Theology and Liturgy in the Confessional Lutheran Church
By the Rev. Sorin Horia Trifa
Note: Fr. Trifa serves as pastor of St. Mary Lutheran Church in Braslov, Romania, a member congregation of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Romania. The original Romanian language article can be found here. ~ Ed.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (Romans 1:21).
In this text, roughly speaking, the phrase "ἐμαματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν" is translated as follows:
ἐματαιώθησαν:
a passive aorist verb indicating a state of futility or lack of value.
τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν:
a plural dative, referring to their thoughts, debates, dialogues, opinions, and ideas.
Attempting to translate the text as accurately as possible, we might render it as: “futile in their thinking.” It is not “without meaning in their thinking” nor “wrong in their thinking,” but more precisely: “futile” or “vain in their thinking.”
Could this verse be a warning signal for Christians? Or is it directed to non-Christians? From the context, it seems to be addressed to those who “knew God” but, instead of worshiping and thanking Him, exhausted all their spiritual energy and theological knowledge in debates that are futile for the Church and its mission to preach the Gospel.
The consequence of these people not uniting their theological knowledge with worship but instead consuming it in vain disputes seems to be described in the words “their foolish hearts were darkened”. It does not mean they have a “foolish” heart, for they probably know a lot about God. However, their heart is “unwise” because they use their knowledge for something other than worshiping God. In any case, the consequence is very unfortunate for them.
In this text, I see an essential point. God wants us to know Him in order to worship Him. God desires both, that we know Him and that we worship Him. This two cannot be separated. Theological knowledge and liturgical worship go hand in hand in Christ’s Church.
I love theology with all my heart, and everyone who knows me is aware of how much I dedicate myself to studying theology and promoting the theology of the Lutheran Reformation in Southeastern Europe—the place where God has called, ordained, and sent me on mission. I strongly believe in the importance of theology and insist that the theological foundation of the Confessional Lutheran Church be as solid as possible. That is why I continually emphasize the need for the ministers of the Church to be very well trained theologically. I want the Confessional Lutheran Church to believe, study, understand, and proclaim the theology of the 16th-Century Lutheran Confessions because I believe this is the correct interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
God calls us to know Him, and this knowledge of God means theology. There is no other way to know God except through Scripture. The relationship of the justified and regenerated man with Scripture is always a theological relationship. The purpose of Scripture is for us to hear, know, and believe in God. All these are components of theology. What we hear, we interpret, and what we interpret, we believe. Our faith is based on how we interpret Scripture. Therefore, the Confessional Lutheran Church is a “church of theology” because it wants to be certain that what it believes is the correct interpretation of God’s Word.
The Confessional Lutheran Church invests much energy in theology, ensuring that what we believe is exactly what God has revealed in Scripture and not human inventions. That is why we engage in theological discussions, conferences, blogs, Facebook pages dedicated to theology, seminars, and many other forms of theological expression. We write a lot of theology; we go on television or attend various events where we can speak about the theology of the Lutheran Reformation. We do not want a Church altered by teachings foreign to Lutheran Reformation but a truly Lutheran Church, just as the Church was in the 16th Century.
However, we must not confuse the Church with a theological academy. The Church’s pulpit and altar are not lecture podiums but the places where God pours out His means of grace upon His redeemed people. Theology, although very important for the Church, is not a means of grace because it is the human effort to know God through a correct interpretation of Scripture.
Even though I love Lutheran theology and strive to know, understand, and preach it, I believe in the Word of Scripture that teaches that God calls His redeemed people to worship Him. God desires His people, redeemed through Christ’s cross, to be a worshiping people.
In the Confessional Lutheran Church, God does not expect us to pass a theology exam before him. Our liturgy is not about proving our theological knowledge to God, but about his coming to us with his saving grace, offering us the forgiveness of sins.
We prepare theologically not to be better than others, but to worship God. We prepare theologically for the moment we step into the pulpit to preach the Word of God. Thus, theology always has a liturgical purpose. If our purpose is anything other than proclaiming God’s Word, then the words at the beginning of this text might be referring to us.
God Himself has linked the means of grace to liturgy. In the liturgy, God offers us the means of His grace—that is, He communicates to us the forgiveness of sins. Liturgy is where God calls us into a saving relationship with Him. Liturgy is the place where God comes to us, and we come to Him. God comes to us to offer us his saving grace, and we receive this saving grace and thank him for his goodness, even though we do not deserve any of his gifts.
Because liturgy is where we truly experience God’s presence through the means of grace, we are convinced that the liturgy is a special event for each of us. It is the event we always want to attend. We like to say that, in terms of liturgy, we proceed just as we do with theology. We believe Scripture as was interpreted by the theology of the Lutheran Confessions, because that is how we received it from our ancestors. No one taught us to believe otherwise, and we are not interested in believing otherwise. Likewise, we worship as we do because that is how we received it from our ancestors. No one taught us to worship differently, and we are not interested in worshiping differently.
The confessional lutheran understands that the liturgy must express the faith of the Church. We remember the expression "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi." We worship as we believe. There is an indissoluble connection between our liturgical worship and the theology we proclaim. Our theology and our worship always go together and never separately. We do not have a theology disconnected from worship. If we did, we might as well be Reformed. We do not have worship disconnected from theology. If we did, we might as well be Eastern Orthodox. But we are neither Reformed nor Eastern Orthodox.
A liturgy disconnected from theology is an error. A theology disconnected from liturgy is an error. Theology and liturgy must go hand in hand. Our faith is always a faith who is in worship, and our worship always proclaims our faith. Our theology does not go separately from worship. Our worship does not go separately from theology.
Theology and liturgy do not exclude each other if they do not contradict one another. Only our weaknesses make us believe otherwise. No one and nothing can argue that theology cannot go together with liturgy and vice versa. For theology teaches us who our God is, and the liturgy is the experience of our saving communion with our God. Theology has enormous value and importance in our lives. Liturgy has enormous value and importance in our lives. The two cannot replace each other, as if, if we have good theology, we no longer need liturgy. This is the conviction and practice of the Reformed Churches. In the same way, the two cannot replace each other, as if, if we have beautiful liturgy, we no longer need theology. This is the conviction and practice of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Confessional Lutheran Church has both: theology and liturgy together. Because it knows what theology is and knows what liturgy is.
In conclusion, God wants His people to know Him, but also to worship Him. God wants people to pay attention to both theology and worship. I do not want to say that one is more important than the other, although there is always the temptation to say that theology is more important than liturgy. But knowing God is as important as worshiping him. There is no point in knowing God if we do not worship him. There is no point in worshiping God if we do not know him, so that we can worship him in the way he wants us to worship him. I believe that theology and worship, knowing God and thanking and glorifying him, always go together. Both can be at a high level in our Church.
I believe in the necessity of theology as much as I believe in the necessity of liturgy! Especially because both are for the glory of God and for the advancement of the Gospel of Christ in this sinful world. We can have theology, and we can have liturgy, because we have a God who does not do things halfway. We want theology to have liturgy. We are not for liturgy without theology! We want both! We love both! We want theology not to become futile in our thinking, but to glorify God and thank him. We love the liturgy because we want to express in our worship, as best as possible, what we believe about God and express as best as we can what we believe happens in the liturgy. And we believe that in the liturgy we have the experience of God's coming to us through the preaching of the Gospel and through the very body and blood of Christ, a real and saving presence. We believe that in the liturgy we have the experience of God's coming to us and for us. We believe that in the liturgy we have the experience of the coming to us and for us of the Almighty and Savior God, as our theology teaches us. Everything that our theology teaches us is fulfilled for us in the Liturgy of the Church.