{"id":7360,"date":"2016-05-09T12:10:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T16:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=7360"},"modified":"2024-03-08T18:08:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T22:08:31","slug":"is-lutheranism-officially-anti-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2016\/05\/is-lutheranism-officially-anti-catholic.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Lutheranism Officially Anti-Catholic?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Book of Concord and the Catholic Mass<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WhoreOfBabylon2\"<\/div>\n
Colored version of the Whore of Babylon<\/em> illustration from Martin Luther\u2019s 1534 translation of the Bible, from the Workshop of Lucas Cranach<\/span> [public domain \/<\/span> Wikimedia Commons<\/a>].<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(4-26-05)<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>The following dialogue with Lutheran \u201cBWL\u201d occurred in comments below. Since I did a little work in my reply, I thought it would be appropriate to make it a new paper of its own. His words will be in<\/span> blue<\/span>. Citations from the Book of Concord will be in<\/span> green<\/span>.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
* * *<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Not to be nit-picky, but my understanding is that Luther and Calvin saw the RCC not as a false church, but as an impure one, which is an important distinction. They both recognized the validity of Catholic baptisms, and Luther thought the RC also had a true communion. Although Luther was critical of certain elements of RC communion practice (communion in one kind, the mass as a sacrifice) he did famously say that he\u2019d rather drink blood with the pope than wine with the Reformed. Just a suggestion, but if you want to take on anti-Catholics, bringing up Calvin and Luther\u2019s view of Rome actually helps your case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned before, this should work against Reformed Baptist types by showing how Luther and Calvin would see their sacramentology (or anti-sacramentology, however you want to put this) as conflicting with Reformational soteriology. In other words, on the whole it helps you to point out how while Reform Baptist like to claim the mantel of defending the Reformation they actually conflict with the Reformers on numerous and important points.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>I believe that it is a mixed bag, when it comes to Luther and Calvin\u2019s view of the Catholic Church. I think they contradict themselves. I\u2019ve found it impossible to interpret their views in this vein in a consistent, coherent fashion. On the other hand, I\u2019ve written about Luther\u2019s more \u201cCatholic\u201d beliefs (including compiling<\/span> an entire book of these<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be delighted to conclude that they regarded Catholics as more or less equal brothers-in-Christ, but there is too much that suggests otherwise, which has never been adequately explained to me by those like yourself who believe that they were not anti-Catholics (you\u2019re welcome to be the first; be my guest). I always say regarding Calvin, that if he thinks I participate in the grossest blasphemy, sacrilege, and idolatry every week at Mass, then that can hardly be squared with thinking that all this is Christian.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, as you know Luther was prone to uh, exaggerations and harsh, polemical language. This certainly was a big flaw of his, though it\u2019s worth pointing out his Catholic opponents were at times prone to nasty polemics at first. My point is, however, that Luther should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you maintaining, then, that every time Luther wrote something which could reasonably be construed as denying that the Catholic Church is truly Christian, it should be taken in this way, as merely his excess in language? There is not a single instance of these utterances that he meant literally? It seems to me that this would be an extraordinary claim, and almost impossible to prove.<\/span><\/p>\n

To my knowledge, however, Luther and the Lutheran church has always regarded Rome as a christian church, though an impure one with many doctrinal flaws. That includes the sacrifice of the mass. I don\u2019t see, however, why you think serious disagreements in this regard makes Luther and the Lutherans, for example, \u201canti-Catholic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it has to be judged on an individual case basis (as regards individual opinions). Lutherans, like Anglicans and Reformed, contain both views, and many members seem confused about even their own positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The RCC doesn\u2019t recognize Lutheran orders, nor from what I understand does it think that Lutherans receive Christ\u2019s true body and blood when they take communion.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>That\u2019s correct.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

So, if the Lutheran disagreement over the sacrifice of the mass makes Lutherans \u201canti-Catholic\u201d, why isn\u2019t the Catholic church \u201canti-Lutheran\u201d since the RC doesn\u2019t recognize Lutheran communion?<\/span><\/p>\n

The difference would be if <\/i><\/b>the mass is considered blasphemy and sacrilege and idolatry (whereas we would never say that about a Lutheran service, or any standard Protestant worship service; we would say they convey grace of some sort, even if not technically \u201csacramental\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

The above view (where it occurs) would make the mass, by definition, a non-Christian thing. Then you would be in the incoherent, odd position of agreeing that Catholicism<\/i> is Christian, despite the fact that its central rite<\/i> is utterly non-Christian<\/i> (and, far beyond that, anti-Christian, as it is idolatry, blasphemy, etc.). Quite a bizarre state of affairs, there . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the Book of Concord confirms my suspicion that Lutheranism is officially anti-Catholic. Lutherans are bound to this as their confession, so it can\u2019t be cavalierly dismissed as some old irrelevant document.<\/span><\/p>\n

