Spener’s Theology of Baptism: Anxiety Transforms Grace into Legalism

Philipp Jakob Spener’s 1675/1676 publication Pia Desideria has become a classic text within the pietistic movement, and thereby attracted both praise and disapproval from critics.

Worth noting is Spener’s attitude toward baptism. Spener presents himself as solidly within Lutheranism. Although he affirms a more-or-less standard version of the Lutheran understanding of baptism, he seems almost reluctant to embrace the joyful assurance which Lutheranism finds within baptism.

He subscribes to Luther’s foundational teaching about baptism:

So weiß ich auch die Taufe und deren Kraft nicht hoch genug zu preisen, und glaube, daß sie das eigentliche Bad der Wiedergeburt und Erneuerung des heiligen Geistes sei, Tit. 3,5, oder wie unser Luther im Katechismus sagt: „daß sie wirke Vergebung der Sünden, erlöse von Tod und Teufel, und gebe (nicht nur verspreche) die ewige Seligkeit.“

Yet Spener quickly turns to examine the abuses of baptism. He sees baptism as a standard part of the “lifeless Christianity” trope: the usual presentation of a person who considers herself or himself to be a Christian, and to be assured of eternal salvation, because she or he has performed, or participated in, some list of the church’s rites and ceremonies.

Spener seems focused on contemplating the possible problems caused by those who would see baptism as an easy way to get “cheap grace,” rather than celebrating the benefits of baptism. To be sure, there is a real risk: some people do actually think that their spiritual life is complete based upon the fact of their baptism and perhaps a few other tokens of faith. But Spener dwells almost exclusively on that risk, and doesn’t see that baptism is also the key to the very reformation and renewal that he desires for the church.

Denn wir können nicht leugnen, sondern werden durch die tägliche Erfahrung davon überzeugt, daß nicht Wenige meinen, ihr ganzes Christenthum bestehe darinnen, und alsdann hätten sie dem Gottesdienst übrig genug getan, wenn sie eben getauft wären, das Wort Gottes in der Kirche hörten, beichteten, die Absolution empfingen und zu dem heiligen Abendmahl gingen, mag nun das Herz dabei sein oder nicht, mögen Früchte folgen oder nicht; wenn’s hoch kommt, bemühen sie sich etwa dabei ein solches Leben zu führen, darin eben die Obrigkeit nichts Strafbares findet.

Spener’s desire for a deeper, more passionate and heartfelt faith is certainly sincere and admirable. But his demand to do more is perhaps misguided. Rather than saying that it’s not enough to be baptized, hear God’s Word, confess one’s sins, receive the absolution, and partake of the Lord’s Supper, he might perhaps encourage the reader to contemplate the blessings already received in these things.

It is perhaps a common mistake, throughout the history of the church, to see imperatives as a route to a more living and active faith. Correctly seeing that unengaged worshipers could have a more vibrant spiritual life, Spener and others like him incorrectly imagine that the path to that better life lies in challenges and tasks.

While well-intentioned, externally imposed requirements are merely another form of legalism. Flourishing spiritual life is not fostered by moralizing lectures. It is fostered by receiving grace: through the Word and Sacrament, of course, but also through living in and among followers of Jesus. The vigorous faith which Spener wishes for people is encouraged by example, by seeing the fruit of the Spirit in others.

Spener’s frustration and disappointment are understandable, as is his inclination to prescribe activities designed to fuel a more active spiritual life. But such activities are effective, not when they’re prescribed, but when they’re sought.

He cites a passage from Johann Arndt’s 1605/1610 book, Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum:

Oder wie der theure Johann Arndt solcher Leute Einbildung beschreibt in seinem Wahren Christenthum Buch 2, Kap. 4: „Ich bin ein Christ, getauft, habe Gottes Wort rein, höre dasselbe, brauche das heilige Sakrament des Abendmahls, ich glaube und bekenne auch alle Artikel des christlichen Glaubens; darum kann es mir nicht mangeln, mein Thun muß Gott gefallen, und ich muß selig werden. So schließt jetzt alle Welt, und hält auch dafür, darinnen bestehe die Gerechtigkeit.“ Man seh am angegebenen Orte auch die Antwort.

