The "Ask a Lutheran" Thread!

[NEWCATHOLICJEFF]

Triune Unity and New Catholic Jeff,

You wrote: *** * New Catholic Jeff: With his beliefs on the immaculate conception, Confession, perpetual virginity, Contraception and other non LCMS beliefs do you think that if Martin Luther lived today he would be a Lutheran, Roman Catholic or Orthodox?

Triune Unity: While Luther did hold to those views, he never advocated that they be considered de fide revealed dogma that Christians are required to believe in order to be in union with the visible church. There are Lutherans today who hold to some of the Marian doctrines like perpetual virginity.

• Confession and absolution is still a Lutheran practice, and is in our list of creedal documents.*

---

Triune Unity: It is a moot point, in some ways, whether or not Dr. Martin Luther would have held the cited Marian doctrines (or pious opinions); I think that he should have held to them were he around today, but Luther had doctrinal concerns that were more central. What Dr. Martin Luther absolutely and adamantly would have rejected is the L.C.M.S. (and other former Synodical Conference) teaching of “Universal Objective Justification” (U.O.J., or “Objective Justification”, O.J.), with its corollary, “Subjective Justification”, which he would have rejected flat-out and in great wrath. Luther’s central teaching was the essentially Augustinian one of “Justification by Faith Alone through Grace Alone”, not some paltry construction like U.O.J.! Dr. Luther taught what the New Testament essentially teaches (although Catholic doctrine, which is superior still, differs from it and only somewhat, at that), being what the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord codified. (If needed to understand this crucial matter, see my links and references in earlier messages.)

Pax, Jerry Parker

Thanks Jerry,

I still wonder what he would likely be today? Would he even call for a reformation?

 

[bluelake]

Deacon,

It does little good to go from one Lutheran synod to another. They are all, in North America, deeply flawed, by liberalism and outright apostasy on the one hand and by rank and weird soteriological heresy on the other. There are a handful of Independent Lutheran congregations that hold to the truth, but their number is very tiny.

As for my reference to the “blessed” Lutheran Confessions, this is due to their overall catholicity. Yeah, they do go off the deep end denouncing the Papacy, and there are some “bones to pick” with Roman Catholicism here and there, but they are of a minor nature. As for the doctrine of the Holy Ministry, Lutherans can justify everything from episcopacy (even with the “Apostolic succession”) to connexionalism to outright congregationalism. Prostestantism would be in far worse condition if the timing of the Lutheran Book of Concord had not built a partial bulwark against the worst errors. North American Lutherans have minimised much of the Catholic teaching of the Confessions due to the surrounding influence of the Protestant non-Lutheran denominations and of the sects. Some of the strongest and most coherent defenses of Catholic theological positions can be found in the Lutheran Confessions, especially in the Formula of Concord.

That is enough for now.

Pax, Jerry Parker

jerry,
I don’t agree with you.
LCMS is a very conservative branch of Lutheranism.
We do not allow practicing homosexuals to receive holy communion. ELCA does. We are against abortion. We believe and teach the Real Presense in the Eurcharist.
We also practice closed Communion.
You have not listed what you disagree with. You only made broad statements which
aren’t clear.
You may want to go to www.lcms.org . They list the differences of doctrine.
They also believe Catholics are saved along with all others who accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

God bless,
bluelake

 

[TriuneUnity]

Thanks Jerry,

I still wonder what he would likely be today? Would he even call for a reformation?

He would be more likely to attack Protestantism. American evangelicalism is far more sacerdotal and works-righteous than Rome could ever have hoped to be. Be that as it may, he would still assert justification through faith alone.

 

[Nominefili]

Resurrecting this thread because it seems to have engendered some profitable dialogue.

 

[TriuneUnity]

Resurrecting this thread because it seems to have engendered some profitable dialogue.

Are you at Mt. Olivet, or Peace?

 

[Nominefili]

Are you at Mt. Olivet, or Peace?

Concordia Theological… why??

 

[TriuneUnity]

Concordia Theological… why??

