Tag Archives: Luther

All Saints Day

01 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism

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This was my all Saint’s Day post from 2015, it strikes me as appropriate to share here in what (I hope) goes down as one of the worst years we have lived through, at least recently

That is kind of my point here today, while we have the greatest respect for the formal Saints in the Roman and Orthodox traditions, when the Rev Dr. Luther studied the Scriptures he found that, all believers in the Christ are referred to there as saints, and thus the Communion of the Saints consists of us all from the Apostles on through the child baptized this morning, and will continue until he returns to us. Along that line in his commentary on 1st Peter, Luther says this

Thus Scripture calls us holy while we are still living here on earth, if we believe. The papists have taken this name away from us and say: `We should not be holy; only the saints in heaven are holy.’ Therefore we must get the noble name back. You must be holy. But you must be prepared not to think that you are holy of yourself or on the strength of your merit. No, you must be holy because you have the Word of God, because heaven is yours, and because you have become truly pious and holy through Christ. This you must avow if you want to be a Christian (Luther’s Works 30:7).

In his 1531 Galatian commentary, he reflects a bit more on the views he previously held.

When I was a monk, I often had a heartfelt wish to see the life and conduct of at least one saintly man. But meanwhile I was imagining the sort of saint who lived in the desert and abstained from food and drink, subsisting on nothing but roots and cold water. I had derived this notion about unnatural saints from the books not only of the sophists but even of the fathers . . . But now that the light of truth is shining, we see with utter clarity that Christ and the apostles designate as saints, not those who lead a celibate life, are abstemious, or who perform other works that give the appearance of brilliance or grandeur, but those who, being called by the Gospel and baptized, believe that they have been sanctified and cleansed by the blood of Christ. Thus whenever Paul writes to Christians, he calls them saints, sons and heirs of God, etc. Therefore saints are all those who believe in Christ, whether men or women, slaves or free (Luther’s Works 27:81-82).

And here you also can see part of his belief that monasticism was a bad thing for the faith. I agree but less strongly. I think that he was affected badly by it because he vowed to join the monastery only because he had been badly frightened by a bolt of lightning and had vowed to St. Anne that he would if he was spared. And it seems to me from his writing that his propensity to slip into depression was greatly increased by the monastery. Also germane is that he found that it tended to lead to classes of Christians, I too have occasionally found it a prideful vocation. He also found that occasionally the veneration of Saints could lead to idolatry, and in fact, he warned us to be careful of this with the Theotokos as well, although he and many of us still venerate her.

In the Smalcald Articles, in the article “How One is justified before God, and of Good Works,” we find

What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it . . . but the entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us [unfolded] and spread over us in Christ (Smalcald Articles, III.13.1-2).

According to the Confessions, the Christian becomes holy in the same way he becomes righteous: by God’s grace for Christ’s sake through faith. By His grace God reckons the holiness of Jesus Christ to the account of the believer. The holiness of a Christian therefore is not his own holiness, but the holiness of Jesus, won for all on the cross. Our holiness is a gift, given to us for the sake of Jesus who died for us; our holiness is not the result of our merits or good works.

If by His death Jesus Christ has taken away all your sins, then are you not holy? For to be holy means to be without sin. Therefore, when God no longer counts our sin against us, we are holy indeed! This is the way our Confessions proceed.

This holiness of Christ, won for us on the cross, is communicated to us through Word of God and received through faith.

For, thank God, a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd. For the children pray thus: I believe in one holy Christian Church. This holiness does not consist in albs, tonsures, long gowns, and other of their ceremonies devised by them beyond Holy Scripture, but in the Word of God and true faith (Smalcald Articles, III.12.2-3).

In the Large Catechism this same theme, that holiness comes through the Word of God, is further developed.

