Monday, July 19, 2004, from Pastor Gregory Fryer

Dear Bishop Stephen:

            I have been touched and I am very grateful for your prayers and your concern for our family as we have gone through these recent health uncertainties (which have turned out fine, thanks be to God). Your prayers and compassion are an important part of what I hope for in a bishop. And there is something else too: besides your good heart, you are a man of high morality. We need not fear that you are out there committing adultery or abusing children or any such horrible things. This too is important in a bishop.

            But the theological labors of a bishop are also important. Indeed, they are crucial. There are trusting Christians in our synod looking for your shepherding, and there are tempted consciences who face ruination if they are not shepherded well. I focus on this in these comments. I focus on your vision of the episcopal office and on the nexus of instincts and convictions you seem to have about scripture, law, and gospel.

I proceed in a rather workman-like way in responding to your reflections on law, gospel, and scripture, simply highlighting certain lines in your reflections and commenting on them.

Since we are in the midst of a sexuality study this resolution was untimely.

I agree with you about the resolution being untimely, but my concern runs deeper than this. I believe that the primary things that should be before the eyes and on the heart of a Concordat bishop -- a historic bishop -- are the traditional means of preserving the apostolicity of the Church: the Bible, the Creeds and dogmatic settlements of the Church, the liturgical substance of the Church, and your office -- the episcopal office conceived as a ministry of unity geographically across the synod and temporally stretching back to the apostles. As a Concordat-kind-of bishop, you labor on behalf of the continuity of the faith, so that in good conscience you can say that the gospel being preached across your synod is somehow "the same" gospel preached by the apostles. These traditional means for preserving the Church's apostolicity are much more important than some "sexuality study." As this applies to the present case, there were important reasons why this resolution should not have come before our assembly, but those reasons have little to do with the sexuality study. The resolution was a bad one for reasons having to do with the Bible and the unity of the Church, which are special matters of episcopal oversight.

I did not even see the resolution until the day before the assembly.

It's not that I disbelieve you, it's only that I find it incredible that a bishop should neglect such things. The resolutions are the main public battleground for the faith. This is where a bishop is needed to shepherd the synod toward the faith of the apostles. From an administrative point of view, I should think that the Committee on Reference and Counsel would have privileged entry to your office and your schedule. Indeed, I think that you should be beating down the door of that Committee to find out what is going on. And this is important: Everyone should be made to understand that that Committee is simply an advisory committee to you, and that you will be the one ruling on the resolutions and guiding the deliberations of the synod. We have passed the CCM! You are free to structure your office according to it.

I continue to believe that the resolution was not in violation of the constitution. It did not support gay marriage, but equal civil benefits in the public arena.

The detail about "equal civil benefits in the public arena" hardly matters, which I think you acknowledge to some degree. Everyone knows that this resolution was a step toward revision of sexual ethics. The recent newsletter from Saint Peter's Church here in Manhattan is substantially right, whatever the technicalities:

The most significant item on Thursday was a resolution supporting secular marriage for gay and lesbian couples. After much thoughtful conversation and serious debate, the resolution was narrowly passed by 149 to 134 votes. This resolution requires the Synod to endorse and support the full recognition of committed same-sex relationships and the benefits of marriage where civil law allows and to oppose efforts to ban, limit, or overturn the full recognition of same-sex relationships through state and federal statues of constitutional amendment. (July/August 2004, my emphasis)

Well, we cannot be supporting secular marriage for gays unless we are saying that we are convinced that such marriages are God-pleasing.

And even if we did believe that gay marriage is God-pleasing, I believe that it is not the business of the Church to be counseling government unless the issue is so grave as to disprove the faith of the Church. I should think that abortion -- especially those horrifying partial birth abortions -- is such an issue. But gay marriage certainly is not such an issue when most of the Church across the world and through the ages has not believed in it.

Most Christians across the world in our own day do not believe in our synod's attempt to sanctify homosexuality -- including, I bet, lots of people in our Metro NY Synod pews. Neither the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the evangelical churches, nor the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (e.g. "The Bukoba Statement" of May of this year) will say that we are on the right track. Indeed, this resolution appeals to an elite fraction of Christians.

