Why do orthodox Lutherans reject epjscopacy?

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EvangelCatholic said:
My opinion:

To me, it is not surprising that the holy Church is moving toward reunion and ironically it is Lutherans who seem to be leading the way.
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In the business world, when markets shrink, you tend to to see a lot of mergers. My experience is that what’s happening among the liberal/progressive theologizes - they’re merging in order to maintain relevancy in numbers while their more orthodox members leave for less secular shepherds. Witness the million who left the ELCA in just the last three years, and the other countless who are seeking refuge from the Episcopal Church.

There will probably soon be a united luther-presbo-epsicopola-reformed church, but it will basically be a shell of crumbling churches in stagnant metropolises.

As we see in the growth of the Church in the ‘third-world’ - the witness to the Gospel will continue well and good - where families are born, work is done, and they understand the sacrifice of Christ crucified.
 
EvangelCatholic said:
Not sure I entirely understand “anglo-philia” with Lutheranism. I have attended joint Lutheran-Episcopal Eucharists, mostly ordinations. The historic Mass was celebrated and it appears both Lutherans and Episcopalians were happy with the worship. I live in the metro New York region where the two denominations have much in common.

It is my understanding that the Provoo accord was initiated by Lutherans in Finland. The LWF gathered other national Lutheran churches in Europe in the effort to reach out to Anglicans.
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From the earliest days of colonial life, the dominant American liturgical form of Protestantism has been the Episcopal church, esp. on the east coast. The Lutherans here, due to a number of historical factors, lost much of their liturgical heritage. Most people assume that the natural place to look for protestant liturgical inspiration is the Anglican communion, instead of into our Lutheran heritage. Many Lutherans, because of limited historical study, cannot even see the differences between Episcopal liturgy and Lutheran liturgy. Adding to the confusion is the simple fact that all of our English hymnals are based from Book of Common Prayer language and phrasing.

Anyway, lest I digress further, almost every ELCA “high-church” (a specifically Anglican phrase and distinction mind you) pastor I know gets their material from Episcopal sources. Many have advocated adopting Anglican specific vestments, such as the tippet and chimere. Others use Anglican chant tones over the Benedictine ones that were used by Lutherans for centuries. I have my theories about why this has manifested the way it has in the mainline, but that is a discussion for another time.

I am not disagreeing that we have much in common, but I simply wish to acknowledge that a significant part of the push toward unity on the Lutheran front comes from people who wish they were Episcopal to begin with.

edit = I inadvertently stated that the rochet was a specifically Anglican vestment, I mean to say chimere and have edited my post accordingly.
 
EvangelCatholic said:
\ Not every Lutheran attending Mass believes or understands that Christ in fully present despite church teaching. I am sure that there are Presbyterians, like nearly all Anglicans, who embrace the mystical physical eucharistic belief yet their confessions may reject it.
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The erroneous assumption here is an ecclessiology that functionally reduces to “me and Jesus”. The issue is not what individual Christians believe, but what the system of theology that we seek to commune with states. Disregarding the gravity of that situation has led to a number of sacramental and theological declines in the ELCA and led to a confusing and contradictory array of theological claims being published from authoritative sources.

As for the Anglican communion, the LCMS is quite right to point out that the 39 Articles can be, and have been read to deny the physical presence of Christ in the Supper, which makes this Lutheran suspect as to the level of unity that was actually achieved in even this agreement.

And no, I am not arguing for a monolithic, single theology, but we must take contradictory claims more seriously than we have.
 
ndismyhome said:
The erroneous assumption here is an ecclessiology that functionally reduces to “me and Jesus”. The issue is not what individual Christians believe, but what the system of theology that we seek to commune with states. Disregarding the gravity of that situation has led to a number of sacramental and theological declines in the ELCA and led to a confusing and contradictory array of theological claims being published from authoritative sources.

As for the Anglican communion, the LCMS is quite right to point out that the 39 Articles can be, and have been read to deny the physical presence of Christ in the Supper, which makes this Lutheran suspect as to the level of unity that was actually achieved in even this agreement.

And no, I am not arguing for a monolithic, single theology, but we must take contradictory claims more seriously than we have.
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Do recall, as I post often, the Articles are not normative for Anglicans in general, save for clergy of the CoE, IAW the Subscription Act of 1571. Anglicans in general may affirm, affirm in part (which is what any Trinitarian Christian might do, at least), or remove them from the Prayer Book and use them to kindle the new fire at Easter. They are not a form of Anglican confession. They are politics as theology; how ELizabeth I chose to discipline her fractious Church. I do not have much use for TEC’s 79 book, but it correctly places the Articles in the section for historical documents.

To understand what meaning an Anglican might put on a given Article, it is best to ask.

GKC

*Anglicanus-Catholicus *
 
GKC said:
Do recall, as I post often, the Articles are not normative for Anglicans in general, save for clergy of the CoE, IAW the Subscription Act of 1571. Anglicans in general may affirm, affirm in part (which is what any Trinitarian Christian might do, at least), or remove them from the Prayer Book and use them to kindle the new fire at Easter. They are not a form of Anglican confession. They are politics as theology; how ELizabeth I chose to discipline her fractious Church. I do not have much use for TEC’s 79 book, but it correctly places the Articles in the section for historical documents.

To understand what meaning an Anglican might put on a given Article, it is best to ask.

