What it means to be Lutheran - Week 2

[00:03:10] Speaker A: So that the devil can't stand against, that the gates of Hades can't stand against. We thank you for your church and for blessing your church and protecting it. We ask that you would keep us in the. In the true faith. Bless us this morning as we study your word and a little bit of history of Lutherans. Draw our hearts and minds to yourself in Christ. In Jesus name, amen. All right, so last week, just for a little bit of review last week, we said that what it means to be Lutheran is orthodox. That was our kind of our. Well, our. Yeah, our opening consideration. So we talked about what orthodox means. Orthodox just means kind of give it to me straight or, you know, nothing weird here. It's just orthodox, like an artist that is orthodox. It's like you're not expecting anything surprising. He's gonna follow the rules, you know, follow the patterns given, you know, handed down from those who came before. But an unorthodox artist, you're going to expect to be surprised. You're going to expect new moves, new things from an unorthodox artist. And so Martin Luther, he was addressing problems that he recognized in the teaching of the church and the practice of the church. But he was approaching those problems. Nothing. Not as the most brilliant interpreter of the Bible ever to live or something like that. It was not so much, you know, new discoveries as rediscovery. He was looking to solve the problems or help initiate solving the problems with orthodox solutions. So we looked at the councils, the ecumenical councils in the early church that sought to do that, sought to help define orthodoxy, orthodox christian faith, against the new teachings that were springing up and confusing people and sort of muddying the waters. So we looked at seven ecumenical councils, the seven councils that involved the entire church, where bishops were invited from all over the church, all over the empire to come and discuss an issue. And one of those was the council of Nicaea. The next council also helped shape the nicene creed that we say today. And we worked through all those councils all the way through the 7th one and then kind of ran out of time. And so one thing I didn't mention, just to close up last week, is that we were saying that Luther wanted a council, right? He wanted the pope to call a council. He wanted the emperor to call a council. Of course, it was the emperor who called all of the ecumenical councils in the early church and brought everybody together to solve problems. Luther wanted a council, but the pope kept dragging his feet. And just reading Luther writing about this, he makes it sound like the pope was also like going around making sure he had all the support of the bishops so that it would go the way he wanted. And maybe, maybe that's why it was taking so long. Well, finally, in 1545, in 1545, like, I think December of 1545, the Council of Trent began. So there was a council. In the end, the Lutherans said, we're only going to participate if the pope is subject to scripture. Like if scripture is above the pope and not the other way around, then we'll participate. But if the pope is above scripture, then we know how this is going to go. It's going to go just the way the pope wants and he's just going to hold on to the way things are. And so the Lutherans didn't participate in it. And for various reasons, the Council of Trent ended up lasting 18 years because of wars and popes coming in and having different priorities and things like that. And the Lutherans and other reformers were condemned at the council and there were some changes. They worked through some corruption and like, you couldn't, I think, after the council of Trent, you couldn't, you know, send out your salesmen to raise money with indulgences, you know, have people buy their salvation and then build a church, things like that. But catholic doctrine remained pretty much the same. The power of the pope was kind of solidified at the council of Trent. All right, now we've closed up. The last week there was a council. All right, now we're ready to move on. So this week, what it means to be Lutheran confessional. All right, confessional. Now, we use this word sometimes in the service. I'll say, let's stand and confess our christian faith using the words of the nicene creed or something like that. Why do we say confess? We confessing sins. Are we, you know, what's going on here? And what's going on is that to confess something, this comes from an old greek word that we use that we translate in various ways. So we're going to look at a few Bible verses to see why we talk about confessing things, and then we're going to talk about the lutheran confessions and what they are, how they came about, how they function for us today, why it matters, if it does those kinds of things. So we are confessional. So here's the Bible verse. Can you see that? Just for my future slide making. Okay, mostly. All right, so this is from Romans, chapter ten. