The "Ask a Lutheran" Thread!

[Jerry_Parker]

Jessep28,

**You wrote: ** *You know, the thought of swimming the Tiber crosses my mind every once in a while. But I think my dissatisfaction is more a form issue than substance . *​

Well, that is how it starts for most. The Holy Ghost only clobbers with a single hard stroke a few, like St. Paul (and even that Apostle had been devlopping gradually before the Spirit struck decisively) whom He drags into the Church. If you are destined to be in the Catholic Church, it will happen in God’s good time.

This is how it was with stubborn me; I resisted for years, turning hopefully to each of so many seeming possible alternatives, till I just got disgusted with the fecklessness of Protestantism (Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism-Reformed) and of the sects (Baptists and other such icky groups), convinced at last, with a quiet certitude, that Catholicism (East or West) was the only real path. Be patient and let the Spirit do His work and call you at last to where you belong: in the Catholic Church, across that Tiber, or, perhaps, to Holy Orthodoxy, across (actually astride) the Bosphorus!

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[JonNC]

I don’t know if any fellow Lutherans can help me out here. I’ve been a member of my parish for over 10 years when I joined with my family. It’s a very large Lutheran church pushing 3,000 members. They’re very low church by standards and that is starting to bug me more and more.

Probably in the past few months, I’ve had a desire to move to a smaller, more high church parish. There are a couple in my area that I have in mind. My only reservation is that I feel like I’m abandoning a family by leaving what was my home church for so long.

I don’t know if anyone has been in a similar situation before and would be willing to provide some guidance. Thank you.

Just some thoughts, jessep.

My brother remains ELCA quite despite the growing heterodox nature of the synod. It is a community parish, where he and his family have attended for years. He is reluctant to move to any other parish, LCMS or otherwise, because of the “family” relationship he has there.
I am LCMS as a result of a move to a new area and no ELCA parish local, so I kind of fell into my current church. It is much the typical average American Lutheran congregation - neither high nor low. But my demands over the last 10 years have become a desire for a more high church setting, as yours has.

So, in both circumstances, I can empathize with your predicament. And Jerry’s comments echo what often runs through my head. Doctrinally I am evangelical catholic,
and I sometimes wonder if with that belief I could be comfortable in a TAC Anglican parish (one nearby) or Catholic, to get the high church piety I desire.

I was raised Lutheran, by a Lutheran pastor, went to a Lutheran college. I love the liturgy and music, and message of the Lutheran Church. Tough imagining giving that up.

If you can find a high Church parish, God bless you.

Jon

 

[jessep28]

jess, I would maybe check out lambofgodlcms.org/ or zionwest.org/

I would have to take the Interstate to get to Zion West - it’s really far North from where I live .

I went to Lamb of God on Holy Saturday for an Easter Vigil. Lamb Of God is the missional parish I was talking about before. Their facility is very humble (strip mall bay) but they are also super liturgical in that they chant, the Pastor genuflects after showing the Host, etc.

The other place I would consider is First Lutheran in Papillion. My mother and sister were baptized there. They are by the book and offer the Eucharist every week but are not as “Romanish” as Lamb of God. The couple times I visited in the past year, the congregation was really welcoming.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Jon NC,

**You wrote: ** Doctrinally I am evangelical catholic, and I sometimes wonder if with that belief I could be comfortable in a TAC Anglican parish (one nearby) or Catholic, to get the high church piety I desire.​

Actually, you are on to something good, even if not perfect. Although there is no substitute for the Roman or Eastern Catholic Church (or, for that matter, for Holy Orthodoxy), the “Anglican Continuum”, of which the T.A.C. is such a principal part, is a good choice for Lutherans tired of the fecklessness of Lutheranism in matters of worship and even in doctrine, since Lutherans in the U.S. and Canada just can’t seem to get the message of the Lutheran Confessions (for all of the LCMS and WELS bluster) or to be resolved really to believe them in a fully “orthodox” (on Lutheran terms) manner or to uphold them consistently. The Continuing Anglicans may be awfully divided in their ranks (a problem for which the T.A.C. itself offers a shiningly and selflessly good antidote), but the “Anglo-Catholic” part of the Continuum has upheld the traditional Book of Common Prayer (1928 U.S. and 1959/62 Canada) and the Anglican Missal quite resolutely and uniformly.

