A strange paradox. . .

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.  Or something like that was said by Barry Goldwater.  It did not matter since LBJ showed a mushroom cloud with the express intention of saying it was either him or nuclear holocaust.  In the end it was enough to push the Texan to a mighty big victory and to tarnish the reputation of an otherwise honorable opponent.  I wonder if they were really as far apart as the commercial suggested.  In the end, the party that nominated Johnson went on to see Chicago riots and the landslide shift to the other side four years down the road.  It is a strange paradox when you set it up so that your friends are not friendly enough and your enemies are not who you think them to be.  Such is the case in religious politics as well.

Rome recently saw the SSPX, a traditionalist group loosely on the fringes of Rome, defy the papal threat and ordain their own bishops.  I get it.  They spat in the face of the pope, for Pete's sake.  That is how it appears, anyway.  But is it exactly that?  Watch the videos posted of the ordination of their bishops in Switzerland and the ordination of a bishop in Laredo, Texas, and it is not so clear.  The trad group is pious and reverent and churchly while the Roman group sounds almost Protestant casual doing the same thing -- a more liturgical version to be sure but not exactly high church either.  The dispute with the SSPX seems to fall around the Council nobody seems to agree on what it said or means -- Vatican II.  Some, like Benedict XVI and John Paul II, insist that Vatican II did nothing but a new coat of paint on the old church and nothing of substance in doctrine or practice really changed.  But that is certainly at odds with the liturgical reforms of Paul VI which were not quite Vatican II but have claimed the label.  The SSPX does not like some of what the Council said and little of what Paul VI promulgated.  On this, a host of folks uneasily within Rome seem to agree.

Rome has also seen others who seem to fit within the fold turn the Mass into a circus, resist every attempt at reverence, and make the little visit with God into a homey little sit down.  On top of that there are official voices clamoring for the ordination of women, for a voice and vote on the things of importance, and for a friendlier view to the LGBTQ+ community.  It is not quite important that they do not seem to be going anywhere to change Rome but the fact is that they get to flaunt their outrageous views seemingly without recrimination while Pope Francis tried to evict a conservative cardinal from his Roman apartments for daring to question him through official channels.  It certainly does seem that to err on the conservative side is more cause for Vatican complaint or discipline than to go the other direction. Does that mean that the liberal edge is more friendly with Rome than the more conservative, traditional side?  What a paradox?  Your friends are more those who stretch the limits of faith and practice within the boundaries than those who try to rein in the extremes?  Really?  Not to mention the fact that the previous Pope ceded control over who is ordained to the Chinese communists and the new one seems comfortable with that.  So four bishops from the conservative side are a bigger outrage than how many from the Chinese government?

Before you shrug your shoulders and suggest this is a Roman problem, the same thing exists in Lutheranism and in Missouri.  There seems to be plenty of latitude given to those who stretch the borders of faith and practice one way but not so much the other way.  If the people like a pastor who is not living within the boundaries of confessional Lutheran faith and practice, it seems okay to let him be.  But a conservative pastor who tries to bring the folk back into the fold is claimed to be rigid or overbearing and handed a resignation letter to sign.  Yes, I know, there are many nuances to these cases but it is no wonder sometimes it is hard to figure out who your friend and who is not anymore.  All of this attests to the fact that the most dangerous thing in any church body is someone who is pious and faithful on the conservative side of things.  Across Lutheranism it is the same.  Liberals get away with denying just about everything and ignoring our very Confession while conservatives who hold the line are seen as loving rules more than people and more like a law-giving Moses than a grace-giving Jesus.  But is it always that simple?  Are the folks more dangerous to the health and life of the Church more those who conserve or those who innovate?  We are still a church body intimidated by large parishes that seem more evangelical than Lutheran while fearful of the small parish that keeps the tradition without apology.

We all seem to love the muddy moderate middle more than anything else.  Liturgical but not too liturgical, conservative but not too conservative, and confessional but not too confessional.   We Lutherans know this only too well but apparently we are not alone.  Rome and the Episcopals would rather sell a building once used for Christian worship to a Muslim group than to a conservative one.  That statement can be shown truthful with myriad examples.  Even the ELCA was guilty of that.  Who are the friends of orthodox Christianity?  Those who hold to the creeds, councils, confessions and liturgy of the Church or those who like to live on the wild side?  The answer seems obvious but, depending upon who you talk to, it is not.  Leo will excommunicate the SSPX principals for their action but warn those who flaunt Roman teaching and practice on the other side.  Even a certain Tucho seems to exemplify this desire to live on the edge while talking tough with the rad trads.  It is not always different even among those who claim to abhor popes (like Missouri).  It is a strange paradox, indeed, that we treat those who skirt the left boundary different than those who do the same to the right. 

Political humor. . .

A wise person’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish person’s heart directs him toward the left.  Ecclesiastes 10:2 NASB

Is that a small thing?

It has been said that an appeal to church councils is not as much as some think.  In fact, Luther himself says as much in his work On the Councils of the Church (first section) and again in his Treatise to the German Nobility (written some 18 years apart).  He is defraying the position of Rome and the Pope as well as conciliarism in general by seeming to demean them for merely explaining and asserting what is already there in Scripture.  I get it.  He is right, of course.  Faithful councils did not make up answers to the vexing questions of the day but concerned themselves with what Scripture says and then applied that to those vexing questions of the day.  But doing that is not a small thing.  It is the same problem I have who insist that ordination is merely apostolic custom -- well, yes, but, is apostolic custom something small or something important?

