More than a hammer and a church door . . .

Those who would characterize the Reformation by the hammer and the theses nailed to a church door have a very small and distorted view of it.  More than this act and the whole of Luther's often provocative statements, there is in the Lutheran Reformation an embodiment of catholicity and Scriptural faithfulness which begged the world to notice.  That Rome proceeded with a counter-reformation council and the radical reformers cast off all constraints to ditch what should have been preserved should not diminish the value of this movement.  Take a look at this link for several illustrated timelines of the Reformation. 

Below are some videos of the Reformation and Martin Luther's legacy:

 

What to do?

It seems that someone raises the issue of Luther and the Jews every now and then -- presuming that there is something we must do about some of the despicable things that Luther did actually say about the Jews.  The problem, of course, is that Luther wrote 500 years ago.  This certainly does not let him off the hook but it makes it terribly hard to hold him accountable according to the standards of the day.  It does raise a question of whether every generation is obliged to hold accountable and condemn the sins of those who went before them.  I wish I had a clever answer to this haunting issue.  I do not.  But I do think the least that we could do and should do is not to give too much press to Luther or any other individual from a previous generation whose views we cannot abide.  I am not suggesting that we hide what Luther wrote (as if that could ever be done for an author as prolific as Luther!) but simply that we not spend too much ink condemning something that we all know is just plain wrong.

We all know that the times were different, that the circumstances were different, and that Luther's concerns were different (more about the rejection of Jesus as Messiah than a condemnation of the Jews as a race).  We all know that even then some of Luther's words are still and will always be both shocking and inexcusable in the context of today.  Strange, though, how we presume today that Luther's prejudicial condemnations of the Jews are more powerful than his contention for what is right in the Gospel.  Sure, there are always those who look through the annals of history to find voices to justify and support their own flawed and failed reason.  Racists are always looking for other racists in the same way the guilty are always looking for others with the same guilt.  Suffice it to say that Luther was wrong.  Period.  End of discussion.  While we esteem Luther highly when he got it right, we as Lutherans are no more bound to Luther's errors than we are to anyone else's failings.  Luther's egregious words are neither part of our Confessions nor something to which we are obligated to defend.  He was wrong.  But we do not have to follow his error.  It saddens me that there was a time when Luther's rhetoric (as well as the similar words of others) was almost normal.  I do not own Luther's words on the Jews anymore than I own any other words of Luther that were not included in the Lutheran Confessions.  Can we leave it at Luther was wrong about this?

There are Lutherans on the wrong side of just about every issue.  What matters is not whether we own them and their words but whether we own the words of God!  It is Scripture we are bound to and the Confessions and creeds that are faithful to the Scriptures.  The same could be said of every other theological tradition -- from Roman Catholic to Jehovah's Witness.  Surely we need to spend at least as much time professing the Scriptures and its promise of salvation in Christ alone as we do distancing ourselves from the sins and errors of those who went before us -- or perhaps even more time?  Luther said some pretty screwy things and some shocking things that no Lutheran would ever agree with.  Our job is to reject what he and others like him got wrong and put the bulk of our efforts and energies into what he got right -- the faith once delivered to the saints.  If we spent all our time into identifying and distancing ourselves from what they got wrong, we would have nothing left to proclaim what he and others like him got right -- Jesus Christ crucified and risen.

Sometimes Christians get put on the hot seat just like those folks who are trotted out to hearings on Capital Hill.  There is more interest in producing gotcha moments for the news cycle and fund raising letters than there is in real truth.  So many of those who delight in pulling out Luther's words about the Jews are less interested in what Luther has to say than in creating another gotcha moment for Lutherans.  We all know that.  Some will try to pin the sins of the present upon Luther -- though perhaps fewer folks than those who tried to explain Hitler and the Nazis.  In any case, we are bound to rather few of Luther's writings and only those that are part of the Lutheran Confessions.  Luther had a lot of good things to say that do not bind us and a lot of bad things that also do not bind us to him or to his words.  Curiously, this subject comes up every now and then but today it comes with the backdrop of Israel and Gaza.  How we are connected to that fight, I do not know.  There is little excuse for those who try to find cover for their racist or anti-Semitic views and yet there seems to be no shortage of folks who spout off with them -- Christians included.  While it is tempting to do battle with those who find such prejudice Biblical or laudable, we should not waste our time on the lunatic fringe or on crackpots seeking fame or infamy on the internet.  Edit a bit Jesus' own words:  [Racist or anti-Semite], what have I to do with thee?

 

Permit me. . .

I have always used the priest's host -- about 2 inches in diameter.  I have always despised those giant priest's host that, when broken, can commune a crowd.  It is a ghastly thing to have invented a host on steroids.   I wish we could go back in time and have stopped this.  I get it.  Who doesn't?  Seeing is believing and so that host gains status by being large enough so that everyone gets a piece of it.  Right?  Wrong.  It was a priest's host not because the priest needed to see it or you did but so that it could commune all of those serving at the altar.  A two inch host can do that.  A foot in diameter is too big and comic.  Worse, it tends to make crumbs go flying as it is broken down to size for those to receive it.  It is literally an accident waiting to happen.

Everybody from John Paul II to Joe Blow the First has used those super large hosts and it is embarrassing in every context.  The giant one that feeds a couple of dozen or nearly seventy is like clown shoes.  If you are using them, stop.  The thing is just goofy and that is not a term to be used for the bread that is Christ's body.  And Cavanagh, stop making them.  Just stop and you can end the goofiness.  Please.

  

Higher the fence, greener the grass. . .

Everyone of us presumes that others have it better or easier than we do.  It is natural.  That is why the commandments against envy and coveting hit us so hard.  We are always comparing ourselves to others and giving them a break while insisting we are worse off.  The same is true of churches.  We look at the exterior of those churches and presume that the interiors are better off than ours.  In so doing, we set up very high bars for our satisfaction with our own churches and very low bars for the others with whom we compare.  

It is especially true of the idea of fellowship.  How easy it is to believe that other Christians in other churches enjoy a greater degree of warmth, acceptance, affection, and support than we do!  Most of the complaints about churches have to do with them being cold, impersonal, and self-absorbed.  Few of those complaints admit that we are the same way.  We tend to expect from others a greater degree of fellowship than we are willing to grant them.  Diversity is the goal but it is highly likely that churches have a predominant economic range or marital status or age among the members.  It may not be about them being cold or unwelcoming but it may be simply that similar circumstances encourage fellowship.  While some of this commonality may be bridged by the liturgical and sacramental churches, it is not entirely absent. The preservation of traditions associated with race, ethnicity, and language were not exclusionary as much as they were attempting to keep what they knew as children.

I wish I could say it was wrong but the complaint about lousy worship is often not far off.  We do not put our best foot forward on Sunday morning as we ought.  How many of us settle for canned music or poorly written sermons or the like?  Turn that around.  How many of us dress like we were going to mow the lawn or have our hands permanently attached to our insulated cup or sit around like people waiting to be engaged and entertained?  We can come with an attitude as well.  I have long said that people will not return if there is nothing to come back to -- but someone always interprets that to mean ceremonies, architecture, music, etc... count more than Jesus.  No, that is not what I am saying but if we refuse to put our best foot forward in worship, how much do we really value Jesus?  That goes for both sides of the altar rail.

The failure of leadership is not a problem to be put at the pastor's door.  We live in times when people want to receive more than they want to give.  How many congregations struggle to find even one name to fill the ballot of open offices?  How many of the volunteers are those who have been doing the job for eons and now are wearing gray hair?  The first job of leadership is recruiting your successor.  That is not an ideal but a real goal that ought to be reflected in every congregation.  We are in this together, after all.  Along with this, bad bishops (DPs).  How well do those who supervise churches and church workers know their congregations and their people?  I wish it could be said that the best and most faithful are elected bishops but sometimes it is given to people are not so dedicated but willing to do the job.  That is not simply their problem but ours.

