Some are starting to get what Lutherans believe. . .

As I have said so often, Lutherans do not understand the Word the way evangelicals and Protestants do.  They see the Scripture basically as record, whether inerrant or full of errors.  It is record and so the words of the Word are mostly dead.  Whatever life there is comes from outside the Word.  In contrast. Lutherans see the Word as the Word speaks of itself -- sacramental.  In other words, God actually works in His Word.  It is not only that we encounter God in His Word but His Word is the primary agency through which He works.

You can read one perspective that makes this distinction here:

In preaching as sacrament, the aim is the application. Encounter God. Preaching as biblical information-giving with pre-meditated applications is too weak for such a cogent and holy aim. To be informed by the Bible about God is not the same as to be encountered by the God of the Bible. We preach to encounter God together, not to create a set of preferred human behaviors. Encounter with God in Christ carries its own energies to shape and direct human lives. We preach for corporate encounter with God, believing that encounter will provoke numerous discussions about how we together can live missionally in light of the encounter. Paul suggested even unbelievers and unconvinced will confess an encounter with God (1 Corinthians 14:25) when the church gathers. I do not think I have to unpack Peter’s paradigmatic sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2) to support what I am writing here. Peter, so perceptive of his particular context, announced an act of God in Christ and the announcement was so profound the congregation asked him, “What must we do?!”  Authentic kingdom of God gospel announcement (preaching) evokes startling and diverse questions about how we go about adjusting our lives to Jesus as Lord.

The Word is not for historical reference or moral improvement.  The Word is the primary means (the other being the Sacraments) through which God works.  Period.  When the Word speaks, God speaks.  The Word speaks and God brings to pass what it is that He says.  The Word is not a tool but the means of grace.

Better methodology... Really!

I was sent a copy of remarks by Synod Presidential candidate David Maier (apparently on Facebook which I am not on more than once every few months).  According to the email, his campaign committee recorded his response to an informational forum in Florida.  There he is reported to have said, I believe that God wants us to spend more time finding better methods for equipping, encouraging, and supporting our laity in the mission work within our neighborhoods and communities – especially as we face the rise of secularism and Islam – and less time examining the doctrinal purity and practice of others.

Methodology?  That is our greatest problem?  We need better models and paradigms?  Really?  I do not believe that there has ever been a time when there have been more diverse methodologies for equipping, encouraging, and supporting our laity in the mission work within our neighborhoods and communities. We have a plethora of choices available to us, a staggeringly confusing array of people, programs, and perspectives on how to fix Mother Mo (LCMS to the outsider).  We have as many different plans as there are Districts, Synodical offices, parachurch organizations, recognized service organizations, auxiliaries (you know, LLL, LWML), etc...  Everyone I know has an answer for what ails Missouri.

I am stunned by the idea that we have too few choices before us.  I have found just the opposite.  We have so many choices we do not know what to do.  It is like going to a restaurant with a 20 page menu.  We cannot figure out what we want to eat -- not because we have too few options but precisely because we have too many.  Sure, many of them are similar but they still offer us choices beyond reason and within them is the possibility of more fully customizing the plans and programs even further.

I do not know David Maier.  I am sure he is a fine man and a good pastor and an effective District President.  I know that many people believe he is THE man for this time in Synod.  But I cannot get past his basic point.  Our problem is a lack of methodologies.  I beg to disagree.  We were most effective when we had fewer methods, fewer paradigms, fewer choices...  We were most effective when we all seemed to be in the same play book, working together for the same purpose with the same game plan.  It is not the past I wish to repristinate.  It is the unity and unanimity within our Synod that I long for.  I wish for the day when we had more uniformity to the content of the catechetical endeavor.  I long for the day when we can expect to find Word and Sacrament on Sunday morning in any Lutheran parish.  I pray for the day when we have a semblance of resemblance to what takes place in the Divine Service -- not slavish obedience to rules but one born of common conviction that this is who we are and how we worship.  I lament how the staggering array of choices have left us all confused about who Lutherans are, what Lutherans believe, and how Lutherans live.

I refuse to vote for more choice, for more paradigms, for more nuanced distinctions, for more overt differences, for more methodologies, or for more diversity.  We have tried that and it has left us bleeding people every year, suspicious and skeptical of each other, unsure that God will work through His Word without a little extra help from us, and more divided than every before.  I have watched our church body borrow more and more from others outside, blindly following the next big guru, and quick to jump on the next big band wagon.  What has it gotten us?  Are we more confident of God's Word and promise?  More united in faith and practice?  More positive and trusting?  More united and charitable toward each other?  No.  The answer is "no".  We have a myriad of choices and, like the diner in the restaurant, we are still not sure what will be best, what to do without regretting our choice, and what will live up to the hype.  No, President Maier, we do not need more methods.

Competing for worst sermon award...

I have sort of given up picking on Presiding Bishop Schori.  She is too easy a target.  I have read several sermons by the PB.  Most of them would compete in a contest for worst sermon ever.  Now I write this as one who does not consider myself a great preacher, passing but not at all in league with some whose sermons I continue to read and relish (often with envy).  So I do not write this to prop up myself but I do find myself comforted by the fact that as bad as I may be, my people have never heard the likes of this.  BTW her taste in vestments well mirrors her theology!

From within the sermon:

"We live with the continuing tension between holier impulses that encourage us to see the image of God in all human beings and the reality that some of us choose not to see that glimpse of the divine, and instead use other people as means to an end.  We’re seeing something similar right now in the changing attitudes and laws about same-sex relationships, as many people come to recognize that different is not the same thing as wrong.  For many people, it can be difficult to see God at work in the world around us, particularly if God is doing something unexpected."

"There are some remarkable examples of that kind of blindness in the readings we heard this morning, and slavery is wrapped up in a lot of it.  Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God.  She is quite right.  She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves.  But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.  Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it.  It gets him thrown in prison.  That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!    The amazing thing is that during that long night in jail he remembers that he might find God there – so he and his cellmates spend the night praying and singing hymns."

"An earthquake opens the doors and sets them free, and now Paul and his friends most definitely discern the presence of God.  The jailer doesn’t – he thinks his end is at hand.  This time, Paul remembers who he is and that all his neighbors are reflections of God, and he reaches out to his frightened captor.  This time Paul acts with compassion rather than annoyance, and as a result the company of Jesus’ friends expands to include a whole new household.  It makes me wonder what would have happened to that slave girl if Paul had seen the spirit of God in her."