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, I and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for with the heart, one believes and is justified, and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. So confess. There is. We actually say confess. You know, in the translation, in the greek word is homologeo, to confess. Here, same thing. This is a different kind of situation. So that was about confessing that Jesus is Lord, as opposed to not confessing that. Right. Having faith in Jesus and demonstrating that with words. This one is a little different, but John is still confessing Christ. So this is John the Baptist out there in the wilderness from John, chapter one. And this is the testimony of John. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. How was John confessing Christ there? By saying, it's not me. And then he's going to go and say, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So it's not just by saying what you believe that you confess Christ or deny him. Right. John could have misled people by pointing them to himself, and then he would have been denying Christ. One of the reasons I like this example is that sometimes we get the idea that confessing Christ is all about just saying, like, jesus died for me. Nothing else matters. Like, let's not talk about baptism or the Lord's supper or any of those other things that seem kind of more on the outside of what really matters. Let's just focus it in on what really matters. It's like, well, there are lots of ways to confess Christ or deny Christ, really common ways. And so here's an example of John confessing Christ by not confessing himself. All right, this one's from Matthew ten. So here we have the word acknowledges that's standing for the same greek word. So it's kind of all over scripture, and sometimes it's tricky. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, Jesus says, I also will acknowledge before my father, who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before Menta, I also will deny before my father, who is in heaven. This is a good warning for us that confessing Christ is a big deal, and we want to be careful not to deny him. And finally, this doesn't have the word in it, but I'm going to read it anyway. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age, Jesus says, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Well, that sounds kind of like a lot like he means more than one thing. You know, it kind of sounds like, as the apostles, as we go to all nations baptizing and teaching people to observe all that Jesus has commanded, that we should do our best to keep Jesus teaching pure, you know, that we should do our best to actually give his teaching as we teach. So I want to just use a few instances, a few examples to talk through what it could mean to confess Jesus or deny Jesus. Not directly, like Jesus is lord or Jesus isn't lord. That's pretty direct. What about in the case of indulgences? What does a piece of paper have to do with confessing Jesus? Well, this one might be a little bit more obvious for us Lutherans. If you tell somebody like John Tetzel was like we talked about last time, if you buy this piece of paper, as soon as you hear the coin in the coffer ring, then the soul of your relative from Purgatory Springs. Okay, what do I need Jesus for? Or Jesus can be bought off. Even if you kind of go with the way they viewed indulgences that Jesus merits could be kind of handed out with pieces of paper. Yeah, Jesus can be bought off then, or that kind of thing. So. Okay, that's just kind of obvious. All right, so we're denying Christ. If we say you can be saved by this sort of papal decree. All right, the pope's power. Papal power. The pope is, according to catholic doctrine, the vicar of Christ. And as we just said during Luther's time, and I guess now, too, sets himself above scripture, I think they would say kind of equal with scripture, which I suppose is kind of the same thing to a degree. How does that deny Christ? Well, it sets him up as an authority alongside scripture. And it's supposed to be kind of in the role of Christ on earth, but that kind of role easily becomes abused. Right. And so, all right, so you can. You can deny Christ with that, right, putting somebody up kind of equal with him, able to make decrees equal with scripture. Okay, the Lord's supper, like, is Christ present in his supper or not? Like, when we receive Jesus body and blood, is it his body and blood? Or is it just bread and wine and just something to kind of remember him by? And we all just together are thinking about him and this is serving our faith. Or just imagine if he is present in his supper and when he says, this is my body and this is my blood and for your forgiveness and salvation. And you're united to me and I'm in you and you're in me. And it's like, if he means that, then throwing that away and saying, like, that's like the radical reformers like Zwingli and Calvin said, like that's. That's like cannibal, cannibalism talk, you know, like that's. You know, you see how that can. That can deny Christ, right? Or speaking properly about the Lord's supper, can. Can confess him. And this is all for the sake of faith, right? You tell somebody, here's a piece of paper, your sins are forgiven or something like that, right? And without repentance and faith, then you're harming that person. You're telling them the wrong thing. You're not pointing them to Christ, you're pointing them to the piece of paper. If you tell somebody, you know you've repented and you believe in Christ, your sins are forgiven. You're pointing