The best gratitude is unsolicited gratitude. The best apology is an unsought apology. Likewise, the best act of “living out one’s baptism” — as the common phrase expresses it — is not a response to admonition, but rather emerges from gratitude.

Certain New Testament passages which use words like “admonish, warn, reprimand” are not presenting a general rule for motivating disciples, but rather are directed toward curbing behavior.

Aber damit kehren solche blinde Leute Gottes heilige Absicht ganz um; denn Gott hat dir freilich die Taufe gegeben, daß du nur einmal getauft werden darfst; aber er hat mit dir darin einen Bund gemacht, welcher auf seiner Seite ein Gnadenbund, von der deinigen aber ein Bund des Glaubens und guten Gewissens ist; dieser Bund muß nun dein Leben lang währen. Du tröstest dich also vergeblich deiner Taufe, und der darin zugesagten Gnade der Seligkeit, wenn du auf deiner Seite nicht auch in dem Bunde des Glaubens und guten Gewissens bleibest, oder, wenn du ihn verletzt, wiederum durch herzliche Buße ihn wieder aufrichtest. Also muß deine Taufe, soll sie dir nützen, in steter Übung des ganzen Lebens bleiben.

So it is, then, that Spener loses sight of the blessings which baptism bestows. He is focused on extracting a life of discipleship rather than showing the grace which will cause discipleship to arise uncoerced.

He is so worried that people might become lax in their faith and seek cheap grace, that he sees baptism only as a temptation to laziness and an enticement to spiritual sloth. Thus it is that baptism gradually becomes devalued to the reader of Spener’s book.

Daher soll man auch fleißig nachweisen, wie die göttlichen Mittel des Wortes und der Sakramente es mit solchem innerlichen Menschen zu thun haben; es sei also nicht genug, daß wir das Wort mit dem äußerlichen Ohr hören, sondern wir müssen es auch in das Herz dringen lassen, daß wir daselbst den heiligen Geist reden hören, d.i. seine Versiegelung und Kraft des Wortes mit lebendiger Bewegung und Trost fühlen; es sei nicht genug, daß wir getauft sind, sondern unser innerlicher Mensch, welcher Christum in der Taufe angezogen, müsse auch mit ihm bekleidet bleiben, und das durch sein äußerliches Leben beweisen; es sey nicht genug, äußerlich das heilige Abendmahl empfangen zu haben, sondern unser inwendiger Mensch müsse auch durch solche selige Speise wahrhaftig genährt werden; es sei nicht genug, äußerlich mit dem Munde zu beten, sondern das rechte und wahre Gebet geschehe in unserem Herzen, und breche entweder dann erst in Worte aus, oder bleibe wohl auch gar in der Seele, wo es doch Gott finde und antreffe; es sei nicht genug, daß wir in dem äußerlichen Tempel Gott dienen, sondern unser innerlicher Mensch müsse vor allem Andern in seinem eigenen Tempel (im Herzen) Gott verehren, man sei äußerlich in der Kirche oder nicht, und was dergleichen mehr ist.

Spener is like a man who has a valuable jewel, and yet can see this possession only as a cause to worry about its being stolen. He is like a man who is on a vacation to a beautiful tropical island, and does nothing but worry about the possibility of his stay on the island being disrupted by a hurricane.

Scholars are well aware of Spener’s occasional theological errors, most of which result from the influence of Calvinism. In the case of baptism, however, Spener’s error is less theological and more psychological. He gets the theology mostly correct — citing Luther — but he fails to live in the affect of that theology. The affect of baptism is one of peace, gratitude, and joy. Luther found comfort and shelter in the statement: “I am baptized” — ich bin getauft or baptizatus sum. Spener finds only anxiety and uneasiness in the concept of baptism.