For the Word of God is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries, yea, the only one which we Christians know and have. For though we had the bones of all the saints or all holy and consecrated garments upon a heap, still that would help us nothing; for all that is a dead thing which can sanctify nobody. But God’s Word is the treasure which sanctifies everything, and by which even all the saints themselves were sanctified. At whatever hour, then, God’s Word is taught, preached, heard, read or meditated upon, there the person, day, and work are sanctified thereby, not because of the external work, but because of the Word, which makes saints of us all. (Large Catechism, Third Commandment, 91)

And so, my fellow saints, in a year that has not been overly kind, in the world, to our little company, and for the Grace to join those who have gone before us, and are waiting for us.

Men in and of the Church

14 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by in Blogging, Faith, Uncategorized

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This follows on from yesterday’s points on men in the church.

The Rev Karl Hess noticed something from Mundabor’s blog (well, we are in the same business, after all)

[…]Comment Sissy showed up (nickname: “anonymous”; you never know which “anonymous” is “anonymous”) and said the critics of the Novus Ordo were uncharitable, un-this, and un-that. There had been no vitriolic comments, merely a very mild sarcasm.

A good soul, nickname “Templar” (nice one, by the way) intervened with the following words:

I grew up in New York, the Priests from my parish lived exactly 7 doors down from me and our interaction with them was daily and very personal. They were mostly Irish and Italian, most cussed like sailors (refraining only from taking the Lord’s name), used acerbic wit to cut down many a sinner, and wouldn’t back down from a fight if it came to it.

Good Bye good men.

Now we have anonymous posters who wring their hands over bruised feelings, and perceived slights. What you sow is what you reap. We have raised up milquetoast Catholics. Where is the Church Militant? Where are the Warriors? Islam is burying the world through birth rate and butchery, and us Catholics are afraid of some rough language.

The poster hits the bull’s eye in a very pithy way.

We live in times of such unmanliness that by every exchange of opinion that reaches the level of more than mild disapprobation someone – the Comment Sissy; they are everywhere – feels the need to intervene and say how “disparaging” and insensitive other people are.

In former times, such people would have been invited to go play with their dolls; nowadays, the Comment Sissy is socially accepted, and thinks he has firmly taken the moral high ground; it is like a pervert game of political correctness, in which the first one crying “disparaging” has won.

Rev Hess said it reminded him of another Catholic priest about 500 years ago.

I  have  indeed  inveighed  sharply  against  impious  doctrines,  and  I  have  not  been  slack  to  censure  my  adversaries  on  account,  not  of  their  bad  morals,  but  of  their  impiety.  And  for  this  I  am  so  far  from  being  sorry,  that  I  have  brought  my  mind  to  despise  the  judgments  of  men,  and  to  persevere  in  this  vehement  zeal,  according  to  the  example  of  Christ,  who,  in  his  zeal,  calls  his  adversaries  a  generation  of  vipers, blind,  hypocrites,  and  children  of  the  devil.  Paul  too  charges  the  sorcerer  with  being  a  child  of  the  devil,  full  of  all  subtlety  and  all  malice;  and  defames  certain  persons  as  evil  workers,  dogs,  and  deceivers.  In  the  opinion  of  those  delicate-­‐eared  persons,  nothing  could  be  more  bitter  or  intemperate  than  Paul’s language.  What  can  be  more  bitter  than  the  words  of  the  prophets?  The  ears  of  our  generation  have been  made  so  delicate  by  the  senseless  multitude  of  flatterers,  that,  so  soon  as  we  perceive  that  anything  of  ours  is  not  approved  of,  we  cry  out  that  we  are  being  bitterly  assailed;  and  when  we  can  repel  the  truth  by  no  other  pretence,  we  escape  by  attributing  bitterness,  impatience,  intemperance,  to  our  adversaries.  What  would  be  the  use  of  salt,  if  it  were  not  pungent?  or  of  the  edge  of  the  sword,  if  it  did  not  slay?  Accursed  is  the  man,  who  does  the  work  of  the  Lord  deceitfully.

From The freedom of a Christian (PDF)

I think we can all sympathize, we’ve all met the commenters, that have no facts, but are so very easily offended, and so make personal attacks. Indeed, we’ve had a few here, over the years, they rarely last long, though.

