Everyone has a voice -- even God!

The value attached to diversity requires that everyone has a say or at least an opinion -- except, of course, where that opinion violates public standards or is deemed offensive.  Modern societies define themselves on the basis of how well diversity is practiced and how broad the diversity within the parameters of what is deemed the public good.  Even churches have come to define diversity as an element of the Gospel and almost a mark of authenticity.  Why else would their be the constant scrutiny given to how white or how diverse the membership is or how broad the latitude given to dissent or doctrinal disagreement?  We present ourselves as Christians as models of toleration and abhor the hierarchies that would rein in any disagreement or dissent from the doctrine confessed and the practice sanctioned.  Even in a church body like Missouri there is push back against too much uniformity and there is an inherent stripe of rebellion against the idea that we march in lock step the walk of the Synod.

Everywhere everyone has a voice. We give the same honor to personal experiences and individual preference as we would fact or universal truth.  That voice is a mixture of feelings and facts that makes it hard to forge the unity once the hallmark of the Church's identity.  Those who favor such insist that this is evidence of the pastoral character of the Church, not dogmatic (bad word) community but a pastoral one.  We even speak of pastoral liturgy as if worship were more about the worshiper than the One worshiped.  We do not give much more than a momentary nod to the faith and practice of those who went before us except, of course, to prooftext our own deviation from the norms of doctrine and life.  We act as if we were the first Christians, the ones still forming from the fluid diversity of the moment any norms for the future and too often fail to acknowledge that we are those lately come who have inherited a massive witness of faith and practice from those who went before us.

It seems that even God has one voice in this conversation but not a final voice or even a definitive one.  We seem to be perfectly comfortable with the contradiction of view and practice that violates not simply tradition but even the clear word of Scripture.  We find it rather easy to suggest that what others have said uniformly about the Scriptures and what they mean does not apply today and we are free to suggest new and novel interpretations of the Bible which do not conflict with modern norms and values and morals.  Indeed, because God's voice is only one voice among the many voices heard, His voice has almost no authority at all anymore.  That is the consequence of a diversity in which no voice is given priority over others and all voices are equal.  The function of tradition is to preserve the voice of God and the voices of those in the past who have given witness to the unchanging testimony of His voice.  When the present takes priority over the past and God's voice is but one of the many voices heard, every age reinvents itself and every Christianity is reinvented to fit that self.  It ends up being a state of all things being new but with a newness that no longer holds the promise of eternity.  It is for this reason that diversity and everyone a voice cannot is not a mark of the Church nor a sign of its catholicity and apostolicity.  Yet this is what liberal and progressive Christianity has left us -- God must vie for our attention as one of many voices and without any deference given to those who went before us, we end up deciding if God's voice fits us and our times and so will be heard or if God's voice will be dismissed without fear.  So tell that to a room that finds any hierarchy of voices suspect or wrong.

Looking for blame. . .

There are probably many reasons for some of the problems facing the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod today but it has become rather fashionable to look as much for someone to blame as it has for real solutions.  It is tiresome to me that some of the typical culprits in these scenarios have been overplayed to the point where too many actually believe that these are the real reasons for our lack of growth or the problem of filling pulpits.

I am tired of hearing the blame placed upon small congregations.  I am weary of those who spill ink and vitriol against congregations they believe should be closed or merged because they are consuming too much of Synod's resources of both money and pastors and serving too few people.  How odd it is that we have made these small congregations the bane of our existence as if the Word and Sacrament was deserved more by large communities of people than small!  Sure, we have lots of small parishes and so do many denominations these days.  While I suppose there are those who can and maybe should close, the reality is that they are not the reason for a pastor shortage nor are they taking pastors away from places where they might better serve.  Most of these very small congregations do not depend upon full-time pastors but have tapped into the market of retired pastors and those on candidate status or those who are serving in non-parish situations.  You could close them all and it would not free up a ton of pastors to fill the vacant pulpits we have.

Furthermore, many of these congregations are not simply small but isolated and do not have close or reasonably close options for their people if they were to close.  The rural landscape of America has seen an overall decline in people and this is part of the reason these parishes are small.  It is not that they have failed to keep their people or win new converts but the pool of people is diminishing every year as the towns in which they have been planted grow ever smaller.  My own hometown is one such example.  The school is small, main street is deserted, and the population is aging.  This is not due to bad people or bad planning but mechanized agriculture, the fruits of technology, and less need for boots on the ground, so to speak.  The small congregations are surviving because they are serving the population that remains and working hard and creatively struggling to find solutions.  While some dual or triple or even quadruple congregation share a pastor, that presents its own particular need for a certain kind of pastor and sharing arrangements not always possible or beneficial.  God bless them when they work but these are not the end all solutions for every circumstance.

Some think that merging congregations is the answer to all the problems.  Is it wrong to expect that people's loyalties to congregations where they have worshiped for many generations, have multi-generations of family members buried in the parish cemeteries attached to these congregations, or have been taught and believed that this was their church where they belonged for many years could be transferred to other places?  Should we be punishing them for their loyalty and devotion?  Is such loyalty and devotion to buildings or is it to the heritage and history of people who have taught them the faith and and passed on the sacred deposit to another generation?  Should we expect that loyalty is easily shifted to a new place and that all the history and legacy they felt for one identity should be quickly surrendered to be attached to another place?  Ask the legions of Roman Catholic parishes which have merged over the years only to find that the merged parish was empty of the fierce loyalties and associations that were not so suddenly transferred because administrative reasons justified it.  We want our people to be loyal and devoted to the places where they receive God's gifts so should we treat those places as mere access points for such grace?  Merging may work in some places and may not work in others.  It can be useful but will not fix all the problems.

Pastors are sometimes blamed for being unwilling to go where they are needed or for expecting fair compensation as they support their families.  Are those pastors the problem because they have familial ties to certain regions or concerns for the places where they must raise their children?  I am writing as someone who has never served any a congregation closer than a two day drive to my family or a one day drive to my wife's family.  It was a sacrifice to be that far away from parents and grandparents, siblings and extended family and not to be free on the holidays when others would travel home.  There is no denying that it costs the pastor and his family something.  If I had gotten a call closer, who knows if I would have taken it.  But I didn't and yet I am not quite ready to blame every pastor who considers the family factor in their decision to accept or decline a call.  Neither am I willing to condemn pastors who take into the consideration the availability and cost of housing in the calls they receive.  It is a real factor of life for a church body in which parsonages are probably now more the exception than the rule and areas in need of pastors which have housing costs beyond what typical pastors can afford will need to find creative solutions to that problem.

What I am saying is this.  Don't blame small congregations or the pastors and their families for the problems of decline or the pastoral shortage in the LCMS.  Instead of looking for someone to blame, we need to look for answers and solutions to serve all the places where we have parishes and to help them grow as much as they are able.  Along with convenient scapegoats mentioned above, we would be wise not to blame doctrine or the liturgy as the reasons for our lack of growth, shortage of pastors, or struggles as a church body.  For what it is worth, I do not believe all the statistics that say that non-denominational evangelical congregations are the only ones doing better.  In a culture of people looking for transcendency, it is hardly logical to conclude that churches that give people what they say they want over truth are going to win any of the battles before us.  But some of these are probably fodder for another post on another day.

For whom the bell tolls. . .

I lifetime ago a member of my first parish had died and the family was looking for a fitting memorial.  They had a connection to an electronic carillon company and so it was settled that we were getting a carillon.  Well, it was not really a carillon but a player that played tapes of bells over a loudspeaker set up on the steeple of the church.  We were thrilled, however.  At first we had it playing every hour with a hymn and then we toned it down to a bell on the quarter hours and an extended bell on the hour with a full hymn at 9 am, 12 Noon, and 6 pm.  We thought it was great.  Apparently a neighbor did not.  Although you could not hear it everywhere, it did carry through the very small town and even out in the country.  It carried too well for some ears.  They complained.  To their credit, the town officials did not bother with the complaint.  We were hurt, however, that anyone would have the audacity to complain about a church bell.