them to Christ, you're confessing Christ, and it really matters for that person. So this is why it all matters. And this is why each, each area of doctrine matters. That's why all of it as a whole matters. It's because things can point people away from Christ or they can point people toward Christ. So we want to pay attention to every little piece. Not that everybody has to intellectually understand every bit of doctrine as it's been sort of worked out theoretically. But all of that is helpful, as hopefully we'll see today. All right, so I want to list, if you have a little packet for today. The second page is a summary of what's in the lutheran confessions. All right, so the lutheran confessions are a collection of documents that Lutherans put together and said, this is what we believe, not just for the sake of telling people about it, but in this case, this is what we believe. And we're not going to depart from it. We're going to let these writings anchor us in the truth. We're going to let them guide us. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit. But first, I want to walk through what these documents are and where they came from briefly. So the three ecumenical creeds, we talked about that. We talked about this last time somewhat. First, the apostles Creed. I don't think we talked about this. The apostles Creed is an old baptismal creed. It was a creed that would be learned by people who were going to be baptized. And it's a summary of the faith that's been accepted by christians throughout the history of the church. So the apostles Creed is in our lutheran confessions. The Nicene Creed was developed and put out by the council of Nicaea in the year 325 because of a controversy. And then again, the rest of the Nicene Creed was formulated in 381 in Constantinople at another ecumenical council that we talked about last week. And if you didn't get last week, it's on somewhere. It's on Facebook. You can go find it on Facebook if you really want to. And the athanasian creed sounds like it's named after Athanasius, which it is, but it wasn't written by him. It came a couple hundred years after him. But he was just so helpful in working out the problems that that prompted the creed that they. I guess it's honorary, or it could be that through the Middle Ages or something, they actually thought that Athanasius had written it. That's probably more accurate, but it's a little bit later. But it's been accepted also by the church. And so all three of those creeds, we say them, but when we say them, just remember that the Christians have looked to these as. As guides and sort of rules. Again, we'll talk more about how we use them and why. But christians have benefited from these for a really long time. All right, now we're getting into lutheran documents. So the unaltered Augsburg confession in 1530. So 13 years after we sort of marked the beginning of the reformation, Emperor Charles V called a diet, an assembly in Augsburg to hear from the Lutherans. It was an opportunity for the Lutherans to say, this is what we believe now, Luther had been kidnapped and taken into hiding in the Wartburg castle. So he wasn't. He wasn't actually at Augsburg, but he was kind of a part of developing the Augsburg confession through letters with Philip Melanchthon, who wrote it. So then Philip Melanchthon, I believe, was in Augsburg for the diet of Augsburg and the speaking of the Augsburg confession, but also the german princes. So german princes representing vast regions of Germany at the time showed up. And that was a big deal because they were confessing their faith, not because it was popular. I mean, it was beginning to be popular, I suppose, among the people. But there was a whole lot of danger involved. They could have been well in danger because of their confessing this faith, and turned out they were okay. But they boldly confess the faith with this confession. And it kind of has primary importance in the lutheran confessions and maybe because of its historic significance as well. It says unaltered Augsburg confession because later it was changed. And so it's like, well, just. Nope, just the straight Augsburg confession without the changes that were made later. Okay, apology of the Augsburg confession in 1531. So there were responses to the Augsburg confession, and so then the Lutherans had to respond and say, well, you say this, but here's what we meant, and here's why we believe it. Small called articles, another kind of lesser known but important document, the treatise on the power and primacy of the pope from 1530 715 37, is about when Luther wrote about church councils. Like we talked about last week, there was the final sort of church council that the pope was promising. That didn't happen was in 1538. And in 1537, Luther is saying, like, look, I don't think at this point a council is going to be helpful anymore. And so they're thinking about those kinds of things. So that's in the lutheran confessions, the small catechism. Who knows about this? Yeah. So Luther wrote this small catechism, and it's. By the way, you know, if you got one of those books, little books, it's just the first, like, I don't know, 30 or 40 pages. It's pretty small. Luther wrote it for families. He's got a preface in there, you know, how fathers should teach their