Common Challenges Facing The Lutheran Church
The Lutheran Church, since its inception during the Reformation, has faced various theological and practical challenges, many of which stem from its distinctive doctrines and historical context. One of the most significant and enduring challenges has been its understanding of the Lord's Supper, which led to a schism with other Protestant reformers [6].
Lutherans believe that in the Lord's Supper, the body and blood of Christ are truly present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine [9]. Martin Luther himself insisted that the bread is the body of Christ, even against those who questioned how this could be [1]. This view, known as sacramental union or consubstantiation, distinguishes Lutheran theology from the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, where the bread and wine are believed to become the body and blood of Christ [4]. It also differs from the Reformed understanding, articulated by figures like John Calvin, who emphasized a spiritual presence of Christ in the Supper, where believers partake of Christ's body and blood by faith, rather than a physical presence in the elements themselves [7, 8, 10]. Calvin argued that Christ's body is in heaven and cannot be physically present in multiple places at once, and that the Supper's efficacy comes from Christ's spiritual power [7, 11]. The inability to reconcile these differing views on the Eucharist was a primary reason for the division between Lutherans and the Reformed tradition [6].
Another area of theological challenge for the Lutheran Church has been its doctrine concerning the plan of salvation, particularly regarding the sovereignty of God and human cooperation in conversion. While Luther himself initially taught a strict Augustinian doctrine, emphasizing God's sovereign grace, the Lutheran position evolved [3]. Later Lutheran theologians, and the "Form of Concord," presented a view where individuals are seen to cooperate with God's grace in conversion [3]. This contrasts with the Reformed emphasis on God's absolute sovereignty in dispensing grace, which some Lutherans sought to avoid [2]. The Reformed perspective, as articulated by Charles Hodge, maintains that God's command for all to repent and believe is consistent with His sincerity, regardless of His sovereign election [2].
Historically, the Lutheran Church also confronted issues related to church practice and authority. The Augsburg Confession, a foundational document for Lutheranism, addressed numerous abuses within the church of its time, such as indulgences, pilgrimages, and excommunications [5]. It also highlighted contentions between pastors and monks regarding parochial rights [5]. These early challenges underscore the Lutheran movement's effort to reform practices it deemed contrary to biblical teaching.
Furthermore, the concept of the Church itself has been a point of distinction and potential challenge. While the Reformed tradition, through figures like Calvin, emphasized the Church as the "pillar and ground of the truth" and warned against churches where "lying and falsehood have usurped the ascendancy" [12], the Lutheran Church has maintained its own distinct understanding of the visible and invisible Church.
Sources
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 71: taken and broken; and therefore it was the bread which He affirmed was, either literally or figuratively, his body. Lutherans themselves cannot avoid saying and admitting that the bread in the Lord’s Supper is the body of Christ. Thus Luther ( Larger Catechism , v. 12, 13; Hase, Libri Symbolici , p. 554) tells his catechumen to say, “Though infinite myriads of devils and all fanatics should impudently demand, How bread and wine can be the body and blood of Christ? I know that all spirits and all learned men put together have not as much i”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 137: instituting and promulgating this scheme of mercy, has nothing to do with our duty as ministers in making the proclamation, 645 or with our obligation and privilege as sinners in accepting his proffered grace. If it is not inconsistent with the sincerity of God to command all men to love Him, it is not inconsistent with his sincerity to command them to repent and believe the gospel. The Lutheran Doctrine. The Lutherans from their anxiety to get rid of the sovereignty of God in the dispensation of his grace, are led to hold that the gospe”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 63: § 5 . The Lutheran Doctrine as to the Plan of Salvation. It is not easy to give the Lutheran doctrine on this subject, because it is stated in one way in the early symbolical books of that Church, and in a somewhat different way in the “Form of Concord,” and in the writings of the standard Lutheran theologians. Luther himself taught the strict Augustinian doctrine, as did also Melancthon in the first edition of his “Loci Communes.” In the later editions of that work Melancthon taught that men coöperate with the grace of God in conversion,”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Third Part (Tertia Pars), Of the Way in Which Christ Is in This Sacrament, Art. 8: Article: Whether Christ's body is truly there when flesh or a child appears miraculously in this sacrament? I answer that, Such apparition comes about in two ways, when occasionally in this sacrament flesh, or blood, or a child, is seen. Sometimes it happens on the part of the beholders, whose eyes are so affected as if they outwardly saw flesh, or blood, or a child, while no change takes place in the sacrament. And this seems to happen when to one person it is seen under the species o”
- Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) “Augsburg Confession (Lutheran, 1530), 1 These are the chief articles which seem to be in controversy.: 1 These are the chief articles which seem to be in controversy. For although we might have spoken of more abuses, yet, to avoid undue length, we have set forth the chief points, from which the rest may be readily judged. 2 There have been great complaints concerning indulgences, pilgrimages, and the abuse of excommunications. The parishes have been vexed in many ways by the dealers in indulgences. There were endless contentions between the pastors and the monks concerning the parochial right,”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 71: § 18. The Lutheran Doctrine concerning the Lord’s Supper. Protestants at the time of the Reformation agreed on all the great doctrines of the Gospel. Luther was as thorough an Augustinian as Calvin. There would have been no schism had it not been for the difference of views which gradually arose on the true nature of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And even on this point, such was the desire to avoid division, and such the spirit of concession manifested by the Reformed, that a schism would have been avoided, had it not been that Luth”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 99: the efficacy and fruit of his nativity, death, and resurrection, eternal. All this Christ has elegantly expressed in these words, “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” ( John 6:51 ); doubtless intimating, that his body will be as bread in regard to the spiritual life of the soul, because it was to be delivered to death for our salvation, and that he extends it to us for food when he makes us partakers of it by faith. Wherefore he once gave himself that he might become bread, when he g”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 99: For, not to mention other reasons, they cannot be at the same time the members of Christ and the members of a harlot. In fine, when Christ himself says, ‘He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him’ ( John 6:56 ), he shows what it is to eat the body of Christ, not sacramentally, but in reality. It is to abide in Christ, that Christ may abide in him. For it is just as if he had said, Let not him who abides not in me, and in whom I abide not, say or think that he eats my body or drinks my blood.” Let ”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 69: we actually and essentially or really (wirklich und wesentlich) receive the present person of Jesus Christ or the Logos, and hence this bread and this wine are the body and blood of Christ, wherein He now communicates the bread which is from heaven to believers, as formerly when He came in literal flesh and blood He gave Himself to them. But Luther erred when he asserted that with, in, and under the bread and wine, the real body which suffered for us, and the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us, are communicated, because according”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 99: this strictness, and observe that it is equivalent to saying that the body of Christ is with the bread, in the bread, and under the bread. To the reality which they affirm, we have already adverted, and will by-and-by, at greater length. I am not only considering the words by which they say they are prevented from admitting that the bread is called body, because it is a sign of the body. But if they shun everything like metaphor, why do they leap from the simple demonstration of Christ to modes of expression which are widely differ”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 99: rich and inexhaustible fountain, which transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead into itself. Now, who sees not that the communion of the flesh and blood of Christ is necessary to all who aspire to the heavenly life? Hence those passages of the apostle: The Church is the “body” of Christ; his “fulness.” He is “the head,” “from whence the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,” “maketh increase of the body” ( Eph. 1:23 ; 4:15,16). Our bodies are the “members of Christ” (”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 84: given way. Again, if the true Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” ( 1 Tim. 3:15 ), it is certain that there is no Church where lying and falsehood have usurped the ascendancy. 2. Since this is the state of matters under the Papacy, we can understand how much of the Church there survives. 536 536 See chap. 1 sec. 10; 2 sec. 10; 8 sec. 12. There, instead of the ministry of the word, prevails a perverted government, compounded of lies, a government which partly extinguishes, partly suppresses, the pure light. In place of th”