I think also that one of differences between CofE and Lutheranism is that,leaving God aside,the allegiance of the CofE was to the monarch as Head/Supreme Governor of the Church of ENGLAND while Lutherans,once again leaving God aside, felt an allegiance to LUTHER and his ideas.
Virtually all forms of the Church at the time of the Reformation were ,in effect, state churches,controlled by the king,irrespective of whether they were in or out of communion with the Roman Pontiff.
The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was to a certain degree allowed to go its own way,because from 1603 the king was not present in the country which led also to interminable bloody religious disputes.
With all due respect, the Moravians being in full communion with Lutherans, no more makes them Lutherans than the CofE being in full communion with the Church of Sweden makes the Church of Sweden either CofE or Anglican. As @Nick Tamen points out, the Moravians are in communion with a range of Protestant denominations, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans and Methodists and accept and commend a wide range of classic credal statements. That doesn't make them Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or Methodists either. One of the reasons why there are far fewer Moravians in the UK than one would expect from their influence in the eighteenth century, is that they did not insist that those converted or awakened through their ministry became Moravians, but rather encouraged them to play an active part in the ecclesiastical household to which they already belonged. Relatively few people became Moravians unless they actually joined a settlement.
@Gramps49 the very first Lutherans had a considerable influence on the very first formative stage of the CofE, when Protestant clergy took refuge on the Continent during the reign of Mary. It made a difference whether they went to Lutheran or Calvinist cities. Her reign was traumatic. However, it only lasted for 5 years, 1553-8. The exiles returned when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. I'm afraid the Lutheran influence in the CofE since has been minimal. The main tensions in the following century, which underlay many tensions thereafter, even to this day, were between Calvinists and those who thought the Calvinists were dogmatic and went too far.
Most denominational rows in England - not Scotland which is quite different - have been about authority, who can appoint clergy and what authority they have. People have different views on theology. They argue about them in home groups. However, the notion that the CofE, or any other ecclesiastical household should insists on agreement of all points of doctrine for fellowship, is really quite alien.
Which raises one point that I think might be worth looking at in comparing Luther to Geneva as per the thread title (or maybe Augsburg to Geneva?), and that is the place Luther occupies in Lutheranism vs. the place Calvin occupies in the Reformed tradition. Calvin is, of course, viewed as something like the “patriarch” of the Reformed tradition, but it has always seemed to me that Luther occupies a more central or authoritative place in the Lutheran tradition than Calvin does in the Reformed tradition.
This reflects my experience too. ISTM Lutherans are more likely to refer to or quote Luther than Reformed people are to refer/quote Calvin.
I wonder if this is because they had slightly differing priorities in writing. Luther was very concerned with the broad appeal and understanding of his theological viewpoints. Calvin seems to me to be more concerned with precision, and the logic of "how it all hangs together." (No judgment there, in fact admiration.) Again, it's not that either was unconcerned with precision or accessibility - just differing priorities.
I think that’s part of it, to be sure. I’d posit that there are two other factors at play as well.
The first factor is that while Calvin is the most prominent of the early Reformed leaders—so much so that “Calvinist” and Reformed” are often treated as synonyms—he wasn’t the only one. To point to an obvious example, there was also Zwingli. And Zwingli and Calvin disagreed on some things, notably the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and Christ’s presence in it. While Calvin’s position became the position embraced by most Reformed bodies, Zwingli’s position didn’t die out. So from the start of the Reformed tradition, there were multiple voices that didn’t always agree.
The second factor is what, for want of a better term, I’ll call the Reformed ethos. Baked into the Reformed tradition is an acceptance, and perhaps even an expectation, that church people and church councils can get it wrong. As the Westminster Confession puts it:
All synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both.
(I sometimes think that some of the more conservative Presbyterian bodies treat the work of the Westminster Assembly itself as if it is somehow exempt from this observation.)
What this means, in Reformed understanding, is that the church is pretty much always in need of reform, just as the people of Israel constantly needed to be called back to faithfulness. There’s kind of a sense that the church, being made up of people and people being sinners, always stands a good chance of screwing up, and we have to stay open to that possibility. This understanding is reflected in the phrase used as something of a motto by many Reformed and Presbyterian churches: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei—“the church reformed, always being reformed/to be reformed according to the Word of God.” (The secundum verbem Dei part is sometimes omitted when the phrase is quoted.) The origin of this phrase can be and is debated, but I think it’s pretty much accepted that its current popularity in parts of the Reformed world can be traced back to Karl Barth.
