Heart and head. . .

One of the fruits of the overwhelming influence of Evangelicalism upon worship and the Charismatic Movement as it has affected all the churches is a decided tilt toward sincerity over content.  The worship of God has become more about the attitude and posture of the heart than just about anything else.  In so doing, the great sin of the Pharisees has become their lack of sincerity and desire and this has painted with board brush across the once vibrant doctrines and confessions of American churches.  What is often forgotten is that Jesus was not choosing between heart and head but insisting that one cannot be without the other.  Proper worship requires proper belief.  Anything less than this is to worship something other than the true God.  Historically, right worship and right belief are always found together or either is suspect.  Orthodoxy is maintained because salvation is only under the true Name and not in pursuit of small truths.  Heresy automatically betrays this Name plus it does not matter how sincere a heretic is in his or her heresy, the error in belief cannot be rectified by sincerity or passion.  

The goal of Nicaea was not to preserve merely a philosophical expression of what is right belief but to ensure right worship.  The adoption of the creed was then only part of its solution.  They developed the creed both to summarize the basic beliefs of orthodox Christianity as revealed in Scripture and to condemn any other beliefs.  It was not some ethereal or picky unpacking of the relationship of the Father to the Son but the preservation of right worship by maintaining boundaries of right belief.  Salvation is found in no other God than this God whom the creed confesses.  Everything else is excluded.  Whether Arius or not, anything else cannot be the true God nor can the worship be true worship.  These boundary lines were not simply for the sake of belief but directly practical to worship.

Interestingly, Luther has not much to say about the Nicene Creed.  That is because it was not in dispute.  The errors were not Trinitarian.  The right God was being worshiped but not with the right worship (sacrificial vs sacramental).  To those who insist that simple agreement on the Nicene Creed is or ought to be sufficient for church fellowship (altar fellowship), remember that the principle is the same.  Other doctrines were not in dispute but the core or central doctrine of who God is was disputed in the early church and more extensive creedal statements might have been adopted had they been.  Luther's chief contribution here is to put the creed into singable form so that it might be more easily memorized and confessed in the catechetical hymn Wir glauben all an einen Gott.

So the question remains.  What ought to be the proper boundaries for worship?  Here the standard of Nicea remains as it has for nearly 1700 years.  From the sixth century down through the present, the creed insists that right worship must worship the right God.  As unequivocal as this is, it is not exhaustive.  Where other doctrines or truths are denied, other mechanisms must be employed as boundaries against those who believe falsely and therefore do not worship rightly.  The Athanasian Creed makes this painfully true -- whoever would be saved must confess that catholic faith.  This is not some bare essential of Trinitarian economy but that which has always been believed everywhere.  Oddly enough, our problems today are not in the fringes of belief but remain in the core.  Who God is remains a current issue.  In a world where significant numbers of people within orthodox Trinitarian churches are still confessing that Jesus is not God, was not incarnate of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, and did not die in atonement for the sins of the whole world and rise for the sake of those for whom He died.   All of this is connected.  Confess the right God and confess rightly that this God works through one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  Nobody but a fool would say that this right belief is inseparable from right worship but no one but a fool would also insist that this is all that need be believed.

How odd it is. . .

Many years ago I had a parishioner who wondered about evolution and Genesis and indicated that he found it hard to believe the Scriptures against the evidence of evolution.  I did not argue with him but I did observe that if he found Genesis a skandalon, why not the whole idea of the mighty and eternal God enfleshed in the womb of the Virgin, born to live among us as one of us but not, who dies as the innocent for the guilty, rises on the third day, and promises those who believe in Him that they will rise to everlasting life.  Is that not a skandalon of majestic porportion?

That is the problem.  We have made the Gospel humble and normal by reducing it to some idea of love or some principle of compassion or some act of charity.  We have tried to tame Aslan and in so doing have washed out the skandalon from the that which is meant to be scandalous.  Jesus insists that this Gospel of His death and resurrection is a stumbling block, a rock of offense, and by smoothing its rough edges and making it seem normal we have effectively disarmed it of any real power or authority.  We preach nearly everything but Christ crucified and risen and in so doing have made people forget the skandalon of the Gospel and made it easier for them to swallow the scandalous ideals of modernity as replacements for the cross and empty tomb.

So it is curious that we presume the skandalon which prevents people from joining the Church or coming to worship is the sound of music different from their playlist or the arcane rituals that have served Christianity since the get go.  People will not be scandalized by the real Gospel because we have rendered it tame and harmless so they can be scandalized by architecture that is different from other public spaces or liturgy that is timeless but untimely or vestments that seem like ancient dresses or incense that offends the sanitary smell of lemon or clorox or music that does not sound like what their Spotify favorites list.  Really?  Are they as shallow as that?

Oddly enough, Lifeway surveyed those who do not have anything to do with the Church and found they prefer to have churches that look, act, smell, and sound like church.  They do but we don't.  We are so afraid of offending anyone that we will dream up the foolishness of chosen pronouns of men who think they are women or same sex marriage the same as the estate God created but we will not allow for worship which is not contemporary (whatever that means) or music that does not sound like today?  People don't care a whit about that stuff.  We do -- those inside the Church (or who claim to be) care about it and so we lie and cheat in order to make it seem that people are not flocking to churches because of music or vestments or reverence.  Those outside the faith know the real scandal -- God incarnate, Christ crucified, the dead raised, and life forever bigger and better than life now.  Even Genesis pales in comparison to these things guaranteed to choke everyone who is not swallowing it all by means of the Spirit.

We say it all the time and so we have come to believe it.  We do not legislate music or liturgy because we are afraid of offending those who know the real offense is not the style but the substance of what is believed.  We do not smoke up the chancel because we are fearful of offending people who no longer find the real skandalon Christ and Him crucified.  We have tamed the preaching to make it seem like forgiveness is nice enough for those who need it but the rest of us are here for the camaraderie.  God gave us meat to chew on and we put it all in a blender and ended up with nothing recognizable at all.  We have decided that mother's milk is better than hearty food and so we have turned the solid food of God's Word into mere sentiment or pious platitudes but still people are not coming -- not even those who insist they are still Christian.  So we have to blame something.  It must be the architecture or the music or the reverence or something like that.  I know what it cannot be -- it cannot be that we have failed to preach the scandal of the cross or live it out.  The Gospel has become trite and easy and so those not yet of the Kingdom have rightly decided it is not worth it to swallow or to believe such mush.  Let us hope that the new pope knows the truth that sets us free and that the rest of us also know it and are not afraid anymore to preach it, worship in unworldly ways, and keep it a skandalon.  I seem to recall that it is the lukewarm who received the worst from Jesus -- chewed up and spit it as not even man enough to disagree and certainly not man enough to believe with all their heart, soul, body, and strength.

