The focus is not on the soil but the Seed. . .

The Sermon for Proper 10A, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the Parable of the Sower, preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN, on Sunday, July 12, 2026.

Though it seldom happens, we have the benefit today of Jesus’ own interpretation for His parable of the sower.  Except that He told the parable to one group and gave the interpretation to another.  Which might be cause for me stopping right here since the interpretation was given to the apostles while the parable itself was given to everyone.  That probably won’t work.  So let us venture forward.

While we are quick to rush in so that we can discover why some continue in the faith and others fall away, I am not sure we should begin there at all.  Parables are mostly pictures of God and if we are too quick to rush to an explanation to comfort worried parents or explain empty pews, we would miss the picture of God given here.  It is, after all, God who is on display in Jesus’ words and not simply people who have always grown hot and cold about everything.

As someone from a farm state, I could say that the picture of God given here shows He is not a very good farmer.  Seed is expensive.  So is fertilizer and herbicide – not to mention the time, labor, and energy invested in making sure that the seed grows roots and bears fruit.  No farmer can relate to this parable.  Every farmer knows his soil – which soil is a safe bet for the seed to grow and a harvest to be made and which is not.  Except God.  He does not spend His time finding the right soil.  He is wastefully extravagant.  He sows His costly seed everywhere.

God the sower sows without care or concern for the kind of soil upon which He is sowing the seed.  He does not worry about wasting the seed or about the cost of His extravagance or wastefulness – at least by our standards.  He does not spend His time worrying about the kind of soil that is right but purposefully sows His seed in those places everyone knows is a big risk.  He does not stick to fields and soil which can be expected to produce a good crop but simply lets the seed fly indiscriminately on all kinds of worthless soil.  What kind of God does that?

He drops the seed along the rocky paths that mark where people have walked it hard – places hardly amenable to planting or harvesting.  He sows the seed among weeds and thornbushes where no one in their right might would even walk – much less plant.  God the sower is not looking for the right places to sow the seed from which His kingdom will grow and flourish but is extravagant enough to toss away some seed at places where not much can be expected. He simply sows everywhere.

 What kind of God does that?  We are so quick to rush into the explanation and to some answer to why some and not others that we have missed the most important thing about this parable.  We are so quick to nod our heads at the obvious explanation of what happens to some who come to faith and then fall away, that we miss the God who is wasteful enough (at least in our eyes) to put the seed of His Word everywhere and not in the places we think wise.  This is a parable of God’s unfathomable mercy more than it is an explanation to tell us why some believe and some do not, why some endure in the faith and others fall away.

The Word of the Kingdom is not something reserved for the right people but for everyone.  Everyone already knows that the world is made up of all kinds of mixed soil.  We know about the rocks and paths worn hard and weeds and thornbushes.  We do not know about the mercy of God.  That is what we need to have revealed to us.  We know all about the reasons why faith is hard, why we struggle to keep the faith in hard times and amid all the distractions of this world.  We all know the limitations of our strength, the ease at which we surrender our hope to despair, and the sins that we struggle to feel are forgiven.  We all know these things and we are too often overcome by them.  But what we do not know as we should is the limitless mercy of God and the grace that is sufficient for our every need.  Yet this is precisely where our focus should be and it is the focus of Jesus’ parable.

Every step of this life for every Christian is filled with constant temptation, with a world of competing values, ideas, ideals, rights, and wrongs.  We seem to spend our lives trying to reconcile our faith to these in a way that will satisfy us or make it all easier.  We think there are secret ways to making peace between the things we know are right, true, and of God and the things so enticing to us but just plain wrong.  We think there is some hidden way to resist temptation without it costing so much or being so hard.  But our focus is not meant to be on these.  Our focus is meant to be on the Lord, whose goodness will never fail us even though it is impossible to understand.

We are all the rocky paths, the hardened soil, surrounded by thistles and thorns.  We are the worthless soils in which God has dared to waste the seed of His Word, calling us to faith, washing us in baptismal water, guiding us by His voice, and feeding us at His table.  Faith is not the predictable response to a reasonable set of circumstances but the surprise of the Spirit, the surprise of grace, and mystery of a love that refuses to give up.  

The good soil is not the sinless soul or the righteous heart but the one who hears the Word of God and keeps it.  The miracle is not that some fall away but that any believe.  It can only be the work of the Spirit and the mystery of God’s extravagant love.  His Word that proceeds from His mouth shall not return to Him empty but shall accomplish His purpose and succeed according to His own intention.  That is the mystery revealed in this parable.  God’s mercy is His most important character trait.  And of any, we Lutherans ought to know this best of all.

At some point we forgot this.  We began to treat the church like a business and outreach like a business plan and we borrowed from the business world to try and figure out where to sow the seed to get the highest yield.  It has not helped the Church to grow but it has succeeded in making us think that the secret lies in the soil instead of the seed of God’s Word.  As parents we try to figure out the secret to raising good kids who will do what is right and keep the faith plated in them.  We all know that there is no secret.  The parent knows you love every child the same, teach them and provide for them as best you are able, and pray for them as if you have done nothing at all.  The results are uneven.  They are always uneven.  But you do not focus all your energy where you think the best results will be found.  You give your extravagant love to every child over and over and over again.  It is what you do.  It is what God has done.  It is what God is still doing.

