Why Are We Divided?
A common theme in the LCMS podcaster world is “We are divided.” There is wailing and gnashing of teeth about it, and calls for the division to end. “Now is not the time to be divided,” they say. And I agree with that! But how do they propose to heal the rift? “You Gottesdienst guys, you liturgical types, you have to suck it up and just accept whatever we’re doing. You do your liturgy thing with hymns, we’ll do non-liturgical worship with pop songs, and we’ll pretend like it’s all the same, brother!”
That’s why they want “conversation.” They have no intention of restoring the liturgy. They have every intention of wearing us down and making us accept their rejection of the liturgy. They have no intention of making their services look like Article 24, they have every intention of convincing us that Article 24 doesn’t matter. That’s what they mean by “conversation” and “unity.”
So they complain about our division, but where did the division come from? Maybe we need to take a stroll down memory lane.
After The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) came out in 1941, we had very nearly 100% of our congregations using it. And I only say nearly 100% because I’m sure even then there were outliers. That said, I don’t actually know of any specific exceptions. In 1941, no LCMS church had yet abolished altar, font, and pulpit and replaced it with a stage and a bandstand. None of our congregations featured pastors strolling around in street clothes and greeting the congregation with “Good morning, church!” or taking a cleaver to the liturgy.
And yet, even with the unity of a common ordo and a common corpus of hymnody - there was great diversity. For it is true that for the true unity of the church there doesn’t have to be lockstep conformity in practice.
For example, one congregation may have met in a simple sanctuary, led by a pastor clad in cassock and surplice, using humble vessels for Holy Communion, with minimal use of ceremony, perhaps even speaking the service. They may not have had an organ, but may have used a piano. Maybe they didn’t even have a piano. They could have sung the service a cappella, or maybe someone played an acoustic guitar to lead the singing. The most accessible and modern hymns in the hymnal may have been used. No elevating. No genuflecting. No processions. Just a simple, “low church” liturgical service.
At the same time, a congregation across town may have had a large, elaborate gothic structure that called to mind the churches of Europe, with a magnificently crafted chalice, celebrating High Mass with celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, with lots of ceremony - with even the readings being chanted. In addition to a pipe organ, they may have had orchestral instrumentation. The Common Service may have been sung as it appeared musically in the hymnal, or perhaps a Gregorian setting was used - while retaining the common ordo. They may have had a choir, and were able to sing the most challenging of hymns in the hymnal. And the celebrant may have made full use of ceremonies: elevation, genuflection, bells, incense, processions. An elaborate “high church” liturgical service.
Both services shared a common order of service (ordo) and a common hymnody - a common language from a common Bible translation and a common Catechism and a common hymnal. The preaching in both of these churches may have varied based on the gifts of the preacher, but they would have been very similar. And both would have practiced closed communion.
And this unity was a great boon. People could cross over and know exactly where they were in the service. They could participate fully with each other even with a large degree of diversity of practice. Why? Because there was a unified ordo and repertoire of hymns. Most churches were somewhere in the middle, as the bell curve always seems to get its way.
This unity persisted for decades.
The youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Roman Catholic reforms of Vatican II led to the beginnings of the end of this unity. The LCMS Commission on Worship began to experiment with the Worship Supplement, then working to “update” the language and change the services (even the wording of the Lord’s Prayer - which, Deo gratias, didn’t take). The end result was Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW), and then Lutheran Worship (LW) in the 1980s. The common service was “modernized,” and a new service - with two different settings - was added. Some churches stuck with TLH, others went to LW, a few clung to LBW - and the churches’ use of services were fractured across the board.
Another trend was the “folk services” - such as the wretched Chicago Folk Service - which at least retained a liturgical order, even with the musical slop. Then we began to see deviations even from that. In the 1980s and 1990s, churches ditched the liturgy entirely, aping the worship practices of church bodies that don’t confess the real presence, in some cases, looking fully non-denominational.
