Oswald Bayer's Theses for Church Renewal, a bit Lenny Duncan (in anticipation of more), and the communal nature of justification

"1. Lutheranism has been entrusted with one gift in particular, namely, a clear doctrine which concentrates on the justifying God and on sinful man. [sic]

2. As with every 'charism,' its purpose is not to be sought in self-display, but in service. Being aware of this gift the Lutheran confession cannot be an end in itself, but rather a service to ecumenism.

3. The Lutheran understanding of justification can appear to concentrate too much, if not exclusively, on the personal salvation of the individual. To counter this, the following must be emphasized. Justification is an event which should be perceived in its social and universal dimension as well as in its significance for the individual.

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5. The new creation becomes tangible in the distinction between law and gospel.

6. The distinction between law and gospel serves the gospel since the gospel can be unequivocally clear and and certain only when it is freed from having to serve at the same time as law [against Karl Barth's concept of the unity of gospel and law].

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9. ... In the law [God] speaks out against me; in the gospel [God] speaks for me: 'here I wrestle for thee.'

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15. By discovering the all-important tangible worldly mediation of God's word of salvation, Luther discovered a new "worldliness." In other words, he received a fuller understanding of St. John 1:14 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...'

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17. Separated from the First Commandment, such a perception of the world would be blind. Similarly if the First Commandment were separated from the perception of the world ... it would be empty.

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20. The Christian as new creation must know, however, what its relation is to the old aeon. ... [the civil end of law] is valid for the Christian. There is no difference between the non-Christian and the Christian, inasmuch as the latter still belongs to the old aeon.

24. Our pilgrimage takes place in the difference between seeing and believing, and is characterized both by waiting and hastening, prompted by the Holy Spirit in patience, as well as in the impatient cry, 'Maranatha!"

Oswald Bayer, Twenty Four Theses on the Renewal of Lutheranism by Concentrating on the Doctrine of Justification, Lutheran Quarterly Volume V no. 1, Spring 1991, 73-75


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I like reading Bayer, and I like this passage of his in an old Lutheran Quarterly I picked up at Krauth Memorial Library. Bayer is remarkably clear and provocative at once in his commitment to the basics of Lutheran theology - the distinction between law and gospel, the co-humanity of all people through sin and redemption, the openness to others, the unbridled commitment to the truth, the struggle of faith, and above all justification by grace through faith. In this, Bayer's works set a good foundation for contemporary Lutheran theologians. When it comes to theologians who do Lutheranism well, he comes in short order after the Lutheran Confessions themselves.

In this passage, Bayer sets the stage for Lutheran "renewal." Written in 1991, it is not so new, just never followed through with - and I think not adequately explored in the sense that we need it to - we could use it to open theology up in our contexts, but few theologians are brave enough to do so. Bayer's translated works fail to make this jump as well. They remain generally abstract - though I have to admit ignorance towards his untranslated German works. But their consequence for on-the-ground ministry is profound. Lutheran renewal, Bayer proposes, is done with through a thorough understanding of justification - one that takes fully into account the powers of law and gospel, the perniciousness/ubiquity of sin in the experience of humanity, and the unfailing devotion of God to wrestle for our sake - against the terrors of the law, against the terrors that humans wage against one another, and against sin and death. Bayer's theology takes sin and suffering, the human condition, and the power, terror, and struggle of God far more seriously than most folks dare to. Bayer's God fights and struggles where other theologians seem satisfied for a gentle, distant love with vaguely any skin in the game. But the wrestling that God does is for us.

Critically, Bayer observes that justification has been mishandled in the church. Through a largely uninhibited devotion to the well-being of the individual, justification's effects on communities has been neglected. But for Bayer, the Gospel preached creates faith amid assemblies, not faith amongst individuals. It has worldly consequences of unity, community, collaboration which work together as the body of Christ. And that doesn't mean that the battle is done and everything's perfect in our pretty little churches. It means that the battle is both finished and just beginning. Those who hear the word are in it together.

Because we're still fighting for justice in this world. We're still even fighting among ourselves. There are still people who are suffering and dying and believing that they are forgotten. Many of them are Christians who are oppressed by other Christians, or are oppressing other Christians and hardly realize it. Some of them are not Christian at all, and yet God works through them for the common good. The Good News is that Jesus has actually got this - even if sometimes we see it and sometimes we don't. The Christian life - Bayer observes - has shades of action and shades of patience. It has crying out and it has waiting. And God is there amid it all - unaffected by common hypnoses and psychoses, except through God's own love and passion that drives God to break us out and set us free.

Justification has social consequences - because it creates a community of people who look to the crucified one and say "What Jesus has done is what we are about." The sick are healed, the hungry are fed, the oppressed are set free, the sinners are forgiven, and the power structures that we get passively hypnotized into thinking are just fine are getting overturned the moment we get shaken out of state-sponsored delusions. In focusing on the event of justification - the eyes with which we look upon the world and the heart with which we receive it - find oneness with Christ's own. Who he was in the world, we too may be. And we won't be, we will struggle, and we will fail, and we will be culpable. But our love will be part of something different and something eternal.

I noted earlier that Bayer's books are as basic as they are provocative. They're foundations for more important work, and that important work is the ministry of the Church. Theology's never meant to be something disembodied or removed from the daily life of the Church. In a lot of ways, I think Lenny Duncan does a really good job of "doing" Bayer's theology (his first book Dear Church is coming out shortly). I detect a lot of spiritual kinship between the two. I haven't read the new book yet (didn't sign up for an early copy), but everything that I've read and watched of his seems to track with Bayer's works. What Bayer puts down as lot of the basics of Christian faith and life in the abstract - Duncan shows in practice on the ground when confronting the sin of racism in the institutional church and beyond - what the gift of justification and forgiveness does in the face of oppression. Here the difference between what is seen and what is believed, and the struggle of faith is laid out painfully, powerfully, and clearly. And that gets him a whole lot of hate - including from Christians who ought to know better. This is at once a sad and familiar thing that I don't understand but recognize as fitting into a pattern of costly discipleship. Duncan builds in context what Bayer sets theological foundations for in abstract. So read some Oswald Bayer, and read some Lenny Duncan. It can be really hard to, but it's good, and it's for you.