Hermann Sasse

The only task of Christian theology

July 1, 2010

Kyrios Jesous Christos, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” This is the original confession of the church. With it the Christian faith once entered world history. To understand the sense of this confession ever more deeply is the great, yes, basically the only task of all Christian theology. To repeat this confession, to speak it in ever [...]

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The Lord and the Church

June 30, 2010

Jesus is Lord first for His church and then for His servant. Jesus is “my Lord” only because He is “our Lord.” Only as members of the church do we belong to Him. The Lord and the church belong so much together that the one is unthinkable without the other. One cannot speak of the [...]

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Should We Train “Soul-Winners”?

June 15, 2010

Immanuel’s by-laws have a strange reference to “soul-winning.” I’ve always wondered how that crept into our governing documents. The following section from Sasse is enlightening: The optimism and synergism prevalent in America have made such inroads into American Lutheranism that the Augsburg Confession’s ‘where and when it pleases God’ has for practical purposes been given [...]

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Piepkorn on the sanctorum communionem

May 20, 2010

When I read Sasse on the sanctorum communionem as a reference to the Sacrament of the Altar, I was convinced. I was troubled, however, by the seeming discrepancy with Luther’s Large Catechism. My colleague, Rev. Charles McClean, showed me this passage after I mentioned to him my concern. “If a later symbol misunderstands an earlier [...]

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Luther, the Roman Mass, and the Lutheran Liturgy

October 26, 2009

Another gem from Sasse, as we reflect this week on the Reformation: Although in his book on the Babylonian captivity of the church and in the Smalcald Articles, [Luther] unmasked and condemned the idolatry which had crept into the Mass, he admitted that the Roman Mass was still a valid Eucharist. And so he did [...]

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Reformation

October 25, 2009

Text: Romans 3:19-28 +++ An adult was also confirmed at this service. The problem with the church today is that Luther’s problem has stopped being our problem. Luther’s problem was the original problem of all true theology: How can mankind be redeemed – rescued from his sins, and the death and hell they have merited? [...]

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The modern man's conception of God, compared to Luther's

October 24, 2009

The God of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl is no longer a consuming fire. If the modern man believes in God at all, he believes in him as the guarantor of his happiness. And so the thought of the existence of God has become, since the eighteenth century, a comforting thought. For Luther it was a [...]

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Versus populum or ad orientam? Sasse on "St. Zwingli" and "liturgical arts-and-crafts"

October 22, 2009

Fr. Charles McClean gave me a copy of these excerpts from a letter of Hermann Sasse to Peter Brunner. I am not certain if he translated this or not, and will update this post when I find out. The best part is the second paragraph, so stick with it! “What concerns me and to speak [...]

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