How you view the line. . .

The state of the Missouri Synod on the question of the role of women seems to hinge upon two very different viewpoints.  On the one hand, there are those who insist that everything matters.  They worry about having women in classes as the seminaries (deaconesses) and about women doing anything publicly that is the domain of men or pastors.  A woman leading an LWML Bible study is often seen as different only by degree with a vested woman in a stole leading worship.  They are constantly on the lookout for places where the line is transgressed, where woman are usurping the roles given exclusively to men or to pastors.  There is nothing innocent in this point of view.  Every infraction is nefarious and threatening.

On the other hand, there are those who insist that it is no big deal.  They see the line as flexible, adjusted in part by circumstance and in part by age or generation.  They insist that it is local and nothing more.  A woman leading a women's Bible study is just that.  Nothing more.  A woman holding congregational offices is just that and nothing more.  A woman doing what any layman might do on Sunday morning is just that and nothing more.  They are hesitant about making anything more out of something specific or local.  It is no big deal.

In between there are those in Missouri who are caught between the two positions.  They have a concern for principle but they also have a concern for rigidity.  They see women all around us in society, government, and industry but they know that the Church is not the same as those domains.  They realize that this is messy and it might mean that the same answer is not the same in every place -- that come congregations may not have women's suffrage or officers and others might.  They want to respect these differences but they also know that both sides push and pull toward the edges and not the middle.  They do not want to make too much out of it all but neither do they want to ignore the real differences which deserve to be noticed.

On the one side, those who want the line to be movable insist that we must trust them in every decision they make and on the other side are those who insist that rules are rules and they must be respected.  And this is not simply about the role of women.  It touches upon the issues of close communion, worship rites, and a host of different things.  Every three years we attempt to blend them all together in something called a convention.  It is sometimes a train wreck.  It is sometimes shallow, preferring to push off things that are urgent and photo ops for real substance.  It is sometimes hopeful, when progress is made even if it is slow.  It is sometimes a real conversation in which people are listening and sometimes it is people shouting at each other without paying attention to what the others are saying.  It is a call to trust with some insisting that there is no trust and others insisting that their trust has been violated over and over again.  And all of this is magnified by the bullhorn of social media and armchair commentators (like me) and backseat drivers who insist they can see clearly what others cannot.  I wish it was going to change, resolve into something less stressful, but I doubt that this will happen soon.  In fact, I suspect this is the shape of things to come -- made more urgent and more difficult as we witness the decline of things around us in the Church and in the world.  What do you think?

Gain the world, lose the soul. . .

There was no Episcopal congregation near where I grew up -- only Lutherans and a smattering of Evangelical Covenant and Methodist folk.  I had no experience of Anglicanism except for books and they contributed more to the mystery than the revelation.  It was not until college that I knew them first hand.  There I found a small congregation in Southern Kansas with a building that looked as if it had been ripped out of the English countryside and dropped in the most unlikely spot possible.  It was just after the 1970 General Convention had declined to ordain women but the handwriting was already on the wall.  Yet in this very Anglo-Catholic little church in Kansas almost to the Oklahoma border, nothing could steal my joy at discovering this very promising version of Christianity so much more interesting than my own simple Lutheran upbringing.  It started a fascination and affection not only for all things Anglican but for all things English.  The two went hand in hand and it did not take long for me to become a bona fide Anglophile.

If the building were interesting, the liturgy was even more.  There was more ceremonial than I had ever experienced -- Vatican II was already beginning to unravel Roman reverence and replace it with a more casual approach to the mystery of God.  Lutherans were liturgical but not quite ceremonial.  I learned new hymns and the congregation was filled with welcoming people.  It did not hurt that they had wine and cheese at the drop of a hat.  I probably knew down deep that this would never be more formal church home but it had already found a home in my heart, or, better, my imagination.  With it came some new terminology.  High church was a mostly Anglican term at the time although now it much more ecumenical.  Then there was some heavy baggage to lift.  Liberals claimed the heritage and identity and so did the evangelicals (broad and low).  Neither appealed much to me.  Apparently they came together as a package.  You could not simply choose one.  That was thought by some to be the strength of Anglicanism but it proved to be its undoing -- a church without a firmly defined soul.  Protestant.  Catholic.  Evangelical.  You name it.  They shared a fine liturgy, a decent preaching tradition, great music, nice vestments, gorgeous architecture, real bishops, fine ritual, seemingly honest reverence, and, depending on how you interpreted it, an honest confession of faith.  It turned out that as wonderful as these all were and even together as one package they could not save a church.

