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To: wideawake

I enjoy knowing the Lutherans have ashes put on their forehead on Ash Wednesday and knowing Lutherans celebrate the Eucharist (at least Traditional Lutherans) and that their Pastors wear Vestments and that Luther continued saying the Rosary after he left the Catholic Church.


9 posted on 11/06/2008 7:42:18 AM PST by RGPII (don't blame me....)
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To: RGPII
The Lutherans have their high church tendency just like the Episcopals do.

But the underlying thesis of this post: that Gustavus Adolphus was fighting for religious freedom (something he never believed in and which he absolutely forbid in his own kingdom) and that his motive for going to war was out of religious principle (he was financially induced to join the war by Cardinal Richelieu of France) is ridiculous.

The war had been raging for years and Gustavus Adolphus never raised a finger. He only intervened when Catholic France, locked in its usual power struggle with the Catholic Habsburgs, offered him financial incentives to do so.

Moreover, Wallenstein is portrayed as a Catholic absolutist bent on destroying Protestantism, when in reality he tried to mediate a compromise between both sides and was arrested for his trouble.

After Adolphus' death in the Swedish victory at Luetzen, the next major clash between the two sides was at Nordlingen where the Catholic League decisively defeated the Swedes. The Swedes became a non-factor in the war at that point and the next major military threat to the Catholic League was the entrance of Catholic France into the war against the Catholic League.

Portrayals of the Thirty Years' War as a religious struggle are childish. There was certainly a religious aspect to it - but it really was a struggle over which Great Power would exercise control over the disorganized small states of Germany -the Emperor, the King of France or the King of Sweden.

13 posted on 11/06/2008 7:58:34 AM PST by wideawake (Why is it that those who like to be called Constitutionalists know the least about the Constitution?)
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To: RGPII
Better yet, that the Ave Maria was written by a Lutheran. (Johann Sebastian Bach)
18 posted on 11/06/2008 11:14:00 AM PST by Mr. Lucky
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