Posted on 02/25/2009 10:34:31 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Be careful, for we can throw mud just as much.
They have been well instructed.
In the Catholic Church the United States is now considered to be a “missionary country”.
I agree there is a problem with the word "literal." I think it is misleading to speak of a "literal" interpretation of the Bible. At least in an American context, "literal" to most people means either dispensationalism or Fundamentalist legalism (or typically, it means both at the same time). Lutheranism takes the Bible more seriously than so-called literalists who often read esoteric theories and timelines into the Bible. This is also different from the liberals who interpret the Bible (in so far as they regard the Bible at all) according to the latest fads.
What has done incredible damage to Lutheran Biblical studies and interpretation is a movement sometimes called “Gospel reductionism”; meaning that the “Gospel” is paramount in all of scripture and any passage which does not lead to the “Gospel” is to set aside or regarded as less authorotative.
Notice that I placed Gospel within quotation marks. The problem is that the Gospel of God’s grace freely given in Jesus Christ as the remedy for sin has been displaced by a pseudo-gospel or, more properly, an anti-gospel of “radical inclusivism”.
Many Confessional Lutherans believe that Gospel reductionism is near the top of the slippery slope leading to the present crisis.
Considering that a basic core Lutheran teaching is that committing a sin in thought & you've committed it, there's more to that statement than meets the eye.
Still, if the ELCA takes a hard line position, all same sex desires are sinful, you might have a point.
What’s bolder than a man kissing his boyfriend in front of the alter?
A church teaching that the kiss is a natural normal expression & it is sinful to think there's anything wrong with it. Praying for the conversion of your "fundy" brothers & sisters, so they too "see the light".
"Judge not lest you be judged", used like a non-Christian would use it, raised up as though it was the First Commandment.
My liberal Mum was troubled by my membership in the LCMS. She's been inactive in any church for about 35 years, having quit due to a political struggle in a congregation where she'd been a founding member.
I guess it shows we need both Law and Grace, otherwise we wind up with a weak Gospel that doesn't do much of anything because there is not much people need to be saved from (but we feel good about ourselves because we are "nice" people and that is all that matters). It is interesting that this is man's attempt to make the Gospel stronger but instead it waters down the Gospel. It is ironic that while Lutheranism has a sound answer to the Law vs. Grace dilema, some people want to "improve" Lutheranism and copy the mistakes others have made.
BINGO!
Lutherans theological gift to Christendom is the careful balance (akin to Tevye fiddling on the roof) between Law and Gospel...and the similar tension of being a justified sinner.
The gift is irreparably broken when fed through the gristmill of Hegelian synthesis.
There you go, talking in Conservative code, again... Didn’t you get the memo about bitter, stupid, Bible thumping?
Filed it with the one about "clinging to their guns and religion" from BHØ.
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