Saturday, Easter IV, A.D. 2005

April 23

Logia Editorial Department

314 Pearl Street

Mankato, MN  56001

Dear Editor:

In regard to “In Statu Confessionis: Origins and Development,” Eastertide 2005:  I found the article most helpful in tracing the lineage of that term.  Had the author confined himself to this, it would have been a laudable essay.  However, he was not content to show the term may have questionable value among us (Though Dr. Collver admits that for over 30 years in statu confessionis has been defined for use in the LCMS); he went on to question the value of making a confession which threatened to break fellowship.  Then in his conclusions you see that he is really opposed to a confession that says it will not stay in fellowship with error.

The real point of his paper is to make men think twice before stating that a particular teaching has no place in the kingdom of the right.  To this end he labels in stau confessionis “the perfect post-modern term.”  He goes on to link the term to things reprehensible to confessional Lutherans such as the Barman Declaration of 1934, the social gospel, the Reformed Church (The term “now belongs more to the Reformed than to the Lutherans.”), and activism in general.  He uses the favorite tool of the new-conservative, the reductio ad absurdum saying, “There seems to be no end to the sorts of issues that might prompt one to enter into status confessionis.”  He also uses the favorite tool of the devil, despair, “Thus, entering into staus confessionis may not have a salutary effect for anyone involved.”  Finally, in conclusion, after pushing all the right buttons of would-be confessors, he pushes the nuclear one:  “In light of the foregoing, a status confessionis protest against a church body does not seem to be a tenable option to those who take the Lutheran Confessions seriously.”

Is he serious?!  Granted the term in statu confessionis and even the concept of confessing against a church body’s error may not be found in Formula of Concord X, is there any doubt that Holy Scripture teaches we must identify and eventually separate from false teaching?  Is there any doubt that Scripture does not allow us to remain in fellowship by taking exceptions to our Synod’s confessional stance?  The official position of the LCMS is that praying at an American civil religious service with every religious body in America not only may be done but should be done in some circumstances.  Our official position is that this is not necessarily unionism or syncretism.  If you are on the clergy roster of Synod or if your congregation is on the roster, that is your position.  Neither Scripture nor Synod’s constitution allows you to pretend that it is not.  If you do not by some mechanism state to your congregation and to your ecclesiastical supervisors that this is not your position and call them to repentance, you are participating in their error.

Our Synod is ablaze with an error that will absolutely destroy the Gospel among us and Collver is content to fiddle with terms.  This reminds me of the Churchill story where someone took him to task for ending sentences with prepositions. He responded by showing his distain for the protestor saying, “From now on ending a sentence with a preposition is an effrontery up with which I shall not put.”  Confessional Lutherans in this dark hour cannot put up with this sort of pedantic effrontery found in this article.  Collver claims that the true confessional position is to stay in the Synod confessing the truth till they throw you out.  Rome never would have thrown out Luther or the Sanhedrin Stephen if they had spoken as Collver does.  Error will always tolerate truth sharing her bed.  It only reacts when truth identifies error as the harlot she is and refuses to share the bed with her.

Formula of Concord X may indeed only be about confessing when the State persecutes the Church, but the whole Formula of Concord is about the Lutherans refusing the right hand of fellowship to the Reformed.  Formula of Concord X may not be the source for being in a state of confession over against someone in the Church, but Romans 16:17 is.  The only alternative is to adopt the position of the Statement of the Forty-Four that Romans 16:17 is not to be applied to erring Christians.

By far, the most egregious thing this paper does is to call taking a public stand of confession in which you threaten to break fellowship “the easy way.”  This reminds me of the large sign in front of the U.S. Army’s Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia in the 1970’s.  It said that this facility was dedicated to those men who died for the cause of peace so that lesser men might have the freedom to cry, “Peace, Peace,” when there was none.  Dr. Collver is crying for peace.  I am crying for a bold, clear confession that we will not be in fellowship with soul destroying error.  I may indeed be “burned” even as the martyrs were, and no doubt men of Dr. Collver’s ilk will think this senseless, useless, and uncofessional.  Even so, no one helped a martyr in the agony of the flames by urinating on him to put them out.

