Erhalt Uns, Herr
Rome's Resistance to Holy Writ and Central Texts
The original English translation of Erhalt uns, Herr, which modern Lutherans know as, “Lord Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word,” had the following opening line.
“Lord, keep us in Thy word and work, restrain the murd’rous Pope and Turk, Who fain would tear from off Thy throne Christ Jesus, Thy beloved Son.”1
This translation was changed in the Lutheran Hymnal (1941), although not all traces of this spirit were removed, as the Hymnal still included which psalms could be prayed against the Pope and the Papists (page 166). Through intervening years, the theological debates between Rome and the Lutheran Church always stemmed from and returned to those two items mentioned in the original English translation: The Lord’s Word and the Lord’s Work. That is, on the authority and place of Scripture, and the saving work of Christ.
In more modern conversations, these two have remained linked. In recent years, there has been a supposed agreement reached by some Lutherans with the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of Justification. As we examine ecumenical dialogue between the Roman Church and the liberal Lutheran World Federation, it is clear that the modern purported agreement reached in documents such as the 1990, “Condemnations of the Reformation Era,” and the 1999, “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” could only come about through the acceptance of Higher Criticism by the Roman Church and the Lutheran World Federation.2 Higher Criticism, or Historical Criticism, attempted to study the text of the Bible without any pre-conceived notions of its inspiration and inerrancy. Those who believed in Higher Criticism thought that the Bible had errors, and merely contained the word of God, rather than being the Word of God itself. Unsurprisingly, this lead slowly to a loss of faith in the Biblical text’s reliability at all. In the 19th and 20th Century, Higher Criticism found its way into the Biblical studies of both the Lutheran Church and the Roman Church. This essay will attempt to chart the Roman Catholic Church’s position on Scripture’s authority (and central texts in general) from the Council of Trent, through Vatican I and Vatican II. This paved the way for the modern Roman Church’s acceptance of Higher Criticism and ultimately its disregard, not only for Scripture, but for central texts in general.
In the history of Lutheranism, we have no shortage of setting aside or ignoring our own central texts. Lutheranism’s history prior to the LCMS can be described in large, broad movements such as Orthodoxy, Pietism, Rationalism, and Unionism. During the age of Pietism, Rationalism, and Unionism, the central texts of Lutheranism, Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions were downplayed or ignored in various ways.
The road that led ultimately to Seminex, a split at Concordia Seminary in 1974, begins in the 1920s with the Adolph Brux case, which fundamentally challenged how the Missouri Synod understood the interpretation of the Bible. Brux claimed that anything not explicitly talked about in the Bible, in his case, public prayer fellowship, was an adiaphoron, a free matter that could only be determined by majority vote. Brux argued that the Missouri Synod had depended too much on logical deductions which were founded in Scripture, similar to how the Iowa Synod had argued earlier.3 He had a method of interpreting Scripture that seeks more after the, “faith-intent,” than the fact. The result is that he ultimately denied sola scriptura, that Scripture finally is the only infallible source of doctrine.4 A low view of Scripture and of the ability of texts in themselves was the first lynch-pin necessary to welcoming Higher Criticism into the Missouri Synod. It also shows that a low view of authoritative texts leads to false fellowship.
The Lutheran Church as a confessing church is able to reform. It can recognize error and false doctrine in its midst and return ad fontes, to the sources of what is true in the Bible, the Catechism, in all of the Lutheran Confessions. However, this rebellion against central texts, chiefly the Bible, has become well entrenched in Roman theology and practice from Trent to the present. Trent is the name of a city in Italy, because Ecumenical councils are traditionally named after the city or church in which they occur. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) understood the Gospel (in the broad sense) to be contained, “in the written books, and in the unwritten traditions.”5 While the Lutheran Church confessed that traditions were normed and judged by Scripture, the Roman Church claimed that Scripture and Tradition had equal authority (with some daring to claim that Scripture was properly a piece of tradition).
Vatican One decisively denied that the authority of the church established the authority of the Bible. And yet, its dogma of Papal Infallibility forced the church to show contempt for one of its central texts, the catechism, which required heavy editing following the council. In editions of the Keenan Catechism, popular before the Council in English speaking countries, we find the following question:
“Question: Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?
