Hi! I'm new to the Moderate forum, but I think I would probably fit in pretty well around here. Some background on me is that I was raised as a Baptist, experimented with Seeker-type churches, spent a few months at a Fundamental Baptist church, and even attended one that was "Bapticostal" for, well, far longer than I should have (but that's another story).
This year my family joined the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod and I'm so happy about that I could bust a seam. (Please forgive my enthusiasm.
)
I never knew there was a church out there that took the bible seriously as the word of God, yet actively sought to avoid legalism and pietism. We worship using a form of liturgy that can be traced back to the beginnings of the church and value the writings of the early church fathers, but always as filtered through the scriptures. We aren't afraid to take God at his word in the bible even when it doesn't make sense, so that the reason and logic of man inform our beliefs, but don't overrule the word of God.
Lutherans make a wonderful distinction between two basic
theologies: the Theology of the Cross and the Theology of Glory. This distinction works wonders for teaching you to take your focus off of you and what you can do for God, and retrains you to focus on God and what he has done and does and will do for you. It's totally countercultural in these days of me, me, me. I highly recommend reading
this regardless of your denomination (the author is from the C&MA).
To address some of NorrinRadd's comments ...
-- There is only the barest NT evidence of a "priesthood," other than that one that all Xians share; there is no evidence of vestments, etc. (Literally the ONLY Scripture I know of is
Rom. 15:16, and I find it quite tenuous.)
We have ministers, not priests, who follow the teachings in Timothy and Titus (and other places) about ministering to the needs of the flock. They wear vestments during the divine service to show that they are acting in the office of minister (
Office of the Keys); speaking and acting by the command and in the stead of Christ. Lutherans actually were the ones who first formalized the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.
NorrinRadd said:
-- Access to the Inner Sanctum is now open to all who have the Spirit, not just the high priest --
Eph. 2:18
-- There is no NT "temple," other than believers themselves, individually and collectively --
1 Cor. 6:19;
2 Cor. 6:16;
Eph. 2:21
-- Ritual food laws no longer apply --
Mark 7:19
Totally agree.
NorrinRadd said:
-- Sabbatarianism, and in fact the whole notion of "holy days," no longer applies --
Rom. 14;
Col. 2
We reject
Sabbatarianism (which usually only appears in the most "Romophobic" of denominiations), but we do follow the cycle of the
Church Year as a matter of a worthy tradition and in the freedom we have in Christ. There are no days of obligation as found in the RCC since this departs from the Gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
NorrinRadd said:
-- There is no incense in Xian worship in the NT, except in Heaven in Revelation. I can find no evidence of "bells" or censers or holy water or icons or ritual gestures, or any other such "traditions" -- several of which have, to me, uncomfortable wrong-covenant overtones.
Although some LCMS churches do use incense or bells, most do not - usually due to some of the same wrong-covenant overtones that you mentioned. We consider this to be examples of
adiaphora - beliefs or practices that are neither proscribed nor commanded by scripture and in which we are free to follow our conscience.
NorrinRadd said:
-- We don't have Scriptural details of what constituted a "typical" worship service. It probably varied. But it seems evident that it was at least common for them to be interactive and to have active input from diverse individuals. It also seems expected that there will often be quite a bit of spontaneity -- quite the reverse of ritual or "liturgy."
I don't know why you think that liturgy can't be spontaneous. Practially all churches have some kind of liturgy even if they won't admit it. Liturgy is simply the traditional structure of the service - whether that tradition goes back two thousand years or twenty years.
The liturgy we use at my LCMS church is probably 90% straight out of scripture, word for word. I know the Baptist church I grew up in always had the same order of service. Even churches that purposefully have no set pattern of worship still include certain elements - music, preaching, and announcements at a minimum - even if they come in different orders (Quakers excepted
).
This is a really good panel discussion on liturgy from the Internet Monk website with representatives from a wide variety of Christian traditions.
