Will you find Lutherans in either camp? Yes. But the Lutheranism Luther practiced made Tradition and Reason subservient to Scripture. Hence, when Luther read Jesus' words, "This is my body; this is my blood," he didn't get into a battle of semantics with Zwingli, the original debater of whether the word "is" really means "is."
My opinion is that Lutherans are neither Catholic nor Protestant. Lutherans have retained the liturgical and worship forms from Catholicism (which originally were "borrowed" from the synagogue services). But Luther remove those areas that were offensive and restored the Gospel message of "faith alone, Scripture alone, and by grace alone" to God's people. Luther restored the "priesthood of all believers" (although, ironically, many Lutherans today believe only the pastor can do certain tasks-more on that in a future article after the present poll has run its course). Luther restored singing to the congregation so that the people would have a means to remember the Gospel message. He restored the Lord's Supper to the people with both elements.
Finally, even the architecture of the buildings is different!
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3.
Sep 1, 2001 11:03 PM
John loves the races. One day he was there betting on the ponies and nearly losing his shirt when he noticed a priest who stepped out onto the track and blessed the forehead of one of the horses l ...
-- posted by H2O
2.
Jan 5, 2001 10:05 PM
We, as Lutherans, are a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and other "Protestant" denominations, along with the Anglican Church. Although we have many differences with the Roman Church, we al ...
-- posted by bobzilla
1.
Dec 22, 2000 1:15 PM
Dear John:
Although I wasn't up on all that history, I do have to agree with your conclusions. (That is how I voted) I think that our differences with Protestant church bodies is very evident here ...
-- posted by Reddeer
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