The Augsburg Confession: Renewing Lutheran Faith and Practice

By Timothy J. Wengert

The Augsburg Confession is the single most-important confession of faith among Lutherans today. However, it is often taught either from a historical perspective or from a dogmatic one. Yet the context out of which it arose was far more practical and lively: marked from the outset as confessions of faith in the face of fierce opposition and threats. The original princely signers, while clearly outlining the teaching of their churches, were also staking their lives on the witness to the gospel that had been emanating from Wittenberg since 1517, when Martin Luther first published his Ninety-Five Theses. By situating both the history and the theology of this document within the practice and life of faith, Timothy J. Wengert shows just how relevant the Confession's witness is for today's Lutheran parishes and their leaders by unlocking how its articles can shape and strengthen the church's witness today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781506432953

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THE PREFACE: OBEDIENT DISOBEDIENCE

When writing a book, one always writes the preface last. The Augsburg Confession was no exception, as the princes, imperial cities, and their theologians tried to match up the emperor’s expectations to their point of view. As a result the preface and the Confession attached to it had two very distinct goals: to confess the faith of the subscribing princes and cities and defend changes in practice, on the one hand, and to shield that very faith and those alterations from political charges of sedition on the other.

A quick search of the internet and a glance at recent printed copies of the CA reveals that this preface often gets dropped, as if the Augsburg Confession, shorn of its historical context, sprang like Athena full-grown from the head of Zeus. To ignore or downplay the historical context so idealizes this Confession that it loses its ability to speak meaningfully to the church today, where the twin tasks of confessing the faith and rejecting the political distortions of Christianity still define the church’s chief duties.

Melanchthon made several attempts at writing a preface, the first being quite friendly toward Charles V and the second sounding much harsher, given the imperial rejection of the Schwabach Articles. In the end, however, the Saxon court produced the present preface, one that again extended an olive branch to Charles while at the same time defending the Evangelicals and calling for a general council, a topic that Philip of Hesse especially demanded be a part of the document to guarantee he would sign it. The published version of the Augsburg Confession also included a brief preface to the reader, the sharp tone of which reflected the situation in 1531, when the emperor had accepted the Confutation (the article-by-article rejection of the CA)[1] as the law of the land, the adversaries had begun attacking the CA in print, and Melanchthon had produced his defense, the Apology.[2] As interesting as these other documents may be, the preface that finally prevailed shows quite clearly the historical and theological context for the entire CA, as the Reformers and their princes struggled to balance their confession of faith and changes in practice with obedience to the emperor and the unity of the church.

The Text

Preface to Emperor Charles V[3]

Most serene, most mighty, invincible Emperor, most gracious Lord. A short time ago, Your Imperial Majesty graciously summoned an imperial diet to convene here in Augsburg. The summons indicated an earnest desire, first, to deliberate concerning matters pertaining to the Turks, that hereditary foe of ours and of the Christian name, and how this foe might be effectively resisted with unwavering help; and second, to deliberate and diligently to consider how we may act concerning the dissension in the holy faith and Christian religion and to hear, understand, and consider with love and graciousness everyone’s judgment, opinion, and beliefs among us, to unite the same in agreement on one Christian truth, and to lay aside whatever may not have been rightly interpreted or treated by either side, so that all of us can accept and preserve a single, true religion. Inasmuch as we are all enlisted under one Christ, we are all to live together in one communion and in one church. Because we, the undersigned elector and princes, including our associates as well as other electors, princes, and estates, have been summoned for these purposes, we have complied and can say, without boasting, that we were among the first to arrive.

As hinted at above, graciously summoned rather obscures the fact that, after the 1529 Diet in Speyer, the Evangelicals were shocked to be called back to a diet, this time in the emperor’s presence. Rather than use their own words to summarize the emperor’s intention, the Evangelicals cite his summons. This small fact, indicated by the quotation marks in the English text, helps the readers to understand the unusual (by Evangelical standards) references to the Turkish invasion of Eastern Europe. The Evangelicals hoped to use the emperor’s desire to defeat this hereditary foe, which in 1529 had besieged Vienna, as a way of gaining a fair hearing regarding the second reason he had called the Diet: to resolve the religious crisis of disunity gripping the Holy Roman Empire. The very length of this citation demonstrates how seriously the Evangelicals took this issue.

