Dec 29, 2024

Johann Scheibel

Martin Luther stood before a tribunal demanding his retraction from writing and speaking against the established church. Martin defended his actions with the memorable words, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot, and I will not retract anything because it is not safe or right to go against conscience.” Nearly three hundred years later, Frederick Wilhelm III, King of Prussia (Germany), resolved to unite all Protestant churches in his state to further his political ambitions. The king put forward a new liturgy for Holy Communion to inaugurate this new Prussian Union of Churches. The king didn’t shrink from using force to compel Prussian Protestants to join the union and incorporate his liturgy. He sent soldiers to a dissenting church on Christmas Eve, no less, to coerce their conscription. The king’s long-range goal was to take full control of the Protestant church, with himself as the lead bishop. Martin Luther and Johann Gottfried Scheibel (1783-1843) must have been cut from the same cloth. Johann was convinced that faith must be guided by a clear conscience in conformity to Scripture. In his role as a Lutheran pastor and professor of theology, he objected strenuously to the king’s grab for ecclesiastical supremacy. His conscience would not let him rest until he spoke against the king’s abuse of power. Those who sided with Johann, who became known as “Old Lutherans,” refused to join the Prussian Union of Churches or use the proscribed liturgy. The king suspended Johann from his pastorate and teaching post. He was forbidden to speak in public and later exiled. Johann could have kept his mouth shut and complied with the king’s edict, but it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

I urge you to give serious consideration to Johann’s confession for sin that follows here. It’s not what I would have expected from someone who could have easily claimed the high moral ground. His willingness to admit self-deception wins my respect and summons me to greater candor in confession before God:

All merciful and eternal God, with deep repentance, I come before Thee to seek comfort and strength in the grace of Jesus Christ alone. Oh, how vain was my dream that I could earn Thy favor and win heaven by my own goodness! How foolish the thought that by the purity of my conscience and my earnest endeavors, I could be just in Thy sight! I might be praised by the world for being upright and virtuous; my life may bear the semblance of goodness in external conduct in the many acts of kindness, self-denial, and fidelity of duty performed by me. But when I test my inmost motives in the light of Thy Word, how different is their aspect! It was often mere self-interest, or the pressure of circumstances, or unwillingness to lose my credit and high reputation before the world, which led me to make sacrifices or perform acts that in the secret recesses my soul regarded with reluctance or aversion…O heavenly Father, forgive, forgive the deep self-deception, the base hypocrisy into which I have allowed myself to fall…Have pity on Thy wandering child, and leave me not till my humbled heart finds its life and solace and strength in Thee alone. Thou who has ever received sinners so gently and graciously will not suffer my cry to go unheeded. O Thou, my Lord, my Light, my Truth, and my Salvation. Amen.

Prayers from the Collection of Baron Bunsen, selected and translated by Catherine Winkworth, 1871.

Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.