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Löhe on the Formation of the Spiritual Life
Introduction to Spiritual Formation
Under the overall theme of formation (Bildung), I have been asked to speak on the topic of the spiritual life (geistliches Leben). In other words, I will speak about what we can learn from Löhe about the formation of the Christian life. I will deal with both the roots of that life and how it is formed, nourished, and shaped. I have also been asked to speak about the impact that Löhe’s teaching on the spiritual life and its formation has had on the Lutheran church of Australia (LCA) as well as the challenges it offers us.
We know already that the main elements that constitute the formation (Bildung) of the spiritual life in Löhe are the divine service (Gottesdienst), the Lord’s Supper, the office of the keys (including confession and absolution), and prayer.1 Although I have listed Gottesdienst as a separate element of spiritual formation, all of the other elements really belong to it, for it is through the divine service or liturgy2 that God the Father is active in forming and shaping us. This is where he makes us holy and transforms us into the image of Christ through the Spirit.
In this paper, I will reflect on each of these elements in Löhe and the wider Lutheran
tradition, and then, in a sub-section within each section, which I call Impact and Challenge, I will speak about how they have taken shape in the LCA and how the legacy of Löhe
continues to challenge us today.
As my colleague, Dr. Dean Zweck, noted in his paper for the Second International Löhe Conference in 2008, Wilhelm Löhe’s influence in Australia is indirect, it comes via the pastors and missionaries trained at Neuendettelsau who then came to Australia.3 His writings, especially his liturgical and devotional literature, have also been influential, at least for those who could read German. Thankfully, his most famous devotional writing, Seed-Grains of Prayer, has been available in English translation since early last century.4 Probably this evangelical manual, along with his Agende, has played a leading role in the spiritual formation of earlier generations of Australian Lutherans.
Although the Erlangen theologian, Hermann Sasse, may not have consciously set out to hand on the Löhe legacy, the fact remains that he was profoundly influenced by him at a critical stage of his own theological development, so much so that we can say that it was Löhe’s
1 This is not a complete list but these at least comprise the main elements of spiritual formation in Löhe. Apart from confession and absolution, the office of the keys includes Seelsorge (which among other things covers preparation for Baptism and the admission to the Lord’s Supper), and church
discipline.
2 Löhe significantly enriched the liturgical life of the church, both in his day and our day, through the publication of his Agende.
3 Dean Zweck, Wilhelm Löhe: The Influence of Wilhelm Löhe/Neuendettelsau on the Lutheran Church in Australia. In: Wilhelm Löhe: Erbe und Vision. Edited by Dietrich Blaufuß. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2009, 307-330.
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influence more than anything else that led Sasse to turn his back on the liberalism of his day and embrace confessional Lutheran theology.5 When Sasse came to Australia in 1949 for confessional reasons, the Neuendettelsau pastor came with him, so to speak, so that through the agency of Hermann Sasse, Wilhelm Löhe’s influence continued to form and inform the two former Lutheran synods in Australia prior to union, and then after 1966 the amalgamated church (LCA) where Sasse served as professor of church history and the history of dogma.
In the same way, Siegfried Hebart, my own teacher of dogmatics, who wrote his doctoral dissertation in Erlangen on Löhe’s understanding of church governance,6 was not only shaped by his subject matter, but back in Australia, as Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary, Hebart continued to preserve much of the Löhe legacy, especially his ecclesiology.7
Since it is impossible to document directly Loehe’s influence in Australia in the matter of the formation of the spiritual life, I propose to use other sources, especially the writings of Sasse, to illustrate and elaborate the emphasis and approach that we find in Löhe. Both men are strongly confessional, thoroughly liturgical and sacramental, and imbued with a deep love of the church. Both are what we today would call evangelical catholic. The main differences are that Sasse was a man of the university while Löhe, although a scholar in his own right, was primarily a parish pastor, who is especially remembered for his training of missionaries and deaconesses, for his liturgical writings, and for his particular approach to Seelsorge that centers in private confession (Beichte).8
It is my contention that Löhe and Sasse were such kindred spirits, united by a common love for Luther and the Lutheran confessions, as well as for the tradition of the church catholic, that it is not surprising that so much of the Löhe legacy continues in the writings of Hermann
5 Sasse first discovered Löhe by reading his Three Books on the Church while he was on study leave at Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut, USA (1925-26) and it was from Löhe that he also gained a deep love for the patristics and for Luther. See the Appendix: Eric Renner: Biography of Hermann Sasse. In: Hermann Sasse: We Confess: Jesus Christ. Translated by Norman Nagel. St. Louis: Concordia, 1984, 100-104.
6 S. P. Hebart: Wilhelm Löhes Lehre von der Kirche, ihrem Amt und Regiment: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert. Neuendettelsau: Freimund-Verlag, 1939. 7 Kenneth Korby: The Theology of Pastoral Care in Wilhelm Löhe with Special Attention to the Function of the Liturgy and the Laity. (Unpublished Dissertation). Chicago: Concordia Seminary in
Exile, 1976, 150 n. 6 remarks that Hebart’s treatment of Löhe is the most balanced and thorough
available at the time (esp. his teaching on the Sacrament of the Altar)—but he criticizes him for not giving adequate attention to Baptism and overplaying the authority of the ordained office at the expense of the authority of the royal priesthood, although Hebart’s judgment at this point has been
questioned. On the other hand, both Hebart and Sasse distanced themselves from Löhe’s penchant
for talking about the visible and invisible church and rather followed Luther and Elert in speaking of the hidden church.
