Editor’s Note: The conclusion of this article will be published in a second post on or about September 18, 2020.

Critical Theory—in particular, Critical Race Theory—has recently captured the Church’s attention, and in some corners of the Lord’s vineyard it seems, more significantly, Her imagination.  (For those unfamiliar with Critical Theory, this article will serve as a necessarily incomplete introduction.)  Springing from the same philosophers and theorists (Foucault, Derrida, etc.) who brought us postmodernism, Critical Theory seems to be suddenly taking the whole Western world by storm.

This is an illusion.  Though all but Liberal Arts majors would likely be unfamiliar with the Frankfurt School or even the phrase “Critical Theory,” everyone who has received an undergraduate education in the last thirty years has been familiarized with (and in many cases, indoctrinated into) its basic terminology and the categories of meaning by which it makes sense of the world.  For instance, for every one of my acquaintance at my own undergraduate alma mater of Penn State, the obligatory “professional writing” requirement for non-English majors was used by the professors as an opportunity to force-feed undergraduates Critical Theory.  As an example, a business writing class for music majors taught participants to write personal reflections on books like Stone Butch Blues, a lesbian coming of age story, instead of memos, letters to parents, and departmental requisitions.  Even if you think the exposure salutary, it demonstrates the tactics of Critical Theory, which, as its exponents readily affirm, “contains an activist dimension. It tries to not only understand our social situation but to change it, setting out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies but to transform it for the better.”[1]

Solid introductions to Critical Theory by both its proponents and opponents are now widely available, and I encourage the reader to consult at least one of each to familiarize themselves with its outlines; otherwise, as commentator Phil Blair demonstrated in his response to a recent Christianity Today article, we may find ourselves employing it unbeknownst to ourselves.

Heresy

Though articles abound that are critical of Critical Theory (hereafter referred to as CT) from a Christian perspective, as mine is, I hope to explore the topic from an at least slightly different perspective; I propose that while CT may properly diagnose some elements of our cultural ills, it necessarily misaddresses these maladies because it is in fact a secularized Christian heresy.

The Critic Is Often Right About What Is Wrong, But He Is Nearly Always Wrong About What Would Be Right.

I want to start by acknowledging what CT—and progressive ideologies more generally—often get right.  One of the functions of the people in a society that are typically deemed “liberal,” “left,” or “progressive” is to point out injustices when they accumulate.  Any meritocracy (where achievement or talent is rewarded with social and/or economic upward mobility) periodically and predictably accumulates inequity and unfairness at its margins.  At a biological level, talent and giftedness are inborn traits that often run in families.  Sociologically, families pass on habits and knowledge that maximize (or minimize) inherent capacities for greater achievement and reward.  The greatest patrimony that a family passes on in a meritocracy is not their wealth—though that certainly has undeniable advantages—but rather their knowledge and skills in accessing or leveraging the power structures of the meritocracy.

This does not mean that a meritocracy is inherently immoral. (What would we want, a system where lack of talent, industry, and skill is rewarded?) But it does mean that for all the good it may produce, it is a system that can put real people at a real disadvantage in accessing the social and economic rewards deemed legitimate by the value system at its foundation; it is a system that needs a watchdog that calls for course corrections when the process whereby “the rising tide that lifts all boats” creates eddies and riptides that prevent people from weighing anchor and setting sail.

In his book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt contends that in the same way all the complex flavors of the world’s cuisines are composed of the tongue’s four basic tasting capacities—sweet, sour, salty, and bitter—the great diversity of moralities to which people ascribe are woven from the five basic “cognitive modules” with which we define and evaluate morality and justice.  Defined in terms of their antipodes, these modules are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation.  Haidt names this Moral Foundations Theory.

One need not agree with Haidt’s thesis about the origins of these cognitive modules to see their utility as an interpretive grid.  In analyzing the political application of the theory, Haidt, who identifies himself as a liberal, discovered that those who measured as the most “liberal” registered highly in the care/harm and fairness/cheating categories but little to not at all in the other three.  Though caring and fairness were also the dominant categories for those who registered as the most “conservative,” people with these political leanings showed a near convergence with the other three concerns of loyalty, authority, and sanctity:

What this means is that if it seems that the proponents of Critical Theory are “tone deaf” to some of the moral concerns expressed by other, more “conservative” people, it is because they are.  For the “liberal” adherent of CT, the mere presence of inequity is all the proof needed that injustice is occurring.  Questions of whether people have demonstrated the social virtues of developing skills (that is, demonstrating loyalty to the system’s values) are largely not considered, or if they are, the need to do so is defined as part of the oppression inherent in “the system.”  Likewise, the need to “pay one’s dues,” which recognizes the system’s authority, is construed as more evidence of injustice rather than a period of necessary apprenticeship during which there is predicted inequity between those who have acquired the sought-after skills and resources and those currently acquiring them.  Finally, the need to exhibit sustained effort with or without immediate reward—the most sanctified value in a meritocracy—is despised most of all as the mechanism of systemic injustice because, although such effort generally yields overall improvement in the socio-economic position of a given class of people, there is no guarantee in any particular instance that the effort so exerted will result necessarily in equity.  The moral concerns of three of the five moral cognitive modules are not only temporarily bracketed to focus analysis on the issue of fairness, for the “liberal,” they quite literally do not register as things worthy of assessment and for the critical theorist, they are merely attempts to obfuscate the real issue, which is measurable equity.

