tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post860999826211166085..comments2024-03-29T04:31:15.219-05:00Comments on Pastoral Meanderings: A Pointed Question...Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-69690510516616047092011-08-23T09:32:00.134-05:002011-08-23T09:32:00.134-05:00By the Swedes I meant the Petri brothers and the v...<i>By the Swedes I meant the Petri brothers and the very faithful and orthodox Swedish hymnal and prayerbook of the 16th century.</i>Duly noted and I stand corrected, Pastor Peters!<br /><br /><i>It was the Swedes, after all, who saved German Lutherans in the Thirty Years War.</i><br /><br />Ja, bei Gott! My Lutheran mother always spoke with reverence and pride of the "Lion of the North", Gustavus Adolphus!<br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-12891489048329092502011-08-23T08:56:19.690-05:002011-08-23T08:56:19.690-05:00It is essential to understand this about Rome: th...It is essential to understand this about Rome: the anathema re "justification by faith" does not state a new position from Rome whatever, rather, it made clear in the face of mounting error of the day that while justification by faith is indeed right, the Reformers have justification wrong.<br /><br />We know this to be a confusion of justification and sanctification; Rome never has, and since long before Trent, whose anathemae were reactive and not proactive.<br /><br />Likewise, the Pius V Mass was not the only rite allowed after Trent. Just as doctrinally things were addressed in terms of the controversies of the day, so liturgically, and rites were allowed to continue as long as they were no less than 200 years old and therefore not corrupted by the errors of the day.<br /><br />Quite the contrary, the Carmelites, Carthusians, Domincans, Braga, and others like the Ambrosian Rite continued, and in fact their disappearance is a Vatican II phenomenon when all but the Ambrosian adopted the novus ordo.<br /><br />Even the "Tridentine Rite" is not the Trent Mass; it went through several typical editions in subsequent centuries, and the present one was not even the one I initially learnt, dating only from 1962, Bugnini's warm up for the novus ordo.<br /><br />As to 380, the edict in fact originated in the Eastern Empire, not the Western, whose co-emperors joined in it, but which was militarily imposed on West culminating in the Battle of the Frigidus.Terry Maherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122266461403246084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-54578009528123585272011-08-23T08:18:00.467-05:002011-08-23T08:18:00.467-05:00Germany in 1949 and thereafter is not exactly a go...<i>Germany in 1949 and thereafter is not exactly a good barometer of Lutheran faithful confession and practice. Read Herman Sasse.</i><br /><br />My grandparents, driven from the Eastern regions of Germany after the war settled in Bavaria and were dedicated, faithful Lutherans. The Lutheran parish they attended was shepherded by a faithful, orthodox Lutheran pastor, a seelsorger in every sense of the word. Because he didn't fit your particular criteria of what it means to be evangelical and catholic did not by any means make him a less faithful Lutheran pastor. <br /><br />As for reading the Confessions, I am about to start re-reading them -- in German.<br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-14561428462113673992011-08-23T06:24:00.894-05:002011-08-23T06:24:00.894-05:00Trent institutionalized Rome's error, anathema...Trent institutionalized Rome's error, anathematizing justification by grace through faith, removing any possible divergence in faith and practice, and establishing one form of the mass as the only legitimate form (the Tridentine form that served Rome exclusively until after Vatican II).<br /><br />The Catholic Church was not so fully Roman before Trent as it was after Trent. As for your 380 AD date, I would suggest that the Orthodox would give hearty debate with you that for more than 600 years they lived under a Roman pontiff and were assumed under the Roman umbrella.<br /><br />Terry, there are nuances in history that I was applying to this discussion. History will not be painted with a broad brush, at least not accurately, anyway.Pastor Petershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-51404084387475442202011-08-23T00:34:09.700-05:002011-08-23T00:34:09.700-05:00False dichotomies.
