A recurring question. . .

Removing the Mormons from the list of DOD recognized Christian groups is not without its controversy -- except to those who are Christian.  In fact, this is one of the small things in which a wider swatch of Christians actually agree upon -- Mormons are not Christian.  The Latter Day Saints are many things and some of them even decent and good but they are not Christian.  Latter-day Saints claim to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and perhaps even the only path to salvation, but not the unique Son of God. They claim to believe that He is divine and that we should follow all His teachings but He is not, in their estimation, uniquely divine.  In nearly every denomination, a Mormon who becomes Christian is a convert.  Mormons cannot agree to the creedal affirmations of orthodox Christianity or confess the Christology of Chalcedon.  Because they will not confess the orthodox Christian faith, they cannot be called Christian. Period.  DOD does not define this but they did have the guts to admit what some among us cannot or will not.  To state this not only safeguards Christianity but it is good for Mormons -- even if they don't see it.

Only a fool would suggest that Mormons were not good neighbors and good citizens, indeed, good on nearly every level of that judgment.  But the word Christian does not mean good.  It means those who confess a particular faith, informed by the Scriptures, confessed by creed, and held against any detraction or dilution of those words.  The Athanasian Creed captures it well.  Whoever would... and then presents the Trinitarian confession of God which the Scriptures teach along with the confession of Christ, true man and true God and not in the sense of what any other man was or ever will be.  Calling Jesus Lord or Savior is not the same as confessing the creedal affirmation of the Son of God incarnate for us and our salvation.  In 2001 Rome declared baptism conferred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be invalid.  Lutherans do not accept LDS baptism either.  It is not discriminatory against Mormons but the preservation of the faith against any and all confessions of any less than the one, eternal truth.  It is not being kind or charitable or Christlike to give a benefit of a doubt to such a group that claims to be Christian.  

While we do not know the heart and I presume that the vast majority of those now in the LDS were, if not raised Mormon, then raised some sort of Christian.  That may be a false presumption on my part but I think it is fair.  To act as if Mormon and Christian were the same is to do them a disservice even as it is the faithful and orthodox Christians who do confess the Triune God and Jesus the LORD.  Giving these lapsed Christians or those so poorly catechized into the Christian faith that they cannot see that Mormons are not Christian the benefit of the doubt is to fail to love them as Christ loves them and died and rose for them.  Not for Mormons only but for all who fail to confess the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ the true and unique Son of God in flesh do we maintain this boundary line.  Sadly, the DOD may be more ready than many churches to admit the obvious.

 

Misunderstood words. . .

Sermon for Trinity 4, preached at Faith Lutheran Church, Hopkinsville, KY, on Sunday, June 28, 2026.

There are a host of misunderstood words of Jesus.  The Gospel for today records one of those words which has been manhandled and distorted until Jesus would not recognize what He said.  “Judge not and you will not be judged.”  These are the words so often exaggerated and misconstrued as to make us reticent about even mentioning sin anymore.  Who are we to judge?  That is, after all, the constant litany of those who wear their sins as badges of honor no one can question or assail.  These words of Jesus have come to mean look the other way and they make sin simply an alternative choice.  It almost makes sin normal.

The reality is that the beating heart of Christianity is the forgiveness of sins.  Indeed, God became man not to pat us on the back or cheer us on as we improve or watch us screw things up but to become the sacrifice for sin that is our atonement for all our sins – sins of thought, word, and deed.  He makes the great exchange, laying down His life for ours and paying the price of our redemption with His own suffering and blood shed once for all.  He does this so that we might be restored to the Father as His own children, washed clean in the waters of baptism, led by the voice of His Word to learn to love what is good and right, and fed here at His table in the bread that is His flesh and the wine that is His blood.  Inside Jesus is this – He has come that we might be forgiven.  Inside all of this – the baptismal font, the Scriptures, and the food of this table is one thing – the forgiveness of our sins.  

Far from encouraging us not to talk about sin, the commandments are all about sins just as Jesus is.  Keeping the commandments is all about noting what is sin and what is not.  Our lives in Christ are not meant to remove sin from our thoughts or vocabulary but precisely point us to sin and to the keeping of God’s will and purpose.  St. Paul insists that he did not even know what sin was until he knew forgiveness in Christ.  But sin is never theoretical.  It is never neutral.  It is never without victims.  It is never for good.  It is never benign.  It is always corruption and it always corrupts the one doing the sin.  

Jesus does not tell us to ignore sin or to fail to rebuke it.  That flies in the face of everything else Jesus has told us to do, specifically how to deal with sinners according to Matthew 18 with its call to go to the sinner, tell him of his sin so to seek his repentance, bring along a witness to this act of love, and tell it to the Church for the sake of his restoration.  So Jesus is not telling us to ignore sin anymore than He is telling us not to keep the commandments and do what is good and right and salutary.  Jesus is telling us how to do this.  He begins by saying this: “Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful to you.”

Now we are onto something.  We are not the self-appointed watchdogs of righteousness nor are we snitches who turn in others in order to make ourselves look better or to advance our cause.  Jesus has not called us to be secret police.  Instead He has sent us forth to be His instruments and the agents of the same mercy, kindness, and love that He came to show us.  

This can only occur because the mercy of God is not in short supply but without limit.  He does not dole out that mercy as a miser who is stingy with something costly but lavish and extravagant even with something that is costly beyond measure.  And that is why we are here.  We are not here to see what God will do about sin but because of what He has done.  Here we are every week coming home again into the arms of the Father to be welcomed as His own even though we sin, to be given a perfect robe of righteousness even though we have soiled the last one, and to feast at His table even though do not deserve a place at the table.  With this same mercy that you know in Christ then judge your brother, sister, husband, wife, parent, child, neighbor, co-worker, or stranger.  Judge them in order for them to be won by the blood that cleanses all our sins.

The servant is not above His master.  Jesus said those words.  Being forgiven, we are to seek out one another not with our agenda but with His.  We call each other to repentance and forgive without limit (not seven times or even seventy times seven but as often as we are asked to forgive).  We all need the same thing.  We need forgiveness.  This is our most compelling need from God.  None of us is without sin and all of us live in constant dependence upon the mercy of God.  We do not judge harshly because we were not.  We do not judge to condemn because we were judged to restore.  We do not judge to curse because we were not cursed but blessed with forgiveness.  We do not manifest this merciful judgment with words alone but with the open heart of love that cares for the other as we would care for ourselves.  That is Christlike and that is the calling of those who would follow Christ.

Jesus goes on to say that the blind cannot lead the blind.  We cannot care for our brother or sister if we are blinded by our own sins, wearing the log in our eye.  This is then the call for us to live constantly within the veil of Christ’s forgiveness and within the home of God’s House.  This is the call not to be blind but to have our eyes opened by His Spirit working through the Word as often as we are gathered around that Word.  We are not in God’s Word because we are curious or even because it is interesting but because we need the Light of Christ, we need to live within the Light of Christ, and we need to be the Light of Christ.  The Light of Christ cannot be darkened by the cover of our sin.  He has called us to set that Light high so that it enlightens the whole world.

