Evening in the Lutheran Church?

As Th. Engelder stated in 1934,  “The Lutheran Church is the TRUE VISIBLE CHURCH; not the universal Church, not the only saving Church, not the only Christian Church, but the true visible Church; that is to say, the Church of the pure Word and the pure Sacraments…. Deriving all her doctrines from Scripture (formal principle) and coordinating them with the cardinal doctrine of Scripture, justification by faith (material principle), she confesses and teaches the full Christian truth. The life of the Lutheran Christians is far from perfect, but the doctrine of the Lutheran Confessions is absolutely pure. Not one of her doctrines needs correction.”*

This brings to mind a quote of Pastor Brian Wolfmueller, "Not everyone who goes to heaven will be Lutheran, but everyone will be Lutheran once they are in heaven." However, in reality, as Herman Sasse made the point that our loyalties lie not with the Lutheran Church, itself, but with the word of God.  While the Lutheran Confessions properly confess the Word of God, if Lutheran churches do not confess or practice it, then the  church has strayed.

Sasse also stated, "To give [confession] up or to let it rise or fall in the general confession of sins of the congregation would be a corruption of the Lutheran Sacrament and would open the door to a false understanding of the Lord’s Supper.”  He also made the point that “A Lord’s Day without the Lord’s Supper is absolutely unthinkable in the New Testament. Without the Eucharist the church would have ceased to be church.... The Lord’s Super is proclaiming the gospel (1 Corinthians 11:26)."**

Writing before the Semenix issues of the 1970's Sasse pointed out an issue that is still going on today, "The liturgical movement in the Lutheran church is part of a large movement that goes through all of Christendom and perhaps also touches humanity outside the church.... It came about with the end of the dominance of rank individualism and rationalism…. But it remains a tragedy that in the past generation the confessional movement and the liturgical movement did not find the way to each other. Liturgy is prayed dogma; dogma is the doctrinal content of the liturgy…. If this serious reflection does not take place, then the liturgical movement will become what it has become already for many of its adherents: the end of Lutheranism and the road to Rome [or the East].”**

Sasse then stated, “Evening is falling also upon the Lutheran Church.” as well as “Everything is waiting for the fall of Missouri.” Os Guinness stated about the decline of Christianity in the West, "Spiritual movements, even in the Bible, don’t last for more than three generations before they need a renewal." Pastor Will Weedon years ago thought that fall was eminent and inevitable, but he now has hope.

Weltschmerz is a Germans word that translates as world-weariness, but has a meaning of depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state.

Welt means world

Schmerz means pain, but an aching grief kind of pain

Kirche means church

Kircheschmerz I think is a good description of how a lot of Confessional Lutherans feel.

*Th. Engelder, W. Arndt, Th. Graebner, and F. E. Mayer’s book Popular Symbolics: The Doctrines of the Churches of Christendom and of Other Religious Bodies Examined in the Light of Scripture, published by Concordia Publishing House in 1934

**Herman Sasse in his "We Confess Anthology" between 1952-1961