Luther on Matter, the Senses, & Emotions

Last updated on: November 28, 2017 at 8:59 pm By Gene Veith

In our last post on Mark Mattes’s new book Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty, we discussed how Luther moves from beauty as “perfection” to beauty as “gift.” Other facets of Luther’s view of beauty include his affirmation of matter, the senses, and emotions. (Yes, you read that last part right. Lutherans have the reputation of downplaying the emotions, but Mattes shows how important they are for Luther and the Christian life.)

St. Augustine’s Confessions is a wonderful book, but every time I read it (as when I was teaching it) I am struck by the way the great theologian struggles against ordinary pleasures. He feels guilty for enjoying food too much, even for taking too much pleasure in church music, thinking that he needs to take pleasure in God alone rather than all of these material things.

Such squeamishness derives, of course, from St. Augustine’s Platonism. The material world is only a shadow of the true reality in the realm of the ideals. While material objects are connected to those ideals–so that they partake of transcendental beauty–we should move from these earthly copies to the transcendental reality that they merely reflect. For Christian Platonists, the ultimate transcendental reality and the source of all that is true, good, and beautiful, is God.

Platonism thus downplays the significance of matter, the senses, and the emotions. And Plato famously banished artists from his republic. Similarly, many theologians have banished artists from their churches.

But while Luther is on record as preferring Plato to Aristotle (in the Heideberg Disputation Thesis #36), Mattes shows that he is opposed to Platonic theology.

For Luther, all of Creation is a “mask of God.” That is to say, God is “hidden” in everything that He has made. To be “hidden” means to be present, but unseen. God’s providential care for and intimate involvement in the universe that He has made are such that He is not far away, as many people imagine God, a being far beyond the physical realm. Rather, He is very near, being present and active even in the most mundane aspects of the physical world. In the theology of vocation, as we have often said, God gives us our daily bread by means of farmers, bakers, and other economic vocations. But it is God who gives us our daily bread, as the Lord’s Prayer makes clear, doing so by working through physical human beings and natural and economic processes. Similarly, Luther believes that God is hidden throughout His physical realm.

This is not pantheism–God is distinct from His creation and does indeed transcend it. This is not advocating “natural theology,” since God is hidden, not revealed. Nor is God’s hiddenness in created things “sacramental,” Mattes observes, since His presence is not saving. Those whose knowledge of God comes only from the creation may get a glimpse of His Law, His power, His wrath, His beauty–or, as we see so often today, they may gain the impression of His indifference.

To find the revealed God, we must have recourse to His Word. Only by His Word can we realize our lostness, learn of God’s incarnation, encounter Christ and His atoning death and resurrection, and through the Holy Spirit receive the gift of faith. Mattes gives a great quotation from Luther:

“Although [God] is present in all creatures and I might find him in stone, in fire, in water, or even in a rope, for he certainly is there, yet he does not wish that I seek him there apart from m the Word, and [thereby] cast myself into the fire or the water, or hang myself on the rope. He is present everywhere, but does not wish that you grope for him everywhere. Grope, rather, where the Word is, and there you will lay hold of him in the right way” (LW 36:342).

Two places “where the Word is” are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Because we are physical creatures, God reaches us by physical things–water, bread, wine–that are joined to the Word of the Gospel, turning them into means by which the Holy Spirit works and Christ is present, creating and increasing our faith.

On the other side of justification by faith, though, when a sinner becomes a new creation in Christ, the created world is perceived differently. Our “senses” are opened, says Luther, and we know that the Hidden God, through it all, is gracious. By faith we see His glory and His gifts everywhere. The birds in their singing, says Luther, seem to be preaching the Gospel.

