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4. The Search for a Paradigm
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4 The Search for a Paradigm Some Lutheran Efforts Five hundred years after the Reformation, Lutheranism faces an ethical challenge. Neither a peculiar moral conundrum that perplexes Lutheranism nor a particular denominational behavior or practice that invites charges of corporate immorality, this more fundamental challenge is simply that of finding a way to teach and encourage Christian ethics among its adherents. Unable to address the basic question of the place of ethics, the further concern of character formation is thus all but ignored. The accusation that Lutheran theology is incapable of engaging in the tasks of Christian ethics in any significant or meaningful way derives in part from academia, with Stanley Hauerwas serving as a singularly articulate representative voice. Yet, the charge is leveled not only by those looking in at Lutheranism; even Lutheran theologians admit the inadequacy of contemporary Lutheranism’s approach to the ethical endeavor.1 More importantly, perhaps, the indictment of ethical irrelevance is substantiated, albeit unintentionally, by Lutheran laity, who attest to the meager ethical resources of their own confession by their ready consumption of the ethical and practical guidance that other Christian traditions furnish.2 Some trace Lutheranism’s ethical difficulties—or perhaps deficiencies—directly to the Reformation, and conclude that Lutheran doctrine itself is at fault: the fundamental emphasis on justification by grace through faith alone is irreconcilably at odds with any notions of habituation, character formation, or ethical progress.3 The previous chapter investigating the Lutheran 1. See ch. 2 for four representative Lutheran voices. 2. This can be seen in the steady popularity, among Lutherans intent on living the Christian life, of literature and programming deriving from “evangelical” sources such as Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. 105 Confessions and their stance toward righteousness in the affairs of this world attempted to refute this charge, contending that a careful reading of the Confessions reveals not an antipathy to ethics, but—within the arena of Christian living—a keen interest in the ethical task. The evidence simply does not support the charge that Lutheran doctrine is inherently opposed or even merely poorly disposed to the promotion and development of Christian ethics. The Confessions, in fact, allow ample space for the application and practice of the vital and active sort of ethical agenda typical of virtue ethics and the deliberate formation of character. The Need for a Framework While the approval and even promotion of Christian ethics is not, as some may suppose, a concept or activity alien to the Lutheran confessions, it cannot be denied that it has yet to gain a secure footing in the practice of contemporary Lutheranism.4 The reason for this detachment and disparity between Lutheran confession and Lutheran practice has been the subject of assorted studies. Suggested culprits range from Enlightenment philosophy to over-zealous orthodoxy; and of course, there are those who yet insist that the problem is intrinsic to Lutheran doctrine itself.5 Fascinating as this question is, the issue 3. Gerald Strauss summarizes his research into educational efforts of early Lutheranism with an assertion that “fatal inner contradictions” doomed the success of the Lutheran efforts at pedagogy. “Preachers and catechists,” argues Strauss, “had to steer cautiously through the perilous theological narrows separating man’s fallen condition from the promise of his ultimate deliverance through no merit of his own.” Strauss concludes, then, that the reformers were “torn between their trust in the molding power of education and their admission that the alteration of men’s nature was a task beyond human strength.” See Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 208, 300. As noted in previous chapters, Hauerwas also seems to favor a version of this assessment, and Yeago and Hütter both recognize its manifestations in today’s Lutherans. 4. This is not to say that Lutheran seminaries do not teach courses on ethics or even theological ethics. They do. It is, rather, to say that too often questions of morality and Christian living are perceived or conveyed as somehow out of place or inappropriate for authentically Lutheran men and women to consider. Reinhard Hütter has labeled this tendency “Protestantism’s antinomian captivity.” For a thoughtful treatment of this problem, see Reinhard Hütter, “(Re-)Forming Freedom: Reflections ‘After Veritatis Splendor’ on Freedom’s Fate in Modernity and Protestantism’s Antinomian Captivity,” Modern Theology 17, no. 2 (April 2001): 117–61. 5. For a...