So, for example the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) says:
The church is prepared to instruct, counsel with, or even to discipline one ordained who seriously rejects the faith expressed in the confessions. Moreover, the process for changing the confessions of the church is deliberately demanding, requiring a high degree of consensus across the church. Yet the church, in obedience to Jesus Christ, is open to the reform of its standards of doctrine as well as of governance. The church affirms Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei, that is, “The church reformed, always to be reformed according to the Word of God” in the power of the Spirit.
For more on the PC(USA)’s take on the phrase, see here.
What this can mean in practice is that there is something of a disincentive to treat Calvin, or anyone else, as the authority, and perhaps more permission to challenge Calvin. And to go back to an early point, this understanding is directly related to Reformed/Presbyterian understandings of and emphasis on polity.
With all due respect, the Moravians being in full communion with Lutherans, no more makes them Lutherans than the CofE being in full communion with the Church of Sweden makes the Church of Sweden either CofE or Anglican.
Indeed, that was my point, although perhaps not very clearly made. If Moravians were only "a type of Lutheran" then there would be no need for a full communion agreement between their organization and a Lutheran one. AIUI a "full communion agreement" is made between organizations not usually identified as the same denomination.
First, re Lutheranism and the establishment of Anglicanism--It's my understanding based on wide reading during my doctorate (which was on English Renaissance literature) that quite a few people in England were flirting with Lutheranism at the time, whether for pure or mixed motives. Henry VIII of course wanted Luther to give him permission to get divorced, and was very pissed off when he got quite the opposite. I understand Ann Boleyn was Lutheran-ish, and various other folks in and out of power thought it would be a good idea... but of course that course was irremediably muddied once Luther pissed off Henry. Since there were other options in terms of reformers, well... You might look up Robert Barnes if you want a glimpse of an English Lutheran who was martyred at Smithfield.
Now, on how Lutherans tend to regard Luther:
Certainly we do not consider him infallible or authoritative in the sense that Scripture is. We see that Luther is a sinner (God knows!) and also a man of his time, and while we take him every bit as seriously as you would the person who stands at the headstream of your particular branch of Christianity, we take him no more seriously than that. As for "why Luther and not someone else"--well, the truth is, we don't have anyone else who comes up to his level in terms of sheer value of what he says and utter quotability. I mean, we have Chemnitz and Melanchthon and those like them, but they are working either as apologists or systematizers or both, and they haven't the gift for turning a memorable phrase that Luther does--so if you want a point of theology summed up in an unforgettable way, you go for Luther. (There's a reason why so many of us have Luther's "Table Talk" as a bathroom book.)
The man has content--incredibly GOOD content. He has insight into Scripture. And he has a way of making you see it, too--and never forget it. We have nobody to match him.
As for why we use the catechisms so much and so consistently, all these 500 years later--
First of all, see above for content and memorability. If you want a basic restatement of the Christian faith that won't put your students to sleep, the small catechism is well worth it--esp. if you get it without the extra commentary and explanations various publishers put in. And if you want Luther's OWN commentary on the Small Catechism, get the slightly larger Long Catechism and read what he has to say. I know I've gone back to his explanation of the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me," a zillion times. Luther explains this:
"What is the force of this, and how is it to be understood? What does it mean to have a god? or, what is God? Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.
Therefore it is the intent of this commandment to require true faith and trust of the heart which settles upon the only true God, and clings to Him alone. That is as much as to say: “See to it that you let Me alone be your God, and never seek another,” i.e.: Whatever you lack of good things, expect it of Me, and look to Me for it, and whenever you suffer misfortune and distress, creep and cling to Me. I, yes, I, will give you enough and help you out of every need; only let not your heart cleave to or rest in any other."
The man is a damned fine writer and preacher, and has a knack for getting his message across to the lowest and least of his audience--children, peasants, the simple-minded, whoever. And he is never boring.
@Lamb Chopped, for the sake of clarity I never intended to suggest that Lutherans or anyone else regard Luther as infallible or authoritative in the way that God or Scripture are authoritative. I do know better than that. My point was simply that it has always seemed to me that the place Luther holds in Lutheranism and the place Calvin holds in Calvinism/the Reformed tradition are somewhat different. Nothing more than that.
On a different aspect of all of this, is it worth noting the generational difference between Luther and Calvin? Luther lived from 1483-1546. Calvin lived from 1509-1564, so Calvin was 8 years old when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the chapel at Wittenberg. Henry VIII had pretty much made the break with Rome when Calvin was just starting out as a Reformer, but Calvin was going strong when English refugees arrived in Geneva during the reign of Mary I.
The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was to a certain degree allowed to go its own way,because from 1603 the king was not present in the country which led also to interminable bloody religious disputes.
