145 - One In Christ

One In Christ
By K. E. Skydsgaard
Translated by Axel C. Kildegaard
220pp. Philadelphia, Muhlenberg Press, 1957. $4.00.

Last summer at Minneapolis, World Lutheranism publicly announced its determination to re-examine its relationship to Roman Catholicism. While this did not imply any weakening of the historic Lutheran "Here I Stand," it did imply the realization that the situation of both Churches

146 - One In Christ

has changed since the time of the Reformation, and old fighting slogans no longer correspond to the real issues between them. flow far this realization already goes on the Roman Catholic side may be seen in such a book as Father Bouyer's Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, where the central affirmations of Luther and his co-Reformers (apart from certain polemical exaggerations) are declared to be soundly Catholic. How far it goes on the Lutheran side may be best judged from this illuminating little book by Professor Skydsgaard of Copenhagen, who has devoted many years to the study of Catholic thought.

The author explains that the first chapter, on "Fellowship and Division," stands apart from the other six, which are based on a series of lectures delivered at the People's University in Copenhagen. It is this opening chapter which defines the irenic attitude that runs through the whole book. This attitude differs from two traditional attitudes: the "objectivism" which declares there can be no Christian unity without the submission of both parties to one body of "wholly definite teaching" which is "uniform and binding upon all"; and the "subjectivism" which maintains that "religious truth is so rich and many-sided that it cannot be exhausted by a single system," and each individual is thus free "to believe about Christianity whatever he wished" (p.7). As against both of these attitudes, the author holds that Christian unity centers in personal confrontation of the same living Lord, which leads to a more definite witness and a deeper doctrinal concern than subjectivism requires, but makes possible genuine unity in one "Church" even among those who differ objectively in their "school" of thought-as Bishop Grundtvig long ago observed. Such an attitude permits Christians as deeply divided as Catholics and Lutherans to be deeply "one in Christ" even while they say "No" quite firmly to one another's doctrines at certain crucial points. They can in a sense agree while they differ-as they are likely to differ for long time to come.

In the remaining six chapters, an ecumenical conversation is ducted both in truth and in love" (p.49) between Lutherans and Catholics, and it is found that on every important issue they must be "distinguished" but not "separated," since they are united by a "Yes" precisely where they have to say "No" most vigorously. At some points, such as "Scripture and Tradition" and "Faith and Grace" (Chapters 3and 5), it is evident that a new situation is developing and "the old, unyielding, closed, and stagnated formulas will not help us in the slightest to reach any real understanding" (p.113). Even here, the basic terms mean different things to the two parties, and must be carefully defined if one is to grasp the real position. When "faith" means "intellectual assent to dogma," salvation demands something more than faith; whereas faith as

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vital "trust" implies love, and inspires active good works. At other points, such as "The Church," "Means of Grace," and above all "The Saints and The Virgin Mary" (Chapters 4,6, and 7), the whole of the two communions differs radically, and it is only too evident that they cannot honestly be at home with one another. Yet at these points, too, they are still one in Christ, so that areas of real agreement between them can be defined, and their division becomes tragic as only a family alienation can be. Perhaps the most interesting passage in the whole book is the sketch, toward the end of the last chapter, of a Lutheran understanding of the Virgin Mary's "place in God's salvation"-quite different from the Catholic but still positive and reverent (pp.213-220). Here and elsewhere, there is reason for the author's hope that his book may help both Evangelicals and Catholics to understand each other better.

Walter M. Horton
Oberlin Graduate School of Theology
Oberlin, Ohio