Reviewed Book: Reumann, John Henry Paul. Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, and Bishops in a Time of Change. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1987

Jacobson, J. Robert

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 15Issue 2 Theology of the Cross: Theory and Practice Article 2611-1-1989Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, andBishops in a Time of ChangeJ. Robert JacobsonFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationJacobson, J. Robert (1989) "Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, and Bishops in a Time of Change," Consensus: Vol. 15 : Iss. 2 ,Article 26.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol15/iss2/26Book Reviews 149“Ritual and Care for the Individual” deals with the function and useof ritual in situations of individual need and counselling. Topics treatedinclude prayer as ritual, private blessing, private confession and absolution,rites of healing, rituals with the dying and grieving, ritual with the mentallyimpaired, and ritual with those who have psychological problems.Her final chapter, “Ritual and Care for the World”, discusses the useof ritual as it interfaces with the world outside the church, and ritual asa force in the world for justice and social change. After dealing with thetension between liturgical eschatology and liturgy’s inherent conservatism,she presents some “radical” uses of liturgy which have potential for encour-aging public change; the Maundy Thursday footwashing liturgy, liturgicalpreaching for justice, images of justice in holy communion and baptism,secular and public liturgies (such as Thanksgiving Day, Mother’s Day, andMemorial Day), liturgical tensions within institutional chaplaincies, mate-rials which enter into liturgy (bread, wine, church architecture and furnish-ing), the Prayer of the Church, and inclusive language.Ramshaw has produced a well-written, readable, and useful book. Sheestablishes her theological premises, and then offers numerous practical andtimely applications of the usefulness of relating ritual functions to pastoralcare. For those who know Willimon’s Worship as Pastoral Care^ but whohunger for more practical applications of his thesis, Ramshaw’s book willcome cLS a welcome gift. Although her Lutheran roots are obvious through-out, she also writes from an ecumenical perspective, dealing with problemsof ministry which are recognized and arise across the spectrum of the main-line churches.Any pastor who is concerned about overcoming the separation of wor-ship from pastoral care, and who is looking for tools with which to reconcilethese two functions of ministry, will find this book a welcome addition tothe shelf, not only for its treatment of liminal situations such as divorce orstillbirth, but also for its discussions of the traditional rites such as holycommunion, baptism and confirmation.Donald NevilePeace Lutheran ChurchMinistries ExaminedJohn H. P. ReumannAugsburg Publishing House, 1987We are indebted to Augsburg for enclosing within one volume five im-portant contributions by this veteran Lutheran pastor, New Testamentscholar, and ecumenist to our search for a better understanding and a morefaithful practice of ordained ministry in the Lutheran churches of North150 ConsensusAmerica. Each of the five monographs was written “on assignment” and inthis volume is accompanied by “Supplementary Comments” to bring thereader up to date on subsequent developments and bibliography. A closingchapter, freshly written for the book, deals with the Lima document of theWord Council of Churches, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), andalso provides an eye-witness account of the agonies and ecstasies experi-enced by the ALC, the LCA, and the AELC and their commissioners overordained and other ministries on their way to the formation of the ELCAin 1988.Chapter one consists of a piece familiar to many of us since it was firstpublished in 1970 in Eucharist and Ministry: Lutherans and Catholics inDialogue IV.In it Reumann provides a very useful and balanced survey ofthe Lutheran understanding of ministry, ordained and lay, from the Ref-ormation era to the present. He wisely begins by sounding two notes ofcaution: 1) The reformers are much better at telling us what ordained min-istry isn’t (they had so many entrenched abuses to counter) than they areat telling us what it is; and 2) Their prior concern Wcls to reestablish theauthority of the Word for the sake of the Gospel. Nevertheless, he does asgood a job as I’ve seen anywhere of tracing the twin themes of “universalpriesthood” and “ordained ministry instituted by Christ” from their originsin Luther, to their expressions in the Confessions, through the vagaries ofEuropean and American Lutheran history as the pendulum swung backand forth, and into our present-day understandings in the context of ourecumenical dialogues. People who haven’t traveled this path before havemuch to learn from the clear prose of this succinct treatment.It is hard to imagine anyone who is just beginning to get into the discus-sion on the ordination of women, but if you are, chapter two of Reumann’sbook is for you. It’s also for people who have nagging doubts related tobasic issues of biblical exegesis. In an appeal to other churches that do notpresently ordain women, he points to our favorable Lutheran experience ofit and repeats Luther’s clinching argument addressed to opponents of in-fant baptism: it works! (LC IV, 49 ff.) Written twenty years ago, the mainarticle retains its value as a foundational piece, and the “SupplementaryComments” update us to 1987.Does anybody want to know how the title “bishop” was restored toNorth American Lutheranism, and why? Read chapter three, Reumann’sinterpretive piece that helped the 1980 LCA Convention to accept the titlewith understanding. The chapter raises a few points we need to ponderand elaborate:^ Lutherans are not bound to anyone else’s definition of what a bishopis and does, not even European Lutheran versions of the office. Byseeking to be true to Scriptural and Confessional principles of pastoralservice to the Gospel and the church, we can strengthen our own churchand make a helpful contribution to the current ecumenical ferment overhow best to exercise episcope.