The Wittenberg Concord: Creating Space for Dialogue by Gordon A. Jensen

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Wittenberg Concord: Creating Space for Dialogue by Gordon A. Jensen David A. Lumpp The Wittenberg Concord: Creating Space for Dialogue. By Gordon A. Jensen. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018. 235 pp. Students of the Lutheran Confessions routinely encounter the Wittenberg Concord of 1536 when they are introduced to the [End Page 354] Formula of Concord's discussion of the Lord's Supper in Article VII (Kolb-Wengert, Book of Concord, 595–596). And often that is the extent of their exposure to this underappreciated confession. The author has addressed this deficiency with a fine study of a three-page confession (191–194) that draws into its orbit, either directly or indirectly, all of the key players of the Reformation's first generation. The Wittenberg Concord provides an instructive case study in early sixteenth-century theological argument, conversation, and negotiation. Jensen's skillfully woven narrative draws together the people, theological positions, and geopolitical issues in play in high-stakes, complicated discussions, where doctrinal precision and nuance were taken very seriously by all of the participants. Theologians, territorial and imperial politicians, and geography (most notably, but not exclusively, North Germany over against South Germany and Switzerland) are all important to the twists and turns in this work. Luther, Melanchthon, and especially Bucer feature most prominently in the stories that come together in the Wittenberg Concord. Jensen unfolds their positions and priorities—they were not always identical—with care and sympathy. Luther's recurrent suspicions of Bucer, Melanchthon's maddeningly elusive positions, and Bucer's tireless attempts to mediate two different theological worlds are on full display in Jensen's third and fourth chapters, which detail the dialogue and negotiations from 1530 to 1536 that finally resulted in the Concord itself. These two chapters, with their complicated chronology, breakdowns and breakthroughs, demand much from the reader. But they also serve to highlight the fact that in these theological negotiations, much depended on the words and phrases chosen. Consider exhibere, usually rendered as "offered" or "distributed," and cum pane, "with the bread," together with language that was avoided, such as the prepositions "in" and "under" used with real presence. Throughout, the goal was to say enough to affirm what was considered necessary, both doctrinally and politically, but not so much as to alienate needlessly. This reviewer is aware of no comparable English-language volume that so lucidly unfolds these back-and-forth exchanges, and the related theological issues underlying them. [End Page 355] Jensen's book also includes arguably less difficult but no less instructive chapters on baptism and absolution and on the much-contested jurisdiction of civic authorities over church properties. There was sufficient agreement on baptism and absolution to warrant brief affirmative articles in the Concord, but the issue of the control of church property proved to be more elusive and hence is absent from the final document. The same strategy is on display in the articles on baptism and absolution: affirm what we can and must (infant baptism, the necessary connection of baptism and faith, the centrality of absolution), and elide some ancillary matters for which there may be no readily available formulation. In the final chapter, Jensen moves to more contemporary ecumenical conversations. He sees the Wittenberg Concord as comparable to the "differentiated consensus" (178) achieved by Lutheran World Federation and Roman Catholic Church in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (October 31, 1999), inasmuch as both documents did not foreclose conversation but instead "creat[ed] space for dialogue" (178). Here Jensen's own ecumenical sympathies are most clearly evident. He also incorporates discussions of important voices of those past and present whose regard for this approach is, in different ways and for various reasons, less positive (Krauth, Sasse, Schoene, Mattes). As a result, Jensen has offered an expert study in historical theology that may inform the present and not ecumenical propaganda. Jensen complements his study with six appendices and an extensive bibliography. Readers less familiar with these sometimes daunting debates will likely find Appendix Five the most helpful, as it provides brief biographical sketches of 23 persons who play a greater or lesser role in this complicated but captivating story. Given the topic, scholars, seminarians...