Crisis in Lutheran Theology, Vol. 3: The Validity and Relevance of Historic Lutheranism vs. Its Contemporary Rivals

By John Warwick Montgomery

All Three volumes deal with the issue of biblical inerrancy (that the Bible is completely true and accurate, not only when it speaks to ideas of religious belief, but also when it speaks about factual elements of history and science, properly understood). This issue rocked the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, prompting the release of the first two volumes.

Volume one consists of essays by John Warwick Montgomery himself, and is addressed primarily to theologians.

Volume two consists of an anthology by eight separate Lutheran contributors and is addressed to laymen as well as professional theologians.

Volume 3 contains new, never before published material and consists of essays by Dr. Montgomery outlining a new challenge along the same lines. Dr. Jeffery Kloha suggested a few years ago with the latest critical edition of the New Testament (Nestle-Aland 28th Edition), because of the interchangeability of some variant readings, that we now had a "plastic text". Dr. Montgomery goes up against this assertion with everything he has. Though obviously addressing themselves primarily to Lutheranism, the materials are, to a large degree, equally applicable to many of the other Christian communions and will be found to be extremely valuable in assessing the needs of a variety of denominations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 1517 Publishing
• Release date: Jun 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781945978913

Book preview

Crisis in Lutheran Theology: The Validity and Relevance of Historic Lutheranism vs. Its Contemporary Rivals. Volume 3: Essays by John Warwick Montgomery on the Heritage of the Reformation and the Kloha Catastrophe

© 2017 John Warwick Montgomery

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

Published by:

New Reformation Publications

PO Box 54032

Irvine, CA 92619-4032

Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Names: Montgomery, John Warwick, author. | Preus, Jacob A. O. (Jacob Aall Ottesen), 1920–1994, writer of supplementary textual content.

Title: Crisis in Lutheran theology : the validity and relevance of historic Lutheranism vs. its contemporary rivals / [written and edited] by John Warwick Montgomery ; with a preface by Dr. J.A.O. Preus, President, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Description: V. 1 & 2 [3rd edition]. | V. 3 [1st edition, revised]. | Irvine, California : NRP Books, an imprint of 1517 the Legacy Project, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: Volume I. Essays / by John Warwick Montgomery—volume II. An anthology / edited by John Warwick Montgomery—volume III. Reformation 2017 and the Kloah Catastrophe : essays / by John Warwick Montgomery.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781945978616 (3 volume set) | ISBN 9781945978319 (hardcover: v.I) | ISBN 9781945978333 (hardcover: v.II) | ISBN 9781945978593 (hardcover: v.III, 1st ed.) | ISBN 9781945978326 (softcover: v.I) | ISBN 9781945978340 (softcover: v.II) | ISBN 9781945978906 (softcover: v.III) | ISBN 9781945978586 (softcover: v.III, 1st ed.) | ISBN 9781945500305 (ebook: v.I) | ISBN 9781945500756 (ebook: v.II) | ISBN 9781945978913 (ebook: v.III) | ISBN 9781945978609 (ebook: v.III, 1st. ed.)

Subjects: LCSH: Lutheran Church—Doctrines—History. | Theology, Doctrinal—History—20th century. | Theology, Doctrinal—History—21st century.

Classification: LCC BX8065.2 .M6 2017 (print) | LCC BX8065.2 (ebook) | DDC 230/.41—dc23

NRP Books, an imprint of New Reformation Publications, is committed to packaging and promoting the finest content for fueling a new Lutheran Reformation. We promote the defense of the Christian faith, confessional Lutheran theology, vocation and civil courage.

Introduction

The eminent church historian Winthrop S. Hudson concludes his Chicago History of American Civilization volume on American Protestantism (1961) with high praise for Lutheranism and bright hope for its future:

The Lutheran churches . . . exhibited an ability to grow during the post-World War II years, with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod making the greatest gains. The Lutheran churches are in the fortunate position of having been, in varying degrees, insulated from American life for a long period of time. As a result they have been less subject to the theological erosion which so largely stripped other denominations of an awareness of their continuity with a historic Christian tradition. Thus the resources of the Christian past have been more readily available to them, and this fact suggests that they may have an increasingly important role in a Protestant recovery. Among the assets immediately at hand among the Lutherans are a confessional tradition, a surviving liturgical structure, and a sense of community which, however much it may be the product of cultural factors, may make it easier for them than for most Protestant denominations to recover the integrity of church membership without which Protestants are ill-equipped to participate effectively in the dialogue of a pluralistic society.