When Christians stop judging with mercy, we end up living in the sin that Christ came to take away.  When we fail to call out one another we end up losing the very repentance that His mercy creates.  We distort the Light of Christ and shine darkness where Christ means there to be light.  So for this reason, we are here, week after week, confessing our sins, being absolved, recalling our baptismal identity as His very own children, being renewed in the Spirit of our minds by God’s voice in His Word, and being nourished at His own table.  We are here so that we might be His Light to those still in darkness, a people so profoundly transformed by the forgiveness shown to us that we might forgive one another in His name.

Jesus has not called us to be silent about sin but neither has He called us to be the arrogant voices of the self-righteous.  He has called us to be merciful as we have receive His mercy and to show that mercy to those around us, especially to those caught up in sin and being led astray from God’s hope, His promise, and His life.  There is a promise given to us as well.  Forgive and you will be forgiven.  Forgiveness cost Jesus everything upon the cross but it was a price He was willing to pay for you and for me.  Now He asks us to let those unaware of what His love has accomplished to know what His love does for them.  It forgives our sins, quiets our conscience, frees us to know and love His commandments, and comforts us with the mercy that none deserve but comes to us without limit.  May God grant us this heart of mercy as we have know it in Christ Jesus our Savior.  Amen. 

Save the Date. . .

This year's Henkel Conference is scheduled for August 17-18, 2026.

Register through Eventbrite by clicking here.  You can be added to the conference email distribution list by sending a request to: henkel@ascensionmadison.com.

Those scheduled to present include:

•  Mollie Hemingway, Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist, Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College, Fox News contributor, and best-selling author
• Scott Yenor, Chair of the American Citizenship Initiative at The Heritage Foundation and Professor of Political Science at Boise State University
• Alex Newman, president of Liberty Sentinel Media
• Noelle Mering, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Life and Family Initiative and columnist for the Catholic Herald
• Korey Maas, Chairman and Associate Professor of History at Hillsdale College
• plus more TBA! 

 

Glimpses of the transcendent. . .

Over the course of many years and many folks who traded Lutheranism or some other form of conservative Protestantism for either Rome or Constantinople attempted to explain why they left.  In particular, I felt that the Lutherans should have been the least tempted to swim either river -- given that we have both the catholic doctrine and practice married to a strong preaching and teaching emphasis.  It would have seemed to be a no brainer but they left anyway.  It cannot be for the rational side of things or for understanding since both Rome and Constantinople have a sometimes confusing array of answers, even conflicting answers, to the questions raised.  "Holy mother church" is largely the answer to most any query that is raised.  But somehow it works.  Or it seems to....

Those who do respond to my own curiosity, often tell me that their problem with Lutheranism or with Protestantism is often summarized as "is that all there is?"  In other words, they got the words but from their they encountered some form of disconnect.  Where is God?  What is the shape of the baptized life?  Is it simply an appeal to the mind or an encounter with the transcendent?  Is there any room left in modern church life for mystery?  Where do you glimpse the transcendent?  I get this.  I am not ready to abandon the confessional documents of my own tradition but it is painfully obvious that too often on Sunday morning the business of worship is simply transactional instead of mystical.  We have succumbed to the temptation to make information and knowledge the apt substitute for the presence of God.  

A very long time ago I read Brother Lawrence The Practice of the Presence of God.  I still have it in my library.   It was a compelling question for me coming to college from a solid, Midwestern rural LCMS parish.  I had three years of catechism to answer the questions and impart information.  I had 18 years of sermons long on information -- telling me right from wrong, right churches from wrong ones, and right doctrine from false.  The reality is that this still let me with a quest for a sense of wonder that was not being met by what I had experienced growing up.  In junior college with the likes of H. Andrew Harnack and Ed Peters, among others, a new dimension to the Sunday morning experience arose and began to introduce into the same old page 15 Divine Service the glimpses of the transcendent and the experience of the presence of God that had been overwhelmed by the power of words, knowledge, information, and understanding.  It was mind-blowing for this pre-sem guy who had little experience outside his own home church.

I suspect I am not alone.  Although I am now more than fifty years older and with an experience of some 46 years as a pastor behind me, the haunting question remains.  What difference does it all make?  It has long been my suspicion that orthodox Lutheran preaching has lacked this element.  We are so terribly fearful of telling people what to do, how to live, and how to love the things of God that we have told them, we seem to preach about Christ more than Christ, about what to believe than how to live what you believe.  What does it all mean?  Where is God?  Surely not up there somewhere.  If not there, where?  Here in our midst?  We have the information but do we have the appreciation for the glimpses of the transcendent right there in the Divine Service both in the words spoken into the ear, the grace of absolution applied to the guilty conscience, and the taste of God upon our lips in the foretaste of the eternal that is our ordinary food?

It is this that I fear is causing people who get the words but are missing the mystery to search for something else.  Tragically, they often end up trading off one for the other when they should be expecting and even demanding it all.  The mystery of God is not inconsistent with the voice of Scripture and the truth of doctrine.  The glimpses of the transcendent are not escapes from ordinary reality but that which helps us live as those who are in but not of the world, followers not merely of Christ's voice but those who walk in His ways.  If there is a failing of Lutheranism, it is often that we do a very fine job of imparting information but forget why we are imparting it.  Living as the new people born of the baptismal womb is exactly what we were born to do.  Beloved, we are God's children now.  The mystery of what will be we accept by faith but the mystery of who we are is not lost to us in the practice of our faith day after day after day.  When worship ends up being only words, even for the God who is the Word made flesh, we miss the significance of what it means to behold the glory of God face to face.  When it becomes transactional or propositional, we are no longer the sinners transformed by the mercy of God and become like Eden's children trying to get God even if we cannot be Him.

Real girls need not apply. . .

So I read this in a media post reporting on a news story across the pond:

One in five boys aged 12 to 16 is in or knows someone in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot, according to a Male Allies UK study of over 1,000 boys across 37 UK schools. 85% have talked to chatbots and 26% prefer the attention to human connections. The top companion apps have tens of millions of users and let children design an AI "girlfriend" in under five minutes, then charge for virtual gifts and explicit content. The apps advertise on YouTube and online games. There is no minimum age law for AI companions. Age verification is a checkbox. 

Imagine that.  Some folks thought AI was the technology to save us from ourselves!  It is sad that 1 in 5 teen boys have this within their experience and that 1 in 4 prefer the AI girl to the real thing.  Well, it is really more than sad.  It is an unmistakable sign of a serious problem that is not merely a stage or even a positive choice but an acceptance of how broken the world is.  The fact that eight in 10 boys (85 per cent) have had a conversation with a chatbot, with 43 per cent saying they talk to bots so they can ask questions without feeling embarrassed is just as concerning.  This alone says that they trust a chatbot over a real person with a real voice. In less than five minutes for a young boy to create his “dream girlfriend” -- someone they can customize and design according to their own preferences without the need to compromise or sacrifice.  In this way, the boy gets it all except that it is not real.  While no kid begins with the false assumption that this chatbot is a creation the fruit of technology for money, the same kid can quickly “forgot” that the creative persona is not real.  Part of the problem lies in the constant positive feedback provided by these created identities and what such a stilted relationship does to the child becoming an adult and the ability of that child to become a healthy and integrated part of society.

While this is reported in the UK by The Telegraph, we would be foolish to presume that such is limited to the confines of the UK.  It is an ever spreading reality as children use AI in pursuit of school work or information but do not stop there.  Because this is a new phenomenon which the parents of these youth did not know or experience for themselves, it also leaves families ill-equipped to recognize or respond to these situations when they discover them.  Furthermore, the way that AI is incorporated into education and modern day life is on the increase and will certainly continue to increase this phenomenon before it is abated in any deliberate or accidental way.  What is even more a problem is that this has become socially acceptable within the peer groups of these young teens and the promise of AI lauded by the media and political and media leaders.  In fact, it is sometimes even encouraged by churches.