We are not the Catholic Church...False dichotomies.<br /><br />We are not the Catholic Church only free of a few abuses here and there.<br /><br />Rome "refused" to be reformed not because it came upon new formulations, but because it saw in the Reformation serious departures in several articles from the faith of the Church Catholic, against which new and novel ideas it thought it necessary to speak. It saw no Reformation at all but a Revolt against the faith of the Church Catholic; the reformation was Trent.<br /><br />To misunderstand this is to misunderstand either and both sides of the Reformation.<br /><br />Not to mention both sides now sporting denominational variants of the same Liturgical Movement pastiche services in which the only thing traditional is not the results but most of the sources. Such services betray both the Catholic and the Lutheran answer to the question, so what is the faith of the Church Catholic, and obscure the fact that we and they have rather different answers to that question.<br /><br />Lutherans acting like American Evangelicals is bad enough; Lutherans acting like the old joke of my younger days -- Lutherans are just people wanting to be Catholic without being Catholic -- are worse.<br /><br />I became Lutheran because the Confessions laid out convincingly that the Catholic Faith is not the catholic faith, and the Church Catholic is not the Catholic Church.Terry Maherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122266461403246084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-88206380225303860712011-08-22T20:40:06.679-05:002011-08-22T20:40:06.679-05:00Then what was the Reformation all about?
It was a...<i>Then what was the Reformation all about?</i><br /><br />It was all about an attempt to reform -- not to divide -- the Western Church, an attempt that ultimately failed because Rome refused to be reformed. And that refusal became definitive only at Trent. Until then the hope remained that the whole of the Western Church -- not only the part of it under the control of the Lutheran princes -- could be rightly reformed.<br /><br />How one sees it depends, I suppose, on how corrupt one believes the Church to have been, and for how long. On one view, the Church was hopelessly corrupt and had abandoned the Gospel at the time of Constantine (or some other point in antiquity). On the other view, the Church still had the Gospel (albeit sadly obscured and hidden) all the way up until the Reformation, with only <i>some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times, contrary to the intent of the Canons.</i> On this view there was, even at the time of the Reformation, no need to <i>dissent in [any] article of faith from the Church Catholic</i>, but only to correct those few abuses.<br /><br />"What was the Reformation all about?" is indeed an important and a telling question. Either it was an attempt to replace the Catholic faith with another faith that had been lost for centuries and had to be recovered solely on the basis of the Scriptures; or it was an attempt to save the Catholic faith which had been handed down, from serious error which had crept into it in the mediaeval Church. There is no doubt in my mind which of those models of Reformation is to be found in the Augsburg Confession.Chris Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03220498656377282715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-72058494580810811262011-08-22T19:28:39.379-05:002011-08-22T19:28:39.379-05:00The Catholic Church only became fully Roman at Tre...The Catholic Church only became fully Roman at Trent? Then what was the Reformation all about?<br /><br />Trent convened 13 December 1545. The only part of the Book of Concord written after that is the Epitome and Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, and the Preface.<br /><br />The Catholic Church (sic) has been Roman since the Roman Empire defined it in the Edict of Thessalonica on 27 February 380.<br /><br />The fact is, the modern liturgies in the service books of recent decades in all liturgical denoms, including Rome, would not be familiar to anyone who laboured at either Trent or on the Book of Concord, except in bits and pieces cobbled to-gether by scholars into pastiche services.<br /><br />Rome's effort at Trent was to remain fully Roman; the Confessions aimed to preserve too, but preserve something else, and certainly neither was nor envisioned the revisionist agenda of modern times.<br /><br />There is no tradition in joining the heterodox liturgical denoms in their current trends, any more than joining "evangelical" American trends. <br /><br />And as to chasubles as some sign of anything, they are a stylised form of the late Roman (Empire) casula, an outer garment worn for travel, a "little house". Maybe in 1000 years "traditionalists" will argue for wearing parkas at services.Terry Maherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122266461403246084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-26810771953845692722011-08-22T14:40:40.796-05:002011-08-22T14:40:40.796-05:00By the Swedes I meant the Petri brothers and the v...By the Swedes I meant the Petri brothers and the very faithful and orthodox Swedish hymnal and prayerbook of the 16th century. It was the Swedes, after all, who saved German Lutherans in the Thirty Years War.