tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post6904703576852332130..comments2024-03-27T15:47:46.091-05:00Comments on Pastoral Meanderings: A new Reformation?Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-50254828472537256532022-08-16T10:32:52.908-05:002022-08-16T10:32:52.908-05:00The ELCA speaks of itself as a Lutheran movement i...The ELCA speaks of itself as a Lutheran movement in the sense of acknowledging the reality of its primarily Midwestern Norwegian and Pennsylvania German pietist heritage, but with an emphasis on “movement” as a transformation of the Gospel as the good news of the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation of the world through Christ received by repentance and faith alone into simply the gospel of God’s reconciliation of the world that liberates us to pursue progressive social causes. It’s a false gospel, of course, but brilliantly marketed as church for those who listen to NPR and are too enlightened to believe all that Christian stuff. While we in the LCMS take orthodoxy for granted and often scoff at the ELCA, it is sobering to realize that global Lutherans overwhelmingly tend to align themselves with the views of the ELCA, and not the LCMS. One wonders why this is so: that a vast majority of self-professed Lutherans are comfortable with half the gospel. There must be something deficient in orthodox Lutheranism to contemporary Lutherans. No wonder, then, that there are many in the LCMS who would desire to make us a “movement” as well, albeit an evangelical movement within the one, catholic, orthodox church. This group is very concerned with the Mass and the Augustana’s “nearly all the usual ceremonies are preserved” (but conveniently omitting that Phillip follows this assertion with a lengthy laundry list of all the ways in which the Lutherans had indeed already changed the Mass). Bishops, apostolic succession, and a threefold ministry are often looked upon enviously as real marks of the visible orthodox church. This is its own conservative version of a new Reformation, a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic.<br /><br />The visible Evangelical Lutheran Church is the visible Church of God on earth. Those influential voices within Missouri who tacitly eschew this fact as sectarian and instead view the Western Catholic Church as the true visible Church of God of which we are but a temporarily separated evangelical movement whose existence is a “tragedy” (real views from real intellectual Lutherans) politically misunderstand and pervert our confessions mightily.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com