Abstract
The adjective ‘Lutheran’ is a conventional label in Pauline studies with a highly negative connotation. However, its conventional usage appears to have broadened, now with different meanings in different authors and different modes of reference that are inconsistently used, ranging from ‘of Luther’ to ‘Lutheran’ to ‘like-Lutherans’ to ‘traditionalist’. The present study surveys the label’s use in Pauline studies and evaluates potential criteria for its predication. It ultimately suggests guidelines for future use, both in the interest of academic clarity and out of fairness to the living tradition that bears this name.
At the 2014 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego, a large review session was dedicated to N.T. Wright’s magnum opus (or, at 1590 pages including bibliography, one might say ingens opus), Paul and the Faithfulness of God (2013a). One panellist to review the book was Douglas Campbell, who delivered an uncompromising critique. He called Wright’s book ‘hermeneutically maximalist’ and negligent of some relevant non-exegetical fields of study (e.g., alterity), among other things. But one critique, subsequently published in a review (2015), stood out. Campbell called Wright’s book ‘Lutheran’ – panoramic Lutheranism, he said, characterized the work.
Wright, of course, is not a Lutheran Christian; he only recently gave up a post as a bishop in the Church of England. Nor does the book appeal for its insights to Martin Luther as an authority (although the Reformer is given some mention). ‘Lutheran’ has become a frequent adjective in the world of (particularly anglophone) Pauline scholarship. Despite the term’s use as a confessional designation for a historic (and enduring) group of Christians, its use in Pauline studies has – as we shall see – a broader range of predication, and its connotation is overwhelmingly negative.
It is perhaps fitting that this accusation (surely that term is correct) of ‘Lutheran-ness’ came in the context of demanding a treatment of alterity from Wright, for one function of constructing a community’s ‘other’ is to define that community negatively. The ‘other’, when described, provides an example of what the community is not to be (and often intimates something about the speaker’s identity as well). When the ‘other’ is clearly labelled, a convenient shorthand is created to identify what is out-of-bounds or shameful for the community. 1 A worthy policy change debated among self-designated ‘liberals’, for instance, needs only to be called ‘conservative’ to become potentially discredited and avoided (and vice versa). 2
This identification of something as out-of-bounds and its label, of course, can only achieve their intended effect if (a) the community agrees that the thing in question has been labelled correctly, and (b) if the label itself carries the negative stigma required. We will come to (a) in our discussions below. What stood out in the SBL panel review was (b). Wright’s responses to the other critiques were characteristically eloquent, intelligent and nuanced. He questioned and argued for definitions, methods and paradigms. But when it came to the label ‘Lutheran’, he neither critiqued Campbell’s particular definition of the term (below) nor argued round it to say, ‘If this is what you mean by Lutheran then, yes, in that respect my construal is Lutheran’ or the like. He met Campbell instead with a witty but flat denial: ‘The only thing Lutheran about this book is that it is published by Fortress Press!’
I do not recount the incident to endorse or malign the positions of these two scholars, or even their disagreements with what they call ‘Lutheran’. However, it showed clearly that the label ‘Lutheran’ is just that – a label. In the community of Pauline scholarship (particularly Pauline theology), which is nothing if not variegated, ‘Lutheran’ is a commonly accepted out-of-bounds marker whose negative stigma is fixed.
Now, there is in principle no problem with such a label existing. Negative labels function to describe more definitely the kind of thing that is deplored. And figureheads who speak to a community use these labels to deter audiences from things they view to be harmful or dangerous. However, particularly in an academic setting, a label’s reference ought to be clearly defined. If a negative connotation, but no specific denotation, is all that its usages share, it is hardly useful as shorthand to refer to anything particular and has only the semblance of scholarly and (in this case) historico-theological comparison and analysis. Moreover, there is a potential danger in the use of out-of-bounds labels that also designate groups of people. If a complex and likely variegated group’s designation – usually historical and hard to shake off – becomes itself a negative term among the academic majority, it becomes all the easier for that conventional use of the term (‘Lutheran’) to override the confessional designation (Lutheran), marking those people as outsiders purely by the name of the group of which they are a part. Not only does the scholar risk alienating part of his or her audience who may take the label personally, but other students unfamiliar with Lutherans may not be able to distinguish the guild’s label from the confessional designation and regard all Lutherans as ipso facto bad readers of Paul.
The present study will argue that the label ‘Lutheran’, as it is used in Pauline scholarship, 3 is an unhelpful one in both respects. I do not intend to rehabilitate Luther in the opinion of Paulinists, nor will I point out that many of his Pauline critics offer no citations of his writings (rightly Bockmuehl 1998: 277; Macaskill 2013: 4; Linebaugh 2015:13). My concern is for the future of academic dialogue about Paul, and in part for the future of Lutherans in that dialogue. I will argue that the label’s range of predication has broadened too greatly for it to continue as a useful academic descriptor. In conclusion, I will offer suggestions for a more accurate and appropriate use of the term.
My argument will, in fact, resemble Wright’s critique of the term ‘apocalyptic’ in Pauline studies: it is ‘slippery and polymorphous’; it has different meanings among theologians, historians, and Pauline exegetes, and ranges from referring to particular individuals to a theological position or method; it is ‘capable of so many twists and turns of meaning, that it would be safest to confine it’ to particular criteria (2015: 136, 140, 141, 151, 189). In fact, it would be ‘clearer, more honest even, to find a different term’ in many cases (2015: 192). For ‘a word that can, within the same larger world ([anglophone] biblical scholarship), connote both X and not-X […], is singularly useless as an historical or theological marker for accurately describing anything’ (2015: 143).
