Lasting impressions

Does the Lutheran church need to repent?

"When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, `Repent,' he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." That is the first of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Does it apply only to individuals? Or could it also apply to the church, especially the church that calls itself Lutheran? Does the Lutheran church have anything to repent? Lent is the traditional season for self-examination, and institutions also need to examine themselves from time to time.

The statement on ecumenism adopted at our 1991 Churchwide Assembly says we take our belief in justification so seriously we don't need to indulge in "ecclesiastical selfjustification. The first word that the church speaks ecumenically may well be a word of self-criticism, a word against itself, because we are called to be seekers of a truth that is larger than all of us."

What words of self-criticism might we speak? For starters we have officially declared that we repudiate Luther's harsh words against the Jews. There is also a current discussion about Lutheran treatment of other movements during the Reformation. Our forebears in the faith condemned those who insisted that infant baptism didn't count and therefore every true believer needed to be baptized again as an adult. Lutherans argued that the appropriate punishment for these ancestors of today's Mennonites should be death by drowning. Mennonites have asked us to repudiate this position.

In the last few months I've asked members of other church bodies what they consider to be our less desirable traits. One responded "stereotyping." He told me, "You seem to think you have learned all about us in catechetical class, so you don't make the effort to get to know us as we are.

Another comment, from the opposite end of the theological spectrum, was similar: "Sometimes you come across as downright arrogant, so sure that you are right that you can't imagine anyone else has an ounce of truth."

Maybe a good Lenten discipline would be for each of us to ask our neighbors and friends about their impressions of the Lutheran church. As the church has taught us, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8-9).

Call the Presiding Bishop's Hotline: (773) 380-2930. Messages change every two weeks. Topics-March 1: What church leaders are saying; March 15: Report from the Conference of Bishops.

A monthly message from the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His E-mail address: [email protected]

Copyright Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mar 1999
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