Moreover, the proponent of Critical Theory does not need to provide measurable criteria whereby to evaluate the claims of their analysis.  The existence of the inequity natural to and predicted by a system that rewards merit is the prima facie evidence that revolution is needed.  Whether the proposed system could actually create the desired equity and whether that equity would be balanced with other moral concerns  (everyone living in social and/or economic squalor is, after all, a type of equality) need not be seriously contemplated, because the only value in view is equity, which is defined as fairness that provides the necessary care for everybody.

This is how these critics can be right about what is wrong (that is, in Critical Race Theory, the form of CT most affecting the life of the Church at present, racial inequities), but so wrong about what would put these wrongs right; their theories are not based upon a morality with a complex enough palate, capable of fine enough distinctions.

Eschatology and Anthropology

This is also in part why Critical Theory is a comprehensive worldview; in merely noting inequity, it believes that it has accounted for all the most significant moral variables—the only ones that count.  It must then flatten all human experience into the narrow interpretive grid it deems the only valid one.

Four Fundamental Questions

The late Ravi Zacharias helpfully delineated at least four fundamental questions of human life to which any worldview must propose an answer: human origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.  Because of the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial,” the issue of origins has dominated the intellectual landscape of the Western Church for the last 100 or so years.  First, it dominated the popular imagination as “yet another case” of backward religionists resisting reason’s inevitable march of progress in accord with the Enlightenment’s self-narration.  (Yes, this was first. Scopes deliberately implicated himself so that a trial would need to be held and Darrow deliberately had the trial played out by a sympathetic urbane media in the court of public opinion as part of his legal strategy.)  The attempts to condemn Intelligent Design as veiled religious dogma are the intellectual descendants of that controversy.  Secondly, it precipitated a growing crisis within the Church between Fundamentalists and Modernists, who believed a dating of the age of the earth to greater than 7,000 years was congruent with orthodox Biblical interpretation.  The inheritors of that dispute are the Young Earth versus Old Earth Creationist debates of today.[2] 

“Your theology can never be better than your anthropology,” was one of the favorite axioms my Prophets professor in seminary passed on to us from his mentor.  Of course, being self-consciously orthodox, I thought that axiom got it exactly backward; our theology—specifically our Christology and soteriology—necessarily defines our understanding of human nature, so our anthropology can never be better than our theology.

Unfortunately, the Western Church’s obsession with origins has led to a relative neglect of the way our understanding of who Jesus is and what salvation fully entails informs our understanding of what human beings are (our meaning), how we should live (our morality), and our purpose or telos (our destiny).  The preaching of Jesus predominantly as life coach, social activist, friend of sinners, prophetic preacher, social reformer or even atoning sacrifice for sinners, has led to the neglect of the consistent preaching of Jesus as the God-Man or Theanthropos, a new species in God’s economy of salvation.[3]  “God became man that man might become [like] God,” exulted Irenaeus of Lyons in his second century classic Against Heresies, going on to declare as the soteriological significance of that teaching that “the glory of God is a [hu]man fully alive.”

Great Tradition Christianity proclaims that the ultimate destiny of redeemed humanity is not merely to avoid hell (Jesus as the cosmic get-out-of-jail-free card) or to emulate Jesus as the finest example of a fully self-realized or perfectly moral human person, but rather to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).  Through our Sacramental union with Jesus, who was fully God and fully human, by faith in His promises, we are drawn into the perichoretic inner life of the Godhead, the most Holy Trinity.  As the Theanthropos, Jesus is the “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), not the only-born to be admired and worshipped, but whose life remains fundamentally distant from our own.

This teaching about the implications of salvation through Christ for our destiny as human beings thoroughly conditions and shapes all other elements of our theology.  In other words, remembering the fullness of our destiny as human beings in Christ has far more impact on our understanding of what is the meaning of human life and the morality by which it is to be lived than our understanding of our origins.

[1] Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. (New York: New York University Press, 2017), page 8.

[2] If you speak the first article of the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed without crossing your fingers, you are a creationist of one stripe or the other; it is important that non-fundamentalist Christians be absolutely clear on this point and think through the consequences of that position as distinct from a functional Deism.

[3] Justification by grace through faith—forensic justification—may indeed be the doctrine upon which the Church stands or falls as Martin Luther declared, but it was never meant to be preached denuded of the very Christology that makes it so powerful and poignant.

You might say we are beginning to witness the proverbial straw that is about to break the camel’s back.  The camel, in this case, is the Protestant ordained ministry.  (Including, of course, Lutheran pastors.)  The straw is the current pandemic, and all the ways it is contributing to the work-related stress of pastors in this already infamous year of our Lord, 2020.

And yet the “straw” metaphor doesn’t do Covid-19 justice.  This pandemic and its consequences would have been hard to even imagine just ten months ago.  Yet here we are.

 I retired from parish ministry less than two years ago.  Apparently just in time.  And while I am currently coaching numerous not-yet-retired Lutheran pastors, I have been personally insulated from the “new normal” full-time pastors are dealing with in this pandemic era.  So I was surprised to come across Pastor Thom Rainer’s latest article just posted on August 31^st.  The title alone gained my complete attention: “Six Reasons Your Pastor Is About to Quit”.

Who is Thom Rainer?  He is the former CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, and currently leads the coaching ministry Church Answers.  And while Thom is Southern Baptist background, I’m convinced his insights apply to mainline Protestant pastors in general—including Lutheran clergy.

