"Why We Fight"

Remember those old propaganda films that they made in the '40's, to demonstrate to the public why the the US military was involved in World War II? The premise of each of the seven films was that the preservation of democracy could only be possible by the utter destruction of the forces that threatened it. Would democracy have ceased to exist had Germany and Japan not been defeated? I don't know. Maybe not entirely. But maybe democracy would have ended up looking a lot different than what we know it to be today.

Lutherans** often are scolded by other Christians for our emphasis on preserving pure doctrine. We are told that we are being divisive, and that our rigid inflexibility is a barrier to reaching the lost. What others find most offensive (and this is simply my own observation, not an imperical study or anything) is not that Lutherans clearly state what they believe, but rather that they also state what they reject.

The Lutheran Confessions have always had a didactic character; stating that which we teach and confess as being in conformity with Holy Scripture, as well as what we reject and condemn as unbiblical. If you read through the Lutheran Confessions you will not only learn what we believe, but why we believe it.

To those who would say that doctrine doesn't matter, I would suggest that you watch this video. This is a frightening example of what happens when we fail to heed Pauls words to "hold fast to sound teaching". This is "why we fight" for doctrine.

**I imagine that Lutherans are not the only ones who have this complaint leveled against them. Any denomination that understands the importance of doctrine is going to be open to these types of complaints.