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Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
In this episode, Heath Curtis (pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Worden, IL, and Zion Lutheran Church, Carpenter, IL) talks about his piece in the FritzSchrift on allegory: “Jesus’ Allegory of the Good Samaritan.” While allegory can be and has been taken too far, Curtis contends that the very purpose of allegory historically is the same that our Lord gives to the parables: to hide meaning from one group but to reveal it to another group. Thus, to interpret the parables rightly is to keep these two groups in mind and thus two layers of interpretation.
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Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
Tuesday Jun 15, 2021
In this episode, we welcome back Larry Beane. He is one of the contributors to the Fritzschrift, Leitourgiae Propria Adiaphora Non Est: Essays in Honor of the Rev. Dr. Burnell F. Eckardt on the Occasio of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. The essay is entitled Liturgicals, Pietists, and the Kingdom of the Left. Our conversation builds upon what Larry wrote in that article.
You can get your copy at the Gottesdienst website below.
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You can subscribe to the Journal here: https://www.gottesdienst.org/subscribe/
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As always, we, at The Gottesdienst Crowd, would be honored if you would Subscribe, Rate, and Review. Thanks for listening and thanks for your support.
Sunday Jun 13, 2021
Sunday Jun 13, 2021
The {Euphemism} Community
“What a wonderful bridge to the “so-called rainbow” community! Methinks this is what ol’ Clive Staples would have called “pre-evangelism”!”— A GOTTESBLOG COMMENTER
A commenter offered me this “complement” in response to my piece ROY G BIV - which addresses the so-called rainbow flag.
I’m grateful for such comments, as they provide opportunities for further reflection on things.
It goes without saying that the Secular First Commandment is “Thou shalt not offend thy neighbor.” And of course, this commandment does require some evangelical interpretation. What the SFC really means is we should not offend certain people. And a big part of not being offensive is the adoption of euphemistic language.
And in our culture, one euphemism isn’t enough. We go through generations of euphemisms. George Carlin noted this phenomenon by way of a combat condition that was called “Shell Shock” in World War One. He pointed out how direct the term is: two syllables, right to the point. In World War II, a different term was employed: “Battle Fatigue.” It just sounds nicer. “Fatigue” is a softer word than “Shock.” And we’ve padded it with another two syllables. During the Korean War, this condition was known as “Operational Exhaustion.” “Exhaustion” is even softer than “Fatigue,” and we’re now up to eight syllables. And during Vietnam, the name changed to “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Now we’ve really buried “Shell Shock” beneath layers of euphemisms and are still at eight syllables.
Shell Shock is a very real condition, no matter what you call it. But by making it sound softer and more like clinical jargon, are we really doing a service to those who are suffering from it?
This “euphemism treadmill” is often employed in matters of political correctness to keep everyone off-balance as to what the correct term is - especially in matters of ethnicity and sexuality. And woe be to the poor sap that uses a term that was acceptable in 2020, but is no longer au courant in 2021. After all, it is 2021, as the kids say.
Sin has become fertile ground for euphemism. In response to the pro-life movement, the pro-abortionist side of the debate expressed a preference for the term “pro-choice.” It takes the matter of life and death out of the conversation and recasts the matter with a similitude to standing at the hotel vending machine and making a choice between an overpriced Coke and an overpriced Pepsi. And who, after all, would be against your right to choose your preferred soft-drink - a fundamental right that is as American as French fries.
And so, fornication is “living together.” Despising preaching and the Word of God is “sleeping in.” Murder is “making him comfortable.” Racism is “social justice.” Rioting is “peacefully protesting.” Abortion is “reproductive freedom.” Violating consciences and denying religious liberty is “equality.” Gossip is “just talking.” Enthusiasm is “being open to the Spirit.” Rebelling against the order of creation in family life is “empowering women.” Theft is “addressing economic injustice.” Syncretism is “expressing solidarity with diverse communities of faith.” I’m sure our readers can come up with many more such examples.
Sexuality is laden with euphemisms and new terms. The once standard term “homosexual” has gone by the wayside. It was long ago replaced with “gay” - a word that in the ancient days of the 20th century, meant “happy.” But “gay” was too blunt and monosyllabic. And so The Acronym was introduced: In my article, I traced one trajectory of The Acronym’s euphemism treadmill: (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIAA, LGBTTQQIAAP, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP, and LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM). The Newspeak Dictionary now contains entire lists of words of obscure sexual deviancies all competing for flag-space in new and exciting vexillological configurations. Some of these new sexualities were called to mind in a viral video of a German legislator addressing the Bundestag.
Euphemistic Ministry is a relatively new approach to sin and grace.
