Say the black and do the red. . .

One of the most troubling aspects of contemporary Christian worship that is too abundant even within liturgical churches is that you cannot make a distinction between announcements and the ordo.  It all flows into one because there is commentary on everything.  Liturgical directions that tell people what they are going to do before they do it are not exclusive to contemporary Christian formats but they are intrinsic to the kind of free flowing liturgy which is basically a conversation of leader and people (whether that is the pastor or the music leader and people).  I detest it.  I do not even like it when we tell people to sit or stand or kneel.  Unless they have no direction in hymnal or worship folder and it is absolutely required, the presiders do best when they shut up and let the people do their part without prompting.  Nearly all of the time they already know what they are to do.  Let them.

Those who practice contemporary Christian music and worship delight in the lack of clear markers to define liturgy and announcements (which vary between information and inspiration).  Indeed, so often in these congregations the announcements work like the opening act of an entertainment venue to warm up the crowd before the main act shows up.  I might be relieved if that main act was Jesus but too often it is simply the worship leader du jour who enters like the mighty sage with all the answers to tell the people what they should do.  Preaching is less preaching in this context than it is a longer version of the kind of informational and inspirational announcements which begin the worship time and are hardly distinguished from the rest of it that follows the first words and songs.

I was talking with members of a group which spent a goodly amount of time opening for the big names on the concert tours.  Interestingly, they said they had to walk a fine line between overshadowing the main attraction so that the crowd was disappointed when they took the stage and disappointing the crowd so that they lost interest in the whole thing.  It would be helpful if worship leaders heeded the same advice.  Do not make yourself so big that Jesus is no wanted or welcomed and don't make yourself so boring that people are not watching or waiting for the main event.  If they did at least this, it might be helpful.  Instead it seems that too many of these leaders know how to keep the attention on themselves and on the things the people do without allowing any of the attention to be given to Jesus and His gifts.  

One more disappointment is how they keep making everything in worship special -- from the music that entertains the people to the events that they are promoting to the latest kitschy trinket they are promoting.  Everything is special at these churches but the one thing that is supposed to be the most special becomes ordinary -- so ordinary that no special order, vestments, or devotion is attached to the Christ who gives us His flesh in bread and His blood in wine.  Okay, there you have my rant for the week.  I am not sure where you attended or what you experienced this Sunday morning but I hope and pray the markers that signaled the beginning of the Divine Service were clear as well as the gifts of God in Word and Sacrament the center of it all. 

If you bothered with the video, the liturgy as such began about 17 minutes in and the sermon at about 32 minutes in.  For what it is worth, the sermon seemed to be more about goats (greatest of all time) in various categories than about Jesus and what He has done.   

The Lavender Cardinals. . .

There was a time when I watched 60 Minutes -- if only to listen to Andy Rooney and his take on things.  But it became increasingly hart to watch a show that was so predictably left of center and a mouthpiece of the Demoractic Party.  So it was out of curiosity I tuned into to the Sunday when the program gave voice to the liberal voices of those wearing red, indeed the only actively serving Roman Catholic cardinals in the US.  Cardinals Cupich, Tobin and McElroy appeared as the voice of Rome and the spokesmen for Pope Leo XIV but on a platform which has been a reliable adversary of Trump and the right (not necessarily the same) on 60 Minutes.  In reality these have been reliable supporters of Pope Francis and of the political left appearing on a reliable and leftward leaning program.  Indeed, it has been said by some that these three represent not the future of Rome but its past and the lavender shade of that past.

You could say much about these three lavender cardinals and their words on 60 Minutes but one of the things you must say is that they have been particularly vulnerable to the temptation to confuse and confound political and social positions and movements with the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen.  On immigration in particular but also on the normalization of the role of divorced and LGBTQ within the Roman Catholic Church and uniformly support increasing the role of women if not the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood.  They were certainly in sync with Francis but there is not yet enough proof to show that they are in sync with Leo.  What they are, however, is a group fighting to keep control of the microphone and camera in the publicity war that is raging within Rome over what this communion will believe, teach, and confess.

There was a time, not that long ago, when Rome was a reliable voice in the cause of pro-life issues and for the sanctity of marriage.  It was the same Rome that catechetically referred to homosexual behavior as disordered.  I am not at all sure that this Rome continues to exist or have preeminence among the myriad of theologies that comprise this communion over time and certainly today.  If we think that there are fights going on within Protestantism and Lutheranism and Anglicanism over the soul of these churches, there is a fight going on within Rome over which church Rome will be -- one that is within the dogmatic, moral, and liturgical continuity with its own past and one that seeks to break with that past (and with the claim of tradition that Rome has historically made).  Which Rome is the real Rome is given visual imagery as you look at these aging faces trying to hold onto control of the agenda and its content even as this distances Rome from its earlier doctrinal, moral, and liturgical identity.  But before any of us attempts at any smug reply, let us remember that we face the same problem -- a church in love with the moment but increasingly suspicious and intolerant of its own identity and confession.  Who will win?  Don't count the lavender cardinals out yet. 

