Have you noticed this dynamic with Lutherans? When someone leaves Lutheranism, it is always the ex-Lutheran’s fault? People who leave Lutheranism for Orthodoxy are always considered the problem. Have you noticed the condescension and anger toward the people who leave? It is usually assumed that there was either something wrong with that person or with his catechesis.
The idea that there could be something wrong with Lutheran theology is never considered.
I just finished a series on why one Lutheran pastor left the LCMS for Orthodoxy. I also had a few posts focusing on the experiences of one lay Lutheran named Drew.
Dixie, another former lay Lutheran, offered her experience as a Lutheran in her comment on the “Correction a Misperception” post. She states:
“I struggled for several years to understand how sanctification was supposed to work in a way that either didn’t leave me in works righteousness or leave me to my own desires. The debate just between Lutherans was sufficient for me to see that it wasn’t so clear even to seminary graduates!
As a Lutheran I was taught that if I am “in Christ” the Holy Spirit would give me everything I needed to do the good works that I needed to do. But in practice what I discovered was that on Saturday morning my neighbor may have needed my help but I wanted sleep in and the just relax around the house. If I really was supposed to help my neighbor, wouldn’t I have been given the grace to do so? But since I didn’t want to help my neighbor, that must have meant it was OK to do nothing because if I forced myself to wake up early and leave the house to help…then I would have been guilty of works righteousness. Drowning that old Adam required very real work but how much work was too much work? And maybe it was OK to just sleep in because as I heard more times than I care to quote “it wouldn’t affect my salvation” since we were saved by grace but clearly works righteousness could. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
And I never missed a communion (we had it at least twice a week), always attended a bible study, usually two each week, and I took advantage of private confession on average about every two months—although my pastor wasn’t a fan.
So admittedly, I never “got” it. Call me stupid. Call me improperly catechized. Call me unsanctified. Whatever. At this point it is inconsequential. I guess I am just one of those former Lutherans guilty of misperception.”
Adam, also a former lay Lutheran, reacted to the Drew post by stating:
“Every word of Drew's post hits home. His example of sexual sin is particularly apropos because letting God do His work in us is really hard! Sometimes a person might REALLY want to transgress God's law and he has to actively seek God and turn toward Him. This is not a passive act. It is perhaps the highest form of asceticism, for it denies the body what it really, really wants and turns toward God instead. That's not easy in the least.
Personally speaking, I know the constant fear of worrying about whether I was taking too much credit. Here's the conclusion I reached...hyper-focusing about my state of mind was just as self-centered as the worst of those synergistic moralists. They required works, but I required that a person's words and thoughts be ordered in just the precisely correct manner.
What I wish someone had told me is that I should stop worrying about the axioms and syllogisms and just pray. One helpful thing about Orthodoxy is that we're reminded of our sin every morning and night. Our prayers keep us (hopefully) humble. Humble or not, we're certainly reminded of our shortcomings which is why we pray every morning:
"O Savior, save me by Thy grace, I pray Thee. For if thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be a grace but rather a duty; yea, Thou Who art great in compassion and ineffable in mercy. For he that believeth in Me, Thou hast said, O my Christ, shall live and never see death. If then, faith in Thee saveth the desperate, behold, I belive, save me, for Thou are my God and creator."
The prayers of The Church remind us continually that our salvation is entirely in Him and, by extension, that any and all progress is actually God working in us and through us. But as Orthodox Christians we don't deny this progress, and we welcome it rather than question it; both for ourselves and our brothers and sisters in the faith.”
Drew, Dixie and Adam. Was it them or Lutheran theology?
Posts
2 comments:
Steven,
I believe that the exclusive focus on extra nos is a reformation anomaly so, yes, I believe it's a fault of Lutheran teaching. The deception isn't so much in what Lutherans do say about justification. Who can deny that Jesus objectively saves, that the Sacraments create faith, that works righteousness is bad? But on the other side of the coin, the Scriptures, Fathers, and liturgies everywhere drip of synergistic sanctification talk; that salvation isn't entirely outside of you, even as there is an outside of you element to the Cross. Because Jesus has trampled down death, you DO have a role in your salvation by either accepting or rejecting union with God.
So, for me the issue was more about catholicity. Did I see the almost exclusive focus on justification anywhere prior to the Reformation? Again and again, the answer was no. No matter how I tried to make the Lutheran symbols catholic, I couldn't get past the fact that they were the product of a 16th century debate. In the end, I saw a lot of good in the way Lutherans spoke about, and wrote about the faith. But they spoke about sanctification in so passive a manner that I could not personally, or historically, accept Lutheranism as truly catholic.
Regarding catholicity, there was one other question that bothered me. Would the Fathers have been Lutheran? I would think of St. James, Paul in places, St. John Chrysostom, Augustine's ecclesiology, St. Jerome, St. Ignatius of Antioch...Would any of them, if they'd been given a Book of Concord, have broken communion with what they believed to be The Church (defined in part by apostolic succession) in order to join this brotherhood of like-minded individuals who had mined what they believed to be the most important parts in the Bible? I just couldn't see it. The faith wasn't lopsided with the Fathers. It was well rounded and focused on healing the individuals within the Body; not to the exclusion of Christ, but because of Christ.
Adam
It has also always struck me as incongruent that a Lutheran is supposed to be more Christ-like, but it's somehow my own job to act that way. As was stated previously, what's the point, if I'm just saved anyhow? Also, if the Holy Spirit is supposed to fill me in order to do good things, I felt like I was waiting around for the Holy Spirit to do just that. It was a passive relationship, which had fleeting moments of realization, but by and large, my life was spiritually wanting, searching for that relationship. My wife, who was raised Roman Catholic also told me that the Lutheran church left her cold.
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