To confess

Lutheran, The, Jul 2003 by Lull, Timothy F

Testifying to our faith amid resistance has made Lutheranism resilient

For months we've explored one part of the Lutheran attic-the great theological concepts like justification and Christian freedom for which our tradition is famous. But if you step across the hall in the imaginary house of Lutheranism, you enter a different room. There we discover that the Reformation wasn't just about ideas and the mind. Part of the resilience of this tradition is that it has a whole set of verbs-action strategies for how to be the church in God's world.

The first of these verbs is "to confess." You likely want to complete the phrase with the words "to confess ... our sins." That is an important Lutheran activity. We don't live under an illusion that human beings are problem free. We need confession and absolution. But the meaning I explore here is "to confess ... one's faith."

On one level this is a common Christian practice. We recite the basic Christian story as we confess the Apostles' or Nicene creeds at Sunday worship. But we find the origins of confessing in the experience of the early Christians who were taking their stand with a new religious movement not authorized by the Roman Empire.

Peter, Paul and most of the other apostles were martyrs. They not only died for the faith but witnessed to it by refusing to renounce it even on threat of death. These men and women were the first Christian confessors. They are our forbearers in the faith whenever we take our active stand with the Christian community.

During the Reformation, confession of faith became particularly necessary-not in the face of persecuting Roman emperors but of certain officials of the Roman Catholic Church who wouldn't tolerate what they saw as a dangerous new religious movement.

Martin Luther's followers considered themselves loyal Christians who were holding to the ancient teachings on Christ, grace and faith. Luther's brave "Here I stand" confession before Emperor Charles V had to be repeated in varying contexts and by different people over the next few decades as the pressures to "return to Rome" continued. The first Lutheran martyrs were Augustinians Henry Vos and John van den Esschen, who were burned at the stake in Brussels July 1, 1523, by Charles' agents.

Many of these confessors were theologians. Their writings-along with the ancient creeds of the church catholic-make up the Book of Concord, the official confessions of the Lutheran church (Fortress Press, 1959). Such witnessing was not just an academic enterprise. Local pastors, town councils, princes and ordinary Christians often had to make a choice to side with the Reformation and against "the way we've always done it." This was sometimes costly-loss of privilege, banishment or even death. Along with Luther and his colleague Philip Melanchthon, these men and women are our forbearers in the practice of confessing the faith.

In our society, the peril of being a confessor seems small in comparison to the risks taken by early Christians, in the Reformation period, or in parts of the world today where Christians experience persecution. But confessing remains a central missional practice of the church.

Today men and women are drawn to the church by the testimony, courage and integrity of ordinary Christians who give an account of their faith. This is especially inspiring and highly credible to those on the outside looking in.

Being a Lutheran Christian today is perhaps a riskier matter than we think. Our understanding of grace and freedom, Jesus' teachings on possessions or violence, and the hope beyond death that Christians hold, all set us against many of our society's principalities and powers.

Our society often admires religion so long as it is private and uncontroversial, which isn't faithful Christianity. Theologian Douglas John Hall wrote that we become confessors today when "we are thrust into an active engagement with that which threatens the life of our world" (Confessing the Faith; Fortress Press, 1998).

The paths of discipleship inevitably lead us to those places where our neighbors are in need, where we likely have to learn again what it means "to confess."

Timothy F. Lull was president of Pacific Lutheran Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., until his death May 20 (see pages 52 and 58). This is the ninth in what was to have been a 14-part series, "The Resilience of Lutheranism," that Tim had not completed. For the final columns, five authors will reflect on some of Tim's hopes for the church of the future.