Introduction

I wrote this review of James A. Scherer’s Gospel, Church & Kingdom, Chapter 2, for a class at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, some time between 1985 and 1989. The printed copy is undated.

Paper

Lutheran Mission in Historical Perspective

Scherer surveys the contributions of Lutheranism, as a “confessing movement” within the church catholic, to the theology of mission, concentrating on Martin Luther’s thought and on both its explication and its misappropriation by later Lutherans. Because of various historical, theological and cultural factors, Lutherans have unevenly applied the theory in concrete action.

According to Scherer, “For Luther, mission is always preeminently the work of the Triune God—Missio Dei—and its goal and outcome are the coming of the kingdom of God.” (p. 55) To accomplish His work, God uses His Word, His church, and His believers; the Father spreads the gospel of His triumph over death through the raising of Jesus by the power of their Holy Spirit, by means of the witness of the church, the gathering of believers around the risen Son. (p. 61) The church is not the end product of mission, according to Luther; God now gives humanity tastes and glimpses of His reign (kingdom), but He has yet to fully reveal it. (p. 56)

Scherer’s critique is both positive and negative. Luther’s vision of mission is biblical, Christocentric, and eschatological. But because of those characteristics, it does not translate well into programs and strategies; its success can be measured neither by church growth nor by feeling Jesus in one’s heart. God alone will accomplish the Missio Dei; yet everyone baptized is charged to witness to the new life given in Jesus’ name, until the day when all confess Him as Lord. (p. 66)

Luther’s heirs missed the message Luther spoke. Orthodoxy relied upon their principle of cuius regio, eius religio [whose rule, his religion] to accomplish the tasks of mission. Only where the ruler’s religion determined the people’s religion did humans participate in God’s mission. (p. 67) Further, Orthodoxy maintained that Matthew 28:19-20 was Jesus’ commission to the apostles only. They were dead, so the commission bound no one then living. (p. 68)

The Pietist movement, spurred by Philip Jakob Spener, reacted to Orthodoxy’s entrenchment, moving on five fronts:

1. Reception of the Great Commission as authoritative both for the whole church and for individual Christians.
2. Creation of “voluntary mission societies,” committed to ministry beyond the church’s boundaries.
3. Commission of persons with a “testifying spirit” to engage in evangelistic missions.
4. Collection of practical experience in the ministry of mission, its strategies and methodologies.
5. Subjection of denominational differences to the press of an eschatological embrace of the Commission. (pp.71-72)

Scherer notes to its credit that Pietism broke many of the deadlocks of Orthodoxy, but began to emphasize human structures rather than God’s reign, regeneration by the Spirit rather than justification by faith, special mission groups rather than the church, Western culture rather than an acculturated gospel, and moral rectitude rather than societal Justice. (pp. 72-73)

During the resurgence of confessionalism in the nineteenth century, Lutherans “…combin[ed] evangelism and church planting with confessional separatism…,” giving new churches “…full spiritual authority, including Word, sacraments, indigenous ministry, and the ‘three self-marks’ (self-government, self-support, and self-propagation).” (p. 76) While Lutherans established churches, they tended to plant cultural Lutheranism rather than to foster Lutheran Christians. (p. 77)

The sweep of societal changes in the twentieth century, among them, two world wars, declining colonialism, the end of Christendom, the rise of faith in science and technology, the growth of cities, and the development of world-wide communications, brought reforms to Lutheran mission activity. Despite these challenges, Lutherans worldwide began to form a single Lutheran community (manifest in the Lutheran World Federation), to enter into dialogue with other communions (Lutheran—Roman Catholic and Lutheran—Anglican), and to participate in the ministries of ecumenical groups (The World Council of Churches). Through specifically missionary efforts of the LWF, Lutherans sought to present a “united witness before the world to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of God for salvation.” (pp.80-81).

Finally, Scherer outlines seven convergences reached by current Lutheran missiological thought. They are as follows:

1. The kingdom of God as the goal of mission
2. The church as instrument of God’s mission
3. The calling to mission and unity
4. “Salvation history” as a valid paradigm
5. Justification by grace through faith as the Word of proclamation
6. The correlation of creation and redemption in mission practice
7. The necessary relation between justification and justice (pp. 84-90)

Scherer characterizes these realizations, not as revolutionary changes in Lutheran missiology, but as corrections of past errors, coupled with a return to Luther’s Mission Dei path of theological reflection. Scherer sees a serious attempt within world Lutheranism to grapple with the challenges of taking seriously Christ’s Great Commission.

Personal Reflection

I was surprised to read Scherer’s assessment of Luther’s missiological thought. While I have read most of those passages before, and studied them, I had never thought of them as presenting a theology of mission. It seems Luther’s gift of occasional theological reflection, usually his strong point, contributed to the de-emphasis of concerted missiological work on both his and his successors’ parts.

The historical survey of Lutheran thought between Luther and the present struck me, because the missionary attitudes of theses era are still alive in the attitudes of various factions of ELCA Lutherans today. In that respect, the history is present and alive, so that the conflicting attitudes work against each other, preventing any united missionary action.

In addition, there seems to be a trend, once again, within the ELCA to seek structures and programs to accomplish the task of mission. To focus on structure is understandable for an infant church, but to forget Luther’s Missio Dei approach to missiology is a mistake we cannot afford to make.

Lutherans still have much work to do to scrape the Germanic and Scandinavian barnacles from its message. For example, I just heard that one of the divisions of the ELCA is working to translate the LBW into languages like Chinese or Japanese. But there is no reason, no necessity, for keeping the same liturgical music and just changing the language. While Japanese Lutherans may be interested in learning the Swedish plainsong of Setting Three, they need not become Swedish to celebrate the liturgy in the Lutheran tradition.