The T.A.C. seems impervious, at least for now and for several foreseeable decades (though, who really knows for sure?), to liturgical revisionism and downgrade. You really ought to consider it, while you are waiting for the Holy Spirit to call you to the Catholic or Orthodox Church; in the meantime, it is a strong possibility that the T.A.C. itself may be reconciled corporately in a responsable manner with the Roman Catholic Church, talks for which are in a surprisingly advanced stage. I surely would have become Continuing Anglican myself if I had had the option, though I am glad that it was withheld from me (as was the option for Holy Orthodoxy) .in God’s good Providence, to be reconciled to the Catholic Church.

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[JonNC]

Jon NC,

**You wrote: ** Doctrinally I am evangelical catholic, and I sometimes wonder if with that belief I could be comfortable in a TAC Anglican parish (one nearby) or Catholic, to get the high church piety I desire.​

Actually, you are on to something good, even if not perfect. Although there is no substitute for the Roman or Eastern Catholic Church (or, for that matter, for Holy Orthodoxy), the “Anglican Continuum”, of which the T.A.C. is such a principal part, is a good choice for Lutherans tired of the fecklessness of Lutheranism in matters of worship and even in doctrine, since Lutherans in the U.S. and Canada just can’t seem to get the message of the Lutheran Confessions (for all of the LCMS and WELS bluster) or to be resolved really to believe them in a fully “orthodox” (on Lutheran terms) manner or to uphold them consistently. The Continuing Anglicans may be awfully divided in their ranks (a problem for which the T.A.C. itself offers a shiningly and selflessly good antidote), but the “Anglo-Catholic” part of the Continuum has upheld the traditional Book of Common Prayer (1928 U.S. and 1959/62 Canada) and the Anglican Missal quite resolutely and uniformly.

The T.A.C. seems impervious, at least for now and for several foreseeable decades (though, who really knows for sure?), to liturgical revisionism and downgrade. You really ought to consider it, while you are waiting for the Holy Spirit to call you to the Catholic or Orthodox Church; in the meantime, it is a strong possibility that the T.A.C. itself may be reconciled corporately in a responsable manner with the Roman Catholic Church, talks for which are in a surprisingly advanced stage. I surely would have become Continuing Anglican myself if I had had the option, though I am glad that it was withheld from me (as was the option for Holy Orthodoxy) .in God’s good Providence, to be reconciled to the Catholic Church.

Pax, Jerry Parker

Hi Jerry,
I’ve thought about your comments here since yesterday. The one thing you didn’t comment on was if I could be comfortable, considering my confessional Lutheran position. As someone who says both that your are happy within Catholicism and that you continue to find the Lutheran Confessions “blessed” and Catholic, I’d be curious as to how you reconciled the two.

Jon

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Jon NC,

**You wrote: ** I’ve thought about your comments here since yesterday. The one thing you didn’t comment on was if I could be comfortable, considering my confessional Lutheran position. As someone who says both that your are happy within Catholicism and that you continue to find the Lutheran Confessions “blessed” and Catholic, I’d be curious as to how you reconciled the two.​

I was not trying intentionally to avoid your question of greatest concern to you; I perceived other matters as more critical. It hardly is necessary to “reconcile” the two, i.e. Catholicism and the Lutheran Confessions, because the Lutheran Confessions, in such large part, really are so Catholic in spirit and even in detail. The Reformers really were more affected by the Scholasticism of the late Middle Ages than most Lutherans are willing to admit. This is hard especially for L.C.M.S. and W.E.L.S. Lutherans (of the most important of the groups that together had formed the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference) due to how bogus and tainted their “take” on Lutheran theology really is (with especially the truly horrid “universal objective justification/subjective justification” or U.O.J. soteriological paradigm) and due to their excessively rigid congregationalism. Their warped view of Confessionalism distances them from the Catholic spirit of the Lutheran Confessions. Of course, the attitude to the Papacy of the Lutheran Confessions is hostile to Catholicism, but not really much of anything else else is far off from the teaching of Rome. For the most part, the Formula of Concord, especially, is a marvellous statement of Catholic orthodoxy.

