Blessed Mary's Day

   Far from doing away with Blessed Mary and her remembrance, one need only read Luther's commentary on the Magnificat of Mary to see another side.  We call Blessed Mary not simply Mother of our Lord but "Theotokos" or commonly rendered the Mother of God.  God chose her to carry His Son in her womb, to give Him birth in flesh and blood, to care for Him as His mother, and to receive the rich grace which He came to bestow upon her and upon all who will receive Him.  She is not Mother merely to His flesh and blood but to the Son of the Most High God who is incarnate in her womb and born of the Father’s will.
    But Blessed Mary is also our Mother.  She is the first real Christian – the one to whom God spoke that the prophetic word would be fulfilled in her womb, of the Word made flesh to dwell among us, full of grace and truth.  It is Mary who first heard this Word, who pondered in her heart this and all the Words of the Lord and who was there at all the events of Christ's life and death and resurrection.  It is Mary who consented to God's Word that it may be to her as God said – her faith and trust in God is what we struggle to emulate today.
    Mary's humility is also her greatness.  She is chosen of God not for who she is but for the grace of God that would shine through her.  When the greeting of the angel came, it began with grace.  “Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with you.”  It was grace that singled her out and grace that gave her glory and grace that she clung to in faith.  In this way, we are no different than she is – chosen of God not because of our glory but for His glory and by His grace.  Yet God is not without knowledge of her heart or her life.
    She is exemplary not because she is without sin or some perfect incarnation of humanity – only Jesus is this.  There is no need to magnify her in death beyond what her own words and life say.  It is her faith that singles her out – her faith in the Word of God, her faith in the grace of God, and her faith in the Son of God.  She shows us what it means to believe in Jesus Christ – not as an idea but the flesh and blood of God’s Son who is her Savior and ours through the cross and empty tomb.
    Mary is clothed with grace.  She sees only her sinful character and freely admits her humble estate.  But God in His grace lifts her up to be a means of His grace, placing in her womb His Son, give Him to her to care for as His mother, and tying her life to the life of Jesus – through the agony of the cross and to the joyful triumph of His resurrection.  She is not merely the mother of Jesus' humanity for to make distinction – as if we would separate the Jesus who is the Son of God and the Jesus who is the Son of Mary – not this would divide His being and turn Him into some schizophrenic freak.  She is the chosen vessel of God in which humanity and divinity become the one Jesus.
    It was God's grace that was her glory, the sustaining power of her life, that on which she pondered and treasured in her heart day after day.  To remember her today is to recall this all sufficient grace that enabled her to believe the unbelievable promise of the angel and to give her faithful consent to the unknown of the Father's will.  It is here most of all that we are bidden to join her in magnifying the Lord – with faith and trust.
    Her response to God's grace is the model and example of our own faith and faithful believing.  "Let it be to me as You have said," she answers the call of the Lord.  The grace of God bore in her the fruit of faith not only to believe in what the angel said but to consent to His saving will being lived out within her own very life.  From her we learn what it means to trust in God's will.
    How can this be?" she answers the Lord.  This is not the dismissal of God's Word as too incredible to be believed but the humble vantage point of faith that admits with us nothing is possible but with the Lord all things are possible.  It is by these words that she defers to God's wisdom, will, and power.  It is in these words that we learn what it means to keep the faith, prompted by the Spirit to leave submit our minds and hearts to the Lord.
    What can we learn from her?  This is the question of the faithful today.  What can we learn from Mary whom the Father set apart to be the bearer of His Son and His Mother?  The answer is all about grace – the grace sufficient for all our needs, powerful enough to accomplish our salvation, big enough to be incarnate in Jesus Christ.
    The proud who come full of themselves, the Lord sends empty away.  But those who come with humble faith and trust are filled beyond measure.  In them, as in Mary, the light of Christ shines as the glory of God’s people of old and the light of the Gentiles.  Mary is not the source of this light but reflects this borrowed light of Christ – just as you and I do.
    When Mary sings her song of joy, she invites us to magnify the Lord with her.  This is not merely an invitation to sing her words but to proclaim the power of God's grace to bring forgiveness to the sinner, comfort to the distressed, healing to the wounded, hope to the downtrodden, and life to the dying.  We magnify the Lord with her not by mouthing her words but following her example of faith and faithfulness.
    The world is all about me.  What we see in Mary is all about Jesus.  Mary’s role and purpose are to point us to Christ. When our own hearts seek the easy path without challenge or cost, Mary points us to Christ.  When it seems that all we have from God is just words and we feel so very alone, Mary points us to Christ.  When nothing is working out and it seems that life has left us only with impossibility, Mary points us to Christ.  When we find ourselves tempted by our doubts and captive to our fears, Mary points us to Christ.  When we face all the dead ends in our path and the ultimate dead end of the grave, Mary points us to Christ.  Glorify the Lord with me... she sings... believe with me that all of these are answered in Jesus Christ... she sings.
    We remember her and call her blessed because she points us to Christ.  In our own age and in our time, we would seek to be the Marys of this generation – pointing to Jesus, believing and trusting in Him.  The Light of Christ shone through her, and, today, we pray, that in some small way, Jesus may shine through us as well and as brightly.  Today we pray that grace would be our hope and foundation as it was for her, that we might trust in God and welcome His will as she trusted in Him and consented to His will and purpose so long ago.  The saints of old are not lights to shine on themselves but beacons of borrowed light that point to Christ.  This is Mary, Virgin Mother of God and the one whom all generations have and will called blessed; whom we remember today with the prayer that we would be like her in faith, trust, witness, and confession.   Amen!  

A decade of decline. . .

In 2015 the floodgates of marriage were opened to nearly all comers in America.  In one fell swoop the Supreme Court flaunted the progress of the cause among the states and insisted upon imposing the law of same sex marriage (and whatever other genders might fall therein) upon all the states.  It was, as some have said, less about the legal grounds for same sex marriage as much as the decision was seeking to offer the marital bliss of the majority to formerly excluded minorities and thereby strengthen marriage over all.  If marriage were so wonderful, who and why would anyone in their right mind exclude it from anyone?  Indeed.

Obergefell cxertainly succeeded in changing the law and establishing a right to gay marriage -- at least according to court edict.  What it has not done is unite America in the cause and, in fact, support for same sex marriage has either plateaued or begun a decline of late.  This is due to the fact that when you support a legal decision with less an argument of law than you do the promotion of a cause, it seldom settles the issue.  Abortion and Roe ought to have taught us such a lesson in this as well.  So instead of charting the success of Obergefell in terms of the numbers of same sex marriages, it would be better to place that number within the total -- have more folks decided to marry since 2015 than before?  Has the promotion of marital joy extended to more and more people?

If that is the measure of the SCOTUS decision, the evidence must be disappointing to Justice Kennedy and his supporters.  Or, perhaps they don't think it matters?  In raw numbers in 2015, 48.3 percent of adult Americans were married -- that from the normally objective records of the U.S. Census. Yet after including 1.2 million same sex couples in that total, by 2023, the percentage of married Americans had actually dropped a couple of percent -- down to 46.4 percent.  That may not seem earth shattering unless you also add in some other statistics.  Forty-five years ago, in 1980, only 5 percent of middle-aged Americans had never married.  In a few years, that will have grown by 5x and some 25 percent will never have been married.  So much for the promotion of marriage to more and more.  Even more bad news.  Those who are actually marrying are entering into wedded bliss later and later in life and inching toward the end of the child-bearing years for women.  An overwhelming 80 percent of women and 66 percent of men born in the tumultuous war years of 1940-1944 found themselves married by age 25 but fifty years later that dropped down to 30 percent of women and 20 percent of men.  Ouch.  So much for extending the blessedness of marriage, Obergefell seems to have helped smolder the spark of love.

