What Sasse Says: Sasse to Hebart, Christmas 1948
Sasse about American Lutheran synods:
That is the deep distress of our American sister churches, that they either live in a ghetto or that they sink into modernistic Americanism. I am deeply troubled over the development of the ULC in respect to theology since the dismissal and death of Knubel. What has occurred in Maywood, Springfield and Mount Airy, which I have visited again, can only cause concern for the future of these important branches of American Lutheranism. And in the ALC the decline is evident since Reu’s death. Bodensieck has taken his place.
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GJ - Sasse saw the old guard being replaced by the moderns in the ULCA and ALC (Iowa, Ohio, and Buffalo Synod merger). In each case, the orthodox men were replaced by unionistic liberals. This same thing happened in the LCMS, and everyone remained in quiet denial.
Before WWII, American Lutherans were quite close in terms of doctrine, worship, and the theologians they admired.
Sixty years of unionism have splintered the Lutherans groups, like a hammer hitting a puddle of mercury. Hymnals and translations have multiplied. Every sect is a rainbow coalition of Pentecostalism, Unitarianism, and Romanism. Lutherans are the exception.
Doctrinal knowledge is feeble and fading fast.
The seminaries used to take farm boys and teach them Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Now the task is too great, to get the city boys off their digital devices. Everything is dumbed down while tuition has reached Ivy League costs.
2 comments:
As I recall, the "Statement of the Forty-Four" came about in the WWII era, when the Lutheran decline was above noted as starting. Instead of solving the problem in the way of Acts 15, "We will just have to agree to disagree and go home." The Jerusalem Council, on the other hand, said, "We're going to sit here and hash this out until we unanimously agree and are true to God's Word in such agreement."
Another point that keeps going through my head is the issue of the Lord's Supper. We are so poorly catechized today that I think people often take the Calvinistic/Zwinglian approach to the "Real Presence." Are we being punished, per 1 Cor. 11 for not taking seriously Christ's presence in the elements?
"...there is no argument as to what kind of consolation and confirmation in our judgment brings surer, more beneficial, and more effectual results. For we certainly ought not arrogate this judgment to ourselves, we who ought to depend on the word of Him of whom the Father has said from heaven: "Hear Him" [Luke 9:35]. But because the proper, simple, and natural meaning of the words of the last will and testament of Christ teaches the substantial presence of His very body and blood in the Supper, and because from this so many sweet and useful comforts come to our conscience, which through the opposing opinion are entirely taken away or torn down, we therefore rightly come to the point that we must fight to retain the proper and natural meaning of the testament of Christ lest such comforts be taken from the church. For what kind of comfort and strenghtening is best suited and most necessary for us in out infirmity no one knows better than our true Good Samaritan, who heals all our infirmities. In addition to all other remedies for our infirmity He has instituted in His last Supper, in the form of His last will and testament, this ever-present anecdote, when He says: 'Take, eat and drink, this is My body, this is My blood.' And we must give pious and reverent attention to its benefit, use, and efficacy." -From "The Lord's Supper/De coena Domini," by Martin Chemnitz, Second Edition, 1590, pg. 186.
I'd bet the LCMS would have no problem having a 100% M.Div (or higher educated) clergy if the tuition was lower at the seminaries. Likewise, the WELS wouldn't need a short ministerial track where they don't learn Hebrew if they subsidized the education more.
What's ironic is the single men often drive up the highest student loan and credit card debts now because the married men have their wives work and pay for everything. The single men can't find part time jobs that fit the tight schedule due to the addition of praxis and psychologizing to the seminary extra curriculum menu. Moreover, part time work doesn't pay like it used to. It's broadly based on the minimum wage. In 1970 the minimum wage was like having a $10 per hour job now, but it's more like $7 per hour under the new minimum wage. A few years ago before the last hike, the minimum wage was just $6 per hour in 2009 dollars. That's pretty much like slavery.
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