"The reading from Revelation pushes us in the same direction, outward and away from our own self-righteousness, inviting us to look harder for God’s gift and presence all around us. Jesus says he’s looking for everybody, anyone who’s looking for good news, anybody who is thirsty. There are no obstacles or barriers – just come. God is at work everywhere, even if we can’t or won’t see it immediately."

Read the whole thing here...

It seems that Ms Schori wants to see the "spirit of God" (sic) in everything except the Word, which she quotes only to deride and she reads into it that which is not there in order to come to her own predisposed conclusion -- God is more in everyone and everything than in the means of grace...  Everyone and everything is good, beautiful, and holy in and of themselves without the need of repentance or redemption...  Compassion is the Gospel and the cross and empty tomb are but minor details in a story of love that accepts, tolerates, celebrates, and rejoices in all things except that which God has revealed to save us.

What is scary is that there are folks in the Episcopal Church (a once noble entity) who think that this is the real deal... which explains why the Episcopal Church is bleeding off people and parishes and those like it are becoming the irrelevant and insignificant mainline churches in America.

I spent a great deal of time in a small Episcopal parish in Winfield, Kansas, while a student at St. John's College there.  I enjoyed the music of the downtown parish in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Darwin Leitz was organist and choir director so many years ago.  I spent several weeks altogether at St. Gregory's Priory in Three Rivers, Michigan.  I grieve for what the Episcopal Church and its leadership have become.  I fear it is way too late to redeem what the remnant of what is left and that the only solution is a mass exodus to a structure more friendly to orthodox Christianity.  It would be great if only a day would come when Ms Schori would wake up and find her whole church gone and she is left alone to her speculative theology informed more by a cultural social justice movement than Scripture and tradition.  It is one sad example of the fact that good liturgy cannot prevent apostasy (but the converse, that orthodoxy will seek worship consistent with its confession, remains the backbone of the real liturgical movement).

A travesty masquerading as progress...

From the AP:

After setting off a storm of criticism from abortion rights groups upset that a Democratic president had sided with social conservatives, the Obama administration said it will comply with a judge's order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions.  But in doing so, at least one opponent of easy access to the contraception thinks the president is buckling to political pressure, rather than making the health of girls a priority.

The Justice Department notified U.S. District Judge Edward Korman on Monday that it will submit a plan for compliance. If he approves it, the department will drop its appeal of his April ruling. According to the department's letter to the judge, the Food and Drug Administration has told the maker of the pills to submit a new drug application with proposed labeling that would permit it to be sold "without a prescription and without age or point-of-sale prescriptions." The FDA said that once it receives the application, it "intends to approve it promptly."

Advocates for girls' and women's rights said the federal government's decision to comply with the judge's ruling could be a move forward for "reproductive justice" if the FDA acts quickly and puts emergency contraception over the counter without restriction.  "It's about time that the administration stopped opposing women having access to safe and effective birth control," Annie Tummino, coordinator of the National Women's Liberation and lead plaintiff in a lawsuit over unrestricted access to the morning-after pill, said in an emailed statement.  She said women and girls should have "the absolute right to control our bodies without having to ask a doctor or a pharmacist for permission."

Quite apart from the abortion debate, it is scandalous that there be no provision to distinguish between a child fully incapable of understanding the consequences of such a choice and one who, though somewhat capable, may immaturely choose to ignore those consequences.  Once again we have bowed to a judge and a court to decide what is wise, prudent, and beneficial.  So a 5 year old with a few bucks could purchase the morning after pill the way way she might purchase a candy bar and this is progress.  Remove all discussion of abortion and take this simply on the merits of this narrow issue.  How can those who insist they are working on behalf of the rights of women allow such an abuse of a child?  We won't let a child carry a Tylenol to school or even a cough drop (in most schools) but we will insist that a girl of any age and maturity be allowed access to a pill she may not even need or understand.

In the narrow scope of what may be decided on strict legality, common sense, prudence, and wisdom are cast to the wind.  How can anyone in their right mind defend this as in the best interest of a child?  It just goes to show you that the issues in the greater debate over life issues have as much to do with common sense and the prudent wisdom of parenthood as they do the major moral issue of life and death.  When we abdicate wisdom and prudence in favor of an unfettered liberty, we enslave those most prone to be victims.  Clearly we have more to do than merely argue the cause of life.  We have the challenge of restoring a semblance of common sense to the halls of justice and the arbiters of public policy.  Just as shocking is the decision of the Obama administration that this issue is not worth the fight for a more nuanced and mature application of the judicial ruling.

Which is easier to believe?

Read more at the entire report, “A Survey of Clergy and Their Views on Origins,”

Here are the seven points of summary BioLogos gave from the information gleaned from this survey. Click the link above or below to read the detailed annotations.

• Pastors hold a diversity of views on origins (the chart above shows the breakdown).
• Most pastors think science and faith questions are important.
• Clergy think disagreements on science and faith harm our witness (but for different reasons).
• Pastors aren’t avoiding science.
• However, they are concerned about evolution for biblical reasons.
• The majority of clergy accept parts of scripture as symbolic.
• Clergy are concerned that changing their views on origins might compromise their ministry.

My Comments

I hardly waste my time arguing creationism.  I would rather argue the cause of truth.  Either God's Word is true or it is not.  It helps us not to have a Scripture which includes truth but is not true.  How are we to know which is truth and which is less?  Do we leave it up to the experts?  Do we leave it up to reason?  Do we leave it up to us?  There is nothing more dangerous that truth unhitched from fact.

Speaking personally, I find it amazing that people continue to hold to the incarnation of the Son of God by the power of the Spirit to the Virgin Mary, the death of the Son of God on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, and His pledge to come again in glory... and then reject the idea that all things have come from God and were deliberately created according to His intention and power as Genesis records.  The creation miracle is at best a whimper compared to the big bump of the second article of the Creed.  Clearly, rejecting God's creative work creates the platform for diminishing and ultimately rejecting His work of redemption.  The two are not completely separate. 

Luther was not original...

HT to SimonPotamos and Anglandicus...

Per Fidem Solam: Romans 3:24 in the Würzburg Glosses Romans 3 in the Würzburg Codex (f2r)

I have already written on the Irish Würzburg glosses here. I'm working through Romans 3 for school at the moment and so I thought I would examine the Würzburg glosses to see how an early Irish theologian interpreted the same text in the 8th century.

I've reproduced both the biblical text and the glosses here together. The glosses are italicized and were originally written in Gaelic and Latin.