Perhaps it was not simply the law but the penchant to redefine marriage away from its traditional and Biblical foundations and turn it into something new and fluid, adaptable and flexible.  In so doing, the compelling nature of marriage (and family) has been dulled and confused.  The population seems to be saying why bother to marriage and family and the law simply allowed more of the shift in the state of marriage and family to exist within legal framework.  All in all, marriage is less about the institution and estate than it is some nebulous idea of individuality preserved within a fragile relationship that is simply no longer strong enough to hold the weight of what it was and not promising enough to build a future around it.  It is one more sad example of what happens when we think we know better than God.  Maybe the depths of marriage's decline will come soon enough and a new age will look one more time at a better reason to be married than what is in it for me.  Or maybe Obergefell will have simply dampened hopes of this for any foreseeable future.  It is a terrible game of wait and see for the gift that insisted it is not good for man or woman to be alone. 

From The "Living" Lutheran. . .

I was about to toss out some things that came in the mail but I had not read when I happened upon the Summer 2025 issue of Living Lutheran.  I did not get very far in my perusal of the pages until I sensed a pattern developing.  Thirteen of the seventeen authors were women (without spending time to discern their felt gender), two of the male authors were writing about women and one about LGBTQIA+, one other male author wrote partly about women (interviewed one), and eight out of ten news updates of the ELCA were about women.  So much for the face of diversity or is this a nod to historically underrepresented?  Oh, I forgot to mention that cartoon was about a man -- Moses who loved the font God had used the font to inscribe the commandments on stone (I presume part of the joke was that he liked the font better than he liked the commandments themselves).  Okay.  There you go.

The face of diversity historically has meant a view across age groups, marital status, and male and female. Now diversity has become something different in a church body that has almost inscribed diversity upon those stone tablets.  It is about anything but men and in particular about the individual over the family and domestic relationships that once were the hallmark of our identity as people.  Okay.  It is not my church so who am I to complain, right?  I am not really complaining, just observing.  There are so many profound things that you learn by looking at the flagship periodical of a church body.  I learned that women were in control (whether cisgendered or some other version).  The ELCA was saying this was a church body for, about, and run by women.  Oddly enough, the LCMS, which most would almost condemn as misogynistic, has more rostered female church workers than the ELCA.  You would not know it from their journal because its pages are mostly about the faith.  By the way, several of those Living Lutheran articles and news briefs were about or by their female presiding bishop (who is not going to run again, I am told) so it is not simply female but about their most prominent female -- again a not so subtle impression any reader ought to get from the pages of this periodical.

Without trying to gang up on the ELCA, this print edition seems to go overboard in pursuit of a diversity that is rather forced and that is my point.  When you have won the war on men (except for those who are not straight and presumably those with whom  you have no fight), there is only one thing to do -- you define diversity with a female byline, subject, or face.  

Whom can you trust?

Sermon preached on Sunday, August 10, at St. Paul Lutheran, Paducah, KY, the propers for Trinity 8.

What a day to hear Jesus warn about false prophets and in your pulpit is a stranger.  While I may be a strange to you, you are not to me.  Your Pastor Donner has been friend for 33 years.  He installed me in Clarksville in 1993, preached at the dedication of our new building in 2002, and remains a cherished colleague.  Your Pastor Appold has been my friend and co-worker ever since he came from Seminary to you in 2014.  But you know as well as I that the greatest danger comes not from strangers but from those professing to be your friends.

You have learned to be suspicious of emails and text messages promising the world but filled with legitimate danger.  You do not answer the phone like you did once when a phone call was a welcome distraction.  We have all hunkered down before the threats all around us in our world, in our nation, in our community, and even in our churches.  The Gospel for today is a sign of the times but it is an obvious warning.  Even those outside the faith know enough to warn their children to be wary of strangers.  Jesus knows to tell us to be even more wary of those who claim to speak in His name.

The parent may not quite know how to identify which strangers are the biggest dangers so parents warn their children against all of them.  It is not very efficient and even less effective.  As soon as children learn that not all strangers are bad, they become vulnerable to the ones who truly are evil and bent on their destruction.  Jesus does not leave us to our own wits.  He does not merely warn us against the stranger or even the familiar face but gives us the tool to mark truth from error, authenticity from falsehood.  He gives us His Word.

Life is not easy but hard and the greatest danger is that we tire of the fight and fall victims to those who promise us an easier path.  But do not be fooled.  Our enemies are strong and powerful while we are not.  Our enemies are clever and crafty and we are not.  On our own we would surely become their victims but we are not on our own.  We are in Christ.  He is our Good Shepherd who has placed Himself between us and our enemies – even to the point of death on a cross.  We cannot stand alone but in Christ we will not fall.  That is His promise.

In Christ, we are safe. They can kill Jesus but He will not stay dead.  They can afflict us but they cannot steal us from Him.  They cannot kill us but we will rise. You already know this.  You have had faithful undershepherds who have stood in this pulpit and reminded you of this. You call them pastor.  The pastor is not the mighty warrior whom you can trust but the pastor preaches the mighty Christ and this Christ cannot fail you.  The danger is not from the outside but right in our midst for the devil loves nothing more than to infiltrate the Church and corrupt her and all God’s people from the inside out.

Pastors cannot be trusted.  Wolves know how to dress up in clerical collars and vestments and sound holy better than anyone.  Pastors are not superheroes.  They are men who can be weak and vulnerable like the rest of us.  They can screw up and they break their promises just like the rest of us.  But you know how to judge a pastor.  God has given you His Word.  You are to know that Word well enough so  that you can judge the shepherds who are faithful from the wolves who seek your destruction.  If you know God’s Word, you will know which pastors to trust.

God’s Word can always be trusted. As sheep, you do not judge your pastors on the basis of their looks or their jokes or their homespun wisdom.  You judge them by what they preach and teach. If they preach Christ and teach His Word,follow them. 

That is what Jesus means when He says: “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”  More than merely warning you, He gives you His Word so that you can know if their fruit is good or corrupt, if their words are faithful or self-serving.  Judge them by who they preach and teach – not by how much you like them or they appeal to you.  Listen to them so that you can hear Christ and follow them or if you do not hear Christ you must flee them..

Scripture is the judge.  Pastors are held to a high standard, to be sure, but we do not trust in them.  We trust in the Lord Jesus – whom they preach.  We listen to them because they speak Christ and His forgiveness to us.  We judge them on the basis of God’s Word, from the creed we profess, and by the Confessions which are faithful to that Word of God.  You have such a man in Pastor Appold and you had one in my old friend Pastor Donner.  You are blessed to have such good pastors.

Pastors are not smarter than everyone else nor are they always right.  But there is only one Word that endures forever, only one Word that gives life, and only one name under heaven by which any will be saved. This is the Word you use to judge.

The voice that gathers you hear each week is Christ’s voice spoken through the mouth of the pastor.  The absolution is spoken in the pastor’s voice but the forgiveness is Christ’s.  The water is applied by the hands of the pastor but its power to give new life belongs to Jesus.  The bread and cup that feed and give as drink the body and blood of Jesus are held in the pastors’s hands but they belong to Christ and are given according to Christ’s own promise, the foretaste of the eternal feast to come.

The point is that you cannot stand alone and on your own.  No sheep can.  No sheep were ever meant to be alone.  We all must live under the care of Him who is able to protect and defend us in this mortal life and deliver us to everlasting life - to rich green pastures and still quiet waters.  In order to stand, we must stand in Christ.  Every sheep has to be under someone’s care.  You are either under the care of God or you are under the care of the devil.  There is no neutral zone.  And yYou are under Christ’s staff, exercised by the pastor and you know the pastor by his fruits – his preaching and teaching.

