The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
14 hours ago
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Lutherans trying to keep up with the Episcopalians
A production of the Ebenezer Lutheran (ELCA).
The Christian-Lutheran Feminist/Womanist/Mujerista Movements exist to celebrate the feminine persona of God/dess and dimensions of the sacred as expressed in faith, worship, learning, mutual care, and acts of justice.
From their website.
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24 comments:
It's not the people, but seeing the children that upset me so much. So sad.
I skimmed through almost 7 minutes before I just couldn't take anymore. Those poor men. Why on earth they would even step in the door of such a (words fail me) service? I'm not very familiar at all with the Lutheran church but I always assumed it possessed some dignity. Certainly there was no dignity there. And that's not even touching on the blasphemy, of course.
I hope someone rescues those children...
You have to at least give them credit for turning worship into a holistic experience, encompassing sights, sounds, motion, etc., worshipping with their whole bodies. I don't know how things are for the Orthodox, but Catholics have come to a point where anything more than kneeling briefly for a few moments during mass and signing themselves is seen as extremist and cult-like, or worse, "traditionalist".
Contemporary Catholics balk at the thought of kissing religious images, or bowing profoundly, or asking a blessing of a cleric, or any number of pious expressions of faith that used to be commonplace in Catholic culture. At least these people retain some warped and misguided sense of showing reverence.
I think the Orthodox are faring better at not eradicating active liturgical expression, but I get the impression it's about to sweep all of you as well.
These charlatans have seen that there's a spiritual longing for liturgical expressions of faith that aren't strictly "austere" and "nobly simple", as the buzzwords have been for some time now, and they're milking the experience of liturgical worship for what it's worth in order to indoctrinate easily misled people into, essentially, pseudo-religious atheism, a cult of worshipping "humanity".
Somehow I feel better that it wasn't us this time.
The bored/sleepy chihuahua at the beginning was perfect.
What the hell was that?!
@sjgmore I presume you've never seen an Orthodox service?
Mat. Anna: You made it six minutes longer than I did. Good grief! The dog was cute though.
Dear Lutherans, forget it. You cannot hope to keep up with the Episcopalians. They have a different mindset that ensures they, not you, will always be the avant-garde.
P.S.) Gotta admit, though, that this was a nice try.
It might be interesting to compare this ELCA church with the "Gnostic Revival" ECUSA St. Gregory of Nyssa church in San Francisco.
I'm going to second VSO: Have you been to an Orthodox service sjgmore? You can get *tired* by the end, and if you stand in the wrong spot, the incense can be a little overwhelming. Plus, the whole thing is sung or chanted (and lucky churches have bells). The churches are beautiful (busy, in a nice way) and not whitewashed into banality. Plus, between communion, antidoron, litya, kolyva and I can't remember what else, it's a literal feast too.
That's pretty "holistic" and all-sense-encompasing too.
Matushka, as a recent convert who was Lutheran before my conversion, let me assure you most Lutherans abhor this nonsense. Many Lutherans still hold to traditional worship forms for the Western Mass, but unfortunately, dignity of late is being sacrificed for the things of the world in too many Lutheran circles. This is an extreme example, but one could argue, its logical conclusion.
We began looking elsewhere due in large part to the lack of liturgical piety among local Lutheran parishes. We could not be happier to be Orthodox, and I thank good, solid confessional Lutherans for showing me what the historic liturgy should look like. I should also thank those who move to more novel forms, since if all Lutherans held to the historic liturgy, I might have never become Orthodox.
I've seen this church's and St Gregory of Nyssa's sites before.
Just watched the video.
Before I scrolled down and saw Dr Tighe's comment I was thinking of SGN when reading sjgmore.
People expect me to hate SGN. I don't. I don't agree with them and am not in communion with them but ... again what sjgmore wrote.
There and here I see talented, smart, probably upper-middle-class people... with a service more artistic and livelier than the Novus Ordo... just needing a nudge to become Catholic... but theologically very wrong. 'Womanism' offends me more than the more general PCness (and unitarianism?) of SGN.
Regarding ELCA, I understand they're twice as many of them as Episcopalians and because of that and cultural differences - Midwestern German and Swedish farmers, like Lake Wobegon - they skew more conservative but as you can see they have the same liberals in charge.
I like confessional Lutherans like the LCMS. They do have dignity (the distinctive semi-Catholic theology/liturgy that Lutherans have always had); there are some pastors and parishes that are very Catholic (Zion, Detroit and the Gottesdienst blog for example).
I specifically said "I don't know how things are for the Orthodox" and that I thought you all were faring better than us at not eradicating the holistic experience of worship. No, I've never been to an Orthodox liturgy... but I've also read that there are those lurking in the shadows of your churches who want to "modernize" and "reform" Orthodox liturgies and add pews and basically whitewash the whole thing as we Catholics have done.
I also explicitly mentioned I was speaking from a Catholic perspective, so I don't see why there was confusion about my comment.
Also, the fact remains that many of these people who look to this Mother Gaia Earth & Humanity Worship brand of "Christianity" have no idea that Orthodoxy even exists, which is why I consider the Roman Catholic Church's failure to provide this kind of liturgical experience a grave scandal, because the RCC ought to be providing this kind of witness, just as the Orthodox do in their much smaller numbers.
Well, dear bros ans sisters of the Orthodox Church! The Vineyard needs more workers to deliver the Western World from itself. keep an eye also on some of the feminist movements that spring up in some of our Orthodox Churches.
My eyes! My eyes!!! The horror!
Why don't the bishops put a stop to this kind of stupidity?
Angela
There are extremists everywhere - Orthodoxy has them, too. As a former Lutheran, I can attest to what David Garner said above. This is not typical of most Lutherans.
You know, it sure would be amusing if those people came to church next week and there had been a change in staff...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNOuVhn_yRw
As goofy as the neo-paganism here is, there are people there: in fact there are more people than I've seen in some Orthodox parishes.
In some ways that astounds me, in others it shows a real hunger. That hunger is something that Orthodoxy can fill, if we'd just learn to reach out to people.
In any case, I agree that there is something really heartbreaking about seeing children involved in this. That is a real tragedy.
Do you have any specific ideas for reaching out to Lutheran neo-pagans? I've never seen anyone turned away at the door of any Orthodox church I've ever been in (and that includes at least 5 jurisdictions). People have to want it. If this is what they're looking for and are thrilled to be involved in, there's not much chance anyone is going to convince them to change directions.
Matushka Anna- You are right- we can't change who we are- Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics are liturgical people. All that can be done:
make sure visitors have a book to follow along,
designate some parishioners to officially greet visitors, invite them to coffee hour (show them where it is)
have a changing table in the bathrooms to show that babies are welcome, etc- just practical things
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