Tag Archives: Lutheran Church

Is the Reformation over? Yes and no.

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism

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Interesting stuff. This is written from an ELCA perspective. The ElCA has ecumenical yearnings to be again in communion with Rome, which I can understand but do not share. Not least because parts of the Lutheran church has done a better job of preserving what we believe than almost anybody else. Still, there’s a lot to learn here, and not just for Lutherans. All of our western churches are seeing similar things. Gene Veith of Cranach did a wonderful job of excerpting Sarah Hinlicky Wilson’s article, so rather than trying to do better, I’ll simply credit him.

. . .There are 4 million Lutherans in otherwise very Hindu India and another 5.7 million Lutherans in otherwise very Muslim Indonesia. There are nearly 20 million Lutherans in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Madagascar combined. Far more modest numbers are found in the Americas, and of course all kinds of Lutherans are spangled across Europe, from the ponderous folk churches of Scandinavia to the tiny but resilient minority churches in Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania.

But it’s another thing to see the global face of Lutheranism in person, and in Wittenberg. Every November since 2009 my German colleague Theodor Dieter and I have taught a two-week seminar titled Studying Luther in Wittenberg, which collects the “diaspora” of Lutheranism for a high-octane fellowship of study. . . .

What we encountered was an enthusiastic reception far beyond anything we’d dared to let ourselves dream. We’ve spent time at the seminar table with an Inuit pastor from Greenland who told us how she has to order a whole year’s supply of communion wine because the ice prevents imports ten months of the year. And with a Senegalese pastor who, as an observant Muslim high schooler, read through a Finnish missionary’s entire library before finally being granted access to the Bible—on the conclusion of which reading, he said to himself, “The Qur’an tells how to save yourself; the Bible tells how God saves you.” And with a third-generation Lutheran pastor from Myanmar who was ecstatic to eat sauerkraut and sausages as well as to talk theology all day. Brazilian scholars laboring to translate Luther’s works into Portuguese and a Taiwanese pastor seeing unflattering parallels between 16th-century Christian practice in Europe and 21st-century Taoist practice in China.

Luther has traveled far indeed, and the farther he goes, the warmer his reception. The Africans and Asians we’ve worked with have found in this late medieval friar’s writings on faith and grace, sin and law, left-hand and right-hand kingdoms the answers to the questions plaguing their churches, their people, and their societies. The western and northern Europeans are generally slower to warm up, a little bored with the theologian who taught the ubiquity of Christ but inadvertently became ubiquitous himself. By the end we could usually bring them around. Still, I postulate a Law of Luther Reception: there is an inverse relationship between Luther’s cultural importance and that culture’s ability to hear him.

Which brings us to the question of Luther reception in our own equally exotic, if all too familiar, United States of America.

via Is the Reformation over? Yes and no. | The Christian Century

One thing she comments on, I think is worthy of note.

And then, right at the moment exotic foreigner Lutherans hit their cultural stride, got their church presidents on the cover of Time, and eagerly started building bigger barns, the winds shifted. Whether aggravated by their own choices or obediently following the way of all mainline Protestants, the growth transmuted into a free fall and has kept on falling ever since.

That is very true for the ELCA, the Episcopal Church, and even the Roman Catholic Church. It is not nearly as true for the LCMS, there has been a decline, a pretty big one, but if one was to look at baptism and confirmation statistics (around 13 in our churches) it has pretty much reflected the birth rate, which peaked around 1960. More here. Incidentally, there is a study floating around that says the UK was happier in 1959 than at any time before or since. Connected? Maybe.

She deals with whether the reformation is over, and with Luther’s aversion to Rabbinic Judaism, although he loved the Old Testament. perhaps more than the New, and with several other things.

Her article is well worth your time.

Reformation Day

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism, Pusey

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The Martin Luther window at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Charleston, SC

The Martin Luther window at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Charleston, SC

Today,  499 years ago, a priest (and a monk) by the name of Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to the door of the Slosskirche in Wittenberg, All Saints Church. Some say this started the Reformation, and in a way it did. But these were things he thought the church should discuss, and this was the normal method of bringing them to the authorities attention.

And see that’s the thing, the Reformation didn’t really get going until the Roman Church excommunicated Luther, that’s when he decided he had no more choice. And I note that the Roman Church also reformed along the same line quite soon as well. Even in churches, competition is a good thing, it seems. But there were some bad consequences as well of this schism 500 years ago, such as the 30 Years War which devastated Germany.

