seems beneficial:

Heading: The church lives only from the Word
“Our general synod is not in a flourishing condition inasmuch and insofar as it has brilliant and titled professors, educated and eloquent pastors, masterful teachers, capable officials, model constitutions and organizations, adequate facilities, beautiful church and school buildings, imposing educational institutions, or a phenomenal external growth, constantly overflowing treasuries, heavy endowments, adequate property and lucrative business establishments; but it flourishes to the degree that the spiritual character just described – faith, knowledge, fear of God, piety, blessedness, holiness, love toward God and our Lord Jesus Christ, the very image of Christ itself – dwells in it. ...And this is her disgrace and her shame, her poverty, her misery, and her harm: lack of knowledge, lack of faith, spiritual satiety and lukewarmness, and satisfaction with the world” (pp. 298-299).

Heading: Does the church in our midst need spiritual renewal?
Here, Pieper makes the point that “renewal” in the church is not an institutional renewal, but a renewal in the hearts of individuals as they seek God in His Word. He identifies great need for renewal, beginning first with professors, pastors, and teachers:

“There are indeed many God-fearing children still among us... [y]et it is unmistakable, that the life among us is in the process of diminishing. We have now had the gospel in its truth and purity in great abundance and power for so long a time, and have accustomed ourselves to this blessing so thoroughly, that we no longer regard it as something extraordinary. This is already the first step toward despising it. ...In our Christian homes there is and remains very little of God's Word, hardly even the regular family worship with Scripture reading and prayer every morning and every evening. Yes, in some Christian homes there is no common prayer at all anymore, neither spoken by the father, nor by the mother, nor by the children... Even table prayers have been discontinued in some families. The Bible is seldom or never opened. Only the grandmother still prays perhaps with her hymnal; all the rest either leave the hymnal at the church, or they put it away immediately after the church service until the following Sunday; it only serves in the regular church service. ...Outwardly they have kept the faith and remained in the church; but they have lost the spirit of faith, the spiritual character, the joy of their heart in the grace, in Christ, in the gospel, in their state of grace, and in their soul's salvation. Thus they have also become indifferent and cold in their love to their Savior; the sincere fear of God is gone. Now they can do a hundred things with the world which would have been abhorrent to them as Christians... The flesh has gained the upper hand again. ...[T]he spirit, the life, the power of faith is disappearing more and more, and the world is gradually possessing our hearts more and more. If our people do not turn back, if we professors, pastors, and teachers cannot reverse this decrease of faith, then our Lutheran church is approaching complete spiritual death. We professors, pastors, and teachers! Yes, if anyone has it, we have the call to avert the threatening decrease of faith. It is the 'angel,' that is, the bishop of the congregation at Sardis, that receives the admonition from Christ, 'Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die.' ...Don't you know... that we... are special gifts of Christ to his holy church, ...specially endowed ...with special gifts, ...and specifically given to the Church and placed in our office for the edification and perfecting of the church? Don't you know, that the Lord has for this reason so frequently and so fervently and so earnestly admonished us to be faithful in the discharge of our duty...? ...Dear brother professor, pastor, teacher, visitor, president; just read the 34th chapter of the book of Ezekiel in your Bible and see whether you do not tremble when you examine yourself as to your own faithfulness! Yes, the welfare of the church depends to a great degree on our faithfulness” (pp. 302-308).

Pieper goes on in this same section, through page 311, pointing out that if professors, pastors, and teachers, identify a problem, yet do no more than complain, they are not acting faithfully. He invokes the picture of the lukewarm Laodiceans, and concludes on page 311, “[t]his spiritual lukewarmness, indifference, lassitude, and obtuseness dominates not only the clergy of other churches in our time, but is also the greatest defect of our own church.” From here, he goes on to describe how professors, pastors, and teachers, fall into the trap of rote fulfillment of their duties, and correlates the quality of their spiritual life with the life of the church. On page 314, he has this to say:

“We no longer are pleased with our own thoughts; they have long since become tedious to us. Is it then surprising that our preaching also becomes tedious...? This, this, is the dead mechanical workmanlike activity in the ministerial office in the church, school, and classroom, this spells certain death for the gospel and the church.”