Constructing the Other: Differing Deprecatory Definitions of ‘Lutheran’
According to Campbell (2015), the conventional use of the term ‘Lutheran’ in Pauline studies is especially defined by Krister Stendahl’s essay, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’ (now in Stendahl 1976: 78-96). 4 Stendahl’s essay has inspired many subsequent studies, especially in what was dubbed the ‘New Perspective on Paul’ (itself a less-than-definite category). However, even in these scholars, one finds variation in precisely what can be called a ‘Lutheran’ reading of Paul. Beginning with Stendahl will prove particularly instructive for some of the problems of consistency in the use of the label.
In his seminal essay, Stendahl argues that Paul had a ‘robust conscience’ both in his pre-Christian period and in his apostolic life. This he contrasts with the prevalent view of the apostle, according to which Paul was quite guilt-stricken as a Pharisee, endeavouring to keep the law perfectly but failing and tormented in his conscience, seeking how he might ‘find a gracious God’. He traces this in large part to Luther’s own experience, which took on a paradigmatic function: Luther’s experience of the gospel of justification ‘by faith without works’ was a moment of liberation from his own fear and hatred of God’s judgment as a super-pious monk. As such he taught Paul’s gospel as relief from the same malady, and in this was followed by many.
Stendahl, however, does not call this view ‘Lutheran’. The question ‘How am I to find a gracious God?’ Stendahl calls ‘western’ (1976: 131, cf. 95, 128) in terms of the introspective conscience, and ‘Luther’s’, for that is historically true. This fact is quite significant. Stendahl, as many know, was a bishop in the Swedish church – a church in the Lutheran theological tradition. And Stendahl continued to identify himself as a Lutheran Christian. In his rejoinder to Käsemann, he writes: ‘As a Lutheran theologian, and as a twentieth century Westerner, I am as concerned as he with the evils of triumphalism’ (1976: 132). Elsewhere Stendahl distinguishes Luther from Lutherans and affirms his theological solidarity with both: ‘Lutherans wisely maintain [Luther’s] suspicion of all triumphalism’ in his theologia crucis (theology of the cross), for it ‘is really part and parcel of Paul’s deepest religious experience’ (1976: 47). He spoke critically of several denominations’ rejection of glossolalia – including Lutherans (1976: 121) – but he spoke as one within a theological tradition who hoped to help it grow and self-correct in this regard. 5
Stendahl’s Lutheranism was not merely national, and his book – also from Fortress Press – was arguably Lutheran in more than that respect alone. ‘Lutheran’ was a theological tradition that Stendahl viewed as his own – a valid one that was redeemable where it had erred. For him, Lutheran-ness was not to be confused with Bultmann’s existentialism or with Käsemann’s pronouncements about Paul’s doctrine of justification, although those men claimed they were being true to the Reformer in these respects (Bultmann 1984: 188; Käsemann 1972: 61). Stendahl castigated Bultmann’s existentialism for exceeding even Luther (1976: 87-88). With Käsemann, he upheld the theological ‘insights of the Reformation’, but argued that these insights do not require one to adopt Käsemann’s (or even Luther’s) historical judgments about Paul (1976: 130). Even in his own context, Lutherans were not necessarily blind to accurate biblical analysis (cf. 1976: 38).
This recognition is important as we begin to look at the use of the label ‘Lutheran’ elsewhere in Pauline studies. In what sense is it correct to say that Stendahl, a Lutheran expositing Paul, ‘br[oke] with the “Lutheran” exposition of Paul’ (Bowers 1993: 616)? It is meaningful only insofar as a conventional definition has been given to ‘Lutheran’ in the academy that must be distinguished from its designation of Lutheran Christianity and its practitioners.
This conventional use of the term appears to have gained particular ground in and after the monumental work of E.P. Sanders (1977). Although it was held by authors like Wrede, who is remembered as an anti-‘Lutheran’ scholar for other reasons – namely, his view of justification as a polemical rather than central Pauline motif (cf. Wright 2009: 85) – Sanders’s critique argued that then-conventional readings of the Second Temple ‘Jewish view’ of God solely as impartial and less-than-merciful judge were incorrect, and thereby refuted views of Paul’s polemic against ‘works’ and assertion of justification by faith as Paul opposing Jewish religiosity. 6 Sanders locates the view that he refuted in ‘Lutheranism’ (1977: 57), and subsequent scholars similarly would refer to any view that pitted Paul’s doctrine of justification-by-grace against Jewish legalism as ‘Lutheran’ (see Artinian 2006: 80-86; Bird 2009: 107-16), with Bultmann and Käsemann – whom Stendahl opposed – being emblematic of this perspective (cf. Dunn 2005: 187-99; Watson 2007: 28-40). 7 This is true not only of scholars who see Paul as retaining some critique of Judaism (e.g., Dunn, Wright), but also of those who would castigate views of Paul that involve any critique of Judaism at all. 8 As such, ‘Lutheran’ comes to be a catch-all term meaning ‘traditionalist’ or, especially in matters of Judaism and the law, ‘Old Perspective’. It does not necessarily refer to Luther or Lutheran Christians as distinct from others who held such views. It is rather a construct, a sort of amalgam of traditional views and scholars (even where they disagreed with one another or with Luther) that saw Paul’s justification-theology as concerned with counteracting human boasting and works-righteousness, individual salvation before God, etc.
This last point is reinforced by Stephen Westerholm’s book (2004), ostensibly defending the ‘“Lutheran” Paul’ from his critics: Westerholm profiles Augustine, Calvin, Luther and Wesley as ‘Lutheran’ readers of Paul – i.e., people who understand Paul’s gospel to be concerned with salvation and the believer’s status coram Deo, faith, the unmerited nature of grace, despite their differences (2004: 1-97). Again, ‘Lutheran’ is used in the conventional sense meaning ‘traditionalist’ or ‘Old Perspective’, not for the specific views of Luther or Lutherans, nor for that group exclusively. Gager, similarly, sees an individualistic, anti-Jewish Paul in the analyses of a scholarly trend not at all confined to Lutheranism, and so calls the traditionalist view ‘Protestant’ or simply ‘Christian’ (2000: 21-42, 156 n. 27; cf. Hall 1993: 50-51).
