LCMS in Houston--disagreeing to agree (September 2007)

LCMS in Houston—disagreeing to agree
by Peter Speckhard
Forum Letter, September 2007
Copyright 2007 American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. All rights reserved.

The old saying goes that there are two kinds of people—those who say there are two kinds of people, and those who don’t. It applies pretty well to today’s Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod coming out of our triennial convention in July, in that our biggest internal disagreement seems to be on the question of whether we have any internal doctrinal disagreements anymore.

The leadership of the synod fully acknowledges we have differing practices and applications of our doctrine in various places, but insists the doctrine is the same everywhere. The opposition says our obviously differing practices in worship and fellowship stem from doctrinal issues that have never been resolved. Oddly, the biggest challenge faced by those at the convention who disagreed with the leadership was in convincing the leadership that they actually disagreed theologically, not merely with the “how” of this or that practice, but with the “what” of the doctrine behind those practices.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. More on this later.

Kieschnick by a nose
The 63rd LCMS Convention, held July 14-20 in Houston, saw President Gerald Kieschnick reelected by a firm but (surprisingly) slim vote of 52% on the first ballot. And with him the delegates affirmed the Ablaze! campaign to share the Gospel with one hundred million people by 2017, the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation.

Most of the convention was about as controversial as the proposition that evangelism is good. Anyone who came expecting (or perhaps hoping for) ecclesial fireworks went home pleasantly surprised (or disappointed, as the case may be) by the lack of overt politicking, angry denunciations and parliamentary maneuvering. There was virtually none of that.

Two little tables
There was, of course, one little table manned by very unobtrusive people from a group called JesusFirst handing out free stuff along with sample ballots of preferred candidates from President Kieschnick on down. And next to them, another table featuring a stack of free copies of Christian News, detailing why not to vote for President Kieschnick or any of the JesusFirst names.

But few people bothered with either table. The tone remained civil, the disagreements muted and respectful (mostly), and the decisions generally innocuous. By the end, both sides of the various disagreements were congratulating each other and themselves for the churchmanship displayed by all. And not without reason; in what is perhaps rare for church conventions, nobody went away telling the other side to grow up.

Aura of an infomercial
At times the lack of controversy made the whole convention take on the aura of an infomercial for Ablaze!. (The exclamation point and italics are part of the logo, which makes for strange punctuation when one ends a sentence with Ablaze!.) We had an Ablaze! Update, about 20 “Ablaze! Moments” (little one-minute video interviews with people talking about experiences in personal evangelism on the jumbo screen), Ablaze! shirts, an Ablaze!-oriented President’s report, Ablaze! references in nearly all the Bible studies and devotions, and even a nod to Ablaze! from President Bush in his video address to the convention.

And then the convention was followed by an International Ablaze! Summit with leaders of various LCMS sister churches throughout the world.

For those who haven’t heard, Ablaze! is the official LCMS evangelism campaign, designed by someone who apparently majored in Pep Squad. Few people have anything against the evangelism goals of it; but many people object to the trappings of Evangelicalism associated with it, so it has taken on a certain political quality. To wear an Ablaze! logo is sort of like having a Support Our Troops bumper sticker; it sometimes subtly means more than it says. Some people, like the late former LCMS President Al Barry, prefer to “Tell the Good News About Jesus.” Make sure you don’t get them confused.

Bold agreement
But sometimes all the talk of disagreements within a church masks genuine areas of relevant unity, areas in which a church body speaks unambiguously and nearly unanimously as a unified voice to the culture. The temptation, invited by the very nature of conventions and elections and no doubt made worse by the history of the LCMS, is to assume that internal disagreements are the main story. In this case, bold agreement just might go down as the most lasting legacy of this convention.

Normally a church body gets near-unanimous votes when it proclaims the obvious on social issues—poverty is bad, peace is preferable to war, and so forth. Or, the church passes, with contested majorities (say, 60-40 or 70-30), some declaration clearly taking a side on a controversial issue like illegal immigration or welfare reform. But often even those tend to be toothless resolutions to “encourage” some vague non-solution.

In the case of this convention, the LCMS accomplished the rare feat of speaking unambiguously, decisively, and almost unanimously on issues that deeply divide American society and many American churches. Specifically, resolutions concerning abortion and homosexuality show that at least in these areas and social issues in general, the LCMS is neither divided nor following the lead of the culture but sticking with historic, global Christianity rather than joining the parochial ghetto of the modern American mainline denominations.

Letting their light shine
The abortion issue provided the background for a resolution on embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). This is the issue made famous by actor and Parkinson’s disease sufferer Michael J. Fox and one which may have cost Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) his seat in last year’s election. It proved much less controversial in Houston. While the resolution is too long to quote in full, the nub of it is:

WHEREAS, Christians are to let their light shine in this dark world regarding this type of ethical dilemma, and since the LCMS takes a strong and clear pro-life position . . . be it

RESOLVED, that the 2007 LCMS convention makes known its support of adult stem cell research and its opposition to ESCR which involves the taking of a human life.

This resolution is important for three reasons. First, it addresses a highly contentious issue. Further, it takes an unambiguous position. Note that LCMS’s pro-life stand is so solid that it is included in the “Whereas” clauses rather than the “Resolveds.” Perhaps most significantly, the vote was 97% in favor. There simply is not a relevant pro-choice sector of the LCMS.

