Keep Your Ear To the Ground

Today through Wednesday marks the LCMS theological convocation in St. Louis. This is an important event in the life of our Synod. The 22 theological principles in the "Congregation-Synod-Church: A Study on Basic Theological Principles Underlying LCMS Structure and Governance" document will be discussed, and the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synodical Structure and Governance, or BRTFSSG for "short," will begin to be discussed in earnest. These discussions will culminate in resolutions that will be considered at the 2010 Synodical convention.

The significance of this convocation, and the discussions that will follow, have the potential to significantly rearrange the "furniture" in the LCMS. I'll be traveling for the next few days, so I'd recommend you follow along via the updates provided at The Brothers of John the Steadfast. I'm betting the discussions that follow will fill up the gap between now and the 2010 Convention.

What Do We Stand On?

Rev. Peter Bauernfeind is the Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Palisades Park, NJ. He is also an amateur translator of German, and often translates Christian materials. On his blog, German American Lutherans, he recently posted his translation of a sermon by Rev. Dr. Gottfried Martens on the commemoration of the Augsburg Confession. Here is a portion of Dr. Martens’ sermon, as translated by Pastor Bauernfeind:

If in our Divine Service we no longer stand upon what our Lutheran Confessional writings stand, and even the Augsburg Confession stands upon, then we cannot describe ourselves as a very confessional Lutheran Church. Let us continually study anew the Confessions of our Church – not because they are interesting historic documents, but because by them we are trained to pray, to celebrate the Divine service, to worship the Triune God, to which all the Confessions ultimately aim. Yes, to Him, the Triune God, be honor and eternal power! Amen.

I Deny the Real Presence

Let’s pretend I’m a member of your church. I’m also a youth group leader. I’ve got a dynamic personality, know how to relate to kids, and dress the part, right down to the swank spectacles. I’m great at entertaining kids, and leading them to experience the “love of Jesus.”

Now let’s say you find out I believe that Jesus body and blood aren’t present in Holy Communion, and that Baptism does nothing for you, plus a whole mess of other un-Scriptural stuff. If that doesn’t bother you, then go ahead and hang up now. For the rest of you, I suspect you’d be mad that I was put in a position of trust over your kids, and you’d probably be upset enough to stand up and do something about it.

Well guess what, that’s what’s happening down in the big state of Texas. Only it’s not the local church youth group this person is leading, it’s the Texas LCMS 2008 Youth Gathering. And this person, who was invited to be the “lead worshiper” is a female pastor from a non-Lutheran church. Her name is Kari Jobe. What else could we teach our kids that’s wrong? When in Rome do as the Romans, and when in Texas...

Unionism is alive and well in the LCMS. A lack of discernment reigns. It's the difference between being interested in teaching your kids the whole counsel of God versus teaching them it doesn't really matter as long as you're properly entertained while reaching for that mountaintop "experience."

You can read all about it at Pastor Beane’s blog Father Hollywood. When you get there, don’t forget to read the comments. And when you're done, please say a word of prayer for the LCMS and our church leaders.

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." 2 Timothy 4:1-4

Why Was Issues, Etc.™ Canceled?

Why was Issues, Etc.™ canceled? According to Jeff Schwarz and Todd Wilken, because it got axed in favor of preserving the FM station, and because of an antipathy towards the show from the top of the LCMS. You can listen to their Web Extra program on iTunes titled "Why Did LCMS Inc. Cancel Issues, Etc.?" It's an eye opening 41 minutes of dialogue between Todd and Jeff.

They were basically told the show would get the axe last year by the General Manager at KFUO. The reason? Because Rev. Dr. Jerry Kieschnick, the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, would, after the 2007 Synodical Convention, have a majority on the Board of Directors and on the Board of Communication Services, spelling the doom of Issues, Etc.™ That doom of course, was very short-lived, and the Christ-centered Cross-focused program that is Issues, Etc.™ continues to proclaim and defend the Gospel to a fallen world.

Please support the continuing mission of Issues, Etc.™ with your prayers, and if able, with a monetary contribution.

Liturgy Empowers Mission

Quoting Professor Harold L. Senkbeil from his book Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness.

...Liturgy always empowers mission, and mission always leads back to liturgy.
There’s no separating the liturgical life of the church from the mission of the church; they are organically one piece. The two find common nourishment in the incarnate flesh of Jesus Christ, who is our life. As the Father sent Him, so He sends His church, cleansing her by water and the Spirit to be his holy bride. And so, for as long as she is in this dying world, the church proclaims her heavenly Husband’s life-giving invitation:

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Rev. 22:17)

Harold L. Senkbeil,
Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness
(St. Louis: CPH, 1994) 135.

Psychoanalysis - Luther Style

There seems to be a tendency among us sinners to affix blame on others rather than admit to our own shortcomings. If you were laying on Luther's couch pouring out your woes and how your present problems were somehow ultimately related to your upbringing as a child and your parents failures, Luther might repeat what he had to say in his Large Catechism on the Fourth Commandment:

We must, therefore, impress this truth upon the young that they should think of their parents as standing in God's place. They should remember that however lowly, poor, frail, and strange their parents may be, nevertheless, they are the father and the mother given to them by God. Parents are not to be deprived of their honor because of their conduct or their failings. Therefore, we are not to consider who they are or how they may be, but the will of God, who has created and ordained parenthood.