I have been pondering why this issue above all others brings out such a biblicistic fundamentalism hidden in each of us.

This begs the question as to whether my objection, and the objection of others, to the resolution and the whole matter of gay sex is Biblical fundamentalism. I think not. In fact, I am very troubled at the suggestion. Biblical fundamentalism is a bad thing. And it is bad precisely for errors with which I charge gay advocates: fundamentalism dishonors the canonical text. The problem with fundamentalism is that once you've reduced the Bible to a set of "fundamentals" -- no matter how numerous and impressive they might be -- then you are free to set the Bible aside and to rest content with your fundamentals. If I oppose gay sex "because the Bible says so," it is not because I am a fundamentalist but because of the following traditions and principles of Biblical interpretation by which I live:

v     Luther, especially Luther's doctrine of the "clarity or perspicuity of scripture" in The Bondage of the Will. Oh! How much highlighting I have in that book and in Luther's eucharistic treatises! Here are a couple typical quotes from The Bondage of the Will:

That in God there are many things hidden, of which we are ignorant, no one doubts... But that in Scripture there are some things abstruse, and everything is not plain -- this is an idea put about by the ungodly Sophists, with those lips you also speak here, Erasmus; but they have never produced, nor can they produce, a single article to prove this mad notion of theirs. Yet with such a phantasmagoria Satan has frightened men away from reading the sacred writings and has made Holy Scripture contemptible, in order to enable the plagues he has bred from philosophy to prevail in the Church. (LW 33:25)

There is therefore another, an external judgment, whereby with the greatest certainty we judge the spirits and dogmas of all men, not only for ourselves, but also for others and for their salvation. This judgment belongs to the public ministry of the Word and to the outward office, and is chiefly the concern of leaders and preachers of the word. We made use of it when we seek to strengthen those who are weak in faith and confute opponents. This is what we earlier called "the external clarity of Holy Scripture." Thus we say that all spirits are to be tested in the presence of the Church at the bar of Scripture. (LW 33:91)

It may suffice for a beginning to have laid it down that the Scriptures are perfectly clear, and that by them such a defense of our position may be made that our adversaries will not be able to gainsay it.... But if there are any who do not perceive this clarity, and are blind or blunder in this sunlight, then they only show -- it they are ungodly -- how great is the majesty and power of Satan over the sons of men, to make them neither hear nor take in the very clearest words of God. It is as if someone was deceived by a conjuring trick and imagined the sun to be a piece of dead coal or a stone to be gold. (LW 33:99)

Besides Luther's doctrine of the clarity of scripture, there is the actual manner -- so very impressive -- in which he reads Scripture. Can't you hear Luther relentlessly asking the question, "But what does the text actually say?!" I think that the legend of Luther pulling away the table cloth at his Marburg debate with the Zwinglians should forever ring in the mind of Lutheran interpreters of the Bible: "This is my body." That's what the text says! Not, "This symbolizes my body."

Or think of Luther's devastating quip concerning Zwingli that "The only way this spirit can conceive of heaven is to point his finger and cast his eyes upward, where sun and moon are." (LW 37:234) What's going on here is that Zwingli has let his prior notions of heaven lead him away from what the Bible actually says about Christ's real presence in the Supper and in heaven, while Luther is led by his commitment to the text to profound and creative theology.