"23For all have sinned and do need the glory of God. 24Being justified freely by his grace [that is, by faith alone, i.e. the faith of belief in Jesus Christ], through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [that is, it is He that has redeemed and it is He also that is the ransom, i.e. by the blood] 25Whom God had proposed to be a propitiation [that is, it has been set forth in the mysteries of the Godhead, to make atonement for those who believe his liberation would be in the blood], through faith in his blood, [that is, through the faith of every one who believes in his salvation through His blood] to the showing of his justice, for the remission of former sins."

The gloss 'Per Fidem Solam'
added in tiny a tiny hand over 'per gratiam ipsius'

What is interesting is the phrase 'by faith alone'. Our Irish scribe added this gloss in Latin (per fidem solam) over verse 24 'justified freely by his grace' (Iustificati gratis per gratiam ipsius) and then expanded it with a Gaelic gloss relating this justification by faith alone to faith in Christ.

Luther was famously criticized for adding 'alone' (allein) to his German translation of Romans 3.28, 'man is justified by faith [alone]', although it doesn't appear in the Greek (or Latin text). Of course Luther's 1522 translation wasn't the first vernacular translation to add 'alone' to Romans 3.28. Several earlier Roman Catholic editions did the same thing (e.g. the Nuremberg Bible of 1488, the Geneva Italian version of 1476). In a similar fashion our 8th century Irish theologian interpreted Romans 3.24 as teaching justification per fidem solam. Luther, it seems, wasn't alone.

My Comments

Luther and the Lutherans hardly ever claim originality.  It is faithfulness that is our claim, rooted in Scripture, attuned to the fathers, manifesting the evangelical and catholic faith...

Chipping away all that is not Jesus. . .

A good sanctification analogy:

Michelangelo was asked the question how he could make a beautiful sculpture like his “Moses” out of a large block of marble. He famously answered that he simply began and chipped away everything that wasn’t Moses.

And this is a paradigm for us....

Clearly for us, the Lord must chip away everything in us which is not Jesus. Yes, everything that is not of the Lord must go. St. Paul said, “I live, no not I, Christ lives in me! (Gal 2:20). And thus, the Lord chips away at all in us that is not of him that we may become the image of God in Christ.

For a long time the primary conception of sanctification has been one of growth and change into something.  I rather like this imagery.  And it fits how the Lord speaks of pruning away that which impedes the purpose of the vine.  Is it really that we grow into something or is it that God is ever at work trimming away what is not of Christ?  Finally, the work complete, Christ in us is left.  Not the eradication of the person that is me but the fulfillment of the new creation that is Christ in me, the hope of glory...

It also fits well with the words of Paul especially in Colossians about the great task of self-control and self-denial that is the mark of our lives in Christ and the fruitful work of the Spirit.  In many respects, it is more helpful to acknowledge that sanctification involves at least as much "no" to self (the sinful nature and its desires) as it is "yes" to Christ (and His new life planted in us in baptism).

The authentic self is not the one parading itself in independence and arrogance before God.  That self is the false self, controlled by sinful nature and deprived of the fullness of the image of God.  The authentic self is the one redeemed by Christ, reborn in baptism, and set apart by the Spirit to live in the perfect communion with the Trinity that was and is man's glory.  It is the deception of Satan and of much of new style Christianity that seeks the natural man and his spiritual nature as recoverable goal instead of his death and resurrection in Christ to become the new creature that fulfills His intended purpose.  

This also explains why sanctification is painful.  The chipping and snipping away of the old, the extraneous and the unfruitful is neither easy nor is it without the consequence of suffering.  But it is this suffering that completes Christ's affliction (see Colossians) and becomes the fruitful suffering that produces and does not destroy.

In the end, all that is not Jesus must be chipped away.  All is not our new self born of baptism, which is God's creation, must be chipped away, bit by bit, until we become what God has declared us to be and made us to be in baptism -- the children of His promise in creation.  No one and nothing can prevent God's purpose in creation and in the redemption of His fallen creation -- except us!  Our refusal of His grace is then the greatest sin for it deprives us of that which has the power to restore our true self to us.

HT to Msgr Charles Pope

Recognition Long Overdue...

There is in the Old South a surprising personality whose love includes translating old German Lutheran hymns that heretofore have remained out of reach to non-German speakers and to those without access to the original sources.  His blog is called Hymnoglypt and his name is Matthew Carver.  Recently he prepared a wonderful text from more recent history called Walther's Hymnal and available from Concordia Publishing House or Amazon (though I might prefer you order from CPH to encourage the powers that be so that such future volumes might be published).

Walther's Hymnal: Church Hymnbook is the first of its kind: an English translation of the first official hymnal of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This was the hymnal that C.F.W. Walther edited and used, and that provided Christians throughout the LCMS a common experience during the Church's early years in America, in the same way that Lutheran Service Book provides a common experience for us today... Now presented for the first time in English, this is an invaluable resource for history enthusiasts, church musicians, and anyone who wants insight into how our grandfathers sang and prayed. This is a chance to share in that song and prayer of the saints gone before us.

Matthew Carver, MFA, is a translator of German and classical literature. He resides in Nashville, TN, with his wife Amanda and their young son, where they pursue interests in art, orthodox Lutheran theology, liturgy, and hymnody.  Matthew's gift for poetic translation faithful to the original not only in accuracy but in tone has been a hidden gem for a long time.  His blog is an amazing treasure of resources and an impressive body of work.

Many have wondered why it is that the riches of his hidden treasure are not more prominent in hymnals today.  Some have wondered why more of these were not included in Lutheran Service Book (2006).  Some (like me) have wondered why CPH and the LCMS have not marshaled the full potential of Lutheran Service Builder in order to make these available as electronic supplement to LSB.  [In case you are reading this Paul McCain and William Weedon, here is another thorn in the flesh to push you forward on this cause.]

To be sure, I fully understand why more was not included.  We have a tremendous body of hymns considered treasures by the singers in Lutheran parishes (if not so much by theologians and liturgists).  I fully understand why weaker (musically, theologically, and poetically) were found room when room was not made for some of the texts Matthew has so eloquently provided.  Hymnody is even more touchy than liturgy when it comes to the folks in the pew.  It is a process that continues even while the book of the hymnal captures but a snapshot in time from that ongoing path of yesterday's legacy into the present moment which shapes the future.  But I would plead for making these available in electronic format so that these can begin to be used, set to tuneful melody (original or new) that enables us to recapture the riches of both form and content that mark these gems.  I would argue that they will remain only curiosities until we have both the will and purpose to make them available in electronic format to supplement the hymns in the book.  Only then will they be recaptured into the repertoire of hymnody in which the faith is sung as well as confessed .

