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Selah_KY
Guest
With that logic, there is little that could be considered “Lutheran teaching”, since there is not much on which the synods agree.
But my point was to show that while not ALL Lutherans are taught this, there are definitely a large number (here in the US) that are. So it would be incorrect to state that it is NOT Lutheran teaching.
And, I feel the need to make the point that at this point in the conversation I have no idea who you are. On the other hand, Pr. Preus is a respected pastor and teacher in the LCMS. Given my background, his works do carry much weight. I’m not saying that to be divisive either… your discussion is just another example of why we need ONE person at the top of the Lutheran church who weighs all of the discussion over time and determines exactly what “Lutheran” teaching is. As long as there are pastors who think they are the “most right” and “more right” than others, and who choose to continue to fight about doctrinal teaching, we’ll never be a united body.
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pablope
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Per_Crucem
Guest
I think that’s probably too broad, pablope. The issue, really, with Lutheranism and what it teaches should be more focused on what Lutherans are required to believe in order be members of the church in good standing. For example, in the LCMS, it is required that pastors subscribe, without question, to all of the confessions in the Book of Concord. Whereas laity in the LCMS are only required to believe what is contained in the Small Catechism and the Augsburg Confession. Since the statement of the Pope being anti-Christ is in the Smalcald Articles, pastors are required to believe and confess it; the laity are not.
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pablope
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So the laity do not know what their pastors truly believe 
So the laity could not be the true lutherans and the pastors are…more confusion. (Anyway, this sounds like akin to Mormonism).
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MaryT777
Guest
Why in the world would the Pastors be held to something as the Pope/office being AntiChrist and not the laity? What is the purpose of this?
Mary.
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KjetilK
Guest
But that is also wrong. Yes, considering the size of Lutheranism in the US, one can perhaps say that a fairly large number do teach that. But the US is not the hub of Lutheranism. LCMS and WELS count approximately 2,196,788 and 380,728 members, respectively. The Church of Norway, which is not the only Lutheran body in Norway, count about 3,852,525 members out of a population of 5,136,700.
Statistically speaking, LCMS and WELS are not especially significant. And neither is American Lutheranism.
No, it would not. Lutheran teaching is based in Scripture and the confessions. And the only confessions that is binding on all Lutherans qua Lutherans is the three ecumenical Creeds (the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed), Confessio Augustana, and Luther’s Small Catechism. And the latter only as a catechetical tool.
That doesn’t mean you can’t read my arguments.
He is, of course, proclaming LCMS teaching. The LCMS counts, AFAIK, Martin Luther’s Smalcald Articles and Philip Melanchthon’s Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope as binding confessional documents. But they have never been regarded as binding by Lutheranism in general. I simply see them as historically significant expressions of the academic views of Luther and Melanchthon with no more weight than the weight of their arguments. As do most European Lutheran churches. The Church of Norway (or Denmark-Norway, in the 16th century) never accepted them.
He is NOT proclaming Lutheran teaching. What is Lutheran is not what any Lutheran Church happens to teach, but what can be found in the confessions.
Or we can, perhaps, assess the confessions.
But you seem to have missed one of my points, which is crucial in understanding this issue. There is no ONE Lutheran Church. Just as there is no ONE Byzantine Church and no ONE Melkite Church. But why is it NOT a problem for your Church – the Roman Catholic Church – that Byzantines are disunited, yet it is a huge theological problem for me because my Church – the Church of Norway – happens not to be in communion with WELS? Last time I checked, the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) weren’t in communion with the Russian Greek Catholic Church, yet they are both part of the same ecclesial tradition.
What you need to do, is to take each Church – or each communion of churches – for themselves. And then you see that there IS a person, or a college of persons, at the top. In our Church this is the bishops. You Church just happens to be bigger. My Church is the historical Norwegian Church, founded about 1000 years ago.
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KjetilK
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What is the true Byzantism? What is the true Melkitism?
