Our digital pacifier. . .

A pacifier is a rubber, plastic, or silicone nipple substitute given to infants and toddlers to suckle on between feedings, helping to soothe them by satisfying their natural sucking reflex.   So Wiki says.  According to the same, using a pacifier can provide several advantages for both babies and parents:

Comfort and Soothing

• Satisfies sucking reflex: Babies have a strong natural desire to suck, which can be calmed with a pacifier.
• Helps with sleep: Pacifiers can assist babies in falling asleep faster and may help them stay asleep longer.

Every parent knows the value of a good pacifier.  At the same time, every parent knows when the pacifier has to go.  While pacifiers can be beneficial for very specific uses, there are also potential downsides.  In the category of Dependency Issues, the problem is the pacifier can be habit-forming; babies may become reliant on pacifiers for comfort, leading to nighttime awakenings if the pacifier falls out.  Not mention the health concerns:  nipple confusion: introducing a pacifier too early can interfere with breastfeeding, as babies may prefer the easier sucking of a pacifier over nursing and dental problems: prolonged use of pacifiers can affect dental development, particularly if used beyond the age of two.  There are studies to suggest that children who use pacifiers may have a higher incidence of ear infections compared to those who do not.  In conclusion, pacifiers can be a helpful tool for soothing infants, but parents should weigh the benefits against potential drawbacks. It's essential to use them wisely and consider weaning off before significant dental issues arise.

Apparently we are wiser about pacifiers that you stick in the mouth than the ones you place in hands before eyes.  Have our screens become pacifiers?  Have we learned to turn to then for comfort and soothing in our time of angst, uncertainty, and fear of personal interaction?  Screens both create problems and become the solution kids and adults reach for, forming what some researchers call a “vicious cycle.”  Using smartphones as ‘digital pacifiers’ or ‘dummies’ is an increasing phenomenon in our modern society, where smartphones serve as soothing tools, digital pacifiers, for toddlers, teens, and adult.  While the term ‘pacifier’ or ‘dummy’ traditionally refers to a rubber object designed to calm babies by satisfying their innate sucking reflex, the concept has evolved in the digital age to include handheld electronic devices, particularly those with smaller screens -- smartphones and tablets.  

We all know that kids are glued to their devices.  The allure of smartphones as digital pacifiers is obvious. This is the generation who never allows themselves to be bored – or is it because we don’t allow them to be bored?  With vibrant screens, engaging apps, and an endless array of entertainment options, smartphones possess an inherent ability to captivate young minds and momentarily alleviate distress or boredom. Whether it’s the engaging visuals, interactive stories, educational videos, or soothing music, these devices offer an abundance of stimuli we have used to effectively distract, calm, or entertain children of all ages and this is what we carry into adulthood.  It has become our default.

In some ways, our digital devices have become tools that we use in place of religion, perhaps even the reason why the nones are growing.  We turn to the things we can hold in our hands and control in place of the God who comes in means and whom we must trust because He is in control. 

Small need not mean dying. . .

Surely you cannot help but be struck by the number of voices in alarm over the declining size of the average non-Roman Catholic congregation.  The reality is that these are small, some of them graying, but not all of them declining.  In fact, some of them remain vital and alive despite the obvious pressures placed upon them for their lack of size.  They can be found in the typical areas of the Midwest where LCMS Lutheranism has been historically strong, in the remains of a once vital Lutheran presence in the coast lands and inner cities of our nation, and in the places where you would be surprised to find them -- in the Bible belt of the South.  I tip my hat to them.   

The reality is that numbers are important and we should not say they are not simply because they are often headed in a direction that either embarrasses us or confound us.  At the same time, however, we should not equate small with dying or dead.  Small is often simply the surface judgment imposed by numbers that stand either below the average or median of a church body or a group of them.  It is not in and of itself a description of their life together or their ministry.  I am an example of one who was formed by a small congregation that was never big even though it was often bigger than it is today.  I am not alone.  There were many pastors and teachers raised up by that small congregation over the years.  They were the fruit of God's own work which is never small -- even though the font may be its power is not.  And these church workers stand tall together with the husbands, wives, parents, and children who in their own vocation seek to live out as fully as possible the promise of God's own divine life imparted by water and the Spirit in this new birth of water and the Word.

Small may be the condition of the place -- there are plenty of places across America which are not growing or even staying the same size but declining in the overall numbers of people who live there.  That often describes the rural areas in which the resource of manual labor has been replaced by expensive mechanized agriculture.  They probably will not grow back to their glory days but that does not mean that the people there and the communities of faith that serve them are without mission or purpose or glory.  Wherever God is at work, there is His glory -- calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying His Church.  There are often closer to the two or three gathered in His name but He is there among them true to His promise and with His boundless gifts.  Small may be an accurate descriptor of everything except God's work among them in Word and Sacrament.  That is never small.

So today I laud those places which are small by numbers but not declining or dead.  God bless them and those whom they serve.  God bless the pastors who serve them, the volunteer musicians who serve them, the people who do the labor that larger congregations hire out to do.  God is not done with you yet unless you are already done with Him.  Trust remains the most valuable commodity for small congregations when the signs of earthly success are few.  God remains true and His work is without limit in growing His Church in the most surprising places and where number crunchers might have given up.  Small need not mean dying and dying congregations are often filled with plenty of people who have lost the hope into which they were planted until they trust in things more than in God's Word and promises.  So lift high the cross where you are and the work will not be finished until God says it it.  God bless you. 

God's voice is always musical. . .

One thing I learned from J. S. Bach is that God's voice is music, always musical.  The voice of God is not strictly words but the sound of music – complete with all its harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, form, etc...  It is a language that accompanies the words. I think it a rather modern idea that music exists as its own idiom and that it exists for the purpose of pleasure or the expression of emotion.  Bach taught me that the voice of God is music and this is the language of God.  His Word literally sings.  As a Lutheran Bach came by this naturally.  For us liturgy is simply sung Scripture –whether word for word as it appears in the book or paraphrased.

While for many of us or even most music is a soundtrack and not the screenplay, the success of it all is measured by the words and music that fuse together to become one.  It is surely that way for music in service to the Word.  It does not provide a sound but rather becomes something new when wedded to the Word of God.  The two become one.  It pulls you in and fills you with its peace and harmony.  How sad that it is now almost universally divorced from the context that gives it meaning and power, purpose and majesty. 

Though some reformers were hesitant about music, not Luther.  “First then, looking at music itself, you will find that from the beginning of the world it has been instilled and implanted in all creatures, individually and collectively.  For nothing is without sound or harmony.  Even the air, which of itself is invisible and imperceptible to all our senses, and which, since it lacks both voice and speech, is the least musical of all things, becomes sonorous, audible, and comprehensible when it is set in motion….Music is still more wonderful in living things, especially birds….And yet, compared to the human voice, all this hardly deserves the name of music, so abundant and incomprehensible is here the munificence and wisdom of our most gracious Creator.” in Luther’s Works, vol. 53, pp. 322. 

He commended music as the supreme gift of the divine -- second only to His Word.  “We can mention only one point (which experience confirms), namely, that next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.  She is mistress and governess of those human emotions….which as masters govern men or more often overwhelm them….For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate….what more effective means than music could you find?” Ibid., 323. 