He does not focus His resources on those most likely to come to faith or remain in the faith.  He sows the seed where nothing is expected and sends forth His Spirit on those we deem a wasted effort. He does not know how to give up.  He just sows the seed.  If we are failing to grow as a Church is it because we have failed to figure out the key to marketing the Gospel successfully or have we forgotten to sow the seed everywhere, no matter what it costs, because that is what was done for you and me?  Do we trust what we think will bring results or do we actually dare to believe that God’s Word shall not return to Him empty but will accomplish His purpose in sending it?

 Sow the seed like God does, without prejudice or constraint.  Be as lavish sowing the Word of God for the sake of others as it was sown into you.  It will not fail even if you never see results.  The focus is not on the soil but the seed.  We will only accomplish His purpose by sowing the seed of His Word and trusting that God will bring the results.  To you has been given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of heaven and blessed be your eyes to see and your ears to hear this Gospel of Christ crucified and risen.  Amen.  

Outgrowing ourselves. . .

The pursuit of the evolutionary goal has always been without limits to its cruelty but with the advent of Artificial Intelligence it would seem that this goal is also without any limit upon its humanity.  Indeed, there are those who hope and pray that the technology we invent will replace ourselves -- or at least replace the abhorrent aspects of the human self which the so-called enlightened have long lamented.  What the earlier philosophers and religionists decried in the flesh that held in captivity our spirits has been translated into the hope that machines will enable us once for all to be free of the constraints of the body.  It is called transhumanism.  

The core of Christian belief has stood as a witness against such fancy.  That Christ became incarnate and that God did not disdain the flesh He had made but chose to send forth His only-begotten into that flesh for us and for our salvation has at the same time but the foundation of our belief and the greatest cause of offense to the world beholden to science and the myth of progress.  Not a prison but a wonderfully created gift of God, we are not embarrassed or ashamed of our bodies but celebrate them as signs of God's goodness and gifts of His own creative will and purpose.  We are embodied creatures of God not as punishment and neither as our weakness but by design.  That design, so profoundly crafted by God and unable for us to replicate except in the crudest fashion, is not our failing but our glory.  This is the witness of Christianity.  God lives in flesh for us and our flesh, even after the Fall and the curse of death, remains His gift even as it awaits its perfection in eternal life when new and glorious flesh shall replace what cannot be eternal.  

C.S. Lewis coined the title, The Abolition of Man, but the work he authored is a prescient criticism of then modern attempts to debunk natural values, such as those that would deny objective value on rational grounds.  This same work appears in his own fiction in That Hideous Strength.   The Abolition of Man has turned out to be rather prophetic on the topic of "values", such that today they accepted as being projections of our feelings and subjective whims, and consequently, anyone who dares to speak of properly objective truth or objective moral value is engaging in an oppressive play of power."  That small collection of essays which Lewis once complained had been ignored has become relevant again because of the conflict within the Western world over what it means to be human and the failure of science to offer us any help to solve such a crisis of anthropology.  

In the midst of our walk to outgrow ourselves, Christians proclaim the Scriptures.  “What we will be has not yet been made known” (1 John 3:2). We have become “partakers of divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), “for a little while [made] lower than angels” (Heb. 2:7–9), until the exaltation of Jesus, who “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named” (Eph. 1:21–23) has prepared the place where we are to go to be with Him (Eph. 2:6).  The resurrection does not disdain the flesh God created but transfigures it into the spiritual bodies like Jesus own glorious flesh.  We plant these bodies in the earth as seed, just as Christ was planted in death to be raised in glory (1 Cor. 15:36–37). The mortal bodies are sown in dishonor and weakness not because they are bad but because of what sin did to them and so they give way to the imperishable bodies of glory and power (1 Cor. 15:42–44).  What we shall be, we do not know but we dare not cast off or demean the flesh of God's own creation and redemption.  Indeed, in the cemetery we pray that the God who created this body might keep these remains until the day of the resurrection of all flesh -- hardly a lament but rather the voice of hope.  Our end is not the rise of the technological marvel of our own creation and a testament to our progress or evolution but rather to God's redemptive work, rescuing our bodies from the death that cursed them since Eden and promising that they too shall see them created anew when we, with our own eyes, behold God face to face.

Archbishop at home in a mosque. . .

If you want to know one of the things wrong with Rome, listen to how the Archbishop of Detroit described his visit to a mosque:

“There is no place where I feel more respect, fraternity, and kindness,” Archbishop Weisenburger said at the mosque’s opening ceremony on June 12, according to The Arab American News. “From the moment I entered this beautiful site, I felt a profound divine presence.”  [emphasis added]

Frankly, I do not get it.  I am not Islamaphobic.  I am a Christian.  By nature that means a rejection of Islam and the deity the Quran [or Qur'an or Koran] is rejected as not the true God whom Jesus Christ has revealed.  Feeling at home within the sacred place of worship for a faith that rejects core Christian teaching is to feel at home with error.  It is a sign of the constant need on the part of some to reaffirm the rights of Muslims to worship as they please (and who says anything against this?) but at the same time causing offense to the core confessions of Christian faith established and proclaimed in the basic creeds of Christendom.  