If one reads the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church” one comes to marvel at just how close the two really are. The L.C.M.S. and the W.E.L.S. need to defame this jointly produced document, because the genuine Lutheran spirit of what is in it does not accord with the Synodical Conference’s false teaching. However liberal the practice and expressions of heresy may be among the L.W.F. member Lutheran denominations, in this document the Lutheran representatives really were dealing with Confessional theology rather than with their “pet errors”, which they put aside for this project, perhaps due to the Holy Ghost overriding their mindset’s more habitual liberalism. The Lutheran representatives expressed Lutheranism with genuine Confessional fidelity, hence with a Catholic spirit. Well, I could go on about this, but I won’t for now. Go to the documents, i.e. the Book of Concord and the Joint Declaration and read them with Synodical Conference blinkers removed from your eyes, and I think that you will understand.

I wrote a review, still as a Lutheran, of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s comprehesive soteriological treatise, “Predestination” (reprinted most notably by TAN Books in 1998) for Amazon WWW sites (Amazon.com and Amazon.ca included), where I discuss some of these matters at further length. I would refer you to that review, which you should be able to access easily. I revised it later, after having reconciled to Roman Catholicism, for the WWW blog, Splendor Veritatis Missio, so you could look for it there, too.

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[JonNC]

Jon NC,

**You wrote: ** I’ve thought about your comments here since yesterday. The one thing you didn’t comment on was if I could be comfortable, considering my confessional Lutheran position. As someone who says both that your are happy within Catholicism and that you continue to find the Lutheran Confessions “blessed” and Catholic, I’d be curious as to how you reconciled the two.​

I was not trying intentionally to avoid your question of greatest concern to you; I perceived other matters as more critical. It hardly is necessary to “reconcile” the two, i.e. Catholicism and the Lutheran Confessions, because the Lutheran Confessions, in such large part, really are so Catholic in spirit and even in detail. The Reformers really were more affected by the Scholasticism of the late Middle Ages than most Lutherans are willing to admit. This is hard especially for L.C.M.S. and W.E.L.S. Lutherans (of the most important of the groups that together had formed the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference) due to how bogus and tainted their “take” on Lutheran theology really is (with especially the truly horrid “universal objective justification/subjective justification” or U.O.J. soteriological paradigm) and due to their excessively rigid congregationalism. Their warped view of Confessionalism distances them from the Catholic spirit of the Lutheran Confessions. Of course, the attitude to the Papacy of the Lutheran Confessions is hostile to Catholicism, but not really much of anything else else is far off from the teaching of Rome. For the most part, the Formula of Concord, especially, is a marvellous statement of Catholic orthodoxy.

If one reads the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church” one comes to marvel at just how close the two really are. The L.C.M.S. and the W.E.L.S. need to defame this jointly produced document, because the genuine Lutheran spirit of what is in it does not accord with the Synodical Conference’s false teaching. However liberal the practice and expressions of heresy may be among the L.W.F. member Lutheran denominations, in this document the Lutheran representatives really were dealing with Confessional theology rather than with their “pet errors”, which they put aside for this project, perhaps due to the Holy Ghost overriding their mindset’s more habitual liberalism. The Lutheran representatives expressed Lutheranism with genuine Confessional fidelity, hence with a Catholic spirit. Well, I could go on about this, but I won’t for now. Go to the documents, i.e. the Book of Concord and the Joint Declaration and read them with Synodical Conference blinkers removed from your eyes, and I think that you will understand.

