On the Square Today

Eleanor Pettus on a Bible that keeps us apart :

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Protestants place a high value on Scripture. Examples of this attitude abound: the popular Awana program gives an award to second graders who have memorized 150 Bible verses. “Bible quizzing” effectively makes high schoolers memorize whole epistles. Teachers and parents teach children their Savior’s voice by drill: God’s words are imprinted in the hearts of the young with the hope that they will follow the Lord’s precepts until their death. This trust in Scripture’s transformative power is a definitive mark of the culture found in many Protestant congregations.

Also today, Mathew Block on Roman Catholics and confessional Lutherans exploring deeper ties :

In 1976, Joseph Ratzinger—then still a professor—suggested “it might be possible to interpret [the Augsburg Confession (CA)—i.e., the primary Lutheran confession] under the laws of the empire as a catholic confession.” He continued: “Efforts are underway to achieve a Catholic recognition of the CA or, more correctly, a recognition of the CA as catholic, and thereby to establish the catholicity of the churches of the CA, which makes possible a corporate union while the differences remain.”