The effect of Spener’s lack of affect is to drive Spener into the arms of legalism: if baptism is perceived exclusively as something which is likely to be misused, then the solution is to create a list of imperatives designed to create the proper spiritual life and thereby to avoid the threatening misuse. But this solution will not work, and will not achieve the desired result. Baptism is one of the means of grace, but Spener’s fretting about it yields the very opposite of grace.

Nothing New, But Everything of Great Value: Philipp Jakob Spener’s Pia Desideria

In 1675-1676, a publisher named Zunner and a printer named Fritgen teamed up in Frankfurt to publish what would become Philipp Jacob Spener’s most famous work: a book titled Pia Desideria. Spener’s book would become a key text in a movement called ‘pietism’ and have an impact in many parts of the world over many years.

In 1674, the Dutch theologian Jodocus van Lodenstein coined the phrase semper reformanda. Certainly, both Spener and Luther would have found plenty of points on which they disagreed with van Lodenstein, but they would have embraced at least some interpretation of the idea that the church is ever in need of reform.

The church requires a continuous critical eye, not from the outside, but rather from the inside, to ensure that it is staying true to its mission, to God’s immutable teachings, and to Jesus. Periodic course corrections are required to keep the church on track.

Spener saw himself in this way, as working in the patterns of Josiah and Luther. Spener argued that he presented nothing new, but rather was seeking to reform the church by bringing it back to its original way of being. The publication of Pia Desideria was Spener’s manifesto: he was making the case that the church needed to be reformed, and giving specific steps for that reform.

Freely admitting that he presents nothing new, Spener offers six points for action:

First, that God’s Word is to be plentiful among us.

Second, to establish and diligently carry out the priesthood of all believers.

Third, the Christianity consists not only of knowing, but also of actions.

Fourth, proper behavior during religious disagreements.

Fifth, the training of preachers at universities.

Sixth, the organizing of sermons for edification of the people.

A quick glance at these six points informs the reader that, with a little adjustment in the wording, they could be found a century or two early among Luther and his colleagues, or a century or two later among theologians ranging from C.F.W. Walther to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Spener begins his presentation of the first point this way:

Daß man dahin bedacht wäre, das Wort Gottes reichlicher unter uns zu bringen: Wir wissen, daß wir von Natur nichts gutes an uns haben, sondern soll etwas an uns seyn, so muß es von Gott in uns gewürcket werden, und darzu ist das Wort das kräftige Mittel, indem der Glaube aus dem Evangelio entzündet werden muß, das Gesetz aber die Regel gibt der guten Wercke und viel herzlichen Antrieb denselben nachzujagen. Je reichlicher also das Wort unter uns wohnen wird, je mehr werden wir Glaubens und dessen Früchte zuwegen bringen.

If the church has a ministry of “word and sacrament,” Spener seems perhaps to tilt the balance in favor of the word. To be sure, he honors a basic Lutheran understanding of the sacraments, but the amount of text devoted to the word far outweighs the few mentions of the sacraments in the Pia Desideria.

In Spener’s era, it was not unusual for churches, especially in larger cities, to have daily services — sometimes even more than once a day. Given that most preachers constructed their sermon on or around a text, or even as a running exposition of a text, the reader might think that God’s Word was plentiful enough already.

But Spener goes on to note that even a daily sermon — or even a twice daily sermon — does not meet our spiritual needs, because the passive intake of the Word in a sermon is only one of several ways in which we can immerse ourselves in God’s Word. For spiritual health, it is necessary for people to actively and interactively explore God’s Word:

Nun sollte es zwar scheinen, daß das Wort Gottes reichlich genug unter uns wohnte, indem an unserschilichen Orten (und zwar auch in hiesiger Stadt) täglich, anderswo gleichwohl zum öfteren, von der Kanzel gepredigt wird, wo wir aber der Sache reiflich nachdenken, werden wir auch in diesem Stück vieles finden, das noch weiter nötig sei. Ich verwerfe die haltende Predigten durchaus nicht, da aus einem gewissen vorgelegten Text und dessen Erklärung die christliche Gemeinde unterrichtet werde, als der ich selbst dergleichen vortrage und verrichte. Aber ich finde nicht, daß dieses genug sei.

