Pointing to this wide spectrum of individual interpretation, a newspaper editorial says that Protestant theology lacks “conceptual clarity and theoretical exactness” and calls it “elementary hodgepodge theology that comes across no less sterile than stale dogmatism.” A Swiss Protestant newsletter adds: “The ‘either-or’ of Christian perception” has been “replaced by a ‘this as well as that’.” No wonder theologians disagree!a

“I HAVE been studying Lutheran theology now for seven semesters and am therefore a prospective minister of the church,” began a letter to the editor in a November 1986 German newspaper. It continued: “I would like to call attention to the fact that our training consists basically of tearing the Bible apart​—only its covers are left. . . . While the student’s faith or its foundation, the Scriptures, is being shattered, most of his lecturers are teaching him the ‘new gospel’ of socialism, thereby giving the church a totally new substance. God is dead​—long live socialism! Jesus has rotted in his grave, we must save ourselves! This is the message that many a minister takes to his pulpit, Sunday after Sunday. We urgently need new facilities to teach us the Bible, but at the moment the church is suppressing them.”

With God’s Word being treated so shabbily, is there any hope that the church and its parishioners may yet recover from their spiritual disarray? An 18th-century Bible translator correctly observed: “The church’s state of health is determined by the way it treats the Scriptures.”

Can a New Reformer Help?

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer is honored and quoted nowadays more than any other theologian of our century,” says theology Professor Georg Huntemann. Bonhoeffer, a leading member of the “Confessional Church,” was imprisoned by the Nazis in 1943 and executed in 1945 for alleged involvement in an assassination plot against Hitler. Huntemann says Bonhoeffer might just be the new reformer the church needs. Note the following excerpts from some of his sermons. Ask yourself: What would heeding his words mean for the Lutheran Church? for my church?

“In religion only one thing is of essential importance, that it be true.” This agrees with what Jesus said: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”a​—John 4:24; see also John 8:32; 14:6; 16:13.

Are you sure that everything your church teaches is really true? Does it teach that man has an immortal soul​—one that cannot die—​or does it agree with the Bible, which says: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die”? (Ezekiel 18:4, 20) Does your church teach you that God is nameless or that he is named Jesus, or does it agree with the Bible, which says: “Thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth”? (Psalm 83:18) Does your church teach you that all good people will be taken to heaven when the earth is destroyed by fire, or does it agree with the Bible, which says: “The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever”?​—Psalm 37:29; see also Psalm 104:5.

“It [the church] must strive for purity of teaching.” This agrees with what Jesus said: “Beware of the leaven . . . , the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”​—Matthew 16:12; see also 1 Corinthians 5:8.

Does your church welcome “a wide spectrum of individual interpretation,” or does it act in harmony with the divine counsel: “Brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them”?​—Romans 16:17; see also 2 Timothy 2:16-18; 2 John 9, 10.

“On Judgment Day, God will certainly not ask us: Have you celebrated impressive Reformation festivals, but rather: Have you listened to my Word and kept it?” This agrees with what Jesus said: “My brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.”​—Luke 8:21; see also Matthew 7:21; John 15:14.

Does your church place more emphasis on ritual, ceremonies, and buildings than it does upon gaining accurate knowledge of God’s Word? Is occasional holiday attendance at church considered enough, in contrast with the counsel of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . so much the more, as ye see the day [of judgment] approaching”?​—Hebrews 10:25.

Does your church encourage you to read God’s Word daily, offering you personal assistance in understanding it and providing motivation to do what it requires?

“Religion is work, perhaps the most difficult and most certainly the holiest work that a human can do.” This agrees with what Jesus said: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.”​—John 4:34.

Does your church tell you that God’s work for Christians today is to preach “this gospel of the kingdom . . . in all the world for a witness unto all nations”? (Matthew 24:14; see also Matthew 28:19.) Does it incite you to share this glorious Kingdom message with “every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you”?​—1 Peter 3:15.

At least in the above instances, Bonhoeffer gave his church good advice. “But why do his words, his reformative admonition to the church, go so completely unheeded?” asks Huntemann. Of even greater significance, however, is the question: Why do the authoritative words of Christ Jesus go unheeded in far greater measure?

Theologian Ulrich Betz says that West German society thinks and acts in a “post-Christian, not to say neopagan” way. The Lutheran Church must accept blame for at least the 25 million members of that society who are Lutheran.