Whereas Platonists stress the unreliability of the senses, Luther stresses that for us physical creatures, the senses are how we know reality and experience God’s gifts. Thus, again, God comes to us not simply through our intellect but through our senses–in receiving Christ’s body and blood when we eat the bread and drink the wine of Holy Communion, when “faith comes by hearing” the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

Another element of Platonism that Luther rejects is the exaltation of reason, as the highest human faculty, which must subordinate the “passions” and human emotions. Luther, says Mattes, balances reason and emotions. Neither are reliable when it comes to God. We must know Him by faith, not the intellect nor the feelings. For those who have been justified by faith in Christ, reason is useful again, but so are the emotions. Christianity is not stoicism, and the Christian life is full of joy, sorrow, and the whole gamut of emotions.

Luther’s affirmation of matter, the senses, and the emotions–to a larger degree than most theologians–is the basis for a far-reaching theology of beauty. So says Mattes in his remarkable, paradigm-shifting book.

In a later post, we’ll discuss how all of this applies to music and the other arts.

Illustration, “Pond in the Woods,” by Albrecht Dürer [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. [Notice the difference between this painting by a Luther-leaning artist, which draws on the sense-impressions of the physical world, and the more idealized paintings by the artists of the southern Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci, who were influenced by the neo-Platonists.]

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Why Assume That Joseph Was Old?

Last updated on: November 28, 2017 at 7:45 am By Gene Veith

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In the controversy over Judge Roy Moore’s pursuit and alleged assault of adolescent girls, one of his defenders made a scurrilous comparison with the Holy Family. He said that Joseph was an old man, while Mary was a teenager. Thus there cannot be anything wrong with a much-older man being attracted to young girls. But as religion journalist Tom Verde shows, the portrayal of St. Joseph as an old man is not from the Bible but was put forward by those arguing for Mary’s perpetual virginity.

In his article Sorry, Roy Moore. Joseph Wasn’t Twice Mary’s Age in POLITICO Magazine, Verde cites scholars who say that for Jews of the first century the groom would typically be in his 20’s with the bride in her teens. So the age difference would not be that great.

The Bible is silent about their ages. It is true that Joseph is not mentioned after his 12-year-old son is misplaced in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52). The New Testament mentions other members of Jesus’s family after He takes up His ministry. Presumably, Joseph died before that time. This does not mean, however, that Joseph had been an old man when he married Mary. (It would, however, mean that among the human travails that the Son of God experienced in His incarnation was the death of a parent. We should keep this in mind when we go through that universal, but mournful experience. Jesus knows what that is like.)

Verde says that the portrayal of Joseph as an old man started when the role of Mary increased in the 4th Century. All agreed, in the words of the Apostle’s Creed, that Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the Virgin Mary.” But many Christians insisted that Mary remained a virgin all her life.

But the Gospels refer to the brothers and sisters of Jesus:

“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3)

⁵⁵Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” (Matthew 13:55-56)

One way to reconcile these texts with the notion of Mary’s perpetual virginity is to believe that these brothers and sisters were from an earlier marriage by Joseph. According to this view, Joseph married a second time to Mary when he was a widower getting on in years. After Jesus was born, Joseph was too old to be interested in the sexual part of marriage. This view became popular in the Church and was reflected in some of the art and drama of the Middle Ages.

There are, however, other possibilities, even if one accepts the perpetual virginity of Mary. The term “brothers and sisters,” some say, could be used for other close kindred. Mary may well have taken in a deceased sister’s children and raised them in her household, and they might have been called “brothers and sisters.” Or the individuals quoted in the Gospels, who are critics of Jesus, just didn’t understand who these relatives were and jumped to the conclusion that they were Jesus’s siblings.

Most Protestants have no problem with the thought that Mary and Joseph had a normal marriage after Jesus was born. Indeed, that would seem to be the implication of the “until” language in the first chapter of Matthew:

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24-25)

If she and Joseph did have other children, the vocation of marriage is such that this would by no means lessen her purity.

By the way, the Latin version of the Smalcald Articles (I.4) in the Book of Concord calls Mary “semper virgo”; that is, “always virgin” or “ever virgin.” Many confessional Lutherans believe they are obliged on this basis to affirm Mary’s perpetual virginity. Others say that this is just a “pious opinion” without scriptural basis and that the phrase in the confession does not appear in the German version and so is not binding. For that discussion see this and this.

