A Place at the Table?

I had never heard of Kat Von D., but it seems that she has been a big deal on reality TV shows and in the pop culture. She was a practicing witch, and was therefore enamored with the occult. She recently underwent a conversion to Christianity and was baptized:

Yes, I know that the pastor and church are not LCMS. Your objection is duly noted ahead of time.

Katherine Von Drachenberg has apparently renounced the devil and has gotten rid of her tarot cards and occult books (Acts 19:18-20). This is significant in the current culture, as apparently as of 2018, there were more witches than Presbyterians in the United States. Had Katherine been born some twenty years earlier, she might not have been exposed to the occult at a young age - as it was just not as acceptable or common.

I recently heard a talk by an LCMS presenter (whom I like, and with whom I agree on much, but not everything) mention in a talk that in our current day and age, Christians “no longer have a place at the table,” and he said that we should thank God for that. His remark was cheered. He pointed out that the early Christians were not offered a place at the table, and the church grew - even through persecution and martyrdom. And that is most certainly true.

But it doesn’t follow that we should seek to be marginalized or persecuted. This just seems like another form of the Church Growth Movement. Whether the culture is friendly or hostile to the church, it is the Holy Spirit who allows it to grow or to shrink. I do get that God is hidden in the Theologia Crucis, but I don’t understand the idea that we should go out cross-hunting.

Countless young people are being led astray by the popularity of witchcraft and the occult, and by the culture’s hostility to Christianity. Is this something we should be cheering on? Katherine Von Drachenberg left the darkness, and hopefully her conversion was genuine. Hopefully, she has, by the grace of the blood of Christ, overcome the evil of this age. But it seems to me that the evil of this age, and the removal of the place of the Christians at the table, is not a cause for celebration.

By way of contrast, in the sixties and seventies, there was a children’s TV show called Davey and Goliath. It was an animated claymation series of fifteen-minute programs featuring Davey and his dog Goliath. Davey and his sister lived in a Lutheran home, with an intact family of a male father and female mother who were married to each other. The family ate dinner together at the table. They went to church. Their pastor was portrayed in the show wearing clericals. In the Divine Service, he was even vested and at a traditional altar. The father was kind, but firm with his children, and taught them about Jesus, forgiveness, the Scriptures, as well as morality and proper behavior. Their mother also doled out sage advice to the children. The program tended toward moralism, but it was also surprisingly focused on the Gospel. The show opened with the theme song of “A Mighty Fortress” and featured a prominent Luther’s seal. It was produced by the Lutheran Church in America. Yes, I know that this is not the LCMS. Your objection is duly noted ahead of time. This was my earliest exposure to Lutherans and Lutheranism.

What was truly amazing about this kids’ show is that we all watched it. Huge numbers of children, Lutherans and non-Lutherans, Christians and non-Christians, all over the country, tuned in every week. It was a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. There were even some dark parodies made of it years later. As kids, we sometimes watched it together, and talked about it, even in our public elementary school. Can you even imagine such a thing today?

Here is a clever episode teaching the parable of the Good Samaritan (released in 1964):

There was even a 1972 episode that dealt specifically with the Eucharist.

This is what kids’ TV looked like when Christians “had a place at the table.” I wonder if my exposure to these programs played a role in my own eventual becoming Lutheran in 1982, less than ten years after the final season of Davey and Goliath aired. I do remember a friend of mine who was into classical music commenting that Bach’s cantata on Ein’ Feste Burg “was the Davey and Goliath theme song.”

So how is kids’ TV now that we Christians no longer have a place at the table?

Here is a special episode of Blues Clues, a TV show for preschoolers. This singalong show from 2021 features an animated drag queen teaching toddlers about the various kinds of families at the Pride Parade.

So is this an improvement from when we had a place at the table? Is this better for children (and their parents)?

Yes, we all know that cultural Christianity isn’t true saving faith. But which kind of culture is more or less likely to lead children to the occult and deviant sexuality instead of to the church and to Jesus?