Well, since it cannot be found in the confessions binding on all Lutheran churches, it cannot be said to be a doctrine of Lutheranism qua Lutheranism. Just as the rejection of papal supremacy is not a doctrine of Byzantism qua Byzantism just because the Russian Orthodox Church teach just that.
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Per_Crucem
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No, they know what the pastors believe, assuming they have read the BoC.
So the laity could not be the true lutherans and the pastors are…more confusion. (Anyway, this sounds like akin to Mormonism).
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I have been told that’s true. Around here, nearly all Lutherans are LCMS, so I really don’t know anybody in the other versions, or at least have never talked to any of them about religion.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Meaning offense to no one, but I wonder if Lutherans viewing these discussions can understand why Catholics’ eyes can sometime cross while reading them. One would have to be a Lutheran scholar to understand it at all. And perhaps even if one was…
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Per_Crucem
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In all fairness, though, we are nowhere near Catholicism in the volume of theological material. You don’t think our eyes would cross reading the Code of Canon Law?Meaning offense to no one, but I wonder if Lutherans viewing these discussions can understand why Catholics’ eyes can sometime cross while reading them. One would have to be a Lutheran scholar to understand it at all. And perhaps even if one was…
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MaryT777
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Per_Crucem
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But those will give you a better laugh, at least.
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pablope
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Include here the dizzying and very wordy explanations of trying to explain away the anti-christ how it meand something different…or explaining away why the sacraments were reduced…or why SU is not consub…just for starters…:whacky::hypno::hypno:
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Per_Crucem
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I will see your Unam Sanctum and raise you a Cantate Domino.
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Selah_KY
Guest
Why would we expect a church that is only 500 or so years old to have the same amount of material as a church that is nearly 2000 years old?
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fgpancorbo
Guest
As a recent convert from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism (LCMS) I have to say that unity in the institutional sense is not something I lose my sleep over and I don’t think it is even necessary.
In fact, I see the Protestant Reformation as 100% the work of the Holy Spirit. There are ~ 800 million souls who know about the gospel because of it.
Historically speaking, there was never at the beginning of the Christendom unity in the sense implied by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of Corinth, to which Paul addressed his letters, never saw itself subordinated to the Church of Rome, headed by Peter, for instance.
When I was a Catholic, I thought that institutional unity was a desirable goal. After the naming of Francis, I got a rude awakening. It is far easier to corrupt an institution that has a single head whose pronouncements are binding -at least in theory- to the entire institution than to corrupt the individual denominations that resulted from the Protestant Reformation all at once.
In my own new tradition, Lutheranism, the “social justice” forces that are now attacking the Roman Catholic Church had great success with the ELCA but they weren’t as successful with the LCMS, for instance.
I agree with the poster who said that it is far more important for devout believers to cooperate in those areas where there is agreement (like religious freedom) than to seek McDonalds type of unity (ie, signing meaningless documents that speak of the lower common denominator).
In fact, I see the Protestant Reformation as 100% the work of the Holy Spirit. There are ~ 800 million souls who know about the gospel because of it.
Historically speaking, there was never at the beginning of the Christendom unity in the sense implied by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of Corinth, to which Paul addressed his letters, never saw itself subordinated to the Church of Rome, headed by Peter, for instance.
When I was a Catholic, I thought that institutional unity was a desirable goal. After the naming of Francis, I got a rude awakening. It is far easier to corrupt an institution that has a single head whose pronouncements are binding -at least in theory- to the entire institution than to corrupt the individual denominations that resulted from the Protestant Reformation all at once.
In my own new tradition, Lutheranism, the “social justice” forces that are now attacking the Roman Catholic Church had great success with the ELCA but they weren’t as successful with the LCMS, for instance.
I agree with the poster who said that it is far more important for devout believers to cooperate in those areas where there is agreement (like religious freedom) than to seek McDonalds type of unity (ie, signing meaningless documents that speak of the lower common denominator).
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