“Lutherans continued to use the five ancient liturgical colors as well as the liturgical vestments in the service and for sacramental acts; this usage lasted amazingly long, partly up to the brink of the nineteenth century…

With District Convention season largely behind us, and with our 2026 LCMS National Convention looming ahead, those who weary of our internal disputes might find some historical perspective from Ramsay MacMullen’s Voting About God in Early Church Councils (2006). MacMullen (1928-2022) served as a history professor at Yale. The American Historical Association awarded him for his great contributions to scholarship and called him “the greatest historian of the Roman Empire alive today." His special areas of interest involved the social history of the Roman world, in particular the transition from paganism to Christianity.

In years and cultures past, society valued young men.  There was a common-sense realization that strong men meant a strong fabric of society.  Christianity recognized the divinely-ordered family structure of the godly leadership of husbands and fathers, as well as masculine leadership in society.  Indeed, God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, describes the leadership of women and children as a curse (Chapter 3).