Answer: This is a Protestant invention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no decision of his can oblige under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body, that is by the bishops of the church.”6
Following Vatican One, where the infallibility of the Pope was made a dogma, the Catechism was revised to say the following:
“Question: What do Catholics believe concerning the infallibility of the Pope?
Answer: That the visible Head of the Church on earth received from Christ the same prerogative of Infallibility which we have shown above to be necessary to and belong to the Church by divine institution.”7
This is quite the change! Papal Infallibility went from being a Protestant invention to something necessary to the church by Divine institution! This level of altering a foundational text like the catechism shows a strong contempt for central texts, which at any moment can be drastically altered at the whims of a living magisterium. Of course, this also applies to the late dogmatic pronouncements concerning Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption.
The errors of Vatican II chiefly deal with the Lord’s Works, especially as they advocate for the potential salvation of non-Christians who remain non-Christians through no fault of their own.8 Such a view buries the merits of Christ and the purpose of evangelism. If those who have never heard the Gospel are saved, the worst thing we could ever do is bring the Gospel to them. We would only be introducing the possibility of their damnation by doing so. However, the low Roman view of Scripture does appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated under John-Paul II. There we find,
“Christianity is not a religion of the book, Christianity is the religion of the, ‘word of God,’ a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living.’ If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the Living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, ‘open our minds to understand the Scriptures.”9
According to this paragraph, the Scriptures in and of themselves are a dead letter. They are in need of an interpreter to give them life. This goes against what the Scriptures teach themselves to be. They claim the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). They claim the Word of God is profitable (2 Timothy 3:16). They claim the Word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). Also present in this article is the notion that the Word of God is not only broader than the Bible, but that seemingly, the Roman Catholic church finds it inappropriate to call the Book (Bible) the Word of God. This same error is held by others who accepted the terms of Higher Criticism. The Roman Church has since the Council of Trent been on a trajectory of denigrating the Scriptures and central texts in general that resulted in these convictions.10
Central texts are the very life blood of western civilization. Great men read the great books and commented on them. These texts had authority and shaped the lives of those who came before us. In the Lutheran Church, the Scriptures are the only source of doctrine, while the Lutheran Confessions are a correct exposition of Scripture. We pledge ourselves to these texts, and are confident we can know what they mean.j Brux was incorrect. Inferences and deductions are valid means of interpreting Sacred Scripture and are employed in the Lutheran Confessions themselves. Our society and churches, through the influence of critical theory, are not always confident in the power and authority of central texts.11 This is not neutral for our society or for the church. The great Roman grammarian Terentianus Maurus said, “Habent sua fata libelli,” (books have their fates).12 The church and society go as they listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd. Ignoring His voice or not giving it the final authority it deserves leads inevitably to false doctrine, despair, and other great shame and vice. Peter Leithart says it well:
“Sola Scriptura is ultimately a statement about Jesus’ Lordship over His church. The question is this: Can Jesus speak to His bride to correct and guide her? Or are all the words that the church hears simply the words of the Bride? Are preaching, theology, commentary, teaching no more than different ways in which the Bride talks to herself? Is the church’s speech a monologue or a dialogue?”13
A trusty weapon is Thy Word, Thy Church’s buckler, shield, and sword. Oh, let us in its power confide that we may seek no other guide! (TLH 292:8).
Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book (1911), Hymn 274.
The Roman and Lutheran Parties acknowledge this to be the case. Read, “Justification and Rome,” by Robert Preus, 109.
For more information, see Breath of God, Yet Work of Man by Charles P. Schaum and Albert B. Collver III (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2019), 262-270.
Schaum and Collver, Breath of God, Yet Work of Man, 269.
Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Fourth Session, Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures.
W.J. Sparrow Simpson, Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Company, 1910), 111.
Ibid. 112.
See Lumen Gentium.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Question 108 (New York: First Image Books, 1999), 37.
For a full history of Roman Catholicism’s embrace of Historical Criticism following the Papal Bulls of Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XII’s Divino afflante Spiritu, look here.
See Gregory Schulz, Anatomy of an Implosion: One Pastor-Professor’s Diagnosis and Lament at the Mission Drift to Woke Marxism in Lutheran Higher Education, (Lutheran News: 2023).
Philipp Rosemann, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s Sentences, (University of Toronto Press, 2013), 13.
Peter Leithart, the Theopolitan Vision, (West Monroe: Theopolis Books, 2019), 54.