That 3%
How to account for even the handful of negative votes? Well, the 3% were probably comprised of four groups: people who reflexively vote “no” on everything, even resolutions to thank God for first article blessings; people who just didn’t like the fact that controversial Atlantic District President David Benke chaired the floor committee that presented the resolution; people who accidentally pushed the wrong button; and perhaps one or two who are secretly pro-choice.

Very few (if any) American church bodies of any size could have achieved that degree of unanimity on that resolution. For a welcome change, the story was not “The LCMS—A House Divided” but “The LCMS—A United Witness to Truth in a Darkening World.” Or something like that anyway.

Intrinsically sinful
The other important resolution in this regard concerned homosexuality, specifically the issue of homosexual couples adopting babies, which has been in the news because of the Roman Catholic Church’s run-ins with secular authorities on the matter. Again, the resolution is long, but reads in part,

WHEREAS, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and no sin is intrinsically more sinful than another, yet the Bible does clearly teach that sexual relations outside of marriage, including homosexual practice are intrinsically sinful . . .

RESOLVED, that LCMS organizations and LCMS Recognized Service Organizations may not knowingly place adopted or foster children into any intrinsically sinful situations where individuals and families are not living in accordance with the Lord's natural law.

Again, a resolution taking a strong stand on a controversial issue, this time with a binding resolution prohibiting LCMS-affiliated adoption and social work agencies from cooperating in adoptions into homosexual situations. The situation might become complicated by a friendly amendment to include “revealed law” in with “natural law” in the final resolution, which some think might make it impossible for LCMS organizations to consider any non-Christian (or even just non-LCMS) couples as adoptive parents. But even so, the resolution passed with 95% in favor. It seems that on social issues at least, the people of the LCMS believe in the official Roman Catholic position even more univocally than Roman Catholics do.

Kazoo in the orchestra pit
Yet social issues are perhaps the only area where the LCMS is growing closer to the Roman Catholic Communion. Evangelical Catholics are increasingly outnumbered by the Just Plain Old Evangelicals in the LCMS. The Ablaze! campaign with all its trappings could easily be adapted for use by Baptists, Assemblies of God, and various independent evangelical megachurches, but would stand out like a kazoo in an orchestra pit in an Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or high-church Anglican or Lutheran setting.

The question is whether the matter amounts to a difference of style or substance. The issue of the authority of Scripture no longer plagues the LCMS. But fellowship and worship issues continue to divide us. The “conservative” opposition won’t agree to disagree on these issues because to them that would mean doctrinal compromise. The “moderate” majority won’t agree to disagree because they don’t agree that there are any doctrinal disagreements to agree to disagree about, if that makes any sense.

On the issue of fellowship and close(d) communion, the conservative opposition thinks that an LCMS congregation that basically allows anyone to take communion practices de facto open communion, presumably because they believe that open communion is the right thing to practice, which would mean they have a different doctrine than the LCMS. The majority, however, sees it all as a matter of application. In their view, some pastors and congregations are very stringent, some more loose, but all believe in close(d) communion. Not practicing it is just one way of practicing it, so to speak.

Theology gone missing
So it is all a matter of practice, not doctrine. The same concept applies to worship and the relationship of contemporary worship formats to traditional, sacramental Lutheran worship practices. The conservative opposition says that contemporary worship as normally practiced in many congregations stems from a different doctrine of worship. The majority not only disagrees, but refuses to recognize that the minority disagrees with them theologically and not merely in terms of style preference.

At one point it became almost comical (you can read about it on the online forum). A conservative speaker from the floor proposed an amendment to a resolution on worship asking that we recognize and work on our theological differences concerning worship, but when the recording secretary read the proposal back to the assembly before the vote, the word “theological” was missing.

Whether intentional or not, the omission illustrates the problem. The opposition wants to discuss doctrine, but the majority under President Kieschnick do not see any of the disagreements as theological or doctrinal, but merely practical. As long as the discussion remains in the realm of practice, anything goes. After all, we’re allowed to do things differently as long as we confess the same faith.

And whether we confess the same faith is what the conservative opposition is not sure of and wants to clarify, and what the moderate majority wants to take for granted and move on. No wonder there wasn’t much drama at the convention; it addressed very few of the actual disagreements as such.

Embryonic trust
But both sides did genuinely listen, so there is an embryonic trust or at least mutual respect developing among the various political “sides” of the synod. All have agreed that it was a good convention at least in this respect: no longer did people shout past each other. The sides at least tried to engage.

And this wrap-up doesn’t even really address the big issues that hogged all the discussion time—a resolution to call a special convention in 2009 to consider synodical structure, a resolution to create a new “ministry specific pastor program” which would ordain pastors via an alternate route under special circumstances, and a declaration of fellowship with the American Association of Lutheran Churches (a group of former American Lutheran Church congregations who chose not to affiliate with the ELCA back in 1987).

But you’ll read more about all those things in future issues, I’m sure (and again, the conversation at Forum Online goes into them in great detail). As for now, the best summary of the situation is merely this: the LCMS has a better set of problems facing it than just about any other church body I can think of. These days, that’s no small matter.

—by Peter Speckhard, associate editor

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