children. So the small catechism is for use at home. It's for use in families, for them to study it daily. And Luther says. Luther says, I study it every day, and I don't know it as I should. Just like, well, you wrote it. You know, surely you have it memorized. You know, it's a. But he doesn't mean that kind of know it. He means that the catechism, that what's in the catechism, like the creed and the Lord's prayer and the ten Commandments, these things are not just for knowing, it's for meditating on them. Right? These things serve our faith. And so that's why Luther says, I study it every day. It's because he's meditating on the Lord's prayer and on these different elements of it every day. And, yeah, he's never going to be done with that, just like we're never going to be done with that. It's always a good time for prayer. So I think the small catechism is really for teaching our children at home, and we use it for confirmation and such, and then also for praying. That's why you memorized it. If you went through confirmation, it's so that you have it in your head and you can pray it. So remember it, think about it, think through them. What does this mean? Then you can pray. And the large catechism is basically a series of sermons that Luther preached. I guess they're in sermon form and compiled. And it's more for teachers to kind of dig more deeply and know how to teach the catechism. Finally, sort of, finally, the formula of Concord in 1577. This was more for working through differences within Lutherans as they sort of tried to be on the same track and figure things out. And finally, an appendix catalog of testimonies. So this was a compilation of citations from the Church fathers and from scripture saying, look, what we're believing is like, none of this is anything new. This was especially important, like, less for the Roman Catholics. Like, they knew this stuff. They know Christ is one person and has two natures and things like that. But it was more for the radical reformers who were kind of throwing everything out and starting to mess some of these foundational things up. And so Luther and the Lutherans, 1577 is after Luther's death, I forgot to mention Luther died. Did I mention this? He died two months after the council of Trent started. He died in early 1546. So this is 1577. This is like Martin Chemnitz, I think, was writing this and also responding to the council of Trentin. So the catalog of testimonies, I think, is kind of a big deal. You know, it's saying, again, we want orthodox solutions. All we want is orthodoxy. And here in the church, fathers, in the ancient church, you can find all this stuff, and we need to stick to that, not throw it all out. All right. Maybe I'll ask, like, are there any questions on, on those briefly before we talk about what they're for? Did the formula of Concord work or was there still significant dissension? Well, I bet that somebody didn't agree with it, but I don't have a great answer for that, except that it did work in some sense because it became one of the most fundamental documents in the lutheran confessions that we've looked to ever since and has been very helpful to us. So I think it did. But I can't give you details on the fallout from it if there was some fallout. Okay. Any other questions, Mike? [00:28:15] Speaker B: Just a statement on that because I. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Believe the formula. [00:28:29] Speaker B: Of Concord before they do it. [00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the formula of Concord. Sorry, I can't actually repeat everything you said because I don't remember everything you said. I'm sorry for everybody that couldn't hear that. Yes, yes. But, yeah, the formula of Concord has been useful recently and is useful today, you're saying. And really it is. It seems to me like it's the primary document that you look to for theological guidance, let's say. Because the Augsburg confession is. Is not quite as detailed as the formula of Concord. You know, the formula of Concord comes later. And so it's. The Augsburg confession is, like, foundational. We're telling Rome and the world what we believe. And the formula of Concord is, like, we're working out the areas where we found that there is disagreement. And then on top of that, then in response to responses to the formula of Concord, then was written the solid declaration of the formula of Concord. So there was kind of a lot involved in that. And so that is kind of one of the more used confessional documents today, I would say so. Good, Mike. Thank you. All right, so let's talk about why. So one question, kind of obvious question, is, like, well, why have confessions? Like, why nothing? Aren't we all about sola scriptura? You know, scripture alone? Like, why would we have additional documents that we would pile on, as if scripture isn't enough by itself. Right? And so I've got the term up there, nuda scriptura, because there was a distinction made by Lutherans back then to say, like, yeah, scripture alone. But, like, scripture's never alone, right? It's not like you can ever have scripture alone in a vacuum, untouched by teachings. So, okay, you've got scripture, and then you've got somebody teaching scripture. Well, that can go wrong or it can go right. So one example