Tradition vs. Mission...

This is a typical false dichotomy in the contemporary LCMS. And in fact, the speaker (Rev. Dan Kimball, not a Lutheran pastor) was the keynote at a 2008 LCMS synodical youth ministry symposium.

Quick impression:

1) Having a "worship gathering" in a coffeeshop with a black ceiling is also a "tradition." The implication is that new traditions are "missional" and old traditions are not. But often these "hip" churches exclude entire demographic swaths of people.

2) Without using the term "adiaphoron," Kimball argues that not only is worship an adiaphoron, but so is the office of the ministry. He has pushed nearly everything into the realm of adiaphoron in the name of a pragmatic approach to mission. This is where the LCMS is headed with the current understanding of adiaphoron as "anything goes."

3) The church as "one, holy catholic, and apostolic" in Kimball's worldview is "fractured, worldly, individualistic, and ahistorical."

4) There is an anthropocentric emphasis on mission shown by Kimball's never mentioning the of the Holy Spirit nor even citing Holy Scripture (at least as I remember from watching the video once). There was certainly nothing Trinitarian or baptismal going on.

I'm not saying Kimball is not a Christian. But I am saying that his approach to worship, tradition, and soteriology are all completely antithetical to the Lutheran confession, and, to adopt his premises in a Lutheran context cannot be done with a quia subscription.



Tawk amongst yaselves...