Luther Foundation in Finland

1. Demand for a Confessional Foundation

Traditional Lutheran mainland in Europe, namely Germany and Scandinavia, is undergone radical transformation since the early 1960s. The established Lutheran majority churches, let it be like 'Landeskirchen' in Germany, the traditional State Churches in Denmark, Norway and Sweden or the established and relatively independent Lutheran Church in Finland, have formally maintained their confessional status until now. In reality, however, these churches have abandoned their Lutheran Confession in various contemporary issues. Doctrinally these churches have distanced themselves from Lutheranism by approving the ordination of women. Albeit the Scandinavian churches rejected the Reformed-Lutheran Leuenberg Concord in the 1970s, they have accepted a similar doctrinal statement in the Anglican-Lutheran Porvoo-Agreement and opened the altar and pulpit to preachers and administers of Calvinistic doctrine of the Eucharist. Further, the Roman-Lutheran Joint Declaration has marked this doctrinal path away from the Lutheran Confessions. There is no administration of the keys in these churches any more. Ethical and moral issues concerning the sanctity of human life, natural God-given sexuality between men and women, Christian marriage etc.. have been totally left upon contemporary cultural markets following the classic Liberal principle of 'laissez faire'. Yet, these traditional majority churches have proved to be to increasing extent impotent concerning the role of classic Christianity in the modern society.

In all these churches mentioned above, there is an inner struggle going on concerning the role of Lutheran Confessions in the daily life of the Church. Basically this struggle concerns the authority of the Word of God, namely the Bible, in the Church. The pivotal issue has been the ordination of women against the Commandment of the Lord (1 Cor. 14, 34). From this question the struggle has been extended to all areas of theology and ethics. In fact, this is the struggle between local cultural religiousness and classic Christianity. The historic phenomena of 'Kirchenkampf' or Church Struggle continues in these churches albeit the political environment is today democratic and not dictatorial.

One can question the wisdom of remaining in these majority churches instead of leaving them and establishing new Lutheran free churches.

Various experiences in this area are rather discouraging. The only viable way was found in Germany where SELKD was founded, and it could rally Lutherans in large numbers to join the church. Today, however, the same church is not spared from painful struggle between theological liberalism and classic Lutheranism. In Scandinavia various attempts to maintain orthodox Lutheranism in free churches must be seen as a failure. These groups have not been able to pursue vigorous evangelism in order to reach out to people, rather on the contrary. In addition, these groups have been plagued by continuous and disastrous squabbles and power struggles. Too often pure doctrine has been employed as an excuse for poor personal management. None of these groups has been able to capitalise the decline of the majority churches in Scandinavia. On the contrary, free Lutheran groups themselves are in the process of declining in spite of the fact that there are bounteous markets, so to speak.

The other reason is theological: Confessional Lutherans in the majority churches have not approved the unbiblical church polity in their respective churches. Historically Scandinavian Lutheran majority churches have been time and time again revitalised by popular Lutheran revivals. Various heirs of these popular Lutheran revival and renewal movements constitute today the bridgehead of Biblical Lutheranism in these churches. For this reason there are people who are struggling inside their churches for confessional Lutheranism. They have no idea of surrendering or abandoning their heritage because of church leaders who have betrayed the Church by surrendering to demands of surrounding secular culture. Their aim is to restore and maintain pure Biblical Lutheranism in the churches where they were baptised and many of them were given the apostolic ministry. Their programme is also being well understood by the secular establishment in the church, since these groups and their representatives are undergoing systematic segregation and even oppression. Young qualified men in growing numbers are denied the ordination since they refuse to conform the church polity that has distanced itself from the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions.

There is growing need for Lutheran action to support the struggle for Lutheranism in various ways.

What is needed in this situation is an independent foundation that can support actions and activities and to realise a long term Lutheran programme. A new Lutheran church fragment is the least thing that would be needed in this situation. A foundation is free to operate across various traditional boundaries. Such a body enjoys full legal rights to protect its operations in a democratic society. The foundation would have advantages as follows: it would be fully independent. It would not compete on same markets as traditional Lutheran organisations in Finland. It would have no need to compromise and conform with prevailing secular demands. This has been a danger for traditional Lutheran organisations and associations in Scandinavia. A foundation can also be an umbrella to unite Lutherans from various backgrounds facilitating constructive co-operation. In Sweden there are good experiences of this kind of activity, in particular in Gothenburg. Finland being a member in European Union has close ties to Ingria, the Baltic countries and with good access to Russia. For this reason a Lutheran foundation in Finland would be in key position.

The foundation would have many facets combining various genuine needs of confessional Lutheranism. North European Luther Academy (NELA) can be seen as the first step towards this kind of action in Scandinavia. It is necessary that the foundation would closely link the confessional Lutheranism in the USA with the traditional European mainland and launch a completely new type of action.

2. Activities of the Foundation

Luther-Foundation/Helsinki is supposed to combine various activities and promote them. It is not supposed to be any kind of duplicate of existing Lutheran organisations and enterprises. Instead, it could be extension of various confessional interests and organisations promoting jointly their causes in the Scandinavian, Baltic and Russian environment. Organisations that will join the foundation in the USA, thus becoming a sort of shareholders, could consider the foundation as their area office or a kind of legation.

The foundation would organise and support activities as follows:

1. Lutheran worships according to the Lutheran Confessions, maintaining the best of Lutheran liturgical traditions. The foundation is expected to purchase premises where a Lutheran worship centre should be erected beside the required offices. This centre would in the future serve as a resort for pastors who are denied the ordination and will be ordained according to the right of emergency in the Church. The centre would also support other centres to be created, in order that a network of Lutheran worship would be accessible to as many people as possible.
2. Publication and information. The foundation would cater for publishing important Lutheran material that otherwise would remain unpublished. The centre would further serve as a channel of distribution of the existing confessional material. The centre would also function as a confessional Lutheran information centre publishing news, declarations, theological background material and taking part in public discussion.
3. Supporting all kinds of confessional co-operation by arranging conferences, symposia etc.. and supporting similar activities.
4. Supporting the confessional theology with scholarships to confessional seminaries, colleges, faculties and free institutions of theological training. The aim should be a network confessional institutions of learning with sufficiently high academic qualifications as to serve for Lutheran international further studies.
5. The confessional basis must be inclusively confessional, meaning that the only basis is the entire Book of Concord with its clear doctrinal boundaries and its wide openness for various traditions practices in Lutheranism.

3. Administration of the Foundation

The foundation is to be registered in Finland. The board is to be elected among most reliable and competent people who are capable of co-operating. It is important and also legal that the organisations in the USA, that support the foundation, will be represented by 1-3 representatives. It is desirable that the foundation could create income sources through a well planned investment programme. The board hires employee/employees for the foundation.

Anssi Simojokki.