Maybe a little background will help to know where I'm coming from.
After some 23 years of being either nothing formal or a nominal Methodist, I was confirmed at the Lutheran Chapel, University of Nebraska in 1956. Then came graduation, marriage, 6 years of flying big birds for the Navy, and raising a family.
So, for the next 15 or so years, I didn't really pay much attention to being Lutheran, until I started hearing things in sermons that were a bit strange (brought to my attention by my cradle-Lutheran wife) from a liberal pastor in Alameda. (My 12 weeks of Confirmation instruction hadn't prepared me nearly as well as her two years.)
So, figuring that if I was going to call myself a Lutheran, I bloody well ought to do some serious studying, I started with the Book of Concord. If I couldn't really accept that, I oughta be honest and call myself something else.
It's been quite a trip. I've been through the "Battle for the Bible", Preus, and the Seminex wars of the '70s, survived the Bohlmann years of the '80s, relished the Barry years of the '90s, and have been increasingly irritated (no, correct that...mad as hell) at what's been happening to the LCMess in the Kieschnick years of the '00s.
Folks, most of the troubles are, as my wife said long ago, "Basic Catechism Stuff." And I'm amazed at how little a lot of "Lutheran"people really know about what Lutherans are supposed to believe, teach, and confess.
So, here's where I am. And it's still quite a trip!