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Arthur Cochrane and the Church-Confessing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Robert M. Healey
Affiliation:
Eaglecrest Commons #32, 2945 Lincoln Drive North, Roseville, Minnesota 55113

Extract

Arthur C. Cochrane has spent a lifetime recalling the Christian church to its vocation: confessing faith in Jesus Christ as the one Lord and Savior proclaimed in Holy Scripture; confessing sin; and submitting in freedom to the ethic which springs from sole reliance on Christ. The vocation has given focus to many concerns. He has worked to invigorate Christian understanding of the role of confessions of faith, to revive careful study of Reformation theologians, and to develop appreciation of the contribution of Karl Barth. He has engaged in ecumenical dialogue, fostered ecumenical relationships, and worked to arouse Christians to ethical response concerning the poor, worship, the state and war. He has been acutely sensitive to the constant need to determine a Christian response to challenging contemporary events, whether horrors or opportunities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1996

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References

page 467 note 1 Cochrane, Arthur C., The Church's Confession under Hitler (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), 1314.Google Scholar

page 467 note 2 Cochrane, Arthur C., The Mystery of Peace (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1986), 141.Google Scholar

page 467 note 3 Ibid., 75.

page 467 note 4 Cochrane, , The Church's Confession under Hitler, 1314.Google Scholar

page 468 note 5 Cochrane, Arthur C., The Church and the War (Toronto: Thomas Nelson and Sons Limited, 1940).Google Scholar

page 468 note 6 Ibid., xvii.

page 468 note 7 Ibid., 133.

page 468 note 8 Ibid., 123, 142–145.

page 469 note 9 Ibid., xix.

page 469 note 10 Ibid., 25.

page 469 note 11 Ibid., 24.

page 470 note 12 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, ‘Die Bekennende Kirche und die “Okumene”,’ August 1935Google Scholar, trans, as ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, in No Rusty Swords (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 336Google Scholar. Cited in Cochrane, , The Church and the War, 24, 80–82Google Scholar. See also: Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Message of Barmen for contemporary church history,” The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust, ed. Littell, Franklin H. and Locke, Hubert G. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1974), 197198Google Scholar; Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Act of Confession-Confessing’, Sixteenth Century Journals 8, no. 4 (1977): 68.Google Scholar

page 470 note 13 Dubuque, Iowa, U.S.A. He remained until 1970 serving also as head of the Division of History and Theology, dean of postgraduate studies, and acting dean of the seminary. Beginning 1971 he spent four years at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary as Professor of Systematic Theology. In 1976 he returned to Dubuque as Visiting Ecumenical Professor of Systematic Theology at Wartburg Seminary. The University of Dubuque Theological Seminary named him Professor of Systematic Theology Emeritus in 1977. He now lives in retirement in Dubuque.

page 470 note 14 Weber, Otto, Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics: An Introductory Report on Volumes I: I to III: 4, trans. Cochrane, Arthur C. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953).Google Scholar

page 470 note 15 Cochrane, , The Existentialists and God, Being and the Being of God in the Thought of Sorean Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Tillich, Etienne Gilson, Karl Barth (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), 17Google Scholar, 22, 41, 114, 116, 120.

page 471 note 16 For full text see: ‘A Statement concerning the Use of the Means of Mass Extermination in the Waging of War’, Presbyterian Outlook, 29 February 1960, 5; ‘A Statement concerning the Use of the Means of Mass Extermination in the Waging of War’, Presbyterian Life, 15 March 1960; and Cochrane, Arthur C., The Mystery of Peace (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1986), 167169.Google Scholar

page 472 note 17 Minutes of Seminary Faculty Meeting, 4 January 1960 (Theological Seminary, University of Dubuque, Dubuque, Iowa, 1960), 2. The signatories were David I. Berger, Donald G. Bloesch, Arthur C. Cochrane, George B. Ehlhardt, Robert M. Healey, Joseph L. Mihelic, and C. Howard Wallace.

