Posted on 12/10/2011 2:11:27 PM PST by NYer
Lutheranism is dead, or at least soon will be and it wants to take the Catholic Church with it.
Herbert W. Chilstrom is former presiding bishop of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Chilstrom has written an open letter to the Bishops of Minnesota asking them to accept gay 'marriage' becuase gays are like blacks or something.
May I share a word with all of you who now lead the Roman Catholic community of faith in Minnesota?
First, I would go to the wall to defend your right to work for the adoption of the so-called marriage protection amendment. Having said that, I must tell you that I believe you are making a significant mistake.
Over my 35 years as an active and retired bishop I have come to know hundreds of gay and lesbian persons. I have yet to meet even one who is opposed to the marriage of one man and one woman. After all, they are the daughters and sons of such unions.
What they cannot understand is why church leaders would oppose their fundamental desire and right to be in partnership with someone they love and respect who happens to be of the same gender and sexual orientation. They don't understand why they should not enjoy all the rights and privileges their straight counterparts take for granted.
More than a half century ago Father Francis Gilligan spoke out for equality for African American citizens of Minnesota. Though many argued on the basis of the Bible that these neighbors were inferior to others, Gilligan fought tirelessly for justice for these brothers and sisters.
In our generation homosexual persons are subject to the same discrimination. Their detractors often use the Bible and tradition as weapons of choice.
What strikes me about this letter is how utterly juvenile it is in its thinking and how insulting it is to the Catholic position.
Chilstrom challenges the Bishops to "Let me put out a challenge to each of you brothers. Invite 15 gay and lesbian persons from your respective areas, one at a time, to spend two hours with you."
In Chilstrom's mind, the problem is that we don't know and therefore don't like gay people. If we just got to know them, then all these problems would go away. How utterly juvenile. We know them, we love them, that is why we can never support this behavior becuase it destroys them body and soul.
It is no wonder that Lutheranism is dying a milquetoast death.
Lutheranism has more in common with Catholicism than any other Protestant sect.
Confessional Lutherans believe that Mary is the Theotokos and that she was Ever-Virgin.
They believe in the sacraments and have a concept of the real presence, and also believe in the power of the keys for Holy Confession.
And the Lutheran Confessions even say that prayers for the dead are permissible.
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/11/prayer-for-dead-lutheran-pastor-lcms.html
What verse is it that says “confessional Lutheranism is true Lutheranism”?
By whose authority do you make such a claim?
If someone disagrees with you, by what authority can you claim he is wrong?
The Catholic Church has always clearly proclaimed such authority. Not sure how your claim is much different than the claim made by the Catholic Church when she cites the scriptures that gave Peter the Keys, that gave the apostles and their successors authority to forgive and bind sins, etc.
Confessional Lutheranism is Lutheranism that adheres to the Lutheran Confessions.
The ELCA doesn’t. The Lutheran Confessions, for example, teach the real presence, but you will find Lutherans in the ELCA who reject it.
Interesting. How many Lutherans would agree?
I hear what you’re saying. When the Word of God is in the hands of the people they can come up with all kinds of uninformed interpretations.
But then, so can the academic or ecclesiastical “authorities”. The “sacred tradition” would have killed Galileo for believing a heliocentric solar system. Men make mistakes; happens to all of us. We have only to look at the academic elites today to see that anything man does is fallible.
That’s why it’s so critical that our salvation not depend on mere men. That’s why I’m so thankful that God gave His Word - and that He gave so many ways to know that it’s really from Him, ways to check its authenticity, reliability, and accuracy - both before Jesus’ nativity and after. We aren’t asked to have blind faith; we are given lots of evidence that what was spoken in the Bible is true.
Luther’s premise was that Scripture itself has authority above any mortal man. One of the hermeneutical principles he adhered to was that of Scripture interpreting Scripture. God doesn’t contradict Himself, so if we want to understand what He’s saying - and what He’s NOT saying - we have to look at other parts of Scripture. That keeps any person from being able to come up with their own meanings and claim that it is God’s meaning.