Rome has an alarming way of somehow giving place and recognition to faiths which deny basic Christian teaching yet without calling them out on this.  No one is suggesting that Christians need be rude or offensive in the way they speak or interact with Muslims but that does not justify to over the top rhetoric about feeling at home with the divine presence in a mosque.  Really?  A liturgical church which insists that the Mass is the most profound entrance into the presence of the Eternal and a sacramental church which insists that the sacraments mediate God's presence and grace in a unique manner which supersedes any and all other means of God's presence does not give enough of a sense of the divine presence that one must leave the cathedral and find a rug to kneel upon in a mosque?  Perhaps the good archbishop has been breathing in the wrong kind of smoke.

Worth a listen. . .

Whether you are a pastor or a Lutheran or Christian, there are many words of wisdom in this man and it shows that Scripture was right to commend the gray haired head for the wisdom of years as well as the wisdom of learning.  Thank you, Dr. Scaer.  Thank you, Gene Wilken.  Thank you, host Gottesdienst.

Mercy alone. . .

Sermon for Trinity 5, preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN, on  9 July 2026.

Not always do the readings appointed for the one year and three year series have the same focus.  This week they do.  On Sunday we will hear the Parable of the Sower and Jesus’ own explanation of the mystery of God and those who fall away.  Today we hear the equally grand mystery of the miraculous catch.  Both turn us to the mercy of God alone.  There is no reasonable explanation or marketing information to be ascertained to teach us where to plant or where to fish.  It is all in God’s wisdom, according to His purpose, and by His mercy.

Our Lord sends His disciples out to fish after they had fished and fished and fished without anything to show for it all.  They were tired and weary but who are they to disagree with the Son of God?  So they go at the wrong time to the wrong place and use the wrong method only to be nearly drowned in the process because of the great catch of fish.  Jesus is not teaching them superior fishing methods but something of the grace and mercy of God.  It is not simply a lesson meant for the apostles but for you and me.  The Lord knows what He is doing.  He does not need nor does He ask for our opinions or our wisdom.  He asks us to do what He says.

Everything God does is by nature His plan.  He does not act upon whim nor does He act accidentally.  It is all His intention.  It is accomplished by His power.  This is what the disciples learned with the miraculous catch of fish that defied explanation.  Then Jesus does the unimaginable.  He insists that they will now become His agents and instruments, fishing not for gain but for men so that they may know with them the unending limits of God’s mercy and grace.

On one hand it seems to be a painful reminder that no one enters the kingdom of God by their decision or will but they are caught in God’s net.  No one comes to God by their own reason or strength but only by the Holy Spirit.  This is Luther’s genius in explaining the third article of the creed.  We hear and believe.  Faith is not an act of our will but of God’s, His gracious gift by the power of His Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments.  It is not that we do nothing – we are fishers of men, after all, but we do not make people believe or fill the net.  God does that.  He keeps His promises.  He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies everyone who will be saved.  He keeps us from being snatched out of His hand.  He delivers the faithful to the Father at the appointed day.  Do you believe this?  
That’s what the disciples learned from that little fishing expedition – to believe.
Those who belong to the Lord are not lured into the kingdom.  They are not caught by the skill of the angler or the knowledge of the secret holes where the big ones hide under the surface of the waters.  This is not serene mountain stream and a well fought fight with a trout.  Instead, this is the surprise of a net that unfolds the unsuspecting fish.  They care caught in the violent act of a net suddenly stealing them from their old life and marking who they belong to.  Nets catch all kinds.  Good and bad, big and small, the ones deemed valuable and those deemed to be throw away.  Like the different soils of the parable of the sower, it is not about the soil or the lure but solely about the mercy of God.

The net is the voice of God, spoken to us in Scripture and through us to others.  God speaks and we know Him.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  The Good Shepherd calls us by name.  We all know this.  But how this works is a surprise.  The Church is not a group of people who share common interests or values or hobbies or anything like that.  The Church is as diverse as that net holding the miraculous catch.  What we have in common is simply that we belong to the Lord.  There is no homogenous principle in the Church.  There is only the net reaching out into the world and bringing back all kinds for the Lord and by His power.  It surprises the fish and even the fishermen.

It can be dangerous to fish for men.  The boat creaks and groans under the weight of it all and sometimes it feels like it is all about to drown the fishermen.  But do not fear.  Even sinners who find a home in God’s Church have a work to do for the sake of the Lord and His kingdom.  Peter admits this when he tells the Lord to leave him alone because he is an unworthy sinner.  Aren’t we all?  Later Peter will admit with the rest of them that he has given up everything for Jesus – isn’t that enough?  But that is the point.  It is not what we give or give up or what we do or fail to do that makes the Kingdom grow.  It is all God’s doing and it is His grace to call us to join Him in this calling.

