The Assumption of Mary

THE NEW DOGMA FROM A PROTESTANT STANDPOINT

Before the announcement concerning the promulgation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, a group of German Protestant theologians prepared a memorandum on the subject and submitted it to certain Roman Catholic leaders with whom they were in contact. The group was composed of Professor Edmund Schlink, Professor G. Bornkamn, Professor P. Brunner, Professor von Campenhausen and Dr. W. Joest. The document deals first of all with the basic Biblical and theological issues involved, and subsequently comes to the following conclusions.

Effects on the Relation between the Evangelical and the Catholic Church

Any dogma of the bodily resurrection and ascension of the Virgin would, beyond any doubt, increase the number of differences existing between the Roman Catholic and the Evangelical Church, and deepen the fissure separating their two faiths. Since the Evangelical Church could only see in this dogma not merely a deviation in the Catholic exposition of Apostolic teaching, but a Catholic renunciation in principle of the Apostoìic foundation of their teaching, this dogma would evoke in it nothing but grieved astonishment. Not only can the Evangelical Christian give no sort of an assent, by reason of the relation in which he stands to Holy Writ, to such a dogma, but he cannot gloss over it either as an adiaphoron, and he cannot leave it open ; he can only note it with the deepest regret, and expressly reject it.

The rapprochement which came about in the period of persecution between the EVangelical and the Catholic Church would be gravely affected by the elevation into a dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin. For this rapproche- ment was ultimately based on the gratifying mutual discovery that at a time of great distress we might hear something of the consolation contained in the Gospel of the Apostles out of the mouths of those belonging to the Church that is sundered from ourselves. It is this discovery that is at the bottom of the new respect being manifested for one another's biblical and theological work. The same discovery was for Evangelical theology also the occasion for giving fresh and careful thought to problems of church tradition. And it was responsible for both sides' being prepared to reinterpret the teaching and history of the other Church in a spirit of repentance. All this would be crippled by the proclamation of the Assumption as a dogma. For it would be evident that the Scriptures are not, for the Roman Catholic Church, the real standard as regards what man must believe in order to be saved, and that

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joint Bible and theological work is therefore of entirely minor importance for all efforts to bring about the unity of the Church. It would likewise be clear that even scientific concern with church tradition cannot proceed any further in these questions, since the Roman Catholic Church today takes its stand not on tradition susceptible of historical proof, and not even on probable Apostolic tradition, but on the claim to be itself able to produce "Apostolic tradition." The theological discussion between the Evangelical and the Catholic Church would be seriously hampered by the fact that the Assumption could only be established as a dogma thanks to an authoritative invalidation of the generally-recognised findings of scientific research, so that doubt would be thrown on the whole significance of scientific theological work. And in addition there would be the disabling doubt whether this dogma was genuinely and sincerely believed by those Catholic theologians who assented to it after its proclamation when before it they had expressed well-founded reservations. The Evangelical theologian is also aware that the Holy Spirit can through the mouth of the Church pass decisions counter to the theological insight of the individual. But the reality of the Spirit is manifested in the fact that it brings home to man the historical words of Jesus (St. John xiv, 26), and does not utter its own (St. John xvi, 13).

At the same time, the proclamation of the Assumption as a dogma would undoubtedly give a considerable and justified stimulus to those groups in the Protestant Churches which distrusted from the beginning the rapprochement between the Evangelical and the Roman Catholic Church, detected in it nothing but dangers, and are continuing to regard isolation and one-sided polemics as the sole proper position to take up in relation to the Church of Rome. These groups are not the ones which count in the Evangelical Church in Germany today, but they could become so once more, and the old distress- ing situation be reproduced of the two Churches estranged from one another and engaged in an uncomprehending struggle. \

It is certain that, not only in Germany but in the Oikoumene as a whole, the erection of the Assumption into a dogma would have an effect far transcend- ing the concrete content of the theologoumenon itself, as the proclamation of a definite line to be followed by the Church of Rome, and this is true as regards not only the relation in principle between the Church and the teaching of the Apostles, but the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to the numerous rapprochements between the Churches in the world. While most Churches are today avowing, in bitter repentance before God, their share of guilt for the sundering of the one Body of Christ, and striving, in united prayer and strict application to scientific study, to reduce the dimensions of the differences and to find and to attest before all men a maximum of sharing (though not suppressing such lack of agreement as still exists), the Roman Catholic Church would by the promulgation of this dogma increase those differences. Such

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a step would be taken, amid the efforts for church rapprochement now going on, as a definite No on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, and not only by the Evangelical Church in Germany, but by Protestants all over the world, and by the body of Orthodox Christians also. This is the more true if we consider what other new dogmas and reinterpretations of existing dogmas would, on the basis of what the Catholic Church regards as prerequisite, be perfectly possible, and how they might act on the other Churches not as a deterrent but as a stimulus, and perhaps even as a model to be followed.

Effects on the Fission between the Churches and the World

The Churches are today living in a dechristianised and anti-Christian world. Thus they are being assailed on all fronts by the atheistic philosophy and sovereignty of Bolshevik Communism. But no less menacing is the mass phenomenon of secular man, who belongs in name to a Church but has lost all belief in the reality of God's great acts of salvation, which are made actual in the service of worship by the Word and the Sacraments. These are the many people who have fallen victim to the scientific and historical empiricism of this century. In the Bible's testimony to the marvellous works of God they see mere myths of, it may be, great aesthetic beauty, and in the Church merely a sociological quantity of, it may be, indispensable moral and political signi- ficance. The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany today form — if not by dogmatic consensus, at any rate defacto and in the eyes of the world — one front of witness to Christ in face of their anti-Christian and a-Christian contemporaries. This united front, which does not do away with the differ- ences between the two Churches and yet is the beginning of a new fellowship, would undoubtedly be weakened by the proclamation of the Assumption as a dogma, weakened in regard both to the united effect of this witness to Christ, and to the united contribution towards a just political and social reordering of society.