Many years ago, in the last millennium, in fact, long before I went to seminary, I had a dear friend involved in a particular public sin. A group of his friends wanted to sit down with him and try to talk some sense into him. I had no idea what I was doing. I asked my pastor for advice. He said, “Don’t use euphemisms. Use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” Indeed, those were the Bad Old Days of dead orthodoxy, Law and Gospel, and smoking on airplanes - long before we became wise and kind and mindful - and learned how to do “pre-evangelism.” In fact, in matters of confronting sin (as opposed to C.S. Lewis-style Apologetics), what came before the Gospel (the Evangel) was not euphemistic bridge-building, but Law. Of course, we now know today that this was wrong, er, maybe a better way to put it is: “a method of diminished utility” or some such.
At any rate, we are not engaging in what Clive Staples referred to as “Chronological Snobbery.” Oh no, not at all. It’s just that we know so much more now than we did then. And as poll after poll teaches us, we really need to listen to millennials. They have so much to teach us. Far more than dead white men like C.F.W. Walther with his “Lawn Gospel” silliness. In fact, were C.S. Lewis alive today, he might even refer to Satanists as “The Screwtape Community.”
In fact, referring to sin by means of a euphemism followed by “Community” is also in vogue. There are no more homosexuals, as they are now members of the LGBT Community. Indeed, there are many sub-communities within the People of The Acronym, some involving what are clearly healthy behaviors including “gay leather and puppy play.” It’s all very innocent, and especially attractive to children. Who could possibly be against the LGBT version of Comfort Dog Ministry? The Church needs to build bridges and stop being so judgy. After all, Jesus said, “Judge not,” right?
Maybe we should include some bridges to such communities during coffee and donut hour, Sunday School, or Bible Class. Note to self: take it easy on the glitter. The Altar Guild will blow a gasket trying to clean that stuff up.
We actually see such bridge-building pre-evangelism in the Bible - especially in matters of the unrepentant: those who see their sin as a point of pride. We saw a very early example with the LGBT Community in the Book of Genesis. Who could ever forget that bridge over the Red Sea when the children of Israel engaged in pre-evangelism with the Egyptian Military Community? Or how about Moses’s bridge-building pre-evangelism with Korah and the Egalitarian Ministry Community? We see Elijah’s bridge-building pre-evangelism with King Ahab and the Religiously Diverse Community. And of course, our Lord Himself engaged in bridge-building pre-evangelism with the Currency Exchange Community and the Self-Righteous Jesus-Questioning Community.
Obviously, we live in different times. We need to be nice and winsome at all costs. This is no longer the twentieth century when the old pastors said, “Don’t use euphemisms.” The new Bridge Building Ministry of Pre-Evangelism has finally gotten it right. When confronting the world’s twisted understanding of right and wrong, when dealing with those who are so unrepentant that they use the term “pride”, and they are bolstered by the power of the state and the corporation and the dominant cultural organs to the detriment of the Church’s confession based on the Word of God - the last thing we need to do is “use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” People might get the idea that we are out of step with the secular world. No indeed, we need to build bridges to the {euphemism} communities. We need to get with the program, fly our own freak-flag, build bridges, and stop being judgy. The most important thing is to be liked, and we certainly need to be wishy-washy for the sake of our children, who will be growing up into a culture with all sorts of undiscovered {Euphemism} Communities.
We need to invert my pastor’s advice to this: “Use euphemisms. Don’t use words like ‘wrong’ and ‘sin.’” For that is true bridge-building pre-evangelism.
After all, it is 2021.
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
Covid-Closed Communion
“That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”— 1 COR 11: 27-30
Taking Holy Communion is a life-and-death matter - at least if we believe the Bible. St. Paul, writing to the Church at Corinth blames the death of some parishioners on the fact that they communed “without discerning the body.” And this is certainly a part of why the Church has always practiced closed communion - until quite recently, that is.
The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Chicago is concerned about people becoming weak, or ill, or even dying as a result of coming to Mass. And so they are carefully checking people at the door. Not to make sure that they “discern the body” in the sacrament, mind you, but rather to see if they have received a Covid-19 shot. Nobody will check to see that you are a Christian, a Roman Catholic, or a believer in the Real Presence when you present yourself to receive the body and blood of Christ. The priest will not ask you. You may well be a Satanist looking for a consecrated host to desecrate, and nobody will vet you. And neither will the lay man or woman who is distributing the blood of Christ - though the chalice is once again being withheld by the papal church because of Covid.
Again, someone could become weak or ill, or even die. Hence the caution.
Of course, not just Roman Catholics, but all Christians who confess the Real Presence, seem to be more concerned about people getting sick or dying from Covid than from unbelief. It is as though we don’t believe what is in the Scriptures that receiving the Lord’s Supper without belief can be fatal. Theology used to be the Queen of Sciences, but now Scientism has become the Queen of Theology. It seems that we believe more in the real presence of viruses than the real presence of Jesus, and that now the fear of the microbe is the beginning of wisdom.
