Sola Scriptura

[DCharlton]

Is there any history of the use of exhortations and conditional absolutions in the LCMS?  What influence did/does the Common Service had in the LCMS? 

Hi, David.  Here is a collection of absolutions from across Lutheran history.  It can give a feel for how these were done:

Thanks Pastor Weedon.  What you posted is consistent with what Sundberg reports in his book.   

[Brian Stoffregen]

David,

Those exhortations and conditional absolutions are solidly rooted in the earliest Lutheran liturgies.  What is of interest is that in private absolution there was no such retention; I think it was a bit of discomfort over the possibility of strengthening a hardened sinner in impenitence that lead to the regular public use of the retention and of the communion exhortations.

I don't find them in the liturgies that Luther wrote; nor do I find them as part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Luther's German Mass contains an exhortation to communicants.  But Luther's two Eucharistic liturgies, formative as they were for Lutheran liturgy, were only his personal writings. To discover the actual liturgies Lutherans authorized and used in the 16th century forward, one studies the Church Orders.  The LCMS's early Agenda, for example, was based squarely on the Herzog Heinrich order which was prepared for Ducal Saxony under the direction of Bugenhagen and others from Wittenberg.  The Common Service was an attempt to create a service in English, keyed to the language of BCP, and synthesizing these varied Church Orders.  The LCMS originally had a liturgy that just carried forth one stream of the Church Orders (the Saxon) instead of the attempted blending of all the orders and selecting from them "the best" and then making it sound like the Episcopalians.

So Lutherans could revise the traditional mass to suit their purposes in the 16th, but contemporary worship planners shouldn't in our century?

[Steven Tibbetts]

So Lutherans could revise the traditional mass to suit their purposes in the 16th, but contemporary worship planners shouldn't in our century?

Are we in the beginning of a Reformation?

[Brian Stoffregen]

So Lutherans could revise the traditional mass to suit their purposes in the 16th, but contemporary worship planners shouldn't in our century?

Are we in the beginning of a Reformation?

We are always reforming.

[Don Whitbeck]

So Lutherans could revise the traditional mass to suit their purposes in the 16th, but contemporary worship planners shouldn't in our century?

Are we in the beginning of a Reformation?

We are always reforming.

Seems to be the case in all Lutheran Churches in the USA; some more then others. As well some who were shocked to see the coming age of contemporary worship, now embrace it with open arms, even so much so, that an expansion to praise bands maybe in order. 

All it takes is a vote at CWA or Synod Convention, and like magic things change over night.

[Weedon]

Brian,

I don't understand how you get from A to B.  I noted an error in what you observed (that Luther's services didn't have an exhortation); I showed you where Luther included one in his German Mass; I noted additionally the historical fact that Luther's rites were not authoritative and binding, but foundational in influence to the official liturgies that were set forth in the Church Orders.  And you from this jump to contemporary worship and the writing of new liturgies?  Note that Luther did not write "new" liturgies; Luther simply Reformed the Mass and removed from it that which obscured the Gospel.  Perhaps you could show us what in the liturgies in our hymn books is obscuring of the Gospel and then we could we have a discussion on what needs to be reformed?

[Don Whitbeck]

Brian,

I don't understand how you get from A to B.  I noted an error in what you observed (that Luther's services didn't have an exhortation); I showed you where Luther included one in his German Mass; I noted additionally the historical fact that Luther's rites were not authoritative and binding, but foundational in influence to the official liturgies that were set forth in the Church Orders.  And you from this jump to contemporary worship and the writing of new liturgies?  Note that Luther did not write "new" liturgies; Luther simply Reformed the Mass and removed from it that which obscured the Gospel.  Perhaps you could show us what in the liturgies in our hymn books is obscuring of the Gospel and then we could we have a discussion on what needs to be reformed?

However, Rev. Weeden, didn't the LCMS write new liturgies, expand to contempory music, and add hymns that weren't part of the LCMS heritage?  Didn’t we do away with the use of Luther’s Divine Service or Mass? There by leaving our Traditional Divine Service, and replacing it with a whole different set of them.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Brian,

I don't understand how you get from A to B.  I noted an error in what you observed (that Luther's services didn't have an exhortation); I showed you where Luther included one in his German Mass;

Yes, an exhortation in the German Mass, but not in the Latin one. Neither includes a rite of confession and absolution. The addition of an exhortation; and later additions of a brief rite of penance were changing the traditional ordo of the Mass. In the German Mass, Luther freely used German paraphrases of the liturgical texts, including even the Creed. The better contemporary liturgies do the same thing: use paraphrases for liturgical texts. It is proper to sing, Ylvisaker's, "I Believe, I Do Believe," as a paraphrase of a Creed?


