Godcast question re: “the real presence” AKA transubstantiation except IT’S TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUYS

Background here. My question:

Communion is symbolic, change my mind

Hi guys, this one will be for SuperLutheran.

I’ve been going to a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran church. I grew up in a nondenominational church and I’m not a Lutheran, but Mere Christianity says go for it. My friends were bugging me to go back to church after moving to a new apartment and it was across the street, so I checked the website to make sure it wasn’t one of those buttsex churches, then tried it out. It’s cool, I like it.

I’ve been through one of the church’s basic doctrine classes and the Wisconsin synod says you don’t take part in communion unless you’re a member. Other than the communion thing there are no disagreements, but they aren’t going to let that difference slide and I’m not going to lie about it just to become a member, what with it not being an existential thing in my book. But I figured I ought to at least make a good faith effort to see if I’m wrong, because it’s not a hill I’d die on, I’ve just never looked into it.

What I’ve heard is that the Lutheran take comes from erring on the literal side when reading what Jesus said. At first glance, I think that’s silly because he spoke in parables more often than he spoke literally.

There you go, change my mind. No hard feelings and God bless.

-AP

They addressed this one in Godcast episode 227 at the 39 minute mark exactly. tl;dl- SuperLutheran took the straight party line, which I summarized in the question pretty well, but they’ll probably do an episode on it in the future because Myles is also in the Baptist/nondenominational camp.