A response to Lisa- and to Pastor White
Lisa Stapp, a good friend and fellow confessional Lutheran, had an interesting comment on that recent entry in this blog which I began by bemoaning the re-election of Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod President Gerald Kieschnick, and the apparent final victory- humanly-speaking- of the anti-confessional forces in the LCMS at the recently concluded convention. Regrettably, Blogger won't let me respond in the comment section at the length Lisa's remarks deserve, so I'll do it here.
Lisa refers in her comment to her "faithful undershepherd-" her pastor, Dr. Lawrence White, who is a faithful undershepherd indeed. I heard him espouse the program for renewal in the LCMS to which Lisa refers- namely, ceasing to put so much emphasis on "endless political battles for institutional control," but rather depending sound catechesis and preaching, trusting that God's Word will not return to Him empty- at a confessional conference a few years ago. While there is wisdom in this approach- it's God's Church, and it's worth remembering that it's also His battle- I find this approach problematic for a couple of reasons.
Dr. White clearly doesn't mean it this way, but it would be easy to hear his suggestion as somehow implying that there is something dirty or intrinsically unspiritual about church politics- as a call to a kind of gnostic purity. While politics of any kind- involving sinners like you and me, who are capable of all manner of foolishness, orneriness and unworthy behavior when our blood gets up and our sense of ourselves becomes too inflated- may indeed be an ugly thing, it's worth bearing in mind that God has chosen to govern His church through sinful human beings like us- and that means, ipso facto, church politics!
"Endless political struggles for institutional control" are not necessarily unspiritual intrusions of our fallen human nature into the realm of churchly sanctity. Nor are they manifestations of the Old Adam. Rather, they are the governance of what Luther called God's "Kingdom of the Left Hand" as it regards the Church- that aspect of human interaction involving rules and laws and the exercise of temporal power. He, Himself, has ordained that things be run that way in His Kingdom of the Left Hand, whether in the realm of secular politics (which Reformed and Roman Catholic commentators tend to misunderstand as being itself what Lutherans mean by "the Left Hand"), or in meetings of the Board of Elders or the district and synodical conventions and in the exercise of the juridical aspects of the synodical or district presidency, or even of the pastoral office itself. We dare not forget that God's Kingdom of the Left is precisely God's Kingdom of the Left- and to abandon it to those who, even if from the best of intentions, seek to take it down paths the Scriptures and the Confessions which accurately summarize them treat as closed is not an act of faithfulness to its King. We do not have authorization from the Throne to yield God's authority over of his Kingdom of the Left to those who would disobey the royal Will, whether intentionally or not! Rather, our very status as faithful subjects demands that we insist on it.
The problem is that, humanly speaking, the "bad guys" seem to have decisively won. If Gerald Kieschnick was ever going to be turned out of office and the methobapticostalization of the Missouri Synod reversed, it would seem- at least to the eyes of human wisdom- that the Synodical Convention following the syncretistic outrage at Yankee Stadium in the days following 9/11 and the shameful treatment of former- and faithful- Lutheran Hour speaker Wallace Schulz would have been the time when it would have happened. Instead, President Kieschnick remains in control, Dr. Daniel Preus has been replaced as First Vice President by a Kieschnick supporter, and the institution seems firmly in the hands of the revisionists. It is not simply, as President Kieschnick suggested a few years ago, that "this is not your grandfather's Missouri Synod." In the wake of the recently- concluded convention, it's not hard to wonder whether the Missouri Synod truly is the Missouri Synod anymore at all.
I recently spoke to a member of the Synodical Board of Directors who suggested that the problem is the domination of first-time convention delegates, most of them theologically formed more by the American culture than by Lutheran catechesis. The syndrome is familiar. It's essentially the same problem which turned the last congregation to which I belonged into a functionally non-confessional congregation the instant a faithful, confessional pastor accepted a call elsewhere. When a new congregation is founded, and peopled with lifelong Methodists and Baptists who- other than a grudging acceptance of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar and more than a purely symbolic role for Holy Baptism- remain essentially Methodists and Baptists, what happened to my previous congregation and has seemed to happen to the LCMS at large is probably inevitable, especially when the district and synodical leadership is composed of people who somehow see this as a good thing.
But if Missouri is no longer Missouri, does it make sense to talk about our future as a remnant? Are we not, rather, summoned by the same voice of God which forbids fellowship in sacris with the Confessions-denying ELCA, or with the Methodists and Baptists in their natural, honest, sacrament-denying state- to "come out from among them-" if, that is, things are indeed as desperate as they seem at this point to be? How can we remain faithful to the doctrine of fellowship which is a large part of the entire bone we Confessionals have to pick with those in institutional control of the Synod- those who are merely Conservatives- if we do not allow it to govern our relations with those who deny the substance of the Confessions while continuing to claim the name "Missouri Synod Lutheran?"
If Missouri is no longer Missouri, are we not called to do as Stephan and Walther did in Saxony, and depart from a confessionally dead church body to give birth to a new and living one?
If Missouri is no longer Missouri, is it not our duty to found a synod which, in effect, will be?