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Sasse, even though Sasse himself was also considerably influenced by that other great confessionalist and contemporary of Löhe, August Vilmar (1800–1868), who worked to promote a confessional Lutheran revival in Hesse. Apart from their common loyalty to the Lutheran Confessions, Löhe, Vilmar, and Sasse are also united in their common battle, though in different centuries, against the ravages of pietism, unionism, and Enlightenment rationalism.9
Impact and Challenge
I want to make a few comments about spiritual formation generally from the perspective of the Lutheran Church of Australia. First, at our university college (ALC),10 Lutheran spirituality is not only a unit of study but it is also an important component in the formation of pastors, teachers, and lay church workers.
The focus here is on Luther’s Large Catechism,11 although time is also given to the study of other writings within the tradition of Christian spirituality. Time is also given for reflection on Luther’s important rule of spiritual formation that he derives from Psalm 119 — that oratio, meditatio, and tentatio make the theologian12—for it is on the basis of his exposition of this rule that we emphasise that Lutheran spirituality is above all receptive spirituality.13 This is a point emphasized repeatedly by Oswald Bayer.14
The second comment I want to make is that the ALC faculty are very aware of the need to overcome the false split between head and heart, understanding and feeling (intellectus and affectus) and to talk more about the embodiedness of the human faculties. Today, there is a growing consensus15 that there is no such thing as abstract reason, abstract intellect or the abstract mind, but that all of these things are embodied and therefore much determined by the body and the physical senses. Even though Löhe does not speak about embodiment in so many words, he would be in full agreement because it is implicit in his liturgical and
sacramental writings. It is important also for the topic of spiritual formation because it is the
9 Hans Schwarz: Theology in a Global Context: The Last Two Hundred Years. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005, 97, rightly observes that “what Löhe did for the church in Bavaria, Vilmar did for his native state of Hesse.”
10 Since 2011, ALC (formerly Luther Seminary) has been a college of the University of Divinity, which has its main administrative office in Melbourne.
11 The Large Catechism is important because it is considered by many to be the basic handbook of Lutheran spirituality.
12 Oswald Bayer: Theology the Lutheran Way. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Silcock and Mark Mattes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007, 42-65, explains the rule in detail. According to his
interpretation, tentatio is the context of oratio and meditatio since prayer and meditation on God’s
word inevitably leads to agonizing struggle and spiritual attack (Anfechtung).
13 Luther does not promote any particular form of spirituality, but outlines the process of spiritual formation in the life of every Christian by the dynamic interaction between three factors: the Holy
Spirit, God’s word, and Satan.
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Divine Liturgy or worship service (Gottesdienst) that appeals to our senses and that forms and refocuses our desires so that we learn to desire God and the things of God more than anything else.
With these words of introduction, I now turn to the first element of spiritual formation that I wish to explore.
The Divine Service (Gottesdienst)
Gottesdienst is not only one of the main elements of spiritual formation but it is also the primary context in which it takes place. The context of the divine service is communal and not individual. This reminds us that spiritual formation is never simply a private matter but is first and foremost something corporate that takes place in, with and through the Christian community or congregation (Gemeinde).16
Beginning this presentation with Gottesdienst is also a reminder that the formation of the Christian life is for Löhe, as it was for Luther, first and foremost God’s work and not our work. Of course, Christians play their part in response to God’s work, but spiritual formation, like sanctification, does not begin with us but with the triune God. God is the chief actor and we are chiefly recipients. The spiritual life is basically a matter of reception rather than performance, of receiving rather than giving, of being served rather than serving. We are speaking here, of course, about life in the presence of God, coram Deo, which is
fundamentally receptive (vita passiva)17 for receptivity is the only posture of faith. Faith delights in nothing else than receiving God’s gifts and God delights in nothing more than giving gifts.18 This is just another way of speaking about justification by faith which for Löhe and the whole Lutheran tradition is the central article of our confession and determinative for a Lutheran approach to spirituality generally and to Gottesdienst in particular. Here we observe the true Sabbath because it is precisely in the divine service that human work ceases and God is active. In Gottesdienst, we rest from our work, we die to the old self, so that God can do his work.19 But during the week, as we live out our faith in our places of work and responsibility, in our vocation and stations in life, there faith is no longer passive but active as it serves the neighbor in love. Here we see how the liturgy of the divine service (Gottesdienst), where God serves us, prepares us for the liturgy after the liturgy (to use a favorite term of Eastern Orthodoxy), the life of service in the world (vita activa), where we serve the neighbor in the strength of the spiritual food that we ourselves have received through word and sacrament.
While Gottesdienst and hence the Christian community (Gemeinde) is the primary context for spiritual formation in Löhe, Baptism is its foundation. In worship, the baptized people of God gather together around word and sacrament to receive his gifts and respond in faith
16 David Ratke: The Ecclesial Theology of Wilhelm Loehe. St. Louis: Concordia, 2001, argues, as the
title of his book suggests, that ecclesiology lies at the heart and center of Löhe’s theology.
17The “receptive life” is a better translation for vita passiva than the “passive life” because it avoids the connotation that the Christian life is “inert”; the emphasis rather is that faith is the object of God’s work, not the subject, and “passively” receives it.
