Lack of Trust is Not the Problem...
A popular sentiment in our divided synod is that the problem is “lack of trust.” But that is not the problem. That is rather a symptom of the problem. That being the case, the solution isn’t for me to simply trust people that I don’t trust. The solution is to rectify the underlying reasons for the lack of trust. And that requires more than “conversation.” That requires change in practice.
And that is never discussed. The implication is that members of synod who don’t trust certain other members of synod are (take your choice) unloving, unreasonable, divisive, too committed to doctrinal purity, not missional, not concerned for the lost, yadda yadda. In other words, the lack of trust is the problem, and it can be fixed by just trusting. Just do it. And if a certain faction gets political control of the synod, it will be “just do it, or else!”
This is just a form of gaslighting. For it is entirely reasonable not to trust people if they display behaviors that are, well…, untrustworthy. The solution is not to compel trust, but to deserve it. Unlike salvation, trust is a matter of merit. Trust is not automatic. It is indeed earned. Trust is not even a given among all members of the same family, community, political party, confession of faith, or workplace. It is not a tribal reality, whether by literal tribal ethnicity, or by faction. So if trust is not determined by kinship, tribe, politics, or religious confession, why would synodical membership be a kind of magic charm that would cause us to trust one another just because we are all members of synod?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but here are a few reasons why I would distrust a fellow member of synod.
Repudiation of the Family Name
“Lutheran” is our family name. It is part of the name of our synod. It is a historical label that was initially applied to our forbears as an insult, but it has become part of our identity - even though the word never appears in our Book of Concord (this is indeed all the proof you need to vote against resolutions that try to limit our Lutheran identity to the Book of Concord alone). The name “Lutheran” is not only part of the name of our synod, but also vast majority of our congregations and schools. Removing the name “Lutheran” or starting a church or school deliberately eschewing the name - is suspect. It is a big red flag. It is akin to a man who professes to love his wife, but at the same time, leaves his wedding ring at home when he meets his buddies at the bar.
There is no good reason to do that. One can say it’s a matter of “context,” but the point is you should not be ashamed of your marital status or your confessional status - even as we should not be ashamed of Jesus, and deny Him before men. In my own family history, I had an ancestor whose father told his friends and neighbors that his son was really his nephew, because in those days, divorce was a scandal. One can “contextualize” and “justify” the situation all that one wants, but it did very little for my ancestor who had to live with that betrayal and denial. If you won’t put “Lutheran” on the sign and on your website, I don’t trust you.
To claim to be walking together with me - but to deny the very confession that we supposedly share - is beyond the pale. It is duplicitous and dishonest - which, frankly, I find a lot of the Church Growth methodology to be - aping the world’s dishonesties in the interest of marketing, branding, and sales. It is also the bailiwick of the unctuous politician who refuses to give a plain answer to a simple question: elusive and noncommittal. If you’re going to accept the benefit of being part of a synod that goes by the name “Lutheran,” whether it be access to health insurance, grant money, pastors, retirement plans, or other perks, at least have the integrity to fly our flag, to wear our uniform, to identify as one of us instead of pretending like you don’t know us.
So, no, if you remove or avoid the name “Lutheran,” or defend those who do, I don’t trust you. I would not want to be in a foxhole with you. For we are very much at war. The Church Growth folks never seem to talk about it, but the realm of the demonic is very real. The Christian life is spiritual warfare. Satan does try to harm us. And the last thing we need in a war are those who change uniforms depending on who is around.
We seem to be the only historic Christian confession that has churches that will do this. No Roman Catholic parish hides the name “Catholic.” No Eastern Orthodox congregation buries the term “Orthodox.” Even the Anglicans, as screwed up as they are, will say that they are Anglican or Episcopal (in the US). But we do have ostensive Lutheran churches that ape Big Box non-denominational churches when it comes to naming, branding, marketing, and marks of identity. It is as though “Lutheran” is something to be ashamed of, to be hidden under a bushel, or something that people need to be swindled into, like a bait-and-switch false-advertising scheme.
