Status confessionis

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Status Confessionis or Casus Confessionis is an ecclesiological term in Protestant theology that describes an exceptional case of confession (confessional emergency). If the status confessionis is declared, the ecclesiastical community is at stake.

History of the term

The question of which actions and views are compatible with Christianity and which ones cross a necessary limit arose in connection with the so-called adiaphoristic dispute (mid-16th century) in relation to the return to worship forms and rites of the time before the Reformation . In the Augsburg Interim of 1548, Protestants were asked to return to the old Catholic orders of worship. While the reformer Philipp Melanchthon considered such a return to be compatible with the evangelical doctrine, since it was not about middle things ( adiaphora ) of the faith that were relevant to salvation , the reformer Matthias Flacius held against it that there are no middle things in a confessional situation. For Flacius there can be no compromise in the status confessionis .

The term status confessionis appears for the first time in the concord formula , Article 10 “Of Church Uses, as one calls Adiaphora or Mittelding” (De ceremonis ecclesiasticis) . There it says: “But the main question was whether at the time of persecution and in the case of confession (persecutionis tempore et in casu confessionis ), when the enemies of the Gospel should not compare themselves with us in doctrine (etiam si adversarii nobiscum in doctrina consentire nolint), yet with an uninjured conscience, dreadful fallen ceremonies, so in his own middle things and neither commanded nor forbidden by God, on which the adversary may strive and demand again (...) ".

The term status confessionis or casus confessionis thus denotes standing to believe in a confessional situation. In the 19th century the canonical term “confessional status” was added. In view of the totalitarian systems and ideologies of the 20th century, new challenges arose for the churches in which their confession was challenged. In the church struggle , the term status confessionis was rediscovered. The Confessing Church emphasized with its self-designation that it was in the status confessionis . When it comes to the truth of the Gospel and the confession of Christ, the status confessionis can be explained, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said for the first time in April 1933 in his essay The Church Before the Jewish Question . This happened z. B. in relation to the Third Reich's claim to totality in the Barmer Theological Declaration of 1934 (but without using the term).

After the Second World War, the status confessionis was occasionally declared in socio-ethical debates, e.g. B. through the Church Brotherhoods in 1958 and the Moderamen of the Reformed Federation in 1982 in connection with the legitimacy of nuclear weapons or through the Lutheran World Federation in 1977 and the Reformed World Federation in 1982 in relation to the apartheid system in South Africa; most recently in 2012 from an initiative within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony in protest against the approval of same-sex partnerships in the rectory.

In the opinion of critics, when the status confessionis is proclaimed in relation to ethical questions, the categorical difference between theological doctrinal statements and ethical imperatives is often disregarded, so that the ethical-theological judgment is turned into a form of opinion that, in the absence of deducible decisions, is Discussion with those who think differently does not develop any persuasive power.

The Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe , which in the Leuenberg Agreement of 1973 created the theological basis for granting one another church fellowship “on the basis of the agreement in understanding of the Gospel” (LA 29) , despite different doctrinal opinions within the Evangelical Churches , raises the fundamental one Dimension:
"For example, the exclusion from the Lord's Supper due to belonging to a certain race is a violation of the body of Christ and thus not just an ethical, but a Christological heresy (it establishes the status confessionis )." Where there is no agreement in the understanding of the Gospel as the message of Jesus Christ, the salvation of the world, can be won, church fellowship is also not possible.

literature

  • Notger Slenczka :  Status confessionis . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 7, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, Sp. 1692.
  • Christian Peters: Status confessionis . In: Werner Heun u. a. (Ed.): Evangelisches Staatslexikon. New edition . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 2006, col. 2364.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BSLK, p. 814
  2. ↑ Berlin 1932–1933 (= Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke Vol. 12). Christian Kaiser Verlag, Gütersloh 1997, pp. 349–358; for further statements and the background cf. Robin Joy Steinke: Confessing and Status Confessionis. A Study in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer . University of Cambridge 1998.
  3. ↑ "... that the situation in southern Africa represents a status confessionis" (Hans-Wolfgang Heßler (Hrsg.): Daressalam 1977 (= epd documentation vol. 18). Lembeck, Frankfurt / Main o. J., p. 212.
  4. ↑ Klaus Koschorke, Frieder Ludwig, Mariano Delgado (ed.): Non-European Christianity History. (Asia, Africa, Latin America) 1450-1990 (= church and theological history in sources, volume 6), Neukirchen 2006, ISBN 978-3-7887-2045-2 , pp. 207f.
  5. ^ Johannes Berthold: Reflections on the question of an ethical "status confessionis" (PDF; 586K).
  6. ↑ Mareile Lasogga: Orientation lines for the formation of ethical-theological judgments (PDF; 577K) .
  7. ↑ Michael Bünker , Martin Friedrich (ed.): Die Kirche Jesu Christi (= Leuenberger Texte 1), Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-374-03088-0 , p. 48.