If Worship on Sunday is wrong, then why do SDA parishes rent their churches to Traditional Christians?

MarkRohfrietsch said:

No question, ecclesial art and grand worship spaces can inspire emotions. Thomas needed to see our Lords wounds and to touch them, for most of us, art and beauty can stimulate and, like Thomas, reinforce our faith. It is good to have, but should not be counted as a requirement.

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The Orthodox experience is that our liturgy is actually driving conversions. People are attracted by the mystery and beauty of our worship and part of that is the architecture.

But to be clear I am not saying all worship services need to look like The DIvine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

Indeed I particularly like Anglican said services, which are quiet, reflective, contemplative and beautiful in a very different way.

Your LCC parish likewise excels at liturgical beauty which is why I hope to see it in person soon.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

We live in a "feel good" society that each year, more and more, seems to require instant gratitude. I see many congregations that have followed this philosophy, that have became woke, now struggling to hang-on, down-size, merge, often have to give up their sanctuaries. Many will not continue attending as the building and the art meant more to them than their faith.

This is sort of relevant to our conversation:

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Directly relevant; I would still attend the Methodist church where I was baptized except I was alienated first by feel good rock and roll worship and then by theological liberalism.

Beautiful worship is acceptable only if that worship is also doctrinally orthodox. Orthodoxy means “correct worship” and correctness is more important than aesthetics.

MarkRohfrietsch said:

About a year ago, we put together a portable Mass Kit for Pastor; got an inexpensive gold plated chalice, a gold Pyx with an applied cross on it's lid, a 7" wall crucifix that I adapted with a wooden base and a dowel to make it free standing; got him some nice linins, a couple of those glass, 7 day candles, a full set of little sick call stoles, and a bottle for water and one for wine. When he sets this up in a hospital or nursing home room, or in the house of a homebound member, the response to the "low budget" beauty has been overwhelmingly positive. I would have loved to have the budget available to the sacristy to buy him a big, fancy, ready made set, but such is not the case.

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What you’re describing is beautiful worship accomplished economically! I love everything about it. Everything. Also by the way it would be impossible to do much better in such cases even if you had spent more money, since in such constrained scenarios one can only do so much.

What really helps in such situations, we Orthodox are blessed with lovely ladies in the choir who are often willing to join the priest at hospitals and during midweek services to celebrate liturgies such as the Annointing of the SIck with Oil, and this really makes things special for people. I absolutely love it. It’s liturgical beauty of the best kind - the kind that costs nothing in terms of money (well really very little, the costs are born by the ladies of the choir), but which pays off massively for everyone involved. It is a true mercy of peace, a sacrifice of praise, to quote one of our hymns.
Also by the way, in the past, in a pinch, I made a hand cross with Fimo modelling clay and gold spray paint and fixative, which worked extremely well actually, I also made a decorative Assyrian cross for a friend of mine using the same technique to commemorate the grand re-opening of the parish where he is the priest (technically chorepiscopi, or choir bishop, which is useful as while he can’t ordain presbyters or do most things bishops can, he is able to ordain altar servers and consecrate objects for official use without sending for a bishop; also in the Assyrian Church of the East minor accidents can cause their altar to require reconsecration, for example if one inadvertently poured oil in the Chalice, which is a huge oops, but also if one spilled the Eucharist or did certain other things which do happen, while it doesn’t stop all liturgies since the Tablitho (they call it something else, but I’ll use the Syriac Orthodox name, its basically a wooden block with the name of the church written in Aramaic and signed by a bishop, which has a function similar to the Antimension in the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Corporal in the Western Church) functions as an altar in place of the altar, but nonetheless I suspect being able to reconsecrate things, which he can do, is useful.

Lutherans who are afraid of episcopal hierarchy interfering with pastoral care should consider Chorepiscopi; its also basically what LCMS/LCC senior pastors are, at present.

reddogs said:

Well, I come from a Catholic family background,

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Appeal to false authority. Your Catholic family background does not automatically make you an authority on the history or praxis of the Roman Catholic Church. My ancestors were the first Baptists in North America but I am not an expert on the history or praxis of any Baptist denomination and would not hold myself out as such.

reddogs said:

and know the deceptions that have been foisted on the people, and man cannot rename what God made a holy day and sanctified at Creation to another day. This deception game can only fool people so long before they catch on, telling them things like well its a statue of stone or wood but we will call it 'Peter', so you can bow down and 'venerate it' and kiss its foot.