God has made You His own in your baptism.  He daily reclaims you as His own by contrition and repentance.  He weekly addresses you with the voice of His Word preached and taught.  He sets His table before you in the presence of your enemies.  God will not abandon you or leave you to battle the devil on your own.  Do not abandon Him.  Here is where the Lord is working, through faithful pastors to mark you as His own, to guard you in all your ways, to come after you when you are lost, to awaken you when you fall asleep, to feed you the taste of heaven, and to deliver you safely to His eternal home.  There is no greater glory for a pastor than to serve such a God and there is no greater privilege that to be served by such a faithful man.  Learn God’s Word so you can discern the good shepherds from the false ones and so that you can appreciate the one who serve you in Christ’s name.  And while you are at it, give thanks to God for the faithful man who stands before you every week.  Every Christian should be so blessed!  Amen. 

Not from Scripture alone. . .

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a section on Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture and the relationship between them.  It had been a while since I had opened the covers of this book but something jumped out at me.  It would seem that the CCC has enshrined the opinion of modernity that there was a time when the Church was Scriptureless, left to the oral teaching of Jesus in the minds and mouths of His apostles.  I think this is a primary tenet of modernity and a dangerous one.  The naysayers who agitate against orthodox Christianity love this mythology.  They constantly insist that Scripture is the creation of the Church, come three centuries after the Church, and are dependent upon the Church.  Indeed, the standard propaganda is that Constantine intervened to create the canon along with the religious leaders of the day and so it was a political decision as well as a theological one.  Great drama but poor history.

The reality is that Scripture has been with the Church from the beginning.  The Gospels were written by those who were custodians of the faith in the brief interval between the ascension of our Lord and the completion of the New Testament Canon.  They did not write differently than they spoke.  The mere fact that there are four Gospels is a sure sign that there was both means and method to the fact checking of the texts since other eyewitnesses were there to judge its accuracy and authenticity.  The letters of St. Paul were early and circulated well beyond the original addressees.  The book of Acts chronicles the history of the Church from the ascension forward into the age of Paul.  St. John was around late into the end of the first century, the last of the eyes to see Jesus and to speak of His saving work.  The earliest witnesses to follow the apostles and writers of the New Testament themselves speak regularly and posit authority with the words of these witnesses in speech and written record.  There is not and never was a definitive moment when the canon was in question even though very books of the New Testament were received in different places at different times.  There was no pronouncement of the canon of the New Testament but there were lists, more complete and substantial as time went forward and due not to problems with the Scriptures but the growing challenge of heresy.  It should not be a surprise that the Council of Nicea and the others that followed in the fourth century dealt with problems and problem teachers and that their criteria for orthodoxy was simply is it Scriptural [meaning New Testament Scriptures].  

It seems rather disingenuous to come along and now create two out of what was one and to make Tradition and the Scriptures almost competitors and independent records both under the authority of the Church.  It is also decidedly modern to see this in this light.  The voice of the Reformation continues to deposit the norming authority with the Scriptures alone without in any way making light of the Sacred Deposit, the Tradition capital T, or the traditions small t.  It places everything under the one authority of the Word of God which is not contained in Scripture but is Scripture -- and to this authority the Church owes her life and from this authority flows her message and mission.  The modern myth of a time when the Church was without Scripture is the invention of those who want to devalue and diminish the New Testament (and Old) and place it under the lens and interpretation of the Church and it provides a mechanism both to ignore and to contradict what it says (as liberal and progressive churches have done so well).  Scripture ends up merely part of this Tradition and both have their common source and end -- at least that is their theory.  Liberalism and progressivism always move us from certainty to doubt, from Scripture to reason or history, and from Scripture as God's Word to merely a container for some of those words.  This is what remains the problem of the Reformation -- not some petty fight between personalities but the question of authority.  That is why the Reformation remains relevant for the present -- even though the particular jurisdictions of the Reformation legacy have in the most part abandoned this legacy.  What the Confessions of the Lutheran Church have written is a defense of that which is catholic against a false idea of catholicism in which the Scriptures are merely one voice among other voices to inform and norm what is believed, taught, and confessed.

The CCC with some passages highlighted by me: 

80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal."40 Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".41

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."42

"and [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."43

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."44

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus' teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. the first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium. 

I want Jesus to follow me. . .

While the ever changing results of surveys give us a glimpse of the direction of things, it does not quite unpack what that means.  For example, in The Barna Groups report New Research: Belief in Jesus Rises, Fueled by Younger Adults, it would seem that there is something of a renewal going on in America.  Barna asked how many agree with this statement:  “I have made a personal commitment to follow Jesus that is still important in my life today.” The answer today is that 66% of Americans say that they have made such a commitment -- up 12 points since 2021 but still down from the high of 77% that made the claim in 2009.  Sounds good, right?  Well, maybe.

First of all we have no idea how that 66% defines Jesus.  Is He the God enfleshed Savior sent to fulfill the eternal promise of Eden that He would save His people from their sins or is He a moral leader who exemplifies right and wrong or is He a selfless example of love without limits or is He the advocate for the poor and oppressed or is He something different?  Who knows?  There is little unanimity in the definition of who Jesus is and where He is leading among the denominations so there is even less among individuals who see Jesus through their own lens even more so than through the Scriptures. 

Second is the question of whether or not this constitutes faith.  You do not have to believe what Jesus claims about Himself in order to see some wisdom or virtue in His lifestyle.  It could very well be that people reject the very claims that Jesus has made and creeds confess about Him in favor of admiration or adulation or hero-worship.  Scripture would ask it differently.  Do they believe Jesus is LORD -- not lordly or master but THE Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who called all things into being, became man for us and our salvation, paid the price of our redemption with His suffering and death, and rose again to lead us home to the Father.

Third is the fact that while we all say we want to follow Jesus, the reality is that we want Jesus to follow us.  We substitute our own views and values for His and look to Him to endorse them and us in the process.  We substitute our own goals and ways for His and expect Him to adopt our agenda and agree with our purposes.  We look for a Jesus who cleans up our messes and waits upon us rather than a God whom we would serve.  We say we want to walk with Jesus but we expect to be at least equal partners in the way, in the conversation, and in the determination of the endpoint.  

All in all, I do think it is better that more people say they want to follow Jesus than did a year or more ago.  I am not quite ready to clap my hands and call this a spiritual renewal blowing across the land but I suspect the Holy Spirit can work in this some good for the sake of the Kingdom.  That said, the Kingdom of God is hard to poll and always has been.  This is especially true for a church that says, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him...  Yup, I think it is better to have more people say they want to walk with Jesus along the way of their lives but, nope, I am not ready to call that a spiritual resurgence across the land.  When that happens, we will know it by the rash of people who ask "What then must I do to be saved" and by the splash of many baptismal waters answering that call with the power of God unto salvation. 

Is it there?

It occurs to me upon reflection of the Latin behind the English words we commonly use that there, perhaps, a nod toward closed communion right there in the Preface.  I have not a great deal to say about the first two phrases of the dialogue that preceeds the Canon (of greater or briefer length).  It is there in the third of those phrases, the call to give thanks.  Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro intones the priest.  In case your Latin is rusty, in English and nearly universally so it is “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”  

The hidden reference to closed communion lies in the response of the people.  Dignum et justum est.  Now here is where it gets a bit sticky.  In preconciliar Roman missals, it is commonly rendered It is meet and just or as the Common Service put it, It is meet and right so to do. Therein lies the problem.  Meet is an old and was a serviceable word to mean fitting or proper.  The problem does not lie with the accuracy of those older translations but that they fail to incorporate the full nuance of the word.  “Right” when used as a synonym for “just” in the same way that there is little difference between a righteous man and a just man. But the Latin dignus is not synonymous with nore merely an amplication of “good, suitable, fitting, becoming, or proper.”  Indeed, dignus means worthy as in Dignus et Agnus --  worthy the Lamb.  Meet is okay but hardly common in our vocaculary and therefore fails to note what worthy means in this context.