Moreover, Your Imperial Majesty graciously, most diligently, and earnestly desired, in reference to the most humble compliance with the summons and in conformity to it, as well as in the matters pertaining to the faith, that each of the electors, princes, and estates should commit to writing, in German and Latin, his judgments, opinions, and beliefs concerning said errors, dissensions, and abuses, etc. Accordingly, after due consideration and counsel, it was proposed to Your Imperial Majesty last Wednesday that, in keeping with Your Majesty’s wish, we should present our case in German and Latin today, Friday. Wherefore, in most humble obedience to Your Imperial Majesty, we offer and present a confession of our pastors’ and preachers’ teachings as well as of our faith, setting forth on the basis of the divine Holy Scripture what and in what manner they preach, teach, believe, and give instruction in our lands, principalities, dominions, cities, and territories.

The language of diplomacy, employed not only in princely courts but also in many other sixteenth-century venues, may strike today’s readers as overblown puffery. Here the Evangelical princes and other estates wanted to show their humble obedience, when the background revealed a very different situation. The Augsburg Confession had been in the works for well over a month, especially with the rejection of the Schwabach Articles by the emperor, and it went back to confessional documents of 1529 and memoranda formulated at the Torgau Castle in early 1530. This was hardly a ten-day exercise (from last Wednesday to this Friday—although the Confession was not actually read aloud [in German] until the next day, Saturday).

What the Evangelical princes and estates say they are doing is twofold: presenting a description of their teachers’ instruction and their own faith. It is this other side to the CA that defines it most sharply in Luther’s mind, as we have seen in the previous chapter. The other subtlety comes with the mention, almost in passing, of scriptural authority. At first it might appear that the emperor would be in for a lot of proof texting. But the first half of the CA (art. I–XXI) contains relatively few biblical citations and certainly lacks sophisticated interpretive arguments. Yet we know from the Reformers’ other writings that the citations were hardly arbitrary but arose out of more than a decade of intense theological and exegetical debate.

By emphasizing their obedience, the Evangelicals were also painting their own ecclesiastical disobedience in the best possible light. When reading the CA, one must always reckon on these two goals: defending and confessing faith on the one hand and defending civil disobedience on the other. The crisis for the Holy Roman Empire was not exclusively a theological debate. The Middle Ages had seen plenty of debates over a wide variety of theological and practical issues without rupture. But now the Evangelicals had not only changed the center of Western Christian theology but, far more scandalously, had altered practices that were also matters of church and imperial law. This preface was designed to portray them as obedient rebels.[4]

If the other electors, princes, and estates also submit a similar written statement of their judgments and opinions, in both Latin and German, we are quite willing, in complete obedience to Your Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, to discuss with them and their associates—as far as this can be done in fairness—such practical and equitable ways as may unite us. Thus, the matters at issue between the parties may be presented in writing on both sides; they may be negotiated charitably and amicably; and these same differences may be so explained as to unite us in one, true religion, since we are all enlisted under one Christ and should confess Christ. All of this may be done in consequence of Your Imperial Majesty’s aforementioned summons and in accord with divine truth. We, therefore, invoke God Almighty in deepest humility and pray for the gift of his divine grace to this end. Amen!

What follows is a clever though completely unattainable proposal. By the time this final preface was being drafted, the Evangelicals either knew for certain or strongly suspected that their opponents were not planning to present their own confession of faith. This imbalance foreshadowed the collapse of negotiations before they could begin. Indeed, when their opponents finally presented the Confutation, it made matters much worse, since it expressly dismissed of every teaching that the Evangelicals held dearest. Here Heiko Oberman rightly suspected that the break in the Western church occurred not with the presentation of the Augsburg Confession but rather with the Confutation and its refusal to discuss Evangelical doctrine except to condemn it.[5] It also demonstrates the Evangelical side’s faith in conversation and dialogue. The very mildness of the CA, noted by several of the participants at the time and enshrined in Martin Luther’s famous compliment of Melanchthon’s ability to tread softly, marked a way of doing theology—by conversation and not fiat—that Lutherans today sometimes reject in favor of bombast and decrees from on high.

