He knows us by name, part 1

Ascension Lutheran Church
Haddon Heights, NJ
June 10, 2007

On this Sunday I needed to attend an early service. I checked the church’s website: Ascension Lutheran would have an 8:30 and an 11:00 service on June 10, and then switch to the summer service schedule of one service at 10:00 until fall. The church also has a contemporary service on Thursday nights, but that would also be on hiatus over the summer. I realized that I had better check church schedules carefully after this week, as many would have modified summer schedules.

I was baptized Lutheran, so you’d think I would know something about this branch of Christianity, but we rarely attended church when I was a child, mostly due to some unfortunate timing on the part of some Lutheran visitors. My father died in a car accident when I was seven, leaving my mother to bring up two children (my brother is two years younger than I am) on her own. Her problems were compounded by the fact that my father had no life insurance, and her “career” at the time was taking in laundry and washing it in our basement, then delivering it via our old pickup truck. One evening a couple weeks after my father’s death, there was a knock on the door -- two visitors from our Lutheran church. My mother assumed that they had come to offer sympathy, and possibly even some assistance. It turned out that they were members of the stewardship committee, and were calling to see how much she would be able to pledge to the church’s annual fund.

Well, that was the end of our Lutheranism. I don’t blame my mother for being angry, but after many years I was able to sympathize a bit with the visitors, who I’m sure had not a clue about our situation. I also developed a healthy fear of ever being on a stewardship committee.

So what did I know about Lutherans before this visit? I had read a life of Martin Luther long ago. I knew that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Johann Sebastian Bach were Lutherans. Luther’s great hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, is one of my favorites. I knew that Lutherans sometimes get upset if you call them Reformed, which seems odd to most everyone else, because we think of Martin Luther as the father of the Reformation. In fact, sometimes they don’t want to be known as Protestants, which seems equally odd to people who consider Luther (Here I stand!) the archetypal protester. I knew that they have a view of Communion similar to the Roman Catholic view, but they call it consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation. Back to Wikipedia.

The Wiki article on Lutheranism cautions the reader about jumping to conclusions: “Lutheranism is a very broad faith family with liturgical and non-liturgical worship expressions, liberal and conservative politics, piety which ranges from austere to pentecostal, and both strict and permissive theologies. There is considerable debate about what constitutes "true Lutheranism" and much of this article must be read with this in mind.” It’s beginning to seem to me that this warning could be applied to almost any denomination, and to Christianity itself.
Also – Pentecostal Lutherans? That’s something I never imagined.

For the first time I notice one of these statements in Wikipedia: “The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.” I linked to the talk page, where I found ongoing debates about various issues in the article. Those contentious Lutherans!

I learn that the largest group of American Lutherans, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has established full communion with my denomination, so that means I’m okay to participate in communion when I visit. The more conservative Lutheran groups, though – I’d better not take communion with them.

I learn amazing things: Lutheranism is the majority religion in Namibia! Martin Luther is credited with the invention of the Christmas tree! Wait - can this be true? I check elsewhere on Wikipedia; the article on Christmas trees gives the primary credit to St. Boniface, who chopped down the Oak of Thor in a very non-inclusive, non-ecumenical act of evangelism, and found a little fir tree growing in its roots. The article also says that Christmas trees used to be hung upside down from ceiling beams, and that Martin Luther came up with the idea of turning them right side up and hanging lights and decorations on them. That sounds like a big improvement - those plain, upside-down trees must have looked rather like enormous air fresheners.

The ELCA website informed me that they have nearly five million baptized members and more than 10,000 congregations in the United States. The website for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod gives a figure of 66 million Lutherans worldwide, with 4.8 million in the ELCA and 2.5 million in their own group. The next largest group is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) with 410,000 members, and then the Lutheran Church in the United States of America (no numbers provided – I couldn’t find a website for them or an article in Wikipedia, either – this group has somehow evaded the beam of the virtual spotlight).

Lutheran churches that identify with the Lutheran World Federation believe that no one church is singularly true, and declare fellowship with other Lutheran and non-Lutheran denominations. Other groups, though, maintain that orthodox confessional Lutheran churches are the only ones with completely correct doctrine.

I decided to read something by Martin Luther to prepare for my church visit, and followed one of the links. It led me to Luther’s Small Catechism, which is short enough to be read in one sitting. I would recommend it to any Christian. One small instance of the tone of the document: after giving instructions for evening prayer, Luther concludes with this command: “Then go to sleep promptly and cheerfully.” Excellent advice.