My Answer to Weedon’s Reel

Caution for German Lutherans: Humor Ahead

Pastor Wil Weedon waxed eloquent about his “reel” mower the other day. For the uninitiated, a reel mower is a lawn mower in which the power is supplied, not by an engine, but by you! I’ll admit, it does have a certain savoir faire about it, at least until it’s really hot outside. Pastor Weedon doesn’t “mow” his lawn, he “shaves” it. But the Wx5 (stands for Wee Willie Weedon’s Weed Whacker) has nothing on the Honda HRX217HXA - although I do like his photo a lot more.

Nothing says “affluence” quite like the Honda. No pastoral mower, this. (Did you catch the witty double meaning there? That’s what I thought.) It’s got a deck that won’t rust. Two blades instead of one, which means finer-cut pieces of grass, equating to less emptying of the bag. And it has a variable mulch setting for you “green” types, so you can fertilize your yard the environmentally friendly way, plus happily mulch the occasional frog, and bag the rest. Plus, doesn’t the racket this thing makes as you’re competing with the other neighbor’s mowers on a Saturday morning, combined with the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, transport you back to your younger years when it was your dad cutting the grass instead of you?

I thoroughly broke it in today, including a little doggie doo doo on one of the tires. It works great. I do have one concern though. I’m not sure which mower is really the more “Confessional” of the two. Perhaps someone else can weigh in on the issue. Bueller, McCain, anyone?

Quotable Blog Quotes, #2

Quotable Quotes From Around the Blogosphere

Paredwka: Dropping the Ball
Rev. Benjamin Harju

The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ establishes, fills, defines, and vivifies what we usually think of as simply salvation. It should be no surprise, then, that the Holy Eucharist stands at the center of the existence and experience of salvation in this world, for there does one find the Word-made-Flesh. Therein is encapsulated and presented the totality of salvation, the sum and substance of the Gospel.


Cyberbrethren A Lutheran Blog
Pastor Paul McCain quoting Dr. Holger Sonntag

But in the church of the Crucified,truth is not found in generalizations and abstractions many can agree on "by their own reason or strength". It is found in offensive details, in agreeing on what God's word actually means.


AC 24
Rt. Rev. Jack Bauer

While vestments are certainly neither commanded nor forbidden in the New Testament they are not inconsequential. Vestments serve important purposes:

1. to cover the man officiating so that we focus not on him
2. a visual reminder in the officiant of the baptismal righteousness of Christ that covers all believers (just as we find the same meaning in the baptismal gown or even the funeral pall)
3. to indicate an office as well as liturgical duties in the Divine Service or other prayer offices
4. to emphasize catechetically the the themes and changes of the liturgical calendar
5. in the use of the chasuble to set apart the special reverence and joy that is to be given in the celebration of the Lord's Supper
6. to adorn the Divine Service with reverence, prayerful setting, and joy


Confessional Gadfly
Rev. Eric J. Brown

Click HERE to continue reading >>

Derpriving Faith of Its Object

Francis Pieper on doctrine, from Christian Dogmatics, Vol. 1, p. 70.

Depriving faith of its object, namely, the doctrine presented in Scripture, has, as Eduard Koenig said, fatal results: It destroys the Biblical concept of "believing" and does away with the Christian religion as a positive religion. Indeed, it is due to an astounding aberration of the human mind that men can assert that "doctrine" or the "communication of doctrine" is not a "prime" concern of the Christian religion; we cannot comprehend how they can claim in all seriousness that what is to be preached is not "doctrine," but "faith," arguing that only in this way "a living Christianity can be produced" and "dead orthodoxy," "intellectualism," warded off. The stubborn fact is that from its very beginning the Christian religion dealt with doctrine and the impartation of doctrine. The Word spoken in the very beginning about the Seed of the woman, who would crush the head of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15), what is it but doctrine? And the entire Old Testament was written, as the Apostle Paul assures us, for our learning, εἰς τὴν ἡμετέϱαν διδασκαλίαν (doctrine), Rom. 5:4, and is profitable πϱὸς διδασκαλίαν (doctrine), 2 Tim. 3:16. When in the fullness of the time the Son of God appeared in the flesh and walked here on earth, He engaged in teaching. He teaches from the ship (Luke 5:3), on the mount (Matt. 5:2), in the synagogs (Luke 4:15), went about the land teaching (Matt. 4:23). He also makes use of the forty days between His resurrection and ascension to teach (Acts 1:3), and before His ascension He gives His Church the commission to teach all nations to the Last Day: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20). And the Apostles executed this commission. Paul declared, taught, publicly and from house to house, all the counsel of God (Acts 20:20, 27). Teaching the saving doctrine was his chief business, and he tells his successors in the ministry that it must be their chief business. He bids Timothy and Titus to hold fast the form of sound words, the doctrine, which they had heard from him (2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 1:9; 2 Tim. 2:2) and requires of the bishop that he should be apt to teach, διδακτικός (1 Tim. 3:2). Teachers should know that Scripture is given first of all "for doctrine" (2 Tim. 3:16). The members of the congregations, too, are bidden, like the teachers, to continue in the doctrine and to apply the doctrine to one another. Col. 3:16: "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another." 2 Thess. 2:15: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our Epistle." It is said in praise of the Christians at Jerusalem that they continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine, διδαχη (Acts 2:42); and the Apostle John deems the adherence to the doctrine of Christ of such great importance that he instructs the churches to deny Christian fellowship to all who do not bring the doctrine of Christ (2 John 9-11). When in spite of all this modern theologians insist that Holy Scripture must not be regarded as "doctrine" nor received as a "manual" of the Christian religion, it is evident that their conception of the Christian religion is diametrically opposed to that of Christ and His Apostles and Prophets.