The Kirk wasn't uniformly Presbyterian in this period, and the king was at least partly the driver of these disputes by enforcing Episcopal polity. James VI & I famously equated Presbyterianism with republicanism ("no bishop, no king"), and Charles' endorsement of the 1637 BCP was the lighting of the fuse of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was only after the Dutch invasion in 1689 that the Kirk was finally settled as Presbyterian, and the monarch largely backed off from it.
If my son were on this board, he and his wife could detail the similarities. and differences of Lutheranism and the Reformed since he is an ordained Lutheran minister and she is an ordained UCC minister. Someone else will have to take up that task.
I don’t know that I’m really up to the task either, but if someone is interested in looking a little more closely at areas of Lutheran–Reformed disagreement and agreement, and you don’t mind a little reading, A Formula of Agreement might be a good place to start. It’s the document by which the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ* and the Reformed Church in America** entered into full communion in 1997. This 11-page document in based on a much longer report entitled A Common Calling, and reflects discussions related and similar to those held elsewhere between Lutheran and Reformed bodies.
A Formula of Agreement describes two major points on which there has historically been division between Lutherans and the Reformed, both of which are reflected in this thread: the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper and “God’s Will to Save”, i.e., predestination.
* The United Church of Christ was formed in 1957 by a merger of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches (a denomination with Congregational/Puritan and Christian/Restorationist roots), the Evangelical and Reformed Church (with German Lutheran and Reformed roots) and the Afro-Christian Convention.
** The Reformed Church in America was originally named the Dutch Reformed Church in America.
Just a point of clarification, the ELCA in the US installs its bishops. I can't speak for the Canadian Lutherans. However, if you review the respective rites, they are the same.
To the issue of the level of respect Lutheran's have for Luther, I agree with Lamb Chopped. Luther definitely made his share of mistakes. It was only recently American Lutheran bodies repudiated his treatise against the Jews. The Nazis loved that one.
I would say Luther is best remembered for his basic approaches to doctrine. They offer a a prism from which Lutheran theology happens, but Lutheran theology did not end 500 years ago.
Basic Lutheran foundations include
sola scriptura; sola gratia, sola fide
law and gospel: the law condemns, the gospel gives grace (there are some variences among Lutherans about this)
Saint and Sinner,
The Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, and
Single predestination--Lamb Chopped had previously explained this.
A point about our liturgies. While the Anglican Church adheres to its canon law on the forms of worship as outlined in the Book of Common Prayer; Lutherans treat our worship forms as adiaphora, neither commanded nor forbidden, as long as they proclaim the gospel message.
You can find wide variances in Lutheran liturgies, though the basic outline follows the common Masse. You can find high church, with all the bells and smells, to plain low church brown bags (for lack of a better phrase)
Even the pericopes we use can be different. Most use the RCL, which is like the Episcopalian and Reformed pericopes, but we are not tied to them. My congregation uses the Narrative Lectionary (Sample here) which samples the Biblical narrative in a year's time. Other Lutherans follow other lectionaries as well.
@Lamb Chopped - I confess to being puzzled by your claim that Henry VIII wanted Luther to sanction his divorce.
On what grounds, on what authority and when?
I'm not saying you are wrong but it's the first I've heard of it.
Yes, Anne Boleyn was influenced by Lutheranism, as was Henry's last wife who survived him, Catherine Parr.
As has been said upthread, Henry received the title 'Defender of the Faith' from the Pope for fulminating at the writings of Luther.
He broke with Rome in order to get the divorce the Pope wouldn't grant him. I've heard it said that if he'd hung on a bit longer the Pope may have granted him one as it was under consideration.
Are we saying that Henry looked to Luther as some kind of anti-Papal authority figure with the power to grant him a divorce?
Did he correspond with Luther on this matter? I'd be intrigued and interested if he did. I must look that up.
Henry certainly remained very Catholic in his views but there is evidence of him moving towards a more 'Lutheran' position towards the end of his life, presumably under his wife's influence.
At any rate, as @Enoch says, after the early days of the English Reformation, when Thomas Cromwell, Cranmer Anne Boleyn and many ordinary people were influenced by Luther, we find Lutheran influence waning almost entirely from the 1550s. Calvin and Zwingli became far more influential on the Protestant scene in these islands.
Any influence later Lutheran pietism had on evangelical movements here was at one or two steps removed - which isn't to say there was no influence whatsoever. What it is to say is that the influence was more diffuse or channelled through other groups such as the Moravians - who whilst not formally Lutheran did seem to imbibe elements of Lutheran pietism.