Development. . . or not

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hear a lot about doctrinal development from all kinds of people and with respect to all kinds of doctrines. We have to admit the obvious.  The development of doctrine has become the calling card for those who wish to change the faith once delivered to the saints.  Times change.  Doctrine changes.  While some might practice some restraint with respect to the development of doctrine and limit this to its elucidation, sharpened like iron in times of controversy, but not changing into something different, this is obviously not what either liberal Protestants or Roman Catholics think.  They have tended to view doctrine and everything into some sort of process or progress.  Indeed, reality itself is evolutionary. 

On the one hand, we hear it articulated by the fifth-century French priest and monk, St. Vincent of Lerins. In his Commonitorium , St. Vincent speaks of a very conservative development and insists that what to be catholic: “One must be careful to hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all. … That is what is Catholic in the true and proper sense.”  The faith does not evolve or develop or progress but that which our Lord has revealed is unalterable.  In this sense, we do not grow in understanding beyond what the faithful have believed, taught, and confessed down from the apostles and through the ages. 

Dom Prosper Gueranger, Abbot of Solesmes, expands this understanding of doctrinal development.   “It is a fundamental principle of theology, that all revealed truths were confided to the Church at the beginning; that some were explicitly proposed for our belief from the start, whereas others, although contained implicitly in the first set of truths, only emerged from them with the passage of time, by means of formal definitions rendered by the Church with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, through Whom she is infallible.”

Now things appear to get interesting.  For added to the mix is both the understanding that the Spirit is still guiding the Church past what is written in Scripture but the whole idea that the Church is infallible.  What originally was about an unchanging deposit of faith has now left room for the Church to depart not only from Scripture but from the articulations of the early Church.  Now is it not simply our understanding that becomes deeper but the possibility for things to be added to the faith which were not first present with the apostles and taught by our Lord.

Rome depends upon this expanded understanding of doctrinal development.  Without it there could be no purgatory or papacy, no transubstantiation or treasury of merits, etc...  Rome requires for its very existence that doctrines develop from nothing or at least from something other than Scripture.  Luther's rejection of Rome was not in cardinal doctrines of the faith but in precisely those areas to which was added that which was not there from the beginning nor in Scripture and that which is, often, a contradiction of the Scriptures themselves.  Who can deny that the movement for historical criticism of Scripture has become a movement also for the development of understandings and doctrines different from the ones espoused or expected by that Word of God?

This is not simply about the Church’s ever-growing understanding, its ever-developing defense, and its ever-clearer proclamation of the mysteries of faith fostered by the Spirit but about the Church growing up and growing out of these mysteries claiming the same guidance of the Spirit. What Rome requires to hold up the rafters of its very house is what Protestantism has been using for years to justify departure from that faith.  It is time for all of us to admit this and to begin to deal with this difference.  Inherent in this argument is the presumption on the part of Rome (with is corollary in liberal Protestantism) that the Scriptures themselves are a creation of the Church, by the Church, and for the Church.  The movement past sharpening the words in the face of heresy to the actual development of doctrine from one thing into something else is a Word problem, a Scripture problem.  In this presumption the Church knows better than Paul what Paul wrote, better than the Gospel writers what they penned, and better than the apostles an understanding of who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish.  In this respect, it sounds more Gnostic than Christian.

If there is a reason for the misunderstanding of Lutheranism, it is because we insist that we have nothing new to offer, believe in nothing new, and will not advocate for that which is new but only for that which has always been believed everywhere at every time.  We keep up the mantra of catholicity, apostolicity, and historicity in the face of each new thing that is proposed -- from the way we describe the Trinity and its internal relationships to the invention of genders.  Indeed, Lutherans are tiresome (or at least they should be) in asking where was that written?

 

More shameless PR

I have been asked to teach a continuing ed course in August in two locations.  The information is listed below.  Take a gander and if you are interested, sign up and join us.  It is not only for pastors but also for lay folks as well.

August 4–6, 2025 in Auburn, MI &

August, 12-14 in Cupertino, CA 

The Rev. Larry A. Peters is a native of Nebraska and graduated from St. John’s College, Winfield, Kansas, Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (1980). He vicared on Long Island and served his first call in Cairo, New York, before moving to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he served Grace Lutheran Church as senior pastor for thirty-two years. He is now pastor emeritus of Grace. In 2017 Concordia Theological Seminary recognized him as alumnus of the year. He has served as a circuit visitor in the Atlantic and Mid-South districts, is currently chairman of the Synod’s Commission on Constitutional Matters, sits on the Synod’s Commission on Handbook, and is also secretary of the Mid-South district. He has also served on the planning committees for the Synod’s Institute for Liturgy, Preaching, and Church Music for the last ten years. Pastor Peters has published many periodical articles and served as a contributor to a number of CPH volumes. He is the author of the popular blog, Pastoral Meanderings. Pastor Peters has been married to his wife, Amy, for more than forty-six years, and they have three adult children and two grandchildren. He is currently trying to figure out what retirement means.  

At All Times and in All Places: All God's People Pray 

More words about prayer can be found in the Scriptures than about most other topics, and yet God’s people struggle with what it means to pray. This course will examine the practice of prayer among God’s Old Testament people, through the time of Christ, through the history of Christianity, and down to the present day. What is prayer? What does it mean to pray? How do we pray? How did the people of God order their prayer lives before us? What is the difference between and what is the connection with the individhttps://witness.lcms.org/the-magazine/ual prayer lives of God’s people and the common prayers of God’s people together? What does God’s Word teach us about prayer? This course will help participants learn and appreciate the lessons of the past on the practice and discipline of prayer both as individuals and as a people gathered together for worship and prayer. All of us are both amateurs and professionals when it comes to praying, and this course is both for those who lead and teach God’s people to pray and for the people of God in their discipline of prayer throughout the circumstances and places of life.  

Location:    Grace Lutheran Church 303 Ruth St. Auburn, MI 48611 To download the registration form, click here.  

Lutheran Church of Our Savior 5825 Bollinger Rd. Cupertino, CA 95014  To download the registration form, click here.

Coordinators:  Rev. Aaron T. Schian Email: aaronschian@yahoo.com Phone: (607) 972-5792  & Rev. John Bestul Phone: 408.252.0345 Email: pastorjbestul@lcos.org 

Schedule is available from the Seminary or from the pastors who are coordinating.  See you there!

 

 

Conservative churches grow... liberal ones die...

Conservative churches are not growing because they are conservative.  Liberal churches are not dying because they are not conservative.  It is the nature of liberality that it does not require nor does it compel one to join.  One can merely agree not to challenge as well as fundamentally agree with liberalism and that is enough.  The primary virtue of liberalism is tolerance -- not that the liberals tolerate all but that all tolerate liberal ideas.  Such assent does not require union or participation and can be enjoyed at a distance without requiring affiliation.

Conservative churches grow because they believe it is essential to belong and to attend and to support.  Yes, they challenge all that contradicts what they believe, they encounter all people with their cherished beliefs, and insist their truth is true for all people but this is not something the lives merely in the imagination.  It is a way of life.  Conservative churches are generally organized around their beliefs -- beliefs held not for the sake of the few but in trust for all.  It is the holy calling of conservative churches to make sure that all know and receive what it is that they hold in trust for the sake of all.

