Save the Date. . .

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

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

Those scheduled to present include:

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

 

Glimpses of the transcendent. . .

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

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

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

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

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

Real girls need not apply. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

Very different perspectives. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holy entertainment. . .

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

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

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

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

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