Where are the guardrails to prevent harm to these young teens or to provide for them direction into healthy and real relationships?  That is what we struggle with today.  Pope Leo certainly hit a nerve here but his warnings are as yet without any means or mechanism within the churches or social organizations to protect our children from the lies that seek to exploit them in the guise of someone better than life.  I do not have the answers but it is high time that we spent some capital of time and money developing some answers before it is too late.  It does not take long to lose a generation to the very things which were supposed to improve and make better their lives.  At least this we know from history already. 

CS Lewis warned us of this in That Hideous Strength.  The problem of AI lies not in its limitations but in its lack of limitations.  It can literally ruin everything and renders sterile to the point where nothing is good, nothing is desirable, and nothing is worth the reality. The threat of AI is not its incompetence so often revealed by memes on the internet but that it is too efficient and soulless.  It works well to supply pleasing words and images and even music but it also cuts us off from our own past by rendering fiction as truth until we do not know the difference.   A world where you can make anything at any time to fit any desire is a world in which nothing is necessary or worth any risk.  Surely this is exactly what Lewis was hinting at -- the more perfectly we manufacture a false human expression the more we risk being emptied by the very thing that is life.  Maybe we cannot kill AI but at least we should be able to prevent it from becoming the next stage of human evolution 

  

Very different perspectives. . .

One of the confounding things of God is that His mercy is so remarkably different from the way we approach mercy.  For us mercy is about compassion and kindness shown to the deserving but for God it is compassion and kindness shown to those who deserve none of it.  It is the same with how we approach forgiveness.  For us on earth, forgiveness requires something from the forgiven.  Implicit in this is not only a promise not to do it again but the right of the one doing the forgiving to judge progress on that goal.  This implies that the forgiveness is not a real done deal unless and until such progress is made by the forgiven to ending that which needs forgiving.

Genuine repentance in our eyes is almost always related to behavior.  What we do proves the intention of the heart or proves the hypocrisy of our words and promises.  We forgive those who have then done something to engender that forgiveness.  They have shown a requisite sorrow over their sin and have made promise not to sin again and are making positive steps to do just that.  Repeat offenders are by their very nature suspect in our view of those who deserve to be forgiven.  It always amazes me that we expect and demand so much more than God does.

St. Paul puts it bluntly.  While we were yet sinners and enemies of God, Christ came.  He did not come for the deserving or for those, who given the gift of forgiveness would make atonement and live in obedience to the commandment, but for sinners who could not help or redeem themselves and before they could even know or request such mercy from God.  But there we are, gumming up the works of forgiveness, by walking back what God has done for us in Christ and then applying more rigorous standards to those who ask forgiveness.

St. Peter rightfully and honestly asked the Lord what the limits of forgiveness were -- now many times, how earnest the request, and how willing to make amendment of life.  But our Lord dismisses all such talk and simply says as often as they request, forgive.  And then St. Matthew records the only qualifier -- as often as you have been forgiven by God.  This is forever enshrined within the words of the Church's primary prayer, the Our Father.  Forgive us as we have been forgiven by YOU.  But how hard that is.  How difficult it is to find the line marking the divisions among us and discerning to whom and when to step back.  For us, the witness of Matthew 18 is more as another accusatory voice than it is a witness to the seeking of restoration from the one offended.  For us, telling it to the Church is announcing triumphantly the sin of the other -- at least in part if not in whole to justify ourselves and tidy up our own righteousness.  Both of these are foreign to the words and will of Christ.

We seek to insulate ourselves from hurt or from being rendered foolish but God gladly plays the fool for the sake of those whom He redeems.  He is willing to stand at the horizon every morning and every evening and search the sky for the prodigal to come home, already hearing their lame excuses and well-rehearsed scripts, but then He silences their voice with His own embrace, restoring the garment of our belonging and sitting us in the place of honor which most of us think should belong to those who have earned it and worked for it.  Such is the majesty of forgiveness -- far from the weakness of a passive heart it is the profound act of strength from a heart which acts even before the sin to rescue the sinner.

In our eyes such limitless grace is almost laughable and greatly offensive.  Justice is what we request more than mercy but the mercy of forgiveness if better than justice.  If only we could convince ourselves that this was true!  Alas, the Holy Spirit's job is daily to do just that -- convince us of the truth of His mercy and convince us to practice such mercy one to another.  How profound the moment when heaven rejoices and the sinner confesses the sin only to have that sin cast as far as the East is from the West by the mercy of God that has no end.  Thanks be to God! 

Holy entertainment. . .

In another age, the social dimensions of the gathering of any religious community were a given which did not detract from the sacred purpose of that gathering.  In the modern age, the social dimensions might be said to have overtaken the sacred purpose and that is true for some.  But it is more likely that the social has also become a casualty of individualism in which the people in the seats are largely silent and passive except to respond to what happens on the stage and to pay for the show.  So much of what passes for worship among those who eschew its liturgical shape is less directed to God than it is to the spectators and less designed to express the reverence of the faithful before God than it is to engage and entertain on a more horizontal level.  Holy entertainment.  A good show.

Oddly enough there are those in Rome who seem to distance what happens within the Mass from the work of the faithful as well.  They would even suggest that partaking of the Sacrament was less than essential to their role within the liturgy and that the role of those in the pews was to pray while the ministers of the Mass do their parts -- like people in the same space but not quite together.  I do not quite get that but even here it cannot be said that the people are merely spectators or that the Mass is designed to satisfy them, entertain them, and make them happy.  Such is surely the unspoken outcome of the successful worship service of so many non-denominational churches and even some within the veil of liturgical churches.

I suppose it could be worse.  Judging from the kind of thing that passes for comedy today, watching a talented preacher and the worship divas lead the religious show is far better.  Yet it betrays what is essentially happening within worship.  We are gathered in the presence of God not to be entertained or even informed and certainly even less to find happiness (as elusive as that is).  We are here at God's command, called by His Spirit, no less.  The voice of His Word has reached more than ears but also the hearts of the faithful.  The water of baptism has become the living womb by which we encounter the new birth of water and the Spirit.  The agenda is clearly God's and we are confronted with His work and the fruits of that work in Christ bestowed through the Word read and proclaimed and the Supper feasted upon and drunk.  Herein we encounter now something other but Christ Himself, continuing what He began and enlightening our darkness and making holy what was not.  It is God's domain, the holy ground upon which we dare not tread unless bidden and given the promise of His intent.  This is hardly entertainment even when it might be entertaining.  

Entertainment parading as worship cannot simply be dismissed as without harm or sterile.  Indeed, when we substitute our agenda for His, it is never left sterile but becomes something twisted and perhaps even destructive. In contrast, when there is genuine faith it will manifest itself in honest reverence for God—whether the ear tuned to hear His voice or the body kneeling with bowed head in prayer or the hunger and thirst of those who come to feed the body, yes, but primarily the soul.  Indeed, when reverence is replaced with entertainment, it is no longer what belongs to or befits the house of God.  When we preach to gain smiles or tell jokes to lighten the mood, when we use the appeal of the heart and focus on feelings, we have left God behind in the dust and deprived ourselves of the gift of the eternal meant for this time and this place.  Feel good religion is dangerous enough but a religion which prefers the things that people want for the things that God uses to give them life and healing is one that is destined to starve to death the faithful who are drawn to them and deprive those who do not yet know Him of any real encounter with the mighty God of their salvation.

