A failed experiment. . .

American democracy became the catalyst for a participatory democracy in the Church as well.  I know.  My own church body went through the angst over a bishop who was found to be a mere mortal and a sinner and, in their quest for legitimacy, incorporated democracy into the form of government they adopted.  Clergy could not and would not be allowed to dominate.  Every assembly would have an equal representation of lay and ordained.  Neither would overpower the other.  In this tenuous balance born of disappointment over an episcopal experiment, they thought they have found the perfect model.

It worked for a long time.  Well, let me rephrase this.  In a church body that valued theological education for clergy and lay and found themselves growing much more quickly than they had imagined, its weaknesses could be overlooked.  We said we would not vote on the Word of God but all kinds of resolutions were presented which asked us to do pretty much just that -- vote on what the Word said and how it applied.  It worked because very strong personalities kept the ship together -- the towering personality of Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther chief among them.  It worked because we were all related in some way -- at least in the beginning.  It was not simply a church body but a clan in which everyone was married to somebody's brother, sister, son, daughter, niece, nephew, etc...  We were not inbred but the familial bonds of marriage and home extended into the congregations and schools of this church.  It worked because growth kept us busy building and expanding to test the fragile bonds under which we had been formed.  We fought not as simple adversaries but as family members who ate and drank together after we battled.  It worked because our pastors were highly educated and even though they were often the most highly educated men in a parish, they used their education to educate and the laity loved their catechism and their Bible.

Underneath it all, however, there was some resistance.  Some lay folk did not like being treated as children (their complaint).  They responded by making sure that they were in charge of some things -- of finances, of property, of buildings, and of governance.  Since the churches were growing, these things not only kept them busy but they were considered of great importance.  The church and school were noble endeavors and for a very long time the pastors were able to count on and enjoy the partnership of a people who were at least as committed to church and school as they were.  Soon the undoing of it all was in the works.  The cracks and crevasses of society infiltrated our church body.  The sexual revolution, the extravagance of our consumerism, feminism, and the general questioning of authority did not take long to create great divides among us.  A church controversy or two and even a small split proved to the laity that clergy might not be as trustworthy as they thought and some pastors encouraged suspicion of the clergy (but not them).  When the growth stopped, we had no more distractions and we were free to turn on each other.  Why couldn't the lay do what clergy did on Sunday morning?  Why shouldn't they?  

It was not simply about democracy or about tensions between clergy and lay.  It was about a growing refusal to be considered children.  It was about the rise of preference and desire and feelings.  It was about a decline in the knowledge of Scripture and catechism.  It was about a people yearning to experience more, new, and different expressions of the Church.  Eventually somebody even coined the phrase -- not your grandfather's church!  Pastors became disillusioned with their people and their people became disillusioned with them and both became disillusioned with the whole idea of the Church.  It was me'n'Jesus big time.  Except for one thing.  Our complaint against a church that “treats us like children” turned the focus away from Christ and the eternal future and turned everyone's attention on the here and now and the self.  Pastors wanted their own homes and their own lives and their people wanted to be in the chancel and to make worship fit what they wanted or liked.  Church meetings became war zones (both locally and synodically).  

Well, just maybe those young folks who are in search of the transcendent, who want to meet the mystery on their knees, and who seek something bigger than the moment and self may teach us what nearly all of us have forgotten.  We are children and God is our Father.  We come not as equals to barter for the things we want but as the weak, sinful, and dead for whom the Son died and to whom He comes still with the rescue of His grace and mercy.  Perhaps more than anything else, He can teach us that the Church is not a business, not a political realm, not an organization of rules, and not a boxing ring where we can win or lose.  Instead it is the place where the undeserving and unworthy, the simple and humble, the lost and lonely meet God.  This God is scandalously generous and loving beyond all comprehension.  He meets us where we are and as we are but refuses to leave us there.  He leads us past our fears to trust with faith more confident than the vision of our eyes and the works of our hands what He has done.  Maybe we might learn to cast aside the image of the Church as a grand democracy in which we are all equal for a family in which God is our Father, Christ our brother, and the Spirit the bond of our unity.with all its rules and moral codes. Maybe pastors could stop trying to be visionary leaders and start being, well, pastors and fathers who bring God to their people and their people to God.  Maybe we could be free enough to stop worrying about not getting the recognition we think we deserve in order to offer the service that should be the mark of our believing.

The Church is not a democracy.  Neither is the home.  The Church does not live by vote or poll or preference but by the Word of God.  I hope at some point we will learn that the democracy of the church and home is not the answer.  What may be a tolerable form of government in society, is not the way of Christ or His kingdom.  What is the answer is learning our vocation and finding contentment in it.  Matthew 18:3: “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Perhaps this exactly why the Table of Duties was put in the catechism and why we so easily forget it today.