It's Official: My Second Call

Yes, I posted the news on Facebook a week ago Sunday, so lots of folks have heard the news. But the official notice didn't arrive in the mail until this morning: Resurrection Lutheran Church in Godfrey, Illinois, meeting on February 10, 2019, has called this unworthy servant as Pastor. I intend to officially accept the call as soon as I find a place to live and we determine a start date. Having played in Peoria for more than 26 years, I'll be moving on.

Godfrey, Illinois, is a village right next to Alton, Illinois, along the Mississippi River in the northern suburbs of metropolitan St. Louis. Resurrection is, for this part of the country, a rather young ELCA congregation. It formed in 1976 when, in the midst of turmoil then happening in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, the pastor and several families of Faith Lutheran Church in Godfrey left to form a new Lutheran church. It would be the first southern Illinois congregation to join the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, but with the decline of Alton's economy in the early 1980's, the congregation had to sell its property and came very close to being merged or closed.

Not accepting either option, the congregation instead chose to redevelop as a mission. With support of the Lutheran Church in America's Division for Mission in North America and then the (new) ELCA, Resurrection was able to grow enough to purchase its current property in 1988, and dedicate a brand new church building in 1992. In 2019, the congregation faces the same challenges of most North American churches -- how to continue proclaiming the Gospel and ministering to and with the neighbor in a culture that no longer defaults to supporting churches, and to grow (or even maintain) when the church's upcoming generation is both smaller and less committed to the church than previous generations.

I'll admit to not having looked forward to departing Peoria. But I am looking forward to challenges in a new place with a new flock called (like the congregation where my faith and vocation were formed) Resurrection.

Tonight on the TV: Martin Luther

It's been a long day in which I've not accomplished everything I needed to do today. But at 7 o'clock tonight on Peoria's PBS station (WTVP, Channel 47) Martin Luther: The Idea that Changed the World is airing and I'm going to sit back and watch it. This is short notice, but if you are in the Peoria area, it's worth watching. It'll be re-broadcast at midnight tonight and again on Friday (the 15th) at 1 am. Other PBS stations are broadcasting it at other times over the next few weeks.

It was 500 years ago that the Reformation began with Luther's posting of Ninety Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences that October 31st.

Here's a trailer:

Worried about the West's vanishing Christian character? Go to church!

Melanie McDonagh writes at The Spectator on the conversation of the decline of the Church of England, but it applies here in the US, too:

So, I have a simple proposal for the cultural Christians who agonise about the rise of Islam and the vanishing Christian character of Britain: go to church. Take the place of Generation A. Turn up for Easter Sunday as well as Christmas; keep Pentecost Sunday, because hardly anyone now knows what Whit Sunday stands for, and Ascension Thursday. There are lots of churches out there, you know: Anglicans in cities are spoiled for choice, and you can’t throw a brick in places like Norfolk without landing on something fabulous from the fifteenth century. Anglicans have, moreover, for those that seek it out, the loveliest liturgy, and you don’t deserve it. There are rubbish clergy, of course, but, you know, it’s possible to separate your feelings about the thing that’s being celebrated from the celebrant (Catholics are quite good at this). So, get out there. The numbers attending Anglican services fell below a million at the beginning of last year; they’re still falling.

It’s kind of Matthew Parris to wish the CofE well from outside, but the institution is not going to survive on the basis of the flying buttresses (to quote Winston Churchill) alone; it needs pillars even more. Go and get stuck in, reader, or else abstain from complaining about the cultural atrophy of the West.

Read it all here.

This Sunday we'll be observing the 90th Anniversary of the dedication of the current Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria. It's not from the fifteenth century, but it's still pretty fabulous, with a lovely liturgy, and the clergy... Well, if you're near Peoria, here's a place for you.

Tip o' the hat to Canon Kendall Harmon at TitusOneNine.

The Feast of St. Mary, Mother of God

August 15 is the Christian Festival day commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ -- and thus properly called, as the Council of Ephesus (in 431) and the Council of Chalcedon (in 451) taught (and the Formula of Concord [1580] affirms), "Mother of God." This morning one of my friends, a priest in the Swedish Church, posted on his Facebook page the following prayer from the Swedish (Lutheran) Reformer, Olavus Petri:

O rena moder Maria, det är dig väl att du har funnit en sådan stor nåd i Gud, att Han i sin stora barmhärtighet och godhet ville utvälja dig att bli hans moder, skänka dig större nåd än till någon annan människa, lovad och ärad vare Hans eviga barmhärtighet och godhet, och välsignad är du, mot vilken han ville vara så nådig.

Google Translate renders it thus (with a couple of adjustments that I think make it more accuriate):

O pure Mother Mary, it is well with you that you have found such a great grace of God, that He in His great mercy and goodness would select you to be His mother, give you more grace than any other person, blessed and honored be His eternal mercy and kindness, and blessed are you, towards whom He would be so gracious.

While there certainly could be a more elegant English translation (perhaps someone knows of one), even here one sees a lovely prayer, no? Thank you, Father Fredrik Norberg.

Over at the For All the Saints blog, Todd Granger reproduces much of a brief essay on St. Mary from Philip Pfatteicher's book, The New Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints, where I was struck by the sentence that read,

More is known about her that about most of the apostles.

It is worth reading the entire essay here.

Open Letter: Free Exercise of Religion

The following was issued Thursday by the leaders of several religious communities in the United States, including the Presidents/Bishops of four Lutheran church bodies. Written by the Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, he also offers this video introduction. Pastor Zip

Hat tip to Fr. William Weedon at ALPB Forum Online.

FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION:
Putting Beliefs into Practice

An Open Letter from Religious Leaders
in the United States to All Americans
June 21, 2012

Dear Friends,

Religious institutions are established because of religious beliefs and convictions. Such institutions include not only churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship, but also schools and colleges, shelters and community kitchens, adoption agencies and hospitals, organizations that provide care and services during natural disasters, and countless other organizations that exist to put specific religious beliefs into practice. Many such organizations have provided services and care to both members and non-members of their religious communities since before the Revolutionary War, saving and improving the lives of count- less American citizens.

As religious leaders from a variety of perspectives and communities, we are compelled to make known our protest against the incursion of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) into the realm of religious liberty. HHS has mandated that religious institutions, with only a narrow religious exception, must provide access to certain contraceptive benefits, even if the covered medications or procedures are contradictory to their beliefs. We who oppose the application of this mandate to religious institutions include not only the leaders of religious groups morally opposed to contraception, but also leaders of other religious groups that do not share that particular moral conviction.

That we share an opposition to the mandate to religious institutions while disagreeing about specific moral teachings is a crucial fact. Religious freedom is the principle on which we stand. Because of differing understandings of moral and religious authority, people of good will can and often do come to different conclusions about moral questions. Yet, even we who hold differing convictions on specific moral issues are united in the conviction that no religious institution should be penalized for refusing to go against its beliefs. The issue is the First Amendment, not specific moral teachings or specific products or services.

The HHS mandate implicitly acknowledged that an incursion into religion is involved in the mandate. However, the narrowness of the proposed exemption is revealing for it applies only to religious organizations that serve or support their own members. In so doing, the government is establishing favored and disfavored religious organizations: a privatized religious organization that serves only itself is exempted from regulation, while one that believes it should also serve the public beyond its membership is denied a religious exemption. The so-called accommodation and the subsequent Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) do little or nothing to alleviate the problem.