<br /><br />Germany in 1949 and thereafter is not exactly a good barometer of Lutheran faithful confession and practice. Read Herman Sasse.<br /><br />Spooning over Roman practices we do not but acknowledging practices which were ours before the Catholic Church became fully Roman at Trent we will contend for.<br /><br />I would suggest that you read the Lutheran Confessions. CPH has a nice reader's edition in regular or pocket size.Pastor Petershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-14641840364404469622011-08-22T10:40:24.122-05:002011-08-22T10:40:24.122-05:00Nope, has nothing to do with Rome which is not my ...Nope, has nothing to do with Rome which is not my concern here.<br /><br />Has to do with mooning and spooning after Roman practices.<br /><br />Never saw a Lutheran pastor in a chasuble while I was in Germany (and that would be from 1949 on, long before Vatican II).<br /><br />Never. Not. Once.<br /><br />And that's all I'm going to say about it. Dealing with the comment here is like being on a Roman blog.<br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-13448245993902094112011-08-22T09:48:56.535-05:002011-08-22T09:48:56.535-05:00Christine,
As for the Church of Sweden ... This i...Christine,<br /><br /><i>As for the Church of Sweden ... This is a role model?</i><br /><br />Who offered the Church of Sweden as a role model? Not Pastor Peters and certainly not I. We don't want our Lutheran Church to be like the Church of Sweden any more than we want it to be like the Church of Rome; so telling us how awful Sweden and Rome are is no answer to Pastor Peters's points.<br /><br />It seems that you are more interested in attacking Rome than in addressing what Pastor Peters has to say. There is nothing wrong with a Lutheran pointing out what Lutherans believe are the errors of Rome. But this is the wrong forum for that. You might think of getting your own blog.<br /><br />I for one would put such a blog in my feed reader immediately.Chris Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03220498656377282715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-79378472273893225122011-08-22T08:11:26.816-05:002011-08-22T08:11:26.816-05:00As for Brother Boris, I can't get too excited ...As for Brother Boris, I can't get too excited about an ex-Lutheran who comes here to cheer us on but jumped ship and is now back to tell us that no, he couldn't stay because Lutherans are no longer Lutheran but by golly he's right there on the sidelines telling us to hang in there.<br /><br />Not to mention the very unlovely caricatures he paints. I have never, not once been in a Lutheran parish as he describes it. Nor is there one thing wrong with the reference to the Lord's Supper. Or perhaps you haven't heard of the "Mass of the Lord's Supper" in the Roman church on Holy Thursday?<br /><br />In fact, the one I attend has a magnificent floor to ceiling stained glass window portraying the descent of the Holy Spirt, we have wood-carved bas reliefs of Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Trinity and all the traditional beauty that many Lutheran churches have.<br /><br />No, our pastor does not genuflect and we do not have a tabernacle with is as foreign to Lutheran theology as can be. In fact, one of the reasons that most VII Catholic parishes have moved the tabernacle into its own separate chapel is partly for perpetual Eucharistic adoration and partly because they want to encourage the faithful to receive Communion from hosts consecrated at a particular mass, not those left over from previous masses.<br /><br />As for the Church of Sweden, I think Terry has covered that one very nicely. This is a role model?<br /><br />Please. <br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-7098997068787487862011-08-21T23:12:19.931-05:002011-08-21T23:12:19.931-05:00Christine harps on things that are not mentioned h...Christine harps on things that are not mentioned here, but are here, unmentioned. So far as I can see, that is why she mentions them.<br /><br />For all the talk of Lutheran identity and such, there is no more recovery of Lutheran identity in going to a parish where one finds a Lutheran version of the worship on finds in "evangelical" church of this, that or no name, than in going to a parish where one finds a Lutheran version of worship on the 1960s novus ordo model of the oecumenical Liturgical Movement in RC, Episcopal, ELCA and such.