Confessional Christianity with Rev. Charles St-Onge

Pontificating in Germany


The Pope has been visiting Germany and, on Sunday, preached in Erfurt.  That’s the town where a certain rebel monk completed his law degree before moving on to theology.  I read through Benedict XVI’s Sunday homily wondering if he’d dare mention the name “Luther,” but he didn’t.  Some sermon illustrations are best left unused, anyway.  That’s not to say that the Pope had no kind words for the one responsible for schisming the Church (the Roman view) or reestablishing the Church on a clear Gospel foundation (the Protestant view).   Benedict praised the Wittenberg University Old Testament professor  for his “deep passion and driving force.”  But if Lutheran leaders in Germany were hoping for something more, they were disappointed.

I’m often asked to explain the differences between Lutheranism (or evangelical catholicism as Lutherans call it) and Roman Catholicism (or Romanism or Papalism as Lutherans call it).  In fact I’ll be doing just that in a class at a local Roman Catholic school this week.  The explanation is at once simple and immensely complicated.  The simple explanation first.  At the Council of Trent in the 1540s the Roman Catholic church declared:


This was in response to the Augsburg Confession presented by a number of German princes to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1530, in which these “Lutherans” wrote:

…men…are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins (A.C. IV).

An attempt was made to reconcile these two statements in 1999 with the signing of a “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of  Justification.”  It soon became clear that the two signatories, the Lutheran World Federation and the Holy See, did not interpret the document the same way.  One of the proponents of the document, but at the same time a critic of the idea that the canons of Trent had been reversed by it, was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI.

That’s the simple explanation.  In reality, however, the differences (and similarities) are much more complex.  I like to approach the question in terms of “confession” or “culture.”  The former has to do with the historical theological positions of both confessions of the Christian faith.  The latter has to do with what people have grown up with in both traditions.  Theological or confessional differences sometimes line up with cultural differences, but at other times they can be quite at odds with one another.

A single example.  Many Lutherans in Philadelphia would tell me that what made them different from Catholics was that Catholic priests stand behind their altars for the consecration of the communion elements and face the congregation, but Lutheran pastors stand in front of their altars and face the wall.  Ironically, it was Luther who first suggested the idea of free standing altars.  Rome adopted his suggestion at Vatican II (although they didn’t phrase it that way), but many Lutherans never adopted the idea.  The current pope is now promoting the idea of moving Catholic altars back against the wall.  Luther insisted that communion was a gift being given to people by Christ, and so the pastor should face the congregation as the “giving words” are being spoken.  Rome insisted on the Mass being a representation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to the Father, so the priest should face away from the people as their “representative” before God .  So the theological “difference” between Catholics and Lutherans is in fact the complete opposite of the “cultural” or “practical” difference.

Will there ever be reconciliation between Rome and Wittenberg?  In a hidden way, there already is: there is only one Church, and Christ knows who are His own.  In a visible way?  It’s complicated.  But with Christ, there is always hope.  Where the Gospel is preached, the Spirit will build Jesus’ Church.  And the gates of Hell, much less of Germany or Rome, will not be able to stand against it.

2 Responses

  1. JackR says:

    I confess that I am confused sometimes by some of the statements of fact. Who makes up the “only one church”?
    Where do the Jewish people, the chosen ones, fit in?

    • I guess I would answer with the words of Paul, himself a Pharisee and Jew, in Romans 9:
