The institutionalization of novelty. . .

The joke used to be how many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb.  The answer, of course, was none because Lutherans did not change.  I used to tell that joke -- 50-60 years ago!  That is certainly not the case today.  Everything has changed and is still changing among Lutherans today.  It is not simply about worship.  Novelty has become institutionalized among Lutherans (but not only Lutherans!).  We think and desire creativity more than ever before.  It is killing us as a "brand" and even the Lutherans are hard-pressed to define what it means to be Lutheran anymore.

Worship is certainly the obvious arena in which this is true.  There is a certain segment of Lutherans on both sides of the worship wars who keep their ears tuned to what is happening and who are constantly re-imagining what it means to be Lutheran on Sunday morning.  While the obvious suspects are those who live outside the liturgy of the hymnals and invent their own style and content, they are not alone.  Just as one set of progressive Lutherans constantly are trying to copy or even get a page ahead of everyone else when it comes to contemporary Christian music or the preaching style that appeals to the masses, there is another set of traditionals who constantly argue over what it means to be really confessional when it comes to worship.

When it comes to catechesis, the situation is exactly the same.  Many Lutherans have no idea what it means to be Lutheran because they got Lutheranism 101 LITE or because they got the version of Lutheranism which reflected a particular spot in time or pastoral preference.  Hardly any catechesis (youth or adult) includes an honest historical survey of where we have come and yet they expect those new to Lutheranism to be equipped to judge where we are going anyway.  It is the institutionalization of novelty to presume a creative invention of Lutheranism without the prejudice of history will serve to hold us together in the future.  The doctrinal fluidity of Lutherans from the liberals on one side to the confessionals on the other to evangelicals on another have left us with a triangle of problems and an ever confused idea of what it actually means to be Lutheran.

Doctrine is part of this problem as well.  Some look at the Scriptures as a mere guide to belief and not the source and norm of that belief and some look at the Lutheran Confessions with the same freedom which refused to be bound by anything except the moment.  We do not even agree on the basic meaning of the words in the Creeds of the Church so how on earth can we be expected to have a doctrinal consensus.  Absent such a doctrinal consensus, Lutherans across the world have also had a moral diversity that is not simply the betrayal of our own history but the destruction of our identity.  We have Lutherans who actually think the Gospel has more to do with liberated sexual desire or gender identity or care of the planet than the cross.  Just wait until the next cause of the day comes along.  Novelty seems to win out over faithfulness and historical integrity and there is no sign it will stop winning in the near future.

I think this is actually what is behind the conflicts in Rome as well.  Vatican II became not simply a council for Roman Catholics but the defining moment in what it means to be one.  Nevermind the 400 years of the Tridentine Mass or Roman Catholic teaching on the family and marriage, Vatican II seems to have institutionalized novelty and made faithfulness secondary to creativity.  The divide between Benedict XVI and Francis reveal this dispute and Leo now seems unsure of whether he wants to restore the course or opt for change or muddle through trying to do both.  It is clear that in many parishes of Rome, Sunday morning reveals more of a penchant for novelty than for clinging to the markers that once gave folks a pretty clear idea of what and where Rome was and where it is going.

I consider myself an evangelical catholic who began life as a bronze aged Missourian but the truth is that I am not sure where people would place me today.  The conversation reveals that we are all over the place when it comes to Lutheran identity and that can change as quickly as you talk to someone new and different.  Lutherans have changed and changed with such a rapid pace that it has left all our institutions and our identity confused.  We once had a name for Lutheran institutions of mercy but now we do not even own or operate Lutheran hospitals or orphanages and our mercy footprint has come to look more like an NGO than a church oriented proposition.  We are all confused.  That is what unchecked diversity and the institutionalization of novelty does.  It leave us confused and so confused the people outside our churches do not know who we are or what to expect from us anymore.  Their own historical illiteracy has made the Reformation less a movement than an idea or footnote.  How will we ever extricate ourselves from the mess we have made pushing freedom and invention as the primary values of everything while faithfulness and continuity languish way behind? 

At least one gets it. . .