Intermission: Luther v Zwingli on the Eucharist

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Lutheranism, Salvation

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Phillip mentioned yesterday that Lutherans have a very clear doctrine of the Eucharist, which is certainly true, and that the controversy between Luther and Zwingli highlighted the differences. That too is true. I didn’t want to go into it on his post, it is a bit far off topic. It is interesting, though, and last night I found a concise summary of the differences by Trevin Wax. It also highlights how it differed from Luther’s contemporary Catholic experience.

Luther’s view

In the medieval period before the Reformation, the mass formed the centerpiece of Christian worship and devotion. Three centuries before Luther began teaching in Wittenberg, the fourth Lateran council of 1215 established the doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that upon the priest’s consecration of the bread and wine, the accidents (according to the senses) remain the same, but the substance (the internal “essence”) is miraculously transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ.

The implications of this doctrine were widespread. Laypeople began to adore the bread and wine from afar or superstitiously carry pieces of bread back home to plant in the garden for good crops or to give to an ailing animal for good health. To avoid an accidental spilling of the wine, the priests began giving only the bread to parishioners, keeping the cup for themselves. By the 1500’s, even the bread was withheld in most churches.

The mass had turned into a show instead of a sacrament. Some parishioners feverishly hurried from church to church to obtain the blessing of seeing more than one host in a given day.

Luther objected to the extreme practices brought by medieval superstition, but he continued to regard the “images, bells, Eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar lights and the like” as “indifferent.”

Two things in particular bothered Luther about the Roman Catholic view of the Lord’s Supper. First, he disagreed sharply with the practice of withholding the cup from the laity. So strongly did Luther believe in the laity’s participation in the mass that he condemned the Roman Catholic practice as one way that “Babylon” holds the church “captive.” (It should be noted however that Luther did not believe that withholding the cup necessarily invalidated the sacrament or that the Christians who were denied the cup during the previous centuries had not received sacramental benefits.)

Secondly, Luther believed that the Roman Catholic understanding of the sacrament as a “good work and a sacrifice” was the “most wicked abuse of all.” Luther argued forcefully that the mass must be seen as a testament – something to receive, not a good work to perform. The only sacrifice at the Lord’s Table is the sacrifice of ourselves. The idea that a priest could sacrifice the body and blood of the Lord was especially appalling to Luther and he considered this belief the most abominable of Roman errors.  […]

Another area in which Luther remained close to Roman doctrine is in the doctrine of the “real presence.” Up until 1519, it appears Luther agreed with the official doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1520, he criticized the idea quite forcefully, painting it as needless speculation based on Aristotelian thought.

A popular misconception among Reformation students is that Luther affirmed and promoted “consubstantiation,” but neither Luther nor the Lutheran church ever accepted that term. Luther simply refused to speculate on how Christ is present and instead settled for affirming that he is there. The presence of Christ in the Supper is miraculous and thus defies explanation.

Roman Catholic theologians strongly emphasized the moment of consecration, when the priest would lift the bread and say “Hoc est corpus meum.” At that moment, bells would be rung and all eyes would be on the elevated host, which had magically been transformed into Christ’s body.

Luther similarly emphasized the words of institution, but only because Christ’s command leads to the change, not because the priest has made a special utterance. In this and other practices, Luther was content to alter the understanding behind Roman Catholic practice without feeling the need to actually change the tradition itself.

Luther believed that the fruit of the Lord’s Supper is the forgiveness of sins. Roman doctrine held that Communion was for the righteous, those who have confessed their sins to the priest. Luther believed Communion was for sinners, those who needed Christ’s incarnation the most.

 

Zwingli’s view

 

Zwingli did not see the need for a “sacramental union” in the Lord’s Supper because of his modified understanding of sacraments.