that I like to give for those who say, I just believe what the Bible says, and I'm just gonna clear away all the teaching that's cropped up around it, it's like, well, do you believe in the Trinity? If so, if you don't wanna say no to that, then you're benefiting from oodles of debate and suffering and arguments. In the early church, this was worked out through painstakingly and with a lot of difficulty. And so by talking about the Trinity, you're really building on a whole lot of work and councils in the early church. And so rather than just skip past all that stuff, you can use it and learn it so that you're not just, I don't know, taking its word for it or whatever, but kind of lean into it and try and learn it. It's kind of like. Kind of like if your doctor said, well, there's a lot of science, a lot of research about, you know, a part of the body, or like. Or like, the way that cells work, like mitochondria and stuff like that. But I'm not going to take that for granted. I'm just going to study the body and come up with my own ideas or my own understanding of it because I don't want to. You see what I mean? It's like there's a whole lot of science, a whole lot of people have spent a lot of time studying the way that cells work and the way that your body processes energy and distributes it from each cell and all this stuff. And there's no way that you can learn all that on your own without any help. And so, okay, you could be. Okay, it's possible to still be a doctor and serve people while throwing out all scientific progress up to this point. But you'd save yourself a whole lot of work and you'd get a little farther, too, if you just, you know, take what, you know, science together has said, like, this is the way it works. You can just, you know, use that and then you can stand on their shoulders and. And do a whole lot more. I don't know. Another example would be if you want to describe to somebody, let's say you're in the wilderness and you're like, you got to get from here to there. You could try and describe, you just say, like, okay, there's the land. You go out and find it. I'm sure you can. Or you could give them a map and then with, you can name things. That's basically what the Trinity is. Trinity doesn't occur in scripture, that word, but it's kind of a signpost to tell you, like, you know, in the world of scripture, in the landscape of scripture as you explore this vast place. Here's what christians have seen together and agreed upon for the last 2000 years. You know, we like to call it the Trinity. And then there's a danger because we could take Trinity for the thing itself, you know, like, well, oh, I know all about God. Like, he's one God, but he's three. It's kind of like an apple, you know, and you just kind of think, yep, I get God. You know, rubber stamp it. But the map doesn't replace the terrain. You know, it's just like the theory of how the body works doesn't replace the body. You know, it's just there to kind of guide us through it, give us some handles to be able to know where we are and navigate it. That's the purpose of all that. That's what the confessions are for us as well. The creeds but also the confessions. We've been here before. We've argued this point before. You know, I've had discussions with some really brilliant people who throw out all the history of the church and think that the church was off track and actually being unhelpful. And it's very difficult to have a theological conversation or to talk about what the Bible means or anything, because they can be completely unmoored. There's nothing guiding their interpretation, really. And so they might accept one thing about the Trinity, but reject something else. And then I to think of trying to help them to an orthodox understanding without leaning on all the debate. I'm not going to be able to rehash the council of Nicaea for somebody effectively. Does that make sense? It's just a real gift to not have to relive that counsel, except to learn about it and to really know what we believe. Not just the words of the map, not just the theory that's been handed to us, but to using that as a guide, explore the real thing, explore scripture. So for Lutherans, we have a distinction for talking about the place of the confessions in our life. First of all, scripture is the norm of faith in life. And that means that scripture is the rule. Scripture is what governs our faith in life. So another way to say it is that scripture is the norming norm. It's like the. What is it? I can't think of it right now. It's like the Norma normata or something like that. The norming norm. And then the. No, I don't. Normans. Norman Norm. Norma Normans. Something like that. The norming norm. Okay. It's the norm that norms and the confessions are the normed norm. The norma normative, probably, of faith and life. So scripture is at the top, shaping. And then confessions we place under that, saying that it is shaped by scripture. Like this is the map that matches the reality of scripture we believe. And then using that map, we can explore scripture and not get lost, you know, not get off track in avoidable ways, let's say. Any questions about that? [00:37:20] Speaker B: Ken, it seems like that's been going on. I mean, that's what Paul and the disciples did too, right? Was they interpreted what God's words were and put them in a way that we could understand them and follow them. [00:37:40] Speaker A: Right? [00:37:40] Speaker B: I mean, that's really kind of. But it's been going on for a. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Long time, since the beginning of written word, right? Yeah. So you could say just kind of to repeat some of what you said, that Paul and the apostles, I'm just going to repeat it for him. Paul and the apostles also kind of help us understand scripture. That's what the New Testament is. It's kind of interpretation of the Old Testament in light of Christ. In some sense, there is a difference. I mean, they were apostles, and the writings of the New Testament are. Are inspired. Inspired and scripture and the councils, we don't hold up to the level of scripture, but there is something similar going on there. And we also do see, as we looked at last week, that there is a council in acts 15 where they do that. They work through it and then put out a statement to everybody. Here's what we believe is right, the Holy Spirit believes. And, you know, it's not quite the way to say it, but you can forgive me for that. All right. I don't actually have. I forgot my watch today and it's not showing up on the back wall. What time is it? All right, we're in good shape. Good deal. Thank you. And we should set up a system like, tell me when we have, I don't know, eight minutes left, something like that. And let's say we're finishing at 1015. Okay. All right, so there are two kinds of confessional subscription. All right? So we as Lutherans, subscribe to the lutheran confessions. We submit ourselves to the lutheran confessions. And where the rubber meets the road with that really is like pastors and called teachers. So when I was ordained and then when I was installed also, you know, I make a commitment to teach according to the lutheran confessions. So, you know, one of the benefits for you is that you can know what to expect to hear. You know, that I'm not just freewheeling up here, but I've got a map and a guide that I'm not supposed to depart from. And, well, you know, maybe you would luck out and I could just be like, you know, able to like, brilliantly go beyond the lutheran confessions or something like that. But you don't want that. That's not gonna, that's not gonna go well. You know, you want, you want my words to be bound and guided by something that can anchor our preaching and teaching and such in something solid. So that's been the function of the lutheran confessions for Lutherans, is to hold us in the same place. We just don't want to go anywhere. Okay? This is orthodoxy. Like all kinds of winds of doctrine, like the apostles say, could blow us off course, but the confessions help to anchor us, help us to keep us in the same place no matter what comes. So there are two ways of looking at that. And I think they have or can have very different outcomes. So the first is what we call a quia, subscription to lutheran confessions, which is because that's what that word means, like, because they are a proper interpretation of scripture. So again, we're not like setting it over scripture, but we think that this map represents the teaching of scripture and we tie ourselves to it because it does. The other is a little less firm quotinus, insofar as they properly interpret scripture. It's like, well, you know, not really sure. And then that introduces doubt. It's like, well, where do you think that the lutheran confessions don't teach what scripture does? And that becomes completely subjective. So this is the difference, for example, between the way that the lutheran church Missouri synod interprets, I mean, you know, subscribes to lutheran confessions and the ELCA, the way that they subscribe to the lutheran confessions. And we've taken very different paths. So I want to close by just very quickly outlining how that happened, because this is a kind of a recent example of how the lutheran confessions are useful and how they can help ground us in, in the truth and in the christian faith. I'm just going to leave that up because I don't think I have anything coming after it, so good. It is the same. All right. So in the, a lot has changed societally, and especially, I mean, say, from about the time of the reformation, you know, we had the, this going back to the sources and ancient sources and such coming out of the middle ages, and we were sort of rediscovering ancient wisdom and, and renewing our teaching and such. And then he had the reformation and we're emptying the monasteries and starting schools, and there's this big push forward. But then societally, we've also got the, like the scientific revolution and the age of enlightenment. And I'm kind of saying these things out of order, but you get the idea, like, we're getting smarter and smarter and we can do everything kind of attitude. And then also rationalism. Rationalism that takes very rational approach to reality, but kind of focuses on the material. So we become materialists and scientists and we lose sight of other things. Anyway, in theology, one of the things that this did was that in the last couple hundred years, theology became more and more like a scientific discipline. So, for example, studying scripture became less about looking