1) The elevation into a dogma of the belief in the Assumption of the Virgin Mary could only be taken by the Evangelical Church as the elevation into a dogma of a myth lacking any foundation in history. By such elevation, this myth would be placed by the Church of Rome on an equal footing with the historical acts of salvation performed by God, which the Apostles attested and the Church, on the basis of this attestation, has believed and preached without remission through the centuries. The Assumption would then, by Catholic doctrine, would need to be believed as being as necessary to salvation (being a Divine act of salvation) as the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection of Christ. Its proclamation as a dogma would therefore make it consider- ably easier for those anti-Christians and a-Christians who deny the revelation

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of God in history to reject the Christian message as a myth. The opposing front would be strengthened, and the common front of the Churches thereby at the same time weakened. For the Evangelical Church would see the Catholic as being on the side of those who turn the Gospel into a myth, and the Catholic Church would see the Evangelical as being on the side of its opponents, who contest the historical reality of what it believes.

2) This question is also not without significance in the field of political and social collaboration. For this collaboration is not intended to be purely of a tactical nature ; it presupposes a realisation of common Christian respons- ibility. The proclamation of such g. dogma could not but increase the doubt in the mind of the Evangelical Christian as to whether there really exists such a basis for cooperation.

Naturally, any rapprochement between the Evangelical and Catholic Churches involves dangers which might develop into a menace to members of both — the dangers of a relativisation of the question of truth and an obliteration of differences, the dangers of an over-emotional anticipation of the unity we hope and pray and work for while we do not in fact possess it. There is a clear consciousness of these dangers on both sides, though it seems to us that a stronger guard is set against them by the Catholics than by the Evangelicals. At any rate, the issuing one after another of the Papal Ency- clicals Corporis Christi Mystici and Mediator Dei, the Monitum just before the Amsterdam Assembly in 1948 and the Instructio of December 20, 1949 (in which latter the ecumenical discussions were treated, in a way which aggravated their difficulties, namely as aiming at conversion to Roman Catholicism) was widely felt as a withdrawal by the Holy See into aloofness from ecumenical rapprochement.

The promulgation of the dogma of the Assumption would, as far as it is possible to judge, dispose of these dangers at one blow. From this point of view, certain circles in the Evangelical Church go the length of desiring and warmly welcoming it. Isolation from the Church of Rome and polemics against it would be rendered a great deal easier. From a sense of responsibility for Christendom as a whole, we think it our duty to utter a warning against the proclamation of this dogma.

As soon as the one danger is out of the way, another arises which is certainly no less in its range than the first — the danger of growing self- righteous in isolation, the danger of taking an overweening pride in our spiritual heritage, denying the work begun by the Spirit of God under the persecution in the common confession and suffering of the two Churches, in short a relapse into the polemical obduracy and incomprehension of days gone by. And this danger of obduracy too exists for both the Churches, and would be immeasurably increased by the elevation into a dogma of the Assump- tion of the Virgin.

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May God amid the present oppression of Christendom show to all the Churches of the Oikoumene the way that leads between these two dangers, the way of increasing realisation by each Church of the workings of the Divine grace in the other — the way for love in its search to follow towards unity in the truth, for which our Lord Jesus Christ offered Up His prayer.

A STRATEGY FOR INTER-CHURCH AID IN EUROPE FOR 1951

At the end of October 1950, seventy representative churchmen from Europe and America met in Geneva to study the strategic opportunities and needs of European Churches for 1951. They came from thirteen countries and from a wide range of member Churches of the World Council of Churches. No distinction was felt between "giving and receiving Churches," since all were primarily concerned with strengthening the life and witness of the Church in Europe.

The Case for Inter-Church Aid in 1951

The future of Europe is once again at stake. As Christians we must be concerned that the right political action should be taken, but we also know that the ultimate solution of Europe's problems does not depend upon diplo- macy, or force of arms. The spiritual foundations of Europe have been profoundly shaken by events in the last three decades. It is not therefore enough that European civilisation should survive. What matters is that Ufe should be renewed from its deepest sources. It is here that the rôle of the Church in Europe is most clearly seen. The Church is not there simply to conserve, or to protect, but to enable men and communities to be born anew. The Consultation provided much evidence of such new life within the Churches.

The historic, continuing work of Inter-Church Aid has been greatly intensified in the years since the end of the war. Clearly this work has not simply been a matter of transferring funds, or supplying food and clothing to meet necessities. Inter-Church Aid has been a distinctive factor in binding the Churches of Europe together and in Unking them with Churches outside Europe. The result of the giving and receiving of gifts has not been merely an improvement of material conditions, or even temporary encouragement. Inter-Church Aid has had a deeper significance. Men and women have experienced the reaUty of the Ufe of the Church of Jesus Christ through the acts of Christian fellowship. Out of utterly different situations has come evidence of new spiritual opportunities, simply because scattered groups of Christians and isolated Churches have received help from abroad.

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