Point of Order!
In my critique of time and money wasted at district conventions, I want to be clear. I’m not against parliamentary procedure, nor even conventions. Robert’s Rules is certainly worth knowing even at the congregational level. Parliamentary procedure is a way to protect the congregation from antagonists and to ward off bullies. It worked for me and my parish, and I spent about a year being active in the National Association of Parliamentarians. We do have to hold elections and make actual decisions concerning how we carry out the worldly part of our responsibilities as churches.
But there are simply resolutions that are a waste of time, and they actually resolve nothing, as I said before.
Then there are those that should be ruled out of order, and frankly, a more knowledgeable floor committee should have quashed. Here are two recent examples:
Banning “Easter”
I was not at my Southern District convention this year. I was at the previous one three years ago. At both of these conventions, there was a resolution memorializing synod to remove the word “Easter” from its materials: the church calendar, the hymnal, etc., replacing it with Resurrection Sunday. Both times, the resolution went down in flames by something like 88% opposed. This resolution is based on the assumption that “Easter” is a pagan word - which is itself hotly debated by historians and linguists. The resolution itself included the Anglo-Saxon word for Easter - which meant that the floor committee could not read it. They deftly skipped over that part of the resolution. That in and of itself should invalidate a resolution: making use of a language that the floor committee cannot read or speak. Frankly, there is no excuse for this kind of dodge today given the power of our cell phones. It’s not hard to learn how to pronounce foreign words. Members of floor committees should be able to pronounce every word in the resolutions over which they stand in judgment.
Moreover, even if the word “Easter” has pagan origins - which again is not established as fact - will we also now piddle, twiddle, and resolve about changing the names of the Resurrection Sunday, Holy Saturday, Good Friday, and Maundy Thursday, since each of these names - as well as the rest of our days of the week and many of our months of the year - are named for pagan gods? Why should delegates - who have put their lives on hold, who have had to leave their families, jobs, and churches, have to put up with this dingalingery?
But the really egregious element of this resolution is that it is at odds with the Book of Concord itself.
Per Robert’s, no parliamentary act can contradict the bylaws or constitution of the organization under whose auspices the parliamentary body convenes. The LCMS constitution/bylaws establishes the Bible and the Book of Concord (with a quia subscription) to be our confessional standard. Therefore, any resolution that would condemn the Bible or the Book of Concord is null and void.
The word “Easter” is, of course, an English word. Our English translations of the Book of Concord all use the word “Easter,” and it appears seven times. Now, this is the English translation, and the Latin is actually “pascha” - which informs the modern Romance languages. However, the German of the Book of Concord makes use of the word “Oster” (or “Osterfest,” “Osterfeier,” or “Ostertag”). It goes without saying that the Anglo-Saxon, and thus the modern English, reflects this etymology. It also bears mentioning that the Reformation itself began in Saxony.
So to cast aspersions on the English word “Easter” is to likewise gainsay the German word “Oster” - which is part of our Lutheran confessions.
So this resolution is not only a waste of time and resources, it is already null and void on its face, dead on arrival - and even the vote on it was a waste of time. I have no doubt that it will be proposed again three years from now. Will the floor committee rule it out of order and not waste the convention’s time?
What should have been done from the floor is that a delegate should have made a “point of order” - and when recognized, explained to the chair that this resolution is out of order, as it is an attack on a practice that is part of our Book of Concord.
Banning the Title “Father”
At the Kansas District convention, a resolution was recently brought forth to try to prevent pastors from being referred to titularly as “Father.”
Once again, this is a resolution that is not in order, as it contradicts and condemns the Book of Concord. Apparently, the convention voted to refer the resolution to the Exegetical Departments of our seminaries. In reality, this is a waste of their time as well, since the Book of Concord interprets Scripture to be just fine with referring to a spiritual father as “Father.”
Maybe the ones proposing this resolution have not been reading the Bible lately, and forgot about 2 Kings 2:12 and Acts 7:2. That should be enough to void the resolution - not to mention centuries of use in the church - including the Lutheran Church. Clearly, Jesus, in Matthew 23:9, is making a point about pride and arrogance rather than a prohibition of certain titles for our pastors (as if “Pastor” or “Reverend” could not also be a source of pride). People who read Scripture like this must be eunuchs - like the church father Origin - since we are instructed by our Lord Himself to remove any body parts that could lead us into sin. At very least, we should see a lot of our delegates at convention who are blind and missing feet and hands. And do these pastors, when dealing with legalism among the parishioners, counsel their sinning parishioners according to a literal reading of Paul in Gal 5:12?
But what should really settle the matter is that we see our confessors themselves doing the very thing this resolution condemns. Maybe they have not been reading the Book of Concord much lately, such as SA Subscriptions 27, or Tr Doctors and Preachers 32, not to mention Ap 3:278 (Triglot - found at 5:3:278 in the Reader’s Edition) and LC 1:158-159. Then there is the plethora of references to the pastors who came before us as “the fathers” and as “holy fathers” strewn throughout our Confessions.
So if we hold to a quia subscription, we cannot pit an interpretation of the Bible against the Book of Concord. It is our confession that they are in complete harmony, that is, concordia.
Therefore, this resolution is also null and void on its face.
Biblical and Confessional Ignorance
These resolutions bring up a bigger issue than the parliamentary one, and even a bigger issue of poor stewardship of time and resources. For what we are seeing is an ignorance of the Bible and the Confessions on the part of delegates and floor committees. It is especially shameful for pastoral delegates to not know the Bible and the Confessions. To them to whom much is given… But since roughly half of our delegates - who have a huge impact on decisions made by our church - are laity, do we have any assurance that our lay delegates have even ever read the Bible and the Book of Concord cover to cover, let alone know them intimately enough to be in a position of spiritual leadership? Obviously, there are such laymen, and I know many of them. But how are we vetting our delegates to District and Synod conventions? And while pastors - at least theoretically - have read the entire Book of Concord, how many of them have actually read the whole of the Bible? And how much “fluency” have they retained in both Scriptures and Symbols?
From what I see as resolutions being put forth, I’m not all that confident.
Every resolution should be vigorously vetted for conformity to our confessional standard. Those that do not pass muster need to be removed. Those who propose such things need to feel ashamed of themselves and get back to the sources. Too much time is spent on wild-eyed assertions made by sects and cults on the innerwebs, and not enough time is spent joyously poring over the Bible and the Book of Concord.