Mary Coyle's Ice Cream Parlor makes the best ice cream I have tasted anywhere in the United States and Canada.
Somebody Stop Me!
The location is not impressive, south of Bethany Home Road, on 7th Avenue in Phoenix. Next door is an eyesore of a building, painted yellow-green.
The interior of Mary Coyle's is ordinary, except that it is crowded with people at all hours.
They actually make ice cream at the store, and that ice cream is the highest quality possible. Baskin Robbins used to be high quality. Then they tried cheapening the ice cream while selling it for the same price. A lot of their stores have closed. Dairy Cream is tolerable, but it is iced milk. There are some specialty ice cream chains around Phoenix. Cold Stone is one, where they mix nuts and other treats into the ice cream on a slab, then serve it. Maggie Moo's is another chain store in this area. Their store is full of puns about cows. Cold Stone and Maggie Moo's are both a cut above a McDonald's shake, but not classic high quality ice cream like Mary Coyle's.
What happened to ice cream is the story of the Lutheran Church. Lutheran doctrine and worship were once widely admired. No other denomination has anything like the Book of Concord, which is a united confession of faith and a statement of orthodox Christianity for all time. After a long bout of trying to be Baptist, the American Lutherans got serious about worship and became liturgical again, going into the 20th century. The Christian church was born liturgical, continuing the worship traditions of Judaism.
The temptations of the 19th century were the Evangelical Alliance (Baptist style unionism) and Pietism. The Evangelical Alliance was an attempt to unite all Protestants. The Lutherans who were swept up in this business only had to give up the efficacy of the Word, baptismal regeneration, and the Real Presence, a small price to pay - they thought - for unity. Pietism emphasized unity over doctrine, works over confessions. People felt better because they were working together for the common good.
Similar influences have cheapened and ruined the Lutheran churches of today. They offer iced milk, or worse, a McDonald's milkshake: cheap, profitable, and easily served by dummies. When did Lutherans need a pit band and cousin Brunhilda crooning "You Light Up My Life" to a back-up tape? The best argument of these apostates is, "We have one on every corner now."
And they do.
How did this happen in the Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod? I asked the late Robert Preus and Slick Brenner the same question, "Your clergy are almost 100% from your own seminary. How could they turn against Lutheran doctrine and worship?" Both of them answered similarly, "I guess they were not trained properly."
That is the key. The old Synodical Conference seminaries fell into a pattern of mummified ecclesiasticism. Mequon (WELS) was so stilted in 1987 that cobwebs were practically growing over the professors. Doctrine was taught by reading a compilation of orthodox quotations, student by student. The library was hardly used. The classrooms were morgue-like, except for a fair amount of grammar school pranks.
No one could ask a real question. This was the perfect atmosphere for developing an anti-Lutheran perspective while going through the motions of dead orthodoxism. That is why the patterns of expression are so similar, "We know only the Word is effective, but..." The real emphasis follows the conjunction but. "Lutherans favor the liturgy, but..." Students got involved in studying Pentecostalism and Baptist doctrine on the side. Some sneaked away to alien denominations, where worship seemd joyful and spirited, where preaching was impassioned. And those barns of boobery were packed with sweating masses of people aching to tithe. Seminarians were smitten. Professors swooned in secret. World and American missions people plotted. "If only we could graft ourselves onto that clump of burdock, so strong, so fertile, so lush in growth!"
And they did.
WELS wits say, "Valleskey could not help himself. He was an abused child. His father made him read all that Schwaermer stuff." David Valleskey's father was one of the first to fall in love with Baptist-Pentecostal doctrine. Valleskey Senior was the first one to create an evangelism program. Note well, gentle readers, that WELS grew until it had an evangelism program, then began shrinking.
David Valleskey, student of Fuller Seminary, where all denominations study together, was probably taken in by the Evangelical Alliance vision - all Christians working together. His rebuke to me was, "They are Christians, too. We can learn from them."
WELS learned a lot from Fuller Seminary.
Lutheran doctrine has gone the way of old-fashioned ice cream. The ingredients are set aside for cheap substitutes. Nevertheless, we are supposed to enjoy the outward attributes of ice cream (cold, white, dairy) with the substance missing (real cream, butterfat content, quality flavorings).
When was the last time Lutheran leaders invoked the Book of Concord or Luther's sermons? Instead they promote the Barna Report on how to market the Gospel, or they ruminate about one of their recent mediocre professors. The pastors think that a new person at the counter is going to serve different ice cream, so to speak.
Missouri and WELS will fight over who will be president this summer, but not over doctrine.