We find this in sanctuaries across America and in the various media outlets which continue to proffer the sale of a happy heart to a people longing for one.  But what we will not find in such holy entertainment is enough life to sustain the weary through their journey or the clear path to where that journey is to end before God's eternal throne.  No, this is not simply about taste or preference or even about satisfying people.  It is the difference between being knowing God as He has said He wishes to be known and knowing a facsimile of this God created by our own disordered hearts and desires.  The liturgy is needed not simply for what it offers but also for what it prevents or at least discourages.  It is like the parent who clothes the child for the weather outside and not simply to make the child happy.  So we are kept by the firm ground of God's own order, gifts, and guidance because without them we would degenerate into simply what makes us laugh or makes us happy -- none of which is enough to rescue us from sin and death.

Why not?

All across the landscape of Christianity there are those who caution against taking Scripture too seriously.  Though for different reasons, perhaps, this warning has become normal in a world in which we take other things much more seriously -- from the opinions of others to our own desires and choices.  It has become epidemic.  Oddly enough, I read a little while ago that Bible sales for 2024 o4 2025 (can't recall which) were nearly double what they were for 5-10 years ago.  It would seem that by the shopping habits of many there is a strong desire to meet a voice that does not change and a message that is eternally the same, a Gospel rooted in the facts of Jesus' death and resurrection, and in the consequences of such a profound and saving love.  Against this, it also seems that there are those who are telling people to wait a second and slow down.  

Both Rome and liberal Protestantism seems to this common apprehension against taking Scripture too seriously.  The Council of Trent pitted Scripture against tradition -- even painting tradition as more reliable than Scripture and carrying more authority than the written Word of God.  It follows then that the faithful were then being directed to know and trust tradition more than Scripture and to enhance the church's voice over Scripture.  Liberal Protestantism would agree except in place of Scripture they would posit feelings, desire, and reason in place of tradition and over the Word of God.  In essence, they join Rome in saying that we need to trust ourselves over Scripture -- the self of Rome being the teaching magisterium and papacy but the self of liberal Protestantism being the individual alone.  We all seem to be searching for a pope or for many popes to tell the Scriptures what we will believe and what we will not -- no matter what that Word of God says.

In contrast to our modern age with its primacy of pope/teaching magisterium and the individual, the early church fathers lived in Scripture in a way we simply do not today.  They read Scripture as a living voice, not even a book and certainly not a compilation of stories or resource book from which to draw proof texts.  Everything pointed to Christ in a way that seems childish and naive today.  Indeed, we prefer to listen to their voices on doctrine more than to learn from them how they lived within the Scriptures overall.  This is alien and foreign to us today.  They do not rush to explain the mystery or bring it down to size but enable that mystery of God to be fully encountered through every page.  They see the Word of God not as a tool for them to use to pursue the loftier things but as the living voice of God and a door into His divine presence.  They live in God's Word in order to know Him who is that Word made flesh.

Catechesis is then not simply imparting information but incorporation of the individual into the life of God's Word.  It aims less for comprehension or understanding than appreciation, wrapping the person in Scripture -- the words, stories, events, and truth that is the portal to the eternal.  For them, living the baptismal life is not about living by rules to be followed but living out the new life born of the baptismal womb -- wanting the what God wants, filled with the desire for Him above all, and walking in the path enlightened by the Lord through His Word.  It is not static but lively.  The upward call of God is not about reordering this world to look like heaven but to live within the household of God where the heavenly ladder brings low what is from above and living out the new life that has another goal and hears another voice than instinct or the worldly values all around us.

Why not listen to this voice?  Why not take it seriously?  No one is saying that the Church is not needed to give guidance to the faithful or that every word was meant to be taken literally but very word is surely to be taken seriously, most seriously in a world which is serious about all the wrong things.  I will admit that sometimes this seems dangerous -- at least to the earthly orders and structures in which the Church lives and the social orders and authorities of the world outside the Kingdom of God.  It is.  It is surely dangerous.  Indeed, the most dangerous thing in the world is a Christian and a church listening to the voice of God, taking it seriously and following its voice over all the other competing voices around us.  

The early church fathers experienced this directly when the sexual ethic and shape of marriage and attention to the sacred character of life forced them to live in distinction to what was all around them.  It was and remains dangerous to do so -- to hold up the Biblical pattern of male and female, the shape of marriage between male and female, the importance of children, the refusal to accept the culture of death so easily promoted by our views of reproduction and abortion, and to remain steadfast in them.  But these are not the only arenas in which our lives in distinction to the world stand out and stand forth.  In the trust we place in technology, the way we seem to view AI as part of human evolution, and the primacy we place upon leisure and entertainment we are also standing out and standing forth -- at least if we listen to the voice of God's Word.  To suggest that this is real freedom in place of the self-indulgence of the world around us is to hear and apply God's Word to the most basic issues of life.  Why would we not take this seriously, listen to it over tradition, and heed it over even the most primal of our feelings and desires?

The focus on sex. . .

While some might insist that orthodox Christianity with its focus on male/female gender, marriage as the shape of our society's God-given order, and children as the natural fruit of marriage as a sex issue, the reality is that sex has always been part of the equation since Eden.  After the Fall, Adam and Even could not even look at each other in the same way.  They were always naked but that nakedness became a problem only after sin too hold of desire.  They worked to handle it all themselves by covering up what they thought was the problem -- nakedness -- forgetting that sin was inside them and not living simply on the surface of their bodies.  

Sexual desire and intimacy between man and woman as God created them has always been keep to who we are and how we see ourselves.  Indeed, the sexual act is Biblically rooted and a gift of God in creation and not some secret information which man stumbled upon.  It is central to the basic social bond God established in creation (Gen. 2:24) and the very mandate given to man by God is to be fruitful and multiply -- because God made them male and female (Gen. 1:28).  We reproduce not out of instinct but as fulfillment of the divine command.  How we see this and judge it all is not an strange focus upon sex but getting God's creative will and purpose exactly right.  Sex lies at the heart of being human -- of being made male and female.  We are not focusing too much on sex but those who use free desire and gender identity are doing exactly that.  They are focusing on sex without seeing it as part of God's gift in creation or His order.

When churches celebrate the LGBTQ+ genders and the disordered desires, they make it exactly about sex and not at all about God's gift of creation nor the order established for us not as punishment but as the protection and blessing of that godly desire for the sake of all.  Pornography is not wrong because the body is meant to be hidden but because it makes trivial, inconsequential, and lurid the gift of God and His divine purpose.  Porn makes light of it all not for fun but for money and that taints the desire and its use as wrong.  In the end, however, it is not even that the various forms of desire and gender identity wish to be allowed to live and let live but have harnessed the machinery of the state precisely to demand that they receive approval, acceptance, and legitimacy.  They do not want privacy but public sanction for every desire and not just the ones championed now.