Liberal Muslims like liberal Christians seem to be a dying breed.  They seem unable to muster the confidence or courage to suggest that their truth must be held by all, that it is worth the fuss of conversion, or that it is worth the investment of attendance.  They merely want to be tolerated.  They extend their influence not by adherents so much as by consent.  Their nature is not so much fervor as it is intellectual agreement, a liberal view of life that they extend to Christianity and not a Christian view that they extend to their liberalism.

Conservative Muslims and conservative Christians are not content to sit on their hands while people disagree.  Both have a missionary purpose and goal.  They want all to believe as they believe and to live as they live.  Now, to be sure, I am not at all equating Islam and Christianity.  There is a wide world of difference between conservative Christians and Muslims in what is believed and confessed.  Islam seems uncontent with the idea that people can disagree without consequence and are enforcers of their orthodoxy.  Even sectarian Christian groups can be militant (think in the past of Westboro Baptist Church) -- though nearly all without taking up arms as the radical Muslims have done.  Most conservative Christians believe that God will deal with those who have rejected the truth and that their cause is to give witness to the Gospel.  Unlike the Islam who act to enforce God's judgment, the conservative Christians act to preserve the faith and to proclaim it for the sake of all who will sit under God's final judgment.

There is a huge group of Christians who are conservative in faith, doctrine, and practice, but who speak of those who reject the truth less in terms of retribution than loss.  Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Confessional Lutherans are intentional in their faith.  They all believe that they hold in trust the evangelical and catholic faith of the Apostles.  But their missionary import is inclusive.  They have what God intends for all, not simply as a refuge from the terror but as the positive gift of peace, life, and hope.  Rome insists that there is no salvation outside of the Church but by the Church they mean Rome.  Orthodoxy is perhaps more generous but likewise has a narrow view of communion all the while expecting its truth is not for the few.  Confessional Lutherans believe that what we espouse in our Concordia is not our own version of the faith but the truth confessed for the sake of all.  My point is not to parse the conflicts between Rome, Constantinople, and Wittenberg but to illustrate how they understand their role and purpose as guardians of the truth for all not to condemn but to preserve. 

Liberalism is not simply an aspect of Christianity.  The same tolerance they insist upon for doctrine and practice is itself the principle for all of life -- except when it comes to tolerating conservative dissent.  They insist upon a tolerance which accepts nearly all the diversity liberalism espouses but refuses to condone the narrowness of the conservative.  Oddly enough, this is somewhat personal.  There is a strange willingness to be more charitable toward the Muslim conservative than the Christian.  It is, of course, their own discomfort with the whole of Christian history and the whole idea that Christianity has been a force for good.  They not only disown individual doctrines of the Christian faith but Christian history and influence over culture and life as a whole.  Liberal churches are less united in their affirmation of what they believe but in their condemnation of what they reject.  In essence, there is little reason to join a liberal group since you can reject nearly everything and accept everything else without the bother of joining.  In other words, liberals have yet to develop and apply a compelling reason for joining anything.  As an example, when was the last time you saw the parking lot full at a Unitarian Universalist congregation?

Who is Missouri?

While it is true that those within Missouri have their own ideas about what the real Missouri Synod is, there are those on the outside of Missouri who also have ideas about the Synod.  In many respects, the boundaries of the body are the same -- from the evangelical wannabes on one side to the catholic folk on the other and with a few old fashioned liberals thrown in while the muddy middle embodies a little bit of everything.  The difference is not in the facets they note are there but which facet predominates.  What is even more curious is how the critics lump the facets of Missouri they do not like together to make it appear that is all Missouri is.

Missouri's critics seem to have a rather broad contempt for the theology and practice of the LCMS.  They do not like an inerrant and authoritative Scripture, the presumption of historicity in the Scriptures, the practices of closed communion, ecumenical relationships that will not presume we believe the same but with different words, and any form the liturgy prior to 1978.  But they take all of these things they do not like, they lump together as if the evangelical wannabes and the liturgical crowd somehow are different sides of the same coin.  They seem to forget that the evangelicals in Missouri have more in common with progressive Lutherans outside Missouri than with the catholics in Missouri. 

The other thing is that the liberal Lutherans presume that those who are liturgical are located in very small, struggling, parishes made up of aging folk waiting to die.  They seem to delight in their estimation that this side of Missouri is statistically insignificant.  So, for example, what do they do with the parish I have served for 32 years?  It is growing, filled with young people, has tons of adult baptisms and confirmations, attracts new people every week and is as high as a kite.  And we are not alone.  In fact, there are plenty of us in Missouri.  We have high quality church musicians and church music and strong Law/Gospel preaching and teaching.  In fact, Lyman Stone suggests that this is the very kind of Missouri congregation that is actually growing.  The evangelicals may be somewhat stable but the catholics are growing -- at least according to folk like Lyman Stone.  Furthermore, the heart of the Missouri has never been evangelical and this is a modern temptation and not an historic identity.  If you do not believe me, read some of Walther on the liturgy and his critique of the Lutherans he found when coming to America.

Parish wise, the vast majority of Missouri is liturgical and confessional though perhaps to varying degree.  If you count the congregations, Missouri is predominantly liturgical and confessional -- weekly Eucharists, more ceremonial, chasubles, etc...  As with most church bodies, the actual numbers of people are not equally represented across Missouri's parishes but tilt toward the larger ones.  There again, the stereotype is that these larger congregations are all evangelical wannabes who idealize the mega churches with big personalities and cult-like following.  That would also be false.  Though the majority of evangelical wannabes in Missouri are found in larger congregations, those larger congregations are more equally distributed between liturgical and not than most think.  So who is Missouri?  Lutheran.  Liturgical.  Creedal.  Confessional.  Oriented more toward a fuller ceremonial than less.  Committed to schools (from preschool to university).  Dedicated to more catechesis rather than less.  Missouri is all these things though loathe to regulate this identity with laws and rules.  While liberal and progressive Lutherans wonder how anyone can believe and worship and confess as they did in the past, Missouri wonders why anyone would leave this behind.

I will say this.  Compared to other Lutheran options, Missouri has more theological and liturgical integrity than most.  The ELCA may be slighty more liturgical on the surface but you have to throw in there the congregations in which the Trinity is fuzzy, God may be addressed in female terms and pronouns, and nearly every Sunday explores some aspect of the LGBTQ+ freedom to be.  Wisconsin is a bit of a head scratcher.  It is scrupulously orthodox on paper but leans evangelical and low church and their last two hymnals have gone their own way on a number of fronts.  The reality is that Lutherans find a pop goes the weasel approach to liturgy in most places (especially in those looser confederations like the LCMC).  So while the critics within and outside of Missouri have a lot to complaint about, the reality is that we are in a far better place than other Lutherans -- though still not very good.  Sometimes I wish we put as much energy into working to build up the churches as we do tearing down the church. 

Evidence of and evidence for. . .