He goes on to recommend, in addition to sermons, other opportunities to read and discuss Scripture. Again, his recommendations will offer no novelties to those well-versed in church history.

Spener’s goal is to convince his reader that he is offering nothing new, but rather recalling the church to something of great value.

The Four Roots of the Missouri Synod: A Historical Synthesis

In 1847, an organization was formed. It would later be given the name “The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod.” This is often shortened to “LC—MS” or simply “LCMS.” The original name was even more unwieldy: Die Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische Synode von Missouri, Ohio, und andern Staaten or “The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States.”

But the denomination’s history goes back well before 1847.

In the decades prior to the founding of the LCMS, several different groups of Lutherans immigrated to, and settled in, the United States. Most of these groups had a strong ethnic heritage. The groups involved in the LCMS were German. Other ethnic Lutheran groups included Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, and Danes; they founded other denominations. Among all these groups, the ethnic identity, fostered primarily through language, was strong, although there were instances of Americanization.

But ethnicity was not the strongest factor in defining these groups. Each had a vision of Lutheranism which shaped their communal faith practices.

Four groups eventually coalesced to form the Missouri Synod. There is some ambiguity in this narrative, because some of these groups were not clearly organizationally defined, but consisted rather of loose trends. Some historians simplify the narrative and speak of the LCMS as the merger of two major groups, with other individuals or small movements joining in under the umbrella of the two. Interpretations of the Synod’s founding are therefore somewhat debatable, but the narrative presented here is serviceable.

One of the four trends is confessionalism. The word ‘confessionalism’ here denotes the view that Lutheranism is definitively shaped by the teachings of the Book of Concord. This book, compiled in 1580, is a collection of texts which set forth the essential doctrines of Lutheranism. The confessionalists were concerned to retain the purity of doctrine. The Prussian monarchy, which ruled large areas of central Europe, had decided in 1817 to force a merger of Lutheran and Calvinist church bodies. This merger was unacceptable to the confessionalists, who saw that it compromised Lutheran teachings. Some of the confessionalists emigrated to America. A few came as individuals or families; others came in larger organized groups.

One particular group came from the area around the city of Chemnitz, including the small towns of Oberfrohna and Niederfrohna. This area is in the German region of Saxony. Martin Stephan organized and led this group in 1838-1839 to settle eventually in eastern Missouri. In late 1839, the group exiled Martin Stephan on charges of embezzlement and sexual misconduct. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther eventually emerged as the leader of these people in the wake of Stephan’s departure. They established a cluster of small villages not far from the Mississippi River.

Pietism was a second movement incorporated into the Missouri Synod. The term ‘pietism’ is used in a variety of ways; in church history, it refers to a trend in the 1600s and 1700s, and relevant to this narrative is Lutheran pietism. Not relevant is reformed or calvinist pietism, or forms of piety in later centuries. An influential preacher and author, Philipp Jacob Spener, shaped Lutheran pietism in several European nations. Spener’s most popular book, published in 1675, became a standard text within pietism.

Already at this point in the narrative, two groups have been identified: pietism and confessionalism. Even before examining two more groups who would be part of the founding of the LCMS, it is worth noting that there is a fair amount of overlap between these two movements. Many of the people involved in Martin Stephan’s 1838-1839 confessionalist Saxon Emigration were simultaneously influenced by pietism.

A third factor in the formation of the Missouri Synod was a movement of missionary activity. Beginning in the early 1840s, Wilhelm Löhe recruited and sent clergy to America. It had come to his attention that many German-speaking settlers in North America were unchurched and ignorant of their faith. Löhe’s trend broadened over the decades to include missionary work among the Native American Indians.