Professor Hudson’s analysis is sound and his prediction is well grounded; yet there are disquieting indications that the future of American Lutheranism may fall far short of his expectations. Why? His argument is based squarely on the consideration that, unlike other denominations, the Lutheran Church has been less subject to theological erosion and has therefore been able to retain the resources of the Christian past. But the last decade has made painfully clear to all who have not worn the colored glasses of naïveté that the Lutheran churches in America—the Missouri Synod included—are now experiencing the very theological erosion which, as Hudson correctly notes, produces ecclesiastical deadness and irrelevance.

The essays in the two volumes of Crisis in Lutheran Theology endeavor to point up the extreme peril of the current theological situation. A conscious effort has been made to include not only papers directed to professional theologians but also essays that laymen untrained in theology will readily comprehend. (In general, the essays in Part One of each volume are orientated to the theologically sophisticated, and those in Part Two are suitable for lay study.) All who contribute to these volumes look with wonder and with thanksgiving to the Lutheran heritage that has provided so clear a testimony to Christ and to His inerrant Word; and every contributor prays the Lord of the Church that these volumes, published in the 450th anniversary year of the Reformation, may rouse sleeping churches from their torpor and drive them to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.

Charles Porterfield Krauth, who fought and won a not dissimilar battle a century ago, speaks directly to us today in his Conservative Reformation and Its Theology; may we have the ears to hear him:

Had a war of three hundred years been necessary to sustain the Reformation, we now know the Reformation would ultimately have repaid all the sacrifices it demanded. Had our fathers surrendered the truth, even under that pressure to which ours is but a feather, how we would have cursed their memory, as we contrasted what we were with what we might have been.

And shall we despond, draw back, and give our names to the reproach of generations to come, because the burden of the hour seems to us heavy? God, in His mercy, forbid! If all others are ready to yield to despondency, and abandon the struggle, we, children of the Reformation, dare not. That struggle has taught two lessons, which must never be forgotten. One is, that the true and the good must be secured at any price. They are beyond all price. We dare not compute their cost. They are the soul of our being, and the whole world is as dust in the balance against them. No matter what is to be paid for them, we must not hesitate to lay down their redemption price. The other grand lesson is, that their price is never paid in vain. What we give can never be lost, unless we give too little. . . . If we maintain the pure Word inflexibly at every cost . . . we shall conquer . . . through the Word; but to compromise on a single point, is to lose all, and to be lost.

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY

15 January 1967:

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

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• • •

Continued high interest in the Crisis volumes, as evidenced by their five printings over a six-year period, has dictated a second edition, with the opportunity to correct minor errors and to include additional essays bearing on the latest aspects of the struggle for a faithful Lutheran confessionalism.

Non-Lutherans who chance upon these volumes should not find themselves in alien territory. Since the work was first published, it has been of considerable service to Christians in many communions (such as the Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic) where deterioration of historic Christian doctrine has paralleled the Lutheran problem on which these volumes especially focus. In actuality, the Crisis volumes do not deal narrowly with a crisis in Lutheran theology but with the general crisis in biblical and doctrinal authority which has become so endemic in the modern church.

This new edition thus goes forth to serve all those Christian believers who can pray the magnificent words of Duke Henry’s Saxon Order of 1539: O Lord God, heavenly Father, pour out, we beseech Thee, Thy Holy Spirit upon Thy faithful people, keep them steadfast in Thy grace and truth, protect and comfort them in all temptation, defend them against all enemies of Thy Word, and bestow upon Christ’s church militant Thy saving peace.

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY

6 January 1973:

The Epiphany of Our Lord

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• • •

Does history repeat itself, as the ancients taught? Not in an ultimate way, for the history of a fallen race will finally end in the glory of our Lord’s return. But in lesser ways, there is certainly repetition. As George Santayana wisely put it, Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

In the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod of the 1960s and 1970s, the issue for biblical inerrancy was the so-called higher criticism; this book dealt with that problem in depth, offering help to all Christian churches faced with the same problem. Now, in that same conservative church body, the inerrancy of Holy Scripture is threatened by an unfortunate philosophy of lower or textual criticism; this third edition of Crisis in Lutheran Theology includes new material dealing with that sophisticated, contemporaneous technique capable of undermining total