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with prayers and intercessions as well as with praise and thanksgiving. The whole edifice that we call spiritual formation is built on the foundation of Baptism, for it is through holy Baptism that we are united with Christ and with one another. Again, the same emphasis comes out here as before. God is the active subject in Baptism just as he is in the divine service. And this same pattern continues in the Sacrament of the Altar, where again Löhe follows Luther in stressing that the pastor is merely the agent of Christ and that we receive his body and blood from the hand of the Christ himself.20
Impact and Challenge
We are once against facing the danger of a so-called churchless Christianity where people want to be spiritual but not religious, and certainly not Christian. This is basically a replay of the situation that some of us will remember from back in the late 1960s, the 70s and the 80s (at least in Australia and North America), when Christians said Yes to Jesus but No to his church. Many today will not call themselves Christian, yet they will claim to be spiritual. Their brand of spirituality will most likely be very postmodern in character with a bit of Christianity, a bit of Buddhism, and a bit of New Age thinking (or some other combination) all mixed in for good measure. At any rate, as we know, whatever the exact composition of this New Age spirituality, it is not Christian but will most likely be neo-Gnostic and
completely divorced from the church.
This phenomenon of churchless Christianity was already known to both Löhe and Sasse in the wake of the Enlightenment. However, for them, just as for the New Testament, there could be no such thing as private Christianity, and so for us too, there can be no genuine spiritual formation without the Holy Spirit working in and through the community of
believers (Gemeinde) as it gathers together for worship around the proclaimed word and the enacted sacrament.
The Sacrament of the Altar
I now turn to the next element of spiritual formation in Löhe which, without wanting to play one off against the other, I would say, for him personally, was the most important. And that is the Lord’s Supper.
Just as Löhe exalted Baptism, as few other Lutherans did in his day, so too he spoke in exalted terms of the Sacrament of the Altar, that great mystery of the Christian faith which, like the mystery of the Triune God and the mystery of the incarnation, cannot be grasped by reason but only by faith. In fact, nobody since the days of Luther has given such a clear
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testimony to the Lord’s Supper, as Wilhelm Löhe. It is a noteworthy feature of Löhe’s own spiritual biography that already in his early days he was deeply moved by the sacrament.21 The Lord’s Supper, which was so central for Löhe in later life, fascinated him already from a young age and had a profound impact on his own spiritual formation (Bildung). Already as a child he had a religious disposition and could hardly wait for the day of his confirmation. He had observed that most of the people who came to church came for the sermon. Wilhelm, on the other hand, felt inspired by the solemn atmosphere surrounding the celebration of the sacrament and he looked forward with eager longing to his own first communion. That day came in 1821 and before he went to the sacrament his mother handed him a letter which, we are told, he treasured for the rest of his life.22
The Sacrament of the Altar was, for Löhe, the center of the Christian’s life and certainly constitutive for his own formation. His first communion was such a highpoint in his life that he never forgot it. From that day on, the sacrament continued to be a deeply emotional and affective experience for him. He says in a letter that the day of his first communion had such a profound affect on him that it was even more important to him than the day of his
ordination.23
It would be impossible to gather together all the places where Löhe stands together with Luther in confessing that the true body and blood of Christ are given and received in the Lord’s Supper. Again and again, he proclaims in clear, unmistakable words what Luther confesses in his Small Catechism in connection with the Sacrament of the Altar: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, given for us Christians to eat and to drink, instituted by Christ Himself” (SC VI).24 For Luther then, as for Löhe, the sacrament is the gospel and so to lose the teaching of the real bodily presence of Christ in the supper is to lose the gospel. It is because nothing less than the gospel was at stake that Luther parted ways with Zwingli at Marburg. This is the legacy that Löhe, like Vilmar, worked hard to preserve in his day, and likewise Sasse a century later,25 but which in our day is tragically being lost. This thoroughly realistic teaching of the sacrament, which is central to the gospel, and without which the gospel cannot be retained, is crucial to spiritual formation for in the tradition of Luther, Löhe, and Sasse, it is not ideas or abstract doctrine that is vital to formation but realities, or to use the language of Vilmar, Tatsachen.26 Löhe was determined to continue in the footsteps of Luther: to uphold the true biblical teaching of the sacrament and to refute error. He freely admits that his life would no longer be of any value if he could not proclaim to the world that Luther was right when he broke off
21 Hans Kressel: Wilhelm Löhe. Der Lutherische Christenmensch: Ein Charakterbild. Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1960, 47.
22 Cf. Elke Endraß: Wilhelm Löhe. Berlin: Wichern Verlag, 2012, 25. 23 See Kressel:Wilhelm Löhe, 47 n. 22.
24 Theodore Tappert, ed.: The Book of Concord. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959, 351 (trans. alt.). 25 See Hermann Sasse: This is My Body: Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1959.