Some people have told me that every 400 years the laity have to reform the church, and you know it does sort of seem like it. At Chalcedon in 451 we lost the Copts, In the Great Schism in 1054 the Orthodox split off from Rome, and in 1517  the Reformation got started. Well, it’s 2016 now, and all our churches seem riven by strife, What’s next? I doubt anyone knows, but I think we’d be well advised to stick pretty close together, or Islam or cultural relativism might inherit the earth. Perilous times, indeed.

So maybe it’s a good time to reiterate what it really means to be a Lutheran since Rev. Dr. Luther started this whole Reformation thing going. Mostly, we think Rome just got too involved with what we call “The Kingdom of the Left” as opposed to the “Kingdom of the Right”. To us, you were the schismatics. This article is by  writing in ”believe, teach, and confess”. it is one of the best summaries of what it really means to be a Lutheran that I have every read. Enjoy.

Over the past three decades I am often asked what it means to be Lutheran. What do Lutherans believe? What is most important? How does that work out in practice? This is just a brief introduction to those questions. Despite “popular” views, Lutherans do not follow Martin Luther. Rather, we confess the same Christian faith he did; hence we do not support everything he wrote. Martin Luther appeared at critical time in church history and had a significant influence on the entire Christian Church, but we do not “follow him,” rather Jesus Christ and him crucified. The name “Lutheran” was originally a derogatory term used by Luther’s enemies. Later, it became a term to distinguish itself from Reformed (Zwingli, Calvin, and later Arminius) as well as from the radical reformation.

Historic Continuity: “The Church has always taught…”

The Lutheran Church sees itself in continuity with the historic Christian Church throughout the ages, not something invented in the 16th century. That is, in most of our official writings (called the Lutheran Confessions), we often use the phrase “As the Church has always taught” to show that what Luther and others publicly were teaching was consistent with the historic church. We frequently use the term “catholic” (meaning “universal”) to denote the true Church throughout the ages, not in reference to the specific church body known as the Roman Catholic Church headed by the pope. This phrase is critical in understanding Lutherans, because while sometimes we look like Roman Catholics, we see the papal church deviating in the Middle Ages and onward from that historic faith. At the time of the Reformation, Luther and others continued what was done that was consistent with the Bible and the Church through the ages, but ridded itself of false teachings (especially in worship). In that sense Lutherans were “conservative” keeping that which was solid and discarding other elements. They could and did keep paintings, statures, icons, as aids to help people learn the stories of the Bible. On the other hand, Zwingli, Calvin and other Reformed leaders wanted to distance their churches from anything that looked Roman Catholic. For them, in regard to worship, they made significant alterations to the order of service and even destroyed what appeared in churches. The Reformed tended to get rid of paintings, statues, and icons. Lutherans use the phrase “believe, teach, and confess” to denote those statement which reflect accurately what the Bible teachings. In line with that, Lutherans accept the three Ecumenical Creeds as accurate statements of the Christian faith from the Bible (Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed). You can find them here.

Continue reading What does this mean… to be Lutheran? « ”believe, teach, and confess”.

One thing we should note in these times when so many try to restrict the availability of the internet and social media. One of the main factors in the success of the Reformation was the availability of a new social medium: The printing press, that spread the word of what was happening all over Europe within a few months, instead of years (if ever) as formerly.

Of course, we must have this, as well

We would also be wise to keep in mind some of the words of Pusey:

Many things will combine to wrest it from you, my younger brethren. Through one thing only can you hold it, the grace of God. New, though false, lights dazzle at the outset of life; novelty attracts ; the old faith may be pictured to you as antiquated ; a strict oneness of faith as illiberal ; the very Love of God is set in array against the Revelation of God, as though God could not mean what yet He has said ; belief in God, as He has revealed Himself, may be pictured to you as derogatory to God. “Go not after them, nor follow them,” is your Saviour’s warning as to those who shall come in His Name, and whom He hath not sent. Old must the faith be, since as soon as man needed redemption, the Redeemer was promised, and the truths of the Gospel lay implicitly involved in the revelation to Adam; and He Who eighteen hundred years ago, more fully declared it as the power of God unto salvation, changeth not. “One” must it be, for contradictories cannot both be true, and He has said, there is “One Faith,” as there is “One God ” and “One Lord.”