Again, there are the many examples of Luther's arguments against Erasmus, that Erasmus' prior notions of the faith have obscured for him what the Bible actually says. For example, consider Luther's claim that Erasmus's theology leads him almost inevitably to deform the text:

But our [Erasmus's] Diatribe, still more ineptly, not only infers the indicative from Zechariah's imperative "Return to me," but even claims to prove the endeavor of free choice and a grace prepared to respond to it. Here at long last she remembers her "endeavor," and by a new kind of grammar "to return" signifies the same for her as "to endeavor," so that the meaning is "Return to me, i.e. endeavor to return, and I will return to you, i.e., endeavor to return to you." (LW 33:134)

          It is Luther's law/gospel distinction that helps him to plumb these depths of scripture. He does not use law/gospel to deny the text, but to see what is really there in the text.

v     The Yale school of "canonical criticism." Brevard Child's warnings against the fragmentation and atomization of the canonical text, whereby the very polished, complex, and Spirit-crafted text capable of sustaining the faith of the Church through enduring generations is displaced by fragments and constituent layers chosen according to the agendas of the interpreters... his warnings and, more positively, his examples of what he calls "canonical interpretation" have been powerful for me. I believe him when he argues that he is trying to recover a "classical" way of interpreting scripture, like that of the Church fathers, Luther, and Calvin -- but a modern way that uses the insights of the historical/critical method to illumine the canonical text (as I believe Luther did) rather than to displace the text. Also, George Lindbeck's teaching on "intratextuality" are important for me.

v     The Church's Interpretation. There is a long history of Biblical interpretation in the Church, such that it is possible to say, "The Church understands this text in such-and-such a way." Consider slavery, for example. Given the whole sweep of the Bible, from the escape of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, to our Lord's escape from bondage to death, to Paul's conviction that in Christ there is "neither slave nor free," it is not surprising that the Church came to oppose slavery, even though Paul himself might be tolerant of it at certain points. But the Church's interpretation away from slavery is not a departure from the Bible but a gradual apprehension of the Biblical text. But concerning homosexuality, there is a massive and long-standing consensus concerning what the Bible has to say. It might be true that the Task Force on Sexuality and various Biblical interpreters suggest pro-gay interpretations of the Bible, but also it is true that that is not the Church's interpretation.

What the bishops of the ancient church in council and otherwise did and were called to do was uphold the integrity of the church's gospel. That is what lies behind the Nicene Creed, the Trinity, the Christological dogma of Chalcedon, the development of a NT canon, and all the steps taken against Gnosticism. It also lies behind Augustine's affirmation of grace alone in the Pelagian controversy. Our call, and that of every pastor, is to affirm, uphold, teach, and proclaim the Gospel.

It is true that we are called to "uphold the integrity of the church's gospel" and yet the upholding of that integrity carefully appeals to the Bible, as well as to the rule of faith and the liturgical and creedal substance of the Church. None of the settlements you mention were resolved by departing from the Biblical text, but by deeper apprehension of the text. But the gay program is departing from the Biblical text.

As a bishop I must resist every attempt to take a "law" issue and make it a "gospel" issue-even if it is done by a theologian as eminent as Pannenberg. Gregory, the Church is bound to Scripture "for the sake of the Gospel." When Pannenberg says that a church which recognizes gay unions no longer stands "on the foundation of the Scripture" and "has ceased to be an evangelical church," he is taking a "law" issue and making it a "gospel" issue.

Can you actually imagine saying that to Pannenberg face to face? Either Pannenberg is right about such a church no longer standing "on the foundation of Scripture" or he is wrong. If he is right, what difference can it make whether you think he is taking a "law" issue and making it a "gospel" issue? But if you are saying that he is wrong about whether such a church can stand "on the foundation of Scripture" then you are entering into an exegetical dispute with Pannenberg, and then the issue is settled by the actual examination of scripture. You cannot just sweep Pannenberg away by saying that he has confused law and gospel (a charge -- confusing law and gospel -- I would not have enough nerve to bring against Pannenberg). I would rather that you just forthrightly say, "Yes, we no longer stand on the foundation of Scripture, but that's okay," than to have you dismiss Pannenberg's weighty judgment about scripture because you think it confuses law and gospel. But if you say "we no longer stand on the foundation of Scripture," then I fear that you will be grieving the Holy Spirit.

One can and should appeal to the law in scriptures, but to what purpose? One way in which God uses "law" is to expose our alienation from the Gospel. That is what Paul is doing in Romans 1:18 to 3:20.

