Posted on 11/28/2011 3:27:18 PM PST by rzman21
Sola Meam! Me alone! That’s the real meaning of Sola Scriptura.
Saying there isn’t any authority higher than my own conscience is the essence of Sola Scriptura.
Luther taught that traditions could be kept as long as they didn’t overshadow the gospel.
He was far from being an iconoclast, and some Lutheran Churches today has statues.
http://ziondetroit.org/index.php?page=mass
There’s nothing Biblical about the radicals’ desire to destroy everything in their wake.
Luther taught that traditions could be kept as long as they didn’t overshadow the gospel.
He was far from being an iconoclast, and some Lutheran Churches today has statues.
http://ziondetroit.org/index.php?page=mass
There’s nothing Biblical about the radicals’ desire to destroy everything in their wake.
Luther taught that traditions could be kept as long as they didn’t overshadow the gospel.
He was far from being an iconoclast, and some Lutheran Churches today has statues.
http://ziondetroit.org/index.php?page=mass
There’s nothing Biblical about the radicals’ desire to destroy everything in their wake.
I should note, there were a few German Reformed folk too, mainly in and around the ancient University of Heidelberg. My point above was that Lutheranism did have a distinct German (and Scandinavian) ethnic connection—a parallel ethnic connection not found in other branches of Protestantism.
I never accused Luther of being an iconoclast—but I did acknowledge that the Reformed were. That is definitely a key difference.
I’ve visited some of the most important early Lutheran Churches in Germany...as well as important early Reformed Churches in Switzerland. The Lutheran churches are gorgeous—full of life and art—the Reformed churches are as plain and dark as tombs. Unfortunately, in both places in Europe today—both kinds of churches, are equally empty and void of life.
I was just saying. When I was a Lutheran and studied the confessions, they put me on the road to Catholicism.
I was just saying. When I was a Lutheran and studied the confessions, they put me on the road to Catholicism.
As long as you distinquish between the Reformed and the Radicals, I don't completely disagree. They were in fact, two very different groups.
Radical Protestants were convinced Rome had completely extinguished the gospel for centuries...therefore they looked to the Bible--not traditional Church practices--as the only model for reform. Since the bible doesn't really describe in any detail at all....New Testament worship patterns, it makes for very simple, spartan worship. In an effort to be faithful to the Bible, they completely threw out Catholic forms, and started from scratch.
While the Reformed didn't throw out EVERYTHING from the past in worship....their own iconoclasm made it look like it. The iconoclasm came from taking the 2nd Commandment ("Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image..." (Exod. 20:4)) very seriously.
Therefore you may indeed say they were wrong (and I agree), in interpreting that command, but you cannot say they had no biblical basis for their practice.
The Reformed were a marked departure from Luther. They began the process of transforming Protestantism from an effort to reform Catholicism into the creation of a new religion.
Scandinavia where my Protestant heritage stems from remained outwardly Catholic until about 100 years after Luther.
My great-grandfather’s parish church in Sweden was built in the 15th century, but it looks a heck of a lot more Catholic than a lot of modern Roman Catholic Churches.
Archbishop Laurentius Petri, the first Lutheran archbishop of Uppsala, departed from Luther in arguing for the sacrifice of the Mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Church_Lutheranism
I'm just as important as God - in fact I am God. That's the real meaning of Ex Cathedra.
“When I was a Lutheran and studied the confessions, they put me on the road to Catholicism.”
To me that’s a bit sad. A LOT of 1st & 2nd generation Lutherans (and Calvinists especially, actually, too) suffered and died defending:
A) Sola scriptura—the Formal cause of the Reformation, that Scripture alone is the sufficient and final authority for the Church. This doesn’t deny other authorities (such as tradition, or wise saints, past and present), contrary to modern evangelical understandings of the term, only that it is the only inerrant, and final authority, in all matters of faith and doctrine.
B) Sola fide—the Material cause of the Reformation, that by our faith alone—in the full and final work of Christ’ life, and death, do we have a foundation for good works, a changed life and Heaven itself. Faith combined with works does not equal justification....but rather an uncertain foundation (since I know my works are always faulty...). Faith in Jesus alone (not me) does bring about, justification + good works however....which is the good news of the Gospel.
Rome, since Trent (AD 1560s)—which cursed all Protestants who believed the above to eternal Hell—still explicitly, formally rejects those two principles...even if Vatican II put a happy face on it all.... Why I can never become a follower of Rome.
Nothing wrong with personal interpretation of scripture now that catholics aren’t allowed to burn you at the stake for it anymore.
That’s right, don’t read the Bible, don’t try to understand for yourself what it says, just do whatever your human-led institution tells you to do.
Besides that, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, not Luther, or Lutheranism, allows for individual interpretation. All the first generation Protestants developed very well thought out and researched confessions....that had about 90%+ compatibility with Roman Catholic orthodoxy, (and about 98% compatibility with each other) and only included 2 groups: Lutheran and Reformed. There was no chaotic rush of “individual interpretation” as Romanists claim.
The chaous of modern denominations is just the result of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
Unless you are prepared to condemn RELIGIOUS FREEDOM which came about, eventually because of the Reformation—than you should appreciate it, because you too benefit from it.....
fascinating when pointed replies are given to your pointed attacks....your only responses are cartoons & pictures....basically attacking the messenger.
Mocking, not attacking. It is sad, but when people refuse to read or think, mocking is the next most reasonable answer.
AnalogReigns wrote:
“The iconoclasm came from taking the 2nd Commandment (”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...” (Exod. 20:4)) very seriously.”
Yes indeed, the Reformed take what they term “the 2nd Commandment” very seriously, and very erroneously! The proper way to understand the so-called 2nd Commandment is that it is really part of the 1st Commandment (the 2nd of its 3 parts - look at the text of Exodus 20). Also, it is not reiterated in the New Testament (as the 3rd Commandment is not either, much to the disappointment of 7th Day Adventists, Baptists, and Pentecostals). The reason for the ban on making an image of God for the people of the Old Testament is that any such image would inevitably be a product of the man’s own imagination of who and what God was, and thus lead not to but away from the promised Christ. The only one who could fashion such an image rightly would be God Himself, which He did with the incarnation of His only-begotten Son. (see Hebrews 1:3) Thus when Christians, no longer bound by the unreiterated commandment, fashion an image of the Christ, whether in print, painting, relief, statue or, as today, digital, they are not sinning, but confessing the truth that God became man in Christ Jesus, the one Mediator between God and man. The Reformed don’t get this, because they, on principle, do not understand that the chief teaching of the Holy Scriptures is not law, but gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. Rather than being equal teachings, law and gospel, the law is condemning word of God that opens the heart and mind to hear and believe the chief teaching, i.e., the Gospel.
But the misunderstanding about the so-called 2nd Commandment is all about Christology. And Lutherans are very serious and exacting about Christology. All theology is, in the final analysis, Christology. (see John 1:14-18) This is also why the Lutherans highly prize the three ecumenical creeds and, as a result, find much to agree with both Rome and Constantinople about even though disagreeing in other things. Lutherans have never been iconoclasts.
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