After looking around the internet and seeing what pastors, particularly my generation, were posting, I decided that my audio only catechism classes were better than some of them, even the video ones, that sounded liked the biology professor in Wonder Years. What started me thinking in this vein was a Confessional Lutheran college student who in a sea of meh Lutheranism remained firm and is now a parish pastor. He grew up in a remote area; he said that he learned Confessional Lutheranism from the internet. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I’ve been thinking about doing this ever since.
For the next 15 Fridays you will find my classes on Luther’s Small Catechism. The edition I am going through and referencing is the NIV version of the 1991 Catechism published in burgundy color in 2005. You can use an earlier version, published in blue, but the pagination is different. You can also you the 2007 (I think) edition also in burgundy but with ESV Bible translation. I would not recommend the 2017 Catechism. Confessional Lutheran pastors I respect studied it and were very critical. I did not study it because I knew that after 35 years of teaching the ’91 catechism, I wasn’t switching.
First some rules of engagement:
- If you have a confessional Lutheran pastor, please ask him if you may listen to these. If he says no, don’t do it. Be like my 12-year-old who asked about watching a PG-13 movie with this emphatic proviso: “If you don’t want me to, I won’t watch it!”
- If you have a friend who asks about Confessional Lutheranism who won’t “come and see” at your Confessional Lutheran congregation, share these with him rather than any denominational website where it tells you what Lutherans believe.
- If you are without access to Confessional Lutheranism, these are for you. You can find enough about me on the internet, and other Confessional Lutheran laymen and pastors, to know the good, the bad, and the ugly to evaluate where I am coming from and whether these are worth listening to.
- This is for age 16 and above. I may later publish my Junior Confirmation classes. I’m not sure how much audio you can put on WordPress.
- You can always stop or take at your own pace.
- Do NOT hold your Confessional Lutheran pastor responsible for what I am or am not saying.