In Christ,

Rev. Paul R. Harris

Pastor

What Others are Saying … My View from the Inside

June 2nd, 2010

By Barbara Below

Director of Social Ministry Organizations

LCMS World Relief and Human Care

I work in St. Louis at a place many call, “The Purple Palace.” Officially, it is the International Center of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Specifically, I work as Director of Social Ministry Organizations in the department of LCMS World Relief and Human Care, the mercy arm of the Synod, and with Rev. Matthew Harrison as Executive Director.

Before my first visit to the building, I pictured it as a large office building made of purple glass. It is a large, glass, office building, but disappointedly it isn’t purple. I work in a cubicle that looks out a glass wall over a large pond with cars moving along the freeway. The large glass windows make for a very impressive view on a sunny, St. Louis, spring day.

I must admit I was very uncertain about coming to work in this building and for Rev. Matt Harrison six years ago. As a professional woman, I was sensitive to the fact that over the years women have occupied an increasingly greater number of management and leadership positions than in my mother’s generation, but I was uncertain how exactly a woman would fit into the bureaucracy of the church. I recall growing up and hearing the term “glass ceiling” and learning about how women were moving into leadership positions of companies. Later in school I learned there were also “glass walls” for women that limited their opportunities for learning or experience. Like starting other new jobs I wondered what my opportunities for growth within the organization would be. As a pastor’s wife, I understand from Scripture that women are not given the Office of the Ministry or its tasks, but I knew that God does bless women with skills and abilities to serve in many other valuable ways in the church. I was anxious and excited to serve in my new role and prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide and fill me with wisdom and strength and that there would be plenty of opportunities and doors opened for me.

However, any uncertainties that I had about these doors and walls quickly disappeared. I was able to see that under the leadership of Rev. Matt Harrison, he had brought on board several women in significant leadership positions and has actually led “The Purple Palace” in gender diversity among his leadership team. Two other women, Marie Kienker and Maggie Karner, were also placed by Matt in leadership positions in LCMS World Relief and Human Care—Marie as the Associate Executive Director for WR-HC (and now the Executive Director of the Lutheran Housing Support Corporation) and Maggie as the Director of Life Ministries. Other women were either in management positions prior to Matt coming to WR-HC and have stayed on, or have been promoted from entry-level positions and ultimately into manager positions in the department. In fact, to my surprise it seems to me that Matt has had more women in leadership positions on his team than many other areas in the Synod bureaucracy.

After six years of employment as a woman in a leadership position on the mercy team of the LCMS and my experience working for Rev. Matt Harrison, I have come to see that the WR-HC a place where women are respected, treated fairly and equally, encouraged to pursue their personal and professional goals, sought after for their intelligence and talent, and valued for their unique gifts.

Frequently, Matt likes to use his favorite, blue Sharpie marker and write thank you notes to donors and staff to express his gratitude for their support in mercy efforts. In one such note I received he wrote, “Barb, I’m honored, delighted to work with you.” In another, he wrote: “I am thankful for you and your incredible and unique gifts.”

Through the years, Matt has demonstrated time after time that he takes joy in diversity and sees the special gifts of each person. As a leader, Rev. Matt Harrison has shown that he seeks out the best talent, regardless of gender, and not only values but seeks out the perspectives of others, including women.

In one of Matt’s Sharpie-penned thank you notes I received in 2009, he wrote: “It is a delight to work with you. I especially appreciate your perceptivity and ability to step back from a situation and analyze what’s really going on.”