If you find in the pews apathy and laziness, you will also find indifference to what is taught and ignorance of the faith.  It is shocking to see how many folks think that Christianity can coexist with reincarnation or people as chubby little cherubs visiting us on earth or ghost stories or a thousand other things that are neither Biblical nor Christian.  Is it the church's fault or the pastor's fault that we are not interested in doctrine or catechesis?  That we could not describe our faith or distinguish it from any other church?  That we know more about the memes on social media than the apostles, evangelists, and prophets?  The devil finds easy prey among those who refuse to dig, learn, consider, and grow in their knowledge of God and of His Word.

If you are going to church to find holiness, let me stop you right there.  The Church is no museum of saints.  Would that it were.  The Church is a hospital for bleeding, wounded, and dying sinners.  Their fruits are meager -- especially at first -- and they readily admit that they are sinful and unclean -- still.  I wish it were so that Christians were standouts in holiness but we wear Christ's name too casually and need to be regularly urged to walk worthy of our calling and leave behind the ways of sin and death.  They come naturally to us and it is hard to learn to walk in the new nature of our baptismal new life so do not mark down the Church too much if it still has sinners in it.  Christ came to love, dine with, and lead home sinners by dying for them and living so that they might live.

Let me tell you that every congregation is a work in progress.  Every Christian is one also.  We do not need to find a perfect place but the place where the perfect love of Christ is proclaimed and His gifts bestowed through Word and Sacrament.  We are all the wounded left for dead on the side of the road and Jesus is always bringing us to the inn of His House to bind up our brokenness and make whole again -- no matter what it costs.  Be kind.  It is not as costly as you think and it will come back to you.

The Porn Agenda. . .

Once pornography was printed and wrapped in plastic and sold in seedy shops in the worst part of town.  Then they moved to former gas stations along the interstates.  Finally they found the internet and never looked back.  Let's face it; magazines are not a problem anymore for everyone.  The prevalence of pornography has only increased even in the face of public scrutiny of how it is accessed and by whom.  It is not a matter of people searching for it.  The purveyors of porn are searching for you.

“You may not be looking for porn, but porn is looking for you.”   That is a line I read a while ago that seemed to epitomize the problem.  Whether you are parents or not, you can install filters, limit screen time, and restrict the use of screens to common spaces and it is likely this will still fail to prevent porn from finding you.  There is no sure fire way to prevent access except to shut down all the screens.  Even then, the mind will continue to explore when the screen is blank.

AI, the connection between violence and porn, the normalization of every perversion, and the problems of the body images porn portrays as normal -- they all combine to make it far worse than the glimpse of the forbidden.  Furthermore, the goal is to turn the watcher into an addict and the means to this goal are no less sophisticated for the porn provider than it is for the video game industry.  The similarity between porn addiction and other addictions, especially drugs, is high and this alone ought to make you concerned.

Coercive, non-consensual, dehumanized, aggressive, violent, and harmful acts are normalized in porn and those who watch it learn over time that these are regular and even routine.  The role of porn in all kinds of violence and aggression is well documented -- especially among teens.  Porn has replaced parents, books, and peers as the primary source of sexual information for adolescents.  It exposes children to the world of predators who exploit and abuse children even further.  What is worse, it is often free and freely accessible to those whose bodies and minds are just being developed and maturing and what porn does is to corrupt and distort this development.  In many cases, it effectively prevents the normal maturation of both desire and the sense of what is moral and right.

Age verification is a start but before it will reduce the availability and consumption of pornography, the media will have to stop marketing soft porn in the form of TV shows, movies, and online subscriptions.  Even then, what it stops among the minors in our society is still available to those who are above legal age.  Could it be that porn is at least partially responsible for the decline in marriage and family?  Could it be that the loneliness so abundant today across age groups is also a symptom of our world of porn and how it shapes and corrupts the expectation and desires of our people?

The sadder reality is that porn has also captured Christians in its web.  This is a health care crisis for the nation but it is also a problem for the Church.  Porn has become normalized in the minds of our people -- young and old.  It has become so normal that we do not take seriously the dangers of porn to our faith and our identity as children of God.  The porn agenda is not to expose you to its perversion but to addict you to it and to seek you out wherever you are to capture your imagination in its maze of sinful desire.  Once captured, those who watch and especially those addicted will find it nearly impossible to admit nor to seek out help for this problem.  While that is true across the board, it is especially true for the Christian. 

Reformation Sunday. . .

By accident I had sent this to post later in the day. Sorry.

The great legacy of the Reformation lies not simply with the written confession that arose out of it nor even the renewal of the Church by the reaffirmation of the centrality of the Gospel rightly proclaimed but in the hymnody of the Great Reformation.  I remain convinced that the Lutheran chorale is probably the greatest universal gift to the wider church as provides with the voices in the pews the weighty words of our confession and a song to sing even outside the congregational assembly.

The chorale, a metrical hymn born of and given its greatest fruit with the Lutheran church in Germany at the time of the Reformation, remains a mark of Lutheran theology and piety as well as music. From early in the Reformation, chorales were sung by the congregation during the liturgy and in common life -- even in the often tense moments as the Reformation itself unfolded before pope and emperor. Unison singing was the rule of the Reformed churches, both in Germany and in other countries -- often limited to Scriptures set directly or in paraphrase to a tune. Early polyphonic (multivoiced) versions may certainly have been intended for a choir singing but they nearly always expected and utilized the resources of the pipe organ. In later polyphonic arrangements the melody shifted gradually to the treble line from its original position in the tenor.

The words of the Lutheran chorales were often Latin hymn texts translated into the vernacular as well as original compositions from Martin Luther and the great cadre of Reformation musicians surrounding him and later in the life of the Lutheran Church. The melodies were sometimes borrowed from folk songs (even secular songs) but an industry emerged to produce original hymntunes which were marked by great melodic and structural simplicity and yet profound eloquence. Martin Luther’s own versions were often more irregular than the polished versions that later predominated.  Sadly the history often robbed the great Lutheran chorales of their rhythms rather than exploiting them.

The earliest large collection of such melodies was the Geystliches Gesangk-Buchleyn (1524), edited by Johann Walther which included a preface by Luther. From that time, the technique of chorale writing expanded and many more collections were published. Luther’s own compositions include “Ein’ feste Burg” (“A Mighty Fortress”) and “Vom Himmel hoch” (“From Heaven High”), of which he certainly wrote the words and almost certainly wrote or adapted the music.

Prominent in the development of the chorale in the 16th century were Michael Weisse, Philipp Nicolai, composer of the celebrated “Wachet auf!” (“Wake, Awake”), and Melchior Vulpius. Active in the 17th century were Johann Hermann Schein and Johann Crüger. Crüger edited the first editions of Praxis Pietatis Melica, a collection of tunes first published in 1644.  More complex chorale settings came from Johan Eccard and Michael Praetorius. Eccard’s chorale settings are virtually brief motets, and Praetorius was one of the first systematic arrangers in polyphonic style of tunes from earlier sources (Musae Sioniae, 1610). 

It was in the passions and cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach that the Lutheran chorale reached its zenith.  It appears as a richly harmonized hymn tune in which the congregation is expected to join with the choir for all or some of the stanzas. Bach’s chorales are strictly choral arrangements of well-known hymn tunes adorned with elaborate harmony; Bach himself appears never composed an original chorale and yet he remains its most enthusiastic advocate as evidenced by the cantatas themselves. 