Kudos to Matthew.  Your gift has made available many gifts to the Church.  Take a gander at one below:

O MIGHTY Work, of myst’ry full,
Most worthy of all praises!
O Work, whose pow’r is never dull
But e’er in us increases
Repentance for the sins that weigh,
Love, faith, and hope to bide the day,
Fear, conduct, and all virtues right!—
O high Delight!
O Feast all-worthy, fair, and bright!

2. Here stands the Tree of Life foretold,
Whose leaves are for salvation,
To heal the sting of Satan old,
And purge us of transgression;
Here is the Tree of essence pure,
Of sweetest fruit, of mighty cure,
Whose savor noble and divine
To those who pine
Doth sweeten o’er death’s bitter wine.

3. Here is the very heav’nly Bread
By God’s own action given,
That, by the Savior’s death, the dead
Restores to life and heaven:
This meal sustains the pilgrim soul,
It renders fit and maketh whole,
This is the food of angels high,
For which I’ll sigh
And thank my God unceasingly.

4. Here is the Ark that Israel bore,
The Lord’s own Body gracious,
Of truth and good the Source and Store;
Herein the vision gracious
Of heaven’s Temple I may trace,
The Mercy-Seat, the Holy Place,
Yea, here I find the highest Good,
The precious Blood,
Of soul and mind the quick’ning Flood.

5. Here is the heav’nly Gate and Veil,
The Ladder without measure,
The Chosen Plot of Israël,
The Readier of her pleasure,*
Here we in Christ the passage climb
To heights more blessed and sublime,
Hereby the Lord doth us allege—
O glorious pledge!
That heav’n is now our heritage.

6. Behold, how deeply He adores,
How much He doth esteem us,
To give Himself, and not by force
but tenderly to win us;
Mark how He makes us citizens
Of glorious light in which He reigns,—
And how He raised our flesh with might
To such a height
And seated it upon His right.

7. That flesh that now is raised on high,
On Zion’s mount residing,
Christ yet has promised to supply
To those on earth abiding.
Thus He Himself our portion makes,
And thus our soul salvation takes,
Securely in God’s favor laid;
Our debts are paid
And peace with God for us is made.

8. How then can He against us be,
Who with such kindness gives us
His flesh and blood to taste and see,
As orphans never leaves us?
How can He turn His eye from those
Whom here He keeps and holds so close,
For whom He cares, who deigns to be,—
O high decree!—
The Lamb for their iniquity.

9. What can the devil ever do
To make God’s people cowèr,
Since by this perfect Work of grace
We find such mighty powèr?
This Feast instills such strength and life,
No foe can win, though fierce the strife,
So come, thou fiend, and raise thy hand,
We ready stand
To put to shame thy wicked band.

10. No cares of body do we heed,
No hindrance or commotion!
Here is the salve for every need,
The heart’s unrivaled potion.
The flesh of Christ the pow’r contains
That all things healeth and sustains,
Here from His side those rivers swell
Which evil quell
And douse the fiery darts of hell.

11. O Flesh of God, O holy Blood
Adored by angel spirits,
O heav’nly Food, O highest Good,
How wondrous are Thy merits
That all the ranks of heav’n revere!
How happy, Lord, my soul is here,
Amid this grief to have in sight
Such bliss of light—
O Feast all-worthy, fair, and bright!

* i.e., Jesus, who in the Holy Supper prepares great spiritual refreshment for the spiritual Israel —Steinmetz et al., Neu-eing. K. u. H. G.B. 1832, p. 231.

Translation © 2013 Matthew Carver.

The Religious Face of Canada...

From First Thoughts...

Now on to religion itself. The first thing to note is that the census “collected information on religious affiliation, regardless of whether respondents practiced their religion.” So there are plenty of cultural Christians (and others) in the following numbers. As of 2011, 22.103 million Canadians identified as Christian, about 67.3% of the total Canadian population. That’s down ten percent from 2001 when Christians made up 77% of the population.


Here are the largest denominational affiliations reported on the census:

• Roman Catholic: 12.729 million or 38.7% of the total Canadian population
• United Church: 2.008 million (6.1% of the total Canadian population)
• Anglican: 1.632 million (5.0% of the total Canadian population)
• Christian (denomination not specified): 4.5% of the total Canadian population
• Baptist: 1.9% of the total Canadian population
• Christian Orthodox (all groups): 1.7% of the total Canadian population (40.0% of these were Greek Orthodox)

Non-Christian religions continue to grow in Canada. As of 2011, 2.374 million people or 7.2% of the total Canadian population (up from 4.9% in 2001) associated themselves with a religion other than Christianity. Here’s the breakdown on the largest groups:

• Muslim: 3.2% of the total Canadian population
• Hindu: 1.5% of the total Canadian population
• Sikh: 1.4% of the total Canadian population
• Buddhist: 1.1% of the total Canadian population
• Jewish: 1.0% of the total Canadian population

There was a noticeable surge among Canadians who identified as non-religious. 7.851 million or 23.9% of the total Canadian population now identifies as non-religious (the numbers were 16.5% in 2001).

Some of the change to Canada’s religious identity is attributable to our immigration patterns. From 2001-2011, 33.0% of immigrants belonged to a non-Christian religion, while 19.5% were religiously unaffiliated.

Those are the official new numbers, but we need to take them with a bit of caution. Unlike previous censuses, the 2011 Census is the first one to take place after the federal government replaced the previously-mandatory “long form” census in favour of a voluntary “National Household Survey.” At the time, Statistics Canada warned the move would seriously undermine it’s ability to give an accurate picture of Canadian demographics. In fact, the Chief Statitician of Canada Munir Sheikh, who had been appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008 disagreed so strongly with the government’s move that he resigned, saying:

I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion… the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census. It can not. Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister.

My only comment is this...   Apparently Lutherans constitute such a small number they do not show up...  Not a good thing.  In conjunction with this, those with no religion are the second largest religious block, after Roman Catholics.  Not a good thing.  Finally our neighbors to the north seem to have absorbed the bad habits of their neighbors to the south... or is it the other way around?  Who knows.  The driving move to a cultural Christianity and a non-religious population seems to continue unheeded.

Not entertaining enough. . .

