68
Peter Manns and
Harding Meyer,
eds. in collaboration with Carter Lindberg
and
Henry McSorley,
Luther’s Ecumenical
Significance:
An Interconfessional Consultation,
Fortress
Press,1984),
xxiv = 288 pp.,
(Philadelphia:
$24.95 ISBN 0-8006-1747-9, 1-1747
Reviewed
by
Donald Dean Smeeton*
Among
the
many
volumes
commemorating
the five hundredth anniversary
of Luther’s
birth,
this one claims
significance
not
only because it
provides
a needed status
quaestionis
of recent Luther studies but also because it contributes to
ecumenicity.
Since the publication
in 1939 of Die
Reformation
in Deutschland
by Joseph Lortz,
Lutheran and Roman Catholic
theologians
have searched to identify points
of agreement in their
positions
as well as to
clarify those areas of divergence. This
searching
has
generally
centered on the
theology
of Luther himself rather than on his
interpreters
in either
camp. Building
on this
foundation,
this book
brings together some of the most
important
contributors to this
dialogue
between the
theological
heirs of
Wittenberg
and Rome. Luther’s Ecumenical
Significance updates
the discussion and continues the investigation by providing
much of the
significant
material from Oekumenische
Erschliessung
Luthers
Referate
und
Ergebnisse einer internationalen
Theologenkonsultation
for the
profit
of the Anglo-Saxon
world.
The translation
generally
reads
smoothly,
but
any
translation from
Germany
will result in ambiguities
concerning
such
key words as “evangelical”.
(This
word is not
easy
to define even if one limits the discussion to North
America!)
The
good
news
proclaimed by Luther has
importance
for all Christians and Luther’s Ecumenical Significance
deserves wide
consideration, yet
the
topic
itself deserves further definition. A
perspective
which limits itself essentially
to the Roman Catholic-Lutheran
perspectives
is too narrow to
comprehend fully
Luther’s ecumenical
significance.
The token
presence
of a Mennonite, a Methodist, a few
Calvinists,
and other
respondents hardly
does
justice
to the breadth of the issues raised
by
the Reformation. There is limited
acknowledgement
of Eastern
Christianity
and the “free” churches in the
European context.
Because much of the
previous
discussion has centered on the Reformation
creeds, especially
the
Augsburg Confession,
several articles
question
how much these documents
represent
Luther’s thought
and how much
they
must be understood as an
early hardening
of the
theological categories.
Other
essays explore ecclesiology,
as a natural extension of soteriology, with the varied implications.
Of
particular
interest to this reviewer is the
.
.
.
1
69
application
of Luther’s
simul justus
et peccator theme to
interpret Karlstadt,
the
Anabaptists,
and the
contemporary
holiness- charismatic
momement(s),
but the
variety
of issues will
provide practically every
reader a point of
particular
interest.
Rather than
analyzing
the
complete
set of papers, responses, and summaries,
the remainder of this review will focus on Carter Lindberg’s
“Justice and
Injustice
in Luther’s
Judgment
of ‘Holiness Movements,”‘ which
critiques
the holiness-charismatic renewal(s).
This
hyphenization
of
terminology
is useful here because there
appears
to be an indiscriminate
mixing
of these terms.
Many pentecostals-as
well as charismatics-would
object to
any
consideration of the
“baptism
of the
Holy Spirit”
as a subdivision
of justification
and sanctification. There
appears
to be similar
interchanging
of “renewal” and “charismatic” which results in a
slippage
in
precision
and
vagueness
in the
argumentation. Watchman Nee and Morton
Kelsey
are cited as
representing
the charismatic
position,
but
many
would
question
their roles as spokesmen
for the
movement(s).
Even if
Larry
Christenson is taken into the
discussion,
one wonders if his
preaching
and popularizing
is best understood in
opposition
to Luther’s theo- logical
treatises. There is no serious consideration of sanctification in the
theology
of Calvin or other variants within the Christian community. Luther,
in the midst of his sixteenth
century struggles, is used as a
measuring
rod
by
which all other
understandings
of salvation are
proven. Dialogue
thus
stops
at the bar of judgment. Even one of the
respondents
observed that this
application
of Luther’s
theology
reconstructs the German into “the
great ecumenical
naysayer.”
Luther’s conclusions were too fluid and occasional to be
dogmatic
about his
judgment
on events so far removed from his time. Not
only
could one
question
if Luther really
understood
Karlstadt,
but if he
completely
understood Augustine
or even Paul. In all
fairness, nevertheless,
one cannot explore
in an essay all the avenues that can be described in a book. One should
pursue
the
topic
further in
Lindberg’s
The Third Reformation:
Charismatic Movement and the Lutheran Tradition (Macon, Georgia:
Mercer
University Press, 1983).
Here
Lindberg studies the conflict in a wider sixteenth
century
context and compares
this first reformation to
pietism
and
contemporary charismata.
Despite
these
criticisms,
Luther’s Ecumenical
Significance
con- tributes to a fuller
understanding
of the
great
reformer and his importance
to all Christians.
*International
Correspondence
Institute, Brussels, Belgium.
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