Matthew C. Harrison > Quotes

“I miss the honor of serving as a parish pastor. There is nothing quite like it. The most challenging aspect of the job is that you just can't please everybody all the time, no matter how hard you try. But the greatest honor of the office, from my perspective, is being invited into the lives of people at their very best moments and at their very worst moments.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Little Book on Joy: The Secret of Living a Good News Life in a Bad News World

“There is always an unthinking group that permits itself to be blown to and fro by all kinds of doctrinal winds, as a feather is blown about by air currents. This group always falls all over itself adopting innovations, as though the most modern were always the best. There are also the ever-changing weather vanes and the limber-necks [Wendehaelse], pedagogues and preachers who with delicate noses smell the direction of the wind, who are adept at twisting and turning with every change, and who, under the pretense of offering newly discovered and original truths, yet preach only that for which the ears of the people itch. There are also the religious politicians, great and small, who never ask, “What is true?” or “What does Scripture say?” but only ask, “What is up to date?” “What will bring results?”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Only “opinions” are allowed validity regarding Christian doctrine. No Christian fellowship should say that it certainly has the entire, complete truth. The Christian truth should be divided between the various communions. The one may have more, the other less of it. But no one should boast of possessing the entire, complete truth. Indeed, doubt regarding truth, the heathenish seeking after truth, is in vogue and desires to pass itself off as Christian activity. Even in associations that bear the name Lutheran there is mockery of “pure doctrine.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“But now, my dear friends, let us not neglect our Christianity because of our citizenship! Let us not forget that our real weapons are of a spiritual nature, also that if we use our rights of citizenship, we dare not use them the way the world generally does; and let us be very careful that our congregations do not degenerate into arenas of worldly politics because of this opportunity! Otherwise, God cannot be with us, and the outward victory that we would perhaps gain would of necessity result in a disgraceful inner condition.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“We are not only citizens of the heavenly kingdom, but we also have a citizenship in the kingdom of this world. It is our privilege to oppose by legal means every law that we consider unconstitutional, unjust, or unnecessary. It is our privilege to oppose such laws either in the courts or in the general election. Our Christianity does not hinder us from this, but rather requires us also in this way to seek the welfare of our people.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“when in the earliest congregations various views over certain matters were found, we do not hear them say, “That’s no problem. External union is the main thing. We won’t ever all be one.” No. They came together and worked through matters until they were one.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Beginning in 1519 and continuing until the end of his life, Luther expounded a theme that the Sacrament brings and means a fellowship of love and mercy: "This fellowship consists in this, that all the spiritual possessions of Christ and his saints are shared with and become the common property of him who receives this sacrament. Again all sufferings and sins also become common property; and thus love engenders love in return and [mutual love] unites . . . It is like a city where every citizen shares with all the others the city's name, honor, freedom, trade, customs, usages, help, support, protection, and the like, while at the same time he shares all the dangers of fire and flood, enemies and death, losses taxes and the like. For he who would share in the profits must also share in the costs, and ever recompense love with love . . ." For Luther, unity with respect to the Sacrament meant both doctrinal agreement and love. When the prerequisite to church fellowship is defined merely (however important!) in terms of doctrinal fellowship, it can end in a Platonic pursuit of a frigid and rigid mental ideal. Doctrinal unity, true unity in Christ's body and blood, is also a unity of deep love and mercy. If I will not lay down my burden on Christ and the community, or take up the burdens of others who come to the Table, then I should not go to the Sacrament. Close(d) Communion is also a fellowship of love and mercy with my brother and sister in Christ as Luther taught in the previous citation.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Christ Have Mercy: How to Put Your Faith in Action

“Alas, how many who call themselves Lutherans prove themselves unworthy of the fathers! In large territories of the Lutheran Church, purity of teaching is held in but low regard, and a spirit of indifference can calmly see one scriptural doctrine after the other thrown overboard, while but little effort is put forth to indoctrinate the Church’s youth in church and school.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Forgiveness is local.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Christ Have Mercy: How to Put Your Faith in Action

“To forgive is the vocation of all Christians.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Christ Have Mercy: How to Put Your Faith in Action