A few years ago, when I came to your office and you so very graciously shared with me some of your convictions about law and gospel, you said a similar thing. Back then you spoke of God's law along lines like this: "The law is the sound of approaching death, a sound that can be heard in a leaf falling to the ground." I said that I would rather think that "the law is the way in which we should walk that we might live a life pleasing to God." Or more simply, "the law is the will of our loving God for us." It is time that we sort this out more carefully.

In my judgment, you take the entire structure of Luther's theology and turn it on its head. Instead of praising the Law and rejoicing in the Law and shepherding your flock to the Law, you speak of the holy Law of God grudgingly, as if it is exhausted by its theological use, when for Luther the Gospel is ordered to the Law. The Gospel is given us that with joy we might turn to the Law. The Gospel is given to us that we need not languish in the squalor of sin, but rather love, yea lust! after the Law (as Jenson once put it in a Reformation sermon, and which I am sure David Yeago agrees with too.)

This is not some idiosyncratic notion of mine, but is right there in Luther's Large Catechism for everyone to see. In Luther's introduction to his discussion of the Creed, he presents the Creed, which is the summary of the Gospel, as ordered to the first section of the Catechism, the Ten Commandments:

Thus far we have heard the first part of Christian doctrine. In it we have seen all that God wishes us to do or not to do. The Creed properly follows, setting forth all that we must expect and receive from God; in brief, it teaches us to know him perfectly. It is given in order to help us do what the Ten Commandments require of us. For, as we said above, they are set on so high a plane that all human ability is far too feeble and weak to keep them. Therefore it is as necessary to learn this part as it is the other so that we may know where and how to obtain strength for this task. If we could by our own strength keep the Ten Commandments as they ought to be kept, we would need neither the Creed nor the Lord's Prayer. (my emphasis)

Luther's insight here is both brilliant and human: It is hard for us to obey commandments unless we know something about the heart of the Commander. What the Gospel teaches us is that the Commander, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is good and full only of love. He does not give us commands in order to increase his own glory, as if he were some mad general using us as cannon fodder to gain glory for himself, but rather his commands are entirely full of grace and love. Therefore it is always rational and wise for us to turn to his commands, even in times of stress and temptation. The law of God, then, should be treasured as the very best thing for us. We should give thanks to God continually, as does Psalm 119, that God's mercy includes giving us his Law.

In fact, Luther speaks of God's law as "treasure." Recall Luther's comments on the necessity of prayer. One of his garland of four reasons for prayer is the joyful commandment of God that we should pray:

We allow ourselves to be hindered and deterred by such thoughts as these: "I am not holy enough or worthy enough; if I were as godly and holy as St. Peter or St. Paul, then I would pray." Away with such thoughts! The very commandment that applied to St. Paul applies also to me. The Second Commandment is given just as much on my account as on his. He can boast of no better or holier commandment than I. Therefore you should say: "The prayer I offer is just as precious, holy, and pleasing to God as those of St. Paul and the holiest of saints. The reason is this: I freely admit that he is holier in respect to his person, but not on account of the commandment. God does not regard prayer on account of the person, but on account of his Word and the obedience accorded it. On this commandment, on which all the saints base their prayer, I, too, base mine. Moreover, I pray for the same thing for which they all pray, or ever have prayed."

Again, Luther explicitly speaks of the doctrine of the law as a treasure in his important sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity:

Therefore God gave this one simple teaching that reveals what man is, what he has been, and what he should again become. This is the doctrine of the Law, which Christ here cites: "Thou shalt love God with all thy heart, etc." As if to say: Thus thou hast been, and thus thou shalt still be and become. In Paradise you were in possession of the treasure, and were thus created that you loved God with all your heart; this you have lost; but now you must again become as you were, or you will never enter the Kingdom of God...And Christ wishes this doctrine to be observed by the Christians so that they may know what they have been, what they are still lacking and what they should again become, that they continue not in the misery and filth in which they find themselves now; for it they do, they must be lost.