Publications (Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation) have begun to consider the critical catechetical importance of the Lutheran corpus of hymnody (kernlieder) for the furtherance of the Lutheran confession by the people.  The great body of Lutheran hymns by Luther, Paul Gerhardt, Johann Franck, Philipp Nicolai, Johann Heermann, and so many others have provided a musical parallel to the truth of justification by grace alone.  They have musically and poetically planted this treasure into the souls of faithful Lutheran families.  These chorales show how the rich and unchanging truth of the Lutheran Confessions is no dead orthodoxy but the living and deeply comforting faith.  While rooted in the objective truth of the Word of God, its song also points the way also to the sacramental treasures Christ has given the Church.  Even Lutherans are only now beginning to rediscover these gems of their past and to find how enduring and eloquent these testaments of song.

Look here for more!  (https://www.lutheranchoralebook.com/) 

 

Whatever happened to Protestantism?

As we make our way to the fateful day when Luther nailed some debate points to a notice board on a church door, it might be worth a few thoughts to see what happened in the wake of that act.  There was once something rather identifiable in the term Protestant.  It was never a unity of doctrine or practice but there did seem to be something that brought the disparate together under that term -- something people have tried to do for everything from the Quakers to the Baptists to the Presbyterians to the Lutherans.  It never worked well but it did identify a group of people not under the staff of Rome and they had a few things in common.  I fear that day has come and gone.

What on earth does it mean to be Protestant anymore?  If Lutheranism is in quandary, surely Protestantism is in chaos.  Everybody and everything has been lumped under that term with the only seeming commonality that they are not under the Pope (although, it would seem, some wish they were).  What are we to make of this?  What happened to the idea of reform and when did rebellion replace serious theological thought, Scriptural truth, and doctrinal reflection?  There seems to be no bounds to Protestantism and because of this they are mining new territory in the dilution of the term Christian as a a consequence.  Even Jesus would be a stronger to many Protestant churches.

Although it might seem to be mostly about the sex issues (same sex, gender identity, etc.), it is about who Jesus is and what He did and what it means for us.  The very core issues of the creed are under assault by those who still speak the words but do not believe in what they say.  From the virgin birth to the resurrection, the very defining truths of Christianity are being cast under the bus along with creation and its order of male and female in pursuit of new gospels that bear little resemblance to the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen.  

The big guns of the past, the so-called Mainline Protestants are effectively sidelined by their loss of membership and their nearly uniform alliance with the current social and cultural issues of the day (on the leftward side of those, of course).  They were once almost synonymous with Christianity in America (the Roman Catholics and Missouri Synod being under the radar, so to speak).  Now they are a faint and growing even more faint echo of whatever happens to be on the Democratic Party platform.  The Gospel may still be preached here and there in the hinterlands and in parishes somewhat insulated from their larger jurisdictional identities but many, if not most, have embraced a gospel tied to the improvement of the human condition and the shape of the world -- at least according to progressive ideals.

The evangelicals have become mainstream and are present everywhere.  The problem is that they present neither a consistent nor a cohesive set of beliefs, practices, or agendas.  Many of them are non-denominational and therefore on their own.  Many of them are tied to the face of the pastor, his positions both with respect to doctrine and politics, and face an uncertain transition as the faces of their pastors age out.  Some of them have already imploded.  They fit under the Protestant umbrella but not easily.  Most of them are non-creedal and non-confessional and their statement of beliefs is tied more to what works than what Scripture says and orthodox Christianity has taught.  Even if their numbers are higher than others, their confused and independent identity makes it hard to figure out where they fit under that Protestant umbrella.

The fundamentalists were once an invincible fortress.  Baptists seemed immune to anything except growth.  Airwaves seemed to offer either fundamentalists or Pentecostals an easy way into America's living rooms.  Their major figures have aged out or died and in their place is a much smaller figure of fundamentalism.  In fact, some of them refuse the label and some of them distance themselves from such an identity as conflicting with their mission to grow.  Now there is a statement.  Baptists who could once be counted upon to grow in season and out are now planting congregations without the name or identity so that they might have a chance to grow without the Baptist baggage.  That says nothing about the splinter groups that seem to grow faster than the individual churches.

The Pentecostals have moved to main street and have left behind their hillbilly stereotype to wear big name brands and look positively normal.  The Charismatic Movement has waxed and waned and is no longer a major force and it seems that Pentecostals have also softened their image so that tongues speaking and miracles are the exception rather than the rule.  Are they Protestant?  I guess but where would you fit them?  Many of them would probably prefer being labeled as non-denominational.

On the one hand, it is possible to refer to “historic Protestantism,” “classical Protestantism,” and “classic orthodox Protestantism” to try and make some semblance of order out of the mess.  Part of me wonders why bother?  There is simply no ‘Singular Historic Protestantism’ and there never was.  There are no “historic Protestant positions” but only waves that have sometimes washed upon the shore and then been replaced with others.  Protestants have disagreed and still do disagree over pedobaptism (baptism of infants) or credobaptism (believer’s baptism); the nature of the Eucharist (e.g., symbol, Christ somehow spiritually present, or sacrifice); and church polity (e.g., episcopal, presbyterian, or congregationalist). They have disagreed and still do disagree over who is saved, how those people are saved, and if they can lose their salvation. Their historic disagreements have, over the ages, resulted in new and even more diverse Protestant churches.  The only ones who seem to like this term are Roman Catholics who ascribe to everyone who might fit under the umbrella the failings of anyone who ever had fit under that umbrella.  So much for a term that once carried a meaning clear to everyone.  Now it is just a word.

Out of sight, out of mind. . .

While the technology to read or control thoughts has not yet arrived, those who wish to be spared the offending thoughts and speech of others may wish to move to Quebec.  There the government is poised to impose a ban on all prayer in public places.  Premier Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec party made its first call for such a ban late last in 2024 but then faced disapproval and condemnation from many.  Roman Catholc Bishop Laliberté wrote to the government: “Prayer is not dangerous.”  (I am not sure that statement does any help to the defense of prayer nor its promotion.)

The Quebec government has not been shy about its intention to introduce a bill banning public prayer in the wake of a spate of mass Islamic prayer gatherings in 2024 during pro-Palestinian protests.  The videos of Muslims praying outside the Roman Catholic basilica dominated the headlines then.  On Aug. 28 of this year, Quebec secularism minister [yes, they have one of those] Jean-François Roberge announced the government this legislation will indeed be introduced in the fall.  Even more concerning is the clause in the Charter which allows laws to be passed and enforced but shielded from any constitutional review.  It is not a done deal, however.  There are provincial elections due in 2026 and identity and secularism issues are in the forefront of Quebec’s political debate. Legault’s government has been suffering a decline in opinion polls and just recently lost its third consecutive byelection to the separatist Parti Québécois.  So much for the quirks and oddities of Canadian politics and Quebec's, which is, perhaps, even weirder.  

Even if you cannot control what people think, you can control what they do -- at least in public.  That is the lesson learned across the world in the pandemic.  Fear can produce obedience to unpopular laws.  So in our own country there has been the same attempt to shield abortion mills from the once legal protests of Christians and anti-abortion advocates and the attempt to prevent such public prayer from accompanying these demonstrations.  

Christianity which was a formative factor (at least) in every Western Civilization from Europe through North America and even into Latin and South America, is now being silenced -- at least in the public square -- by those who have decided that the same faith that founded our society is a threat to it.  When the agitators cannot make laws that pass constitutional muster to fence in Christianity, they will try to silence its voice and hide its presence -- effectively making the Church invisible in such places.  While that is a threat to the present, it is also a threat to the future.  By the way, it is no secret that what is being attempted in Canada is already being carried out in Britain.  It is curious, since Quebec seems to have little love for the English.