We tend as Lutherans to sound like we are demeaning both the testimony of the fathers and the edicts of the great councils as if they were not doing anything much at all but simply repeating Scripture and applying Scripture to the problems of the moment.  We are certainly NOT saying that this is a small thing.  They could have invented positions for the Church without Scriptural substance or support.  There were plenty who did (some of those deemed heretics and some who have a rather orthodox reputation).  We as Lutherans labored against all sorts of things not explicitly or even implicitly found in Scripture -- from the treasury of merits to purgatory to papal infallibility to a host of things down through the ages.  Inventive theology is fun and interesting but it lacks the warrant of God's voice and the blessing of His Spirit.  We need to stick with Scripture and then to apply Scripture even to those things not explicitly addressed in Scripture and then to shut up instead of venturing far from God's Word.  We are counseled by God's Word neither to add to it nor to detract from it even as we are called to heed its voice and hold fast to what it says.  But, of course, sometimes folks are of no mind to listen to what God says.  So when the Church can muster the courage to speak what God has said, it is never a small thing.

When a body like the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod comes together to commend what Scripture says and what our Confessions affirm and even what the fathers have said and councils have judged, it is not a small thing.  We live, after all, in a world in which inventive theology (and liturgy) is the regular practice of some, even many.  If that were not true we would not have seen the ordination of women, the embrace of same sex marriage, the promotion of birth control as normative and good, the acceptance of abortion as a women's health issue, the support for the myriad of genders, and so many other things.  These can only occur when we skip over what Scripture says and appeal to another authority or listen to another voice over what God has said.  So when we come together and say again what the Bible says, councils have confessed, fathers have testified, and confessions have adopted, it is never a small thing at all.  For the reality is that everywhere around us churches are ignoring what God has said in favor of all kinds of authorities in competition with God's Word.  So don't demean that as something unimportant or small when it happens that the Church marshals the courage to say this is what God has said and this we believe, teach, and confess.

At the same time, however, we must admit that there are many who disagree over what Scripture is even saying and who spend their days in creative exegesis in order to make God's Word say something different than what it does.  So when we promote the faithful exegesis and confess the truth of God's Word and, in so doing, appeal to council and the testimony of the fathers, that is a good thing.  It does not give councils or the fathers an authority greater than God's Word but it does show that we are not promoting novelty nor are we falling into the creative exegesis temptation so prevalent today but that we stand with those who have stood before us on the truth of God's Word.  That is not a small thing either.  Appealing to the witness of councils and the fathers in support  of what Scripture says is doing exactly what we ought to be doing as assert and give support to the fact that we are building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, living in faithfulness to the traditions handed down to us, and giving care to holding to the sacred deposit once given to us and which we commend to those who follow us.  None of this is a small thing but a very important way that we testify to the catholicity and apostolicity of the faith we confess and which we live out around this Word and Sacrament. 

Hubris. . .

Hubris, a noun, meaning overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance or excessive pride, presumption or arrogance (originally toward the gods), or overbearing pride or presumption.  It originated in ancient Greece, where it was considered a dangerous character flaw that threatened to provoke divine punishment.  Though it has its roots in Greek and not in Christianity, it has a textbook example in the fall of Adam and Eve.  This took place not primarily because of the enticement of the serpent (devil) but the desire of Adam and Eve to be like, if not to actually be, God.  That presumption happened because Adam and Eve had distanced themselves from the Word of God.  It remains the singular problem of sin today.  We do not hear God's voice nor do we heed it.

That hubris led all of humanity to be cast under the shadow of death and for the perfect pleasure of Eden to be interrupted and their lives ordered by a harsh labor to fall upon both husband and wife and all those who proceed from their union.  The hubris of those who refuse to hear and heed God's Word is still not without consequences today.  Look at the empty shell of Christianity left when liberal and progressive church bodies have set aside God's Word and listened to another voice over God's.  Words, especially liturgical and creedal words, become mere words without meaning or influence.  They become part of the noise of the world instead of being the heralds of the Kingdom who bring God's order to the chaos, His life to death, and His restoration to what has gone astray and lies lost in the maze of error.   

Scan across the the ruins of Protestantism and the uncertainties and diversity of Evangelicalism and you find the same hubris in the willingness to either ignore or set aside what God says in favor of the internal voice of feelings or the prevailing views of society or culture.  It is even voiced in religious terms when, for example, the trans person speaks of being "born again" by their affirmation of a gender different from their body or DNA.  In place of God and His Word, the glorification of desire has eroded not only the definition of marriage but its purpose, replacing procreation with pleasure.  The embrace of climate change in the extreme in which man is viewed as an intruder and interloper in creation is but another example in which the voice of God is silenced and the views of society replace God's Word.

Distance from God's Word is the first step to departing from that Word.  As soon as we become embarrassed or even ashamed of what God says, we are ripe for casting aside His voice and replacing it with the myriad of voices from within and across the landscape of culture and society.  It is as if Eden's conversation with the temptation of self and the world dominated by the devil is being replicated over and over again as moderns become uncomfortable with God's Word.  We do not need to rewrite the Scriptures if we can succeed in ignoring it and setting it aside in favor of the voices of others.  The crisis of Christianity is not that orthodox Christianity has lost its soul but that too many Christians seem to be comfortable living outside the sphere of orthodox Christianity, with a truth that appeals to them but is unknown to God.  The Church will not be undone by the likes of Satan and his power but the Church can be diminished in the world as those who claim to be God's no longer hear or follow the voice of their Good Shepherd.