Another Elaine Pagels' book or another one from the pen of anyone of her like (Bart Ehrman for example) and pretty soon everything gets stirred up again.  It is the typical premise that orthodox Christianity was the result of a power play and those without power (Gnostics and other heretics) lost out and were suppressed.  Inevitably, someone will dredge up evidence of Gnostics (or others) whose writings were not immediately quashed and then use that as proof of their pet theory of Constantinian interference and a concocted orthodoxy that was the fruit of a dispute and conflict among the earliest witnesses to Christ.  It is a tiresome thing.  It is a foolish one, as well.

Heresies and heretics did not spontaneously develop into the false and pernicious doctrines they were but generally begin with a kernel of truth that becomes the thing by which all truth is judged.  They were not rejected instantaneously but as the errors were known and developed into a threat.  The threat was not against the powers that be but the Scriptures themselves.  They were rejected not because the people with standing did not like them but because they contradicted the apostolic witness.  Evidence of something is not evidence for it.  Certainly there is evidence of Gnosticism long before Christ and it continued after Christ and still lives (do heresies ever die?).  But evidence of something in existence is not evidence for it in support of it being tolerated or accepted or condoned.  That is a fool's detour.

Historians have a job to find out things.  Some of those are unpleasant to the truth and some of those are shocking according to their standards of the day.  But everything they find out is not automatically a finding in support of these beliefs or these practices.  Historians are not quite theologians.  It is a disservice to amplify the oddities that they discover to make them normative and it is an error to presume the normative was itself an oddity at one time.  This is certainly true of doctrinal orthodoxy but it is also true of many other things (things liturgical, for example).  Just because you can find evidence that some strange thing was tried or existed somewhere for a time does not give than strange thing standing as normative or orthodox.  It is what it is -- an oddity that sooner or later is stamped down and, we hope, out never to raise its ugly head of error again.  But as we all know, heresy and error seems impervious to the efforts of the orthodox to kill and so orthodoxy must be ever vigilant in pursuit of the truth.  Doctrine does not quite develop but in its confession and in its refutation of error, doctrine is sharpened -- like the point on a pencil.

Perhaps the worst error of all is the presumption that nothing is wrong until the people in power say it is.  That is behind all of these errors.  If orthodoxy is merely a power play by the powerful to defeat the weak, then it is not itself anything but what the powerful propose.  But if orthodoxy is itself a reflection of what Scriptures teach and have always taught and are judged not simply by the opinion of men but the rule and canon of Scripture, then orthodoxy is something unchanging over time.  Which, of course, finally leads us to the cornerstone on which all heresy stands or falls -- Scripture itself is nothing but a fabrication and choice of the powerful over the powerless.  In this foolish lie, there were no Scriptures at all until the Church (with the help of that terrible Constantine again) in the fourth century decided what the Scriptures were and made that definitive claim because they were the powers that be.  This is a foolish lie because it ignores all the evidence of books and early church fathers who listed them as canon with authority because they were catholic and apostolic long before the 300s.  The Church did not decide what Scripture was but awoke to what God had said and, in weeding out that which God did not say, affirmed what God had always said.  With a very few exceptions, this is true of every book in the New Testament (unless you read Elaine Pagels or Bart Ehrman).

Perspectives on the Common Service. . .

Though not nearly as long in history and a composite of liturgies instead of any one pure form, the Common Service of 1888 (down to our time in LSB Divine Service 3) has taken on some of the same cache as the Latin Mass to Roman Catholics.  It has provoked loyalties and become a dividing line well beyond simple liturgical preference.  In fact, the rhetoric and hype that lives in the worship wars of Rome in Vetus Ordo vs Novus Ordo also live in the Missouri Synod with respect to the liturgies of many choices in LSB.  They carry freight well beyond the order itself.

1)     Liberals do not want to use DS 3/Common Service. What is interesting here is that when the Common Service came out, it was accused by some as itself a liberal invention.  In the mythology of Missouri, now that same liturgy has become the gold standard for those on the conservative side and it is presumed that liberals want to use anything but the Common Service (but most especially DS 1 & 2).  This is not about liturgical liberalism or conservatism but an overall theological perspective and stance.  Sometimes you find people judging an LCMS congregation and pastor by whether or not they use the DS 3 -- some will warn you that they are conservative if they do and others will warn that they are liberal if they do not use this order exclusively.

2.      Neoconservatives will tolerate the newer orders (DS 1 & 2 in particular) but have a distinct preference for DS 3.  They will grant that it is certainly possible to use DS 1 & 2 in an orthodox and confessional manner but who would want to when you have DS 3?  They will not automatically rule out the usage of the other DS settings but admit that DS 3 is the gold standard and if it is not being used exclusively it ought to be used primarily.  They would instinctively say it is the superior choice.  At least that is how some of them sound in the way they speak of the liturgies in our hymnal.

 3.    A goodly number of folks in the LCMS know only one Divine Service and, no matter which one that is, presume that every LCMS uses what they are accustomed to using.  They are often surprised to find a DS different from their ordinary DS used when they go to visit relatives or on vacation.  They may not be automatically disposed against it but it shows that most LCMS folks live within the relative norm of one or possibly two settings from the hymnal.  This is not bad but it does reveal the importance of consistency and this is a key to the growth and stability of any congregation.

4.    Some congregations use the Divine Services as a buffet of liturgical choices and rotate through them.  I know of one that uses DS 1 on the first Sunday of the month, DS 2 on the second, DS3 on the third, DS 4 on the fourth, and DS 5 on the occasional fifth Sunday.  In such congregations you find folks gravitating toward the Sunday that offers their preferred liturgical setting -- especially in a world in which once a month has become normal worship attendance.  They see any choice as personal preference and probably do not attach much to the theological baggage others associate with the choice of DS.

5.    A few would go so far as to say that the newer Divine Services are simply not Lutheran.  They would challenge Lutherans to stick with what is distinctly Lutheran and for them it is DS 3.  Whether they are liturgically low church or high church, they find it appalling that such non-Lutheran orders would be found in a Lutheran hymnal or church and deride those who use them as blind followers of Rome's experiment with the Mass in the post-Vatican II years.  The same goes with the three year lectionary.  For these folks it is never preference at all but always confessional.  Some would almost insist that you cannot use DS 1 or 2 or 4 and be confessionally Lutheran.  At least that is how they sound.

6.    Divine Service 4 is sort of an oddity.  Crafted in the 1998 Hymnal Supplement, it was a more modern version of Luther's DS, what we call DS 5.  It uses hymns for the ordinary.  But it does not only do that.  It has a form of an Eucharistic Prayer with a changeable seasonal petition.  Its confession is abbreviated.   It was, in the minds of those who put it together, a perfect tool to use to gently restore to a liturgical life a congregation accustomed to no hymnal and to contemporary Christian music and seeker services.  Whether it has been successful in that regard is more anecdotal than statistical.  It has also worked well in areas where there are limited musical resources available to a congregation -- AKA organist.  Many see this as an outlier and not within the mainstream of Lutheran liturgical identity.