But, Pieper goes on:

“That is how the church died in Germany. In Luther's lifetime everything was still alive and active. Thirty-five years after his death “pure doctrine” and “pure practice” had been established everywhere in Lutheran areas. Some 70 years later... it was still present everywhere, but almost everywhere dead, for the most part a mere boasting concerning pure-doctrine and a loveless struggle for orthodoxy [Note: of course, there was more to it that this, and it is widely acknowledged today that the Lutheran church was far from 'spiritually dead' – but the problem of orthodoxism at the time was serious and is equally acknowledged today. FF]. Pietism, sanctimoniousness, was the first reaction to this, worse even that the death existing hitherto... Rationalism and unbelief, the opposite extreme, worse than both [both pietism and orthodoxism. FF], flooded the church, and the pulpit and the lecture platform became the seat of Satan, which Germany never got rid of again... But Pietism and Rationalism... could have done no harm to the church, if the pastors, professors, and teachers had not first forsaken the pure doctrine by degenerating into dead orthodoxy and into spiritless mechanical operation with the traditional body of doctrine” (pg. 314).

Error is introduced into the church, and is increasingly tolerated, because it takes vigor to oppose it, and the “spiritual lukewarmness, indifference [and] lassitude” of “the dead mechanical workmanlike activity in the ministerial office in the church” is simply lacking in sufficient livelihood to take up the cause against it. Pieper comments on page 316, concluding this section:

“Great offenses occur among us: un-Lutheran practice, offensive public actions, insincerity, dishonest dealings, speculation, gross neglect of duty. The rest of us see it, know it, yet do not reprove it. The offense spreads like cancer, and on our account the name of God is blasphemed among the heathen. It is not that such offenses occur among us, but that they are no longer fittingly reproved by others, that is so serious. ...A Christian teaching profession that tolerates public offenses in its midst has degenerated to the level of the people of this world, ruins the conscience of Christian people, and hastens the spiritual death of the church. ...A reconstruction that endeavors to make various external innovations, without correcting the basic damage of the church, the indifference in spirit, is worth nothing. What we teachers and hearers need above all is a new and right spirit.”

Heading: How should and can such renewal take place?
In this, the final section of part one of Pieper's essay, he begins by answering this question as follows: “Let no one say, we can do nothing about that; that is something that God and God alone must accomplish without our cooperation” (pg. 316). While Pieper immediately admits that everything which God accomplishes in the unregenerate is accomplished without the cooperation of man, he insists that it is mis-applied to one who has been given spiritual life. A Christian can do something, two things specifically: (1) pray, and (2) seek God the Holy Spirit where he is to be found, in His Means of Grace, the Word of God. Further, he states that prayer alone is not sufficient: “No prayer for the Holy Spirit will accomplish anything if it does not immediately rise from its knees and help to plow the field on which the bread of life, of the spirit grows – the gospel, the Scripture” (pg. 318).

The rest of the essay, through page 345, is devoted to how one studies the Scripture (the remainder of part one), why/how one keeps reason subordinate to Scripture (part two), and discussing the specific needs of so-called “reconstruction” in 1919 (part three). If I had to take away only one fact from this essay regarding the spiritual health of a church body, it would be this: a lack of spiritual health in a church body (like our synod) is less a reflection of problems among the laity than it is a strong indication of problems in the Ministerium. Further, for all of our harping about this and that, the correction of such issues -- or “spiritual renewal” -- is not to be found in "programs" or other “external innovations,” nor is it really to be found in a grass-roots “revival” among the laity: it is principally to be found in “spiritual renewal” among the Ministerium – among our professors, pastors, and teachers – which begins as they seek first to nurture their own souls (even before those under their care), through personal prayer and study in God's Word outside of that required by their vocational duties, and is further marked by their public reproof and correction of corrupting errors among us.

Anon @3/4/09-10:53PM – thanks for pointing out this essay. It was a good read. Hopefully I have provided enough, above, to create the discussion you suggest.

Freddy Finkelstein