^“A profound awareness of the realities of history has always markedLutheran attitudes toward church order and governance,” says Reu-mann (150). I would say rather “a profound awareness of everyone else ’sBook Reviews 151historical realities and a profound ignorance of their own” have shapedLutheran attitudes until very recently. My own modest effort to dosomething about that ignorance had an embarrassingly self- revelatbryeffect on far too many people (Too Good To Miss [Foothills LutheranPress, 1977] 56-72). For Lutherans today a clear and humble self-understanding is crucial to our ability to be faithful to the Spirit’sleading in ecumenical dialogues and endeavors, and in the life of ourown growing church.^ Lutherans need to keep asking how bishops can better serve the churchin the spirit of Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession. What is a rea-sonable sized congregation for a pastoral bishop? Is the pastoral rela-tionship enhanced or degraded by periodic re-elections? If the bishop’srole is essentially pcistoral (i.e.. Word and Sacrament), where is his/herpulpit and altar? Reumann indicates that such issues have not yetbeen seriously addressed by North American Lutheranism as a whole.Indeed, the name change from president to bishop has brought theminto sharp focus for the first time for most of us.The “Teaching Office” (magisterium) of the church according to theNew Testament and the basis for “authority” in the exercise of ministryaddress our attention in chapter four. Reumann ’s paper is a response toa much longer work by Joseph A. Fitzmyer. As he sifts through the NewTestament data we have Reumann at his best. A keen analysis of kerygmaand didache leads him to conclude that “any teaching office works fromthe gospel as its norm” and “the gospel stands as norm over. . . data andinfluences from the contemporary sciences and from reason, nature, churchtraditions, and past practices [when] the church needs to speak [on] topicssuch as modern problems in social ethics” (172). Agreed, but we’d betterbe sure that the Gospel we use as norm on the basis of this New Testamentinsight is indeed the New Testament Gospel of power for salvation to allwho believe (Romans 1:16), with all the implications Paul draws from thatin Romans 8, etc. Theological sloganeering is no substitute for the Gospelin action with power to save.A concern: somewhere between the exercise of magisterium by theHoly Office in Rome and attempts to exercise it by majority vote in ageneral assembly we need to recover a process that honours “the primacyof the gospel”; “the privileged authority of Scripture”; the responsibilityfor teaching shared by all members; and the work of the Spirit throughScripture, tradition and the apostolic ministry (cf. 181)—all viewed by theLutheran-Catholic U.S. Dialogue (1978) as essential components of sucha process. Reflections on how the ELCIC 1989 Saskatoon convention didand did not arrive at our “Interim Statement on Abortion” raises the issueafresh for us and challenges us to design a new and more adequate process.Reading Reumann moved me to commit some ideas to paper on this matter.The final chapter is useful background material for gaining an under-standing of the proposals to the ELCIC from its “Task Force on the Forms ofMinistry” which has recently completed its assignment. This is essentially152 Consensusthe same assignment the ELCA gave its task force until 1994 to completeat a cost of $1.2 million or so. Reumann provides substantial insight intoBEM’s understanding of the ministry of bishops and pastors, but is tooclose to the debates in the American merger process to throw much lighton the confusion they generated around diaconal ministries. Those debatesresulted in a stand-off, with entrenched views unable to yield new insights.I hope that the American process will be able to move ahead in a calmerenvironment. A member of their new Task Force, of which Reumann is thechair, on seeing the results of the work of our Task Force, said he hopedthe ELCA could come up with something just as good, but he was doubt-ful. We’ll all need some time to rethink our understanding of the biblicalprecedent for how apostolic ministry may be ordered in the light of circum-stances to serve better the needs of the whole church and its witness in theworld.Most of the material in this book is pretty basic. But many people,both lay and ordained, need a good clear basic discussion like this.The narrative bibliography at the end of most chapters will provideall the guidance the reader needs to explore any of these issues in greaterdepth.Bishop J. Robert JacobsonSynod of Alberta and the Territories

Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, and Bishops in a Time of Change

Scholars Commons

Consensus
Volume 15
Issue 2 Theology of the Cross: Theory and Practice Article 26
11-1-1989
Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, and
Bishops in a Time of Change
J. Robert Jacobson
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus
This Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Jacobson, J. Robert (1989) "Ministries Examined: Laity, Clergy, Women, and Bishops in a Time of Change," Consensus: Vol. 15 : Iss. 2 ,
Article 26.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol15/iss2/26
Book Reviews 149
“Ritual and Care for the Individual” deals with the function and use
of ritual in situations of individual need and counselling. Topics treated
include prayer as ritual, private blessing, private confession and absolution,
rites of healing, rituals with the dying and grieving, ritual with the mentally
impaired, and ritual with those who have psychological problems.