When Christianity is hidden and mute, there is no one to challenge the false facts and half-truths of the enemies of the faith and our children are raised up in a sanitized atmosphere devoid not simply of the Gospel but of the foundational natural laws and morality that have shaped our civilization until the present day.  In other words, you do not have to kill your enemies.  All you have to do is prevent them from speaking publicly and hide them from view.  That is the game plan in Quebec and perhaps across Western Civilizations.  If you do not believe me, go to any high school or college European or American history class and listen to how the religious story has been removed from that history or colored in such a way as to defame it falsely.

The value of money. . .

Jesus asked who could add an hour to the length of your life.  Apparently the ultra wealthy are willing to bet they can.  Maybe it is only a better 20 years of health and well-being before death shuts them down or maybe it is an additional 50 years or so.  The Wall Street Journal had a story on it a couple of months ago and it stuck in my mind.  I guess it is big business.  Some $5Billion was spent in pursuit of longevity deals  and venture capital firms.  With some 200 start ups and even non-profits joining the race in pursuit of the dream, this is not a little thing.  Small in comparison to AI money but still significant.  It is an alchemist's wish come true and some $12.5Billion has been raised to continue the effort.  America's wealthiest investors are kicking in for their share of the fountain of youth.

Whatever the value of money, it cannot do what the investors are hoping it will do.  It seems that money cannot even improve daily life or else the rich would not know depression and anxiety -- which they do in numbers higher than the poor.  But the prospect of spending our way into a longer life is also pretty iffy.  For a long time the lifespans were continuing to grow -- what with better food, better medicine, and better quality of life.  But not so much anymore and even a few declines.  Plus it is no guarantee that if a few more years are possible overall you could count on them for yourself.  Statistics are notoriously unfair and do not provide for everyone in the number.  Part of me wishes that what I am writing was not true but money is just as incapable of adding onto your life as anything else.  

Tone up, lose weight, improve health, slow down aging, and make life better and longer -- these are the goals.  Perhaps you can post-pone death for a while and even enjoy better health on your way there but we all know that death is a cruel taskmaster and will not forget you.  All of this proves then that Jesus and Scripture are correct.  Death is the enemy above all enemies.  Christ is still the answer.  The down side in all of this, of course, is that we are still setting our sights too low.  Postponing death or improving some of life is not a ba thing but it is a great deal less than what Jesus is offering.  The fearful flesh in all of us would rather have more of what we know than anything that promises to be better but you have to trust it to get it.  That is always the rub.

The Gospel is not irrelevant -- not if people are willing to pony up big money on the possibility of a few more years or a few better years.  We have a real promise to give to those who know how fragile life can be.  We have a real message for people trying to hedge their bets against an unknown tomorrow.  True, it was easier to sell people on the idea of heaven when this life was harder and even more uncertain.  I have walked the cemeteries and seen how many families lost children and moms and dads at a young age.  Those sorrows are more hidden today but they are still there.  In the midst of all our pain and weakness, we have a God who offers real consolation and real strength.  Even death is not too big for Him to overcome.  Slick marketing will surely help raise capital from investors but the Gospel is spoken into the hearts of people and the Holy Spirit is the power of faith.  

A few months ago there was a really big pay out at the lottery.  $1.8Billion.  Wow.  Even accounting for taxes that is a lot of money.  Imagine how deep the yearning is within those who bought tickets knowing that their odds stood about a 1 in a billion.  What we won't do for something that has zero chance of us seeing the big check!  Wow.  And every Sunday we are treated to the richest treasures in the universe.  God comes to us with mercy to answer every sin and shame and grace sufficient for all our needs.  How do you answer the longing in people for a little more today with the gift of a real tomorrow?  That has been the question before every age of Christianity.  No short cuts.  Hearing believe; believing life.

 

So much for the European Union. . .

The dream of one currency and one mighty economic force has been behind much of the history of Europe.  The modern day ideal of such a unity without the shedding of blood seems to be the ultimate accomplishment -- especially as another dream unfolds in the Ukraine with blood and destruction.  It is hard to look at a modern map and realize that Europe is an invention of nations and rather a modern invention at that.  Look below:

This is how Europe looked in 1356 and parts of its boundaries and divisions remained until the 1800s.  Germany was a modern invention.  France.  Italy.  Right down the line.  Before that were small kingdoms none of which in and of itself had the wherewithal to threaten many others.  Conflicts were rather small in comparison to the worlds at war in the 20th century.  We should have been so lucky!  

By 1800, the Holy Roman Empire was shell of its former self.  The remaining princes of the Holy Roman Empire met in Regensburg in 180e to try and made sense of it all.  They had been long the targets of the successful French and were struggling to resist the destructive outcome of the French Revolution.  Many of their number had already surrendered to the irresistible French onslaught.  Germany had used the three archdioceses of Cologne, Mainz and Trier to form a type of democratic election of a single ruler but the power lie with these electors just as it had 500 years before.  In the post-Reformation world of Germany, things were not up to snuff.  Then came Napoleon.  

Under his leadership, the French army became the most advanced fighting force which had ever existed to that time.  Napoleon was canny enough to know that if you could achieve the outcome without fighting, that was its own victory.  What he could not take by negotiation, he took by force.  Invading across the Rhine, Napoleon did not merely fight for land but to destroy what had been.  He plundered abbey and cathedral along with banks and government houses.  He robbed graves and took churches to be stables and barracks.  Everyone ran. In its final hour, the Holy Roman Empire or what remained of it made peace at any price.  The cost was everything that had been.

The European Union voted its way in, first in the capitals of Europe and then in the united legislative body of that Union.  It has pursued the path of diversity in a highly successful campaign to try to eliminate as much as possible the individual loyalties left across Europe and to make it so interdependent that they must follow along or suffer catastrophe.  Only Great Britain resisted but they were always different from Europe and separated conveniently by a body of water.  Now the great heads of Europe are more like children who have to play nice in the sandbox or risk losing out on the treats.  National identities have proven to be remarkably fragile in the face of military or economic power.  What we are seeing today is the twilight of Europe's grand history but what may be its undoing is more the low birth rate and their dependence upon guest workers from the Middle East to keep the factories humming.  Without much of a church to help them resist, the national identities of Europe may well become merely folklore as Muslims who do the work and have the babies take over.  Europe will become a legacy land which sells to tourists interested in the history but not so much the future.  England is still behind the game a bit but it still has a monarch of sorts.  In the end the once grand unity came about largely through a bloodline back to Victoria until it all unfolded in battles and wars and an end to monarchies nearly everywhere.  With it came the humiliating admission that God is no longer in charge of their future (at least as an earthly kingdom) and that great buildings are more history than temple.

Will we be far behind?  God knows.   

At war with our bodies. . .

The other day I watched a video telling how you can have a metal thing inserted just under your sin which will provide a raised symbol on your skin.  Think of the possibilities!  It is nothing new but our age has decided to improve upon the past.  The body is for us mostly a canvas for our self-expression.  From the ink we put into the skin to the hairs we permanently remove to the plastic surgery which changes our appearance, we find it almost irresistible.  Some will say why am I so upset about it all and tell me there are worse things.  Of course there are worse things but that does not mean living at war with our bodies is a good thing.  In fact, that is exactly what it is -- at war with our bodies, we are at war with God who fearfully and wonderfully knit us together in our mother's womb.

Looks and dress were once said to be the realm of the superficial.  You take off the wig and put the clothes in the hamper and are left with the real you.  But we are not content with what is left.  We think we can improve upon what God has made.  The heart of plastic surgery is the pursuit of the perfect.  We think God has made us flawed and we must fix it.  Except that what we think is perfect or a perfect improvement is laughable.  Age comes along and destroys all our creative work.  It is as if the canvas in the frame sags and bloats and with it the image upon that canvas.  Styles change and clothes change and hair changes but what we do to our bodies is more permanent than this.  It is not easy to undo what we have done -- the ink we have inserted into the skin, the holes we have put into our flesh, the stuff we have injected into our bodies, the parts we have cut off or replaced or tightened up.  It is a dangerous thing to treat the body as a canvas and do with it as we please.  Unlike Etch-A-Sketch, you cannot shake it off. 

