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All Decked Out in the Bishop’s Cope

Walter Sundberg

The photograph shows Bishop Mark Hanson (on the right) at the installation of Bishop Edward Benoway to the Florida-Bahamas Synod in November, 2001, both men decked out in elaborate bishop’s copes. Black and white reproduction hardly does justice to these expensive ecclesiastical garments. Both of them are deep crimson with glittering gold embroidery. The bishop’s cope, like its close cousin, the Pallium Regale or royal mantle worn by kings at coronations and state occasions, is derived from the imperial mantle (chlamys) of the ancient Byzantine emperors. It symbolizes authority, nobility, hierarchy, luxury, and the separation of classes. It is a form of dress more at home in the political world of pre-modern Europe, when the social order was captive to the doctrine of the divine right of kings undergirded by episcopal blessing, than in a culture where democratic values and social mobility are prized.

In the early nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic work Democracy in America, observed of American religious life, “I have seen no country in which Christianity is less clothed in forms, symbols, and observances than it is in the United States.” Americans have always held as the ideal the plain style of speech, dress, and manner when dealing one with another. George Washington, our first President, wanted to be called “mister” not “Excellency”; we rejoice in Lincoln’s log cabin beginnings; and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Billy Graham thundered the gospel dressed in modest suit and tie. The trend of contemporary worship is casual and informal; Americans in all walks of life like to be on a first name basis. That our ELCA leaders do not seem to understand these simple facts of our social life is indicative of how out of touch they are with their American Protestant constituency. Even for those who respect traditions of worship, and obediently wear alb and stole to show continuity with the past, there is nothing in Lutheranism to justify the bishop’s cope. It represents the very opposite of a church that holds to the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers by which, as Luther said, “every baptized Christian is priest, pope, and king.”

Worship practice dictates that the cope match the color of the liturgical season. Installations are also to be done in the color of the season. Bishop Benoway was installed during the season of Pentecost; the liturgical color is green. But the robes that he and Bishop Hanson wore were crimson red – the liturgical color for ordination. Thus, instead of installation, what was being symbolized by ecclesiastical dress was ordination to the office of bishop, that is, a consecration, an elevation to a higher office. The official theological position of the ELCA since the Churchwide Assembly of 1993 held in Kansas City is that there is but one form of ministry, not a three-fold form of bishop, pastor, deacon. This policy was hard fought and very consciously and deliberately adopted. But by ritual, ceremony, and dress this policy is being consciously and deliberately undermined. Our leaders seem bound and determined to turn the ELCA into the Episcopal Church.

Before we bury ourselves entirely in clericalism, we should remind ourselves of basics of Reformation teaching on ministry. As early as The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther declared that ordination to the priesthood, understood as a sacrament, was simply unbiblical: “Of this sacrament the church of Christ knows nothing; it is an invention of the church of the pope. Not only is there nowhere any promise of grace attached to it, but there is not a single word said about it in the whole New Testament,” (Three Treatises, p. 235). What the Reformers spoke about instead was the Predigtamt or office of preaching. This neologism embodied an idea that was understood to serve the gospel and was pitted against the concept of priest. "Whoever has the office of preaching imposed on him," said Luther, "has the highest office in Christendom. Afterward, he may also baptize, celebrate mass, and exercise all pastoral care; or, if he does not wish to do so, he may confine himself to preaching" (LW, 39, 314). (Notice how in this quotation presiding at the Sacrament is subordinated!) Further, this "preaching office" was not restricted to a priestly caste holding cultic powers but was understood confessionally in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel. According to Wilhelm Maurer, the Augsburg Confession (Article V) "does not tie the idea of an official institution to the term `preaching office' but thinks rather of a spiritual occurrence that encompasses all Christendom. Even the emergency baptism administered by women [i.e., the sixteenth-century's idea of an extreme case] provides the preaching authority for every Christian – man, woman, and child – who has the opportunity." The office of ministry has its authority from Christ to be sure, but it is ratified in the public or outer call of the gathering of believers. The congregation is prior to the pastor in a most practical sense.

It is the congregation that calls and, for Luther, “call” and “ordination” was the same thing. As my former colleague Todd Nichol, observed in an unpublished essay, “Notes on Ordination in the Lutheran Tradition,” ordination is but “an occasion for public testimony to the call.” In fact, if the call comes to an end, so also ends the individual’s holding of the office of ministry:

“To ordain is not to consecrate. Therefore if we know a pious man, we bring him forward, and by the power of the Word which we have, we give him authority to preach the Word and to give the sacraments. This is to ordain… On the basis of ordination, it is established as a result of the election that, for the sake of order, not everyone should have the desire to preach. Thus they have the obligation to perform their ministry, but not perpetually. Today we can commit it to him, tomorrow we can take it away,” (WA [Weimar Ausgabe] vol. 15, p. 721, section 3).

Despite this claim, pastors were eventually called and ordained among Lutherans. The reasons why have been the subject of intense study by theologians and Reformation scholars. What we know is that the early tradition clearly taught that ordained ministry derived its authority not from any sacramental transmittal of heavenly grace, but from the public call of the universal priesthood of the church. Ordination rites in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were many and various among the Lutherans. These rites do not stipulate a particular method of mediation in preference to others. The episcopal succession of bishops who ratify ministers by the laying on of hands was entirely dispensable, as the reformers showed again and again. Indeed, ordination itself, even when it was reduced to the bare minimum of the ritual act of laying on of hands, was dispensable.

What a radical theology we had at our beginning! What a witness it was to the sovereignty of the gospel! And how far we have traveled to come where we are today: All decked out in the bishop’s cope.

Walter Sundberg is Professor of Church History at Luther Seminary, St. Paul

and a member of the WordAlone Theological Advisory Board