Again, in a 1530 letter, Luther wrote,“Except for theology, [music] alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely a calm and joyful disposition” (Robin A. Leaver, “Luther on Music.” Lutheran Quarterly, 2006).  Luther did not speak of music as the domain for the learned alone nor of something distant but as immediate and profound, for the commoner and peasant equal to the scholar.  From Bernard of Clairvaux to Thomas Aquinas plus those who went before (David and his harp) right down to the modern day, music is given by God from His own heart of congregational song.  Even more than giving a voice back to the congregation again, Luther sought to teach the whole counsel of Scripture through the music of the worship service. Luther said, “God has His gospel preached through music, too.”  He was fond of the rubric “say and sing”  -- not simply as God's directive to us but as God's practice for us, too.

It is God's medium to us in such way that the simple words become song and it is our medium to God in such way that our words become praise.  Can we say too much about it?   For the God who sings is the God we know in Christ by the power of the Spirit.

Henkel time again!!!

This year's Henkel Conference is scheduled for August 17-18, 2026.

Register through Eventbrite by clicking here.  You can be added to the conference email distribution list by sending a request to: henkel@ascensionmadison.com.

Those scheduled to present include:

•  Mollie Hemingway, Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist, Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College, Fox News contributor, and best-selling author
• Scott Yenor, Chair of the American Citizenship Initiative at The Heritage Foundation and Professor of Political Science at Boise State University
• Alex Newman, president of Liberty Sentinel Media
• Noelle Mering, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Life and Family Initiative and columnist for the Catholic Herald
• Korey Maas, Chairman and Associate Professor of History at Hillsdale College
• plus more TBA! 

Not a straight line downward trend. . .

A friend sent me some numbers regarding the enrollments at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne and Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Although we often think that there has been a long and gradual decline in the graduates presented for ordination, the reality is slightly different and it does not quite fit the scenarios offered by those who would like to make radical changes in the way Missouri forms pastors.  I thought it might be worth a look.

Taking Liberty University out of the mix (for what I would call obvious reasons), the whole of the schools covered by the Association of Theological Schools (the accrediting agency) shows that numbers for the total combined enrollment did, indeed, gradually decline year by year from 2016 through 2024.  

2016—29,282
2017—28,597
2018—28,597
2019—28,531
2020—28,183* Covid Year
2021—26,828
2022—25,437
2023—23,926
2024—23,812

That represents an 18%+ decline overall.  Now, if you did figure in Liberty when it acquired ATS accreditation in 2018, the numbers would be slightly different but typically American seminaries counted by ATS dropped steadily and rather evenly over the years.  For Missouri the situation is a little different.  Yes, there was some decline but not nearly as pronounced nor as predictable as the ATS numbers reveal.

Average enrollments for Ft. Wayne and St. Louis are rather steady.  A decline at Ft. Wayne of 8% and at St. Louis of a little over 15% and for the two together a little more than 12%.  This means that we are in a holding pattern more than a crash and burn scenario.  Those who wish to reshape how we train our pastors need to pay attention.

2016—    159            209
2017—    157            208
2018—    158            191
2019—    145            191
2020—    152            201
2021—    158            179
2022—    160            179
2023—    161            188
2024—    146            176       

We should not be consoled by these numbers nor should we slack in our efforts to recruit men for the pastoral ministry but neither should we presume that this decline is a continuous trajectory that signals a need for radical action.  If anything, it should give us a bit of breathing room to be deliberate and careful to make sure that we don't screw things up in an effort to fix something that may not be quite as urgently in need of repair as some presume. 

So I am suggesting that we not listen to the chicken littles who are predicting the demise of everything as we know it nor should we be complacent.  My radical thought is don't screw this up in the name of progress or urgency.  We are seeing good numbers with the Set Apart to Serve (for all church workers).  The recruitment task lies largely with pastors and congregations and not with programs or seminaries.  We identity and support men for the cause and the seminaries form them with help from a vicarage year and good, solid examples within their home congregations.  Is what we are doing perfect?  Of course not.  But it is not so bad it justifies wholesale change and that is my fear.  Those who advocate opening up the doors to a very different way we train and certify graduates are counting on fear ruling the day.  Lets make sure that we are not uninformed so that what we do will not have to be undone down the road -- when it may be too late.  

I may shock a few folks. . .

Now that both Lent and Easter are behind us -- at least for this year -- it is with some fear and trepidation that I offer these words.  Lent is not to be an extended version of Holy Week.  I am sure that some on both sides of the pulpit will disagree but let me continue to poke the lion anyway.  Not all the readings appointed for the Sundays in Lent (no matter what lectionary you use) rehearse over and over again the readings of Holy Week.  You should not either.  I grew up with an understanding of Lent that basically affirmed the whole purpose of this season was to render as explicitly as possible the horror of sin, the agony of the cross, and the details of everything from Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday.  It could have been worse.  I am not at all saying this was the worst thing that could have been preached but I am saying that the purpose of Lent is not to dwell solely on the final days of Jesus' life before His rest in the tomb and resurrection.  The personal discipline of Lent as well as its churchly focus is on the shape of Christian living under the cross.

It might be odd for a Lutheran to say this but I think it is okay to preach morality in the extra services of Lent.  Sanctification is not a topic alien to Lent but very appropriate.  We need to be taught how to mortify the flesh (when did you ever hear a sermon on that in a Lutheran congregation?).  We need to be taught how to practice the self-denial and walk worthy of our calling that befit those who have been baptized and who believe in Jesus Christ.  Calls to morality are far too few and far too careful not to offend.  Perhaps we ought to be offended during Lent.  

It might be odd for a Lutheran to say this but I think it is okay to preach over and over again the Creed (Apostles fits Advent and Nicene fits Lent).  We need to have this creed preached into us so that we can speak it forth within the gathering of the faithful on Sunday morning, teach it too our children, and grow up in its faith and truth.  Lent is a great time to rehearse for the people what the words mean which we confess so matter of factly on Sunday morning.  Preach the creed regularly or else they will become largely ceremonial words (which they are not).  This we believe is a good way to begin a Lenten homily.

It might be pretty normal for a Lutheran to say this but I think it is okay to preach the catechism (the Small one by Luther).  We tend to think of the catechism as words for a kid to learn until they are confirmed when they never deal with them again.  Wrong.  Preach the catechism.  Help us to hear the words we should be reading and praying regularly already and help us to learn them so that we might teach them well to our children.

Don't worry about a gimmick.  An acrostic might be nice but you don't have to create a sermon meme in order to preach during the penitential seasons of the Church Year.  You don't need to be clever by half to prove your people were smart to call you pastor.  Preach faithfully the things we ought to know already and you will find how many things we do not know as well as how earnest people are about things as common and ordinary as the stuff of daily life.

It is June and you have six months to think about it before Advent is upon you and Lent shortly thereafter.  Think about it.  Leave the Passion narratives for Holy Week and preach faith and life in Christ the crucified and risen Lord.  If you cannot help yourself, you can go back to preaching Lent as an extended Holy Week in a couple of years and tell me off by saying you tried it and it did not work.  I don't think that will happen but it is your out if you think I am wrong. 

