Has The AALC returned to the Lutheran Reformation?

A got the following e-mail last night, and thought I'd pass it along:

Hi,

I was recently wandering in Lutheran cyberspace, and I was enjoying reading some of the things that you had posted there. There was one comment that you made on 11 April 2005 that I should address -- you labeled the AALC a "nominally Lutheran Neo-Pentecostal group."

You should know that I attended and graduated from the AALC's seminary. There was much to like there and there were some problems. I was able to study Lutheran theology. Finally, I did not pursue a call in the AALC because of my doctrinal concerns -- I was convinced that the pentecostals had irreversibly won control.
At that time, I probably would have agreed that the label was fitting. I'm not so sure anymore.

Before you post any more comments like that, you might want to check out the AALC website, and check the doctrinal statements posted there. The website also has recent newsletters (The Evangel) in pdf files. Also, one of their congregations has a website at hopeinhampton.org, which has several doctrinal essays and statements, including one written by the Presiding Pastor about Baptism. You might even want to visit by phone with Reverend Aadland, as I have recently.

Also note that, at the AALC National Convention this summer, 2/3 of the delegates voted to move the seminary to Fort Wayne, where Concordia Theological Seminary has offered to host it. They have begun classes there already. I think what made the difference is that, after I left, Reverend Aadland became the new Presiding Pastor of the AALC, and he seems to be committed to confessional Lutheran doctrine and practice.

There still seems to be a neo-pentecostal, enthusiast element within the AALC, but the LCMS also has RIM and Jesus First and DayStar, and you can't judge the whole by small factions.i If you do check out some of the sources, and if you do find anything to justify continued use of phrases like "enthusiasts" and "nominally Lutheran," I'd be very curious to know what it is.

Soli Deo Gloria.

In Christ,
Rev. Ken Hart

As I've already told Pr. Hart in response, if there has been a confessional revival in The AALC, I can only rejoice. I plan not only to study that webpage, but to forward his e-mail to Pr. Ralph Speers, Presiding Pastor of the Lutheran Ministerium and Synod-USA, on whose clergy roster my name at least until recently resided as a provisional member. The LMS-USA was founded by confessional Lutherans who left The AALC because they could find nothing particularly Lutheran about a group whch, as Pr. Hart indicates, had pretty much been taken over by the Enthusiasts.

I filled out a colloquy application for The AALC while I was still in my first parish. I had traveled to Cedar Falls, Iowa and attended worship at the congregation of The AALC's first Presiding Pastor, the Rev. Duane Lindberg. I discussed various theological issues with Pr. Lindberg and with members of his congregation on that occasion.

The colloquy document asked me to respond to its self-characterization as "confessional, evangelical, and charismatic." I replied that I didn't understand how a group which described itself as "charismatic" could also, in honesty, describe itself as "confessional!" In the end, I didn't bother to submit that application.

My predecessor in my last parish, who also stayed for nine years, was a charismatic, and I know that at least one family with tendencies in that direction (with whom I at least shared a distaste for the direction in which the ***A was going) was at least attending a specific AALC congregation here in Des Moines for a while. Now, as Pr. Hart points out, there are movements like RIM in Missouri, too. And then there's Jesus First and DayStar, another species of Enthusiast entirely.

It should be noted, incidentally, that the Des Moines congregation to which I refer apparently still uses "contemporary worship" as its main Sunday service, and allows the use of its facilities by a congregation of the Vineyard Fellowship, an especially marginal Enthusiast group.

I should also note that my first glance at the website of Hope Lutheran Church in Hampton, Virginia, to which Pr. Hart directs us, revealed that its statement on Holy Communion totally misunderstands the meaning of the term "closed" or "close" communion, misidentifying it as the practice of restricting participation in the sacrament to those who believe in the Real Presence, rather than to those in agreement with the host congregation on doctrine and all its articles. In fact, the article seems to clearly be at variance with the historic Lutheran position as regards the relationship between doctrinal belief and not only intercommunion, but synodical affiliation.

And yes, the presence of Christ's body and blood in the Sacrament certainly is physical, contrary to Hope's statement. It is the presence, after all, of a body; a body, by definition, can only be present physically! Granted, the physical presence of Christ's body and blood is unlike any other sort of physical presence, but the statement as it stands is in dire need of re-phrasing, at best. As it stands, it sounds rather Calvinistic.

The article states that The AALC- again, at variance with the traditional Lutheran understanding of the relationship between doctrinal agreement, church affiliation, and intercommunion- leaves the question of open or closed communion up to the individual congregation. I was told (admittedly by a layperson) during my visit to Cedar Falls that open communion was the practice of The AALC at the time. It appears that- whether or not the folks at Hope are aware of this fact- they, at least, are still practicing it. Certainly this seems to me to reflect a continuing, unwholesome influence of the attitudes common to American cultural Christianity on the subject.

In any event, public statements on websites- as much stress as confessional Lutherans have always rightly placed on public doctrine- aren't the real test. The real test is what I think of as Waters' Law of Churchly Orthodoxy, which I first conceived while a student at Warthog Theological Cemetary, for application to the ***A: the real test of the doctrinal position of a church body is neither its public documents, its official pronouncements, nor even the typical preaching and practice encountered in the average congregation of that body, but that which it tolerates in the most atypical and deviant congregation which it permits to remain in good standing with it.

I have to admit that, before inquiring more deeply, I'm a tad skeptical as to whether The AALC's recovery from Enthusiasm is quite as complete as Pr. Hart suggests. Nevertheless, my mind is open to the possibility that authentic Lutheranism may actually have won a church body back from the theologically deviant and unbiblical Christianity of our culture. I look forward to speaking with Prs. Aadland and Speers on the subject.