Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Augustana Graeca / Mystics.

Once in a while I need this link below on the Augustana Graeca -- on-line and in person.

  http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/djw/lutherantheology.stuckwisch.html

 It is very interesting to read what happened between the Lutherans and their overture to the Orthodox in writing the Augustana Graeca.  (This can be googled further).  But this above link is an important entry by our friend Rev. Stuckwisch, which I refer to occasionally. For example, my husband and I have a dear Lutheran friend who was an Orthodox Priest before his wife left him.  (In Orthodoxy you cannot be a priest and remarried.)  He was so very surprised to hear of the Augustana Graeca for the first time so late in his life and career as an Orthodox and a Lutheran Christian.

Today, this is topical for me because someone countered me on a blog by saying that Luther tried to engage the Orthodox but that they would not have anything to do with an upstart.  However, the fact is that it was Melanchton who wrote this and that indeed some extensive discussions had occurred, at the time, which were, indeed, dropped by the Orthodox.

I am noticing that some Mystical/Buddhist/Universalist/ -- Word-deniers really, love to throw in Luther, Melanchton and Augustin to boot, in an unhistoric, untrue way.  They get away with this, because nowadays nobody knows anything about this stuff.  And when you correct them, they don't really care.  Facts don't actually matter when you are "experiencing" the divine.  They also don't like "lengthy" quotes, so really everyone is left in the dark, except for their own exceptional, deep, spiritual light, which, while it is only one way among many, somehow defining and restricting, anyhow.

It came to me this morning that when someone calls "The imitation of Christ" a mystical work and Christian, one should be very careful that we are actually dealing with Christ and not an "imitation" of him, i.e. the image we are creating for ourselves, that suits us, makes us feel something, etc.  Christ is a revelation of God.  "Hear HIM" said the voice of God.  If we are not dealing with his word we are dealing with an "imitation".

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