According to Zwingli, the sacraments serve as a public testimony of a previous grace. Therefore, the sacrament is “a sign of a sacred thing, i.e. of a grace that has been given.” For Zwingli, the idea that the sacraments carry any salvific efficacy in themselves is a return to Judaism’s ceremonial washings that lead to the purchase of salvation.

Whereas Luther sought to prune the bad branches off the tree of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, Zwingli believed the problem to be rooted at least partly in sacramentalism itself. […]

What Zwingli could not accept was a “real presence” that claimed Christ was present in his physical body with no visible bodily boundaries.

“I have no use for that notion of a real and true body that does not exist physically, definitely and distinctly in some place, and that sort of nonsense got up by word triflers.”

Zwingli’s theology of the Lord’s Supper should not be viewed as an innovation without precedent in church history. Zwingli claimed that his doubts about transubstantiation were shared by many of his day, leading him to claim that priests did not ever believe such a thing, even though “most all have taught this or at least pretended to believe it.”

Had Zwingli’s modified doctrine of the “real presence” been an innovation, it would probably not have been so eagerly accepted by his parishioners. The symbolic view spread rapidly because Zwingli had given voice and legitimacy to an opinion that was already widespread.

In Zurich, the mass was abolished in 1525. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated with a new liturgy that replaced the altar with a table and tablecloth.

The striking feature of the Zwinglian observance of the sacrament was its simplicity. Because the bread and wine were not physically transformed into Christ’s body and blood, there was no need for spurious ceremonies and pompous rituals. The occasion was marked by simplicity and reverence, with an emphasis on its nature as a memorial.

Zwingli’s denial of the “real presence” did not result in the neglecting of the sacrament that would characterize many of his followers in centuries to come. He saw seven virtues in the Lord’s Supper that proved its importance for the Christian life.

Do read the articles linked above. While what he says on Lutheran doctrine is in accordance with what I know and believe, and what I know of how it was derived, and I am sort of assuming that as an Evangelical he knows a fair amount about Zwingli, I don’t know enough to comment intelligently about it. My original church had a fair amount of Reformed in it, but it was long ago, and I’ve long since come to believe in The Real Presence myself, actually before I became a Lutheran. It is just more consonant with the Lord’s words and the disciples’ reaction to them.

Ps, the short form

Few but Good

13 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in Church/State, Faith, Salvation

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Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe....

Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe. Protestant lands in blue, Catholic in olive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s nice to be a public blog again, and breathe free, isn’t it? I’ll try not to get us in too much trouble! A new start for us all, as we continue the mission.  I also note, with sadness, that Jess will not be rejoining us, but I, like the rest of you, pray for her and her vocation. I also concur completely with what Chalcedon said here, we have developed into a type of lay apostolate, devoted to our mission on earth.

The other day Chalcedon on his excellent post The Line Between Truth and Error, which if you missed it, you really should read, made the comment:

Anglo-Saxons have a habit of writing few but good laws and sticking to them. Latins have the opposite habit. They write too many and end up deciding which to enforce and obey. This is confusing to us – so us our keenness to obey every law to them.

There is a lot packed into that statement, both in our churches and in our political systems as well. He is of course using Anglo-Saxons in the European sense to refer to those of us that speak English and were brought with the Common Law as part of our heritage.

That becomes more evident as we prepare to celebrate the 800th anniversary of what we Americans call the first of “The Charters of Freedom”: Magna Charta, where for nearly the first time in history, in the world’s oldest nation-state, England, it was made clear that the monarch was not above the law, but was subject to it just as any other freeman.

We remember that mostly in its political context, but it, like Wycliffe, the Lollards, and yes, Julian of Norwich, can easily be seen as harbingers of the Reformation as well. We should not forget that the leader of the barons at Runnymede was none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephan Langton, and that the conflict between church and state was old news then, as it was when Becket was murdered.