Oh… I thought you had mentioned on a different thread you were a pastor, and off memory I was going by the parishes that I knew were in DC.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Bluelake,

You wrote: Jerry, I don’t agree with you. [The] LCMS is a very conservative branch of Lutheranism. We do not allow practicing homosexuals to receive holy communion. ELCA does. We are against abortion. We believe and teach the Real Presense in the Eurcharist. We also practice closed Communion. You have not listed what you disagree with. You only made broad statements which aren’t clear. You may want to go to www.lcms.org . They list the differences of doctrine. They also believe Catholics are saved along with all others who accept Jesus Christ as Savior. God bless, bluelake​

Much of what you write is beside the point, from a Lutheran standpoint, in the matter of what determines true Lutheran doctrinal credentials. Yes, the L.C.M.S. is “conservative” in sticking to its “take” on Lutheran doctrine and practice. However, being “conservative” is not what Lutheranism (or Presbyterianism, for that matter), as contrasted with most “hold-the-line” types of Protestantism, is concerned. A truly Lutheran church (as a truly Presbyterian church) is “confessional”, not merely “conservative”, and it is at this point that the L.C.M.S. and the other denominations that derive from the old Evangelical Synodical Conference fall grievously short.

Apart from simply ignoring many of the finer points of early Lutheranism and of the Lutheran Confessions (in matters of ritual, church order, and of certain relatively minor matters), having been affected negatively by the acidly Protestant and sectarian ethos of Anglophone North America, the L.C.M.S., the W.E.L.S., and the other former Synodical Conference denominations hold to a paradigm of salvation that does not correspond with the teaching of classical Protestantism, Lutheran (or, in most points, Presbyterian/Reformed, for that matter). The scheme of “universal objective justification” and its corollary, “subjective justification” are innovations, illogical and absurd ones at that, which corrupt completely the soteriological teachings of the Confessors of the Lutheran Faith whose convictions the Book of Concord (especially the Formula of Concord) summarise. I won’t belabour the matter; earlier I mentioned computer and monographic references (vid. the correction of an important link, after the initial of such messages) that go into this tiresome and murky matter. As a Catholic now, I just do not fret any longer about these matters; I have a firmer Rock on which to stand.

However much a purportely Lutheran denomination claims to hold to the teachings of the Lutheran Reformers, if its own teaching about such a crucial matter as Justification does not accord (and fully so) with the Lutheran Confessions, the teachings of that denomination are NOT truly Lutheran. Fortunately, the L.C.M.S. has held the line on matters of morality and of church discipline, and, fortunately too, it has maintained correct Lutheran teachings about the sacraments, the correct rhythms and texts of Reformation era Lutheran hymody, and other significant matters, but its theology, in what Lutheranism always has considered the main teaching of Christianity (Justification), is hopelessly out of bounds for true Lutheran doctrine. It is good, too, that most Lutheran lay people (and some clergy, too) believe implicitly in the classical Lutheran teachings of soteriology, despite what their denomination explicitly affirms in its official statements of belief and in the systematic doctrinal volumes of such theologicans as Stoeckhardt, Pieper, and their successors. Nonetheless, the L.C.M.S. is only tangentially Lutheran, having betrayed its very doctrinal centre and foundational doctrine.

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[Nominefili]

Bluelake,

You wrote: Jerry, I don’t agree with you. [The] LCMS is a very conservative branch of Lutheranism. We do not allow practicing homosexuals to receive holy communion. ELCA does. We are against abortion. We believe and teach the Real Presense in the Eurcharist. We also practice closed Communion. You have not listed what you disagree with. You only made broad statements which aren’t clear. You may want to go to www.lcms.org . They list the differences of doctrine. They also believe Catholics are saved along with all others who accept Jesus Christ as Savior. God bless, bluelake​

Much of what you write is beside the point, from a Lutheran standpoint, in the matter of what determines true Lutheran doctrinal credentials. Yes, the L.C.M.S. is “conservative” in sticking to its “take” on Lutheran doctrine and practice. However, being “conservative” is not what Lutheranism (or Presbyterianism, for that matter), as contrasted with most “hold-the-line” types of Protestantism, is concerned. A truly Lutheran church (as a truly Presbyterian church) is “confessional”, not merely “conservative”, and it is at this point that the L.C.M.S. and the other denominations that derive from the old Evangelical Synodical Conference fall grievously short.