So don’t expect me to trust you if you do that.
Open Communion
Open communion is rampant in the LCMS. It is not just among the so-called “missional” crowd, though I wonder how many of them do practice closed communion. My gut feeling is that more of our liturgical and confessional churches actually practice closed communion, while sadly, many still do not.
Churches that don’t believe in the Real Presence tend to practice open communion, since it is only symbolic anyway. But for historical churches that believe the body and blood of the Lord are given in the Holy Sacrament, closed communion has always been the norm in both the East and the West. It wasn’t until the Radical Reformation that any mainstream Christians would deny the Real Presence. And sadly, their practices - not only in who should commune, but what does the communion liturgy look like - have bled over into the LCMS. We say we believe in the Real Presence, but many of our churches and pastors behave in such a way that suggests otherwise.
Some argue that closed communion chases people away because it is “unwelcoming.” And that is the justification to eucharistic promiscuity. Often, communion statements - written and spoken - will say that anyone who is baptized and believes in Jesus can commune, or anyone who is sorry for his sins, or anyone who believes Jesus is present, etc. Unknown people are often communed at our altars without being examined. Our synod’s self-understanding of fellowship is that we in the LCMS should all believe the same thing - but given the disparity and diversity of our communion practices, clearly we don’t. Our understanding of trans-synodical communion is that we have “altar and pulpit fellowship” with churches whose doctrine and practice have been examined, and it has been determined that we believe the same thing.
Your parishioner’s Methodist aunt and Roman Catholic uncle (who married a Lutheran) do not believe the same thing that we do. They are not in eucharistic fellowship with us. For this level of fellowship is a fellowship of “altar and pulpit.” My dear friends and Christian brothers with whom I share chaplaincy duties, Gary (the Roman Catholic pastor), Don (the Baptist minister), and I respect one another enough not to share altars and pulpits. We are honest with one another about what we have in common, and where we differ. I can respect them more than I can respect some members of synod. And that may upset or anger some folks, but maybe I’m just saying the quiet part out loud. I’m just being honest. We want that, don’t we?
Fellowship is a level of intimacy, and that requires trust. I don’t trust pastors or congregations that practice open communion. It is also a betrayal of what we believe, teach, and confess. And as a practical matter - though it hasn’t really been an issue for me - I know of a lot of faithful pastors who practice closed communion who get beaten up by their members because Pastor Billy Bob up the holler will commune Aunt Sally the Methodist and Uncle Bob the Roman Catholic, but their pastor, desiring to be a faithful steward of the mysteries, won’t. The faithful pastor is left to twist in the wind, accused of being “unloving,” and sometimes even his own District President will “walk together” with the lynch-mob and won’t cut him down from the gallows (my current DP, for the record, is not of that ilk). And that is another topic of trust for another day.
I was in the Florida-Georgia District as a layman nearly thirty years ago, when the District itself was in open rebellion against closed communion. It was disgraceful. I was ashamed of the lack of integrity by the District leadership, and embarrassed that the synod just apparently had to put up with the District’s gaslighting and bullying.
So if we believe the same things about the Sacrament of the Altar, we will steward the altar and its gifts the same way. Otherwise, we don’t really believe the same things. So if you want me to trust you, practice faithful stewardship of the Holy Sacrament as if you really believed that it is supernatural, and its misuse can be deadly - and then we can talk. Until then, I don’t trust you.
Abolition of the Mass
Retaining the catholic western liturgical forms was so important to the Lutheran confessors that an entire article of the Augsburg Confession, and its corresponding article in the Apology, are dedicated to it.
“Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence.”
— AC 24:1-2“In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.”