To be sure, Joseph might have been older and might have had other children from a second marriage, or these other explanations might hold true.

But, as Verde points out, in any event, the “old Joseph” model does not depict an old man with sexual desire for a teenager. The whole point of the “old Joseph” is to establish the non-sexual nature of the couple’s relationship.

Illustration, “Holy Family with Young St. John,” by Master of Astorga Active in Castile, first half of 16th century Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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The Connection Between Domestic Abuse and Church Shootings

Last updated on: November 20, 2017 at 8:35 am By Gene Veith

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Officials said that religion was not a motive for Devin Kelley when he murdered 26 people as they worshiped in Sutherland, Texas. Rather, his motive was a “domestic” conflict with his estranged wife’s parents. As I commented, any such attack on a church has to do with religion. Nevertheless, research does show that a large percentage of church shootings do also involve domestic violence. The question is, what’s the connection? Why do men who abuse their wives sometimes shoot up her church?

Kelley was thrown out of the Air Force and imprisoned for 12 months for repeatedly beating, kicking, and choking his wife and fracturing the skull of her toddler, his stepson. His wife divorced him, but after getting out of prison, he married a second time and abused his second wife also. She left him, though they were not divorced, and Kelley began threatening her parents. They sometimes attended First Baptist in Sutherland Springs, though not on the day of Kelley’s attack, when he massacred the congregation anyway.

On that same day, there was another church shooting that did not attract as much news coverage. In Fresno, California, a gunman killed his estranged wife and her new boyfriend as they left a Catholic mass.

It turns out that church shootings are not all that uncommon. In 2016, according to security expert Carl Chinn, there were 65 violent deaths at church. Fifty-two were homicides, with seven suicides, and six were “perpetrators” killed as they were committing their crimes. Of the homicides, 25% were “spillovers” from domestic violence. (Takeaway: Chinn says that churches with members going through this should take precautions.)

So what’s the connection? If a man decides to kill his wife, why does he do so when she is in church? And why does he sometimes take out innocent members of the congregation who have nothing to do with his marriage?

Maybe the twisted psychology of the perpetrators goes something like this: A man who is violent against his own wife must realize on some level that he is being bad. But he is so angry. Her very innocence enrages him. He resents her goodness, which condemns him further. And if she goes to church that only adds to his fury. “She thinks she’s better than me!” “She’d rather spend time with all those holy rollers than me!” “She probably complains about me to those church people!” “I’ll show her. . .I’ll show them all!”

Maybe striking at her church is an attempt to hurt her on a deeper level than he has hurt her before, not just attacking her physically, as he has been doing, but attacking her in her spiritual life.

I don’t know. (Feel free to add your own thoughts about this.)

But it occurred to me that there may be a deeper reason, a profoundly spiritual reason. And it has to do with vocation.

God is in vocation, and, according to Ephesians 5, marriage embodies the relationship between Christ and the Church.

Husbands are enjoined to love their wives, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5: 25). If a husband rebels against his calling to love and serve his wife and instead harms her, he is refusing to be a Christ to her. In his rebellion against marriage, instead of sacrificing himself for his wife, as Christ did for the church, he sacrifices her for himself.

He is violent against her. And in extreme cases he may be violent against her church. This is because, in vocation, his wife is the church!

Photo by Alexas_Fotos, via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons

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How to be a Pastor

Last updated on: November 12, 2017 at 8:00 pm By Gene Veith

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I’m in a reading group with a bunch of pastors, which has me reading titles I would probably miss on my own. I just finished a remarkable book from the 19th century that explains, in practical detail, how to be a pastor. That is to say, it gives advice to young pastors about how to navigate successfully the issues they will face in their ministry.