Her final chapter, “Ritual and Care for the World”, discusses the use
of ritual as it interfaces with the world outside the church, and ritual as
a force in the world for justice and social change. After dealing with the
tension between liturgical eschatology and liturgy’s inherent conservatism,
she presents some “radical” uses of liturgy which have potential for encour-
aging public change; the Maundy Thursday footwashing liturgy, liturgical
preaching for justice, images of justice in holy communion and baptism,
secular and public liturgies (such as Thanksgiving Day, Mother’s Day, and
Memorial Day), liturgical tensions within institutional chaplaincies, mate-
rials which enter into liturgy (bread, wine, church architecture and furnish-
ing), the Prayer of the Church, and inclusive language.
Ramshaw has produced a well-written, readable, and useful book. She
establishes her theological premises, and then offers numerous practical and
timely applications of the usefulness of relating ritual functions to pastoral
care. For those who know Willimon’s Worship as Pastoral Care^ but who
hunger for more practical applications of his thesis, Ramshaw’s book will
come cLS a welcome gift. Although her Lutheran roots are obvious through-
out, she also writes from an ecumenical perspective, dealing with problems
of ministry which are recognized and arise across the spectrum of the main-
line churches.
Any pastor who is concerned about overcoming the separation of wor-
ship from pastoral care, and who is looking for tools with which to reconcile
these two functions of ministry, will find this book a welcome addition to
the shelf, not only for its treatment of liminal situations such as divorce or
stillbirth, but also for its discussions of the traditional rites such as holy
communion, baptism and confirmation.
Donald Nevile
Peace Lutheran Church
Ministries Examined
John H. P. Reumann
Augsburg Publishing House, 1987
We are indebted to Augsburg for enclosing within one volume five im-
portant contributions by this veteran Lutheran pastor, New Testament
scholar, and ecumenist to our search for a better understanding and a more
faithful practice of ordained ministry in the Lutheran churches of North
150 Consensus
America. Each of the five monographs was written “on assignment” and in
this volume is accompanied by “Supplementary Comments” to bring the
reader up to date on subsequent developments and bibliography. A closing
chapter, freshly written for the book, deals with the Lima document of the
Word Council of Churches, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), and
also provides an eye-witness account of the agonies and ecstasies experi-
enced by the ALC, the LCA, and the AELC and their commissioners over
ordained and other ministries on their way to the formation of the ELCA
in 1988.
Chapter one consists of a piece familiar to many of us since it was first
published in 1970 in Eucharist and Ministry: Lutherans and Catholics in
Dialogue IV
.
In it Reumann provides a very useful and balanced survey of
the Lutheran understanding of ministry, ordained and lay, from the Ref-
ormation era to the present. He wisely begins by sounding two notes of
caution: 1) The reformers are much better at telling us what ordained min-
istry isn’t (they had so many entrenched abuses to counter) than they are
at telling us what it is; and 2) Their prior concern Wcls to reestablish the
authority of the Word for the sake of the Gospel. Nevertheless, he does as
good a job as I’ve seen anywhere of tracing the twin themes of “universal
priesthood” and “ordained ministry instituted by Christ” from their origins
in Luther, to their expressions in the Confessions, through the vagaries of
European and American Lutheran history as the pendulum swung back
and forth, and into our present-day understandings in the context of our
ecumenical dialogues. People who haven’t traveled this path before have
much to learn from the clear prose of this succinct treatment.
It is hard to imagine anyone who is just beginning to get into the discus-
sion on the ordination of women, but if you are, chapter two of Reumann’s
book is for you. It’s also for people who have nagging doubts related to
basic issues of biblical exegesis. In an appeal to other churches that do not
presently ordain women, he points to our favorable Lutheran experience of
it and repeats Luther’s clinching argument addressed to opponents of in-
fant baptism: it works! (LC IV, 49 ff.) Written twenty years ago, the main
article retains its value as a foundational piece, and the “Supplementary
Comments” update us to 1987.
