"Why Do We Tolerate This?"
“Out of town for Christmas Eve. Attend local LCMS church for service... women reading the Gospel lesson and women in albs distributing Communion. Why do we tolerate this?”
Why, indeed? Of course, the devil is in the details. Who is the “we” in this situation? Who has oversight? Who has responsibility? Who has authority? And, indeed, why do faithful Lutherans have to live like this?
We live in an age of lawlessness. Look at just about any big American city - and many not-so-big cities as well. I live just across a bridge from one of the worst crime centers in the country. As the “defund the police” movement has gained ground, as DAs and judges are being installed with the open goal of reducing jail time, and even abolishing bail, we are seeing a spike in shocking and violent crimes - including Uber drivers and Costco shoppers being robbed, and car-jackings happening in broad daylight, and shootings happening even in tourist areas. The frustration of normal, law-abiding people can be summed up in my wife’s frequent rhetorical lament: “Why do we have to live like this?”
We avoid the very city that we used to enjoy visiting. I quit working my side hustle as an Uber driver because of the physical danger. We live instead in a small city of law and order, and we stay on our side of the river as much as we can.
And who is has responsibility for this? The politicians, judges, DAs, and others entrusted with authority who are dedicated to chaos over order, social justice over actual justice, and a radical break with the social order. We see the real-world results.
There is an analogous situation in the church.
Time and again, we hear from scandalized Lutherans who have to endure putrid practices, or, if they can, drive an hour, or maybe even two, to find a local LCMS congregation that has the liturgy and decent preaching. The LCMS has become the Gumpian box of chocolates, and you are throwing the dice if you simply walk through the door of the closest LCMS congregation. We all know this. That’s why informed Lutherans have been reduced to researching local churches before attending one. There are places in the country that I will visit that have no LCMS church worth visiting on a Sunday. If I am in that situation, I will abstain from attendance. I am far from alone. How sad is that? How profoundly horrific. Nobody in our hierarchy can deny this.
Why do we tolerate this? Why do we have to live like this?
We have taken the idea of Christian liberty and adiaphora and turned it into an orgy of “Do what thou wilt.” We treat Christian freedom as if it were the American political view of liberty, equating God with King George III, and we’ll dump the church’s tea in the harbor if we want to. We will empower women to do what has been given to men; we will empower the laity to do what has been given to the office of the holy ministry. We will call our pastors by their first names - especially if we don’t like them and want to be disrespectful. We will tell the pastors that we “hire” them and we can “fire” them. We will use grape juice in communion if we want to. We will abolish the Mass, we will have non-communion Sundays, we will do away with private confession and absolution, we will ditch “traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.” (Ap 24:1 Tappert). We will “baptize” people as often as we like, and we’ll make our churches look like a Starbucks or a Hooters if that’s what we want. Like the Quakers, we won’t remove our hats to anyone. And no matter what, we know that God approves of whatever we want to do.
There is an extant video of an LCMS congregation inviting huckster charismatic fortune-tellers doing “readings” on the stage, because they claim direct revelations, as they say, “e-mails” from God.
Had enough yet?
Does anyone here honestly think that if Dr. Luther were on a visitation in Saxony, and he were to run across women in vestments reading the Gospel in the Divine Service and distributing the Sacrament, open communion, Anabaptists preaching from non-pulpits, and Enthusiastic spiritualists all but employing Tarot cards onstage in buildings that have his name on them (or perhaps mercifully don’t), he would approve of this? Would he treat this the way our DPs typically do? How about Chemnitz? How about Gerhard? How about Walther? How about any Lutherans prior to the latter half of the twentieth century and the sexual revolution and the ubiquity of feminism.
Am I writing anything that we’ re not all speaking privately to one another about? Our District Presidents surely cannot be ignorant of this.
The reason we have chaos in church and in society is the same: libertine lawlessness. It is loveless, and doesn’t care about the saints who are scandalized, nor about the messaging (and the consequences) that follow in the wake of such practices. But it poses itself as love and liberty: Again, “do what thou wilt.”
Radicals in the 1960s and 1970s tried to blow up our Biblical confession, and burn the entire edifice of our Scriptural faith to the ground. They captured the churches that would eventually become the ELCgAy, and they nearly conquered the LCMS as well. The fire was put out with Seminex, but the building had sustained structural damage. We tolerated people who should have been kicked out. Radicals in the 1980s pushed the “Lutheran Substance Evangelical Style” and “Everyone a Minister” grifts. This resulted in un-Lutheran megachurches in which our confession was replaced by a show. And the you-know-what show goes on today. Anyone in the world with the Internet can find it proudly on display - including the men who have oversight and responsibility. We have had more than enough time to reflect on the damage.
Now it’s time to fix it.
But is anyone, anywhere saying, “This is a problem, and this is my responsibility?” Instead, we see the ecclesiastical equivalent of a Three Stooges routine, or the three monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouths. And decade after decade goes by. We see our clergy preaching in non-Lutheran churches, our clergy participating in the “ordination” of women, our clergy secretly or not-so-secretly pushing women’s “ordination” and homosexual “marriage.” Open communion is rampant. Women are vested. Laymen read the scriptures in the Divine Service. “Do what thou wilt.”
And these cases - which are in the minority - harm all of us who are trying to be faithful in trying times. We are tar-brushed by the outliers, who are a scandal to the faithful.
Many years ago, a former DP made the “profound” statement: “I’m not a bishop, but I exercise episkope (oversight).” The statement is technically true. We have presidents, not bishops. And the ones that use the title, formally or informally, are not canonically consecrated as bishops in the way that our confessions refer to the practice (and express a preference for, by the way). They are not consecrated as bishops the way that they are in many of our partner churches around the world. Indeed, they are not episkopoi, but they do exercise episkope. And, in that sense, they have biblical oversight, and are thus functional overseers (episkopoi, bishops).
