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"In
short, wherever the Word of Christ is found and held, that is, believed, have
no doubt that there the church is, even though he who administers the
Sacraments and teaches the Word is godless and blasphemous; for the Word of the
Lord does not return void but bears fruit, just as the rain waters the earth
and makes it fruitful (Isaiah 55:10-11)."
What
Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed. Ewald M. Plass, St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1959, III, p. 1469. Exposition of Genesis 21.
Isaiah 55:10-11.
and the
New Creation
Denial of God’s Six-Day Creation can be traced directly to the loss of faith in the efficacy of God’s Word. If man denies the power of the Word alone in the Gospel, insisting that human wisdom is necessary to make the Word effective, then we can also expect that eventually the Creation of the universe by the Word will also be denied or compromised. Historically, the Calvinists denied the efficacy of the Word first and then became Unitarian as their inherent rationalism took over.
Many Christian leaders today do not make a career out of denying the Creation, but neither do they insist upon the truth of the Genesis account. Ever since the 19th century, there has been an uneasy feeling among theologians, as if Dame Science were looking over one’s shoulder and scowling. Embarrassed by the Word, Reformed leaders and crypto-Reformed Lutherans have scurried to do their homework and offer a science of Creation acceptable to the canons of our rapidly growing technology. Worst of all, the efficacious Word has been shelved in favor of that weak little product of man’s mind, Modern Science. Many believers are assaulted with seminars where some aspect of science is produced to show that the Scriptures are correct after all. “Aha!” the audience says, “We thought so. Now we know that the spontaneous formation of proteins would be nearly impossible in the primordial soup. God really did create life after all. What a relief!” A happy audience goes home from their seminar, relieved of a generous offering but burdened by a new form of rationalism—not a belief in science—but worse, a belief in a science that will support the Word of God.
I have no scientific credentials to offer, so I cannot prove Creation to the anxious believer who takes Carl Sagen seriously. But my life-long interest in astronomy and computers has made me as skeptical about the ephemeral image of Modern Science as the current synodical leaders are about orthodox Lutheranism. Not long ago a famous astronomer, Robert Jastrow, was asked to write an essay for the Yale Divinity School periodical, Reflections. It happened that the student editor of that issue was someone who attended Notre Dame with me. I asked him, “How could you label Andromeda as a nebula when everyone has known since the 1930s that it is a galaxy?” I had a ten inch reflector telescope at the time, and I especially enjoyed viewing the Andromeda galaxy and its two companion galaxies. Good viewing nights for deep sky objects were always cold and crisp, high pressure zones that added to the exhilarating feeling of seeing millions of stars in one view. The graduate student said, “Jastrow sent us the picture and he captioned it as a nebula. We knew it was wrong, but we were not about to change it either.”
The issue of the Andromeda galaxy or nebula is small but important. Until we had telescopes large enough to resolve stars in Andromeda, all astronomers looked at it as an enormous gas cloud, a nebula rather than a galaxy full of stars. Older astronomers were used to calling Andromeda a nebula, so the caption was probably a slip based upon the early experiences of the astronomer. But the caption also reminded me that most scientists thought we were the only galaxy in the universe until 1930. I remember science lessons in the 1950s where we were told, due to a lag in education, that we were in the center of the only galaxy in the universe. We were the universe, we thought. In addition, one science textbook announced that missiles would never be sent into space, because radio signals could not travel in a vacuum. One text claimed that all coal reserves would be exhausted by the year I was in the sixth grade, even though we could smell the stink of coal still being burned in our ancient Garfield Elementary School furnace. Offended, I called these obvious errors to the attention of my long-suffering teachers, who said, “The textbooks are old and out of date.” Modern Science is not an infallible pope, so we should not be tempted into enthroning another pope, a creation science that longs to prove the Creation with facts instead of believing the Creation through the Word.
"For let me tell you this,
even though you know it perfectly and be already master in all things, still
you are daily in the dominion of the devil, who ceases neither day nor night to
steal unawares upon you, to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts
against the foregoing and all the commandments. Therefore you must always have
God's Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears. But where the heart
is idle, and the Word does not sound, he breaks in and has done the damage
before we are aware. On the other hand, such is the efficacy of the Word, whenever
it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, that it is bound never to be
without fruit, but always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness,
and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these words are not
inoperative or dead, but creative, living words."
The Large Catechism, #100, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 609. Tappert, p. 378f. Heiser, p. 175f.