No government should tell religious organizations either what to believe or how to put their beliefs into practice. We indeed hold this to be an unalienable, constitutional right. If freedom of religion is a constitutional value to be protected, then institutions developed by religious groups to implement their core beliefs in education, in care for the sick or suffering, and in other tasks must also be protected. Only by doing so can the free exercise of religion have any meaning. The HHS mandate prevents this free exercise. For the well-being of our country, we oppose the application of the contraceptive mandate to religious institutions and plead for its retraction.

Sincerely yours,

Leith Anderson President National Association of Evangelicals Gary M. Benedict President The Christian and Missionary Alliance U.S. Bishop John F. Bradosky North American Lutheran Church The Most Rev. Robert J. Carlson Archbishop of St. Louis Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan Archbishop of New York President United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V. Superior General of the Sisters of Life Sister Barbara Anne Gooding, R.S.M. Director, Department of Religion Saint Francis Health System Sister Margaret Regina Halloran, l.s.p. Provincial Superior Brooklyn Province Little Sisters of the Poor The Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison President The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church Bishop, Fellowship of International Churches The Very Rev. Dr. John A. Jillions Chancellor Orthodox Church in America The Most Blessed Jonah Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All American and Canada Orthodox Church in America

Imam Faizul R. Khan Founder and Leader Islamic Society of Washington Area The Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky Director of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations Orthodox Church in America Most Rev. William E. Lori Archbishop of Baltimore Chairman USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty Sister Maria Christine Lynch, l.s.p. Provincial Superior Chicago Province Little Sisters of the Poor Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, l.s.p. Provincial Superior Baltimore Province Little Sisters of the Poor The Rev. John A. Moldstad President Evangelical Lutheran Synod Deaconess Cheryl D. Naumann President Concordia Deaconess Conference The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez President NHCLC Hispanic Evangelical Association Sister Joseph Marie Ruessmann Generalate Secretary Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan The Rev. Mark Schroeder President Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod L. Roy Taylor Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America Sister Constance Carolyn Veit, l.s.p. Communications Director Little Sisters of the Poor Dr. George O. Wood General Superintendent The General Council of the Assemblies of God

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The Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), authored and issued “Free Exercise of Religion: Putting Beliefs into Practice,” an open letter to all Americans voicing opposition to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) contraceptive mandate and pleading for its retraction. Twenty-four religious leaders joined President Harrison in signing the letter, which was issued June 21, 2012.

For more information about the LCMS response to the HHS contraceptive mandate, please visit www.lcms.org/hhsmandate or call 888-THE LCMS (843-5267).

Lutheran Church President Testifies Before Congress

Yesterday LCMS President Matthew Harrison testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the Obama Administration's mandate. Listen to (or read) his powerful, (dare I call it) prophetic message.

Mr. Chairman, it’s a pleasure to be here. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a body of some 6,200 congregations and 2.3 million members across the U.S. We don’t distribute voters’ lists. We don’t have a Washington office. We are studiously non‐partisan, so much so that we’re often criticized for being quietistic.

I’d rather not be here, frankly. Our task is to proclaim, in the words of the blessed apostle St. John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sin. And we care for the needy. We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government. Martin Luther famously quipped one time, "I’d rather have a smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me."

We confess that there are two realms, the church and the state. They shouldn’t be mixed – the church is governed by the Word of God, the state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000 grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10 colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost.

We have the nation’s only historic black Lutheran college in Concordia, Selma. Many of our people [who are alive today] walked with Dr. King 50 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has continued over the years, to provide home ownership for thousands of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers. Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected by disease, women and children. And this is just the tip, the very tip, of the charitable iceberg.

I’m here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion‐causing drugs. That is, in part, why we maintain our own health plan. While we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration moves us all into a single‐payer ... system. Our direct experience in the Hosanna‐Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our free‐exercise rights.

We self‐insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make an average of $43,000 a year, 17,000 teachers make much less, on average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant cost‐saving measures, to be passed on to our workers, just as this health‐care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes, incur great cost, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions required under the grandfather clause. While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion‐causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non‐Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers. I have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have ancestors who served in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War – my 88‐year‐old father‐in‐law has recounted to me, in tears many times, the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

We fought for a free conscience in this country, and we won’t give it up without a fight. To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room only for God, not for God and the federal government. The bed is too narrow, the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than men, and we will. Please get the federal government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences. Thank you.

Pastor Harrison and others also answered questions asked by members of the committee:

A Lutheran Perspective on the Obama Mandate

I first met Pastor Matthew Harrison in the spring of 2007, at the Conference on Mercy sponsored by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod World Relief/Human Care for which he was Executive Director. I was quite impressed by him not only as a driving force in the LCMS' relief efforts, but as a theologian who both understood and taught why the Church is involved in such things. In the summer of 2010, Pastor Harrison was elected President of the LCMS.

Here President Harrison addresses the current controversy over the Obama Administration's chilling mandate that all forms of "birth control" be fully covered by medical plans, including those of churches and church agencies that have always taught that it is grave sin to take the life of a child in the womb:

Hi. I’m Pastor Matthew Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, a denomination of some 6,200 congregations across the United States. We also have many institutions, which care for the needy and also 10 universities.

In response to President Obama’s announcement Friday concerning an ‘accommodation’ to a previous mandate that health plans must cover all forms of birth control (even those that can kill the unborn), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod remains deeply concerned. We strongly object to the use of drugs and procedures that are used to take the lives of unborn children, who are persons in the sight of God from the time of conception. Drugs such as Plan B^® and Ella^®, which are still included in the mandate, can work post-conception to cause the death of the developing child, so don’t be fooled by statements to the contrary.

We see President Obama’s action Friday as significant, in that it appears to have been prompted by the many voices united in concern over an infringement of our religious liberties. But the ‘accommodation’ did not expand the exemption for religious employers, nor did it restrict the mandate in any way. It simply described a temporary enforcement delay and a possible future change—a change that, unfortunately, would not adequately protect religious freedom or unborn lives.

We remain opposed to this mandate because it runs counter to the biblical truth of the sanctity of human life. We are committed to working to ensure that we remain free to practice the teachings of our faith, that our religious rights are not violated and that our rights of conscience are retained. Freedom of religion extends beyond the practice of our faith in houses of worship. We must be free to put our faith into action in the public square, and, in response to Christ’s call, demonstrate His mercy through our love and compassion for all people according to the clear mandate of Holy Scripture.

The government has overstepped its bounds. This controversy is not merely about birth control and the Catholic Church’s views about it. It’s about mandating that we provide medications which kill life in the womb. And moreover, and perhaps even more ominous, it is about an overzealous government forcing coercive provisions that violate the consciences and rights of its citizens. We can no longer expect a favored position for Christianity in this country. But we can, as citizens of this great nation, fight for constitutional sanity against secularizing forces. As we have vividly experienced in discriminatory state legislation with respect to homosexual adoption, we and our institutions (and those of other religious citizens of good will) are being robbed of the right to the free exercise of religion absent government intrusion or threat. The next assault will come upon church-related retirement facilities. How much longer will it be legal in this country to believe and act according to the dictates of biblical and creedal Christianity?

We in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pray for our president and his administration every day. In fact, I personally pray for the president every single day. We have had members of our church body serve in very significant positions, including attorney general, also chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and many other significant positions. We have and have had senators and House of Representatives members. We’ve contributed to the well being of this country in countless ways. In fact, the most highly decorated living veteran is a member of the LCMS.

Jesus bids us, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Mark 12:17). We will pray for and support our government where we can, but our consciences and our lives belong to God.

Thank you.

And thank you, Pastor Harrison.