Then Luther speaks of the gospel, but it is crucial to note the order: the gospel is ordered to the law. The good thing about the gospel is that it lets us turn again to the law:

Since we are unable to keep the Law and it is impossible for the natural man to do so, Christ came and stepped between the Father and us, and prays for us: Beloved Father, be gracious unto them and forgive them their sins. I will take upon me their transgressions and bear them; I love thee with my whole heart, and in addition the entire human race, and this I will prove by shedding my blood for mankind. Moreover, I have fulfilled the Law and I did it for their welfare in order that they may partake of my fulfilling the Law and thereby come to grace. Thus there is first given us through Christ the sense that we do not fulfil the Law and that sin is fully and completely forgiven: however, this is not bestowed in a way or to the end, that we in the future need not keep the Law and may forever continue in sin, or that we should teach, if we have faith then we need no longer to love God and our neighbor. But there is bestowed upon us the sense that the fulfilling of the Law may now for the first time be successfully attempted and perfectly realized, and this is the eternal, fixed and unchangeable will of God. To this end it is necessary to preach grace, that man may find counsel and help to come to a perfect life. (my emphasis)

If the Formula of Concord had never been written, it should have been obvious from the rest of the Confessions and from the preaching of Luther that Christians are to turn with joy to God's Law. But still, the Formula has been written and so the false notion that the regenerated do good works apart from God's law "just as the sun spontaneously completes its regular course" has been officially rejected:

This one party taught and held that the regenerated do not learn the new obedience (that is, in what good works they should walk) from the law; nor should this doctrine in any way be urged on the basis of the law, since they have been liberated by the Son of God, have become his Spirit's temple, and hence are free, so that just as the sun spontaneously completes its regular course without any outside impulse, they, too, through the inspiration and impulse of the Holy Spirit spontaneously do what God requires of them. The other party taught that although true believers are indeed motivated by the Holy Spirit and hence according to the inner man do the will of God from a free spirit, nevertheless the Holy Spirit uses the written law on them to instruct them, and thereby even true believers learn to serve God not according to their own notions but according to his written law and Word, which is a certain rule and norm for achieving a godly life and behavior in accord with God's external and immutable will. (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article VI)

            I am moved to lift up this image of the sun spontaneously completing its course because it offers such a gentle and helpful rebuke of antinomianism. The problem with those who reject God's Law is not that they somehow fail to aim at love, it is simply that the love they aim at risks being a "self-elected" love. They think that apart from God's Law they know the path of love, but the problem is that sin still clings so closely to us:

If believers and the elect children of God were perfectly renewed in this life through the indwelling Spirit in such a way that in their nature and all its powers they would be totally free from sins, they would require no law, no driver. Of themselves and altogether spontaneously, without any instruction, admonition, exhortation, or driving by the law they would do what they are obligated to do according to the will of God, just as the sun, the moon, and all the stars of heaven regularly run their courses according to the order which God instituted for them once and for all, spontaneously and unhindered, without any admonition, exhortation, compulsion, coercion, or necessity, and as the holy angels render God a completely spontaneous obedience.

But in this life Christians are not renewed perfectly and completely. For although their sins are covered up through the perfect obedience of Christ, so that they are not reckoned to believers for damnation, and although the Holy Spirit has begun the mortification of the Old Adam and their renewal in the spirit of their minds, nevertheless the Old Adam still clings to their nature and to all its internal and external powers.(Ibid.)

            And so, if we set aside God's Law we become vulnerable to self-elected good works:

Believers, furthermore, require the teaching of the law so that they will not be thrown back on their own holiness and piety and under the pretext of the Holy Spirit's guidance set up a self-elected service of God and without his Word and command, as it is written, "You shall not do every man whatever is right in his own eyes, but heed all these words which I command you. You shall not add to it nor take from it" (Deut. 12:8, 28, 32).(Ibid.)

