March 27th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Major props to former blogger and current professional M.Z. Hemingway for bringing Issues, Etc., to the national attention of the Wall Street Journal. The article is available to be read for free.
While “Issues, Etc.” never criticized Mr. Kieschnick or his colleagues, its attacks against shallow church marketing included mention of some approaches embraced by the current leadership. It opposed, for instance, the emergent church — an attempt to accommodate postmodern culture by blending philosophies and practices from throughout the church’s history — and the Purpose Driven Church movement, which reorients the church’s message toward self-help and self-improvement.
I have next to no knowledge about the inner workings of synodical bureaucracy. I do get to see the effects of such a split among the churches I’ve been to.
LCMS is not a church, and it is not the exclusive church. It is a brand, used by travelers and movers to find churches and used by pastors as a clue into what visitors believe so they can provide proper pastoral care. I have been asked in the past, “Why do you choose the Lutheran church,” and I can roll off things like hymns and liturgy that teach, true assurance of the forgiveness of sins, the efficacy of God’s sacraments, pastoral knowledge of Biblical languages, proclamation of Law and Gospel, and the unwillingness to bend Scripture to say whatever we want it to that day. When those answers are taken away by leadership or CEO-like “vision,” the brand loses its meaning.
If any church leadership wants to follow the example of business, follow the example of the franchise or national business. There are no surprises when one walks into a Wal-Mart, a McDonald’s, or J.C. Penney. So should it be with the Word of God, which hasn’t changed in thousands of years.
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March 28th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
At your invitation, here’s my response:
As blunt as it sounds, you’re right. In fact, Walther emphasized the same point in his own way, writing that while particular worship forms are “adiaphora,” the congregations of the LCMS should strive for as much homogeneity as possible for consistency’s sake. Someone else can give you the exact reference–I’m away from my study and probably couldn’t find it if I tried.
IMO, it’s sad that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is becoming the old E?CA joke. We were never “Church,” “Missouri” has little to do with us, “Synod” is a falsehood with so much conflict and variety, and “Lutheran” barely applies to us who fight even for a Bronze-Age version, much the less the richness and depth of the Confessions.
Nice post. Depressing, but nice