— Ap 24:1
Why is that even in there? Why are Lutherans confessionally committed to liturgical worship? First of all, it is in there because we were being lied about by being broad-brushed with the Radical Reformers who had abolished the Mass. And why did they do that? Because, unlike us, they do not confess the Real Presence. And without the Real Presence, such liturgical ceremonies are not only silly, they would give a false confession. Why would a Presbyterian reverence the altar? Why would a Baptist genuflect during the Words of Institution? Why would a non-denominationalist elevate the elements during the singing of the Agnus Dei? When the Service of Word and Sacrament (Mysterium) is reduced to just Word - and that Word is reduced to mere information about the faith - there is no longer a sense of holiness, of set-apartness, of certain time and space. Thus casualness replaces reverence - especially if by being casual, there is a perceived benefit in terms of teaching and learning. And the architecture itself will change.
For example, in my Bible classes, I teach rather informally. People are sipping on coffee and sometimes eating goodies. We crack jokes. I’m not wearing vestments. We do open and close with prayer, and we are reverent during that time, but the classroom is simply not the sanctuary (Latin: sanctuarium: holy place). Churches that confess the Real Presence believe the sanctuary is a holy place, and the chancel is the most holy place. The altar is the holiest place in the sanctuary, as this is where the miracle of Christ’s presence happens. God Himself reveals His worship preferences and how His ministers should appropriately conduct worship within the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, in His Real Presence (see Exodus 26-31 - six entire chapters of Scripture!).
Moreover, we Lutherans hold to a higher view of preaching than do our more radical brethren. Preaching includes teaching, but it is not merely a pedestrian lecture on the Bible. It is supernatural proclamation. It is in a sense sacramental in that it conveys grace. Therefore, there is a certain reverence in preaching that makes our preaching more formal than some of the silliness that goes on in non-sacramental churches. I’m thinking about a video that I shared in a previous article of a peripatetic non-denominational preacher wearing a cow costume, complete with dangling udders, and praying (as the praise band emits that familiar mind-numbing drone tone) that the congregation should not be distracted from their worship. You simply can’t make this stuff up. The marketing department of Chick-Fil-A is singing a canticle entitled Non Sumus Digni.
The only saving grace is that this is not an LCMS church. But sadly, we were all offering up the same petition the first time we saw this: “Please, God, don’t let this be LCMS.” I think we need this cry for mercy expanded into a collect in the next edition of the Pastoral Care Companion.
LCMS pastors who interrupt the sacred liturgy by plopping their buttocks on the floor in the chancel to put on an entertaining little interview show with the children are teaching the children (and their parents and grandparents) that this is not a holy space, but is rather no different than the floor of their bedrooms at home. Pastors who “vest” in sports jerseys or wear silly hats in the sanctuary pertaining to their favorite NFL team are teaching (by means of ceremony) just what is really important about Sunday. Pastors who delegate the Words of Institution to the praise band girl are making a confession about the vocation of the office of the ministry, about the Sacrament of the Altar, and drawing a false conclusion about what the rest of us in the LCMS confess. Pastors who use an empty chalice as a prop during the “consecration” are sending a message about what is really going on: something empty and symbolic. They are anti-evangelists, pushing away those, especially young people, who are yearning for something real, reverent, holy, authentic, and timeless.
The LCMS chaplain of the Lutheran retirement home where I did field work, who brought his putter and golf balls into the sanctuary and practiced his golf right in front of the holy altar, was likewise a damager of trust. As a seminarian, I had to just stand there and be scandalized. I had to just take it with a poker face. But apparently, I was the problem as the scandalizee.
The Church Growth faction of today has shifted its rhetoric regarding worship. Twenty years ago, a proponent of CoWo (so-called “contemporary worship”) argued that Article 24 “is no longer binding.” That approach doesn’t work today. I don’t know of anyone who says that any more. Today’s Missal-Abolitionists take a more Koranic or Talmudic tack. The former approach is to attempt to play off Formula 10 against Augustana/Apology 24, as the Muslims interpret the Koran: whose later surahs trump the earlier ones. This novel confessional hermeneutic is not how the confessors understood their own writings. The Augsburg Confession is central to our confession, and the other symbols are further explications of it, not repudiations or corrections. Formula 10 gives us clarity in matters of adiaphora. It is not a tearing out of any earlier pages of our confession. It is not a “do what thou wilt” card.