 Early in his article Thom writes this: “The vast majority of pastors with whom our (coaching) team communicates are saying they are considering quitting their churches.  It’s a trend I have not seen in my lifetime.”  (Keep in mind Pastor Rainer has been in ministry for almost forty years.)  Here are the six reasons, as described by Thom Rainer, why many pastors are “about to quit.”

1. “Pastors are weary from the pandemic just like everyone else.”  No surprise here.
2. “Pastors are greatly discouraged about the fighting taking place among church members about the post-quarantine church.  Gather in person or wait?  Masks or no masks?  Social distancing or not?”  Rainer also mentions the added stress when these conflicts have been politicized.
3. “Pastors are discouraged about losing members and attendance.”  Pastors I have been coaching are, this summer, seeing in-person attendance that is only 30 to 50% of pre-Covid levels.  And Rainer adds this: “Pastors have already heard directly or indirectly from around one-fourth of the members that they do not plan to return at all.”
4. “Pastors don’t know if their churches will be able to financially support congregational ministries in the future.”  And while giving might be healthy up to this point there is apparently mounting anxiety about whether this will continue to be the case in 2021.
5. “Criticisms against pastors have increased significantly.”
6. “The workload for pastors has increased greatly. … They are trying to serve the congregation the way they have in the past, but now they have the added responsibilities that have come with the digital world.  And as expected, pastoral care needs among members have increased during the pandemic as well.”

This pandemic has, in my view, created something of a “perfect storm” when it comes to the matter of clergy supply.  Even pre-Covid we were seeing the reality of many more pastors retiring than new pastors being ordained.  Now that trend will undoubtedly be accelerating, due in part to many pastors retiring sooner rather than later.

 Lutheran CORE’s Congregations in Transition (CiT) ministry coaches are available to help confessing Lutheran congregations who are or soon will be dealing with a pastoral vacancy in these uncertain and unnerving times.  If you are a congregational lay leader at a church that already has—or soon will have—a vacancy, or you are a pastor who will be retiring in the next one to two years, we can help.  Our coaching assistance, while at a distance, is comprehensive, and is customized to address your congregation’s unique ministry challenges.  If you want to know more, contact me, Don Brandt, either by email (pastordonbrandt@gmail.com) or phone (503-559-2034).

 And for every lay person reading this, do what you can to thank and encourage your pastor!

Dr. Don Brandt

Director, Congregations in Transition

The pandemic is not only still with us, it is currently surging in areas of the country which, until recently, were not seriously impacted. And while churches in many states are just now resuming in-person, indoors worship, the future of our congregational ministries can still seem precarious and uncertain.

While we never want to minimize the importance of believers’ being able to experience Christian worship and fellowship in each other’s physical presence, we do need, now more than ever, to pay attention to the online presence of our ministries.

I recently came across an article by Chuck Lawless, from the Billy Graham School of World Missions, on the “Signs of a Bad Church Website.” This is a summary of his article in my own words.

1. The church does not even have a website!  This is just not an option anymore—especially with online ministries becoming essential due to the pandemic. Remember: This health crisis could last a while. Yet I am still finding LCMC and NALC churches which have no website!

2. The website is inadequate.  These are websites I bring up on my laptop and think, “Why did they even bother?” A totally inadequate and poorly designed website gives a poor initial impression to any potential visitor who is “checking you out” online.

3. Your website has no contact information.  It should include the pastor’s name, church email address, and phone number. 

4. The website has no information about your worship services.

5. The information on your website is not updated and even includes event dates that have already taken place! This is the most common issue I have found while checking on hundreds of Lutheran church websites. Lenten worship service information is not helpful when it is still on your site in July!

6. Spelling or grammatical errors are common. Find a volunteer who will proofread, beforehand, any information the pastor or administrator/secretary is about to post on your website.

7. No driving directions are provided.  Not everyone uses Google Maps. Brief, written directions to your location will be helpful.

8. No recorded or streamed sermons are available. As long as there is public anxiety about gathering indoors for worship, this is extremely important.

9. Childcare information is not provided. If you provide childcare during worship, mention that fact. Nesting stage, potential first-time visitors want to know.

10. A brief summary of your congregation’s core beliefs.  Be sure to avoid terms that might be meaningless or confusing to the unchurched. LCMC and NALC congregations have the option of using a summary of the core beliefs from their national church websites. But don’t hesitate to add your own, more personal “mission statement” as an introduction to any list of your national church’s core beliefs.

Lutheran CORE’s editor, Kim Smith, designed and maintains Lutheran CORE’s website. She can be reached at lcorewebmail@gmail.com.

About the author: Rev. Dr. Cathi Braasch STS serves as Chaplain to the LMVFM Board of Directors. She is a retired pastor in the NALC and LCMC. She lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  

“We never close.” These three words demonstrate how Lutheran Military Veterans and Families Ministries (LMVFM) fulfills its mission: In ‘normal’ times and times when pandemic illness, economic downturn, and social unrest increase Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) reactions in veterans, military contractors, and their families. These reactions range from heightened anxiety and severe depression to uncontrollable anger and even suicide.

“For LMVFM and the military community, the ongoing epidemic is military suicide brought on by untreated moral and spiritual injury, or PTS,” according to the Rev. Leslie Haines, executive director, and lead chaplain. For several years now, more than 20 US veterans have been committing suicide every day. It’s an epidemic in itself.