But for the many non-Lutheran Christians and Protestants who work in Pauline studies, the terms ‘Protestant’ or ‘Christian’ would hardly do as replacement labels. It is at this point that we encounter the work of the influential scholars mentioned in the introduction, N.T. Wright and Douglas Campbell, in whose usage the label ‘Lutheran’ takes different turns.
Wright often upholds his own view of Paul against the ‘Lutheran’ view. His uses of the term are in some ways unsurprising: he characterizes the ‘Lutheran’ Paul as one opposed to human striving, works and boasting, as individualistic, existentialist and introspective (cf. 2013b: 10; 2013a: 747; 2015: 43, 45, 58-59). At times it seems a near-synonym of ‘Old Perspective’ (e.g., 2015: 156).
So far, so conventional. But the term comes to indicate other things for Wright, as well. Whereas others could use the term ‘Lutheran’ in tandem with ‘Protestant’ to characterize a heavy grace–works antithesis or a Judaism–Christianity opposition, Wright makes the move to use ‘Lutheran’ to refer to the Lutheran theological tradition over against that of Reformed Christianity – indeed, he presses for such a distinction against those who would lump together all ‘Old Perspective’ readers as ‘Lutherans’ (2015: 60 n. 11, cf. 117 n. 38, 126). He takes a ‘Lutheran’ Paul to be exemplified in any reading that is hostile to the concept of covenant or salvation-history as a key category (cf. 2009: 205; 2013b: 280; 2015: 55) and distinguishes this especially from the Reformed tradition. 9 Indeed, he states that the New Perspective itself is partially ‘a Reformed protest (Judaism and the law as positive and God-given) against a Lutheran theology (Judaism as the wrong sort of religion, the law as negative)’ (2013b: 476-77, emphasis original; cf. 2015: 57-58, 60). He adds further: ‘Had Reformed scholars like Herman Ridderbos been listened to’, the New Perspective ‘might never have been necessary’ (2013b: 477; cf. 2015: 67). This is difficult to understand if ‘Lutheran’ here means what it did for other scholars, or if ‘Reformed’ includes the many theologians in that tradition who also believed that justification-by-faith counteracts human boasting and Jewish legalism (notably, e.g., Ridderbos). 10
This specific target of ‘Lutheranism’ goes further. When Wright distances Paul from readings that reject the law, view justification as entirely forensic and a legal fiction, or ‘confuse justification and regeneration’, the ‘Lutheran’ view of Paul is precisely those things (2013b: 35-36; 2015: 14, 54-56) – this notwithstanding the conundrum of how a single view of justification (the ‘Lutheran’ one, if the label has specific content) can both make justification mean regeneration and a mere legal fiction. Wright also holds Luther’s theologia crucis, of which Stendahl was so proud, to be potentially opposed to the theology of the resurrection, and so faults Cranfield’s Romans for not ‘attack[ing] the Lutherans’ on those grounds (2013b: 48; cf. 54, 59-60). In fact, it seems that Lutheranism is the antithesis of all Wright’s now famous emphases. 11
Whether these particular emphases are rightly dubbed ‘Lutheran’ we shall discuss below. The point here is that it becomes difficult to avoid the impression that, in Wright’s usage, the label has become only slightly more descriptive than ‘wrong’. This becomes clear in his discussion of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ: As many representatives of both old and new perspectives have said, following Ernst Käsemann who, though in some ways a classic Lutheran and therefore naturally an old perspective person, was too good an exegete not to notice many of the phenomena which then turned into the new perspective, God’s dikaiosynē is, not least, his faithfulness to, and his powerful commitment to rescue, creation itself (2009: 65).
The sentence says many things. But when it is said that Käsemann was ‘too good an exegete’ not to uphold what Wright regards as the correct position even though he was a Lutheran, it is hard to escape the identification that the concessive clause implies: i.e., to be Lutheran is to be a bad exegete. 12
This impression is confirmed by Douglas Campbell, who simply calls the label inflammatory. In the opening pages of his Deliverance of God (2009 – another ingens opus), Campbell rejects characterizing the view he opposes as ‘Lutheran’ as ‘both descriptively inaccurate and needlessly inflammatory’ (2009: 14). (That he needs to say this indicates already that the term is viewed as irredeemable in Pauline studies.) If Wright wanted to narrow the conventional definition of ‘Lutheran’ in the interest of fairness to Reformed traditions of Christianity, Campbell presses in the opposite direction: ‘This designation is simply unfair, both to Luther and to many Lutherans’.
13
Campbell’s published review of Wright (2015) is equally aware of the status that the label has acquired: ‘Lutheran’ is admittedly not the happiest of definitions. Luther sometimes advocated this approach to Paul, but he also advocated a lot of other things, some of them diametrically opposed to the so-called Lutheran understanding of Paul. And the same observation applies to many of his Protestant allies and descendants. So the Lutheran reading of Paul is a narrower construct than its name might suggest, but we should not underestimate its power or popularity.
Campbell’s candour is refreshing. Nevertheless, his own definition of the ‘narrower construct’ that is the ‘Lutheran’ reading of Paul does not appear so narrow.
