As I have expressed to you often, I did exactly that, when I was a member of the ELCA.
When the church - choose any tradition within it - moves away from its teachings, as the ELCA clearly has, then people must speak up. Lots of Catholics here refer to Catherine of Sienna. Should she have kept quiet? ISTM that the major difference between her and Luther, other than she might have been a nicer person, was that Luther’s complaints had a significant potential impact of revenue flow to Rome.
This is one reason I have said, had they - all of them - had the benefit of foresight, they all would have acted differently, to one degree or another.
First of all, how does the above argument NOT apply to Luther ‘moving away’ from the teachings of the Catholic Church? Don’t people need to ‘speak up’ as you say? What about MY ‘speaking up’?
Secondly, who says that the ELCA has ‘moved away’? Do they agree with that assessment? Who decides which Lutheran tradition is holding to the ‘true Lutheranism’? Would that be you, or the ELCA, or the LCMS, or who, specifically? After all, there is NO universal Lutheran body to keep everybody in line doctrinally, a fact which you recently bemoaned. At this point there are, according to one estimate, 220 separate Lutheran bodies, meaning, doctrinally independent communions. How many will there be in 50 years? How much more do you think Lutheranism will shrink as a percentage of Christianity over that period?
When you say that ‘people must speak up’ you directly oppose the Lutheran teaching that it is the church which determines doctrine. You ‘spoke up’ with your feet, leaving the ELCA of your youth, indicating that it is up to you to decide, at least as far as which Lutheran communion is the most ‘faithful’ to Luther’s teachings. The idea that the ‘church decides’ is foreign to your comment that ‘the people must speak up’. The former is representative of the later Luther, who basically proclaimed himself to be the Church. The later is representative of the early Luther who very much taught Private Interpretation for all. In reality, the later Luther contradicted the earlier Luther who Revolted against the Church using his personal authority to do so.
Which Luther was correct in God’s Eyes?
As for the confessions, of course there are things in there that appear anti-catholic, just like there are Catholic writings that appear anti-all-Christians-not-in-communion-with-the-Pope.
So, from my POV, what Luther would have done had he known is pure conjecture. The far more important question is how do we, knowing the result of the Reformation, respond to the ecumenical efforts of our communions?
In fact Jon, there ARE things in your Confessions which ‘appear’ to be anti-Catholic.
For the record Jon – Neither one of is at all happy about the fact that we are ‘opponents’. Furthermore, I am not responsible for our divisions. Luther is the one who is primarily responsible. You can disagree if you like but what I post in part makes it very clear that he is. It is his name which is on the sign outside your church and it is his name which is on your church bulletins.
As you well know, I believe that we are to ever be reunited, will have to make an honest assessment of how, specifically and exactly we became divided. That means we need to understand the factual history of the early Reformation.
Behaving as if we don’t have any real differences INSURES that we will NEVER be reunited.
Jon, what is it that you want the Church to do? Do you think that the Church should create a ‘Lutheran Ordinate’ that would allow for complete unity with Rome, but also allowing Lutheran practices to remain in place, two or three Sacraments vs. our seven, and retaining ALL of the Lutheran Confessions, including the ones that (supposedly ONLY) appear to be anti-Catholic?
Short of that, would you like the Church, or CA, or individual Catholics to proclaim that we believe that Lutheranism is an ‘expression of Christianity’ that is ‘equivalent’ to Catholicism? Should we announce that it is OK that we be divided? Should we pretend that we are not? Should we finally ACCEPT the wound to the unity of the Christian Church? Are we supposed to care THAT LITTLE?
Please Jon, no generalities. Please be specific as to exactly what you would like to see the Church do in its relationship to Protestantism in general, or specifically Lutheranism in total or the LCMS more specifically.
Yes, your defiant unwillingness to listen to the explanations of our communion has been rather obvious. Another significant difference between us.
Given the subject of the thread, I am struck by the term ‘defiant unwillingness’.
Sure does. I think those differing interpretations tend to reveal motives, as well, don’t you?
Remember Jon, how Luther would not allow his opponents to have motives that were ‘satisfactory’ to him, and would not accept their explanations about their motives as being honest. If they disagreed with him, their ‘motives’ were automatically challenged. (References and specific supporting comments available upon request - as always.)