<br /><br />The latter is not seen for what it is because it retains smells, bells, and period costumes, but the fact is, it no less than the other is based on a rejection of tradition as once variously evidenced in these bodies.<br /><br />As for the Church of Sweden, a church that boasts the world's first openly lesbian bishop is just perhaps not the best guide on orthodoxy, liturgical or otherwise.Terry Maherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122266461403246084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-55100181210445472442011-08-21T08:08:15.366-05:002011-08-21T08:08:15.366-05:00Oh, and before I forget Pastor Peters, Terry is ab...Oh, and before I forget Pastor Peters, Terry is absolutely right, as long as the LCMS uses options A, B, and C for worship as well as the authentic old one-year Lutheran lectionary we will be just like Rome, pretending that the old and new rites can live side by side without any change in belief and practices.<br /><br />So why shouldn't contemporary worship be just as valid as the former.<br /><br />But then as former Catholics, what would be know.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-41973297935831029792011-08-20T13:12:39.608-05:002011-08-20T13:12:39.608-05:00Imagine a newly ordained pastor leaving the semin...Imagine a newly ordained pastor leaving the seminary only to be assigned to some podunk parish in say, the Florida-Georgia District, for example. Here they find they are the suddenly a pastor of a parish that only begrudgingly tolerates the most minimalistic interpretation of Lutheranism in liturgy and ceremony. The newly ordained pastor, so excited at his first call, discovered his parish celebrates the Eucharist only once a month. In fact, they really don't like it when he calls it the Eucharist, or even the Sacrament of the Altar like the Catechism says. They refer to it exclusively as "the Lord's Supper", just like the Baptists. Also like the local Baptist church down the street, this Lutheran church is predominately a bare lecture hall. Little color, white walls, no stained glass, certainly no crucifix and no statuary and no kneelers. Probably just a bland freestanding altar (built to look more like a Zwinglian table than a proper Lutheran altar), some type of modernist bare cross on the wall behind it, several ugly potted plants, lots of wall-to-wall carpeting to make the room as dead acoustically as possible, and an old Baldwin electronic organ (more of an appliance than a real musical instrument) that the church bought used from somewhere else to provide the music for the "traditional" service. There are hymnals in the pews, but they are never used anymore. Several overhead screens have been added so that people can sing along to the texts projected thereon. People in this parish are more committed to following the Hallmark calendar than the Liturgical Calendar. (In fact, if the truth be known, it would actually surprise many of them to know that the Church HAS an official calendar). The High Holy Days of this parish (and they really prefer the term "congregation" as "parish" sounds way too "catholic" to their ears) are: Mother's Day, Father's Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day. Veterans Day, the so-called "National Day of Prayer" etc. This parish insists that Advent is four-weeks-of-Christmas-before-Christmas and insists that the Sanctuary be decked out in full Christmas splendor on the First Sunday After Thanksgiving. "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" are traditional favorites for the First Sunday in Advent. Of course, this parish does not have a Christmas Day service and doesn't understand why anyone would want such a thing. As the President of the Congregation here says, "Christmas Day is all about being with family. Why would you want to be in Church, of all places, on Christmas Day?"<br /><br />Admittedly, much of what I wrote was tongue-in-cheek, but parishes like the mythical one I described above are part of what contributes to Lutheran pastors looking for greener pastures elsewhere. <br /><br />Now, the stone-throwing may commence!BrotherBorisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-26178991444692857332011-08-20T08:05:26.416-05:002011-08-20T08:05:26.416-05:00Christine, You keep referencing the bad state of a...Christine, You keep referencing the bad state of affairs in Rome but we are not talking about Rome nor are we responsible for Rome. We are talking about Lutheranism and this is the tradition for which we have responsibility. Neither I nor anyone I know thinks Rome is a utopia of better or perfect Church. I have not said that on my blog. <br /><br />You continually harp on things that are not mentioned here. For example, the Canon of the Mass is NOT synonymous with the sacrifice of the mass --a canon does not automatically speak sacrificial language and could be thoroughly evangelical as well as catholic (just as many Lutherans have done, including the Swedes).