The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world, Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it is not entertaining enough.  With those words, Carl Trueman talks about the lack of tragedy in the "entertainment" worship of modern Christianity -- an entertainment style filled with substance that picks and chooses and presents only a slanted version of entertainment.  You can read it all here.

He is pretty good at his point.  Christian worship should immerse people in the reality of the tragedy of the human fall and of all subsequent human life. It should provide us with a language that allows us to praise the God of resurrection while lamenting the suffering and agony that is our lot in a world alienated from its creator, and it should thereby sharpen our longing for the only answer to the one great challenge we must all face sooner or later. Only those who accept that they are going to die can begin to look with any hope to the resurrection.

Even funerals miss the tragic aspect to life and presume the triumphant... Even funerals, the one religious context where one might have assumed the reality of death would be unavoidable, have become the context for that most ghastly and incoherent of acts: the celebration of a life now ended. The Twenty-Third Psalm and “Abide with Me” were funeral staples for many years but not so much today. References to the valley of the shadow of death and the ebbing out of life’s little day, reminders both of our mortality and of God’s faithfulness even in the darkest of times, have been replaced as funeral favorites by “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “My Way.” The trickledown economics of worship as entertainment has reached even the last rites for the departed.

Surely the Church of all places should present the truth, the full truth, and not some partial glimpse which skips and omits unpleasantness.  That is the gift of the liturgy.  It places before us the fuller counsel of God, not to entertain or distract but to confront and redeem those caught in sin and its death.  Only the dead can be resurrected. As the second thief on the cross saw so clearly, Christ’s kingdom is entered through death, not by escape from it.

Trueman is surely on to something here.  But as much as he decries the loss of the real, the truth of sin and its death, neither can we be content to speak the Law and leave it at that.  For there is nothing more tragic than to confront people of their lost and hopeless condition and then leave them in their despair with the sweet voice of the Gospel addressing them and their lostness with forgiveness and life.  And this is equally the problem and burden of Christian worship today.  Just as it evades the harsh and real truth of sin and its death, so also it has emptied the Gospel of its power by making it about generic love instead of the love revealed on the cross.  Gospel has come to mean just about anything you want it to mean when it is clear from the New Testament that the word Gospel means something very specific.  As the people who assembled to recall the Ascension of our Lord not too long ago, we are well reminded of how Jesus defined this Gospel for His disciples as the last of His acts and words to them before He filled all in all. 

Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Trueman could also have said that the problem is not simply churches that skip the cross to get to the resurrection but those who speak of a crossless Christ and a Christless hope, satisfied with a better life now and some vagaries for the future rather than "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead..."  I am convinced that entertainment worship is not entertaining enough because it fails on both counts.  It entertains with a Polly Anna view of life and it consoles with the promise of working for a better life today more than the consummation of all things that began to unfold on the cross and empty tomb and will be complete when the crucified and risen Lord returns in His glory as Lord and Judge of all.  For the world this may be a fearful moment but for the sheep it is the welcome return of our great Good Shepherd who has kept His promise -- no one and nothing could snatch us from His hand:  not death, not devil, not even our own sins!  He has triumphed over all for us.  The Church's hope is eschatalogical as well as immanent and worship includes both dimensions.

We have not to win, only to wait. . .

As we face the impending end of the significant American presence in Afghanistan, after it has already ended in Iraq, I am reminded of those who complained that by telling folks when we will leave, our enemies do not have win, only to wait.  It is a sobering truth.  Patience is perhaps their victory.  I do not know.  I lament those who fought, were wounded, and who died in both theaters of war and yet I lament more that their sacrifice might be in vain if we simply give up and abandon the noble cause of freedom.  So I am conflicted about the prospects.

But I think the phrase serves well the nature of Christian life as we come from Ascension through Pentecost to the anticipation of Christ's return in glory (whenever that will be).  It is significant that Jesus told His disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for power from on high.  He is the ascended Lord who ascends precisely so that He might fill all in all, and the means of grace where He has put His promise, in particular.  But first they must wait.  Not the absent waiting of a people with no hope or purpose but the deliberate waiting of a people confidence of the Lord and of His promise.

As Christians, we do not have to win.  We have already won in Christ.  His victory is our victory -- that is His gift of grace.  We do not have right all the wrongs of the world, repair every injustice, fix every thing broken, heal all wounded, or prove our relevance, worthiness, or might.  It is done.  Christ has done it.  He is all in all.  All we have to do is wait.  Not the absent waiting of a people who know not what or whom they await.  Not the empty waiting of a people who busy themselves with busy work.  No, our waiting is for Christ who has promised to come again and as we wait we focus on His promises that with us in the means of grace.  We wait as a people who have a purpose and a mission, the living out of the gift of our baptismal identity.  We are the called and set apart by grace, whose old lives have died in the drowning of the water, and whose new lives have risen from that watery grave in Christ and with Christ.  We know who we are and therefore we know what we are to do.  That is decidedly NOT winning the world.  Christ has already done that.  We tell the world He has won.  That is enough.

We face constant critics who decry the looming irrelevance of Christianity, its impending death, and the sins, weakness, and ineffectiveness of the Church and her ministers.  It would seem that we must constantly reinvent ourselves merely to survive.  But that is not true.  We have only to wait and we will win.  He has promised to come again, that we will be where He is and we will be with Him.  This is most certainly true.  But He has also promised that the old will pass away and the new will come.  Heaven is not some sanitized version of today in which the horrors of the news are replaced with good and happy stories.  Heaven is the old done and the new begun, the today that becomes the eternal tomorrow, when the victory of Christ brings to culmination all things as He has promised.

We have not to win.  Only to wait.  Think about that.  The next time you think that we must fix worship or the Church will be empty... that we must entertain folks or we will lose them... that we must sacrifice doctrine and truth in Scripture to the relative truths only one person wide and deep.  The next time you hear a critic who says change or die... adapt or give up... reflect the present in order to be eternal... 

The Church has a long memory because we have a long future -- one not of our own creation but of the Lord's.  We are here to make known what He has done because that is how we wait.  We tell the story of His death and resurrection, we wash those who hear in the water that gives new life, we gather those washed around the Word and Table of the Lord, we teach them the old song which is ever new -- the song of victory that is done and still coming.  And we wait... the joyful wait of a people who are confident of our future and who neither are consumed with the present nor in love with the past.  We are in but not of the world, waiting for the consummation of all things.  We dream it and our dreams are not big enough.  We use frail images of eternity to describe the promise of our future.  We find our fears overcome in the Word that absolves and our hungry hearts filled in the bread of His body that feeds us to eternal life.