Matt has welcomed professional women as leaders in the army of mercy warriors. He has been one of the strongest advocates of deaconesses in leadership positions and continually pushed me to advocate for deaconesses to be considered for leadership positions in RSOs. He has hired deaconesses and given many internship opportunities in the department, trying his utmost to care for these budding, professional church workers

As a woman on the LCMS Mercy Team, under the leadership of Rev. Matt Harrison, I have experienced open opportunities, appreciation for my gifts and talents, and encouragement to do more, try anything, and believe in myself as much as he has believed in me. He has done much to promote the service of women in their God- given, biblically appropriate vocations within the church bureaucracy.

This point was driven home even more firmly for me the day he bounced into my cubicle like a young boy who had just been given a great prize. He had a big, warm smile on his face, handed me a piece of paper and said “Read this. I think you’ll like it.”

He had handed me a copy of page 826 of At Home in the House of My Fathers with the article, “Strength is Feminine.” In this brief, little speech by Theodore Brohm are these words:

Purity, love, trust, prudence, wisdom, devoutness, sympathy—these are woman’s signant [sic] qualities. Take them from woman, and you have unsexed the sex. But if this is true, it is equally true that power makes these virtues greater. Power makes purity more lustrous. Power makes love stronger. Power gives energy to prudence, gives largess to wisdom, gives firmness to devoutness, and takes nothing from sympathy.

Later Matt and I talked about this little piece and how his pastoral heart takes joy in watching both men and women embrace all that God has created them to be.

The building where I have worked for the last six years may be made of glass, but my experience as a woman and part of the LCMS Mercy Team, has been of a department with open doors and encouragement. My experience has been one of opportunities, not limits; promotion, not marginalization; inclusion, not separation; and value rather than disregard. Thank you, Rev. Matt Harrison, for setting the example of leadership in the church and giving women the opportunity and encouragement to pursue our God-given vocations within the church.( http://crossfocusedleadership.org/2010/06/below/)

As the current President’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and the former President’s selection of Dick Cheney as vice-president indicated their intended directions so does the selections being made by newly elected Rev. Matthew Harrison.  Next week will take a look at another one of his selections which will get us singing right along with Johnny Nash.

The Pro-Life movement stands for babies in the womb.  The Pro-Abortion movement doesn’t recognize babies as babies till they’re out of the womb.  The Pro-Abortion crowd bangs the drum of pregnancy by rape or incest.  The Pro-Life movement responds, “That’s only 1% of all abortions.”  The Pro-Abortion movement counters.  “Fine, then at least recognize abortion is morally right in those circumstances.  Well pregnancies by rape and incest may be 1% of abortions, but it’s 100% of the argument.  If the Pro-Life cause says it’s okay to kill those babies in the womb resulting from rape or incest, they have no moral basis for opposing someone else’s reason for killing a baby in utero.

The Association of Confessing Evangelical Lutheran Churches can be read about here http://acelc.net. This is a group of LCMS congregations actually confessing what the LCMS supposedly stands for.  There “A Fraternal Admonition to Correct the Errors of Our Beloved Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod” is on their website. I agree with much of what it says.  There is a 1% I don’t because it is 100% of the argument.

Under the first section “Pure Doctrine,” the third point is this:  “Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions uphold the Order of Creation as the framework within which both Church and home must function in order for the home and congregation to properly reflect Christ and His bride the Church. Today some in the LCMS insist that if the Synod wishes to remain faithful, we must reevaluate how we interpret God’s Word in its teaching that women not be allowed to exercise the office of the pastoral ministry. We reject the toleration of this error.”  Under section 5 they also treat the Order of Creation.  I agree with what they say in both places as far as it goes.  But nota bene they say in neither place that the Order of Creation applies in the world.  They don’t say it does not, but that seems to be the implication of saying that “the Order of Creation is the framework within which both Church and home must function.”

Th 33% left out is 100% of the argument against female pastors and women congregational leaders.  Adam and Eve were the first home, church and state.  If you deny that the Order of Creation applies to the world, you have drawn an arbitrary line at the door of the home and the church.  To be sure there are all sorts of challenges, responsibilities, and rethinking connected to returning to the LCMS’ original position on the subject, but it won’t do to go halfway or two-thirds way.  If we’re in for a penny, we’re in for the whole pound.