In the ancient church, if you traveled to another diocese to receive the Holy Sacrament, you were vetted. You were expected to produce a letter from your priest. Today, in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, something similar is happening - only the priest who must sign your letter wears a lab coat instead of an alb.
In fact, for many Roman Catholics and other Christians alike, there is a new pope. His name is Anthony.
Monday Jun 07, 2021
Monday Jun 07, 2021
ROY G BIV
Now that it is June, we’re seeing a lot of so-called rainbow flags.
In the City of New Orleans, this is nothing new. We have an entire section of Bourbon Street in which nearly all of the bars fly the so-called rainbow flag year-round. Harrah’s Casino always displays the various flags that flew over New Orleans in her 300-year history. Well, almost. One is missing. It represented the period of Southern independence. That flag has been replaced by, you guessed it, the so-called rainbow flag. Not to be accused of insufficient praise for the June honorees (and I don’t mean blushing brides), the City does put up some extra so-called rainbow banners (now even more inclusive!) on Rampart Street for the month of June. One of the area’s hospitals used to fly the so-called rainbow flag beneath the state flag of Louisiana for the entire month. Last year, if memory serves, it was only up for a day and then disappeared. I don’t know what the plan is for 2021. But I imagine there is a lot of pressure to put it back up. After all, it is 2021.
At any rate, I keep saying “so-called rainbow” because this “rainbow” is deficient. It is actually an ideal symbol for sexuality that deviates from the natural biological kind as reflected in natural law and the revealed will of God. And it is also a matter of science, that is, if you believe in such things as biology. The symbol that has come to stand for The Acronym: (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIAA, LGBTTQQIAAP, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP, and LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) is actually not the rainbow. For hopefully we all remember the mnemonic ROY G BIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Seven colors. But take a look at the so-called rainbow flag. It only has six colors.
Seven is the biblical number of completeness. It represents the fullness of the week of creation. It represents six days of work plus a sabbath rest. But six falls short. Six is the biblical number of incompleteness. The triple six is the mark of the beast, a parody of the Trinity.
And there could be no more appropriate symbol for the various sexualities that fall short of how God created mankind. For God created mankind in His image in a beautiful binary of male and female, with a mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.” What binds together all of the various letters in The Acronym is that all fall short of the glory of God, insofar as none of them can bring children into the world, and none of them reflects the divine complementarity between male and female. All of these deviations from His order of creation fly in the face of biological science and nature.
Another name for the so-called rainbow flag is the “pride flag.” Pride is the first of the traditional Seven Deadly Sins. It was Satan’s pride that preceded his fall. It was his appeal to pride that led Adam and Eve astray. But Satan’s temptation to pride failed to cause our Lord to stumble. And in fact, Jesus “emptied Himself” and took “the form of a servant,” and “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” His ultimate act of love was the very opposite of pride.
As the kids say, “Love wins.”
The real rainbow, not the parody, is truly a symbol of inclusion. For “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All is the most inclusive word of all. And the passage continues that this same all “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The rainbow was given as a sign of God’s mercy after His judgment of mankind at the flood. So the rainbow, the true rainbow, the seven-colored rainbow that appears in the clouds - is a sign of inclusion and acceptance by God of all sinners who confess their sins and cry out to the Lord for His absolution. The waters of the flood remind us of the Law that calls us to repent, and the rainbow that appeared at the end of the ordeal is a reminder of the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus died for us - for all of us.
Don’t let pride get in the way of God’s grace. And don’t be fooled into thinking that there is no consequence for sin. Rather ask for God’s mercy that you may be forgiven and given the grace to resist the devil, even as our Lord did.
While the rainbow is not, strictly speaking, a sacrament, it is a physical manifestation of God’s grace, and thus it is sacramental. Luther wrote:
[I]t is an error to hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in the effectiveness of their signs. For in this respect they are the same. The same God who now saves us by baptism and the bread, saved Abel by his sacrifice, Noah by the rainbow, Abraham by circumcision, and all the others by their respective signs. So far as signs are concerned, there is no difference between a sacrament of the Old Law and one of the New, provided that by the Old Law you mean that which God did among the patriarchs and other fathers in the days of the Law. ~ AE 36:65
So in the month of June, look upon the so-called rainbow flag as representing an incompleteness, but look to the heavens for a sign of the completeness of God’s mercy. And then look to the Church’s confession of the Word of God, and gather with your fellow “poor miserable sinners” where we are forgiven, and where the same water that was an instrument of God’s wrath is now a sacrament of His grace.
May the seven colors of the rainbow remind us of the completeness of God’s love and mercy, and may this sign ever be an encouragement for us to live lives of gratitude in His grace.