We have not to win... Christ has already done that.  We have only to wait.... on Him....

Makes no sense. . .

From the wisdom of William Weedon:  The Lutheran Divine Service makes no sense unless you are dying... a dying man among dying men... served with the gifts of life by the (God)man who died for us...

It should not surprise us.  Jesus Himself insists that His Gospel makes sense only to the dying.  Oh, Jesus put it slightly differently.  He is the Great Physician who has come for the sick, those who know they are ill unto death, and not for the righteous...  But we have forgotten much of what Jesus said and what He meant by this.  We have instead moved in the direction of a Jesus who is come to reward the good with more, not the Jesus who rescues the dead from their trespasses and body of death.

Worship has become something that must be intelligible to the man on the street, something that offers good to the good, better to the striving, and best to those who heed His Word (obedience).  But to the wounded, to the hopeless, to the dying... there is only a question.  Why is my life not better?

But to the dying, to the wounded, to the sinner carrying a load of guilt, and to those who have given up on a better life now, the Divine Service speaks, sings, and prays the good news that is beyond imagination.  The Pharisee has no need of this.  He has his works.  The righteous have no need of this.  He has his good life.  The whole have no need of this.  He sees himself as well.  The living, who looks for more of what he has, has no need of this.  He has his good life now, getting better each day in some small way...

Desperate people do desperate things...

Desperate people do desperate things -- unthinking things, things in conflict with their values, things that had they had time to consider, they would not have done...  Desperation is an enemy of the Church that we too often do not face but give into...

It has become fashionable in many circles to believe that the Church is facing desperate times and that desperate times require desperate measures.  For us as Lutherans this has been the underlying reason why we have abandoned Augustana XIV and put unordained men into Word and Sacrament ministry, why we have abandoned the liturgical identity that flows from our Confessions in order to worship as evangelicals, and why we have adopted methodologies of church growth, evangelism, and governance which are at odds with our identity as Lutheran Christians.

In other words, we fear the good ship of Christ's holy catholic Church is in danger of foundering and that we have only a short time to save the holy bark of Christendom from catastrophe and destruction.  The only problem with this is that we have become our own worst enemies and our poor decisions and desperation have come back to haunt us.

One great article which speaks to this has been published in the Canadian Lutheran.  I urge you to read it.  Christ's Church is not a beggar, is not on the verge of destruction, and is not a whore -- unless we make her so.  Read it all here...

Here are a few tidbits. . .

It is no secret that, as church membership and attendance decrease, many Christians are concerned about the future of the Church in North America. When we look at the Church as a human organization, its short term future may in fact look bleak. But when we rightly view it as God’s creation and possession, we can be filled with great hope and joy…

…Too often churches today, desperately trying to produce more active members, have begun to panic—like a salesman who has knocked on far too many doors with far too few sales. But the Church is not a possession of man. It’s not a club or a business. It is Christ’s sacred Body, heaven’s powerful ark, God’s beautiful garden, the Son of Man’s precious Bride, and our holy mother.

...The tribulations that we face as Christ’s Church are themselves instruments God uses for our spiritual growth: “The vine is lifted up by being bound, and enlarged by being cut back,” as Gerhard says. There is no doom and gloom underlying this sermon, despite the promises of many difficulties and trials. Did the persecuted Christians of the second century curse the sky because their congregation no longer had an active youth group? Did the Reformers join their adversaries because their Sunday schools had more children? Throughout his writings, Gerhard reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient for us. The Church is bigger than one generation, and any one of our own subjective experiences.

HT to Outer Rim Territories for the cue...

No surprise... still sad

Thrivent members voted 72% to 28% to ditch Lutheran identity and become a generic fraternal (though fraternal pretty much in name only if you take a look at their chapter structure and health).  No surprise here.  Like a car wreck on the road, we are told to move along...

“This is an exciting time at Thrivent,” said President and CEO Brad Hewitt. “However, we are looking at this from a long-term perspective and changes will be gradual. Our commitment to serving Lutherans and strengthening the Lutheran community will remain as strong as ever as we move forward in a new chapter for the organization.” 

The sad reality is that 21% of the members decided for the other 79% so the vote was a majority of a minority.  Legal yes... salutary?  No, I don't think so...

God has come to His people. . .

Sermon for Pentecost 2, Proper 4C, preached on Sunday, June 2, 2013.

