What Sasse Said - Note the URL - http://sassedotalist.blogspot.com
High Churchism, Mary and the Gospel
A devotion written by Professor A.C. Piepkorn of St Louis* is an especially disturbing indicator of the dangers of the 'High Church' tendency. It is entitled 'Blessed Art Thou Among Women'**, and is an attempt to set forth the true Lutheran position on Mary in opposition to the extremes of Roman Catholic veneration of Mary on the one hand and modern Protestantism's 'excessive downgrading of the Mother of God' (Piepkorn's words) on the other. This is indeed a worthy task, and the three Marian festivals set down in the old Lutheran church calendar, which are simultaneously Christological celebrations, provide ample opportunity to do this. But in light of these celebrations we must note that the position taken on Mary will always be a reliable indicator of the presence of a true or false understanding of the Gospel. In modern Protestantism the Nestorian denial of the doctrine of the Theotokos reveals that this position, even if it bears the name 'Lutheran', no longer understands the doctrine of the person of the God-man. On the other hand, the confession that Mary is indeed the Theotokos isn't yet solid evidence of a true understanding of Christ - for it can be combined with the veneration of Mary, which is always a sin against the 1st Commandment and a challenge to the unique mediatorship of Christ. The cult of Mary (which also took root and grew among the Nestorians), along with the Marian doctrines which have grown from it, is most definitely to be rejected as being in contradiction to the Gospel***.
From Liturgy and Confession, A Brotherly Warning Against the 'High Church' Danger, first published in Lutherische Blaetter (Christmas 1959). [trans. mine]
* Arthur Carl Piepkorn (1907-1973), a scholar and theologian of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, sometime professor of historical theology at the Concordia, St Louis seminary, translator of some of the Lutheran confessional documents for the Tappert English edition of the Book of Concord, and an official participant in the early rounds of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue in the US. Piepkorn was a man of prodigious learning who served as a mentor to a number of LC-MS pastors who later styled themselves 'Evangelical Catholics', some of whom would convert to Roman Catholicism, notably Richard John Neuhaus.
***
GJ - I highly recommend the Sasse blog, and Sasse's writings. The ALC published Sasse until merger, and Sasse wrote the best book about the Real Presence - This Is My Body. David Preus led The ALC and consequently the ELCA into communion with the Reformed. Augsburg-Fortress got rid of Sasse and Lenski books and began selling books by female rabbis.
Mary-obsession is one of the first signs of a Lutheran pastor leaving for the Church of Rome. In the blogosphere, Weedon gushes about Mary and the pope, while McCain gushes about Weedon. McCain's last gusher was Fenton, who left the LCMS for Eastern Orthodoxy and denounced justification by faith in the process. McCain, who loves UOJ, is a man of many Enthusiasms. He dresses as a pastor for formal portraits even though he is a book blogger for CPH - (Mark Jeske's publisher).