One more time. . .

In my first call there were those who told me that I prayed like my prayers came from a book.  I thought it was a compliment.  It was not.  Real prayer came from the heart.  Who can argue with that?  Of course, real prayer comes from the heart.  Is there a conflict between coming from the heart and coming from the book?

Of all the things Rome should have been embarrassed about in the wake of post-Vatican II changes to the Mass, the Prayer of the Faithful ended up being the saddest.  You may not account for what people will do to undo the integrity of what is put out there but this was designed for exactly that purpose.  At the local level people form their own intercessions and pray them on Sunday morning.  But that was the problem.  

I would not call it an exaggeration to say that the result has been terrible.  In the end, it was hard for the thinking and listening faithful to add their Amen to them -- not because they could not hear or understand them but precisely because they could not forget what they had heard and how sad it was against the promise of what could have been and should have been.  From the trite, banal, and sugar coated petitions that appealed only to sentiment to the political and social propaganda masquerading as prayer to the petitions designed not to offend people but surely offended God, it was a disaster.  It still is.  

Lutherans are not far behind.  We have traded the careful, eloquent, and rich words of the old General Prayer for words that belong in the announcements rather than a petition directed to the Lord of all.  We listen to find out news rather than to hear what is being prayed so that we can add our Amen to the petitions.  It would be a tragedy if it were not a travesty.  At some point, those in the LCMS headquarters decided that something of substance and with words that not only pray but teach us to pray should be offered.  Thus the Synod's offering sent by email as starting point for some and the quick and easy end run for others.

Alas, the genie is out of the bottle.  We could but won't go back to the General Prayer of the past.  But we could and should go back to learning how to craft faithful and eloquent intercessions befitting the Church and useful for teaching the faithful to pray.  I long for the days when people considered this one of the most important times of the liturgy.  Sadly, it is too often a placeholder in the Divine Service today.  The presider has not give due time to consideration of and composition of the Prayer of the Faithful and so the people are dulled into a sense that it all does not matter that much.   

We Lutherans do not have a GIRM -- General Instruction in the Roman Missal.  What it says, however, is not unhelpful to us as well. 

In the Prayer of the Faithful, the people respond in a certain way to the word of God which they have welcomed in faith and, exercising the office of their baptismal priesthood, offer prayers to God for the salvation of all. It is fitting that such a prayer be included, as a rule, in Masses celebrated with a congregation, so that petitions will be offered for the holy Church, for civil authorities, for those weighed down by various needs, for all men and women, and for the salvation of the whole world. As a rule, the series of intentions is to be

1.  For the needs of the Church;

2. For public authorities and the salvation of the whole world;

3. For those burdened by any kind of difficulty;

4. For the local community.

Nevertheless, in a particular celebration, such as Confirmation, Marriage, or a Funeral, the series of intentions may reflect more closely the particular occasion.

It is for the priest celebrant to direct this prayer from the chair. He himself begins it with a brief introduction, by which he invites the faithful to pray, and likewise he concludes it with a prayer. The intentions announced should be sober, be composed freely but prudently, and be succinct, and they should express the prayer of the entire community (GIRM 69-71). 

Maybe we Lutherans ought to look in our own worship books for good examples of such a Prayer of the Faithful.  I would commend you to reflect upon the examples on page 265 or 249 of Lutheran Service Book.  While you can surely do better than either of these examples, please do not do worse.  My own pet peeve is names.  We can use the Christian first name and that is enough -- even for the President and surely for the sick.  And don't forget to allow some silence for the faithful to name in their hearts those whose names were not read or did not get listed in the worship folder.  Also, it would be good to teach folks the value of silence before the final petition invites their Amen.  We all have our own prayers to add, don't we?  While everyone is so fully accustomed to the form, Lord, in Your mercy/hear our prayer, I actually do prefer the other form (ektene) in which we ask the faithful let us pray to the Lord and they respond Lord, have mercy.  It is a pretty traditional form, don't you think?  So if I have pressed a nerve, so be it.  Let's do a better job with the Prayer of the Faithful.  Oh yes, this is definitely the job of the pastor.  It is not that others cannot do it but that this is one of the most important parts of his vocation.

Not ever. . .

An alert reader pointed me to this.  The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey (NORC-GSS) is, as it claims for itself, the longest-running, most respected social survey produced by that University.  Who am I to argue?  If that is the case, then its most recent survey about women and children is even more shocking.  It put into a graphic the alarming state of affairs for American women.  Indeed, although it does show how political ideology affects the desire of a woman to become a mother, there is little to give hope even to the conservative or traditional woman or mom.  I hope it is flawed and its statistics in error but I fear neither is the case.

I am sure you do not need me to read the graph for you.  In case you do not get my point, let me say it bluntly.  We might expect that liberal thinking women might not wish to have a child ever (if they have not had one by age 35) but did you see that conservative thinking women were not far behind in 2010 and even now a third or more of them agree.  No child.  Never.  So much for the future.  They have already decided, 75%+ of those on the left with just under 40% on the right.  We have all drunk the kool-aid.

No wonder children are a hard sell today.  So many have already decided either they are a bother too much to bear or not important enough to be bothered with at all.  Europe has led the way in this and so have some of the Asian cultures (China by governmental policy) but America has learned this terrible lesson and taken it to heart.  Not ever.  Gulp.

Those who know me know that I am not one of the those men who think that a woman ought to be barefoot, pregnant, and standing either in front of the stove or washing machine their whole lives but wow.  Has it become so radical to suggest that children are a blessing from the Lord, that children are normal for marriage, and that motherhood is the higher calling?  Have we surrendered that position to those who insist on reproductive rights at the cost of the child, who proclaim self-fulfillment over sacrifice, and who insist that marriage and children are optional?  My question is not why liberals think this way but how can one who calls themselves conservative also think this way?  I hope and pray that the numbers who do hold this opinion and call themselves conservative are dropping but I also fully realize that their numbers will not drop by the rest of us keeping silent on this point.  So consider this one of my initial volleys in the war of words that will certainly follow.   

 

What does it mean to translate?

My wife spent time in Germany as an honors language scholar and the German I learned was for reading and not quite for speaking.  So when we would encounter Germans in New York City who were speaking in their native tongue, I would eagerly ask what they were saying.  Sometimes she would answer with the gist of it all and sometimes she would say that it was such an idiom that it could not be translated into English.  That would inevitably lead to my frustration as she laughed at their jokes or smiled bemused by their comments while I was left in the dark.

That is the problem with translation.  While we would like it to be rather mechanical and somewhat easy, it is not.  It is not possible to mechanically translate the words as they are on the page without occasionally and perhaps even often ending up with something that either does not make sense or does not have the sense of the original.  Literal translations are editorial every bit as much as dynamic translations simply because they require the reader to do what the translator did not.  So somebody must make an editorial decision about how to render the words from their original into the language you want them to be and that somebody is either the reader trying to make sense of a literal hodgepodge of word "translated" without communicating the idea or sense of what is there or the translator.  One of you will be doing that work so which one is better equipped?  The reader or the translator.  This is not only a matter of fidelity to the text but the work of rendering one language into another out of one culture and into another.

