The media usage of the LCMS about the LCMS has been either to enlarge expectations and the reach of what Lutheranism can be and should be by extolling our good Confession OR it has been to diminish the reality of what Lutheranism is by exposing what is bad and making it known. Some might see any difference. I think there is a difference.
It is easy, after all, to expose what is bad or shameful among us. We have no shortage of errors, scandals, and wrongs which rightfully shame us. We are a church of sinners, after all. One does not have to look very far to find good examples of such sin within the churches and clergy. We are also well equipped to publish the record of our disappointments and embarrassments. The subject of our outrage at those among us who live on the fringes of orthodoxy or morality or simple appropriateness is a fond one to take up and put pen to paper (or, in this case, words to a screen). Some of it not only does not belong in public outrage but belongs in the more nuanced places where reason and due process live. These things are not efficient but are slow and deliberate and prodding. None of us is happy about this but it is probably better for all that the mechanisms of dealing formally with our discontent are not quick. Part of that is because we seem to want to fix everything with bylaws and bylaws simply cannot fix much of what is wrong among us. We crave decisive actors and actions except when someone is complaining about us. I get it.
We are not so well equipped to utilize the resources of the internet for reasoned conversation or civil debate but even less so in praising what is good or convincing each other what is right and salutary. There are some who do just that. They are positive and build up more than they tear down. From podcast to blog to talk show they lay before us in humble expectation the cause of Scripture, creed, confession, and truth. I laud them for what they do and know that this is to good effect. I cannot count how many have given my own congregation a try because they heard the Word proclaimed and of a church body in which this proclamation was normal and normative. I only wish there were more who were intent upon using the various platforms available to convince rather then ratting out in public what they find wrong. I may seem to do the same but it is not truly my intent to be a tell all site but rather to prod us even by our wrongs to do what is right. I apologize when I do something else.
There is one thing the internet seems ill-quipped to do. It is a terrible place for a real conversation, for the expression of nuance, for respect for process, and for the discipline that ought to be common but is about as uncommon as common sense. The internet is good at putting us against each other and into camps of those who disagree and who refuse to be moved from where they stand. There was a time when I regularly participated in a couple of such online forums but they ended up in stalemates over predictable arguments and it grew tiresome and tragic even to participate. I am genuinely surprise when comments made on social media are not designed either to throw red meat to the hungry wolves or inflame the dragons among us. It ought to be the other way around. Moral outrage with its implicit self-righteousness should not be the norm but the exception. Or at least I wish it were.
We are accountable to each other in this Synod and we are duty bound to observe the covenants of love that define our relationship but I am not at all sure it is good or helpful to turn us into spies who take to the web to tell all about the sins and failings of others. I would not be ELCA if it were the final remnant of Lutheranism left but I really am saddened by what it has become. It is a real tragedy and I cannot but grieve the loss of better predecessor bodies than what their merger became. Likewise, I am saddened by what Anglicanism has become and what even the seven sisters of Protestantism became in view of what they were once. I do not want a small but purer Missouri. I want a growing Missouri which is growing because it is more and more faithful to Scripture, creed, and confession. I do not want those whose potshots at our church body have sullied our reputation even more to shame us from being truthful and orthodox. Neither do I want us to become a caricature of our pompous selves as those outside us view the Synod and prove correct the stereotype of us as a people who love cutting down more than we can tolerate building up. I hope the new year bring a little regret for how quick we are to shame each other in public as the first step we take when something is not as it should be. I pray that in the New Year we will learn how to talk together in pursuit of the fuller orthodoxy and catholicity that is our prayer and not simply to boil things down to the minimum we can all agree upon.
Indeed, the whole point of moderated comments on this blog was to derail the side conversations that became nothing more than rude shouting matches. This does not glorify God or extend the cause of Christ. Yes, we must be blunt when wrongs are left without correction from those so charged with these duties yet we should not delight in being the first to publish how bad some of us are. That is why I am hoping some of those who do that will take a pause from hitting the publish button. We need have a higher purpose in all of this than delighting in the sins of others or we are Pharisees and Publicans all.
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