Confessing the Gospel: A Lutheran Approach to Systematic Theology ed. by Samuel H. Nafzger (review)

This work is designed to serve as a reliable orthodox supplement to Francis Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, the standard resource for teaching doctrine in the seminaries of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), now almost a century old. The advantage of the Pieper opus is that it provides a common vocabulary, grammar, and syntax for LCMS leaders. The disadvantage to Pieper is that he is not abreast of the many new schools of thought which have developed in theology in the last century. This two-volume dogmatics seeks to bridge that gap. It was originally planned in 1983 and has twenty-three primary contributors, several of whom are now deceased. One might think that this would produce a patchwork approach to theology, lacking continuity. But that is significantly not the case. Most likely, this is due to the fact that all the authors are seeking neither novelty nor conformity to trends in the American Academy of Religion, but instead have a common loyalty to the LCMS theological heritage. The loci surveyed include prolegomena, God, creation, anthropology, the person and work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, Holy Scripture, Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the church, the ministry, Christian life, eschatology, and election.

This dogmatics offers a "building-block approach" to theology. It presents the scriptural foundation (a survey of the relevant biblical texts for each topic [xxix]), the Book of Concord's discussion of the topic, a "systematic formulation" which seeks to bring "together the biblical and confessional data in an organized" and normative way, historical and contemporary developments which evaluate how various thinkers have dealt with the topic throughout the church's history, and the implications of each loci for life and ministry indicating how the topic bears on the proclamation of the gospel at the beginning of the twenty-first century. More than proof-texting, a building block approach teaches students that good theology takes the biblical, historical, and confessional witness and processes them, weighing and sifting various voices and trends responsive to them, and evaluating them in order to offer an "intelligent and winsome articulation" of the gospel (2).

The title, and thus the mission of the book, has deep roots in the LCMS heritage. The LCMS was the only group of immigrants from Lutheran lands to this country who came for purely religious reasons. The core group of German immigrants forming the LCMS came to this country in protest of the imposed union between Lutherans and Reformed Protestants in Prussia. As soon as they reached their settlement in Perry County, Missouri, Martin Stephan, their "bishop," was discredited and dismissed. This led to confusion: without a bishop, did the colony constitute a church? Led by C. F. W. Walther in opposition to dissenting voices, these immigrants confessed at Altenburg, Missouri (April 1841) that their movement still constituted a church in spite of the downfall of their "bishop." In their judgment, their precedent had been that Luther had confessed his faith at Worms, and, additionally, the Augsburg Confession expressed the earliest confession of evangelical faith before Charles V and other nobles and churchmen. My hunch is that as North America becomes less churched and more secular, Christians will need to hone their skills in confessing the faith well.

Those who know the LCMS heritage will not find this book to be chock full of novelty. It offers a meat-and-potatoes approach to theology. It does a laudatory job in addressing contemporary trends in theology. The segments in each locus dealing with scripture and historical theology are consistently excellent. Not beholden to historical criticism, the exegetical sections are free to present how the rich symbolism of the Old Testament is re-shaped in the New. The Bible becomes its own ocean in which one can swim. When the Bible is accorded authority for the church's teaching, it becomes a powerful tool...