A final category of influences on the founding of the LCMS is vague yet significant. There were German-speaking immigrants who didn't fit neatly into any of the three categories already delineated, yet who became significant parts of the new church body. They were not especially confessionalistic or pietistic, and weren’t part of organized missionary movements. Many came to America looking for economic opportunities or political liberty. Yet they carried some manner of Lutheran identity with them. They desired churches and pastors for their towns, and schools for their children. They arrived in America over a series of decades, independently of each other, and not part of any organization. On average, they may have been financially more stable than the pietists, confessionalists, or missionaries.

The melding of these four groups into the LCMS ensured that the new church body would incorporate a variety of approaches to the faith. In some instances, this was synergy. In other instances, it led to conflict. Each of the four had its strengths and weaknesses. It is still possible today to detect the effects of each on the Synod.

The confessionalists left a legacy of strong attachment to clearly-stated and correct doctrine. The pietists contributed their desire for a personal vivid life-changing faith which manifests itself in daily conduct. Löhe’s emissaries emphasized outreach and evangelization. The fourth, uncategorized category, lent a communal impulse: the desire to establish villages and neighborhoods in which Lutheran churches and Lutheran schools were societal hubs.

Even if historians debate about the exact nature and number of the groups which joined together to build the LCMS, it is in any case clear that there was a diversity of approaches to the faith which made for a robust spiritual and communal life within the denomination.

Gathering in the Power of the Resurrection: Jesus Sends His People to Serve the World

God unveils His plans to help all human beings in a series of events which is spread out over centuries and millennia. Yet the focus of this world-historical process of salvation is contained in one brief span of time: the birth, life, teachings, actions, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

This magnificent undertaking, in which God rescues His world, is finalized in the ascent of Jesus and feast of Pentecost, and is a microcosm of the millennia-long global process of salvation.

Or, perhaps, the global process is a macrocosm of the life of Jesus: His time on earth writ large.

Either way, the three or four decades during which Jesus lived as a physical human being on earth are a hinge point, the inflection between the millennia before His incarnation and the millennia after His resurrection, as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describes:

Those who followed him would begin to act as if every life is worthy. The community of people called Christians would minister to the sick and disabled and build hospitals, pursue universal education, spread teaching through universities, and lift up the poor in faraway places, “for they would inherit the earth.”

Life with Jesus includes a balance between the individual and the corporate. Each person has her or his own unique and personal relationship with God. Yet the fullness of faith can be lived out only in community.

God calls people to unity, not to uniformity. Individuals retain their own distinctive qualities and make their own independent decisions, while being interdependent with their fellow disciples and fully dependent on God.

Rice chooses to continue the thought in the first person plural. God gathers people together. He turns a bunch of individuals into a “we” — following Jesus is a team sport, not an individual sport.

Nothing in our human existence has been quite the same since that fateful Sunday so long ago. We join Johann Sebastian Bach in saying (as he wrote at the beginning of his compositions), “God help me.” And we glory in the belief that our Lord answers. But we too often fail to say, as Bach did at the end of his magnificent works, “(Everything) To the Glory of God.”

While the individual retains her or his individuality, and while the community of disciples forms its own corporate self, direction ultimately comes from God.

Followers of Jesus pray for His guidance, and work to set aside their own notions. The task of the self is to set aside the self: not to annihilate the self, but rather to preserve it and to have it play a secondary role to God’s direction. Among Jesus followers, the desire of a leader is to point to God’s leadership. So Moses, a leader, prays to God, asking for His leadership and guidance:

In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them. (Ex. 15:13)

A leader is an intermediary, a mediator, a priest: she or he speaks to God on the people’s behalf, and speaks to the people on God’s behalf:

When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord. (Numbers 11:2)

Disciples refer to this setting aside of self as “dying to self,” a jarring metaphor which captures the demotion of one’s own priorities. To give away one’s time, attention, money, and energy is to give away one’s life. And to give away one’s life is to die.