We will all want to jump ship from time to time.  We will all try to put the Lord off by reminding Him we are just sinners.  The Lord knows all of this.  We are kept not by our own wills but by the net and the boat, the voice of the Gospel and the ship of the Church.  We are not set free to go our own way but kept in Him who is the Way, through the Word and Sacraments.  There will always be a cost to discipleship and part of it is the illusion of freedom this world offers.  It is never easy.  Life in Christ is not easy and it is not the good life of our dreams.  
But where else can we go?  Peter asks for all of us:  Who else has the Word of life?  We live not by reasoned understanding of God’s ways or by consent to them but by God’s grace alone, by God’s mercy alone.  That is also how the Church grows.   Thanks be to God that the Lord still rules His Church, still catches unworthy sinners into His net of forgiveness and new life, and still calls unworthy people to fish for men.  It is not our skill that commends us to Him but His grace that we commend to the world.  His Word will not return empty but will always bring forth the miraculous catch.  Look around.  It brought you and me to the Kingdom; it will continue to catch and keep the caught until He ends it at the last day.   Thanks be to God! 

The loss of family. . .

Over time and even within the last couple of generations, the one constant around the lives of most people was family.  Love them or not, family was the structure that gave support to the person, shaped the community, and built the foundation for a whole society.  Before we get to the role of the Church in this, it is sufficient to say that religious or not, family was the ground upon which nearly every aspect of life was built.  That is not to say every family was wholesome or healthy but that family was both presumed and pursued as the most essential component to the rest of life.

There was also a time in which this was the hidden unity between the divisions of race and class.  While the color of one's skin and the size of the wallet had great impact upon so much of life, family was the same essential and constant force behind all people.  For good or for ill, family was the glue that bound nearly everything together.  Certainly this was true for Black America at a time when discrimination constrained so much of their lives and limited so many of their opportunities.  But that once vaunted institution which spanned time and economic status and race has suffered greatly in the last several generations.  It is no longer the given behind the person or the community or society as a whole.  The Church is suffering greatly because of the loss of family (though, in some cases, it may have been an accomplice in its demise).

Churches were about right and wrong, morality and evil, sin and redemption.  Their concern was the soul and the salvation of the soul was the key to amending sinful lives.  This was true in nearly all the churches and was especially true of the Black churches in America.  When the churches began to be concerned for other things and when those issues and causes began to displace redemption from the center of the life of the churches and the lives of the people in them, things happened.  No matter the race, society became a profound influence upon the agenda of churches and upon their teaching.  What people thought became at least as important as what God thought and in many churches became the most important thing.  

Liberation in the white churches of America was the casting aside of constraints -- throwing off the chains of a strict sexual morality and a work ethic in favor of individual happiness and a culture of entertainment.  Liberation in the Black churches of America became the freedom of their members and from political oppression and racism -- something that turned Jesus into someone different from the God of the cross and empty tomb.  The belief that freedom in the Gospel meant freedom from social and economic inequality, rather than sin, became mankind’s greatest need and the sole organizing principle for many churches.  It did not take long to hitch additional kinds of oppression to this cause (especially in the white churches) until the adoption of a liberated view of sexual desire and gender identity became the natural heir to the Civil Rights Movement.  The hidden cost in this is the loss of family in both white America and Black America.

It is the devil's bargain, as some have coined it.  In exchange for silence on the Biblical issues of the centrality of male and female, marriage, children, and family, the political causes were pursued and economic and political equality became the necessary paths to individual happiness.  Some thought that in order for churches to remain relevant, they had no choice but to go along with the flow.  Religion and politics blurred their boundaries until today religion and political stance are parallel markers of what people think and how they live.  But where is the Gospel in all of this?  That is the subject for another column but suffice it to say that the churches which have adopted this definition of the Gospel have not fared well in the pews, suffering almost as much as the families they helped to sideline and the common values of good and evil that once bridged every community across America.

What does this mean?

According to Gallup, Americans view the following five behaviors as morally acceptable:  birth control (83%), having a baby outside of marriage (58%), gambling (57%), sex between teenagers (35%) and cloning animals (27%).  However, birth control, gambling and cloning animals have all been lower on the scale of morally acceptable in 2026 -- this after years of holding relatively steady.  What does this mean?  Ah, the good Lutheran question.  Who knows?  It could be due to a variety of anomalies in the reporting or who was surveyed or a blip in the thinking of people.  Or, it might be a signal that these are not as sacrosanct in American minds as once thought.  Look at the chart to see where things stand.  You may notice the three behaviors — the death penalty, medical testing on animals and changing one’s gender — which have hit record-low points in moral acceptability.  According to Gallup, "over the past two decades, Americans have grown generally more accepting of most of the behaviors measured by Gallup, which include those associated with sex, marriage, and certain medical and end-of-life issues. However, this trend toward more permissive attitudes has largely plateaued or pulled back in recent years, though acceptance levels on most behaviors remain higher than they were 25 years ago."  FWIW, Gallup measures the poles of political affiliation but not religious affiliation (at least in this report).  I found the most curious thing the closeness in approval given for changing gender, teen age sex, and pornography.  This is an interesting area of disapproval and one that has bucked the perceived trend of sexual promiscuity among teens and the promotion of transgenderism.  Again, I am only reporting and have no answers.  This ought to arouse a spirited discussion in a variety of settings.  At least, I hope so.

 

Praying the promises of God. . .

In nearly uniform tradition, Christians have repeated the Apostles' Creed, the Our Father, and the Psalms as part of their daily devotional routines.  This is good and salutary and should continue.  If you cannot think what to pray, at least pray that.  But there is an eminently practical reason for this.  God does not repent of his promises.  Let me go one step further.  God cannot repent of His promises.