for the, I mean, less about like sitting in scripture and learning from the Holy Spirit from whom, you know, all of it came, and more like sitting above the text of scripture and trying to figure out the historical context behind it and, like, who the author really was because we know it couldn't have been this person and like, what really happened? Because from a materialist perspective, miracles, you know, are you serious? You believe in those? Like, that's like, you know, so he's like taking our reason and standing above it and judging it and saying, well, if the miracle didn't happen, you know, if Jesus didn't feed the 5000 really with a few loaves of bread, maybe the miracle was that Jesus, you know, handed out five loaves of bread to 5000 people. And they all said, I'm content, you know, so, like rationalizing scripture and also tearing it apart and trying to say even things like, you know, this, this wasn't all written by one author. In fact, it was compiled over many centuries and, well, we're not really interested in what was compiled and so we want to get to the sources behind the text. I don't know if any of that makes sense, but I. All that can be summed up as historical criticism. That's kind of the name for it. And this kind of interpretation of scripture, an approach to scripture that says, like, the stuff that doesn't seem like it could have happened didn't. All those kinds of things crept into the teaching, the training of pastors at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, where I graduated from. And so in the, in 1970, the president of the synod was Jacob ao Preuss. Did I get that right? Jacob Preuss. And he started an investigation at the seminary to see, like, okay, what's really being taught. And so they went in and the result of the investigation, I think four years later, I think 1974 was the one that ended. And they said 45 out of 50 of the professors are teaching from the perspective of historical criticism. And so they suspended the president of the seminary, John Teachin. And as a result, those 45 professors and a ton of students supporting them walked out of the seminary, sometimes referred to now as the walkout. Okay. And they formed their own seminary. They called it a seminary in exile, also in St. Louis. They were borrowing room at Eden Theological Seminary, a united Church of Christ seminary in St. Louis for a while. So this became known as Seminex for seminary and exile. So, okay, in this controversy, on the one hand, you had the professors at St. Louis who were adopting this historical critical view of scripture and the christian faith and questioning things like, I don't actually, I want to know a lot more about seven x. You know, forgive me if I. I don't know, I don't want to go too far in saying what they were teaching. But, but historical criticism certainly questions the divinity of Christ and, and validity of the scripture for, for faith. It questions Christ's presence in the Old Testament at all because, well, Christ hadn't been born yet, and people in the Old Testament weren't thinking about that. Right. All these kinds of things. So it was all a very big deal. And so in this controversy, what was the measure that was used to decide whether the professors were teaching faithfully or not? It was the lutheran confessions. We said, we're going to stick to the lutheran confessions and we're going to judge according to that. And whatever's leaving that is a problem. And so that helped to anchor us where we are now. So out of Seminex came the association of evangelical lutheran churches. This all gets very confusing. The association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches ended up joining up with the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church. You'd think of the same thing, but they're not. And they all became the evangelical Lutheran church in America, the ELCA. So that's where the ELCA comes from, partly from our own synod, partly from Semin X, and just to kind of illustrate, now we've had 50 years this year. That'd be 50 years from 1974. In 1974, it was a question of, like, do we remain? You know, on the one hand, it's like we don't want to be, we don't want to get carried away with the modern approach to reality, which was very attractive at the time. And so we're going to stick to our confessions is what we said in the lcMs. And on the other side, it was like, we don't want to be fundamentalists who are just you, you know, holding on to, I don't know, fuddy duddy ideas and such. Like, we want to interact with culture and we don't want to be so close minded. We want to be a little bit open. Right. But then you look 50 years later and see where we've gone. And I think the LC MS is pretty much in the same place. And I think it's because of our confessions, because we have something to hang on to, you know, and the ELCA is going very much. I mean, they are progressive and changing a whole lot. You know, they're embracing all the progressive, like, you know, God is, God is love. He loves everybody. That's the highest good. And so, well, how do we love as many people as possible? We embrace, like, diversity to the highest degree. So have a transgender pastor or drag queen pastor, those kinds of things. And so I don't know that people saw that in 1974, like, where