And since tomorrow is Halloween, maybe we should talk about that a bit as well

and

Crosposted from Nebraskaenergyobserver

Saturday Jess

05 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Blogging, Faith, Persecution

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20121115-180317.jpgUsually, I try to select an article that goes along with what we’ve been discussing, and I’ve done that here. I also usually provide a short introduction, that I haven’t done here because the first comment on the article, from Kathleen of “Catholicism Pure & Simple” says it much better than I can, along with insight into how Jess wanted this place to be, and that we have tried to continue. Here’s Kathleen:

Jess, you are doing something very special and extremely important here; you are drawing together Christians from all denominations in inspiring and profound discussions on Faith topics. We can obviously not agree on all aspects of our beliefs, but we can exchange our views, traditions and teachings in lively conversation in an atmosphere of harmony and respect, and without any anger or self-righteousness. Really, this is absolutely amazing!

Through your gentle, respectful and sensitive personality (plus with your obvious high intelligence and vivid imagination) you are achieving something that no one else has managed to…… as far as I know anyway. Every other blog site that attempts such discussions always seems to end up in cyber-type battles and fights leaving no winners…… and a very sour tasting feeling of utter futility!

United?

So often, for me, one of the most wonderful parts of running a blog are the comments from you – they are never less than thought-provoking, and sometimes they are so profound as to make me glad to have such people with whom to converse through this strange medium.

Yesterday’s post on the ‘Beauty of holiness’ touch a chord with many, and set of some fascinating comments.  I was much struck with the conclusion to Kathleen’s comments:

I readily agree with you that in this, our secular age in the West, we live “impoverished times as Christians”…… and it is vital we should befriend our fellow Christians to stand shoulder to shoulder in the face of so many challenges of our day, rather than bicker, insult (and worse), which is what we have been doing since the times of the Reformation until fairly recently.
All denominations of true Christians hold and believe the most important thing of all: that Jesus Christ is the Saviour, the Only begotten Son of God, Who came to redeem mankind. Nothing is more important than this.

If I were able to sum up my credo it would be in these words. 

As anyone familiar with the site on which Kathleen makes such distinguished posts, Catholicism Pure & Simple, will know, she is a devout and knowledgeable Cradle Catholic, so her comments come with even more weight, as they are not the product of some casual ecumenist gust of emotion.  They were matched by words from my dear friend NEO, who commented:

Lutherans, Catholics, and Anglicans, we have all, to a great extent anyway, thrown away the reverential awe of worship. We did this with the best of intentions, to attract new congregants but, as with so many things, we didn’t think it through. When we lower ourselves to attract people, we lower the standards of Christianity. Of what use are multitudes of half-Christianized pagans to God or church?

He added:

We stress our coffee hours, our good works (which are important and are an effect of our faith) our modernity in general. And what do we get, a coffee shop filled with do-gooders. There’s nothing wrong with any of that but, it’s not who we are, we are the Church of Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, nothing more and nothing less. Many of our Evangelical friends understand this, why can’t we?

And that, between them, sums up the place where some of us feel that real ecumenism already exists.

We are, not one of us, responsible for what divides us; we are all responsible for perpetuating it if we ‘bicker and insult’ others.

In the end it comes back, as it always must, to what Jesus told His disciples, which is why I have part of it on the masthead of this blog:

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If we do that, then we follow Him. If we don’t, it does not matter what we say. If we do not love one another we walk in darkness.

From 14 August 2012, and as always the comments are worth reading as well.

Compare and Contrast

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Anglicanism, Church/State, Lutheranism, Pusey

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salemI was moved by Chalcedon’s remarks on his family in Among the Ruins.  My family’s experience is not dissimilar. Yes, there’s going to be some church history here.

My parents were brought up in the old Norwegian Synod, which became part of the American Lutheran Church, which centered mostly in the upper midwest. For the most part these are the offshoots of the Scandinavian Lutheran churches, and became probably the most conservative part of the ELCA, as it remains to this day, which is why I still belong to it. But when they moved to Indiana, there was nothing especially close, although years later the LCA and the Missouri Synod would cooperate in quite a few things.

