The Reality of

Reclaiming our Lutheran Heritage:

Five Important Themes Lutherans Have
Lost
910 4th Street
Brookings, SD 57006
Ph. 605-692-9337

www.InstituteOflutheranYheology.org

Rev. Dr. Dennis Bielfeldt

dbielfeldt@instituteoflutherantheolo
gy.org
 Four Lectures
“What is the Problem Today
Anyway?”
“Why is it Important that God is
Real?”
“Why is it Important to Speak
Truthfully of God?”
“Reclaiming the Internal Clarity
0f Scripture?”
 Lecture I
Something in the Air

"What is the Problem

Today Anyway?"
 Going to Church 100 Years
 People dressed up .Ago
 They were quiet .
 Prayer and silence before the service as people
“prepared” .
 Confirmation class demanded work!
 The Bible was considered to be clear and true.
 Clear sense of sin was and what it was to live a
godly life
 Prepared for communion.
 Believed in an afterlife.
 People listened to the sermon as “God’s Word”
 Pastor was regarded as one of the brightest
men in town
 Times Have Changed!
 Don’t dress up.
 Talk and socialize.
 Children do not learn much in confirmation.
 The Bible is a confusing book full of
personal interpretation.
 What is sinful?
 Seldom prepare for communion
 Vague thoughts about the afterlife.
 Sermon is just the pastor’s opinion
 The pastors are just not as bright and as
informed today.
 The pastor can barely read Greek or
Hebrew.
 Is This Just A Change of
Style?
No!!
 What is taught by the church, its
pastors and teachers is no longer
taken as seriously by people in the
pews
 The opinions of the church no longer
seem to matter
 Although people oftentimes think the
church is “good for people” – but are
things taught in church are really true
or false?
 Many churchgoers report they like
 The Eclipse of Truth
 In many congregations, it is no longer
very important what people believe
theologically.
 No longer regard theological language as
in principle true or false - - or at least not
“true” or “false” in the traditional senses
of the terms
 What seems more important
l how the people of the congregations get
along,
l how they feel,
l and what they do in the community.
 A Change in Understanding
‘Doctrine’
Doctrine concerns what is
believed
In many congregations, there is
nothing in particular to believe in
deeply!
Heresy was crucial in Christian
development
No heresy any longer in mainline
Protestantism
There is little heresy in ELCA; less
 Doctrine
 ‘Doctrine’ and ‘dogma’ were once
good words
 Now neither “doctrinaire” or
“dogmatic” is popular
 Once it was a bad thing to be a
heretic
 But no longer . . . .
 Mainline Protestantism, chief moral
malady
intolerance
 Our Relativistic Age

If two people disagree on

whether a thing is beautiful,
must one be wrong?
Most say, “No. Beauty is in the
eye of the beholder.
Relativistic Age (Cont.)

If two people disagree on

whether an act is good,
must on of them be wrong?
Most say, “No. What is right
for me, may not be right for
you.”
Relativistic Age (Cont.)

If two people disagree on

whether an act is good, must
on of them be wrong? If two
people disagree on whether a
statement of theory is true,
must one be wrong?
Many now say, “No. What is
true for me may not be true for
 Relativism and Doctrine
Theology = certain things are
true of God
Much of Christianity recites the
Apostle’s, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds, claiming
that they are true
But what does claiming them
true mean?
John 18:38 “Pilate said to Him, "What is
truth?"
 Facts and Values
If one is not a relativist about
scientific truth, one might claim
that science concerns facts
Facts are objective
Facts are about the world
Facts concern truth
Facts concern reason
One can be wrong about the
The Logic of ‘True for Me’

 But if it is just true for me, then I have

no grounds for claiming the truthof
relativism with respect to truth.
 A regress is generated.
 Tolerance and
Commitment
 Important factor => dialectic of
tolerance and commitment
 Prior to 17th century, religious
commitment often produced religious
intolerance (commitment higher value
than tolerance)
 In the Enlightenment of the 18th
century, tolerance became the more
valued notion
 Reason was to judge faith, preaching
tolerance to all holding superstitious
and uncritical religious views
 The Fruits of Tolerance
 While tolerance is an important
democratic notion, its inculcation has
had some deleterious consequences
for faith.
 Faith gets separated from reason
 Faith becomes irrational and
unreasonable
 Faith becomes a passional
commitment or a mere feeling
 Faith becomes privatized; it becomes
something that cannot in principle be
Facts and Values (Cont.)

Many regard religion and the

language of religion and
theology to be concerned with
values
Values are subjective
Values concern ourselves
Values cannot either be true or
false
Values concern feeling
 Theological Language
 While many regard scientific language
as having truth conditions, many deny
that religious and theological
language have truth conditions
 An expression has truth conditions if
and only if it states what the world
would be like were it true.
 ‘The cat is on the mat’ is true if and
only if there is a cat, a mat, and the
cat is on the mat - - these are its
truth-conditions
Theological Language
(Cont.)
 But does theological language
actually state what the world must be
if it is to be regarded as true?
Example:
 Is ‘God is in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself’ true if and only if
God is in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, or does theological
language lack truth conditions
entirely?
 The Dominant
Tradition within
Academic Circles
over the Six
Decades Says,
“No!”
Theological
Language Lacks
Truth Conditions - -
Or if it has them,
This certainly
would have
surprised
Martin Luther
 Truth and Value
 One can describe values, who holds
them, and what they are.
 There is thus a truth about values.
 But one must distinguish that from
truth itself and the value such truth
has.
 There is value in truth, but value in
truth does not entail a truth about
values.
 We value what is true, and we can
Justification by grace through faith
the theology of the cross
Law and Gospel
The simul iustus et peccator
The Infinite is available in the finite

Lutheran Theological
Emphases
What Becomes of These?
 Is justification by grace through faith
merely a value that we hold, a matter of
personal taste?
 Is the assertion that God is found in
weakness and suffering merely a way
that Lutherans have adopted to think
about things?
 Is the presupposition of law and gospel a
matter of personal taste?
 Is it merely our feeling that we are both
justified and sinful simultaneously?
 Is the assertion that the infinite is
available only in and through the finite
merely a matter of our sentiment or