We retain ceremony and reverence because that is what is called for in churches that do not repudiate the Real Presence. This is why reverent liturgical ceremony is retained in the historical churches, but abolished in those innovative churches of the Radical Reformation heritage, those who severed their ties to the church of the past, adopting the progressive mindset that “we know better now.” They adopt a revolutionary, as opposed to a reformational, approach to the faith and the church. To this day, it would be wrong for a Baptist minister or a non-denominational “worship leader” to chant the Words of Institution (LSB 197), make the sign of the cross over the elements (see the rubrics), genuflect, elevate, or ring bells. It would make no sense for them to intone “This is My body” slowly and ceremonially. The way we worship is a reflection and confession of what we believe. Our actions should be consistent with our doctrine, otherwise we become Pharisees, who preach but do not practice.
And this is the second way that modern Church Growthers deal with the inconvenience of Article 24: Talmudically parsing out words to make them mean the opposite of what they really mean. I recently heard this done on two different podcasts. In one example, the argument was made that unless “traditional worship” is actually banned (even if it isn’t practiced), there has been no “abolition” of the Mass. In other words, so goes the tortuous argument, a church could have only “CoWo” week in and week out, year after year, but if they theoretically permit a pastor to wear a stole, or don’t outright ban the use of the lectionary, or don’t explicitly prohibit genuflecting before the altar - then this is indeed a faithful and authentic Article 24 church.
Another recent variation involves a podcaster (and pastor) who conducted his own unscientific survey of LCMS churches (I remember getting an invite to participate, and I wanted nothing to do with it, and self-excluded from the survey). He has concluded from this study that the LCMS is 96% traditional, since only four percent of his survey respondents don’t have some sort of “traditional” worship (such as it is). In other words, 96% of our churches have the Mass in addition to a “modern” (CoWo) service or a “blended” service.
On a side note, his own congregation is one of the supposed four-percent that has no “traditional” service at all, has no altar, font, or pulpit, and, in fact, had the praise-band girl “consecrate” the elements while the other pastor posed with an empty chalice as a prop (the actual elements were mini-moo style pre-packaged plastic pop-tops). But he is keeping Article 24, I suppose, so goes the logic, because some other churches do.
I do want to address “blended” services. This is the bisexuality of the worship wars. If a man is bisexual, he’s still gay. And I can cite an authoritative source, everyone’s favorite buck-toothed homosexual Persian-African Zoroastrian, Freddie Mercury - who was famously (and tragically) bisexual. When someone asked him if he were gay, his answer was classic: “I’m gay as a daffodil, my dear.” How can one not appreciate his blunt honesty? “Blended” worship is “contemporary” worship.
One cannot avoid abolishing the Mass by abolishing the Mass and either appealing to a congregation’s abolition only at some services, or the fact that other churches haven’t abolished the Mass. We all know what Article 24 says - in both letter and spirit. We know why it is there. We all know what the liturgy confesses, and what its abolition confesses. Both are ceremonies, and ceremonies teach. Irreverence and casualness around the sacrament is a confession. LARPing in sports jerseys is a confession. And no amout of gaslighting can get around that. The old paradigm of bamboozlement doesn’t work today, as people, including young people, want the very reverence that some members of synod see as a liability.
So if you abolish the Mass, and especially if you erect an elaborate scaffolding of deception to try to convince me that you haven’t - I don’t trust you. I trust my honest Baptist friends whose practice matches their confession, who are honest about it. I don’t trust LCMS members - pastors and congregations - who flout our confessions by saying one thing and doing another. Once again, when the chips are down, when the you-know-what hits the fan, I want to be able to trust my cobelligerents and not have to wonder if they’re going to bayonet me in the back.