“our congregations and our Missouri Synod have no promise that they shall advance and endure. In many places we unfortunately note already stagnancy, regression, disintegration, and dissolution. But one building on earth cannot fall into decay, disintegrate, or even lie dormant for a minute. It rather advances steadily and more and more presses toward its fulfillment. That is the building that is the holy Christian Church.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Luther was convinced that no one can understand the entire consolation of “given and shed for you” who does not believe “This is My body,” “This is My blood.” The question upon which everything depends is whether this is biblical or not.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Pure doctrine is generally interpreted to be an indifferent thing while a life which evidences good works is of major importance.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“In summary: Everything depends upon the right use of Law and Gospel. But precisely this—correctly dividing and connecting Law and Gospel, particularly in practice—is as Luther has so often said, “the highest art of the true theologian.” Oh, that we would learn this art!”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“The Lutheran Church is actually not only “a” but “the” true visible Church of God on earth, insofar as “true” means nothing other than “as it should be according to the Word of God.” We neither can nor do we want to boast before other churches about our pious behavior. But we can and must boast about the pure doctrine which, by God’s grace to us poor sinners, shines among us like the clear bright light of the sun.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Today people want to help out the Church with all sorts of other means—societies, entertainment, ostentatious church buildings, and the like. But through such means, the Church cannot be built. In the best case, these may assist a little in bringing the children of men into contact with the Word of God. In many cases, they threaten to cast the proclamation of the Word in the background and do damage to the building of the Church.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“we want real agreement, not mere words that say agreement is present. We are after agreement itself. When we see that you indeed speak about agreement in truth, but you don’t have it, then we cannot merely on the basis of your empty words view you as people who stand in the unity of the faith willed by God, while the matter itself is not present.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Also as synaxis is the Lord’s Supper the dawn of the last things. While we must designate it as only the dawn, it is nevertheless truly the dawn; for this dawn all the denominational lines that have been drawn have been removed. But that is a removal pertaining to the last things and is thus beyond our comprehension.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Finally, in our day, there is a great fatigue for the fight against false doctrine—indeed, a willful rejection of this fight. Men who wield the sword of the Spirit are decried as destroyers of the peace and as people who hinder the building of the Church. Indeed, if we are cognizant of the fact that the Church only and alone is built upon the Word of God, then we will regard it as completely self-evident that we must defend against those who would tear down this foundation. Because the life of the Church is precious to us indeed, there are times when one must do more defending than instructing.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“There should be no whoring with the spirit of the times, no ogling at false doctrine, no respecting of persons. Our synod officers, however, our presidents, must continue not so much as protectors of human ordinances, but much more as men who watch over the purity of doctrine and knowledge.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“For more than four hundred years the right hand of fellowship of the Reformed has remained outstretched. For more than four hundred years we Lutherans with our reformer have had to hear the accusation of unbrotherliness and lovelessness, because we have refused this hand. This fact must give us serious cause ever and again to examine whether or not Luther’s conscience was perhaps on this point an erring conscience. Woe to us if we would base the denial of altar fellowship on the tradition of our Church or the example of Luther. If we did this, we would no longer be Lutherans.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Our church is so rich in hymns that you could justifiably state that if one were to introduce Methodist hymns in a Lutheran school, this would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. The singing of such hymns would make the rich Lutheran Church into a beggar that is forced to beg from a miserable sect.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“This question underlies the current insistence upon altar fellowship, which aims to bridge the gulf between denominations. It is difficult to see, really, why a beginning should not rather be made with baptismal fellowship. For in many respects the situation there is far more favorable. In the major denominations which practice infant Baptism there is far-reaching agreement on the baptismal rite, though of course it is more than a rite when Baptism is really administered in the name of the triune God. Moreover, such Baptism in one denomination is accepted as valid by the others, even by the otherwise very exclusive Roman Church. So we could say that baptismal fellowship is already a reality.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“The doctrine of Holy Communion cannot replace Holy Communion itself. When theology speaks of the Word of God, it is itself under the authority of the Word, even as it itself carries out the act of faith of which it speaks. However, what is carried out in Holy Communion can at best be paraphrased (or circumscribed) but never described. The immortal (ἀθάνατον) and the indestructible (ἀκατάλυτον) is not only the eternal (ἀΐδιον). It is most profoundly also the inexpressible (ἄρρητον).”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“And do not let yourselves be dazzled by great claims [such as]: what a great body of believers you would form; what powerful influence you would have; what great things you could accomplish, if you were more broad-minded and noble. All external unification without internal unity is an abomination before God because it is a lie and a fraud. All the greatness of such unity is mere appearance in His sight, nothing but mere appearance.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“Still, if one were to apply to Baptism the demands currently made for altar fellowship, one would have to insist that the exception become the rule. That could and would happen if parents of one church body had their child baptized in another. That would be a profession of the cross-denominational unity of Christ’s church. The proponents of altar fellowship should ask themselves whether they stand ready to do this. And since they recognize as valid the Baptism of the Roman Church, they should not, of course, exclude this either. For this they would not be ready, and rightly so. They will assert that the administration of the Sacraments and the Church’s proclamation are inseparable, since these are constitutive of the Church only when they are kept together. To recognize another church body’s Baptism does not imply that doctrinal differences and other distinctions are of no importance. But if baptismal fellowship were to be carried to the extremes indicated, then of necessity the other differences and distinctions would have to be regarded as unimportant. The same reasons stand in the way of altar fellowship.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“Among the essentials the Eastern churches include also their polity, and so do the Roman, the Anglican, and most of the Reformed churches. All of them, of course, regard as essential also the Church’s doctrine. Disunity in the proclamation is a sad sign. It cannot be remedied by viewing it as unimportant. To set up, in the face of this disunity, a merely external unity or union is not only to use a poor substitute but also to deny that which makes an assembly of people the Church in the first place.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“What do we especially need to pay attention to, so that in the external division of our Synod into districts, we still remain united, and this division does not result in separation? The answer: This, that we always speak in the same way; This, that we hold one another fast in one understanding and one single view.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father

“It is precisely in the situation of a local congregation that the Lord’s Supper fulfills its function as synaxis most meaningfully. This is the situation from which Paul’s statements about synaxis in 1 Corinthians proceed. It was the local situation which occasioned his reproofs against lovelessness. Likewise in such a situation, and only in such a situation, is there opportunity for a concrete agape, which is still something different from a general love for mankind. We cannot concede that the love which we owe also to those outside the boundaries of our churches is impaired when in our liturgical fellowship we unite locally for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.”
― Matthew C. Harrison, Closed Communion? Admission to the Lord's Supper in Biblical Lutheran Perspective

“The universal tendency of our times is to “get together.” Isolation in church life is regarded as intolerable. Those who keep themselves separate for the sake of the truth are denounced as bigots. The well-being and prosperity of the Church is sought in the merger of church bodies even at the cost of truth. Sad to say, this destructive virus of unionism has infected also many Lutheran circles. This modern striving after external union despite spiritual disunion brings to one’s mind the words that God spoke to Israel by the prophet Isaiah: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of Hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. Let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread” [Isaiah 8:12–13].”
― Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of My Father