More Reasons to be Hopeful
As a kind of postscript to my earlier piece about my reasons for being hopeful about our confessional Lutheran future, I have a few more thoughts.
In spite of the ongoing chaos (liturgical and otherwise) in our culture, church, and church body, there are a lot of positives - especially on the horizon. A lot of the monkeyshines of the past are diminishing among younger generations of Christians - including among us confessional Lutherans - who are once again taking the faith seriously. These things change slowly, and we do have to be patient, but we have reason to be encouraged.
Several trends are conspiring toward this salutary generational shift. In no particular order…
First is lowering the age of first communion and catechesis.
Waiting until young people are two or three years from being old enough to drive to begin teaching them to memorize the catechism and prepare them to receive the Sacrament of the Altar for the first time was a well-intentioned error. Pedagogically, it makes no sense. And since we confess that the Holy Sacrament actually strengthens our faith, if we want to fortify our young people and keep them in the faith, it follows that we should give them the very prescription that our Lord Himself has given to the church. As Luther says in our confessions, “a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd” (SA 3:12:2). This is about the age that children were communed during the time of the Reformation.
As Ken Ham pointed out in his book Already Gone, the American custom of waiting too long to seriously teach young children (beyond superficial bible stories and moralizing) has resulted in a mass exodus from the Christian faith by the time the children are of middle school age, being bombarded by the competing catechesis from the world years before receiving serious catechesis from the church. Parents think their children who leave the faith do so when confronted with the nuttiness of the university. In reality, their departure happens long before then. We Lutherans have the perfect antidote in our tradition of catechesis and in our confession that the Holy Sacrament is supernatural, and that it is truly medication for the soul to counter sin, death, and the devil, to strengthen our faith by means of the Lord’s Real Presence. Denying our young people this blessing until the age of 13 or 14 may have been fine in a time of cultural Christianity being the norm, but we really need our children to grow up into the faith earlier these days.
I teach the young pre-communing children in my congregation every Sunday - both the Bible and the Small Catechism. They love it. They know that I am taking them seriously, and that they are learning something important. The previous paradigm of 8th grade first communion resulted (more often than I would like to admit in my congregation) in communing teenagers exactly once (because they “graduate” and never come to church again, and their unfaithful parents taught them that football and dance class were more important anyway). If we want our children to know the Bible and the Catechism, and grow up to be faithful men and women, teaching their own children - then we need to catch them earlier, and we need to commune them earlier. This is no longer seen as radical.
Second, our people are taking the Book of Concord far more seriously today than in times past.
The Reader’s Edition (the McCain Edition) has encouraged Lutheran laity to read and study our confessions - and I believe we are seeing the benefit of families understanding our faith much better, that our confession is distinct, that it matters whether we worship in a confessional Lutheran setting or get “Jesus time” at the local non-denominational megachurch that replaces sacraments with emotion. The old smart-alec pastor who boasted that he used his Book of Concord as a door stop and doesn’t even own an alb is now becoming a dinosaur to be gaped at behind glass with a two word description in Latin and an artist’s rendering of what such a creature must have looked like.
Third, the resurgence of classical education is bearing fruit.
A quarter century after the founding of the Consortium of Classical Lutheran Education, we are seeing young people - who have been raised literate in Latin, apt at reading and reasoning and writing, musically trained, and gifted in teaching - now themselves transmitting our faith in its authenticity and joyful fullness to younger generations in the Lutheran school classroom and in the homeschool. Again, this counteracts the Lutheran Lite approach of years past in which the goal seemed to be to have the full secular public school experience, only with a weekly (and often weakly-done) chapel service (often not even led by a pastor) and maybe a plain cross and a so-called Christian flag displayed in the classroom. Children can tell if something is important or not. We are increasingly sending them the message that the faith is more important than being secularly socialized or turning sports into something more important than the Sunday Divine Service.
Fourth, younger generations are much more serious about getting married and having families.
There is a pushback against the world’s dominant paradigm of making “education” (so-called) a priority, against female careerism that delays - or even prevents - young women from becoming mothers, against pushing all young men into university (where they will rack up debt and possibly not find work as a result) instead of trades, in which young men can support a traditional family. Young men and young women are getting married younger, and beginning their families earlier. They see big families as a blessing. And faithful younger grandparents in our midst are opting to stay involved in their families’ lives instead of checking out, “spending the kids’ inheritance,” and living the secular lifestyle of geriatric hedonism. There is a newfound awakening regarding seeing children (and grandchildren) as an eternal blessing rather than an economic curse.
