Good point (an appropriate follow-up to this):
“…Tomorrow will be celebrated by many Protestants as “Reformation Sunday.” To be sure, part of what Protestants celebrate on Reformation Day are what they believe to be the truths upheld and preserved within Protestantism. But without careful qualification, celebrating “Reformation Day” while remaining separated from the Catholic Church is a kind of performative contradiction, because it implies that separation, not reform, is the ultimate goal of the protest. Celebrating Reformation Day can be for that reason like celebrating a divorce, or more accurately, celebrating estrangement from our mother and from all our brothers and sisters who remain in her bosom, when in truth Christ calls us all to full communion and prays that we would be one. Moreover celebrating what is a division can blind the celebrants to the evil of that continuing division, just as celebrating divorce could blind children to its evil, or celebrating abortion could blind the celebrants to its evil.”
(there is a lot in this post that I don’t agree with to, by the way)
That said, we do celebrate the pure preaching and teaching of the pure Gospel of God and the administration of His Sacraments!
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbullas/4080600067
theology like a child 
Randy
November 1, 2011 at 7:37 pm
That said, we do celebrate the pure preaching and teaching of the pure Gospel of God and the administration of His Sacraments!
So which protestant church preaches and teaches the pure gospel of God?
infanttheology
November 1, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Randy,
The LCMS and those bodies in fellowship with it. Please see my recent response to the RC apologist Dave Armstrong.
Blessings to you!
Nathan
Nathan
November 18, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Note to self: see conversation here:
http://cyberbrethren.com/2011/11/15/why-was-the-lutheran-reformation-a-tragedy/
I quoted part of this above, and Paul McCain said:
“No, we can’t agree with those assertions, for the fail to take into account that Rome, as an institution, is the group that left the church catholic, not the other way around.”
I replied:
Pastor McCain,
OK, I think I know what you are saying. I do believe that Rome left us, even though their separating themselves from us was clearly not our goal. The goal of reform was accomplished, even though something we had previously recognized as Church was left behind… (Luther himself acknowledged Rome to be His mother… the one who had given him birth… )
In some ways then, this is a little ambiguous….
Gerhard say, “still today in the very middle of Rome he gathers a church to Himself, a church that, though it has not yet been separated from the external fellowship of the Roman church, nevertheless does have an internal communion with the church catholic and in this respect is invisible.“ (139, On the Church)
And yet he also does not hesitate to assert that all the invisible church is contained within the visible church and not vice-versa (113, On the Church).
And also:
“If the confession of true doctrine and the legitimate use of the Sacraments had been left free for us, perhaps we would not have departed from the external fellowship of the Roman church.” (context can be found here: https://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/babies-in-church-part-viii-judge-your-mother-o-child-the-tragic-necessity-of-the-reformation/)
Really??? We would have remained united with someone who was clearly [?] not Church?
The questions and ambiguity are unavoidable, I think (unless we avoid it : ) ). I know where the Church is (LCMS and those in fellowship with us), and can readily point out when someone is clearly out of bounds (Mormans, JW’s), but as for everyone else, even though I should point out where they go wrong, why must I insist that they are not Church? (given what Gerhard says above).
(end)
I also tried to post this, which did not appear in the comments for some reason:
Pastor McCain,
I commend you for allowing my points to be aired on your blog. I know its not a right. Thank you.
I am currently debating RC apologist Dave Armstrong on my blog (yes, I know, you advise people against this).
One of the main lines of attack that I’ve taken with him (most recently here: https://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/round-3-with-rc-apologist-dave-armstrong-a-few-good-pharisees/) is that *even though* the Gospel writers do not fail to show that Jesus and His disciples presumably recognized the religious system of the day as truly being the Church/Assembly in some sense (i.e. Matthew 23:2-3 [Pharisees]nand John’s talking about the prophecy of the High Priest [Sadducees] come to mind), they also did not embrace all of their teachings… Jesus both tells the people to obey the Pharisees and tells His followers to beware of their teachings.
It seems to me that this is kind of the story throughout the whole Bible: there is a church of some size, presumably recognizable and roughly identifiable by the outside world – and then there is the remnant… Anna, Simeon, Mary, Nathaniel, Zechariah would be examples of the true remnant within the larger Church.
It seems to me that Gerhard, even though he defended our right to talk about the invisible church, was also eager to embrace the nuance and difficulties we seem to have here…
…which I think is why that quote from the RC blog I shared above resonated with me.