Who, Me?

It’s a little perplexing to read Lutherans who claim that the method can be changed without changing the message. It’s an argument that’s sometimes floated by those who want to change worship practices – but how you worship influences how you believe, and vice versa (lex orandi, lex credendi). But it’s beyond perplexing, in fact it’s downright disturbing, to see someone who doesn’t even hold to some of the basic tenets of Christianity point it out while fellow Lutherans deny the naked truth. In this case, it’s Brian McLaren, one of the most widely know Emerging Church leaders, who could school some of our own on this point. McLaren, among other heresies, rejects the atonement. But he does understand that doctrine and practice are related:

It has been fashionable among the innovative [emerging] pastors I know to say, “We’re not changing the message; we’re only changing the medium.” This claim is probably less than honest … in the new church we must realize how medium and message are intertwined. When we change the medium, the message that’s received is changed, however subtly, as well. We might as well get beyond our naivete or denial about this….

Maybe it’s time for us Lutherans to lose our naivete, and denial, as well.


Quoted from the article “Contextual Theology – Falling From Truth Through the Emerging Church” by Roger Oakland on the “from the lighthouse…” blog, who is in turn quoting from Brian McLaren’s book Church on the Other Side.