You do not need to sit on a mountain top or dress oddly or demand sacrifice to play God.  Indeed, all you need to do is to honor the Lord in public piety but ignore what He has said.  This is surely what the Lord was talking about when He says they honor Him with their lips but their hearts are far from Him.  I wonder if this is the shape of the future for those who once claimed not only to love the Word of God but to heed it and now do neither.  

This day in history. . .

Unless I am mistaken, and I often am, it was on this day in 70 AD that a Roman assault during a revolt of the Jews burned the Second Temple burned to the ground.  It is no small day.  When we attempt to date the books of the New Testament, we look for signs that would either address the Temple's destruction or give, by silence, the testimony to its continued existence.  Furthermore, it was the sign that Jesus Himself pointed out as the end of one era and the beginning of another.  Jesus did not equivocate. The Temple would be destroyed “with not one stone left standing upon another” making this an unmistakable sign of a profound moment in history.  Billy Joel said he didn't start the fight but somebody did and it was always burning until it was no more.

The Temple was simply a piece of real estate esteemed by the Jews.  It was the House of God, symbol and instrument and locus of God’s presence on earth. Jesus Himself called this “my Father’s house” on two occasions recorded by the disciples and perhaps more often (Luke 2:49; John 2:16).  He jealously cleansed the Temple when it had deviated from its purpose for the Divine Service and become merely a place of commerce, even holy commerce.  This place figured large on the day of Jesus' death, with the record of “the curtain of the temple,” which veiled the innermost place of God's dwelling literally “torn in two” to expose there the mercy seat which had been revealed upon the cross.  This is, at least, how the writer to the Hebrews describes Christ's opening of the sanctuary “through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.”  A new Temple not made with hands rose up on Easter and made us living stones of its continued construction.   Yet that structure in Rome did not fall down all at once but seemed to continue on for nigh onto forty years, even refreshed in its appearance along the way.  Then, following Christ’s Ascension to the right hand of the Father, the place that had been the meeting place of Jews and Jewish Christians literally had to give way to the prophecy of Christ.  The Temple burned and fell.  (See Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:21; 21:26–30)

The priestly ministry of the Old Testament is described in Hebrews 6 -- including the lampstand (menorah), table, and altar of incense.  With the destruction of the Temple, the building was stripped of all its adornments and the Temple’s menorah was carried by its conquerors processing into Rome.  These adornments had become the spoils of victory in the conquest of Judaea by Titus.  The celebration was not about a building brought down by fire but an end to the pesky people who had been a thorn in the side of Rome more irritating than their size or importance belies.  The history of the Jews was not over but the Old Testament people of God whose identity included a priestly caste to sacrifice (the Passover lamb, for example) was done and would never be the same.  The Sadducees also came to the end of a line and the Pharisees gave birth to rabbinic Judaism as a replacement for their own dominance.  And the Christians also were sent forth from the Temple along with everyone else.  It was not only an end to the Jews as we had known them but the first step of Christians beyond shadow of their spiritual forebears.  The next mention of the lampstand and the altar would be in the book that proclaims the future to come when everything is brought to its ultimate consummation.   The Revelation to St. John picks up the story not in Israel or anywhere on earth but in the heavenly gates, with the heavenly liturgy, where the saints and all who have loved His appearing are gathered unto Himself eternally.

Still time to sign up. . .

 

We're just about two weeks away from our fifth annual Henkel Conference, which aims to provide a forum of the best Christian speakers on theology and culture for the encouragement of God's church on earth. And we're elated to announce the additions of Carol Swain, Korey Maas, and Nathaniel Pullmann to an already spectacular lineup, which now includes  ·    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 ·    Carol Swain, Former Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University and Co-chair of the 1776 Commission ·    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 ·    Nathaniel Pullmann, Headmaster of Redeemer Classical School (Fort Wayne, IN) With a slight change to prior years, we're excited to conclude the conference with a discussion on free speech with panelists Mollie Hemingway, Scott Yenor, and Carol Swain and moderator Alex Newman.  We wish not only to host great speakers for the church's edification, but also to offer a merry gathering; hence, we’ve once again booked the best pizza joint in Nashville for dinner after the opening day. A local Christian bookstore will be selling the works of the speakers and other items during the conference. Scholarships remain for high school and college students (inquire for the promo code via the email link below), and feel free to forward this email to anyone who might be interested in attending.  Rev. Gregory Bauch Ascension Lutheran Church, Madison TN   Register Now   Email Us   More Information

Worship preferences. . .

It has become part of Lutheran mythology to suggest that the liturgy just might be what is keeping good folks from becoming Lutheran and that the "high church" component of the liturgical crowd is creating its own impediment to Lutheran growth.  As often as this is repeated, it is still probably mostly false.  In fact it is a Lutheran straw man used by those within Lutheranism to exert their own preferential choice for a liturgical style (or lack of one).  

In the 46 years I have been a pastor, if there have been complaints about Lutheran worship they have come not from those interested in Lutheranism or those new to Lutheranism but primarily from those whose issue is that is not like the Lutheranism I grew up with.  While I am not here arguing for or against more or less ceremonial, I will insist that my own experience has shown that the most likely culprits for complaints about the worship service being too formal or ceremonial or liturgical are not those just learning about Lutheranism or those fairly new to the faith but the folks who are already Lutheran and do not like it.  Since everything in this age is all about likes or preferences, they want it to be known that they do not like high church worship.  Instead of simply admitting this, they feel the need to transfer the cause of their complaint from themselves to those who might become Lutheran except for the ceremonies -- too many of them!

