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What do you mean byThat's a huge question and I'd have to unpack it a bit, and use some examples.
To use one timely example, we would tend to different from evangelical Christians in things like the dispute over whether Christians can serve gays who are having marriage ceremonies. We would tend to say yes, we are free to do that, even if we might agree that same-sex marriage is not God's ideal, but other Christian groups see the need to uphold God's "glory". We don't think this is a proper understanding of our duties to our neighbor within our vocations, or God's glory.
Our love for God is best expressed through serving our neighbor without distinction (just as God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust), and not usually through upholding abstract principles. People always come first. God does not need our glory, he has glorified himself far more through the Cross of Jesus than any human is capable. God's glory is his mercy towards sinners.
So our ethics differ significantly here, we are less concerned with our individual purity. Our ethic is focused on compassion for our neighbor and ensuring that their welfare is protected through just laws, fair business dealings, acts of kindness, etc., and less on perceived personal or group purity. The reasons for this are too deep to get into, but needless to say it's down to our theology and practice. We are both declared righteous and yet thoroughly sinful in this life, and at the same time, our lives are complicated, therefore our ethics must be more complicated than simply seeking to absolve ourselves of guilt.
Traditionally, we are far less polemical than many American evangelicals, we do not see a mandate to change culture necessarily, in the way other evangelicals do. We can be clannish ethnic and religious enclaves at times, but when it comes to culture issues, we believe seriously in living in peace with everybody, as much as possible. As a result, we never were part of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and fundamentalism in Lutheranism is a recent development.
We believe the only certain place that the Holy Spirit has been promised to work, is through the Word and Sacraments. We are not anti-charismatic per se, it's just not what we emphasize. There are a minority of Lutherans that practice a more charismatic type worship experience, however, but many left for other churches a long time ago. I certainly have had spiritual experiences like that in a Lutheran church, though I am hesitant to speak of "baptism" in that manner because it really is alien to our traditional theology.
We believe babies receive the Holy Spirit through baptism and sometimes we use chrism oil as a sacramental sign.
1) sanctification in context of individual calling
being different from
2) sanctification in moral progress or individual holiness.
I offered my explanation for what I thought it could mean , I just wanted to hear what you meant by it.
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