In some ways, the Reformation can be seen as an originalist movement, and part of that was the emphasis on the 10 Commandments. Imagine that, a world built on merely ten prohibitions! One could nearly call it a libertarian religion, for its prohibitions are all of the most commonsensical sort. We believe that the New Covenant, stated above in our title bar supersedes the Old Covenant, with its myriad rules covering nearly everything. We can see the founding of Christianity, before the split from the temple as an attempted reformation, even as it followed the same pattern as Luther’s.

Attempt to reform from within, until expelled, and then begin to build anew, going back to the basics, and doing it inclusively. Thus the Great Commission and all that flows from it.

We also see the difference between the Anglo-Saxon world, and the Latin world. In our world, one of the quickest ways to raise a tempest is for the executive (either religious or secular) to go beyond (or fall below) his mandate. In the secular world it even has a name, albeit a sordid one, ‘The King’s Prerogative’. It was the cause of the ruckus at Runnymede, and it is the cause of many of the current controversies in Washington (and Westminster) as well.

When we say, “The law is the law” we do not mean that it cannot be changed, it can. We mean that it must not be ignored, and that has been a loud bone of contention for centuries simply because men with power over others, are still fallible men, who must be bound by the the law.

And this is where we come to the difference between us and the rest of the world. In most of the world, one can do anything the law specifically allows. Many of us see this pattern in the Roman church as well. It hearkens back to the law imposed (and often ignored) by the emperor.

In contrast the Common Law was built one case at a time up from the people (the basics are of course based on the Ten Commandments (or similar rules which were not uncommon amongst our northern European ancestors). It’s often said that in our society one can do anything that is not prohibited.

That is not a mandate or a license to do whatever we want, it is the freedom to act in our interest (religious or political) while observing the rules, and in that is found liberty, along with responsibility.

And in this understanding that we are responsible for our actions, and that the law will be enforced, is the basis of the many studies which have shown that protestant northern Europe, and especially the Anglo-Saxon countries have a much lower rate of corruption than mostly, or formerly, (pick one or both) Catholic central and southern Europe.

And remember that responsibility extends to our salvation as much as it does to our political life.

As Tacitus reminds us:

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.

Reformation Day

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Church/State, Faith, Lutheranism

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“I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach…”

This passage, traditionally interpreted as referring to Luther, is commonly the text preached on during Reformation Day services.

Door of the Schlosskirche (castle church) in Wittenberg to which Luther is said to have nailed his 95 Theses on the 31st of October 1517, sparking the Reformation.

Sunday was Reformation day, if you didn’t know it. 497 years ago that the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther posted 95 theses on the door of the Slosskirche, more properly the All Saints Church, in Wittenberg. Rather than me reinventing the wheel here, this is how Wikipedia describes it.

In 1516–17, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and papal commissioner for indulgences, was sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to raise money to rebuild St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther wrote to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” which came to be known as The 95 Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of the writing is accordingly “searching, rather than doctrinaire.” Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”

Luther objected to a saying attributed to Johann Tetzel that “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory [also attested as ‘into heaven’] springs.” He insisted that, since forgiveness was God’s alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances.

According to Philipp Melanchthon, writing in 1546, Luther “wrote theses on indulgences and posted them on the church of All Saints on 31 October 1517”, an event now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation. Some scholars have questioned Melanchthon’s account, since he did not move to Wittenberg until a year later and no contemporaneous evidence exists for Luther’s posting of the theses. Others counter that such evidence is unnecessary because it was the custom at Wittenberg university to advertise a disputation by posting theses on the door of All Saints’ Church, also known as “Castle Church“.

The 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be aided by the printing press. Within two weeks, copies of the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.

Luther’s writings circulated widely, reaching France, England, and Italy as early as 1519. Students thronged to Wittenberg to hear Luther speak. He published a short commentary on Galatians and his Work on the Psalms. This early part of Luther’s career was one of his most creative and productive. Three of his best-known works were published in 1520: To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom of a Christian.

This is, of course, the traditional hymn for the day.

 

There are a couple of lessons of the Reformation, I’d like to highlight.