On a large level, we have decided that God makes mistakes and so we can be born women into men's bodies and men into women's bodies.  We have the technology.  We can fix it.  But you cannot cure gender dysphoria with surgery and hormones.  On the smaller scale, we have decided that the skin is where we can express ourselves except that tastes change and what we thought was cool becomes hideous to others and to ourselves over time.  We are still at war with ourselves, with God, and with His creative will and purpose in making us in His own image, redeeming us that we might live under Him now in this world and eternity in the world to come.  We want what we want and not what God wills.  That was Eden's curse.  We got what we wanted only to find it was not so great.  The earth brought forth its bounty but only after backbreaking labor and the womb delivered up new life amid the tension of life and death, screams and pain, joy and depression.  When will we awaken to the fact that we do not know what we want and this is why we need a God who is not tempted into the moment to make eternal decisions.

I once had someone ask me if their resurrected body would have their tattoos.  Really?  That is our concern?  Like those who tried to trip up Jesus with the cruel story of a woman who had to marry 7 brothers, we are constantly trying to take it with us when we die.  Jesus did not disdain marriage by admitting that it is of this world and not eternity.  What?  No NICUs in heaven?  Will I be raised to look like my perfect age?  What is that?  I think I am 27 but my mind tells me I am 67 and my body tells me I am 107 -- which is the perfect age?  God is trying to set us free from such foolishness but we fight hard to hold onto it.  Like Israel sneaking the amulates of idols with them wherever they went, God is trying to loosen our grip on ourselves just long enough so that we can hold onto eternity.  In the process, we are fighting Him every step of the way so that God has to daily recall us to Himself through repentance and daily affirm the healing power of His forgiveness that restores us fallen souls to His side.  There was a moment when a pagan style amulate was placed upon the altar in St. Peter's in the Vatican.  Francis had it put on that altar.  We just cannot let go -- even a pope!  Before we laugh, how many of us have a little ditty of Santa kneeling at the manger?  At war with our bodies and with the God who made and redeemed us -- soul and body -- we always seem to fall on the side of the moment over the everlasting.  Our only fortune is the God who is rich in mercy and who seeks the lost even when they wander out of His fold on their own legs and because of their own stupidity.  Thanks be to God!

A war on facts?

The sorry state of higher education today has been well documented and long lamented.  A Harvard prof was sad to find out that those privileged folks who gained entrance to this premier bastion of learning are highly unlikely to have read an entire book before showing up for their treasured sheepskin.  Indeed, the complaints about such assignments have probably removed this requirement from many if not most institutions who, like Harvard, have redefined what education means.

We pay no attention to spelling or grammar and so little of what is written is up to par.  Math is done by calculators not by minds.  History is devoid of names and dates and is more about identifying trends and making judgments.  Homework is taboo since much of college homework is doing the assigned readings.  Memorization of just about anything has gone the way of all flesh.  In its place is something different, something not quite education but still costing the student some big bucks (in the hopes that their student loans will be forgiven).  Of course, critical thinking is passe and the obligatory acceptance of the opinion du jour is not optional.  In order to think, you must know facts except that to some of the enlightened it is precisely facts which are not really knowable.  Don't be said, feelings will suffice.

Down the road from where I live is a Tennessee state college, a liberal arts college they like to remind us.  I wish we remembered what a classical education actually looked like.  I am not sure it can be found on this campus or perhaps most places.  The Seven Liberal Arts–which are not the foundation for nearly every liberal arts college I know include the trivium of grammar, logic, rhetoric (how to master language) plus the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (how to master math).  Under girding any real classical education is, of course, the reading of good -- dare I say great -- books.  The result of this education is not simply knowledge but the formation of character, an appreciation of the arts, and the cultivation of virtue.  Those who attend a Christian classical school know what I am talking about as well as those who follow a classical pattern in homeschooling.  In a Christian context faith is not a challenge to this education but a partner.  The heart of education is the education of the heart,  The bottom line is that an authentic classical approach to education (especially higher education) cannot be achieved without facts and facts are key to learning, understanding, and applying this vocationally. 

Everything today is relative, tentative, and less about facts than feelings.  It is never old and always new but somehow the new is like the Covid 19 vaccine -- it does not prevent anything and actually may make you more susceptible to get sick.  Modern education is rather like that. It does not teach and may actually be an enemy of learning.  We have often spoken of the rabbit hole that is modern education.  It is expensive, it must be left to the professionals, and it dare not be challenged.  In other words, it is too important to be questioned and so it is not.  The only problem is that along with other things modern educational theories do not do is this.  They do not educate.

An apology for God. . .

So I read about this and received numerous links from blog readers about this.  I am quoting from The Guardian newspaper:

Against a backdrop of red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway apologised for the discrimination and harm it had inflicted.  “The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, said on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”  The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” had caused some to lose their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A church service at Oslo Cathedral was scheduled to follow his apology.

The Lutheran Church of Norway is not alone.  Like many religions around the world and like nearly every Christian Church of any creed or confession, the Church of Norway  (evangelical Lutheran church that is by numbers Norway’s largest faith community) confessed to having marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors, and failing to allow them to marry in the church.   The increasingly liberal Church of Norway beame the second in the world to allow same-sex registered partnerships (1993) and the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage (2009).  It joins the Church of England, the Irish Methodist Church, and the United Church of Canada in offering an apology to the LGBTQ community for their past refusal to recognize and support the various sexual desires and genders represented there.

The problem with this is simple.  These churches did not follow a pattern of willful and wanton discrimination but, at least prior to their acceptance of such folks, had merely followed the words and common interpretation of Scripture to which every Christian community had adhered until culture and society changed.  As one wag put it, "We have failed to celebrate and delight in all of your beautiful creation..."  Well, of course, you did.  Not because you were or are homophobic or possess any other phobias but because you listened to the Bible and not current polling and you followed the Scripture instead of what people thought or felt.

I am not at all denying homophobia or any other kind of phobia existed or exists in churches.  They are, after all, made up of sinful people.  But that is not what was their apology.  They were disowning God's Word and the consistent and clear understanding of that Word over millennia.  The apology is rather meaningless and perfunctory for those who have complained about such discrimination and everyone knows that the churches mentioned are clearly now in the woke camp.  What is not meaningless or perfunctory is how easily, quickly, and without much thought, these churches have disowned what God has said.  I do not mean to suggest that it is easy or will not come with a cost to own the Word of God.  Faithfulness has always had a cost.  But I am challenging the whole idea of a church that claims to be Christian but disowns the book that makes it Christian.  If God's Word is not the authority, then what is?  Clearly the answer is what people think or say.  For the sad reality is that we live in a world in which it is expedient to throw God under the bus in order to retain your woke credentials before the world.  The apology was not for the churches in question but for God.  Once you begin apologizing for God, there is not much left to offend you which will not be jettisoned.  Sin seems to be on the table now.  How long before it will be ditched in favor of a God who loves everyone, stands for nothing, and is needed by no one?

 

A Milli Vanilli world. . .

Milli Vanilli began as a German R&B duo group.  The hailed from Munich and were created by Frank Farian in 1988.  Their debut album, All or Nothing in Europe and Girl You Know It's True in the United States, achieved international success and secured a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1990.  Though they looked the part and were very popular in the late-1980s and early-1990s, they had a problem.  Neither of them sang on any of their vocals.  They lost their Grammy and became a joke.  In reality, they were simply ahead of their time.  Today, with the advent of AI, nobody knows whether the music they are seeing or the video they are watching is real and nobody seems much to care.