Saturday May 29, 2021
Saturday May 29, 2021
Pop Goes the Liturgy
“it [sic] think it would be awesome to hear rap in [the] worship service, especially if the context calls for it and it communicates the Gospel in a way the community will hear it.”— COMMENTER AT THE LCMS FACEBOOK PAGE
“I agree 100%. It would be awesome in a worship service. It’s communicating the gospel incarnationally in the cultural context of the community. However, it would need to be in the right context, because some congregations have shallow, exclusive, self-focused worship where their faith is a compartmentalized part of their life outside of the culture to which they belong.”— REPLY TO THE ABOVE COMMENT
Modern pop music arguably began with jazz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jazz gave way to rock and roll in the 1950s. Rock music evolved quickly into many subgenres over the next few decades. Today’s pop music is dominated by rap. But one thing that remains constant is the fact that there are those who desire to bring pop music into the Divine Service.
Here in Louisiana, Jazz Masses (and even funerals) are popular among Roman Catholics. Among Lutherans in the Wisconsin, there are Lutheran churches that conduct Polka Services. And who can forget the pinnacle of Boomer Worship: the Chicago Folk Service? Rumor has it that the CIA had been using it to interrogate suspected terrorists. I don’t believe it, though. Not even the CIA would violate the Geneva Convention so brashly.
Kyrie eleison, indeed!
And then there are the Episcopalians leading the way with the Beatles Mass (complete with John Lennon’s ode to Communism and Atheism: “Imagine.” The Beatles Mass was championed by an ELCA “pastor” named Megan Rohrer, who has recently made headlines by being the first transgender “bishop.” He was formerly one of the pastors at Ebenezer Lutheran Church (Herchurch) in San Francisco, where God is addressed as the goddess, and where the Lord’s Prayer begins “Our Mother.”
For fans of U2, Episcopalian priestess Sarah Dylan Breuer has created a U2charist.
An Episcopal congregation, St. Mary’s - headed up by Mother Kim Culp, lists other services that they have done, including the above-mentioned U2charist and Beatles Mass, a Blue Grass Mass, Coldplay Mass, CASH Mass (featuring Johnny Cash music), and a Stevie Wonder Mass.
Of course, it goes without saying - which means I have to say it because there are always readers looking to tilt at straw men - that pop music is not in and of itself evil. Some of it is, some of it isn’t. It is what it is: entertainment. And it is entertainment that can indeed be thoughtful and intellectually stimulating. I remember many years ago one of our Gottesdienst editors - who is known for his intensity and excitability - waxing eloquent on how Led Zeppelin’s song “No Quarter” reflected themes related to the office of the holy ministry. Some of the early songs by the band Evanescence confessed Christian themes - as the former writer for the band was a Christian. The band Kansas’s Kerry Livgren is a Christian, and many of his compositions reflect the faith. He even fooled the unbeliever and dabbling Satanist Ronnie James Dio to record two songs with him in which the Christian confession is hard to miss: “To Live For the King” and “Mask of the Great Deceiver.” The Christian rock band Skillet gets airplay on secular stations as well. The list goes on.
There is nothing wrong with entertainment. It is a gift of God that brings families and friends closer together and brings joy to our lives. But our sinful flesh often corrupts things that are good, turning them into idols. Satan’s most effective tactics are those which blur the line between good and evil, or perhaps more accurately, introduce the leaven of the common into the loaf of the holy.
Holiness means separation.
Holiness is a wall that divides the divine from the ordinary. Christian worship is holy according to Scripture - that is, unless we have removed Exodus and Leviticus from the canon. God Himself teaches us about worship, how He would fill out His PIF if He were on the LCMS roster. There is indeed time in our daily lives for singing the glory of God “with trumpet sound… with lute and harp…. with tambourine and dance… with strings and pipe… with sounding cymbals” and “with loud clashing cymbals” - as we sing in Psalm 150. But then there are those times when God comes to us in His most holy presence, such as when Moses found himself at the burning bush, or Isaiah stood in the throne-room of God, the high priest’s entry into the Holy of Holies, and our Lord’s miraculous presence with us in His body and blood.
Can you imagine Moses holding up a lighter and screaming “Freebird!” when God revealed His name to him and told him to remove his sandals? Can you imagine Isaiah freestyling a hip-hop beat when the seraph approached him “having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar”? Can you imagine the high priest cheerfully whistling a hippy folk song while coming into proximity with the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of Atonement?