If, however, our lords, friends, and associates who represent the electors, princes, and estates of the other party, do not comply with the procedure intended by Your Imperial Majesty’s summons, so that no charitable and amicable negotiations take place among us, and if they are not fruitful, we on our part shall not have failed in anything that can or may serve the cause of Christian unity, as far as God and conscience allow. Your Imperial Majesty as well as our aforementioned friends, the electors, princes, estates, and every lover of the Christian religion who is concerned about these matters, will be graciously and sufficiently assured of this by what follows in the confession which we and our people submit.

In the 1960s and ’70s, some Lutheran theologians proposed calling the CA an ecumenical proposal to the church catholic, and a few even lobbied for Rome itself to accept the document. Although these positions may overstate the case, nevertheless the preface underscores an aspect of the CA sometimes overlooked: that it was written to serve the cause of Christian unity. To be sure, Christian unity in the sixteenth century was light years away from what sometimes passes for ecumenism in the American religious scene: a toleration of almost anything, as long as one is sincere. There were limits that the confessors in Augsburg felt constrained to mention: as far as God and conscience allow. An appeal to conscience, already an important part of Luther’s earliest conversations with Rome through Cardinal Tommaso de Vio (Cajetan) in 1518 and invoked by Luther standing before the emperor in 1521, points to an important aspect of medieval theology and practice that the Reformers never hesitated to invoke. But the reference to God raises the stakes even higher. This appeal will appear in CA XVI, where the political ramifications of the Augsburg Confession appear most clearly expressed. Following Peter in Acts 5:29 (We ought to obey God rather than mortals), the Evangelicals derive permission to disobey political authorities over matters that they insist are clearly defined in Scripture. Not only the conscience but also God prevents unthinking and unbelieving adherence to the emperor.

In the past, Your Imperial Majesty graciously intimated to the electors, princes, and estates of the empire, especially in a public instruction at the diet of Speyer in the year 1526, that, for reasons there stated, Your Imperial Majesty was not disposed to render a decision in matters pertaining to our holy faith, but would urge the pope to call a council. Again, by means of a written instruction at the last diet in Speyer a year ago, the electors, princes, and estates were, among other things, informed and notified by Your Imperial Majesty’s viceroy, His Royal Majesty of Hungary and Bohemia, etc., and by Your Imperial Majesty’s orator and appointed commissioners, that Your Imperial Majesty’s viceroy, deputy, and councilors of the imperial government, together with representatives of the absent electors, princes and estates who were assembled at the diet convened at Regensburg, had considered the proposal for a general council and acknowledged that it would be fruitful to have one called. Since, then, the negotiations between Your Imperial Majesty and the pope resulted in a good, Christian understanding, so that Your Imperial Majesty was certain that the pope would not refuse to call such a council, Your Imperial Majesty graciously offered to promote and arrange for the calling of such a general council by the pope, along with Your Imperial Majesty, at the earliest opportunity without putting any obstacles in the way.

At this point, Landgrave Philip of Hesse enters the room, so to speak. While initially skeptical of the Saxon position and openly courting the Swiss and south German churches, Philip changed his mind and entered into negotiations with Elector John and his theologians. The text of the CA was almost completely settled, but Philip insisted that the preface had to refer to what, at the Diets of Speyer (1526 and 1529) and at the poorly attended diet in Regensburg (1527), had been a major aspect of the Evangelicals’ defense for changes in practice: the calling of a general council of the church. It was, of course, not always clear whether this appeal to a council was to be taken seriously or whether it was simply a ploy to delay an inevitable condemnation. Certainly, the Evangelical party knew that the pope himself was very resistant to such a council, so that a first official summons to a council to be held in Mantua did not come until 1536 and then from Pope Paul III, with the actual council not beginning until 1545 but then in Trent.

