When Luther was declared a heretic and outlaw by the Roman canon lawyers (who were doubling down on the sale of indugences, as their corrupt Pope had to pay his tame artists and hired armies) the compromise reached with the electors of Brandenburg, Hanover — the protestant Lords — was that the king would lead the church in his nation, with the court spiritual being made of the bishops, under an archbishop. This worked until democracy led to constitutional monarchy, and politicians, who do not have any sense of being appointed by God, nor any faith, demanded their place in the church spiritual.

This has gutted the Swedish Lutheran church. Aided and abetted by a female clergy.

The Swedish Church has received a new handbook for how worship services will be performed as of Pentecost next year. The proposal has been criticized, but received broad support from the political nomination groups at the church meeting in Uppsala and was voted by a large majority.

Strong criticism has been made of the fact that the steering committee that prepared the proposal for a new worship service has not listened to all objections raised over the years. Many church musicians have been upset by the proposed music and felt to be outsiders. Many priests have stated that they do not recognize themselves in the new language industry which, according to the objective, will be “more inclusive”. It is about the view of God, which is not “unnecessarily” given masculine form, a question discussed for decades.

You do not lightly play with the Nicene creed or the liturgy. You test every word. You do not let the politicians, particularly when they consider that the native peoples and faith are barriers to their control of the narrative, to have a say. The elite are doubling down, and it is good that there are still some men with the spirit fo Luther among the church named after his theological position.

Speaking after the vote to adopt the new handbook passed, Mikael Löwegren, commissioner for the church in Småland Ljungby, said the decision signifies that the Swedish Church has “ceased to exist as a coherent spiritual community”.

“Under the guise of ‘diversity’, society is being broken down into different groups,” he said, asserting that there are “so many alternatives and optional variants” included in the new manual that “it will be hard to claim this is the same church from parish to parish”.

Highlighting language guidelines recommending God be presented in a gender-neutral fashion, Löwegren also warned that the new manual “takes the Church of Sweden further away from the major churches instead of bringing it closer to them.”

“Christianity’s most basic doctrine holds that there is a triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he pointed out, adding that the new guidebook “throws away the progress made by the church through in-depth ecumenical dialogue, and brings in a new worship system that is both anti-ecumenical and anti-science.”

Amen. This will not work. And if the church continues to converge, the faithful will build elsewhere. They will not conform to this diktat. They will aim to misbehave, and there will he an Alt.Church.