In the review he characterizes this ‘misnamed Lutheran reading’ as ‘a Plan A/Plan B approach to Paul’s gospel’. He explains, Lutheran readers insist that in order to appropriate, and even to understand the gospel, however, one needs to travel through Plan A, which is not a pleasant experience. Plan A is God’s basic created posture toward humanity and the world: Law governs everything. God’s just demands hold sway over all people, and he will punish every infraction. But ultimately God intends no one to stay within Plan A, a supremely uncomfortable location indeed. The only purpose of Plan A is to teach people that they need Plan B and to act accordingly, that is, to grasp the gospel and become Christian. One accomplishes this by finding out that one is a sinner. And one finds out that one is a sinner by attempting to observe the Law, which does not lead to salvation but to condemnation as one sins. Hence Plan A indicts everyone as something of a cosmic felon. Plan B, presented by missionaries and preachers, offers salvation to those smart enough and self-reflective enough to grasp it. And here God has made things easier. He redirects a person’s just punishments onto Christ, on the cross, provided that one takes hold of this new offer by believing it, believing also in Christ’s resurrection and lordship. Then one passes over into the more comfortable location that is the church of forgiven sinners.
Inflammatory indeed. Campbell has helpfully defined the contours of what he will label ‘Lutheran’ and has attempted to delimit it in fairness to Lutherans. However, this construct becomes quickly less narrow when he applies the label to Wright. On Wright’s schema (simplified, of course), Abraham and his descendants were to be a light to the nations as part of God’s solution to the problem of Adam; but when they failed in this vocation and were exiled, a faithful Israelite was required to ultimately bring the solution that God had always intended, and this occurred in the coming of Jesus the Messiah, who himself was a light to the nations and solved the problem both of Israel’s guilt and that of the world (cf. 2013b: 489-510; 2013a: 456-537). This does not share the stereotypical marks of Campbell’s construct here, especially those typically called ‘Lutheran’ (e.g., consciences in terror of judgment under the law). Rather, ‘Lutheran’ here identifies the logic of plight-to-solution where the plight involves guilt (particularly, as Campbell’s review explains, with a focus on Israel) and where both plight and solution are seen as part of a single divine plan, even though Wright construes that logic, guilt and divine plan in national rather than individualistic terms (see Wright 1991: 260-62). However, to apply the label ‘Lutheran’ to Wright in this way necessarily broadens its applicability: Campbell could presumably also apply the label to any presentation of Paul’s gospel whose foil is also seen to be part of one single divine plan and involves guilt.
Moreover, Campbell’s presentation of the ‘Lutheran’ reading looks strikingly similar to the construct he labels ‘Justification’ (his suggested replacement for ‘Lutheran’ in 2009: 14, elsewhere called ‘Justification Theory’). But this view, as Campbell constructs it, is very large and multifaceted, and if interpretations of Paul exhibiting these characteristics are to be called ‘Lutheran’, the term’s use has in no way been narrowed. 14 For if a ‘Lutheran’ Paul, according to his presentation of ‘Justification’, is one who believes that humans are culpable before God outside Christ, that God is both father and judge, that human faith is required for salvation (even if faith itself is deemed a gift of God created in the gospel proclamation; see 2009: 946 n. 41), and much more besides, then most Pauls other than Campbell’s could be classed as ‘Lutheran’ in some form or other. 15
What becomes apparent from this brief survey is that the label ‘Lutheran’, even in its conventional usage in Pauline studies, is more than polysemous. One uses the label ‘Lutheran’ when dismissing readings of Paul that bear these characteristics: existential, non-salvation-historical, anti-Judaism (however defined), anti-legalism, justification-as-central (regardless of the definition of justification), justification-as-forensic (regardless of its centrality), plight-to-solution (in terms of individual or national guilt). And surveying the literature, the label does not apply only to readings that exhibit all of these characteristics, but to any reading that exhibits any of these characteristics that a modern interpreter means to reject. The only thing shared in the conventional usage is its negative connotation. In Pauline theology, the term can be applied to most opinions that prevailed in older generations of scholarship by modern authors who desire to contrast their views with it. For a time, the term appears to have been specifically so used in relation to issues of Paul and the law – a reading of Paul the Pharisee as guilt-ridden under the Torah and, after his ‘conversion’, as opposing that kind of religiosity with his doctrine of justification. But it has broadened significantly.
Other than the connotations ‘wrong’ or ‘passé’, the label’s content is now too malleable to have a helpful diagnostic or categorical function in academic literature. Looking to the future of the discipline, one can imagine – hypothetically, of course – students who are less versed in historical theology taking their definition of ‘Lutheran’ purely from its usage by Pauline scholars. Will some take only one scholar’s definition and use it in their writing, while others do the same with another scholar’s definition? Will they combine the uses above? When they speak of the ‘Lutheran’ reading of Paul, what precisely will they be saying? The label is no longer capable of the effective shorthand that conventional labels are meant to provide.
Potential Criteria for the Label: On Luther, Lutherans and ‘Lutherans’
I have no doubt that even authors who do not openly articulate their definition of ‘Lutheran’ know precisely what they intend when they apply it. But when one considers the pedagogical function of such language in teaching and writing, i.e., how it is likely to shape the use of the term in the future, the label’s usage presents significant ambiguity.
The ambiguity of the label ‘Lutheran’ is partially a result of its many modes of referentiality. It is at times used of things particular to Martin Luther, sometimes as a sweeping generalization referring to tendencies or methods of the Lutheran theological tradition, and sometimes to individual exegetes who either are Lutherans or who claim to represent Luther (esp. Bultmann and Käsemann) – even if other Lutherans refuted them on similar grounds. And even within these uses the term bears ambiguity. If ‘Lutheran’ labels something as ‘of’ or ‘like’ Martin Luther, does it indicate that it originated with him, is exclusive to him among the Reformers, or simply that it is famously true of him? If it is used of Lutherans, it is uncertain whether the term is meant categorically or semi-prescriptively (of what Lutherans qua Lutherans do or must think), or simply descriptively (perhaps only of some Lutherans, or only in a past era). Authors likely have only one meaning in mind – and often context can help clarify – but the term can give all of these impressions. As such, a scholar who characterizes something as ‘Lutheran’ in a generalizing way is subject to irritating fact-checking, and yet can easily skirt around the inaccuracy by arguing that his or her use of the term was not directed per se at Luther, Lutherans or Lutheran tradition, depending on the rebuttal offered.