Already in 1518 Luther had also appealed to a council over against Leo X’s decision not to change the church’s practice regarding indulgences. Unfortunately for him, his papal opponents insisted that, according to canon law, any appeal to a council over a papal decision was itself a sure sign of heresy. Nevertheless, Luther continued to include such an appeal in his subsequent writings.[6] The preface to the CA, however, carefully avoids any reference to an appeal of papal decisions but describes it instead as Emperor Charles V’s own idea, supported by the imperial diet and Charles’s brother, Ferdinand. By quoting a statement from the second Diet of Speyer, once again the princes showed their respect for the political realities and could make it seem as if their interest in a council simply matched the concerns of the imperial court. Not too subtly, the Evangelicals also hint at papal intransigence in this regard. By including this call here, the Evangelicals could kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, they expected that the pope would continue to resist the calling of a council, and thus they were buying time. On the other hand, by citing this decree, they could also undermine any claims by the emperor to settle the matter directly. Thus, as actually happened, when Charles V accepted the Confutation of the Augsburg Confession as the religious law of the land, the Evangelicals could continue to resist any attempts to force them back into the Roman fold.

In this case, therefore, we offer in full obedience to Your Imperial Majesty even beyond what is required: to participate in such a general, free, Christian council, as the electors, princes, and estates have requested, with high and noble motives, in all the diets of the empire that have been held during Your Imperial Majesty’s reign. We also have, following legal form and procedure, called upon and appealed to such a council and to Your Imperial Majesty at various times concerning these most important matters. We now once again adhere to these actions, and neither these nor any subsequent negotiations shall make us waver (unless the matters in dissension are in a charitable and friendly manner finally heard, considered, settled, and result in Christian unity, according to Your Imperial Majesty’s summons), as we herewith make public witness and appeal. This is our confession and that of our people, article by article, as follows.

This final paragraph summarizes the Hessian (and Saxon) position on the matter, again clothing it in almost obsequious language (full obedience and beyond what is required). Here, however, they define the contours of such a council without any reference to the pope. A general, free, Christian council is exactly what the pope would resist. At first, the Evangelicals were peremptorily excluded from Trent. In the aftermath of the Smalcald War of 1547, some Evangelicals including Johannes Brenz actually attended. Philip Melanchthon, representing the now victorious new elector of Saxony, Moritz, made his way south as far as Nuremberg before the Revolt of the Princes (1552) rendered his participation at Trent moot. In two cases (Saxony and Württemberg), the Evangelicals wrote new confessions of faith in order to stake out their positions vis-à-vis their Roman opponents in Trent.[7] What recent research has again made clear, there were voices at Trent far more sympathetic to Evangelical concerns than many scholars have imagined.[8] This appeal to a council also had effects much later, as the Vatican II council insisted on inviting observers from a variety of Protestant and Orthodox churches and also took up some of the Reformation’s church-dividing issues. One might even go so far as to say that the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church could not have come into being without this clear call for unity through conciliar conversations.

The Saxon party, however, had taken a different tack and had hoped that the emperor might allow a very different kind of solution to the problem of disunity. Thus, in this final paragraph both the Hessian and the Saxon ­positions—the appeal to a council and openness to an imperial solution—appear side-by-side. Indeed, one can imagine that the Saxon party insisted that the parenthetical phrase (unless the matters in dissension are in a charitable and friendly manner finally heard, considered, settled, and result in Christian unity, according to Your Imperial Majesty’s summons) were written to modify Hessian hopes. Neither proposal bore fruit in the short term, so that Charles finally called upon his military strength to resolve the matter. That, too, failed, and the resultant breech in visible church unity remains to this day.

We Teach and Confess

We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Despite the plea for unity and a fair hearing, the events in Augsburg—especially the emperor’s rejection of the CA and acceptance of its opponents’ refutation—signaled a break in the visible unity of the Western church. Although the gift of unity wrought by the Holy Spirit through Word and sacrament remains untouched, the visible disunity of the various churches that arose out of the ­Reformation—Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Roman Catholic—means we are still divided.

Yet the CA rests on the very cusp of that dissolution. It offers the churches even today a way forward toward agreement in Word and sacrament. In the sixteenth century, especially among Reformed churches,[9] the CA became the model for their own confessions of faith. Certain aspects of the CA were positively received by the Council of Trent and certainly shaped how Trent expressed what it rejected.[10] More recently, as mentioned above, some even suggested that the Vatican accept the Augsburg Confession (at least its doctrinal articles) as a way forward in the ecumenical relations with Lutherans. Although Leif Grane may be correct in saying that too much water has gone over the dam to presume that by moving back to 25 June 1530 the subsequent problems in ecumenical relations could be resolved, nevertheless such suggestions at least point to the unique vantage point that the CA holds.

