Theology 101

      When we look at the world of Christendom it is not hard to see that there are many splinters and fractures.  We typically call these divisions denominations.  Before the reformation, however, there were basically two churches in the world: the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox.  Since the reformation splits and more splits have occurred. 

      Of the Protestant denominations that developed after the Reformation and up to about 1800 most claimed to adhere to the truth of God’s Word alone and not man-made teachings or insertions.  This “Word alone” theology as the sole source and norm of what was acceptable to teach was considered quite radical when you compared it to the Catholic and Orthodox insistence on Word supplemented with sacred tradition.

      Since the Enlightenment, Christianity has split yet again, but along even more radical lines and often within the denominations themselves.  No longer are the divisions as simple as Protestant/Catholic or denominational.  Rather the division now comes along ideological lines.

      The two competing strains of Christianity still break down into those who adhere strictly to God’s Word and those who add to or subtract from God’s Word.  The technical terms for these two groups that make up Christianity today are Anthropocentric (man centered) and Christocentric  (Christ centered) Christianity.  They are polar opposites to one another primarily because they have two very different starting points.

      Anthropocentric Christianity is prevalent in North America and Western Europe. Its theology, rooted in 19th-century German liberalism and the social gospel of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, sets its starting point for understanding “theology” from the human perspective and asks for solutions to theological questions on this basis.

      Anthropocentric Christianity, for example, takes the problem of homosexuality and gay marriage and says, “If God is love (I John 4:16), then those who ‘love’ one another aren’t doing anything wrong and they must have an avenue by which they can ‘express’ their love even if that expression is outside of traditional understandings of marriage.”  What they are doing, however, is making God’s Word fit their desired solution to a problem rather than letting God’s Word simply provide the answer to the question on its own merits.

      The above example fails to take into consideration what John also says in his first Epistle when he makes it clear that the love of God is shown by keeping His Commandments (I John 5:1ff).  Further, God defines for us in great detail what Godly love truly is when He gives us the two tables of the Law and the command to love Him and to love our neighbor.  Scripture makes it abundantly clear that all sexual activity outside of God defined marriage is sinful - never is it acceptable.  Basically, marriage is the reason for sex, not ‘love’ as defined by man.

      Any sexuality outside of this model cannot be made acceptable by any human logic or reason without doing great violence to the Truth of God’s Word.  Many other problems in the church (even our Synod) stem from this corrupt “liberal” theology.  Gay marriage, women clergy, gay clergy, open communion, support of abortion rights, liberation theology and a whole host of other fad theologies have their root in anthropocentric thought.

      On the other hand, there is the Christ-centered orthodox theology that is thriving in Africa, Asia and South America and radiating from there into the our northern hemisphere like a new Reformation. It remains faithful to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian martyred by the Nazis, described as “the way of all Christian thinking, [leading] not from the world to God but from God to the world.” [emphasis added]

      As Bonhoeffer wrote in his prison cell, “The Church's word to the world can be no other than God's word to the world.” This means: no fads, no "isms," no accommodation to worldly ideologies or desires. Bonhoeffer,  made it clear that the “Word” to be preached is Jesus Christ and salvation in His name –– period.  Christ Himself even says so (Luke 24:46-47).

      It is from this Christocentric tradition that we Lutherans come from.  Christ centered theology is at the very heart of who we are and what our theological forefathers fought and died for.  And it is where we must remain today. 

      When a Lutheran pastor remains faithful to his ordination vows he is bound to preach God’s Word alone - not his personal opinions, views, or whims about what he “thinks” the Scriptures say.  We have a 500 year old tradition collected from some of the best theological minds the world has ever seen.  And I have yet to meet any singular pastor who can equal the depth and the breath of those collective minds.

      The Lutheran pastor is to preach and teach precisely what he has been taught (II Timothy 3:14ff) and the Lutheran layman is to hear it and accept it as the true Word of God (Hebrews 13:7).

      Without this strict adherence to God’s unchanging Word we become, at best, no better than the Romanists we fought against and, and at worst, no better than cults like the Mormans or Jehovah’s Witnesses who worship false christs and are thus idolators.  God’s Word begins and ends with Christ, not with you or me or any other man  (1 Cor. 1:18-25).