Founded in 2007, LMVFM works with individuals and congregations from coast to coast, border to border, by:

• Providing free Christ-centred clinical and pastoral counselling for veterans, military contractors, and their families, along with Bible studies and other small-group opportunities.
• Educating frontline providers with best practices for addressing military service-related PTS, through seminars for pastors, health and human services professionals, congregations, and family members.
• Deploying ‘Paws and Effects’ emotional therapy dogs to apply their unique, unconditional care in the counselling sessions as well as educational and outreach settings.

As Chaplain Haines explains, the need is great for older veterans as well as for younger ones who’ve been serving continually in the Middle East since 1991.

“The current pandemic has only made matters worse,” Haines notes. “Isolation, uncertainty and social upheaval only aggravate the severe depression, heightened anxiety, and uncontrolled anger that are symptoms of PTS. At LMVFM, we’ve seen a steady increase in clients for individual and family counselling since COVID-19 hit our nation.” 

   A few recent examples from the LMVFM mission files (names changed to protect confidentiality):

• James, a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, was doing well until a workplace incident nearly led him to suicide. Counselling is helping James recognize what triggers his PTS and control his responses.
• When COVID-19 precautions caused Veterans Administration facilities to lock down, Rob, a 92-year-old Korean veteran, wasn’t allowed to pick up his hearing aids. We reached out to an LMVFM supporter who serves as a nurse at that VA hospital, and much to the relief of the veteran (and his wife) he had his hearing aids two days later!
• Active duty families like Lieutenant Murphy, Celia and their two young sons, who are based away from an active military base, don’t have the supportive community and services that come with living on base. Murphy’s duty location is more than an hour and a half away from his home, and his duties have increased during the pandemic, leaving Celia and the boys to shelter, alone, too often. Couples’ counselling and support for the family has helped ease the strain and isolation.
• When the pandemic hit, Pete, a Viet Nam combat veteran, and his wife suddenly found themselves with 12 persons under their roof: Their adult children and spouses, and grandchildren including three infants under the age of three months, two of them with special needs. The home’s plumbing broke down, and repair bills went well beyond the household’s budget. With LMVFM’s assistance and our connections to other military support services, Pete’s plumbing issue was resolved, and the bill covered.
• “Meanwhile, we’ve had steady traffic of new and returning counselees – including a 20 percent increase in client caseload during April alone,” Haines recalls. “In addition, we did lots of well-being calls with current and prior counselees, offering support before pandemic-induced stress became too much to bear.”

LMVFM office volunteers, themselves vulnerable due to age and medical status, worked from home during the shutdown. Now that social distancing guidelines have eased, they’re happily back in the office every Tuesday.   

Chaplain Haines brings first-hand experience to her work with the military community. Haines, a Military Police Officer, retired with the rank of Major after serving 33 years in the US Army. Her deployment to a Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, followed a month later by a combat tour in Iraq, gave her first-hand experience of the spiritual and moral wounds of war. The physical injuries she sustained in Iraq, which required her to be medically evacuated, paled in comparison to the spiritual wounds she sustained.

“In the military, we leave no buddy behind,” Haines recalls. “I was that soldier, close to spiritual death. Had a Chaplain not been there and recognized my condition and worked with me, I wouldn’t be here today. Recognizing that only Christ could heal those bruises on my soul or my buddies’ souls led to the creation of LMVFM and our approach to treating PTS as a spiritual and moral injury rather than a mental health disorder.”

LMVFM is a 501(c)(3) faith-based not-for-profit organization.

“Christ’s Church has a mission to serve, with His love, those who have served us and are suffering for it,” Haines says. “As a matter of principle, LMVFM neither solicits nor accepts any form of government support,” Haines emphasized. “The Lord has continued to provide for LMVFM through the generosity of individual donors, congregations, and groups that love God, country, and veterans.”

                To donate or learn more about how you and your congregation can minister to veterans, military contractors and families, contact Chaplain Haines at 260-755-2239 or e-mail her at lmvfm.org@gmail.com. LMVFM is headquartered at 3480 Stellhorn Rd., Fort Wayne IN 46815.

The stuff of a thing must match its purpose. “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:11-12) If I set out to bake your child a birthday cake, I wouldn’t use beet mash and kippers. I’d use flour, water, sugar, eggs—the things that make for a blessed moment of contentment in a room full of reveling toddlers. Sweetness for sweet moments, or something like that. So also the Father, in seeking to make the world righteous, did not send us a sinner, but an innocent, to make us what we were not.

Would we expect the church to operate differently?

Fewer people speak of church unity these days (or so it seems to me), but the subject nearly dominated my time at seminary. During my first year at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, 1996-1997, the campus was roiled by the ELCA’s impending full communion agreement with Reformed churches, the “Formula of Agreement.” Professors lectured on it, and students chewed on it over lunch. In time, Bishop William Lazareth of the Metropolitan New York Synod came to debate the subject with the seminary’s president, Dr. David Tiede. Tiede stood for the agreement, and Lazareth against it.  

Each man seemed to take on the flesh of his argument. Tiede, arguing for the careful, academic formulas of a decades-long process, stood straighter and with a more polished, fresh-faced poise than the energetic, nobby-nosed Lazareth, the latter all in clerical black, his eyebrows as thick as his confessional objections. They started with the issues at hand (the Holy Supper, predestination, the lifting of confessional condemnations), but they soon hit on the question of the Church and its unity.