Lutheran CORE Illinois Launched

Last Friday evening and Saturday morning (March 19-20, 2010) some 80 Illinois Lutherans, laity and clergy from the territories of all three ELCA Synods (with a couple dozen more expressing regrets that they were unable to attend), nearly all feeling the need of conference and mutual encouragement in the wake of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly's actions, gathered at American Lutheran Church in Rantoul, Illinois, to form Lutheran CORE Illinois.

As Chair of its initial Steering Committee, I sought to cast a vision for CORE Illinois after the host pastor, Dr. Jeffray Greene, opened the session with Responsive Prayer II (Suffrages) from the Lutheran Book of Worship. I sought to emphasize first that we found ourselves in this need not solely because others had taken the church in a wrong direction, but also because we had not heeded the signs and warnings that had been raised before us. Indeed, error had entered the ELCA "by our fault, our own fault, our own most grievous fault." And that we engage in this endeavor first confessing our own sin, repenting, and receiving forgiveness for our part in letting the church get off track.

I reminded the convocation of our own history as American Lutherans, of our long-held desires to come together into one church, of our ability to work together on important matters --theology, missionary work at home and abroad, relief and charity -- even when we were in separate Lutheran church bodies, meaning that as some separated from the ELCA while others remained, new denominational lines need not be walls preventing us from ministering together in and from Illinois whenever we can. Lutheran councils, coalitions, shared ministries all have a long history prior to the formation of the ELCA in 1988. We must do that again as Lutheranism in Illinois and North America is reconfigured.

Pr. Ken Kimball of the continental Lutheran CORE Steering Committee brought greetings from Lutheran CORE and our sister movement, Call to Faithfulness, noting some of CTF's successes and challenges within the Northeastern Iowa Synod. He, too, shared some of the vision of Lutheran CORE for the future of North American Lutheranism.

I read a letter from Bishop Paull Spring, Lutheran CORE's Chair. Some comments and questions from the assembly (including other members of Lutheran CORE working groups) were offered, a proposed Constitution for CORE Illinois was briefly introduced and then, following Compline, the convocation recessed for the evening.

The convocation reconvened Saturday morning with Responsive Prayer I (Suffrages), and we spent some time reviewing and amending the proposed constitution. Yes, there were a few moments it may have seemed we were getting bogged down in details. But in the end, the convocation unanimously approved a good-enough constitution. Then the following were elected to the Steering Committee:

• Pr. Steven Tibbetts, Zion, Peoria, Chair
• Ralph Cox, American, Rantoul, Vice-Chair*
• Lynn Bivens, Bethel, Bartonville, Secretary
• Mike Kasten, Good Shepherd, Champaign, Treasurer*
• Pr. Jeffray Greene, American, Rantoul
• Jim Taeger, Prince of Peace, St. Joseph
• Pr. Gary Blobaum, St. Paul, Oregon*
• Pr. Jeff Cottingham, First, Paxton*
• Judy Rademaker, Immanuel, Flatville*

(*-elected for 1 year; for the rest and henceforth, all elections are for 2-year terms)

After a brief review of some possible Synod Assembly resolutions and highlighting some mission and ministry groups that are supportive of Lutheran CORE's vision, the convocation broke into smaller groups -- those from the Northern Illinois and Metro Chicago Synods, those in the Central/Southern Illinois Synod intending to remain, and those in C/SIS expecting to depart -- to begin networking and discuss common concerns that CORE Illinois could help facilitate.

The convocation closed with Holy Communion, Pr. Jim Lehmann (Immanuel, Flatville) preaching from the LBW daily lectionary's Gospel, St. Mark 9:14-29 (Jesus healing of a boy possessed by an evil spirit) and Pr. Greene presiding.

Now the work of faithful ministry begins. Illinois Lutherans -- pastors, laity, congregations -- who support the goals and principles of Lutheran CORE are encouraged to contact the Core Illinois Steering Committee that we can get started working together.

Lutheran CORE Illinois to Form March 19-20

You are invited to register for the convocation of Illinois Lutheran congregations, pastors, and laity to formally constitute Lutheran CORE Illinois on March 19-20, 2010, at American Lutheran Church, Rantoul, Illinois. Please also forward this message to others in Illinois who wish to stand as a part of Lutheran CORE for the renewal of the Lutheran church in North America.

To register please send your name, address, e-mail, and the congregation you attend (or represent) to coreillinois@yahoo.com.

There is no registration fee. A free-will offering for Lutheran CORE Illinois will be received.

The Convocation will begin at 7 pm on Friday, March 19, and conclude that evening at 9 pm. It will reconvene Saturday morning at 8 am and be concluded by Noon.

We have allowed this much time to enable discussion on the effects in Illinois of the reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism being charted by Lutheran CORE. And to enable Lutherans from across the state -- within the ELCA and its 3 Illinois synods and outside (or intending to be outside) of the ELCA -- to begin to network with each other.

We recognize some attendees may be traveling long distances and may not be able to attend the entire convocation. Approving the initial constitution (which will be available soon on the CORE Illinois web site) and electing the CORE Illinois Steering Committee will happen Saturday morning.

Rantoul is located about a dozen miles north of the junction of I-57 and I-74 outside of Champaign-Urbana, with American Lutheran being about 2 miles from the junction of I-57 and US-136. Directions can be found at the church's web site. CORE Illinois is not arranging for lodging or meals, but they are available in Rantoul and the Champaign-Urbana vicinity.


To be sure of receiving information about Lutheran CORE Illinois, please send an e-mail with your name and congregation to
CORE_Illinois-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, which will subscribe you to the Lutheran CORE Illinois Announcements group. One can also find CORE Illinois announcements at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CORE_Illinois/, and can join the group from there with a yahoo! ID. We aim to not bombard you with e-mails if you join that group.

Lutheran CORE Illinois also has established a "discussion" list that you can join by sending your name and congregation to
CORE-IL-Discuss-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or its associated site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CORE-IL-Discuss/.

Again, please forward this message to Illinois Lutherans who are supportive of Lutheran CORE's vision for the future of North American Lutheranism.

Peace and all good, Pastor Steven Tibbetts

==========================
The Rev. Steven P. Tibbetts, STS
Pastor, Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Peoria, Ill.
Chair, Lutheran CORE Illinois Steering Committee
www.coreillinois.org

The Seven Marks Society: Vision Statement

Late in the evening of Wednesday, 30 September 2009, after Compline at the General Retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity, nearly three dozen pastors (members and non-members of the Society) gathered together to discuss a common response to the actions of the previous month's ELCA Churchwide Assembly and Lutheran CORE's recasting itself as a movement for the renewal of Lutheranism in North America.

By midnight, we'd established both Yahoo! and Facebook groups, and within a week some 75 pastors had signed on to form what was soon called the Seven Marks Society — referring to Luther's seven Marks of the Church that had been the focus of the STS General Retreats 2007-2009. We planned to constitute the Society at a convocation in Nashville on 29-30 January 2010, but icy weather conditions caused its postponement to a later, yet undetermined, date.

The Seven Marks Society is being launched nonetheless, and the Chairman of its initial Steering Committee has shared his

Vision Statement

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The Rev. Dr. Timothy D. Hubert
January 30, 2010

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Grace and peace to you, from God, our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Is it only pure nostalgia that brings us together tonight? Is it the looking backwards with our rose colored glasses, remembering a time when, we believe, the churches we belonged to, though different, all acted more alike than the single church we belong to now acts through its unity in diversity culture?

Do we really remember a time when the behavior of pastors and congregations were noted and carried consequences? Do we really remember a time when divorcing pastors were summarily removed from their congregations? Do we remember a time when a congregation would likely be removed for going their own way?

Do we remember when clergy enjoyed meeting together, learning from each other, helping each other in our parish ministries? Do we remember when clergy spouses called each other friend?