This situation contributes neither to accurate reception- or theological-historical claims or analysis, nor to helpful broad-brush descriptions about theological influences at play in Pauline studies. Perhaps even worse, since we apparently are using it to refer to Lutheran Christianity (as opposed to other traditions), the inconsistent use of the term to refer only to passé positions allows actual Lutherans no room to redeem the label. True, most views now called ‘Lutheran’ can be found in or originated with Lutherans of one stripe or another – perhaps inevitably so, since the period during which many now-outdated paradigms were solidified was the century during which German scholars held the greatest sway in Pauline studies. But for this reason one can also find a Lutheran, even a proud one, touting the opposing position. This is equally true of Lutherans’ past involvement in biblical scholarship as it is of their potential future. It is (presumably) conceivable that other Lutherans, even ones attempting to be true to their heritage, might write something on Paul that others actually appreciate. But we only add insult to injury if the adjective is reserved only for what is ‘wrong’ in a reading of Paul such that it becomes little more than an insult, or if we allow only past exegetical boogeymen to define their tradition. 16
In the interest of future discussions, we should look into potential criteria for using the term ‘Lutheran’ in order to arrive at a narrower and clearer applicability. Campbell has helpfully suggested this, but we have seen reason not to prefer his definition. 17 Moreover, because Luther, Lutherans and other ‘Lutheran’ things have exerted various forces in the history of Pauline scholarship, the term is not to be abandoned, especially in discussing the history of Luther’s effects or the history of Pauline exegesis.
But if we are to continue using the term, we should be conscientious in our usage, so that our meaning is clear and accurate. I submit that if something is to be accurately and fairly called ‘Lutheran’ (as opposed to another adjective like ‘traditionalist’) it should first have a factual connection to Luther or the Lutheran tradition – preferably with one standard mode of reference. Second, one should have the integrity then to use the term not only for what one finds incorrect, but also for other things that are equally connected to Luther or Lutheranism, lest the name of a still-living tradition become merely a slur. In what follows I will investigate various possible criteria by which readings of Paul are currently labelled ‘Lutheran’ and offer clarifications and cautions for their usage, before finally offering some suggested guidelines.
Martin Luther
If we use ‘Lutheran’ as an adjective specifically referring to readings of Paul that ‘ha[ve] some semblance to Luther’s’ (Longenecker and Still 2014: 327), one finds some solid ground for its present usage. Some of what has been called ‘Lutheran’ is in fact true of Martin Luther. Though a defender of Jews in his earlier years, Luther’s later career became marked by anti-Semitism (see Kaufmann 2011). And Luther’s experience of the gospel alleviating his strivings of conscience did become a paradigm for his own reading of Paul. Many others have also read Paul as anti-Jewish or as concerned with ‘finding a gracious God’, of course, but it is true of Luther – and famously so. Perhaps that is a sufficient condition for applying the label. But here arise two cautions.
The first again is one of consistency. If one is going to use the adjective purely to refer to readings of Paul that resemble Luther’s, one should apply the label to other aspects of his reading than those that the modern scholar finds wrong. What of Luther’s understanding of χάρις not as a sort of moral steroid but as favor Dei, the merciful disposition of God (see Barclay 2015: 97-102)? Shall we identify ‘Lutheranism’ in all works that agree? Moreover, some anti-‘Lutheran’ scholars mentioned above advocate a participatory understanding of salvation in Paul either over against or prior to a forensic one and often present Luther’s position as a foil to this insight (cf. Sanders 1977: 492 n. 57; 1991: 49; Wright 2015: 81, 101). But many readers of Luther see participation as a major feature of Luther’s own soteriology. 18 Should this too be considered ‘Lutheran’?
This brings us to a second caution: Luther said many things in his thousands of published pages (which are still being translated into English), and a good deal of reading is required to claim responsibly that one knows Luther’s view, particularly with larger-order theological matters (how he translated a phrase is, of course, easier). For as many participatory statements he made, for instance, he sounds less so elsewhere (cf. Garcia 2014). If a Paulinist would be incensed to read a recent psychology book that claimed Paul as the first introspective individualist writer, referencing Rom. 7 but no recent book on Paul, so too exegetes who would make claims about Luther (even in books about Paul) should at least investigate some Luther scholarship.
Lutherans
Perhaps it is preferable to use the term to indicate exegetical claims made within a particular tradition – not so much of Luther himself but of Lutherans. But if one is to do so, one should be aware that Lutheran Christianity endures in the world and is no monolith. Even the early generations of Lutherans received the Reformer and his ideas in different ways (Kolb 1999) – even his ideas about faith, justification, works and the law (Nüssel 2000; Vainio 2008). This is even truer in worldwide Lutheranism today. In the Western world alone there is great diversity in how various Lutheran bodies understand and appropriate their heritage – as is visible in their differing theological and political stances and practices, not to mention their differences from Lutherans in the global South. These all identify – for historical, creedal and other reasons – as Lutheran. They hold characteristically to the Augsburg Confession, and many are ‘more or less dogmatically bound’ (Stendahl 1976: 87) to the writings assembled in the 1580 Book of Concord. However, significant differences remain in various bodies’ appropriation of these confessions (see Arand 2012). 19 Moreover, even those most conservative in their confessional adherence are only so in that respect: Luther only wrote three documents included in the Book of Concord (none of which is a biblical commentary); his myriad other published views constitute, formally at least, no independent canon of evidence for what Lutherans consider true or believe should characterize their present denominations. 20 This means that what is ‘Lutheran’, in the sense of the theological and interpretive tradition, is quite varied, and a scholar who sees him/herself as being truly Lutheran may, for precisely that reason, be opposed to the ‘Lutheran’ Paul or to Luther himself. 21
As an example, one may take the characterization that the ‘Lutheran’ view understands the law as ‘negative’ rather than ‘positive and God-given’ (Wright 2013b: 477)and ‘easily leads to a neo-Marcionite rejection of the law’ (2013b: 36). 22 Some early followers of Luther tended that way, but the position codified in the Formula of Concord (a document within the Book of Concord) condemns this as heterodox (Formula of Concord VI). 23 Rather, the justified ‘have been redeemed by the Son of God so that they may practice the law day and night’ (Formula of Concord, Epitome VI, 2 [Dingel 2014: 1252/1253]). The concordists here follow Melanchthon’s concept of the ‘third use of the law’ (see Wengert 1997: 177-210) and his insistence that justifying faith exists in continual repentance. 24 Now, again, modern Lutherans appropriate their confessional heritage differently (especially when it comes to the Formula of Concord). Some do follow the sola gratia principle so absolutely that the law’s positive function for Christians is largely occluded, like those followers of Luther whom the Formula denounced. But others, emphasizing different aspects of Luther and this article of the Formula, argue that other approaches are authentically Lutheran (e.g., Biermann 2014; Kolb and Arand 2008). If we are to use the label to refer to the theological tradition of Lutheranism, one should not presume to adjudicate debates that Lutherans themselves have about where Lutheran theology should lead – certainly not without some study.
