Miscellaneous Questions

[racin_jason]

There are some subjects that are not worthy of an entire thread, but worth discussing.  Lutheranism expresses itself in many ways on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Submit any questions you might have here.

Welcome to the only thread intentionally designed for drift.

[Mike Bennett]

There are some subjects that are not worthy of an entire thread, but worth discussing.  Lutheranism expresses itself in many ways on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Submit any questions you might have here.

Welcome to the only thread intentionally designed for drift.

Sex.  Politics.  Just wanted to eliminate any suspense.

Mike Bennett

[racin_jason]

Part of the vocabulary encounted on this forum is use of the term "Lutheran Symbols". This term is not common usage in the ELCA. I thought it was only a select few LCMS pastors who used it, but in the latest issue of "The Witness", President Kieschnick said "Lutheran Symbols" in his article inside the back cover.

I confess to finding the term confusing. Others here have indicated the same through offline exchanges.

Could someone explain to the rest of us what, exactly, the Lutheran Symbols are, and where the phrase comes from.  

Thanks

[racin_jason]

Thanks for getting those two out of the way, Mike. We've come to expect these two topics to show up on any given thread sooner or later.  Thanks for ending the suspense... it only took one post, three minutes after the thread was created, no less.

Another question: Red Doors on Lutheran Churches. There are some who insist the doors on the front of a Lutheran church should be painted red. I've met Episcopalians who say the same thing about their doors.

Red doors are not common on churches in the Holy Land of Minnesota. Other regions I've lived and ministered (the Northeast, the South) have churches with red doors, and I've met people in these places who say a Lutheran church must have a red door.  The church I serve now has red doors. It is only 20 years old, but nobody can tell me why. Sure, doors are significant to Lutherans, but can that be the reason?

Where does this come from?  What's the deal?

[Darrell Wacker]

Part of the vocabulary encounted on this forum is use of the term "Lutheran Symbols". This term is not common usage in the ELCA. I thought it was only a select few LCMS pastors who used it, but in the latest issue of "The Witness", President Kieschnick said "Lutheran Symbols" in his article inside the back cover.

I confess to finding the term confusing. Others here have indicated the same through offline exchanges.

Could someone explain to the rest of us what, exactly, the Lutheran Symbols are, and where the phrase comes from.  

Thanks

The Lutheran Symbols are the individual parts of the Lutheran Confessions as found in the Book of Concord.  In other words, collectively the "Symbols" are the Book of Concord, but each document therein, ie. the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Apology, etc. are the individual Lutheran Symbols.  They are the banner or the sign that the Lutheran Church "flies" to identify themselves, hence the use of the word "Symbol."

[Harvey_Mozolak]

and the study of the Lutheran Confessional Symbols (really should have the modifying adjective to keep Luther's Rose out of the definition) was in the days when you studied Isagogics, Hermeneutics-- Symbolics and not symbolism.    Harvey Mozolak

[J. Thomas Shelley]

Red doors are not common on churches in the Holy Land of Minnesota. Other regions I've lived and ministered (the Northeast, the South) have churches with red doors, and I've met people in these places who say a Lutheran church must have a red door.  The church I serve now has red doors. It is only 20 years old, but nobody can tell me why. Sure, doors are significant to Lutherans, but can that be the reason?

Where does this come from?  What's the deal?

I've always understood it to come from a conflation of several verses of John 10; in which Jesus describes Himself both as the "door to the sheep" and as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

Red = blood = Good Shepherd's sacrifice = door to earthly sheepfold.

[Scott5]

(really should have the modifying adjective to keep Luther's Rose out of the definition)

A question I've had -- isn't the rose a traditional symbol of Mary?  If so, does this change the interpretation of the "Luther Rose"?  Is there any historical data to indicate that Mary may have been in mind?

[MRoot]

The Formula of Concord (Ep, Summary Rule, 4) already refers to the Augsburg Confession as "our symbol for this time" (dieser Zeit unserem Symbolo).  The use of the term "symbol" for creed goes back at least as far as the Council of Chalcedon (451), which refers to the Nicene Creed as a "symbolon."  Latin usage was similar: Augustine's "On Faith and the Creed" is in the Latin original "De Fide et Symbolo" (393).  Pelikan, in his book "Credo" (p. 7) simply says the the Greek symbolon and the Latin symbolum were, with "regula fidei", among the earliest terms for creeds.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 188) explains: "The Greek word symbolon meant half of a broken object, for example, a seal presented as a token of recognition. the broken parts were placed together to verify the bearer's identity. the symbol of faith, then, is a sign of recognition and communion between believers. Symbolon also means a gathering, collection or summary. A symbol of faith is a summary of the principal truths of the faith and therefore serves as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis."
Michael (wasting time after dinner rather than getting to work) Root

[Harvey_Mozolak]

would be cool, wouldn't it...  rose of Sharon and all...  but isn't the BVM's flower the lily and the lily of the valley, supposedly based on St. Thomas looking into her grave after she was assumed and finding nothing but lilies and roses, a story we assume is not true… the fleur de lis is certainly her symbol (and I assume the Trinity it represents is also her confession because she did not get a chance to sign the Augsburg Confession I don't believe)… but Luther I read picked a Rose in his crest-thing to show joy as of the saints and angels (Mary being one of them) but her color is blue and there are not too many blue roses, especially in pre-scientific days….    but his treatise on the Magnificat is a real rosary around that song!   And Luther tended to be solely a _Totus Tuus_ guy with her Son... do you have any evidence that his rose related to things Marian?
Harvey Mozolak


A question I've had -- isn't the rose a traditional symbol of Mary?  If so, does this change the interpretation of the "Luther Rose"?  Is there any historical data to indicate that Mary may have been in mind?
[/quote]

[Harvey_Mozolak]

and a bit more of the misc.  Mary's rose is thornless and in the Middle Ages it was believed that the white roses in Paradise are said to have blushed red when the BVM kissed them.  Is ML's rose of the kissed variety, heavenly as he calls it?  Harvey Mozolak

[Weedon]

On Symbol, might be of interest to note that in early Lutheran liturgical documents the Te Deum was frequently called:  The Symbol of Sts. Ambrose and Augustine - based on the medieval legend that it arose from those two on the occasion of St. Augustine's baptism. 

[Lutheran_Lay_Leader]

Is it just me, or does no one see the obvious confusion that using a medieval definition of a word that now has come to have a totally different meaning in 21st Century English? We translate much of what was written in 16th century German into 20th century English, why isn't the word "symbol" similarly replaced with the word that people today would clearly understand? Or is that one of those inside things meant to keep the riff-raff excluded?

[MRoot]

I never call them "the symbols" and hardly ever hear them referred to as such, at least not in the circles I travel in.  When I teach the Confessions, I only refer to the term "symbol" in relation to the Formula calling the Augsburg Confession a "symbol."

[jeric]

Racin' Jason asks:
Another question: Red Doors on Lutheran Churches. There are some who insist the doors on the front of a Lutheran church should be painted red. I've met Episcopalians who say the same thing about their doors.

I reply: 
You should know this. 

One source says, "Those red doors you saw when you entered church today signify that we enter the church throught the blood of Christ."

Another source says, "Those red doors mean this congregation's in debt.  Those doors will stay red until we're out of the red."

Take your choice.

John Ericksen