A Confessional Lutheran Reflection on Authority, Hermeneutics, and Institutional Drift
Introduction: A Lutheran Beginning Without a Map
Authored by: James F. Polk
I entered California Lutheran University in 1997 for a simple reason: I was Lutheran. I had grown up in a Lutheran congregation connected to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and was baptized at sixteen at Grace Lutheran Church. At the time, I assumed—without suspicion—that a university bearing the Lutheran name stood broadly within the same theological family.
I did not understand then that “Lutheran” in America encompassed profoundly different confessional trajectories. I was unaware of the 1974 seminary split within American Lutheranism and its long-term impact on Lutheran higher education. That lack of awareness was not ideological negligence; it reflected the reality that denominational and hermeneutical distinctions were rarely explained to undergraduate students and were largely absent from recruitment literature in the late 1990s.
What followed was not an abrupt rejection of faith, but a gradual reorientation of authority—one that many students experienced incrementally and without being taught how to recognize what was at stake.
I. Historical Criticism as Formation, Not Merely Method
Historical-critical scholarship was introduced as a neutral academic tool for understanding Scripture within its ancient contexts. Source theories such as JEDP or the hypothetical Q source were presented as marks of scholarly seriousness. In themselves, such questions need not undermine Christian orthodoxy, and responsible engagement with historical context has long existed within the church.
Yet over time it became clear that historical criticism functioned less as a limited method and more as a formative lens. Scripture increasingly appeared not as God’s self-attesting Word but as a collection of religious texts reflecting evolving human consciousness. The Lutheran distinction between norma normans (the norming norm) and norma normata (the normed norm) quietly eroded.
As Francis Pieper insisted, Holy Scripture is not authoritative merely because it contains divine truth but because it is the Word of God (Pieper 65). Once that claim is softened, authority does not disappear—it relocates. The interpreter begins to stand over the text rather than under it.
David Scaer has observed that historical criticism does not merely examine Scripture but judges it, inevitably placing the critic in a position of authority over the Word (Scaer 45). When this posture becomes normative within theological education, it forms students not simply to analyze Scripture but to domesticate it.
II. From Historical Criticism to Liberation Theology
When Scripture is no longer received as a binding revelation, theology becomes adaptive by necessity. Moral conclusions are derived rather than received. Confession becomes provisional.
This shift becomes explicit in liberation theology, which interprets Scripture primarily through the lens of present social struggle. The biblical text is mobilized in service of emancipation, with doctrinal continuity subordinated to moral urgency. Meaning arises from context rather than confession.
The difficulty here is not compassion but authority. Once revelation is displaced by construction, Scripture no longer judges the church; the church judges Scripture. Normativity flows from present experience rather than divine self-disclosure.
Norman Nagel repeatedly warned against this move, insisting that theology’s task is not to make God intelligible to modern sensibilities but to let God speak where He has promised to be heard (Nagel 112). Where this restraint is lost, theology inevitably becomes a tool for innovation rather than proclamation.
III. Progressive Legal Theory as a Parallel Hermeneutic
As my studies later turned toward law, I recognized the same hermeneutical pattern. Progressive constitutional theory mirrors progressive theology in its rejection of fixed meaning. The Constitution, like Scripture under historical criticism, is treated as a “living document” whose authority derives from evolving moral consciousness rather than original intent.
Originalism is often dismissed not merely as historically implausible but as morally restrictive. Yet this objection reveals the same underlying assumption at work in progressive theology: that authoritative texts must yield to contemporary ethical judgment.
By contrast, confessional theology and constitutional originalism share a common posture. The text stands over the interpreter. Change is possible, but only through formal, accountable means—confession in the church, amendment in constitutional law. In both domains, authority precedes interpretation.
This parallel is not accidental. It reflects competing answers to a single question: Who governs whom—the text or its reader?
IV. Institutional Drift in Lutheran Higher Education
The effects of this hermeneutical shift are visible in Lutheran institutions that retain confessional language while operating on different theological foundations. Students are rarely told that they are being formed within a specific hermeneutical tradition with concrete implications for doctrine, ethics, and public engagement.
At California Lutheran University, historical-critical assumptions shaped theological discourse long before students were equipped to evaluate them. Debate was permitted, but the boundaries of acceptable conclusion were increasingly clear. Over time, dissent from emerging moral consensus came to be viewed not simply as mistaken but as morally suspect.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s 2019 declaration as a sanctuary denomination made explicit what had long been implicit. Complex legal and theological questions were reframed as settled moral imperatives. Prudential disagreement gave way to institutional alignment. Authority had shifted from Scripture and law to moral assertion.
This moment did not represent a sudden departure but the culmination of a trajectory shaped by decades of hermeneutical drift.
V. Confessional Lutheranism as Counterbalance
Against this backdrop, the confessional witness of the LCMS and the work of Concordia Publishing House function as a necessary counterbalance. This tradition has consistently insisted that Scripture remains clear, authoritative, and binding, and that theology is accountable to confession rather than cultural momentum.
Robert Kolb emphasizes that confession is not a historical artifact but the living voice of the church bound to Scripture (Kolb 23). This binding does not inhibit compassion or engagement with the world; it restrains the church from remaking the faith in its own image.
Confessional Lutheranism’s insistence on restraint is not reactionary. It is preservative. In an age of accelerating moral innovation, the church’s task is not to outrun Scripture but to remain bound to it.
VI. Authority, Restraint, and the Protection of the Vulnerable
The danger of theological and legal innovation is not excessive concern for justice but unbounded authority. When texts no longer restrain interpreters, institutions cease to mediate power and instead exercise it. Law becomes aspirational rather than limiting. Theology becomes therapeutic rather than confessional.
Yet restraint is precisely what protects the vulnerable from the tyranny of good intentions. Authority received rather than constructed limits the ability of institutions to redefine morality, law, and human dignity at will.
Both Scripture and constitutional law were given to restrain power, not sanctify it.
Conclusion
My journey through Lutheran higher education reflects a broader story: how methods become metaphysics, how institutions drift without confession, and how authority—once relocated—is difficult to recover.
Yet recovery remains possible. It begins with clarity rather than polemics. Scripture governs the church; the church does not govern Scripture. Where that order is preserved, theology remains proclamation rather than construction, and institutions retain the humility necessary to serve rather than rule.
Author’s Note
I attended California Lutheran University beginning in 1997, having grown up in a Lutheran congregation connected to the LCMS. At the time, I was unaware of the confessional and hermeneutical distinctions between American Lutheran bodies, including the significance of the 1974 seminary split and its effects on Lutheran higher education. Subsequent study in theology, law, and institutional ethics—particularly engagement with confessional Lutheran scholarship—led me to re-examine questions of authority, interpretation, and restraint addressed in this essay.
Works Cited (MLA)
Kolb, Robert. Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 1530–1580. Concordia Publishing House, 1991.
Nagel, Norman. Selected Essays in Lutheran Theology. Concordia Publishing House, 1998.
Pieper, Francis. Christian Dogmatics. Vol. 1, Concordia Publishing House, 1950.
Scaer, David P. Scriptural Hermeneutics. Concordia Publishing House, 1986.