Every hour spent shoveling snow for a physically disabled neighbor, every hour spent helping a child learn to read, every hour spent listening to a person in distress grieve, is an hour of one’s life that has been given away.

Shortly before his death in 2013, Byron Porisch was reading a book by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. In that book, Byron marked passages which made precisely these same points:

Church is God’s people intentionally committing to die together so that others can find his kingdom. Just as God had given away his Son, he was now asking me to give my life away.

In that same book are phrases which point to God’s vision of how He desires to use community. Whichever word is used to label it, it’s not about the building of an institution. The end is too easily confused with the means. God gathers people in order to scatter them: He sends them out to build His kingdom.

It was interesting that in all His teaching, preaching and ministering Jesus never really talks about the Church and He did not establish or plant a church. All He talked about was the Kingdom.

The dialectic of gathering and scattering is the creative cycle in which God trains disciples and uses them to reach out to the rest of the world.

But God is not only about uniting and sending: He is also about reuniting. He is not only about assembling and then distributing: He is also about reassembling. This is why the word “reconciliation” is significant in the New Testament. God will bring together those things — those people — whom the world’s brokenness has separated. He will reconnect those people whom the forces of sin have disconnected:

There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country. (Jeremiah 31:17)

Jesus works atonement and restoration. Those who’ve been revitalized by the power of Jesus gather together and yet do so for the purpose of reaching out to others. In the midst of all this creative energy, God restores broken relationships. The petition, “Thy kingdom come” refers to this healing dynamic.

God’s Multidimensional Activity: The “Word” Is More than Ink on Paper

The phrase “Word of God” refers to a rich concept with many dimensions. It refers both to Jesus, who is the living Word, and the Scriptures, which are the written Word.

The Hebrew term is dabar, which can be translated not only as ‘word,’ but also more broadly as ‘thing’ or ‘matter’ or ‘situation.’ God’s Word is therefore more than a strictly linguistic concept.

The Greek term logos points beyond ‘word’ to the actions of speaking and conversing. God’s Word is active and interactive.

The concept of the “Word of God” is central in the thought and writings of Martin Luther because of its multidimensionality. As Frank Seilhamer explains:

Because it is so crucial a doctrine it becomes a motif which recurs repeatedly in nearly all Luther’s work. Whether he is writing about the Scriptures, the Sacraments, Christian vocation, education, or sexual union in marriage, his concept of the “Word of God” is there undergirding his conclusions and providing the basis from which he argues and advises. To the great Reformer the “Word” is not a label plastered on a Book, or on a tradition, or on an ecclesiastical proclamation from the hierarchy of the church, though it could be in any or all of these. The “Word of God” is a living Force, a Power, an act of God, that speaks to and is normative for every conceivable life situation.

Because of this phrase’s broad semantic field, it also points to the concept of incarnation. “The Word became flesh.” It was not merely a linguistic phenomenon which became flesh, but God’s activity which became flesh, and His desire to interact and converse with human beings.

The “Word of God” is for Luther one of his master terms like “grace” and “faith.” And like these it is a concept that is many-sided. Only when he is misread and misapplied can one think his understanding of the “Word” to be narrow and restricted, i.e., to be applied to the Scriptures alone. When seen against the background of his voluminous writing, one cannot fail to be impressed by the rich, dynamic, spiritually throbbing Power inherent in his concept of the “Word,” as well as to be captivated by the wide range of experience and action in which Luther is able to see God operative in his “Word.”

So it is that “the Word” includes more than the text itself, but also interpreting, applying, expounding, preaching, etc. — and more: the encouragement and counsel that one Christian might give to another in conversation.

If the “Word” were merely a linguistic item, then “In the beginning was the Word” would be a poor ontology indeed. But “in the beginning” was God’s thought and action, physical and metaphysical, and a conversation, perhaps first among the persons of the trinity, and then with humans.

