Priesthood, pastors, bishops: public ministry for the Reformation and today.
Mattes, Mark C.
Priesthood, Pastors, Bishops: Public Ministry for the Reformation
and Today. By Timothy J. Wengert. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008. ix and
141 pages. Paper. $16.00.
By any standard of assessment, this is a remarkable book for
Lutherans. One of the most touted shibboleths among Protestants is that
of the "priesthood of all believers," a slogan which Wengert
sees, with good reason, as a license for pining laity against clergy and
vice versa. The textual evidence indicates that this notion cannot be
traced to Luther, Melanchthon, or the Reformation era but is wholly an
invention of Pietism. That insight alone would make this a noteworthy
book. However, Wengert goes on to defend a robust vocation for bishops
within the concept of ministry and debunking other notions such as the
"transference" view of ministry.
After surveying the Reformation and confessional literature,
Wengert contends that there is no disjunction between the
"priesthood of all believers" and the ordained but instead a
unity within the body of Christ. All Christians have callings and that
of the ordained is simply one of those callings within the entire body.
Wengert also leads us to cherish the office of oversight (bishops) and
vest them with proper authority.
The phrase das allgemeine Priestertum aller Glaubigen is not to be
found in Luther's writings (1). It was Spener, over a century and a
half after the Reformation who designated the laity as a "spiritual
priesthood." It is this Pietistic distinction which reinforces a
division--even opposition--between clergy and laity, which is wholly
unwarranted in early Lutheranism.
While no testimony can be given from Luther to assert a distinction
between laity and clergy, his emphasis is that it is the authority of
the proclaimed word that renews the public office of ministry (4). For
Luther, there is a single Christian estate, in which many different
vocations reside. Likewise, the "evangelical catholic"
conviction of an ontological change in those ordained cannot be derived
from Luther's notion of Stand (6). Hence there is no difference
between clergy and laity other than respective offices (7). Stand, then,
has nothing to do with an ontological essence; but by the same token,
amt (office) has nothing to do with something
"functionary,'' as a more "democratic" approach
to congregational life might use to justify pastoral authority. Luther
was not especially advocating a more democratic approach to
ecclesiastical authority but was countering the popes ability to create
a separate Stand for priests (8). Luther was in fact destroying the
two-estate theory of laity and clergy operative in Rome (9). All
Christians, then, are priests but all do not hold the pastoral office
(12).
On the basis of article 5 of the Augsburg Confession, the doctrine
of justification requires a public office so that the goods of
forgiveness of sins might be distributed (39-40). And, from the
perspective of the Confessions, episcopal oversight is admissible,
provided that it conforms to the gospel (46), more specifically that the
"eschatological edge" of the gospel is preserved (52). The
confessions have no intent of reducing church orders to a kind of
"federated Congregationalism" (73). In the confessions,
pastors and bishops are not distinguished (74) but a distinctive office
of oversight is legitimated under the rubric of service, and not
lordship. A historic succession is possible, provided that it is
accountable to the gospel first (76).
The office of the ministry, in the confessional writings, can be
outlined thus: in the family it is administered through the parents, in
the congregation through the pastor, and in the church, through the
bishop. Again, bishops hold themselves to the purity or the gospel in
bringing comfort to troubled consciences in opposition to Episcopal
claims or the whim of a democratized priesthood.
Behind Wengert's historical and systematic work is a concern
to affirm and uphold public ministry under the conditions of
individualism, definitive of both North American and European church
life, which as often as not wreak havoc in both congregations and
synods. This is a volume worth pondering and needs to have its full
impact on congregational, synodical, And churchwide structures.
Mark C. Mattes
Grand View College
Des Moines, Iowa
