The Rule of Prayer is the Rule of Faith

This is the second post in a series looking at the reasons why some Lutheran pastors left the LCMS for Eastern Orthodoxy. The focus is an article written by the Reverend Thomas L. Palke in 1999 entitled “MY JOURNEY TO THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH ESTABLISHED BY JESUS CHRIST: A Son of the Reformation Enters the “Mighty Fortress” of the Orthodox Church.”

Many LCMS Lutherans claim that we just need to agree on the main articles of faith. Some say that the belief in justification by faith alone is sufficient for unity. How we worship (i.e. liturgy or contemporary praise) does not matter.

However, as many have pointed out, Baptists worship like Baptists because of their theology. What happens when Lutherans begin to worship like Baptists? My observation is that Lutherans start thinking and acting like Baptists. It is then just a matter of time before Baptist books and education materials are introduced into the congregation.

As Dr. Jaraslov Pelikan, a former Lutheran and one of the world’s leading church historians, stated:

"When the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod became Baptist, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America became Methodist, I became Orthodox."

Rev. Palke makes similar comments about the Rule of Prayer and the Rule of Faith.

"There are a small number of faithful, confessional pastors who believe in the principle lex orandi lex credendi (the rule of prayer is the rule of faith) and lead their congregations in a substantive ministry of Word and Sacrament. However, since Lutheranism regards liturgy as an adiaphoron, something neither commanded nor forbidden by God, many regard this as a license to do what is expedient and has mass-marketing appeal. Others castrate the liturgy under the pretext that the liturgy is a hindrance to first-time visitors in church and to evangelism in general.

The confessional writings of Lutheranism generally grant freedom to churches in matters liturgical, so long as they agree in all the articles of faith (Formula of Concord, Article X). And herein lies the problem: worship appears to be disconnected from the faith. Instead of seeing worship as the faith of the church in action, Lutherans, like most Western Christians, tend to reduce the faith to mere intellectual assent. Instead of seeing music,liturgy, and art as bearers of the faith, Lutherans tend to view these things as aesthetic embellishments that establish the proper atmosphere for hearing the sermon, which itself is usually filled with many comedic and illustrative embellishments that are intended to enhance the Gospel!"