Henry VIII circulated the various universities and scholars of Europe, basically hoping they would give him some backing in his struggle with the church. As I recall he didn't have much luck. You know the kind of thing where, if your one parent says "No," you go asking the other parent in the hopes that they'll say "Yes"? Like that. Dumb.
It's true that the post Reformation Church of Scotland remained in a sense with episcopal governance after the Reformation and with only a few breaks until the final expulsion of the bishops from any role in the state church as well as expulsion from the Scottish Parliament.
Had the king actually been in Scotland after 1603 it is more than possible that he would have asserted his views more forcefully and moulded the Church of Scotland more into line with his thinking.
I say 'in a sense with episcopal governance' although the bishops were really the king's men with seats in parliament to advance the king's positions ( and to collect their emoluments.)
Even the pericopes we use can be different. Most use the RCL, which is like the Episcopalian and Reformed pericopes, but we are not tied to them. My congregation uses the Narrative Lectionary (Sample here) which samples the Biblical narrative in a year's time. Other Lutherans follow other lectionaries as well.
Reformed churches and ministers are not tied to lectionaries either. In Reformed churches, it is firmly within the authority of the preacher to choose the Scripture passages to be read and preached on. Many if not most (at least in the PC(USA), whose practice I’m most familiar with) follow the Revised Common Lectionary, but some follow other lectionaries, and some follow no lectionary at all. Some use lectio continua—starting at the beginning of a book and reading straight through it week-by-week. And even those who generally do follow a lectionary will deviate from it on occasion.
James VI of Scotland, 1st of England, does certainly seem to have lost interest in his northern kingdom with indecent haste.
I'm sure you are right, Forthview, that he would have tried to mould ecclesial developments in Scotland according to his own views had he shown the slightest interest in the place after 1603.
As an aside, it's sometimes been suggested that had Lancelot Andrewes lived and become Archbishop of Canterbury rather than Laud then the Civil Wars / Wars of The Three Kingdoms (whatever you want to call them) would not have taken place.
I suppose this must remain one of the great what-ifs of history just as what would have happened had the Pope granted Henry VIII a divorce.
But forgive me ... we are getting away from Lutheranism again.
It's long struck me as remarkable that a Christian tradition that is so close in many respects to the Established Church in England should be so unfamiliar to Christians in these islands.
Sure, there's the language barrier but that doesn't apply to US Lutherans or Anglophone Lutherans in other parts of the world.
It seems to have been the result of different geo-political trajectories rather than theology or praxis per se.
As for "why Luther and not someone else"--well, the truth is, we don't have anyone else who comes up to his level in terms of sheer value of what he says and utter quotability.
The man has content--incredibly GOOD content. He has insight into Scripture. And he has a way of making you see it, too--and never forget it. We have nobody to match him.
And it doesn't require much more to make the difference. Luther had a rare talent as a communicator, and by comparison The Institutes are a solid piece of theological work that isn't particularly quotable. Each branch of Christianity evolved over the centuries through eras where the faithful have spotty access to both literacy and literature. If Calvin or another Reformer had written as evocatively I'm sure things could have gone differently.
[The closest analogue might be the influence of the BCP and the KJV on the English language. ]
You are right @Nick Tamen, it is up to the teaching elder (minister) to determine the readings for the day in the Reformed Church; however, over time it has been my experience most Reformed Churches have moved to the RCL. Onr minister explained he liked it because it is one less thing to work through. He said it also forced him to preach on topics he would rather avoid, and he liked being able to preach on a scripture lesson he knew other denominations are using on the same day.
I've come across some Baptists who say the same or similar.
I remember a very impressive United Reformed minister who told me she always liked participating in the local Anglican services as part of a 'pulpit-sharing' scheme across the churches near her.
I've come across some Baptists who say the same or similar.
I remember a very impressive United Reformed minister who told me she always liked participating in the local Anglican services as part of a 'pulpit-sharing' scheme across the churches near her.
There was a lot less preparation involved.
Conversely my (CofE priest) dad found it a bit of a shock when doing a pulpit swap with a nearby non-conformist minister that the latter church expected him to prepare the whole service and not just the sermon (which is what he understood by "pulpit").
As @chrisstiles has noted, Luther was an exceptional writer and communicator, moving from schooling in the Latin of medieval scholasticism to the directness and energy of the German vernacular. It's almost impossible IMO to read Luther without being drawn into his arguments or wanting to read more.