The weak in the faith or those just new to the faith are generally the folks cited as the reasons for a simpler liturgical style or even one without any ceremonial at all.  Again, based on my own experience as a pastor for 46 years and a ministry to congregations returning to a more traditionally Lutheran liturgical life, the new people were drawn to the liturgy and the ceremonial of the liturgy was not an impediment for them but a sign, in their minds, that we took what we said seriously.  Many of them, coming, as it were, out of a non-denominational background or one with an evangelical church style of worship were not simply rejecting what they found missing or wrong in the theology of these churches but also how that theology was expressed liturgically.  Coming to Lutheranism, they encountered not simply words which said what we thought or said we believed but a liturgical life and practice that said exactly the same thing.

Some, who insist that anything that smells Catholic is an impediment or stumbling block to church growth, are forgetting that they folks coming from church lite are looking for catholicity, for a church deep not simply in theology or history but in liturgy that practices with reverence and solemnity what we actually say about God.  The creeds and confessions of our churches are a lex in search of a ratio, a belief which has an actual practice or shape in real life.  They do not hold this against Lutheranism but just the opposite.  They respect Lutheranism for holding to what these other churches have long ago jettisoned or never practiced at all.

In fact, the only folks who ever asked for incense in my parishes were those who came from these church lite kind of backgrounds and wanted the fuller the better.  Smells and bells did not seem out of character for them because they took what we said we believed so seriously that they expected smells and bells.  One family said we should begin the regular use of incense in the Divine Service with Christmas Eve.  I smiled on my face but in my heart I knew that it could be the very thing the Lutherans in the congregation would use to stir up trouble.  Not the new folks or weaker brethren but the Lutherans strong enough to know how to throw their weight around.

Now, full disclosure, I am NOT at all suggesting that any pastor damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead into a full medieval ceremonial to accompany the words and music of the Divine Service.  No pastor worth his salt would do that ever.  Longevity and teaching are required to usher in serious and long term change.  That said, every pastor I know would admit that the folks more likely to complain about any introduction of a new ceremony or practice are those who have been there longest.  How odd it is that in one case (some years ago) an LCMS pastor was lauded by the District and many of his peers for his foresight in ditching the traditional service which had been slowly moved earlier and earlier on Sunday morning until it began at 7 am before it never began at all.  They were, according to many, the loving pastors who really cared about the Gospel.  Other pastors who tried to restore the traditional service to a congregation which had long ago forgotten Lutheranism ever looked like that were derided as uncaring and hard men who loved liturgy and ceremony more than Jesus and more than the people in the pews.  I have to admit I cheered when I found out that the traditional folk who had been pushed out of the congregation took their wallets with them to the tune of some $175K a year!  Others complained that they were too rigid and should have learned to go along with the flow.  That is the dichotomy of how we deal with liturgical practices and worship preferences in the LCMS.

If Missouri dies it will not be due to our catholic liturgy but it could very well be due to our lack of a liturgical identity that mirrors our theological confession.  At least the early Missouri Synod and Walther agreed with this when they insisted that this fledgling Synod strive for liturgical uniformity, using only pure agendas and hymnals, which reflects a narrower standard than simply y'all do what seems right so long as it is not too crazy or catholic.  Reverence today takes on many forms, it would seem, except the look of the Old Testament.  Okay, take you best shot to dispute me. 

Sweden's mosques. . .

Permit me again to visit the problems of the homeland of half my relatives, Sweden.  It was and remains in myth and legend a Lutheran homeland.  There are still plenty of Lutheran church buildings.  The problem is that they are largely empty.   The some 3,000+ buildings dot the landscape but actual attendance of the 5+ million member church is dismal.  Some say as low as 2%!  The Lutheran Church of Sweden - the state religion/church until 2000 - remains the largest Christian denomination but is facing a continuous decline in registered membership - once nearly all the population of Sweden but now dropping below half.  Look at the attendance at worship and you see another picture entirely than the seemingly steady membership figures.  While there are other smaller Christian denominations include Free churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the growing face of Sweden is Muslim.

Sweden has experienced a sharp increase in the number of mosques over the last decades. Without an official register of how many mosques or prayer centers there are in Sweden, the Swedish Agency for Support to Religious Communities estimated last year that there are around 300 mosques nationwide, though the true figure may be higher because many of the prayer centers operate rather casually and outside any formal system of registration.  Government officials also say more mosques are on the way.  While this might seem negligible in comparison to the numbers of buildings associated with the Church of Sweden, the difference is that Muslims attend and the Lutherans don't.  Sweden's religious landscape has been radically transformed over the last quarter of a century. While churches have been quietly closed or the number of attenders decline to almost nothing, the number of mosques has skyrocketed by some 4,200 percent and they are full.  Furthermore, the Muslim population of Sweden has a robust birth rate while Sweden's native population is graying and having less children than it would take to replace them.  In effect, Islam is the second official religion of Sweden.  Sweden's massive demographic changes over the last 25 years is not only reflected in the demographic composition of the nation, but also the religious composition of the country. While churches continue to empty, Sweden went from approximately seven mosques in 2000 to now 300 in 2025.