Some folks have moved from one opinion to another along the way.  Others have remained pretty much within their original stance toward the variety of DS options in LSB and its predecessors.  Since there are few left who can recall the introduction of The Lutheran Hymnal 1941, it is often presumed that it was seamlessly integrated into Missourian life.  It was not.  It had its own baggage and some of it was tied up with the unpleasant and rather sudden movement from a German speaking church to an English speaking one (not unlike the baggage that Lutheran Worship suffered).  Nonetheless, it was around for 41 years and much longer in some places.  It has gained the mythical status among Missourians that the Latin Mass enjoyed for its much longer history.  In any case, you can figure out where I fit in all of this although I am not sure than any of the six generalities fits my peculiarity.  Nonetheless, it is interesting to talk about. 

 

An admission. . .

Of all the things I have said and done as a pastor for 45 years, I remain uneasy about one thing.  While some are fired up over the failure of some in our Synod to practice close(d) communion as we confess, I am perhaps more concerned over the common, indeed sacred, practice of the general absolution.  I know that most LCMSers and Lutherans in general hold onto the practice of the general confession and general absolution as if it were the most sacred tenet of Lutheran identity.  I do not.  I am deeply suspect on how this absolution came to be normal and even essential among us.  By essential I mean that it is easier in most congregations to omit whole sections of the liturgy than to deprive the people of their beloved absolution (yet one without any real specific confession of sins).

There was I time in which I loved this odd Lutheran thingy.  Perhaps it was because I was newly ordained and it seemed quite the power to raise my hand, make the sign of the cross, and forgive the sins of the assembled people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  It did not take long, however, before I began to have some concerns about it all.  It could be the influence of those who were working tirelessly to restore the practice of private confession -- something Lutherans said in their Confession and early practice they had not abandoned but which had become as rare as a full church on the Sunday after Christmas or Easter.  In any case, it gnawed at me that without any real examination and certainly without any confession of a specific sin, the pastor graciously intervened on behalf of the Triune God to forgive those sins.  It strikes me now like the flurry of presidential pardons that follows a defeat or retirement of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  This is especially true of those pardons which do not define the crime but simply purport to cover anything from one date to another.  I realize that some folks are going to be offended by what I say but these are my frank concerns.

The genius of private confession is not that it is before some all wise and knowing pastor who substitutes for God or that it is sincere.  No, the marvel of it all is that the person says out loud before another the specific sins that afflict the conscience and sit under God's condemnation.  Once said out loud, those words cannot be taken back.  Neither can the sins.  It is easy enough to come to church and confess that you have thought, said, and done wrong or failed to do right and that you sit under the general condemnation of original sin but that still leaves unsaid the specific sins themselves.  Because of that, it is easy enough to omit them from the heart and mind of the one confessing and this is not good, to be sure, but worse is taking those sins back home with you.  It is much more difficult to take home the sins that have been spoken in the hearing of another, confessed, and absolved.  So my concern is two fold.  On the one hand it is that the confession is sufficiently vague enough to omit serious sins or that it does not own those sins in sincerity and repentance.  On the other hand, it allows the one to go back home with the weight of that sin still upon the conscience because they have not been specific.  In either case, the absolution appears to confirm to the one who is not sincere or honest in their confession that they are good to go with God and it appears to allow the individual to take back from the foot of the cross the sins that still afflict and trouble the heart.  

The pastor does not have magical insight into the hearts and lives of his people.  There are surely adulterers and murderers and all sorts of other sinners in the congregation whose specific sins are unknown to the pastor and known only to God and the sinner.  Yet somehow we seem to think that it is more important to exclude those from the Table of the Lord whose confession is not the same as ours than we are to exclude those whose sins are either unknown or unrepented.  Why are we so concerned about the soul and well-being of the one whose confession differs from ours but not so concerned about the one who clings to the absolution without confessing the sin?  Shouldn't we be concerned about both?  Yet the general confession and general absolution do not seem to me to be a very pastoral way to deal with such circumstances.  I could ask why we would generally absolve the person whose confession is not ours but tell them they cannot commune with us.  Is this not its own pastoral problem and serious issue for the person?

Until more modern times, nearly all the folks in the congregation came to the Sacrament after being examined and absolved.  It was the usual practice and Lutherans did not quite abandon this even if we did suggest that it was neither Scriptural nor reasonable to require the confessor to number everyone of his or her sins.  Indeed, until the mid 18th century, Lutheran pastors were pretty busy hearing confessions and absolving sinners privately.  But at some point the whole thing shifted and we introduced something which had never been in the Divine Service before -- a rite of general confession and absolution.  Perhaps we did it because the people stopped coming.  Perhaps we secretly admitted what the Protestants insist -- I don't need a priest between me and God!  Perhaps it was because we thought there were more important things for the pastor to do than to sit around all day and pray and hear confession.  In any case, people stopped coming and we stopped asking them to come.  Indeed, the version of the Small Catechism used in my instruction as a youth did not even include a rite if you wanted to.  We had a better rite in the venerable TLH -- the Congregational Rite (p. 46) with its ominous questions and answers.  That put sin into a serious context.  In my own experience as a child, this was used four times a year or so -- enough not to be completely foreign to life but not often enough to be routine either.  Now, to be fair, it was quarterly because the Eucharist was held only quarterly and that was not a good thing.  It is also true that having the same practice now along with the restored weekly pattern of the Eucharist would be cumbersome, at best, and perhaps even unworkable.  But the reality is that the general confession and general absolution only became normative among Lutherans after the Common Service of 1888.  Luther certainly did not know the practice and where there was confession and absolution (more robust than the Roman confiteor) was in the context of a longer, more detailed exhortation, examination, absolution, and warning to those unrepentant.  To restore this would certainly be a task and people would find it offensive, to be sure.

Anyway, these are some of my concerns over the years about the shift in how and who we admit to the altar rail.  At some point, one's confession of faith became more significant in this answer than one's confession of sin (or lack thereof).  It is something that begs our consideration.

Celebrity pastors. . .

I was recently listening to a podcast in which someone made the obvious but profound point -- there is a difference between celebrity pastors [or priests] and those to whom people go because they have good things to say.  Wow.  I wish I had said that.  The real problem of evangelicalism is that it has aided and expanded the role of celebrity pastors -- people who are not constrained by denominational loyalty or doctrinal integrity and who do not have regular ecclesiastical oversight to rein in their excesses.  We have seen the downfall of how many individuals and pastoral dynasties among such churches and their ancillary institutions.  Examples abound -- from Rick Warren to Ted Haggard to Jim Bakker to Jimmy Swaggart to Mark Driscoll to Josh Duggar and that is the few I named off the top of my head!  I could not even print the list of all those who wandered off the orthodox reservation of Christianity but have kept their mega-ministries going.  The cult of celebrity does not serve any church well.

