I’m not sure Luther believed in the real presence in the same way that the Anglicans and Catholics do however.
That depends entirely on what Church you are talking about. As I’ve said many times on these boards (but probably not to you, since you are new), Lutheranism is not a Church. Lutheranism is an ecclesial tradition, comparable to, say, Byzantinianism. There are different Byzantine Churches, with very different theological views. Some are in communion with Rome, some are not. Some acknowledge baptism done outside their communion, others do not, etc. But that doesn’t mean that there is a problem with Byzantinianism as such. It is the same with Lutheranism. You need to evaluate each Church for itself. Just as I cannot criticise the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church for something the Russian Orthodox Church say, one cannot criticise the Church of Norway (my Church) for something the WELS say. The Church of Norway, is part of the Lutheran tradition, and is in fact in complete communion with the Church of England.
Lutherans don’t believe in the adoration of the Eucharist as does catholic church.
That is also wrong (to some extent). Yes, Lutheran churches tend not to have specific adoration services (although
that is not universal), but that doesn’t mean that Lutherans don’t teach that we should adore Christ in the eucharistic species. In fact, we do so in Mass, and when Luther rearranged the Mass, first in 1523 (the
Formula missae), then in 1526 (
Deutsche Messe), he put the sanctus after the consecration, to denote that we, through that, adore Christ in the eucharistic species. He also wrote a work defending eucharistic adoration (the adoration of Christ in the eucharistic species, not necessarily special adoration services) in 1523;
The Adoration of the Sacrament. Now, there are Lutherans who deny this, and they include(ed)
Philip Melanchthon, one of Luther’s closest companions. He went completely off the deep end, in my opinion,
changing the Augsburg Confession, and
started referring to eucharistic adoration as ‘bread worship.’ IMNSHO, he ceased being a Lutheran.
But Luther did keep many Catholic traditions, including his own veneration of Mary, which I find fascinating.
And the reason he did that was that it was Catholic.
Someone on this thread also mentioned the eastern orthodox church. It should be noted that the Eastern Orthodox and/or the Eastern Rite church is NOT protestant. It is "the other lung of the Holy Mother Church, per the Vatican, and should never be viewed in the same light as “protestant.”
I agree. I also would claim not to be a Protestant myself, especially the way it is now used. Originally, the word merely referred to those Christians who protested the Holy Roman Emperor’s enforcement of the Edict of Worms, restricting their religious freedom. It was thus not a protest against the Church as such, but against governmental regulation (much like the Roman Catholic Church’s current fight against the HHS Mandate in the US). Now, however, it has, especially among certain Roman Catholic apologists, become shorthand for ‘anyone who is Christian but which happens not to be Roman Catholic or Orthodox.’
I have, for instance, been asked several times to defend why I believe that sacraments are only symbolic. And since I believe nothing of the sort, and such a belief is antithetical to everything Lutheran, I suspect that many people just toss everyone (they label as) ‘Protestant’ into the same bag, and then produce an army of straw men.
As a sidenote, I can say that one of the Roman Catholic participants on this board tried to define ‘Protestant’ as ‘those protesting against Rome.’ The problem, of course, is that this would include the Orthodox. The only way to change that is to redefine ‘Protestant.’
And the other lung, according to Vatican II, is NOT Orthodoxy, but the eastern traditions.