The idea that we should desire not to have a place at the table flies in the face of what our Lord called us to do: “Make disciples of all nations.” Our missionary endeavor is to convert the heathen, not to let the heathen dominate us (and perhaps convert our children). I’ve recently heard many heartbreaking anecdotal accounts of the children of believers going off the deep end, even pastors’ children embracing the occult, “coming out of the closet,” or identifying as transgender. Is this better than when we had a place at the table, when American children (and grownups), Christian and non-Christian alike, were influenced by the Andy Griffith Show? Was that so bad? And yes, I realize that Mayberry did not seem to have an LCMS congregation. Your objection is duly noted ahead of time.

In my past few flights, I have noticed that the in-flight movies on the fully-visible screens around me are essentially softcore porn - including (on my last trip) scantily-clad pole dancers and frontal male nudity - in full view of children. They also have subtitles reading out the raunchy scripts - again in full view and only a millstone’s throw from little ones flying with their parents. Is this an improvement now that we don’t have a place at the table? Is it better that we now have drag queens in our libraries, and our states are now forced into debating and trying to pass anti-grooming laws in response to our schoolteachers who think that they, and not parents, have the right to dictate what children are taught? Now that we don’t have a place at the table, is it better that a senator is forced to repeat these words (the link is disturbing) in the Senate in order to prevent gay porn from being foisted on American children?

After centuries of on-again off-again persecution, St. Constantine (who is commemorated in our hymnal) legitimized and then officialized Christianity. We had a place at the table. We had Christendom. Abortion, exposure of infants, and blood-sports were abolished, as were crucifixions, feeding people to lions, and other tortures. The church spoke out against pornographic theater, and demanded that human beings be treated with dignity. We built churches and cathedrals and hospitals and orphanages and universities - but only when we had a place at the table. Countless souls were saved, as churches sprung up in every village. Missionaries, like Sts. Patrick, Boniface, and Augustine of Canterbury brought the faith to European pagans, and they converted to Christianity. Later missionaries indeed went into all the world and made disciples of all nations. Of course, today, such efforts are condemned as bigotry by the world. Are we in the church to join our critics by agreeing that it was better when we had no place at the table?

I also recently ran across a liberal pastor commenting on a tweet that he didn’t like. It said something to the effect of “I want my president, member of congress, senators, mayor, etc. to be Christian.” The liberal pastor said that would be “terrible.” Why? Would he rather his president, congressmen, senators, mayor etc. go to hell? Don’t we Christians desire, like God, that all be saved? Have we really totemized diversity to the point where we want people to go to hell in order to make us feel good about having friends and leaders who have exotic religions?

And why wouldn’t anyone want laws that reflect Christian ethics? If we don’t have a place at the table, we get laws (like those spawned from Roe) compelling our states to legalize abortion, we get compulsory homosexual “marriage,” we get businessmen forced to violate their consciences, orders of nuns being compelled to offer birth control in their insurance plans, and, if it is allowed to continue, compulsory use of phony pronouns and the criminalization of Christian expression, as we have seen in Canada and Finland. Is this really better?

My small city still has a live nativity scene and Christmas carols on city property. We still light a Christmas tree, display a creche, and read Luke 2:1-20 publicly. We still have the local Roman Catholic priest dress as Bishop St. Nicholas, and a local Protestant minister narrate the living nativity. Even before the end of Roe v. Wade, we had a crisis pregnancy center instead of an abortion clinic. We don’t have any porn shops or strip clubs. We Christians still have a place at the table in our local community. Why would any Christian think that is a bad thing?

Is it a distortion of the theology of the cross? Is it a callousness to the children (and adults) who will be led astray? Is it a kind of reverse-triumphalism? Is it a naiveté or a disconnect with what is presently happening in the culture at large? Is it defeatism, and just a kind of whistling in the graveyard? Is it putting God to the test?

At any rate, whether we have a place at the table in this world or not, we have a place at the Lord’s table. Let us pray for those suffering the effects of our godless culture, and let us pray that more find the narrow gate to their watery escape from the devil, all his works, and all his ways.