But to accept the episcopal power without the identity of one to be held responsible for its use (or lack of use) is the worst of both worlds. It turns the office of District President into one who can wield power, but evade the uncomfortable situation of being the one responsible for such things that we see under their oversight. As one of my colleagues put it, it is like a woman saying to a man: “I will go to bed with you, but I won’t be your wife.”
When district presidents want to make a pastor’s life difficult, they can do it. When they want to pretend not to see abominations in the parishes, they can do that too. And with a possible few exceptions, they are paid pretty well for doing so. As far as I know, there are no DPs serving two- or three-point districts, stocking shelves at Home Depot, or going without health insurance. The highest paid personnel in our synod have the title “president” - whether of synod, university, seminary, or district. That’s because they have a hard and demanding job. That’s why they get the big bucks. Are they doing their jobs?
I’m pleased to say that many of them are.
But as for the ongoing abominations some DPs continue to tolerate, I realize that things can’t be fixed overnight. But how about doing something? How about telling a congregation and pastor that there is a more excellent way? How about telling them that reading the Gospel in the Divine Service is the pastor’s job, and that having women distributing the Sacrament is just not done? How about reaching out to the scandalized instead of appearing to be utterly uncaring, if not siding with those who seem to be at war against our tradition? How about simply enforcing our prohibition of unionism and our confession of closed communion? Does that ever happen? For all the au courant babble about leadership, where is it?
Over the last couple years, we’ve seen
an LCMS website boasting of the church having a woman “pastor,”
an LCMS deaconess (with decades of experience) vested, preaching, absolving, conducting the liturgy and officiating over a confirmation,
vested women officiating over parts of the liturgy and “preaching” to children in the Divine Service in the LCMS,
endorsement of same-sex “marriage” by rostered pastors and rostered lay church workers
the use of non-Lutheran preachers in LCMS worship services,
a lady Methodist “pastor” participating in an LCMS pastor’s installation,
a former DP laying hands on his daughter in an ELCA “ordination,” etc.
In none of these situations was any member of synod - pastor, rostered non-pastor, or congregation - suspended or removed. At most, “sorry” was said, and it was all swept under the rug. There was no public correction, apology, or announcement that such things in the future would not be tolerated. No presidents took responsibility and said, “The buck stops here. This is my responsibility.” Of course, when there is genuine repentance, there can be restoration, but as it now stands, it appears that the only kind of infidelity that has a “zero tolerance” policy is sexual and marital in nature. Well, you can be defrocked for going bankrupt if your congregation punishes you for being faithful. So there is that. Doctrinal or confessional infidelity is often treated as a peccadillo, if that.
And it is harder to keep such things under wraps, especially when congregations routinely post video of these abominations themselves online.
I am not dumping on our District Presidents. We have many good, solid men on the COP and in the praesidium. They do have their hands full. But in any sample, there is a bell curve. There are ends of the bell curve. We need to reward the men on one end, and we need to create incentive for the men on the bottom - perhaps even lighting a fire under them at convention and election time. It does seem to be an effective motivator. And if some men need to be replaced, then so be it. The guys at the top of the curve need to hear from us too. They need the rank and file to put a little lead in their pencils. The guys at the bottom of the curve need to feel a little boot in the buttocks.
And if their districts are too large to effectively lead, let’s redraw them smaller and give the DPs fewer congregations and pastors to oversee. In fact, we could require them to serve an altar, font, and pulpit full time, and give them a small stipend for their oversight work - which should be so small that they can actually make visitations and actually get to know everyone under their oversight. It should never catch a DP by surprise if ladies in albs are performing pastoral functions in one of his congregations. That is a possible long-term reform.
Unfortunately, our polity is what it is right now. Since the DPs are not bishops, and since they do run for re-election - that is the pressure point. That is the road map (or GPS, if you prefer) showing how we get from gays and gals in albs running a grift to try to change us by stealth - empowered by organizational paralysis among the overseers - back to authentic Lutheran doctrine and practice. And if we’re not prepared to apply both the carrot and the stick, that is the answer to why we tolerate such things. That is why we have to live like this.
Well, do we?
Our presidents need to hear from us: both kudos and criticism. Be polite about it. I cannot stress that enough. And put the best construction on all things. But that doesn’t mean anything goes, nor does it mean that we cannot be blunt and candid in our private communications with those who wield authority. Find out the phone number of the district office, get your DP’s cell number so you can text him, and if need be, drop in during business hours for a chat. If you’re traveling outside your own district, let both your District President, and the District President who oversees the nonsense, know what is happening.
Things did not get this bad overnight, but if we apply the right pressure to the right places, we may be surprised at how fast we will see results. At very least, let’s move the pendulum and give reason to have hope that we’re not destined to simply become the ELCgAy with a St. Louis zipcode. What do we have to lose?
And as a member of synod, as a pastor, I am truly sorry for the kinds of abominations the faithful laity have to put up with in our synod. And I don’t think we do have to tolerate it. I don’t think we have to live like this. We pastors and lay rostered personnel are members of synod. We have a voice. And the laity of our churches (our congregations are also members of synod) do as well. And in our polity, they have a much bigger voice than they realize.
In our polity, for good or for ill, the ultimate expression of episkope is the rank and file of the laity.
Why do we tolerate this? It’s a good question. But perhaps it’s the wrong question. Maybe we should ask, “What can we do to get rid of this nonsense?” And then carry it out.