Much is made of God's freedom to do what He pleases but He also lives within limitations upon His absolute power.  He cannot deny His Son nor what His Son has accomplished by His blood shed for sinners.  He cannot deny the self-offering of Jesus Christ on behalf of those who had nothing to offer of their own righteousness or goodness.  He cannot deny what that once for all sacrifice has accomplished in the full and free payment for sin rendered by our Lord Jesus Christ.  He cannot deny the boundaries He has placed upon Himself for our behalf -- from the rainbow reminder in the wake of the flood to the watery rebirth that raises up the dead to life everlasting to the words by which bread and wine feed the faithful the flesh and blood of Jesus.  Praying the promises of God is praying what God has solemnly pledged and sealed with the blood of Christ so that there is no going back.

I only wish I were as resolute.  I am not.  My promises are weak and frail, easily broken and sometimes repented of because I find the cost of those promises too high or they were made in haste or passion.  But not God.  Not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Not the God born of Mary, Virgin mother.  Not the God incarnate for us and for our salvation to fulfill the first promise of Eden.  Not the God who watched His Son suffer in the place of the guilty and pledge His own agony and blood for their sins.  No.  This God cannot repent of His promises.  That is why we pray them to Him and so reinforce our confidence in His Word while pleading what we could never plead for ourselves.

In one very profound sense, this happens supremely in the Eucharist.  We pray the promise of Christ, His blood that continues to cleanse us from our sin and His flesh that feeds us eternal life.  We pray this to the Father not as another offering to repeat the once all sufficient offering of Calvary but as the remembrance His own Son has commanded us to make.  We pray it best by trusting what it says.  We pray it best by giving thanks.  We pray it best by ordering our lives by its life and truth.  We pray it best by cherishing the precious gift of forgiveness which continues to be offered by the merciful God to unmerciful people.  Pray the promises of God.  Recall the history of God's saving acts among His people Israel and their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.  Everything in the Old Testament is about Christ, the promise of God kept in His incarnation, holy life, life-giving death, triumphant resurrection, ascension in glory, and coming again as Lord and Judge of all.

Every morning we rehearse this promise in the invocation of the Triune name of God, in the confession of the creed, in the sign of the cross, and in the Our Father -- even before we get to our own petitions we pray the Psalms, some of the greatest prayers of the Bible.

Another year of grace…

 46 years ago today. . . on the hottest day in July on a Nebraska prairie in a rural Lutheran church, a pastor was made. . .  Most of the men in that picture are long gone to be with the Lord. . . some of us are still here. . . the good work is completed by God's grace and whatever was built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, remains.

Christianity and the nation. . .

Somewhere along the way, the uneasy relationship between politics and religion became more comfortable -- at least for churches.  The issues seemed clearly religious to those within the Church, or at least the leaders, but not so much to those outside the faithful.  In face, an increasing number of Americans began to see religion itself as primarily about politics, primarily political instead of essentially religious.  I am not sure how deeply this is felt or addressed but it shows in the issues themselves.

To a great number of those outside the faith and even to some in the Church, the positions of the Church became more a political stance with a religious justification than a theological position with political consequences.  Voting on election day became part of the issue itself and not simply what Scripture says about this or that and then, to some, it became more important than the theological truth itself.  Those within the Church do not see this because it is natural for doctrine held to have implications for how you think, how you live, and, in this case, how you vote.  I fear this is what has happened to the sex issues that have been so prominent in the news both for Christians and those outside Christianity.

Abortion became on of those political issues with a stance which had religious justification but was not primarily a theological issue.  The pro-life movement which seemed to win big at the level of the courts seems to have lost the hearts and minds of people within the Church as well as those outside.  If the primary focus on this issue were theological -- what the Scriptures said -- it should not be so easy to have lost the fight on the individual level.  But that is the point.  Your stance on abortion is more likely to be seen as a political stand than it is to be identified with a moral truth flowing from God's Word.  It became easy to disagree about abortion while remaining united in the core theological truths.  The issue was a free issue on which Christians can rightfully disagree because it was largely political and not essentially doctrinal or theological.

I am not sure how the shift from theology to politics took place but it has -- even in the minds of some within the faith as well as those outside.  This is not simply true for abortion but also for sexual desire and gender.  In the minds of many, the basis for a judgment on these issues has shifted away from what God says to what desire says or what society holds.  These were once theological issues -- exclusively so but with practical implications for life and life within society.  Are they still?  Or are they simply political issues with political judgments upon which Christians may marshal different theological resources to support their position but none is exclusively religious.

It is not simply reflective of those on the right but also on the left.  Christianity with its source(s) of divine truth is simply source material to be used as you desire to give theological meaning to what is largely a political or social position.  Little will change in the hearts and minds of the faithful until and unless this changes and we rediscover that it is doctrine, theology, and Scripture which directs what we hold to be true and right.  Only then will we surrender the positions of our hearts and minds to the judgment of God's Word.  