‘Lutheran’ Interpretive Trajectories
If the above criteria for defining ‘Lutheran’ prove unsatisfactory, there is yet a third option on offer. Wright, discussing the neo-Marcionite character of the ‘Lutheran’ approach to Paul, adds the following in a footnote: It is difficult to tie Luther down on points of doctrine, because of the often hasty and over-polemical character of his writings. Yet it will hardly be denied that his thought, and that of his followers, tends in the direction of an outright rejection of the law (2013b: 36 n. 76).
This suggests a different criterion for applying the label: that Luther and his followers’ thought tends in a particular direction. We might simply call this a trajectory. Admittedly this is much fairer to Lutherans than simply using what one well-published exegete said in the name of Luther that other Lutherans rejected, and it is much easier than filing through Luther’s writings. One need only identify an idea in the tradition, tracing itself back to Luther and held by at least some Lutherans, that tends towards a particular conclusion if not otherwise mitigated, and then one can call that unmitigated conclusion ‘Lutheran’. 25
However, this criterion may ultimately prove unhelpful if we mean to apply it consistently. This application of the term would certainly allow ‘Lutheran’ to be predicated of readings of Paul’s justification polemic as opposing Jewish religiosity. It would also allow Luther’s theologia crucis, which largely eclipses the resurrection in Käsemann (1972: 61-107) and is regarded as a theological key by later Lutheran theologians (e.g., Forde 1997), to be called ‘Lutheran’. However, by this criterion ‘Lutheran’ should be applied to many other things as well. For Luther and his followers had many other characteristic emphases and concerns that, if extrapolated, would tend towards very different ‘Lutheran’ conclusions.
For the clearest example, we may take the πίστις (Ἰησοῦ) Χριστοῦ debate. The issue is over whether this phrase in Paul – often found in justification-statements – refers to the believer’s ‘faith in Christ’ (formerly the reigning position) or to the ‘faith/faithfulness of Christ’ in his life and willing death (an increasingly popular position among Paulinists). Though there are more options for categorization, I will refer to these as the objective genitive and subjective genitive readings, respectively.
The objective genitive view has been called ‘Lutheran’, and not without inflammatory significance, as Matlock (2002: 311-14) shows. This reading, of course, did not originate with Luther (see Harrisville 1994), but the label is not misplaced: this was Luther’s reading. In the Book of Concord this emphasis is also present, namely that one is justified by faith – defined specifically as trust (fiducia), distinct from the mere knowledge demons are said to have in Jas 2.19; this was upheld polemically against the notion that justification depended upon ‘works’, i.e., one’s own effort or merit. 26 Because they categorized the gospel and even salvation itself as ‘promise’ (naturally a thing that is either believed or disbelieved), faith was not viewed as a ‘work’, but rather as the natural means of receiving God’s promise. 27 This emphasis protected divine monergism in salvation and took responsibility for justification away from the human, who is damned to uncertainty if salvation is in his or her hands. 28 Further, some modern Lutheran exegetes argue for it against the current trend (e.g., Hultgren 1980; Harrisville 2006). On these counts, the objective genitive reading can certainly be called ‘Lutheran’.
However, if we are going to define ‘Lutheran’ on the basis of theological trajectories (rather than simply what Luther or some Lutherans have said), there is another equally valid way of applying it within this debate. Looking not at the exegetical and grammatical arguments but instead at the larger-order theological rationale given in support of a reading, it is actually the subjective genitive reading that may be more ‘Lutheran’. One can observe this in Harrisville’s argument, in support of the objective genitive, that ‘for Paul faith was not a work’ (2006: 357). Why must he support his view that justification is by ‘faith in Christ’ by arguing that faith does not count as a ‘work’? The reason: because one argument proffered against the ‘faith in Christ’ reading is that, if a person is justified by believing, and believing is something a person does, then justification is by works (further Matlock 2002: 312-14). The figurehead for this view remains Richard Hays, who writes that the ‘faith in Christ’ reading threatens to ‘turn faith into a bizarre sort of work’ (1997: 56). According to Hays, the subjective genitive is not only preferable exegetically, but avoids the theological conclusion that people ‘are saved by their own Herculean faithfulness’; rather ‘we are saved by Jesus’ faithfulness, not by our own cognitive disposition or confessional orthodoxy’ (1997: 55). 29 But if the chief concern of Luther and his followers was that no human work be allowed involvement in justification, is this not a direction in which a ‘Lutheran’ theological agenda tends? This appears to be the conclusion of Lutheran professor Arthur Just, who argues for the ‘faith/faithfulness of Christ’ reading on the grounds that it (like the sola fide battle cry did so long ago) preserves divine monergism in salvation (2004: 179-80). Now, if we are to use ‘Lutheran’ to mean an anti-works Paul, this reading fits the bill. It certainly falls on the trajectory of Luther’s emphasis on the passivity of justification and Christian life (cf. Bayer 2004: 38-40). Indeed, one could say that those who go beyond Hays and remove human faith from the equation altogether in the name of unmerited grace (see McCormack 2014) are more ‘Lutheran’ than Luther in this respect (similarly Matlock 2002: 312; Barclay 2015: 381-83). 30
Examples like this could be multiplied. But this illustrates that the criteria for applying the label, if we attempt to use them consistently, will have results beyond the conventional usage and leave us without a clear reference to which is the ‘Lutheran’ reading of Paul. Either interpretation could be called ‘Lutheran’ depending on the Lutheran emphasis that causes the identification – here ‘by faith’ (objective genitive) or ‘not by works’ (subjective genitive). Even more, though both camps employ grammatical arguments, both interpretations could be accused of ‘Lutheran’ theological influence affecting exegesis.