Worthiness certainly is accurate with reference to Him who is worth our due -- our thanks and praise and humble adoration.  But is that all there is -- God is worthy?  or is there more?  Perhaps this hearkens to 1 Corinthians 11:29 and the solemn warning of St. Paul not to eat and drink unworthily the body and blood of Jesus Christ or to suffer judgment and condemnation to himself.”   The older and familiar pre-communion prayer also admits such an understanding, the communicant praying that he is not worthy that the Lord God should enter under his roof.  Could it possibly be that in this response dignum et justum est, the communicants and congregation is referencing their own worthiness, having been redeemed by the blood of Christ and judged righteous in His clothing of holiness and believing and confessing this with their whole hearts?  They are confessing their own worthiness not apart from Christ but in Christ to receive what He offers, solemnly acknowledging and not skipping over the righteousness that comes by faith.

Just as the people responded to sursum corda with Habemus ad Dominum  -- almost saying they are already up, padre, so the call to give thanks to the Lord by receiving in faith the gifts Christ offers apart from any merit on their part but to the faithful is answered "we are worthy in Christ and declared righteous (just) to be here where we are and to receive what He offers.  Now maybe you think it a stretch but I am not so sure.  While surely such imagery has long ago departed the liturgy in favor of a loosey goosey y'all come as you are..., it was not always so and worthiness was woven in the fabric of the liturgy at many points along the way but certainly in reference to receiving the Sacrament.  It is good to do so but a great deal more than that.  This is, by the way, a confession less of us than of the Christ in whom we are made worthy.   Just a little something to get you thinking....

Henry V. Gerike + 1948 - 2025 +

On my way back from Michigan, I heard that another had died to be with the Lord.  It was only a few days before another friend's passing was told to me, Rev. Dale Sattgast.  Alas, these announcements are coming too soon and too close together. 

God gives gifts to His Church.  We say that all the time but we often fail to put a face to those gifts.  Henry was such a face.  Although his music will live on for a very long time, he has passed to the nearer presence of God.  I first met him through another gift -- Allen Lunneberg.  They are both gifts of God to His Church but very different.  Henry plodded along, often, it would seem, waiting for the thought to finish in his mind before the sentence had a period at the end of it.  He was deliberate when the world around him was and remains rushed.  He was patient in his pursuit of what he wanted when you were not biting on the idea.  It is, perhaps, one of his most endearing qualities.  

He will surely be lauded into time and perhaps eternity for the musical reflection of the text of the hymn "Up through Endless Ranks of Angels" and rightfully so.  The genius of a good tune to a text is that they merge into one grand reality.  That is surely true of this magnificent Ascension text and tune. Though this is his most popular gift, it is by far not his only treasure.  God bless him for that.  Like another Lutheran, Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry lived to the praise of God and worked to the praise of God.  His legacy in choral work and organ composition, in teaching and training pastors in the art of music, in the work of the cantor in congregation, and in leading us as a church lives on as testament to the vitality and relevance of Lutheran music to Lutheran theology.

Though I know that there are new folks to join the ranks of those whom I would call gifts of God to His Church, I hope and pray that we will not forget the likes of Henry and those who have loved and served the Lord among us for many years.  The older I get, the sadness of losing such friends and co-workers in the vineyard becomes larger even as the gratitude for knowing them and working with them increases.  I may be looking more narrowly than I should or could, but it occurs to me that we have been so very blessed with such a high caliber of talents and such dedicated musicians -- well beyond what we deserve.  Henry remains in my own mind a testament to the generosity of God and the richness of our lives for His gift of people like him.   I will sing his musical settings of Psalms, choral works, and hymn tunes with even greater relish and thanksgiving knowing his journey is complete and he rests with the Lord. 

 

Be who you are. . . not

There is a movement trying to define a sexual attraction to minors not a psychiatric disorder to be changed or managed but as a positive identity to be accepted and even affirmed.  A Maryland-based organization founded in 2003 is working to support pedophiles and this change to regularize this disorder into something normal -- “Minor-Attracted Persons” (MAPs).  They hope to help mental health professionals validate this change and help MAPs accept this as part of their identity. 

Historically, the mental-health community has classified pedophilia as a paraphilia, a psychiatric disorder characterized by an abnormal or harmful sexual interest.  The treatment was not designed for the pedophile to accept this attraction but to help them manage their harmful impulses, prevent the abuse of children, and protect potential victims from this abuse.  It all hinged upon prevention strategies, treatment, and medication.  Now some are suggesting that this be changed so that pedophiles can be accepted and their young age attraction accepted as "normal."  The organization discourages mental health clinicians from diagnosing clients with Pedophilic Disorder in favor of more "acceptable" terms like “sexual age orientation.”

Those in favor of this approach to pedophilia look at the evolution of homosexuality, likening the stigma gay people once faced to the “oppression” experienced by pedophiles and urging a similar pattern of awareness, acceptance, and incorporation for the pedophile. This is, however, a very misleading comparison.  Unlike adults, children can never consent to sex with adults. The normalization of young age attraction (pedophilia) insists that this is not true, that children can consent to sex with adults and that such sex is neither harmful nor abusive.

B4U-ACT, the group promoting this change, encourages individuals to integrate their attraction to minors into their sense of self and be self-accepting even as it encourages society to accept such individuals. They insist that “one’s attraction to minors is often an important part of an MAP’s identity, in some cases being the most important aspect of their sexual identity.”  The model of their therapeutic approach parallels LGBT-affirmative psychotherapy, which “treats sexual feelings as innate, unchangeable, and subject to personal acceptance.” B4U-ACT also borrows from American Psychological Association guidelines on “sexual minorities,” encouraging “acceptance of one’s age of attraction.”  At least in Canada, the first steps toward removing pedophilia from the list of psychiatric diagnoses has already taken place.  Here in American this movement is still taking its first steps in what will most likely be a long battle toward acceptance.  The warning here to the reader is that the odds are with those who seek to regularize child and adult sexual behaviors within the framework of consent.  It was not that long ago no one in America would have foreseen the legalization of same-sex marriage and the flourishing of a culture in which gay is now normal.  It may not be that long before the seeds of such social change and a new understanding of pedophilia are planted in the minds of our youth so that this may mature with them.  It is certainly up to the rest of us to make sure that this never takes place.

Children must be granted their childhood and this is a protection which is more than merely legal terminology.  The guardians of their youth owe it to them to prevent their youth from being squandered and their innocence destroyed.  We know what happens to them now -- even though they are legally protected.  Child trafficking and the sexual abuse of children continues, hidden but not abated.  Those who love children must love them enough to prevent them from becoming pawns in the sexual perversion of those who would exploit them for prurient interest no matter the cost to the child.  

When did lies become truth?

While that question may be a very large one, this post is more narrowly defined.  When did the media stop differentiating between lies and truth, between facts and commentary?  As I said before here, I was once a news junkie.  I had a news channel on my car radio all the time, news apps on my phone, and news on the television.  I read newspapers and news magazines.  I just could not get enough of it.  Until, that is, I began to question whether I was being told the truth by the media.  Some of it soon became clear.  Lies were masquerading as truth in media from far left to far right.  Slant was presented as truth, opinion as fact, and I was being fed by those who presumed to know best what was good for me and who looked down on me as too uneducated or ignorant to know better.  I do not watch or follow much at all anymore.