But they ended up in the Evangelical and Reformed Church. This was essentially the Church of Prussia that King Frederick Wilhelm III forced into existence by merging the German Lutheran and Reformed churches. As you can imagine serious followers of both Luther and Calvin were dismayed, beyond endurance. This is the church that my sisters and I were all confirmed in. To this day, the window over the door of the sanctuary of my home church reads Salem Ev. and Reformed Kirche.

When they ended up in Pennsylvania, my sister and her husband ended up in the southernmost church of the old Dutch Reformed Church. I should probably note that both had been hooked into the maelstrom of the United Church of Christ, that product of the ecclesiastical merger mania of the 1960s. Like the Church of Prussia before it, it tried to yoke oxen and horses, and found it a very balky team.

My family in Pennsylvania still belong to this church, and in fact, my sister was (and my brother in law still is) a leader of the congregation. As are my nieces, who in fact are not all that much younger than I am. But interestingly, in talking with them about various things, I have found that my nieces faith is quite shallow, they are leaders, and officers of their church but, they have a fairly shallow faith. Given my experience, I put it down to belonging to a church, that is neither fish nor fowl.

My experience is somewhat different. When I moved out here, there was essentially no UCC available, and so the choice became either Lutheran or Methodist. It wasn’t a very hard choice to go back to the ELCA, essentially it was coming home after a generation. 🙂

But you know, the ELCA is not the LCA that I knew on summer vacations as a child growing up in Minnesota, that was never a particularly conservative church, to my mind, but the corporate ELCA is on a par with (and in communion with) the Episcopal Church in America.

And so we go back into Lutheran history a bit. When the King forced that merger in Germany, a lot of Lutherans (Calvinists too, but that’s not germane to my history) felt that he was corrupting the teachings of their churches, and when civil and even criminal penalties started being imposed, a good many left. This is when Lutheranism really got going in the United States (Australia and New Zealand, as well). This is origin of the old Buffalo Synod. It drew heavily on what is called Old Lutheranism.

There was another group, from Saxony, which founded a synod based on mostly Neo-Lutheranism, which developed in reaction against theological rationalism and pietism, with an increased focus on Lutheran distinctiveness and and the Lutheran Confessions, as well as the historic liturgy. It paralleled the rise of Anglo-Catholicism and in fact is occasionally called German Puseyism. This is the origin of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Over time it became the second largest Lutheran synod in the United States.

Interestingly the ELCA, because of its full communion with the Episcopal Church, is (maybe, kind of, sort of, I haven’t yet figured out if there is an authoritative answer) in communion with the Church of England, and it shares many of its problems. As do many of the liberal churches (I would say it because of a lack of vision, in the faith and too much subservience to the state).

But the LCMS has also formed partnerships with the Evangelical Lutheran Churches across Europe and the world, which are in many cases the remnants of the old Lutheran churches in Germany. Even in the UK, where is 1896 a group of German bakers in Kent, asked Concordia Seminary in St. Louis to provide a pastor for them with assurances that they would support him. That mission has now grown to have churches in England, Scotland, and Wales, including training pastors in Cambridge.

If you know me, you know that I will likely at some point end up in the LCMS, simply because it matches better what I believe, or even what is often its subset: The Confessional Lutheran Church. A lot of the reason I haven’t is practical, the difference between five blocks and about fifty miles.

But I’m hardy alone in that yearning, the ELCA is at best flat in its membership and in many cases drying up, while LCMS is continuing to grow. That tracks with what I see in other denominations, the more demanding churches are growing while the ‘go along to get along’ ones are not. I think it more a matter of vision and the mission than anything else.

In many ways I think the development of the various churches in the United states almost makes a laboratory case for their predecessor churches in Europe, because here without state support, they have to make their case to the parishioner, That can, of course, lead to apostasy but it can also lead to real piety, depending on how well the people understand the purpose of the church, itself.

And so I continue to wonder if a good part of the Anglican church’s problem isn’t simply that it has, as the Established Church, this mandate from the state to be all things to all men, instead of a church serving only God. It never worked all that well for Rome, or in Germany, maybe it’s run it course in England as well, or maybe it simply needs to wrest control, once again, from the state and entrust it to men of vision. Because, historically, it has been one of the mainstays of the Faith, and I would hate to see it go down.

In truth, because I suspect, of Virginia’s influence on our early history, it (in its Episcopal form) has become our church for state functions as well. Where else but the National Cathedral could one have a state funeral for a Protestant?