The question is then when people join a congregation are they looking for a theology that fits their politics or are they looking for politics that reflects their theology.  Are conservative people being drawn to churches which reflect those conservative values or are they drawn to churches which hold to the faith of the Scriptures (which one might think was a conservative thing to do).  Looking for a good fit in a congregation has become largely the pursuit of one in which political views are shared and this comfortable fit beckons them in rather than one in which people confess a common faith.  They tend to stay more because they have ideological beliefs in common than because they share a common faith.  This, according to some social scientists like Ryan Burge, is the reason why membership in evangelical churches seems more stable than in others.  In others, in which politics has replaced the theology, the narrowing of political views has resulted in a winnowing of the membership.

Happy Fourth!

Here in the South it is not uncommon on the patriotic Sundays (nearest Memorial Day, July 4th, Veteran's Day, etc...) for churches to have patriotic services.  A color guard brings in the flag.  Patriotic songs are sung and perhaps a Sousa march is played.  A sermon inevitably addresses the sacrifices of those who paid for our liberty with their lives, on the need for national repentance to regain God's favor upon our nation, and on the special status of America before God.  I do not know if this is done in other nations but here it is common to weave together the fabric of faith and patriotism, at least on certain Sundays of the year.

I consider myself a patriotic American.  I am jealous about the good name and noble virtue of American exceptionalism in the world.  I am in awe of the faithful folk who have stood guard against our enemies and whose blood was shed on battlefields far and near for the sake of this nation and the freedom we value so highly.  I grew up carrying those white crosses adorned with poppies out to the cemeteries of fallen soldiers.  I still shudder when the guns of a military salute go off and tears well up in my eyes at the funerals of veterans when a soldier gets down on one knee and presents the flag to the bereaved on behalf of a grateful nation.  But there is no American flag inside the nave or chancel of this church and there should not be.

It is one of the gravest of sins to presume God's loyalty to a people or a land and to interweave faith and patriotism.  The resulting fabric will not be faithful to either cause when we assume that God is one of us (Americans or any other nation and people) and when we declare ours the only righteous land and citizenry in the world.  We do not do our nation or our faith any good by beating our chests and proclaiming God in our hip pocket.

If you are a patriotic American, then pray for the our President, the members of Congress, your Governor, state legislature, judges, mayors, and all levels of civil servants elected and appointed.  Do not pray for those you like or those with whom you agree but for all manner of leaders in the kingdom of the left.  Pray for their wisdom, for their faithfulness, for their faithful exercise of the powers entrusted to them as servants of the people, and pray for them to be people of truth and integrity who love justice, who act mercifully, and who carry the solemn mantle of public service humbly.  And while you are at it, do not speak so disparagingly of our politicians that no one of good repute and noble character would deign to serve the public good.

If you are a patriotic American, then render unto Caesar the things that are his as your civil, patriotic, and solemn duty.  Don't cheat on your income taxes and call it the great national sport.  Don't sit at home while others cast their ballots for people, initiatives, and referendums.  Don't be a silent minority or majority but engage the issues, causes, and conversations of the public square, guided by principle and faith as well.  Don't refuse to speak circumspectly or to act virtuously but show forth good citizenship as best you can until and unless to do so would violate God's law.

If you are patriotic American, then teach your children our history -- the good and the bad -- and urge them to give nothing less than their best for the cause of liberty, the rule of good law, and the common good.  Teach your children the sacrifices of those who went before them on lonely beachhead, in jungle heat, on thunderous wave, and cloudy sky to protect, preserve, and defend our freedom.  Teach your children not to squander this legacy of liberty in the pursuit of selfish endeavor or to justify lustful desire but to pursue it with honor, integrity, and virtue.  Teach your children to honor the flag without confusing flag and cross and thereby diminishing both.  Teach your children how the government works and prepare them for their own time when they must pass the torch to their own sons and daughters.

If you are a patriotic American, cheer on the defense of the defenseless, the protection of the vulnerable, the cause of the unborn, the aged, and the infirm, and challenge oppression, hatred, and bigotry in all its forms.  Honor life as precious gift and not as the prerogative of  rich, the powerful, or those who intimidate.  Refuse to allow life to be valued by the almighty dollar, the parade of accomplishments, or how productive one can be.  Protect rights without dismantling morality or diminishing virtue or surrendering right to wrong, goodness to evil.

Going to worship on a Sunday close to a national holiday and raising up the flag where Christ alone should reign helps neither patriotism nor the faith.  Be wary of those who intermix and confuse the two for they are prone to abuse one for the sake of the other.  God is not an American but live your life and profess your faith so that your patriotism will not diminish your faith and your faith will ennoble your life as citizen and both will be honored.  I know that there will be those who might take offense at what I have written but a patriot is more than someone who waves the flag a couple of times a year. 

Some good times. . .

Listen, watch, eat, drink, and give thanks for our nation and its cherished freedoms. . .   This is not quite the Bicentennial -- which itself got caught up in budget problems and our first non-elected President.  It will certainly be better than the debacle of 1926, caught as it was between two world wars.  I might be better than the 1876 celebration.  But this is not a party and it is not even Trump's party.  It ought to be a moment in which we try to figure out again what freedom means and how to live out the legacy of liberty we have inherited.  But don't forget it is a holiday.

 

American ideals and values. . .