Worse than the regular news media are the kind of fly-by-night operations that entice you in with a headline on social media -- only to string you on or sell you a product.  If you cannot trust the regular media for honest news, you would be a fool to presume you can trust what pops up on your feed or in the next reel.  Grow up.  The world of fact has been replaced by the creative fiction that purports to be truth but is nothing truthful at all.  I grew up at a time when you could turn on Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntley or Peter Jennings and be assured that you were given unassailable truth and solid fact.  Without naming names today, I think we can all safely assume that news has become a business selling opinion as a product and the sacred character of the media within a democracy has become a distant memory.  I wish I could say it was only true of the people I did not like but it is true of virtually everyone.

Truth is in short supply today but the desire for truth is even harder to find.  Whether news or religion, we seem to prefer a packaged product to facts and a quick conclusion to a the call to think for ourselves.  Everything is designed to sell you on an outlet for the news more than on what is in the news.  While in Nebraska for a couple of weeks in February, I noticed that there was no breaking news on the media there.  At home in Tennessee, breaking news occurred at every newscast -- national, regional, or local.  It was not because nothing was happening in Nebraska (which I know some of you are snickering about) but that they still saw their jobs as informational rather than sensational.  I am sure that time will soon teach them to parrot the vocabulary and methodology of the rest of the world but it was fun while it lasted.

The Church cannot afford to get caught up in this.  Already people are sure that we got it wrong about a host of things and that Scripture does not mean what it says.  Already people are buying the snake oil from the marketers that the Bible is not reliable, that it does not say what it says, and that it does not mean what it says.  The loss of truth is a painful one especially for its impact on the one thing the Church is about -- the eternal truth that saves.  It is bad enough that we live in a world where marketers sell things other than truth in Jesus' name but it is even worse when people no longer desire the truth or care.  That is the world in which we live today, the world in which we minister.  

Parents, teach your children to love truth, even the hard truth, of God's Word.  Teach them to think for themselves not by accepting the next line that comes along but by sorting out error from truth according to God's Word.  Families need to support and encourage the life of this truth that saves so that it lives in the hearts and minds of their children and grandchildren.  Churches need to go back to telling the truth without fear and without softening up the rough edges of that Word.  We may not like what we hear in church but we must know that what is being preached from the pulpit and taught in the Sunday school room is real, true, and unchanging truth of God's Word.  People will be sorely tempted to see churches as media outlets hawking their own opinions and versions for those who like what they hear.  It is up to the churches to make sure that they are speaking faithfully and truthfully the whole counsel of God's Word.  The loss of a media we can trust is one thing but the loss of churches to speak the truth of God's Word is to usher in a time of darkness where God desires to shine His light. 

Thoughts on building for worship. . .

The term sacred architecture does not immediately translate into a single form but it is not without its ideas.  Who among us has not winced at a church that was clearly built without worship in mind and who has not stood in awe of a structure that was clearly constructed to know and fulfill its purpose?  What is it that makes architecture sacred?

It helps if the architect and building committee are on the same page and fully understand what the purpose of the building is to be.  Yes, everyone knows about building codes and toilets, heating and air conditioning, cost and long term maintenance.  But the first place to begin is with the liturgy.  Preaching is important, music is important, acoustics to preserve both are important,, but as a liturgical space the focus is centered upon the altar.  The whole idea that worship is but one function of a multi-purpose space may work in concept but not in reality.  The gathering of God's people around His Word and altar is central and you know right away when somebody forgot that and built an auditorium or gym that now fails to fit what the Church does in that space.

Too often, the architect and building committee begin with the exterior.  This is not where you start but where you end.  The interior and the working of that space for the liturgical purpose of God's gathered people is always first.  We focus from the altar and back again.  Preaching is also central but the pulpit is a piece of furniture for the benefit of the preacher and the eye of the people and not what defines the worship space.  Everything flows out of the altar and back to it.  Circular buildings are imaginative but cost the worshiper the vital perspective so necessary for a liturgical church and a liturgical assembly.  Add to this the false idea that everyone needs to be close to the action in order for the building to "work."  If anything, the space should welcome people with a sense of the sacred and less as a vantage point to see something happen.  The expanse of the space needs to be vertical more than horizontal and it should lift the eye and the soul up to the heavens.  Yes, it is not cheap to built vertically but squatty churches fail almost from the get go.  They keep the focus down low and do not lift the worshiper to heaven.  This space needs to be proportionate to size but it needs to reach upward in little chapels as well as mighty cathedrals.  Yes, it is just air space but it may be the most important space in the entire building.

It is so sad when the volume of a structure is prevented.  How many times does a chancel feel like a forgotten closet added at the end rather than an expansive and important space for everyone?  How many times do we skip on the space where the altar and cross bring us together and there is no room left for the effective functioning of the liturgy, especially distribution?  How often does a Christmas tree steal the valuable real estate that belongs to the ministers and leaves them strangers to the very place where they serve God's people with God's gifts? 

How sad it is when the architect views the church as a his creation or the building committee sees the building in terms of cost effectiveness and then allows either or both of these to rob the churches of a structure that actually supports what happens on Sunday morning!  Both architect and building committee need to start by looking around and talking about what makes this building effective and that building disappointing.  Both architect and building committee need to study the liturgy and actually watch what happens on Sunday morning so that both know clearly and well the shape of the task before them.  We building our buildings and then they define us (Winston Churchill).  We want the legacy of our building to be a positive one.  Of course, there are always compromises and costs to be considered but building a cheap building that does not serve well its liturgical purpose will never be a wise or prudent stewardship decision.

The Dark Ages. . .

Later scholars biased toward the glories of ancient Rome coined the term the “Dark Ages” but were they really dark and was the Church to blame for the failings of the times?  Following 476 AD, the Germanic tribes conquered the western half of the Roman Empire and there was chaos in the aftermath.  Rome's legendary buildings and roads and infrastructure lay in decline but was this period stagnant or did it revert to an uncivilized and uneducated era?  In the aftermath of Rome's decline, the Church arose as the most powerful force in Europe, in effect defining what church and state would look like going forward.

Europe in the Early Middle Ages was without an empire or kingdom or political structure to unite its diversity and create a cohesive society.  Into this vacuum, the medieval Church grew into the most powerful institution in Europe, rising to its most influential point in the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD).

The strong papacy of Gregory the Great (pope from 590 to 604) gave boundaries and limits to the monarchs across Europe.  Monasticism had a profound influence upon the structures of church and state as well as later Western values and attitudes.  These monastic communities were havens of literacy and learning, patrons of the arts and artisans themselves, and actively encouraging charity and good works.  They also encouraged a work ethic, as Benedictines insisted that “Idleness is the enemy of the soul.”  The Early Middle Ages saw real and effective gains in the agriculture economy and production.  By the 10th century implements and mechanization were creating a bread basket where there had been little effective agricultural production before.

Great advances were made in science and math—in the Islamic world as well as in Christendom.  The myth that science and math were suppressed has labeled this period falsely as anti-learning.  The reality is that the foundations for the future advances were laid here during the "dark ages."  Unlike the Islam of today with its almost knee jerk reaction against progress,the Islamic world was also advancing in mathematics and the sciences.  Indeed the ninth-century Persian astronomer and mathematician al-Khwarizmi (c. 780-c. 850), introduced Europe to algebra and the Latinized version of al-Khwarizmi’s name gave us the word “algorithm.”  The Carolingian Renaissance period saw a real flowering of the arts, literature, and architecture as well.  

The 29 year old Karl, a son of Pepin the Short,  assumed complete control of the Frankish kingdom and reigned as Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) successfully defeating the Muslims in Spain, Bavarians and Saxons in northern Germany and Lombards in Italy.  In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne “emperor of the Romans” (Holy Roman Emperor) and the crown and miter worked together to spread the faith.  During this time there was a rebirth of Roman-style architecture, educational reform, and the preservation of classic Latin texts.  By the time the Carolingian dynasty faded away the end of the ninth century (Charlemagne died in 814), the foundation for the future Renaissance had already been laid.