Picking up on some article links I had not gotten to yet, there is this from Sian Leah Beilock, president of Darmouth.  While it is not earth shattering, it is a great surprise to see someone on the inside of exclusive universities admit it:

Families across the U.S. are questioning whether a four-year degree is worth it. Student debt has soared. Recent graduates are struggling in a rapidly changing job market. Colleges can also be too ideological: On many campuses, students are exposed to a limited range of perspectives, signaling to them what rather than how to think. 

This is a good opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal January 25, 2026.  Suffice it to say, she acknowledges what many critics have been saying for a very long time.  She admits that the whole  university system in the US has been tainted and this has caused them to lose the trust of the people -- from the students to the parents sending them to college.  To her credit, she does propose a few relatively  commonsense solutions, including addressing the affordability factor, making the tremendous investment worth while not simply in jobs but in the product it provides, and making the university culture less political and less captive to one political ideology.  Perhaps her most important idea is not radical except in the mouth of a president of an exclusive university:  "emphasize equal opportunity, not equal outcomes."  If this last one were to happen, it would restore a tested and proven American principal against a corrupt and impossible Woke ideology.  We will see.

Dartmouth and others (even Yale) are working to replace student loans with a combination of scholarships, grants and work-study options in our financial-aid packages -- hoping to make free tuition available for families earning $175-200,000 or less.  Well that should not be hard.  Most of those cushy universities are sitting on billions of investments.  Maybe it is time to take some of that money and put it to work for good.  Universities have taken sides in the culture wars and used their influence to press their side upon faculty and students alike.  It would be a welcome sign of hope if a level playing field were created for the place where learning is supposed to be free and open.  Hopefully the equal opportunity vs equal outcomes debate will end such things as grade inflation and the artificial success achieved not by merit but by class.  It could be the start of reform for education or it could be the signal of the end of this president's career.  What will happen?

If we’re willing to reform ourselves—to listen, change and recommit to our core mission—we can again be a trusted engine of the American dream, scientific breakthroughs and the global economy. 

The sad reality is that student loan debt financed the Woke agenda and the liberal and progressive bent that our university system has taken.  These schools did not finance their leftward leaning ride upon the money of big donors or their well-invested endowments but upon the backs of students who thought that going to college would result in an education and a better chance in the job market.  They got neither.  For this betrayal to be repaired, it will take less talk and more action.  At least that is my opinion. 

What is word art?

One of the things that confounds and confuses me is the popularity of word art today.  You know what I mean.  Everything from paintings to dishes to coffee mugs to throw pillows is a blank canvas with some word on it.  The words are seldom profound.  A wreath that says simply welcome.  A mug that says coffee.  Sometimes the words are puns.  Sometimes they are jokes.  Sometimes they are merely vulgar words passing for humor.  Why?  Why do we call that art?  Why do people pay money for such things?

For my part I am convinced that beauty is in short supply and that it does not help things to presume that throwing a couple of words on fabric or ceramic or pottery or wood constitutes art.  This seems to have replaced sofa sized paintings sold out of the backs of trucks as the style of the day.  I did not like the sofa size paintings and this does not seem to be an improvement.  Is that what we have become?  Words to replace real art?

I am not at all suggesting that good writing is not art but I would not consider most of the junk sold with words on it good writing.  I am not saying that eloquence or craft should not be fostered when it comes to good writing (even sermons!).  What I am saying is that throwing a word on something is not eloquence or crafty.  It is cheap and easy and trendy, to be sure, but not art.  Or do you think I am wrong?

The truth is I am over it.  Don't get me any more coffee mugs with a word or two on it.  Don't buy me a throw pillow adorned with a word or two on it.  Don't expect me to go gaga over your painting which is a beige canvas with some word on it -- in a fancy script that is both playful and fun.  Hey, wait a minute. I thought folks could not read cursive anymore?  So why are they using that cursive font on that word art?

Church banners in particular are far too wordy and do not employ symbolism enough.  Even some paraments on altars and pulpits are simply words on fabric.  The Church has enough words what with the readings from Scripture, sermons, prayers, hymns, and liturgy.  Is it too much to ask that we cultivate the power of the symbol and set it in a context of beauty?  I fear that plastering a Bible passage or a Biblical word (Alleluia, for example) on something meant to be used in a church building is considered the height of creativity and faithfulness.  Is that all there is to it?  Should this be called Christian art?  Do our people suffer from a shortage of words that needs to be answered by stitching words on fabric or gluing them to felt?