Does anybody want to know how the title “bishop” was restored to
North American Lutheranism, and why? Read chapter three, Reumann’s
interpretive piece that helped the 1980 LCA Convention to accept the title
with understanding. The chapter raises a few points we need to ponder
and elaborate:
^ Lutherans are not bound to anyone else’s definition of what a bishop
is and does, not even European Lutheran versions of the office. By
seeking to be true to Scriptural and Confessional principles of pastoral
service to the Gospel and the church, we can strengthen our own church
and make a helpful contribution to the current ecumenical ferment over
how best to exercise episcope.
^
“A profound awareness of the realities of history has always marked
Lutheran attitudes toward church order and governance,” says Reu-
mann (150). I would say rather “a profound awareness of everyone else ’s
Book Reviews 151
historical realities and a profound ignorance of their own” have shaped
Lutheran attitudes until very recently. My own modest effort to do
something about that ignorance had an embarrassingly self- revelatbry
effect on far too many people (Too Good To Miss [Foothills Lutheran
Press, 1977] 56-72). For Lutherans today a clear and humble self-
understanding is crucial to our ability to be faithful to the Spirit’s
leading in ecumenical dialogues and endeavors, and in the life of our
own growing church.
^ Lutherans need to keep asking how bishops can better serve the church
in the spirit of Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession. What is a rea-
sonable sized congregation for a pastoral bishop? Is the pastoral rela-
tionship enhanced or degraded by periodic re-elections? If the bishop’s
role is essentially pcistoral (i.e.. Word and Sacrament), where is his/her
pulpit and altar? Reumann indicates that such issues have not yet
been seriously addressed by North American Lutheranism as a whole.
Indeed, the name change from president to bishop has brought them
into sharp focus for the first time for most of us.
The “Teaching Office” (magisterium) of the church according to the
New Testament and the basis for “authority” in the exercise of ministry
address our attention in chapter four. Reumann ’s paper is a response to
a much longer work by Joseph A. Fitzmyer. As he sifts through the New
Testament data we have Reumann at his best. A keen analysis of kerygma
and didache leads him to conclude that “any teaching office works from
the gospel as its norm” and “the gospel stands as norm over. . . data and
influences from the contemporary sciences and from reason, nature, church
traditions, and past practices [when] the church needs to speak [on] topics
such as modern problems in social ethics” (172). Agreed, but we’d better
be sure that the Gospel we use as norm on the basis of this New Testament
insight is indeed the New Testament Gospel of power for salvation to all
who believe (Romans 1:16), with all the implications Paul draws from that
in Romans 8, etc. Theological sloganeering is no substitute for the Gospel
in action with power to save.
A concern: somewhere between the exercise of magisterium by the
Holy Office in Rome and attempts to exercise it by majority vote in a
general assembly we need to recover a process that honours “the primacy
of the gospel”; “the privileged authority of Scripture”; the responsibility
for teaching shared by all members; and the work of the Spirit through
Scripture, tradition and the apostolic ministry (cf. 181)—all viewed by the
Lutheran-Catholic U.S. Dialogue (1978) as essential components of such
a process. Reflections on how the ELCIC 1989 Saskatoon convention did
and did not arrive at our “Interim Statement on Abortion” raises the issue
afresh for us and challenges us to design a new and more adequate process.
Reading Reumann moved me to commit some ideas to paper on this matter.
The final chapter is useful background material for gaining an under-
standing of the proposals to the ELCIC from its “Task Force on the Forms of
Ministry” which has recently completed its assignment. This is essentially
152 Consensus
the same assignment the ELCA gave its task force until 1994 to complete
at a cost of $1.2 million or so. Reumann provides substantial insight into
BEM’s understanding of the ministry of bishops and pastors, but is too
close to the debates in the American merger process to throw much light
on the confusion they generated around diaconal ministries. Those debates
resulted in a stand-off, with entrenched views unable to yield new insights.
I hope that the American process will be able to move ahead in a calmer
environment. A member of their new Task Force, of which Reumann is the
chair, on seeing the results of the work of our Task Force, said he hoped
the ELCA could come up with something just as good, but he was doubt-
ful. We’ll all need some time to rethink our understanding of the biblical
precedent for how apostolic ministry may be ordered in the light of circum-
stances to serve better the needs of the whole church and its witness in the
world.
Most of the material in this book is pretty basic. But many people,
both lay and ordained, need a good clear basic discussion like this.
The narrative bibliography at the end of most chapters will provide
all the guidance the reader needs to explore any of these issues in greater
depth.
Bishop J. Robert Jacobson
Synod of Alberta and the Territories


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