Apart from simply ignoring many of the finer points of early Lutheranism and of the Lutheran Confessions (in matters of ritual, church order, and of certain relatively minor matters), having been affected negatively by the acidly Protestant and sectarian ethos of Anglophone North America, the L.C.M.S., the W.E.L.S., and the other former Synodical Conference denominations hold to a paradigm of salvation that does not correspond with the teaching of classical Protestantism, Lutheran (or, in most points, Presbyterian/Reformed, for that matter). The scheme of “universal objective justification” and its corollary, “subjective justification” are innovations, illogical and absurd ones at that, which corrupt completely the soteriological teachings of the Confessors of the Lutheran Faith whose convictions the Book of Concord (especially the Formula of Concord) summarise. I won’t belabour the matter; earlier I mentioned computer and monographic references (vid. the correction of an important link, after the initial of such messages) that go into this tiresome and murky matter. As a Catholic now, I just do not fret any longer about these matters; I have a firmer Rock on which to stand.

However much a purportely Lutheran denomination claims to hold to the teachings of the Lutheran Reformers, if its own teaching about such a crucial matter as Justification does not accord (and fully so) with the Lutheran Confessions, the teachings of that denomination are NOT truly Lutheran. Fortunately, the L.C.M.S. has held the line on matters of morality and of church discipline, and, fortunately too, it has maintained correct Lutheran teachings about the sacraments, the correct rhythms and texts of Reformation era Lutheran hymody, and other significant matters, but its theology, in what Lutheranism always has considered the main teaching of Christianity (Justification), is hopelessly out of bounds for true Lutheran doctrine. It is good, too, that most Lutheran lay people (and some clergy, too) believe implicitly in the classical Lutheran teachings of soteriology, despite what their denomination explicitly affirms in its official statements of belief and in the systematic doctrinal volumes of such theologicans as Stoeckhardt, Pieper, and their successors. Nonetheless, the L.C.M.S. is only tangentially Lutheran, having betrayed its very doctrinal centre and foundational doctrine.

Pax, Jerry Parker

Jerry, thank you for your well-considered and pointed contribution to the thread. Unfortunately, you are right in saying that many LCMS congregations are only “tangentially Lutheran”, but much of that is owing to our bottom-up, congregational church polity. Individual congregations are, for better or worse, given quite a bit of latitude with regard to their liturgy, preaching, teaching, and the like. On the other hand, here in Fort Wayne, IN where I am currently a student, there is a large number of highly Confessional churches; one in particular which has the pastors prostrate on the floor before the altar during the service of the Sacrament. I agree that the LCMS needs a Confessional wake-up call; and I think that may be coming with the election of Matt Harrison as LCMS president. We shall see!

 

[bluelake]

Jerry, thank you for your well-considered and pointed contribution to the thread. Unfortunately, you are right in saying that many LCMS congregations are only “tangentially Lutheran”, but much of that is owing to our bottom-up, congregational church polity. Individual congregations are, for better or worse, given quite a bit of latitude with regard to their liturgy, preaching, teaching, and the like. On the other hand, here in Fort Wayne, IN where I am currently a student, there is a large number of highly Confessional churches; one in particular which has the pastors prostrate on the floor before the altar during the service of the Sacrament. I agree that the LCMS needs a Confessional wake-up call; and I think that may be coming with the election of Matt Harrison as LCMS president. We shall see!

