Talk:Holy Roman Episcopal Lutheran

Where's "here"? :) Misterxeight 04:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The parish I'm thinking of is the one in Ter Mair / Maryland. That one's close enough to visit some day.

I think it's fair to say that the HREL is almost nothing like the ALCC. *Here* those Lutherans (like the ALCC) who advocate reuniting with Rome, or those who in some other way urge Lutherans to conceive of themselves as a branch of The Church rather than as a Protestant denomination, do so out of deeply held, deeply conservative ideological beliefs about what makes a church legitimate and so forth. I went to college with some people like this; one theology professor went so far as to write on my paper, "Generally Lutherans are not considered Protestants," a statement that seemed patently wrong to me, but was very important to his view of the ecclesiastical landscape. The HREL seems to be a much more practical decision - why, look, we seem to be in agreement. Let's reunite, whaddya say? And it took place in a context where the Catholic Church already had numerous autonomous branches and was willing to accomodate different worship, a different Catechism, etc. But it does make for a useful comparison, and is interesting to learn. I particularly like how the ALCC's positions on church authority and practice almost exactly mirror those of an IB uniate church. Benkarnell 08:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Something else I thought of: since the Church accepted the teachings of Jan Hus in the 14th century, a lot of the reforms demanded by the Protestants were probably already endorsed by the Catholics officially. Corruption and error were still rife no doubt, but by the late 1600s it would be easy to see the Church practicing what it had been preaching for so long. No wonder many Lutherans were willing to re-join. Benkarnell 17:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, corruption and error are the results of large human run organisations, whether religious or secular. We've never brought it up, but one does wonder if the recent pedophilia scandal in the US has an IB counterpart.

It wasn't my intention to say outright that the HREL = the ALCC, but only to point out a group of "Lutherans" who seem to view themselves as Catholics rather than, strictly speaking, Lutherans. In other words, here are some people who (presumably, though I haven't studied their doctrines in detail) hold a Catholic faith while practicing in a Lutheran manner. If they were living in IB, they would almost certainly be HREL Catholics (that is, if all their doctrinal ducks are in a row!). *Here*, they don't have that choice. It's the closest thing in Real Life I've seen to the HREL anyway. By the way, I agree with you -- I had always thought of Lutherans as quintessential Protestants! -- St. Martin Luther got the whole ball rolling, anyway. ;))) I also agree with your assessment of the HREL -- sufficient agreement on doctrinal matters (post-Reformation and post-Catholic Reformation) that both sides a) saw no need for further schism and b) saw sense in allowing such a large number of people retain their forms of worship. That's what happens when they heal a schism -- both side formally agree that there's no longer any conditions meriting a state of schism. My supposition is that in IB, some Lutherans have gone down that path, while others haven't. Elemtilas 01:54, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been reading a history of the Thirty Years' War, and it struck me that in IB, the war might have been what split Lutherans into "reuniting" and "still protesting" camps. In that war, there was a clear breach between moderate German Protestants, led by Saxony, who fought on the "Catholic" side with the Habsburg Emperors; and militant German Protestants, led by the Palatinate, who opposed the Emperors. The war and the destruction it caused may have started the Saxon Lutherans and similar-minded churches down the path to reunion. The Protestant powers that opposed the Habsburgs would have included the Scandinavians, so it makes sense for the Folkekirken to remain separate. Benkarnell 17:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)