In reality, the Church preserved, rebuilt, and carried Western civilization forward while the world around it was falling apart.  While it did so in a way not possible today, as we face the end of eras and epochs and the transition of what was into what will be, the Church can also be one of the most stabilizing forces, assuring the passing on of the legacy of learning within the values and virtues of a distinctly Christian worldview in order to prevent chaos and disorder as well as provide a foundation for future rebirth and renewal.  Then, as now, the darkness may be exaggerated and the leadership of the Church may be resisted and yet who else will rise up with calm and hope for tomorrow?  Every generation insists the future is going to hell in a hand basket and they may be correct.  Yet God has placed us in our own times as leaven for the whole lump.  We will not accomplish anything good or lasting by hiding nor will we have any hope to offer unless that hope is clearly expressed within the context of God's grace and mercy and within the story of Christ crucified and risen.  When the fabric is being torn asunder, now is the time to take up the needle and thread and repair it, making it better than it was before, and assuring those that Gods' mercy is still our cover, the righteousness of Christ our clothing, and hope is not a myth.  Without monasteries to guide us, the local parish and our larger network of associations founded on those congregations will need to fill in the gap and take up the roles as leaders for our times.  

Is online the future?

In May of 2022, Gordon-Conwell Seminary announced that it was selling its main campus on the North Shore of Boston and switch to an online presence.  A little over a year later, they had changed their mind and sold housing units but not the seminary campus.  In the ELCA, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, has sold now all of its campus after having sold part of it earlier.  After 100 years in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood, the school will become an online presence.  The LCMS is replete with online schools with some residential presence who want to service its congregations (they seem to be popping up daily!) and has a very limited online program through its residential seminaries serving the SMP Pastor program.  There is a drumbeat to do something to create an online route to general ordination although the seminaries and conventions of the Synod have resisted an official path.  It is highly unlikely that any of the competitors will become a semi-official school of the Synod but that has not stopped those who think the "gold standard" of residential seminary education has lost its luster.

So who is right and who is wrong about the future?  Is Gordon-Conwell the smart bet or Luther?  Which seminary is better situated to serve its churches best and provide the best pastors?  It is a big bet.  Once you sell a property or close down a residential route in favor of an online presence, there are a great many hurdles to going back.  Are we in the LCMS prepared to bet the farm that what we see in the future is the only future for us?  I for one would not want to cover such a bet.  If we had long ago decided to merge our two seminaries, where would we have been in 1974?  Then, a generation later, it seemed that Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, just might innovate itself from the center to the fringe in Missouri and now that same Seminary is slowing down that side of things in order to consolidate and grow in tune with the Synod.  It is perhaps no secret that its former President, Dale Meyer, has signed on to the faculty of one of those upstarts trying to beat Missouri at its own game (along with one or two other former faculty).  Who has their ear to the ground and their eye on the future?  That is the million dollar question.

Apart from everything else, the question at the core is whether or not an online program can produce a better pastor for the churches than a residential seminary.  No one in their right mind would dispute they can do it more cheaply and faster but are cost and speed that which defines success?  Everyone knows that Missouri has a sentimental attachment to the campus that will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary but we all know it is not an inexpensive piece of real estate to maintain.  Everyone knows that the Ft. Wayne campus was the dream of the future until the future dried up the feeder schools and the big numbers of pre-sem students and then the Synod reinvented the campus as a seminary.  It is newer but in better shape and less costly to maintain.  One seminary has a $200+ million dollar endowment and the other a little less than half.  What would happen to the money that makes tuition largely free at both campuses?  How would we evaluate the readiness of the online candidates to serve our ministerium without knowing them face to face for more than weeks at a time?  We are barely recovering from the time when we knew the pre-seminary students for at least 8 and before than 12 years before laying hands on them.  How would we make the big shift from four years to a year's worth of weeks spread over even more years?

My point is simple.  Unless we are absolutely sure that this is the best path and the wisest path before us, we need to slow things down.  It sings great to run where the brave dare not go but it may not be the smartest thing to do.  The future is a mine field more than a racing track.  Success is defined less by speed than faithfulness and less by cost-effectiveness than what is good, right, and salutary.  As one of those in the midst of the transition from high school starting gates to ordination to college, I know how hard it is to recover from changes made too quickly.  The loss of Concordia Senior College and its feeder system through the Concordias (plus St. Paul's and St. John's) was hard to swallow and we are still digesting some of the after effects nearly 30 years later.  The loss of one or both seminaries in favor of an online option (probably impossible to prevent from being the primary path) would be even more difficult to process.  My plea to the Synod is to slow down.  The race between the tortoise and the hare is not a Biblical one but it can remind us that what seems a nobrainer now could leave us on life-support later.  Maybe we ought to read Proverbs 21:5 a few times before voting on something that is a stab into the darkness.  Steady plodding brings prosperity; hasty speculation brings poverty.

Fullness. . .

As I have in the past, I continue to question and even to mock those who settle for less than fullness.  When it comes to liturgy, this is the attitude that one should not go overboard on anything -- from liturgy to the frequency of reception of the Sacrament to the ceremonial of the liturgy to the belief in the Real Presence.  All things in moderation has become somewhat the byword of our times and Lutherans are certainly not immune from the disease.  Of course, this is also true of the moderation of belief and the fear of the zealot who truly believes or believes truly what the Scriptures say.  Everyone knows that zealotry makes everyone nervous.  The fact that few prophets are the subject of stoning seems to confirm the fact that we have few prophets today.  It is much easier to sit in the middle than on the edge.

What is of equal consternation is the inexplicable desire to be moderate in holiness as well.  We seem content with a piety that is at best lukewarm.  I recently was asked by a layman if divorce would still prevent someone from serving as a pastor.  No, the sad truth is, divorce has become as ordinary in the Church as in the world and even on both sides of the altar rail.  There is not even a credible concern for an innocent party in all of this.  Things happen.  There was a time when divorce for any reason, whether you were the innocent or guilty party, was itself cause for removal from the roster.  Maybe that was patently unfair but it was clear.  The more you try to nuance things, the more difficult it is to hold toward marriage to one woman.  I well recall the first time I encountered an active Lutheran pastor who was married to a woman not of the Lutheran faith.  It was shocking to me not because I could not conceive of it happening but because I could not imagine how it would work to continue.  In one case, the Lutheran pastor was not even allowed to stand with his Roman Catholic wife for the baptism of their child.  That probably could not happen today but it is more because Roman has loosened up than Lutherans have tightened up their rules.  

Christianity, in contrast to the world, does not speak of minimums or medians but always of a “fullness.”  We do not find a muddling middle for piety or holiness or good works (even though good works do not purchase our salvation).  We are always striving for more than we will accomplish and this is particularly true of holiness.  We have an extravagant God.  He gives not what He must or what He can get away with but more than either deserve or dare ask.  He is foolishly extravagant and generous -- at least in our earthly eyes.  In His fullness He has acted for our salvation.  Even when He does not demand what is His right or His due, it is because He is acting as servant to a people who should be His servants.  He is incarnate of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit not as a piece of God but as God in whom the fullness dwells.  He empties Himself not by slight of hand but into the cold darkness of our death -- fully embracing the cost of our salvation.  He rises not for Himself but to bestow upon us the fullness of what He has won and to prefigure for us our own resurrection and ascension into glory.  Until then, He does not watch from a distance or look for what we do but does what we cannot and gives what we need through the means of grace.  He daily and richly forgives our sins and "of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (John. 1:16).  