Translation is not a mechanical process; it is an art form.   It is often surprising to people that old and familiar sayings in English have heir source in Scripture.  That is often because the translator has rendered the words literally without communicating the idea.  Look up the phrase by the skin of my teeth.  It is from the Scriptures.  Job 19:20, to be exact.  One version says My flesh is corrupt under my skin, and my bones are held in my teeth.  That is misses the point.  Another says My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.  Google translator can render the words in English but it so often struggles to convey the text and idea in sensible English.

I must confess that I am in awe of the work of a good translator.  Note the singular there.  I am sad to report that too often translations are committee efforts and the committee actually votes on the one they like or chooses the one that they can all live with while the soul of the words is sometimes muted or made bland in an effort to be clearly understood.  While no one in their right mind would every say that Scripture is not clear or that it does not clearly communicate all that we need to be saved, that statement does not mean that we have no need for translators or that their work is ordinary.  Translation is also an art because it not only requires of the translator that they know two languages well -- the Biblical text and English.  That might be a common assumption but it is not a fact.  Not all translators know English well enough to aid their translations.  So let me express my appreciation to the good work of good translators.  They are doing a difficult job and one that requires an aptitude, skill, and knack -- over and above the knowledge of what the words mean.  This is surely why some translations endure and why some do not.

Is that really so?

It is common for people to say that the most important thing about a church is not contained simply in statistics.  Of course!  Faithfulness cannot always be distilled down to numbers.  But does that mean numbers don't matter?  Is it possible that the Church can do everything else right in doctrine, witness, outreach, worship, and service and still not grow?  Or, even worse, decline?  Sure it is.  But does that mean that decline is normal or normative for the Church?  I don't think so.

Before going further, let me simply say that hoping, praying, and working for the growth of the Church does not mean you are willing to do whatever is necessary to make it grow.  That is the lie of evangelicalism in which nearly everything is up for grabs in the quest to pack the pews.  Indeed, the mega church side of this seems to suggest that those things that you must hold is smaller than those things you can discard for the sake of growth.  I am not saying this.  I am not at all suggesting that fidelity to the Scriptures, doctrine and creed, worship and piety, and service to others are less important than reaching out.  Indeed, what is the purpose of reaching out (except numbers) if you are not reaching out with the faithful Gospel of Christ crucified and risen?

What I am asking is not what you are willing to give up in order to get more folks in the pews.  What I am asking is whether or not we have become so accustomed to the decline of Christianity (or at least orthodox Christianity) that we suppose that this has become the new normal for us?  Has it?  Have we give into the idea that growth is either not possible or not normal anymore?  Does Jesus not care if His Church grows or declines?  Do we?

I am not at all holding myself up as an example.  The Lord has granted success despite my many failings, to be sure.  But He has granted success.  My first parish was in a local that long ago had seen its better days.  The main drag was pretty empty and in disrepair.  The industry that once fueled the economy was in tatters and there was nothing to replace it.  The congregation was also in rough shape -- afflicted by division over doctrine and practice, accustomed to disappointment, not sure that Lutheran was a positive word or negative one, and suffering from a building in disrepair and an empty checkbook.  I was convinced that the reason so many pastors showed up at my installation was to see the guy who was foolish enough to accept the call (which I did and was though it was my first placement out of seminary).  By the end of nearly 13 years there, doctrine and practice was solidly Lutheran, the congregation was united, the building was in better shape, and the numbers were up (attendance and membership).

In contrast, my second and last call came to a city on the move but a congregation which was not moving at all.  Divided, overcome with disappointment, short of people and funds, with a building debt and in disrepair, and known as a congregation which was for people who were not from here, the congregation was barely keeping the doors open.  Somehow we became one of the most liturgical congregations in Synod, built and paid for an impressive building and a huge pipe organ, and became well known in the community.  Even more surprising, we grew by 250% and continue to see new people walk through the doors each week.  Again, I am not at all lauding my example or gifts.  What I am suggesting is that faithfulness in preaching, teaching, and worship along with a warm welcome bear fruits.  Are we surprised?  We should not be.  Sometimes the dynamics around us leave us with little except decline (like my home congregation in a rural area where the numbers of people and especially those under 65 continues to decline significantly every year!).  But that does not mean that we should become so comfortable with decline that we no longer expect to grow.  I fear that we as a church body have become resigned to the fact that we can do our best but will not seem much happen.  My own experience is that this is not the case and I am confident we are but one of hundreds of examples of congregations and pastors whose faithfulness brings new people into the pews every week.

So what am I saying?  Expect the Lord to grow His Church.  Even when you do not see it and labor faithfully through the years, expect the Lord to grow His Church.  Pray for it.  Do not trade off faithfulness in doctrine or fidelity to God's Word or liturgical worship for the promise of bodies in the pews.  Expect that faithfulness in doctrine, fidelity to God's Word, and faithful catholic worship (like our Confessions expect) will result in growth.  We should not be consoled by the years when our decline is less than in other years or less than we predicted.  We should only be consoled by trusting that He is Lord of the Church when we are doing everything we can in faithfulness to the Lord's Word and will and growth does not come.  But we should not get used to it.  It may be safer to expect less and be surprised by more but that is not the way of the Lord.  Trust does not mean resignation to the things that disappoint us.  Trust means hoping against hope, when nothing gives a sign of that which is to come, that the Lord will grow His Church. 

The first job of liberalism. . .

Some might think that liberalism promotes error.  It could and does, at least in some cases, but it does its worst by promoting uncertainty and trading clarity for ambiguity.  Indeed, that is all liberalism really has to do to set adrift the bark of Christ's holy Church and undermine the foundations of Christian doctrine and faith.  The first job of liberalism is to ask the questions designed to create doubt about the fundamental moorings of Christian faith in Scripture and tradition.  

Nobody has to say that Scripture is wrong.  All the liberal has to ask is if Scripture is fully believable on every point or that there might be another interpretation or another perspective equally valid to the one that has been believed and taught since the beginning of Christianity.  Are all the miracles of Christ factual and historically true or might they simply be stories to make a point?  Nobody is really saying that the miracles are not true -- God forbid -- but that they do not have to be true to do what they were designed to do.  Nobody needs to say that they were fabricated but simply illustrations of the principles that matter and always matter more than truthfulness.  This is the real danger of God's Word in the hands of liberals.  The Bart Ehrmans of this world simply raise questions about whether what has always been believed is the only way to take God's Word or interpret the events of the Biblical narrative.  That is enough.

Nobody has to say that doctrine has been wrong all these years and that the creeds are not reliable.  No, indeed.  All that needs to be said is that what is being preserved and proclaimed are not events or facts or history but principles of love, well illustrated and symbolized by the words of these affirmations.  The creed is not wrong but neither are the words to be taken at face value.  The Virgin Birth is a prime example.  It is proclaimed not because it is literally true but because it preserves the mythology of Christ's appearance out of nowhere and His unique status as the Son of God.  You can say it on Sunday morning without being bound to it as facts or history or truth.  What is being preserved is the idea of it all and not the specific words and their literal meaning.  It would certainly be wrong to dispense with them but there is no need to do so if you simply view them as symbolic words and not as words tied to actual facts or events.

