If you ask someone here in the Bible belt, what is free will, they will tell you that you have the free will to accept Jesus or reject him. This is baloney and we Lutherans know it. We can no more "accept" Jesus than we can "will" the sun to rise tomorrow. We have our own doctrine of free will.
Actually, this doctrine was first spelled out by Augustine in the 4th century and Brother Melanchthon lifted it and inserted it as Article 18 of our Augsburg Confession.
But try asking your average Lutheran, or Lutheran pastor for that matter, to tell you what our doctrine of free will is and you will get a blank stare or they will give you the Bible belt version. I do not understand this because our doctrine is so liberating. Our doctrine frees us to serve others and to live authentic lives, unconstrained by the con of eternal life.
You want me to tell you what our doctrine is don't you? Ok.
We Lutherans believe that we have free will regarding all things earthly, like how will we love and serve the poor, who will we marry and so forth. We have no free will regarding things heavenly - like salvation.
Why do we keep this a secret?
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