Quote:
Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel
The way I was brought up and still practice/believe (though ELCA Lutherans aren't a monolith) is I don't have to confess because God already knows. I can talk to my pastor about my problems, but it isn't a confession that is done in the Catholic sense.
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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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