The author is Wilhelm Loehe, and the book is The Pastor, published by CPH in 2015, a translation of two booklets that Loehe wrote in 1847 and 1853. Loehe (1808-1872) was an important figure in the confessional revival in Germany. He is notable for his work in sending missionaries, including to North America, where the pastors he sent over became instrumental in founding the Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod. He was a key figure in the deaconness movement and was a founder of the institution that would become Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Today Loehe’s theology, with his emphasis on liturgy and the sacraments, is especially appreciated by “high church” Lutherans. Some of his teachings, such as the notion that the ministry comes straight from Christ rather than through the call of a congregation, would go against LCMS teachings, but these, when they turn up are duly treated in footnotes. But they seldom do. This book focuses less on theology and more on the practice of being an effective pastor. As such, even non-Lutheran pastors would find this treatment illuminating.

Loehe is addressing in particular new pastors just starting out in rural parishes. He stresses the importance of “belonging to all your parishioners.”

Certainly times and culture have changed. But his advice is startlingly relevant to what pastors face today. For example, in his discussion of pastoral education, he cites the importance of a liberal arts, university education. With such an education, “he will be equal to all levels of society and can claim admittance to even the highest circles” (p.5). Now Loehe goes on to warn against over-intellectualizing ministerial training, recommending that practical pastoral training precede the technical scholarly study of theology. But he is right that pastors, perhaps more than members of any other profession, must be able to work with individuals from all levels of society and cultural backgrounds. In his day, a country pastor had to deal with the nobility in the manor house, as well as the peasants in the field, as well as all of the craftsmen, merchants, and professionals in between.

Today our congregations are probably much more culturally homogenous. The church growth theory pioneered by Donald McGavran teaches that churches grow best when they consist of people from the same socio-economic-cultural background, so that most large congregations today are made up of middle class suburbanites. But rural and small town congregations are still typically made up of people from all walks of life, and even larger congregations are now having to deal with diversity, not just that of race, but of cultural and individual backgrounds. Pastors today will typically need to interact with well-educated professionals, blue-collar workers, millennials, teen-agers, immigrants, scientists, retired folks, farmers, etc., etc. Doing so will require wide-ranging knowledge, humility, and cultural savvy.

I did not expect a 19th century writer to be so attuned to social and cultural dynamics. Loehe gives good advice to young pastors on starting out in their office–creating the right impressions, balancing friendliness and reserve; socializing with brother pastors and with parishioners; dealing with the legacy (good and bad) of predecessors; and navigating what we would call church politics.

Loehe discusses how pastors should handle finances, deal with the school when there is one, and balance hobbies with his ministry. He also gives wise counsel on how to help the poor and how to minister appropriately to women.

To be sure, there are big differences between his time and today, and the vivid portrait of 19th century rural parishes is part of the charm of this book. He writes about receiving the “collection”–the members bringing eggs, vegetables, and other produce as part of the pastor’s pay; renting out or managing the land that would sometimes be attached to the parish for the pastor’s support; managing servants. (We learn that pastors usually get good servants because “parents love to place their children [for service] in parsonages,” due to their good moral influence [p. 113]).

Loehe includes a chapter on marriage, treating whether to choose marriage or celibacy; qualities to look for in a bride; the role of the pastor’s wife; raising children in the parish. This is clearly highly Victorian–such as his euphemistic references to “the marital secret” and his simultaneous idealization and subordination of women–but there is also much good sense and wisdom along the way.

Loehe directs much of his advice to young pastors, but he covers the whole course of a pastor’s life, including how to handle old age and retirement (and knowing when it is time to step aside).

The first booklet has to do with the personal and practical issues that a pastor will need to deal with. The second booklet focuses on what the pastor does: homiletics, catechesis, liturgics, pastoral care, and pastoral care of the sick.

In the section on homiletics, Loehe discusses types and methods of teaching, rhetorical techniques, types of sermons, studying and preaching from Scripture; extemporaneous speaking vs. writing out the sermon; style; and the proper and improper use of sermon books. (We would say online sermons.) Throughout, he gives advice that grows out of extensive experience. Don’t preach sermons that are too long, he says, since that could put the divine service as a whole out of balance. The best length, he says, is about half an hour.