This is not simply about the influx of Islam but about the decline of Sweden.  Its ethnic brand is about to become a memory.  Indeed, according to figures suggested by Yasir Qadhi, a Pakistani-born American theologian, predicted that in just one generation, half of Malmö’s population would be Muslim.  While it is certainly the path chosen by the Swedes over time, the reality is that Sweden would be hard pressed to reverse this course or make any real changes in the future ahead.  It is almost a done deal.  What is written here could be written about many of those nations in which Lutheranism once thrived and, indeed, about Western Europe as a whole.  Again, this is less about what Muslims are doing than about what Swedes and the Europeans are not.  They are not having children and they seem fairly passive about giving up their history and their identity and more concerned with maintaining their social service umbrella as their population ages.

Sadly, it is not uncommon for Lutheran church buildings across Europe to be seen as the cultural property of the nation rather than religious buildings in which the faithful gather for the Divine Service.  That itself is an admission that the handwriting is on the wall.  Membership figures tell a completely different story than the numbers of folks in the pews and virtually admit that what is being maintained is not a living community of faith gathered around the Word and Sacraments but a monument to their history to which they continue to cling as they reality of the change unfolds before their eyes.  It is becoming increasingly costly to maintain these Christian buildings while money is pouring in to finance mosques.  Swedish mosque construction has been partially or completely financed with money from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar or Turkey. In the case of Saudi Arabia alone, the numbers are in the realm of billions of kronor. There is also information in the media that every fourth Swedish mosque is financed by the Sunni Muslim and Wahhabi kingdom.

As I have posted before, many years ago my parents hosted a Swedish folk music and dance troop which had come to Nebraska to join in the anniversary celebration of a small village with a Swedish heritage.  The meal she served was stereotypically Swedish to the folks there but the modern day Swedes called it museum food and preferred American fast food and other non-traditional dishes.  Perhaps that is the Christian future of Sweden and other nations in the same boat.  Their Lutheran heritage is museum fodder, something to be appreciated in a display behind glass covers rather than celebrated with faith.  If it is their future, it could be ours as well -- whether or not it includes the explosion of Muslim immigrants celebrating their faith.  In my Swedish hometown, one of the three church buildings in town has closed its doors for good and, guess what, they thought about turning it into a museum.  

Feeling loved. . .

I find it interesting how love has shifted from something concrete and real to something perceived or felt.  If we do not feel loved, we do not believe we are loved.  I am not sure when this shift took place but at some point it transformed what love is from something that is revealed by what is done to how it is perceived, received, and felt.

I knew the affection of my parents not by how I felt but by what they did.  The fact that my father went to work every day to provide for his family without indulging himself in hobbies or self-interest remains the most profound way I knew his love.  It is the same for my mother.  It was not the special things they did that the depth of their love for me was shown but in the ordinary of everyday life, the sacrifices of themselves for me and for my brother.  It is nice to have flowery words spoken or to have received special things along the way but I did not depend upon these to know I was loved.  They were not perfect parents or perfect people but they gave of themselves every day and I am the recipient of this love, along with my brother.

We say God is love but then we put God to the test all the time.  If God really loved me... then, well, you fill in the blank.  Sometimes people will confess that they ditched the faith because they did not feel God's love or know any special or unique way He expressed that love to them.  Or, perhaps more accurately, everything else God had done was discounted because they could not believe that if God really loved them they would have suffered this or that along life's way.  God's love was defined not by God but by the people and His love was subject to the conditions they attached to that love.  Without these, they could not see how God is love or believe that God loved them.

The mark of God's love for us lies not with the special things we have counted upon and He has fulfilled but in the realm of the most basic thing of all.  He forgives us.  Forgiveness is the most profound act of love and the most costly.  It could not be simply a word or decision on the part of God but required the incarnation of the Son, the agony of the cross, the suffering for sin by the sinless One, and the payment of all sins by the cleansed blood of His self-offering.  Yet even this seems not to be enough for us.  How easy it is for us to discount the power and manifest love revealed in the cross and look for something more, something that fits our mood, something that matches our feelings, and something that we set as the test of what His words of love mean.

The Christian answer to the question of how we know God's love for us is the Cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  We might rather have God snuggle us in at night or speak quiet words only to us and not another or do for us what we demand as the condition for us to feel loved but faith trusts not in feelings nor even in words.  It trusts in the cross.  We each Christ crucified because the cross is where the eternal love of God is revealed and where we encounter it.  It is nice to have your prayers answered now and again and to receive hidden voices in the night telling you little nothings in your ear but these pale before the cross.  “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). 

The more we define what love is by how we feel it or how well it lives up to our expectations, the less love we will know.  That is why forgiveness is always a component of love, perhaps its deepest component.  We know we are loved because the cross proclaims the forgiveness not earned nor merited nor even request but freely given.  Such is the depth and height and length and breadth of God's love for us. In the same way, we would define love as approval for who we are and what we feel but God's love for us is manifest in His willingness to do all that is necessary to redeem us from the things we claim are who we are and how we feel but are really sin. 

What have we done with truth?

The case of Planned Parenthood of SE Pennsylvania vs Casey arose from a challenge to five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982; among the provisions were requirements for a waiting period, spousal notice, and (for minors) parental consent prior to undergoing an abortion procedure.  The Court overturned the Roe trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, thereby allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy. In its "key judgment," the Court overturned Roe's strict scrutiny standard of review of a state's abortion restrictions with the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."

