Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "What Sasse Says: Sasse to Hebart, Christmas 1948":
As I recall, the "Statement of the Forty-Four" came about in the WWII era, when the Lutheran decline was above noted as starting. Instead of solving the problem in the way of Acts 15, "We will just have to agree to disagree and go home." The Jerusalem Council, on the other hand, said, "We're going to sit here and hash this out until we unanimously agree and are true to God's Word in such agreement."
Another point that keeps going through my head is the issue of the Lord's Supper. We are so poorly catechized today that I think people often take the Calvinistic/Zwinglian approach to the "Real Presence." Are we being punished, per 1 Cor. 11 for not taking seriously Christ's presence in the elements?
"...there is no argument as to what kind of consolation and confirmation in our judgment brings surer, more beneficial, and more effectual results. For we certainly ought not arrogate this judgment to ourselves, we who ought to depend on the word of Him of whom the Father has said from heaven: "Hear Him" [Luke 9:35]. But because the proper, simple, and natural meaning of the words of the last will and testament of Christ teaches the substantial presence of His very body and blood in the Supper, and because from this so many sweet and useful comforts come to our conscience, which through the opposing opinion are entirely taken away or torn down, we therefore rightly come to the point that we must fight to retain the proper and natural meaning of the testament of Christ lest such comforts be taken from the church. For what kind of comfort and strengthening is best suited and most necessary for us in out infirmity no one knows better than our true Good Samaritan, who heals all our infirmities. In addition to all other remedies for our infirmity He has instituted in His last Supper, in the form of His last will and testament, this ever-present anecdote, when He says: 'Take, eat and drink, this is My body, this is My blood.' And we must give pious and reverent attention to its benefit, use, and efficacy." -From "The Lord's Supper/De coena Domini," by Martin Chemnitz, Second Edition, 1590, pg. 186.
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GJ - I will be writing today about justification and the Sacraments. The Grow-ti-vational Lutherans hide Holy Baptism and Holy Communion because both take time, annoy the Babtists, and emphasize God rather than man. Now, that's a downer.