In this sense, the preface to the CA offers insight both into the attitudes and expectations of the princes, cities, and theologians who offered this confession of faith and into a possible way forward in ecumenical relations. Despite the high tension among the various groups assembled in Augsburg—which included charges and counter-charges of heresy and how to eradicate it with fire and iron (that is, burning the teachers at the stake and subduing their supporters with the sword)—the Evangelical princes and cities stressed their obedience to governmental powers, while at the same time defining in no uncertain terms both their confession of faith and their willingness to converse (at a future, free council). That conversation, even in the darkest moments since 25 June 1530, has not really ceased (even when marked almost exclusively by polemic). And, through a series of political accidents, political enforcement of the Christian faith has disappeared. This new situation makes room for a new appreciation of the CA, and it provides a starting point for conversations about trusting God’s mercy in Christ at this end of the ages—a mercy that alone brings unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity for all believers.

---

For this text, see Sources and Contexts, 105–39.  ↵

See BC, 29, n. 1.  ↵

This heading comes from the Latin version of 1530; it is omitted in early German versions.  ↵

The phrase comes from Jaroslav Pelikan, Obedient Rebels: Catholic Substance and Protestant Principle in Luther’s Reformation (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).  ↵

Heiko A. Oberman, Truth and Fiction: The Reformation in the Light of the Confutatio, in The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications (London: T & T Clark, 1994), 167–78.  ↵

See Christopher Spehr, Luther und das Konzil: Zur Entwicklung eines zentralen Themas in der Reformationszeit (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).  ↵

From Saxony, drafted primarily by Melanchthon, came Confessio Doctrinae Saxonicarum Ecclesiarum scripta Anno Domini MDLI, ut Synodo Trinentinae exhiberetur [Confession of the teaching of the Saxon churches written in the year 1551 for presentation at the Council of Trent] (Leipzig: Papst, 1553); from Württemberg, drafted by Brenz, Confessio piae doctrinae, quae nomine illustrissimi principis ac Domini D. Christophori Ducis Wirtenbergensis . . . per legatos eius die XXIIII. Mensis Ianuarii, anno M.D.LII. congregationi Tridentini Concilii propositae est [Confession of the godly teaching which was submitted in the name of the illustrious prince and lord, Lord Christopher, duke of Württemberg through his delegates on 24 January 1552 to the assembly of the Tridentine Council] (Tübingen: Morhard, 1552).  ↵

John O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2013).  ↵

This would include the ancestors of the Presbyterians, Reformed Church in America, the Church of the Prussian Union and other union churches, the Anglican and Episcopalian churches, the Methodist and Wesleyan churches, the various Baptist churches, and the Dutch Reformed church.  ↵

For the most recent and best account of Trent, see O’Malley, Trent.  ↵

ONE

Confessing the Faith (The Doctrinal Articles)

1

WE ALL BELIEVE IN ONE TRUE GOD

The rural congregation loved the new song their pastor had taught them: Martin Luther’s hymned version of the Nicene Creed set to music from the 1970s composed by Art Gorman for his Chicago Folk Mass. With their pastor on sabbatical and Trinity Sunday approaching, the worship committee was only too eager to sing that old favorite—except that they could not read music and the new organist knew nothing of Gorman’s setting. Instead, she dutifully played the somewhat somber tones of Luther’s original, modal melody. The result was predictable: looks shot across the room during the introduction; those few who could read music tried nobly for half the first verse; in the end the congregation was reduced to standing silently while the final two-and-a-half verses droned on out of the organ. There were plenty of comments and laughter over coffee an hour later. Somehow the congregation had been robbed of lustily commemorating the only feast in the church calendar celebrating a doctrine: the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