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fellowship with Zwingli at Marburg for the sake of the gospel.27 His absolute commitment to the unbroken tradition of Lutheran teaching on the sacrament made him relentless in warning against altar fellowship with those who did not confess this biblical doctrine.28 Here Löhe stands shoulder to shoulder with another Erlangen giant several decades later, Werner Elert, who argued strongly that church fellowship is altar fellowship, so that where there is no agreement on the teaching of the real bodily presence, there can be no church fellowship or communio as we call it today.29
However, despite his commitment to pure doctrine and the limits of fellowship that come with it, in his later years he puts more and more emphasis on the gift of life mediated by the sacrament. For Löhe, then, the main thing becomes not so much the Lutheran doctrine of the sacrament but the sacramental life itself and the blessings that flow from the sheer enjoyment of the Lord’s Supper.30 He treasured the sacramental emphasis in Lutheran theology and instructed his congregation not to see this as simply an emphasis on sterile doctrine for doctrine’s sake but on the blessings that sound doctrine brings: for together with the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, we also receive the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, life, and every spiritual blessing.31 Löhe invites his congregation to ponder this teaching of sacramental realism and hopes that it will create in them such a longing for the sacrament that they will never want to be without it and that it will become their greatest earthly delight and that, out of gratitude for it, their whole life will be nothing but a cup of thanksgiving.32 Löhe clearly worked to keep doctrine and life together so that, on the one hand, the doctrine of the sacrament was not mere sterile orthodoxy and that, on the other, the vitality of the sacrament was firmly grounded in the teaching of the sacred scriptures.33
Löhe’s own desire for the sacrament continued unabated right up until his last communion on the Fourth Sunday in Advent in 1871 when he already had a premonition of death—and yet he still had a strong desire to receive the Holy Sacrament one last time.34 At any rate, like Luther, he had a great desire for the Lord’s Supper and communed as often as possible.
27 Kressel: Wilhelm Löhe, 47; see reference in n. 23. 28 Ibid., 48.
29 See Werner Elert: Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries. Translated by Norman Nagel. St. Louis: Concordia, 1966, esp. 43-58. Thomas Schattauer: “’Sung, Spoken, Lived’:
Worship as Communion and Mission in the Work of Wilhelm Löhe”. In: Currents in Theology and Mission, 33:2, April 2006, 116, points out in connection with his remarks on worship as communion (Gemeinschaft) that the link between participation and communion (the vertical and horizontal axis)
comes out in the second edition of Löhe’s Agende (1853). 30 See Kressel: Wilhelm Löhe, 48; see reference in n. 29.
31 Apart from the influence of his teacher Strauß, in the end, it was the realistic teaching of the
Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper that assisted Löhe to win the victory over his struggles with
pietism.
32 Ibid., 48 ?? not sure if this should be ibid OR See Kressel: Wilhelm Löhe, 48.
33Cf. Martin Wittenberg’s stress in his Logia (1993) article on the orthodox teaching of the Lord’s Supper, where he stresses correct (better: sound) doctrine because it is health-giving, salutary, and
promotes the health and vitality of Christ’s mystical body, the church.
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Wilhelm Löhe’s high view of the Sacrament of the Altar has sometimes led to the charge that he held to a non-Lutheran sacramentalism.35 However, I believe that it is more correct to say that he was calling the church to return to a true sacramental life, where the Lord’s Supper is seen as the true life blood of the church or the true viaticum, which is able to preserve it in true faith and holy love as it goes its pilgrim way in the hope of Christ’s return at the end of time. With this in mind, Löhe would have wholeheartedly agreed with Sasse who held that, if the sacrament is the gospel, the church cannot exist without it.36
Impact and Challenge
The Lutheran Church of Australia, from its inception some 50 years ago, has continued to uphold the teaching of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the consecrated bread and wine. Secondly, in addition to the teaching of the real presence, the pastors of the church have, in the main, worked hard to engender in people a genuine desire for the sacrament and to help them appreciate its blessings so that they see it not just as a teaching to be preserved but as the source of their life in Christ. In this regard, we have been able, by God’s grace, to continue to preserve the core of Löhe’s teaching and practice in regard to the Lord’s Supper.
The LCA, like Löhe, also emphasizes the close connection between the Lord’s Supper and the liturgy. Although the liturgy grows out of the Supper, Löhe knew we cannot understand the Lord’s Supper without understanding the liturgy. This is in line with Sasse’s thesis that the understanding of the liturgy is the presupposition for the proper understanding of the sacrament.37 As much as he supported the renewal of the liturgy, he opposed those liturgical experts who were only interested in the liturgy for its own sake and forgot that the liturgy is there to serve the gospel, and that without the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, it is nothing but an empty form. If the liturgy is going to be a genuine instrument of the Spirit for the renewal of the church, then it must remain grounded in the dogma of the church. Löhe would doubtless agree with Sasse that nothing can be liturgically correct if it is not also dogmatically correct.38
Unlike the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (formerly, the Leuenberg Church Fellowship), the LCA has not yet had to face the pressure to adopt a Reformed interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. However, our ecumenical dialogue with the Uniting Church in Australia will bring pressure to at least consider the practice of open communion rather than closed
35 Russell Briese: “Wilhelm Löhe and the Rediscovery of the Sacrament of the Altar in 19th century
Lutheranism”. In: Lutheran Forum 30:2 ,May, 1996,31-34. Could not find a journal reference – just something within a book which was put slightly differently to what I have left here.
36 Hermann Sasse: We Confess: The Sacraments. Translated by Norman Nagel. St. Louis: Concordia, 1985, 31.
37 Sasse: “Circular Letter 5 to Westphalian Pastors: [The Holy Lord’s Supper]”. In: The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters II (1941-1976. Translated by Ronald R. Feuerhahn et al.. St. Louis: Concordia, 1995, 167.