Or there was Norm Habel's Create in Me setting from years ago where he used a number of popular folk tunes and paraphrases of liturgical pieces, e.g., singing the words of institution to Blowin' in the Wind.

[Dave Likeness]

I have a DREAM.......

that one day Rev. Steven Tibbetts and Rev. Brian
Stoffregen  will  co-author a book entitled, "The
Bible  Based Hermeneutics of Orthodox Lutheran
Theology in the 21st Century."

that one day these two clergymen will be judged not
on the color of their stole, but on the content of their sermon.

that one day these two clergymen will shake hands and hug
at an ELCA National Assembly.

Signed Martin Luther.....King

[Weedon]

Confessional,

No, I don't think it accurate to state that the LCMS wrote "new" liturgies; at least not in the sense that anything was created ex nihilo without reference to our previous tradition.  We wrote new musical settings.  We brought forward the tradition of the German Mass (Divine Service V).  We used the Lutheran tradition of metrical paraphrases for the ordinary (Divine Service IV - which also relies heavily upon the Swedish 1531 Petri rite in the Eucharistia).  We retained the Common Service (Divine Service III) and we retained the two revisions of the Divine Service that are deeply indebted to the liturgical renewal of the 20th century (Divine Services I, II).  But if you look beneath the surface, you will discover the standard Western Mass.  They share the same shaping, and at core that is a Preparation, Service of the Word (with introductory praise moving to reading of Scripture according to ancient precedent, with sermon and Creed, offering and hymnody), Service of the Sacrament (with Preface, Sanctus, Our Father, Verba, Pax, Agnus and Distribution, Post-communion canticle and collect, and Benediction).  It sure doesn't take a liturgical scholar to realize that in all these we have the  same liturgy (ordered action), utilitizing varied musical settings and both prose and rimed translations of the traditional texts. 

Brian,

I am not sure how to respond as the subject seems ever to change.

[peter_speckhard]

The changes to the liturgy at the time of the Reformation were needed because of theological flaws that had found their way into the order of the Mass. Lutheran theology demanded such changes. This is in no way parallel to the changes proposed under the banner of contemporary worship in the past few decades. Lutherans did not find the traditional Lutheran liturgies heterodox and thus in need of change. Rather, Lutherans failed to find the popular Evangelical liturgies heterodox, but did find them more aesthetically appealing to the unchurched.

[Weedon]

Actually, Peter, I have often wondered, since Lutheran liturgy is simply the prayed version of our confession, whether or not it WERE discomfort with Lutheran doctrine that drives folks to discomfort with Lutheran liturgy.  For example, when folks have difficulty with our confession of sins, is it not the case that they are struggling with our doctrine of original sin?  Just a thought.

[peter_speckhard]

Actually, Peter, I have often wondered, since Lutheran liturgy is simply the prayed version of our confession, whether or not it WERE discomfort with Lutheran doctrine that drives folks to discomfort with Lutheran liturgy.  For example, when folks have difficulty with our confession of sins, is it not the case that they are struggling with our doctrine of original sin?  Just a thought.

That was going to be my next point-- that the standard line concerning CoWo-- that it is only a matter of changing the style to suit the context-- is not really true. At some level, preference for CoWo among Lutherans seems to coexist nicely with comfort with Evangelicalism.

[George Erdner]

I keep reading many, many references to LCMS "CoWo". Are there any LCMS churches in the Atlanta Metro area where I could possibly visit and see what all the brouhaha is about? The only time I experienced any "contemporary" worship in an LCMS congregation was when I played guitar for an LCMS church's first foray into using contemporary music. At that service, all of the elements of the mass were intact and unchanged, except for the hymns and extra music during the gathering of the Offering.
 
 

[Brian Stoffregen]

I have a DREAM.......

that one day Rev. Steven Tibbetts and Rev. Brian
Stoffregen  will  co-author a book entitled, "The
Bible  Based Hermeneutics of Orthodox Lutheran
Theology in the 21st Century."

that one day these two clergymen will be judged not
on the color of their stole, but on the content of their sermon.

that one day these two clergymen will shake hands and hug
at an ELCA National Assembly.

Signed Martin Luther.....King

We have shaken hands at Churchwide Assemblies. We've been there as volunteers. He might have heard me preach. He said he attended the confirmation of a cousin who was a member at a church where I was the associate pastor. (I don't remember if I preached at that service or not. It was in 1977.)