User talk:KagomeShuko

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[edit] High Church Lutheranism

Yes, I am Lutheran. I don't know any more about it than you do. My edits to that page were mostly cleaning up what others had written; taking the information that was there and rephrasing it more clearly. I have learned, though, in the course of various religious debates on Wikipedia, that it is unwise to assume that a set of religious beliefs or practices don't exist just because you have never heard of them. The Lutheran Church is worldwide, and it's not too surprising that practices and terminology vary from place to place. For example, I had a debate here some months ago with another Lutheran (in the same country as me! In the same Church!) who insisted that in his Lutheran church they practice reservation of the sacrament, and that most Lutheran churches in his area have tabernacles for this purpose. I have never heard of such a thing where I'm from. It's a big world, and we each see only our little piece of it.

The article may well need to put this movement in context, to better explain who practices it and where. That can only be done by someone familiar with it, though.--Srleffler 04:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The link you posted leads to a chat forum where many people seem to be using "high church" quite happily to describe Lutheran practices. Maybe I'm not seeing the same discussion as you were. As to your other questions, yes this is not a "traditional" Lutheran term, and not one likely to have been used in seminary education. It's a terminology that has been "imported" from the Anglicans, who refer to their more liturgically-oriented branch as "high" and their less liturgical branch as "low". The worldwide Lutheran community has member churches that are more and less liturgical. Some people have begun to use the Anglican terminology of "high" and "low" to refer to these differences. It's just a convenient description. It doesn't imply that "high" church Lutherans are better than "low" church ones. Note also that it doesn't necessarily correlate with "liberal" and "conservative". In general, a "high" church (of any denomination) is one that has a very traditional and formal (liturgical) style of worship. Such churches may in general have either liberal or conservative social values. My impression is that most of the major North American Lutheran denominations (ELCA, LCMS, ELCiC) are fairly "high church". ELCA and ELCiC are relatively liberal. LCMS is more conservative. In Lutheranism, "low church" is mostly related to pietism, which all of the major North American Lutheran denominations reject. I think some of the Lutheran churches in Europe are still pietist, but I'm not sure which ones.

From what I have read on Wikipedia, it appears that the history of the Lutheran church and its theological and liturgical practices has been pretty complicated. My impression is that the early Lutherans were pretty similar to the Catholics in religious practice, which is not surprising since Luther was not trying to start his own church, but to reform the Catholic church. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lutherans in Europe absorbed worship practices and doctrinal views from the Calvinist Reformed churches, forming what is called "pietism". Some Lutherans resisted this trend, forming separate "confessional" churches dedicated to the Lutheran Confessions and traditional Lutheran practices and doctrine. The LCMS is descended from those Lutherans. Meanwhile, the pietist movement lost some of its hold on the church in the late 19th century. There was a movement within the church to return to traditional Lutheran beliefs (neo-Lutheranism). I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the ELCA and ELCiC traditions come from this branch of the Lutheran family: Lutherans who returned to the traditions of Lutheranism after the century or two of Pietism ran its course.--Srleffler 05:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I read more of that chat forum. It seems to me that NordicLutheran misread the Wikipedia article, projecting his own prejudices into it. The others on the forum are primarily refuting his interpretation. "High" vs. "low" is primarily about worship practices rather than liberal vs. conservative. The article more or less says this, but the issue is confused because many of the "high church" reform movements also happened to be conservative. Not all are, though. The article does mention that high church groups eventually developed liberal forms. The article isn't all that well-written.--Srleffler 05:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

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