The Reclaim News release
titled "Preus Steps Out at the 2002 LCMS
ACL Meeting" drew more replies than will be reproduced here. The
following are two notable comments.
Father Stefanski of Cat41 writes:
I won't waste my bandwidth on the whole breadth of why the above is as
stupid as it is hateful, but I will send you this snippet from last year's
banquet; you can check your homemade audiotape for accuracy. The reason we
like and support Daniel Preus is that we are precisely *not* what you have
labeled us as...but, no, I don't expect you to see beyond your own rhetoric
and speak honestly about me, CAT 41, or anyone else. Good grief, you can't
even put an honest visitor counter on your web page, why should I expect you
to get simple theological statements straight?
For example, having the "Mass...celebrated every Sunday and on other
festivals, when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they
have been examined and absolved," as the XXIV Article of the Apology
states, is certainly a good and proper outcome of catechesis...but one
wonders if it ought to be the *immediate concern or content* of catechesis.
While retention (or 'rediscovery') of the term 'Mass' has become popular in
the past few decades, is this the word that the pastor ought to use to
introduce this correct practice where the term is 'foreign' to his
parishioners, or, indeed, 'alien'?
Your hatred, derision, distortion and intent to divide where there is no
basis in fact for division is unbecoming of a Christian, in spite of the
great amount of schismatic demagoguery you seem to accomplish by it.
Our Reply:
Why doesn't Father Stefanski simply say: . . .?
"It is better to call the LCMS worship service, 'Divine Worship,' or
a 'Worship Service' than to call it 'Mass.'
"It is better to call LCMS pastors 'Pastor' instead of
'Father.'"
We are waiting for his answer.
Our website counter is provided by "FastCounter" at
http://www.bcentral.com/products/fc/default.asp
They are an independent company. Why wouldn't they be an "honest
visitor counter"? It seems as Stefanski struggles for things to
criticize about Reclaim News he may as well attack the honesty of our
visitor counter. This sounds like a resolution Stefanski should send to the
next LCMS Convention, that is if he thought the voters were supreme in his
congregation and had the right to vote on resolutions.
A second letter:
Rev. Cascione,
I think Rev. Preus is right on target in his criticism of the
market-driven entertainment nature of contemporary worship and the
encroachment of Romanist ideas in Protestant churches. I am interested in
knowing how you would qualify the term "conservative" in reference
to theology and the church. Most of the time in the Presbyterian Church we
use the term "Reformed" to refer to traditional theology like that
of the Reformation as seen in Luther and Calvin. Many churches use the term
conservative to describe fundamentalism, something very different from
Reformation theology. Many Baptists, for instance, who are
"conservative" deny that God saves (election) and instead teach
that a person making a commitment to Jesus Christ receives eternal life as a
gift. I would be interested in hearing how the Lutheran Church conceives of
this language that is so prevalent in contemporary discussion.
Cody Chambers
Houston