    Sadly, too many sermons based on the Gospel for today will end up being calls to be more inclusive, to be more welcoming to the stranger, and in favor of diversity...  If you look at the scene in the Gospel lesson for today you get a much bigger picture.  The focus here is not on the centurion alone but on the God who comes for him.  There is sickness that becomes death, concern that becomes grief, and despair that becomes surprise.  It is a very common scenario marked only by the contrast of the Roman and the Jews who come to Jesus on his behalf.  Who would have thought that a Roman soldier accustomed to wielding power would come as a  powerless one to plead the case of a beloved servant before Jesus?  When God visits His people, it is the surprise of grace – the God who comes where we least expect Him and who comes not to receive our accolades and honor but to serve us with His gifts in love.
    Jesus has come precisely for moments like this.  When everything around us says "NO", in comes Jesus with the surprising YES of God's grace.  When every barrier shouts “NO”, God comes to break them down on the equal plane of repentance, faith, and redemption.  How many of us have found ourselves praying exactly as did these folks?  In the midst of despair, powerless to change things, we turn to God to intervene.  Though we should not weep or despair, we cannot help it.  Our losses stand before us as barriers unless and until God traverses those walls.  But God has visited His people for precisely these moments.  It is the surprise of grace that we find, just as a Roman centurion found long ago.
    A great prophet had arisen in Israel.  After hundreds of years of silence without anyone to speak "thus saith the Lord," Jesus has come to speak to His people.  Even a Roman soldier is not immune to the whispered hopes and dreams of a people longing for redemption.  From just such people have come the sounds of countless voices raised in petition and prayer in the midst of sickness and death.  Where is God when we need Him?  Can we trust Him to hear us?  Will He show mercy to us?  Like the friends of the Roman soldier, we have pleaded our case before the Lord, trying to convince God that this one is worthy or that, or that we are.  Yet behind all our claims to be worth God’s investment, sin, guilt, and death are hidden.
    Before God, what separates the faithful from the speculator are two things.  This Roman centurion demonstrates them both.  First of all he pushes aside all talk of worthiness.  He says in true humility and confession: "Lord, do not trouble Yourself.  I am not worthy to have you come under my roof."  While the friends were trying to impress Jesus about the soldier's good character and how he merited special treatment, the centurion was casting all of this aside.  He knows he is a sinner, plain and simple.  He knows He is unworthy of God’s gracious intervention.
    But as important as this first thing is, the second is just as important.  He knows he is a sinner who deserves nothing from God and yet He also knows that God can and has promised to act.  "Just say the word, and it will be so."  In contrast to the Jews who were after Jesus to prove Himself to them, Jesus marvels at this faith which trusts implicitly in the power and authority of God's Word to do what He has promised.  He demonstrates faith in God’s promise to act through His Word and the authority of that Word by reflecting upon his own soldierly experience.  He commands and someone comes or goes or does this or that.  This is surprising faith.
    If there are two things missing from the Church and our own individual Christian faith today it is first of all the humility of repentance and confession.  God has to do nothing at all.  We cannot win or merit anything special from God.  We come before God not by right but by the privilege of grace.  Second, what is missing is the kind of implicit faith that believes God keeps His Word.  In our worship and in our prayers, what would be different if we came to the Lord as did this Roman soldier did, "Lord, I am not worthy but only say the word and I shall be made whole."   And yet, those are exactly the words we pray today in the liturgy, prompted by the ancient form and ancient words of the Divine Service.
    God has visited His people – not because we have earned or proven our cause before Him.  No, God has visited His people as the merciful God who acts in grace just as He has promised.  He comes to us in the very midst of our weakness and need.  He comes not as enemy but as friend to the sinner seeking forgiveness, the wounded seeking healing, the broken seeking to be made whole, the dying seeking eternal life.  He comes as One who grieves with us our mortal weakness, our sin, our pain, and our loss.  He has come to claim this burden as His own and to act for us as Savior and Redeemer.
    He has come to the dying to answer death's power the power of life, life today lived as the new people God has made us to be in baptism... and life everlasting which bestows upon us the unlimited future Christ rose from the dead to impart.  He has come as the God who rejoices at our repentance, who forgives our sins, who leads the lost, and who carries those who cannot walk.  He has come to save His people.
    What is the Kingdom of God about?  The Jews who plead the case of the soldier and many of us today think it is about manipulating God to do what we want or get what we want.  About proving our worthiness or merits to justify God acceding to our request.  In other words, get your life together so that God will have to give you what you ask.  Instead, it is about loneliness that finds fellowship in Christ... about weeping that gives way to tears of joy in Christ... divisions that find healing in Christ...  death which gives way to life in Christ.  God has not come to crown the holy or reward the righteous.  No, He has come to befriend the lonely, to restore the lost, to suffer for the suffering, to bear the pain of the wounded, to weep with the grieving, and to lead us all to our heavenly home.
    What He seeks from us is not that we fix ourselves, prove ourselves, or justify ourselves...  but that we come as did that Roman soldier, acknowledging and repenting of our sin and unworthiness... yet confident of His grace and trusting His Word.  And for all who come, Jesus stands with open arms to welcome us all to the kingdom of His Father, for now, for tomorrow, and for all eternity. God has come... not an agent or emissary but God to save His people.  Not for the few or the special or the worthy but for the sinner in need of forgiveness and the dying in hope of eternal life...  Pray brothers and sisters that Jesus finds such faith in us.  Amen!

What does a priest look like?

There was an interesting article on Catholic World News for 2nd May. The headline caught my eye: “Typical new priest: 32-year-old cradle Catholic who prays Rosary, takes part in Eucharistic adoration.” Reading down I saw this was a survey of 366 out of 497 men to be ordained in the US this year. The headline itself was uplifting: these are mature men who emerge from Catholic families and who are not embarrassed to take part in traditional devotions. Thank God for them.

There were other significant features to the survey: the overwhelming number (81%) has two Catholic parents; 20% have five or more siblings, 10% have four siblings and 22% have three siblings. 4% have been home-schooled – at a time when less than 2% of US children are educated at home. This – admittedly small – survey indicates that having two Catholic parents undoubtedly makes it easier to develop a vocation. Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis had Catholic fathers and mothers with a strong faith, who thus provided a balanced influence on their sons’ vocations. Again, larger families tend to produce more vocations than smaller ones. Perhaps this is because there are fewer material distractions in larger families, alongside greater opportunities for service? As it happens, I personally know of three priestly vocations from homeschooling families in the US. Again, such families tend to be large, counter-cultural and with a strong Catholic ethos.

A couple of notes on the above.  First of all, Roman Catholic priests tend to be older at ordination in part because the training is 1-2 years longer than the typical Lutheran seminary program (and Lutherans think that ours is too long).  I find it amazing that the Roman Catholics, where priests are in short supply right now, are adding a year to the training regimen for new priests, while Lutherans, who tend to have enough or more clergy are reducing the time and course requirements leading to ordination.

Second is the note that these men are mature -- that does not mean mature in the sense of old in years but mature in faith.  They have been raised in the faith, well catechized, nurtured at home and in the parish, and who have served as altar servers.  They know the faith and their church as men who have been raised within the faith and the parish sacramental life as familiar friend.  They have a piety which reflects this -- Eucharistic adoration, the rosary, etc...

Lutherans take note.  We are tempted to believe by some that maturity in faith means sincerity, that a "true" believer is the same as one who has been raised, catechized, served, and lives a piety reflective of our confessions.  We are tempted to believe that a quick path to ordination is necessary because seminary might take something away from the enthusiasm, energy, and "freshness" of the candidate and therefore they should be trained where they are and not at a residential seminary.  We are tempted to believe that the future of Lutherans lies with those who come in from the outside rather than from those who have been brought up in the faith, catechized in the faith, and live out the faith at a Lutheran altar.  We should take pause here... we might just be wrong.

I am not saying that Lutherans should mimic Rome.  I am not saying that Lutherans should merely look to another green pasture other than the evangelical, mainstream, non-denominational pasture some have been looking at.  I am saying that in our rush to repair our wounded church body, in our desire to see us grow and not bleed members, we are assuming things about seminary recruitment and education that may be at cross purposes with what we need and with the historical witness of the church over time.  Remember that even mighty student of the Word St. Paul went off for what, three years, to be catechized in the faith before he was sent forth to serve the church and the kingdom of God.