38 Jeffrey Kloha and Ronald Feuerhahn, eds.: “Liturgy and Lutheranism”. In Scripture and the Church: Selected Essays of Hermann Sasse. Concordia Seminary Monograph Series Number 2. St. Louis: Concordia Seminary, 1995, 40-42. See also John Pless: “Adiaphora and Liturgy. In And Every Tongue Confess, 208-9, who speaks of Paul Rorem’s “liturgical hermeneutic” with its formal and material
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communion—although strictly speaking the LCA does not practice closed communion as such but operates with what is called a responsible communion practice,39 where the local pastor exercises discretion and may invite non-Lutherans to attend Holy Communion on certain occasions (such as when people visit for a Baptism or Confirmation) if they can confess with us the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. A brief statement of what the LCA teaches in regard to the Lord’s Supper is often printed in the congregation’s weekly pew bulletin or it is projected on to the screen.40
Office of the Keys
The third element of spiritual formation in Löhe that we need to discuss is the office of the keys. I include here private confession and absolution as well as Seelsorge and church disciple because these things are closely related and they all play their part in spiritual formation. More than that, in the thinking of Löhe, they are all connected in one way or other to the Lord’s Supper,41 since for him, private confession is not only “the mother of all Seelsorge,”42 but also an integral part of the Sacrament of the Altar.
I said that the keys include confession and absolution, but they are not limited to that. In the Lutheran tradition, the keys are also exercised through preaching, Baptism, and admission to the Lord’s Supper, as well as judging doctrine.43 Just as Luther lists the spoken word,
Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, the keys, and the mutual conversations of brothers and sisters as different ways to receive the gospel,44 so Löhe maintains that while the content of preaching and absolution is the same, it is delivered in different forms. Whereas preaching offers and gives the forgiveness of sins, absolution declares it and applies it.45
39 Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations, “Some Pastoral Guidelines for Responsible Communion Practice”. In: Doctrinal Statement and Theological Opinions. Lutheran Church of Australia, 1990, vol. 2: http://www.lca.org.au/doctrinal-statements--theological-opinions-2.html (accessed 30 June 2014).
40 This, for example, is what we print in the weekly bulletin of my own congregation (Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Adelaide):
“‘Holy Communion is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given with bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and drink.’ Come to this sacrament:
as a sinner who wants God’s forgiveness
as a baptised believer who trusts that Jesus died for the forgiveness of sin
as a guest who humbly accepts what Jesus gives; his true body and blood with the bread and wine as a witness who gladly joins in this public confession of the death of Christ.
Should you not wish to receive Holy Communion, you may remain in your pew or come to the altar to receive a blessing—crossing your arms to signify your intention.”
41 See esp. Löhe’s sermon on 1 Cor. 11:28ff. In: Wilhelm Löhe: Abendmahlspredigten, Gesammelte Werke, Ergänzungsreihe 1. Edited by Martin Wittenberg. Neuendettelsau: Freimund Verlag, 1991, 164-170. See p. 87 in Sample
42 GW 4.83. Absolution is the heart of pastoral care (GW 3/1:.89).
43 For a fuller list, see Augsburg Confession Apology 28 on ecclesiastical power. 44 See Tappert: The Book of Concord [Smalcald Articles III,4], 310.
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Löhe distinguishes between ordinary and extraordinary pastoral care (Seelsorge). The ordinary means of pastoral care are the sermon, catechesis, and the liturgy—in short, God’s Word and the Holy Sacrament.46 Löhe holds, however, that there is not only the public use of these means for the pastoral care of the congregation but also the private use of them for the care of the individual. He calls this the extraordinary means of pastoral care. The former stresses the congregation, the latter the individual. Löhe says that the general, mechanical, routine application of the means of grace to the congregation as a whole is not adequate for those who need the one on one ministry of the pastor.47
For Löhe, absolution is intimately connected with justification. Of course, justification is given and received in connection with all the various pastoral acts in the church: font, pulpit, altar and Beichtstuhl.48 Löhe, like Luther (as well as Sasse), underscores the close connection between absolution and God’s act of justification on earth and in time. This effectively equates the act of absolution with the gospel, as Luther does in the Smalcald Articles (SA III.4). Oswald Bayer helpfully points out that the word of absolution is not simply a declarative statement that confirms the justification or forgiveness that the penitent has already received but, as a performative speech act, it actually delivers the forgiveness and brings about justification.49
Löhe’s little book on confession (Beichtbüchlein) draws on old and new material alike, in the best tradition of pastoral care manuals, and is laden with Luther quotes. But it did not grow out of reading, but out of Seelsorge, the spiritual care of his people.50 Ken Korby notes that this is where Löhe differed from his confessional Lutheran counterpart in the United States, C. F. W. Walther (1811-1887). Whereas Löhe actually practiced private confession, Walther only talked about it. Here we have an unfortunate case of a split between doctrine and praxis which, ironically, was typical of the rationalism that Walther himself fought against.51 Löhe’s struggle to restore private confession was not for doctrinal but pastoral reasons. Yet he is realistic enough to know that it is not a magical panacea that will fix everything. And so he laments. “Why is it that despite the fact that during the last few years God has given his people so many sincere and powerful preachers so that there are now many who are
46 GW 3/1.174; see Korby: The Theology of Pastoral Care, 316.
47 Löhe says that people often overlook what is central in pastoral care: the confessional (The Three Books of the Church, 174). He believes that preaching, sacrament, catechization, and liturgy are the ordinary means. However, without the extraordinary means of private confession and absolution, the cure of the awakened souls cannot be effectively administered (GW 3/1.182).
48 See Stephen van der Hoek: “The unique contribution of Wilhelm Löhe to the renewal of the practice
of private confession”. In: Lutheran Theological Journal, August 2008, 42:2, 105-107, where he discusses the connection between absolution and justification.
