In yesterday's Lutheran Confessions class, our professor closed our session on Luther's large and small catechisms by asking what the role of the historical church documents is today which led us to an interesting discussion about good ways to educate children--and acknowledgement that now, as in Luther's day, adults may need some basic Church/Christian education too.
At some point in class, we talked about protests and whether or not clergy would be allowed at twenty-first century protests. Our professor, who is president of the seminary and has been a bishop in the past, said of course clergy are allowed to go to protests as long as they remember that they are answerable to the larger Church, which includes bishops.
Along the way, we had a talk about the authority of bishops, and our professor said that he used to go to protests for causes that aligned with his faith, and he would go in full bishop regalia, including crozier. He did this for a variety of reasons, but mainly to remind everyone whose authority he claimed. He knew that if any clergy member was going to be arrested, they'd start with him, and he figured that they might resist, since it wouldn't make a great visual, arresting a bishop in full regalia with a crozier.
We had a few minutes of amusement, thinking about the police trying to figure out how to handle the crozier and envisioning the police car driving away with the crozier sticking out the window. Then it was back to the serious business of thinking about the future of the Church in light of Reformation history.
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