Do we remember when the church’s publishing house actually produced a faithful and usable catechism curriculum? (A few years ago, a popular, and expensive, catechism program denied real presence when it taught about Holy Communion.)

But, of course, the reality is that the seeds for the ecclesial discontent were planted fifty or more years ago. I remember a tract, (Do you remember tracts that we used to put in the narthex for visitors and members)? This was back in the days when I was in the Augustana Synod, yes, that paragon of virtue and faithfulness that I never tire of publically remembering. About 1958 a tract was published by Augustana that tried to explain the Holy Trinity. On the face page was a pleasant graphic. Page two talked about God the Father. Page three talked about God the Son. And page four was blank.

We gather today because we and the churches we serve have become confused, disoriented and depressed. Today we are energized by potlucks, by doing things our own way and by doing mission locally, but not evangelically. Deep down we know something is wrong.

Today we are frightened whenever anyone talks about congregations working together. We are terrified that someone will ask us to go the extra mile, to actually be evangelical (so that our name accuses us), to be Christ’s presence in the market place. We are terrified because we have no models, no resources, not even a clue on where to begin.

This is where those of us who call ourselves evangelical catholic Lutherans are encouraged to jump in with both feet. But, let’s get something straight. We are not individuals, nor even individual congregations. We are the people of God! You are my spiritual flesh and spiritual bone and I am yours! Your faithfulness in ministry is my faithfulness and mine is yours! Your frustrations, fractures and fumbles are mine and mine are yours.

We are the Seven Marks! Word and Sacrament gather us together in the mission and ministry of the church. We are not gathered because it is fashionable or because this is our support network or because it makes us feel good. It is Word and Sacrament that gathers us. It is Jesus Christ who gathers us together. It is Jesus Christ, in Word and Sacrament, who gathers us to be His body, to do His mission through the ministry of His church.

This mission and ministry is guided by bishops and pastors and lay leaders. Christ Jesus instituted the holy office of ministry and we call to serve those who love Jesus, are well trained and equipped with spiritual and practical gifts for ministry. This is an honorable office because it is Christ’s office.

The office of pastor is not an afterthought. It isn’t an embarrassing necessity. It isn’t occupied by hirelings who neither care for nor love the sheep of that particular fold. It can’t be filled on the spur of the moment even by people whose only credential is good will. The office of pastor is occupied to those who will show us heaven, who will encourage us to come closer to our heavenly Father, who will point to the signs of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

The office of pastor is occupied by those who will point us to the holy and life giving cross, who will lead us in sacrificial service, who will champion the poor among us. It is the role of the pastor to remind us that justice is doxology, not the touch stone of our confession.

Is this pure nostalgia? Is this idealistic nonsense? Or is this the goal, the vision, for faithful ministry among us? Do we gather here tonight because we are theological fossils or because we are living vessels holding tightly to a precious and holy treasure?

Did we come all these miles and spend our own money in order to indulge our common delusion of a bygone and largely forgotten era? Or have we been called by a living God to remember how His Church was formed and spread around the entire world? Are we not the spiritual descendants of the Petrine epistles (a la Ray Brown)?

How can we give this up? How can we turn our back on our faithful ancestors? How can we say no to Jesus, who gathers us in and through the seven marks of His church?

In a culture that emphasizes the individual, as if happiness can only come when we are true, Socratic-ally, to our own selves, do we dare to be silent? In a culture that champions democracy over faithfulness, do we dare to be silent? In a culture that calls evil good and good evil, do we dare to be silent? In a church that can’t separate philosophy from the faith, do we dare to be silent?

No! Our presence here tonight is not silent. We are here because we are faithful bishops, pastors and laity. We are here because we are held captive to the Word of God. We are here because there is nowhere else to go.

We are here to live out a full and faithful church life, where we counter the cultural pull and live out the seven marks. We are here to begin an evangelical outreach, celebrating our Petrine catholicity, carrying our vision into the public market place. We are both faithful and accountable. We do mission for mission’s sake. We love sacrificially. We help each other, because, to be faithful we can do no other!

This Society exists because the Lutheran churches need us. This Society exists because Lutherans around the world want to know there is someone they can talk to in this country, who understands their concerns, who shares in their vision of ministry.

This Society exists to be a light in the wilderness, to produce faithful and confessional programs and materials and maybe even tracts with all three persons of the Holy Trinity. We are being challenged to produce faithful, scriptural, traditional materials for youth groups, women’s groups, men’s groups, councils, evangelism committees, parish councils, stewardship committees, Sunday Schools. We are being challenged to provide solid training in forming lay leadership. This Society exists to help in the formation of bishops, pastors and deacons.

This Society is meant to be a missional home for those of us who have nowhere else to turn, to help congregations in many different Lutheran and Christian church bodies to be faithful to the Great Tradition in which we were born.

May God, the Father, +Son and Holy Spirit bless us and be a blessing through us! Amen.

50 Stars: The Rest of the Story

The photo is a clipping of the first time I appeared in a church publication, the monthly newspaper of the old Pacific Southwest Synod, LCA. The date, as you can see (click for a larger version), is January 1971. The names aren't listed in the order we're standing: its Mr. Pfundstein, me, Bruce, Greg, Ken, and Jon. Here's the story.

I first went to camp when I was 11. It was one week in the summer of 1970 at Camp Yolijwa, the Synod's camp outside Yucaipa, California. That's in the mountains east of San Bernardino. I had never been that far "back east" before. I'd never been away from home that long before.

First thing every morning we'd all gather at the flag pole to raise the colors and say the Pledge of Allegiance. "Hey," I whispered to one of my friends the first day, "you notice anything about that flag?" The stars looked different. It was a 48-star flag! For boys who had been born the year Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, we thought it was pretty pathetic that the church camp would have an out-of-date flag.

Naturally that became an item of conversation when The Odd Squad -- Bruce, Greg, Jon, and I were all in the same Sunday School class, Ken was a year ahead (and who'd been trying to get all of us to Yolijwa) -- and we'd been we palling around Resurrection, were in the choir, etc. -- came home. I don't recall who gave us that moniker, but I'm thinking we were tagged with it shortly after The Mod Squad came on the air. None of us, of course, were anything as cool as Linc, Pete, and Julie.

Several weeks later, Pastor Gibson gathered us all together at church and took us to one of the Canoga Park mortuaries, where we were presented with a brand new 50-star flag. Which we then presented to Mr. Pfundstein, who came up to the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Canoga Park from the Synod Office.

I've intended at some point to tell that story here just because. The old Odd Squad doesn't have much contact with each any more. Bruce and his family would move away after we were confirmed and his dad got a new job in Ohio. He's an ELCA pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania. The rest of us stayed in the West Valley through high school. Ken went to ULCA and, after working a while at Hughes Aircraft, headed to Silicon Valley -- his older brother (Wayne) is an ELCA pastor in Port Byron, Illinois. Jon and Greg went to Humboldt State and made their lives elsewhere. Jon is the Director of the New York Aquarium.; Greg (last I heard) is with the Portland, Oregon, water works.

So why "the rest of the story?" That showed up Monday over at the pretty good lutherans blog, which I recently discovered as a fine source for ELCA news.

Robert Heft, the designer of the 50-star U.S. flag, died Saturday at Covenant Medical Center in Saginaw, Mich. He was 67.

Heft created the flag in 1958 for a high school project. He was 17-years-old and a junior at Lancaster High School in Lancaster, Ohio.

He received a B- for the project, but the teacher eventually changed his grade to an A.