In the chapter on catechesis, Loehe gives excellent advice on how to teach. Despite his reputation, the chapter on liturgics does not make the case for his high church preferences. Rather, he says that pastors should attend to what his congregation is ready for, not going to extremes and being careful how elements are introduced to the congregation. His chapter on pastoral care is filled with good ideas, both for the pastoral care of the congregation as a whole and for individuals. His chapter on the specific task of pastoral care of the sick is full of outdated 19th century medical advice, but it perceptively distinguishes between physical, mental, and spiritual afflictions (including demonic temptations and possession).

Always Loehe stresses the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel (with the latter predominating), and how God works through the pastor’s vocation in bringing Christ to his people.

Modern day pastors have challenges of their own, but their vocation is the same calling that has been continuous throughout the history of the Church. To be able to hear from a pastor from a different era can help defamiliarize the work of today’s pastors, who can thus have much to learn from an experienced, insightful brother pastor such as Wilhelm Loehe.

Photo of Wilhelm Loehe credit: The original uploader was Bwag at German Wikipedia (Heiligenlexikon.de, transfered from de.wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. This version is from Pastoral Meanderings.

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God Has Already Repaid You

Last updated on: November 9, 2017 at 10:56 pm By Gene Veith

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Thanks to Pastor Ned Moerbe, who cited this quotation from Paul Gerhardt by way of Oswald Bayer in a sermon that he preached:

In his last will and testament Paul Gerhardt reminds his only son, still living after all his other children had died: “Do good to people, even if they cannot pay you back because….” The reader expects that the sentence will continue with: “God will repay you.” However, Paul Gerhardt frustrates that expectation by continuing: “…because for what human beings cannot repay, the Creator of heaven and earth has already repaid long ago when he created you, when he gave you his only Son, and when he accepted and received you in holy baptism as his child and heir.” (“Justification as Basis and Boundary for Theology,” Lutheran Quarterly 15 [Autumn 2001]: 276.)

God has already rewarded us! Our very creation–that is, the very fact that we exist–is a gift of God. And, when we realize this by faith, it really is a motivation to please Him by doing good. Add in God’s gift of His only Son. Add in God’s acceptance of us in baptism. We owe God an infinite debt, which we can never repay. But, in this light, how can we refuse to do good to someone else who can never repay what we do?

Furthermore, the blessing that awaits us when we enter eternal life has already started! It pre-dates us, as it were! God’s overwhelming grace isn’t a reward for our good works. Rather, His grace makes us want to do them.

This idea of existence, on its most basic level, as God’s gift is a very profound one. I have often marveled at the sheer fact that I exist. And that sense of wonder has indeed led to a sense of God and His goodness.

Of course, some people are miserable and hate their lives. But surely the fact of their existence is to be treasured, despite the suffering that has been added to it. They hate the suffering, but not the existence that suffers. Otherwise, they would embrace the suffering that torments what they hate.

Which brings us back to Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). He lived a life of suffering–the hardships of the Thirty Years’ War, the death of his children, problems with his vocation as a pastor. He had difficulty getting a call to a congregation, and when he did–though becoming a beloved pastor and an unusually winsome defender of the faith–he was removed from his office for his theological faithfulness.

But he continued to praise God for His blessings. At the same time, the hardships that he endured certainly made him a better pastor and made him into a great artist.

Gerhardt is considered Germany’s greatest hymn writer. His most famous hymn is probably “Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” He also wrote “Awake, My Heart, with Gladness,” “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?” and many, many more. They are all spiritually rich, with depth upon depth, and unutterably beautiful. (Go to the cyberhymnal site for a listing of his compositions, which includes lyrics and audio files of his melodies.)

Take a look too at the complete text of Gerhardt’s testimony to his son.

Painting of Paul Gerhardt, 1844 ( Gemälde, Geschenk von Friedrich Wilhelm IV. zur Einweihung der Paul-Gerhardt-Kapelle), Signatur U (Paul-Gerhardt-Haus, Gräfenhainichen) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Luther’s Reformation of Beer

Last updated on: November 2, 2017 at 7:39 pm By Gene Veith

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Not only did Martin Luther reform the church. He also reformed beer too. Specifically, the Reformation gave us beer brewed with hops.

