Thanks! There are no ELS congregations anywhere close to me, but there is one WELS congregation 11 miles from my house. Is there any real differences between WELS and LCMS?
Depending upon the LCMS congregation, there could be very little difference and lightyears. WELS is consistantly very conservative. LCMS is consistantly inconsistant.
As to your original question I might suggest looking up the Marburg Conferrence. Better yet, here's a few links:
Marburg Colloquy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
COLLOQUY OF MARBURG (M... - Online Information article about COLLOQUY OF MARBURG (M...
Now, the main difference that separates Lutherans from other protestants has not changed. This conferrence illustrates that difference, to wit: Real Presence.
It is said that Luther pulled the cloth back from the the conferrence table and wrote in chalk the quote from Christ, " This is my body. This is my blood," then he threw the table cloth back over it without any explanation. When he'd finally had enough he threw the cloth back, exposing the writing, and said, " we don't seem to have the same spirit," which was a rather stinging rejection of Zwinglii's attempt to heal the differences between the Protestant churches and Lutheran through the hand of brotherhood. Without agreement on the question of real presence, Luther wouldn't agree to fellowship.
Much of the New Testament was written in Greek. I believe most of the Gospels were as well. The point of argument that Luther stood on was the Greek word for 'is'. The form of 'is' used in the Greek meant the actual physical embodiment of. So, when Christ is quoted in saying, "This is my Body, broken for you... This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins..." He seemed to somehow mean that the elements of what we came to call Communion, are the embodiment of himself.
His blood,
His flesh, in and under the physical wine and bread. He wasn't just setting up a memorial rite. Philiips (the paraphraser) translated this to read (bolding mine):
In the middle of the Meal Jesus took a loaf and after blessing it he broke it into pieces and gave it to the disciples.
"Take and eat this," He said, "it is my body."
Then He took a cup and, after thanking God, He gave it to them with the words, "Drink this, all of you, for it is my blood, the blood of the new agreement shed to set many free from their sins..."
(all quotes are from Matthew 26:26-28)
Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, goes on to state that, "For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgement upon himself..." or as the King James says it (bolding mine), "...Eateth and drinketh
damnation unto himself..." Judgement, damnation, these are not light warnings from the great apostle. He obviously doesn't believe that 'Communion' is just a rite or memorial.
Phillips puts the same thing as follows, "He that eats and drinks carelessly is eating and drinking a judgement on himself, for he is blind to the presence of the Lord's body." Obviously, Phillips believed in real presence.
The problem arises when one can't seem to separate when the Lord was speaking metaphorically and literally. Often, this is from a lack of knowledge of the original languages of the Bible and the significance in their usage. there was a good reason why Paul and most of the other writers of the New Testament and Gospels used Greek. They wanted to make sure what they were saying to the new belivers was crystal clear. Hence, many of the errors we find in doctrine and theology can be traced to bad translations, ignorance of language, and poor application of scripture.