The fullness is not something He demands as condition of our salvation or as the price of our entry into His divine life but as gift, grace, and goodness to sinners who never have and never will merit any of the fullness He gives.  Our striving for fullness is not in response to a command from His lips or a demand in exchange for His mercy but because He has given us all things.  That is why the line between sacred and secular is so foolish -- nothing is secular in Him.  Everything is held together by the glue of His merciful power and He lives to fill every aspect of daily life.  Islam can talk about the places where God is not but not the Christian.  Yes, hell is such a place but we do not know what it means except to know well and good it is not for us.  But faith is never running from something.  It is always running to -- to His grace upon grace, His mercy without end, and His fullness.  We do not forgive because the erring person earns it or a second chance.  We forgive because he forgave us.  We do not love because love is wonderful or romantic or rewarding.  We love because He first loved us.  We do not give because people notice or people are in need.  We give because He has given to us, pressed down, shaken, and overflowing.  We do not seek holiness to be His equal but because He embraced our sin so that we might begin to strive to be like Him in holiness of heart as well as life -- be holy because I am holy.  Once we begin settling for what is easy or find a comfort level in where we are, we are vulnerable.  The pride that goes before a fall is not some heavenly pitfall to punish us but living so comfortably in our emptiness that we no longer want or seek the fullness.  Don't settle.  Even if it means constant failure.  Don't settle.  His fullness continues not simply to forgive but to restore us that we might strive again.  His fullness fills us so that we might be filled.  In Word and Sacrament, He comes to the empty but will never leave them as they were.  

Good News

On July 18, 2025, nine days before it was to have taken effect, a federal court blocked a Washington state law that would have penalized priests and pastors for refusing to report abuse disclosed during private confession/  In a press release from Becket, one of the legal groups representing the plaintiffs, the report chronicled the work to press back against the measure, signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee on May 4, would have made Washington the first state in the country to explicitly remove legal protections for the seal of the confessional in abuse-related cases, and, in what could have been expanded, to other areas as well. The state scheduled enforcement of the law was to begin July 27 and will now be rendered null and void. 

The plaintiffs in the case — Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle, Bishop Joseph J. Tyson of Yakima, and Bishop Thomas A. Daly of Spokane — challenged the measure, with support from WilmerHale, Becket, and First Liberty Institute.  Although I do not know of any, one might have hoped for an amicus brief from somebody in the LCMS.  We also have a vested interest in the protection of the age old seal of the confessional.  The bishops argued the statute infringed on First Amendment rights and treated clergy unequally by stripping their confidentiality protections while preserving them for other professions, such as attorneys and counselors.  The blocked law would have imposed up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine, and civil penalties on clergy found guilty of failing to report.  While everyone knew the feds were concerned about this overreach, the mere fact that the measure passed, was signed by the governor, and had some popular support illustrates the state of affairs between church and society in America.  It also illustrates how beholden churches are to those groups who have the funds and expertise to rise up against such violations of the religious freedom of Americans.

It's just a building. . .

For a very long time we have accepted as truth the idea that the first Christians did not have an idea of sacred space, that multi-purpose space was the norm, and that the nature of what happened in the liturgy and what happened at a family meal were more similar than distinct.  The myth has given birth to a liturgical theology and an architecture which has predominated in modern times and it has entrenched itself so deeply that nearly every ecclesiastical ideology accepts it.  Simple is not merely a preference for the eye or the ear but that which was from the beginning until an alien view of space and function corrupted the earlier pristine work.

Nowhere is this more practiced than with the use of church buildings no longer needed or wanted.  We say a few words and the sell to the highest bidder the space where people once gathered to hear the Word of the Lord and to receive His sacred feast.  I hate it.  I would rather the buildings be torn down than turned into community centers or art galleries or theaters or nightclubs or music venues or private homes.  If the churches are not going to preserve them, we owe it to ourselves and to the buildings no longer wanted or needed to prevent them from the sacrilege of misuse.  Okay, yes, I know.  We say a few words and deconsecrate them and so they are supposedly no different than any other structure.  Except that they still look like churches.

Growing up we often passed an old frame building that was once a thriving Lutheran congregation but it had been sold and moved and served as a hog house.  The shape of the windows told its story long after the markings of its sacred space had been removed or decayed.  Its steeple had been crudely cut off but everyone who saw it knew what had been there.  Not only the faithful knew, but even those who had never set foot in a church building before knew what this building had been and smelled what it was.  Shame on us!  A few shekels were more valuable to us than the sacred space in which couples had married, children baptized, youth confirmed, families grieved, faithful communed, and the songs of faith had rung out.  Shame on us!

If a church had been a warehouse in a previous life, most folks driving by still know what it had been.  The shape of churches is universal.  Signs can protest what the mind knows by instinct.  At least when such buildings are sold, they are returned to their first use and the temporary use as a house of God can rather easily be forgotten.  But churches that look like churches with the windows to the soul in their walls and a steeple pointing to heaven and chancels still carving out the holy of holies cannot be stripped of their identity simply by a few words.  What was designed into their bricks, stone, wood, and steel remains.  It is unmistakable.

Lets do us all a favor.  Lets not pretend what was never was and let us not presume that it makes no difference.  Instead, let us at least do the honorable thing and tear down what was set up for sacred usage so that no one is confused or scandalized and God is not mocked.  There are more and more church buildings coming on the market as Rome and others close down extraneous congregations and others die from within.  Protestantism has learned a terrible lesson about expediency and Rome has learned a terrible lesson about space and most of us just don't care anymore.  That is until you drive by one of those resurrected for less than holy purpose and then your skin just crawls.  

Strange but true. . .

If you have the stomach for it, you can watch this snippet of a Roman Catholic Mass from the middle of June.  It is a great deal to digest.  The liturgical looseness is to be expected but the co-opting of a whole liturgy to accommodate an LGBTQIA+ agenda is rather shocking.  One can only hope that the chasuble in the chancel will never be worn.  I was surprised to hear that Rome is the most welcoming to LGBTQIA+ folks and their agenda and perhaps the authors if their Catechism might also be a little surprised.  Or maybe there is no shock or outrage left anymore.  No one should be surprised that their mission is directed to sex workers and trans folks in Kenya.  That said, the strangeness is not simply the liturgical quirks or the obvious LGBTQIA+ friendly atmosphere.  What makes this odd is that this is allowed while those who wish for Latin or ad orientum or reverence or kneeling are castigated, warned, and eventually shut down.  I wish I could say it were only true of Rome.  Sadly, it is not.

The day has come when those who cling to the traditions of the faithful are more and more seen as problem people in every denomination.  It is also true among Lutherans.  Pastors are warned against introducing change too quickly or without regard for the consciences of the people and particularly warned against such things as chanting, incense, and reverence.  At the same time, when pastors come in and put a drum set front and center and replace the organ with guitars, keyboards, and a beat the dominates the music, these pastors are lauded as missional and the people urged to care about those not in the pews enough to give up their sacred cows of liturgy, vestments, and ceremonies.  The vast majority of larger congregations offer at least one contemporary worship option and many of them have assigned the Divine Service to an unpopular time slot and this is still happening in Missouri.  

Why is it that those who take seriously the Confessional call to catholic doctrine and practice are so often singled out for criticism and those who live on the fringes of the church's liturgical life are considered pace setters and mission-minded?  The vast majority of LCMS congregations use the hymnal and at least the minimal ceremonial of that book but the vast majority of people in LCMS congregations worship in congregations that at least offers some form of blended or contemporary service.  Most of us who have a fuller liturgical celebration are less intent upon seeing what we do imposed on those who do less than we are the whole Synod adopting the Divine Service as minimum, the hymns of the hymnal as their song, and reverence as the character of what happens in worship.  We are not about sending a thurible to every address of every congregation in Synod but we are about a clear and unmistakable face to what happens on Sunday morning among us.  It may not be uniformity but it is at least unity.  Rome has the same problem.