the ELCA would go in taking that turn. But I think that's kind of the, I mean, that's where the road has taken them. And not everybody in the ELCA has, has gone there. I should say, too, there are a whole lot of people in the LCA who are not happy about all that stuff, but they have a different approach to the confessions and to subscribing to the confessions, and I think that really matters. So. All right, let's open it up to questions. Oh, the time's up there now. 1013. Okay for a few minutes? Yes. Oh, wait, hold on a second. Sherry's quickly coming down the aisle with a microphone. [00:51:32] Speaker C: Got to do it. Well, that's what happens. If you're not grounded into something, then you're leaving the door open. And it may, you know, for some things, it may seem right, but then again, it goes back to progressive. You start, you know, you may, you know, say, this is okay. This is, you leave it up to what you think, the definition of what, how you interpret the Bible. And it starts changing. And before you know it, like, say, that's where the, you know, the church becomes, you start letting, you know, drag queens and things like that because you have to love or whatever. So, you know, it's, you're leaving the door open if you are not grounded into something. [00:52:21] Speaker A: Right. And leaving the door open by not being grounded in something, that just makes me think of, like, the struggle of the christian faith as I experience it. You know, it's like I need to be grounded in scripture any minute because, you know, otherwise I might follow my own idea or my own desire somewhere I shouldn't. Right. And so, yeah, just the need to be grounded and the danger of being open. Yeah. [00:52:45] Speaker D: I was actually just having a conversation with a couple of my former neighbors about this, and they were saying, the pastor, that they go to church, too. They said that their pastor is lesbian. And I looked at them and I said, you know, I think it's really great that you guys are going to church. And I think that it is important that we show love. But I think that part of showing that love is showing the truth. And when we deny that truth in order to make someone else feel comfortable, because you think that making people feel comfortable means loving them, that's not love. That, in fact, actually creates a very dangerous situation. And then to put a someone in charge to lead, I mean, their salvation in general, that they're leading all these people to believe a false teaching that's not even scriptural. I was like, I think that's something that you really need to learn and is so important for you to not just follow what you are being led, but to actually test it, apply it to scripture itself. [00:54:04] Speaker A: Yes. [00:54:14] Speaker E: I was a part of the ALC before they became Elca. And I remember in 1974 going to meetings with my mother, with groups, and I can hear Chris Midgarden from my church having a nervous breakdown about the fact that we would want to become a part of that whole group, knowing what they believed in and that we did not believe in. And I know that my church is still considered a very conservative church back then. And I actually remember me going to church and being able to be a, you know, at a different church and being able to be an usher and my mother falling over that a woman could usher, which explains how conservative my church is. And sadly, I'm sad that it, you know, is a part of the ELCA. [00:55:30] Speaker A: That kind of highlights just that it. For a lot of people and for a lot of you, probably, like, you have experiences with this, and for me, it's just hearing about it from others, you know, that was a very difficult time for us in it. Dan's got a question or something. [00:55:49] Speaker B: I grew up in the LCA, and in transition into the first hand. [00:55:58] Speaker A: There. [00:55:58] Speaker B: Were certain pieces of liturgy that were a bit different, and justice reminded me of one of them in particular. And the confessions, as they were published in that 1996 in the confession of, we say through the confession, we justly deserve your present and statement that does not exist in the ELCA version of a confession, which is a perfect example of what you're talking about, maintaining the integrity of the confessions. And that's a key piece. If you don't notice that, recognize it, say it, remind yourself of it. At each recitation of liturgy, we justly deserve punishment. If that's not in your vocabulary, then anything goes. Yeah, that's what holding fast to the description means. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Dan, I don't think that your mic was on. Sorry, but I'm just. I'm going to repeat the gist of it for those who couldn't hear. Just that one liturgical difference between our practice and that of the ELCA is that in the confession of sins, we say we justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. And that's been removed from the confession of sins in the ELCA hymnals, which I'm not familiar with. But, yeah, so Dan says, this is a perfect example of what changing and not holding to our confessions can do. So we better wrap this up so we can, you know, get ready for the next service. But thank you all for your kind attention and for this time together.