The Midrash and the Sermon: The Exploration, Interpretation, and Application of Text to, in, and about Ever-Changing Cultural and Social Environments

In a spiritual context, texts are found in a hierarchy of authority: at the top are the absolute, inerrant, inspired, divine texts; next are those which are inspired and authoritative; one step lower are those which embody, express, and codify dogma and doctrine; lower still are interpretive texts; near the bottom are Streitschriften which express debatable and polemic opinions.

In non-spiritual contexts, similar hierarchies may be observed.

In some spiritual traditions, the top level of this hierarchy is closed, ossified, and finalized. The collection of texts which are absolute, inerrant, inspired, and divine is a closed collection: nothing will be added to it; nothing will be subtracted from it. This is the case with Judaism and with Christianity, and perhaps with other religious traditions.

This solidification of primary text necessitates the ongoing development of secondary texts, as Johannes Wachten notes:

Als Offenbarungsreligion mit abgeschlossener Offenbarung muß das Judentum, wollte es nicht untergehen, die ihm am Sinai offenbarte Torah — und zwar sowohl die »schriftliche« als auch die »mündliche« — zur Anpassung an die sich wandelnden Lebensumstände immer wieder neu interpretieren.

In Judaism, the finalization of the Tanak, was one of several factors which began the development of the Talmud. The finalization of the Talmud, in turn, triggered the growth of midrash, as Johannes Wachten writes:

So entstand mit der Zeit ein ständig zunehmendes halachisches und haggadisches, das heißt ein rechtlich verbindliches und ethisch motivierendes Traditionsgut, aus dem sich bis zum Ende der talmudischen Epoche (Ende des fünften / Anfang des sechsten Jahrhunderts) und in den ersten Jahrhunderten der nachtalmudischen Zeit bis in frühe Mittelalter hinein das umfangreiche Korpus der rabbinischen Literatur entwickelte.

In Christianity, likewise, the closure of the canon of the New Testament necessitated the development of an interpretive and kerygmatic tradition.

The expansive collection of commentaries and homilies which has accreted within the Christian tradition is immense and wildly variegated.

In this way, the collected mass of midrash within the Jewish tradition has some similarities with Christian tradition of sermons.

Because of the great degree of variation among the individual texts in these traditions, it is easy to assume that they have nothing in common. But, as Johannes Wachten explains, a more nuanced and perceptive reading reveals commonalities among this diverse collection of texts:

Bei deren vorwiegend kompilatorischem Charakter mit einer fast enzyklopädischen Stofffülle treten feste literarische Formen stark in den Hintergrund. Auch wenn sie leicht übersehen werden, lohnt ihre Erforschung.

It is important to note that this dynamic plays out in a similar way in both the Christian tradition and the Jewish tradition. The text-centric nature of Judaism, and rabbinic Judaism, points to the fact that Protestantism is not the only, and not the first, tradition to be text-centric.

Some scholars have hypothesized a “Protestant bias” in which a text-centric approach is seen as projected by Protestantism onto other traditions. These scholars argue that it is a Protestant innovation, and a uniquely Protestant trait, to give text an important and central role in the tradition. These scholars point to Luther’s text-centric approach, and to the introduction of the printing press at the time of both the Lutheran Reformation and the Radical Reformation.

An understanding of the role of text in Judaism, and in rabbinic Judaism, points however to a text-centric pattern in religious traditions long antedating Christian Protestantism.

Trends and Movements: The Vocabulary of Faith

On a regular basis, people discuss churches, para-church organizations, denominations, and movements among church leaders. The vocabulary of these conversations is familiar, yet bears examination. What are these words, and what do they mean?

Consider these words: Main Line, Protestant, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist. These are frequently-used words, and people often have a ‘gut feeling’ about what they mean. Yet it becomes clear, when people are called upon to provide precise definitions of these words, that there is substantial ambiguity.