Even Rome is not without its own version of these.  Some of them have fallen and fallen hard from grace while others wax and wane in pursuit of their portion of the media pie.  It is embarrassing that even Popes have tried to emulate such celebrity status and it is no wonder that Rome is in the straits it is today because of the desire for popularity over faithfulness.  Rome has a mechanism for dealing with their offenders, at least when it is not busy using against those who simply disagree with the Pope.  Even Lutheranism has mechanisms for handling such problems although resignation or removal from the roster does not always silence their voices.  We are all affected by the talking heads among us -- those whose popularity is a cultivated thing and not simply the result of their having good things to say.

Pastors are gravely tempted to emulate such celebrities.  The ease and abundance of podcasts and media outlets have created something to eat away at a pastor's precious time and distract him from things that are going well or not going at all in the parish.  I think it is wonderful that we have good and faithful teachers whose gift and blessing is multiplied by media so that those beyond the local parish can enjoy and benefit from their teaching.  I do not think that I am such a guy or that most pastors are those guys.  Nor do we need to be!  Blogging for me was begun as a therapeutic measure -- it relieved my wife of having to hear all my opinions and it saved the few friends I have from being bored to tears over and over again.  I have not marketed this blog and am continually surprised that some are interested or benefit from my meandering thoughts.  I have not done podcasts or exploited a media presence beyond this blog (either through Substack or one of the many options available).  I hope that nobody goes around telling the world what I have said instead of telling the world what God has said.  If you enjoy it and find it interesting, so be it.  If I have a few good things to say every now and then, I am glad you stayed around to read them.  But please do not consider me a celebrity.  I am a nobody.  This is not humility but honesty.

All of that said, we do need more pastors who have good things to say.  Our life together is enriched by the wise and faithful counsel of those who have such good things to say.  We should consider ourselves blessed and wealthy by having among us many whose good words serve to guide us, encourage us, question us, and console us.  I am daily and regularly enriched by the gift of media and the ability to hear my friends and even those I do not know preach and teach from their parish into the world.  Everyone can benefit from hearing good preachers and good sermons.  We can also benefit from the various media that provide us with good voices and good content (from the resources of Lutheran Public Radio to Issues, Etc., to KFUO).  The seminaries have some folks who do this well also.  That is what was once the staple of district pastoral conferences -- until they became more about pastoral health and well-being.  We gathered to be regularly taught by those who had good things to say -- some more practical than others and some just to encourage us to become better students of the Word and the various subjects related to the pastoral vocation.  When I discourage celebrity pastors, I do not demean those whose good words are a blessing to us still.  I listen to the words of the sainted Kenneth Korby still and have some other ancient resources by those who have had good things to say that I need to hear.  So do not get me wrong.  I am not saying that we need to live under a soundproof bubble.  I am warning us when the person becomes the object and not what it is that this person says.  The cult of celebrity will be our undoing and we have witnessed how media has aided in the rise of such cult figures even in Christianity.  God help us.

What is going on?

As one who did not date very often in high school, I am hardly the guy to report on the near doubling of the percentage of high schools who date once a month or less.  That said, whenever a statistic doubles in a rather short period of time, it is worth noting.

Ryan Burge, the noted demographer who surveys and reviews their meaning, has found that nearly three quarters of  high school seniors date once a month or less.  To put that in context, only ten years ago it was 50% and ten years or so before that it was in the 30s.  It is no wonder that marriage rates are declining if the age old rites of courtship are also in decline.  But is there a reason?

Covid is responsible for many things but cannot be blamed for this.  It was already in process before the nasty virus appeared.  The traditional values of marriage, family, work, home ownership, and public service have also been in decline.  There could be, according to Burge, another reason for this.  The religiosity of those high school students has also declined along with everything else.  It turns out that nasty old prudish religion cannot be blamed for the downturn but neither does it have a great affect on the numbers.  Another question in the survey asks how often 12th graders go out for fun or recreation in a typical week.  Turns out that has also declined by more than half since 1995.  Again, the numbers of that same group have doubled in another category -- those not working (paid or volunteer).  In 1995, just 3.5% of those sampled did not socialize or work but now that stands at nearly 16%.

So the average high school senior is a great deal less social in 2022 (more anti-social?) compared to his or her counterpart in the 1990s.  Kids are not hanging out, talking to each others, or dating.  Now, while some indicators of religious affiliation do not seem to affect this statistic, the 12th graders who never attend any religious services are also those who are the least social. The most social (while not a double digit improvement) are also the ones who attend religious services on a monthly or more frequent basis.  Church does promote social interaction, it would seem, and does not hurt.

Of course, the problem is that our teens are increasingly distant from social interactions and this surely contributes to the tensions, violence, and overall lack of empathy in our culture.  Every teen's ability to be social, engage in conversation, build strong friendships, and start healthy romantic relationships is absolutely essential for them to lead a productive, fulfilling life.  You can breast feed, choose the right preschool, give them the best screens, and helicopter to fight all their battles for them but you may be unable as a parent to equip them with these basic skills for social interaction.  In this, religion can help even though that is not the primary function of religion.  By the way, is your teen headed to a date or gathering of peers tonight?  Are you taking them to church tomorrow?

I resemble that remark. . .

It is not uncommon and rather typical for some to lay the blame for everything that is wrong with Christianity at the feet of the boomers.  As an aging boomer I resemble those remarks.  I wish it could be said that everything we great before the boomers and it will be great again after they (we?) are gone.  It would put far too much power in the hands of one generation -- no matter which one it is.  The Church is always minutes away from heresy, apostasy, unfaithfulness, and corruption -- at least of what we see.  Of course, our Lord has guaranteed that the gates of hell will not prevail but He gave no such guarantee that the Church would be (or should be) the mighty majority.  Sadly, the Church has always been the long suffering minority in hearts if not in the halls of power.

Yes, we were the post-war generation who sat under our school desks while practicing drills for nuclear holocaust and we ushered in the civil rights movement along with an unhealthy distrust of nearly every institution around us.  We grew up with consumer idea of everything and chose experience over substance much of the time.  But give us a break.  What will be said about the screen generation who holds onto their devices as the true reality?  What will become of those who have rejected marriage without trying it, children without having any, and gender without being able to answer what it is or how you know which one you have? 

 

Yeah, I get it.  Boomers are bad and cannot die out as a generation quick enough.  Or maybe the generations before contributed their own crap to the way things are.  Could it be that the Americanization of Christianity began long before the boomers?  Could it be that entrepreneurial religion was the uniquely American contribution to Christianity and market driven practices counted before theology even before there were any boomers?  Could it be that catholic doctrine and practice has been forced to compete with a culture of Word only worship, low sacramental theology, and a cerebral understanding of the faith long before any boomers were in kindergarten?  Could it be that liturgical chaos began long before and continued long after the introduction of the manufactured Common Service of 1888?  Could it be that Methodist hymns can be found even in the holy grail of The Lutheran Hymnal -- even in place of Gerhardt and the great Lutheran chorales and their authors?  Could it be that the historic lectionary was window dressing for churches whose pastors had long ago switched to preaching from their texts (that had nothing to do with the season of the church year or the Sunday of that season)?  Hmmmm.  