49 Oswald Bayer: Theology the Luther Way. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Silcock and Mark Mattes, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007, 129. Should this be Bayer: Theology the Lutheran Way, 129.
50 Korby: The Theology of Pastoral Care in Wilhelm Löhe, 112.
51 Vilmar in his Tatsachen cites similar examples of behavior among the rationalists of his day who, for example, only ever spoke about prayer but never prayed, or who only ever spoke about the Bible but
never read it. Vilmar calls these “enlightened” types “rhetoricians” because all they ever do is speak
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aroused from spiritual sleep, there are still so very few who have really found the peace of justification.”52
Löhe’s concern to uphold and strengthen the custom of private confession before receiving the sacrament is completely in line with Augsburg Confession Apology 24:1 where
Melanchthon says “In our churches the Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals, where the Sacrament is offered to those who wish for it, after they have been examined and absolved.”53 The Apology makes clear that this examination (exploratio) includes the confession of sins. However, it is noteworthy that Sasse, in a Letter to Luthers Pastors (1956), strikes a similar note as Löhe when he expresses his deep concern about the loss of private confession before attending the Lord’s Supper and he predicts that it will lead to a weakening of the Lutheran doctrine of sin.54 He blames the virtual loss of private confession on more frequent, if not weekly, communion. But who would want to go back to the infrequent communion practice of earlier generations? The old custom of Saturday confession was fine when the Lord’s Supper was only celebrated every three months or even once month, but with the weekly celebration of the sacrament and people wanting to commune every Sunday that would become virtually impossible.
The point I want to make, however, is that both Sasse and Löhe worked for the retention of private confession and saw it as a prerequisite for attending the sacrament. Sasse puts it pointedly in a letter to pastors in 1956: “To give this up or to let it rise or fall in the general confession of sins (allgemeine Beichte) of the Sunday Gottesdienst would be a corruption of the Lutheran Sacrament and would open the door to a false understanding of the Lord’s Supper.”55 However, the fact remains that private confession did not last long even in Löhe’s home town after his death, and was soon replaced by the general confession (allgemeine Beichte) which is now almost universal, at least in Australia and the USA. Löhe himself still argued strongly in favor of retaining the general or public confession even though he hoped that parishioners would avail themselves of private confession as well. For those who were unable to confess their sins, especially the particular sins they were conscious of, he provided a formula that the penitent could read. Even though Löhe preferred it if people could make confession in their own words from the heart, he still felt that the “formal confession” was better than the public confession alone.56
Impact and Challenge
The challenge of reintroducing the practice of individual confession and absolution is one that some pastors of the LCA are taking seriously. The seminary (ALC) is also helping future pastors to see how this can be done in an evangelical way by stressing the fact that
52 Löhe: Of the Divine Word as the Light which Leads to Peace. Defiance, Ohio: Papenhagen & Deindoerfer, 1903, 3; see GW2 3/1.34.
53 Tappert: The Book of Concord, 249.
54 Sasse often remarked that the most work ever done on the doctrine of sin is that by August Vilmar in his Moral. It has also been taken up by Adolf Köberle: Quest for Holiness. Translated from Rechtfertigung und Heiligung by John Mattes. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1964, 206-27. 55 Sasse: We Confess: The Sacraments, 33 (trans. alt.).
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individual confession is not a duty or obligation but an opportunity and privilege. However, it will take considerable education and teaching on the part of pastors who first have to be convinced of its merit themselves. Since it has lapsed for so long, there is much
apprehension and ignorance surrounding it on the part of the laity. One pastor in Adelaide has prepared a small brochure about private confession and has written several short articles in the local church paper. He offers the opportunity for confession and absolution everyday Wednesday morning or otherwise by appointment. He also invites people to simply come and talk about any spiritual concerns that they may have, even if they do not feel if they have any particular sins they want to confess. This gives him the opportunity to ask certain questions which might even lead to the sort of questions that Löhe used in his Prüfungstafel to scrutinize the conscience of his Beichtkinder prior to their receiving the Lord’s Supper.57
The LCA’s approach to private confession follows the line of the Augsburg Confession and emphasizes that it is a good gift from God but there should be no compulsion for people to confess sins before a confessor that are not troubling their conscience. Löhe’s line, if I have understood him correctly, is that the pastor should instruct the conscience so that it is much more sensitive to sins of all kinds. Furthermore, Löhe would simply tell people they should come to private confession and when he had them on the Beichtstuhl he examined them, asking them the sorts of questions he lists in his Prüfungstafel: questions relating to vocation and life, including frequency of church attendance and family devotion, and once he started examining them, they soon found that they had much to confess. I know of pastors in the LCA who have successfully used Löhe’s method even without a Beichtstuhl. They either sat or knelt together, both facing the altar. Then after the confession, the pastor stood up and declared the words of absolution to the penitent.
The practice of announcing or registering before taking Holy Communion (Anmeldung) has gradually died out in the LCA. It was felt that it belonged to an earlier age and that with the practice weekly communion becoming more common it would be impracticable. What used to happen was that the pastor (or sometimes an elder or pastoral assistant) would gather with communicants before the service and offer a short prayer for a repentant heart and a worthy reception of the sacrament. In some cases, time permitting, the pastor might even say a few words about the Sacrament of the Altar and its benefits.
