Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to religious knowledge. I cannot tell you how many questions come to me because somebody was reading something on the internet and it contradicted catechism and creed but seemed so very authentic and did fit with the questioners own doubts and concerns. In other words, I thought I might be a heretic until I read something on the internet which agreed with me and know I know I am probably correct and the Church has been wrong for a couple of millenia. Of course, that is so logical and reasonable that it must be correct, right? But the fallacy of the internet is that is offers what is presumed to be of equal value with creed and catechism but is merely an oft rehearsed and resurrected heresy that refuses to die. Or it offers us practices which should be called oddities and aberrations and sets them up as equally reliable with catholic practice. It does not hurt if the practice accords with what the person knew growing up and so personal experience also weighs in for the value of that piety. In any case, it is left to the individual to decide what is good, right, and salutary.
Liturgically this works like this. Every practice over the course of Lutheranism is set up as an equally valid and legitimate one and then the individual picks and chooses among them what fits that person. The problem is that practices are not always exemplary but may indeed reflect a decline or undo influence from another tradition. So, I grew up first with Holy Communion quarterly and then monthly before discovering that the Augustana says our practice is weekly -- every Lord's Day. So which is a more accurate reflection of Lutheranism -- practices that became aberrations to our confessions but normal or those which reflect our primary confession and yet may be a minority today? Are they all equally valid and Lutheran?
Doctrinally it works like this. The explanation of the Trinity is either a simple narrative based upon the leaves of clover or the parts of the egg or the apple and its tree or it is seen as an invention foreign to the Old Testament and invented by later Christians. Is a more modalist or partialist explanation which fits our reason a better way of approaching the mystery of the Godhead or do we dispense with the explanations in favor of none? I grew up when such images of the Trinity were commonly used to explain the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the one God and they seemed perfectly reasonable except that they were wrong. There is no reasonable explanation for the math of the Holy Trinity no matter how much we want to find one. Yet we are loathe to let go of the images that fit our want to make God comprehensible simply because they are wrong.
In both of the above cases, we can find an abundance of internet sources to justify why we can choose the error and still be correct. Then, along comes a pastor who tries to tell us that what we think we know well is not correct and he is the one in the wrong. The internet cannot lie to us and we believe we have done our homework to figure it all out and besides it fits so well with what we want to believe. Hmmm, what could be wrong with this picture?
1 comment:
It works both ways. One can argue as well that the internet provides relevant information to large numbers of people that would have been unavailable to them in the past. It has been said before that Lutherans traditionally, thanks to the Small Catechism, have been very unified doctrinally while allowing for some diversity in practice. Thus many early Agendas address questions about practices by referring to what the neighboring Reformation churches were doing, with Wittenberg (and Torgau) as the model. The Braunschweig Agenda (1569) does this, as well as recommending that pastors vest in alb, cassock, and chasuble (rough draft translation) or, quoting from the finished translation:
“the pastors and ministers of the church who wish to celebrate Mass should, if communicants are present, approach the altar with all decency, and with deep devotion and invocation of the Son of God, and begin, celebrate and complete the Office of the Mass not merely in their common clothing but also in their churchly vestments, such as alb, chasuble and stole. The altar should also be adorned and clothed with fair linens and other decorative cloths. Likewise, candles shall burn on the altar, because such is the observance in neighboring Reformation churches.”
Communion frequency is always tied to the desire and presence of communicants. It is not tied to the direction of the confessions. That the practice of weekly communion was the norm at Wittenberg is certain. That the practice should be encouraged is also certain. But we really need to drop the intellectually dishonest argument that weekly communion is demanded by the Book of Concord in order to be truly confessionally Lutheran.
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