The male-female relationship is a nucleus issues.  Erwin Chargaff comments on two other nucleus issues showing that when these issues are tampered with they set off chain reactions of untold, unintended, and unimagined consequences.  He says, “’My life has been marked by two immense and fateful scientific discoveries: the splitting of the atom, the recognition of the chemistry of heredity and its subsequent manipulation.  It is the mistreatment of the a nucleus that, in both instances, lies at the basis: the nucleus of the atom, and the nucleus of the cell.  In both instances do I have the feeling that science has transgressed a barrier that should have remained inviolate’” (in Jerry D. Salyer, “Where the Demons Dwell: The Antichrist Right,” Chronicles, August 2010, 20).

Three observations.  1) It is in the name of the social sciences that the nucleus of male-female has been tampered with. 2) It too involves a splitting of what God has joined together.  3)  The real implications of discarding the order of creation can be seen in the ruling for same sex marriage.  Judge Vaughn Walker, himself a homosexual by the way, said in part that the excluding same-sex couples from marriage “’exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage…That time has passed’” (Austin American Statesman, 8-7-10, Editorial, The New York Times, “Marriage is a constitutional right,” A17).

In regard to the ACELC’s admonition for the LCMS to do something now, I  imagine the newly elected LCMS conservative administration pleading, “Give us a chance.” I’d probably do the same, but I think the ACELC is to be applauded for offering a cure for what ails Missouri.  To often I am like C.S. Lewis said of one his detractors.  I assert many diseases without advising any cures (“Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger, God in The Dock, 183).  I think there is real curative power in the stand this group is taking, but I’m nagged by that 1%.

I’ve noted that you can focus on the truth all day long and most people will let you, but the moment you start saying, “This teaching is wrong, false, incorrect, or even misleading,” people are offended.  Yet Paul plainly tells Pastor Titus that a pastor should be one “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers” (Titus 1:9).

As I suspected, focusing on teaching the truth rather than refuting the error is thoroughly modern.  According to the 1939 work Christianity and Classical Culture, early Christians believed that “the best approach to truth is through a study of error” (vii).  This is how the Lutheran Formula of Concord does theology.  It not only states the thesis but the antithesis.  It not only says what the truth to believe is but rejects and condemns the error.

The modern approach doesn’t.  It states the truth, and eventually its watered down to be the truth “as you see it, understand it, believe it, or interpret it.”  This then leads to understanding truth as somewhere between your thesis and someone else’s antithesis.  Truth is a synthesis.

I honestly don’t know if the banking industry does train tellers by exposing them only to true money, but even if they do, still the teller must say at sometime, “This is not true money.”  And if he will not, he cannot be a teller.  Or if he should somehow become one, he won’t be much of one.  Likewise, the pastor who isn’t able to say or will not say, “This teaching is false.”  He may be a nice guy, a gifted guy, a “loving” guy, but he’s not a shepherd.  Shepherds must be able and willing to identify the wolf even if it is all dressed up as a sheep.  True sheep want such a shepherd.  True sheep don’t say, “You’re being negative, unkind, or unchristian.”  True sheep say, “God bless you for refuting the gainsayer if not for his sake then mine.”

This in itself has to be regarded as a stupid statement.  In the creation-evolution debate.  The backwoods, low-brow, Bible-thumpers are the Creationists.  They are the ones Clarence Darrow made sport of.  The Intelligent Design crowd are intellectuals, highly educated, and usually some sort of scientist.  So to say what they say is not that intelligent must be stupid.

What has always bothered me about their argument is that it is nothing new.  This is the centuries old “argument from design” aka the Teleological Argument.  This is Hebrews 11:3.  As the existence of a cabin proves the existence of a cabin builder, so the existence of the world proves a world builder.  This argument long preceded Darwin.  And according to Stephen C. Meyer, latest fair-haired boy of the Intelligent Design crowd, by Darwin’s time it was considered defunct.  Yet Meyer believes that modern science can “’revive and resuscitate the classical argument from design’” (World, Dec. 19, 2009, 41).

