The chief expositor of the "Evangelical Style, Lutheran Substance" paradigm among our readers, the redoubtable Fr. Louderback, hatched quite the canard in the comments below. His remark is so common on that side of the debate, and the simple reply to it so needed in the debate, that I thought I would elevate this exchange of comments to its own post.

Fr. Louderback wrote, quoting me in italics:

Folks, if you import non-Lutheran stuff into your Lutheran church it won't be, you know, so Lutheran anymore.

Except of course if it is Roman Catholic—that can imported with impunity. :)

To which I replied:

I refer you to the conclusion to Part I of the AC and to its final conclusion:

"5] This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers. . . . 8] For it is a false and malicious charge that all the ceremonies, all the things instituted of old, are abolished in our churches. 9] But it has been a common complaint that some abuses were connected with the ordinary rites. These, inasmuch as they could not be approved with a good conscience, have been to some extent corrected."

"Only those things have been recounted whereof we thought that it was necessary to speak, in order that it might be understood that in doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Church Catholic. For it is manifest that we have taken most diligent care that no new and ungodly doctrine should creep into our churches."

That, according to the Lutheran Confessions, is what Lutherans are like: nothing in ceremonies contrary to the Church Catholic.

+HRC