Oddly, I came to read Luther via ecumenical Catholic studies because of debates around Karl Barth in South Africa, a major influence used by South African Christians to decry the state-church alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church and its biblical defence of apartheid. For many Protestant theologians in South Africa, Barth's negative dialectics and non analogia entis (the inadequacy of human analogies to account for the reality of God along with efforts to claim God for political and social agendas ). Both Protestants and progressive Catholics began looking at Chicago theologian David Tracy's The Analogical Imagination, to understand what could be affirmed by analogy.
Tracy would look back to the depth and brilliance of Luther in his theology of the Cross and the Hidden God, a respect for what cannot be said of mystery but holding a stance that stops short of the apophatic, which deals only with the utter incomprehensibility of God (I found something of this in certain points made by @Lamb Chopped and @Nick Tamen). We need to affirm credal truths and yet acknowledge they are insufficient in themselves, not just because of context or historical events, but because the reality of God is always both revealed and hidden: revealed in negativity, suffering, abjection, and abandonment, in the cross of Jesus Christ that paradoxically manifests God’s loving promise of forgiveness. What God has chosen to not disclose or to hide from us is what cannot be said by us. The key text from Luther is found in his De servo arbitrio:
“We must discuss God, or the will of God, preached, revealed, offered to us, and worshipped by us, in one way, and God not preached, nor revealed, nor offered to us, nor worshipped by us, in another way. Wherever God hides Himself, and wills to be unknown to us, there we have no concern.”
Luther wrote the Letter to the Christian Nobility in reaction to a peasant revolt which was developing into a civil war between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. His solution was to have the local churches adhere to the faith of the local prince.
We must be thinking of different texts.
To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, written in 1520, is Luther's first response to the Disputation of Leibzig, and the break with Rome. In it he argues that control of the church resides with the whole people rather than with just a clerical class subject to the Pope. In practice Luther knew that outside independent cities that meant he was giving control of the church to the secular rulers.
The early centres of the Reformed tradition were in independent cities, Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva, which meant that the Reformed tradition was rather less respectful of monarchical government from the start.
Again, this is historically rich and fascinating, a perfect backdrop to the Kierkegaard thread. And like it says nothing about God as He would be and Christianity as it should be.
This understanding is reflected in the phrase used as something of a motto by many Reformed and Presbyterian churches: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei—“the church reformed, always being reformed/to be reformed according to the Word of God.” <snip> For more on the PC(USA)’s take on the phrase, see here.
Good article, thanks for sharing it. I particularly appreciated the commentary on the passive construction of 'reformata' and 'reformanda' - the church being reformed by God, not reforming itself. The church is the object of God's reformation.
I am definitely tucking that observation away for Reformation Day, which can sometimes descend into a festival of self-congratulating.
This understanding is reflected in the phrase used as something of a motto by many Reformed and Presbyterian churches: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei—“the church reformed, always being reformed/to be reformed according to the Word of God.” <snip> For more on the PC(USA)’s take on the phrase, see here.
Good article, thanks for sharing it. I particularly appreciated the commentary on the passive construction of 'reformata' and 'reformanda' - the church being reformed by God, not reforming itself. The church is the object of God's reformation.
I am definitely tucking that observation away for Reformation Day, which can sometimes descend into a festival of self-congratulating.
Glad you found it helpful. And yes, I’ve more than once heard or read warnings against translating the phrase as “the church reformed, always reforming.”
And yes, Reformation Day can descend into a festival or self-congratulation. (I like that phrase.). We do always* sing “A Mighty Fortress” on Reformation Day. We also always* sing “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art,” which is traditionally attributed to Calvin. I’d suggest you could sing it too, but alas, I’ve never seen in in a non-Reformed/non-Presbyterian hymnal. A pity, as it’s a great text to a great, sturdy Genevan psalm tune.
* Well, not this year. Because of circumstances beyond our control that affect Sunday morning for us, we’re doing All Saints on the last Sunday of October instead of the first Sunday of November.
Seriously, though, “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art” is pretty much the only hymn text attributed to Calvin, so if you don’t sing it, then you don’t sing Calvin. Much more likely to find Genevan or Scottish metrical psalms, like “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” in non-Reformed/non-Presbyterian hymnals.
Comments
Virtually all forms of the Church at the time of the Reformation were ,in effect, state churches,controlled by the king,irrespective of whether they were in or out of communion with the Roman Pontiff.
The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was to a certain degree allowed to go its own way,because from 1603 the king was not present in the country which led also to interminable bloody religious disputes.
@Gramps49 the very first Lutherans had a considerable influence on the very first formative stage of the CofE, when Protestant clergy took refuge on the Continent during the reign of Mary. It made a difference whether they went to Lutheran or Calvinist cities. Her reign was traumatic. However, it only lasted for 5 years, 1553-8. The exiles returned when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. I'm afraid the Lutheran influence in the CofE since has been minimal. The main tensions in the following century, which underlay many tensions thereafter, even to this day, were between Calvinists and those who thought the Calvinists were dogmatic and went too far.
