Rome has made it clear that this is not about worship preferences but about what is believed and confessed. The recriminations against those who attend the Latin Mass, for example, or those who are still putting in altar rails is not about Latin or the Mass. It is about what the Roman Catholic faith is and what it will be. On one side you have those who believe you can dance with chickens or do the chicken dance in church and those who hold not simply to the sacredness of the space but of what God is doing among those gathered in His name. It is not about architecture or music but about what is believed and confessed. It may be fought in the chancel but it is not simply about that space and what happens there. Worship and faith are connected. Faith and worship are connected. Once these battles stop, there will also be an end to battles over what is believed and taught.
Among Lutherans it is equally about what is believed, taught, and confessed. Those who want to add guitars are not interested in stringed instruments but in the kind of church where truth and morality are adjustable and where Scripture is not the final word on either. It is not about vestments or none or liturgy or none or ceremony or none. It is about the transformation of the faith into something informed and judged by man instead of the gift of God. It is a good thing that there are still battles going on. After all, the ELCA no longer battles because the words have been emptied of meaning and the actions in worship no longer reflect the mystical reality of God among us distributing His gifts. If we are still having worship wars, it means that the battle is being waged against a relativized and vanilla faith that has lost is saltiness.
Some people are tired of these worship wars. In my experience, when the battles stop, mischief begins and peace means acquiescence to whatever people want or is in fashion at the moment. I hope we continue to have the stamina to do battle for the sake of the liturgy, yes, but even more for what that liturgy says and means. When it is finally done, either heaven's gates will be sealed and the faithful no longer troubled by these distractions OR the opposition to the modernist ideal will have surrendered and given up. So do not wish for peace unless you are sure that Christ is at the door and ushering in the new heavens and the new earth. Until that happens, we must be vigilant to maintain the integrity of what happens in worship and what is confessed before the world. This is, after all, why we call it the Church Militant.
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It is very likely that in the early church not all congregations worshipped exactly the same way. The Roman church eventually established some uniformity in worship and in the structure of the Mass, essentially because the Papist system required adherence of Catholics to its doctrines, and obedience to Ecclesiastical authority. Access to the Bible itself was reserved for the clergy but not the laity. Only the church, through the Pope, was authorized to interpret scripture. This is hardly new. In the old days, departure from Papal teaching could get one burned at the stake as a heretic. There were Dominican friars and Jesuits, as well as others commissioned by the Vatican, willing to lay you out on the rack until you confessed your apostasy. Then you would receive a painful death as penance for your misdeeds, unless you recanted and received mercy. Today, things are more civilized, but predictably the universal church still has theological and practical issues to argue. The fact is that we need not debate everything. We just need to follow our faith and strive to obey Christ. None of these doctrinal disagreements can be resolved on this side of glory. Minds are made up. As for the practical matters, like guitars in the worship service. I am no liberal, but I see no problem with it at all. Long before the organ was invented, believers worshipped God on stringed instruments. I think we need to separate important issues from those which are not so urgent. Soli Deo Gloria
Psalm 150
1 Praise the LORD.[a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
From the very beginning, the real fight was always about the meaning and efficacy of the Gospel of the Kingdom, or as our Lord called it, “The good news of the Kingdom.”
The battles about the liturgy are diversions, which the Devil uses to obscure the glory of the Gospel. During my almost 90 years of life, and membership in 9 Lutheran congregations (6 LCMS, 3ELCA) I have found only one pastor, who understands the Gospel, and he is in the ELCA.
The New Testament, contrary to the Old, is a one-sided Covenant, as opposed to the Old, which has both God and people accepting obligations. That means that our Lord has won a Gospel for us, in which God takes all of the obligations on Himself. Therefore, any description of the Freedom of the Gospel, which ends with words or phrases like, “but”, “however”, “we can’t just sit there and do nothing’, and “not if you do such and such” invariably destroy the Gospel.
I am certain that the major reason for the Gospel being obscured, is our lack of understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. It should be noted that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is unique in the New Covenant.
When our Lord said, “My burden is easy, and My yoke is light”, He knew that thousands of His followers would die under the most horrific circumstances. However, what He also knew is that it is the joy of the Gospel, gifted to His baptized children by the Holy Spirit, that makes His burdens easy, and His yoke light.
That is why I sign off, “Peace and Joy!”
George A. Marquart
For the last few days, I have researched the question of “the function of the Law for the Christian.” In the course of this study, I found an interesting contradiction in the Book of Concord, on the question of how faith is produced in people.
In the following, and there are many similar places in the Book of Concord, it is asserted that, having received faith, we then receive the Holy Spirit:
Defense of the Augsburg Confession
Article IV-b. Of Love and the Fulfilling of the Law.
54 Wherefore, when Paul says, Rom. 3:31: We establish the Law through faith, by this we ought to understand, not only that those regenerated by faith receive the Holy Ghost, and have movements…
From the same article:
But when, on hearing the Gospel and the remission of sins, we are consoled by faith, we receive the Holy Ghost so that now we are able to think aright concerning God.
In many other sections, and specifically in the words of Martin Luther, it is the Holy Spirit who produces faith in us:
From a Google AI summary, which I believe correctly summarizes what Martin Luther taught about the creation of faith:
• Luther's View:
"Martin Luther also emphasized that the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God to create faith. He taught that God has decreed that no one can believe or receive the Holy Spirit without the gospel being preached or taught."
I wonder if this has contributed to the lack of attention Lutherans pay to the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit?
I also believe that the function of the Holy Spirit is often assigned to “the Word” as a separate function, such as in Baptism, when we refer to “Water and the Word,” rather than the Holy Spirit.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
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