Many pleasant reconciliations have taken place in the last few months. Although some people have set their nasty meter on max, others have contacted me to renew old friendships or start new ones. The Gospel accomplishes such good things, because the power of the Word of God is greater than anything man can imagine.
The passage above is a good illustration, especially in these days of side-stepping to Rome (sinuflecting). The Lutherans who follow Father Neuhaus in gradually embracing Rome, with as many victims as possible, will never post that quotation from the Augsburg Confession.
The true Gospel is expressed beautifully in Luther's sermons, the Book of Concord, Chemnitz, and Chytraeus. Anyone who wants comfort and strength should begin and end with those works.
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LPC has left a new comment on your post "Teaching the Gospel Means Rejecting False Doctrine...":
The crypto-papist Lutherans mainly I observe from LC-MS can not relate to the above words.
As an ex-RC kid, I was taught by the priest and nuns that Momma Mary is more merciful than Jesus. In fact we had pictures of Christ stern and always now ready to pounce. So they teach that Mary is much milder, gentler than Christ, this is still their teaching today.
You need Mary as your fixer to Jesus.
LPC
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GJ - Yes, Dr. Cruz. I have a quotation I will soon publish on this. One writer observed religious art where Mary is physically restraining Jesus from hitting the sinner. The trouble with lowest-common-denominator religion is that it keeps getting lower all the time. Thus the Enthusiasts of the Syn Conference train their disciples to become Enthusiasts for the Church of Rome. If Whorely Mother Church must be adored as the true religion (WELS, LCMS, Little Sect on the Prairie), then why not "return to Rome" where they do it right? No one has better assembly-line saints, works salesmen, and propaganda than Rome.
14 comments:
The crypto-papist Lutherans mainly I observe from LC-MS can not relate to the above words.
As an ex-RC kid, I was taught by the priest and nuns that Momma Mary is more merciful than Jesus. In fact we had pictures of Christ stern and always now ready to pounce. So they teach that Mary is much milder, gentler than Christ, this is still their teaching today.
You need Mary as your fixer to Jesus.
LPC
June 2011 FICl, p.9:
Q: "Why do we Lutherans seldom make the sign of the cross?"
A: "It is a sacrament that earns indulgences... The simple gesture is linked to the horrible doctrines like the treasury of the merits and Mariolatry."
Contributing author Forrest Bivens, please cite source. Does anyone anywhere really think making the sign of the cross is a sacrament that earns indulgences? Give me a break.
Dr. Greg.
then why not "return to Rome" where they do it right
So true, if these pastors are going to be loving the things Rome is doing, they might as well go to Rome. Besides, they have a better claim to priestly pedigree. They believe the Sacraments are not what make them because of God's word, they believe it is effective only in Rome because they are the exclusive franchisee, kinda exclusive distributor for it. All others are mere dealers.
AC V,
Sorry I wont give you a break.
Yes indeed for a Romanist, the sign of the cross gives them credit points, i.e. indulgences for purgatory. Ask a Hispanic Latino and a Filipino, they will tell you so.
In fact there is a folk teaching that Mary **wants** you to cross yourself or something like that each time you pass by a church etc.
Romanism as Dr. Greg says, has a good system of works, crossing yourself is just one of them. I can name more, like wearing the rosary etc etc. It just multiplies as you go along.
LPC
LPC
I think Lutherans know better what the signing of the cross means. However in folk versions of Romanism, certainly it is related to being afraid or using it as a form of works for God to favor. The sad thing is that Roman priests promote rather than correct the superstitious ideas the Roman Catholics entertain.
For example wearing a scapular has become like wearing an amulet etc.
LPC
Dr. Cruz illustrates how something good can easily be turned into something bad. Satan apes what is good, so the form is there but not the substance. In the same way, as LI observed, the Shrinkers pervert the Great Commission in Matthew, turning a Gospel admonition (Go, teach all nations, baptizing) into a Law demand: make disciples. When I mentioned that at a CLC (sic) meeting, Dave Koenig went Medieval.
LPC, please cite the authoritative source that making the sign of the cross is a sacrament that earns indulgences.