Most denominational rows in England - not Scotland which is quite different - have been about authority, who can appoint clergy and what authority they have. People have different views on theology. They argue about them in home groups. However, the notion that the CofE, or any other ecclesiastical household should insists on agreement of all points of doctrine for fellowship, is really quite alien.
I think that’s part of it, to be sure. I’d posit that there are two other factors at play as well.
The first factor is that while Calvin is the most prominent of the early Reformed leaders—so much so that “Calvinist” and Reformed” are often treated as synonyms—he wasn’t the only one. To point to an obvious example, there was also Zwingli. And Zwingli and Calvin disagreed on some things, notably the meaning of the Lord’s Supper and Christ’s presence in it. While Calvin’s position became the position embraced by most Reformed bodies, Zwingli’s position didn’t die out. So from the start of the Reformed tradition, there were multiple voices that didn’t always agree.
The second factor is what, for want of a better term, I’ll call the Reformed ethos. Baked into the Reformed tradition is an acceptance, and perhaps even an expectation, that church people and church councils can get it wrong. As the Westminster Confession puts it: (I sometimes think that some of the more conservative Presbyterian bodies treat the work of the Westminster Assembly itself as if it is somehow exempt from this observation.)
What this means, in Reformed understanding, is that the church is pretty much always in need of reform, just as the people of Israel constantly needed to be called back to faithfulness. There’s kind of a sense that the church, being made up of people and people being sinners, always stands a good chance of screwing up, and we have to stay open to that possibility. This understanding is reflected in the phrase used as something of a motto by many Reformed and Presbyterian churches: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei—“the church reformed, always being reformed/to be reformed according to the Word of God.” (The secundum verbem Dei part is sometimes omitted when the phrase is quoted.) The origin of this phrase can be and is debated, but I think it’s pretty much accepted that its current popularity in parts of the Reformed world can be traced back to Karl Barth.
So, for example the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) says:
For more on the PC(USA)’s take on the phrase, see here.
What this can mean in practice is that there is something of a disincentive to treat Calvin, or anyone else, as the authority, and perhaps more permission to challenge Calvin. And to go back to an early point, this understanding is directly related to Reformed/Presbyterian understandings of and emphasis on polity.
Indeed, that was my point, although perhaps not very clearly made. If Moravians were only "a type of Lutheran" then there would be no need for a full communion agreement between their organization and a Lutheran one. AIUI a "full communion agreement" is made between organizations not usually identified as the same denomination.
First, re Lutheranism and the establishment of Anglicanism--It's my understanding based on wide reading during my doctorate (which was on English Renaissance literature) that quite a few people in England were flirting with Lutheranism at the time, whether for pure or mixed motives. Henry VIII of course wanted Luther to give him permission to get divorced, and was very pissed off when he got quite the opposite. I understand Ann Boleyn was Lutheran-ish, and various other folks in and out of power thought it would be a good idea... but of course that course was irremediably muddied once Luther pissed off Henry. Since there were other options in terms of reformers, well... You might look up Robert Barnes if you want a glimpse of an English Lutheran who was martyred at Smithfield.
Now, on how Lutherans tend to regard Luther:
Certainly we do not consider him infallible or authoritative in the sense that Scripture is. We see that Luther is a sinner (God knows!) and also a man of his time, and while we take him every bit as seriously as you would the person who stands at the headstream of your particular branch of Christianity, we take him no more seriously than that. As for "why Luther and not someone else"--well, the truth is, we don't have anyone else who comes up to his level in terms of sheer value of what he says and utter quotability. I mean, we have Chemnitz and Melanchthon and those like them, but they are working either as apologists or systematizers or both, and they haven't the gift for turning a memorable phrase that Luther does--so if you want a point of theology summed up in an unforgettable way, you go for Luther. (There's a reason why so many of us have Luther's "Table Talk" as a bathroom book.)
The man has content--incredibly GOOD content. He has insight into Scripture. And he has a way of making you see it, too--and never forget it. We have nobody to match him.
As for why we use the catechisms so much and so consistently, all these 500 years later--
First of all, see above for content and memorability. If you want a basic restatement of the Christian faith that won't put your students to sleep, the small catechism is well worth it--esp. if you get it without the extra commentary and explanations various publishers put in. And if you want Luther's OWN commentary on the Small Catechism, get the slightly larger Long Catechism and read what he has to say. I know I've gone back to his explanation of the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me," a zillion times. Luther explains this:
The man is a damned fine writer and preacher, and has a knack for getting his message across to the lowest and least of his audience--children, peasants, the simple-minded, whoever. And he is never boring.