Nobody has to say that it was wrong all these years to affirm that God made them male and female or that marriage and family as traditionally defined are normative in the eyes of God.  No, indeed.  You simply suggest that what we have today was not known in ancient times and therefore could not have been condemned or affirmed.  You blame it on the institutional sin that is the convenient scapegoat of nearly everything bad and refer to the enlightened state of things today in which women, gays, lesbians, trans, and the whole plethora of the alphabet used to define the diversity of sexual desire and gender were repressed by the patriarchal and hypocritical institutions propped up by sin in in the past.  But no more.  No, we have moved beyond these simplistic and tainted positions to see things that were never seen or granted legitimacy in the past.  Jesus would surely not have said anything against what we are affirming today because His Gospel is generally a liberation to feel and be who you feel you are or want to be.  Right?

The liberal Trojan Horse is to let the past stand and simply to move on.  It happens in religion, in history, in sociology, in psychology, and nearly everywhere else.  The danger is not that what was believed will be contradicted but that it will be written off as simply naive or out of date or one of many interpretations.  The liberal will use the same vocabulary but redefine the words.  In the end the damage will have been done without directly disagreeing with anything.  Sure, some liberals have the courage or the integrity to admit that things are changing but most are content to let things evolve gradually as the past and its witness is moved aside and the possibilities of the present and future stand as legitimate and authoritative in their own right.  Ambiguity will end up doing all the work that open contradiction and dispute cannot safely do. 

There is no leverage in loss. . .

For a very long time we have lived with the false idea that in order to raise up someone, another must be torn down.  That surely shows in the bitter political and social divide which is not merely the competition of ideas but the terrible idea that trashing our opponent automatically makes us look better.  It has also shown itself in the battle of the sexes where it is almost universally assumed that we must tear men down in order to lift women up.  That is not the path to respect or appreciation of difference nor is it any road to the equality that so many say they want.  But it will be the path to the destruction of whatever might be good that remains among us.  

I am not at all saying that we should refrain from calling a sin a sin or condemning wrong.  Of course not. But the goal of calling a sin out or even calling out a sin is not as a means to gain leverage over them.  It is, as Matthew 18 reminds us, to gain back our brother or sister.  As good as that sounds, the reality is that too often we will settle for putting someone else down in the hopes that it will lift our boat as a result.  How has that been working?  To demonize our enemies or those with whom we disagree will seem to make us and ours a righteous cause but it cannot mask the selfish desire that is at the root of it all. 

In education as well as in the job market, we have lived for a while with the shaming of men and their characteristic traits of providing, protecting, and working.  Ambition has become a bad word in our vocabulary where everyone shares in everything no matter what they do or do not contribute.  We say we want to float all boats but the reality is that we are simply emptying the stream until there is nothing left to float any boat.  Then we call that progress.  What does winning look like?  Apparently it looks like men abandoning the fight so that women alone are left in it.  Look at the graduation rates and who wears the gold cords of achievement in high school and college graduations.  It is a sea of feminism.  But in that sea, have all the boats been raised to float or have we settled for merely some?  Is it wise or even accurate to frame every male success as a female loss?  Or, the other way around?

Oddly enough, there was a time when women and children were more regularly in worship -- bemoaning the men who were at work, asleep, or on the golf course.  I have a famous Norman Rockwell print of the family heading to church while the husband and dad in pjs is reading the paper while smoking a cigarette.  Now it seems that we are headed the other way around as more young men are heading to worship while their female counterparts are existing.  Of course, it is about faith but there is also a cultural move here.  As young women pull away from institutional authority, traditional marriage and family, historic values, and clear morality, young men seem to draw closer to the same things.  Sadly, it is as if one part of the equation must lose in order for the other to win. 

AI and the promise of machines to replace us not simply from the menial jobs we do not want to do but from the nobility of work in general seems a dream but is it?  Is it good for humanity to be rich in leisure and poor in labor?   Ambition is not a problem to be solved but an energy to be directed.  We have many needs but chief among them is purpose.  Ambition does not need to be replaced by a dream of a mechanized egalitarian society in which machines do our work and we are left with the jobs that AI and technology cannot do?  Ambition within the cause of God and for His purpose is always directed away from self and for the sake of others.

Jesus does not choose sides, elevating one over another but dies for all that all who live should not live for themselves but for Him.  That is both the gift of this Gospel and its call to shape us and our lives by that Gospel.  Our Lord made man for woman and woman for man, having in His creative love His own selfless love as source and example.  The future for us all will not be built by choosing one over another but by the love that loves as Christ has loved us -- at least until that love finishes its work and delivers us unto the Father.  But until then if Christians are to be a leaven in this competitive world in which you succeed at the cost of others, then we need to honor and respect the differences of male and female not as better or worse but as God's own creative will and purpose -- a goodness grace teaches us to sin where sin sees only a race.  There is no leverage to be won by choosing men over women or women over men.  Each is itself a false choice that would deprive us of the essential values of home and family that God meant us to know and enjoy from the beginning.  Diverse roles, to be sure.  Different characteristics, of course.  But together more than apart.  At least when it comes to men and women, boys and girls, neither will gain at the cost of the other. 

Greater sin. . .

While catching up on things, a reader of this blog sent me what Pope Leo, on a flight back from Africa.  In response to a question, he told reporters that “we tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue”.  Some of Leo's greater sins might be described as institutional, societal, and humanity's failings and they have, indeed, been labeled in this way.  But sexual sin is largely personal and individual.  I suppose one might charitably suggest that he was merely drawing the attention of people away from pointing the finger at one or several people and reminding them that nations and societies have been complicit in the ills that afflict us as well.  That is probably not what he was doing, however, and I think he was trying to put out a Francis fire by deflecting attention from the absurdity of blessing proposed by the then pope and now everyone wishes the furor would go away.  It will not go away by doing what Leo proposes.

It was sexual sin that was the first poisoned fruits of Adam and Eve's rebellion in Eden and it has been pretty high on the list of wrongs with which we are continually tempted and complicit.  To try and put sexual sin down the list of errors and failings of a sinful humanity is to forget the Biblical record.  Our culture is not enamored with sexual sins as side hustles to bigger wrongs.  It is precisely sexual sin that has taken hold of our hearts and minds and led to the destruction of marriage and family, to the casual way we treat life in general and the child in the womb specifically, and to the use of sex as an entertainment avenue most of all.  The Bible speaks eloquently of this sexual sin and gives any number of examples of sexual sinners whose individual sin brought down a nation (David) and bring Jesus into what is profane (Paul).  For this pope to try to deflect attention away from sexual sin is to miss exactly what Scripture tells us about it and its terrible consequences through the ages (from the sexualization of children to the abuse of women to the infanticide that have remained even as technology makes it more rampant and much easier).

