If that is all you want. . .

More and more I am hearing the cracks of division in a church body that has always had some conflicts.  This time it is about the training of pastors and the use of alternative tracks outside the LCMS seminaries.  Of course, it could be done.  Should it be done?  That is another matter.  The same is true of the remains of the worship wars in a church body where some insist that people are making an idol out of worship or the liturgy and others are insisting that without the use of the hymnal you are not quite Lutheran.  Of course, you can have "worship" without the hymnal.  Should it be done?  That is another matter.  Yet behind these and other sources of dispute among us.  Under it all is a lingering question about what we want the "Synod" to be.  

Although Missouri does not talk about Synod as church, we have always operated in this way.  Without calling the Synod church, we retain to Synod rights and powers, chief among them the training and rostering of church workers and the supervision of doctrine and practice.  If that is not what church is and does, what is?  Again, I understand the Missouri peculiarity but the reality is that we have always maintained from the get go that this Synod, while not formally church, operates as church.  The aims and goals of the Synod as maintained in the Constitution certainly support this idea.

Some, however, have in the past and now even more so disagree.  Synod is not church at all but simply a collection of churches, mostly autonomous but cooperating for the sake of themselves even more than any corporate benefit.  For these people, the LCMS and its future are in the direction of a looser confederation of regions, districts, and congregations in which decisions and responsibilities are increasingly local.  In the ministry, for example, these would add to the residential seminaries a local authority to train, examine, and certify church workers, pastors especially.  Why not?  It could be done.  Should it be done?  That is the debate.

In the same way, there are those who talk almost incessantly about trusting the local pastors to decide what is good, right, and salutary for the local situation.  This applies to everything from liturgy or not to choice of the church's song and songbooks to who is admitted to the Sacrament.  We were formed to promote and to value a high degree of uniformity not as demand but as deference to our unity and identity and yet there has always been some degree of latitude in worship practices.  Now, however, that difference has become so pronounced that the reality is we have no fellowship between the evangelical style folks and the liturgical ones.  This means that if people from an evangelical style congregation moved to where there was only a liturgical LCMS one, they would probably not join but would find one whose worship practices were similar to the one from which they came.  And the reverse is also true.  This means that worship is not simply a practice but practices of worship have broken fellowship.  What kind of unity is there when something like this happens routinely?  Is our trust to be so deep that we ignore the broken nature of our relationships as people as well as clergy?

The reality is that there is already an option for those who prefer a loose confederation or association of congregations.  It is called the LCMC -- Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ.  Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ is an association of Evangelical Lutheran congregations which describes itself as an affiliation of autonomous Lutheran churches and not a denomination.  The latitude and diversity that conflict with a church body or synod which has boundaries of its fellowship and the willing surrender of some diversity for the sake of unity is not a problem for an association which exists to support that autonomy.  In fact, it does not even prevent you from holding simultaneous membership in several such associations.  What it provides are services for the sake of the individual and autonomous members -- things like pensions and such.  A pension system and a health care option should not be the sole reason for belonging to the LCMS.  This is especially true when another option exists.

Let me be clear.  I am not asking anyone to leave.  What I am saying is that rather than convert the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod into something it is not and with it risk all sorts of greater conflict, division, and fractioning of the weakened Lutheran identity in the US, why not simply join a group that not only allows such diversity and autonomy but fosters it?  It is an honest question.  I want the Synod to be united and positively united in our common confession, identity, practice, and mission.  I would be so happy if the squabbles ended and we coalesced around who we say we are in the Augustana.  I get chills dreaming of the day when we were not fighting each other but laboring together in the greater cause of the Gospel in a world increasingly unfriendly to Christ crucified and risen.  I am not asking anyone to leave and would be sad if they did -- unless the only things keeping them are the services Missouri provides and the umbilical cords of history, pension, health care, and such.  The truth is that these are not sustainable reasons for belonging over the long haul.  The truth is that the Synod cannot become something it never was and does not see itself as without amputating much of what it is along the way until there is nothing left for anyone, much less for Christ.  The LCMS does not have to exist but it is pretty clear that it has long been the strongest as well as an often lonely voice for confessional Lutheranism here and throughout the world.  What is served by destroying the LCMS to make it into something different?  And, for those who think I am only addressing those to the left of me, I would suggest that remaking the LCMS into a purity cult will accomplish the same end.