Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticCat
I don't doubt that at all -- it's consistent with the practices of all Lutherans I've known.
That said, Luther's Small Catechism describes confession in the same section as Baptism and Communion and provides a sample of how to make a personal confession, and Evangelical Lutheran Worship includes an order for Individual Confession and Absolution. I have read that the practice is a somewhat ethnic/national origin thing -- that Lutherans from some countries tended not to practice confession while those from other countries (Scandinavia, maybe?) tended to hold on to it. But take what I say with a grain of salt, given the whole I'm-not-Lutheran-myself aspect of it. 
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We've had a lot of changes lately with worship styles, and last summer I was a Presbyterian half the time (the church was ELCA Lutheran one week, Presbyterian the next since it was in a rural Alaska Community) so I will admit I am still confused as to what we're doing at times
My general feeling/idea with confession is that we don't do it since Luther really wanted a break with all the (and I am not being flippant, this term works for me) "middle man" aspects that came up with the priests and the people in Catholicism of his time. We have similarities, but the areas we don't are due to making God more accessible and cutting out a lot of the extra stuff that got in the way of having a direct relationship with God. I grew up in Scandinavian founded Lutheran churches, but the ELCA came about when I was a child so the traditions were less in worship and more in architecture and the people.
So back to Sanford, I feel sorry for his wife and kids, I always feel bad for the spouses in public issues like this. I'll speak on Larry Craig since that's my state, I am sure his wife knew, hell maybe they had an arrangement, but that doesn't make up for all the choices he made and things he did while elected. I am all for privacy of two consenting adults and their own arrangements, but when the voting record and rhetoric don't allow that for others, it irritates me. Craig left office, we got rid of woman hating Bill Sali, and now we have Minnick who doesn't believe in evolution, so it is kind of a revolving door of "who has the least amount of BS I can live with" at the polls.