The flaws of real labor to think or write or speak or sing are a small cost in the pursuit of truth.  The artificial may even be better than the real but it is flawed from the get go.  We celebrate genius, even flawed genius, because of the gift and the effort.  Human intelligence and our capacity to create are not perfect but they are real.  The results of our thinking and doing come at a cost.  Learning is tedious and sometimes boring.  It is a struggle to learn and from the process of learning accidental facts are found.  Plugging something into Chat GPT may be marvelously efficient and even adequate but it comes at the cost of learning and without learning there is no genius.  The human mind atrophies when we stop being curious, stop thinking, and stop learning.  Life suffers as much as we suffer when we fail to put in the effort.

Outsourcing is a master at making things cheap and easy.  We offload the task to someone else and we get to enjoy the results without any labor.  Until the source of the thing is unable to deliver and then we find ourselves without the capacity to replace what we gave to others to do.  Will that same thing not happen when we outsource our cognitive work to machines?  I wish for a minute I could actually believe that this process would actually free us up for a higher task, for the pursuit of greater things, but I have seen the oft repeated results when we forgot how to do it for ourselves.  Muscles left unused will atrophy and die and there is no muscle more important to us than the one between our ears.  Leisure is a marvelous idea but a tragedy in the making for life.  It tends no garden, works no production line, prepares no food, launders no clothes, and literally kills us with entertainment.  Worse, we become strangers to our purpose and aliens to the very world in which we live -- one God gave us to exercise dominion over for His glory.

I have long said that I like a fountain pen and a decent sheet of paper.  It works at the speed of my mind and the wonderful technology of a computer can speed me ahead of my mind and leave me without elegance or creativity.  I end up with just words strung together.  Is that not the end result of AI and its attempt to take over thinking and doing?  It strings words together mighty well but does it really think and does it have conviction and will it change its mind when confronted with the facts?  You and I both know the answer to that.  Of course not.  The fear of 1984 and Animal Farm was the elimination of history until it became whatever the present folks wanted it to be.  People were not killed but erased from all that was like photoshop that takes someone out of a photo (or puts them where they never were).  Is that not what is happening with facts and truth?  We have already seen it on the unsocial social media where facts do not matter -- only feelings and especially outrage.  When we cannot think things through and when our facts have been lost to the created image of AI, where will we be?  We will be lost -- just as lost as we were when Adam and Eve exchanged the truth of God's words for the lies in the mouth of the devil and the desires of their hearts.  As sure as that brought death into the world, we are headed for a death of humanity on the altar of expediency.

Natural law is needed now more than ever.  Worship that does not pretend but delivers what is signed is needed now more than ever.  Memorization of the story so that the truth will not be forgotten is needed now more than ever.  The noble arts and occupations that think and do are needed now more than ever.  Without this, the day will come when we do not know if Bach is real or a figment of our imagination fed by algorithms.  As sad as that day would be for me, it will be far worse when the true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God enfleshed in Jesus Christ, the God who suffered to relieve our suffering and died to kill our death and rose to open the door to everlasting life can no longer be known because we have detached truth from His Word and fudged the line between artificial and real so often that we no longer know the difference.

Don't watch a Milli Vanilli version of worship on a screen.  Go to Church.  Kneel, stand, sit, sing, listen, pray, and say hello to those around you.  It is the most real thing in the world.  This is none other than the house of God and this the gate of heaven.  In the midst of a world passing away, heaven is the most important life of all.

 

Lest you think all Lutherans are the same. . .

Lest you think that all Lutherans are the same, listen to this exaggerated claim of the ELCA which presumes that more than the church being complicit in sexism, Biblical texts are harmful to women.  Why it makes you wonder why there are any men left in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

For those who do not know better, this is not authentic Lutheranism nor is it the faith confessed and professed by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and those in fellowship with the LCMS.  No, Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore.  Chicago and St, Louis seem to have less and less in common as this video illustrates.  This is, by the way, not some left wing loonie in the ELCA but a reflection of their official teaching and witness.

At the 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, a woman lists all the biblical texts that "say things about women and girls that we now recognize as harmful" and which advance "sexism and the patriarchy."

Last 40 seconds especially #ELCA #Lutherans pic.twitter.com/gUIZP28Gof

— Protestia (@Protestia) September 25, 2025

 

At the 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, a woman lists all the biblical texts that "say things about women and girls that we now recognize as harmful" and which advance "sexism and the patriarchy."

Last 40 seconds especially #ELCA #Lutherans pic.twitter.com/gUIZP28Gof

— Protestia (@Protestia) September 25, 2025

The comfortable gospel. . .

To be sure, the worst that could be done to Christianity happens not from the outside pressing to get in but when the inside has corrupted the true Gospel and turned it into a false panacea for everything good, easy, and comfortable.  This is the good news which has no good news in it.  It deludes us with falsehoods that we all want to hear and it sounds so good we find it hard to resist its sugary promise.  In this comfortable Gospel, suffering is replaced with happiness.  This fake gospel is so enticing because it asks little of us and promises everything but most of it for the here and now.  It was once called the health and wealth gospel or the prosperity gospel but it has evolved even more dangerously into the comfortable gospel.

In this false gospel, happiness is the highest good and God's love is measured by how happy we are, how good life feels, and how easy it is.  The mission of Christianity is less to save than to protect you from suffering or hurting -- especially the suffering or hurt that comes from self-denial.  It has no power to correct what is wrong but is so weak it can only affirm and support what we deem to be good or right in the moment.  It cocoons the Christian so that they never have to suffer the pain of turning down any desire that proceeds from the heart, any thought that proceeds from the mind, or any words that proceed from the lips.  This is not a gospel of repentance or penance but a gospel of "it's all good so go for it." 

The god of this gospel is not strong enough to bear the sins of the world or anything at all but is a tethered pet who must tell us the lies we want to hear and preserve us from anything we don't.  In this gospel we are always blessed and never in want or need or sorrow or pain.  The god of this gospel is not a god at all but a coward invented by cowards who think that what is soft and easy is always good and what is hard and difficult is always wrong.  In this gospel there is no mortification of the flesh, no denial of any of the desires within, and no call to repentance.   In this comfortable gospel, suffering is seen as failure, bearing a cross is a curse, and the best death is one without pain that comes when you think it is time.  God is merely a slave to such desires.

This is not a Gospel that saves but a therapeutic gospel that consoles the sinner to become comfortable in his sinning ways.  In this gospel: “God loves you just the way you are."  In this gospel, you are urged to flee from anything that might compromise this self-indulgence for surely Jesus would not want you to do anything but be happy.  The enemy in this gospel is not the devil, the world, or the sinful flesh but any one and any thing that would prevent you from getting what you want, doing what you want, or saying what you want.  You will not hear much of Jesus in this gospel nor of the cross, and certainly nothing of St. Paul and his call to live holy, upright, and godly lives.  Where Scripture is used, it is cherry picked to avoid any unpleasant and offensive talk of sin or hell or of a Savior who must suffer and die so that the sinner might live.  

Often I hear people complain about the churches that have nothing to say to sin except repent and believe the Gospel.  I hear the grumpiness of those who insist that some churches have nothing to talk about except sin and redemption.  I hear of those who were offended because someone in church had the nerve to mention their pet sin or fail to affirm their sinful desires as good or insist that only way to cleanse sin is with the blood of Jesus the righteous.  It is not a feminine gospel but a soft one and it repels those seeking unchanging truth and a solid foundation.  While there are those who complain, there are signs that some are being drawn into the true as if the cross were a magnet.  Remarkably, where this strong Gospel is proclaimed, young men are being drawn in.  They are looking for something strong enough to suffer for and strong enough to die for.  They are looking for a love strong enough to confront sin and a Savior strong enough to suffer and die for it.  They are looking for a Savior who calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him.  Is that what you are looking for as well?