Forward about 30 years and my last parish got two real bells on a bell tower with ropes that had to be pulled and with the sound not of a loudspeaker amplifying something but an authentic sound piercing the neighborhood.  We rang it only for worship and funerals.  It did not ring hourly nor did it sound out a familiar pattern.  Just a couple of bells at different pitches, sounding better or worse according to the guy who was pulling the ropes.  I do not know if anyone has complained.  The neighborhood is already loud with the sound of a five lane highway in front of the Church, motorcycles speeding down the asphalt, ambulance, firetruck, and police sirens, and the occasional truck using the engine to brake.  The bell probably gets lost in all that noise.  I am sure that somewhere somebody is thinking I wish they would stop ringing that dang bell.  Oh, well.

We do not hear bells much anymore.  The noises of a busy life and crowded roads have taken over and bells have fallen out of favor—even in churches.  It is secular noise without the intrusion of the sacred.  I am sad about that.  I think back to the small city of Hudson, NY, across the river by the same name from where I served.  At one point, it had 8 different Lutheran congregations (from Estonian and Latvian to German to groups that broke off for one reason or another).  Now but one Lutheran remains and it was a break off group that managed to survive.  The others do not even have buildings to remind us of their past anymore.  Once, however, they had steeples and bells along with the other Christian churches in that small but very old city.  Even the Roman Catholic parishes were divided—Italian, German, Polish, Irish, etc... Now those steeples are quiet and with that silence comes another sadness as we remember what was and is no more.  The once thriving ethnic congregations and those who broke off for real theological reasons and not simply because they could not get along with the pastor all had bells to sing out their presence.  Now there is the awkward silence of mergers, consolidations, closures, and demolished buildings. 

The sound of Christianity has exited America with the buildings and communities that once thrived in them.  We are too enlightened to let ethnicity or language or culture or even doctrine divide us anymore.  Strangely enough, the forced marriages of need or aspiration inevitably led to decline and not to success.  That is certainly the track record of Lutherans.  With all our grand plans has come the tragic reality that the bell tolls no more in most places—except in memory.  Kingdom building did not lead to victory but to defeat and Christians are struggling to remain orthodox and to remain a presence anymore.  The greater sadness is that too many who once appreciate churches and what they did are relieved by the silence and the faded echos of their presence on the streets, roads, and boulevards of America.  I wonder if it would have been different if we were not so apologetic about presence, about the sound of that presence in bells and in conviction, and about passing on that legacy more proudly to those who followed us.  I would like to think so.

There are communities still flourishing—and not simply the ones who have turned their churches into living rooms filled with people seeking entertainment along with their inspiration.  I was privileged to be a part of two of those.  They each grew during the time I was there (though I am not taking credit for that).  They were intentional communities of faith, keeping their conviction vibrant and their confession of doctrine full, along with a faithful practice of our liturgical maximums.  At this point they remain strong, filled with the sounds of people, babies crying, instruments playing, kneelers dropping, choirs singing, hymns sung with gusto, chant and, yes, with bells.  We do what we can to make sure that we are not too quiet.  I hope we are all doing that. 

 

Good camera work, great subject material. . .

I happened to run across this link to a spectacular set of photos from Peter Li whose work capturing the sacred spaces of England and other lands is simply amazing.  You can look at it here although there may be other websites to showcase his gift and the wonderful churches he photographs.  The subject material of the camera is itself amazing space.  Beauty is certainly not an end in and of itself for Christians but why on earth would beauty not be an ally and component of faithful Christian worship?

If there is a cause for beauty, is not that cause the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  At one time the Church was not simply the place for art and beauty but its patron and cause.  I fear that age has escaped us.  It is hard to justify spending money on beauty when construction budgets exceed plans and dollars are short and the urgent need for missions ever present in each spending decision.  We seem to have forgotten that we ought to be building not for a moment but for a long span of time in which the faithful will be gathered into that space, nurtured there in Word and Sacrament, and children raised up into the faith.  We seem to have forgotten that the Church is not simply another place where beauty lives but the place where an exclusive beauty lives -- the beauty of that which serves the Word in the same way music does.  The Word can have several servants and we need not choose.  The glory of song and instrument along with the glory of art and beauty (even in ceremony!) raise us up from ourselves to behold in eye what the ear hears.

While it might be nice to be able to build a space from the ground up, there is no more urgent cause than to make the structures we have serviceable to the liturgy and a gift to the eye while the people gather around the Word and Table of the Lord.  It can be done.  It is being done -- though not often enough.  We have a gift to give the world and Christ has entrusted that gift to us to preach and teach and also to present in visual form.  Let us raise the eye to God, give testimony to the voice of the Gospel in the beauty of the place where that Gospel has called us, where the Spirit works to enlighten and sanctify us, and where we receive the gifts that nowhere else can be found. 

20,000 babies or none. . .

In 2020, actress Michelle Williams stood on the stage of the Golden Globes to receive accolades for her performance and in her speech she described the abortion that had allowed her the chance to choose her career instead of motherhood.  It was heralded at the time as a political call to action for those places where abortions are not freely accessible and gave thanks that she lived where abortions were freely accessible.  Not being one to watch such events, I probably did not comment on it at the time.  It was more of the drivel that passes for feminist propaganda in a world where it has become normal among the elite, the educated, and the economically gifted.  Sacrificing children on the altar of fame, as the video put it, was and, perhaps, still is a sacred tenet of the woke.  How odd it was then when I found out after another such event six years later that an actress used her moment in the sun to laud motherhood.

Ironically, the headlines draw attention to her as the first Irish actress to win an Oscar—not to her own testament to motherhood, to her want to have more babies with her husband, and to her wish to spend her future helping her daughter discover the wonder of life.  I guess that part of it was not news but it should be.  For a long time now, motherhood has been portrayed as a curse, a drain on ambition, a sacrifice of career, and, worst of all, the loss of your very identity and personhood.  Daughters were listening and so were sons.  Now we live in a world in which the fertility rate in the US is about 1.6 children per woman (below the replacement rate of 2.1), and, lower still in most of Europe—around 1.2 to 1.5 in countries like Italy and Spain. 2026 will likely see for the first time deaths exceed births in the UK.  Nearly everywhere it is accepted that women choose not to have children, regret having them, or are embittered because of the sacrifice having a child means to their careers and perceived success in those careers.  Could it be that this is changing?  At least that the other narrative is being challenged?

There was one more thing.  The same kind of crowd that erupted in applause in 2020 for the pro-abortion speech erupted in applause for this tribute to motherhood.  Were they simply being nice or were they realizing that the old narrative was crashing down upon everything as birth rates drop and the world looks at the graying of the population as being the face of our future?  I could say a great deal about this in terms of Christian faith and life but I will let this stand for now.  

 

  

When death is merely a choice. . .

On December 30, 2025, Canadian law allowing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was invoked to oversee the euthanasia of 26 year old Kiano Vafaeian. The young man was in no immediate health emergency and his only medical conditions were diabetes, lost vision in one eye and seasonal depression.  Yet these conditions were enough to allow the authorities to approve the procedure.  While series, especially the diabetes, none of these conditions was at the point of death considered life-threatening.  In fact, millions of people live productive and useful lives with some form of limited vision, including losing the use of one eye, with seasonal depression, and, according to the government, one in ten Canadians over 20 has been diagnosed with diabetes.  