 

Boomers learned the song My Way from the generation before them and learned the idealized pursuit of individuality also from those who went before.  We were some of the last of those who had math before it was new and history as fact before it was subject to adjustment in favor of historically underrepresented people.  We entertained ourselves to death not alone on our smartphones but together with the family while watching Bonanza, Hogan's Heroes, Beverly Hillbillies, and such -- in black and white.  We did not take over campuses to demand our little safe corner where we would not be challenged by what we did not want or like but we did care about grades and education and vocational preparation.  I am not so sure we were worse than the generation before us (except that we all say the next generation is worse than the current or past).  I am ready to take my lumps but guess what -- boomers are paying the bills in most congregations and still there in the pews and volunteering everywhere.  We put money away for retirement and will pass on a huge legacy to those who come after us.  

Seminary was cheap compared to today but it was not free when I attended.  My generation is making it possible for those there now to go tuition free.  And we did have a decent work ethic.  Nobody ever accused us of being overly sensitive to work/life balance and the places most of us served were improved along the way by our time there.  I made many mistakes but two congregations were moved from the edges into the fast lane of catholic doctrine and practice (as the Augustana puts it).  I guess what I am saying is that those who lay the blame at the boomers are giving us far too much power along with the responsibility for what ails us.  We are a convenient target.  That's okay.  We are able to take it.  But all this attention to the boomer guilt is not necessarily helping to correct what needs correcting out there.  Unless I am wrong, it it still about catholic doctrine and practice and catechesis.  Pardon me for saying it but it would not hurt to lift your eyes off the screen every once in a while and talk to people.

Significant shifts. . .

Ten years ago the vacancy report of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod showed 312 calling sole pastors, 47 calling senior pastors, and 75 calling associate pastors.  Today there has been a nominal but noteworthy increase to 415 calling sole pastors, 56 calling senior pastors, and 63 calling associate pastors.  Overall, the number of calling congregations increased 100 over ten years or 10 per year -- a concerning but manageable increase one might think.  During that same time period, the Synod added the Specific Ministry Pastor program, at least in part because of concern for the need for more pastors.

All of that pales in comparison to the numbers of congregations calling part-time pastors.  In 2015 some 357 congregations were calling pastors to serve part-time and now, ten years later, that number is over 670 -- pretty close to doubling.  In the last five years, that number grew by more than 55%.  The post-pandemic situation is remarkably different and seems to have accelerated the number of congregations calling part-time clergy.

At this same point is the reality that the retirement of the big classes of the 1980s means that the situation at the seminaries is made more urgent by the prospect of those who are departing the full-time and even, perhaps, the part-time workforce.  In other words, things will get worse before they get better.  You do not need a crystal ball to come to that conclusion.

Some believe that this is itself a sign that we need to shake things up at the way we have been forming pastors and look to other models -- whether they be non-Synodical seminary routes or online courses of study or localized training programs.  While on the surface this might sound like the time to begin consideration of more alternative routes to ordination, there are other things going on.  As a Synod we are still not quite sure about SMPs.  Yes, they are pastors in the places where they serve but they require local supervision or oversight as well as the ordinary ecclesiastical supervision provided by the District President for every pastor.  Yes, they have been trained but an abbreviated amount of training in comparison to the residential seminary programs.  Yes, they have been nominally formed as pastors but this formation takes place far afield of the ordinary way we have formed pastors for their calling and has left us with a two-tiered ministerium and people with vastly different ways of preparing them for ordination.  Our official seminaries certainly oversee this training but within the limited parameters assigned this program by the Synod in Convention.  To add to this confusion by opening up the doors to those who attended other seminaries or came from other training routes to enter the LCMS is not the wisest choice for us and desperation can lead a person to make different choices than due consideration of all that is involved.

We have seen relative improvement through the Set Apart to Serve emphasis and even some numbers in the universities of the Synod are showing improvement in those pre-seminary students attending there.  All of these are rather slow options -- not that this is always bad.  When the Church moves like a herd of turtles it also prevents us from giving into whims and fads that later come to haunt.  But it does mean that perhaps we need to think through what we already have more carefully.  The invention of titles does not always solve a problem.  We saw how the change from assistant to associate created some of its own confusion -- this in a church body that once insisted there is only ever one pastor of a congregation even if he is assisted by other ordained men.  We have tinkered with the rules of candidate status in an effort to make it easier to return those from this often forgotten limbo back to the parish -- since we already trained them and know them -- but that has created its own confusion and fails to distinguish those who are seeking a call from those who cannot move (for whatever reason).   We are still parsing the bylaws and words applied to the SMP program and every year in Districts as well as Synod overall there are voices who want to remove all restrictions and treat SMPs the same as general pastors.  We once had a rather clearly laid out path to colloquy for those entering from outside Lutheranism and now we have left most of the details out of the handbook and into the hands of a committee.  Maybe it is time for a solid review and clarifying bylaws to make it plain before we go adding more routes or eliminating past distinctions.  

While wedded to CFW Walther's Church and Ministry, we also deal in a world with bishops and very different paths to ministry.  It is often a signal that we are not quite of one mind as we might think of the office of the ministry, the best means of forming those who fill that office, the changing circumstances of the call (tenured and non-tenured being merely one aspect), and what is the best path forward in a world so clearly different from the past.  While I am not sure a Synod Convention is the deliberative body in which such a discussion would best take place, deliberation is clearly what we need.  Can we take a breath before we launch into some of the options that would work against what we already have that is good?  This is my appeal for careful work at a time when urgency seems imperative and options are being offered that another generation would have rejected out of hand.

An ancient upstart. . .

What few realize is that the current system of education is, in reality, a $750 Billion enterprise in America.  Fully invested in this endeavor are teachers and their unions, politicians and funding streams, and the larger educational conglomerate that produces teachers and administrators.  It seems untouchable.  Yet, in the midst of all the money train and the powerful friends in high places, a 2,500-year-old upstart is beginning to make inroads.  Though called by a variety of names, Classical Christian Education (CCE) was once a novelty many thought would pass like a fad goes in and out of style.  Except for the growth of the homeschool movement, this might have been true.  What was once a very small niche market has grown under homeschooling and it is bigger than many had ever imagined it might be,  In the 2022-2023 school year it had some 677,500 students enrolled across 1,551 institutions.  These numbers are spread over the following:

• 39% of classical education students are in homeschools
• 34% are in evangelical Christian classical schools (mostly Lutheran)
• 18% attend classical public charter schools
• 9% are enrolled in Roman Catholic classical schools (slow to get on board)

In the four years prior to 2024, 264 new classical schools were begun nationwide.  This growth rate means that in ten years it will more than double, outpacing the growth of students in other education sectors.  What is more is that business and industry prizes the critical thinking skills, the effective communication skills, and the learned knack for analytical reasoning in these students.  They easily outpace their counterparts in traditional schools -- both public and private.  Their competencies are their biggest selling point but it does not hurt that they do not require the vast infrastructure that public education (and much private education) has come to expect and demand.  They are cheap and easy -- easy enough for most homeschooling families and able to be set up in microschools as well.