“His interest in flags originally came from his volunteer work as a former Boy Scout,” his newspaper obituary said. “Bob was a very proud American. He devoted his life to inspiring others.”

President Dwight Eisenhower chose Heft’s design to replace the 48-star flag. At the time, Alaska and Hawaii were expected to soon make the country a 50-state nation.

Should you read it all here, you'll discover that Mr. Heft was -- a Lutheran.

What Are Pastors for, anyway?

This question was recently asked in a Facebook group made up of ELCA Lutherans, lay and clergy, I'm in. There were several different sorts of answers offered. Here's what I wrote — and since that group is going to be closed soon, I figured I ought to put it in a place that won't disappear:

Key to the question, "What are pastors for, anyway?" especially from a Lutheran perspective, is Article V of the Augsburg Confession.

"To obtain such faith [that is, the faith described in Art. I-IV] God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the Sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who hear the Gospel. And the Gosepel teaches that we have a gracious God, not by our own merits but by the merit of Christ, when we believe this.

"Condemned are the Anabaptists and others who teach that the Holy Spirit comes to us thorugh our own preparations, thoughts, and works without the external word of the Gospel."

What are pastors for? The Faith. The Gospel. The Means of Grace (of which the ministry -- that's flesh and blood pastors, not some platonic ideal of "the ministry" -- is one).

While Christ is The Good Shepherd, pastors are also shepherds of their flocks, and we confess that this is something instituted by God.

And, as I acknowledge when I teach Ordination as a fourth sacrament for Lutherans, what I wrote there is a good way to get Lutheran pastors debating.

Reformation Sunday 2009

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’m doing something unusual with this sermon, for in my 17 years as pastor at Zion, it has been very, very rare for me to preach on Sunday from a manuscript. Furthermore, just about everything I’m going to say is not my words, but the words of another pastor, Frank Senn, whose name many of you will recognize as the Senior of the Society of the Holy Trinity. This is a sermon that he has offered to be preached in many churches throughout the ELCA for this particular Reformation Sunday, one that is being preached in one form or another by a few dozen pastors across our church who are in the process of uniting to proclaim a clear word within the church we have been called to serve. So, here goes.

Ecclesia semper reformanda. "The church must always be reformed."

Martin Luther didn’t invent it; it was a medieval slogan. In fact, as the Luther biographer Heiko Oberman, reformation was "a medieval event." It grew out of the experience of the monasteries, which were always growing lax with regard to the observance of their Rule, and which required calls for reform and renewal. Sometimes this led to splits in monastic communities: for example, the Cistercians split off from the main body of the Benedictines. Martin Luther belonged to the "observant" branch of the Augustinian Order rather than the "conventual" branch. By the way, Luther was not, strictly speaking, a monk; he was a friar. Monks are cloistered religious; the friars were out and about on the streets and highways. Anyway, calls for reform were not new by the 16th century; and schism had been experienced—not only in religious communities, but in the papacy itself. The Protestant-Catholic schism was not the first schism in church history; but it was a pretty major one.

"The church must always be reformed." Once Luther’s reform movement settled into being a church established by law in the cities, territories, and nations of central and northern Europe, it too needed reform. The first major reform movement within Lutheranism was Pietism in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which set out to "convert the outward orthodox profession into a living theology of the heart." Later in the 19th century, after the period of rationalism during the Age of Enlightenment, there was a confessional revival movement that sought to recover the confessional identity of Lutheranism.

Our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America came into existence in the 1980s on a wave of ideologically-based culture wars. The idea was to transcend the differences between the merging church bodies by creating a "new" Lutheran Church which cut continuity with preceding traditions. Sometimes in silly ways. For example, when I receive a notice from the ELCA I am addressed as "rostered leader," not "pastor." If you’re trying to be relevant to the contemporary world, who in the world knows what a "rostered leader" is? But there have been more serious issues raising the concern among many about whether "this Church" takes seriously the Scriptures, creeds, and confessions.

Not surprisingly, almost from the very beginning of the ELCA there has been agitation for reform. In the early 1990s, when I was still in seminary, there were two "Call to Faithfulness" conferences sponsored by three independent Lutheran journals and held at St. Olaf College. They attracted nearly a thousand participants who paid their own way, people whom at the second conference then-Presiding Bishop Chilstrom insinuated didn’t love the Church. In the year 1995 a document called The 9.5 Theses came out, claiming a "crisis of faith" in the Church. More than 700 pastors and some 300 lay people subscribed to them. The leaders of this effort appealed to then-Presiding Bishop Anderson to at least have the Theses discussed within the Conference of Bishops, but he refused to put it on the agenda, saying that he would be proposing his own faith formation initiatives. No one seems to remember what those were.

Out of this intransigence, the Society of the Holy Trinity was born in 1997 as an inter-Lutheran ministerium that seeks to renew the ordained ministry, a Society I joined shortly after its formation and which after our latest General Retreat last month now numbers over 260 pastors in 8-9 different Lutheran church bodies in North America. In the wake of the most recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly, a coalition of reform groups numbering 1200 people came together in Indianapolis a few weeks ago (again, at their own expense) to propose forming a free standing synod that will include pastors and congregations that are in the ELCA and those that are not in ELCA. I think there is promise in this proposal, if groups that have quite different, sometimes diametrically opposite, views on the nature of the church and ministry, can transcend those differences and organize an annual convocation in which pastors and congregations come together to do what the church needs to do: worship, study the Bible, discuss mission strategies and congregational life, and move beyond the culture wars that have dominated ELCA assemblies for twenty-one years.

Back in the 1530s there were lots of ideas about reforming the Church. Since early in the Reformation, Luther had been calling for a free synod under the presidency of the Emperor, rather than the Pope, to deal with the differences in theology and proposals for reform. He called for such a synod one last time in a 1539 treatise called On the Councils and the Church. People were confused about where the true church was found. He said, "not in Rome; not even in Wittenberg," but where the word of God is preached and the sacraments of Christ are administered. In other words, not in the churchwide structure, and not even in the local judicatory, even if that local judicatory is more to your liking. He expanded this to discuss Seven Marks of the Church, which Society of the Holy Trinity has spent the last three years studying.

Here in these Seven Marks is the basis of church reform and renewal, based not on human effort, but on the divine means of grace. In a time of crisis when reform is needed, you go back to the basics. Here are the basics, said Luther, but in their catholic fullness. It’s not just, as one reform movement has coined, "word alone."

In this treatise, Luther wrote:

The Children’s Creed [that is, the Apostles’ Creed] teaches us… that a Christian holy people is to be and to remain on earth until the end of the world. This is an article of faith that cannot be terminated until that which it believes comes, as Christ promises, "I am with you always, to the close of the age" [Matt. 28:20]. But how will or how can a poor confused person tell where such Christian holy people are to be found in this world?

And thus Luther introduces these Seven Marks of the Church, which some of you may find familiar from a Lenten series Pastor Lund and I taught a few years ago. The Marks are:

1. "The Holy Word of God"

Luther writes:

First, the holy Christian people are recognized by their possession of the holy word of God....

[W]e are speaking of the external word, preached orally by men like you and me, for this is what Christ left behind as an external sign, by which his church, or his Christian people in the world, should be recognized....

Now, wherever you hear or see this word preached, believed, professed, and lived, do not doubt that the true ecclesia sancta catholica, "a Christian holy people" must be there, even though their number is very small. For God’s word "shall not return empty," Isaiah 55 [:11)

God’s strong word is creative and accomplishes what it sets out to do. The word which the hymn writer Martin Franzmann wrote cleaved the darkness and created light can create and sustain the church.