On a different aspect of all of this, is it worth noting the generational difference between Luther and Calvin? Luther lived from 1483-1546. Calvin lived from 1509-1564, so Calvin was 8 years old when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the chapel at Wittenberg. Henry VIII had pretty much made the break with Rome when Calvin was just starting out as a Reformer, but Calvin was going strong when English refugees arrived in Geneva during the reign of Mary I.
The Kirk wasn't uniformly Presbyterian in this period, and the king was at least partly the driver of these disputes by enforcing Episcopal polity. James VI & I famously equated Presbyterianism with republicanism ("no bishop, no king"), and Charles' endorsement of the 1637 BCP was the lighting of the fuse of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was only after the Dutch invasion in 1689 that the Kirk was finally settled as Presbyterian, and the monarch largely backed off from it.
A Formula of Agreement describes two major points on which there has historically been division between Lutherans and the Reformed, both of which are reflected in this thread: the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper and “God’s Will to Save”, i.e., predestination.
* The United Church of Christ was formed in 1957 by a merger of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches (a denomination with Congregational/Puritan and Christian/Restorationist roots), the Evangelical and Reformed Church (with German Lutheran and Reformed roots) and the Afro-Christian Convention.
** The Reformed Church in America was originally named the Dutch Reformed Church in America.
Just a point of clarification, the ELCA in the US installs its bishops. I can't speak for the Canadian Lutherans. However, if you review the respective rites, they are the same.
To the issue of the level of respect Lutheran's have for Luther, I agree with Lamb Chopped. Luther definitely made his share of mistakes. It was only recently American Lutheran bodies repudiated his treatise against the Jews. The Nazis loved that one.
I would say Luther is best remembered for his basic approaches to doctrine. They offer a a prism from which Lutheran theology happens, but Lutheran theology did not end 500 years ago.
Basic Lutheran foundations include
A point about our liturgies. While the Anglican Church adheres to its canon law on the forms of worship as outlined in the Book of Common Prayer; Lutherans treat our worship forms as adiaphora, neither commanded nor forbidden, as long as they proclaim the gospel message.
You can find wide variances in Lutheran liturgies, though the basic outline follows the common Masse. You can find high church, with all the bells and smells, to plain low church brown bags (for lack of a better phrase)
Even the pericopes we use can be different. Most use the RCL, which is like the Episcopalian and Reformed pericopes, but we are not tied to them. My congregation uses the Narrative Lectionary (Sample here) which samples the Biblical narrative in a year's time. Other Lutherans follow other lectionaries as well.
On what grounds, on what authority and when?
I'm not saying you are wrong but it's the first I've heard of it.
Yes, Anne Boleyn was influenced by Lutheranism, as was Henry's last wife who survived him, Catherine Parr.
As has been said upthread, Henry received the title 'Defender of the Faith' from the Pope for fulminating at the writings of Luther.
He broke with Rome in order to get the divorce the Pope wouldn't grant him. I've heard it said that if he'd hung on a bit longer the Pope may have granted him one as it was under consideration.
Are we saying that Henry looked to Luther as some kind of anti-Papal authority figure with the power to grant him a divorce?
Did he correspond with Luther on this matter? I'd be intrigued and interested if he did. I must look that up.
Henry certainly remained very Catholic in his views but there is evidence of him moving towards a more 'Lutheran' position towards the end of his life, presumably under his wife's influence.
At any rate, as @Enoch says, after the early days of the English Reformation, when Thomas Cromwell, Cranmer Anne Boleyn and many ordinary people were influenced by Luther, we find Lutheran influence waning almost entirely from the 1550s. Calvin and Zwingli became far more influential on the Protestant scene in these islands.
Any influence later Lutheran pietism had on evangelical movements here was at one or two steps removed - which isn't to say there was no influence whatsoever. What it is to say is that the influence was more diffuse or channelled through other groups such as the Moravians - who whilst not formally Lutheran did seem to imbibe elements of Lutheran pietism.
Yes, that makes sense. Thanks.
Had the king actually been in Scotland after 1603 it is more than possible that he would have asserted his views more forcefully and moulded the Church of Scotland more into line with his thinking.
I say 'in a sense with episcopal governance' although the bishops were really the king's men with seats in parliament to advance the king's positions ( and to collect their emoluments.)