Meyer gets his inspiration from Darwin and Darwin’s predecessor 19^th century geologist Charles Lyell.  Both these men believed you should be able to explain what has happened in the past by what is happening in the present.  In their closed system, one devoid of God, only the processes going on now can explain where we came from.  Creationists have long pointed out that the processes going on today are of breaking down not building up, decay not regeneration.  These processes don’t yield creation of new life or evolution to higher forms.

Whereas Creationists take on Evolutionists on the basis of evidence: fossil record, catastrophism versus uniformitarianism, age of the earth, etc, ID takes them on by conceding their point, by conceding their principle of reasoning: that we must explain what happened in the past based on what is now happening.

Meyer believes that our ability to see deeper by microscope than Darwin did will enable us to see indications of the Creator in the design.  He specifically mentions “digital code that’s stored in a DNA molecule, or the tiny little miniature machines, the nanotechnology, the sliding clamps and turbines and rotary engines that biologists are now finding inside living cells’” (Ibid., 38).  But the argument that being able to see farther and deeper with microscopes will enable us to see the face of God doesn’t seem any different than when scientist said that the Hubble telescope’s ability to see farther into space meant we were going to be able to see the “face of God.” There is one difference.  The 1980s scientists had the decency to enclose the God they thought they would find in quotes.

Seriously?  The number one problem with the Gospel is evolution! What happened to the problem of evil, pain, suffering?  What happened to the insurmountable obstacle that the finite became capable of the infinite in the Person of Jesus?  (Oops, the Reformed have pretty much sidestepped that one by making Jesus the one God worked through omnipotently, omnisciently, omnipresently.)  What happened to a sinful, fallen, mortal such as me being able to be redeemed?

My point is there are more unbelievable things in the Gospel than a six day creation, a young earth, and a real Adam and Eve.  And there are many more unbelievable things in evolution:  Matter has always been here.  At some point a creature without a soul gave birth to a person with a soul. (Unless you are going to deny the existence of the soul and spiritual things altogether.  Consistent evolutionists do that.)  On even a more basic level, at some point something nonliving gave birth to something living.  Noted evolution apologists Richard Dawkins says that 3-4 thousand years ago, “There was no life, no biology, only physics and chemistry…” (Climbing Mount Improbable, 282).  It seems we haven’t progressed much beyond Dr. Frankenstein’s fallacy that life can come from dead things.

Richard Dawkins admits the unbelievable things in evolution.  He says the probability of a sequence of 100 amino acids spontaneously forming is 1 in 20¹⁰⁰ (Ibid., 75).  As for life happening he says, “So the sort of lucky event we are looking for could be so wildly improbable that the chances of its happing, somewhere in the universe, could be as low as one in a billion billion billion in any one year” (Ibid., 283).  Science says an event that has a 1 in 10⁵⁰ chance of happening is scientifically impossible.

It seems to me that it is not evolution per say that causes college students to reject the Gospel but the deification of science.  One of my members recently told me of someone who remarked (I can’t remember who now.) that science gives answers to relatively unimportant questions.  Science will never be able to tell you where you came from or where you’re going.  Recall this is one of our Lord’s proofs of who He was.  He knew from where He came and where He was going (John 8:14), and therefore, He alone can tell us where we come from and where we are going.

For me the problem of evil, suffering, forgiveness and my sinfulness are much bigger than the problems of dinosaurs, age of the earth, or creation out of nothing.  You will find the prophets and apostles struggling with my questions, not the reported number one reason college students fall away. When Jacob wrestles with God at the ford of the Jabbok, it was because of the problems I mentioned.  He wrestles with God over questions of redemption not creation.  I think Darwin did to.  “Charles Darwin himself never recovered from the uncomprehended death of his beloved daughter Annie.  The apparent injustice of her illness was said to have contributed to his loss of religious faith” (Ibid., 268).  Having wrestled with God at the Jabbok and unlike Jacob having “won” (see Genesis 32), Darwin went on to give the rest of us Jabberwocky to wrestle with.