First the power of unfettered communication. This has been a year in which we have seen both church and state attempt to curtail our free speech rights, and they have made some inroads but for the most part they have been defeated by an aware part of the population. We need to keep it up.

Second, the Reformation has much to do with how moral our churches  are, even, maybe especially, the Roman Catholic Church, which with its Counter-Reformation, addressed almost all of the concerns that Luther posted in his 95 Thesis. I’ve often said that our churches now have a tendency to keep each other honest. When there is only one (of any type organization) it nearly always becomes corrupt. When there are two or more, it seems to reduce that temptation drastically.

Crossposted and updated from Nebraskaenergyobserver, 31 October 2012.

 

Lectionaries and Catechesis

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Faith, Homilies, Lutheranism

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The Chancel of the Valparaiso University Chapel, including the Christus Rex

The Chancel of the Valparaiso University Chapel, including the Christus Rex

Doesn’t seem like a natural pairing does it? But maybe it is. Let’s look around a bit.

One of the things that came out of Vatican II was the vernacular Mass (personally, I think that was overdue but, don’t shoot me yet). Part of that was that the Lectionary was revised after something like a thousand years. The reading from the Old Testament came in after being gone for a very long time. In addition, a three year system was adopted to let each Gospel be taught, St. John being used during Eastertide, and for some fill-in during St. Mark’s year, his Gospel is somewhat shorter, of course.

Why am I, a Lutheran writing about this? There are a couple of reasons, the first is that this echoed around our liturgical churches (we have always paid much attention to what our Catholic brothers and sisters do!) and this was adopted in the Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches, and probably others as well. That is why so often, if more than one of us write on the lesson of the day, it is usually the same lesson.

The other reason is that I am basing this off a paper written and delivered as a workshop at the Liturgical Institute, at Valpo this spring. If you don’t happen to know, Valpo is short for Valparaiso University which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Parenthetically, both of my sisters were Valpo Alumni, and one of them worked for many years in Church Relations at Valpo.

Many years ago, I read somewhere about how a preacher set up his sermons, in my recollection it was a pre-civil war American preacher, although that is unimportant. His design was a five point plan:

  1. Tell ’em what the subject is
  2. Tell ’em what you’re going to tell them
  3. Tell ’em.
  4. Tell ’em what you told them
  5. Tell ’em again what you told them.

That tracks pretty well for me in learning from a lecture. I need repetition in comprehending the spoken word, visual aids do help. But I, like many in my generation, do my best comprehension in reading, and that is still true for me. I doubt I’m the only one.

What does that have to do with the Lectionary? This, the old Catholic form, still used with the Tridentine Mass, now often called an Extraordinary Rite, was based on a one year cycle. (so were the historic Lutheran ones). So instead of hearing the same thing every year, now we get it every four years. One of the problems we all have is that basic Bible literacy is down, in all our churches. How’s that work?

Maybe this: Non multa sed multum. Not many, but much

Funny though, just when we thought it was dead and buried, the old lectionary makes something of a comeback, although many thought it far from perfect. It had deficiencies, of course.

Luther himself once complained that the epistles seemed to have been selected by a lover of works, and that all the good gospel sections in Paul’s writings had been given short shrift. It’s been famously noted that in the old series we never ever heard John 3:16, nor the account of the Prodigal Son.

There are voices, as we here all know that the Tridentine should be the standard again, and there are also those that want to go back to the experiments in the 50s on the Tridentine in the vernacular language.

The Anglicans have a continuing movement to return to earlier versions of The Book of Common Prayer. That version is very nearly a twin of the old Lutheran one.

The Orthodox have a Western Rite that is Liturgy of St. Gregory following the Tridentine mass with Orthodox adaptations, and using the one year lectionary.

And in the Lutheran church, especially the Missouri Synod, we are seeing a small movement to gently revise the one year  Lectionary, which the lectionary committee has made fully equal to the three year.

Early in the process the Lectionary Committee said

[…] the decision was made to recover and retain the “historic” lectionary, as used by Luther and subsequent generations of Lutherans and as included in The Lutheran Hymnal.