I do not keep up on such things so when I read an article about and viewed a video showing the more recent US embassies abroad, I was shocked.  They are not merely modernistic but ugly.  Instead of visually portraying the values of America, they are less than successful implementations of bad architectural ideas designed more to offend the eye than stimulate the mind.  If this is the best way we can spend our money, we are in bad shape.  For all the fuss about Trump's addition to the White House, where were these voices when our tax dollars were being wasted on ugly, banal, trite, and soon to be dated facades behind the workers doing our business around the world?

But, of course, this is not simply about embassies.  Government buildings around the nation have suffered the same problem.  They do not manifest the values of strength, stability, and a connection to our American past but make odd and icky statements about the architect.  It is positively embarrassing.   I wish it applied only to government buildings but it can be said of art galleries, music halls, schools, universities, and, yes, to churches.  We seem immune to taste when it comes to the buildings we construct.  There is no sense of what happens inside or there is the admission that to be functional it must also be ugly.  Beauty is an American ideal (O beautiful for spacious skies...) and one that should not be inconsistent with the public face of government and other institutions in our cities and in the cities of the world where Americans do our bidding.

BTW if you want to see a presidential library that epitomizes the brutal, harsh forms of bad taste, go to Chicago.  The Barack Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on June 19 but it has already been surrounded by controversy for its appearance and for its cost.  If you Google it, controversy will be the first thing to come up.  It is more than stark but a modern version of the harsh concrete forms of the past one would have thought discredited.  It has been called everything from a tomb to a tower of doom but it is the kind of look you might expect the publisher of George Orwell to have put on 1984.  The ordinarily friendly The New York Times called it “The Obamalisk.”  Clad in gray limestone, at a distance the tower is a textbook example of the bare concrete typical of the Brutalist style of architecture once thought passe.  It is an eight-story, windowless structure prison for the eye.

In the Church such lack of attention to beauty, proportion, and a space that befits the sacred ground of God's presence is unforgivable.  We build houses of God for the people of God rather seldom in the life of a congregation or a community of faith.  We ought to be it right when we do.  Why must we signal our disconnect with our past or display our ignorance of what happens within House of God when we do put up a new building?  I wish it were simply aesthetics but it is much more.  We define our buildings when we build them and then they define us for as long as they stand.  Churchill said it but it is obvious wisdom.  If we are going to be judged by our buildings, let us at least be judged by their eloquence and not by their ugliness.  Really? 

Creedal Christianity. . .

I suppose in some absolute sense, it is possible for a church body to maintain the orthodox Christian truth about God without explicitly being creedal but why?  Why would this even be sought as a possibility?  Why would an orthodox Christian group speaking of the Triune God refuse to speak the creedal confession of that God formed over time to expression the Biblical and eternal truth of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  That is the mystery that I find so difficult to crack.

It leads to another question.  Is it possible to still be orthodox and catholic but say something very different from what has always been taught, so long as one does not explicitly deny an article of faith?  In other words, is it possible to speak differently of the Trinity without necessarily denying the doctrine of the Trinity?  To put it more generally, is it possible to separate clearly and cleanly the language and formulations of such a doctrine so essential to the definition of Christian without denying what the Church has always said over time?  That is a real question.  

For creedal Christians the connection between doctrine and its expression is solid and, if not concrete, so very tightly woven together that it is at least suspect if one insists upon the doctrine while trying to formulate a different expression of it.  So it raises a red flag when an individual or group insists upon the orthodoxy of their Trinitarian confession while at the same time distancing themselves from the creeds where from early days the Church has brought together what the Scriptures say so that it may be universally confessed.  Of course it does raise such a red flag.  The benefit of the doubt does not accrue to the person making that claim but insisting that doctrine and its expression are two very different things and refusing the historic shape of that doctrine in creedal form.

This is at the heart of controversies that plague us today.  It is not simply about the Trinity.  Everything from the rites practiced to those who are admitted to the altar rail are subjects that test the limits of the connection between doctrine and its expression or practice.  While it might seem that some who are suspicious of those who live on the edge of such a deep and abiding connection are attempting to control, the reality is that without the expression manifest to the doctrine, how is anyone to know whether the group is actually holding to the doctrine at all?  Those who refuse the creed must constantly be tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  Those who refuse the rites of the Church must be constantly tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  Those who refuse to practice the Biblical stewardship of the Lord's Table must be constantly tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  It is a never ending circle.  Without the expression, there is no confidence at all.

While it is true that even with the creeds, liturgy, and faithful practice of fellowship there might be and certainly can be errors -- words alone do not guard against error -- the place of the creed, the shape of the rites, and the regular practice of close(d) communion give the rest of us and the folks in the pew something to judge against and an implicit standard by which all practice is judged.  Without this expression and practice, there is only the endless question.  For the Church, it is not enough that the doctrine might be held but that it is held, confessed, and lived.  It is not enough for the faithful that the true and catholic faith might be believed but that it is confessed in the creed within the rite as well as in the confession of that body.  It is not enough for the faithful that a rite or the lack thereof might be still contain the faithful doctrine but that by the practice of the rite there is a formal expression of what is believed in which the faithful have confidence that what is given and received within that rite is catholic and apostolic.  It is not enough to have the regular practice (not speaking here of discretion which is always allowed in exceptional cases but not regular) be claimed without its formal expression to those who would approach the rail.  All of these insist that doctrine and its expression and its practice are all intimately connected and, while distinguishable, not essentially different.  We are our  creeds.  We are our rites.  We are our practices.  