Or is the fight still winnable? That's the one excuse for continuing in the LCMS I can see which passes confessional or Scriptural muster. Might the brother and the sister still be won? If those who embrace the Kieschnick vision of the LCMS are LINOS- "Lutherans in Name Only," as the ELCA has institutionally been for a generation- then breaking fellowship is our only honest or faithful option. But could it be that the Holy Spirit will do in the hearts of President Kieschnick and his followers through the faithful proclamation of God's Word what human politics has failed to do?
Might catechesis, in the long run, be a weapon which will help re-assert God's authority in the politics of this particular church body? If that's what Dr. White is arguing, I'm prepared to listen. In fact, I long for him to be right. But after twelve years of attempting the same strategy in the ELCA, I can't say that this sinner- this frail and easily discouraged sometime undershepherd- is sanguine about the prospect.
I pray that it is merely my weakness of faith, and that God will remedy that lack the old-fashioned way: not through bad music with vacuous or even heretical words about myself rather than true and life-giving ones about Jesus, or through endless emotional navel-gazing and self-indulgence, or through the very kind of self-chosen programs of legalistic personal reform Luther and the Confessions reject so emphatically, but through the Holy Spirit's empowerment of and encouragement to spiritual weaklings like me through the forgiveness of sins and strengthening of faith that are faithfully and always mediated through the Word and the Sacraments.
God has reserved to Himself in the Missouri Synod more than a seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to the bait-and-switch "evangelism" of the Church Growth Movement, or kissed the stone lips of Enthusiasm, or burned a pinch of incense to Arminianism, or equated the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with Allah or the other false gods of world religion. A great many more, in fact. That is beyond question.
The question now is what He wants them to do in the face of compelling evidence that the Synod is in the control- to all appearances, probably for good- of those who have done all of those things, and who see nothing wrong with any of them.
I think that is a necessary, question, and not so easily answered as Dr. White suggests. I do know this: I played the ministerial curmudgeon for twelve years in the ELCA, and I am not anxious to do it again in the LCMS. But maybe that in itself is a sign that I should.
Bob Bertram is usually thought of in LCMS circles as at least an enabler of antinomians. I knew him, and firmly believe that his teaching on the subject of the uses of the Law were more problematic as a matter of form than of intended substance. In a moment of discouragement over the antinomianism we both fought in the ELCA, Dr. Bertram encouraged me by saying, "Bob, read Jeremiah some time. The only people God calls to be curmudgeons are the ones who hate it."
Maybe the message from God is precisely in the bleakness. How Lutheran of Him to speak to the remnant in the straying Missouri Synod through the Cross- and how very much like Him! And beyond, how predictive of an unforeseen Easter. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Word, says the Lord of Hosts..."
Lisa refers in her comment to her "faithful undershepherd-" her pastor, Dr. Lawrence White, who is a faithful undershepherd indeed. I heard him espouse the program for renewal in the LCMS to which Lisa refers- namely, ceasing to put so much emphasis on "endless political battles for institutional control," but rather depending sound catechesis and preaching, trusting that God's Word will not return to Him empty- at a confessional conference a few years ago. While there is wisdom in this approach- it's God's Church, and it's worth remembering that it's also His battle- I find this approach problematic for a couple of reasons.
Dr. White clearly doesn't mean it this way, but it would be easy to hear his suggestion as somehow implying that there is something dirty or intrinsically unspiritual about church politics- as a call to a kind of gnostic purity. While politics of any kind- involving sinners like you and me, who are capable of all manner of foolishness, orneriness and unworthy behavior when our blood gets up and our sense of ourselves becomes too inflated- may indeed be an ugly thing, it's worth bearing in mind that God has chosen to govern His church through sinful human beings like us- and that means, ipso facto, church politics!
"Endless political struggles for institutional control" are not necessarily unspiritual intrusions of our fallen human nature into the realm of churchly sanctity. Nor are they manifestations of the Old Adam. Rather, they are the governance of what Luther called God's "Kingdom of the Left Hand" as it regards the Church- that aspect of human interaction involving rules and laws and the exercise of temporal power. He, Himself, has ordained that things be run that way in His Kingdom of the Left Hand, whether in the realm of secular politics (which Reformed and Roman Catholic commentators tend to misunderstand as being itself what Lutherans mean by "the Left Hand"), or in meetings of the Board of Elders or the district and synodical conventions and in the exercise of the juridical aspects of the synodical or district presidency, or even of the pastoral office itself. We dare not forget that God's Kingdom of the Left is precisely God's Kingdom of the Left- and to abandon it to those who, even if from the best of intentions, seek to take it down paths the Scriptures and the Confessions which accurately summarize them treat as closed is not an act of faithfulness to its King. We do not have authorization from the Throne to yield God's authority over of his Kingdom of the Left to those who would disobey the royal Will, whether intentionally or not! Rather, our very status as faithful subjects demands that we insist on it.