Are you standing on doctrines or the meritorious work of Christ?
Wake up call? which is??
Are we judging?

bluelake

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Nominefili,

**You wrote: ** *Jerry, thank you for your well-considered and pointed contribution to the thread. Unfortunately, you are right in saying that many LCMS congregations are only “tangentially Lutheran”, but much of that is owing to our bottom-up, congregational church polity. Individual congregations are, for better or worse, given quite a bit of latitude with regard to their liturgy, preaching, teaching, and the like. On the other hand, here in Fort Wayne, IN where I am currently a student, there is a large number of highly Confessional churches; one in particular which has the pastors prostrate on the floor before the altar during the service of the Sacrament. I agree that the LCMS needs a Confessional wake-up call; and I think that may be coming with the election of Matt Harrison as LCMS president. We shall see! *​

I remain sceptical. The problems of the old Evangelical Synodical Conference Lutheran denominational bodies go beyond what you highlight. The putative “confessionalism” of the L.C.M.S. is a phantasm; the Synodical Conference churches subordinated the Lutheran Confessions to their own dogmatic interpretations of Scripture and of the Confessions, most notably the doctrinal (soteriological) paradigm of Universal Objective Justification (U.O.J. or simply O.J.) and of its Corollary, Subjective Justification (S.J.).

However, you are right to zero in on the L.C.M.S.’ polity of congregationalism. Rigourous insistance on congregationalism as church polity is not something attributable to the Lutheran Confessions, which regard such matters as “audiophora”, permitting episcopal, connexional, or congregational church governance. Congregationalism, however, does make the enforcement of church discipline and of doctrinal uniformity difficult, whatever advantages it may have. I can infer from what you write that you are an “high church” Lutheran; good! that’s more in line with historical Lutheranism (though such matters of churchmanship, high or low, really are of the gist of audiophora), but you need to set yourself straight on what true Confessionalism really is, something that is antithetical to the U.O.J. and S.J. heresy (not to be found in any of the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord) of the L.C.M.S. and other Synodical Conference orbit Lutheran denominations.

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[Nominefili]

Are you standing on doctrines or the meritorious work of Christ?

A ‘doctrine’ is simply what the church believes. The belief that our dear Lord was born of a virgin is a doctrine. The belief that He is the Son of God is a doctrine. The belief that He gives us His very body and blood to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins is a doctrine. His bitter sufferings and death and subsequent glorious Resurrection are doctrines of the Church. Finally, that His person and work are meritorious for us sinners, along with all that I have mentioned, are all true doctrines of the Church.

So in answer to your question, I stand on both, because they are not opposed to one another.

Wake up call? which is??

That as a church body, we have in many cases seen fit to gloss over the Scriptures and the Confessions in the name of church-growth and ‘appeal’ to postmodern America.

Are we judging?

I assume by ‘we,’ you mean me. And if that is the case, yes, I am commenting on the behavior and actions of my church polity by holding it up to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, as any responsible Christian ought to do. I am not trying to demonize any particular individual, and I certainly apologize if it seemed as though I was being disrespectful to President Kieschnick; I have the utmost respect for him, and as Luther’s explanation to the Eighth Commandment tells us, we ought to explain our neighbor’s actions in the best possible way. I believe that the current administration believes that, through the Ablaze! program and its associated movements, they are following Christ’s command at the end of Matthew to make disciples of all nations. I simply disagree with their approach.

 

[lax16]

Hi - I have a question for a Lutheran!

Have there been any miracles or apparitions attributed to any Lutherans or Protestants?

 

[Nominefili]

Hi - I have a question for a Lutheran!

Have there been any miracles or apparitions attributed to any Lutherans or Protestants?

I don’t know of a specific example, but hopefully this link (and the other links contained in it) can help to at least partly answer your query.

lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=9711

Thank you for your question!

 

[lax16]

I don’t know of a specific example, but hopefully this link (and the other links contained in it) can help to at least partly answer your query.

lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=9711

Thank you for your question!

Nominefili - thank you for the link. I read it and I understand it to say that Lutherans are “open to it if God chooses it to happen.” Do you agree?

Do Lutherans discuss/study any Catholic apparitions/miracles? Are they considered valid? Do Lutherans feel that the Catholic Church is fair when determining the validity of a miracle/apparition?

Thanks!