Actually in regard to the physical it’s not my contention alone.  The New England Journal of Medicine began a study in 1982 to test the claims of those saying there was power, or at least healing and health, in positive thinking.  They released that study in June of 1985.  Time magazine reported on it in their June 24, 1985 issue in an article entitled “Medicine: Can Attitudes Affect Cancer?”  You can read it in toto here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959465,00.html The following two quotes summarize the findings.

“…the researchers could find no relationship between attitude and either the survival or recurrence rate. In general, the more cheerful patients showed no greater capacity than the depressed ones for fighting their cancers, and the pessimists were at no greater risk of death or recurrence than the optimists. Concluded the report: ‘Our study . . . suggests that the inherent biology of the disease alone determines the prognosis, overriding the potentially mitigating influence of psychosocial factors.’”

“…it also questioned the effectiveness of positive thinking in fighting any disease. Medical literature, wrote Angell, ‘contains very few scientifically sound studies of the relation, if there is one, between mental state and disease . . . It is time to acknowledge that our belief in disease as a direct reflection of mental state is largely folklore.’”

An objectless faith, i.e. one that has no Word of God (audible or visible) on which it can hang it’s hat is wretched, yet this is what most people think of when they think of faith.  Edward Plass defended Luther’s refusal to recognize fellowship with Zwingli at Marburg over against the church historian Philip Schaff who said, “’There are not a few Lutherans who have more liking for Luther’s faults than for his virtues and admire his conduct at Marburg as much, if not more, than his conduct at Worms.’”  Plass rebutted by saying the principle Luther contended for was the same both places.  “A faith without a God-given object is just as reprehensible as a God-given object without faith.”  (This is Luther, 177)  Rome had faith in her teachings above God’s Word; Zwingli believed the Lord’s Supper was what he thought it was rather than what Jesus said it was.

Now lets go deeper into the weeds.  How many LCMS people and even pastors in funeral sermons have you heard say, “I know he was saved or in heaven because he believed.”  “Just believing” saved him in the same way others claim “just believing” healed them.

Still doesn’t seem like that big of a deal? Here’s a quote from Luther’s Explanation of the 95 Theses: “Learn at least, dear reader, whether they [Roman Catholic preachers] do not by their pestilential preaching make people believe that salvation and the true grace of God depend upon indulgences” (AE, 31, 207).  Now replace the last word “indulgences” with the word “faith.”  Can you see that preaching an objectless “faith” is to preach despair because everything depends on your believing?  Luther saw it and you should be able to as well even with no word changes.  Luther said, “May every single sermon be forever damned which persuades a person to find security and trust in or through anything whatever except the pure mercy of God, which is Christ” (Ibid., 309).

If you stayed with me this long, here is where the payoff comes.  This is worth the cost of the read, and why I wrote the blog in the first place.  Martin Chemnitz in his Loci Theologici says that as long as faith “clings to the true object…spiritual struggles, whether in the area of assent or in desire or in trust, are not signs of unbelief, but true marks of living and efficacious faith” (II, 503).  This is not true when talking about an objectless faith.  Then everything rides on how much or how firm your assent, desire, or trust is.

This is the definition of and justification for inculturation in the 2006 Oxford History of Christian Worship “’Inculturation is the incarnation of the Christian life and message in a concrete cultural situation, in such a way that not only is the experience expressed with elements typical of the culture in question …but also that this same experience transforms itself into a principle of inspiration, being both a norm and a unifying force, transforming and recreating this culture…’”   “Every genuine attempt in church history to have the message and life of the Gospel appropriated into the lived experience of a given culture can be said to have been inspired by the spirit of inculturation” (683, emphasis mine).