Guess what. Close to 90% of Classical Christian Education students attend worship three times a month or more -- a statistic which does not seem to decline after they graduate.  What is more they seem prone to emulate Christian values and virtues in their choice of vocations, in their embrace of traditional marriage, and in the size of their families.  It may not be a panacea for all the problems in education since those involved in CCE enjoy parental support and encouragement greater than many of those in public schools but it is a signal that we have begun to realize that throwing money at the problem will not fix what is wrong in our educational system.  The danger to CCE is largely its own success.  Growth too fast may not help and may hinder the educational blessings of this approach and money from vouchers may also be part of the problem.  

Classical Christian Education is not alone in providing an alternative to the status quo with Montessori, Project-Based Learning, STEM Academies, and Microschools (not in the classical mode) providing other choices.  But the best that CCE can offer is a holistic approach in which the past is not a limit or a diversion but an aid in our pursuit of the educational patterns which integrate values and virtues along with critical thinking and a broad curriculum of classical style learning.  So far we have learned that putting screens in the hands of our children is not going to fix what is wrong and that schools are not simply places of social experimentation.  At least I hope we have learned this lesson.  We need to work on developing the whole person.  Character counts.  So does faith.  Keep an eye on Classical Christian schools.  They are leading us back so much of what we forgot about education and what it means to be learned.  Some may think it is enough to train people for the workforce but the rest of us know that there is more to education than how to earn a living.  We need to focus on how to raise up good, honest, bright, thinking, and faithful Christian people.  This is an area in which Lutherans can lead the way.

What's in a name?

Being a little outside the loop and having relatively little in common with the new Pope (except being an American and orthodox Trinitarian), I probably am venturing a bit outside my realm but Lutherans might want to know a bit about the name this Pope has chosen. Before the onslaught of comments about him being the anti-Christ, let us recall that every Lutheran honors him as the rightful Bishop of Rome and would appreciate a little orthodox help from him in our battle for confessional and liturgical catholicism.

The first Leo is called the Great because he is one of those who defined what the papacy is -- even if it is not what it was. He was Pope from September of 440 to November of 461, a span of 21 years comprising the tenth longest reign of any pope. He is not only called the Great but has been accorded the honor of being called one of two Doctors of the Church (non-medical for you who do not know). Perhaps this is due to the fact the he is the first of the pope whose theological output we know well (a hundred or so sermons and nearly 150 letters).

Born in Rome about 400 and presumed of Tuscan roots, we know little about his early life except that he was a deacon under Celestine I (422-32) and Sixtus III (432-40). When elected, he was well known, fairly prominent, and had figured large in the Council of Ephesus (431) and in the response of the orthodox to the Nestorians. He was a deacon when elected (yes, it was the way then) and was not even there for his election but was in Gaul. He is most well known for combating heresies -- from Christological errors to the Pelagians. He required reception from the chalice at Mass mandatory to root out the Manichaeans who refused to consume the wine.

Not far from Nicea, Chalcedon, and other councils, Christology was often the focus -- including Leo standing the line against Eutyches and his error later called Monophysitism, the denial of the two natures, divine and human, in the one person of Christ. The second council at Ephesus (449) did not turn out so well with the patriarch of Constantinople beaten nearly to death by heretics and Leo's letter refused. No wonder Leo immediately declared the council null and void and championed the separation of church and state with Emperor Theodosius II, demanding that he cease interfering with matters that fall under the authority of the Church and its bishops. Finally his letter was read and it was met with favor "Peter has spoken through Leo.”

Then there was the invasion of the Visigoths and the Huns under Attila were supposedly turned away not with might of sword but Leo's words -- must have been some powerful words! The feast of St. Leo is November 10th -- a fairly important day for Lutherans, after all. So this Leo, like the seven Leos after him, simply had the Christian name Leo and did not claim a name (the custom coming later). One of them was a kingmaker -- Leo III who crowned Charlemagne. Five of the next Leos were pope within a 62 year time span, three for less than a year and one for 82 days. By the time Leo IX took the name, it had fallen out of favor and took another 220 years before Leo X came along -- another Luther connection here. Both the tenth and eleventh Popes named Leo were Medicis -- probably enough said there. The next big Leo was the first pope post-Vatican I and with the papal centrism of Rome now fully enshrined in conciliar pronouncement. With the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), Pope Leo XIII effectively laid the foundations for the social teachings of Rome down to the present day.   Those teachings are worthy of their own consideration but they have been pivotal for Rome, to be sure.  

I am not sure what to say about the name arising again but Lutherans might be watching to see how this Leo might fare and if his name will have anymore Lutheran connections.  It is certainly too early to add the Great to his name and any other modifier will have to stand the test of time.  It may be too soon to suggest he could be Leo the Radical find commonality with his Augustinian brother in Germany and would it not be a wonder if he were to call the Augsburg Confession a catholic one. It would not hurt my feelings. It also seems to accord with one of his first homilies who is the rock in Jesus' promise that upon this rock He will build His Church and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.  In any case, I hope a little of the orthodox blood of his forebears lives in him to preserve the catholic and apostolic witness of the Biblical Christology and his willingness to call out and condemn heretics. Better this than "Who am I to judge?"

One in three persons. . .

It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, who with Your only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, one Lord. In the confession of the only true God, we worship the Trinity in person and the Unity in substance, of majesty coequal. Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying:

On this day we sing of the God who has revealed Himself in the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  The Trinity is not some ancillary dogma but the heart and core of our Christian identity.  To get this wrong, is to cease to be Christian.  To get it right is not to presume to unpack the mystery of the God who is one and one in three but to confess it faithfully before the world.  What better way to do this than with the ancient texts of the Gloria, the Te Deum, St. Patrick's Breastplate, and the Athanasian Creed.  So here they are below.

Athanasian Creed

       Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith.

Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.

And the catholic faith is this,

that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, 

   neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.

For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Holy Spirit is another.

But the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one: 

   the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit:

the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated;

the Father infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite;

the Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet there are not three Eternals, but one Eternal,

just as there are not three Uncreated or three Infinites, but one Uncreated and one Infinite.

In the same way, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty;

and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God;

and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.

So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord;

and yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord.

Just as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, 

   so also are we prohibited by the catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords.

The Father is not made nor created nor begotten by anyone.

The Son is neither made nor created, but begotten of the Father alone.

The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding.

Thus, there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another;

but the whole three persons are coeternal with each other and coequal, so that in all things, as has been stated above, the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshiped.

Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.

But it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe 

   the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, 

   the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man.

He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, 

   born from the substance of His mother in this age:

perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh;

equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.

Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ:

one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God;

one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.

For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ,

who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, 

   rose again the third day from the dead,

   ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, 

   from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies 

   and give an account concerning their own deeds.

And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, 

   and those who have done evil into eternal fire.

This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.