To chant or to sing. . .

There are many who have reduced “chant” to a generic term simply meaning “to sing.”  I suppose it is an easy enough confusion of terms.  Chant in this way encompasses everything from, well, real chant to hymn singing to the ballad singing of contemporary Christian music.  It is as if they were all the same in the most basic form or expression.  I guess it is also a reflection of how far we have come from the roots of congregational music in Gregorian Chant -- which is not merely a form of chant as a genre but its source and foundation.

Chant is wedded to the text in a way that no other church music is.  Most of us know music that is wedded to a melody or tune and a meter or rhythm.  There is nothing wrong with this but this is not chant.  Think of it this way.  Could you imagine singing a Lenten text to a Christmas tune?  Have you ever tried to put a meter to free texts either from Scripture or your own imagination?  It is not easy.  Meter and rhythm are difficult task masters.  Chant is the only way to let the text dominate.  It is free from some of those demands of rhyme, rhythm, and meter.  You hear the difference when you sing the 23rd Psalm to a hymntune -- even in a setting that is pretty much straight forward Psalm text -- and when you sing that same Psalm to a chant tone.  Of course, chant is still rhythmic speaking or singing, characterized by repetition and a limited range of pitches, but it is definitely not metrical nor does the melody lead the words in the way they do in a hymn or popular song.  Chant maintains the single tone as the dominant note on which the words are sung.  It is not monotone but the single tone is the focus of the bulk of the words.  It is repetitive but not as a chorus might be.  It has limited notes or range though even this may be stretched.

While I do not mean in anyway to diminish the value and blessing of the hymn with its meter and melody that predominate, the place where the text rules is in chant.  It is a wonderful thing when the text and tune of a hymn come together into almost one singular reality in which neither the words nor the melody dominate but both work together to support what is being sung.  It is a wonderful thing but it is not necessarily common to all hymns.  In fact, we all know this and have sung hymns in which the words and the music seem to battle a bit with the words winning some of the time and the tune the rest of the time.

Chant is different.  Take the Psalm tone.  I will not, by the way, defend all the choices made in LSB with respect to the Psalms and the places where the tone changes in those Psalms.  But when the body of the Psalm is chanted on one note with beginning or ending flourishes, you can readily see how the text or Word predominates.  Chant is not necessarily only a single note but can be voices in harmony.  Think here of the difference between Gregorian Chant and the Anglican style Psalm settings so rich and elegant.  They are some of my favorites.

We have become addicts of through composed liturgical music in which the melody is dominant, of paraphrases that force the texts into a specific meter sung to a specific tune, and of music that is appreciated more for its sound than its ability to sing the words.  Part of me laments this.  I have often said that the Fryxell setting of the Common Service in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal remains a favorite of mine.  It is exclusively chant.  It was never widely popular and easily dropped when the next book came along but I fear we have lost something in finding our comfort solely in rhythmic music in which tune and meter dominate instead of chant.  I wish we had a ghost of a chance to recover what we have lost.  

Just a reminder than not every kind of music is chant and chant is not simply rather specific but also preferred over time for the singing of the liturgy in the Church.  Alas, we may have a rich heritage in this regard but I am not sure we even know what chant is anymore -- much less Gregorian Chant.

Growth. . .

Every Christian wants the Church to grow.  We have been hit over the head with the hammer of the Great Commission for so long we both lament the lack of growth and feel guilty about the decline of the numbers of Christians.  Polls are not very accurate when it comes to religious matters since it treats those who claim to be members and those who actually attend regularly as almost the same.  Even then, it seems like an excuse to write off the terrible numbers while salving our guilt a bit.  God loves converts.  Heaven rejoices over every sinner who repents.  So why should we not rejoice and celebrate good statistics?  Except that it is easy to forget along with the call to grow the size of the Church there is a call to grow in holiness.

This is a word Lutherans seem uneasy about.  It is easier for us to deal with membership numbers good and bad than to talk about sanctification.  Scripture talks about this more than we do and because of that we ought to talk about this more.  We print all kinds of books but not so much on growth in holiness and we preach justification with great enthusiasm but do not preach holiness of life -- conduct and speech.  Although it might be tempting to think of this in terms of quality, the Church does not win if we have fewer but better disciples of Christ.  We are called to both even though Lutherans tend to neglect the topic of growth in holiness more than they neglect the growth in numbers.

None of this mattered all that much in the time when I grew up.  Government and society were much more friendly to the Church than today, morality was held more in common by those inside the Church and those outside, and we were putting up new buildings and filling them with people as fast as we could handle it all.  Now the world is less than a friend and almost an overt enemy of nearly everything Christian.  The government is stepping over backwards not simply to avoid the appearance of favor but to erect a mighty wall between church and state.  The pews are emptying rather than filling and the Sunday school rooms are a ghost town.  Holiness matters less today because we are so very happy to have anyone walk through the door on Sunday morning and drop an offering in the plate.  It seems almost rude to question their integrity, their righteousness, or their desire to be holy as God is holy.  Justify them and let them go home and eat lunch, right?

Perhaps the Church is failing not simply in her efforts at witness but also because she no longer stands out from the world.  She has become a compromised woman whose virtue is also compromised.  Why bother to belong if the Church is merely another gathering of sinners?  Why bother to belong when the Church asks so little of those who belong?  If you put something for sale on Marketplace and mark it free, nobody wants it.  You need to price it high enough to make it desirable but low enough to make it sell.  So the Church has set the bar for entrance low but the bar for staying inside even lower.  You do not have to attend or contribute and you certainly do not have to believe -- that is a private matter.  This is not the nature of the early Church growing amidst a decidedly more antagonistic government, society, and culture.  For them, virtue mattered and growth in holiness was expected of all and spoken about regularly.

Jesus says we shall be known by our fruits.  St. Paul constantly urges us to live holy, upright, and self-controlled lives, walking worthy of our calling as the children of God.  He is not afraid to set up lists of qualifications for bishops and deacons.  Words of warning are issued about associating with those who have fallen into error and refuse the counsel of God's Word or the call to repentance.  Yet in the Church today we are more tempted to say who am I to judge?   We find it easier to offend God than to offend people in the pet sins and their favorite moral failings.  How long has it been since the Church was ever accused of being a group of holy people?  Even pastors are quick to admit they are sinners as well practiced and comfortable in their sins as anyone.  The convents are empty and the monasteries emptying now so who is left to be accused of holiness?  Who even tries to be holy or to grow in holiness?

I wish it were said of us Christians that we constantly labored to be holy and to grow in holiness.  I wonder if that might help fill the pews if the world saw us truly aspiring to become more Christlike in our words and works.  I would delight if polls would actually pick up even a slight difference between the righteousness of those inside the household of God and those outside.  While some pietists might suggest that growth in holiness is the only real growth, I am not there.  Real growth is both and, without both, one or the other will suffer.

Sharing the stage. . .

Churches that are in decline seem to have little in common since both those on the left and those on the right are suffering an exodus from the pews and a graying of those who remain.  It is hard to find any who are righteous among the many players on the Christian stage.  Among Lutherans my own Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has been bleeding off people like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, perhaps not as much or as fast but still.  So it is not from some smug position of self-righteousness I write.  I lament the emptied pews, the bitterness of disappointment, the loss of confidence and hope.  It has extracted a great price from those who remain and who continue to gather and work, witness and give.  It is for those still there and for the many who may come back or walk though the door for the first time that I write.

