Neo-Lutheranism,
which we will define later, is still going on in those who identify themselves
as Lutheran today. To know if you have been infected by it, it is more
interesting to test yourself honestly how you would answer the checklist
questions below.
1. Do you/your pastor, romanticize the
past? Is there nostalgia, the longing, the sigh that everything good about Christianity
happened in the past? This is akin to thinking of the life of your parents when
they lived the happy days of 1930-1960 when things were pristine and simple but
do this now to your faith.
2. Do you/your pastor, get into vestment
debates? Is there quibbling when it came to the proper attire to use when
mounting the pulpit or taking the divine service? Is the alb to be preferred
over the Geneva gown?
3. Do you/your pastor treat the Book of
Concord as another authoritative Scripture? Yet your pastor confesses more than
what is in the BoC eg like getting into the proper view of church fellowship w
other Lutherans or non-Lutheran Christians?
4. Do you/your pastor rally over the
proper form of the liturgy? Do they quibble with the way a section of it is
worded or sequenced ie the concern for the form/formality rather than what is
going on in the heart? Another example of this is arguing or insisting what is
clearly Scripturally an adiaphora, a non-adiaphora.
5. Do you/your pastor emphasize the
Sacraments over the exposition of the Word? Normally this happens when the
pastor preaches on a text that speaks no where of Baptism or the Lord’s Supper
and then suddenly, he inserts either of these in his sermon. Another, are you
ok with your pastor preaching abysmal sermons (or no sermons at all) so long as
you get the Lord’s Supper for Sunday?
6. Do you/your pastor treat your Synod
as the visible church? Is there comfort/confidence you are in the right group? Do
you think the distinction between visible and invisible church is not important?
This is demonstrated in not emphasizing conversion.
7. Additionally, as my observation, do
you/your pastor emphasize Universal Objective Justification – the belief that
all (whatsoever) are already declared forgiven/justified in Christ 2000 years
ago, without reference to repentance/faith etc.
If you have been brutally truthful in answering these questions with a “YES”,
then I am afraid you have been infected by Neo-Lutheranism to a smaller or
greater degree.
Is it bad? Look at the above questions, are they Biblical positions to
stand on? The Bible tells us to pick the good and throw the bad but anything
that seemed good done in extreme to the detriment of other good things becomes
excessively bad too. Scripture should limit how far we go. St Paul says to test
everything and hold fast to what is good, which implies drop what is bad, see 1
Thes 5:21.
Neo-Lutheranism
is a movement back in 19th century which is a reaction to
rationalism and pietism. Sometimes this is called German-Puseyism. What
happened to Anglicanism has happened to Lutheranism when the Oxford Movement
came to the first. It is still happening as we speak.
The Oxford
Movement’s aim is to align Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church because
it has become too plain or ordinary, the famous proponent of this is John Henry
Newman, which as we have seen eventually went to being a Roman Catholic cleric.
In this movement, we see prominent characters, the one leading the way
is C. F. W. Walther with well-known ones like Adolf Hoenecke and Johann Löhe.
There were more, see the link.
I am sure those in the
Neo-Lutheranism did not willingly know or advocate going to Rome or Eastern
Orthodoxy but the above leads to those camps eventually. If you have known
ministers who went to those bodies perhaps, they carried their Neo-Lutheranism
to one of these results. Ideas do have consequences. There is a way the seems right to a man but the end of
it is death Prov 14:12.
Any man, no matter how he has been
respected by others can never be more respected than Scripture.
