Domineering. . .

There are legitimate reasons for a congregation to rescind its call to a pastor (or other church worker).  No one I know disputes that or those reasons.  We all understand the sad, tragic, and painful need to remove a pastor if he is guilty of false doctrine and refuses the counsel of God's Word, his peers, or his ecclesiastical supervisor.   We all understand the sad, tragic, and painful need to remove a pastor if he is guilty of leading a manifestly immoral life and has brought scandal to the congregation, his family, and his office.  We all understand the sad, tragic, and painful need to remove a pastor if he is guilty of being unable or unwilling to carry out his duties as a pastor (physical issues are here much easier to define than the other aspects of this).  But there is usually that other thing.  Domineering.  That is number four on the hit list and, more often than not, the usual cause given for getting rid of a strong pastor.

I will admit that I am domineering.  People have told me I am.  I have a heavy hand on what happens on Sunday morning, on what is taught in Bible study and catechesis, on how our ministries operate, on what missions we support, on our official welcome to the many new people who walk through our door each week, and about the appearance of our facilities.  I do not share my pulpit very often and if you serve as the presider in my absence or while I am sitting there next to you, you are expected to follow the liturgical practices our people have come to know and count on.  If somebody wanted to and there was a district president willing to hear them and wanted me gone, it could have happened and it still might.  If that is the fault that is meant under that ambiguous term domineering then there is probably plenty of evidence and plenty of people to bear witness against me.  And that is the problem.

Domineering is an undefined term.  If you have a strong pastor who does not let the congregation vote on what they will believe, what will be preached or taught in their church, how often the Sacrament of the Altar will be offered, if there will be kneelers, what hymns we will sing, what music the choir will sing, what instruments will be used to support such music, what will be taught to new members or the young, etc... that pastor is bound to encounter opposition.  The Gospel does not build consensus.  It confesses truth -- and not some benign truth that does not matter but the only truth that saves.  This Gospel will always have enemies and the faithful practice of this Gospel will always ruffle consciences.  I have not even begun to wade into the muddy waters of who we admit to the altar!  It is a fact.  If your pastor does not talk to you how you think you deserve or say what you think he should say or do what you want him to do, he is domineering.  Or is he?  Is this really what that ambiguous term means?  Is this cause for removal or requiring his resignation or rescinding his call?  If it is, our church is in big trouble.  Domineering is too often a convenient label for those who dare to disagree with us on the basis of what God's Word says, our Confessions say, and our faithful practice has been.

The days are coming when I will no longer be bound by a call to ever worry about such a thing but the days are here already when it would behoove us to define this ambiguous term.  We ought to be thankful we have pastors who are domineering about the truth that endures forever and the Word of Truth that addresses us with God's voice and how that Word is lived out among us.  What is really the problem is not a pastor who is domineering about the Word of God and our Confession and practice but who is self-serving.  That is the bigger problem.  Self-serving pastors roll over and give in whenever they are challenged or the faithful practice is misunderstood or understood and rejected.  But we have no category for self-serving pastors whose concern is their own well-being and welfare instead of the faithful proclamation and practice of what we believe, teach, and confess.  Self-serving pastors, by the way, are those who trade money and affection for truth and conviction -- who protect and promote the unfaithfulness they find instead of willing to teach that unfaithfulness away and to insist upon the Law and Gospel rightly divided and the Sacraments instituted according to Christ's intention.

The day is coming when another pastor will serve where I do now and I pray he will be domineering for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of our Confession, for the sake of those for whom Christ died, and for the sake of our witness to the world.  When that day comes, I will rejoice even when we might disagree on one thing or another and he will have my utmost respect and, I pray, the respect and affection of God's people in this place.