 

[Nominefili]

Nominefili - thank you for the link. I read it and I understand it to say that Lutherans are “open to it if God chooses it to happen.” Do you agree?

Do Lutherans discuss/study any Catholic apparitions/miracles? Are they considered valid? Do Lutherans feel that the Catholic Church is fair when determining the validity of a miracle/apparition?

Thanks!

I don’t know that there have been any particular official Lutheran statements regarding this. I can say from my personal viewpoint, that I can’t imagine a Catholic Bishop or Cardinal who was witnessing a true miracle would make a call to the president of the LCMS or ELCA or WELS… There are many many more Catholic parishes than there are Lutheran ones, and as such, I don’t believe that any Lutheran would claim that such miracles do not or could not occur at those parishes or monuments.

 

[TriuneUnity]

I assume by ‘we,’ you mean me. And if that is the case, yes, I am commenting on the behavior and actions of my church polity by holding it up to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, as any responsible Christian ought to do. I am not trying to demonize any particular individual, and I certainly apologize if it seemed as though I was being disrespectful to President Kieschnick; I have the utmost respect for him, and as Luther’s explanation to the Eighth Commandment tells us, we ought to explain our neighbor’s actions in the best possible way. I believe that the current administration believes that, through the Ablaze! program and its associated movements, they are following Christ’s command at the end of Matthew to make disciples of all nations. I simply disagree with their approach.

Amen to that. If we can’t hold our own leaders to Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, we certainly don’t have any right to hold Catholics or other Protestants to them.

 

[lax16]

I don’t know that there have been any particular official Lutheran statements regarding this. I can say from my personal viewpoint, that I can’t imagine a Catholic Bishop or Cardinal who was witnessing a true miracle would make a call to the president of the LCMS or ELCA or WELS… There are many many more Catholic parishes than there are Lutheran ones, and as such, I don’t believe that any Lutheran would claim that such miracles do not or could not occur at those parishes or monuments.

Nominefili - I have never heard of a Catholic Bishop or Cardinal actually witnessing a miracle. Miracles have to be investigated and examined - that’s was what I was asking. If the process of investigation and examination is considered valid to Lutherans?

thanks!

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Lax 16,

**You wrote: ** Miracles have to be investigated and examined - that’s was what I was asking. If the process of investigation and examination is considered valid to Lutherans?​

Lutherans, like most oldline Protestant denominations, tend to dismiss all reports of miracles, the more so since miraculous events, real or purported, tend to be non-Protestant, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or, of course, sectarian along the lines of some Methodists and especially the Pentecostalists-Charismatics (who are so notoriously gullible and charlatan-beset). There are some micacles that traditionalist Anglicans, Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic, tend to accept, but Lutherans, while believing in the possibility of miracles, tend to dismiss out-of-hand any reports of them.

It’s all part of the innate tendency of Reformation Protestantism to be corrosively rationalistic, something even more evident among the Reformed/Presbyterians (whose rationalism even afffects their attitude towards the Holy Communion’s efficacy in the Real Presence, sometlhing that of course is miraculous, and with which they feel uncomfortable) than among Lutherans or Anglicans. Well, if one does not like or have the mind open to miracles, the Holy Spirit will not effect them, I suppose!

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[bluelake]

A couple of questions:

1. What are the doctrinal differences in the LCMS and Wisconsin synod?
2. How far do you think the split is going to go with the ELCA Lutherans after the recent decision to allow “gay clergy in a committed relationship”?
3. Martin Luther was devoted to Mary, as evidenced in his writings. When and why did Lutherans abandon Marian devotion?
4. Sometimes Lutherans rail against “man-made teachings” (other Protestant groups are more vocal about this too). Since Lutherans believe revelation was closed when the canon of scripture was put together (at least that’s what I was taught in LCMS catechism), how are the teachings of Martin Luther, a man, justified (pun intended )?

Any Church that allows practicing homosexuals to receive Communion is no longer a Christian Church.
I think Mary is very special. She was chosen by God the Father to give birth to his Son.
Lu.1:28-38

God bless,
bluelake