2. "The Holy Sacrament of Baptism"

Luther writes:

Second, God’s people or the Christian holy people are recognized by the holy sacrament of baptism, wherever it is taught, believed, and administered according to Christ’s ordinance. That too is a public sign and a precious, holy possession by which God’s people are sanctified. It is the holy bath of regeneration through the Holy Spirit [Titus 3:5], in which we bathe and with which we are washed of sin and death by the Holy Spirit, as in the innocent holy blood of the Lamb of God.

God claims us as his own people in Holy Baptism and places his Name on us. In times of difficulty we affirm with St. Patrick, "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity."

3. "The Sacrament of the Altar"

Luther writes:

Third, God’s people, or Christian holy people, are recognized by the holy sacrament of the altar, wherever it is rightly administered, believed, and received, according to Christ’s institution. This too is a public sign and a precious, holy possession left behind by Christ by which his people are sanctified so that they also exercise themselves in faith and openly confess that they are Christian, just as they do with the word and with baptism.

The Eucharist has served as the glue that binds together in one fellowship the body of Christ on earth. We are bound together not by our organizations, but by the body and blood of Christ.

4. "The Office of the Keys publicly exercised"

Luther writes:

Fourth, God’s people or holy Christians are recognized by the office of the keys exercised publicly. That is, as Christ decrees in Matthew 18 [:15-20], if a Christian sins, he should be reproved; and if he does not mend his ways, he should be bound in his sin and cast out. If he does mend his ways, he should be absolved. That is the office of the keys. Now the use of the keys is twofold, public and private.... Now where you see sins forgiven or reproved in some persons, be it publicly or privately, you may know that God’s people are there.

A real church, as St. Matthew’s Gospel taught, has to deal with real forgiveness of real sins.

5. The Office of the Holy Ministry

Luther writes:

Fifth, the church is recognized externally by the fact that it consecrates or calls ministers, or has offices that it is to administer. There must be bishops, pastors, or preachers, who publicly and privately give, administer, and use the aforementioned four things or holy possessions in behalf of and in the name of the church, or rather by reason of their institution by Christ, as St. Paul states in Ephesians 4 [:8], "He received gifts among men…"

A public church has a public ministry which publicly preaches God’s Word and publicly administers the sacraments of Christ. In other words, the public ministry does God’s work, not just the work of human institutions.

6. "Prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God"

Luther writes:

Sixth, the holy Christian people are externally recognized by prayer, public praise, and thanksgiving to God. Where you see and hear the Lord’s Prayer prayed and taught; or psalms or other spiritual songs sung, in accordance with the word of God and the true faith; also the creed, the Ten Commandments, and the catechism used in public, you may rest assured that a holy Christian people of God are present. For prayer, too, is one of the precious holy possessions whereby everything is sanctified, as St. Paul says [1 Tim. 4:5].

The church is visible in public assemblies for worship and in its public catechizing of the people.

7. "The holy possession of the sacred cross"

Luther writes:

Seventh, the holy Christian people are externally recognized by the holy possession of the sacred cross. They must endure every misfortune and persecution, all kinds of trials and evil from the devil, the world, and the flesh (as the Lord’s Prayer indicates) by inward sadness, timidity, fear, outward poverty, contempt, illness, and weakness, in order to become like their head, Christ. And the only reason they must suffer is that they steadfastly adhere to Christ and God’s word, enduring this for the sake of Christ, Matthew 5 [:11], "Blessed are you when men persecute you on my account."

The true church will experience trials and tribulations and persecution for the faith.

Finally, Luther writes as a conclusion:

Now we know for certain what, where, and who the holy Christian Church is, that is, the holy Christian people of God; and we are quite certain that it cannot fail us.

The Seven Marks are signs of the true visible Church. Where you see and experience these marks, you see and experience a real church. But these marks also serve as a basis for reform and renewal, whether we’re talking about the 16th century, the 21st century, or any other period of the church’s history.

Ecclesia semper reformanda. "The church must always be reformed." It’s been a church slogan for nearly 1000 years.

Renew the preaching of the Word, the practice of Baptism, Holy Communion, and Penance, the holy Ministry, and public prayer and worship, and experience the cross of Christ in our common life — and the church will be reformed.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

N.B. The quotes from On the Councils and the Church are as they are found in Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings, 1st edition (1989), edited by Timothy F. Lull, pp. 545-564.

Wolfe: "Broken Keys"

An excerpt from an excellent essay, "Broken Keys," by my brother pastor Ian Wolfe, STS, posted today at Lutheran Forum:

Our liturgical tradition has witnessed to the belief that the pastor speaks in the place of and with the full authority of the eternal Son of the Father. Thus we have the absolution spoken by the pastor in the rite of Confession and Forgiveness, “Cling to this promise: the word of forgiveness I speak to you comes from God. [Name], in obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.” And going back earlier within the tradition, the Service Book and Hymnal offers these binding words from the rite for Public Confession in preparation for receiving the Holy Sacrament:

On the other hand, by the same authority, I declare unto the impenitent and unbelieving, that so long as they continue in their impenitence, God hath not forgiven their sins, and will assuredly visit their iniquities upon them, if they turn not from their evil ways, and come to true repentance and faith in Christ, ere the day of grace be ended.

From this theological and liturgical tradition within the Lutheran church, a pastor whose bound conscience belief in the Word of God that homosexual behavior is sin for the sake of pastoral care exercises the keys and binds that sin until repented. In doing so, that pastor speaks God’s own binding word upon such a person. His sin is not forgiven, neither by the pastor on earth nor by God in heaven. The Office of the Keys is exercised in this way so that a person might be convicted by the law and saved by the gospel. This is the ministry of the gospel and a fulfillment of the pastoral calling to be ministers of the Word. I must be painfully clear this concerns every unrepentant sinner and every unrepented sin. I only address homosexual behavior, because it is the issue upon which the ELCA now struggles and according to the bound conscience doctrine the keys are a valid and correct response to this sin and must be respected.

The social statement, however, affirms and lifts up the exact opposite teaching and interpretation. According to the statement, an equally valid and correct interpretation of Holy Scripture is that, not only is homosexual behavior not a sin, but that it is something that the church should recognize and possibly even bless. The same Word of God as is taught above to be correct is now also correct in the opposite interpretation and application. The Office of the Keys rightly used above by pastors has no place in this interpretation.

The ELCA formally holding these two opposed positions as equally correct raises obvious and difficult challenges to the ministry of the keys and the unified witness of the gospel. Because the social statement puts forward the bound conscience, which cannot be violated, as the criterion for allowing opposite interpretations of Holy Scripture to be normative within the church, it is also putting forward two different and opposed ministries of the gospel. One ministry of the gospel is to use the Office of the Keys on those who engage in homosexual behavior. The other ministry of the gospel is to use the Rite of Marriage (for lack of a clearer term for a rite for recognizing a publicly accountable lifelong monogamous same-gender relationships). One ministry of the gospel is to stand in the place of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God and be His representative and witness to the vows that same-gender couples make. The other ministry of the gospel is to speak in the place and stead of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, to call a person engaging in homosexual sex to repent amend her life and strive to avoid it at all costs to save soul and body. And now in the ELCA according to the social statement and ministry policy resolutions both ministries of the gospel are correct, valid, and equal.

