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“I am much afraid that the universities will prove to be the great gates of hell, unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.”
― Martin Luther

“If the teaching of Christ were a law, it would not be a gospel {glad tiding}, but a sad tiding.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you straight what I think. I am a Christian theologian and I am bound not only to assert, but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and be a slave to the authority of no one, of a council, a university, or pope. I will confidently confess what appears to me to be true whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by a council.”
― Martin Luther

“Now, properly speaking, grace is never in a person’s heart, but in God’s heart. First a person must believe. After that he may feel. Feeling proceeds from faith—not faith from feeling.”
― C.F.W. Walther

“Every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“Since in fact liturgical traditions, vestments, church vessels, etc., were immediately removed wherever Calvinism infiltrated or Reformed ideas even gained influence in the church's polity, the reaction which it caused in Lutheran areas was a conscious propensity for ceremonies. Henceforth, therefore, the celebration of an emphatically liturgical service was among the visible signs by which the Lutheran character of confession was demonstrated outwardly.”
― Ernst Walter Zeeden, FAITH AND ACT: THE SURVIVAL OF MEDIEVAL CEREMONIES IN THE LUTHERAN REFORMATION

“It is the distinctive position of the Reformation with which, over against Rome, it stands or falls, that that which properly constitutes, defines, and perpetuates in unity a Church, is its doctrine, not its name or organization. While a Church retains its proper identity it retains of necessity its proper doctrine. Deserting its doctrine it loses its identity. The Church is not a body which bears its name like England, or America, which remain equally England and America, whether savage or civilized, Pagan or Christian, Monarchical or Republican. Its name is one which properly indicates its faith--and the faith changing, the Church loses its identity. Pagans may become Mohammedans, but then they are no longer Pagans--they are Mohammedans. Jews may become Christians, but then they are no longer Jews in religion. A Manichean man, or Manichean Church, might become Catholic, but then they would be Manichean no more. A Romish Church is Romish; a Pelagian Church is Pelagian; a Socinian Church is Socinian, though they call themselves Protestant, Evangelical, or Trinitarian. If the whole nominally Lutheran Church on earth should repudiate the Lutheran doctrine, that doctrine would remain as really Lutheran as it ever was. A man, or body of men, may cease to be Lutherans, but a doctrine which is Lutheran once, is Lutheran forever. Hence, now, as from the first, that is not a Lutheran Church, in the proper and historical sense, which cannot ex animo declare that it shares in the accord and unanimity with which each of the Doctrines of the Augsburg Confession was set forth.”
― Charles Porterfield Krauth

“The Pelagianizing Romanist says, Lust, or concupiscence, brings forth sin, therefore it cannot be sin, because the mother cannot be the child. We reply, Concupiscence brings forth sin, therefore it must be sin, because child and mother must have the same nature. The grand sophism of Pelagianism is the assumption that sin is confined to acts, that guilty acts can be the product of innocent condition, that the effect can be sinful, yet the cause free from sin--that the unclean can be brought forth from the clean.”
― Charles Porterfield Krauth

“Here is where most preachers make their mistake. They are afraid that by preaching the gospel too clearly, it will be their fault if people lapse into sin. They imagine that the gospel is food for the carnal-minded. True enough, to many the gospel does become the smell of death unto death, but that is not the fault of the Gospel. That happens only because men do not accept—do not believe—the Gospel. Faith is not merely thinking, "I believe." Your whole heart must be seized by the gospel and come to rest in it. When that happens, you are transformed and cannot help but love and serve God.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“We see that the law was not reveal to us to put a notion into our heads that we could become righteous by it, but to teach us that we are completely unable to fulfill the law. Then we will know what a sweet message-what a glorious doctrine-the gospel is and move receive it with exuberant joy.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“Galatians 3:11��12 ... a precious text! A person becomes righteous in the sight of God by faith alone. What conclusion can we draw from this? The law cannot make any person righteous because it has nothing to say about justifying and saving faith. That information is found only in the Gospel. In other words, the law has nothing to say about grace.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“What makes us saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God’s ability to work through sinners.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People

“The Kingdom of God is a tricky concept, and I was always taught it referred to our heavenly reward for being good, which, now that I actually read the Bible for myself, makes very little sense. Others say that the Kingdom of God is another way of talking about the church, and still others say that it's the dream God has for the wholeness of the world, a dream being made true little by little among us right here, right now. My answer? All of the above.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

“The only means for averting the divine chastisement that takes the shape of warfare is, however, repentance from moral and spiritual evildoing; the peace movements of the West would therefore be well advised to direct their activities towards fostering respect for the human life created at conception in the womb, for God's law with respect to marital and family life and the ordering of human affairs in general, and above all for the true religion revealed in the Sacred Scriptures.”
― John R. Stephenson, Eschatology