Be Wise as Serpents and Innocent as Doves

Lora at The Rebellious Pastor's Wife posted this a while back. LCMS President Kieschnick's response to Mollie Hemingway's Wall Street Journal article is old news, but Lora's discussion of convention politics and the way dissenters to the current synodical "powers that be" are dealt with is news that we need to revisit and keep afresh in our minds. Republished with permission.


Synodical President Cornelius Fudge

President Kieschnick, the president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, issued a response yesterday to the article that M.Z. Hemingway wrote in the Wall Street Journal. In the article, he wrote:

In truth, last summer the LCMS had its most positive and unified convention in years. Our church remains faithful to the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions, an integral part of our identity as a church body. As stated in a resolution adopted last summer by the national Synod convention: “From the founding of our Synod 160 years ago, we have been blessed by unity in our common confession and the articles of our shared faith, such as the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, original sin, baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament, the inerrancy of Scripture and many others.

The fact of the matter was it was the most "peaceful" because nothing that could cause contention was allowed to be discussed. The year before the National Convention , the district conventions were loaded with resolutions from pastors, circuits, and congregations issuing formal protest against the resolution put out by Synod that basically said that individuals (including individual pastors) did not have the authority to interpret Scripture--that it was Synod's responsibility to interpret Scripture. This flies in the face of the purposes of the very founding of our Synod, and indeed in the very face of the Reformation itself.

But in many districts, these resolutions were left to the end, when many delegates were no longer in attendance, were combined together into a form that did not exactly say what the previous resolutions had said, and some district conventions attempted to pass over these many resolutions as already being resolved.

The few that did make it out of the district conventions again were combined by the committees to say something that none of the original protests actually said, and then were passed over as already being decided on.

The reason that the Convention was "peaceful" was that those who had grievances to voice before the body of the church were bound and gagged.

While I may maintain that the Harry Potter books are not Christian, there is a good deal of worldly wisdom in them. I believe it was Sirius Black who said "The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters." There are also those who will change laws and ignore the need for true justice in the name of peace.

After Harry had witnessed Voldemort's return, and Dumbledore proclaimed it as truth, the Ministry of Magic, in fear of loss of order, ignored these claims and proclaimed Potter and Dumbledore to be nutcases. They also controlled the media and directed what and when things should be covered. They put a representative in Hogwarts to control Harry and keep an eye on Dumbledore. As the attempts to bring forth the truth continued, official "educational resolutions" came forward to prohibit gatherings, to silence protest, and to bolster authority of the bureaucracy and their representatives. Those who continued to protest were punished. Systems of justice that had always been in place were cast aside as well and replaced with new laws that dealt with the perceived crisis at hand.

In the last several years, the Synod has done just that. When they chose to not do their duty in administering church discipline to pastors who were not exhibiting unity in doctrine and practice, those who were voiced protests were silenced. Resolutions have been passed that took the authority away from the the believer, the shepherd, and the congregation to read Scripture and determine what it means -- in order to silence a beloved leader of the church who had the audacity to back up his claims that the Synod was wrong with Scriptural proof. Those who were not in agreement have been fired and/or kicked out of the Synod. Resolutions have also been passed that can be used to restrict independent gatherings and publications. The loves of our Synod since its beginnings -- mission and outreach have been drastically cut in order to support the burgeoning bureaucracy that is in St. Louis.

Martin Luther taught us that it is our individual responsibility to hold clergy accountable to follow the Word of God. He put Scripture in the language of the people so that they may learn the gospel, and also not be bound by laws that were not Scriptural. The LCMS was founded on the rights of individuals to do so. What authority Synod has comes to it because it was handed to it by the individual congregations. The synodical bureaucracy does not have the right to take it away from the very place it came from. I don't think that the answer is to leave and walk away, but it is our responsibility to not be silenced. It is our responsibility to know our Scripture, to know our catechisms, our history, and our bylaws so that we can cry out against this usurping...defending ourselves with the Word of God and to be sure that in our (just) anger, we do not sin. And to trust in the Spirit to change hearts and minds. We are to pray.

At the national convention, a call was made to create a new constitution. I believe that good COULD come out of this. But I am concerned. Soon, congregations will be handed synodically written Bible studies to start exploring the issues that will be addressed. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves as you evaluate these. Peace and silence are not necessarily the same thing. We do not have peace.