I will always have a soft spot for Anglicanism -- my Britbox subscription is testament to my continuing Anglophile credentials -- but it was and is a tragic story.  My affection for it all let me down.  As I write this The Episcopal Church is said to be dusting off its headquarters to sell as the denomination bleeds off people and congregations.  The church of the presidents has revealed its theological vacuity for all the world to see.  History, great ritual, and deep reverence (for something if not for God) turned out not to be enough.  They still have their history but I am not at all sure they have a future here in the West, anyway.  They just don't seem to know Jesus anymore -- or at least the Jesus of council, creed, and confession.  The Anglo-Catholics are gone; the big names long dead or departed to Rome.  Most of the evangelicals and low church folk are also packing their bags or have headed out the door.  The liberal are firmly in control of what is left.  Oh, to be sure, there are those who claim the identity and legacy of Anglicanism (ACNA) but they differ from what is by degree and not by substance and their enthusiasm masks their small numbers.  Yes, there is hope in the Southern Hemisphere but that is for another post.  What I thought I had found nearly sixty years ago is but a memory.

This is written not as a trip down memory lane nor as a confession to cleanse my own old soul but as a warning to other churches and to my own.  We think that if you win on the big fronts you have preserved the house from falling.  We think that a big tent approach to differences will preserve the core and content.  We think that uniformity in essentials, trust in the motives of all, and charity toward diversity will suffice to keep our fragile structures from caving in upon themselves.  We think that some good men and some good seminaries are enough to stave off collapse.  We think that preserving the liturgy will keep its content.  But we need all of these.  The Church never loses its soul by wholesale surrender but by degree, by a vote here and there and a blind eye to things that seem benign for now.  We end up one day realizing that when the for sale sign goes on the headquarters building that there is nothing really left.  We have little to sustain the people who are remain and nothing to offer the world except the palest imitation of its own lost soul with religious clothing.  We need it all and must settle for it all.  A robust church does not have a few good things going for it but all of them.  If we are to be of use to God and feed the lost souls for whom Christ died, we must believe in Him with more than half a heart and have good food to offer.  It always seems to begin with the same question of Eden.  Did God really say...  Then it seems to comfort us that whether or not He did or did not say it or it was or was not true, we can still keep the core of Christian faith and practice.  All of it ends up a lie we tell ourselves to make us feel better about surrendering our souls to something other than the cause of Christ, the message of Christ crucified, and the hope of glory Christ leads us to know now by glimpse before we will know Him and it face to face.  So there it is.  Let us learn from the example of others.  What good is it to gain the world and lose your own soul.  Those words were not simply spoken to individuals.  They were spoken to the Church.

Are you going?

 

Blessing death. . .

For a long time I have suggested we ought to be wary of our neighbor to the North.  They have instituted things that eventually find a home here and, although it usually takes a while to make it through the border, it does not take long enough.  Assisted suicide is one of those things.  Labeling the Bible hate speech not to be tolerated in the public square is another.  When you cannot screw things up any worse, what you can do is bless the mess.  That is what Canada is doing -- at least some of the Canadians.

The Anglican Church of Canada has deemed it time to provide for a litany of blessing for those being killed.  Indeed, the Canadian Anglicans have authorized their clergy to bless people being euthanized just before, during, and after being lethally jabbed (at least with the permission of the bishop). From “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying”:

It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD. . . . No matter where people are in their life journey, we as a Christian community and Christian leaders in particular are called to respond pastorally to the needs and concerns of the people before us. Wherever the church serves, we are the Body of Christ reaching out to the suffering, the sick, and the dying. When someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds: there is a duty of pastoral care.

Ouch.  Jesus came to overcome death but the Anglicans are now authorized to bless it.  Imagine if only Jesus had the benefit of their generous pastoral care!  But that is the point.  In their theological vacuity they have failed to raise an ethical argument against euthanasia so what is left but to bless it -- giving it the stamp of approval from the Anglicans who presume they are also acting on behalf of God?  Never mind that suicide has a long history of being one of the most egregious sins in the Christian book of wrongs from the earliest of our days.  No, they have no stomach to prevent this death but they do think it might benefit from some nice words being spoken as it makes its way to rob the life of the living (whether they were complicit in this death or merely its victims).  Better let the Anglicans speak for themselves:

Death is a natural part of life, and in the spirit of the Church’s continued ministry, we are called to walk alongside health care agencies and practitioners to offer a pastoral response and presence to those who are dying. As the Book of Alternative Services notes, “if the sick could not get to church, then the Church [. . . should] come to them.” 