Like any good ecumenist, Tiede invoked the words of Jesus in John 17:21: our Lord Himself prayed for his disciples “that they may all be one.” Why would we not be open to the fulfillment of that prayer among us?  Those words animated Lazareth like no other point in the debate, leading to what would become its most memorable moment for me. Leaping to his feet, his eyebrows arching sharply, Lazareth stuck both of his meaty index fingers in the air and declared, “That they may all be one—that the world may believe!”

Purpose

Belief in the truth of Jesus: here is the purpose of the Church’s unity. Therefore, the stuff of that unity must match its purpose. It must be a unity in and of the truth, even if it means ending fellowship with falsehood.  So Lazareth argued, convincingly for me. Lutherans could not and should not overlook their serious objections to the Reformed teaching of Communion and predestination, thinking that the mere form of unity (the human will to be one, with all of its social achievements) was itself instrumental to the faith God creates. Only the unity comprised of truth could lead others to truth. Only sweetness leads to sweetness; only the Son’s innocence makes us innocent; only a unity conceived by the truth can beget faith in the truth.

This view, formed so clearly by Articles VII and VIII of the Augsburg Confession, continues to have implications not only for those remaining in the ELCA but also for those who have left it. By rooting the unity of the Church in the truth of the Word, it locates the possibility and assurance of unity, not in constitutional arrangement, but in the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. As the Church speaks its proper message and sets forth the Lord’s true Supper and Baptism, it is revealed to be the una sancta, the one, holy catholic and apostolic gathering of believers that midwifes new believers into the world.

And if the unity of the Church resides in its preaching and ministering, then so do its limits. Votes and constitutions have their place, as signposts and jingle bells for keeping every cow in its field. But they provide no lasting or certain refuge, nor do they fulfill the call of Jeremiah: “Go out from the midst of her, my people!” (51:45) In as much as the Church experiences its unity in the doing of the ministry, it is there, too, that it must experience its division from the world and from heresy.

As Lazareth saw in regards to the Formula of Agreement, closed pulpits and closed altars are part of church renewal. The degree to which “closed is closed,” I will not pose in this article. But suffice it to say, renewal seeks faith in the truth. Publicizing false confession in the pulpit or at the altar will not result in that faith, and thus, it will not result in that renewal. I understand that I may stand in the minority on this issue among my own ilk. But I also understand that the mere will to be one (or better, the mere will to be distinct), with all its social achievements will not herald the renewal of the Church.

That renewal takes place in local ministry. Denominational constitutions are the highways that plow across states and regions to move people along in mad efficiency. We need them, but they flatten the landscape in brute fashion. Local ministry is the footpath worn in response to the particular contours of a place, with care for the critters found in every burrow and den. It is there, as the congregation of believers both looses and binds, both admits and restrains, that the Church rises up from the ashes, its wings on fire—yes, it is there that faith is born.

Gateway

Those confessors remaining in the ELCA may therefore wish to pause and question to what extent their denomination’s manifold constitutions remain the gateway to their pulpit and altar—they may wish to review how open is open, and how closed is closed, in their local ministry. To start there, rather than in the baseline acceptance of a brokered political settlement, may prove illuminating and even reforming, if also excruciating. Similar illumination and crosses may await those who have left the ELCA, as they ponder the spiritual demand that faces them daily in Jeremiah’s call, quoted above.  

The Church is a creature of the Spirit of truth. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13) He knows how sweetness leads to sweetness, and innocence to innocence, and truth to truth. With this Father, if you ask for an egg, you get an egg. As we ask for the Church’s renewal, we ask also for its unity, and to that end, we pray fervently for truth.

Editor’s Note: Jacob Moorman is 22 years old and hails from Mt. Airy, MD. Jacob is finishing a business management degree and plans to attend seminary. He is a member of the NALC’s River’s Edge Ministries pastored by K. Craig Moorman. We are delighted that one of our future seminarians is thinking and writing so passionately. We are honored to publish his reflections, and look forward to his faithful leadership in the Church for many years to come.

Just after the protesting and rioting began after the death of George Floyd, my father asked me, “Jacob, if you were to preach tomorrow, what would you say?” This is how I answered:

I would preach the Gospel. I would preach that we, apart from Christ, are indeed dead in sin. I would say Christ’s scandalous, unfathomable, incredible love is most evident when shown in situations like this. With death, riots, looting, violence, anger, and vehement hate; the only response we should have is that which Christ had. For Christ says ‘… love thine enemies. Pray for them.’ On the cross, His love was magnified as He said, ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do.’ He died for us while we were yet sinners. He died for us while we were His enemies. There’s talk of race war. There’s talk of division. It is a lie, or it ought to be [revealed as such] in the Church. It is a demonic onslaught meant to divide and divert from the true Gospel. We, as the Church, are bound up in Christ. We are One in and by His Spirit. We should pray for our enemies. We should love our enemies. But, above all else, we should preach the Good News unashamedly, boldly, unwaveringly, and continuously. The only division from God is the division of Good and evil, Light and dark. His word pierces as a sword through sinew. It cuts deeply and definitively. It separates. For God alone brings division – the division is a choice to die with Him or to die apart from Him. The difference between the two is the one who dies apart dies for good. The one who dies with Him rises with him. Seek first the Kingdom

Jacob Moorman

Challenge

More recently I felt prompted to challenge the church in its response to this crisis, especially the leaders in the church: 

Our nation is in deep trouble. I fear we are ready to abandon Christ. We are a tattered flag only threads away from being loosed from our foundation, Jesus, the Living God. 