When Christianity affirms and celebrates the alphabet soup of sexual desire and gender identity, the Church gives sanction to it in God's name -- whether they pay attention to the voice of God in His Word or not.  In effect, the rainbow becomes part of the liturgical calendar of the Church, yes, but of the whole world.  Because of this, the Church must address sex issues or become an accomplice in the moral confusion of the day in which nothing is wrong except the denial of desire.  The Church is not interested in what goes on in the bedrooms of this world because of prurient interest but for the sake of setting free from the bondage of desire and for the sustenance of the will and purpose of God manifest in creation.  But those who celebrate the bedroom and move it into the most public sphere of all have made it all about the sex.  Period.  

This is not new.  In the earliest of days Christianity manifested a distinct ethic with regard to sex and marriage and children -- one that which immediately in conflict with the mores of the world then (as well as now).  Among these, the Old Testament condemnation of same sex relationships of any kind -- one repeated in the New Testament.  It is no less than St. Paul who insists that the man who sleeps with a prostitute has not only sinned for himself but for the wife left at home and the prostitute herself.  The begins with the insistence that it is possible to sin against your own flesh and that this sin is not refusing to be unbound by constraints but rather indulging them.  Sex is central to who we are as human beings and to our embodied selves not by accident but by intent.  Within the post-apostolic world, you find in the Didache, one of the earliest extant post-canonical writings, a rejection of abortion that has become a central cause of morality for the Christian community both then and now.  It was certainly no easier for the Church to stand against Rome and the remaining vestiges of its culture than it is today but, remarkably, that did not preclude the Church from growing but contributed to it.  To stand out and stand forth for the cause of God's creative gift and order will hardly be the death of Christianity but to ignore God's Word in this may well do just that.  

Myopic vision. . .

While reading a while ago I came across a quote by a well-known Roman Catholic exegete and Biblical scholar.  Raymond Brown, a name that should be well known to most of us, apparently wrote that it was his and a rather universal opinion that the exegetical method of the early church fathers was irrelevant to the study of the Bible today.  He likes patristics for the doctrinal words of the fathers but did not judge their reading of Scripture to be relevant or helpful to arriving at those doctrines.  In other words, he has separated Scripture from doctrine and written off the exegetical method of the fathers as completely alien and of no assistance to the modern exegete today.

I would suspect that most orthodox Lutherans would be appalled at such a conclusion -- even though I am sure that many on the liberal end of Lutheranism would agree and echo his sentiments.  We should rightly complain about the nearsightedness of such a reading of how the fathers read God's Word and condemn his judgment as less than scholarly and more than plainly wrong in its choices of lens through which the Bible is to be read.  Some of those who are reading this are probably asking me why I bother reading Raymond Brown.  I should be reading Luther, right?

That is the problem.  We Lutherans so often choose our own lens through which we look at things and although it is more modern than the early fathers, it is equally narrow.  We run the danger of making Luther the central focus of everything.  What Luther said about a passage or how he preached it often becomes the final word in our discussion.  How are we really being different from the narrowness of Raymond Brown and his own choice of blinders?  This may be what we do today but it is not the shape of historic Lutheranism.  After all, Patrologia was coined by Johann Gerhard, who published a book by the same name in 1653. 

The Reformers insisted that they were not disdaining or ignoring but rather returning to the pure doctrine that the Church had taught from the time of Christ all the way up to their time.  They began by returning to the Scriptures, drawing their teaching from Jesus Christ and His apostles and the written record of Gospel.  In addition, the Lutherans rediscovered the true and saving doctrine in the writings of the Early Church fathers and delighted to find in them their knowledge of Scripture, their devotion to God's Word,  and how this translated into the classic formulations of Christian theology.  Yet today we seem rather myopic in our vision of the fathers, choosing instead to go first to Luther and seldom moving past him into the earlier days of our Christian life.

I do not know when it happened but it has and this is a betrayal to the rich and profound legacy our Lutheran fathers had on the witness and vision of those who went before.  Read through the Lutheran Confessions and, outside of the Small Catechism, you find an appeal to the fathers written into every page.  Even the phrases and vocabulary of the fathers made their way into Lutheranism. We do not afford veto power to any age or generation of men but prefer to build upon the work of the faithful who went before us giving Scripture alone the norming power over it all.  With the claim of catholicity written into our confessional documents, we cannot afford to being and end all things at Luther alone.  This does not in any way diminish the value or importance of Luther but, just the opposite, follows his own example and the pattern of those who followed him.  So let us more generally affirm that we are students of the fathers as they were students of Scripture and that we learn from them in how they handled God's Word even as we admit that they are not infallible.

Children are more honest. . .

Over the years I have lived with many who constantly remind me that ritual is just ritual and complain about rote recitation of the liturgy.  In my own tradition there are those who would insist that to worship may not be adiaphora but how you do it is.  Too often that is a direct slur against liturgy itself and the elevation of the worship of the heart over the rituals, ceremonies, and even words of the Mass.  It is tiring to hear the taunts of those who insist that empty liturgy and empty ritual is of no value whatsoever.  I fear it is the triumph of a rather false form of maturity that adults use to prove that they are not children.

The problem is that children are more honest than adults when it comes to symbolism, liturgy, ceremony, and ritual.  Adults too often fail to understand liturgy and ritual at all.  The very charge of empty ritual or outward ceremony that they so solemnly warn against only shows that they really do not get worship.  By their elevation of the higher rational activity of the mind, they signal that they are enemies of their own tradition and still in the dark about the real value of ceremony, ritual, and mere words.  

The Scriptures themselves do not disdain the value of ceremony.  Instead, the richness of Scripture is revealed in the way ritual is so easily woven into the pattern of belief.  It is impossible to read the Word of God and miss the unmistakable form of ritual unless you have opened the book with a bias against it.  To elevate the rational above the ritual is to turn the faith of the ages into something that mirrors more recent history more than it does the longer view of our history.  It is equally wrong to pit them against each other but the genius of Scripture is how they stand together, side by side.

Children get this.  Their learning as well as their play is rooted in ritual, repeated actions through which words are learned, language is experienced, and life framed.  The activity of play is too often falsely seen as the sole province of children and childhood.  St. Paul is invoked as having put away childish things and having outgrown the shape of life rooted in ritual and rite.  The reality is that we really never cease to experience life in this way even though it is often tempting to make it sound like merely an activity of childhood and the childish.  What we too often do is treat ritual as if it were too frivolous for adulthood.  How odd, then, that we have devolved into an entertainment culture in which the imagined reality of the video game and screen seems to consume more and more of our time over the established orders of marriage, children, family, and duty.

Some play is truly frivolous and some is even destructive, not simply a diversion but a destroyer of our humanity.  Some play is borne of the desire within our culture to find meaning but with a penchant for searching in all the wrong places, substituting false rituals for the authentic rituals of God, reflected in lives of honest faith and trust.  Some of this is reflected by the reverence given to the rituals of sport.  Games hold meanings higher than simple competition or entertainment and, often, the rituals of athletics or games are given a higher place than the rituals of common worship and devotion.   These games are themselves the game of replacing our deep religious need for things shallow and incapable ot answering that religious yearning for God, for meaning, and for purpose.  Most of all, the quest for transcendence. In this way some within the Church accept and given almost religious devotion to the rituals of play and games while at the same time insisting that these risk consuming us in the realm of religious devotion, preferring a cerebral religion over a ritualistic one.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. (1Co 13:11-12)  I propose that St. Paul here was not speaking of a maturity to be obtained in this world or this life but contrasting what we know now only by faith with what we shall know then, in eternity, face to face.  For now ritual is not a passing phase toward rational nirvana but its own very important shape of life here, by faith, toward eternity.  Until then, ritual allows us to practice and rehearse the eternal in the present, experiencing the foretaste of what is to come now by repeating what our Lord commanded.  The future is not something completely different but knowing fully and face to face what now we know only through a mirror dimly.  Until then, we practice or play, rehearing the rituals of our identity bequeathed to us by our Lord until we are ever swallowed up in the eternal, knowing its familiarity while also transcending what we have known now.