Luther’s thoughts in the Book of Concord ring with the conviction of a man who lived in the Word. As we will see, his scientific knowledge was as primitive as his age, just as we are limited by our current understanding. But Luther did not subordinate his faith in the Word to his society’s knowledge of science. That attitude toward the Scriptures has changed in the last century. As I have pointed out in Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure, the Evangelicals scrambled to combine some form of Creation with the hot new theory, evolution. Two modern examples of the retreat from Creation are quoted below. Ockenga is significant because of his pivotal role in the founding of Fuller Seminary, Christianity Today magazine, and the Billy Graham Crusades. Fuller began with a qualified stance on Biblical inerrancy and then repudiated inerrancy completely, just before the Church Growth Movement took root there. Christianity Today was begun as a conservative alternative to the weak-kneed mainline magazines of the day. Now the periodical is identical to its former journalistic opposites. Billy Graham began his career with certainty about the truth and now seems to be as agreeable about any and all beliefs as an Anglican archbishop.
"The evangelical believes that Christianity is intellectually
defensible but the Christian cannot be obscurantist in scientific questions
pertaining to the creation, the age of man, the universality of the flood and
other moot Biblical questions."
Rev. Harold J. Ockenga, 12-8-57,
news release quoted in William E. Ashbrook, Evangelicalism, The New Neutralism,
Columbus: Calvary Bible Church, 1963, p. 8.[1]
Kelm has made a career in the Wisconsin Synod out of following the Ockenga agenda. Trained at Fuller Seminary, Kelm has championed the Church Growth Movement in his unique role of pastor without portfolio, but he has consistently turned down calls to serve as a mission pastor where he might put his Church Growth theories to work. WELS is quite proud of his essay, which is an unintentional self-parody of the Lutheran Church Growth Movement: “How To Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects.”[2] Kelm’s retreat on the subject of Creation is almost identical to Ockenga’s. The six-day Creation is antiquarian and not relevant, according to Kelm. If we insist on the Creation, we may lose a grip on that mission prospect. Given the assumptions of Universal Justification (see chapter five), it is not necessary to get involved in doctrinal issues with potential members. Most interesting is the revelation that discussing such topics are the equivalent of being painted into a corner. If someone does not believe in Creation or verbal inspiration, he would feel pinned down if he had to confess a faith he did not share with his fellow Lutherans. Kelm’s attitude is just the opposite of the admonition in 1 Peter 3:15.
"Don't let the world paint us into a corner of antiquarianism
on subjects like a six-day creation or verbal inspiration."
Rev. Paul Kelm, WELS, "How to
Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects," p. 13.
KJV 1 Peter 3:15 But
sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an
answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear:
BYZ 1 Peter 3:15 ku,rion de. to.n Qeo.n a`gia,sate evn tai/j kardi,aij u`mw/n e[toimoi
de. avei. pro.j avpologi,an panti. tw/| aivtou/nti u`ma/j lo,gon peri. th/j evn
u`mi/n evlpi,doj meta, prau<thtoj kai, fo,bou.
Although I have never been in charge of evangelism for a synod or led a “spiritual renewal” effort, my 24 years of pastoral experience have shown me that all doctrinal discussions are wonderful openings for the work of the External (spoken) Word. For instance, when I was working in the front yard of the parsonage in New Ulm, two women stopped me and asked what kind of Lutheran I was. “Are you as bad as those people?” they asked, pointing toward the spire of St. Paul Lutheran Church (WELS). They won’t even pray with others.” From Kelm’s point of view, I was painted into a corner. However, from Luther’s perspective, I was given an opening for the External Word. I said, “We are worse.” Both women exclaimed, “Worse?” I then asked them, “Would you pray with someone who denied the Virgin Birth of Christ, saying in effect that you agreed He was a bastard?” They said, “No. Never.” I said, “Well, that is the issue. I have no desire to participate in a worship service with someone who denies the clear Word of God.” We discussed doctrinal matters longer and they ended up with a copy of Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, since they wanted to know the actual differences between Roman Catholics and Lutherans.
"The Yahwist account of creation expresses the same
conviction."
Pope John Paul II, Evangelium
Vitae, #35, St. Louis: St. Louis Review, April 7, 1995, p. 8.[3]
"Thus, the Teaching of the Church leaves the doctrine of Evolution an open question, as long as it confines its speculations to the development, fro