If the ELCA used that and other hermeneutical principles taught by Luther they would not be preaching theology that is contrary to Scripture and to the Lutheran confessions.
The ELCA was able to go so badly astray not because they let somebody besides the Pope interpret Scripture, but because they gave up on the belief that the Bible is the Word of God - all of it - and instead claim that the Bible CONTAINS the Word of God mixed in with a bunch of other junk that they can reject as they see fit. And that’s what they’ve been doing ever since: rejecting whichever parts of the Bible they don’t like. They are making their OWN “traditions” rather than the old “traditions”. The major difference between the earlier “traditions” and these newly-invented “traditions” is their age. Both come from the mind of man, not the revealed Word of God Himself.
So the problem comes in when there is some authority higher than the Bible - whether it is the Pope, the ELCA higher-criticism scholar, Martin Luther, or you or me. The people who have the words of Jesus are the people who were with Jesus when He said them. That’s what we need to hold onto.
True, but a very easy mistake for the outsider to make. The MSM gives more press to ELCA than the rest of Lutheran Churches combined. Kind of the way it was years ago if you said Lutheran many people would think WELS because of all of the late night ads the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod put on.
Read up on Pietism. The ELCA’s theology flows right out of it.
“The “sacred tradition” would have killed Galileo for believing a heliocentric solar system.”
Either the Church has changed, or it’s got nothing to do with sacred tradition.
The failure of the ECLA is something we see with other denominations, and other traditions, that differ from the ECLA. The question one has to ask themselves is what do all these folks have in common that would lead them astray?
How many Lutherans learn the Lutheran Confession? My family doesn’t, for example.
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Maranatha--Come, Lord Jesus!
It is almost exactly one year since my congregation departed the ELCA.
I am greatly relieved to no longer be praying for ++Mark as Presiding Bishop or for this his disgraceful predecessor.
I’m not sure what you mean by Theotokos. You’ll have to explain that one to me.
The prayers for the dead didn’t sound right to me so I looked up the context at http://bookofconcord.org/defense_23_mass.php . The prayers that were referenced there were prayers of THANKSGIVING for the lives and blessings bestowed on those already dead, and yes, we do that on All Saints Sunday if not other times. That’s not to be confused with praying for the SALVATION of the dead, which we believe is already determined when a person dies.
Here’s the full paragraph from the Book of Concord (Apology to the Augsburg Confession) cited in the link you gave:
“93] Neither does the Greek canon apply the offering as a satisfaction for the dead, because it applies it equally for all the blessed patriarchs, prophets, apostles. It appears therefore that the Greeks make an offering as thanksgiving, and do not apply it as satisfaction for punishments. [For, of course, it is not their intention to deliver the prophets and apostles from purgatory, but only to offer up thanks along and together with them for the exalted eternal blessings that have been given to them and us.] Although they speak, moreover, not of the offering alone of the body and blood of the Lord, but of the other parts of the Mass, namely, prayers and thanksgiving. For after the consecration they pray that it may profit those who partake of it; they do not speak of others. Then they add: [”Yet we offer to you this reasonable service for those having departed in faith, forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles,” etc.] Reasonable service, however, does not signify the offering itself, but prayers and all things which are there transacted. 94] Now, as regards the adversaries’ citing the Fathers concerning the offering for the dead, we know that the ancients speak of prayer for the dead, which we do not prohibit; but we disapprove of the application ex opere operato of the Lord’s Supper on behalf of the dead. Neither do the ancients favor the adversaries concerning the opus operatum. And even though they have the testimonies especially of Gregory or the moderns, 95] we oppose to them the most clear and certain Scriptures. And there is a great diversity among the Fathers. They were men, and could err and be deceived. Although if they would now become alive again, and would see their sayings assigned as pretexts for the notorious falsehoods which the adversaries teach concerning the opus operatum, they would interpret themselves far differently.”