 

Must our leaders be Christian. . .

I will admit something that I am not proud to say.  When someone who I am employing or obtaining services from announces to me that they are Christian, the hair on the back of my neck goes up.  When we were building the last addition on to the church I served for 32 years, several subs assured our building committee that because they were Christians and we were a church, they would do us a great job.  Every one of those either never showed up to complete their work or were fired for cause.  A very long time ago I got a pep talk on tithing from a Christian trying to sell me a washer and dryer.  He insisted that it was good business to tithe since God multiplied what you gave and sent it back to you.  He said he had the pay stubs to prove it.  Yeah.  So when a politician announces that they are Christian and will hold to Biblical values and bring the integrity of faith to their office, I generally take it with a grain of salt.  Perhaps I have become too jaded.  Indeed, the quiet Christians tend to surprise me and the loud ones tend to disappoint me.  That is exactly the problem when some Christians look for a Christian on the ballot --  as if that were the sole criterion we were to use to choose who would lead our nation, state, city, etc...

It was with interest, therefore, that I read the introduction to Christopher Chen’s recent Evil Empire?   He insists that the New Testament weighs in on the hidden Christians who appear in the New Testament as soldiers and Roman officials.  Chen reports that throughout the patristic period Christians held major and minor posts in the Roman government -- well before Constantine!  His point is that the government is not necessarily the evil empire that some Christians insist.  In fact, Christians have long been hidden in the most surprising places -- from communist or secular China back to perhaps the eighth century.  Not exactly the beast marked with the sign of the anti-Christ.  It is not simple but complicated.  That is true surely for the secular democracies of the West, the socialist economies of the same, the communist nations which have become institutional dictatorships, and so many others -- but it is also true for our American democracy.

We have people who gut Christianity's doctrinal center to proclaim a gospel of love and acceptance that fits better with liberal social mores and then parade that faith before the nation on the left.  We have people who proof text their campaigns with great slogans betrayed by moral lapses on the right.  There is no one single word to look for to find the great combination of faith and virtue in our politicians.  That is certainly true of President Trump.  While his words often embarrass or disappoint me, his actions are easier for me to support overall.  It is the problem not simply of the flaws or failings of our leaders but also the alternatives.  I wish I had a simple answer for this dilemma.  I don't.  Hidden in our government on every level are good people.  Plastered on the front pages of our media are the sins of our enemies.  Somewhere in the middle stands an American and a Lutheran Christian like me who struggles to sort my way through the maze of options and alternatives on the ballots from local to national.  Too often they are not the people I would have nominated.  But the government, though accountable to God and all its leaders also, is not quite a tool through which God is doing the work the Church does.  At best it preserves enough distance so that the Church and Christians are free to do what is good and right and salutary.  At worst, it conspires with the enemies of the faith to promote what contradicts Scripture, creed, and confession.  Sometimes, the best we can hope for is for those who lead us and our laws to simply leave us alone.  Well, and one more thing, to hope that those hidden Christians working in the halls of government on every level will help to prevent what we fear and promote what is our hope and confidence -- all while drawing as little attention to themselves as possible.

Where do you find one?

I was reading an older article on the First Things website raising the poignant question, Looking for the Real Catholic Church in New York City.  The whole premise is even larger than the Roman Catholic Church.  Indeed, it is common among those looking at Lutheranism but also Presbyterians, Methodists, and other Protestants.  The problem is that various different representations of Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, and so many others exist side by side with little to clue the outsider in on which is authentic.  They cannot all be bona fide representations of the same churches when they look so different and sound so different and often believe so different.  Can they?

Although this might seem like a rather picky point to make and even a rather narrow minded perspective, it is not.  No one joins a church which has a split personality or more than one doctrinal and liturgical face.  Do they?  Maybe it was once possible to limit your sense of the Church to one congregation but not today.  After all, we live in  mobile world in which our people pack up and move many times throughout their lives.  Furthermore, the differences between the various congregations of the seemingly same confession are not just window dressing differences but real and substantial.  In a world in which people seem more and more interested in authenticity, which one is authentic?

Indeed, that is the problem.  Which one is the real one?  Lutherans have tried for a very long time to presume that there is no real face to Lutheranism -- they are all real and we even have a term for it.  It is called adiaphora.  We have adopted that term to mean that anything can go on Sunday morning -- within certain limited boundaries -- so long as the kernel of faith is preserved in theory.  I do not buy it but it is the party line, so to speak.  What this means is that Lutheranism presents itself in a variety of ways to those within the tradition and to those either interested or merely curious.  The range is rather mind boggling.  Some of us have bishops and some do not.  Some have female clergy and some do not.  Some confess the whole Book of Concord and some merely the Augsburg Confession.  Some have adopted the Western version of sexual desire and gender identity and some have not.  Some have praise bands and some have pipe organs.  Some have pop gospel choruses and some have hymns.  Some have an open table and some practice close(d) communion.  Some have vestments and some have torn jeans and tees.  I could go on.  You get the point.  So would the real Lutheran Church stand up?  Que.  They all stand.  Ah.  Duh.