Rome has its dioceses of Charlotte or Detroit or other places where bishops are silent as church mice about the extremes of liturgical practice and faith expressed but roar like lions against someone who wants to kneel to receive the Sacrament.  While I do not know of many Latin Mass folks who insist that it has to be Vetus Ordo, I do know that they expect the Novus Ordo to at least acknowledge in some way the kinship between the rites.  They long for unity even if they admit that uniformity may not be possible.  One it tolerated and, perhaps, even celebrated, while the other is constrained and forbidden.  One pope contradicts another on this subject and throws a tantrum over folks who want to be nearer what was the 500 year norm.  Sad but true, strange but true.  Leo has not yet signaled what he will do and Lutherans have no pope to insist upon anything so I suspect the status quo will remain for both Rome and Wittenberg.  It is easier to gang up on the catholics than to curb the excesses of the Protestants in nearly every denomination.

Birth rate does matter. . .

Although most have laughed and dismissed the idea that birth rate is responsible for a significant portion of Christianity's woes, the refusal to entertain this seriously does not mean that it is not true.  Birth rate does matter.  A Pew study from 2010 to 2020 indicates that Christianity is growing (at least in the Southern Hemisphere and Africa in particular) but it is also declining in its proportion to the whole of the world's population.  Conversion is still significant but the decline of births and the loss of the children born due to a lack of catechesis and example is what is more responsible for the state of affairs today. 

In the Pew study demographics were cited most as the explanation for the shift over the decade.  The religious groups with older populations and a falling birthrate are struggling to keep up with those who have younger members and who laud the larger family.  The religions in decline are distinctly those in which marriage is more and more optional and children are not essential.  Europe and North America certainly fill that bill as they have more singles, smaller families, and an aging population so the once dominant religion of that area, Christianity, now has and will have fewer members going forward.  In contrast, in Sub-Saharan Africa large families and high esteem for marriage along with a significant conversion rate means the number of Christians there is increasing.  

What is true of Christians in these areas is also true of the Islamic nations of the Middle East and Northern Africa.  It is also true at least of the newer immigrant populations in the West who also claim Islam as their faith.  Birth rates matter.  The Lutheran lands of old (Northern Europe and Scandinavia) are showing the worst effects of the loss of marriage as a cultural ideal and the loss of children as a high value of marriage.  As someone once said, as goes Western Europe, soon goes America, and as goes America, so goes Christianity in the West.  I once saw that credited to Adrian Rodgers, the Southern Baptist preacher of a previous generation but it is a case of the obvious.

My point today is to say that the future of Christianity -- in particular in the West but literally everywhere -- depends upon the healthy state of the family, recovery of marriage as the norm, and the rejection of abortion and birth control out of the desire to enjoy larger families.  We cannot evangelize ourselves out of our decline.  There are plenty of people to be evangelized and I am not at all suggesting that we should not make a public proclamation of the Gospel.  Just the opposite.  But the reality is that we could speed up adult conversions in the West and still see our overall Christian population continue to diminish.  The key to the health of the West is the same as the key to the health of Christianity in the West -- the recovery of the value and virtue of marriage and children.  Christianity, however, has to do a better job of retaining our children in the face of a growing secular influence in public education and a culture more and more unfriendly to the faith.  This will mean some hard choices for those parents and families and a change in the values of Christians to be more distinct from the rest of the population.  Surely this is not a bad thing. 

Christianity has suffered as the decision of our ancestors in the early 1930s and 1940s was to embrace birth control and normalize the ideal of a smaller family.  It has also suffered in the large number of Christian denominations who were late to the battle against abortion, no-fault divorce, and the full embrace of the sexual revolution in the plethora of sexual desires and gender identities that has now become normal.  Other Christian denominations chose not to join the fight at all and simply caved into the prevailing direction of secular culture.  Orthodoxy and catechesis are the ongoing causes by which Christians not only retain the faith but keep the faithful in that faith.  This is a profound lesson we should have learned but the reality is that it is hard for us now to stand out and against what has become the norm in the West.  It will be going forward as well. 

Finally, while Christians do better than we assume at evangelizing, for every 18 folks who walk through the front door, 5-6 walk out the back door.  Muslims do a terrible job of converting with barely 2 new folks walking through the front door but they do not lose many and so their trajectory is always pointed higher than Christianity as a whole.  This is where catechesis enters in -- not simply the formal instruction that takes place at the church building but the catechesis of the home in which mom and dad impart the faith, model it, and help it grow in their children.  Many of the folks who left Christianity simply were never there in the first place.  They had not been assimilated as children or as adults and so a faith that remained on the outside of their lives became easy to jettison at the first sign of trouble or disappointment.  We are not doing a bad job of welcoming new people but we are not doing a very good job of modeling, instructing, and helping them in the doctrine and piety of the faith.  If we had, the gains we registered at the front door would not be so diluted by those exiting the back door. 

Better in theory than in practice. . .

There is no limit to the things which might fit the phrase better in theory than in practice.  I could certainly add a number to that category.  Among them is Missouri's preoccupation with democracy and voting which seems clear in theory (both the rationale and its limits against voting on the Word of God) but in practice it is neither neat nor tidy.  Too often we end up confusing majority with God's will and actually voting on the things God's Word prescribes.  Lutheran moderation seems good in theory but in practice it often makes it difficult for us to actually say that certain things are wrong and you should not do them.  Furthermore, it can end up being a subtle justification for sinning as long as the sins are not too shocking or terrible.

Sola Scriptura sounds great in theory but in practice it has ended up robbing Protestantism of anything remotely near catholic doctrine and truth.  Even if it is not how it is intended, the reality has certainly been that everyone is his own interpreter and his own sancta mater ecclesium and magisterium.  Those who claim to be bound by only the Scriptures have seen their churches waffle on abortion and cave to birth control and embrace every kind of sexual desire and gender identity -- to name but a few of the errors.  Even those who have abandoned the phrase, think that they are operating under the authority of Scripture when they are embracing the times

Even bishops are far better in theory than in practice.  If bishops alone were a guarantee of orthodoxy, Methodists and Episcopalians would not be the rather lost causes they have become and the ELCA would not be on the brink of apostasy.  Yes, I still believe it is better to emulate the ordered structure of Christianity from the beginning than to put things into American democratic terminology but we all know that changing the terminology will not fix the errors.  The same can be said about liturgy and ceremony -- they are profoundly catholic and apostolic but it is not impossible to keep the forms while emptying them of their meaning.  The Church of England seems to have excelled at keeping the shape of things while gutting the doctrine and piety from the ritual and forms of the Mass.

Councils are often great when they confess the truth of Scripture but when they authority of the council becomes the equal to the Word of God or when its power is separated from that Word, the councils become confused conventions of votes and voters who think they are doing one thing while they are often doing something else.  The Reformation was correct in warning us that councils can err and they have and they will continue to do so.  The sole source and norm of catholic doctrine is the Scriptures and the sole reflection of the Scriptures in worship remains the ordo, the liturgical form that belongs to all even when they have chosen to depart from it.  No restoration of faith can happen without a restoration of worship and the other way around.  The search for authority often leads us everywhere when it needs to lead us to the somewhere that is God's unchanging Word. 

There is no silver bullet.  Every age and generation must signal its devotion to orthodox and Scriptural Christianity, make the good confession before the errors and temptations of the day, and stand upon the unchanging foundation of Christ alone.  We cannot afford to become complacent because we call the offices by the right names or keep the ancient form of the Mass or hold to the slogans of another fight.  Ours is never the cause to pause and refresh but to remain ever vigilant against errors that would steal Christ and our salvation and ever urgent in confessing clearly and completely the sacred deposit of the faith and its foundations upon Scripture and its witness in catholic tradition.  There is way that we will lose this and that is when our own voices and the voices of those outside the faith become equal to the voice of Scripture and when our custom becomes the equivalent of apostolic custom.  When that happens it is sure that trouble and decay will soon follow.