I wrote a review, still as a Lutheran, of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s comprehesive soteriological treatise, “Predestination” (reprinted most notably by TAN Books in 1998) for Amazon WWW sites (Amazon.com and Amazon.ca included), where I discuss some of these matters at further length. I would refer you to that review, which you should be able to access easily. I revised it later, after having reconciled to Roman Catholicism, for the WWW blog, Splendor Veritatis Missio, so you could look for it there, too.

Pax, Jerry Parker

Hi Jerry,
There is much here that I agree with, particularly on the jddj, and LCMS congregationalism. There are good confessional Lutherans who reject the jddj simply on the fact that it was the LWF and ELCA that were involved. I have read it, and consider it quite a Lutheran document, as far as it goes.
I’m not convinced that I can reconcile papal primacy and infallibility, or Purgatory (and its related issues).
But, thanks for the time you spent on this response. I find your views quite interestng.

Jon

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Jon NC,

***You wrote: ** There is much here that I agree with, particularly on the JDDJ, and LCMS congregationalism. There are good confessional Lutherans who reject the JDDJ simply on the fact that it was the LWF and ELCA that were involved. I have read it, and consider it quite a Lutheran document, as far as it goes.

I’m not convinced that I can reconcile papal primacy and infallibility, or Purgatory (and its related issues).

But, thanks for the time you spent on this response. I find your views quite interestng. *​

Well, this may sound odd to you, but I still am in a state of “suspended judgment” about these matters (papal infallibility and Purgatory). I do not deny them nor do I affirm them with rock-solid and immovable conviction; I just am in a state in which I am waiting for them to “sink in”, no longer dismissing them at all, so outrightly as I did so long as a Lutheran. That does not disturb me unduly; I now trust the Magesterium of the Church, and, anyway, I am not a professional apologist as C.A.'s admirable Jimmy Akin (a convert who must defend every jot and tittle, with complete assurance, of Roman Catholicism to have credidibility in such a function). Because of my personal history, this does not pose a problem to being reconciled to Roman Catholicism, though you probably would not be in quite the same position.

What it amounts, considering where “the rubber hits the road” for me is the question of the sheer viability of Lutheranism or of Anglicanism (and just forget about the other forms of Protestantism, except perhaps Presbyterianism, and of sectarianism, which do not even count at all). Only Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism (Roman and Eastern) demonstrate what it takes to be the Church. That settled in my mind, it is sheer stubbornness and foolishness to cling to the rags (silk and satin, but still rags!) of Lutheranism or of Anglicanism any longer. You may come to your own “tipping point” eventually, perhaps in another way; I wish you well on your journey of discovery of genuine Catholicism and Catholicity. Even if you go no further than the “Anglican Continuum”, you still will be on better ground than that of the L.C.M.S.!

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[Lypher]

I don’t know if any fellow Lutherans can help me out here. I’ve been a member of my parish for over 10 years when I joined with my family. It’s a very large Lutheran church pushing 3,000 members. They’re very low church by standards and that is starting to bug me more and more.

Probably in the past few months, I’ve had a desire to move to a smaller, more high church parish. There are a couple in my area that I have in mind. My only reservation is that I feel like I’m abandoning a family by leaving what was my home church for so long.

I don’t know if anyone has been in a similar situation before and would be willing to provide some guidance. Thank you.

Dear Jessop,

I ended up reading up on what Martin Luther believed then started reading some of the early wrttings of the Catholic Church… What sold me though was Humanae Vitae and the consequences of the Lambeth Convention when all the Protestant Churches changed their stances on contraception. This was done before I was born, but I thought that if they could be wrong on this issue, which I think the decline of our country’s morals in line with what Pope Paul the IV predicted got me to move… Well I am still technically LCMS, but I am tired of the constant splitting and they no longer practice what Luther thought was right.

God bless you in search…

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Lypher,

**You wrote: ** *I ended up reading up on what Martin Luther believed then started reading some of the early wrttings of the Catholic Church—. What sold me though was Humanae Vitae and the consequences of the Lambeth Convention when all the Protestant Churches changed their stances on contraception. This was done before I was born, but I thought that if they could be wrong on this issue, which I think the decline of our country’s morals in line with what Pope Paul the IV predicted got me to move… Well I am still technically LCMS, but I am tired of the constant splitting and they no longer practice what Luther thought was right. *​

Your conscience, indeed, is that of a conscientious Catholic (or or any Christian who refuses to bow the knee to the Baal, the figurative pagan god of decadently modern culture). I came also to realise how essential is Humanae Vitae’s teaching decades before being reconciled to Rome.