So says Nina Martyris, who takes the prize for an influence-of-the-Reformation-on-its-500th-anniversary story with The Other Reformation: How Martin Luther Changed Our Beer, Too : The Salt : NPR. She is drawing on a book by William Bostwick, the beer critic for TheWall Street Journal: The Brewer’s Tale: A History of the World According to Beer.

So how did Luther give us hoppy beer?

The story begins with another prominent figure in religious history: St. Hildegard of Bingen. Recently canonized by Pope Benedict XVI and made a “doctor of the church,” this 12th century abbess was a talented musical composer, an innovative playwright, a mystic, a theologian, and an influential herbalist. She taught against the use of hops, saying they “make the soul of a man sad and weigh down his inner organs.”

So the church said that beer should no longer be made with hops. More to the point, the church established a monopoly on gruit — as Bostwick explains it, “the mixture of herbs and botanicals (sweet gale, mug wort, yarrow, ground ivy, heather, rosemary, juniper berries, ginger, cinnamon)” that took the place of hops. Beer made with this gruit was also subject to a heavy church tax.

But with the Reformation, brewers celebrated their freedom from the tyranny of the pope by renouncing gruit! Instead, they turned to hops! Just as Luther recovered the Gospel, as taught in the New Testament church, after it was covered over by accretions of human teaching, the Lutheran brewers recovered beer with hops, as brewed in older days, despite the accretions of human innovations such as mug wort, heather, and ivy! (My analogy.)

There were other financial advantages to making beer with hops. The flower was plentiful. And beer made with that ingredient was not taxed at all. Furthermore, says Bostwick, hops are a preservative, making it possible for beer to be a trading commodity. The making and selling of beer thus became part of the new commercial growth that accompanied the Reformation, fueled mainly by the “work ethic” associated with the doctrine of vocation.

Furthermore, Reformation beer had different effects than Catholic beer. I’ll let Nina Martyris, via William Bostwick, explain it:

Another virtue in hops’ favor was their sedative properties. The mystic Hildegard was right in saying hops weighed down one’s innards. “I sleep six or seven hours running, and afterwards two or three. I am sure it is owing to the beer,” wrote Luther to his wife, Katharina, from the town of Torgau, renowned for its beer. The soporific, mellowing effect of hops might seem like a drawback, but in fact it offered a welcome alternative to many of the spices and herbs used by the church that had hallucinogenic and aphrodisiacal properties. “Fueled by these potent concoctions, church ales could be as boisterous as the Germanic drinking bouts church elders once frowned on,” writes Bostwick. “And so, to distance themselves further from papal excesses, when Protestants drank beer they preferred it hopped.”

Can we still see this, sort of, in obnoxious beer drunks who get loud, start fights, and “make poor sexual choices”? Are they not always drinking tasteless mass-produced beer with few hops? Whereas those who drink hoppy beers in brewpubs find themselves relaxing, becoming calm, and engaging in good conversations? Or not?

At any rate, the article goes on to go into more detail about Luther’s affinity for beer.

The reporter asks Bostwick if the Reformer could be considered the patron saint of beer:

“Luther might blanch a bit as a good Protestant at being called a saint,” points out Bostwick, “and there’s already a brewery saint called St. Arnold, who saved his congregation from the plague by making them drink beer. In the interests of Protestantism, I wouldn’t call him a saint, but he was certainly a beer enthusiast, and many a beer bar and brewery today has a picture of Martin Luther on their wall. So let’s say that while we certainly don’t genuflect to him, he’s known and appreciated.”

Well, Luther’s kind of Protestants still have the category of “saint,” though I’m not sure about “patron saint.” (Can anyone address that?) All Christians, he said, by virtue of their salvation by Christ, are simultaneously sinners and saints.

But remember Luther and the Gospel the next time you taste hops in your beer.

Photo of Luther-Bier [a German brand] by Runner1928 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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