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GKC
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Perhaps you could explain to JonNC what the RCC believes about the Holy Eucharist. That might help.
GKC
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benjohnson
Guest
I’m not speaking for Jon, but if you generally want to know know why Lutherans don’t come rushing to Rome, here’s an overview: (warning it has a slightly naughty word)
achristianthing.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/too-damn-catholic/
Generally, Lutherans view the church as where the Gospel is proclaimed and the Sacraments are administered. It’s also why we don’t ‘sheep steal’ from Oxford Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox - we view you as valid (but just-a-little messed up.)
Again, speaking for myself, I understand (mostly) your viewpoint, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest and wish you well.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
This may have been posted previously, but I just discovered it in another thread and thought it sounded relevant to this one.
Original found here: christianitytoday.com/ch/asktheexpert/feb08.html
Luther was generally positive toward the Eastern Orthodox church, especially because it rejected many of the things he most disliked about the Roman Catholic church: clerical celibacy, papal supremacy, purgatory, indulgences, and Communion by bread alone. He frequently referred to the beliefs and practices of the “Greek church,” as he called it, as evidence that Catholics had deviated from principles upon which Christians formerly agreed.
Luther never attempted to build a bridge to the Eastern church, but some of his followers did. Philipp Melanchthon worked with Demetrios Mysos, a deacon sent by the patriarch of Constantinople to find out about the new religious movement in Germany, to complete a Greek translation/paraphrase of the Augsburg Confession, called the Augustana Graeca. Mysos was supposed to take the document back to Constantinople, but he died on the journey.
Some Lutheran theologians at Tubingen tried to establish an even closer connection. The “Eastern Orthodoxy” entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand, reports:
The Lutherans were convinced that they, rather than Rome, were the true apostolic and catholic church, and thus to establish contact with the venerable Greek church, to enlist its support against the papacy, and perhaps even to enter into communion with this apostolic church would have been a sensational victory. Thus in 1575 they sent the Augustana Graeca to Patriarch Jeremias II (d. 1595), asking his opinion. There ensued over the next six years a friendly but candid exchange of extensive doctrinal correspondence (three letters from both sides totaling over four hundred printed pages). Prominent topics discussed included the authority of scripture and tradition; the filioque; the nature of the church; grace, free will, and synergism; justification, faith, and good works; eucharistic practices; the priesthood and the ministry; prayers for the departed; the invocation of saints; feasts and fasting; and monasticism. Except for those doctrines and customs of the Roman church that the East had never accepted, the changes in church teaching and polity advocated by the Lutherans were rejected by the Orthodox, who thus implicitly agreed on most issues with the Catholics.
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Now, as a Catholic I have to ask: If the Orthodox also rejected Lutheranism, shouldn’t that give Lutherans real cause for concern?
Original found here: christianitytoday.com/ch/asktheexpert/feb08.html
Luther was generally positive toward the Eastern Orthodox church, especially because it rejected many of the things he most disliked about the Roman Catholic church: clerical celibacy, papal supremacy, purgatory, indulgences, and Communion by bread alone. He frequently referred to the beliefs and practices of the “Greek church,” as he called it, as evidence that Catholics had deviated from principles upon which Christians formerly agreed.
Luther never attempted to build a bridge to the Eastern church, but some of his followers did. Philipp Melanchthon worked with Demetrios Mysos, a deacon sent by the patriarch of Constantinople to find out about the new religious movement in Germany, to complete a Greek translation/paraphrase of the Augsburg Confession, called the Augustana Graeca. Mysos was supposed to take the document back to Constantinople, but he died on the journey.
Some Lutheran theologians at Tubingen tried to establish an even closer connection. The “Eastern Orthodoxy” entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand, reports:
The Lutherans were convinced that they, rather than Rome, were the true apostolic and catholic church, and thus to establish contact with the venerable Greek church, to enlist its support against the papacy, and perhaps even to enter into communion with this apostolic church would have been a sensational victory. Thus in 1575 they sent the Augustana Graeca to Patriarch Jeremias II (d. 1595), asking his opinion. There ensued over the next six years a friendly but candid exchange of extensive doctrinal correspondence (three letters from both sides totaling over four hundred printed pages). Prominent topics discussed included the authority of scripture and tradition; the filioque; the nature of the church; grace, free will, and synergism; justification, faith, and good works; eucharistic practices; the priesthood and the ministry; prayers for the departed; the invocation of saints; feasts and fasting; and monasticism. Except for those doctrines and customs of the Roman church that the East had never accepted, the changes in church teaching and polity advocated by the Lutherans were rejected by the Orthodox, who thus implicitly agreed on most issues with the Catholics.