Pastors are not born.  They are made.  Not just as seminary, either.  But from the font, in the catechism, at the altar...  I think it is great that we have many men who love Jesus and want to serve Him... I am just not at all sure that this is the primary criteria we should use to ordain.

Too Funny for words. . .

Men and women speak a different language with the same words.  I got sent this by a half dozen blog followers and have seen it making the rounds on other blogs and decided it was funny enough to post it here...  Many of you will laugh but not all for the same reasons... Enjoy!

It Satan were in control...

 “What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over half a century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia (the city where Barnhouse pastored), all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and the churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ was not preached.”    

― Michael S. Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church

 

Good words.  We think that if Satan were in control, things would be bad.  We assume that the goal of Satan is our misery, is to corrupt us, is to torment us with our weakness, failing, and sin.  That is not true.  As Todd Wilken said, "Satan will make you miserable later."  For  now, the one and only item on his agenda is to remove Christ from us and all our lives.  The goal of Satan is to remove Christ from the Church, from its message, from its witness, from its preaching, and from its worship.  Satan is not happy or satisfied with our misery.  He will take care of that later.  His goal is simply a Christ-less Christianity, a religion without the cross, worship without the Gospel...

 

I have often said that, unlike the characterization we have learned from years of preaching and teaching, we would not have hated the Pharisees.  We would have loved them.  We still do love them.  They are good people, who do good works, are good neighbors, good citizens, tithers, and every time the door of the church is opened, they are there -- well scrubbed, earnest, and sincere.  At least that is what is on the outside.  Inside, is emptiness.  The death of self and of a self-righteousness which does the right but does not love it.

 

The same could  be said of Satan.  Despite the horrible images of the devil painted over history, the descriptive words of a myriad of authors, or imagined on the sets of movies, Satan's power is not his appearance.  It is his lies, rather the one big lie.  Christ is not raised, His death did not accomplish anything, His promises were not kept, and His value is to mentor a better morality and not to save sinners.  Satan does not come to scare us but to deceive us and the greatest of all lies are not the ones that make us fear, but the ones that make us comfortable with ourselves, with our lives, and with a religion and god of our own manufacture.  A reasonable religion and an amenable deity who conforms to us, who is a greater image of our own image.  Such a god cannot save us but he can make us feel better about ourselves, encourage us to be better, to strive for more and to take credit for our advances, successes, and progress.

 

Hell on earth does not look like the darkened streets of prostitution, drugs, broken men and women.  No, hell on earth looks just like the author said above.  It looks so good we do not need a real god and we do not believe in one.  Luther taught that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to him; Satan teaches us that we can and that simple change transforms Jesus so that He is not the incarnate Son of God come to redeem and save but merely a good man who encourages and inspires us to be good men and women. 

 

Save us, O Lord, from the Satan who has become our friend, our confidant, our neighbor, our inspiration... who looks so good on the outside, we do not see the death within... who teaches us to see the good on the outside, to be happy with it, and not to see the death inside us.  If Satan were in control the trains would run on time, the kids would go to school every day ready to do their best, the workers would give an honest day's labor for an honest day's wage, terrible crimes would be a memory, injustice would be wiped out, and we would all feel so good about the moment, we forget the death inside us or the impending eternal death to come... so content within ourselves and with the god of our own making, we do not need a Savior who is God in flesh to suffer for us, to die in our place, and to rise up to make us new...

A slap in the face...

Perhaps you want me to die of unrelieved boredom while you keep on talking.  From The Bondage of the Will, pg. 244 of Luther's Works, Vol. 33

Every now and then when I feel like I need a slap in the face, I click on the Luther Insulter.   This site will pop up insults of all kinds from the hoard of good ones kept in the vaults of Luther's writings.  This one hit me today.

It makes me think.  We live in a very different world than Luther.  Ours is politically correct.  We argue rather politely -- even though some complain about the tone of political and religious speech.  In Luther's day an insult was a standard resource in debate and discussion.

So the next time you feel a little too happy, count on Luther to take you down in one fell swoop!

ELCA ELECTS GAY BISHOP

In what we all knew would come in time has come relatively sooner than expected.  A gay ELCA clergyman and professor has been elected Bishop.  You can read it all below.  Note the following anomalies:  first he has been a pastor in the ELCA for twenty years, serving congregations of the ELCA BUT without ordination -- a protest against the then restrictive policies against the ordination of actively gay and lesbian candidates.  So he served as a "lay" pastor?!?!?   Second note that he has been ordained as a pastor for only two years so this represents a rather quick climb up the hierarchical ladder and signifies that he was not necessarily chosen as the best of all candidates but to make a particular statement.  Some have been frustrated that the world did not change overnight and the ranks of leadership fill with gay and lesbian clergy once the ELCA lifted the ban in 2009.  So, some have argued, this step represents the full implementation of that change nearly 4 years ago... and not quickly enough for many within that church body.  So the ELCA joins its partner church body the Episcopal Church in now having gay clergy represented at every level of church leadership.  While this is something some would celebrate, it represents, in the eyes of this writer, a sad day for Lutheranism in the USA.

Read below:

The Reverend Dr. R. Guy Erwin was elected bishop of the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on the sixth ballot becoming the first publicly-identified gay and first Native American bishop in the history of the twenty-five year old denomination.

Erwin’s election to bishop comes just two years after his ordination as pastor in the church. Erwin has served congregations in the ELCA for over twenty years but chose not to be ordained until the ELCA changed its policy regarding gay and lesbian ministers. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted in 2009 to ordain gay and lesbian people in publicly accountable, lifelong committed same-gender relationships. Erwin was one of the first publicly-identified gay pastors in the ELCA to be ordained after the 2009 changes. There were seventeen publicly-identified LGBTQ people who were extraordinarily ordained outside the regular ELCA process prior to the vote, and subsequently received onto the ELCA roster following 2009.

Erwin is a member of Proclaim, a professional association of 130 Lutheran pastors, rostered lay leaders and seminarians who publicly identify as LGBTQ. Proclaim is a program of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a social ministry organization that supports LGBTQ pastors and their ministries. Bishop-elect Erwin also currently serves on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries Board of Directors....

Bishop-elect Erwin currently serves Faith Lutheran, Canoga Park as interim pastor and is Professor of Religion and History at California Lutheran University. Erwin is a native of Oklahoma and an active member of the Osage Tribe of Indians. Erwin and his partner Rob Flynn are members of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA, and are very active in Lutheran circles locally, nationally, and internationally. He will be installed as bishop September 21, 2013 and will serve a six year term.