A Concluding Appeal: Suggestions for Future Use
Our current situation leaves the next generation of Paulinists in a difficult position when reading and using the label ‘Lutheran’. Depending on the scholar who has influenced them, what will it mean when new writers (especially those less-than-versed in historical theology) use the term? What will they hear or read when others use it? Labels are effective shorthand, but the limits of what counts as ‘Lutheran’ have become very fuzzy. True, a Lutheran (or Luther himself) can usually be found holding views now so labelled, but there seems no consistently applied criterion that accounts for the present use of the label ‘Lutheran’ (as opposed to ‘Protestant’, ‘individualist’, ‘traditional’, etc.) for some readings and not others except that it is deemed wrong. And although there is in principle no problem with having another word that just means ‘wrong’, it should not be mistaken for an informed diagnosis of a position’s likeness to or roots in the Lutheran tradition or the thought of its founder.
Now I recognize that teaching requires dialectical negation. Part of defining an idea and presenting it clearly involves presenting what it is not, and telling the story of how former views were rejected for new ones. I have no desire that Luther or Lutherans be removed from that story – even as objects of criticism. But we should use the term conscientiously and consistently, not merely for what we mean to reject. (Non-‘Lutheran’ readers who have read enough to know what is accurately ‘Lutheran’ will have no trouble being aware of more positive features: see, e.g., Hafemann 2014.) This is necessary in the interest of clarity in future academic discussion as well as in fairness to the bodies of people who bear the name. I therefore suggest the following guidelines for use:
(a) If one only desires to identify something as similar to Martin Luther’s reading, one should call it ‘similar to Luther’ or ‘Luther’s view’ rather than ‘the Lutheran reading’. (Please do cite Luther or a Luther scholar.) This will alleviate the semantic slippage between ‘Luther’s view’ and ‘what Lutherans do or must think’. Perhaps those who are proudly Lutheran – for whatever reasons – would be less reactionary if a scholar’s language made it clear that accepting a new view did not imply renouncing their heritage, but only the view of a man with whom they are not required to agree.
(b) If one wants to claim that a position or method is generally characteristic of the Lutheran tradition, ‘Lutheran’ is the best term. But one should investigate that tradition, rather than letting Bultmann or Käsemann speak for almost five centuries of Lutheran Christianity. Given that tradition’s diversity, a proper starting-point might be the Book of Concord – though not all Lutherans employ it the same way. (One might even find Lutherans who have already voiced the disagreements one finds with its statements.) If, however, investigating the facticity of such a general claim takes too much time, one can simply avoid the generalization. The exegetical case for a scholar’s claim should be convincing on its own. This will also make one’s argument more convincing to those pastors, students and scholars who are part of the still-living Lutheran tradition. Indiscriminate, unqualified or – worse yet – inaccurate anti-‘Lutheran’ rhetoric can quickly put off a reader who is for any reason proud of her or his Lutheran heritage.
(c) Finally, however, if one’s point is not to characterize something as Lutheran so much as to describe a position or approach accurately (especially if it is not one specific to Lutherans or Lutheranism), one should simply use a more descriptive adjective. If Bultmann’s existential or anthropocentric claims are to be rejected, one may call them ‘Bultmann’s’ or – better – ‘existential’ or ‘anthropocentric’. Descriptive terminology, which ‘Lutheran’ no longer is in our academic context, will tell students and readers what is to be avoided and will better support exegetical argumentation. This should provide more clearly intelligible descriptions and analyses and help move the conversation about Paul forward.
Footnotes
1.
Cf. Moncrieffe 2007: 1, 3 (and the other essays in that volume, which focus on labelling in development programs and politics); 
.
2.
That is, in contexts where ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are accepted as an absolute binary.
3.
The pejorative use of the label is particularly focused in Pauline studies. I have never heard Bauer’s Lexicon in any of its editions derided as a ‘Lutheran’ lexicon, though Arndt and Danker were Lutherans, and its preface states that BAG ‘constitutes a gift of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod to the English-speaking world’ and that the BAGD revision was also driven largely by that denomination (see BDAG, vii-viii).
4.
Again, in Pauline studies – presumably inner-Christian conflicts saw the term used derogatorily before Stendahl!
5.
Stendahl also identifies the hermeneutical centrality of Romans ‘in the Protestant tradition – and particularly among Lutherans’ (: 1-2; cf. 1993: 10), a generalization applicable also to Calvin (see Barclay 2015: 116-17). He also humorously quips of Luther’s addition of ‘alone’ to Rom. 3.28 that Luther ‘wanted to make it truly Lutheran!’ (1976: 26).
7.
8.
Gaston attributes such views to Marcion, Luther and Baur and engages Bultmann and especially Käsemann’s type of ‘the Jew’ as homo religiosus (1987: 15; cf. : x, 20, 54-56).
