Episode summary

In the second half of our conversation with Rev. Dr. Orrey McFarland, we take the five principles from his retreat lecture and press into each one, asking how the confessions function less like a fence around Lutheran identity and more like a door into the riches of Scripture.

The Rev. Dr. McFarland is pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and convener of Lutheran Theologians for the Church. In his lecture "Confessions and the Scriptures," delivered at the 2025 NALC Clergy Retreat, he makes a pastoral case for what confessional faithfulness looks like. It is measured less by how sharply we defend our boundaries and more by how deeply the confessions form us in the love of God and neighbor.

In this conversation

Hosts the Rev. Dr. Maurice Lee and Dr. David Luy walk with the Rev. Dr. McFarland through all five principles: reading the confessions in conversation with other traditions, moving past clichés and slogans into a close reading of Scripture, engaging the confessions both critically and charitably, and approaching Scripture with quiet confidence rather than defensiveness. Along the way they consider what all of this asks of the preacher, and why a confessing church is finally called to be a certain kind of people.

Key discussion points

• Why engaging other traditions sharpens rather than dilutes Lutheran conviction
• Receiving the confessions as a gift rather than treating them mainly as a boundary
• How useful slogans ("remember your baptism," "law and gospel") can drift loose from Scripture
• Why a slogan can't bear the weight of grief, shame, or death unless it's rooted in the Word
• The pastor as gardener: slow, patient work over quick answers
• Being bound to the confessions' doctrinal judgments without endorsing every exegetical move
• Preaching that lets Scripture speak rather than laying one template over every text
• A confessionalism whose end is character and the consolation of sinners

Mentioned in the episode

• "Confessions and the Scriptures,” The Rev. Dr. McFarland's 2025 NALC Clergy Retreat lecture
• Lutheran Theologians for the Church (NALC)
• Arthur Carl Piepkorn and Edmund Schlink on confessional subscription
• Robert Jenson on the role of theological slogans
• Stanley Hauerwas on attending to "how the words run"

Coming up

The season continues as we keep company with the lecturers from the 2025 NALC Clergy Retreat, turning to the next voice on the theme of the confessions as a way into the riches of Scripture.

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