A collection of papers dealing with the Scriptural doctrine of the church and the ministry as it relates to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's doctrine and practice. A must read for seminary students but more especially for the members of the congregations of Synod.
Laymen, it is Jesus himself who gave the exclusive charge, authority and responsibility to administer the power of the office of the keys to forgive sins, the "peculiar church power" of the catechism, to His church on earth (that's you). No episcopal-minded district official, pastor or others so inclined must be allowed to usurp this authority from you. When they do, it is you and you alone who must bear the responsibility for allowing it to happen.
Learn here what your God-given authority entails, how that authority is under attack on several fronts, and how to avoid shirking your God-given responsibility of exercising that authority while at the same time confronting those who by word and deed deny its existence.
Dr. Theodore Engelder:
The uncompromising stand which Walther took in the long controversy on the Church and the Ministry was due not only to his zeal for purity of doctrine in general but also and chiefly (and at bottom it amounts to the same thing) to his passion for keeping the article of saving grace inviolate. He points out, for instance: "He who restricts salvation to fellowship with any visible Church therewith overthrows the article of the justification of a poor sinner in the sight of God by faith alone." ( Kirche und Amt , under Thesis IX, first part.) "Clearly the teaching that there is a visible Church outside of which there is no salvation and that the validity of absolution depends on the ordination of the administrant, etc., is in conflict with the truth that faith alone saves." (Die lutherische Lehre v. d. Rechtf., p. 93.)The false teaching on Church and Ministry is not a small matter. When Walther and his brethren had fought their way through to a clear understanding of this doctrine, he declared: "There is no doubt in our mind that, if God in His infinite mercy had not come to our aid, making us to see the Romanizing features of our former doctrine and practice, we should not only have been working towards the destruction of Christianity, but we ourselves also should have been lost eternally." (Lutheraner, 1857, p. 2; cp. Lutheraner, 1845, p. 79.)
Note also this angle: When the ministry sets itself above the common Christians, it makes light of the surpassing dignity and glory which saving grace, justifying grace, has conferred upon these common Christians. "The minister administers his office and absolves `in the name and behalf of the congregation.' Our moderns are horrified at hearing this. Administer our office in the name and by authority of peasants and tradespeople! . . . There are no people on earth more distinguished than the Christians; the angels serve them; above them is the open heaven; God has come down to them; they are clothed with the priestly robe of Christ's righteousness." (Lehre u. Wehre, 1876, p. 66.)
Replying in 1843 to Grabau's Hirtenbrief, G. H. Loeber, Walther , and their associates stress this point among others......."If His Spirit and power were not with the Word, we ourselves could accomplish nothing, not even with our preaching of the pure Word, much less through the weight of our office or the scaffolding of order and ordinances." Nothing, nothing, must take the place of, or interfere with, the preaching of saving grace.8
n8 Walther's warning against slighting the Gospel was directed not only to those who placed the strength of the Church in the hierarchical "order." He condemned with the same vehemence every movement and tendency which would supplant the simple preaching of the Gospel with something more powerful. There are men who slur over the Gospel and stress "life and work," relying upon the activities of the Church, the legitimate and necessary activities, to put new life into the Church. Dr. Walther taught us that our first concern must be the study and the preaching of the Gospel of grace. That, and that alone, preserves and builds the Church. Nothing must interfere with, or take the place of, the Gospel.
(Walther and the Church. Dau, Dallman, Engelder, pgs. 34-35.)
Five translations:
Five translations (table):
Thesis VI Concerning the Church:
RESOLUTION 7-17A, LCMS 2001 reaffirmation of Walther's Church and Ministry as its official position.
An appeal to laymen and faithful pastors in light of Res. 7-17A (PDF):
A review of the Wollenburg essay:
The Call into the Holy Ministry, including the temporary call vs. a call for temporary assistance:
Ordination: the center of it all.
Office of the Keys - Means of Grace:
Congregations, pastors, divine calls:
Why congregations? One purpose only:
And now:
#2 St. Louis Concordia Seminary professors:
#3 Ft. Wayne Concordia Theological Seminary Professors:
#4 Pulpit deserters:
Reverend, Episcopalianism, Fraud:
#5 Calling, Call, Divine Call:
#6 The CTCR's Churchless Miniatry:
#7 Summary to date:
Council of President's (COP) "clarification" for 6-35:
The 1998 Church and Ministry Convocation;
A layman's response (PDF)
A review of the Kurt Marquart opinion:
Quintessential Waltherian: Fact or Fiction:
Applying Marquart: T. Schellenbach:
A review of the Schellenback application (Scroll 1/3 down to "Epiloque.") :
The ELS's Rolf Preus' opinion:
A review of the Rolf Preus opinion:
The CTCR report ( PDF ): "The Ministry: Offices, Procedures, and Nomenclature."
An authoritative criticism and two reviews and of the CTCR report:
A translator/theologian's criticism:
A churchless ministry (1983):
A churchless ministry (2002):
Clyde T. Nehrenz
Huntington, Ohio
October 24, 2005
(Member of Bethany Lutheran, Wellington, Ohio)