<br /><br />Lutherans not being fully Lutheran and the despair over losing ground in this battle to those intentionally not Lutheran in faith and practice is a serious problem for us. <br /><br />BTW Liturgy is not an adiaphora and adiaphora does not mean things unimportant. For example, one such adiaphora that became a matter of confession was the fraction of the host. You cannot dismiss everything with the adiaphora quote as if we were all discussing matters as weighty as air...Pastor Petersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-12196881828589903292011-08-19T20:15:51.064-05:002011-08-19T20:15:51.064-05:00I can think of no better way to bid y'all Eine...I can think of no better way to bid y'all Einen Guten Abend than with this little gem from the Confessions: <br /><br /><i>Moreover, we must not include among the truly free adiaphora or indifferent matters ceremonies that give the appearance or (in order to avoid persecution) are designed to give the impression that our religion does not differ greatly from the papist religion or that their religion were not completely contrary to ours. Nor are such ceremonies matters of indifference when they are intended to create the illusion (or are demanded or accepted with that intention), as if such action brought the two contradictory religions into agreement and made them one body or as if a return to the papacy and a deviation from the pure teaching of the gospel and from the true religion had taken place or could gradually result from these actions. ...</i><br /><br />We don't believe in transubstantiation, we don't need the Eucharistic canon because we don't offer the "Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."<br /><br />Luther had it right.<br /><br />Christine<br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-73482342144270191122011-08-19T19:52:54.440-05:002011-08-19T19:52:54.440-05:00Oh, and Jenny, you might want to visit my former C...Oh, and Jenny, you might want to visit my former Catholic parish, one of the wealthiest and largest in the diocese. They are currently offering this:<br /><br /><i>Womanspirit: reclaiming the deep feminine in our<br />human spirituality by Susan Muto, a renowned Catholic<br />author and speaker, who interviewed hundreds of women<br />and recorded their personal spiritual journeys.</i><br /><br />That's a biggie in the Catholic church, all about our "feelings" and "telling our stories."<br /><br />Nothing, and I mean nothing, like the Catholic church my Catholic father and husband grew up in.<br /><br /><br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-25678223104824501632011-08-19T19:48:52.363-05:002011-08-19T19:48:52.363-05:00we really carry no brief for Rome
Really? If I w...<i>we really carry no brief for Rome</i><br /><br />Really? If I were a visitor who didn't know much about either Rome or Wittenberg I'm afraid this could be quite confusing:<br /><br /><i>We look very much like the Roman Catholic Church because of the common heritage we share.</i><br /><br />I know when "Riddle" was written, I have a copy and yes, it was written before Vatican II was formally convened but it also bore high praise from the Jesuit ecumenist Gustave Weigel, who said he felt he could promise Lutherans that if they "came home to Rome" the Vatican would assure them of receiving Communion in both kinds and a married priesthood. <br /><br />If there's one thing a convert to the RC learns quickly is that for the RC ecumenism always means coming "home to Rome." <br /><br /><i>The oft repeated maxim from Pelikan is that when the ELCA became Methodist and LCMS became Baptist, he would become Orthodox</i><br /><br />Well he could have just gone to the ELCA, they often "look" more Catholic than the LCMS. After finding out about his involvement with St. John Abbey I have no further interest in what Pelikan had or has to say.<br /><br /><i>There are many Lutherans out there who have no idea what the Lutheran confessions say. (But they will proudly state they aren't Roman Catholic</i> An unfortunate result of the last twenty-thirty years. But if you think Lutherans are badly catechized, you ain't seen nuttin until you've been inside the Catholic church like I was. As for the woeful state of evangelization in the RC, you'll have to take that up with John Paul II, who lamented that so many Catholics were sacramentalized and not evangelized.<br /><br />Jenny, you go right on ahead and keep returning to that Catholic parish. After learning what a tabernacle is, maybe you'll also pick up on the fact that in the RC the mass is a "good work" offered on behalf of the living and the dead and find out for yourself how Pelagian the RC still is. You do know about Pelagius, right?