The implications of these two opposite ministries of the gospel are unthinkable. I truly pity our homosexual brothers and sisters who now hear from one pastor in the ELCA the keys and from another pastor blessings and welcome. Does Jesus speak to such a one, through the office of pastor, a word of admonition and warning to their soul or does Jesus speak to such a one, through the office of pastor, a word of joy and blessing for that same behavior? Which Jesus is speaking the truth to our homosexual brothers and sisters? This church unfortunately has confused the gospel to the point that a person engaging in homosexual sex doesn’t know whether he’s condemned by God or blessed by God! The bound conscience doctrine now condemns a person to his or her own conscience to determine whether this behavior is or is not sin, because this church can no longer give a clear witness. How can any one do that?

The social statement condemns us because, due to our fallen nature, we truly cannot discern our sins. We need an outside word. We need the Law of God (second use) to show us our true nature, to say “no” to our sinful desires and to show us what truly is good, right, salutary and God pleasing....

Read it all here.

What I Didn't Get to Say at Fishers

During the open discussion time last Friday evening at the Lutheran CORE Convocation in Fishers, Indiana, I stood in line to speak. But because of time restrictions (and having yielded to another at my mic to ask a follow-up question), I was unable to do so (though I did get to express part of my second point the next morrning). My intent was to say something like this:

I'm Steven Tibbetts, Pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria, Illinois.

I stand before you to say to you all the same thing I told my congregation from the Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, and the same thing I said last Tuesday evening before the pastors and lay leaders of the Central/Southern Illinois Synod during our annual conference:

By the actions of the Churchwide Assembly, I lost my church.

Nevertheless, I am not leaving. As I've been saying, with a smile, for several years, "I'm threatening to stay." I have been called to serve in my congregation and in my Synod, and I intend to continue participating as fully as I can for as long as I can. I don't know that I can do this all the way to my retirement, but the Churchwide Assembly committed the ELCA to respecting the bound conscience of those of us who believe the church needs to repent of its errors, and that can't happen if we all leave.

Not everyone here can make that sort of commitment, and I understand that. But some of us here who have been with Lutheran CORE from its very beginning four years ago have made that commitment. And you need to remember that. We can do no other.

Second, many of you are having difficulty with the idea of a "free-standing synod." I've been writing about it some since the Churchwide Assembly on my Pastor Zip's Blog, and I hope some of you will take the opportunity to check it out tonight if you can. But whether you do or not, I encourage you to focus not on the word "synod" -- a good churchly word that has been hijacked by the ELCA for other purposes -- but on the word "free."

Those of you who know about the Free Lutheran heritage might then begin to see how those of us united as we are in matters of faith and doctrine can do so inside or outside the ELCA, and can continue to work on a common mission free from the encumbrances of the ELCA when they get in the way, while still being able to take advantages of the good things that continue to happen through the ELCA.

And some of you may be able to think of the Free Synods in the Churches of Sweden and Norway, who for some 25-30 years were able to remain in the State Churches, sometimes even to participate fully in assemblies and be elected to diocesan offices, while holding firm to orthodox Christian faith as the Churches increasingly persecuted it, using the gatherings of the Free Synod for mutual support and encouragement.

No, it will not be easy, and in Sweden and Norway the Free Synods ultimately could not continue. But they enabled faithful proclamation in the church for another generation or two even as church leadership controlled by atheistic governments fell into apostasy. I think we have a better chance than they did.

Finally, to those of you asking tonight, "When are we going to do something?" we are indeed doing something right now. We have tonight, and we will tomorrow, speak the truth to the leaders of the ELCA and to those in our society who care to listen that the Churchwide Assembly has led the ELCA astray and we will not just sit there and let that continue. We will go home to speak the truth in our congregations and synods, to encourage congregations and synods to express consciences bound by the Word of God and the Creeds and Confessions of the church to do what we're doing right now -- rejecting the teachings of the Churchwide Assembly.

One key factor enabling the various parts of Lutheran CORE to work together these last 4 years is that we were all in the ELCA. I do not think it is too much to ask that we spend the next year figuring out how to continue to work together -- that is not waiting -- now that we no longer can hold that in common.

The Fallout Begins

Meetngs have been held, and now there is a website. Traditionalist ELCA Lutherans are seeking to re-establish the historic Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Texas. For the moment it looks like they are forming some sort of free synod:

Lutheran traditionalists in Texas include every strand represented in the country. The ELST is being formed to “think globally, and act locally,” to lead by example. The goal is to get Texas Lutheran traditionalists together on one boat, and show that these issues can be worked through, unity on essentials achieved and the Church among us set onto a positive, open and expanding course. What a gift that Texans are bound together by seemingly limitless good will and optimism, and can put these attributes to work on behalf of Lutheran Christians all across America.

Some have already decided to leave the ELCA, some may intend to stay, and many are unsure which way to jump. The ELST will function as a synod in formation, comprised of congregations which retain their status within the ELCA or other existing denominations (such as the LCMC or the UCC, for example), or independent congregations. Congregations may first become “Participating Congregations” by Congregation Council action, or later “Member Congregations” by action at a congregational meeting. A structure will be provided for participation by individuals who are in other congregations as well.

After a period of discernment, the shape of the future will emerge. Traditionalist Lutherans may find themselves in a new synod, or in a special synod within the ELCA, or perhaps held together in some structure which encompasses both.

But the Lutheran confessional movement will not have splintered apart, or disintegrated, or turned anxious or even bitter, and will have begun to achieve its destiny on North American soil.

Some of these folks will be at the Lutheran CORE Convocation later this week.

The "Inerrancy" Question

What follows is a slightly edited version of a statement I wrote last week for a Facebook group of folk who, in the light of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly's actions, are wondering about what's next for Lutheranism in North America.

I begin by recalling that "inerrancy" was a matter of significant debate in the 1980s during the discussions that led to the formation of the ELCA. In part because the word was included in the ALC's statement of faith in its constitutions and it was not in the LCA's. This is not a new question.

Here is how the Epitome of the Formula of Concord begins (using the Tappert edition):

We believe, teach, and confess that the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged, as it is written in Ps. 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." And St. Paul says in Gal. 1:8, "Even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed."

Other writings of ancient and modern teachers, whatever their names, should not be put on a par with Holy Scripture. Every single one of them should be subordinated to the Scriptures and should be received in no other way and no further than as witnesses to the fashion in which the doctrine of the prophets and apostles was preserved in post-apostolic times. (Epitome, intro 1; p. 464f.)

And further to paragraph 3 of the intro,

In this way the distinction between the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments and all other writings is maintained, and Holy Scripture remains the only judge, rule, and norm according to which as the only touchstone all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or wrong. (p. 465)

The Solid Declaration reads,

We pledge ourselves to the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments as the pure and clear fountain of Israel, which is the only true norm according to which all teachers and teachings are to be judged and evaluated. (SD, intro 1; p. 503f.)

If you a looking for a *Lutheran* description of the Holy Scriptures, that's it in the Formula of Concord.


This is reflected in the ELCA's Statement of Faith (much like that of our LCA and the ULCA predecessors):

This church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.

"Inspired" comes from the Scriptures themselves, "source and norm" from the Lutheran Confessions.

So, whence "inerrancy?"

19th Century American Evangelicalism and its encounter with modernism, science, the mass immigration of Roman Catholics, and -- as the 19th was turning into the 20th -- Darwinism. "Inerrancy" didn't enter American Lutheran lingo until WWI and the use of English in Lutheran theological discourse. It was first formally adopted with the formation of the "old" ALC (1930) and the LCMS soon afterwards.

What are the problems with asserting "inerrancy?" As Wartburg Seminary's J. M. Reu argued during the discussions the led to old ALC, it goes beyond what the Bible claims for itself. If that isn't enough, it goes beyond the Lutheran Confessions themselves (see above).