Rome has an equally confusing face on Sundays.  Some have Novus Ordo and some have Vetus Ordo.  Some have reverence and tradition and some have casual informality all over the place.  Some have pep talks on spirituality as sermons and some have, well, sermons.  Some like Rome and the Pope and some want to keep both as far away from them as possible.  Some kneel and some stand.  Some hold out their hands and some wait for the Sacrament to be placed on their tongues.  Some have altar rails and some are tearing them out.  Some want a dictator pope and some want to introduce democracy into Rome.  Some want married and female priests and some could leave it if ever showed signs of happening.  Would the real Roman Catholic parish please stand up?  

No matter where you stand on these issues, the truth is obvious.  They all cannot be right or can they?  Is Christianity more a state of mind than a liturgical identity or a creedal confession?  I fear that those who may be interested in a Christianity neither lite nor paranoid will have to admit that not all the incarnations which display the name Lutheran are right or can have the same claim to fame.  Eventually, we will have to resolve this (and so will Rome!).  Even if we cannot muster the strength to resolve the untenable disparities for the sake of God and the people of God, then at least we need to resolve it for the sake of those who might be interested in trading the vacuous version of Christianity of the liberal left or no version at all from those who refused to teach it to their children into something authentic.  At least I hope so... 

Rights vs Freedoms. . .

K.G.M. v. Meta is a landmark legal case where a young woman, known only as K.G.M., sued Meta and other social media companies, effectively accusing them of designing their platforms to be addictive -- especially for children.  Her standing was her own personal claim that her mental health was harmed by these social media. The jury found in favor of K.G.M. and awarded her $6 million in damages.  This al;l happened in Los Angeles and in Superior Court and, even though it went on for three years, is surely not over yet.  Last month’s ruling in K.G.M. v. Meta et al., found Meta and YouTube liable for harms to an individual plaintiff not by virtue simply of content but by design, by the algorithms inherent to those platforms.  Of course, the naysayers insisted that this verdict threatened free speech; and that it interfered with and undermined parental rights and responsibility.  These are the same concerns raised against state efforts to impose age restrictions or parental consent requirements for minors on social media.  Is this really a contest between our children's mental health and wellbeing and rights of both kids and parents?

Note that the plaintiff alleged ythat she was harmed not by the content she was exposed to on social media (which may be bad enough) but by the design of the platforms themselves, such as aggressive algorithms, infinite scroll, autoplay, “likes,” and filters which both change the appearance of the person on display as well as the setting or background.  I would simply add that the progress in AI only makes these more dangerous as they become more effective.  What so many fail to note is the distinction between content (which is protected by the First Amendment) and product design (which is subject to liability).  In other words, this is not a simply balance between rights and freedoms protected by law but a challenge to the structure of those social media platforms and how they work.  Addiction scientists testified at this trial that social media effectively acts like a drug, triggering pathways in the brain that build upon rewards, triggering dopamine release, and generating a hunger or need for what is being offered.  This is much the way video games and pornography operates.  It is not simply the image on the screen but the craving for what is next, what is behind the next screen or click of the mouse.

Parents are complicit when they fail to exercise their parental duties to supervise and decide on behalf of their children what is appropriate and what is not.  In this, they are hindered by social media companies which insist that they are child-friendly and that they can be safely used by children.  Indeed, social media has become ubiquitous in our society.  We are addicted to those screens, reels, ads, and content and not simply because we are weak or mindless but also because those social media platforms are designed to exploit us, especially children.  Ten minutes in any public place and you can see how everpresent these screens are while we shop, walk, enjoy leisure, eat, talk with friends, etc., but especially when we have nothing else to do and even when we have everything else to do.  It cannot be merely that we are more weak-willed than ever before.  It has to be that social media companies have our number, literally.

It bothers me, then, when the Church jumps on the bandwagon and adopts social media as the means to do its work of evangelism, fellowship, education, formation, and even worship.  We are contributing to the problem.  We may not half to abandon all social media, nobody is saying that, but we do need to be much more careful about whether we are simply using a platform or feeding the hunger that is corrupting youth and adults.  Indeed, some churches today are more a .com presence than a presence in brick, mortar, and people.  The screen is justified because it is cheaper and easy but are we paying attention to the cost of this wholesale abdication to the social media frenzy that has become the world today?  Some people may choose to live on Facebook.  If they are adults, I suppose I have little to say.  But the Church does not need to live on Facebook (or any other media platform).  And, I would suggest, we betray our very claim to be the Church when we become nothing more than one more client of those platforms, preying upon the users of any age, with theology, fellowship, prayer, and communion disguised as an algorithm.