The best argument for inculturation comes from this story out of Africa.  An African tells of an Irish Catholic priest celebrating mass in his village.  “When he presided at the Eucharist, he turned his back to the people and then bowed again and again – a gesture that was considered an insult to the villagers, who were accustomed to bow low for dogs to clean them up after they had relieved themselves in the forest.” (Ibid., 678)  Still I wouldn’t argue that the liturgical gesture of bowing or the  orientation of the celebrant needed to be dropped or changed only explained.  The priest isn’t offering you his buttock but God his adoration.

When I arrived in Detroit, I found a neighboring confessional Lutheran pastor using decidedly un-Lutheran Sunday School material.  I asked him why?  He said it was the only material he could find that showed black people.  I struggled with this at the time, and still do. The Last Supper by Mr. LI, Jinxing depicts all the participants including Jesus as Asians. (Ibid., plate 26).  Baby Jesus and Mother Mary have long been depicted according to local culture, and you can argue that this happened among Renaissance painters first.

My struggle continued when a missionary to New Guinea told me that in translating the Bible into the local language they had a problem with Jesus being the Bread of life.  Bread is not a staple of their diet, and if I remember correctly grains aren’t either grown there or used there (that much?).  So they translated Jesus saying, “I am the Sweet Potato of life.”  I should have asked, What then did you use in celebrating the Lord’s Supper?

This is the wall inculturation always hits.  There is an 18^th century painting in a Peru cathedral which replaces the paschal lamb with a local guinea pig and The Oxford History of Christian Worship says it “is a gesture toward inculturation” (plate 26).  They may not have wheat in New Guinea, but I’m pretty sure they have lambs in Peru.  But the issue isn’t really about having a lamb in a painting but having the Lamb on the altar.  Back to Africa.

Among some of the indigenous people there drinking wine and laying on of hands rank high among their religious and cultural prohibitions.  The incluturists [if there is such a word] argue, “If the dynamics of culture are to be respected in such cases, it would be inconsistent with the nature of inculturation, to attempt to impose such foreign and ‘ungodly’ elements on a people.  Evangelical, pastoral, missionary prudence would require seeking out and assimilating other practices and elements that bear the marks of both authenticity and gospel spirit.” (Ibid., 685).  The writer goes on to say the issue is whether God has blessed Africa with holy enough elements for the Eucharist? Then he concludes,  “What is wrong with palm wine and millet bread” (Ibid., 689 emphasis mine)?

When germs were first discovered to be the cause of disease, in came shot glasses (Ibid, 618).  When alcohol was first “discovered” to be the cause of society ills by the Temperance League, out went the wine and in came the grape juice (Ibid., 618).  It wasn’t called inculturation, but that’s what it was.  The church adapted to culture and then even went so far as to adopt it.  So rather than being those who turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6), she has become upended by it.

But always there have been those standing on the bank of the river that is spewed out of the serpent’s mouth and readily swallowed by the world (Revelation 12: 15,16) saying, “No don’t jump in; the current is too strong; you’ll be swept away.”  You hear this voice even at the Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order in Montreal, 1963.  In the paper “Worship and the Oneness of Christ’s Church,” we read, “’We ought not to be so much concerned with adapting worship to the local culture that we forget that the culture itself is to be transformed’” (Ibid., 738).

I’m not saying that Rev Waddell is saying, “Jump.”  He would never say jump into what Satan spews, but neither would he say inculturation comes from Satan’s maw.  Is that what I’m saying?  Really smart people always answer a tough question with another question.  I’m not that smart, so I’ll say I know there is river that comes from Satan and is swallowed by the world.  Watch your step around that river, and if you happen to fall in (I surely have before.), don’t swallow.  And finally I don’t see the difference between the call to be contemporary and the call to incluturation.  The latter seems to be a five dollar word for the former.

Take a page from Redeemer Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas.

Consider the following ideas as ways that you might personally take a small step in your daily life to intentionally share Jesus with others in an even GREATER way!