Cultural Christianity?

Cultural Christianity has eroded mightily from its once more vigorous self.  It is no longer firmly united by a common core of belief, a common ethic, a common set of moral values, and a common commitment to the need for some sort of religion even if it was not quite fully orthodox.  Now there are some who think that culture no longer needs Christianity has a partner and perhaps no religion at all is best.  Even Christians are not sure whether to celebrate or mourn the death of Cultural Christianity.  It is no surprise then that Christians are left divided and uncertain about what to do with the remnants of this Cultural Christian past and its vestiges.   

No matter how some like to wrap Christianity in the flag, Christian nationalism is hardly reflected in any denominations even though it might be tempting to many non-denominationals.  Cultural Christians have a strong desire to preserve the cultural, political, and intellectual traditions and institutions Christendom established and maintained in America then, if not now.  They are convinced that for the sake of our modern democracy, intellectual honesty, a common moral conviction, and the value of a common set of truths to under gird our society, what Christianity had once established was still needed.  If nothing else, the erosion of our unity and our conflicted society has surely been displayed in the dire consequences felt across politics, academia, and journalism in America -- as well as everything else. Though Cultural Christianity is part of the conservative social and political force in America, Christianity itself is not about improving or sustaining our culture, While cultural Christianity can prove valuable as a conservative force that resists the reforms of liberalism and progressivism, when divorced from the Church’s core mission of salvation and conversion, it can distract and detract from that core mission.  

Cultural Christianity is intent upon rescuing society -- evangelizing the culture -- while Christianity itself is intent upon rescuing sinners in the shadow of death -- evangelizing the individual.  No one would say that the ripple effects of this goal should be minimized or ignored for the sake of the nation and its various institutions but neither can this become the driving force of that goal.  Building a Christian culture is not a parallel project to the overall goal of being the bride of Christ and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen to the ends of the earth but it is a consequence of the Church’s mission to make known the God of our salvation and bring them into fellowship with the saints.  In the end, what Cultural Christianity wants to preserve of Christianity and what the Church wishes to keep are probably not at all the same.  This is the problem.  Cultural Christianity only reluctantly tolerates the very things that orthodox Christianity champions.  Yet, the reality is that society in America needs Christianity more than Christianity needs the approval of society.  That is what we as Christians need to remember or else we are nothing but an institution of the government.

Why not steps?

The mark of older chancels was often steps.  The altar was raised, the pulpit was raised, and the whole chancel was raised.  Sometimes there were a plenty of steps.  Some might suggest that this was due to the need to be seen but I wonder if it wasn't something else.  The God who is wholly other is accessible by steps.  The steps are not simply architectural but theological.  We must ascend to Him or He must descend to us or we have no communion.  The ancient Church more likely reflected this truth in architectural terms than the present and future Church does.  

Especially medieval buildings reflect this symbolic language within the floor plan. Every aspect of the medieval structures we do admire seems to echo or communicate theological truths. The churches built of stone and wood reflected a worldview that understands reality itself in hierarchical terms, the God who is wholly other and who is inaccessible until and unless He reveals Himself to us and makes Himself available to us and their sanctuaries reflect this very literally.  Indeed, from at least to the 8th century, the church buildings were designed in vertical layers, lifting the ministers as well as the vision of the worshipers to the God on high.  The entire building was intentionally designed to be a vertical map of this theological reality, a very expression of medieval Christian cosmology.  

Our present views on the subject of the buildings in which we worship are probably not as organized but they also reflect our cosmology.  Though we are more likely to be concerned about ease of access, to be sure, we are also driven by the idea that we are on His plane -- an egalitarian idea of our relationship with the mighty and eternal God.   It is not by accident that modern day liturgical churches construct buildings in which the altar and pulpit are often on the very same plane as the folks in the pew.  This might be something we do in the name of disability and ease of access but it is more likely a reflection of our desire to bring God down to us on our terms -- something not so foreign to the problem of Eden.

Medieval Christians and those who went before them could have certainly placed the altar at the same level as the congregation -- it would have been much easier on the task of constructing the building. They could have arranged the “worship space” in the manner that we do today -- so the congregation surrounded the sanctuary on most or all sides and in which the chancel is center but not above us. The reality is that generation after generation followed the early lead until the present day.  We forget that what we are doing is so out of sync with our own Christian past.  They have continued to construct churches whose architectural plan was intent upon proclaiming ascent, descent, hierarchy, sacrifice and the kingship of Christ.  At least until the past 70 years or more when we made a break with our own history.

We need to relearn how to read that symbolic language the architectural plans hide.  We need to learn how to be more intent upon faithful structures which visually reflect the Biblical image of God and how He interacts with us.  Without this, our buildings will continue to be living rooms or warehouses which do not look like our theology or at least like the Biblical reality which is supposed to inform our theology.

The lighthouse does not move. . .

There are a thousand lighthouse jokes.  The one I am most familiar with has several incarnations.  The one my Canadian friend likes to tell me goes like this.  A US naval ship is warned by Canadians to alter its course.

CANADIANS: "Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision"

AMERICANS: "Recommend YOU divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision"

CANADIANS: "Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision"

AMERICANS: "This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course"

CANADIANS: "No, I say again, you divert your course"

AMERICANS: "This is the Aircraft Carrier USS LINCOLN, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied with three Destroyers, three Cruisers and numerous support vessels. I DEMAND that you change your course 15 degrees north. I say again, that's one-five degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship"

CANADIANS: "This is a LIGHTHOUSE. Your call"

The lighthouse does not move.  Its value lies in that it does not move.  Its light is anchored to a certain point and this is what gives its light authority.  Everything else moves because of its light.  I wish we took this to heart in the Church.

There are so many voices calling for the Church to listen to the opinions of the people in and outside of the Church, so many who insist that the danger before us is becoming irrelevant by failing to listen to our people, and so many who believe that God's Word is more suggestion than permanent truth.  By and large liberal Christianity has given into to all of these.  The times are filled with the mantra of a listening Church in step with the times and with the needs/wants/desires of its people.  The end result is that these churches have no light left.  They shine with the borrowed light of those around them -- a fragile light that changes constantly and offers nothing of permanence much less transcendence. It is a mirror of our own light which has already failed us in Eden and left us broken and marked for death.