Note that in the first half of the twentieth century, before the amalgamation of the two former synods to form the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) in 1966, both predecessor churches always held a confessional service (Beichtgottesdienst) prior to the main service (Hauptgottesdienst). This confessional service was by and large seen to be more efficient and practical than private confession and absolution. While the two were not mutually exclusive, the former gradually replaced the latter. In the LCA today, there is no longer a
57Stephen van der Hoek translated Löhe’s Prüfungstafel und Gebete für Beicht- und Abendmahlstage (chapters 1-10) in the Appendix to his honor’s thesis, ‘The Teaching of Private Confession as
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separate confessional service but the public confession and absolution comes at the beginning of every Holy Communion service.
The earlier version of our liturgy (1973), under the influence of Löhe and Sasse, retained a place for the exercise of the two keys, the loosing key as well as the binding key. Thus the words of absolution were followed by a warning against impenitence and the consequent risk of falling under God’s judgment: “God forbid that any of you reject his grace and forgiveness by refusing to repent and believe, and your sins therefore remain unforgiven.58 However, in the revision of the liturgy that accompanied the publication of the Supplement to the hymnal (1987), the preferred option of the liturgy has dropped the warning and reference to the binding key after the absolution, for pastoral reasons, and instead has a reference to both keys straight after the confession of sins59 and before the absolution. So as it stands now, these words from the Small Catechism precede the absolution: “Christ gave to his church the authority to forgive the sins of those who repent, and to declare to those who do not repent that their sins are not forgiven.” The pastor then continues with the words of absolution, which, it should be noted, are not cast in precatory form but are declaratory, since they are the effectual and performative words spoken by Christ through the pastor: “Therefore, upon your confession, I, as a called and ordained servant of the word, announce the grace of God to all of you, and on behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit.”60 This declarative form of the absolution is certainly one of the liturgical emphases of the Löhe legacy that the LCA has been able to preserve.
One of the most difficult and challenging parts of Löhe’s heritage for the LCA is his teaching about church discipline and the retention of sins. He says that failure to use the binding key makes the loosing or opening key seem insignificant.61 Sasse speaks in a similar way when he reminds pastors that there are two keys not just one. Vilmar, who was working to preserve the heritage of the Lutheran Reformation in the face of the destructive inroads of post-Enlightenment rationalism, is also strongly committed to upholding the practice of excommunication and church discipline.62 Vilmar here is in full agreement with Löhe who writes: “Absolution will be worth more if there is also excommunication. Comfort will be treasured if it is not given in every situation. In fact the entire institution of confession will be ridiculed if [people] know in advance that everyone will be comforted and absolved.”63 These are hard words to receive, even though true.
58 An earlier version simply had: “… and your sins be retained.”
59In the LCA’s official liturgy, the confession of sins is followed by three questions, modelled after
Löhe’s 1859 Agende. For more on this, see Martin Wittenberg: “Wilhelm Löhe and Confession”. In: Every Tongue Confess, 129-30.
60 Lutheran Church of Australia: Lutheran Hymnal with Supplement. Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1973, 1987, 7.
61 Korby: The Theology of Pastoral Care in Wilhelm Löhe, 115.
62 See August Friedrich Christian Vilmar: The Theology of Facts Versus the Theology of Rhetoric: Confession and Defense. Translated by Roy Harrisville. Fort Wayne: Lutheran Legacy, 2008, 97-104, esp. 98.
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Today, I think that we, and the Lutheran church generally, have lost this way of thinking, though it may still survive in confessionally orthodox pockets of Lutheranism here and there—although in the LCA, excommunication is practically non-existent. Several decades ago, there was a concerted effort in the LCA to recatechize the church about confession and absolution in the face of the threat of cheap grace. The emphasis then was that there can be no forgiveness without repentance. However, at that stage there was no attempt to try to revive the practice of private confession but simply the desire to clarify what is meant when we say that we place no conditions on the gospel—for while there can be no forgiveness without repentance, repentance itself is God’s gift and not a human work that must first be performed in order to receive forgiveness. This is a good place to stress with Löhe that repentance, no less than confession and absolution, is God’s gift and that it is grounded in Baptism. Korby makes the point that Löhe, perhaps more than anyone else since the Reformation, has rightly seen the interrelation between confession and absolution, justification by grace through faith, and Holy Baptism.64
Prayer and the Devotional Life
We turn now to the final element of spiritual formation in Löhe and that is prayer and the devotional life. This section will need to be shorter.
There can be no doubt that the final section of Luther’s Small Catechism, with its morning and evening prayer and blessing, and its thanksgiving at meals, has served the Church well as a handbook for family prayer and also as a textbook for evangelical piety. And so it has played an enormously important role in spiritual formation and for Löhe’s own reflection on prayer.
Löhe knows that faith and prayer are inseparably connected; indeed, faith is nothing but prayer, embracing praise and complaint, confession of sins, petition, intercession, and adoration. Prayer is the expression of faith and shows our utter dependence on the triune God for all that we have and receive. Faith cannot but pray, for those who are in fellowship with the triune God through faith also want to speak with him in prayer. And so it is not surprising that the Neuendettelsau pastor was not only a great man of faith but also a great man of prayer.65 His devotional writings are testament to the extraordinary depth and breadth of his prayers. He has assembled a rich treasury of prayers for us, drawn from across the ages of the Christian church, in his devotional book Seed-Grains of Prayer.66 Right at the beginning of this manual, in his introduction, he sets out eight rules of prayer as laid down by Johannes Metthesius (1504-1565), a Lutheran pastor and reformer, who made a significant contribution to the compilation of Luther’s table talk.