No less that St Augustine, reflecting upon his own wayward life, said that in liberty a man has as many masters as he has vices.  It is not the pursuit of this liberty that we are ennobled but in refusing to succumb to what might be possible but is surely not beneficial that we are sanctified.  To put it bluntly, self-control and God's grace to rescue the fallen and weak are the means to freedom from the entrapment of self-desire and the domination of prurient interest.  We do not find release from this sin by indulging in it nor does the focus on other sins put this demon its its place.  It reminds you of those who would insist that the greater sin is self-denial of this passion and desire rather than self-control.  Be true to yourself no matter what it costs you or how it hurts others is the convenient lie we tell ourselves when we want to justify the feelings we know are wrong.  No, Leo, the sins we need to hear about are not the bigger plagues upon our humanity that are called isms but the secret sins of the heart and the darkness of the mind that leads us into the path of temptation where we willingly surrender to that desire.  I am not saying we Christians should be silent on those other things but we were sent to preach primarily to people and not to the halls of political power or the ballot box.  The cause of Christ is not the redemption of humanity but the saving of one sinner.  It is over this repentance which heaven rejoices.  The Good Shepherd continues to seek the lost one sheep at a time and continues to stand watch over the horizon for the prodigal son and daughter to come home broken and dead inside.  We preach Christ and Him crucified and in that preaching is the call to repentance and faith in the God whose mercy cannot be bought and whose grace is sufficient for our every need. 

 

Too much information. . .

We live in an information world -- a world driven by information.  We have so much information at our fingertips.  As a child I was thrilled when we got a set of Grolliers Encyclopedias.  I never even tapped the wealth of information in those books.  Sure, I used them for curiosity, school, proof, and to win arguments but there were too many words for me to absorb.  Now we have so much more at our beck and call in this thing called the internet.  We hear news from across the world, browse through catalogs of things to buy and choices to make, and learn the names and affectations of people around the planet in social media.  

It is too much information too absorb and it teaches us to be rather passive about the things we learn.  In days gone by people learned what they need to know and used that information for their jobs or families or purchases or the like.  Now we simply accumulate information as if it was what made us wise.  Plus, we live in a time when it is almost impossible to know if what you see or read or hear is actually true or a fabrication or a complete invention of non-human so-called intelligence.  We guess at what we see, hear, and read and hope that what we like is true and what we don't like or what feeds our fears is false.  I wish there was an easy way to figure it all out.

Information is just information.  It is too easy to mistake knowing something as important and good in and of itself and forget why knowing that information is important.  We treat life as as a time to accumulate information and it has become the digital equivalent of all the stuff our grandparents collected in their lives and we donated to a thrift store.  It has become a wildly successful industry.  Think of how little Facebook contributes to our world and how valuable it is as a company and how rich you or I might be if we had invested in it early on.  This is not simply true for the world.  Spiritual information has become  something of a cottage industry and it has not escaped notice of the marketers who are leaving the churches in the dust as they speed ahead to become the source of spiritual information for the masses.

Wisdom and experience were once the province of the old.  In our youth culture, it is not exactly a highly valued commodity -- age and experience, I mean.  Where the Biblical landscape had an honored place for the gray haired, now they are largely seen as liabilities or problems the younger folks wish would either shut up or go away.  Was I too harsh?  There are always brilliant young minds in every discipline but they are largely less knowledgeable and smart about life.  That is the premise of how many TV comedies? It is not hard to know what you do not know but it is not so easy to know what you don't.  I do not claim to be gifted in much and my expertise is usually less than my ambition.  If we only spoke about what we really knew, the rooms of our lives would be rather silent.  The passive information we suck up as if it were something real and valuable often leads us to the false conclusion that we know whereof we speak.  That is realm of age and experience and it is what contributes to the wisdom in so much short supply today.

It is probably good advice to tell ourselves and others not to speak as if we knew everything but it is advice seldom taken.  As evidence of that, I point to the increasing intolerance of diverging views on the unsocial social media and the violence that too often becomes the first response rather than the last.  We would do well to learn a little patience.  I am particularly speaking about those who insist that it is their job to inform the stupid masses of all the things they have gotten wrong without at all considering that they might be included among them.

Stick to what you know is good advice.  Stick to what God says is better.  Oddly enough, the plethora of information that surrounds us has led us to listen less to the voice of God and more to the gut feelings we have in the moment.  That is a particular danger we have fallen into in this world today.  We know something about everything but just enough Scripture to make us dangerous.  Lutherans were once prone to advise people to read the catechism.  It sounds like a put down.  It is probably one of those voices of wisdom we no longer pay much attention to anymore.  There is a great temptation to believe that you can know everything but in so doing you end up knowing not much and even less about the very important things of this life.  I fear that this has contributed to our quest to redefine gender, marriage, family, etc, and it has left us with a definite void in our education.  When the most basic things to our lives are largely strangers to us, it is typically the moment when we replace them with unsuitable substitutes.    

Interesting. . .

By now anyone and everyone knows the name Ryan Burge who is the guy with charts, stats, and commentary on religion in America.  It is worth noting when he offers stats that would explain some of the things we see when we watch Christianity in America.  How interesting in this data that shows that over time clergy within the Roman Catholic Church have grow increasingly more conservative while clergy in the mainline (so called seven sisters) have done just the opposite!

In this chart, he tracks the perspective of Roman Catholic priests by year of ordination and notes the dramatic shift since the early 1970s -- almost a complete reversal!  While it might be easy to notice and speak of this anecdotally, Burge has given us real data to show that this is real.  It might explain some of the drama and conflicts within American Roman Catholicism but it is worth noting.  I suspect that it is also true across the world but that is only my opinion.  Rome may be wrestling with a hierarchy that is rooted in another perspective while the future lies in a different direction.  What might that suppose for the next 5-10 years as some of those older folks age out of influence?

On the other hand, the mainline denominations in America have done the complete opposite.  Long ago we noted that their clergy were far ahead of the folks in the pews -- not exactly surprising -- but here it is documented that the conservative voices in pulpits across America in these seven sisters have turned around and headed in a very different direction from those in the pews.  Look at the stats:

Finally, in the following graph is revealed the increasing theological liberalism within those same mainline churches.

It is no wonder that the pews are emptying, that there is no longer instinctive trust between the folks in the pews and those in the pulpits, and that the shape of the future for these churches is more and more defined along ideology that transcends both theological and political views.

The last good war. . .

My father entered the US Army near the end of World War II.  I never served though my draft status for Vietnam was close to being called up.  There was an almost reverence toward the things of war in my small town growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.  We played army and had army toys, including legions of little green plastic soldiers we arranged in battles great and small.  We watched the post-WWII movies that continued to esteem and honor the sacrifices of those who fought against tyranny, fascism, and evil.  It almost did not occur to me that I was half-German or that one of my ancestors was the keeper of the Kaiser's horse.  There was no doubt about who was the evil and who was the good in the wake of WWII.  Korea and Vietnam did not have the impact you might have thought.  I would put it that these were tolerated wars but not accepted — wars which began with nobility but whose virtue was tarnished as the years dragged on.  This was especially true of Vietnam.  But when our town honored the dead on Memorial Day, everyone was included.  We lined up as children with our white crosses adorned with poppies to be loaded in cars and head to every local cemetery to pay tribute to the fallen of every conflict.  But the cannon in the public park was from WWII and most of the soldiers who pulled out their old uniforms and managed to button them up for the Memorial Day festivities had on WWII fatigues or dress blues.  It was the last good war.