The Canadian government lists five conditions on MAiD.  Four are relatively pro forma: a person must be over eighteen, make a voluntary request, give informed consent, and be eligible for treatment under Canada’s socialized medicine scheme.  The other criterion is less straight forward—the patient must have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” The illness, disease or disability must be serious. The patient must also be in an irreversible and advanced state of decline. Additionally, the individual must “experience unbearable physical or mental suffering.”  Finally, the suffering cannot be relieved in a way that the patient finds acceptable.  It may be relieved by treatment, medication, surgery, etc., but if the patient finds the treatment unacceptable, then the disease automatically qualifies the patient for MAiD.

Since most of you do not live in Canada, you may be wondering why this matters to you.  First of all, it is a matter of degree.  What happens in Canada is, in large measure, what is under consideration in the more liberal states of the US although we are typically years behind the implementation of such.  In other words, it is coming our way.  As of 2026, assisted death, also known as physician-assisted suicide or medical aid in dying, is legal in fourteen U.S. jurisdictions: California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. These laws allow terminally ill adults to request and receive medication to end their lives peacefully.  Things are generally moving in Canada's direction here as well.  At some point, the word terminally will be changed to reflect the judgment of the individual that whatever the illness, the treatment is deemed unacceptable to the patient and euthanasia is requested.  That day is coming and perhaps is already now having its foundation laid in public law and public opinion.  After all, we have already decided that it is okay to abort a fetus to prevent them from even being born into a life that the mother has deemed not worth living.  How long will it take to extend that privilege to those already born?

Framing the whole thing with a word other than euthanasia or assisted suicide only increases the chance of this becoming acceptable in law and in the mind of the populace.  Death with dignity is one such phrase used to mask what is really being requested and really being done.  It always helps if you use the word choice somewhere in the title or explanation as well.  In any case, it is worth keeping a look out for this issue to become normal in the thinking of people and the crafting of laws.  Imagine that -- we judge death normal but God decides it must be answered with the power of life and the resurrection!

An indecent world. . .

As if our world could not be more in need of common sense and common decency, an appeals court last month decided that biological men should be permitted to enter an all-female spa that serves a clientele of females ages 13 and up.  In Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Washington state can indeed enforce an anti-discrimination law to allow a biological man to enter the spa if he identifies as a woman. The Korean-inspired women’s spa limited admission to females only because its services involve full nudity for Korean scrubs, communal bathing, saunas, and massages.  The Washington State Human Rights Commission then entered into the picture alleging that the spa violated the state’s public accommodation law and the Washington Law Against Discrimination.  Whereupon, a three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit dismissed the spa’s First Amendment arguments for free exercise of religion and freedom of association in a May 2025 ruling.  Then, in March, the 9th Circuit this week denied a rehearing in the case by the full bench.  One dissented from this denial, insisting that the “supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds.”  I might add, so has the Washington State Human Rights Commission and anyone who holds with them.  It is the triumph of absurdity and stupidity in the name of an ideology masquerading as civil rights and has pretty much sealed the deal that we live in an indecent world in which such absurdity triumphs over decency and common sense every day of the week.  In a decent society, it is common sense that women and girls require privacy in their intimate spaces. 

I am amazed that this had to be argued under the cause of free exercise of religion and freedom of association.  Whether that is the law or not, there was a time in which decency was presumed and that was enough to prevent minors from being exposed to nudity without their consent or the consent of the adults in whose care they reside.  But not now.  It would seem that the Washington State Human Rights Commission and the 9th Circuit have decided that there is no such thing as decency or the protection of the minor and that the supposed female in possession of male genitalia has rights greater than any other in such a case.  I am not pointing this out so that people can be outraged -- I am writing about this because it proves the absurdity of our legal system without a hint of reason, common sense, or decency in pursuit of an absolute ideal that would require the surrender of all of this for the sake of male genitalia.  In other words, the supposed female with male genitalia has a right to be seen that is greater than the rights of anyone to privacy.  Again, truth is always stranger than fiction.  While I am fairly certain this will be overturn, the mere fact that it could be decided almost proves the entire point of the problems we have with the American judicial system today.  

 

 

A curious problem. . .

From what I have read, Rome is on its way to excommunicate the SSPX, a traditionalist group promoting the Latin Mass and, it would seem, uncertain about Vatican II.  The issue is over their decision to go forward with the consecration of a bishop or bishops in July of this year.  Apparently most everyone is sure that this is what is going to happen although at least one bishop is urging everyone to slow down.  So the point being made is that if the SSPX consecrates a bishop who had not received approval or endorsement from the pope.

What is curious to me and, I would think, a problem in Rome is that this is already a practice.  Rome has granted to China the authority to decide on its own who will be bishops of the Chinese version of the Roman Church.  There is supposed to be some sort of dialog or conversation between China's governmental minions and Rome but that has not been the case.  China has gone ahead and decided for Rome who will be the bishops and Rome seems not to make a fuss over it.  Curious to me is that Rome has decided the Chinese version of the Catholic Church is more important to them than the traditionalists across the world who prefer the Latin Mass.  It is not just the Mass, however, but a group intent on being more Roman than just about anybody else in the Roman Catholic Church -- in doctrine and practice.  They are not important but a Chinese faction intent upon being as little Roman as possible is definitely the preference of the leadership.  How odd!

But, of course, it is not odd.  That is typically how things have gone in Christianity for some time.  Take the Anglicans, for example.  They find the problem people to be not those who question the Bible or nearly everything creedal or confessional but those who take it all as seriously as they can.  Globally, Anglicans are divided between those who want to be Anglican and those who like the name but not the doctrine once called Anglican.  Or the Methodists.  Remember, that the United Methodists disunited not because some wanted to push the boundaries of Christian belief or Methodist identity but because some wanted to keep it.  The conservatives had to go.  Not the liberals but the conservatives were the bridge too far.  Lutherans have the same story.  Those who like the name but who pick apart the Confessions and minimize the Catechism and who are content to live outside the tradition claim the high ground and the conservatives are seen as the problem child of Lutheranism.  Wow.  When did this happen?  How? Why?

A long time ago I said that the most dangerous Christian of all is the one who truly believes and intends to live within orthodox and catholic Christianity.  I wish it was a problem for all of us but it does not seem to be so.  Those who live on the liberal and progressive side of Christianity have claimed the high road in this battle and made the conservatives look petty, small, and narrow minded.  How strange it is to be the ones who pay attention to the words, creeds, confessions, and liturgies of the Church as normal and normative and then be asked to leave or shown the door.  But there it is.  It has happened nearly everywhere across Christianity.  Maybe the Pope will back away from Francis and closer to Benedict but I doubt he will do much more than slow the drift to the left that seems impossible to stop.  In every Christian tradition, the conservatives have become the bad guys and those who take the faith with a grain of salt have become the good guys.  Maybe the SSPX will be excommunicated or maybe not but I think we have all seen the handwriting on the wall.  Zealots are not welcome in Christianity and zealot simply means those who pay attention to the words of Jesus, believe in the facts of the Scriptures, confess the doctrine drawn from them, and practice consistently with that faith.

He did not die right away. . .

While ruminating upon the account of the Fall, it occurred to me that things in the garden did not quite go as expected.  At least as Adam and Eve had expected. Life in the garden had but one grave restriction: "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden," God said, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17, ESV)  You shall surely die.  But Adam did not and neither did Eve.  At least not right away.

Adam’s was not the original rebellion -- not in the sense of Eve only but in the context of the rebellious spirits in Heaven.  Adam was not the first sinner.  Eve's bite had preceded Adam's and there might have been a chance for Adam not to follow Eve in this sin.  But that did not happen.  Adam did eat.  He ate with Eve and together they incurred the full weight of the words of warning God had given to them.  But they did not die.  At least not yet did they die.