This robbery happens more often than one might imagine and involves not simply songs of praise and confession but the teaching itself—the central, distinctive doctrine of the entire Christian church: found in St. Paul’s letters (2 Cor 13:13; 1 Cor 12:4–6); on the lips of Jesus (Matt 28:19); in the earliest baptismal creeds (the Old Roman Creed that continues in the Western church as the Apostles’ Creed); and most notably in the Nicene Creed (of 325 and 381). Since the eighteenth century, theologians of various stripes have expressed varying degrees of discomfort with such a blatantly Christian teaching. Yet there it is: Christians confess the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not only does the Book of Concord include the three ecumenical creeds confessing the Trinity, but five Lutheran Confessions contained in the book also include expositions of this doctrine. Rather than being seen as an embarrassment or a remnant of an all-too-philosophical Christian past, the Augsburg Confession confesses the Trinity as revealing the very heart of God and the ground of all Christian unity.

CA I

Reflections

Who is speaking in the CA? The signers of the Augsburg Confession were not the theologians who drafted it but rather the princes and cities that were confessing it before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. But in both the German and Latin editions, they do not present simply their own personal confession but either (as in the German) use the passive voice to include all citizens in their territories or (as in the Latin) specify the churches among us. Confession of faith is not, strictly speaking, solely the responsibility of the prince or burgomaster but of all in the Christian church. As much as Americans may hanker after individualism in Christianity, the facts are that there is no such thing as the solitary believer but only the Christian assembly, gathered around Word and sacrament (CA VII).

The basis of Christian unity. Many outsiders, when viewing the variety of churches, denominations, and sects among Christians may sometimes wonder what ever happened to Jesus’s prayer to the Father in John 17 that they [his disciples] may be one. Yet here the CA echoes one of the most remarkable aspects of Christianity down to the present day: the sheer number of different Christian bodies that confess the Nicene Creed: with one accord (CA I, German) or with complete unanimity. While many of the articles of the CA may seem to distinguish Lutherans from other Christians, this article in particular unites them. The point of the entire CA is not to divide the church but to unite it in confession around the Triune God. This first article refutes the false notion of beginning an account of one’s faith with what divides one group of believers from another instead of what unites all Christians.

One God . . . Three Persons. This article’s basic point, explained far more fully in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds, is a simple one: Christians worship one God in three persons. As much as this was hardly under dispute between Lutherans and Roman Catholics in the sixteenth century, still the stakes for this article are high, so that the Latin version insists that this is true and is to be believed without any doubt. Notice that this article is not describing individual faith and doubts—that will come in CA II—but our commonly held faith. Such strong language demonstrates just how crucial this faith is for the whole Christian church. But the word without doubt also points to another side of the Christian faith: that faith itself is the gift and work of the Holy Spirit, not an action of the human being’s pusillanimous will (see CA V). Thus, without doubt not only reveals our weakness but also God’s strength in overcoming our doubts.

Yet the article does not stop with the slogan (one God in three persons) but explains more fully who this God is, using a slew of attributes (in the Latin): That is to say, there is one divine essence which is called God and is God: eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, of immeasurable power, wisdom and goodness, the creator and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. Yet, there are three persons, coeternal and of the same essence and power: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christians share many parts of this description of the Godhead with other, non-Christian religions, especially with adherents of Judaism and Islam. The almighty creator, confessed in the first article of the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, does not, however, encompass all that Christians have to say about God. For that readers will have to wait especially for CA III, where the scandal of the incarnation comes to light.

"What is understood by the word person?" Why add this note? Here a history lesson comes in handy. Just as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and their compatriots were preparing to confess their faith before the emperor, a man arrived in Wittenberg claiming new insights into the nature of God. The Wittenbergers were horrified by what they heard. Johannes Campanus claimed that only the Father is truly God and that the Son and the Holy Spirit are lesser beings, so that person in the phrase three persons describes simply a quality of relationship and not a true, distinct, co-equal hypostasis. With this shocking encounter fresh in their minds, Philip Melanchthon and his fellow drafters insisted that the word person is not a part nor a quality in another but that which exists by itself, as the Fathers once used the word concerning this issue. The Latin even employs the technical term: subsistence. The Wittenberg Reformers and their collaborators assembled in Augsburg refused to abandon the ancient church’s confession (of one being with the Father): not simply out of respect for ancient church authorities but more importantly because if Christ is less than God, then salvation itself comes into question (see CA