<br /><br />I find it a total hoot to hear all these accolades for the RC here when Catholics themselves have been complaining about the poor state of their liturgy for the past 30 years. <br /><br />ChristineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-56705446705383498492011-08-19T16:45:59.603-05:002011-08-19T16:45:59.603-05:00Great post Rev. Peters. We are the Church militant...Great post Rev. Peters. We are the Church militant. Theology of the cross. Our fathers didn't have it any better. Never a golden age of the Church. I undersand brother pastor's disdain for our ecclesiology in the LCMS that allows errors/poor theology to continue, be promoted; but I'll never understand how anyone could give up the Augustana for Rome or Constantinople.Rev. Weinkaufhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06109679164669873385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-18555355143713739892011-08-19T16:44:50.129-05:002011-08-19T16:44:50.129-05:00The oft repeated maxim from Pelikan is that when t...The oft repeated maxim from Pelikan is that when the ELCA became Methodist and LCMS became Baptist, he would become Orthodox. If that is true, then it is, as Pastor Peters suggests, at least partially because Lutherans were not Lutheran that he moved.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-88532129219898521422011-08-19T16:08:32.030-05:002011-08-19T16:08:32.030-05:00"Pelikan's pilgrimage from Lutheranism to..."Pelikan's pilgrimage from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodoxy...<br />was a slow and gradual transformation<br />over the course of 40 years.<br />The decision grew slowly out of years<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Pelikan's "The Riddle of Roman<br />Catholicism" was written in 1959.<br />This means it was published before<br />Vatican II as well as before the<br />dialogues between the Lutherans<br />and Roman Catholics.<br /><br />My point is that his turning to the<br />Eastern Orthodox Church reminds me<br />of the young Martin Luther and the<br />mature Martin Luther. Pelikan got<br />wiser and more mature as he aged.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-88492275282740658582011-08-19T16:01:36.838-05:002011-08-19T16:01:36.838-05:00Christine,
Those of us who treasure the Catholic ...Christine,<br /><br />Those of us who treasure the Catholic heritage of Lutheranism, and would like to see it restored and revived, do not have any yearning for Rome, as you seem to think. Any time any of us emphasizes the liturgical and sacramental character of Lutheranism, you seem to respond by reminding us of how bad Rome is. That isn't really a very good response, because we really carry no brief for Rome. The sober and disciplined sacramental and liturgical life that we favor isn't Roman -- it's <i>Lutheran</i>. When you look around the LCMS today, do you really think that "Romanizing" is the most serious thing tempting us away from authentic Lutheranism?<br /><br />If we don't have Lutheran teaching, Lutheran sacramental practice, Lutheran liturgy, and Lutheran piety in our congregations, what is the point of calling them "Lutheran"?Chris Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03220498656377282715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-60069226085886043582011-08-19T16:00:09.442-05:002011-08-19T16:00:09.442-05:00I do not believe, BTW, that Deacon Gregory was a p...<i>I do not believe, BTW, that Deacon Gregory was a pastor when he was LCMS. His CV does not include any seminary degree, and I believe that he has always been an academic.</i><br /><br />Whoops, sorry about that. I must have confused that point about him with someone else.Dixiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08511317203353075644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-70074894595660150332011-08-19T15:55:21.064-05:002011-08-19T15:55:21.064-05:00Funny to see this as today's topic! I went to ...Funny to see this as today's topic! I went to a R.C. church this morning for the first time, partly because I keep hearing about how awful it is which sparked my curiosity. I think I'll go back, partly because I find personal confession intriguing and I appreciate the ceremony, as long as it is meaningful ceremony. At least I know what a tabernacle is now!Jennynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-31323295475021083952011-08-19T15:49:35.388-05:002011-08-19T15:49:35.388-05:00Fr Deacon Gregory's paper can be found in PDF ...Fr Deacon Gregory's paper can be found in PDF form <a href="http://oruaseht.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/troublesome-priest.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>, and as a podcast <a href="http://ancientfaith.com/specials/lutheran_colloquium/will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_troublesome_priest" rel="nofollow">here</a> at Ancient Faith Radio.<br /><br />I do not believe, BTW, that Deacon Gregory was a pastor when he was LCMS. His CV does not include any seminary degree, and I believe that he has always been an academic.Chris Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03220498656377282715noreply@blogger.com