wfn.org | LWF Church Leaders Urged to Speak out about Christian Faith

["Frank Imhoff" <franki@elca.org>]

Foundation
Speak Out about Christian Faith Foundation, VELKD Bishop Tells LWF
Church Leaders
LWF Council Meeting: Knuth Preaches at Sunday Worship Service

LWF Council Meeting, Wittenberg, Germany, 10-17 September 2002

Press Release No. 12

WITTENBERG, Germany/GENEVA, 15 September 2002 (LWI) * Rev. Dr.
Hans Christian Knuth, Presiding Bishop, United Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) has cautioned Christian
churches and leaders against primarily seeking the consequences of
their own theology, and challenged them to strongly uphold the
foundation of the Christian faith.

"In the church, we have fallen victim to the principle of
achievement, and have nothing more to say about the foundation,
the reason for our hope," Knuth told representatives of the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches, in Luther's city
of Wittenberg, for the September 10-17 meeting of the LWF Council.

Delivering his sermon during the Sunday morning worship service in
Wittenberg's City Church (Stadtkirche) today, Knuth spoke against
the preoccupation of "loading ourselves and fellow human beings
and Christians with burdens and demands, commandments and laws."
What is theologically scandalous for "our church politics," he
said, "is not that we speak so politically, but that we speak in
such legalistic terms - that we no longer talk of the gospel of
hope, but only of the church's deficits." His sermon was based on
Hebrews 10:35 - 11:1.

Knuth, also bishop of the Dicese of Schleswig, North Elbian
Evangelical Lutheran Church, Germany, appealed to worshippers to
heed the voice of Reformer Martin Luther, who "cannot be said to
have pursued a theology without consequences, but whose work had a
most consequential effect precisely because he was not primarily
looking for the consequences of his theology." For Luther, the
context from the 10th and 11th chapters of the Letter to the
Hebrews remained, all his life, a fundamental orientation of his
understanding of the faith, Knuth said.

Knuth pointed to Luther's criticism of the medieval understanding
of hope, for when people spoke about hope they were referring to
the things that they lacked and what they wished to own. The God,
for whom they hoped, "was, as in much of our popular theology
today, the God of the future."

Knuth pointed to the global experience of a state of increasing
hopelessness, which is not least of all due to the over
sensitization of hope by ideologies. Pseudo-religious and
pseudo-theological doctrines of salvation have largely proved to
be illusions. The principle of hope, robbed of its religious
roots, has not fulfilled its promise. "We Christians have to learn
once again to measure our justifiable wishes for life and the
future of this world against the Biblical promises," he told
worshippers.

Luther's Latin Bible translation of "faith" * as the "substance of
everything for which I hope," was not mere speculation about the
essence of hope itself, rather, he saw it in its existential
relation, and concrete meaning for the present life, Knuth said.

He considered his preaching in the City Church a challenge,
especially in front of Lutheran church leaders coming from all
over the world. He stressed that the "only thing to do is to stay
close to the Biblical text," and in saying something about it, to
let the voice of Luther himself be heard.

Founded in 1948, the VELKD brings together eight German LWF member
churches representing over 10 million Christians. They include the
North Elbian Evangeical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran
Churches of Hanover, Mecklenburg, Saxony and Schaumburg-Lippe, as
well as in Bavaria, Brunswick and Thuringia.

Staff of the LWF Office for Communication Services at the Council
meeting can be contacted at German mobile telephone No., +49-(0)
170-8345 177.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 133 member churches in 73 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of
the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted,
material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the
LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article
contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced
with acknowledgment.]

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