Everyone thought that this might have been the moment to overturn Roe.  It was not.  Shifting positions created a split decision in which only the first few paragraphs of the opinion were agreed upon but there was no heart in the justices to undo Roe at its core.  In the opinion, the court felt for the pulse of the time and put into legal language what has now born its terrible fruit of a personal truth, true for the individual at the moment but without any ability to reach beyond that person without consent.  They wrote it this way:

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life" (Planned Parenthood of SE Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992)).  Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

If liberty cannot mean the right to define by each individual their own concept of existence, meaning, the nature of the world, and the mystery of human life, the count seemed to say it was not liberty at all.  Except that this was a venture onto the unsure ground that our nation had never traipsed upon before -- at least not in the official language of justice and law.  Imagine the absurdity of this statement in defining abortion as good and then equating this with the stuff of the universe and the meaning of human life.  The triumph of the autonomous self has turned the individual into an imperial humanity without qualification.  Neither family nor community, nation nor culture, truth or morality brings us together except the common cause of our individualism.  Note how natural law and moral law and even the very institutions of marriage and family are sidetracked before the sacred altar of self.  What happened to "we hold these truths to be self-evident?"

In the end, Roe was finally overturned but not the idea of this individual, imperial, autonomous self.  That remains and is now so deeply embedded in our souls that it will be hard even to address much less overcome.  If is the ultimate falsehood parading as our most noble truth.  It is what some have called the “tyranny of relativism” and subjectivism.  Alas, when we shift the locus of truth from the object (reality) to the subject (the individual), “truth” becomes something fragile and truth ends up being the cause for the rawest pursuit of power and control.  It would be hard to see how this has not resulted in the combative and violent shape of our society and the way we insist upon tolerance when we really expect approval. 

The gates of hell. . .

It is often a mighty comfort to the faithful in the midst of trouble and turmoil.  The devil will not prevail.  The gates of hell will not prevail.  But what this does not mean is that the status quo will endure forever.  It is a false comfort to presume that everything that is will continue because God has set His protection upon it.  Indeed, God has not set His protection upon all the institutions and their various shapes and forms.  God has placed His protection over us.  Over you and me.  We belong to Him.  All the things that have articles and bylaws, web pages and physical addresses, phone numbers and email addresses may not endure.  They probably will not.  We will.

This ought to be of great comfort to us as God's people.  We are the people of His promise, upon whom He has placed His mark, whom He has cleansed in baptismal water, and begun the good work of salvation in us.  Yes, this is our comfort and assurance when things seem bleak and threats abound.  We belong to the Lord.  It does not mean we are immune from suffering or that we will not pay a cost for being His disciples.  Of course not.  Our Lord repeatedly reminds us that as He was treated, so shall we be treated by a world at enmity with those who belong to Him as it was to Him.  But the things that the devil and the world can do to us cannot rob us of all that Christ died and rose to bestow upon us.  That is the promise.

At the same time this comforts us, it ought also to push us to action.  As we in the LCMS look around us, we should be chastened by the reminder that even the good institutions among us have no guarantee upon them and carry no immunity from the assaults of the devil or the ravages of time and the whims of the moment.  IF they are good and salutary, IF they are to endure, it will be because we work for them.  We cannot stand on the sidelines and watch the Lord do for us what He has called us to do.  We are the laborers in His harvest.  If we are lazy or complacent, all the good things that are our Synod will fall into disrepair and fail us.  If we are foolish and mistake earthly success for faithfulness to the Lord, all those things we think of as we identify ourselves as a Synod will fall through the fingers of our own neglect.  If we squabble over needless things or overlook serious disagreements over faith and practice, it will come back to haunt us.  

Jesus did not tell us not to fear but whom to fear and whom not to fear.  Do not fear the powers of this world but fear God and heed the voice of His Word.  We will be accountable and not only for the individual stewardship of the time and resources He has granted to us but also for the things we hold of value together as a Synod.  Sometimes we get this wrong.  We act to protect institutions instead of the cause, fearing the loss of the things that may be valuable today but are not eternal over that which is forever.  We also act as if we are merely spectators and God is the only actor.  The witness of the New Testament ought to show us how God does His work.  He works through those whom He has called.  He works through us.  

The hard part is working this out in daily life.  Some presume that the Church grows because of what we do or how we do it.  They would forget that this work is too valuable to the Lord for Him to consign it to others.  His Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies still and He works through means.  These means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments, are administered by us but He is their power as well as their goal.  We would be foolish if we thought that we had the franchise of the Church and it was our duty and our power to make it flourish and grow.  But we would also be foolish if we presumed that if God wants it done, He can just do it Himself.  What we do in the home and in the congregation matters and has profound effect.

Conventions can be a mess, a cacophony of voices and agendas clamoring for the limelight.  They can be boring as we realize that we have dealt with nearly everything on the agenda before.  They can be sobering as our well meaning efforts of the past had unintended consequences.  But they can also be a place of hope as we encounter people from all over the nation who share our common identity as Missouri Synod Lutherans and are working in their own neck of the woods to do what we have been called to us, trusting in the Lord but placing all the attention and energy of their hearts, minds, bodies, and souls at His behest.  Hopefully we will walk away reminded that nothing will be preserved without our efforts but we shall be kept to everlasting life by the Lord alone.  Hopefully we will have met some new folks who labor with us but in different arenas for the same cause and be encouraged.  Hopefully we will learn to set aside smaller loyalties for the larger loyalty to Christ, His Word, and the faithful Confession once made and still kept by us.  Hopefully we will not expect our leaders to do what we have been called to do and we will not try to be a church body of many leaders with no followers.  Hopefully we will find cause for joy even as we are given sober reminder that these things are not easy, clean, or efficient.  It is what it is but the LCMS is still our best cause and the best place to be.  If and when that is no longer so, we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it but for now it would be nice if we showed in life some of the unity we claim in theory.  