Even in the churches you would least likely expect to hear this call, it is there.  Rome calls it Synodality.  Some Lutherans call it trusting the wisdom of others to come to different conclusions than we have.  It is the deception of diversity which celebrates difference and promotes a unity unfounded on truth.  God has not left us with the tools to make our own light.  We are merely tenders of the lighthouse, HIS lighthouse.  We also shine with borrowed light but it is not our light.  It is always His.  His Word.  His truth.  His doctrine.  The world is that ship insisting the lighthouse has to move.  The lighthouse has no course.  It is anchored to that which is eternal.  This is the Church's value.  We are anchored to the eternal in the midst of a changing world filled with deception and falsehood.  This alone does not make the world bad but it does make it clear why the Church and the people within listen to a different voice than their heart, their minds, or the times.  I wonder what might have happened if we had spent the energy we used trying to reinvent ourselves and applied it to being God's light.  That is all past now.  We cannot go back to our past errors.  We must shine with the brightness of the one, true Light now, where we are, with all that we are.  God's light has not failed us but we have certainly failed God's light.  We have dimmed the Light of Christ in the hope that our own light would shine brighter.  It did not work then and it will not work in the future.  Our hope is to chart our position against God's light, to set our course by that light, and to follow that light from the changes and chances of this mortal life to our eternal safe port in heaven. 

Existential. . .

According to Study Finds:

A survey of 2,000 Americans found that one in three (32%) say they’re currently experiencing an existential crisis, with Gen Z leading all generations at 52%.

“Stressful” was the most common word Americans used to describe 2026 so far (35%), and respondents said they’ve already absorbed an average of two major unplanned life changes this year.

Financial pressure is a dominant driver across all age groups, with a separate survey finding that 87% of Americans believe the country is in an affordability crisis and half struggle to pay basic bills.

Despite widespread anxiety, 79% of Americans say they’re planning some kind of mid-year reset, and nearly a third say 2026 has gone better than expected.

One of the terrible burdens of our time is the so-called freedom to define yourself and to decide for yourself who you are, what you want, and how to live it out.  There was a time when I thought this is what I wanted.  In the end, I found it all exhausting.  It consumed my time and energy until I surrendered to what I had learned from my parents, what I had been taught in church, what I had seen in the lives of my family, and what the Scriptures said.  Thankfully, this journey of so-called self-discovery did not last very long.  The power of the examples around me and my upbringing within a community of faith laid calm on the sea of upset that this supposed liberty offered to me had created.  Sadly, there are too many people for whom the journey had no ending and has no end.  They are caught in the prison of this freedom and nothing else can exist before these basic questions are answered.  This is no gift.  It is a curse.

The sexual revolution said that sex was for everything but marriage and children.  It has become so embedded in our culture and in our lives that it is no longer questioned.  Even worse, the revolution expanded beyond the realm of desire and into a basic question of gender thrust upon the child as well as the adult.  You must figure out not only who turns you on but also who you are -- without DNA or sex organs to inform that decision.  Then you can use all the various forms to prevent the sexual union of man and woman from fulfilling its primary purpose and clean up the mess when it doesn't with a cheap and readily available morning after pill.

Work is no longer simply for the benefit of those in your care and to provide for yourself, it has become encumbered with the need to give us happiness more than purpose.  Our labors must provide us not simply with the needs of this body and life but interest, entertainment, and satisfaction.  Where my grandparents and parents knew almost instinctively who they were and what was the purpose of their lives, my grandchildren will have to treat these questions as a treasure map that might just take the majority of their lives to discover.  Work and money had meaning because of the people within your care -- those for whom you labored in unpleasant and unsatisfying tedium and those who benefited from the dollars the job provided.  But now it is more complicated.

Our children learn this stress too early, their childhoods robbed from by the intrusion of adult sized challenges and puzzles which must be solved before play.  Screens not only provide entertainment but shape the brain to love the search as much as the destination and inform in subtle ways the values and truths no longer built upon fact or faith but expedience.  Anxiety has been our gift to the children we should have insulated from these adult sized fears and questions.

The gift of faith is the gift of peace -- peace that comes first from the answer of who we are and why we are here, the order that shapes our lives not to curse us but to help us fulfill our purpose and find rest from the constant pressures of sex, money, work, entertainment, and happiness.  The rest that our Lord promises is not sleep but an end to the constant questions that prevent sleep and create turmoil where there was meant to be peace.  He gives us this peace, not as the world gives, but as only He can give.  Thanks be to God.  What we have to offer the world is not a restricted life which is bounded by unfair demands but the true and real freedom born of a death to end death and a life strong enough to live forever. 

Was he wrong?

Against the persistent chant of modernism which insists that the Church must change or die, there was a warning sent forth in 1933 by then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (and later Pope Pius XII) against that very thing-- change.  We have lived with the change and the mantra of change for so long we no longer question its veracity or relevance in an age unhinged from its own past.  On so many borders, the problem we have is not tradition but the lack thereof, a nod toward the present that refuses to listen to the past much less be ordered by it.  Yet the Cardinal was closer to the truth than the merchants of transformation whose empty promises of making all things new has only made us forget anything old.

"...the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent."  That is what was set forth in a world soon to be changed right down to its core by rise of Nazism and the brutality of World War II.  Sadly, I do not guess many were listening.  "I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own grave."  How we love innovation!  How we love the idea of dismantling the past and making the present disdainful of it until we are adrift from our moorings both on how we look at Scripture and how we live out its vision of the new life of worship and service.

We do not honor the past because it must be given deference but because we have no promise of being able to see the future but, through the lens of the past, we are able to see the missteps and errors of those felt it was a burden upon their time.  If we had paid a bit more attention, we might be in better shape today.  Since we have not, we have witnessed how we have made the Bible into a dead book of irrelevant facts instead of the living voice of God.  In the same vein, we have decided that relevance and contentment are more important gauges of fidelity than continuity so we reinvent things that we only yesterday invented while insisting the past is as important as myth and not much more.  Finally, we have given value to the idea that the unpredictability of what happens on Sunday morning is a better way to grow the Church and catechize the faithful than liturgy, lectionary, or life together.  Have you ever wondered about the irony of churches which insistently broke ranks with and condemned as false worship the lectionary and liturgy of the past only to become barometers of what is in style and what people will pay for in worship?

The way we have always done things seems to be laughable until you find yourself completely adrift from the anchor of yesterday and completely unequipped to handle the present, much less the future.  Tradition is hardly the ball and chain some presume it to be.  The dead have no veto power over the living because they are dead -- only because they were faithful!  “Tradition,” Jaroslav Pelikan famously said, “is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should  
add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name. The reformers of every age, whether political or religious or literary, have protested against the tyranny of the dead, and in doing so have called is also 
for innovation and insight in place of tradition.” (The Vindication of Tradition, 65).  We certainly offer to the future the best of that which is the present, but it is a gift that is yet untested and therefore not yet worthy of the same esteem as tradition, tested and tried and sifted until it has been deemed faithful from age to age.

Rome is even now reaping its own fruits of its own break with its past following Vatican II.  Lutheranism has found that its own liturgical change has brought an unwelcome diversity in which worship is all over the page.  Others are having their own issues with worship and doctrine -- including the idea that the form can be preserved (creed) but its own words emptied of meaning (e. g. Virgin birth).  It is as if both doctrinally and liturgically some have insisted of the Church, we must kill her to maker her live.

The great evil. . .

In the Pope's first encyclical, he has dismantled the just war theory Christianity has defended for a very long time.  In his mind, it is an antiquated concept no longer in step with the complex and changing reality of the present.  I am sure that the rest of Christianity will be happy to know that Leo has rendered his opinion on this -- except that his opinion counts for a bit more than an opinion.  To some, at least.