It hardly needs to be said that faith and hence justification are the basis for Christian prayer, and this is clearly evident both from the eight rules of prayer that Löhe reproduces as well as
64 Korby: The Theology of Pastoral Care in Wilhelm Löhe, 115. 65 Kressel: Wilhelm Löhe, 51.
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from his own writings.67 It is only through faith that we can say what Luther says in one of his sermons on the Gospel of John (16:27): “If I believe [Christ’s words], I am justified in saying: ‘I know that my heavenly Father is heartily glad to hear all my prayers, for I have Christ, the Savior in my heart. Christ prayed for me, and for this reason my prayers are acceptable to God through his.’ Accordingly, we must weave our praying into his.” 68 The amazing thing here is that when we pray in the name of Jesus, he not only unites us with himself but he merges our prayers into his and his into ours so that his prayers and our prayers are one. This gives us the basis for coming before God with boldness and confidence as we bring him our supplications and intercessions. Löhe’s first rule reminds us of the apostolic injunction to “life up holy hands” (i.e. to pray) for all sorts and conditions of people (1 Tim 2) and the second rule reminds us of the command to pray, based on Psalm 50 (“Call on me in the day of trouble”). Even though the promise that God will answer is in the Psalm, the second rule does not bring it out since the structure of the rules stresses what me must do rather than what God does. But Löhe knows from Luther, anyway, that the basis for prayer is God’s command and promise.
The third rule stresses that prayer should be made without hypocrisy, anger, complaint or doubt. While I understand the intention, it is regrettable that there is no recognition here of the place for genuine complaint and lament (Klage), such as we find in the Psalter and in the book of Job. However, in this matter Löhe is simply a man of his day, and in those days, where the influence of pietism was strong, there was no place for complaint, for this was seen to be incompatible with humility and obedient submission to the will of God. Here I am in full agreement with Oswald Bayer who himself “laments” that this important genre of prayer has been completely overlooked in the last several hundred years and argues that it needs to be brought back, not only because it plays an important pastoral role for people who are assaulted by Anfechtung, but also because it is indispensable in theology whenever we are confronted with questions of theodicy or the deus absconditus.69
Impact and Challenge
Two short comments will has to suffice in relation to the reception of Löhe’s writing on prayer and the devotional life beyond what I have already said in relation to the influence of his Agende in the liturgical development of the LCA.
The challenge of reestablishing the practice of private and family prayer or devotion seems almost insurmountable. But throughout its history the church has always had to adapt to
67Rule 8 begins: (it is a prerequisite for true Christian prayer that) “he that will thus pray needs first of
all to believe that he is reconciled to God through His Son…” (Seed-Grains, 1). This brings us face to
face with the core of Löhe’s theology. He says, as noted by Kressel, Wilhelm Löhe, 51, that
“justification by faith remains my chief locus even though I keep on emphasizing the importance of
repentance, love, and the works of love.”
68 LW 24:407 (WA 46:97-98) (trans. alt.).
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new challenges. Apart from the use of new technology,70 which I think can be very helpful in reaching younger generations, who are more technically sophisticated than their parents, one initiative that the LCA’s Child, Youth, and Family Ministry is currently working on is called “Taking Faith Home.” This resource, which is available on the internet, helps people to connect what happens in church on Sunday with everyday life in the home. It helps to bring to life what is preached about and experienced in the Sunday Gottesdienst. Based on the lectionary readings for each Sunday, this resource can be used not only by families with youth and children but also by older couples and individuals.71 The important thing is that it is getting people to read the Bible and to pray, and that is one of the fundamental means of spiritual formation, both in Löhe and in the church generally.
The final comment I want to make is that the LCA, through its Commission on Worship, and its seminary (ALC), has tried to follow Löhe in attempting to highlight the importance of intercessions in Gottesdienst. In earlier days, pastors were inclined to simple pray the model general prayer of the church which was printed in the liturgy book. Apart from being too general, it quickly became dull and boring to worshipers because it was used Sunday after Sunday with little or no variation. Today, we recommend to pastors that they use short intercessions for various specific needs with a congregational response at the end (e.g.: Hear our prayer). It is here that Löhe’s prayer books can be used as a resource, but of course his prayers would have to be considerably shortened to accommodate the short attention span that we have to deal with today. Our Commission on Theology suggests suitable
intercessions for each Sunday that are related to the lectionary readings for the day; pastors than craft the prayers themselves. At any rate, Löhe’s liturgical material and devotional liturgy has not been forgotten by us and we continue to learn from it.
Conclusion
The legacy of Löhe is still very much in evidence in the Lutheran Church of Australia. It is most apparent in the LCA’s confessional identity as a Lutheran church as well as its liturgical heritage, although much has already been lost and even more will probably be lost until the time comes (as it always does in the history of the church) for the recovery and restoration of the tradition. But the legacy of Löhe that continues most strongly in the LCA is his sacramentalism realism and high regard for the liturgy of the church (despite inroads from charismatic and Pentecostal influences) Thankfully, the LCA continues to accord the Lord’s Supper a central place in both its theology and practice. The sacrament, along with the proclaimed word (in the absolution, Scripture readings, and sermon), is the main focus of our weekly Gottesdienst and this, together with the personal devotional life wherever it still exists, continues to be the main means for the formation of the spiritual life in the LCA.
70A good example of this is the Concordia Publishing House’s App “Pray Now” available on Apple and Android devices.
17 Dr Jeff Silcock