Meanwhile on the AI scene. . .

I read recently where many researchers are now convinced that to achieve a more humanlike AI, or artificial general intelligence (AGI), will require something more than merely mastering language and images.  It will, in their estimation, require AIs which can reason about space, causality, and the consequences of actions.  While this is more broadly necessarily for the evolution of AI, it is especially required if AI is to control humanoid robots, operate factories, and explore other planets—fulfilling at least some of the promise of those visionaries who laud its future.

Among those who argue for this need, AI pioneer Yann LeCun put it clearly. “I joke that the smartest systems we have today are not as smart as a house cat,” he says. A cat can’t code like a large language model (LLM), but it can survive by its wits. The notion that simply scaling ever larger an LLM will get to AGI is “complete nonsense,” he says. “It’s like saying you’re going to get into orbit by scaling airplanes. There’s a very powerful delusion circulating in Silicon Valley that this is the case.”  LeCun left a top job at Meta to co-found one of a growing number of labs and startups developing “world models”—systems that build representations of how the world works—and agents that operate within them to learn or plan. Ultimately, these researchers hope that more closely mimicking how the human mind learns will give AI stunning new powers. 

There is another problem.  Companies  are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to build AI models with hundreds of billions or even trillions of adjustable parameters, trained on trillions of words and images scraped from the internet.  The latest GPT model from OpenAI is several times the size of its largest 2020 model and trained on an order of magnitude more data.   So LLMs can pass lawyers’ bar exams and doctors’ medical licensing exams, match the achievements of top high school students in math, write poetry that many readers find more beautiful than human works, and do such an efficient job that top programmers now use them to write most of their code.  However, each advance in AI requires disproportionately more resources.  They are running out of input.  Literally.  One 2024 study estimated they’ll exhaust high-quality public text data in the next few years.  The equipment (computer chips and algorithms are gaining efficiency), but not quickly enough and data centers under development will each draw so many gigawatts of power and water that they are straining the grid and turning the minds of the public against them.

In other words, building a better human may be even more difficult that improving the ones we have. 

Addicts of our own success. . .

Sometimes in the life of the Church, we realize that we are not really pursuing the goals and purposes of the Church as Christ has commanded but seeking success, approval, recognition, and, best of all, numbers.  Everything seems to come down to numbers but it starts with success.  We want to succeed.  It is probably in our nature to seek success and no one but a fool would pursue failure, at least deliberately.  But success can prove a poor teacher.  It teaches us less than failure does and it might impart lessons which are hard for us to shake.  When something works, we often stop looking to see if it passes the faithfulness or orthodoxy test.  If is works, that is usually good enough for us.

Approval is what we all seek.  Some of us probably seek the approval of God but I fear those numbers grow less and less over the ages.  We do seek the approval of others.  We are consumed by the need to be affirmed by those around us -- from family and friends to peers and even strangers.  We want approval and that need has led us to find ways around the Word of God in order to get the approval of those whose values and views conflict with God's own revelation.  If given a choice, most of us in the Church would trade God's approval (heck, He forgives us anyway) with the approval of those outside the Church (who are less likely to forgive any intrusion into their chosen way of life or feelings about it all.  Why else would we admit that Scripture has long forbidden as not simply wrong but bad for us in all sorts of behaviors we now want to accept or tolerate or even commend?  It starts with sex but it does not end there -- that is the lesson from Eden.

Recognition is hot on the list of things we want.  It is better to be known and rejected than to be ignored.  Even thought it might be better to be ignored by the forces at work in society and culture, we do not want to trade fame and its fortune for being forgotten or ignored -- even if that was the better path of faithfulness and orthodoxy.  Like Trump's idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity, we want the recognition of society and those around us more than we want to be commended by God.  It is the fatal flaw of sin and it might even be stronger in us than the desire for self-preservation or self-expression.  We want at least our fifteen minutes in the spotlight.

Numbers is where it all seems to end.  Using statistics to define both success and failure is hard for a God who promised a remnant or a nation to an old man and an old woman but it is not difficult for us.  We do not know how to gauge the statistics on faithfulness but we can measure the folks in the pews and how much they put in the plate or the ratings given to us on social media.  Is this the primary concern for the Church and her leaders?  No, I am not saying that decline is the cost of faithfulness always but sometimes it is.  The world is filled with the same itching ears as the pews and we attach our hopes to those who seem to show revival just as we blame those who suffer decline.  We take our comfort in numbers even more than in the Lord and, if we had to choose, we would probably choose stars, a satisfactory attendance number, and a healthy bank account over just about everything else.  That is what we wrestle with even within the Church and even among her pastors.

In some respects, we are addicts of our own success -- wishing to recreate the golden years of boomtown economies, suburban sprawl, immigration, or whatever else was working when we seemed to have no end to our future.  Now, we kick doctrine to the curb and jettison the liturgy and shop in the catalog of evangelical practices to find something that will make our glory filled yesterdays into today and tomorrow.  We forget how the Church began, the sufferings of the early years, the controversies that nearly tore us apart, the confusion of regal splendor with churchly nobility, the isolation of people from their churchly leaders, and so many other things.  He who endures to the end shall be saved.  I wish I listened to that more and I wish my church would as well. 

Moments of euphoria or irrational exuberance. . .

