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.
2 comments:
Perhaps, the polls are not something we should worry about these days. The fact is that lately, even in the media, the name of Jesus Christ and the importance of faith is being declared boldly. No, not on CNN or MSNBC, or the other secular and liberal outlets, but on popular FOX news and Newsmax, reporters and commentators alike speak of their faith in Jesus unapologetically and enthusiastically. Christ is proclaimed by faithful Christians all over the internet and on social media. This is something we never saw a few years ago. Some reporters and pundits wear their Christian crosses on their necks as they give the news. So everything is not all bad, polls be damned. Ordinary Christians might also just talk about their faith with family, friends, strangers. This doesn’t mean standing on a soap box, but merely witnessing with people in our normal coming and goings. That is how the faith grows. Person to person. Not programs and reliance on polls. Just talking about Jesus, the Gospel message, and the effect He has made in your own life. We should all do this. Each of us. The opportunities are everywhere. Soli Deo Gloria
Excerpted from a March 10, 2025, Ad Crucem article, “Must the LCMS Accept Its Orderly Extinction?” (https://www.adcrucem.news/p/must-the-lcms-accept-its-orderly):
“We are on the cusp of concluding two millennia since Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension in AD 33, so it is fitting to consider the future of the LCMS. Three big questions come to mind as we consider the grim reality that the Synod will probably record weekly attendance falling by two-thirds in a single generation (30 years) by 2030.”
1. On the current trajectory, how many years will it take for LCMS weekly attendance to fall below 50,000 [from 1,000,000 in 2004 and 522,000 in 2023]?
2. Making some assumptions about a fertility-driven recovery, how long will it take to return to 1,000,000 weekly worship attendees?
3. Without a fertility-driven recovery, how many converts are required to sustain weekly attendance above 300,000 after 2030?
After the article shows data and graphs, the three answers basically are:
1. Sometime between 2070 and 2080.
2. Using specified, optimistic total fertility rates for Lutheran women, the LCMS could return to 1 million weekly attendees by 2131. The article notes: “In other words, the best way to make Christians is to conceive Christians.”
3. 693,428 converts over 70 years, averaging 9,906 converts per year, starting with 54,428 converts in 2040 (to offset the drop below 300,000) and 106,500 per decade from 2050–2100.
Post a Comment