At some point, we stopped having good wars.  It was not for lack of evil men and empires trying to steal away democracy and freedom.  We have always had those.  Maybe not on the scale of the Kaiser or der Fuhrer but enemies of all America stands for have always existed.  I wish I knew why wars against tyrants and dictators and terrorists stopped being good.  At some point we were worn down from a Cold War in which there was no battle to speak of but still the cost of it all in children huddling beneath desks in case of nuclear war or fall out shelter signs all over schools and community buildings or a thousand other small arenas in which the conflict was fought.  Then it all ended without a bang—more like a ballot box and a collapse from internal pressure and the wall came down and we even had hope for Russia.  The old evil empire seemed to be gone but not evil itself.  In my lifetime I have counted so many different armed conflicts or peacekeeping missions or whatever you want to call them that I have lost track of the number.  Some of them seemed good.  Desert Storm seemed noble enough until it didn't.  Then in Iraq and Afghanistan we seemed to be the good guys but they were not real wars.  We did not win as much as we got tired of it all, the political costs became too great, and an exit strategy was sought to save face.  Now we have had another fight with Iran—a commonly accepted bad player in a region of bad players doing bad things.  But it did not take long for the shine to be tarnished on this as well.

Americans have always honored those in uniform—well, except for those who came home from Vietnam and were treated as if they were the cause of that problem.  We have and should feel nothing but gratitude for men (and women) who sacrificed everything for God, country, apple pie, and our way of life.  But somewhere I think we gave up on the whole idea of a good war.  It seems that none of us can agree on an enemy or a cause anymore.  We are even second guessing the Great War and the last Good War.  We got over Germany, Korea, and Vietnam and they became partners with us in supplying our economic thirst for goods.  We forgot the atrocities of the past—mostly.  But we still cannot swallow the idea that any war for any cause can be good.  Even theologians argue over what wars were or are just and what are or were unjust.  It is not as easy as it once was.  The wartime presidents have been shown to have their own dark sides or they have been blamed for the decisions they made then that some might not make now.  The postwar presidents have thought that a conflict might unite support for them and their policies but it has not worked that way.  Trump said he would get us out of wars but has blood on his hands.  We do not have the stomach for war anymore.  We decry civilian casualties and live in the illusion that wars can be fought in a sanitized way in which there are no grieving mothers or fathers or parents or children—but there always are.  We live in an age of angst about every war and struggle to conceive of any reason why anyone would fight.  Have we lost the fight or simply lost the causes to fight for or to fight against?  In less than a month Memorial Day will happen again.  Has it become simply another day off that is filled with distractions to keep us from thinking about wars, bad wars, great wars, good wars, and those who fought in them and gave up everything for that fight?  I hope it is not true.  Please tell me it is not.   

The ecumenical future. . .

In what has to be the understatement of the year, Pope Leo said “While much progress has been made on some historically divisive issues, new problems have arisen in recent decades, rendering the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern.”  Ya think?!  While the ecumenical conversations of a certain age could have expected confidence in the ecumenical creeds or a consensus on the morality of divorce, birth control, same sex marriage, etc, this is no longer the case.  In addition to this, the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen has been replaced by social justice, climate change, and a host of other causes not even particularly addressed by Scripture.  Finally, the whole certainty of the Scriptural words, events, and message has been undermined until God's Word is merely a suggestion to many Christians today.  Do you think that this might have something to do with the conundrum suggested by the Pope's understatement?

There was a time when I applauded the work of ecumenical conversations.  In particular, the Lutheran and Roman Catholic dialogues produced some solid work engaging each other in what we believe, teach, and confess.  While not every one agreed with the fruits of this long standing theological engagement, it was serious, deliberate, and scholarly.  For the Lutheran side, most of this ended when the ecumenical chairs ended up in the hands of liberal Lutherans who did not take their own history or confession all that seriously much less the positions of their dialogue partners.  Now, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America finds itself in the odd position of being in fellowship with nearly anyone and everyone except any Lutherans who do take their history and confession seriously and who believe these inform and set boundaries for faith and practice.  It is no wonder that the ecumenical conversations have become difficult -- difficult at least for those who want to take theology seriously but easy for those who don't.

Sadly, I confess that today it is probably not worth our time and effort to sit down and engage anyone in official theological dialogues.  For one, the ELCA and Missouri are not speaking.  For another, the conservative Anglicans are still wedded to some of the same liberal positions they had when they were playing well together so I am not sure how far we can expect to get with those who insist that the ordination of women, for example, is not going to change.  Finally, even once rather solid partners (the Lutheran Church of Australia) have set their course away from historic Lutheran confession and identity and it might be that the SELK in Germany is not that far behind.  So who is their left to talk to?

The answer seems to take us to Africa.  There we find churches more willing to sit down with solid and deliberate conversations about faith and life.  There we find some churches whose clergy are being formed within the seminaries of the LCMS.  There we also find a vibrant and and larger presence to the Lutheran identity than seems to be left across the West.  If there is anywhere we need to be going to talk, it is probably Africa.  There are some small and mission provinces offering us hope but by and large the once vaunted Lutheran institutions of the West (i. e. Lutheran World Federation) are probably not worth the conversation and will not offer much hope of any serious debate much less future unity. 

Next week. . .

Next week I will be in St. Louie for my probable last go around on a floor committee weekend.  Hundreds of overtures have come from the various places and entities that comprise the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  The floor committees have been appointed mostly from District Presidents and delegates who will be in attendance at the Synodical Convention in Phoenix in July of this year.  They will mull over what has been submitted, cull down the working number of resolutions to be presented to the assembly down to a manageable number -- south of a hundred to be sure.  Then, with elections, the assembly will discuss and vote.  If I could have my druthers, there would be more deliberation than is often the case.  Too many times, someone rushes to close debate or call the question before real, substantive debate can be had.  I will admit that it is not easy to manage a real debate with some 1,000 voting delegates (clergy and lay) as well as advisory folks.  But that is part of why we are here.  

We all know that the cost of these things means it is hard to let things simply fly as they will but it would be better rather than worse to have more deliberation by the assembly rather than less.  In part, the floor committees will probably work against resolutions that will prove too provocative and will try to sense the mind and mood of the majority to offer things that pass.  Even bread and butter resolutions will hear from some naysayer who wants his comment recorded.  That means that clock watching will go along with the debate and the voting.  Thankfully, if the electronic voting and queuing for debate tools work, this will give more time to the floor to aid in it in all.  

Some will complain that there are too many clerical collars.  Some will complain that there is too much gray hair.  Some will complain that there are too many woman even as some complain there are too few.  Some will complain that the same voices seem to have something to say on everything.  Some will complain that the resolutions sound a lot like previous year's.  Some will complain that they do not go far enough fast enough.  Some will complain that they go too far and too fast.  Some will confuse us and some will be confused.  A few solid voices will work to sort it all out and then give us a clean record of what we actually said and did.  Short of a papacy to dictate it all to us our a council of bishops to tell us what they deliberated and voted upon, this is what we are stuck with.  