I'm sure you are right, Forthview, that he would have tried to mould ecclesial developments in Scotland according to his own views had he shown the slightest interest in the place after 1603.
As an aside, it's sometimes been suggested that had Lancelot Andrewes lived and become Archbishop of Canterbury rather than Laud then the Civil Wars / Wars of The Three Kingdoms (whatever you want to call them) would not have taken place.
I suppose this must remain one of the great what-ifs of history just as what would have happened had the Pope granted Henry VIII a divorce.
But forgive me ... we are getting away from Lutheranism again.
It's long struck me as remarkable that a Christian tradition that is so close in many respects to the Established Church in England should be so unfamiliar to Christians in these islands.
Sure, there's the language barrier but that doesn't apply to US Lutherans or Anglophone Lutherans in other parts of the world.
It seems to have been the result of different geo-political trajectories rather than theology or praxis per se.
And it doesn't require much more to make the difference. Luther had a rare talent as a communicator, and by comparison The Institutes are a solid piece of theological work that isn't particularly quotable. Each branch of Christianity evolved over the centuries through eras where the faithful have spotty access to both literacy and literature. If Calvin or another Reformer had written as evocatively I'm sure things could have gone differently.
[The closest analogue might be the influence of the BCP and the KJV on the English language. ]
I remember a very impressive United Reformed minister who told me she always liked participating in the local Anglican services as part of a 'pulpit-sharing' scheme across the churches near her.
There was a lot less preparation involved.
Conversely my (CofE priest) dad found it a bit of a shock when doing a pulpit swap with a nearby non-conformist minister that the latter church expected him to prepare the whole service and not just the sermon (which is what he understood by "pulpit").
Oddly, I came to read Luther via ecumenical Catholic studies because of debates around Karl Barth in South Africa, a major influence used by South African Christians to decry the state-church alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church and its biblical defence of apartheid. For many Protestant theologians in South Africa, Barth's negative dialectics and non analogia entis (the inadequacy of human analogies to account for the reality of God along with efforts to claim God for political and social agendas ). Both Protestants and progressive Catholics began looking at Chicago theologian David Tracy's The Analogical Imagination, to understand what could be affirmed by analogy.
Tracy would look back to the depth and brilliance of Luther in his theology of the Cross and the Hidden God, a respect for what cannot be said of mystery but holding a stance that stops short of the apophatic, which deals only with the utter incomprehensibility of God (I found something of this in certain points made by @Lamb Chopped and @Nick Tamen). We need to affirm credal truths and yet acknowledge they are insufficient in themselves, not just because of context or historical events, but because the reality of God is always both revealed and hidden: revealed in negativity, suffering, abjection, and abandonment, in the cross of Jesus Christ that paradoxically manifests God’s loving promise of forgiveness. What God has chosen to not disclose or to hide from us is what cannot be said by us. The key text from Luther is found in his De servo arbitrio:
“We must discuss God, or the will of God, preached, revealed, offered to us, and worshipped by us, in one way, and God not preached, nor revealed, nor offered to us, nor worshipped by us, in another way. Wherever God hides Himself, and wills to be unknown to us, there we have no concern.”
To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, written in 1520, is Luther's first response to the Disputation of Leibzig, and the break with Rome. In it he argues that control of the church resides with the whole people rather than with just a clerical class subject to the Pope. In practice Luther knew that outside independent cities that meant he was giving control of the church to the secular rulers.
The early centres of the Reformed tradition were in independent cities, Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva, which meant that the Reformed tradition was rather less respectful of monarchical government from the start.
Good article, thanks for sharing it. I particularly appreciated the commentary on the passive construction of 'reformata' and 'reformanda' - the church being reformed by God, not reforming itself. The church is the object of God's reformation.
I am definitely tucking that observation away for Reformation Day, which can sometimes descend into a festival of self-congratulating.
And yes, Reformation Day can descend into a festival or self-congratulation. (I like that phrase.). We do always* sing “A Mighty Fortress” on Reformation Day. We also always* sing “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art,” which is traditionally attributed to Calvin. I’d suggest you could sing it too, but alas, I’ve never seen in in a non-Reformed/non-Presbyterian hymnal. A pity, as it’s a great text to a great, sturdy Genevan psalm tune.
* Well, not this year. Because of circumstances beyond our control that affect Sunday morning for us, we’re doing All Saints on the last Sunday of October instead of the first Sunday of November.
Seriously, though, “I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art” is pretty much the only hymn text attributed to Calvin, so if you don’t sing it, then you don’t sing Calvin. Much more likely to find Genevan or Scottish metrical psalms, like “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” in non-Reformed/non-Presbyterian hymnals.