I love our country, and I love the quirks of our culture - as well as its many unique subcultures. But we Americans often have a cloying habit of presuming that everyone in the world must surely think like we do. We are often ignorant of history to boot - and when it comes to our understanding of the Church - even of Lutheran Christianity - we sometimes embarrass ourselves.

I was told of a recent international church conference for Lutherans held in Latvia. One of the presenters was a Lutheran pastor from Sweden. In the Swedish language, a Lutheran pastor is typically referred to as a priest (präst). This is common in all of the Nordic countries, especially given that they, unlike Germany, were able to retain episcopal polity during and after the Reformation, as several bishops signed on to the Lutheran confessions and brought nearly all of Nordic Roman Catholicism into the Lutheran fold.

In other words, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, and Danes retained the old order of bishops overseeing priests (mainly through the Swedish church). This polity was likewise retained wherever Nordic mission work was carried out, including the Baltics (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), Russia (by way of Estonia and Finland), and various Lutheran bodies in Africa.

And while Germany was unable to continue episcopal polity at the time of the Reformation, it was the preferred polity as expressed in our confessions:

This Swedish Lutheran priest spoke in favor of episcopal polity, and additionally defended the use of the term “priest” for the clergy as well as addressing them as “Father” (rather than as “Pastor”). He argued that especially in this day and age of gender confusion and the aggressive push for female “ordination,” the term “pastor” has become gender-neutral, whereas (in spite of its use by female “clergy,”), the term “priest” is a masculine term. And what’s more, the title “Father” cannot be applied to a woman. In other words, addressing your pastor as “Father” is a confession for the male pastorate.

One of the American attendees took exception, explaining that to Americans, this sounds “too Catholic.”

This caused one of the non-American attendees to quip privately: “It is always surprising to me that Americans constantly impose their problems on those who do not have such problems.”

We American Lutherans would do well to consider that we are the ones that are often out of step with authentic Lutheran practice, and that there are indeed other Lutheran church bodies that have been able to maintain traditions that we - for whatever reason - have fallen away from. We ought not assume that our way is necessarily the only way, the right way, or even the best way, to be authentically and confessionally Lutheran.

And while we’re on the subject, if you’re out of the country, and you don’t get ice in your drink, please don’t ask to speak to the manager!