Your only relatively slight mistake is to couch the question of this struggle of Christian and Catholic values against modern unbelief in such American terms. The problems with which that encyclical deals are world-wide in scope (as is the human species itself that can revere the sanctity of life or can stoop basely to prevent the conception, or even to perpetrate the slaughter, of its own young), not just one set of traditional American values against another set of hearlessly secularist American ones. Anyway, the battle that the Catholic Church wages against is at every level of society in any place, as well as on an international scale, not merely on the national level of a particular American denomination, Lutheran or otherwise, as admirable as more geographically limited efforts to stem the tide of the Occident’s culture of death certainly are, too.

Pax, Jerry Parker

 

[Lypher]

Lypher,

**You wrote: ***I ended up reading up on what Martin Luther believed then started reading some of the early writings of the Catholic Church—. What sold me though was Humanae Vitae and the consequences of the Lambeth Convention when all the Protestant Churches changed their stances on contraception. This was done before I was born, but I thought that if they could be wrong on this issue, which I think the decline of our country’s morals in line with what Pope Paul the IV predicted got me to move… Well I am still technically LCMS, but I am tired of the constant splitting and they no longer practice what Luther thought was right. *​

Your conscience, indeed, is that of a conscientious Catholic (or or any Christian who refuses to bow the knee to the Baal, the figurative pagan god of decadently modern culture). I came also to realize how essential is Humanae Vitae’s teaching decades before being reconciled to Rome.

Your only relatively slight mistake is to couch the question of this struggle of Christian and Catholic values against modern unbelief in such American terms. The problems with which that encyclical deals are world-wide in scope (as is the human species itself that can revere the sanctity of life or can stoop basely to prevent the conception, or even to perpetrate the slaughter, of its own young), not just one set of traditional American values against another set of heartlessly secularist American ones. Anyway, the battle that the Catholic Church wages against is at every level of society in any place, as well as on an international scale, not merely on the national level of a particular American denomination, Lutheran or otherwise, as admirable as more geographically limited efforts to stem the tide of the Occident’s culture of death certainly are, too.

Pax, Jerry Parker

Dear Jerry,

God Bless you… I was only pointing out my personal view with regards to my conversion. I fully understand the ramifications of the West killing its Culture via the embrace of the Culture of Death, but I was speaking just about my own personal search. At the time of V8 moment I was only looking at the impacts that I had noticed. Subsequent to this period of time I did start to look at what the West has done. We have basically put in motion the potentials for a Third World War, although most of it will be internal struggles, it will likely spread throughout every country that has allowed unbridled growth in certain minority faith groups that are intrinsically violent and uncompromising in their demands for subjugation of other faith groups.

Take Care,

Lypher

 

[jessep28]

Hi Jerry,
There is much here that I agree with, particularly on the jddj, and LCMS congregationalism. There are good confessional Lutherans who reject the jddj simply on the fact that it was the LWF and ELCA that were involved. I have read it, and consider it quite a Lutheran document, as far as it goes.
I’m not convinced that I can reconcile papal primacy and infallibility, or Purgatory (and its related issues).
But, thanks for the time you spent on this response. I find your views quite interestng.

Jon

I thought the chief reason that the more confessional bodies rejected the JDDJ was that Rome still affirmed the positions set during the Council of Trent.

