Put Not Your Trust in Princes... or Princesses
Many years ago, I heard an older LCMS pastor (who was a feminist) remark about how an ELCA lady “pastor” was “more orthodox” and a “better preacher” than most LCMS pastors. This is exactly the kind of misplaced trust that Psalm 146:3-4 is all about. Instead of putting our faith, hope, and trust in the Word of God, we (post?) moderns tend to trust human institutions, education, skill, and perceived ability over and against trusting what Scripture objectively says makes for a good pastor and preacher.
For reason (and the progressive spirit of this age) tell us that being a pastor, preaching the Word, teaching the faith, catechizing the young, visiting the sick, administering the Sacraments, exegeting a text, and leading the church have nothing to do with plumbing and sex organs, but are rather measurable and quantifiable qualifications that have nothing to do with bodily incarnation or the created order.
This is part of the problem with the church growth industry. Instead of putting faith in simply and obediently preaching the Word and faithfully administering the Sacraments, they turn to surveys, opinions, econometrics, SMART goals, seminars, “best practices,” looking at church attendance as if designing a better mousetrap or increasing widget-producing efficiency through organizational and industrial management techniques - and everything else other than trusting the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures to be written, and who calls men to proclaim them.
This misguided trust - especially in matters of sex and reason - is built upon the foundation of our progressive culture. A lot of people are confused when I use the word “progressive,” thinking that this means politically left-wing, that is, what often (and often erroneously) is described as “liberal.” Progressivism is a deviation from conservatism, but there are both left- and right-wing progressives.
Progressivism is a worldview, not a political party. Historically, progressivism appeared in the late 19th century, as the major political parties - the left-wing Republican Party and the right-wing Democrat Party - both adopted the progressive mindset. Both the Republican Theodore Roosevelt and the Democrat Woodrow Wilson were champions of progressivism . Roosevelt even went on to become the first nominee of the new, shortly-lived third party called the Progressive Party (popularly called the Bull Moose Party).
Progressivism is essentially a Darwinistic repudiation of original sin. It is the belief that things pertaining to mankind are getting better over time, evolving in a salutary direction, because humanity itself is collectively getting better and better. This leads to a sense of presentism, and a bias against the past - as well as a constant desire for change (for change always makes things better to the progressive, as mutation is the fuel that drives evolution). And this is the dominant worldview in our secular culture, and in our church.
“This is not your grandfather’s church,” said a former synod president. That’s because we’re better, we’re smarter, and we are more in line with the teachings of Jesus than the bad old past generations. We are progressing, and each generation is better than the last. It is a kind of anthropological optimism that is based on Darwinian evolution applied collectively to mankind, mentally and spiritually. And it is so pervasive, that right-wing progressives don’t know that they are progressive. I remember president Jerry “Not Your Grandfather’s Church” Kieschnick being bewildered that people didn’t consider him to be conservative. After all, he was against abortion, believed in a six-day creation, was clean-shaven with polished shoes, and though I’m speculating here, probably belonged to the GOP.
It’s no surprise that progressivism was the dominant American worldview after the US became more imperial and hegemonic in world affairs after the 1898 Spanish-American War. Americans have an optimistic, innovative, can-do culture that knows no borders and no limitations - especially not staying in the lane of the old-world traditions. We are a pragmatic people, and we do measure success by numbers. This, combined with our egalitarianism, has led to the idea of being open to “ordained” women. And even if we don’t go quite that far - at least not yet - we see female “empowerment” and “leadership” as the ideal. And if we can foresee a growth in numbers as a result, clearly the Holy Spirit is behind it. For it’s not about the one God whom we worship, but rather about the numbers of people being “worshipped” on any given Sunday.
“Only slightly more than 10% of LCMS congregations worship more than 200 people.””
The dominant progressive worldview has come across interestingly in two recent videos by ordained LCMS professors that popped up in my feed: the Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann (on headcovering) speaking on his own YouTube channel, and the Rev. Dr. Douglas Krengel interviewed by Unite Leadership Collective. Both of them demonstrate a popular form of progressivism that specifically targets and mocks the culture of the 1950s, particularly personified by the TV show “Leave It To Beaver.” Both left and right progressives look at this world of intact families, affording a home on one income, a wife and mother not forced - financially or socially - to work outside the home (and racking up student loans, and then having to pay other people to watch her own children while she “makes a living”) - and progressives from both the left and the right scoff about how much culturally better things are now.
Yes, indeed, we are so much better now that we have “progressed” and been “enlightened” in matters of sex and family life. We now have homosexual “marriage,” abortion on demand (though not in all states, thanks to the repeal of the “progressive” Roe v. Wade), wokeism, a country and households mired in debt, depression, anxiety, and broken families. We have a higher divorce rate and more children than ever growing up not knowing who their fathers are - a situation rapidly approaching mathematical “normalcy.” We now have children being sexually mutilated - which is celebrated as “progress” by the left, while same-sex couples “adopting” babies is lauded even by some in the mainstream right. But at least little Jenny can now grow up, join the U.S. Marines, and fly combat missions while her “wife” stays at home and oversees their son’s transition. Hooray! Thank God the oppressive, patriarchal Fifties are over, and that fewer families are like those monstrous Cleavers from “Leave It To Beaver.”
Yes, we have come a long way, baby!
