Ben Sasse is a “Lutero-Calvinist” 

Ben Sasse is a “Lutero-Calvinist”  October 12, 2016

Nebraska Senator and rising conservative star Ben Sasse describes himself as a “Lutero-Calvinist.”  Though he grew up and came to faith in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and says he is “in love with the Lutheran tradition,” he is now a member of a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregation.  He talks about his faith and his Reformed theology with World Magazine, excerpted and linked after the jump.  I then raise some questions.

How did you come to faith in Christ? I am blessed to have grown up in a church where the gospel had long been faithfully preached. I knew myself to be a sinner and Christ as my only hope for as long as I can recall. In the Lutheran tradition you’re called to remember your baptism and what it means, so I self-consciously affirmed the faith in my confirmation class in April-May 1986. I was confirmed and became a communicant member at age 14.

Are you denominationally a Lutheran now? I am a “Lutero-Calvinist.” I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran. I am in love with the Lutheran tradition, but I am a member of a PCA church—Grace Church in Fremont, Neb.

How did you become theologically Reformed? In college I was very involved in evangelical and parachurch groups—Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Campus Crusade (my wife is a former Cru staffer). Although I grew up in the Lutheran tradition and was very involved in FCA in high school, I didn’t have a lot of clarity about the differentiation of theological views inside Protestantism. In college I became a part of evangelistic groups that were very action-oriented and not always very theologically reflective. There were things that I couldn’t make sense of about the connection between faith and practice. So I started reading theology on purpose to make sense of things I was wrestling with and to try to understand the text better. I started reading a lot of Luther and read some B.B. Warfield. Bob Godfrey (president of Westminster Seminary California), Mike Horton (White Horse Inn media and Modern Reformation magazine), and R.C. Sproul were all really influential in my college clarification of being Calvinistic, Reformed.

You realized you were Reformed, or that reading changed your mind? It changed my mind. Sproul’s Chosen by God andThe Holiness of God were really, really significant. Isaiah 6 is a lead-in passage of The Holiness of God. It scared the heck out of me.

And eventually you became the president of a Lutheran college. I was president of Midland University, a Lutheran college. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Luther and the just war tradition. My master’s thesis is on Calvin and the third use of the law. The most important use of the law is the condemnatory use that drives us to Christ. This is the “first use”—the way the law condemns us, driving us to conversion. The “second use” is the ceremonial or civil use for Old Testament Israel. The “third use” is how the law is used in sanctification—as a guide to righteousness.

[Keep reading. . .]

Note the Calvinist numbering of the three uses of the Law.

Sasse was involved with Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alexandria, VA, when we lived in the area and my wife was interim headmaster in their school.

I wonder why a Lutheran would become a Calvinist.  Don’t Lutherans already have the good stuff in Calvinism (grace alone, etc.)?  I suppose Calvinist rationalism can be attractive.  But then, if you are a Calvinist, why would you also be “Lutero-“?  Is it the liturgy?  The Sacraments?

Are any of you Lutero-Calvinists (a category and a word I did not know exists until now)?

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