At a Restaurant

• If it is your usual practice to pray before you eat, let your waitperson know you are going to pray and ask him or her if there is anything you can include in your prayer or a way that you might pray for God to bless him or her.
• Keep some pocket crosses in your purse or wallet. When you sign for your credit card and bill amount, write a brief Christian message such as “God Bless You” or “You Are Special to God” or “Nothing is Impossible With God” and include the cross as well.

In Your Car

• Make up some lunch bags with water bottles and peanut butter crackers in them. Include a Christian message in or on the bag. The next time you see someone on the side of the road with a sign saying they are hungry, you will have something to offer for them for the stomach and their soul! (http://www.redeemer.net/article240815.htm)

How about a page from the May 10, 2010 Portals of Prayer:

A young man who was valedictorian of his public high school class was given.…strict instructions about refraining from using the name of God in his speech.  Here’s what he did. He convinced ninety-two of his friends in the graduating class to sneeze at an orchestrated time.  The young man then shouted out, ‘God bless you!’  Contrary to instructions, he got God out anyway.”

And finally for pièce de résistance.  It’s from the Spring 2010 Ablaze! Update, page 3 under the headline “Ablaze! Covenant Congregation reaches out to the unchurched in Southern California”

The FamJam worship format is a unique and experimental one in which the whole family can learn about a “Big Truth of God” together at the same time and in the same place. This 70-minute experience includes six-minute blocks that share a message, drama, music, and activity. The interactive message is communicated in a variety of media and methods. In fact, it is normal for members to experience scooters racing down the worship center, masks, balls, and silly string during FamJam—all for the family to experience God together in a unique setting.

If the final piece doesn’t show that what Ablaze! has ignited ought to be resisted by the Synod that claims to preach only Christ and Him crucified, perhaps a little Théâtre de l’Absurde can. As I was sharing these things with my Sunday morning Bible class, one of the members told me of person they personally knew who legally changed their name to “Jesus Saves.”

Augustine became so frustrated with the Donatists for not participating in worship with the Catholics he justified the use of physical force from the parable where the king with more food than guests says “compel them to come.”  Apparently we are so frustrated that the Lord’s Food is going uneaten we have justified the use of frivolity, banality, and just plain silliness.  But what you win people with is what you win them to.

Every Lutheran pastor has been taught the following:

1) Luther thought immersing was the most fitting way to baptize.

2) The early church baptisteries prove they baptized by immersion.

3) You can’t prove from Scripture that Jesus or anyone else was baptized by immersion.  The Greek word baptize means to apply water somehow.

4) The only people in the Bible that were for sure immersed were the Egyptians.

5) Some faith groups insist that immersion is the only mode of baptizing and deny those not immersed have been baptized.

6) By not immersing, we are testifying both to the fact that we will not have our consciences bound by a manmade law and to the fact that neither the mode nor the amount of water contribute to the validity or efficacy of Baptism.

Every Lutheran pastor has been asked by someone to make an exception and baptize them or a child by immersion.  The reasoning is always that it is more Biblical (wrong) and/or more fitting.  When I’ve admitted, with Luther, that it is more fitting sign, they have without fail said that they meant it was more of a baptism.  I have never made the exception.  Why?  Because to do so would baptize the error that the mode or amount of water somehow contributes to what Baptism is or does.  Second, it could cause others who have “only been sprinkled” to doubt if their Baptism was enough.

Let’s give Chaplain Washington a pass here.  The photo says the Baptism took place in Iraq.  Perhaps this soldier was about to go out on a combat patrol.  Perhaps no matter how hard and well the good chaplain catechized the solider he couldn’t be disabused from the notion that the only fitting way to be baptized was by immersion.  Given such a situation I can believe that I too would immerse the solider.  However, by publishing the picture The Lutheran Witness has immersed our theology.

Isn’t that how it always is?  You identify one threat only to be surprised by another.  I thought our confessional theology was only endangered by the fires of Ablaze! Now the waters are rising against us.