“Unity!” shout church leaders. “Stand together for the greater good.” What good is it to stand apart from Christ? We cannot shout for justice without holding the Word of God in its rightful place—Above all things.

We are living in the most dangerous time this country has ever seen, and potentially the world. The Lord is, and always will be, our only hope. Unity without Christ is folly. Justice without The Righteous Judge is futile. Peace without The Prince of Peace is chaos. Life without Christ is death. 

There is a ripe harvest. People are hurting. There is never a wrong time to preach the Gospel, and there is never a better time to preach the Gospel than now. (Matt. 9:35-38)

Political Stand

But I’ve seen more church leaders take a political stand than one that stands on the Word and proclaims the Gospel. A Gospel that calls out sin. One that calls for repentance. One that glorifies God.

We must not do what men desire us to do. (Gal. 1:10) Our reason, our motive matters. If we are seeking to be honored and applauded by men and women, we ought to fear the Living God and seek repentance. If we are seeking to honor our Heavenly Father, we have no need to fear. (1 Thess. 2:4) (Col. 3:23, 24)

No doubt racism is wicked. No doubt needless death is horrendous. At the same time, the burning of buildings is terrible. And killing more people is wrong. We cannot justify or condone or stand with these heinous acts. Evil cannot be answered by evil. (Romans 12:17) For that we cannot stand silent. We must address the sin behind these matters—any other response will be fruitless!

We are all sinners in desperate need of a Savior. Again, we cannot come together in unity without Jesus Christ at the center.

There is great evil shouting from the rooftops. Anger. Fear. Racism. Hate. Murder. Riots. Looting. There is a greater mind (Satan) behind this pandemic, this murder, this so-called race war, and the many responses thereafter. We must expose the darkness. Bring it to the Light … for everything brought to the Light is no longer darkness but light. (Eph. 5:11-14)

This push for “unity” is indeed demonic. It is one that pushes peace yet incites violence. One that says speak-up yet silences any alternative view. It is a move to push for unity without Christ. A destructive and dangerous plan by the enemy that I fear a lot of church leaders are falling in line with. They are deceived by the call for this false unity and fail to see or expose the evil behind it.

We must call out evil when we see it. We must count the cost of what it means to be a follower of Christ. We must be willing to take up our cross. We must be willing to die for Christ. We must be willing to speak the Gospel even if opposed and unpopular. We must give up all things to receive the one thing that matters … Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Jesus came so that we may have life. (John 10:10) We can be set free from sin! Lust, hate, sexual immorality, violence, anger, bitterness, licentiousness, debauchery, drunkenness—none of these have a place in the Kingdom. (Gal. 5:21) They were nailed to the cross and are dead in the grave for those alive in Christ. (Gal. 5:24)

When we die with Christ, we are dead to sin, wholly. No one who practices such as these will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Praise God He made a way. He is merciful and He is gracious. He is a loving Father. He died my death to give me life. He did the same for you. 

Time is growing short. Judgment will come when the Ancient of Days calls for the trumpets to sound. We will all answer to the one true Judge on that great and terrible and holy and marvelous day. But there is still time to proclaim the Gospel and heed the Good Shepherd’s call. The one who is marked by the blood of the Lamb will stand before him, guiltless. But the one who is marked by any other name, but that of Christ, will be cast out from His presence.

Yet, He is still loving. He is still gracious. He is mighty to save. He is the soon-coming King who is already on the throne. There is still time to proclaim the Gospel and heed the Good Shepherd’s call. God, the Holy One of Israel, came in the flesh and died so that we may walk in purity; that we may walk in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control … that we may walk by the Spirit. (Gal. 5:16, 25)

Now I must ask, if we as His people walk in such things, how can we stand in unity with sin and movements that condone and encourage sin? The only true unity that can come is that of and in the body of Christ. We cannot walk in unity with Christ and sin. We, the Church, cannot walk in unity with the world. We are in the world but not of it. Unity is only found in Christ Jesus our Lord. We should not be hoping for tomorrow on earth, we should be hoping for eternity in heaven. Our hope is in Jesus’ death, resurrection, and His coming again. Praise be to the One. Praise be the great I Am. All honor and glory belong to God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth. He will ever be glorified. May His peace be upon you.

One in Christ

“But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:25-28)

The Annual Inter-Lutheran Encuentro (Encounter) for Hispanic Latino ministries, co-sponsored by Lutheran CORE, is planned for the weekend of October 17-18, 2020 (schedule to be announced). Church leaders serving in bilingual contexts and those considering entry into Hispanic-Latino ministry will find the Encuentro to be especially beneficial.

Due to the pandemic, the event may need to be presented virtually. This year’s theme: “The Enfleshed Word … El Verbo Encarnado,” will explore and celebrate the Advent – Christmas – Epiphany worship cycle. Accents will be placed on Advent traditions including December saints days, Las Posadas, Feast of the Epiphany / Tres Reyes, liturgies & hymns for the seasons.

The 30th anniversary of the Bilingual Ministry Resource Center (BMRC) will be celebrated with a presentation on the ministry, resources and hymn translations of the +Reverend Dimas Planas-Belfort (1934-1992), publisher with Editorial Avance Luterano and a co-founder of the BMRC in 1990.