The reality is that we have lost touch with what holiness means. Most people would probably say that it means “being good” - however that is defined, whether by not drinking or dancing or playing cards, or by being appropriately politically-correct, sensitive, and concerned with “social justice.” And how often do we Lutherans take the Sacrament of the Altar for granted? How often do we fail to appreciate that a miracle happens at our altars? Of course, when pastors conduct the liturgy in a pedestrian or even slovenly way, when they behave like stand-up comedians or clowns, and when our churches schedule Sundays to not have the sacrament and then justify it because “it’s a lot of work for the volunteers” (I actually heard that as an explanation for deviating from our confessional standard of every-Sunday communion) - who can blame our laity for not considering the Divine Service to be a miracle?
And if it isn’t a real manifestation of God coming to us, why bother? Or to put it in the words of Flannery O’Connor, “If it’s only a symbol, to hell with it.” And when the people lose faith in what the plain Words of Institution teach us, that is when pastors and congregations (and even some in our hierarchy) turn to gimmicks, to rock and roll, rap, dancing, and other entertainments to hold the attention of the parishioners, to gin up emotion, and to “get the butts in the pews” with the kinds of things that draws a crowd in a stadium or concert hall.
We must not discount the power of entertainment, especially pop music. I have had several parishioners leave my congregation and join one of our local non-denominational churches that has a pop band and a stage instead of hymns and an altar. These former parishioners outright told me that they like the music better. There were no theological considerations driving them, no crisis of whether or not what we teach is true. One said, “I gotta have a beat to move my feet.” One parishioner - whom I had baptized along with her daughter - said that her daughter enjoyed “fun church” instead of our Divine Service. But in gaining entertainment, what did they give up? In other words, what was the cost of this Sunday morning rock show? These churches do not confess Baptismal regeneration. And for them, the Lord’s Supper (so-called) is indeed only a symbol. There is no confession and absolution. The giving up of these means through which God works miraculously in our lives was, to them, a price worth paying for a beat to move one’s feet.
In our culture, entertainment is king. It is our drug of choice. It is our 24-7 companion. It gives us the dopamine we need to get through life in these gray and latter days. It is as addictive as crack cocaine, but even easier to acquire. Even our news programs are entertainment. Our schools are entertainment. TV screens adorn the walls of our doctor’s offices, airports, banks, restaurants, auto-repair shops, and our phones. Why shouldn’t our churches likewise have screens on the sanctuary walls? Why shouldn’t our church services also be entertainment? If we are entertained 24-7, 365, why should there be a single hour on Sunday morning in which we aren’t being entertained?
At the heart of the matter, this is a First Commandment issue.
As George Thorogood famously posed the question - albeit with bad grammar: “Who do you love?”
Wednesday May 26, 2021
Wednesday May 26, 2021
The New Benedictines
In 2017, author Rod Dreher wrote The Benedict Option: a Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.
I’m not really a fan of Dreher. I find his writing to be whiny, his personality to be grating, and his claim to be a conservative to be dubious. One of my close friends refers to him seamlessly as The Insufferable Rod Dreher. I concur.
That said, I recommend The Benedict Option. I have also heard very good things about his latest offering, Live Not By Lies: a Manual for Christian Dissidents. In fact, Fr. Eckardt wrote about it recently.
When The Benedict Option came out, it was largely misunderstood by a lot of people in the LCMS. Some thought it was a kind of silver-bullet step-by-step program (proof of the LCMS’s tyranny of the bureaucracy). Others rolled their eyes at the idea of Christian community as an attempt to turn us into the Amish or a monastic community. Of course, many of these same moqueurs lived on a seminary campus for three years, immersed in the Bible, confessions, and patristic writings, with lives ordered by the centrality of the worship schedule of the chapel, study, time spent making lifelong bonds of brotherhood with seminarians and their families, and living a countercultural Logocentric and cruciform life, embracing biblical heteronormativity, an exclusively-male clergy, the order of creation in the family, and submission to the Word of God - not to mention putting on a black shirt with a white collar that confesses before the world that we who pursue this life are set apart from the world.
Seminary professors essentially live the Benedict Option, as their very homes, neighborhoods, employment, and day to day life are lived out in a tightly-knit Christian community that extends beyond the three years of campus life that is lived by the students. And this sense of community is a boon to both our professors and their students, which is to say, to our future pastors who are being formed for service.
Dreher came up with the title The Benedict Option based on philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory, in which the author calls to mind the lifestyle of Christians living in the days of the Roman Empire’s collapse - who essentially safeguarded and restarted civilization around the Rule of St. Benedict and the idea of Christian communities springing up in concentric circles around these Benedictine centers of Christian civilization, learning, worship, and community. In After Virtue, MacIntyre says that we in the present age are awaiting “another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.”
Dreher explains:
Today, a new post-Christian barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from the mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture.