Okay.  It is a pet peeve of mine and not a mighty meandering thought.  But some days I wake up and wonder why has this taken the world by storm.  You should have the same questions.  Are you also one who thinks that the world will be a better place when they stop making dishes and paintings and pillows with a word or two on them?  Of course, when they stop producing them it will not diminish the over abundance that exists but they will shift from stores and homes to flea markets.  Some of them already have.  I don't want to see them there either.  This is one trend I hope will pass away into an early grave and not simply because I don't like it but because it is trite and banal in a world that screams for real beauty.  If we cannot convince the merchandise buyers at the home stores, at least we do not have to copy this unfortunate trend in the Church.

 

A book about my family. . .

While out and about at flea markets, book stores, and antique shops, I happened upon a volume whose title could very well be a book about my family history.  It is probably for another to judge but the abnormal part seems rather true -- at least in comparison to things as they are today.

I grew up in a home with a dad and a mom who were married to each other for nearly 65 years.  They were rather simple folk by the standards today.  They went to church every Sunday, taught their two sons to pray along with a host of other things (from cooking to plumbing), and were productive members of the small town in which they had grown up and lived their whole lives.  Yup, pretty abnormal.  They were not fancy people and their accomplishments were largely limited to the arenas of church, home, and community.  Though they loom large in my own memory, I would be forced to admit that they are largely forgotten now.  The store that belonged to my father from 1958 through 2015 is now closed.  The building is occupied by a glorified junk dealer and I cannot even recall how much of the inventory was left from the remains of dad's store.  Mom's work with the girl scouts, women's club, and a host of other worthy endeavors is as forgotten as those groups.  The town and its people have moved on.  It hurts me more than I imagined it every would hurt them.  They did not live their lives for legacy but as people of faith living out in the present moment a life they strove to make worthy of their calling in Christ.  My brother and I are probably their only estate of value to them.  Yes, they had things but the things were not as important to them as me and my brother.  They loved their daughter-in-law and were happy at the home she made for me and for our family.  They loved their grandchildren and the mountains of photos from my family was evidence of how they cherished these babies who grew up into adults.  It used to be a pretty normal life but I wonder how normal it is today.

I write this not out of nostalgia nor because I want to condemn the way things have become.  It is more out of sadness that I admit what was the norm for me and my wife and the homes in which we grew up is now not so normal anymore.  The world today has lost something precious and in its place has come something less than what was lost.  I am sad because I grew up without a real care in the world.  We played and worked and walked and rode bikes as if there was nothing to fear anywhere.  It was a life without a rigorous schedule, without drop offs and pick ups from day care, and without adult worries to interfere with childhood.  Sure, we had drills about hiding under our desks in case of nuclear attack but we did not worry about it -- much less think about the absurdity of a school desk keep us safe from the mushroom cloud and all of its destruction.  We just did it.  We did not worry about our parents divorcing -- I literally cannot recall that ever happening in my small town while I grew up there.  We did not worry about figuring out our gender or what fueled our sexual desire.  We were kids and most of us went through high school as carefree virgins who expected to find a wife or husband and have a family but did not brood on it.  How unlike today with kids who carry around adult sized burdens on their shoulders and who have had the new normal steal away their childhood and its attempt at innocence!

I knew my great-grandpa, grand-parents on both sides, aunts and uncles, cousins and an extended family that numbered in the hundreds.  We went to reunions and ate meals at each other's homes.  We hauled out the giant tins of Schwanns ice cream for dessert and ate pickled herring along with chips and dip before sitting down to roasted meat, mashed potatoes, gravy, and vegetables.  Though we were not rich, we did not worry if the food would be on the table.  We did sometimes worry that it might be some food we did not especially like but we ate what was there.  Everybody did.  We wore hand me down clothes along with the outfits and shoes purchase once a year -- big enough to grow into as long as we did not wear them out.  We had a TV that had a couple of channels on it and we watched it with glee but parents always controlled what we watched and when.  That big screen was a nice addition to our lives but it did not replace playing with other kids or doing chores or all the other things.  I guess growing up without a screen dominated life was better than anyone today could imagine.  Like most folks, we could not wait to grow up but when we grew up we realized how special such a childhood was in a small town, with a loving family, and enough if not more all around.  Sadly, as normal as it seemed then, it is not now and I am not sure anyone misses those easy, slow, carefree days.  They should.  We all should miss them enough to work to make our modern day lives a bit more like the old ones.