So, then, if death does not come at the right time to those who wish it or those wishing it for them, the church can come to them with a blessing while the government conveniently provides the painless end for the very thing Jesus suffered all to kill once for all.  Legal must mean moral in the playbook of the Canadian Anglicans.  Again, their own words:

People who choose MAiD freely and without coercion may indeed be ready to go. They have been living with and suffering through complex health challenges and they want the pain to stop. They want to be able to sleep. They desperately do not want their families and loved ones to watch and wait, wondering how much longer? They have exhausted all medical options, and they know, everyone knows, that there is no cure. Some wish, most of all, not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well. Some, who are Christian, also desire not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well, and with the grace and blessing of God and with the presence of the Church at their side. 

Indeed, I am not sure that hastening death with a medical assist is something anyone who has read the Scriptures or knows the history of Christianity would ever want to do alone.  Funny how they want to put the imprimatur of Christ on the very thing that Christ came to end.  Oh, well, sometimes we know better than God, don't we?  For what it is worth, I am not suggesting that we abandon the Christians who are making this kind of choice but the alternative to abandonment is not blessing.  Is it?  No wonder the Anglicans are struggling so in North America.  They just don't seem to know how to get it right.  Perhaps that is why they US version is selling its prime property and church headquarters.  I am sure they will come out with enough money so that they can afford to print up blessings when the time comes for the Americans to follow the Canadian lead.

 

Voting is the problem. . .

I was having coffee and reviewing the news with beloved wife some weeks back and mentioned that the Presbyterians had voted on the issue of whether their clergy had to be monogamous.  It was a shocking thing to think.  Churches will now be required to vote to keep their pastors from practicing one or more versions of the polygamy now becoming avante guarde.  My beloved responded that no matter how the vote turned out, the mere fact that you had to vote on it was itself a sign that the battle was lost.  How astute!  That is the problem with voting.  You vote once every year or two years or three but the effect of the vote is only as good as the last time you voted and only sure until the next time.

We seem always to vote in the Church for things we should not be voting for -- even good things!  It is a good thing, I suppose, to vote regularly for an all male priesthood or for close(d) communion or weekly Eucharist or the value of the liturgy and a host of other good, right, and salutary stuff.  But that is the problem with voting.  You are only as good as the last vote and the next one may change it all.  I am weary of voting.  It is the Achilles' Heel of democracy and it may well be the undoing of the Church down the road.  The mere fact we vote on things that are a given in God's Word and a staple of our confessional and creedal life means that these things are not enough and, without reaffirming them, we could actually overturn them (though the Word of God does require a two-thirds majority vote to be overturned!).

Whether in Australia or in Germany, recent events have shown us that even when the vote fails to change the practice from truth to error, there is always another vote and another opportunity to change the right side into the wrong one.  Even Rome knows that.  The mere fact that a diocese or two has voted to support the ordination of women, for example, shows the problem lies with the vote.  Voting does not establish doctrine but it cannot deny it.  What about the biggest ballot of all -- the one that sends up the white smoke?   And, too often, it does just that.  I cannot speak for Rome and what they are doing with their abundance of problems but I know in the Lutheran back yard voting has become the idea that we get a say so over what the Lord says and a say so over how we intend to implement what He has said.  That is the fallacy of voting.  Voting does not establish doctrine.  Only the Word of God can do that.  When we vote for practices that muddy the waters of doctrine or confuse what we say we confess, the problem lies already with the vote even before we get to what it is we were or are voting upon.

One convention I well recall is when we voted to rescind the XIV article of the Augsburg Confession.  It took nearly thirty years to fix that mistake and we did it by, yup, you guessed it, voting.  Which means we could screw it up all over again.  We were careful to say we were not changing doctrine back then but only tweaking with the practice but in the end we pretty much destroyed the idea of ordination (whether or not you think Apostolic practice is serious stuff or not) and the rite vocatus that led up to the laying on of hands.  Even if you win, unless your margin is 90/10 or so, you almost leave room for the opponents to come back again for another go at undoing what we said we believed and how we practiced it.  There were, after all, overtures submitted designed to turn back the clock so we could party like 1989 one more time.  I am writing this a little early so I will venture to say we did not give into that temptation -- at least not yet.

Some people think that it is a problem of who votes -- laymen or, in particular, female laity.  I think it is a problem of voting period.  We should vote less on even good things which we confess and practice.  Voting gives us the wrong impression -- namely that we are in charge!