Every now and then a church acts in a radical way that in the moment is seen as one thing but in the rear view mirror looks different.  Often these actions are seen in the euphoria of the moment as opening the door to a bold new future but, looking back, they are often seen as moments of irrational exuberance (a phrase from a former Fed chairman I love to quote).

Let me give some concrete examples.  In the case of Rome, Vatican I and the papal centrism of that council were seen as essential if a bit radical in the moment.  Now, in the wake of the failed papacy of Francis and how quickly he undid some of the better work of JPII and BXVI, it looks like irrational exuberance.  If only one could go back and dial down some of the over the top rhetoric that virtually equated the papacy with the church and made bishops more assistants to the pope than real bishops.  So what do you do in the wake of it all?  If you are Rome, you try to ignore the excesses but you always have those folks who refuse to let it fade away.

Another example in Rome is Vatican II (sense a pattern here?).  There was euphoria about updating a moribund church body and opening the door to some fresh air.  It turns out, in retrospect, that some things that seemed dead were buried prematurely and the fresh air let in was poisoned with the headiness of the moment and it turned out not a great moment to make grand changes.  Now Rome is caught between those who continue to try and redeem the euphoria of Vatican II and those who shrug that it was a case of irrational exuberance that probably should be forgotten.  Of course, it does not help that Paul VI went on a bender drunk with Vatican II euphoria to make liturgical changes the council did not foresee or authorize.

Rome is not alone.  In my own small world of the Missouri Synod, there was euphoria in 1989 about opening up the role of lay ministers to supplement the pastors in places where the ordained were in short supply.  It turned out that the recension of Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession was irrational exuberance that required 20 years to fix and has still left us with the scars of the confusion of our own making.  It was a bonehead move.  Yet there are those who still live in the euphoria of that moment and keep trying to dredge back up the remnants of that ill-conceived resolution today.

Perhaps another example is the restructuring of 2010.  The blue ribbon task force (who can recall the entire name) that proposed it seemed to have studied everything and come up with a radical solution to a management problem many admitted was real.  There was euphoria in the air but the same convention that adopted most of the fix denied its architect from implementing the thing and passed the leadership baton to someone who did not favor it.  Now, the same people who clamored for the centralization of power in the then president of Synod are claiming that the one elected has acted highhandedly to do what the new bylaws told him to do.  Euphoria in 2010 has turned out to be irrational exuberance today as we look at the possibility that we will have to revisit the whole thing again sooner rather than later and undo what was then a classic example of a policy driven executive structure.

My guess is that you could add somethings here and I could to make this a rather long list of things that seemed perfect in the moment but ended up being not so good as we look back from the vantage point of today.  Some will insist that the Church needs to act more quickly.  I am chastened by some of our past euphoria to suggest that these examples are proof that we need to act more deliberately -- not less.  The work of God's kingdom is of too great an importance for us to keep up with the heady euphoria of the day only to look back and see that our irrational exuberance has proven to be a major problem.  My guess is that the undoing of our institutions will likely happen more because of what we felt we had to do or die rather than what we did not do quickly enough.  I know some will disagree but that is my wisdom of the day. 

How you view the line. . .

The state of the Missouri Synod on the question of the role of women seems to hinge upon two very different viewpoints.  On the one hand, there are those who insist that everything matters.  They worry about having women in classes as the seminaries (deaconesses) and about women doing anything publicly that is the domain of men or pastors.  A woman leading an LWML Bible study is often seen as different only by degree with a vested woman in a stole leading worship.  They are constantly on the lookout for places where the line is transgressed, where woman are usurping the roles given exclusively to men or to pastors.  There is nothing innocent in this point of view.  Every infraction is nefarious and threatening.

On the other hand, there are those who insist that it is no big deal.  They see the line as flexible, adjusted in part by circumstance and in part by age or generation.  They insist that it is local and nothing more.  A woman leading a women's Bible study is just that.  Nothing more.  A woman holding congregational offices is just that and nothing more.  A woman doing what any layman might do on Sunday morning is just that and nothing more.  They are hesitant about making anything more out of something specific or local.  It is no big deal.

In between there are those in Missouri who are caught between the two positions.  They have a concern for principle but they also have a concern for rigidity.  They see women all around us in society, government, and industry but they know that the Church is not the same as those domains.  They realize that this is messy and it might mean that the same answer is not the same in every place -- that come congregations may not have women's suffrage or officers and others might.  They want to respect these differences but they also know that both sides push and pull toward the edges and not the middle.  They do not want to make too much out of it all but neither do they want to ignore the real differences which deserve to be noticed.

On the one side, those who want the line to be movable insist that we must trust them in every decision they make and on the other side are those who insist that rules are rules and they must be respected.  And this is not simply about the role of women.  It touches upon the issues of close communion, worship rites, and a host of different things.  Every three years we attempt to blend them all together in something called a convention.  It is sometimes a train wreck.  It is sometimes shallow, preferring to push off things that are urgent and photo ops for real substance.  It is sometimes hopeful, when progress is made even if it is slow.  It is sometimes a real conversation in which people are listening and sometimes it is people shouting at each other without paying attention to what the others are saying.  It is a call to trust with some insisting that there is no trust and others insisting that their trust has been violated over and over again.  And all of this is magnified by the bullhorn of social media and armchair commentators (like me) and backseat drivers who insist they can see clearly what others cannot.  I wish it was going to change, resolve into something less stressful, but I doubt that this will happen soon.  In fact, I suspect this is the shape of things to come -- made more urgent and more difficult as we witness the decline of things around us in the Church and in the world.  What do you think?