For these, and perhaps other reasons

  • We are an historic Church and acknowledge the value of what has been handed down to us.
  • It is important to recognize the value of repetition. Given the increasing lack of biblical literacy within our society and even within the Church, there may be a need in the future for a one-year lectionary, with its annual repetition of key biblical texts.
  • The one-year lectionary is unique in that there are a number of older resources that support it, including hymnody, sermons by Luther and others, etc.

The other thing that strikes me, is especially for Lutherans and Anglicans, it ties us back to our historic resources, both spoken, such as Luther’s sermons, but also musical, such as the Bach cantatas, and our great hymns which were written to fit that lectionary. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this back on the First Sunday of Advent, where it belongs

But I think the greatest part would be if our congregations Biblical literacy could be improved.

 

More at Weedons Blog: Diachronic vs. Synchronic Unity and Lectionary.

Two Kingdoms

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Church/State, Politics

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church-state-signWe have often spoken of the problems that are specific to established churches, whether they are Roman, Anglican, Lutheran, or a few others. In Lutheranism, we have the words of Luther himself to go by, in the Augsburg Confession and some as well in the Book of Concord. But they were written in a very different world, I hear you say. Yes, they were but, so was the Bible itself. It is for us to (and our spiritual advisors) to apply it to our world. I note that traditional Calvinism has a similar doctrine although seemingly it has been superseded.

One note to our British and American readers should make is that our conception of the people holding sovereign power over the state died out on the continent someplace between the 9th and the 12th century, leaving the whole shebang to be imposed from the prince and forced downward, so we have to translate that concept to our own. That is also why so many of us decry the UK’s membership in the EC.

If I understand this correctly, and I think I do, much of this doctrine goes all the way back to the Passion Week when the Jewish authorities having failed to keep the people from proclaiming Jesus as “The King of the Jews”, they attempted to get Him to establish where his Authority came from. Mathew 22 tells us:

15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.

16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

The Lutheran Two Kingdoms is the direct counterpart of the Roman “Two Swords” established in the bull Unam Sanctam, issued by Pope Boniface VIII, which posits that there is only one Kingdom, the Church which controls the Spiritual sword and that the Temporal sword is hierarchically lower than the Spiritual, thus allowing interference in the state by the church.

It also owes much to St. Augustine’s City of God.

I also note that James Madison, the principal author of the !st Amendment to the US Constitution credited Luther as the principal theorist behind it.

In any case, Wikipedia says (I know but it correlates with what I know) that Luther and Philip Melancthon’s doctrine which was later labeled “two kingdoms” was that the church should not exercise worldly government, and princes should not rule the church or have anything to do with the salvation of souls.

We are seeing in our time and actually have been since at least the 30s with the rise of the secularists the mischief that having the government involved in the church can cause.

In the States we are seeing attempts to force Christians to pay for things (like abortion) that are strictly forbidden by our faith. Additionally, there is a case currently in Louisiana where a court is attempting to force a Roman Catholic priest to violate the privacy of the Confessional.

In the UK we are seeing the established church being coerced to amend its doctrine in line with government policy, and in addition beginning to officially harass clergy who state the doctrines on diverse things plainly in public, as well as efforts by both the civil authorities and their hirelings in the church hierarchy to silence orthodoxy.

In both countries we are seeing essentially an effort to reduce the Freedom of Religion to the freedom to worship. If it is successful we can, and should, expect it to be the beginning of still another slippery slope.

We should be aware that this trouble started long ago, when the Romans abandoned their traditional tolerance, and demanded that all worship at the Cult of Caesar.

The major lesson in the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms is that there is not (nor can there be) a Christian civil government, and that it is equally wrong for the Christian to allow the civil government to intrude on one’s Christianity.

There is an outstanding essay here from Hermann Sasse.

[Update; My post today on nebraskaenergyobserver is taken from the Sasse essay linked above, and is pretty much an extension of this article. It is here ]