We have settled into a new normal in which families break up and homes are divided and children are optional and marriage is not necessary.  We have accepted the new normal of a world in which you never really feel safe or secure (not even in your own home) and in which you balance dangers with desires when you plan things.  We have become accustomed to a world in which the screens are our best friends and personal contact is secondary to the digital realities of our daily lives.  We expect people not to go to church and we expect to fill our time with other pursuits.  We are over scheduled and even lonelier than ever.  I could be angry about how things have turned out but instead I am sad.  I am sad for my grandchildren and for the kids I see at church.  I am sad at how easily and quickly the new normal has made my childhood abnormal.  In this we have forgotten some of the things that matter most and kept hold on things that do not matter much at all.  I know I cannot change the world but I pray for it and for the future ahead of most of us.  Anger may not bring things back but if we ever get to the point where we want to try something different, the abnormal past might not look so bad to us.  The day may come when antique stores or old book shops or flea markets may hold more than a memory but a sense of hope, restoring what was lost for the sake of joy.

 

By their fruits you shall know them. . .

In one of the more curious details about the early days of Leo's papacy, one can note that while he looks the part, he has consistently used the power of appointment to continue the legacy of Frank the First and the progressive agenda.  While I have no doubt that Leo will not become the atheological voice of his predecessor, he has surely become an extension of the same man's penchant for naming people left of center to all kinds of important posts.  For example, in addition to the bishops, Pope Leo XIV appointed 19 new consultants to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue -- nominations consistent with those made under Pope Francis.  Two examples are Emilce Cuda, who is also secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, who seems hesitant to speak against abortion and the other Mónica Santamarina, a leading figure in the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations (WUCWO) who enjoys complaining about clericalism and too few women in seminaries and church leadership.

What makes this even more incredible is that before becoming Pope, Leo was head of the dicastery which nominated and investigated candidates for the episcopacy across the Roman world.  He, as much as anyone, should have known what kind of men he was appointing as bishops.  The fact that so many of those whom he has appointed seem to tilt left can only be indicative of his own desire to lean in that direction.  If that is the case, then Rome has some big problems down the road -- far bigger than the question of restoring the ability to say the Latin Mass freely.  I know that he has not had much time in the saddle, so to speak, but he has had enough time for us to judge the direction in which he is heading and that does not look good for Rome or for orthodox and traditional Christianity down the road.

It has often been said that a President of US serves at most 8 years but those whom he appoints to the judiciary extend well beyond that limit.  That is certainly the case for bishops also.  Yes, Leo is a great deal younger than Frank was but Frank's imprint upon Rome has been multiplied by the many he appointed as cardinals (especially cardinal electors) and bishops.  The fact that Leo has had multiple opportunities to slow down or reverse course on the direction Frank the First began only signals that he himself is moving in that direction.  While I wish that were not so, I know many Roman Catholics who believe it is exactly the case.

While I have no dog in this hunt, it does mean that those who would have enjoyed some support from Rome will now have to admit that Rome is not going to be a reliable partner for orthodox Christian teaching on marriage, sexual desire, gender identity, and a host of other issues perhaps more important but less attention getting.  It means that groups like the LCMS are increasingly more and more isolated.  The Christian left is a machine and it works very well to scoop up whole denominations, seminaries, universities, and churchly institutions to agree with the progressive agenda.  Plus, that leftward leaning group has learned to be patient and to consolidate gains when the pace of change slows.  Perhaps that is what Leo is doing in Rome.  In any case, if we know the true man by his fruits, they do not look good so far into this papacy.  Not quite a year is not a long time but unless Leo changes course on some things it is enough to say that Leo is more Frank's guy than Benedict's.