Furthermore, as was pointed out in a comment on [this group's] Wall, one indeed finds factual errors in the Bible. The usual solution to this is to define the idea further as "inerrant in the original autographs." That may help some people, but the original autographs of the biblical books are, like unicorn horns and Atlantis, neither available nor recoverable.

More to the point, it is not the original autographs, but the Holy Scriptures as we have them that are the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.

Finally, the idea comes from a stream of protestantism that rejects such things as baptismal regeneration and the bodily presence of the risen Christ in the Holy Communion -- both of which are taught directly in the Scriptures and which are central to the catholic faith, particularly as Lutherans teach it. Which ought to raise the question of what "inerrancy" actually protects us from.

Why Stay in the ELCA?

The following is slightly edited from comments I posted Monday night (as I was decompressing from our adult Vacation Bible School) in response to a frustrated layman's question on ALPB Forum Online.

Why Stay?

Why would a Traditionalist ELCAer still desire to stay in the ELCA for the long term?

For this Traditionalist, part of it is having been steeped from childhood in the Muhlenberg vision of one Evangelical Lutheran church with one liturgy in this one nation. In spite of her deep flaws, in spite of her almost total amnesia of why she came into being in the first place (yes, that same Muhlenberg vision), the ELCA still represents the the fullest grasp of that worthy goal. No other Lutheran Church has this catholic perspective on the (what the sainted Arthur Carl Piepkorn called) Church of the Augsburg Confession as an integral part of its DNA.

Yes, there are many in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod who get it, and who work to lift up that catholic vision for the Church of the Augsburg Confession -- they have been, in fact, indespensible to the modern articulation of that vision (beginning with Piepkorn, but continuing with others, including those associated with the ALPB). But despite their efforts, it has never been Missouri's vision and it is one that, given the opportunity, she keeps rejecting. As long as she views the Lutheran church through the eyes of C. F. W. Walther (as important as he is to the American recovery of Luther in the American Lutheran churches), she will at heart be sectarian. And in none of the other Lutheran churches in the US is this vision a significant factor in that church's life, except in a few tiny ones that are all vision, but no real church.

Yes, the ELCA has been overrun by sectarians in her pulpits, seminaries, and offices, and by the actions and inactions of Churchwide Assemblies has now herself taken on the characteristics of a sect. I am not yet convinced, however, that this necessarily need be a permanent state.

One of Pr. Stoffregen's frequent challenges to the traditionalists who post here and elsewhere is to quote the Statement of Faith from the ELCA's Constitution and ask, "Where it is in error?" I read (present tense) the Statement of Faith and -- as in the mid-1980s when it was proposed in its final form, and as in my seminary days when I would wonder if this was truly the right church to ordain me -- I see nothing there that I would want to change. Why, then, should I leave this church? It is those who no longer teach and believe that faith -- the genuine schismatics -- who ought to either repent or leave.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Pastors who have not bended their knee to Ba'al. There are Synod Bishops and Synod Councils that remain faithful, and others who, while not in total agreement, are willing, even eager, to have solid, confessional Pastors serving in their synods.

The faculty and leadership of at least one ELCA seminary, Southern, remains largely in touch with the ELCA's Statement of Faith and a catholic (rather than protestant sectarian) Evangelical Lutheranism. I should think we should approach LTSS about being an orthodox refuge with a missionary impulse to spread about the ELCA -- even if, like those early Anglo-Catholics, it is to serve in undesirable, difficult circumstances. This could be one fine place to redirect a portion of a congregation's benevolence (mission support).

This Traditionalist rejects the vision that a church body ought to be viewed as a "voluntary organization" that people choose or not choose to join. That is a Puritan, American denominationalist perspective which is at odds with the ecclesiology of the Lutheran Confessions -- if not, alas, so many American Lutherans both in and out of the ELCA.

Finally, the blessed Dr. Martin Luther did not leave the Church that called and ordained him into the Office of the Holy Ministry. Nor did he take any steps to do so until her then-corrupt leadership threw him out -- largely because his faithfulness was exposing their corruption.


I've been threatening to stay for all these years because I really do want to stay. If I were to leave the ELCA, it would be as a reluctant exile, a temporary (I would hope) refugee. One who (aware that the break-up of the General Synod would not be repaired until the formation of the United Lutheran Church of America some 50 years later) would be eager to return home as soon as those who have usurped the ELCA's vision and destroyed the Ministerium are overthrown by their collaborators who, having chosen to get along and not speak up, discover their error and aim to repair it.

Or in the disappointing conviction that the Evangelical Lutheran experiment in this land (one of a Calvinist mindset, though now almost completely secularized, even amongst Christians) has failed.

Pax et bonum, Steven+

For this Crisis: Lutherans Persisting

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Lutherans Persisting, which joined the blogosphere on Thursday and is already a new addition to my "Blogs for Faithful Churchmen." That's because the principal writer (at least initially) is Prof. Michael Root, a fine lay theologian who was until recently Dean at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (IMHO the most orthodox of the ELCA's eight seminaries) and who've I've gotten to know personally through the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. Here's Dr. Root's introduction:

“They persisted in the teaching and communion of the apostles” (Acts 2:42). What does it mean here and now for those who claim the heritage of the Lutheran Reformation to persist in the apostles’ teaching and communion? After the recent decisions of the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that question has become pressing. Those who contribute to this blog believe that those decisions are flawed and that those flaws are deeply rooted in theological tendencies that have been present within Lutheranism for decades. They will not be rectified soon. Persistence and faithfulness is our intention; that intention can be met only in the mercy and power of the Spirit of Christ. Where the Spirit will lead, we do not know.

Michael Root will have oversight of this blog. David Yeago will contribute as the Spirit moves him. Others may join us. While those who write here share a common outlook, all contributors write only in their own names and do not speak for the others.

Dr. Root's first post identifies four "aspects" to the present crisis in the ELCA:

• "[T]he decisions to permit same-sex blessings and to permit ordinations of persons in such same-sex relations will lead many individuals and congregations to contemplate leaving the ELCA."


• The teachings of the statements adopted by the Churchwide Assembly "are more than just mistakes, policies and ideas with which we disagree. They are false teaching, teaching that directly contradicts the clear command of Scripture and the authoritative tradition of the church. The ELCA is now not just a pilgrim church, an imperfect church on the way, but an erring church, a church which has, in an important part of its life, lost its way."


• "[T]he way tendencies present in Lutheranism since the early 20th century are now coming to a head. One reason false teaching has captured the ELCA is that various views (a crude and static understanding of simul justus et peccator, a confusion between paradox and ambiguity, bad understandings of biblical authority) have come to be accepted as authentically Lutheran, even as defining Lutheranism. ... (What I worry about at 2 AM when I cannot sleep is that what we have come to think of as 'Lutheran' actually is Lutheran, in which case the Reformation was just wrong.)"


• The theological affirmation by the Assembly "that opposing 'bound consciences' can stymie consistent church teaching or that no disagreement on ethics can divide the church (unless one side of the ethical disagreement is inconsistent with the doctrine of justification)."

Strong words. Heady stuff, perhaps. But then a Lutheran church ought to be engaging in heady stuff with strong words, no? It's what we (used to) do. It's what the rest of the Church, no, the world expects from us.

Introducing www.pastorzip.org

Pastor Zip's own url, www.pastorzip.org, is now live.

There you'll find the latest iteration of my homepage (which was begun in my CompuServe days), Pastor Zip's Lutheran Links and other Lutheran church pages (which are still unlike anything else on the World Wide Web) and other church pages, plus my pages on the High Frontier, beginning with I Want to Go! -- though those pages are in need of serious updating as we approach the disappointing 40th Anniversary of the first Moon landing in less than two weeks.