9.
Admittedly, ‘covenant’ is another over-used and under-defined term in Pauline theology. In contrast to Wright, Tom Holland argues that the presentation of justification in the Lutheran confessions is actually more covenantal than the Westminster Confession (2004: 184-86). Compare the treatment of justification by Lutheran professor Walter Taylor, whose exposition of the legal metaphor of ‘justifying’ is explicitly linked to covenantal and relational categories (: 145).
10.
Ridderbos is nuanced in attempting to defend Paul from the charge of rejecting all relevance of Israel’s law. Nevertheless, the misuse of that law in Judaism not only as national privilege but also ‘as a ground for carnal boasting and as a means for Israel to acquire righteousness before God for itself’ (1975: 157) was the object of Paul’s faith–law antithesis. Paul does not oppose the law as expressing God’s will for the people’s behaviour subsequent to their redemption (1975: 278-88, with which the Book of Concord agrees [see below]), but Ridderbos’s Paul still presents an ‘antithesis with Judaism’ (1975: 155). Paul’s justification-polemic ‘not only means that the manner in which the righteousness of God is received is totally different in the gospel than in the theology of Judaism; but it also has the consequence that in Paul this righteousness itself acquires a content altogether its own and entirely divergent from Judaism’ (1975: 170). That justification occurred by grace in the Hebrew Bible was also the position of the classical Lutheran tradition (e.g., Apology IV, 57-60 [Dingel 2014: 290-93]). What Ridderbos and the ‘Lutheran’ view assumed (as did all but a few – see : 33-59) was that this was inverted in Second Temple Judaism.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Despite more conscientious references (compare, e.g., : 3-4, 151-52, 669), the identification of Justification Theory with Lutheranism persists in Campbell’s 2009: this is most noticeable in his claim to be taking down Justification’s ‘A Mighty Fortress’ (2009: 313), referencing Luther’s hymn.
15.
Barclay (2015: 171-73) too underlines the singularity of Campbell’s view. Cf. : 25 n. 42.
16.
Even more conscientious authors are not always consistent in their use of inverted commas to designate the ‘Lutheran’ construct as opposed to the theological tradition. Presumably Lutherans, upon learning that their name had become a byword, would hardly be consoled to know that, in Pauline studies, ‘Lutheran’ does not really mean Lutheran.
17.
Likewise, his suggestion of replacing ‘Lutheran’ with ‘Justification’, even if he observed it, will only beg the question of what justification and its theological entailments are for any who disagree with him (despite the capital J).
18.
For contributions by Pauline exegetes, see, e.g., Seifrid 2003; .
19.
This is exemplified in the conflicts of the last century in Lutheranism in the United States (see, e.g., Leppien and Smith 1992; ).
20.
Of course, some Paulinists who have been labelled ‘Lutheran’ or have spoken in defence of Luther do give the impression that, for them, Luther’s views are beyond question. But the writer who would use ‘Lutheran’ to refer to all who have spoken in favour of traditionalist readings against newer paradigms must note this: many Pauline scholars today who are touted or tout themselves as ‘Lutheran’ readers of Paul are in fact not Lutheran Christians. Thus, in the academic debates, they may not actually represent Lutheran theological biases as much as those of other traditions. This is not only true in the case of Wright’s alleged ‘Lutheran’-ness, but also in Westerholm’s portrait (above) of Augustine, Calvin and Wesley as ‘Lutheran’ readers of Paul. While Westerholm acknowledges it, these figures had significant differences on key issues, some of which are singled out in Pauline studies, and one suspects that Lutheran Christians might not hear the Reformer’s voice in the ‘Lutheran’ amalgam here created.
21.
Donaldson (1997: ix-x) expresses his gratitude to Fortress Press for publishing books predicated on the idea that Luther was wrong. But one should not assume that their concern to advance the investigation of biblical truth, even if Luther is proved wrong, is somehow a departure from their identity as the heirs of the Reformer and his insistence on the same. In Wright’s recent book (: 260), being ‘almost Luther-like’ is a positive descriptor that he uses of Wayne Meeks, in the sense of bucking traditional systems to seek out biblical truth.
22.
Since Wright agrees with the Lutheran concordists that all Sinaitic stipulations are not per se binding on believers after Christ (e.g., distinction of foods, circumcision), but that the norms for the life of God’s people are redrawn in light of Christ, I take it that his critique is of libertinism and antinomianism in the name of justification sola gratia, which is answered in the following citation from the Book of Concord.
23.
All citations of the Book of Concord are according to paragraph numberings in Kolb and Wengert 2000. For specific citations, references are provided to the page numbers of the new critical edition ().
24.
Cf. Apology IV, 64, 70, 72, 142, 249-50 (Dingel 2014: 294-99, 325, 360-63); Apology II, 35-45 (Dingel 2014: 258-65). According to Wengert (2013: 29-40) and : 293-94), the distinction between law and gospel was not a salvation-historical one.
25.
26.
Cf. Augsburg Confession XX (Dingel 2014: 117-29); Apology IV, 48-74, 248-51 (Dingel 2014: 287-99, 360-63); Formula of Concord, Epitome III, 11 (Dingel 2014: 1238/1239). On Luther, see .
28.
Cf. Apology IV, 37-42 (: 282-85). Throughout the apology Melanchthon’s programmatic concerns are (a) that Christ’s death not be cheapened by human contributions to justification and (b) that ‘pious consciences’ be consoled, not vexed, by the gospel: e.g., Apology IV, 2, 12, 20-21 (Dingel 2014: 268/69, 272/73, 276/77).
29.
30.
Of course, Luther and early Lutherans did not take sola gratia to this conclusion – but that is no less true of the theologia crucis, which they did not take to relativize the importance of belief in the resurrection.