The issue within Rome regarding divorced, remarried, and gay folks is a distinctly Roman circumstance that is being addressed within the parameters of Roman Catholicism. There is no Lutheran voice in this debate. There are certainly any number of Lutherans watching and listening but Kasper and those like him are definitely not pursuing a Lutheran theology in addressing this. To be sure, this issue is larger than it appears and there is within the Roman umbrella a distinct divide about their approach to modernity. Indeed, every Christian Church today is facing the same challenge. Do we accept, surrender, resist, or refute modernity and the cultural changes in values, dogma, piety, and truth that are being pressed upon us? Lutherans have seen many within their communion cave to the pressure of feminism, gay rights, co-habitation, rampant divorce without Biblical reason, and the kind of individualism which refuses to be accountable to others. Lutherans are in the struggle for their lives in this regard. Rome is facing the same battle but it is a distinctly Roman battle which will be fought on Roman terms. Lutherans have no stake in this except the hope among many of us that Rome will not capitulate to the dilution of truth that has swallowed up too many creedal churches. We have our own issues to deal with in regard to cohabitation, gay marriage, and divorce without Biblical justification.
Kasper and his like are many things but they are not neo-Lutherans. One thing is sure, however, disarming truth never results in renewed churches.
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In his March 30, 2015, Romanist blog article, "The rise of the neo-Lutherans: Will there be a schism?," Fr. Richard "Motley Monk" Jacobs, O.S.A., Professor of Public Administration at Villanova University, describes the divorce-liberalizing Kasperites as "neo-Lutheran," which is the Romish equivalent of "bogeyman."
While tobacco and the practice of smoking it had been brought back to Spain by New World travelers around the time of the Reformation, tobacco was not used in Germany until well after Luther had died.
Here's a more realistic image of Martin Luther wearing shades, sans cigarette. It is not know when sunglasses were introduced in Germany.
The history of Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism is closely intertwined because of the similarities and differences in teachings than any two denominational contradictions. As Luther was once Catholic, he held to some of the traditions while wisely following the path of Holy Writ, the Bible rather than Papal discretion. It is also true that Luther's lack of support for the Peasants revolt turned more former Lutherans back into Catholicism than any single act, and thus greasing the skids of the Catholic Counter Revolution. But the main point is Luther's focus on the Bible, and even today, those churches of all Christian stripes which go outside of the Bible and look to the desires of the carnal world eventually become anathema to Apostolic Christianity, having accepted the values of society and desiring to please men rather than God.
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