The Word Of God Is The Most Important Part Of The Worship Service

By: Rev. Jack Cascione
We thank Mr. E. D. Darsow for submitting the article by Dr. P. E. Kretzmann.
Kretzmann was the author of "Kretzmann's Popular Commentary" published by CPH.

"The following is an article written by Dr. P. E. Kretzmann from about 1953 which reads as if he wrote it yesterday.  It speaks about the Roman Catholic tendency to regard the Lord's Supper as the "most important part" of the divine service-a false notion we hear ignorantly bantered about from our pulpits in the LCMS.  As all Lutherans know, it is the Word of God, which is the chief and most important part of the divine service."

Paul E. D. Darsow"
--------------------------------------


THOSE ROMANIZING TENDENCIES

By Dr. P. E. Kretzmann

Among the many evidences of the gradual deterioration of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod there is one that is particularly offensive to all who are familiar with sectarian aberrations, especially in the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church (The Protestant Episcopal Church in America). We refer here, first of all, to the false emphasis placed on the Lord's Supper as the more important part of the morning worship of a Lutheran congregation.

We are familiar with the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church with regard to the importance of the Mass, the teaching which makes the Holy Supper (in its mutilated form) the very center of the Christian cultus, with its "offering" of the body of the Savior at every celebration of the Holy Supper and with the idolatry which is practiced with the consecrated wafer. We also should be familiar with the many writings of Luther in which he so bitterly denounced all the false teachings of the Roman Church concerning the Sacrament. It is clear that Luther made this a main issue for some years. And he was ably seconded by the writers of the various Lutheran confessions, from the Augsburg Confession to the Formula of Concord.  In Luther's liturgical writings, in particular, Luther gives to the Lord's Supper the place which it rightly deserves, as one of the means of grace assuring the communicant of the grace of God by virtue of the Word which gives it this power. To Luther the Word was the center of all worship. He even went so afar as to state that Christians ought never to assemble for divine services unless there is some kind of teaching or preaching of the Word.

But now we have the strange phenomenon that members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have yielded to Romanizing influences to the extent that they are placing the celebration of the Lord's Supper above the service of the Word, chiefly by asserting that, of the two parts of the morning service, the Holy Communion is the greater and more important, and that, in the second place, the morning service is not complete without the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

This strange-and anti-Scriptural-tendency clearly had its inception in the Una Sancta movement which was begun several decades ago. Although brought into being, like the former Liturgical Association, for the purpose of studying the liturgical heritage of the Reformation, the movement very soon drifted into the direction of Rome and Roman Catholic customs.  The little magazine issued by the society soon became impregnated with distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and its influence has become greater in the degree in which prominent clergymen have joined the movement. The first book to make propaganda for Romanizing views was "The Presence, An Approach to the Holy Communion," by B. von Schenk. Although it was adversely reviewed in the Concordia Theological Monthly and although the reviewer in the Lutheran Witness refers to "the viewpoints here expressed that are at variance with a presentation strictly limited by Scripture," the book has maintained itself, being sold by Concordia Publishing House and continuing to spread its poison throughout the country.

And more recently we have a book, actually published by the Missouri Synod publishing house, the author being the Rev. Paul H. D. Lang, which blandly asserts that "since the beginning of the Christian Church the main portion of the Sunday service was the celebration of the Lord's Supper" (?!). See review in the Gemeindeblatt of March 15. And along comes the Valparaiso Bulletin of February 7, 1953, in which Dr. M. Alfred Bichel asserts: "The Common Service used in most Lutheran churches is an excellent service if it is done in its entirety as a communion service. If there is no communion, this renders it entirely useless if not somewhat ridiculous." The entire article is clearly off-color so far as sound Lutheranism is concerned. But that is just another evidence of the deterioration which has set in in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. If the present writer's article "Principiis obsta!" had been heeded (L. u. W., Vol. 75), then perhaps . . . ? Rev. P. E. Kretzmann, Ph.D., D.D., Ed.D.

November 20, 2002