I have been to more conventions than I can remember and sat in the seats where people made the decisions and cast a vote as well as in the seats on the side of the dais where the people who cannot vote sit.  I will come home with a few  tchotchkes from the vendors but not as many as I once did -- times are tough and even cheap stuff from China can be expensive!  I will see a great many faces of folks I know and reconnect with most of them in some way.  It will also be a working week for me and the members of the Commission on Constitutional Matters and Commission on Handbook.  We do not get to make the rules but we have to make sure we follow them -- even the ones some of us don't appreciate.

My only advice is the one that physicians once tried to follow -- do no harm.  We have had a few clinkers in the past with unintended outcomes and consequences.  At least do not make things worse.  We need to clearly affirm who we are, attempt to thoughtfully, Biblically, and confessionally address the challenges before us, select faithful folk to serve us in the many positions of leadership and boards of our Synod, and that is about all we need or should do.  We certainly do not need to reinvent ourselves every three years.  We certainly do not need to forget who we are as we tackle the big problems and issues before us.  We do need to act in such a way that we do not dampen our hopes or darken our view of the next triennium because of our time together in Phoenix.  Like a herd of turtles, moves the Church of God; brothers, we are treading where we've always trod...  Yup, it is a slow process in a fast world and that is probably how it should be.  Do no harm.  That is the best advice.  Don't do something stupid that needs to be fixed down the road because who knows how long it will be before the fix will be found and the error repaired?  And laugh a bit -- if at nothing else, laugh at yourself.  We can be pretty funny even when we intend to be serious.  Oh, well, time to pack up for the soiree in St. Louie.

How unlike his mom. . .

I don't know how I missed this.  In previous years, I had always looked forward to the Queen's greetings at Christmas and other holy days, especially Easter of 2020.  But this year King Charles III of England declined to give Easter greetings to the Christians of the church of which he is supposedly head.  Odd.  Charles has gone to great lengths to assure folks that he is not simply Defensor fidei but defender of faith in general -- no matter what it is called or which God is believed.  That said, he is defender of the Christian faith and, in particular, of the Church of England.  He had at one point shown interest in Orthodoxy, similar to his father.  He also seems to have great interest in Islam, having marked Islamic holidays with greetings from the throne.  So what are we to make of him?

There are many things to complain about in the long tenure of Elizabeth II but she seemed personally not simply spiritual but deeply religious.  She was known to regularly attend worship services and to pray and her messages at Christmas and Easter were written out of an implicit faith -- if not as explicit as some would have liked.  She was an anchor to the religious history of her people and preserved it even when some of those subjects had abandoned it.  Charles seems too at ease with the void of overtly Christian shape to the monarchy and to his particular role as head of the Church of England.  I fear he has passed this on to William who will succeed him.  Though I have read that William has committed to some sort of religious renewal, neither William nor Charles has yet shown the Christian resolve of Elizabeth.  That is sad.  It is a sign of the times, to be sure, but a sad one.

Some would decry state religion and insist that it is not a true faith.  I am not going to suggest that it is all that it should be but I do bemoan the rise of the nones and the norm of secularism that seems to be the wave passing over Europe and Canada and even the US which is not too far behind.  A state religion may not save one before the judgment seat of Christ but that does not mean that it did not contribute to the health and moral certainty of nations and peoples along the way.  Charles seems not even interested in this aspect and I fear too many are willing to let me off the hook for it.

Funny how we seem more comfortable confessing the things we are not sure about than the things we believe, teach, and confess.  I guess that is the shape of liberalism and progressivism.  We are so very full of steam when we speak of the things government needs to do but not so passionate about what we are called to do.  We love for the government to love the poor but treat charity as if it were a welfare program administered by the state instead of a reflection of the love God has revealed to us and for us.  Charles has his causes -- from animals to climate change among them.  It is as if he thinks that Islam is better suited to loving the neighbor than Christianity or Christians.  Christmas is the more familiar Christian holy day but Easter is the Queen of Feasts and a king who is head of a Christian communion should know that. If that is what he thinks, it is no wonder he smiles quietly without bothering to address his subjects with an Easter greeting.  He is in company with many folks today but I would not call it good company.  Give me some good old-fashioned state religion any day of the week over the kind of impious piety Charles has shown us.  I guess I expected it from him but I had hoped to be surprised.  

Trans is quieter but not going away. . .

As is typical, a heady euphoria of success can often be brought down to the level of managed disappointment.  Those in the LGBTQ+ coalition have seen trans issues as part of their overall purview but the rest of the population seems to have taken a more nuanced and deliberate approach to the trans issues.  It might make some of us think that they have been overcome or suffered a set back.  I only wish that were the case.  The media and the educational establishment are still firmly committed to the normalization of trans status and goals within the overall umbrella of society and government.  They have had to slow down a bit and be a little less front and center but they are still out to make sure that our children accept the trans status as normal even if the parents are more cautious.  That is what makes these social movements so dangerous -- they do not see setbacks as taking all that much away from their overall progress toward their goals.  In fact, I wonder if they do not rather count on those who have expressed caution or warning to its progress to wax and wane in their fervor whenever it appears we may have take some of the wind out of their sails.  If so, we could end up right where we did for abortion -- the law changed but people continued to act as if it was normal and moral to kill the child in the womb with a pill rather than a medical procedure.  The law sent it back to the states but the number of pharmaceutical abortions has increased and the overall number has not declined.  We won at the courts but lost in the court of public opinion.  Could that be exactly where we are now?

Our therapeutic Western culture has many aims to promote -- from endless life to painless death when we desire it from perfect designer babies to babies removed from the messiness of natural conception and birth, from maximum entertainment to limitless pursuits of preference, and from the relative truth defined by the individual to the good of the society overall which constrains our freedoms.  The trans agenda is part of this whole and the rest will be pursued whenever the individual trans issues are put on the back burner.  I am less concerned that any or all of these goals will ever be achieved than I am the whole of our society and the foundation of our liberty will be dismantled and cast aside in the pursuit of these goals.  In the end, it is not these individual issues that we are seeking but the fulfillment of the age old basic human desire to be like God.  From Eden to the present day, our undoing has been our willingness to do anything necessary to achieve that ostentatious ambition. Transgenderism has suffered a setback or two but in its place it is transhumanism that is under the gun as AI, the loss of common truth, and the destruction of common values proceed forth.  That is what I fear most -- not the loss of individual issues but our success going to our heads and our failure to see how the whole movement will usher in the destruction of marriage, family, liberty, life's sacred character, and our communal insistence upon defining what is good and right.  Once these are gone, we are undone.  What encouraged the continued destruction begun in Eden was when man looked around and saw that they did not die -- at least not right at that moment -- and kept on pursuing the goal of being gods instead of serving the God.  When we look around and take a breath and begin to believe that we have answered the existential threat of the transgender movement, we will give them the chance to normalize in the eyes of our children what we as adults think we must oppose for the sake of our children.  We will have preserved our children from those who insist they must claim a gender identity for themselves but we will not have preserved them from the loss of their very humanity without jobs, a purpose, a family, clear values, and a respect for life.