A pastor who vows to “make these confessions my own” would thereby seem to be standing by every word, line of reasoning, and attitude conveyed by those confessions. Yet prominent Lutheran writers have described confessional subscription as signifying adherence to the “doctrinal content” of the Confessions, such content being a subset of all that the Confessions say. Is there an annotated copy of the Book of Concord that clearly distinguishes the words that convey “doctrinal content” from the words that do not?

As a young teenager, in the Rite of Confirmation I declared my agreement with the Small Catechism only. As a lay member of an LCMS congregation, am I somehow further obligated to agree with all the doctrinal points made outside the Small Catechism in the Book of Concord?