Gerhard Forde - Radical Lutheranism

An excellent piece posted on Gnesio's Notes from one of my favorite theologians, Gerhard Forde.

Without wishing unduly to complicate matters, I want to mention at least one more force today. One might call it decadent pietism. Lutherans who came to this country were for the most part pietists of one stamp or another. Under the pressure of American Arminianism, Personalism, psychologism, individualism, human potential movements, and what not, pietism simply becomes decadent. The old pietism thought it vital first of all ‘‘to get right with God’’ through the experience of grace in conversion. But now, since God is, in general, love and no longer wrathful with anyone, God more or less drops out of the picture as a serious factor with which to be contended. In decadent pietism, since God is ‘‘affirming’’ in general, the task is to ‘‘get right with oneself.’’ The old pietism contended that conversion was to be manifest in a morally upright life of service. Decadent pietism seems to hold that the way of the Christian is to become ‘‘affirming’’ of others in their chosen life styles. Along with this there is very often a rather sanctimonious ‘‘third use of the law’’ piety centered mostly around current social causes and problems. No longer concerned with one’s own sins, and certainly not the sins of those one is supposed to affirm, one shifts attention to the sins of those other entities (more or less anonymous) which inhibit the realization of our affirmed and affirming human potential. Generally, these are summed up under the rubric of ‘‘the establishment’’ or perhaps personified by those who happen to be in power.
Is it fair to call this a pietism? We need not quibble about the nomenclature. In any case one has only to visit contemporary churches and note the religious fervor and piety with which the view is promoted (especially among contemporary clergy, I fear) to get a sense of its power as a contending force in the battle for identity. Among Lutherans, the gospel is equated mostly with this general drive toward being permissive, affirmed, and affirming. Ministers must become therapists, church gatherings must be therapeutic and supportive if they are to meet people’s needs, and ministry must be ‘‘prophetic’’ and have a social payoff if it is to be at all relevant.
One could continue discussing the problem of identity endlessly, since there are so many dimensions and aspects to interpret and haggle about. My purpose here, however, is not to belabor the problem but rather to propose a way towards a solution, to suggest a course for the future which is helpful, promising, and faithful to the tradition. My thesis is that Lutherans, to be true to their identity, yes, even to reclaim their identity, or rather be reclaimed by it, should become even more radical proponents of the tradition that gave them birth and has brought them thus far. The crisis in identity indicates the necessity for staking out some turf on the ecclesiastical map. What shall we be? Let us be radicals: not conservatives or liberals, fundagelicals or charismatics (or whatever other brand of something-less-than gospel entices), but radicals: radical preachers and practitioners of the gospel by justification by faith without the deeds of the law. We should pursue it to the radical depths already plumbed by St. Paul, especially in Romans and Galatians, when he saw that justification by faith without the deeds of the law really involves and announces the death of the old being and the calling forth of the new in hope. We stand at a crossroads. Either we must become more radical about the gospel, or we would be better off to forget it altogether.
- excerpt from Gerhard Forde, 'Theological Identity: Radical Lutheranism'
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