Just a little. . .

The problems facing us as Christian are seldom the grand descent into hell in one fell swoop but we get there just as effectively a little at a time.  We play with sin as if it were a naughty thing instead of an evil one.  We treat the devil as child's play and forget his sophistication and intuitive knowledge of our weaknesses and failings.  We do not need repentance as much as a fair hearing for understanding of our faults and circumstances.

We say all that time that we are good people, we come from good people, and we live with good people.  It is a code word for saying we are surely not the evil people or the sinners who have no right to stand before a righteous God.  We are just a little in need of redemption and forgiveness because we are just little sinners who need understanding more than we need redemption.  But that is the problem.

Even good conservative Christians are just a little woke, just a little more comfortable with our sins than we should be, and just a little more understanding of the sins countenanced by society than we ought.  We like being a bit more tolerant than judgmental and a bit more accepting than we should with our own favorite sins and those countenanced by the society around us.  We think it is not a problem because we really do believe the traditional Christian things even though we do find it hard to practice.  

We love the traditional hymnody in Church but we also love the gospel sound tracks of contemporary Chrisitian music.  It is not a big problem for us to live in the two different worlds of orthodox Lutherans and the Christian rock stars of the moment.  We can hold up the idea of weekly Eucharist just as long as we don't have to commune that often.  We can talk about private confession but we don't have to do it.  We can laud solid and doctrinal hymnody but sing the playlist from the non-denominational church down the street.  We can reduce liturgy to an idea that allows us to jettison, replace, or paraphrase the Divine Service into what we want it to be.  We can have a ministry but leave it vague enough so that we really do not need a formal clergy except for a good order and appearance.  We can talk about fellowship but still reduce faith to an individual, personal, and private relationship with Jesus.  And, we can still proudly call ourselves Lutheran.  We are either just a little Lutheran or we are Lutheran with just a little other stuff thrown in.  A little woke, a little evangelical, a little Protestant.   At some point we will have to decide how much of these other things we can be and still be Lutheran.  Or, perhaps not.  We can drift along as we have for a while.

It is the same in politics.  We can claim to be conservative while carving out little niches of woke, liberal, or progressive positions within our cause -- especially the ones that impinge upon us directly or upon our family members.  We cannot abide being out of step with the world and politically that has meant that the old labels that once defined us -- like theological terms such as confessional -- have become more catch words than actual descriptions of what we stand for.  The damage done by just a little in politics, theology, marriage, and family reap their rewards in the end when we can no longer define ourselves except by saying we are not quite as or as bad as or as extreme as our opponents.