REFORMATION DAY!

I cannot post this picture enough. I wonder if it looks anything like him. So lets take a little break from politics today and enjoy the day.







Soooo...Reformation Day. Reformation for Lutherans is kind of like Mardi Gras is for drunks and losers. We can get lost in it. Even without beads and floats and lots of booze. My wife loves Reformation. I have a complicated relationship with it but we come from a shared heritage of Lutheran grade schools where our tutelage was under a bunch of semi-psychotic, German Lutheran women and a couple of men and a few Pastors. All of these people were products of the various "Concordia" Universities, normally from River Forest in Chicago or from some back water place in Nebraska. They were devout people. Christian people...deeply troubled people.

Each year when the rest of the world and all of our friends were getting psyched up for Halloween we would be in dark classrooms watching film strips (does anyone remember film strips?) or black and white movies on a projector (these projectors were about he same size as a 350 V-8 engine and were rolled around on audio visual carts and had a light bulb in them that you could easily heat a room with). The film strips all showed Luther with his Monks haircut. His hard child hood (abuse implied but never confirmed) his father pressuring him to go into the law but being caught under a large tree in a Lightning storm where Luther cries out "St. Anne save me! I will become a monk." And so the die was cast.

Luther is obviously very full of himself and a good talker and makes some friends in high places. In the mean time the Pope and his people are busy building St. peters cathedral and it is badly over budget and they are taxing the hell out of everyone, including some German nobles. Now the way we learned it they befriended Luther and he began to question the papacy, the Priesthood being intercessors and of course the selling of indulgences to gain favor with God and get yourself or a loved one out of purgatory and into heaven. I know enough now to understand that is our version of history. Now my best guess is that those germans were sick to death of their Italian brethren calling shots and invoking the Holy See whenever they complained. This Luther fellow was their ticket out...oh and his theology was good to.

So Luthger nails his 95 Theses to the door of the Cathedral in Wittenberg. The Church comes after him. He is hidden and protected and ultimately the catholic church loses a lot of folks. Calvin and Henry the 8th got busy and the printing press helped spread the word. The Catholic Church which had guarded the Bible as something to only be understood by the learned stood by helplessly like the record companies did when music started being free on the internet. the Protestant church in all of it's balkanized glory, moved off on 100 new paths. He posted his Theses on October 31, All Saints Day.

Anyway, we love reformation. being a Lutheran has given me a special understanding of God's Grace as it relates to all of us but especially to me. The message of the Lutherans through reformation can be summed up as, we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, because Christ died for us on the cross, which is declared through the Scriptures alone. I have always shortened it to the fact that someone like me can be saved through God's Grace and God's Grace alone. I can do nothing towards my own salvation. It has all been done for me.

So we love Reformation. We sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" in all of it's teutonic stomp. We sing it poorly. We sing it with Spirit. Maybe somewhere Luther smiles.

Lutherans...Pan Lutherans

Soooo... I am sorry for my absence. I changed law firms and then for some reason changed passwords and lost control of my blog momentarily. I have had a great month practicing law on my own but the transition effects.... the little things... like my blog. All fixed now. So when I have been thrashing around over the last month I have got to spend some time with some of my favorite Lutherans plugging in and reconnecting. It is such a reaffirming thing because of course the people I am attracted to are people who think a lot like me and they are in the main stream but so far out of the accepted mainstream of my denomination as to not even be discussed.

As a result of this what I want to do is start a blog called Pan-Lutheran where we Lutherans can band together rather then falling apart. Because that is what we are doing. Falling apart. When I grew up I was Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and we were the dominant Lutheran body in America. Then the two other groups, The Lutheran Church in America and The Evangelical Lutheran Church joined forces in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and became the biggest. Now the ELCA is splintering because the heads of their church condone gays in ministry. At the same time, my church, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has chosen an extremely conservative President who might force me out of my church.

This all makes me very sad. Lutherans come out of the Reformation as followers of Martin Luther. Although he wrote some crazy (or crazed) stuff in his later years he was a thoughtful, intelligent person. He never wanted to part from the Catholics because he understood how damaging it would be over all for the Church but... that is what happened. Protestantism resulted with a hundred (or more) different non Catholic Christian Churches and now the Lutheran Church itself has splintered into more then a dozen different groups all claiming to be the true inheritor of Luther's vision.

It all makes me sick. Luther was a man. As a man he identified problems with the Catholic church as it existed in the 1500's. I think he was right, but I have been taught he was right. The legacy he left me is that there is nothing I can do towards my own salvation. I am saved by God's Grace and by God's Grace alone. I cannot earn my way into heaven. I cannot be a better Christian then other people. I am saved and because I am saved...if I believe that, I am obligated to try (and fail) to emulate Christ and his ministry, which was to save ALL people.

Somehow this has been lost or perverted. Well intentioned, smart people believe that they understand God's will in our life better or true-er then other people which causes them to separate from the others for the sake of doctrinal purity or their own agenda. Right now my LCMS has been taken over by "Confessional" Lutherans who adhere to the Book of Concord and other writings of Luther, eschewing other views on those writings. To me these people are like the "strict constructionists" who interpret our Constitution. I mean the US Constitution, divining the founding fathers intent. These Lutheran's divine Luther's vision and all I have to say is...he was just a man. A brilliant, troubled man.

The ElCA is also polarized in it's own ranks because the leadership is taking a social/agendaized stand and admitting gays into the the called ministry positions in the Church. So there conservatives member have pulled back.

What I want to say to all these people is stop! We are weaker separated then we are united. I can (and do) pray and worship with people who do not believe as I do. I am a "bad" Missouri Synod Lutheran but I am a Missouri Synod Lutheran even though I have sincere doubts about significant (divisive) parts of our doctrine. I do not force my views on others. In fact i do not even talk about it because the people at my church are remarkable people and i am proud to worship with them whether I agree with them or not. If my Church becomes more conservative it will be hard to stay but i will try, because I love my Church.

In the great commission Christ tells the disciples to"Go therefore, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Instead we quibble over man made, and defined doctrine. I just want to say, "stop it" and "shame on you". I know your intentions are good, whether on the conservative or liberal side but we have a great, dying Church which needs our help.

Lutherans are some of the best people I know. I would name some great Pan-Lutheran organizations but the politics of my church is poisonous enough that I know to name them, might be to damn them. So...look for my new web site. PanLutheran.com. Maybe we can hold a group of well intentioned people united around Christ's commands rather then around man made doctrine and we can do some good before we fade away. Or maybe not. But I will try.