F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, The Valley of Ashes:
a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally, a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
Church and Change List-serve killed today:
Subject: Aderman's C&C farewell
The C&C listserve is now dead. Here is Jim Aderman's farewell post:
A Final Word from the Moderator
Now that the Church and Change organization has come to an end, this discussion group will also end – in fact, the discussion group will cease to exist following this email.
Over my term as the moderator for this group, I have delighted in reading of the high regard members of our denomination have for God’s inspired and errorless Word, not to mention the grace in Jesus that the Bible proclaims. I am grateful for the iron sharpening iron exchanges that have gone on here. I have been encouraged by the sensitivity for others that some have shown in their posts. I have thanked the Spirit for the Christ-like love that has spilled out in our emails. I have rejoiced in solid ministry ideas shared, sincere questions asked, and faith in our Savior confessed.
We did struggle, however, with maintaining a helpful tenor in some of our discussion. We didn’t always listen well or completely. We didn’t always respond with respect.
The posts to our discussion group have highlighted areas of tension that exist in our denomination at present. Tensions that we who love Jesus, his Word, and his people will want to continue to work to resolve. But resolution of those issues requires careful communication – not to mention Scripture study and prayer.
Seminary Professor John Brug recently commented in his introduction to the articles in volume 108 of the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly that, even though it is true that "love cannot exist where truth is absent," it is also true that "truth cannot survive where love is absent." I’ve attached the initial paragraphs of Professor Brug’s article . I found them important for myself. They are a call to repentance for my own failures to stand in loving support of my synodical brothers and sisters – especially when it seems we are not on the same page. Perhaps you will also find Professor Brug’s words of value.
Philippians 1:3-6, 9-11 seems an appropriate benediction and prayer with which to bring our discussion group to an end: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.... And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”
In Jesus’ love,
Jim Aderman
Moderator
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LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "Church and Chicanery Dies Quietly, Becomes a Zombi...":
Gotta love all the ash irony...
http://www.churchandchange.org/
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Foreword to Volume 108 (pages 4-6):
Where There Is No Love, Doctrine Cannot Remain Pure
The Walther Year
By John F. Brug
There has been a lot of debate within the church about the right relationship between doctrine and love. Some claim that the church should elevate love over doctrine. Doctrine is blamed for dividing the church. Love, some say, should overlook doctrinal differences for the sake of peace. This claim, however, cannot be harmonized with the scriptural teaching that truth and love must be inseparable partners. Real love can never be present wherever God's truth is ignored or set aside. Real love is not possible without the truth. No departure from God's Word can ever be labeled love, because every departure from the Word harms souls. Real love, on the other hand, never harms but always heals. "Love cannot exist where truth is absent." This is an important scriptural truth.
But in this article we are interested in examining the opposite truth: "Truth cannot survive where love is absent." Luther was vehement in his assertion that he could tolerate no "love" which compromised the truth (AE 27:38, 41), but in a sermon on John 15:9 he stated also the corresponding truth, "Where there is no love, doctrine cannot remain pure" (AE 24:244).
Holding truth and love together is a struggle. We must make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace because Satan is always working hard to tear that unity to pieces. Love is a bond which keeps a communion from being torn apart (Col 3:14). Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pe 4:8). When the unity of a communion is torn either by error or by arrogance, love is the bond that mends the tear before it rends the whole garment.
We can't prevent offense from being given and taken in the church. Luther said we can avoid offending each other as little as we can keep one toe from touching another. Sinners constantly rub each other the wrong way. Someone offends you. You do the same to him. Even the mission team of Paul and Barnabas was split by personal offenses and disagreement. Church history is littered with such sad stories.
Sometimes these offenses are caused by significant personal trivia. I am offended because someone has not given me enough praise. He is offended because he did not recognize how constructive my criticism of him really was. I have gotten some honor or position that he wanted, or vice versa. Our group accepted his proposal not mine. Such personal slights lead us to focus a more critical eye on the brother who offended us. One thing leads to another, and personal faults and theological misstatements are magnified. One brother takes a stand on an issue, and the other immediately knows, without much thought or reflection, that his stand should be the opposite. Sparks become fires, molehills become mountains, and through the magnifying glass of jealousy specks of sawdust look like beams.