I prefer G.K. Chesterton's understanding of eccelsial democracy:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."
Theotokos means Godbearer or Mother of God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Marian_theology#Mother_of_God
That is not a real Lutheran Church. It is an artificial derivative of the Lutheran church resulting from the application of PC-isms and hard left deterioration. The ELCA is Lutheran in name only.
The ELCA left the rails some time ago.
But it does feed the Black Protestant legend, so have at it.
None of that in your herd. How many billions have you paid out in damages now? The Roman church is not immune to attack by the Enemy. We should be building each other up. Kissing, not scratching each other’s eyes out. Pray about that.
That may well be true, but pietism was not Luther’s thing. The authority of Scripture was Luther’s thing, and the ELCA is butchering that.
The impact that Luther had on pietism was more of an unintended consequence - and Luther himself really regretted what Melanchthon went on to do in his rejection of anything Roman Catholic, which Luther did NOT support.
What Luther believed was that people should be given the Word of God in their own language so they could process it mentally and truly believe it. Because the Word was available to the people they had the opportunity to either interpret it correctly or totally botch it up. Luther wrote lots of books to try to help people understand the hermeneutical principles, but there were still lots of people who botched it. Melanchthon and others who tended more toward pietism wanted to throw out everything from the past, whereas Luther just wanted the teachings of the Church (and beliefs of the people) to be accountable to the Word of God.
The same kind of thing can be seen in some churches today who think that anybody with theological training must be all “book knowledge rather than heart knowledge” so they have as pastors/teachers those who have no training in the Biblical languages, hermeneutics, theology, etc. Often they have a people that believes with all their heart - but may not have a clue about what the Bible really says. Pietism, like you say. It came about because the people had access to the Bible without having to get it from the learned scholars AND THEY CHOSE TO IGNORE BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP like the scholarship, exegesis, etc that Luther offered in his own books.
The ELCA botched it because they denied that the entire Bible is the Word of God.
So what you’re saying about pietism and the ELCA is true. It’s just not what Luther taught. Luther’s role was in allowing the people to see the Bible without having to get it second-hand or third-hand from a theologian.
And that is still a concern for LCMS pastors today. The first year of my marriage my husband was attending seminary. I had been trained as a Lutheran teacher but have also always had the heart of an apologist so I was wanting to sort out in depth all the different angles. He was so afraid I was going to get it wrong. Afraid of me reading my Bible and understanding it wrong. It was a terrible, terrible time for me. That’s when I became suicidal, thinking I would never be able to have the Bible or be alone with my Savior without a “minder” along to save me from myself. We got the Concordia Study Bible for me so I could have cross-references and study notes to look at while I studied.
My husband’s been a pastor for 19 years and now he just wishes he could get more people to read their Bibles at all. Reality at the seminary is so different from reality in the pews.
So anyway, I hear what you’re saying - or at least I think I do. Let me know if I’m misunderstanding. But Luther actually spoke against pietism as he observed it in Melanchthon. The proper interpretation of Scripture is what Luther was passionate about, and that can really only be done with earnest, informed study - which the pietists refused to do.
Yes, that is the question.
I would suggest that when a denomination goes seriously wrong it’s because they have a wrong understanding of what the Bible is, and that most usually results in them shaping it to mean what they want it to say rather than letting the Word say what it will.
That’s how you get the ELCA stances, and how you get the Fred Phelps stances. The ELCA threw out the Old Testament and Fred Phelps threw out the New Testament.
That may well be true, but pietism was not Luther’s thing. The authority of Scripture was Luther’s thing, and the ELCA is butchering that.
>>I understand that, but the downfall of Lutheranism started in the 17th century with the Pietist movement, which rejected Lutheran scholasticism if favor of emotionalism.
I’ll agree to disagree with you about Luther’s biblical scholarship because reading Luther dissuaded me of Lutheranism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.