Our Savior Spenerian Church, part 2

Last week, I wrote about how Philipp Jackob Spener has influenced Our Savior Lutheran for the better, by spotting a hidebound tendency in the Lutheran church of his day, and reforming the Reformation.
The Word of God is used more extensively in our small group Bible Study, most of which talk about the sermons our pastor preaches the week before. Our youth subscribe to a daily Bible reading texted to their phones. One of our core values is that we are an equipping church, sending out the priesthood of all believers, trained by our staff, to do mission in their individual neighborhoods. Our motto is to Love God, Love People and Live Like Jesus, a phrase Spener would be very comfortable endorsing. In our apologetic approach, we avoid, like Spener, “fruitless disputation.” Instead of attempting to reason unbelievers into believing, we begin our discussions with “regular” people from a point of connection, not one of contention. And most importantly, our university-trained ministers always try to create sermons “in such a way that the hearers may profit from the sermon in life and death.”

Spener’s extensions would be heralded by the sainted Luther, who would have surely encouraged a better educated populace, as well as a more biblically literate clergy and flock. He would part ways, I think, in calling disputations “fruitless”; they may have been fruitless 100 years after, but they were certainly important at the outset.

Where Luther and Spener (and to an extent, Lutherans today) would part ways is in Spener’s emphasis on the inner man, and this is truly where the rubber meets the road. Spener writes: “Nor is it enough to be baptized, but the inner man, where we have put on Christ in Baptism, must also keep Christ on and bear witness to him in our outward life.” 

This is really an updated version of penance.

 Luther taught that there are two parts of forgiveness: confession and absolution. The Catholic church taught that there was a third part: satisfaction. It was not enough that you confessed your sins to God and heard God’s word of absolution, you needed to perform a righteous work to prove to God that you meant it. I believe this is part of Spener’s legacy: it’s not enough to be baptized, to go to communion, to confess and be forgiven, to read and hear God’s word – you have to prove it by the way you live. It would not matter to Luther that this proof is the way God wants you to live your life. Luther would not disagree that the way Spener wants his folks to live. In fact, if you read Luther’s works on confession/absolution (to give an example), he said the hearts of the newly absolved should then desire to go find the person that they’ve sinned against and asked for their forgiveness too. That looks like satisfaction, but – and here’s the sticking point – it is not required for God’s forgiveness. God’s grace does not depend on our deeds. Period.

If something is required, it trespasses into the realm of justification.

Taken to its logical conclusion, you do end up with a pietistic (not Pietistic) result. After saying that pious students should be promoted, while the impious (but more intelligent) students held back, he writes, “It would not be a bad thing if all students were required from their universities testimonials concerning their piety as well as their diligence and skill.”  Today, Christian universities typically ask for a student’s statement of belief, or at least a pledge to adhere to code of Christian conduct. Part of Spener’s legacy is seen by our expectation of Christians bound by a code of behavior, and in this way, we are not far from our brother Pharisees.