Douglas Wilson, who is associated with the “Federal Vision” movement, weighs in on the Crypto-Lutheran controversy within Calvinism. Read his whole post, but I give an excerpt after the jump.
From Douglas Wilson,, Playing Puritans and Lutherans, Blog & Mablog|:
To simply dismiss the lutherans out of hand is way too . . . lutheran. I am not trying to be rude here, but the unnecessary obstacles to Reformed/Lutheran amity were usually thrown up on the Lutheran side. So those who don’t want to be lutheran can start with that.
Now I have already mentioned my caution about how relativistic thinking turns everybody’s theology into mush, but I should also add here my agreement with Tim that sometimes the same effect can appear because people are in transition. The postmodern Lutheran affirms the truthiness of the Augsburg, while the crypto-Lutheran in transition can sound mushier than he actually is.
By the way, I really am not using the word lutheran in a pejorative sense — even though I myself have been accused of being a crypto-lutheran on more than one occasion. It was no fun at all — as my therapist could well tell you, if I would just sign that release. And I would sign it for him too, but I am afraid he would write a book about everything.
So while it is true that luthero-presbyterians are creating pressure to alter the historic Reformed understanding of the sacraments, we need to remember that they haven’t gotten away with it yet. But, on the other end, the bapto-presbyterians have gotten away with their reinterpretations. They think that sacraments that really “exhibit and confer” what they signify is popish superstition, which would startle the good divines of Westminster. This creates the sorry spectacle of the lutheros thinking that the puritans are baptists, and the baptos thinking the puritans are jesuits. Oh, well.
HT: Nick Barden
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