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Jon and Jessep,

You wrote: JonNC: *Hi Jerry, There is much here that I agree with, particularly on the J.D.D.J., and L.C.M.S. congregationalism. There are good confessional Lutherans who reject the J.D.D.J. simply on the fact that it was the LWF and ELCA that were involved. I have read it, and consider it quite a Lutheran document, as far as it goes. I’m not convinced that I can reconcile papal primacy and infallibility, or Purgatory (and its related issues). But, thanks for the time you spent on this response. I find your views quite interestng. *

Jessep: I thought the chief reason that the more confessional bodies rejected the J.D.D.J. was that Rome still affirmed the positions set during the Council of Trent.​

I understand where you two guys are “coming from” regarding the matter of the Council of Trent (C. of T.) and its condemnations of Lutheran and Reformed teaching on the doctrines of grace. I once approached this, too, from the usual Lutheran standpoint, i.e. to quote the “anathemas” in the C. of T.‘s decrees and to leave it at that, giving the impression that the the Catholic Church, in its Tridentine pronouncements, condemns outright the doctrines of Justification and related soteriological doctrines. Perhaps this approach, a powerfully progandistic one, comes most directly from resort to Martin Chemnitz’ massive study of the C. of T. (as translated in the 4 volume edition by Fred Kramer under the title, Examination of the Council of Trent) and quotation of the anathemas without much further ado.

Well, this simply will not suffice! I wanted to get to the root of this matter, so I acquired a volume that gives the full texts of the canons, anathemas, and decrees of the C. of T., namely, to give it an ISBD citation:

The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent / English translation [with introduction] by H.J. Schroeder. – [This ed. lacks the parallel Latin texts of the original 1941 ed.]. – Rockford, Ill.: TAN Books and Publishers, 1978. – xxii, 298 p. – Includes index. – ISBN: 978-0-89555-074-3, pbk.

What I found in Schoeder’s edition is that, yes, the Anathemas do appear, embracing the entirety of what both the Lutheran and Reformed theologians had set forth (an important point to note for Lutherans, who certainly were not then, and still are not, in total accord with Reformed soteriology, despite its great resemblances to Lutheran teaching), but in the context which the C. of T.‘s decrees themselves set forth. The “Council Fathers” at Trent refuted the Protestant teachings as they stated them, but they also defined the Catholic Church’s own teachings on the same matters. Taken in totality and in the context of the Tridentine documents, the Council Fathers denounced more the details of the Reformers’ doctrines than their totality, while adhering to “Augustinian” paradigms of soteriology (Justification, Predestination, etc.) as they themselves understood them. In setting forth “anathemas”, therefore, the C. of T. was not proposing and approving of the direct opposite of what the Reformers taught, as Lutheran and other apologists so like to imply! If you do not believe me, read the C. of T.'s texts for yourselves!

That does not mean that Tridentine teachings on soteriology and morality are easy for a Lutheran or Reformed Christian to accept. Not so at all, but more because of the Council’s rather legalistic concept of sin and morality, the kind of thing that gave rise to Roman Catholicism’s infamous scrupulosity, especially as understood at a popular level. The concepts of “mortal” and “venial” sin make the sheer grace of God a bit clouded in the C. of T.‘s wording of Catholic moral and soteriological teaching, but they do not deny St. Augustine’s, St. Thomas Aquinas’, and other pre-Tridentine Catholic scholars’ understanding of Sin, Grace, and Salvation, which do not differ so markedly from the teachings of Luther as so many Protestants assume. The best attitude towards C. of T. teachings about faith, salvation, and morality, so “uptight” as it was in confronting the Protestant menace of the time, is to balance them with the less rigidly formulated teachings of earlier and later councils, including, of course, the Second Vatican Council. The Catholic Church’s teaching, after all, is based, so far as the Conciliar aspect of it is concerned, on the decrees of all of the Church councils, not just those of the Council of Trent.

I would like to go on further about this, but the space limits of C.A. postings may eliminate that possibility. Instead, I’ll close by recommending a short and easy (but, thankfully, not simplistic) book, from C.A. itself, about Catholic soteriology which I have found very helpful:

The Salvation Controversy / [by] James Akin. – San Diego, Calif. : Catholic Answers, 2001. – 154 p. – Includes glossary and indices (“Scripture Index” and “Subject [and names] Index”).

In short, Lutheran guys, read both sides, from their own sources, about these matters!

Pax, Jerry Parker