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Now, as a Catholic I have to ask: If the Orthodox also rejected Lutheranism, shouldn’t that give Lutherans real cause for concern?
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Randy_Carson
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No, Jon shares our beliefs about the eucharist. His objection is the universal jurisdiction of the pope.
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Randy_Carson
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Yeah…too “Catholic” to be Roman Catholic.
But it’s pretty simple, really…either you’re with the pope or you’re not.
If you’re not…well, everybody wants to be called Catholic…
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GKC
Guest
I don’t mind what you call me.Yeah…too “Catholic” to be Roman Catholic.
But it’s pretty simple, really…either you’re with the pope or you’re not.
If you’re not…well, everybody wants to be called Catholic…
GKC
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benjohnson
Guest
And there’s the distillation of the problem - the ‘creed of Trent’ if you will.Yeah…too “Catholic” to be Roman Catholic.
But it’s pretty simple, really…either you’re with the pope or you’re not.
Perhaps you could you explain how binding one’s conscious to one of God’s creatures in particular would be a requirement for salvation?
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pablope
Guest
We demonstrate odebience by obeying those ordained with authority:
1 Samuel 15:22-23
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king.”
An excerpt below:
Ecclesial Deism
calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/
Aquinas believed that faith in Christ necessarily involves trusting the Church, because Christ cannot fail to guide and protect the development of His Church.
I came to see that I did not fully trust Christ, not because I thought Him untrustworthy, but because I had not understood that Christ founded a visible hierarchically organized Body of which He is the Head, and which He has promised to protect and preserve until He returns. I had not apprehended the ecclesial organ Christ established through which the members of His Body are to trust Him. I came to see that faith in Christ is not something to be exercised invisibly, from my heart directly to Christ’s throne, as though Christ had not appointed an enduring line of shepherds. Inward faith was to be exercised outwardly, by trusting Christ through those shepherds Christ sent and established. Jesus had said, “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”29
This is the sacramental conception of faith, not simply belief that, but belief through. This is the sacramental conception of the Church, the basis for the priest speaking in persona Christi.
But upon coming to understand that Christ founded a visible hierarchically organized Body of which He is the Head and which He promised to preserve, I came to see that the way to trust Christ is to trust His Church of which He is the Head, just as the early Christians trusted Christ precisely by trusting the teaching of the Apostles. Trusting the Apostles did not subtract from (or compete with) their trust in Christ. On the contrary, when Jesus tells the Apostle Thomas, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed,”30 He implies that greater faith is required and shown in those who trust in Christ not by seeing Him, but by believing the testimony of the Apostles. Jesus refers to this way of believing when He prays, “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.”31
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IgnatianPhilo
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Why should it? All it means to the Lutheran is that the orthodox as well as the Roman church have deviated from what the apostles gave. It might only hold concern if the Lutherans accepted apostolic succession.
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benjohnson
Guest
Good stuff!
But I’m afraid that while we Lutherans understand the desire (if not need) for a united church, and for communion with all of God’s adopted children, we just don’t see the necessity of condemning (or at least saying they are anathema) if they are not in communion with one particular person.
Nor do we say that they are condemned, simple by being in communion with one said person.
Jon
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IgnatianPhilo
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Lutherans define apostolic succession differently, it is not a historical succession which is important to the lutheran church (or else they could barely justify their existence) it is the faith which is true wherein the true apostolic succession is. I think APostolic succession with faith requires that historical lineage from the desciples or else we are no better than the gnostics.
So would you hold to apostolic succession as Iraneaus defined it? The succession of Bishops from the apostles to the current day? No.
A quote from Irenaeus would help, but let me just say that the document claims that we would accept AS with that historical lineage, our differences as to whether or not they are of divine command or human notwithstanding. We justify our existence based on historic practice of the Church that presbyter ordination is valid by divine law when bishops are not available or willing to ordain.
Jon
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Peter_J
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Yeah…too “Catholic” to be Roman Catholic.
I think I might add a new one to my List of Things to Put in My Profile. Namely, “Too Orthodox To Be Orthodox”.
One reason I left the ELCA was I was too Lutheran to be Lutheran.
I think I might add a new one to my List of Things to Put in My Profile. Namely, “Too Orthodox To Be Orthodox”.
Jon
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Peter_J
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Peter_J
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I’d say that we Catholics are taking a similar approach (see for example the quote in my signature).
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