It would have been a relief to Adam if he had died, right there in mid bite.  It would probably have been a relief to Eve as well.  If sin were accompanied by the immediate death that ended the opportunity to sin more or sin again, it would have been a relief.  He did not die in the sense that at that moment of sin his life was required of him but Adam did die.  He died the slow and agonizing death replete with guilt and shame and the constant re-enactment of his act and of his plight in his mind.  Day after day it played out.  First in the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden that had been their delight and their downfall.  Then in the labor that turned marriage from simple gift into burden and work.  Then in the labor that brought for a child's voice amid Eve's cry of pain.  Then in the labor that toiled against the ground, the insects, the weather, and the blight that fought against every seed put into the ground.  Then in children who grew up to challenge instead of follow.  Then in clans who divided up and competed for nearly everything.  Finally in the threat of death that turned time into a precious commodity and made every ache or pain into a warning shot that today might be the day.

Worse, the death that would have been a relief if it had come at that moment turned Adam into an agent of death -- a murderer as well as one who had been murdered by the king of lies, enticed into the shadow from the light.  Eve had been murdered by the devil and she had murdered Adam by taking him into her sin and when he made it his own she was relieved of the guilt or as much of its as she could be.  This is what Jesus said.  “He was a murderer from the beginning (ap’ arches)” (John 8:44).  The sinners who live as the sons and daughters of the rebellion no longer imitate the God who made them but showed in their words and actions that they belonged to the devil.  “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning (ap’ arches).” (1 John 3:8)  Oh, it would have been so much easier if Adam had simply ceased to breathe and fell into a clump of bones and flesh in which the breath of life no longer lived.  But that is not what happened.

Adam and Eve and all that were born of them through the ages and generations became sons of the devil until Christ released them and redeemed them.  Only in Christ are the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve set free from death and free from the curse of being agents and instruments of that death upon others.  It was not simply a rebellion that came with consequences but a mark on the soul of man.  The Fall of man came not from an instant of death but from death occupying his very soul and the deception that lured Adam and Eve in came at a cost of their very selves.  Only when another would come to wear their flesh and to live without this guilt and shame could redemption become possible.  Only when Christ set free those marked for ownership of another, to live as an agent of death and murder, and under the shadow of death for themselves -- only then could salvation come to the dead.  We did not need a Savior like we thought we imagined but someone who rescue us body and soul, setting us from from the dominion of one who is only death to the One who is only Life.

How are we using AI?

After seeing the umpteenth AI generated profile pic that was cartoonish or pop art, I am beginning to wonder about all of the promises the proponents of AI have made.  We have been told that artificial intelligence will relieve the workers of mind numbing repetitive tasks of assembly lines and manufacturing.  We have been told that AI will drive trucks more safely than people and transport people better than the cabs and ubers we have depended upon for a long time.  We have been told that AI will be able to do the dull tasks of computer data entry and routine evaluation to allow the people the freedom to do more (what that more is, we do not exactly know).  We have been given so many promises that this thinking technology will do for us but so far it has not exactly delivered on those promises.

We can use it to create cute memes and profile pics to make us look cool or better than real life.  We can use it to create research papers we either forgot to do or never intended to do for ourselves.  We can use it to manufacture pictures and videos of nature and events which seem to be real but we all know are not.  We can adjust the records of reality to suit our politics or to insulate us from liability.  We can do all of these things but in the end we find ourselves struggling to know what was AI and what was real.  It has left us with a great question mark over things that were once rather easy to count upon as real -- whether we like that reality or not.

I am reminded of the great promises of the internet and social media.  And of the disappointments that have accompanied each.  All the power and possibility of the world wide web has been squandered on porn and scam artists.  In the same way, the hopes and dreams of social media have been dashed on the rocks of bigotry, hate, bullying, and predatory behaviors that now make us want to protect our children from it all and somehow figure out how we can survey it all without being hurt.  Yes.  There was a time when we thought it would help our isolation and call us out of our depression or ease the ever present fears.  So much for that.  Instead we have seen all of these increase with every advance of the platforms designed to relieve the problems.

In the Church what began as a curiosity has probably developed into a bad habit.  We use AI to invent reviews to make us look better than we are, to create sermons and Bible studies when we were pressed for time, and to figure out what the nones and unchurched are looking for in a congregation.  Is AI helping or hurting the Church and her mission?  These are the questions we ought to be asking of ourselves and of the way we have been so quick to think that technology has answers to the problems we face as Church.  

There are great questions for the world outside the Church as well.  What about the tremendous demands laid upon our power grid or the data centers being planned for across the nation?  How many windmills does it take to plug in all the drives and fuel the memory modules that AI will require of us?  Sadly, there is probably more interest in this side of things than the morality of it all or the confusion that has left us unable to decide what is created and what is real.  The Church ought to have a voice in this conversation.  What is moral and right and salutary about the use of AI is precisely our realm -- if we can back away from it all enough to think about it.  Under all of the moral challenges is the question of how we use our time and whether AI helps us to do something more noble with our time or squander it before the broken promises of screens.  Until this happens, I fear we will waste more time on AI generated goofiness.   

A lifetime ago, my small town in Nebraska was filled with business and farms and kids and life.  Today the main drag is a ghost town.  There will come a time when you will not be able to buy a gallon of milk in town much less the groceries, clothing, lumber, hardware, produce, meat, paint, tackle, cars, farm implements, and everything else needed for everyday life then and now.  Amazon has replaced the local businesses and the big chains now provide what we need -- albeit 30-50 miles away from where folks live.  Is it better?  Has life improved?  I fear that one day we will awaken and what big box chains and delivery to the door has done to small towns will happen when AI takes control.  I am not trying to be prophetic but to suggest that we ought to be more concerned about this side of things and not just if it works.  

Tears win the day. . .

A little over a year ago, the then first female Bishop of London broke down in tears at the Church of England's General Synod, describing the 'micro-aggressions' and institutional barriers women face in the Church of England.  It is noteworthy, of course, because she is no longer the Bishop of London.  Sarah Mullally is the Archbishop of Canterbury.  She was addressing her contention that two of the six people from each local bishop recruitment committee responsible for choosing the Archbishops of Canterbury and York need to be women.  At that point she said: 'I would love to trust people to do the right thing but the truth is that women continue to be underrepresented.'   And, 'I would love to encourage women, which I do all the time, but there continues to be institutional barriers, we continue to experience microaggressions.'  Mullally had to pause and turn away from the podium twice to recover herself as she was overcome with tears.  She received a standing ovation from mostly women, joined by a few men. 

Tears won that day and, as evidenced by her choice as Archbishop of Canterbury. tears have continued to win.  Her argument did not have to stand up to scrutiny.  Her point did not have to be won on the ground of reason or truth.  It won on emotion alone.  Tears have the power to overcome nearly everything.  I am not at all suggesting that this is a female problem or one exclusive to the Church of England.  Just the opposite.  Tears come from all sides but especially from those who have no argument worth winning the day  It has become a new form of bullying.  We have cyber bullying but we also have the bullying of tears, of pure emotion and sentiment.  Tears, accompanied with a righteous outrage, have become a powerful tool in winning the day over a host of issues.  Anger and tears seem to be the currency of the liberal and progressive wing of things in particular.  When you cannot triumph on the basis of ideas alone, tears and righteous anger have the power to sway the people when your ideas and reason have failed you.

The danger here is that arguments and debates should be realms in which reason and fact have all the power.  Such sentimentality is a particular problem because it does not need truth or fact to win the hearts of the hearers.  Such sentimentality has the power to change not only society but the basis on which anything and everything is decided.  Victimization is adept at using tools that triumph over fact and truth and reason and there is no better victim than a tearful one.  Emotion has become the primary argument and the basis for deciding things that were once determined on the basis of truth and fact -- even when decided wrongly.   Emotion has become the ultimate good and final distinction on which all judgment is based.  Even gender is about how we feel and about our righteous indignation over those who would deny us.  But not all emotions are good.  When did we forget this?  Resentment against the injustices we feel were done to us has become the ultimate motivation in nearly every realm.  

