Gottesdienst relies on the Roman Catholic Church?

Admittedly I don’t pay much attention to Christian News, and when I do, it’s mostly as a cursory look to see if Gottesdienst has been referenced again. In an odd sort of way we owe them a debt of gratitude, since it was they who, roughly a year and a half ago, declared that we have had an “increasing choke hold” on the Missouri Synod since 2010. We noted briefly last December that we wished it were so. But they obviously meant it as a disparaging comment, since it was apparent to us then, as it is now, that they are uncomfortable with what they see, falsely, as our Romanizing tendencies.

Nowhere is this assessment clearer than in this week’s edition, wherein a snippet caught my eye. They devoted a couple of pages to reporting that Pope Francis denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and what I noticed was an editorial comment introducing Dr. Gene Veith’s blog on the subject, which they pasted into their newspaper. The comment, from Mr. David Becker, is a left-handed jab at us: “Great that Dr. Veith raised this question. Not that Gottesdienst agrees with the Pope, but Gottesdienst should raise the question also, since they rely on the Roman Catholic Church so much for their liturgical guidance.”

One wonders why Mr. Becker saw fit to bring us into this fray. Perhaps he thinks our choke hold is even greater than merely on the Missouri Synod.

I could ignore the slur, but sometimes it’s worthwhile to point out fallacies in the hope that readers will refrain from committing them. We could call this ad hominem, or even poisoning the well, but to do so would give credence to the faulty premise, which is that we rely on the Roman Catholic Church “so much” for our liturgical “guidance.” Where did this notion come from? If we look catholic, does that make us Romanists? No more so than it would Luther himself, of course. The truth is that we, like Luther, have great respect for the best in catholic tradition that covers the hundreds of years before the Reformation. People forget that Luther’s reforms were conservative, unlike those of the radicals of his day who wanted to remove all remnants of the Church of Rome.

What’s especially amusing about this slight is that it presumes that we look to the Pope, or at least to the current Church of Rome, for “liturgical guidance.” We actually find that Christendom would have been better off if Vatican II had not been born, since it brought so much mischief into the ceremonies of Rome, mischief which always has an uncanny way of trickling into our churches. For that matter, Vatican I was problematic too, with its eye-rolling declarations of papal infallibility. And, come to think of it, we haven’t much use for the Council of Trent either, especially since it anathematizes people who believe like Lutherans.

But in spite of all this, we do have use for good catholic liturgical tradition, which certainly predates the nonsense we set aside. In fact we have always sought to retain the Mass, and celebrate it with the highest reverence, preserving all the usual ceremonies. And that is not because we look to the Pope for guidance, but because we respect the guidance of the Augsburg Confession on the matter. Don’t you, Mr. Becker? Because yeah, that’s in there.