# Pelikan quote about Lutheran Church



## moral necessity (Jun 21, 2012)

Found this while searching an old PB thread from 2005:



"I was the Lutheran with the greatest knowledge of the Orthodox Church," Pelikan reportedly quipped, "and now I am the Orthodox with the greatest knowledge of Luther."

He is has also been quoted as saying, "When the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod became Baptist, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America became Methodist, I became Orthodox."

Presumably, his implication was that the former two denominations were on the verge of losing their doctrinal clarity.



How about his statement about the Missouri Synod becoming Baptist, and the ELCA becoming Methodist? Anyone know what supports these conclusions?

Blessings~


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 21, 2012)

Charles,

He was reflecting on the growth of broad evangelicalism within the LCMS. Composed of 3 million people, 10 times larger than the PCA, the LCMS is very broad. Confessionalists probably make up only a minority of LCMS congregations. 

The ELCA, the mainline Lutheran body, is, I guess, 5 million people and without any confessional witness to speak of. As Darryl Hart argues in _The Lost Soul of American Protestantism_, the path to liberalism isn't a straight line. It goes through broad evangelicalism--which is why people often misunderstand what's happening in the CRC but that's for another post--and is that to which Pelikan was referring re the ELCA becoming Methodist. In older Reformed and Lutheran circles, "Methodist" = [2nd Great Awakening] revivalist = evangelical. He might also have been referring to a certain Milquetoast quality associated with mainline Methodism (UMC) taken on by the ELCA, whereas the Orthodox arguably still believe their historic faith. 

I have no idea, however, how Pelikan squared his Lutheran roots with E. Orthodoxy's soteriology.


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## moral necessity (Jun 21, 2012)

Thank you, Dr. Clark! 

It sounds like the Lutherans have pretty much been dissolved away by evangelicalism. I wonder how many still study Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, or the writings of Walther, or how many churches remain confessional and theologically Luther?

I have no idea either how Pelikan handled his transition theologically, or if he even did. 

Blessings!


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## Gforce9 (Jun 21, 2012)

This is interesting.... and sad. I imagine someone like Dr. Rosenbladt sticks out like a sore thumb, even in the Missouri Synod.....


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## yeutter (Jun 21, 2012)

Like the Southern Baptist Convention, The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod went through the battle of the Bible in the 1970s. Those who held to the confessional view of Biblical inspiration initially won. Confessional Lutherans, J. A. O. Preuss II, & Robert Preuss, were on the verge of leading the Missouri Synod back to its historic confessional roots. 
Then the general evangelical, kind of Lutheran crowd that had stood with them on biblical inerrancy felt threatened. They ran Robert Preuss out of the Presidency of Concordia Seminary. 
Congregationalism is what you see in the Missouri Synod; some congregations using old historic liturgy some using liturgy that looks like Episcopal Church Rite 2, some great confessional congregations, some neo-pentecostal congregations, some general evangelical congregations, a few liberal congregations.
I can see why someone would make the comparison of the Missouri Synod with Baptists.


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## jwright82 (Jun 21, 2012)

Here is a paper on the struggle within LCMS.
http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/scaerlawgospeldebate.pdf

The LCMS that I breifly attended was confessional, I can't speak for anyother church.


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## yeutter (Jun 21, 2012)

The paper James referenced is excellent. The roots of the struggle go back much further then that. Many of the German and Scandinavian Lutheran immigrants to North America were confessional Lutherans, others were pietistic Lutherans, others were liberals. Many of the early leaders of both the Missouri and Wisconsin Synod were pietists. 
Some of the State Kirche in Germany were Lutheran and confessionally orthodox. Some were enlightenment and liberal. Some like the Prussian State Church and the Wuerttemberg State Church were mixed Lutheran and Reformed. All of these divisions persisted in the Lutheran bodies in North America. Their are more small schismatic Lutheran bodies in North America then their are micro presbyteries.


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 21, 2012)

It's odd that the Lutherans don't get tagged for their divisions the way the Reformed do. They've been called "invisible" that helps to explain it.


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## yeutter (Jun 21, 2012)

R. Scott Clark said:


> It's odd that the Lutherans don't get tagged for their divisions the way the Reformed do. They've been called "invisible" that helps to explain it.


Allow me to suggest a couple of partial explanations for why Lutherans are invisible and few people comment on the multitude of Lutheran divisions. 
1.) Lutherans differ from the Reformed on what a Christian social witness should be.
2.) Lutherans do not get hung up on questions of Church polity. Therefore their divisions tends to be less acrimonious. 
3.) Lutheran Churches tend to still be ethnic congregations that do not have much of a witness to the larger society.


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## J. Dean (Jun 22, 2012)

yeutter said:


> 1.) Lutherans differ from the Reformed on what a Christian social witness should be.


I don't necessarily agree with that. There have been plenty of Reformed I know whose view of bearing witness to others is in line with the Lutheran view (i.e., that of vocational bearing witness).


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## Rufus (Jun 22, 2012)

moral necessity said:


> It sounds like the Lutherans have pretty much been dissolved away by evangelicalism. I wonder how many still study Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, or the writings of Walther, or how many churches remain confessional and theologically Luther?



Confessional Lutherans seem to be growing, at least through the conversations I have had with (confessional) Lutherans, but finding out exactly how many Confessional churches there are is difficult*. The new/current President of the LCMS (Matthew Harrison) is a Confessionalist (which could indicate they are growing), the only Lutherans I talk to are Confessionalists. I see it as one of the few blessings of the Internet, that Lutherans are discovering Confessionalism via the Internet just as broad evangelicals are discovering Calvinism, Presbyterianism, etc. 

*Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

There are two North American denominations in the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, and that wouldn't include the confessional LCMS churches, ELDONA, etc. 




R. Scott Clark said:


> I have no idea, however, how Pelikan squared his Lutheran roots with E. Orthodoxy's soteriology.



Which I don't understand either. It seems that instead of trying to clean out the barn some people abandon the barn altogether. For instance people who realize how messed up broad evangelicalism is, and instead of working for reform, they go to Rome/the EO.


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## arapahoepark (Jun 22, 2012)

Rufus said:


> R. Scott Clark said:
> 
> 
> > I have no idea, however, how Pelikan squared his Lutheran roots with E. Orthodoxy's soteriology.
> ...



This is usually because of all the divisions and different interpretations whereas the RC and EO claim to their congregants that they are the 'one true church' so divisions rarely occur if at all. I guess it's a matter comfort to some, I suppose.


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## Supersillymanable (Jun 22, 2012)

I've asked this on another thread also, but I'd like to ask on this thread, as it seems more relevant... Do Lutheran's ever come across as confused to others here? As if they've heard the teachings of Calvinist, and also the teachings of Arminians/Semi-Pelagians, ending up trying to hold together Biblical truth and error? Just a feeling I sometimes get. No offence to our Lutheran brothers and all...


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## TylerRay (Jun 22, 2012)

R. Scott Clark said:


> I have no idea, however, how Pelikan squared his Lutheran roots with E. Orthodoxy's soteriology.



That's nothing! I know folks (former Presbyterians, now Roman Catholics) who maintain that Calvinism leads straight to Rome!


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## DMcFadden (Jun 22, 2012)

I hesitate to disagree with anything that Dr. Clark EVER says or writes. However, orthodoxy in the LCMS may be in better shape than implied. In the last national election in the LCMS the fellow who was caricatured as trying to put a Lutheran spin on broad evangelicalism was turned out of office in favor of Harrison, a staunch confessionalist with a scholarly rep.

Several insiders in the LCMS have reported to me that about 20% of the LCMS clergy could be characterized as missional (although many of them get pretty defensive about that term because they aver that they are just as confessional as anyone else, including inerrancy, non-egalitarian, anti-homosexual interpretations, etc.), 20% are stridently "confessional" in an almost "high church" sense, and 60% are in the middle.

I spoke with a current Ft. Wayne third year seminarian (he was my "helper" in VBS this week) and asked him how much theological latitude he saw in the LCMS. He said that there is 0 support for ordination of women, mediating views of inerrancy, or homosexuality at his seminary. Since Fort Wayne is one of the only two seminaries in the LCMS, I would suspect that orthodoxy may have a longer lease on life than some suspect in that branch of the church.


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 22, 2012)

I hope you're right Dennis!


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## DMcFadden (Jun 22, 2012)

Me too. However, LCMS is a fraction of the size of ELCA which is theologically everything you said it was!!! My Lutheran friends tell me that ELCA seminary classes are mostly dominated by female students and that most of them side with the pro-homosexual argument (seeing it as a hermeneutical necessity for maintaining their defense of egalitarianism). But, as in all mainline denoms, there are some outlier "conservative" congregations. I'm not sure how many of these would be characterized as confessional and how many would be broad evangelical. However, even if you added both of them together, they would be dwarfed by the "mainline" ethos.

Having done a half century of purgatory (at least as close as a Baptist could come to believing in that strange notion) in a mainline denom, there seems to be a common ethos among the mainlines that transcends the cultural differentiators separating them.


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## yeutter (Jun 24, 2012)

DMcFadden said:


> LCMS is a fraction of the size of ELCA which is theologically everything you said it was!!! But, as in all mainline denoms, there are some outlier "conservative" congregations. I'm not sure how many of these would be characterized as confessional and how many would be broad evangelical. However, even if you added both of them together, they would be dwarfed by the "mainline" ethos.


Missouri is a denomination of more then 2 million. That is small when compared to the ELCA but large when compared to the orthodox Reformed and Presbyterian denominations in North America. It is also large when compared with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) , the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Synod | Engaging you with Jesus , and the Church of the Lutheran Confession, the Church of the Lutheran Confession.


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## yeutter (Jun 24, 2012)

As Dennis notes their are conservatives, including confessional conservatives still in the ELCA. They may be there for many reasons, some good some bad. They may differ on some minor point of Doctrine from what John Theodore Mueller taught in *Christian Dogmatics*. That may be enough to keep them from going over to the LCMS, WELS, ELS, or CLC. They may be old guard liturgically and do not be comfortable with some of the liturgical innovations that have occurred in some of the conservative confessional denominations. Coupled with that they may be KJV or ASV or ESV guys and can not stomach the NIV usage in say WELS.
Dennis noted that he was encouraged with the future of the LCMS based on conversations he had had with seminarians from the Missouri Synod seminary in Fort Wayne. The Seminary in Fort Wayne has always had a reputation of being more confessional and conservative then Concordia Seminary in St Louis.


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## yeutter (Jun 29, 2012)

R. Scott Clark said:


> Charles,
> 
> He was reflecting on the growth of broad evangelicalism within the LCMS. Composed of 3 million people, 10 times larger than the PCA, the LCMS is very broad. Confessionalists probably make up only a minority of LCMS congregations.
> 
> The ELCA, the mainline Lutheran body, is, I guess, 5 million people and without any confessional witness to speak of. .


The ELCA is larger then the LCMS. The combined average Sunday attendance of the LCMS, WELS, ELS, CLC, and Lutheran Brethren is probably larger then the combined Sunday attendance of the ELCA. All of these Lutheran bodies have a large discrepancy between members on their rolls and average Sunday attendance. The discrepancy is much larger for the ELCA then for the conservative bodies.


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