And so, he suggests that Christians should be more intentional about seeking out the likeminded, especially within the household of faith. He calls upon us to be more hospitable with one another, sharing our lives, withdrawing from the corrupted institutions of the world, and creating our own infrastructures (which is what our Lutheran forbears did by instituting parochial schools that taught the faith instead of undermining it). And contrary to some straw-man responses, Dreher is not suggesting political quietism or sticking our heads in the sand. He is not advocating a complete severance from the world, or a surrender from the idea of being salt and light. So stop typing that comment now, girlfriend. I know you’re out there.
This is hardly radical or new. We Lutherans have a strong heritage of this very thing. But we, alas, as we became more Americanized, we desired to become “like everyone else” - not unlike the Israelites in 1 Sam 8. And as the culture continues to degenerate, as Christians become increasingly marginalized - we would do well to be more proactive in how we live our lives, go about our work, raise our children, and contribute to civilization. We don’t know what the future holds. We may be facing centuries of a new dark age followed by the return of Christ when the Church may dwindle to a handful of people, or there may be a great backlash in our time that restores a sense of virtue to western society and the world.
We just don’t know.
But we do need to live in the here and now, in a world where Biblical Christianity is increasingly identified with hatred, where the idea that the freedom of religion is a preeminent natural right is increasingly seen as a retrograde and dangerous superstition, where the normal family is recast as evil, where deviancy is normalized, where there are now second- and third- generations of people in our country who have no idea who Jesus is, what the Bible is, or what the Church is. The abortion holocaust continues to rage, gender extremists are gaining ground every day, and our history is being rewritten by Neo-Orwellians. All of the major institutions of society, public and private sector alike, are increasingly pressuring conformity to a jackbooted antichristian agenda in the Gramscian juggernaut “march through the institutions “. It is becoming a problem as to how our children should be educated, for whom should they work, how they will find faithful spouses, and how much of the world’s entertainment they should ingest.
One trend that I have seen over the past several weeks is heartening.
I have run into a large number of the laity - mostly young couples - who are making life decisions based on where they can find a faithful congregation. This is not how things were when I was growing up. We went to school, and we got jobs. If the best pay and opportunity for advancement took us out of state, away from family, and even to a place where there were no faithful churches - so be it. We had to “make a living.” Our jobs were the top priority.
Early in my ministry, I had a young parishioner who nailed his dream job in another state. Some time after expressing his uncontainable excitement, he finally got around to asking me what church he should attend. Sadly, there was none anywhere nearby that I could recommend. The state he was moving to was a confessional wasteland. When I reported this to him and to his mother, they were utterly crestfallen. But he was not crestfallen enough to change his plans, not enough to decline the job. It reminded me of the tragic passage of the rich young man in Matt 19:16-22, who, upon being called to follow Jesus, “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
I too fell for this temptation in my twenties. I took a job with zero consideration about church attendance. In time, God pushed me around like a piece on a chessboard, and somehow, I ended up in the office of the holy ministry in spite of myself. I’m still scratching my head, but gratefully.
By contrast, I am finding more and more people who are deliberately and proactively moving to cities and towns that have solid, liturgical, confessional congregations and pastors. And I have also met people who have turned down lucrative work based on the lack of a church community to join. And in one sense, I think Covid-19 had a small silver lining to it: it has diminished the importance of physical location to one’s employment. Homeschooling has also made it possible for children to be educated anywhere. More and more people are able to work from home or run businesses over the Internet.
I have met numerous Christian people, living in these gray and latter days, who see how important belonging to a faithful Christian community is to them and to their children - who in some cases have not yet even been conceived. And it is not only young couples ordering their lives around the locus of altar, font, and pulpit instead of salary, benefits, and ambition. Retired people, and even the middle aged are now more likely than ever to be willing to pull up the stakes, sell the home, and seek out a likeminded community of brothers and sisters in Christ.
And this is really what the Benedict Option is all about. The days are long over when we could essentially locate anywhere, find a faithful confessional Lutheran church and a parochial school nearby, a church that uses the hymnal and worships according to the liturgy, one with a faithful pastor who handles the Word of God rightly - whether at the altar, in the pulpit, or while giving private pastoral care. And as our society has disintegrated, so too has the unity of our churches. One must now be discerning in deciding at what altar to commune and where one’s children will be born again of water and the Spirit.
And as we have all learned in the aftermath of the coronavirus, even introverts like me need community. After all, the Greek word for Church means “assembly.” And this doesn’t happen by Zoom or by simply calling oneself a Lutheran without having a congregation to be a part of. My hat is off to our faithful laity who have made the kingdom their top priority. This is something that we pastors should encourage and exhort our parishioners to. And for all of the bashing of the Benedict Option, that’s really all that it is.
