Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "Seattle's Mark Driscoll":
Dear Anonymous Member of St. Peter's,
I read with interest your letter to Dr. Jackson, and took particularly interest in two points that you made. Others picked up on these points, as well. I'll add my thoughts.
You state: No one at St. Peter or the CORE is criticizing traditional WELS worship or its practices, and our Thursday evening and early Sunday morning service are tradional (sic).
This is not true. Fundamental to a move away from any given practice is to express a need to do so. For decades, the prevailing concern was the need to be relevant to a changing society, to young people in particular, by catering to their entertainment dependencies. To express such need is to be critical of current practice, as insufficient or "ineffective" by some measure. Until only recently, this was the primary reason given for any move away from traditional practices: “We need to for the survival of the Church” or “We need to for the sake of evangelism.” Questionable even when these claims were made, today, these reasons are manifestly farcical.
Under the earnest appeals of evangelists trained in the methods of the Church Growth Movement – by far the prevailing methodology taught in American Christianity over the past generation – nearly all of pop-church Evangelicalism adopted these supposedly necessary anthropocentric changes in Worship practice. The case that was made for the necessity of anthropocentrism was theoretical. That case can no longer be made with any credibility. The last five years have seen the manifest implosion of Evangelicalism – as a direct result of CGM theories put into practice, as a result of divorcing practice from doctrine, of becoming doctrinally ambivalent, and of using practice, not as an outworking of doctrine, not as definite public Confession, but as a means of building organizations, the vacuum created by CGM finally shattered Evangelicalism. It has seen dramatically precipitous decline in the past five years. As general proof, ask yourself what happened to the Evangelical voice during the last two election seasons – especially the last season. It was entirely absent. The reason? No money, no leadership, no people. They are leaving in droves. And they are heading two directions: the liturgical church and the emergent church -- and of great surprise to everyone has been the strong representation of young people, searching for depth, among those heading to churches with strong liturgical practice. It is so bad, that last year the Southern Baptists began producing materials for the celebration of Advent and Lent, to keep from losing members to churches that celebrate these seasons of the traditional church calendar. This is notable, given that Baptists are sectarian, not catholic, striving to avoid in their doctrine and practice all elements suggestive of catholicity. They do not have a history of observing the traditional church calendar. The fact is, Barna Research – the primary clearinghouse of Church Growth related “market research” and support materials over the past generation – officially declared Church Growth a statistical failure. These practices do not produce growth as theorized, but quite the opposite, they produce shrinkage. The so-called need to be supposedly relevant to a changing society, by directly importing secular cultural elements and adopting them as church practice, while never standing on firm theoretical ground, is now a demonstrably false need. To repeat, argument can no longer be made with any credibility.
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You go on to state: It just is so curious to me why so many who hold to the tradiotional (sic) methods of worship find the need to criticize other forms of worship.
The case heard more often these days, isn't a need, but a preference for entertainment-grade worship experiences. Again, this notion celebrates the complete divorce of doctrine from practice, and, significantly, the separation of practice from Confession. It also relies on the false notion that all practice is completely free, with no limits or requirement that any factor other than preference be involved. It is also manifestly anthropocentric – as much as any argument from the standpoint of supposed need is. Proceeding according to the idea that "practice is merely preference," those resistant to change are discredited by being labeled spiritual weaklings, and marginalized either by condescending to slowly changing or by having their concerns ignored altogether.
But when one agrees that doctrine is not separate from practice, but that practice descends from doctrine, and, in particular, when it is understood that practice is a critical element of making a common Confession, it is clear that there are many important factors involved, and that preference is, in reality, only a minor factor. The fact is, what we, as WELS Lutherans, confess in common is not generically the Bible, but something specific that we say the Bible says. We make this Confession not because it is a membership requirement that we agree to with the same unceremonious regard we have for signing, say, a non-compete agreement with our employer, but as a matter of Christian conscience. It is a specific Confession that sharply differentiates us from other confessions, such as Roman, Anglican, Reformed, Arminian, etc. Carrying with it the force of conscience, we stand on our Confession with resolute certainty, even as Luther and others, in the face of death. It is not an insignificant thing, but a weighty matter to make a Public Confession – it is tied directly to our identity as individuals, and integral to our entire Worldview.
What's more, we all make this same Confession, together. No Lutheran congregation has the freedom to indicate, either by its words or by its practice, that it confesses anything other than our own confession. To do so makes us all a participant in the false confession of the heterodox, and violates the conscience of every Christian in our Synod. This means that, for the sake of unity (for its continued strength among us, and its credibility before the world), we voluntarily and unanimously avoid practices and phrases that would blur the sharp doctrinal divisions that exist between us and the heterodox. For example, while the practice of immersion is just as efficacious as sprinkling or affusion, for the sake of Confession in the face of the false teachings of immersionists, we forcefully reject this practice as forbidden by God – as we are enjoined in the Formula of Concord, Article X. Baptism isn't the only practice impacted by Public Confession, and for the sake of doctrinal and Confessional unity, we not only have the right, but the obligation to examine one another's practices. We are not free to engage in heterodox practices, as if there is no confessional division between us and the heterodox.
Honestly, this whole issue was dealt with, in depth, over on Bailing Water last year. A good summary of that extended discussion was compiled by a layman, and published on Ichabod and on Bailing Water earlier this year, An Open Letter to WELS - From a Layman. I would recommend that you read every word and follow every link of that letter -- it will explain much regarding these questions that you have.
Freddy Finkelstein