We can't avoid giving and taking such offense, but we can reconcile and be reconciled. Love, which is biblically defined as doing what is good for the brother and for the church, heals little nicks before they become large wounds on the body. Love covers over such sins not by ignoring them but by healing them.
But what if the offense is real not imagined, and the offense is against God's Word? Certainly love does not cover over such sins, does it? "Love must confront error with the truth!" That is true. The medicine of correction must be applied to every ill, but a spoonful of love helps the medicine go down. Love remembers that our first goal is to win the brother, not just to win the argument. Love understands that how correction is applied sometimes has more impact on the outcome than whether the rebuke is true or false. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Cor 13). This passage provides a good checklist for us to use when we are evaluating how we have responded to an offense against us.
What are some of the ways in which a lack of love endangers the preservation of the truth? They fall into the general categories of too harsh and too hasty.
Damage is done to the body of Christ when the method of correction is more destructive than the offense itself. A person who uses a cannon on every fly that goes through his house has no flies. But he soon has no house either. Not every misstep or misstatement leads to formal discipline Be calm and talk to the brother. Don't press too hard.
Don't press too fast. Work through the problem with the brother, giving him time to study and reflect. Don't involve others prematurely. It is for good reason that Jesus instructs us that the first step should be to talk to the brothers alone. Love does not hastily and prematurely involve others. Is an offense serious enough to sound the alarm at once or can it be handled quietly and privately? When people are asked to take sides and are polarized prematurely, a whole synod can be divided into armed camps. A little flame in a pile of leaves becomes a forest fire.
Pastors, don't nitpick on your people (or on your brother pastors). People, don't nitpick on your pastor.
Avoid word battles. Gerhard warned, "It is wicked to interpret a poor choice of words as error when you know that the right meaning was intended" (Good works, 38).
Instruct gently, with kindness and patience. The goal is to win the person (2 Tim 2:23-26).
Lack of love can break unity by being too harsh in the way we begin discipline, but we can also cause and maintain division by the way we finish discipline. Public doctrinal error which has endangered or offended others must in some way be set right with those who may have been affected by the error, but pressing for apologies or confessions of error, doubting the brother's sincerity or repentance unnecessarily, may prolong the division in the heart long after the statements have been clarified or corrected.
We are warned to watch our life and our doctrine carefully (1 Tim 4:16). In the context of this article "watching our life" applies to the way in which we deal with offense. It is important that we not only have the right doctrine but also the right motive, manner, and attitude in the way we correct offenses. We need to practice Christian love and forgiveness as we bear with the sins and endure the faults and shortcomings of others. In this way unity is preserved in the church, so that the family of Christ is not torn apart and disrupted. Divisions must sometimes come in order to preserve the truth, but we should take care that they are necessary, unavoidable divisions for the sake of the truth, not schisms caused by personal offense or loveless correction.
"As important as it is to be concerned about purity of doctrine, we dare not become irrational about it." This statement, which served as the springboard for this article, was made by C. F. W. Walther in his "Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod" (Harrison edition, p 321). Certainly, no one could accuse Walther of being lax in his concern for doctrinal purity, but because he was as evangelical as he was, he also gave close attention to the opposite concern: Where there is no love, the doctrine cannot remain pure.
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GJ - This blog deals with doctrinal apostasy, not organizations. I see no hint of repentance in Ash or Aderman, no reason given for shutting down this cancer factory. All I see is some labored gloating and a few more eye-pokes aimed at confessional Lutherans.
Love! Who has spent more time being divisive than Church and Change? Who has vilified more people than their leaders? Who has grabbed all the loot available for themselves?
The apostles of love need a heartfelt confession of sin, not another display of posturing.