GKC

*Anglicanus-Catholicus *
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Understanding them as a historical document does, in fact, make my case.
 
ndismyhome said:
From the earliest days of colonial life, the dominant American liturgical form of Protestantism has been the Episcopal church, esp. on the east coast. The Lutherans here, due to a number of historical factors, lost much of their liturgical heritage. Most people assume that the natural place to look for protestant liturgical inspiration is the Anglican communion, instead of into our Lutheran heritage. Many Lutherans, because of limited historical study, cannot even see the differences between Episcopal liturgy and Lutheran liturgy. Adding to the confusion is the simple fact that all of our English hymnals are based from Book of Common Prayer language and phrasing.

Anyway, lest I digress further, almost every ELCA “high-church” (a specifically Anglican phrase and distinction mind you) pastor I know gets their material from Episcopal sources. Many have advocated adopting Anglican specific vestments, such as the tippet and chimere. Others use Anglican chant tones over the Benedictine ones that were used by Lutherans for centuries. I have my theories about why this has manifested the way it has in the mainline, but that is a discussion for another time.

I am not disagreeing that we have much in common, but I simply wish to acknowledge that a significant part of the push toward unity on the Lutheran front comes from people who wish they were Episcopal to begin with.

edit = I inadvertently stated that the rochet was a specifically Anglican vestment, I mean to say chimere and have edited my post accordingly.
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Thanks for the thorough reply.

I understand the attempt by Lutherans emigrating to the U.S. from Europe to “fit in”, so to speak, with other Protestants especially during the 1800’s. It was an insult to be labeled as “too catholic” or “too ethnic”. My father remembers when the services were still in German up until WW2 in several Lutheran parishes. But I also recall not only my own childhood parish [LCMS] but also many other congregations that were strongly evangelical catholic without copying Anglicans. For example, Lutherans gathering for Reformation festivals where the pastors wore birettas and copes; this was over 50 yrs ago in the Queens/ Long Island area. It was only after I began attending college in the Midwest that I realized how “protestant” some Lutherans were.

As you point out, when North American Lutherans no longer used ethnic languages, the synods borrowed extensively from Anglicans but our Mass actually follows the classic Roman Rite much more than the Book of Common Prayer.
 
GKC said:
To understand what meaning an Anglican might put on a given Article, it is best to ask.
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Best to ask each individual Anglican, because they are a motley crew? 😛

I jest, I jest…
 
JonNC said:
I really like Anglican liturgy, by why on Earth would any Lutheran anywhere be willing to give up Lutheran liturgy? It doesn’t make sense to me. If doctrinal agreement with the Anglicans is attainable , I am certain it would not require the sacrificing of the distinctive Lutheran mass.

Jon

Jon
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Really I prefer Anglican liturgy to the seeker and church growth services in so many LCMS parishes.

If the one LCMS church in my town had been doing liturgical worship instead of “festival of praise”, I would be LCMS to this day.
 
andrewstx said:
Really I prefer Anglican liturgy to the seeker and church growth services in so many LCMS parishes.

If the one LCMS church in my town had been doing liturgical worship instead of “festival of praise”, I would be LCMS to this day.
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I hear you… if my LCMS church follows the “church growth” contemporary service, I’m either finding another LCMS church or finding my water-wings to swim the Bosphorus.

From the “Confessional Lutheran Memes” on Facebook in response to ‘contemporary worship’:

http://johnsoncn.com/no.png
 
I think that the Stephan incident when the Saxons first came to America in 1839 ruined the case for the episcopacy. The eastern Lutherans who came over from the German states to colonial America maintained the same system that they had in Germany and many in Pennsylvania had Union Churches where the Reform and the Lutherans used the same buildings as a result the Reform influenced the Lutherans in these type churches.
 
andrewstx said:
Really I prefer Anglican liturgy to the seeker and church growth services in so many LCMS parishes.

If the one LCMS church in my town had been doing liturgical worship instead of “festival of praise”, I would be LCMS to this day.
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Well, if the choice is the Anglican liturgy and the contemporary stuff, look for me at the local high church Anglican parish.

Jon
 
The issue of “praise services” [pseudo protestant worship] is not limited to the Missouri Synod but it may be more prevalent there. I know there are ELCA parishes that go overboard in contemporary services that include rock music, spontaneous praise and informality. This may be a uniquely ‘American’ phenomenon since I have never heard of such services among Lutherans in Europe, for example.

How does this relate to the issue of episcopacy? It seems to me that the supervision of pastors and parishes is stronger in the ELCA compared to the LCMS congregational model. Synod-wide gatherings are very formal in worship, probably even more so now that Episcopalians are present.

Some LCMS members [probably all the posters on this forum] want a return to stronger catholicity that can be accomplished by re-establishing episcopacy. If LCMS is unwilling to join the ELCA and Episcopalians than they should reach out to Anglican groups in the U.S. or at least other Lutheran bodies outside America. I know the LCMS has ties to conservative Lutheran primates such as the bishop in Russia, for example.
 
Isaiah45_9 said:
Then they are Catholics in Communion with Rome or Eastern/Oriental Orthodox.
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Well Lutherans do consider themselves catholics but I think the Church of Rome considers the apostolic succession among European Lutherans as invalid when these bishops denied the absolute authority of the pope 500 yrs ago.
 
EvangelCatholic said:
Well Lutherans do consider themselves catholics but I think the Church of Rome considers the apostolic succession among European Lutherans as invalid when these bishops denied the absolute authority of the pope 500 yrs ago.
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Then they are outside Apostolic Succession.
 
EvangelCatholic said:
How are Lutheran primates out of the apostolic succession if it has not been interrupted?
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It was interrupted when they entered into apostasy, as it was declared at Trent.

Also, I’d be interested to see the sources of your claim.
 
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