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
It seems like every generation has had to deal with this question: Why are we losing people? And since Covid, the question is becoming all the more intense. In this episode, Larry Peters (pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN) discusses what he sees from his vantage point . . . from the pulpit over the past forty years. Peters writes at http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com.
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Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
In this episode, Ben Ball (pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Chruch, Hamel, IL, and Sixth VP of LCMS) walks us through the history and import of the Feast of Pentecost. We begin in the Old Testament where the feast is first commanded and its connection to the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai and how the giving of the Spirit by the Word of the Gospel is the fulfillment of this. Ben then takes us through the connections to the Tower of Babel and the Gospel reading. This feast, as Ben describes it, is a feast for our times, for it teaches us that Jesus reigns by his Word over all things.
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Monday May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
When I first became a Lutheran at age 18 in 1982, our congregation had two hymnals in the pew: The elder statesman of the Lutheran world: The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) and a little red new generation paperback volume called Worship Supplement (1969). We would soon ditch the TLH for the green Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) - the joint project with the churches that became the ELCA, and which was rejected by the Missouri Synod - over the objection of the congregation’s Worship Committee, which recommended the adoption of the LCMS-approved variation of LBW, the blue Lutheran Worship (1982). I don’t know all of the political machinations of the congregation, but I did later learn that the senior pastor had authored a resolution that the Missouri Synod join the ELCA. Maybe that had something to do with the congregation being strapped with the ***A hymnal for many years.
Being a new Lutheran, I actually read through the TLH and the WS. The rubrics in TLH, which more resembled Adam’s loincloth than the historic vestments of the church - were bolstered by more detail in WS as to how to worship as a Lutheran.
Like the 1966 Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, WS was a mixed bag: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But in the interest of starting with the Law and ending with the Gospel, let’s look at them in reverse order…
The Ugly
The ugly would include things such as the horrible rewording of the Lord’s Prayer. This was, after all, the year of Woodstock. I think some of the folks on the Commission on Worship (COW) had been tripping on some bad acid while listening to Country Joe and the Fish’s “Vietnam Song.” This is an example of pure progressivism: change for change’s sake. Even the option for the version of the Our Father that English speakers of every liturgical denomination has said for 500 nearly years was excised. And our liturgical overlords were very determined on this point. The boomers tried for more years than the Beatles were together to foist this “New and Improved - Now How Much Would You Pay” verbiage on a church that didn’t want it. A modernized version of the Lord’s prayer made it to LBW and LW, as like unto cockroaches, it proved hard to exterminate, but was finally put out of our Missouri in the latest hymnal, Lutheran Service Book (2006). It seems like the Commission on Worship had, by this point, gone through rehab, kicked the habit, and had come to Jesus. The traditional wording hath won the victory. Thanks be to God.
The other “ugly” is the introduction of the Reformed ceremony of the fraction in The Holy Eucharist II (page 61). Again, LSD is the only reasonable explanation. Just say no, kids.
The Bad
The Bad parts include the goofy pictographs indicating the rubrics for when to sit, stand, or kneel. I think this was about the same time when international road signs with stick figures were making their grand debut, and who knows how confusing the words “sit” and “stand” and “kneel” would be as rubrics in a hymnal? Again, the modern COW - no longer on its dope bender - has seen the light, as these silly ideograms have been replaced by plain English in LSB. After all, if English was good enough for King James and Jesus…
Also, the COW aped the papacy and the Green New Deal, I mean, the Novus Ordo, by introducing the Holy Handshake ritual. Sometimes, this is called the “passing of the peace” - but to me, it is like passing a kidney stone.
Another Bad is more along the lines of inexplicable: there is no confession of the Creed in Holy Eucharist II and III. There is no explanation for this.
The Good
The Good includes the restoration of the word “catholic” in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds (which was deep-sixed by the Blue Hymnal Boys). Also a Good is the rubric for the sign of the cross at the crescendo of both creeds in which we boldly confess the resurrection. The Nicene Creed includes the restoration of the first person plural “We believe…” instead of the first person singular “I believe…” This is how the Creed was written, and how it was confessed by the Church for centuries. It is not our individual confession only, which is implied by our modern American penchant for “I believe…” but is rather the Church’s collective confession - “We believe.” This change did not survive the transition from LBW to LW - itself a mélange of Good, Bad, and Ugly.
The inclusion of the prayer offices of Prime, Noonday, and Compline are indeed very good. The COW renamed the Office of Sext to “Noonday.” This was, after all, the year after the Summer of Love. I suppose they didn’t want to give people ideas about some new form of contemporary worship. The Office of Compline is one of the greatest additions to our hymnals’ services - and LBW/LW rounded it out with its inclusion of traditional chant tones and extended rubrics. Compline got its toe in the door and was reintroduced into the North American Lutheran life by its inclusion in WS.