Fast forward to today, where we have non-liturgical churches everywhere, and even megachurches that have a stage and a band instead of church furnishings, with screens instead of hymnals, with non-Lutheran music, and an orderless ordo. They don’t wear vestments. They do immersion baptisms (and even re-baptisms) in inflatable kiddie pools. They do “Holy Communion” using fake props on fake sets - sometimes with at-best questionable consecrations of the elements - and try to convince people that the Lord is truly present amid all the fakery. And they put their services online for all to see. And I don’t know any of these churches that practice closed communion - thus introducing yet more disunity in spite of the synod’s consensus that we not practice open communion in our congregations. They don’t care. They just do whatever they want. But we’re the divisive ones.
People are scandalized by this. Lay people are heartbroken. They want to go to a faithful LCMS church, but sometimes all that is anywhere near them are churches like these that have left the unity of our ordo and hymns. Some people drive an hour - or even more - passing by multiple LCMS churches just to find a service that is liturgical, where the pastor is dignified in his preaching.
Pastors, ready to receive refugees from non-denominational churches, get asked why they see online LCMS churches worshiping the same way as the churches they are leaving - and they start looking elsewhere. I’ve had people ask about coming to the LCMS, and I have no congregations that I can send them to.
Thanks a lot, “brothers.”
This broken unity creates division when districts try to have worship services at conventions and conferences. Having the local clergy participate in ordinations and installations can be difficult because of the lack of unity. I once met a young man who was visiting CTSFW as he was considering attending seminary and going into the ministry. He had never before ever even seen a liturgical service. It is like trying to keep a society intact when there is no common language.
But we are the ones who are accused of being divisive.
Their advice? Suck it up, buttercup. Just don’t be scandalized.
At this point in time, those who have jettisoned the liturgy are not in power in our synod. But they do have enough power to avoid any kind of oversight or discipline. At best, their district presidents will privately wag a finger at them, while their unity-destroying practices simply continue. Conventions can pass resolutions calling for closed communion until our Lord comes back, but it will make no difference at all. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes. But it’s not a lack of unity when they do it. Remember, we are the divisive ones. But they do want to take control of the synod. They admit it. They want to change the structure of our polity. They want to apportion votes not in a way that every congregation is equal (as is the case now, and has been since the beginning of synod). Rather, they want to change our polity so that the bigger, richer, and more likely to be non-liturgical churches and pastors get a proportionally larger vote. They also want to create alternative routes to the ministry that bypass our rigorous (and liturgy-centric) residential seminary training.
And let’s say that one of our non-liturgical podcaster-elites, or their allies, takes the presidency. And lets say that some of their compatriots and fellow travelers become district presidents. What then? I would expect a crackdown on being “divisive” - not them, mind you, not the ones who created and continue to foster division, but rather us. I can see them using heavy-handed techniques to shut down dissent, to compel the scandalized to shut up, toe the line, and march to their cadence - or else.
If we let that happen, we deserve the consequences that we will get. We’ll get “brotherly unity,” and we’ll get it good and hard. Mark my words.
Where we go from now is anyone’s guess. But younger lay people and pastors are more liturgical and traditional. Even the guys who blame us as the divisive ones admit it. So that’s a good thing. And with all of its issues, LSB was an improvement over multiple hymnals of the past. Five settings of the ordo is not a good thing, but it was simply the cost of getting us moved to a common hymnal. Both of our seminaries are under confessional leadership and practice a unified liturgical authenticity. Ongoing international contacts reveal a worldwide unity of liturgical worship, and expose entertainment worship to be a provincially first-world North American aberration. There has been a renaissance of interest in translating more of our heritage hymns into English for use in our churches.
So I think we’re moving in the right direction. In that sense, we are becoming more unified. And that unity need not be lockstep conformity in practice, in level of ceremony, in the specific hymns that a congregation favors. We will continue to have diversity within the ordo. We’ll find unity with the congregations and pastors, our brothers, that truly want unity. We’re not going to be gaslighted by the champions of disunity, and scolded for being divisive by the ones who chose to be divisive. We’re not going to shut up about it either.
I’m all for conversations - but not with those who are causing disunity and who are gaslighting the silent majority of us who actually do want to walk together in unity. Let those who want to walk their own way, go walk their own way. Delta’s ready when you are. But for those of us who want true unity, let’s be unified, in the words of the hymn: “with hearts and hands and voices,” and in the words of our confessions: “in doctrine and in ceremonies.”