Science refuses the inconvenient facts which contradict the narrative that has been adopted.  The need for justice or, better, revenge clouds nearly every purpose and want.  We seem to respect and reward those who are angry, who express their loud resentment of injustice, and who scatter their words with raw emotion most of all.  Passion is a wonderful thing but it does not redeem arguments without basis in fact or truth.  Indeed, it is the height of the new bullying that is happening on university campuses and even in religions today.  It is certainly this that is helping to unravel the common life of our culture and society and it has already done a very fine job of defining our political views and voting habits.  It has also worked very hard to afflict the Church and to create a way in which some Christians can without hesitation effectively overrule the truth of Scriptures and the consistent doctrine of the faithful from the get go.  Passion is not a bad thing but it cannot be a good thing when it robs truth and reason and fact from having their own stature and authority within the conflicts and disputes of Christianity.  When and where that happens, we have already begun to lose the Scriptures and silence the real voice of God.

Who said it first?

St. Pius X (born June 2, 1835, Riese, Venetia, then of the Austrian Empire now in Italy—died August 20, 1914, Rome, Italy; canonized May 29, 1954; feast day August 21) was the Italian pope who reigned from 1903 to 1914.  Known for his staunch political and religious conservatism, he was ordained in 1858, made bishop in 1884, cardinal and patriarch of Venice in 1893, and pope in 1902.  His eucharistic decrees eased the regulations governing daily communion, and his revival of the Gregorian plainsong and his recasting of the breviary and of the missal were important liturgical reforms. His decision to adapt and systematize canon law led to the publication of the new code in 1917, effective in 1918. His reorganization of the Curia modernized the church’s central administration, including a codification of the conclave.  He advanced the Liturgical Movement by formulating the principle of participatio actuosa (active participation of the faithful) in his motu proprio, Tra le sollecitudini (1903).  In his illuminating document, Tra le Sollecitudini, Pope Pius X writes, “Sacred music, being an integral part of the solemn liturgy, participates in its general scope… but its purpose is to add greater efficacy to the text… music is merely a part of the liturgy and its humble handmaid.” (TLS 23) 

However, coming 350 years before Pius X, there was another voice speaking similarly of music.  Instead of merely accentuating the role of music to the liturgy, this individual insisted that music was a servant of God's Word and theology.  In his profound remark, Martin Luther emphasizes the immense value of music, stating, "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world." This quote encapsulates Luther's profound appreciation for the power and significance of music in society.  Even more profound, however, is Luther's other quote.  "Music is a handmaid of theology."  Luther's Latin preface is in some respects an expanded version of his "Frau Musica" poem, in prose rather than verse. Of the Protestant reformers around his time, it is only Luther unhesitatingly commended the use of music in the life and worship of the church and who articulates something that might be presumed from some in Rome but had not been addressed in such way before.

Do you suppose Pius X read it first in Luther?  Were they both drawing on similar points within the theological and liturgical tradition of the West, each in their own time?  Or could it be that each saw this differently and separately but articulated it in remarkably parallel terms and ways.  In any case, their successor communities of faith seem to have forgotten these words.  For some in Rome, the hymn either does not matter all that much at all and can be disposable song.  The great hymns of Roman tradition and the great hymns of the Christian West overall have been replaced with pop songs and eminently forgettable hymns written not as handmaid to either the liturgy or theology but reflections of the moment which can and probably should be forgotten as time goes on and the song is replaced.  For others in Rome, the congregational hymn has no place at all in the liturgy (Latin Mass folk).  For Lutherans it is not much different.  Those who separate style from substance find cause to introduce pop songs for the moment and musical styles that agitate against their sacred usage because they are not all that important after all and those who insist that only the Lutheran chorale should be used have narrowed their acceptable choice to a very small pool because they are too sacred to be added to in the present day or to borrow from anyone outside the Lutheran tradition.  In either case, both Rome and Wittenberg seem to have forgotten Pius and Luther.  

Looksmaxxing. . .

Do you ever have a day when something comes up in front of your screen and you have never heard of it before but it turns out to be stranger than you could have imagined?  So it was when an article in The Spectator (US edition) came to me with the title The Homoeroticism of Looksmaxxing.  What does that even mean?  Truth is stranger than fiction, as we all know only too well.

Apparently, looksmaxxing has become an online subculture fad that considers itself a form of self-improvement but actually is more like a cult for young, impressionable men still forming their identity and the high chieftain of this cult is a twenty something Tik Tok sensation who has his own oddities and affectation.  Meet Clavicular, real name Braden Peters, who has become the face of “looksmaxxing,” an  internet sensation who seems to have developed it into a religion or at least a belief systems — he teaches boys that their self-worth is about their appearance and that it is visible, measurable, and correctable through altering that physical appearances. Plastic surgery anyone?  So for the novice and those without deep pockets, looksmaxxing might resemble rather conventional self-care: skincare routines, time at the gym with a trainer, grooming helps, and such. But take it further and it enters the dark world of hormone (especially testosterone) injections, unregulated peptides, and pseudosciences such as “bone-smashing,” which is an attempt to shape facial bones by repeatedly striking the face with blunt objects.  I told you truth was stranger than fiction.

Looksmaxxing teaches boys to measure their worth by appearance, to distrust their bodies as they are and to treat them as a canvas for improvement, and to see masculinity as an external self-improvement toward an impossible goal. You want to know what happens when dating, marriage, having children, working to support a family, and providing for those you love at some cost to yourself disappears.  Looksmaxxing.  That is what happens.  In a desperate pursuit of meaning and purpose, our boys are turning inward but only as shallow as appearance.  Are we concerned?  It used to be an unkept boy in sweat pants and a tee shirt living in his parent's basement, stealing their internet, and living for video games but it has become now a crazy pursuit of an aesthetic ideal of appearance without concern for the cost in money or to the body and self-esteem.  Crazy is too small a word for this.  Braden Peters is making something like $100K per month doing content that is not quite erotic but certainly has an erotic sense to it and is cashing in on the move to make yourself the ideal.  But for whom?  Not for wife or children or work or even play.  Not for the greater community but only really for self and those who fawn over your self.  Wow.  That is just plain crazy.

For a generation of men increasingly either disinterest in or disillusioned with dating, status, career, and social mobility, why are we surprised that they are seeking comfort and solace in the mirror?  Can we offer them something more than a Christianized version of their vice?  I hope so.  This is exactly why raising up boys to be men is a cause within the Church but also for the sake of the world.  Think about it.  What can we do to rescue our boys from their worst selves (which was once drugs and alcohol)?  What can we challenge them to become?  

I wanted it to be true. . .

I will admit a love for books and stories and, when it happens, for movies that demonstrate the same almost mystic invitation into another world and another set of lives.  It is most engaging to read a book of fiction and at the end to regret the final words and period that bring it to a conclusion.  It is most encouraging to the author who has the ability to weave a story in words that we want to be true even if it is not.  Such is the power of imagination.  It leads us beyond ourselves and builds for us a new world in which we can be observers if not participants and it leaves us with a better sense of our selves because we got to know the characters borne of an author's creative skill.  

In the past I have enjoyed the great works of the mighty authors as well as the spy craft of Tom Clancy and the mystery of Agatha Christie along with the imagined world of a Dune planet.  Along with these I have loved the works of Shakespeare, the poetry of Auden, and the complexity of Dostoevsky.  But I can also say I have loved the romance and intricate portrayals of people and places in the Merchant and Ivory films and the great histories re-imagined in such movies as Operation Mincemeat.  We have so enjoyed the small releases such as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society along with period pieces such as Cranford.  It is such a wonder to enter into a place and a plot with people you have never met until they become friends you cherish and fierce enemies you must battle.  Such is just a small part of my love for books, for words printed on a page.

