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.