The problem is that, humanly speaking, the "bad guys" seem to have decisively won. If Gerald Kieschnick was ever going to be turned out of office and the methobapticostalization of the Missouri Synod reversed, it would seem- at least to the eyes of human wisdom- that the Synodical Convention following the syncretistic outrage at Yankee Stadium in the days following 9/11 and the shameful treatment of former- and faithful- Lutheran Hour speaker Wallace Schulz would have been the time when it would have happened. Instead, President Kieschnick remains in control, Dr. Daniel Preus has been replaced as First Vice President by a Kieschnick supporter, and the institution seems firmly in the hands of the revisionists. It is not simply, as President Kieschnick suggested a few years ago, that "this is not your grandfather's Missouri Synod." In the wake of the recently- concluded convention, it's not hard to wonder whether the Missouri Synod truly is the Missouri Synod anymore at all.
I recently spoke to a member of the Synodical Board of Directors who suggested that the problem is the domination of first-time convention delegates, most of them theologically formed more by the American culture than by Lutheran catechesis. The syndrome is familiar. It's essentially the same problem which turned the last congregation to which I belonged into a functionally non-confessional congregation the instant a faithful, confessional pastor accepted a call elsewhere. When a new congregation is founded, and peopled with lifelong Methodists and Baptists who- other than a grudging acceptance of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar and more than a purely symbolic role for Holy Baptism- remain essentially Methodists and Baptists, what happened to my previous congregation and has seemed to happen to the LCMS at large is probably inevitable, especially when the district and synodical leadership is composed of people who somehow see this as a good thing.
But if Missouri is no longer Missouri, does it make sense to talk about our future as a remnant? Are we not, rather, summoned by the same voice of God which forbids fellowship in sacris with the Confessions-denying ELCA, or with the Methodists and Baptists in their natural, honest, sacrament-denying state- to "come out from among them-" if, that is, things are indeed as desperate as they seem at this point to be? How can we remain faithful to the doctrine of fellowship which is a large part of the entire bone we Confessionals have to pick with those in institutional control of the Synod- those who are merely Conservatives- if we do not allow it to govern our relations with those who deny the substance of the Confessions while continuing to claim the name "Missouri Synod Lutheran?"
If Missouri is no longer Missouri, are we not called to do as Stephan and Walther did in Saxony, and depart from a confessionally dead church body to give birth to a new and living one?
If Missouri is no longer Missouri, is it not our duty to found a synod which, in effect, will be?
Or is the fight still winnable? That's the one excuse for continuing in the LCMS I can see which passes confessional or Scriptural muster. Might the brother and the sister still be won? If those who embrace the Kieschnick vision of the LCMS are LINOS- "Lutherans in Name Only," as the ELCA has institutionally been for a generation- then breaking fellowship is our only honest or faithful option. But could it be that the Holy Spirit will do in the hearts of President Kieschnick and his followers through the faithful proclamation of God's Word what human politics has failed to do?
Might catechesis, in the long run, be a weapon which will help re-assert God's authority in the politics of this particular church body? If that's what Dr. White is arguing, I'm prepared to listen. In fact, I long for him to be right. But after twelve years of attempting the same strategy in the ELCA, I can't say that this sinner- this frail and easily discouraged sometime undershepherd- is sanguine about the prospect.
I pray that it is merely my weakness of faith, and that God will remedy that lack the old-fashioned way: not through bad music with vacuous or even heretical words about myself rather than true and life-giving ones about Jesus, or through endless emotional navel-gazing and self-indulgence, or through the very kind of self-chosen programs of legalistic personal reform Luther and the Confessions reject so emphatically, but through the Holy Spirit's empowerment of and encouragement to spiritual weaklings like me through the forgiveness of sins and strengthening of faith that are faithfully and always mediated through the Word and the Sacraments.
God has reserved to Himself in the Missouri Synod more than a seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to the bait-and-switch "evangelism" of the Church Growth Movement, or kissed the stone lips of Enthusiasm, or burned a pinch of incense to Arminianism, or equated the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with Allah or the other false gods of world religion. A great many more, in fact. That is beyond question.
The question now is what He wants them to do in the face of compelling evidence that the Synod is in the control- to all appearances, probably for good- of those who have done all of those things, and who see nothing wrong with any of them.
I think that is a necessary, question, and not so easily answered as Dr. White suggests. I do know this: I played the ministerial curmudgeon for twelve years in the ELCA, and I am not anxious to do it again in the LCMS. But maybe that in itself is a sign that I should.
Bob Bertram is usually thought of in LCMS circles as at least an enabler of antinomians. I knew him, and firmly believe that his teaching on the subject of the uses of the Law were more problematic as a matter of form than of intended substance. In a moment of discouragement over the antinomianism we both fought in the ELCA, Dr. Bertram encouraged me by saying, "Bob, read Jeremiah some time. The only people God calls to be curmudgeons are the ones who hate it."
Maybe the message from God is precisely in the bleakness. How Lutheran of Him to speak to the remnant in the straying Missouri Synod through the Cross- and how very much like Him! And beyond, how predictive of an unforeseen Easter. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Word, says the Lord of Hosts..."
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