            I should think that Lutherans would forever be on guard about such "self-elected" good works, given how fundamental they were to the story of Luther:

O how great a price all the Carthusian monks and nuns would pay if in the exercise of their religion they could bring before God a single work done in accordance with his commandment and could say with a joyful heart in his presence, "Now I know that this work is well pleasing to Thee!" What will become of these poor wretched people when, standing before God and the whole world, they shall blush with shame before a little child that has lived according to this [Fourth] commandment and confess that with the merits of their whole lives they are not worthy to offer him a cup of water? It serves them right for their devilish perversity in trampling God's commandment under foot that they must torture themselves in vain with their self-devised works and meanwhile have only scorn and trouble for their reward. (Large Catechism, Fourth Commandment)

And then Luther continues his sermon against self-elected good works:

It seems to me that we shall have our hands full to keep these commandments, practicing gentleness, patience, love toward enemies, chastity, kindness, etc., and all that these virtues involve. But such works are not important or impressive in the eyes of the world. They are not unusual and pompous, restricted to special times, places, rites, and ceremonies, but are common, everyday domestic duties of one neighbor toward another, with no show about them. On the other hand, those other works captivate all eyes and ears. Aided by great pomp, splendor, and magnificent buildings, they are so adorned that everything gleams and glitters. There is burning of incense, singing and ringing of bells, lighting of tapers and candles until nothing else can be seen or heard. For when a priest stands in a gold-embroidered chasuble or a layman remains on his knees a whole day in church, this is considered a precious work that cannot be sufficiently extolled. But when a poor girl tends a little child, or faithfully does what she is told, that is regarded as nothing. Otherwise, why should monks and nuns go into cloisters?

            I think that this is my chief diagnosis of what went wrong in our recent synod assembly and our divisive, painful passing of that resolution about gay marriage. It is not that one side or the other was failing to aim at love. It was simply that one side was aiming at a "self-elected" love -- a love apart from God's Law.

But there is nothing surprising about Luther's or the Lutheran Confessions' joy in the Law of God. It is also how St. Paul preaches, for Paul does not simply preach the law in its theological use, but also as teaching on holiness of life for the Christian. And so does Jesus. And so does St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine and Wesley and countless, countless quiet and humble preachers through the ages who have loved God and tried to call their people to the love of God, including that love of God that loves the will of God.

So the questions we are addressing here is not a "gospel" question but a "law" question. How does the Christian Torah of the NT serve as norm and standard for Christians who are gay and lesbian?

Bishop Bouman, where do you get this idea -- "the Christian Torah of the NT"? I am not saying that there is no such thing, but I am curious where you get the idea from. When I was quoting Luther above on the clarity of scripture, for example, I have a pretty good feel for the context of my quotes and for the overall flow of Luther's arguments against Erasmus and Zwingli. I am ready to discuss with you the interpretation of the texts I quote. But where do you get this idea of the "Christian Torah of the NT"? Do you mean that Christians have a different law from Israel? Do you mean that God has deprived Israel of his mercy by keeping his law from them? Do you mean that the law of Israel is defective and that the Church has a better law? Do you mean that the practice of homosexuality is a better law than Israel has? Did you get this from Luther? If so, let's discuss the text.

Which leads us to a second thing that is being feared, and that is antinomianism.

Bishop Bouman, Do you suppose that you are not an antinomian? First off, don't you have to admit that your notion of God's law so far has been very dreary?..that you reduce the notion of God's law to its theological use? And then, don't you see that even the law in its theological use fails unless its primary meaning as God's loving will for the conduct of our life is true? But since you do not affirm that, then you have no use for God's law at all, and it is as if the antinomians had defeated Luther.

And setting that all aside, on what basis do you preach and exhort at all? You do a lot of that. But if you are not preaching and exhorting God's law, then you are preaching and exhorting someone else's law, and that is not right.

I am aware, along with other people of tempted conscience... we are aware of what we have lost through our sin and of what we should become again. We have an image of Christ and want to grow in that image. That means that we want to grow in the law of God.

It seems to me that if there is any shadow of truth in what I have been saying, then you and I are in serious disagreement and need to hasten onward to try to straighten it out. So I look forward to your response. God be with us.

Your servant in Christ,

Gregory