A writer on Substack, whom I believe to be a Reformed Christian, expressed amazement that “ancient baptismal liturgies” included a renunciation of Satan and the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed.

The 1999 Kevin Smith film Dogma introduced the world to the “Buddy Christ.” In the film, late comedian George Carlin portrayed Roman Catholic Cardinal Ignatius Glick. In a spoof of modern evangelism efforts, Glick introduced “Catholicism WOW!”, a campaign designed to modernize the “passé, archaic institution of the Church.” His character stating in modern times, people found the Bible to be “obtuse and even hokey.”

In the early Lutheran Church, faith was not reduced to an inward conviction or to mere intellectual, theological assent. For the Lutherans of the Sixteenth Century, faith was a lived and incarnate reality, expressed through the entire liturgical life of the Church. The Altar held a central place in the Church, not as a mere decorative object, but as the place of the real and saving encounter of the sinner with Christ