Engaging with the Augsburg Confession

The Augsburg Confession of 1530 was the first great confessional statement of the Reformation, yet like many historic confessions it is underappreciated today.

If we are to revive the spirit of confessionalism, we need to remove the barriers to engaging with the confessions themselves.  One of these barriers is the harsh language of sixteenth century doctrinal and sectarian disputes.

If one looks past this language, the core becomes highly relevant again.  To demonstrate this, I have focused on the first 21 articles which are the positive expressions of belief (the last seven articles focus on correcting errors of the Roman Catholic church).  I have also removed the rhetorical “condemnation" of various Christian groups at the end of each article, which mainly serves to contrast with the positive articulation in the main part of the article.

I am not suggesting we sweep the original text away, but rather that we consider new ways to express a positive and powerful vision of our faith. Hopefully we can then restore the relevance and power of these confessions in the modern context.

I've posted my abridged version of the Augsburg Confession here.

Christianity in Australia

The first data from the 2011 Australian census was released today and it doesn't make for encouraging reading. The tables below show key trends in religious affiliation over the last 20 years.

Over the last ten years, the share of the population identifying as Christian has declined by 7% (to 61%) while the share of those explicitly identifying themselves as non-religious has increased by 7% (to 22%).

Table 1: Religious affiliation - total population

Affiliation	1991 (000)	2001 (000)	2011 (000)	1991 (%)	2001 (%)	2011 (%)
Christianity	12,466	12,764	13,151	74%	68%	61%
Buddhism	140	358	529	1%	2%	2%
Islam	147	282	476	1%	2%	2%
Hinduism	44	95	276	-	1%	1%
Judaism	74	84	97	-	-	-
Other	40	92	342	-	-	2%
No religion	2,177	2,906	4,797	13%	15%	22%
Not stated	1,762	2,188	1,840	10%	12%	9%
Total	16,850	18,769	21,508	100%	100%	100%

The second table shows the breakdown of Christian respondents by denomination:

Table 2: Religious affiliation - Christian denominations

Affiliation	1991 (000)	2001 (000)	2011 (000)	1991 (%)	2001 (%)	2011 (%)
Protestant	7,223	7,048	6,940	58%	55%	53%
- Anglican	4,019	3,881	3,680	32%	30%	28%
- Uniting	1,388	1,249	1,066	11%	10%	8%
- Presbyterian	732	638	600	6%	5%	5%
- Baptist	280	309	352	2%	2%	3%
- Lutheran	251	250	252	2%	2%	2%
- Pentecostal	151	195	238	1%	2%	2%
- Other	404	527	752	3%	4%	6%
Catholic	4,607	5,002	5,439	37%	39%	41%
Orthodox	475	529	563	4%	4%	4%
Other*	161	185	208	1%	1%	2%
Total	12,466	12,764	13,151	100%	100%	100%

* Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists and LDS

Within the Christian population the traditional British Protestant denominations (Anglican, Uniting and Presbyterian) continue to contract sharply. Almost uniquely, Lutheran numbers are neither growing nor shrinking but remain steady at approximately 250,000 and represent 2% of all Christians.

Stars of heaven

The total number of stars is estimated to be greater than 100 sextillion (10^23), or more than ten trillion stars per person. On the face of it we are insignificant in the context of the universe.

And yet despite half a century of searching there is no scientific evidence to suggest that life is present anywhere in the universe except here in our solar system.  At the end of his recent book “The Eerie Silence" noted cosmologist Paul Davies, an enthusiast for finding extraterrestrial life, says that his scientific opinion weighing up all the factors is that “we are probably the only intelligent beings in the observable universe, and I would not be very surprised if the solar system contains the only life in the observable universe."

Rather than being an insignificant part of creation we are perhaps the rarest and most precious component of it.

LCMS theological discussions with the ACNA

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has just released a report on theological discussions with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Another example of common ground across conservative denominations in the context of an increasingly secular society.

Can confessionalism be revived?

Here is a great interview with Ross Douthat of the New York Times exploring the themes of his new book “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics", chronicling the decline in institutional Christianity in the United States over the last fifty years.

Douthat hopes for a return to confessionalism and strong institutional churches as a way to address the issues facing contemporary Christianity.

Confessionalism does seem to be undergoing a minor revival among Christians online (as shown by this blog and many others) and within mainline Protestant denominations more traditional churches seem to be holding their own in the context of overall decline.

However there are several barriers to a widespread confessional revival:

1. The basis of confessionalism, the confessions themselves, were composed in the sixteenth to eighteen centuries and carry a lot of archaic language and historical context that is not directly relevant to the way theological issues are discussed by most people today
2. In many cases, even “confessional" churches downplay or ignore sections of the historical confessions
3. Most importantly, the members of confessional churches frequently don't know, understand or necessarily agree with the key confessional beliefs of their denomination and (more positively) reject an exclusive, sectarian approach to Christianity

Is there a way then to preserve all that is good about a confessional approach while ensuring it is relevant and viable?

For Lutherans this could potentially take the form of a dynamic new expression of the essence of our historic confessions.

However the more intriguing possibility may cross denominations.  We are seeing signs that traditional Christians of all denominations recognise they have much in common in the face of secular and “accommodationist" trends.  Perhaps it is time for a grand ecumenical council in the tradition of the early church councils - a Chalcedon for our age.

Tree of Life

If you haven't seen it yet check out the Terrence Malick film Tree of Life.

The revealed and unrevealed God

Christianity is a revealed religion: God reveals Himself to us in His creation, in His Word and in His Son. However our knowledge of God is limited because there is much about His plan and divine purpose that is not revealed.