While it is certainly not literature in the same sense as these works, Scripture is writing with a compelling story, great characters, and a plot whose resolution awaits an unnamed day when the Savior shall open the clouds and return in His glory.  There is something to be said about an appreciation of this.  No, it does not mean that you treat the Scriptures as any other book or that you discount its story as something less than real history but it does mean that the words are more than merely a set of facts recounted or doctrines unfolding for information.  The Bible is meant to engage the imagination.  There is something wrong with our reading if we do not build in our minds the face of a Moses or a Peter the way we would imagine how a character in fiction looks.  Movies can aid in this or they can disappoint us when they give faces to the people we have learned to know well that do not at all look like the images of our minds.  Perhaps that is why so many Biblical movies seem to fall short -- they make small what the Bible makes grand and so they disappoint us with something that is less than what the words on the page actually say.

In the old TV world of Dragnet, Sergeant Friday is said to have opined, "Just the facts, ma'am.  Just the facts."  I am told he never actually said it or did not say it in those words anyway.  Could it be that we are disappointed by Scripture because we want to distill the book down to quotes or because the stereotype lingers longer in our imagination than its reality?  Could it be that we have rendered the riches of the stories of the Bible into rather wooden accounts that not only lack in faithfulness to the Bible but make the authors and the Word whose words they are into something shallow and one dimensional?  One of the things I have loved doing over the years is to use the stories of the Bible in catechesis -- telling the stories of Scripture and letting the details and the whole landscape of the prose unfold to both engage and inform.  You cannot read the account of the Creation and Fall without being drawn into the story -- unless you are also dull and of single dimension.  You cannot read the stories of Abraham and Sarah or David and his kingly history and family and fail to be drawn into their stories as spectator and even participant.  Or, if you can, you have succeeded in turning God's divine drama into something pedestrian and bland.  If that is the case, it is a shame indeed.

Children's Bibles can sometimes rob the urgent and intricate stories of the Bible of their wit and elegance by presenting them not simply briefly but in the most spartan of prose.  Details matter. The details of the Bible stories matter.  Preaching involves unpacking these stories in such a way that it does not devolve into mere truths postulated so that someone gives ascent to these proof-texted propositions drawn out of context and out of sequence. What a shame when that happens.  A long time ago I got a Bible without verses or chapters and set in single column paragraph form.  It remains my favorite way to read God's Word.  It may not work for study but for the pure enjoyment of reading God's Word it cannot be matched.  This format allows my imagination to work, creating faces to the characters and building scenery for the words of the Lord that are His works as well.  I highly encourage it.  The Bible I use is also a King James version, with an elegance of prose and poetry that too often seems lacking in modern versions that seek to explain God as well as give testimony to His voice.  This has nothing to do with the downplaying of the truth of God's Word and everything to do with the engagement of the mind to assist that Word to make its home in our imagination as well as our hearts.

What Jesus did not say. . .

I read the insightful and humorous tirade on a piece David French wrote regarding the politics and religion of the Texas senate race.  You should read it also.  The whole thing is a good read but the individual points of this critique are spot on.  They illustrate the problem that confronts the orthodox Christian in the face of the liberal or progressive distortion of Christianity as well as the secular complaint against the faith.  That is that if Jesus did not say it, it must not be wrong and should not be part of the theological or moral stance of any individual or church body that is intent upon being Christian.

In the piece, the liberal Christian in this race, defended by David French, complains that "the evangelical focus on abortion and homosexuality in politics” is a betrayal of the Christian doctrinal and moral position precisely because these are seen as “two issues that Jesus never talked about.”  There you have it in a nutshell.  If Jesus did not say anything against it, it must not be wrong.  Since Jesus did not explicitly mention abortion or any one of the letters of the LGBTQ+ plethora of sexual desires or condemn them, it must mean that Jesus intended to support and accept them as both legitimate for the Christian to hold and moral.  Now that is a joke.  Nevermind that Scripture does address the sacred character of life and may, actually, address abortion -- though not exactly recorded from the mouth of Jesus.  

Let me explain.  

The original meaning of the Greek word porneia is “to prostitute” or “to sell.” However by the time of the New Testament, porneia had a very broad meaning that included sexual behavior such as prostitution, extramarital sexual intercourse or adultery, paedophilia, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, premarital sex and bestiality. The Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament states,

Πορνεία means “prostitution, unchastity, fornication,” and is used “of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse” (BAGD s.v.). . . . Since in Rom. 1:26f. Paul clearly alludes to homosexuality as sexual immorality, πορνεία can also refer to homosexuality as sexual immorality, as does εκπορνεύω. in Jude 7 (cf. Genesis 19) ¹

The lexicon’s message is not that porneia occurs in Romans 1:26f, but that the sexual sin in Romans 1 is included in porneia. For more discussion about Jude 7, see below.

Kittel, Bromiley and Friedrich  provides a very complete meaning of porneia stating that its meaning includes “adultery, fornication, licentiousness, and homosexuality.”^2,3 Harper’s Bible Dictionary states that porneia also includes “bestiality.”⁴

Colin Brown states this about porneia,

porneia (Dem.  onwards, rare in cl. Gk) harlotry, unchastity (also of a homosexual nature).⁵

This highly acclaimed Greek-English dictionary points out that porneuo, pornos, and porneia are part of the same word group. Then it states,

The word group can describe various extra-marital sexual modes of behavior insofar as they deviate from accepted social and religious norms (e.g. homosexuality, promiscuity, paedophilia, and especially prostitution).⁶

Colin Brown also tell us that porneia occurs in the “Testament of Benjamin.” The word is used to refer to homosexual behavior. In the following quote from the “Testament of Benjamin,” porneia is translated as fornication. Yet, it is referring to homosexual activity since Jude 7 is about homosexuality.

And believe that there will be also evildoings among you, from the words of Enoch the righteous: that ye shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom . . . ⁷

Verein D. Verbrugge in the  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology writes . . .

[Rabbinical Judaism] frowned on any kind of prostitution or extramarital sexual intercourse. Incest and all kinds of unnatural sexual intercourse were viewed as porneia. ⁸

^{Yes, it is true that Jesus did not say the word we use in an explicit reference to such behavior but it is also true that Jesus did not stand outside the Biblical world with its overt approval of marriage between a man and a woman as a life-long relationship of love and fidelity along with its disapproval of any sexual behavior that contradicted or violated this context.}

In the same way, though the Bible may not specifically mention the word abortion, but it does speak volumes about the value of human life and its source in God alone. Throughout Scripture, we see the sanctity of life upheld. Verses like Psalm 139:13–16 and Jeremiah 1:5 show that the source of life is from God alone and reveal God’s intimate care for the unborn from creation to life's end.  Jesus does not stand outside this tradition but stands within this doctrine and moral stand in all His words and actions. 

The absurdity of the liberal and progressive stand is obvious: that Jesus wants you to have a lot of gay sex and abortions because he never mentioned these explicitly or condemns them clearing.  Jesus very clearly acts in violation of the accepted moral and theological stand of the day with respect to the treatment of women (in speaking with unclean women and in His refusal to take up the accepted side against the woman found in adultery while leaving the man off the hook) and does so in ways that arouse His opponents.  Jesus does this with respect to the laws of the Sabbath as well.  But somehow, it is presumed that by silence Jesus infers that either the sins of abortion or homosexuality are not so bad or that they might even be good means that Jesus apparently was unwilling or unable to own His approval of these in the same way He owned the rules concerning the Sabbath or violated the norms for His relationship with the women of the day.  How odd!  You might then infer, as the original piece suggests, that Jesus by His clear teaching condemns adultery unless, of course, you are having extramarital sex with some of the same sex or that you can abort all the babies you want as long as you treat those who actually survived to birth with dignity.  It would be a hoot and a funny joke indeed except that there are actually Christians and people who think they know Jesus who are saying exactly that.