The word ‘Protestant’ is found almost always capitalized. ‘Fundamentalist’ and ‘Mainline’ and ‘Evangelical’ are found both capitalized and with lower-case initial letters in various writings.

Evangelical is an adjective derived from the Greek word meaning ‘Gospel’ and has been used among Jesus followers for around 2,000 years. In its most literal and basic meaning, it is almost synonymous with ‘Christian,’ yet it has come to be used in a different way, to denote a specific subset of Christians.

Protestant refers to individuals and groups in the sixteenth century who objected to, or disagreed with, the Roman Catholic church. It came also to refer to later groups who opposed or diverged from Roman Catholicism. Sometimes it is used in an extremely broad sense, to refer to anything or anyone who is not Roman Catholic. But it is also used in a much narrower sense, to refer to a specific group of radical reformers who were a subset of the larger set of reformers in the 1500s. In this latter context, e.g., some Lutheran theologians insist that they are neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant.

Fundamentalism is and was a movement that emerged largely in North America, although present elsewhere, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The movement arose in response to various theological trends which were diverging from traditional Christian teaching — in this way, the movement can be seen as a defensive action. It began with the identification of five “fundamental” teachings within Christianity. These five concepts were well established within the norms of historical Christian thought. In this way, at its root, fundamentalism was originally inclusive: individuals from a variety of traditions and denominations could give assent to these five fundamentals. These five theses constituted a platform for mutual recognition, a sort of minimum standard: a person who acknowledged the five fundamentals could be understood as a Christian, and as a relatively non-heretical Christian. Over time, however, the movement began to be less inclusive. Mere assent to the five fundamentals — although such assent might prove that a person was tolerably Christian — was not enough to make a person a part of the fundamentalist movement. Eventually, instead of creating a broad basis or consensus for a range of denominations and theological viewpoints, fundamentalism came to denote a well-defined and small subset within the larger range of Christianity’s forms.

Mainline is a word used to label a group of churches, primarily in the United States. The word is used primarily to list organized institutional churches, while the other words — fundamentalist, protestant, evangelical — can also be used to describe theologies or individual believers. The ‘mainline’ denominations tend to be those which were well-established as institutions, had large numbers of members, facilities like church buildings, schools, and colleges, and during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enjoyed a generally respected status in American society. The late twentieth century saw a decline, both in numbers and in social prestige, for mainline churches.

Given the meanings and histories of these four words, the complexity of their use becomes apparent. Many mainline churches have a historical doctrinal basis which would embrace the ‘five fundamentals’ and so, in the mid 1800s, mainline churches could be seen as possibly friendly toward fundamentalism. Now, however, ‘mainline’ and ‘fundamentalist’ are often seen as opposing movements.

The Roman Catholic church could be described as ‘evangelical’ in the sense that it acknowledges the message of the New Testament, i.e., the Gospel, and sees Jesus as Redeemer and Savior. Yet the word ‘evangelical’ is often used to describe people, institutions, and theologies which self-consciously define themselves as something other than, and even opposed to, Roman Catholicism, to the extent that it was seen as a great feat to help “Catholics and Evangelicals” make common cause in the late twentieth century.

Meanwhile, the word ‘Protestant’ has endured gerrymandering to the extent that, on the one hand, people are routinely asked to put themselves into one of only two categories: Protestant or Catholic (as if no other type of Christianity were possible); while on the other hand, there is a rather large set of Christian denominations who identify themselves as neither Catholic nor Protestant.

When using one or more of these words, then, readers would be well-advised to pause and consider precisely what they intend to communicate. Consider a sentence like this: “His sermon was less fundamentalist and more evangelical.” Or: “These mainline churches aren’t currently faithful to their Protestant heritage.”

Whoever writes or says such sentences certainly has a meaning which she or he hopes to convey to the reader or listener. But there is a significant danger that the intended meaning might get garbled, because of the ambiguities surrounding these words. The writer or speaker should first stop, and define for the audience what, precisely, is meant by these words.