Clerical Drips

One of our esteemed writers pointed me hither: Uwe Siemon-Netto’s disturbing experience at an English countryside Christmas church service .

It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. The only thing missing is the vicar’s pulling out a set of plates and smashing them on the pulpit to get the congregation’s attention again. (“All right then, as I was saying: ‘Blessed are the clueless, for they shall inherit a goodly pension . . . blessed are the sterile, for they shall keep more for themselves . . . blessed are the apostate, for they will get better seats at the opera . . . ’”)

And now for something completely different: Siemon-Netto , a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, received Communion in an Anglican church. Shout out to LCMSers in the know—permissible, if no Lutheran church is accessible? I would have thought not, as the LCMS, at least formally, is quite strict about the conditions under which one may—or may not—receive the sacrament. But I may be wrong. And I ask NOT to get Siemon-Netto in Dutch but because my wife and I love to vacation in England, and Lutheran churches are few and far between . . .

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