lead them out, reverently.
I remember when Rev. Richard J. Neuhaus used to call himself and his friends Confessional Lutherans. Clearly he was preparing for some years to become a Roman Catholic priest. His friend Robert Wilken (head of graduate studies, theology, when I was at Notre Dame) also joined the Church of Rome.
Now we have those Synodical Conference leaders who want to moonwalk toward Pasadena or Constantinople, while posturing about their Confessional Lutheran standards. They are like the choir and pastor leaving the church first, during the recessional. They cannot be Confessional Lutherans, so they must be Recessional Lutherans.
I began writing against the Church Growth Movement about 20 years ago. My first little article stirred up more letters than I ever received on a single topic. Many laity were suspicious of Church Growth. They were glad I identified some of the obnoxious odors coming from Satan's Lair, aka Fuller Theological Seminary.
Recently someone I know quite well told me about WELS Campus Ministry in Madison, Wisconsin. The pastor took his staff down to Willow Creek for training. Now they are spending millions on the building, starting cell groups, and bragging about their results. Willow Creek recently confessed that all their methods were wrong. I was not alone in suspecting that WC wanted to open up a new round of training for all the clergy they mistrained before. This time around they will apologize abjectly while fleecing the wolves again, many of them using denominational funds, or Trivent dividends.
Going Under
The tabloids use a term: going under. It means that circulation will increase if they go under the standards of the other papers. More salacious gossip. More skin showing. Congregations do the same thing. The whole WC/CGM approach is to go under the standards of all other denominations. Make the music slicker. Turn the Sunday worship service into a recruiting seminar. Spike the sermon and make it a pep talk.
ALC and LCA congregations used to go under the standards of LCMS and WELS by setting up shop nearby. They would promote open communion and lax standards all around. Who can complain about that? Sometimes a Missouri congregation strict on the lodge would find itself emptied by a new ALC congregation apparently conservative on every issue except that one.
The Recessional Lutherans are going under the standards of the Book of Concord with both gambits, whether they are slouching toward Pasadena or Constantinople. Fuller is low-church whoopie Enthusiasm; Eastern Orthodoxy is very high church, smells and bells Enthusiasm. The Book of Concord defines Enthusiasm as separating the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word.
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Comments posted earlier:
Wreck said...
As a confessional Lutheran, I am disturbed at the trends of ELS and WELS.
I'm LCMS, but very confessional. I've been giving moving over to the WELS quite a bit of thought lately. It has to be better than the LCMS. OUr own congregation has embraced PLI, CGM, worship folder, etc. I cannot remember the last time my congregation used hymnals
I'm tired of the fighting. Some say it's a losing battle. Someone HAS to stay confessional. They have to.
I fear female ordination and female elders are not far away in the LCMS. ELCA is gone. They are Lutheran in name only. They might as well be United Church of Christ or Episcopalian.
November 30, 2007 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...
"As I suspected, Lutherans do not become Eastern Orthodoxy without some prompting. Some of the prompting comes from the outside or from the inner turmoil a Lutheran feels in a non-Lutheran Lutheran synod. Professors are encouraging the move to Eastern Orthodoxy as well."
Bingo.
When I visited a relatives WELS church with the whole Seeker Senseless model, I told him that if it were between that kind of worship and going to a Catholic church, I would pick the Catholic church. He rebuked me saying something like "I would definitely tell you that you would be making a big mistake knowing what the Catholic church teaches."
He was right to rebuke me, but such desperate times call for desperate cries. (and conversations) Why would I, a Cofessional Lutheran, want to do something so senseless? Keep pushing us and you'll push us all right out the door!
I wonder if the WC folks teach the buisness principal of "LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET OUT OF THE WAY."
It may be working.
Rarrr.
November 30, 2007 3:02 PM
