A Lutheran becoming Orthodox is like…
…a Lutheran going to Fuller Seminary or Willow Creek? I don’t quite understand the simile Lutheran pastor and blogger, Dr. Gregory Jackson, attempts to form, short of, perhaps, the act of not being Lutheran?
Anyway…I thought his caption under the picture of the Hagia Sophia was funny. If we drop a few letters though…
Seriously, I get around. I know there are Lutheran pastors/congregations that attempt the Willow Creek worshiptainment strategy. And some try to meld into the American Evangelical landscape without a Lutheran distinction. And some even embrace various things normally associated with Eastern Orthodoxy (icons, Orthodox prayers, etc.). What passes for Lutheranism in America these days is a mixed bag. But a wise Lutheran once told me: ‘One doesn’t become Orthodox because of dissatisfaction with the former church. One becomes Orthodox when one sees Orthodoxy as the True Church.’
No one goes down the Willow Creek path because they see that as the “True Church”. Similarly, no one travels the Fuller Seminary path for the same reason. But when one travels East…the stakes are decidedly higher and the prize decidedly different.
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GJ - My caption, as you may recall, was - Lutherans, The Mother Ship Beckons.
My point has always been - Have an honest confession of faith. I find the Recessional Lutherans, who are dishonestly leading people away from the Lutheran Confessions, the worst kind of cowards.
I am not surprised that people do not find any satisfaction in the Lutheran Church of today. In general, the clergy have either sold out to Fuller/Willow Creek (the vast majority) or to Rome/Constantinople. If these ministers no longer favor the Book of Concord, they should say so and quit annoying the minority who see the work of Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz as the high-point of Christian theology. There were other great theologians afterwards, but none reached the supremacy of those three gifted and brilliant teachers of the Gospel.