In this selection from his lectures on Genesis, Luther speaks to the divine mystery of election and why we can never understand God's plan from a purely rational point of view. However we can take comfort from what has been revealed that our place in His plan is secure.

Global Christianity

The Pew Research Center has released an interesting report with comprehensive estimates of the world Christian population in 2010. Overall there are nearly 2.2 billion Christians, representing almost a third of the world's population.

The world Christian population has nearly quadrupled in the last century and has maintained its position as the largest faith in the world, ahead of Islam with approximately 1.6 billion adherents. However the distribution of Christians has shifted dramatically towards the developing world.

There are 800 million Protestant Christians, representing 37% of the total. 50% of Christians are Catholic, 12% are Orthodox and 1% are other (including groups that self-identify as Christian such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses).

The report also estimates that 10% of Protestants are Lutheran, which would imply approximately 80 million Lutherans worldwide.

Click below to access the report:

Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population

Clarity on marriage

In the current debate over gay marriage, we need to carefully distinguish between Christian and civil marriage. 

Christian marriage has a strong theological component, as shown in this teaching directly from Jesus:

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mk 10:6-9, cf Mt 19:4-6 ESV)

Based on this we can put forward a positive theological position that Christian marriage is a permanent union before God between one male and one female. Even in New Testament times this view of marriage was distinct from the prevailing Jewish and Roman views which for instance allowed relatively easy divorce.

Civil marriage, on the other hand, is an institution common to all human cultures and is not unique to Christian (or historically Christian) cultures. Current law and custom does not preclude interfaith marriages or marriage between non-believers, nor should it. The definition of civil marriage will also differ over time and across cultures and societies.

Therefore we should not conflate Christian marriage which has a theological basis and civil marriage which is essentially a human institution. Christian marriage is not and can never be threatened by civil gay marriage because they are two different things.

Luther's Canon

Luther began the work of translating the bible into German at the Wartburg in 1521 and the New Testament was first published in September 1522.

At the conclusion of the preface of this first edition Luther included a section on “the books which are the best and noblest in the New Testament":

You are in a position now rightly to discriminate between all the books, and decide which are the best. The true kernel and marrow of all the books, those which should rightly be ranked first, are the gospel of John and St Paul's epistles, especially that to the Romans, together with St Peter's first epistle. Every Christian would do well to read them first and most often, and, by daily perusal, make them as familiar as his daily bread.  You will not find in these books much said about the works and miracles of Christ, but you will find a masterly account of how faith in Christ conquers sin, death and hell; and gives life, righteousness and salvation.  This is the true essence of the gospel, as you have learned. 

If I were ever compelled to make a choice, and had to dispense with either the works or the preaching of Christ, I would rather do without the works than the preaching; for the works are of no avail to me, whereas His words give life, as He himself declared. John records but few of the works of Christ, but a great deal of His preaching, whereas the other the evangelists record many of His works, but few of His words. It follows that the gospel of John is unique in loveliness, and of a truth the principal gospel, far, far superior to the other three, and much to be preferred. And in the same way, the epistles of St Paul and St Peter are far in advance of the three gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. 

In sum: the gospel and the first epistle of St John, St Paul's epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians and Ephesians, and St Peter's first epistle, are the books which show Christ to you. They teach everything you need to know for your salvation, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or hear any other teaching. 

(Dillenberger, Martin Luther:  Selections From His Writings, pp.18-19)

At the other end of the spectrum, Luther differentiated four books from “the true and certain" books and placed them at the end of his New Testament:  Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation (click here for further information and the text of the original prefaces).

In making his assessment Luther relied to some extent on the writings of Origen in the third century and Eusebius in the fourth century which, in addition to the books above, also identified 2 Peter, 2 John and 3 John as disputed books in the early church.

Excluding all the disputed books and overlaying biblical scholarship on likely date of composition it is possible to put forward a New Testament that progesses chronologically and theologically starting from the letters of Paul and ending in the Johannine works as follows (“+" indicates a book specifically highlighted by Luther, Pauline epistles listed in canonical order):

The Epistles of Paul
- Romans +
- 1&2 Corinthians
- Galatians +
- Ephesians +
- Philippians
- Colossians
- 1&2 Thessalonians
- 1&2 Timothy
- Titus
- Philemon

The Epistle of Peter (1 Peter) +

The Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Matthew

The Works of Luke
-  The Gospel of Luke
-  The Book of Acts

The Works of John
- The Gospel of John +
- The Epistle of John (1 John) +

Scriptural creeds

In common with other Chalcedonian churches, Lutheranism subscribes to the ancient ecumenical creeds which are reproduced in the Book of Concord: the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the (much less popular) Creed of Athanasius.

While these creeds are very important I find several biblical passages to contain a succinct and compelling distillation of our shared faith, in effect creeds that are fully contained within scripture.

Three of my favorites include:

There is one body and one Spirit .. one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
(Ephesians 4:4-5 ESV)

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.
(1 Timothy 3:16 ESV)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
(Colossians 1:15-20 ESV)

Dating the crucifixion

A very interesting and well argued paper dating the crucifixion and related dates in the life of Jesus based on biblical, historical and astronomical evidence. The authors put forward two possible dates of Friday, 7 April AD30 and Friday, 3 April AD33 and then argue for the later date as it also coincides with a lunar eclipse as (obliquely) referred to in the Book of Acts. They also point out that AD33 is more consistent with Pilate's behaviour given changes in Roman policy towards the Jews that occurred in AD31.

I have always been partial to the AD30 date as it implies that the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem occurred forty years later in AD70. However the additional evidence they present for AD33 is interesting. It also shows conclusively that, for either date, the specific biblical references are fully consistent with non-religious evidence.

Click here to view the paper