As the Rev. Dr. Douglas Krengel put it:
Uh motherhood at “Leave It To Beaver” back then. How many US senators were women at the time in the 50s? Now today, tremendous number of ladies who are our senators who are our congresswomen. That's fantastic. That's great. But uh we who have early childhood centers. I'm talking about the largest Christian churches, people around the Bible that have early childhood centers are the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Now, what's something that's in common with those three church bodies? They only have male clergy. So, the pastors, and I'm not saying we should do something different. I'm just saying we need to learn how to speak modern mom.
And as the Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann put it:
In the 1950s, 1940s in this country, there were clear things about what women should do and what men should do. And there was a sort of a idea of the “Leave It To Beaver” ideal. A woman staying at home and taking care of the family, dad going off to work, coming home, getting met with his wife in her dress, and everything's just perfect. And there are people who think that that's God's will. No. God's will is a man and woman living in the order of creation. Can it be manifest in that culture? It can. But are there aspects of that culture that maybe get it wrong? Probably. The idea of the chauvinism, the idea of a woman not being able to do certain things because of her sex, that's problematic kind of on the face of it. Now, there are certain things that a woman shouldn't do. Don't get me wrong here. But this gets into the kind of exactly what are those things? That's where we need to be clear.
What are the odds that these guys aren’t reading and reiterating the same books, drinking from the same progressive fountain?
Among our most “conservative” families in the LCMS, how many would be comfortable with their daughters marrying young and mothering large families vs. getting a doctorate and having a lucrative career, even at the cost of grandchildren who will never be born?
The narrative that the world of the 1950s was horrible and backward, until the truly Greatest Generation came along (who, made TV color, replaced martinis with LSD, got Bob Dylan to go electric, and started wearing paisley and tie-die). They are still floating around out there - even among the right-wingers. The Fifties were, of course, sexist and bad. June Cleaver was oppressed (until the Sixties came along and she burned her bra and her church headcovering, got divorced, smoked weed, and came out of the closet). And now her daughter is amputating her breasts and growing a beard. Progress.
I grew up with lots of TV. I watched the old Fifties black and white reruns, and I remember our first color TV. And with the advent of the Seventies came all the sitcoms that we all loved: “All In the Family”, “Sanford and Son”, “MASH”, “Mary Tyler Moore”, “Three’s Company”, “Maude“, “Good Times”, etc. Everybody watched these shows from across the cultural and political spectrum. We also got to hear sex talk and profanity, and got to see adultery and homosexual characters, abortion praised, Christianity mocked, traditional American values skewered - all with the ubiquitous laugh track in the background goading us all along. These programs were just that: programs. They programmed us away from the more innocent (and apparently horrible) Fifties, with awful and stifling, bourgeois representations of American life, like “Leave It To Beaver”, “Father Knows Best”, “The Andy Griffith Show”, and the many westerns that my grandparents watched. We did not realize that our culture was being subverted (and perverted) by progressivism and anti-Christianism. This was the age when veterans were spat upon, police were called “pigs,” and our St. Louis seminary was inviting Black Panthers to drop f-bombs to the applause of our future Seminexers and founding father-mothers of the ELCA.
Yes, whether they are left- or right-wing, progressives all champion the Sixties as a triumph over the Bad Old Ancien Régime of the Fifties - of which “Leave It To Beaver” was chief.
Part of the visceral revulsion we see among progressives toward young people - toward traditional women in particular - going off the progressive reservation, is the scary notion that we are “turning back the clock,” and that we might see a future America more like the 1950s than the Me Generation, weaned on the rebellious youth culture, are comfortable with.
I can’t help but remember a quip by the daughter of an old friend of ours from a Trad-Cath homeschool family from some twenty years ago. She was about twelve at the time, and both very bright and very pious. Some older lady asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. She said, “Have babies and raise horses.” The lady prompted, “Don’t you want to be a doctor or a lawyer?” Our friend’s daughter replied, “No, that’s what you want me to be.”
The assumption in our progressive-dominated America - which is the ruling mindset of both major parties - is that it is a blessing that women are in the workforce. But seldom does anyone connect the dots with how doubling the labor supply inevitably lowers wages and the standard of living, thus forcing even many women who would rather not work, to do so out of financial necessity. By contrast, Ward and June Cleaver were able to buy their own home on only Ward’s income. There was no need for an expensive daycare center in every neighborhood. Young people today cheer female “empowerment,” but at the same time lament that they can’t afford a home or a decent standard of living. Western countries also elected female politicians to run their countries, (“hooray”) followed by political decisions that one would expect: the opening of borders based on feminine compassion instead of the more masculine mindset of protecting the nation from hostiles - ultimately making their countries less safe for women. Progress.
A few years ago, I read an article how the ostensibly Lutheran Church of Sweden was having trouble finding men willing to go to seminary, as serving as pastors has become overwhelmingly seen as “women’s work.” They wanted women clergy, but they didn’t want to simultaneously chase off all the men. Well, that’s what they’ve got now. Progress.
Is it a blessing to have women in leadership in society and in the church? I don’t think Isaiah 3 ever pops up in our lectionary, nor did Veggie Tales ever seem to have a show on it. I never saw a felt-board presentation on it in Sunday School. God says some shocking things in His Word (at least to modern sensibilities), and I’m sure our progressives will have a ready-made excuse for why that is culturally bound, and how we know so much better than God, the Prophets, and the Bible today. Progress.
Whatever you do, don’t read Isaiah 3 - especially steer clear of verse 12. It was probably mistranslated by men who only want to oppress women by clinging to power anyway - kind of like “Leave It To Beaver.”