Fifth, contemporary Lutherans - especially the young (both young parents and young children) are embracing the liturgy.
They yearn for transcendence, and the reality of the Real Presence means that our worship should be serious and dignified rather than goofy. They desire actual worship of God instead of worship of numbers, programs, psychological manipulation, entertainment, and comedic spectacles.
We are seeing a salutary generational shift among both pastors and the laity. Full eucharistic vestments and participation in the traditional rubrics for the celebrant are now common. Even just a couple decades ago, a pastor wearing a chasuble, chanting, genuflecting - or even simply advocating for closed communion and having the Holy Supper every Sunday - would get pushback. It is still the case in some places, but far less common today. None of these things are seen as radical anymore. Even advocates of “contemporary worship” admit that the younger people are drawn to, and returning to, the traditional liturgical services and toward traditional countercultural expressions of piety. We should welcome this, and be encouraged by it.
The ability to work remotely has led some younger generation Lutherans to move to where the confessional, liturgical churches are, rather than adopt the old paradigm of moving first (following the money), and only later “figuring out where we’ll go to church.” In other words, the faith and authentic worship are prioritized instead of being reduced to a kind-of Sunday hobby or habit that must play second fiddle to money, job, and career.
We are seeing more churches implementing an acolyte corps, which has not only the effect of recruiting young men into possible future service as pastors, but also teaching our boys that they have a role in the church. Serving in the liturgy is a manly vocation. A youth-led acolyte corps becomes a structure within the church for young men to develop leadership skills, to learn from the older boys and to mentor the younger boys, to take responsibility and ownership of their role in church and society. And it teaches them that liturgical vestments are an expression of masculinity, as is assisting with the proclamation of the Word of God and with the Holy Eucharist in the Divine Service. Being an acolyte is not “just lighting candles.” It is a holy, liturgical service, a vocation that is based in antiquity and practiced in the sacred space within the chancel, a kind-of modern equivalent to the service of the Levites.
It is simply a fact that Christian families led by fathers display far more generational faithfulness than families in which the fathers do whatever deadbeat, shirking fathers do on Sunday morning - whether just being lazy and sleeping in, watching TV, playing children’s games, or doing yardwork - while his wife is expected to shoulder his responsibility of being the family priest and head of the household. It is incredible that they do not feel shame about this. In order to have men remain in the faith, we need our boys to grow up into, and then abide in the faith. An acolyte corps provides an alternative to the unisex raising of youth that teaches boys that there is nothing they can do that is particular to them, that church is really an effeminate affair, and is really the realm of women and girls, especially if they observe that grown up men are free to do more fun things instead. Young men who serve as acolytes - even if they don’t grow up to become pastors - will learn the value of the sacrificial service of male laymen in the church, and why their work and leadership are valued and needed in Christendom and in the world. This is most certainly countercultural.
Here is an earlier article that our own Fr. Petersen wrote regarding the acolyte corps. It is worth a read. Another related rebellion against the lukewarm Lutheranism Lite of the past is also being done at Redeemer in Fort Wayne in their implementation of men’s and women’s groups. We all know that the gender-bending egalitarianism of the secular world and mainstream church bodies is a failure, and leads to apostasy. And in the LCMS, we can’t seem to avoid putting our toe in the water. Like tumbling dominoes, we have seen the celebration of the distinctiveness of the sexes in every institution fall away, one by one, in both society and in the church. Men’s and women’s groups in the parish can restore that sense of balance within God’s created order to that which has been corrupted and confused by the malignant Enemy. For he has sewn weeds among the wheat.
I believe we are in the early stages of a seismic demographic and generational shift in the church in rebellion against the rebellion. I believe there will be an initial numerical and economic falling off the cliff in the interim. We are being pruned and disciplined. The unproductive branches will be cut off. It will be like a cancer patient suffering the effects of chemotherapy. This short-term phase will be hard and painful. We will lose congregations. Some in our midst will panic. Some will surrender. But we are encouraged by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to abide, to remain faithful and endure until the end, and be saved. Time is ultimately on our side, as is the Holy Spirit. I think the coming dry spell will be quickly followed by a youthful and hopeful resurgence and renaissance, not only in numbers, but also (and more importantly) in doctrine and practice.