When churches allow Christ to share the stage with anyone or anything or any cause, the result is that Christ is diminished and the other raised up to be like Christ or take the place of Him.  Each side has its own temptation to raise up someone or something to share the stage with Jesus.  For the left it is the causes of the day identified and deemed sacred by the culture.  When Jesus and His cross shares the stage with climate change or social justice or sexual desire or gender identity or any other cause, the cause becomes bigger and Jesus becomes smaller.  In the end, there is little need for radical heresy.  It is enough for Jesus to be equated with the cause and then it is not only Jesus or merely Jesus.  It is something else and the something else always wins.  When churches allow Christ to stand with political cause or candidate or economic system or anything else of the conservative causes of the day, Christ is made smaller and the cause gains stature merely be them being together. 

It always ends badly.  If the the cause is successful, there is no need for the Jesus of Scripture, creed, and confession.  If the cause is not, Jesus is blamed.  In any case, the spirit of the age and the cause of the moment ends up replacing Jesus as the focus.  You do not need to be liberal to replace the Gospel of the cross and empty tomb with a counterfeit gospel.  Unyielding persecution and violent threat were never able to do what churches have done willingly by simply allowing others to share the stage with Jesus.  

Parts or whole. . .

Sermon preached at the Fall Mid-South District Pastors' Conference, 8 October 2025.

 Ephesians 4:11–16

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

This is a popular text.  It shows up in the appointed readings for no less than two apostles, Proper 13B, and parts are read for ordinations and installations.  It has also taken on a life of its own in controversy over the emphasis.  Is the work of those so mentioned to equip the saints AND do the work of ministry or is it to equip the saints so that THEY may do the work of ministry.  That debate will have to wait.  The thing in this text that seems to be over looked most of all is the unity spoken of by St. Paul.

Some may remember the 80s and Wendy’s “Where’s the beef” commercials.  I think of “Parts is parts” when Wendy’s poked fun at McDonalds mashed chicken formed into nuggets.  That was the byword of the 80s.  Parts.  It is still fashionable for us to divide things up into parts.  The ministry is one but parts of it are doled out to different offices and different folks.  The body may be one but the real issue seems to be giving the parts the dignity and recognition they think they deserve.  Parts have become more important than the whole, perhaps reflecting the divisions and polarizations within our culture.  We want our share of the pie, our fifteen minutes of fame, our measure of respect.  Jesus refuses to go there and so does St. Paul.  It is not about parts or functions of the office or the different people in that office.  It is about Christ and the whole body of Christ.

The text is not concerned with honoring individual parts but the unity of the whole.  The parts have honor and purpose because they are part of the whole.  It is not about me and Jesus but about our lives knit together within the body of Christ, the Church.  It is not about me but about the whole.  Divided we fall, united we stand.  Abe Lincoln said it, learning it from Scripture.  Lone ranger Christians and lone ranger pastors are equally vulnerable.  One does not prosper while another falls without the whole of the body being wounded.  One does not suffer alone while the rest of the body goes its own way without the whole being weakened, divided, and lost.  One does not succeed but the whole prospers.  We are in this together, brothers.

The goal is not for me to shine or you but for us all to attain to the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God.  The goal is not for me to succeed to all to attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  The goal is not for me to grow up but for none of us to be children any longer. 

The greater danger to the faith is not from the enemies without but from within – our concern for self alone and our isolation from others.  We live in dangerous times and in these times when we ought to be pulling together, we are falling apart.  It is no wonder that we are tossed to and fro by the waves our doubt and fear, carried about by every wind of doctrine, more enamored by our own ingenuity, creativity, and novelty than the truth of the Word that endures forever, and caught up in schemes instead of living holy, upright, and godly lives around the Word and Table of the Lord.  We are not mature but children.  Brothers, it is killing us.  Even worse, it is crippling the Church.  Parts is parts – just parts.  Together they are more.  They are the body of Christ. 

We have learned to sidestep the controversial parts of Scripture out of fear of offending anyone and everyone and so we have offended the Lord.  We have allowed it to become normal that you can belong without actually being together where the Word is preached and the Sacraments administered.  Whether it is online church or people who just don’t go, we have allowed this to develop into the norm for every congregation and every pastor. We have plush membership rolls but empty pews.  We have defined our success by everything except faithfulness and find our comfort in numbers instead of doing Christ’s bidding as He directs us.

Do you think we are not growing because we are too much like Christ or are we not growing because we have become too much like the world?  That is the question that ought to plague us.  The truth of which St. Paul speaks is not a weapon but a bridge.  We get no joy from those who go away in a huff or those who hide away until they are forgotten by the congregation.  Our joy is over every sinner who repents.  Or is it?  We are to grow up but not in the ways of worldly wisdom or marketplace expertise.  We are to grow up in every way into Christ who is the head.  Christ is the head who gives life to the whole body.  Joined together until its individual parts are hard to identify or separate and working together in unity for the same purpose, the body grows and grows up in love.

Sadly, in Charlie Kirk one so eloquent in his Christian witness was recently taken from us.  There should be countless voices to replace him.  This body should be mass producing such faithful Christian witnesses to speak the truth in love and then the lost and wandering will be brought home into the life of Christ.  It should start with you and me.  We are the pastors who teach, to whom has been given the office of Word and Sacrament to build up the body the Church.  We are those who by word and work exemplify the words of St. Paul about the blessing of unity, of the knowledge of Jesus, the Son of God, of grace that forgives and food that grows us together, and to a life worthy of our calling as His people by baptism and faith.  

We need to stop acting like children, like individual parts, and instead grow together and grow up together to manifest the stature of the fullness of Christ, mature men of reasoned judgment, honor, character, and love.  We need to stop putting our hope in programs and trust in the Word that effects what it speaks and the Sacraments of life and worship that deliver what they sign.  We need to stop tearing things down and focus on building up in love by the Word of Truth and the means of grace.  We delight in doing our own thing as if the thing the Church lacks is creativity or individuality and instead become together the servants of the Word and of the liturgy we say we are.  We are gravely tempted to be warriors against a secularized world so at odds with Christ when what He needs and those whom He calls are marked by love and zeal for Him, for His Word, for His House, and for His neighbors.

Right now it seems like there is no body at all.  Only bits and pieces and parts fighting for glory and flopping around until the life in them fades away.  Christ is calling and St. Paul urging us to be one in Christ – not in the unity of compromise but in the strong unity of conviction and truth.  I believe that the body may seem hidden for now, now a time of discernment and winnowing, until a body stronger than today rises up to speak Christ to the nations and wash them clean in living water, to absolve the sinner and remind them of Christ’s righteousness they wear, and to feed them so that they may grow up in righteousness and holiness.  And where we take heed to Christ our head, tune into His voice and follow where He leads, the body will no more be hidden nor held captive to fear or what people think.  It will be only about what Christ thinks.

Pray with me today then that His words be the mark of this new day, doing the work of ministry, fostering our unity in Christ, and living in love toward one another and those not yet of the Kingdom.  Steadfast as mature adults with a renewed sense of awe and wonder at the power of His love and mercy, growing up and growing as the body of Christ, the head and our life.  In the holy name of Jesus.

Lord God, heavenly Father, we offer before You our common supplications for the well-being of Your Church throughout the world. So guide and govern her by Your Holy Spirit that all who profess themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Send down upon all ministers of the Gospel and upon the congregations committed to their care the healthful spirit of Your grace that they may please You in all things. Behold in mercy all in authority over us. Supply them with Your blessing that they may be inclined to Your will and walk according to Your commandments. We humbly ask Your abiding presence in every situation that You would make known Your ways among us building up the body by the proclamation of Your Word. Preserve the traveler and all in any need, according to Your mercy and gracious will; through Christ Jesus, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.