page 472 note 18 Minutes of Seminary Faculty Meeting, 2 May 1960 (Theological Seminary, University of Dubuque, Dubuque, Iowa, 1960), 1. Cochrane, Arthur C., The Mystety of Peace (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1986), xiv.Google Scholar

page 472 note 19 Peck, John H. and Pereboom, John, ‘Mass Extermination’, The Seminarian 4, no. 2 (13 May 1960): 8, 10.Google Scholar

page 473 note 20 Cochranr, Arthur C., ‘John Calvin and Nuclear War’, The Christian Century 79 (4 July 1962): 838839Google Scholar. Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘Luther on Church, State and War’, Amplification of remarks made at a panel discussion on Luther's theology (Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, 18 October 1983).Google Scholar

page 473 note 21 Cochrane, Arthur C., The Mystery of Pence (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1986), xiiixiv, 167–69.Google Scholar

page 473 note 22 Cochrane, , The Church and the War, 24.Google Scholar

page 473 note 23 Dominican Delivers Three Lectures on St Thomas Aquinas' theology’, The Seminarian 5, no. 2 (Spring 1961): 1718Google Scholar. Calvin Schnucker, Report of the Dean of the Theological Seminary to the Board of Directors of the University of Dubuque for the Fiscal Year, July 1, 1960 to June 30, 1961 (University of Dubuque, Dubuque, Iowa, 1961), 4–5.

page 474 note 24 Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century, ed. Cochrane, Arthur C. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966), 89.Google Scholar

page 474 note 25 Arthur C. Cochrane, letter to Rev. J. Stanley Glen (Archives, Ficke- Laird Library, University of Dubuque, 13 September, 1968).

page 474 note 26 In addition to membership on the editorial board of The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, he served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as delegate in the Reformed-Roman Catholic Consultation in the U.S.A., the Lutheran-Reformed Consultation in the U.S.A., and on the Theological Committee of the North American Area Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

page 476 note 27 Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Confession of 1967, Ecumenism, and COCV,’ McCormick Quarterly 22, no. 3 (March 1969): 176178Google Scholar. Cochrane, Arthur C., Eating and Drinking with Jesus (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), 149155Google Scholar. Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Act of Confession–Confessing’, Sixteenth Century Journal 8, no. 4 (1977): 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. n. 24. Cochrane, . The Mystery of Peace, 187, n. 13.Google Scholar

page 475 note 28 Cochrane, Arthur C., The Church's Confession under Hitler (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), 181216.Google Scholar

page 475 note 29 Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Act of Confession–Confessing’, 63.Google Scholar

page 476 note 30 Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Confession of 1967, Ecumenism, and COCU’, 171172.Google Scholar

page 476 note 31 Cochrane, , The Church's Confession under Hitler, 182213Google Scholar; ‘The Act of Confession–Confessing’, 63.

page 477 note 32 Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century, 26.

page 477 note 33 Cochrane, , The Existentialists and Cod, 120Google Scholar. See The Constitution of the Prestyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Louisville, KY: The Office of General Assembly, 1991)Google Scholar, 7.004. Cochrane's observation is true for the answer to Question 4 ‘What is God?’ In fairness, one should add that love, mercy, and grace are attributed to God many times elsewhere in the catechism; see 7.020, 7.033–36, 7.049, 7.086–87, 7.094, 7.096, 7.102–3, 7.105, 7.108.

page 477 note 34 Cochrane, , ‘The Confession of 1967, Ecumenism, and COCU’, 173.Google Scholar

page 478 note 35 The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Louisville, KY: The Office of General Assembly, 1991)Google Scholar, 3.24. Cochrane, , The Church's Confession under Hitler, 191Google Scholar and 296, n. 8. Cochrane bases this judgment on Barth's, Karl exposition of the Scots Confession of 1560 in The Knowledge of God and the Service of God (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 1938), 226.Google Scholar

page 378 note 36 Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century, 139. Article II reads in part: ‘God reveals himself to men; firstly, in his works, in their creation, as well as in their preservation and control. Secondly, and more clearly, in his Word’, Ibid. 142. See also Cochrane, Arthur C., ‘The Message of Barmen for Contemporary Church History’, The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust, ed. Littell, Franklin H. and Locke, Hubert G. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1974), 194195.Google Scholar

page 478 note 37 Yoder, John Howard, ‘Foreword’, in Arthur C. Cochrane, The Mystery of Peace, viiiix.Google Scholar

page 479 note 38 Cochrane, , The Mystery of Peace, 141.Google Scholar

page 479 note 39 Cochrane, , The Church's Confession under Hitler, 239.Google Scholar

page 479 note 40 Cochrane, , The Existentialists and Cod, 116.Google Scholar

page 480 note 41 Cochrane, Arthur C., Eating and Drinking with Jesus 910, 148.Google Scholar

page 481 note 43 Cochranne, Arthur C., The Mystery of Peace, xix, 141, 155.Google Scholar