Where it belongs. . .

Until 2013, the LCMS elected its President in the Synod Convention.  For whatever reason, including, perhaps, a false sense of populism, that changed with the restructuring adopted in 2010.  It has, in my own personal view, proven to be a mistake.  I have no idea if the Synod has the stomach to admit its error and return the election to the Convention but we shall see if it comes up in Phoenix.  I have no vote or say so in this but hope that it does and the wisdom of the past prevails.  For a variety of reasons, the effect of removing this from the agenda of the Synod Convention has made the office more political rather than less and contributed to the polarization of Synod as the smaller group of voting delegates has been replaced by the wider Synod, largely now accessed through social media.

One reason I say this is time.  The whole process now unfolds over weeks of possible ballot casting and therefore weeks of campaigning in between the casting of those ballots.  Where the Convention was able to reconfigure the ballot and vote right away after the results of the previous vote were announced, we now have a cumbersome process with days between votes and several days of voting.  All of this creates a perfect moment for those with an agenda and a cause to take up their voice to the internet in pleading the case for their guy and giving reasons why the other guy (usually the leading candidate) is not the right guy.  It is unseemly.  People jump on the idea that without a first ballot victory, the leading candidate is somehow wounded and bleeding and therefore vulnerable.  Others jump on the rising star who moves up a few points and then presume to suggest that this one is the only one who can save the Synod.  How sad it is and how unchurchly for us to act in this manner.  It could be over which quickly at the Convention but here we drag out our pain before the whole world.

The second reason I think the Convention is the right place is that instead of appealing to the narrower group of voting delegates, the kingmakers are now appealing to the whole Synod, unsure of who it is who will be casting a ballot for Synod President.  The result of this is that it embroils the whole Synod in the controversies of the day, identifies the candidates with those controversies (rightly or wrongly), and puts the bad taste of bad politics in the mouth of us all.  Although I have not commented on any of the posts or threads about the candidates, I know how many of the things said are blatantly false and bordering on slander.  I am sure I am not alone in sitting on the sidelines while watching how this unfolds and brings out the worst in all of us.  It this how we ought to do things?  The old days of mailing lists to a selected few have been replaced with broader public appeals making the social media even more unsocial than ever with respect to who shall lead us.  Furthermore, we are airing our dirty laundry and doing so with a passion seemingly lost on the cause of preaching the Gospel to our neighbors and it does not make us look very good at all.  

The third reason is that without the election of Synod President, the Convention has lost some of its urgency and importance.  In other words, it almost seems superfluous.  Yes, we have had too much scripted entertainment, too many folks ready to nip in the bud anything that approaches honest deliberation and debate, and too many of the same faces to the microphones every time a resolution is brought up.  Yes, I get it.  But still, elections are some of the most important of the items of business a convention does -- any convention -- and it is the same for Synod.  We need to restore this to the business of the delegates assembled because that is where it belongs and where it did belong without fail until 2013 when we started this mess. 

The final reason I think the Convention is the best place to elect the Synod President is that the populist idea promoted by the election as it is now is a false populism.  What is to prevent any and all items from being accomplished at a convention to be shifted to the congregational plebiscite?  Will that serve us better than the delegate assembly has or can in the future?  In my mind, the election of the SP by the congregation through their pastors and a lay delegate is a pure anomaly to the way we have done business since about 1854 and not a wholesome or helpful detour from that previous pattern. The office of SP is not or should not be a popularity contest and there should be the opportunity for the Synod to change its mind -- which, in a convention setting, can happen on the turn of a phrase.  Without that, we are left with the official and unofficial social media.  The old mailing lists have been replaced by so-called media outlets, web sites set up just for the vote, and an even more obscure web of folks who hide their identity but promote their opinions.  We can presume that those who are voting delegates to the Synod Convention have been selected because of their judgment and discernment and also because they hare held in high esteem by their peers.  To take the election from them is to diminish them and their jobs even more and make the whole convention's business more distant and more irrelevant to the Synod as a whole and to the congregations and circuits of the Synod.  Do we want that?  I think that we have enough pulling us apart and teaching us to be apathetic or jaded about the business of Synod.  How we elect the Synod President should hold up the importance and role of the Synod Convention and its delegates.  We have always said that the convention is the highest governing authority.  It is the place where this election ought to take place.  For those who still like the idea of a plebiscite consider this.  For good or for ill, incumbency means the election outside the convention is more likely to favor the incumbent than in convention,  

Our Synod is not a nation, not a business, not a community organization, not a philanthropic society, and not a social club. Sin does not become good by majority vote nor is doctrine established by the same.  This only means that our process has become somewhat more unseemly for the way we confuse the will of the people with the mind of God.  I only wish we were so inclined so that we might begin to believe that.  So whatever we can do to reduce the politicking, the endless social media posts official or not, and the appearance of a churchly organization run by democratic vote of the majority, the better off we will be.

A recurring question. . .

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

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

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

 

Misunderstood words. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save the Date. . .

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

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

Those scheduled to present include:

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

 

Glimpses of the transcendent. . .

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

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

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

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

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

Real girls need not apply. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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