One of the best features is the “Suggestions for the Worshiper” on pages 15-16. It consists of rubrics for the laity, and goes into more detail than did its equivalent in TLH on page 4. This section explains the sign of the cross, and gives instructions for doing it. It encourages crossing oneself “at the Trinitarian Invocation, at the last phrase of the Creed, before and after receiving the elements of Holy Communion, and at the Benediction.” Such rubrics actually help in the restoration of liturgical practice in American Lutheranism, as it will placate some “concerns” that “people are having, pastor (but I can’t say who)” that this stuff is “too Catholic.” After all, if CPH says it’s okay, it must be okay. At least some people will accept the imprimatur of the Holy Office of the Publishing House from the Violet Vatican. Others will still demur, but a half glass is better than an empty glass, as Gottesblog’s whiskey-drinkers believe, teach, and confess.
This section also includes rubrics for bowing:
“on entering the church, during the first half of the Gloria Patri, on approaching the altar for Holy Communion, and on leaving the pew after the conclusion of the service. Bowing more deeply or kneeling is customary at the words of the Nicene Creed ‘he was born… and became man.’ Bowing only the head is appropriate at any mention of the sacred name of Jesus, especially where this occurs in the Creed.”
I learned the profound little prayer upon receiving the elements from this section, a variation of which I still say as the celebrant:
Lord, I am not worthy that You have come under my roof, but only say the word, and Your servant will be healed.
These rubrics also teach the reader to confess his “Amen” when receiving the elements after the pastor has said, “The body of Christ” and “The blood of Christ.”
This Worship Supplement’s rubrical catechesis shaped my piety as a new Lutheran attending Divine Service. Inexplicably to me, precious few in the pews actually followed these rubrics. But some did.
There is also “A Form of Private Confession and Absolution” including helpful rubrics. There was no such liturgy in TLH.
Another enhancement of TLH is the fact that the pastor’s chant tones are indicated, thus giving the celebrant “permission” to chant the liturgy - something that was missing in TLH. I’ve heard several theories, such as the World War II paper shortage or a hurried effort to publish the book, but people often make such assertions with no evidence. The TLH version of the Pastor’s Chant Tones did come out as a separate volume a couple years later, but by that time, the weird hybrid of the pastor speaking and the congregation chanting had already calcified, like clogged arteries. Some pastors are still accused of secret Romanism to this very day if they chant their parts of the liturgy - even though our hymnals have indicated these chant tones now since the days of John Cougar’s “Hurts So Good,” Asia’s “Heat of the Moment,” and Van Halen’s “Pretty Woman.” That’s almost 40 years, as long as the Israelites wandered in the desert. And we know what the purpose of that timeframe was.
Maybe some of our members of a certain age see LSB as a Russian conspiracy to put us back under the pope. OK boomers.
Perhaps the best Good of the Worship Supplement is the hymn section. So much of the hymnody that we now take for granted was introduced to North American Lutherans by this resource. And, believe it or not, many of these hymns are stronger versions than what eventually filtered its way into LSB - including some hymns that retain gendered language and even Elizabethan English. Apparently, not everyone was dropping acid. There were clearly a few Nixon voters in the old COW
Some of the “new” hymns include:
Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending
Creator of the Stars of Night
O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Angels We Have Heard on High
Let All Together Praise Our God
In Dulci Jubilo (in Latin and English)
Gentle Mary Laid Her Child
What Child is This
O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair
My Song is Love Unknown
Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle
At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
With High Delight, Let Us Unite
O Sons and Daughters of the King
The Victimae Paschali Celebration (LSB: Christians, to the Pascal Victim)
This Joyful Eastertide
I Bind Unto Myself Today
Thy Strong Word Did Cleave the Darkness
O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High
Son of God, Eternal Savior
Holy Spirit, Ever Dwelling
From All Thy Saints in Warfare (LSB: For All Your Saints in Warfare)
In Adam We Have All Been One
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
In Thee is Gladness
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
God of Grace and God of Glory
Before the Ending of the Day
There are also improved tunes for some hymns, such as:
Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding
The Royal Banners Forward Go
Come Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain
Lord God, Thy Praise We Sing (Luther’s antiphonal Te Deum)
One glorious hymn that was introduced in WS, made it to LW, but did not make the cut in LSB is:
O Kingly Love, That Faithfully
So although Worship Supplement is largely forgotten, like the fact that a band named Quill played Woodstock - there seems to be no relation to the eponymous Fort Wayne professor - it has been influential in the shaping of our worship in the LCMS. It has retired and sits on pastor’s shelves, only being thumbed through for the sake of nostalgia or research. And like the 1960s itself, it is a mixed bag.
And so as a tribute to Worship Supplement, here is a video of the earworm that we are all hearing right now.
You’re welcome.