Smalcald Articles [1537], Part II, Article II: The Mass<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mass in the papacy must be regarded as the greatest and most horrible abomination because it runs into direct and violent conflict with this fundamental article. Yet, above and beyond all others, it has been the supreme and most precious of the papal idolatries . . . <\/span><\/p>\n

If there were reasonable papists, one would speak to them in the following friendly fashion:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you cling so tenaciously to your Masses?<\/span><\/p>\n

1. \u201cAfter all, they are a purely human invention. They are not commanded by God . . . Christ says, \u2018In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men\u2019 (Matt. 15:9).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

. . . 3. . . . \u201cone can be saved in a better way without the Mass. Will the Mass not then collapse of itself \u2014 not only for the rude rabble, but also for all godly, Christian, sensible, God-fearing people \u2014 especially if they hear that it is a dangerous thing which was fabricated and invented without God\u2019s Word and will?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

. . . 5. \u201cThe Mass is and can be nothing else that a human work, even a work of evil scoundrels . . .\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Accordingly we are and remain eternally divided and opposed the one to the other. The papists are well aware that if the Mass falls, the papacy will fall with it.Before they would permit this to happen, they would put us all to death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides, this dragon\u2019s tail \u2014 that is, the Mass \u2014 has brought forth a brood of vermin and the poison of manifest idolatries.\u00a0<\/span>(The Book of Concord<\/i>, translated and edited by Theodore Tappert, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House \/ Muhlenberg Press, 1959, pp. 293-294)<\/span><\/p>\n

Apology of the Augsburg Confession [1531], Article XXIV: The Mass<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Carnal men cannot stand it when only the sacrifice of Christ is honored as a propitiation. For they do not understand the righteousness of faith but give equal honor to other sacrifices and services. A false idea clung to the wicked priests in Judah, and in Israel the worship of Baal continued; yet the church of God was there, condemning wicked services. So in the papal realm the worship of Baal clings \u2014 namely, the abuse of the Mass . . . And it seems that this worship of Baal will endure together with the papal realm until Christ comes to judge and by the glory of his coming destroys the kingdom of Antichrist. Meanwhile all those who truly believe the Gospel should reject those wicked services invented against God\u2019s command to obscure the glory of Christ and the righteousness of faith.\u00a0<\/span>(Tappert, ibid<\/i>., 268)<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess at the end of the day I don\u2019t see why strong disagreements among Christians makes them \u201canti\u201d.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>Not disagreements<\/i>, but denial of the status of other Christians as Christians. It\u2019s the devil\u2019s biggest victory: if half of the Body of Christ denies that the other half even belongs<\/i> in the Body at all, then what could be better for the devil\u2019s purposes? We\u2019ll always be hopelessly divided. So the world keeps going to hell because (anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, anti-Orthodox) Christians can\u2019t even recognize fellow believers.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we all recognize each others baptisms, why is this \u201canti\u201d stuff even a real question? It\u2019s not like Lutherans are Reformed or fundamentalist Baptists or something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because (obviously) if anti-Catholicism is entrenched in both the founding confessional documents and the founders of a religious point of view, then it will continue on, because it was in the roots from the beginning. How Lutherans square the realities of these aspects of the Book of Concord, I don\u2019t know, but it creates an internal contradiction if one says that they follow the Lutheran confessions, yet dissent on the nature of the Mass and so forth, and are not themselves anti-Catholic.<\/span><\/p>\n

How would you <\/i>square these two things, BWL, if you have become aware of some passages that perhaps you were not aware of before, in the Book of Concord? I\u2019m very curious. There may very well be a way that ecumenical Lutherans reconcile this, through some interpretive means that I am not yet aware of. I\u2019d be more than happy to be educated by those who feel that they have a solution to this apparent dilemma for ecumenical Lutherans. Please (you or friends of yours who might help us better understand) teach me . . . I don\u2019t want division; I would love for there to be a way to reconcile these two things. No one would be happier than I would be to learn that there is some coherent explanation of this, so that anti-Catholicism is not necessary to hold as a confessional Lutheran.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Book of Concord and the Catholic Mass Colored version of the Whore of Babylon illustration from Martin Luther\u2019s 1534 translation of the Bible, from the Workshop of Lucas Cranach [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons]. (4-26-05) The following dialogue with Lutheran \u201cBWL\u201d occurred in comments below. Since I did a little work in my reply, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":7362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231,51,58,415],"tags":[2361,1589,416,2792,2793,419],"class_list":["post-7360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-catholicism","category-ecumenism-christian-unity","category-eucharist-liturgy","category-lutheranism","tag-anti-catholicism","tag-book-of-concord","tag-catholic-mass","tag-lutheran-anti-catholicism","tag-lutheran-catholic-relations","tag-lutheranism-2"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Lutheranism Officially Anti-Catholic?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Portions of the Lutheran confessional Book of Concord are vehemently anti-Catholic, even equating the Catholic Mass with Baal-worship.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}