“Anders, it is not your sins that separate you from God, but your virtues. Or more properly: it is that you need to have something to bring before you step before God. This is why God has allowed you to be stripped of the shroud of holiness that you wore in Fröjerum. Not because you were zealous and pious. God grant that all priests would be as zealous as you! But because you made it into an article of faith and into your righteousness and put it between you and Christ. Now you are poor, destitute, and naked—like the prodigal son. Now the heavenly Father stand and waits for you. Now he wants to fold you in his arms and clothe you with the most precious garment, which is called Christ’s righteousness, in which not a single thread is spun by your hands, but for just that reason it lasts forever.”
― Bo Giertz, Faith Alone: The Heart of Everything

“Heaven's eucharistic irruption into earthly space and time prompted classical Lutheranism not to join the Reformed and Anabaptists in their campaign of iconoclasm which rendered Christian churches little different in external appearance from Islamic mosques. While conceding the adiaphorous quality of images representing various aspects of the Incarnate Life, as early as his conflict with Karlstadt the Reformer defended the appropriateness of the crucifix and sculptures of Mary with the Christ Child. Orthodox Lutheran architecture and church decor attested the confession of our Lord's presence among His own in the means of grace, forging a style which goes hand in hand with precious doctrinal substance. Increasing accommodation to the North American Puritan milieu over the past century has led to a loss of the genuinely Lutheran understanding of the altar as a monument to the atonement, which is Christ's throne in our midst. ... If our chancels' decoration (or stark lack thereof) bespeaks the absence of our Lord and His celestial companions, can we be surprised at waning faith in the real presence and at waxing conviction of the rightfulness of an open communion practice? A deliberate opting for Puritanism's aesthetic barrenness can only make the reclaiming of Lutheran substance an even harder struggle.”
― John R. Stephenson, The Lord's Supper

“In modern church life, we often leave the nave to have "fellowship" with one another at social functions in the basement, and we are sometimes invited to "fun and fellowship" at games nights or congregational picnics. These are inappropriate usages of the word "fellowship" (which translates the New Testament κοινӬνί��), for the human interaction that takes place in church basements and public parks can be shared without a qualm with Christians of other confession and even with the irreligious and pagans. True κοινӬνί�� begins with baptismal admission into the church (δι' ο�� ἐκλήθητε εἰ�� κοινӬνία�� το�� υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ 'Ιησο�� Χριστο�� το�� κυρίο�� ἡμῶν, 1 Cor 1:9) and culminates in the fellowship granted through common partaking of the holy things; as such, it is entirely distinct from all Adamic-earthly gatherings, being the supernatural product of divine monergism.”
― John R. Stephenson, The Lord's Supper

“I show how much of the wars of religion involved Catholics killing Catholics, Lutherans killing Lutherans, and Catholic-Protestant collaboration. (Page 10 The Myth of Religious Violence)”
― William Cavanaugh

“Every religion contains portions of the law. In fact, some unbelievers, by their knowledge of the law, have advanced so far that they realize that their souls need to be cleansed, that their thoughts and desires need to be purified. But only in the Christian religion will you find the Gospel. Other religions do not contain even a speck of it.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“The Gospel does not say, "you must do good works." Rather, it fashions us into human beings, into creatures who cannot help serve God and fellow human beings. Without a doubt, a precious effect!”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“The main thing to tell a person when you explain how to become righteous is to announce to him for free grace of God, concealing nothing, saying none other than what God says in the Gospel. Build a fence around Mount Sinai, but not around Golgotha, because at Golgotha all God's wrath was appeased.”
― C.F.W. Walther, Law & Gospel: How to Read & Apply the Bible

“Church isn’t perfect. It’s practice.”
― Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People

“Its use is threefold. It serves the purpose of restraining the wickedness of men and preserving order. It serves as a rule of holy living to the regenerate. It serves to show people their sins and reveal the wrath of God against them, and thus, indirectly, to lead souls to Christ, by disclosing to them their helplessness and ruin without Him”
― Matthias Loy

“Since the initial bestowal of the forgiveness of sins coincides with the fallen creature's passage from spiritual death to eternal life, both it and its renewal in absolution and Holy communion are inseparable from God's consequent action to preserve the life restored in Christ. And because bodily death stems from the sin whose seat is in the soul, apprehending the forgiveness of sins necessarily flowers in the resurrection of the body which suffers death for the soul's offense.”
― John R. Stephenson, The Lord's Supper

“hasta la vista baby”
― The terminator

“History without tradition has produced a historicism that relativized the development of Christian doctrine in such a way as to make the distinction between authentic growth and cancerous aberration seem completely arbitrary... Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”
― Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100-600