unions, divisions, and reappropriation

this week in church history, we discussed the declaration of prussian union by king friedrich wilhelm iii.  as the tercentenary of lutheran reformation - specifically of the 95 theses and the augsburg confession - king wilhelm was calvinist, but his people were lutherans, so to celebrate, he declared that the lutheran and reformed traditions were to share full communion in prussia.  the main lutheran doctrine is and was the doctrine of justification (we are justified by grace through our faith), which does not subscribe to predestination, whereas the reformed church teachings do and did prescribe to predestination.  for many this was a nonnegotiable distinction.  this meant either going to jail, which many of them did for a bit, or leaving. 

the anti-prussian union confessionalism resounded with me as i considered the past year and a half during which i had my first encounters with members of the reformed church.  while we meet under fairly unusual circumstances (serving as year-long young adult missionaries for our respective churches in the same program working with roma in central europe), we had some interesting discussions regarding our faith and beliefs.  in the various conversations, it was abundantly clear that we share much in common, yet there are important enough differences that we wouldn't switch to the other's denomination.  this was the case for the anti-prussian union after the declaration of the prussian union by king wilhelm.  

while it is important to recognize the differences and to acknowledge the key factors that make us lutheran (or reformed, catholic, etc.), it is also important to remember our commonalities.  this comes through in the elca's full communion with the episcopalians.  our essentials are consistent and our non-essentials are free to be as diverse as they may be.  one unique thing is the historic episcopate.  because lutherans don't care much about the historic episcopate (that the bishops have hands laid on them by people who had hands laid on them by people who had hands laid on them by...peter) and the historic episcopate is an essential for episcopalians, lutherans let the practice and belief of the historic episcopate be part of our practice.  in this way, we honor our full communion with the episcopalians, holding to what we take as the essentials and being willing to compromise on things we don't consider essential.  when it all comes down to it, that's how ecumenism works anyway.  honoring our neighbor's faith while holding true to our own (sometimes a delicate balancing act).

another type of lutheran confessionalism, which we discussed was from the erlangen school.  adolph von harless believed that we should be aware of what we confess as a church, but that that heritage cannot simply be passed from one generation to the next.  we, as lutherans, as christians, as inheritors of wisdom must engage with our individual and communal contexts in order to engage with our confessions and our doctrines and theologies.  afterall, it has been said that "a religion that doesn't change ceases to remain the same."  this connects with repristination theology in that it tried to recover lutheranism.  it tried to get "back to its roots."  the problem with this was that the reformation and luther's changes were viewed and interpreted through the lens of the age of orthodoxy (previously mentioned here).  this meant that the role of scripture (the idea of sola scriptura) were understood as stringent biblicism. 

the key to each of these types of confessionalism is firstly to be aware of them.  as we seek out what our theology is and how we want to be confessional, we need to continue to engage with our local and global contexts as well as with our ancestors of the faith, but we need to see both in light of each other.  when we look to our heritage, we need to remember from where we look.  for example, when i look at luther's statements about jews, i need to remember that i am looking at then in light of the holocaust and the nation of israel, among other things.  we also need to engage our current situations in light of our faith tradition.  how christians have engaged the world should inform us as we seek to engage the world as well (whether it's informing us on what to do or what not to do is also something to keep in mind).  we cannot simply reappropriate our ideas of the roots of our faith, we must thoughtfully engage with them from where we are today.