A Resource Fair will offer ministry materials and fairly traded, handcrafted items.

For more information please contact Pastor Keith Forni, STS, Encuentro Convener, at keithlforni@gmail.com, 815 722 4800 or by mail c/o:

First and Santa Cruz
The Joliet City Center Lutheran Parish 55 West Benton Street 
Joliet IL 60432.

[thermometer height=150px targetlabels=on align=center sep=,]

Thank you for your generous response to our appeal for $15,000 so that we will be able to sponsor one week of NEXUS for high schoolers at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. As of April 30, 2020, $8,081 has been given towards our goal of $15,000. We are 54% of the way there!

NEXUS is designed to give high school students a chance to engage in the study of the Bible and Lutheran theology, be involved in service, and discern whether God has gifted them and is calling them to full-time Christian ministry and/or leadership in the church. In the past three years, over one hundred high schoolers have gone through NEXUS. In addition, many college-aged mentors who have participated in the program have gone on to seminary and/or full-time church work.

The cost to host one week of NEXUS for twenty-four high school students, which includes college-age mentors, teachers, activities, room and board, and materials, is $30,000. Lutheran CORE has committed half of the amount for one week – $15,000. The funds from Lutheran CORE will be matched by Lilly Endowment to cover a full-week’s cost of $30,000. The funds from Lutheran CORE will be used for a week during the summer of 2021.

If you have not already done so, please consider giving a gift to Lutheran CORE – over and above your current giving – to help fund the commitment that we have made. Please be sure to designate NEXUS on the memo line of your check.

My wife and I decided to give the amount of the financial stimulus check that we will be receiving from the federal government to five different Christian charitable causes, including NEXUS. We would like to challenge and encourage you to do the same.

Editor’s Note: Mona Fuerstenau’s conviction that all people are “wonderfully made” began in high school while working with children with learning disabilities. That led her to study Speech Pathology, Gerontology and Psychology. She worked in those fields before becoming a parent of two diverse learners; they were her post graduate education in celebrating difference, inspiring advocacy, and challenging the status quo. Her position as ministry consultant at Bethesda has led to many speaking opportunities such as the 2019 NALC Life conference. Bethesda is a nationwide 501(c)(3) charity whose mission is to “enhance the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through services that share the good news of Jesus Christ.”  Her passion is for all people marginalized by difference to find refuge and a place of belonging in the life of the church.

Psalm 139:13-16 “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” [emphasis added]

These verses profess the sanctity of every life. Bethesda has a joint initiative with Lutherans for Life and it is a natural fit. We are all about life, in all its ages and stages and abilities. No one is “less than another” to God. God calls everyone to minister in His Kingdom. Abilities and experiences uniquely equip each of us. Our witness to and with and from people with disabilities, or suicide survivors, or post abortion, or at end of life is woven throughout and has its foundation in these words.

I encourage you to think about how your congregation, as a life affirming place, can begin to see people with intellectual and developmental disabilities as also in need of that life affirmation.

There is a wonderful word picture in 1^st Corinthians 12 of the body of Christ. It talks about the place and work of each part of the body. And then we get to verse 22.

“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”

Different translations say necessary, vital, without which the total is incomplete. These are the people whom we champion. Those who are marginalized because of our perceptions. But God gives them critical status, without which the body is incomplete. Without whom none of our congregations can be complete.

The world of disability is deficit based. Even the word means “without ability”. But we as Christians have our value in being a child of God. That is our foundation. We all have gifts and talents and experiences to bring that enrich the whole. Sometimes it takes work to see beyond the differences. It takes work. But it is critical work to show the world God’s love by being Jesus’ hands and feet.

In 1 Peter 4:10 we read: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” There are no qualifiers in this verse. It says each of you. Every one. Everyone is and has gifts to bring to the whole.

Creating a Sanctuary

So, if we are going to welcome all these gifts into our congregations, we first must make it a safe place. How do we create a space of sanctuary?

Some key components we have found in our work include:

• Unconditional welcome, favorable reception,
• Communicating an authentic desire to know the hopes, dreams and needs of each person,
• Seeing everyone as not “just” a person or a family with _________,
• Identifying individual gifts, talents, and experiences to share,
• Affirming all are a necessary part of God’s family.

When we do this our congregations become richer with lived experiences. And what if the Gospel message lived out and shared by all people, not “in spite of” but “because of” their lived experiences, somehow makes that message more accessible to people who will not otherwise hear it as being for them?

Resources

Bethesda has numerous resources for creating a place of belonging for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A good place to start is with disability awareness materials for all ages. Visit our website www.BethesdaLC.org and search for faith resources. We have 5 complete series and the most recent release is called Face 2 Face.

We have also partnered with Lutheran Hour Ministries to create a four-session course by the same name. Face2Face, Building Relationships with People with Disabilities. This course can be found at www.lhm.org/learn.  

Our Wonderfully Made pamphlet series are also a great place to begin to understand ways to become a more inclusive and welcoming congregation. They celebrate and share ideas for communicating and easily adapting things you are currently doing. These can be ordered along with all our resources housed through Concordia Publishing House www.cph.org/Bethesda  We are currently giving away a free copy of Unit 1 of our Building on the Rock curriculum. Just use the coupon code BUILD.

