Old school Lutherans, that is. Like Chemnitz and Andrae who wrote Church Orders that mandated fixed liturgical forms, prayers, readings, vestments, times of service, etc. If you refused to follow the Church Order, then you were ousted from your parish. This is how Lutheranism worked at the time of the Reformation and in the generations afterward. This is the kind of authority that is discussed in AC XXVIII and FC X - the latter does not refer to each and every parish minister getting to write his own liturgy, but rather to the various Church Orders in the various territorial churches in the lands which received the Lutheran Reformation. Do all those various Church Orders need to be the same? Of course not. In the Church there have always been different rites - Gallican, Roman, Ukranian, etc. And in Lutheranism, too, there were different Church Orders, different rites. But within each Church Order, everyone was expected and required to keep the Order.
At any rate, we don't do this any more. We live in chaos and without liturgical authority. If you were wondering how Lutherans used to live, see here.
+HRC
Majoring in minors is a very, very old game.
ReplyDeleteMinoring in majors (i.e., tinkering with the historic liturgy), on the other hand, has not been around too long.
ReplyDeleteMTNMAN,
ReplyDeleteIf you are refering to the liturgy/liturgical use as minor, nothing is minor about salvation and the doctrine of justification. The liturgy is holy words spoken from God and receiving His gifts. It is salvific because it is all holy Writ and every portion points to Christ and is centered on the doctrine of justification. The same cannot be said of other worship forms. Liturgy (or lack thereof) conveys a theology -not about style or preference, which would be minor things.
Touché, Fr. BFE.
ReplyDelete