Can there be “Lutheran Baptists” or other non-Lutheran Lutherans?

Last updated on: June 1, 2013 at 11:39 pm By Gene Veith

Southern Baptists are currently embroiled in a controversy over “Calvinist Baptists.” David Koyzis and Collin Garbarino over at the First Things blog are asking if there can be Calvinist Baptists, why can’t there be “Lutheran Baptists”?

After all, Lutherans were flexible about allowing different kinds of church polities. Calvin is associated with Presbyterianism. One might think that Luther’s theology would be more adaptable. When it comes to soteriology, says Mr. Garbarino, Calvinism and Lutheranism are pretty much the same anyway. (He adds in a parentheses: “I know some people will disagree with that last statement, but those people are wrong.”)

Read David T. Koyzis, Calvinist Baptists, But No ‘Lutheran’ Baptists? and Collin Garbarino, Why We Don’t Have Lutheran Baptists

and help them out with this question. Let me begin. (more…)

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“Radical,” “missional” Christianity as the new legalism

Last updated on: May 2, 2013 at 9:29 pm By Gene Veith

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The esteemed Anthony Bradley describes a “new legalism” stemming from the vogue of so-called “radical” and “missional” Christianity. He decries the emphasis on spectacular works, emphasizing instead the role of good works in the realm of the “ordinary.” That is, the love of neighbor as carried out in [wait for it] VOCATION! (See! I told you, Anthony Sacramone!) Dr. Bradley goes so far as to link to a talk I gave on that subject at the Evangelical Theological Society convention, which I didn’t even know was online. (more…)

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The Freedom of a Christian

Last updated on: May 3, 2013 at 10:34 am By Gene Veith

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What’s the best book by Martin Luther to start with? The answer is simple: The Freedom of a Christian. This is Luther at his very best, both in the brilliance of his writing and in his penetrating insight into the Word of God, the Gospel, and the Christian life. “Freedom” lacks the harsh polemics that so often turns off modern readers, though all sides practiced it in the 16th century. Like the best works of theology, it is stimulating both intellectually and spiritually and reading it is a profoundly devotional experience. (Calvinists want you to start with the Bondage of the Will, which, they think, makes Luther sound like Calvin, though, as commentator Larry keeps pointing out, really isn’t so.)

Most of all, “Freedom” gives us the most exhilarating applications of the Gospel, including Luther’s teachings on how Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, that we are simultaneously free lords of all and servants of all, that the Christian life involves loving and serving our neighbors, that we are to be “little Christs” to each other, etc., etc. (The book has recently been released in a new modern translation by Ed Engelbrecht from CPH: Christian Freedom: Faith Working through Love

.) I bring this up because of a fascinating post from Mathew Block (head of communications at the Lutheran Church-Canada, which which the LCMS is in fellowship) at the First Things blog. (more…)

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Lutheran libertarians

Last updated on: April 29, 2013 at 8:15 pm By Gene Veith

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I keep running into conservative, confessional Lutherans (including on this blog) who, in their political ideology, are libertarians. Could somebody explain how that works, in light of the relatively high view of the state and of temporal authority evident in Lutheran theology (e.g., the orders of creation, the estates, the vocation of citizenship, the Table of Duties, Augsburg XVI, etc.)? Doesn’t libertarianism require a kind of individualism unknown until the Enlightenment and Romanticism? Wouldn’t the distaste for earthly government that characterizes libertarians be more characteristic of Karlstadt and the enthusiasts of the Peasants’ Revolt rather than Luther, Gerhardt, and Chemnitz? Or are Lutheran libertarians different from regular libertarians? (I’m not criticizing Lutheran libertarians, mind you, just trying to understand them. Please, somebody, explain.)

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Being children of God

Last updated on: April 15, 2013 at 7:44 pm By Gene Veith

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Last Sunday, Easter 3, our pastor preached on the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to His disciples by the shore of the lake, as recorded in John 21:1-19. Rev. Douthwaite showed how our being “children” of God is an image of our status in the Gospel, referring not to what we do but to what we are:

He says to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” Children. They’re children here – not disciples, not apostles. For those two titles focus more on what they do – those who follow, those who are sent. But children focuses on what God has done. Because no one does anything to make yourself a child. Being a child happens to you. You are born or adopted into a family. And so while disciple and apostle is the calling given to them and what they then did, children is who they are. (more…)

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A new economic boom?

Last updated on: April 9, 2013 at 10:28 pm By Gene Veith

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The U.S economy is still in the doldrums. But former general and CIA director David Petraeus and Brookings scholar Michael O’Hanlon see the possibilities of a new economic boom on the horizon. IF the government doesn’t mess it up. (more…)

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