________________________________

1. Balz and Schneider. Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing Com. 1993. vol. 3., pp. 137-139.
2. Kittel. Theological Dictionary of the new Testament. Eerdmans. 1968. vol. vi., p. 581-595.
3. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing Com. 1985. VI, pp. 918-921.
4. Achtemeier, Paul J. “Fornication.” Harper’s Bible Dictionary. Harper & Row & Society of Biblical Literature. 1985, p. 319.
5. Colin Brown. Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Regency Publishers. 1975. vol. 1., p. 497.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid. p. 499.
8. Verlyn D. Verbrugge.  New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Zondervan. 2000. pp 486. 

Too quickly. . .

When I was full-time, I will admit that Sundays were exhausting.  I typically got to the church by 5 am on Sunday so that I had some quiet time for sermon prep, teaching prep, and private devotions.  It was usual for me to get done with Sunday morning about 1-1:30 pm -- unless, of course, meetings and other activities were scheduled when that would extend to 4-6 pm!  I was tired.  In my foolishness I feared that my schedule was seen as exhausting by those in the pews.  For a few that was certainly true.  The cantor was there early and left at least as late as I did.  Others were also there for many hours on Sunday mornings and afternoons.  But I have discovered something in retirement.  I was wrong.  Nearly everyone in the congregation is there for a few brief hours and the worship service lasts at its longest 75-90 minutes.  Sitting in the pews and assisting in the distribution has taught me that the time spent together around the Word and Table of the Lord is not long at all but passes too quickly.  It is over in the blink of an eye.

It seems like I am just getting settled in the pew and the liturgy is already to the readings from God's Word.  It seems like I have just found my comfortable spot and the sermon is winding down to its Amen.  It seems like I am just beginning to say I believe and we are already confessing the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  It seems like I am just starting to pray and already the petitions are done and we are in the Offertory.  The Eucharistic Prayer that seemed wordy at one point is too short to give me a real opportunity to meditate on the riches of God's grace soon to be placed upon my lips.  The distribution that once seem too long is over so fast and almost seems rushed.  I am just back in the pew and already we are being encouraged to bless the Lord, be blessed by the Lord's benediction, and being the final hymn.  Where did the time go?  It is all over too quickly.

I am not saying that 75 minutes or 90 minutes is too short but that when one enters into the presence of God around His Word and table, it is over far too fast.  Churchill said that they had barely begun to fight.  God has barely begun to deliver His gifts to my mouth and to address my mind with His wisdom and truth and to take from me the heavy weight of my sin and it is done.  I suspect I am speaking more here of the attitude of the heart than clock watching or the actually time spent in the pews.  I have rediscovered awe.  That is perhaps the biggest change for me on Sunday morning.

This is not about how wonderful the preaching is or the choir or the music.  They are fine.  It is about the renewed sense of awe at the simple privilege of being in the presence of the most high God who comes not to condemn sin but to bequeath grace upon grace.  It is the renewal that comes from listening again to every word of the liturgy, to hearing God's Word spoken into my ear, and to kneeling to receive the flesh of Christ upon my tongue and the blood of Christ upon my lips.  Amazing grace!  It is awesome.  It is too quickly over, the sacred vessels cleansed and put away, the echos of the hymn fading in the ear.  Wow.  It is the rediscovery of awe.  I always had some of it but the labor of Sunday, repeating everything twice, looking forward to the inevitable meetings or congregational activities always set for Sundays worked against this sense of awe and made me labor against this simple appreciation and joy of being in the presence of our gracious Lord.

I hope and pray that if you are leading worship from altar or organ bench, you still enjoy this wonderful awe.  I hope and pray that if you are sitting in the pew you think with me the wonder of where the time went and how you barely had a moment to consider the miracle of it all in the God whose voice lilts into the ear and whose heavenly food is tasted on the tongue.  Awaken to the awe of being in the presence of God.  Worship is not drudgery but awe.  The preacher or organist or choir do not make it so but God who comes to us, down to us, with heavenly grace and favor to bestow upon us His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation week after week after week.  In the blink of an eye He is there before we realize it and in the blink of an eye it is done before we appreciate its majesty.  We need to awaken to the awe of what happens on Sunday morning because that is the foundation of everything that flows out of it through the rest of the week and the rest of our lives. 

 

An oddly missing hunger. . .

Orthodoxy in doctrine is supposed to lead to orthodoxy in practice.  That is the lex of ancient wisdom -- not simply a tie between the two but a causal connection in which right praying leads to right believing and right believing leads to right praying.  There are those who say there is no causal connection and, while both are good, either alone can exist for at least a while without the other.  Though I wish it were not so, I suspect there is truth in this.  I have no formula for estimating how long either can exist apart from the other but I know for a fact that it happens.

There are those who rightly worship in doctrinally stalwart sermons but in worship that is painfully cerebral and lacking in the earthy concreteness of the Sacraments.  We see it in seemingly orthodox Protestant bodies where the sanctuary is largely a lecture hall and the table holds money more than the bread of heaven or the cup of salvation.  There are also those whose worship is evidently Sacramental but whose homilies are barely moral encouragements without a hint of teaching or doctrine.  We see it in Rome with liturgy done competently if not well but without much time spent or expectation of teaching in the sermon.

We really do not need to look all that far away.  I grew up in an orthodox Lutheran congregation which was conservative in every way and proudly Lutheran but there was a mere tolerance of things liturgical and an absence of the Sacrament from Sunday mornings as well as from the piety of the people.  This was not the worst that could be but there was definitely something missing.  The orthodox preaching and teaching should have manifested itself in a hunger for the things of God in the Holy Eucharist.  They did not.  Many folks left after the offering on the rare (quarterly) Morning Service with Holy Communion.  There was no hint of discussion about much less interest in private confession.  There was certainly moralism but it was accompanied by an appreciation for orthodoxy of doctrine, especially in the realm of justification by grace through faith.

That era is gone.  Nearly every Lutheran congregation celebrates the Sacrament more often today than they did in the 1950s.  Weekly has become normal.  I am happy about that and am not complaining.  But it is worth noting that the more frequent Eucharists and the more sacramental preaching and teaching that is also typical of a confessional Lutheran congregation that this has not exactly been accompanied by a hunger and thirst for even more frequent communion or confession.  Why not?  The lex of ancient wisdom suggests that it should lead us to more rather than to less -- more frequent Communion, more frequent confession, more and deeper devotional piety, etc.  Has it?

My own history was to add the Eucharist so that at least three or four times a week the Sacrament was offered and a sermon preached on the texts -- independent services and not copies of a Sunday service and sermon merely repeated at a different time.  Yet as often as I tried to offer the Eucharist more frequently, I did not find a groundswell of people to welcome such.  I preached about the Sacrament in the hopes that such hunger would arise and it did not.  Honestly, I would have thought that a daily Eucharist would have been the norm in my parish a long time ago.  It would have been a taxing demand upon my time and energy but I would have welcomed it.  It did not happen.  I could have gone ahead and scheduled them but I know from attempts that the attendance would have been very small indeed.  I regret that I talked myself out of this discipline and piety.  I should have tried harder.

Perhaps we have hit a plateau.  Perhaps the demands of work and home and leisure are too great to find time for a daily Eucharist.  Probably most folks in the parish would not have thought it was a good use of my time as their pastor to hold such daily Eucharists.  Or, I am afraid, perhaps we did not encourage such a hunger as we might, as I might.  It could have been that this was a step too far -- the awkward move from orthodoxy to enthusiasm?  Zealots are not exactly welcome in our churches -- especially zealous pastors!  Could it be that this is what is lacking among us confessional Lutherans today?  Have we come up against a wall, so to speak, going so far with our orthodoxy of doctrine and our catholic practice but not so far that it would actually suggest that our lives needed to reordered toward such a hunger and expectation to hear more sermons and receive the Sacrament more often than weekly?  I leave it out there for your to ruminate upon and to help me find an answer to my question.  Have we quenched the Spirit but stopping at one point where we should have gone further?

