New Lutheran Quote of the Day

Where the confession of the church is, where the means of grace are going on, as it has always been going on, perpetuo mansura [AC VII:1].  This confesses the church with the confidence of our Lord's words, that he is the one:  "I will build my church." (Mat 16:18)  And everything that goes wrong with the liturgy is ultimately diagnosable as a blurring or contradiction of that fact, where we would take over, where we act as if it belonged to us, to do with as we reckon would be good for it.  That is a denial of it being gift, a denial of it being gospel.  -- Dr. Norman Nagel, Logia VII:2, p. 24.