I am not at all sure that Rome, with its own history of brutal persecution of those whom it calls heretics or witches or whatever, is in a great position to speak of how justice, dialogue, mutual, sacrifice, and the affirmation of the human dignity of every person.  I guess that is a small thing -- since Leo is about to end the whole idea of war with the power of love.  Perhaps he could apply this locally to the situation in the Middle East, for example.   

As one wag put it, war is often a symptom of evil rather than the evil itself. The problem is that we tend to treat war as the problem in the same way we assign the problem of violence to guns.  Of course they are related but not perhaps in the way some presume.  The evil that set man against man happened long before there were nations and armies.  The first death of Eden happened before a military industrial complex or drug cartels or adultery or a lot of things.  In case the pope forgot.  War is the result of what lives in the heart of man from the departure from Eden to the present.  It may not be politically correct to say that but every Christian theologian worth his salt surely knows the truth of it all.  Or should.  Even Leo has to admit that today, “the highest level is not the State, but rather major economic and technological actors that exercise de facto power over the conditions of everyday life.”  That

He also addresses artificial intelligence.  It should not be served but serve us.  That makes me feel better.  Magnifica Humanitas is about the much larger transformation of human life in our time -- even bigger than war, it would seem.  It is about technology, work, education, truth, communication, political power, economic inequality, war, transhumanism, and the temptation to treat the human person as data, material, or an instrument.  On this we both agree:  AI needs to be governed and not simply regulated.  But it is probably a little late for that statement to make much of a difference.  The world is already in the camp of fear that if the good guys do not develop AI, the bad guys will so every one must take it over and make it work for their cause.  Amid Leo's warning is this odd statement:  "The artificial imitation of positive human communication—words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love—can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful.” Exactly how he does not say.

For Leo, safeguarding human dignity is the criterion for judging what is good and what is not -- even in the sphere of technological development and artificial intelligence.  He is rightly concerned about the risk of moral irresponsibility in the use of artificial intelligence as well he should.  But what remains to be seen is how a dismal record of human violence and war will give way to reason and the power of love when it comes to the implementation of artificial intelligence.  I guess he has more hope than I do.  He apologizes for slavery as if it were his or Christianity's to apologize for and then fails to admit that Silicon Valley is headed full speed while any calls to consider the impact of it all are not even a distraction for the powers that rule AI.  In the end it would be wise to admit that the improvement of the human condition is not exactly the reason for a Savior who suffered and died and rose again.  The redemption of humanity, not the same as its improvement, seems to be God's higher concern.  Leo should know that as well.  Christian thinkers should weigh in on the morality of this technology, to be sure, but our primary concern ought to remain the proclamation of Christ crucified and risen for sinners but not quite for semi-sentient silicon chips.

 

Dropping recognized faiths from the DOD. . .

The Department of Defense, for the first time in almost a decade, dramatically reduced its number of its recognized religious faiths and belief systems by approximately 180.  These reforms mark the first time the list has been officially revised since the March 27, 2017 memo, decreasing the total number of faiths from 211 to its new number of 31. The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, in a memorandum issued by the Under Secretary.

Secretary Hegseth said his department would be significantly streamlining the number of faith code affiliations for service members, including a separate but related change to replace rank insignia military chaplains wear on their work uniforms with religious insignia.  The faith and belief coding system, renamed to "religious affiliation codes,” was simply due to a system that had become too big, according to the secretary.

In what will certainly be claimed is a moved enhancing Christianity, the numbers of faith code affiliations had become inordinately long and complicated.  What it will mean going forward remains to be seen. I am sure we have not heard the last of this.

The new list now only includes: 

Agnostic (AN)
Baha'i faith (BH)
Buddhism (BU)
Christian - Assemblies of God (AG)
Christian - Baptist (BA)
Christian - Brethren (BR)
Christian - Catholic (CA)
Christian - Church of Christ (CC)
Christian - Church of God (CG)
Christian - Church of the Nazarene (CN)
Christian - Episcopal/Anglican (EA)
Christian - Evangelical (EV)
Christian - Jehovah's Witnesses (JW)
Christian - Lutheran (LU)
Christian - Methodist (ME)
Christian - Non Denominational (ND)
Christian - Orthodox (OX)
Christian - Other (CO)
Christian - Pentecostal (PE)
Christian - Presbyterian (PR)
Christian - Quaker (QU)
Christian - Reformed (RE)
Christian - Scientist (SC)
Christian - Seventh Day Adventist (SA)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJ)
Hindu (HI)
Islam (Muslim) (IS)
Judaism (Jewish) (JU)
No Religion (NR)
Other Religions (OR)
Sikh (SI) 

 

From the ear to the eye. . .

In several previous posts I referenced Marshall McLuhan who famously coined the phrases the medium is the message and global village.  In his own estimations the two most profound revolutions for all of civilization were both means of communication: the printing press and the microphone (public address system).  According to McLuhan, these rather ordinary innovations (at least by today's standards) radically changed the world in which we live -- ways that only now, long after their introduction, have had consequences well beyond their own application.  Both of them made language more important than ever before and communication the premier industrial innovation.

With the printing press, language was no longer acoustical.  It was visual.  We hear so much about people being visual learners today but with the advent of this medium of communication.  Although it sounds rather complicated, the reality is revealed in a shift of senses from ear to eye.  As true as this is for everything else, it is equally true for the Church and, in particular, for the liturgy.  

Just like you cannot "see" the tone on a text message or email or printed page but must imagine it, the ear pays great attention to all the contours of the sound -- the inflection in the voice, the tone that is heard, and the volume.  All of these interpret what is heard along with the actual words.  Thanks to the invention of print technology and its evolution to the present day, we more narrowly focus on language itself than the fuller experience of hearing.  The microphone or public address system has amplified the power of words in a strange way.  Though the emphasis is on hearing, the print more often accompanies what is heard.  In the liturgy, for example, the worship folder or mass leaflet or printed readings accompany what is heard and, indeed, the importance of the ear is minimized by the printing of all of the words that are also heard.

This has had profound impact on the liturgy.  Is it no secret that, as McLuhan posited, “the demand for a vernacular liturgy arose spontaneously in the sixteenth century, but it isn’t so. In fact, that demand was linked to the invention of print, an invention that accentuated people’s need to push towards individualism and nationalism. Add to that the fact that printed texts gave rise to textual exegesis from the pulpit. And finally, the new accent on the visual favored placing the celebrant face to face with the congregation: we needed to see him and he wanted to be seen.”  No one but a fool would suggest that Luther and even Rome did not exploit the new technology of the printing press in their respective causes.  It is obvious that the printed pamphlets of the 16th century actors advanced their positions or that the sermon took on a greater power than ever before.  But the need for worship to be understood appealed to the visual influence of the printed word well beyond the acoustical.  Prior to the Reformation, people watched what they could and heard the sound track of the chant but in a language that was not their own.  After the Reformation, people heard the sound of the liturgy in their own language and the focus was more on the printed word than it had ever been before.  

Now we have a microphone on the altar as well in the pulpit.  It would seem that this contradicts the move to visual from oral and yet by making clearly heard and even explained in print, the shape of the liturgy changed from an encounter with the mystery of God's presence to an appeal to the mind proving rational propositions of truth designed to gain acceptance or even a decision.  It is no secret that this is true of the churches of the radical reformation but it could be said that it is also a true of Lutheranism, decidedly not a radical reformation church, or even Rome itself (especially after Vatican II).

This is part one of a look at this topic.  More to come.