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How is the Roman Catholic Church referring to the Seventh Day Sabbath as Sabato deceptive? Seriously? How on earth is it deceptive to rename the Seventh Day from Dies Saturnae (Saturday) to Sabato (Sabbath, meaning “Seventh” in Hebrew)?

MarkRohfrietsch said:

Thanks, we do the best that we can with what we are given.

If they are afraid of the episcopal hierarchical over-reach or abuse, then they should also read this; the safe guards are already covered in the BOC: The Power & Primacy of The Pope

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Indeed, very good. My concern was rather if they were concerned that having bishops would interfere with their pastor’s ability to provide pastoral care, but the thing about that is that if one has bishops, aside from the fact that the early church treated all bishops as equal, those bishops can delegate most of their authority to presbyters without ordaining them as bishops. For example a presbyter can receive a blessing to tonsure readers.

truthuprootsevil said:

My second question does answer my first question to my satisfaction - and not necessarily the satisfaction of many others.

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But what does this have to do with the subject of this thread?

MarkRohfrietsch said:

If you read the Treatise, you will note that there is no real difference. A Pastor is the "Bishop" of his congregation. A Bishop is a Pastor to his Congregation; Pastors in his particular region, or Regional Bishops in the case of a Presiding, National, or Arch-Bishop. Melancton's Treatise has it covered. While we have not restored the use of the term "Bishop" as an official title (Could happen at this convention, there is an overture on the docket) Pastors and Lay have been refering to our "presidents" as our Bishops; and in the case of my regional Bishop, my former Pastor called him "Lord Bishop"; me, "Herr Bischof" (We are both very fond and respectful of Marvin)

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Well obviously the direct analogue of an Orthodox bishop in LCMS/LCC polity is the pastor or senior pastor of a congregation, with those you call bishops being more like Metropolitans or Archbishops, and likewise, junior pastors being more akin to presbyters.

I myself have worked as a Congregationalist clergyman and accepted it from a Patristic perspective insofar as all dioceses start as a congregation, but I realized that too many with the Pastoral Authority of a Bishop is a bit like too many cooks in the kitchen.

However, the underlying Congregational concern, that being, a desire to not have the diocesan structure rip out their church from under them as has happened in the Episcopal Church, the UMC, and also it looks ready to happen in the Presbyterian Church USA, I am extremely sympathetic towards.

Thus I think the ideal approach is that congregations should control the building if they financed it, and the affiliation of that building, so that if the bishop does depart from the faith, they can change affiliations. I hate the idea of planning for schismatic scenarios but I dislike what has happened even more. As I see it the shift towards the left underscores the importance of Church Tradition, which Luther to his credit also recognized, and people fail to understand Sola Scriptura is not the rejection of tradition but rather merely Luther’s attempt to differentiate between legitimate parts thereof and recent scholastic innovations in the Roman church. Collectively, the Lutherans did a fairly good job given that they during Luther’s lifetime had no contact with the Orthodox and had only limited access to Patristic writings, chiefly St. Augustine and other Latin fathers, but Luther was learned enough to know about the Oriental Orthodox, which gave him the courage to do what he did when Leo X ignored his concerns (Concerns that were later addressed rather well by Pius V, but by then, the schism had happened and recalling a schism is very difficult work, and other problems did remain, in all fairness to everyone).

Sadly, this became distorted into anti-traditional theologies which are often called Solo Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura, which reject tradition altogether contra 1 Corinthians 11:2 and 2 Thessalonians 2:15

BobRyan said:

s it your claim that some Adventists do not know that you worship every Sabbath keeping the day holy from Friday evening to Saturday evening??

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I can only assume that some members have missed where I have repeatedly shown that we worship throughout that time period and keep the period holy. And Sabbath is defined according to the delimiters that Judaism used and that in my experiences Adventists use (some Adventists observe Vespers on what on the 24 hour clock is called Friday evening and this is very proper in my opinion).

Indeed whenever possible we tend to observe an even longer period of sanctity, for example, on Holy Week, we begin on Thursday evening with the 12 Gospels Service (which is equivalent to the Western Tenebrae service and is the time that 12 lessons the four Gospels describing the passion of our Lord are read).