Thursday Theology: A Deep Read and a Quick Poke for Reformation Day

by Jerome Burce

Co-missioners,

We have two items for you on this 507th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses. Our editor stumbled across them recently and couldn’t help but pass them along.

Peace and Joy,
The Crossings Community

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1. A Deep Read (about faith and works, eventually)

Today’s chief offering is a link to a long-ago article by Richard R. Caemmerer, Sr. It was published in the May 1947 issue of Concordia Theological Monthly, the academic journal of the pre-Seminex version of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. (If the name “Caemmerer” doesn’t ring bells with you, see what we wrote about him at the end of 2022.)

Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515–1586) – From Wikimedia Commons

The article’s title is “The Melanchthonian Blight.” For some of you, this in itself will grab your attention. Of course the rest of you will want to tackle it too—“tackle” is the appropriate word here—because of its pertinence to an issue that continues to befuddle the church. It has also been stirring some ongoing conversation in our own Crossings community.

The issue has to do with the relationship between faith and good works, to use the old lingo. In our current Crossings jargon we’re talking about the relationship between Steps Five and Six. In plainer speech, how does a person—a group of persons, for that matter—wind up doing those things that put a smile on God’s face? Is it a matter—Option A—of faith-based thinking and choosing or is it rather—Option B—an inevitable consequence of hearing the Gospel and trusting it (emphasis here on the word “inevitable”)? Caemmerer will argue that while the evangelically radical Luther was all about Option B, Melanchthon the closet humanist couldn’t help but favor Option A with unhappy consequences for future Lutherans.

What unhappy consequences? Among other things, the continued prevalence of “ought-tos” and “got-tos” in the behavioral instruction of Lutheran congregations. “Do this and you will be righteous.” Here I hazard a guess, that Caemmerer, teacher of teachers when it came to homiletics, penned this article chiefly as a step toward combatting this intractable legalism—this “blight” as he calls it..

All of which is to say that the article is more than worth the effort it will take to read it. If nothing else, you’ll find your jaw dropping along the way over the astonishment of a human being that Phillip Melanchthon was. So do dig in. One more time: the link.

P.S. If any of you are nervy enough to take issue with Caemmerer, I’d be glad to hear from you.

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2. A Quick Poke (about how to welcome and embrace a seminarian)

From Canva

Comes today’s second item which we pass along to you with little comment. It’s a forty-year-old letter that greeted some students on the other side of the world when they arrived at their seminary to begin the 1984 school year. The letter is cast in English easily accessible to people who speak it as a second language—such was the case with all these students.

I was moved when I read this letter. I wished I had been greeted along similar lines when I started seminary. Then I thought of how impossible it was that this kind of letter could be addressed to Lutheran seminarians at any number of U.S. schools in 2024. Then I wondered what this implied about the need for a fresh reformation in our own schools and churches. How many of them would be willing to repeat this letter’s opening assertion?

But enough. Read on. Enjoy, I hope.

Dear Student,

Welcome to Martin Luther Seminary!

As you enter the doors of the seminary to begin this new school year, let me speak to you the name of the most important person in your life and mine: JESUS CHRIST.

When the Son of God died for you, he set you free from the power of sin and death. So he is your Lord. Your life is in his hands.

Martin Luther Seminary is not a stepping-stone to some other school. It is a community, a school, a training centre for servants and co-workers of Jesus Christ.

The ministry of our Lord is urgent. Jesus said, Take a look and see. See how the field is ready to be harvested (John 4:35).

We are sent into the ministry by Christ’s compassion. Jesus saw the people, and his heart was filled with pity for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34).

The leaders and people of your church have expressed much confidence in you by permitting and enabling you to enroll in Martin Luther Seminary. They believe that with God’s help you can be a good minister of Jesus Christ.

At Martin Luther Seminary we want to help you to know Jesus Christ better. We want to help you follow his footsteps closely and serve him faithfully.

When you were baptized, God placed the holy, saving mark of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit upon you. He adopted you as his own.

Worship him, therefore, by giving yourself to him in daily repentance, faith, and willing obedience.

God bless you with joy as you grow in Christ in this school year.

(The) Principal

JEB
Roaming Shores, Ohio

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Author

  • Dr. Burce is a pastor Emeritus of Messiah Lutheran Church in Fairview Park, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He began his ministry teaching Scripture and theology at a seminary in Papua New Guinea, where he had been born and raised as a child of Lutheran missionaries. He was introduced to U.S. parish ministry at Zion Lutheran Church in Southington, Connecticut. Dr. Burce received his MDiv from Christ Seminary—Seminex and his DMin from Hartford Seminary. He is president of the Crossings board and edits “Thursday Theology,” a weekly Crossings publication.

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In the early 1970s two seminary professors listened to the plea of some lay Christians. “Can you help us live out our faith in the world of daily work?” they asked. “Can you help us connect Sunday worship with our lives the other six days of the week?”  That is how Crossings was born.

 

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