Other Issues
There are other issues that erode trust. For example, the Christian church has always been pro-life. From the days of the Roman Empire, we opposed abortion, exposure, and blood-sports. But today, there are many people - including some members of our synod - who believe the world’s propaganda that abortion is a “woman’s right to choose.” There are those who believe murdering sick people or assisting in their suicide is “mercy killing.” There are those who believe it is good stewardship of the world’s resources not to have children, or to take measures to prevent conception.
There are members of synod - including pastors - who want to change our synod’s confession on sexuality and marriage. One pastor tried to ignite the revolution by conducting a homosexual “marriage.” It didn’t go as planned, even in his “progressive” congregation. Others refer to men and their “husbands” and push for acceptance of “pride” parades and of gay “married” couples in our congregations. And in the same vein of sexual confusion, there are those who want to “ordain” women. There are those who want lady laymen to be involved in the leading of the liturgy. There have been instances of women preaching, vesting and conducting the liturgy, confirming youth, and pronouncing the absolution. There is at least one district (I hope it’s just one) that purports to make women “deacons” and cross-dresses them in albs and stoles. There are also those members of synod who confess a woke, anti-police, BLM agenda, who would uppercase one race, while lowercasing another, and arguing that our synod is “too white” - reflecting the world’s agenda that being white - as a good number of God’s people in our churches happen to be, quite unplanned - is some kind of pathology.
And then there is the naked deception and rebellion of Concordia [sic] Texas. What a diabolical you-know-what-show that is! Screwtape could write a giddy letter based on what those people have done. And then there are those who defend this. If you perpetrate or defend this kind of knavery, I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.
How to Restore Trust
Unless we all decide together to practice either open or closed communion, unless we all decide together once and for all, with no further debate, to “ordain” or not ordain women, unless we all agree on fundamental ethical questions about sexuality and life, unless we all agree to abide by our confessions or repudiate them together - we will continue to have a divided synod in which one faction distrusts the other.
The sainted professor Kurt Marquart suggested that a peaceful dissolution was in order. This is anathema to the Church Growth faction, because it would mean that we would all have smaller numbers. If numbers are your pride and joy, a reduction in numbers is humiliation and a cause for sorrow. But think about it for a minute. If we wanted to triple our size as a synod, if we wanted to add a slew of universities and seminaries, we could do so instantly by simply merging with the ELCA. But we are better off separate. Why? Because we believe, teach, and confess - and practice - different things. Integrity requires that we not just overlook differences for the sake of impressive numbers. We need to be honest.
There have been a few recent defections from the LCMS to the ELCA, to Lutheran micro-synods, and to independent, non-denominational status. I don’t see these as losses. I see this as a step in the right direction. I can serve with integrity together with ELCA and nondenominational chaplains, but not as fellow LCMS pastors sharing altar and pulpit. I don’t foresee any of our Church Growth faction in the LCMS changing their minds. But I do see them trying to make us change our minds. And that is always how progressivism works. The late Rev. Charles Porterfield Krauth pointed this out in 1871.
Trust will be restored when we actually walk together, or when those who want us to walk a different path, choose to go on that path themselves, either going it alone as non-denominational, or walking with others who will walk with them by believing and practicing as they do (perhaps with a quatenus subscription to the confessions, or a confession of scripture that it contains God’s Word.). Trust cannot be restored by resolutions, conventions, bylaws, or elections - nor by simply being ordered to do so, or pushed into it by peer pressure. Trust cannot be restored by talk without action. Someone must be willing to change, or to separate. And likely neither of these will happen, and the never-ending stalemate of the de facto status quo of selective fellowship and distrust will simply continue to be our cross to bear.
Again, lack of trust is not the problem. It is rather a symptom of the problem.