Does this sound like superstition? Luther: "To defy the devil, I say, we should always keep the holy name upon our lips so that he may not be able to harm us as he would like to do. For this purpose it also helps to form the habit of commending ourselves each day to God – our soul and body, spouse, children, servants, and all that we have – for his protection against every conceivable need. This is why the Benedicite, the Gratias, and other evening and morning blessings were also introduced and have continued among us. From the same source comes the custom learned in childhood of making the sign of the cross when something dreadful or frightening is seen or heard, and saying, “Lord God, save me!” or, “Help, dear Lord Christ!” and the like. (Large Catechism I:72-74, The Book of Concord, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000], pp. 395-96)
Acey, Lito said the Romanists turned it into superstition. Lutherans need to realize that Romanism can make people turn against the Christian faith altogether. The cure for Romanism, whether Pentecostalism or Calvinism, is another form of Enthusiasm.
ACV,
please cite the authoritative source that making the sign of the cross is a sacrament that earns indulgences
You mean like an official pronouncement from the Magisterium and because there is no pronouncement, then that means the teaching is just not the teaching of the Roman Magisterium?
Well, I cannot give you an official document but Romanism does not work like that.
If they did, then they would all point to Scripture to validate their teaching! If they did, then they would be signing the BoC too. That expectation is just a bit off the rails.
Whenever I talk to pope loving Lutherans (and I do not mean you by that) about how corrupt Rome is in its teaching, they also want me to give them an official dogmatic pronouncement for a teaching but I cannot because Rome speaks with a fork tongue. If you want to see their true theology you do not look for it in a country where they are not the dominant denomination, go to South America and Filipinas, you will see the mixture of voodoo into Christianity right under the supervision of the priest and the awareness of their bishops.
Their real theology is found on the ground not up there in the air.
LPC
AC V,
I just want to clarify, I do not mind people crossing themselves. I just refuse to cross myself in the same spirit when I was a Romanist.
As I said, it has become a folk belief amongst Romanists that by crossing yourself several times, not just once, it is taught to gain favor with God. To some it has become a form of sacrifice such that they cross themselves several times and they only stop when they have felt that their crossing has been accepted by God. Hence, they have used it as a form of penance.
When you have been taught that you can pay for your sins, guess what, you will use almost anything as a form of payment.
LPC
It is absurd to forfeit a meet, right, and salutary tradition - such as crossing oneself - simply because someone somewhere is doing it wrong or with evil motivations. The papists erroneously use the Sacraments - we don't forfeit those, however. That's what the Radical Reformation did - they went too far and forfeited everything (and, ironically, ended up committing the same errors as Rome, but on the other end of the spectrum). We are not iconoclasts; we do not shy away from our Catholic heritage. We are Catholics; the real ones.
Funny how making the sign of the cross on yourself is suspect, but not when the pastor makes the sign of the cross at a congregation. Same gesture, different directions.
BTW, a "sacramental" is not the same as a "sacrament" in the RCC. Perhaps that is what the FICl author meant.
Man is not condemned by not making the sign of the cross neither is he favored because he is doing it.
It is like eating meat or skipping it.
Radical Reformation did - they went too far and forfeited everything
As far as I know they are still doing the Lord's Supper but now it is an ordinance, a Law.
They did not abolish it, they re-casted it as mere signs, and symbols a reaction to Romanism which went too far on signs and symbols.
LPC
Bread and grape juice once a month is not the Sacrament of Holy Communion that was central to the life of the Church and Worship at the time of the Reformation.
Saying that what the Reformed have is the Lord's Supper is like saying the pastor making a cross sign in the air over the congregation is "making the sign of the cross;" sure, you can say that in technicality, but neither are truly what they purport to be in the context of the spirit and meaning of the Confessions.
Daniel.
Have you been to a Presbyterian Church? I have many times. Their ministers pronounce the words of institution on the elements albeit with their confessional understanding behind it.
Thus because they pronounce the words of institution, they have it but they deny what it brings.
If they do not have the Supper, why are they condemned for not believing in it?
If you look at SD, VII, 88, it is they who deny it as Sacrament (which you agree that they do not have it) but it is us who affirms it. See 89. I suggest you speak carefully and not fall into their paradigm.
For this very reason that they have it but deny what it brings that they are rejected by the BoC. Hence, they are condemned by the BoC precisely because they have what the words of Christ brings since they repeat the Institution yet they deny the meaning of those words.
LPC
PS. BTW, be careful how you use the word Reformed. The Wesleyans are not Reformed neither do the Reformed want to be identified with them, technically they are not all Reformed.
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