When sin is merely weakness. . .

The Bible is filled with strong words for sin but our modern mind does not hear them.  What passes for sin in private confession and public litany is an apology for our weakness more than it is an admission of our complicity with evil, our complete failure to do good, and our refusal to stop doing what is wrong.  It is tiresome to listen to but it is more of a problem than its sound in our ears.  When sin is merely weakness, our need for God is lessened and God is made smaller in the process.  When sin is merely weakness, we are no longer utterly dependent upon God but He is made a small nicety in a world with other niceties.  When sin is merely weakness, forgiveness is rendered even weaker and grace is made politeness rather than power.  When sin is merely weakness, mercy is impotent and the God of mercy is equally impotent.

In times gone by when I was hearing confession more regularly, a penitent once confessed a litany of things that could have or should have been done better.  These failings rightfully troubled the conscience of the penitent but were they really sins?  I prodded.  What did you do wrong?  The failing was never enlarged beyond what could have or should have been done more or better or differently.  These were sins of weakness and fragility.  They were the small mistakes of someone who knew better and who had succumbed in a moment to what that person now regretted.  It passed as sin in the mind and heart of the penitent but was it really sin in the way the Scriptures speak of sin?

The absolution being sought was more akin to understanding than mercy.  Of course, you could have and should have done better but we are all guilty of these inadequacies (and, therefore, if we are all guilty, none of us are really guilty!).  They were seeking not the powerful absolution that flows from the blood of Christ but the affirmation that they were merely human, like everyone else, and to be sent away with the dutiful expectation to try harder next time.  Is that what sin has become?  If so, it is certainly what absolution has become.  Not the strong Go and sin no more but the more reasonable Go but try harder next time to do better.  

I realized at the time what was happening and how I was also victim to the same minimization of what sin was and therefore the weakening of what grace was but I could have and should have handled it better.  When it did happen again, I stopped the person and turned them to the Ten Commandments to read them aloud and to frame their sin in the context of this Law and not the limited guilt or complicity of what might have been done better.  Perhaps the reader will suggest that this is the familiar path of those on the liberal or progressive side of Christianity but I think it is more likely the temptation of us all.  We want to minimize what sin is because then we do not need God or His grace so desperately but we want to make sin into weakness largely because it puts the ball back in our court instead of His.  It comes right back to us what we could and should do next time as opposed to what we actually did and how only the profound and powerful mercy of a crucified Savior can rescue us from what our sins have done.

Worse, when sin is merely weakness, we are largely victims instead of the perpetrators of evil.  The strong popularity of victimization in politics and culture has eroded the power of confession.  I am a sinner.  I have done the evil God condemns and have not done the good God requires.  I have loved myself above all, lived as if I mattered most, and failed to love God above all or my neighbor as myself.  It is not by weakness or fragility or accident but by will and deed I have sinned in thought, word, and act.  I am fully incapable of finding a way out of this mess of death or atoning for the evils in my mind, on my heart, or by my hand.  When we make a strong confession of real sin, God is not only enlarged in this act of confession but His mercy and grace are made great indeed.  Our appreciation for the cross is magnified.  Sin required a Savior and required a Savior to die.  Forgiveness is not some inconsequential word that understands our human frailty but the powerful blood that cleanses us from all our sin.  When we lose the idea that sin is more than weakness and fragility, we lose the idea that grace is powerful and mercy is a gift bigger than any other.   

Policy based confusion. . .

Policy based governance and, in particular, the version developed by John Carver, has taken hold across the boardrooms of America and, it should be noted, in churches as well.  Designed to address governing boards that err on the side of micromanaging executives while neglecting their particular duties, we see the evidence of this all across congregations, districts, and agencies of the Synod. Its ten core principles include:

1. Ownership: The board is the legitimate voice and agent of the organization’s owners.  All owners are stakeholders but not all stakeholders are owners.  Go figure.

2. Position of the Board: The board is fully accountable to the owners for the success of the organization.

3. Board Holism: The authority of the board is collective with individual members having no independent authority.

4. Ends Policies: The board defines everything in terms of the outcomes expected.  The concern is ends or strategic priorities and secondary to the means.

5. Board Means Policies: Such policies are the way the ends are to be achieved through the governance process and delegation policies.

6. Executive Limitations: The board governs through policies and the means policies are limits on the employees/CEO/staff (they shall not fail to...).  It is negatively stated.

7. Policy Sizes: Policies are framed in the broadest possible terms with specifics defined only as necessary; these are exhaustive in the limitations the board places on the corporate staff.

8. Clarity and Coherence of Delegation: Authority is delegated unambiguously with the broadest possible freedom given to the CEO/corporate staff to accomplish the ends the board has defined.

9. Any Reasonable Interpretation: The CEO/corporate staff are allowed any reasonable interpretation of board policy.

10. Monitoring: The board monitors and evaluates performance, comparing actual results (success or failure) against the Ends and Executive Limitations stated by the board. 

Policy Governance is a precision governing system that conditions success with following the model without variation.  In Policy Governance, all the above pieces are required for Policy Governance to be effective. Only when all are brought to bear on the organization can there be owner accountability. 

In typical adaptation for church usage, the senior pastor functions as the CEO or the pastor who is elected or appointed for other levels of church governance.  Elders/board members in the congregation are policy makers and monitors of compliance.  Congregations hold their leaders accountable through policies rather than the direct exercise of authority. 

Such is the entrepreneurial model of both governance and the pastoral office at work.  Sometimes it seems to work okay, perhaps even well.  There are, however, things that tend to happen as a result of policy based governance.  One thing is that it confuses spiritual responsibility and authority with physical responsibility and authority for property.  When this happens, it is not unusual for the spiritual to become second to the physical ends or indicators of success.  

The other big problem is that it tends to make lay leadership weak (on the congregational side) and to make for limited input to the governance of the organization except to set ends and make policies.  Even worse, it tends to elevate weak leaders and infuriate strong lay leaders.  

Finally, it tends to turn even the corporate leaders (in this case, the pastor acting as CEO) to comparing statistical results with ends envisioned without really leading at all.  The focus is on doing what the Board has directed and the evaluation is based on fulfilling the ends directed by the board through the policies it has established.   What happens if they are not the real ends or the policies are simply bad policies?  In this way, the governance tends to muddy things up and encourage mediocre leaders.  What happens when a pastor’s primary accountability is measured by whether or not he follows the policies the board has established and achieves the organization outcomes the board has defined but that comes at the cost of the values, doctrine, and confessional integrity of that organization?  What about the faithful proclamation of the Word and the faithful administration of the Sacraments?  

There was a time when we probably had too many boards acting independently of each other and too many committees with overlapping responsibilities.  Maybe there was a time when we functioned rather disjointedly and probably somewhat inefficiently.  But have we over corrected --  effectively throwing the baby out with the bath water all in the name of shorter meetings, transparency, clear expectations, and defined objectives?  Fewer people in governance in an church organization and those few people with less responsibility except to define outcomes and establish policies can be a recipe for disaster.  Furthermore, when everyone is concerned with the physical side of things and no one is paying attention to the spiritual, the Church is definitely in trouble.  And, I am afraid, we are already there.  It is less a problem of pastors wanting to take over what rightfully belongs to the laity than it is nobody wanting do what they are supposed to do.  It also has the problem of judging everything in the church by the wrong set of values and defining success in every way except that which God would judge faithful.