While you are on our Bethesda website check out our Home Activity Center. It’s full of ideas to do together as a family during this time of sheltering in place. And our Volunteer tab details multiple ways you can engage with the people we support and staff across the country. If you have questions about Bethesda please don’t hesitate to ask. I can be reached at Mona.Fuerstenau@BethesdaLC.org

Our teachers have been falsely accused of forbidding good works. AC, Article XX[1]

One of the charges that is often made against traditional Lutherans is that they are opposed to efforts on the part of Christians to work for peace and justice. This charge is made because traditional Lutherans criticize the emphasis on political advocacy in the ELCA. This is inaccurate. We no more forbid our fellow Christians from working for peace and justice than the Lutheran reformers forbid the doing of good works. Rather, like the reformers, we are concerned about the blurring of the distinction between Law and Gospel, Faith and Works, Justification and Vocation, and the like.

One way to get at this distinction is to focus on the concept of Vocation. The Augsburg Confession says,

It is taught among us that nobody should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church without a regular call. (Article XIV)[2]

What does this mean? It means that although we believe that all Christians are equal in Christ, that in Holy Baptism all are filled with the Holy Spirit, and that all are called to bear witness to Christ through word and deed, no one has the right to take it upon himself to walk into the pulpit and begin preaching. No one has the right to take it upon herself to walk up to the table and preside at the Lord’s Supper. That is reserved for the person who has been called and ordained into the Office of Ministry.

Called by God

What is not as well known is that Lutherans believe there are other offices to which people are called by God. Those other offices include mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter, sister, brother, and neighbor. These center around the home. In regard to the workplace, people are called into the office of employer and employee, buyer and seller, merchant and customer. People are called into various professions. As Christians, we believe that each office we hold represents an opportunity for faith to be active in love through service to our neighbor. This is what Lutherans call the doctrine of Vocation. (From the Latin word for “calling”.)

The doctrine of Vocation helps clear up the confusion that often arises around the concept of the Priesthood of All Believers. The Priesthood of All Believers does not mean that at any moment a Christian may assume any office he or she chooses. It does not mean that anyone can walk into the pulpit and preach. It doesn’t mean that anyone who feels moved at the moment can preside at the Lord’s Supper. That is reserved for persons called into the proper office.

At the same time, however, it does not mean that I as a pastor can walk into your home and assume the role of father. I cannot walk into your place of business and assume the role of owner or manager. I cannot decide that today I want to practice law and that tomorrow I want to practice medicine. My call is not yours, but in the same way your call is not mine. You serve as priest in your home, office, or place of work.

Confusion and Politics

This confusion of priesthood and vocation is most evident today in the realm of politics. When a person becomes a member of a congregation through Affirmation of Baptism, they promise among other things to “strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” Indeed, the Lutheran Church affirms that striving for justice and peace is the calling of every Christian in baptism. The confusion arises when we think that it is the calling of the pastor or congregation to do this for the individual Christian.

Christians in the United States hold many offices that pertain to justice and peace. The most important office in this regard is the office of citizen. As a citizen, you vote for those who will hold public office and have the power to set policy and administer and enforce laws. The office of citizen is one to which you have been called and for which you are accountable to God. Other offices include elected official, civil servant, judge, juror, police officer, etc.… As Christians, we are to work for peace and justice in every office to which we have been called.

Presuming to Speak

Is the Church called to strive for justice and peace? Yes. It does so through the various vocations that its members have. The problem arises when the ELCA believes that it is the primary work of the Church to do this for its members. More and more, it seems that the ELCA believes the work of justice and peace must be done by synod and churchwide office and assemblies, and through congregations led by their pastors. In effect the church has attempted to usurp the offices and callings of its members, by presuming to speak for them and by using their contributions to fund that effort.

Meanwhile, the proper office of the ministry and the congregation is neglected. While the church attempts to promulgate and administer laws, it forgets to proclaim God’s Word and administer the Sacraments. Rather than being a place of reconciliation, where people with honest disagreements about public policy are united as forgiven sinners at the Lord’s Table, the Church becomes a place of political strife, judgment, and condemnation.

The irony of this is that no one cares what I, as an ELCA pastor, have to say about public policy. I can ascend the pulpit Sunday after Sunday to lecture the governor and president, state and federal legislators, judges, and juries about how things ought to be done, but it will have little effect. They don’t really care about what I think.

Things only get worse if I lack expertise on a subject but presume to give policy speeches anyway. The teachers in my congregation know more than I do about education. The doctors and nurses in my congregation know more than me about medicine.  Engineers know more about engineering. The active and retired military people know more than I do about national defense and foreign policy.  They don’t come to worship to hear my opinion on matters about which they know more.

Called to Be Their Pastor

Instead, they expect me to use my theological education and parish experience to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. I have been called to be their pastor. They want to hear the Law that convicts them of sin, and the Gospel that sets them free. They want to receive the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. They want me to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit so that they, their children, and their grandchildren may receive the salvation that God has promised. That is my office. They expect me to fulfill that calling to the best of my ability with God’s help. The ELCA is in danger of neglecting the one thing that only the Church can do, namely, preaching the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. We run the risk of being ashamed of the Gospel, thinking that our political advocacy will accomplish more. That would be a fatal error. As Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” (Romans 1:16, NRSV)

[1] Theodore G. Tappert. Augsburg Confession (Kindle Location 141). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid, (Kindle Location 109).