in Private, in Parish, and in Presbytery
A Practical-Theology presentation given at the presbytery meeting of The Lutheran Presbytery, Fall 2022
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you either fancy yourself a “confessional” Lutheran. That is, your identity as a Lutheran, and your understanding of Lutheranism is rooted first and foremost in doctrine believed, taught, and confessed, rather than in heritage, ethnicity, or culture. And yet, many of you, though you might be in “Lutheran” churches stand alone in that identity within your congregations. This is because the confessional identity that so many Lutheran churches once had, has now been lost. And, in some cases, this is not a recent loss, but a several decades, several generations, and even several centuries-ago loss. But it need not be this way. For not only have several synods and associations held fast to that confessional Lutheran identity for their entire existences, but some of the most conservative and confessional synods (i.e. WELS) started out as un-confessional, pan-protestant, and unionistic missions groups. If our synods and associations remain un-confessional in identity, then it will be because, and only because, we did nothing about it. Our faithfulness in service to Christ’s church will not be judged by what we received or inherited, but by what we did with what we were given while it was under our care. How have we worked to recover the confessional Lutheran identity in our church contexts? How have we sought to steer our congregations and parishioners away from culture and ethnicity and toward the one, true, and pure confession of Christ as He is preached in the pure Gospel and the Sacraments as instituted in the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, it is in this service and ministry, and only here that we prove ourselves to be Lutheran pastors.
But before we go on to looking at how to actually do the recovery of this confessional identity, we need to look first at why this is so important. Simply put, who cares? Why does it matter if our church’s identity is a confessional one? Why can’t it simply identity itself as “Lutheran?” And furthermore, why should we identify as Lutheran at all? Wouldn’t it be better to identity plainly as “Christian?” Here in these questions is rooted the truth of the whole matter. When the confession of doctrine (doctrines about Christ) are removed from the discussion of church identity in exchange for undefined and often meaningless terms like “Lutheran,” one’s identity is left up for grabs. After all, if our identity is not that theology, then how can we be Lutheran? What other than that theology, believe, taught, confessed, and lived, week in and week out is Lutheranism? Is it the food, the culture, the ethnicity, the heritage? Some like to think so. Or, in rooting it in lower-common denominators, perhaps Lutheranism IS theological, but it’s not particular or exclusive to itself. Perhaps then Lutheranism is Protestantism? Perhaps what makes us Lutheran then, is not being Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox. Indeed some think so, but here too, our identity is in what we are not, and so it fails again to be grounded in anything about Christ and what He’s done for us and to us. Perhaps then, one would try again, and go even lower down to the level of mere Christianity, and say that perhaps Lutheranism is just one of the forms of Christianity. In which case, we would have to strip it of all the things it does not share with the Baptists or the Roman Catholics. In which case it is neither Lutheran nor Baptist, nor Methodist. In which case it cannot say anything precise or definite about Christ, His person, His work, the Gospel, or the sacraments. And this here, right in this matter is why this matters so much. For as we confess in article 7 of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, the unity of the church is founded upon agreement (theological unity) on the Gospel and the Sacraments. The church IS founded upon those things which different “Christian” groups disagree about. Lutheranism is not merely a valid option among many, but the confession of the TRUTHS of these things. And not merely the truths of these things but the confession of these things themselves. Either our identity is founded and grounded upon those things of the Gospel and sacrament, i.e., God in flesh living, dying, and rising for the forgiveness of your sins that He now hands over to you in the here and now through Word and Sacrament, or it is found in abstracts, in sentiments, in culture, or in feelings. As a blatant fact, if you define your Christianity as the way you feel about God (i.e., I am a follower of Jesus, I love Jesus, so and so loves God, etc), then you will have a faith that is un-preachable, un-findable, and ultimately un-helpful. In fact you wont have a faith at all, because in saying such things you say nothing of what you believe or trust but merely speak of what you do or feel. You have merely a testimony about yourself. And thus your identity is not of Christ and His work for you, or His Word of promise given to you, but your identity is grounded in yourself and what YOU have done for, to, or toward God. You would thus confess a religion of the self, in service to God, rather than a faith that receives God’s gifts freely given to you.
It’s for these reasons that it’s not enough to agree with the Lutheran confessions. We must identify ourselves as the confessors or them. For as AC 7 states, the church is identified not merely in that it has the Gospel and sacraments done to it, but that the Gospel and Sacraments are *rightly* confessed by it. While Christians areindeed made by church attendance (created by the Spirit through Word and Sacrament) she is not identified by hearing the Word, but by confessing the Word. One may hear the Word preached, and then reject it. Hearing the gospel, being witnessed to about the gospel, etc, do not identify you as a Christian. To be openly identified by others as a Christian we must actually ourselves first receive what we have heard in faith, and then openly confess that faith to others. When churches fail to do that, they fail to be the church.
To outline, if you will, the 3 areas that we need to do this in, and specifically in that order for this to work; in private, in parish, and in presbytery. That is, as individuals, as congregations, and as broader church bodies (synods/associations)
All of this begins at a personal and private level. We can’t be complaining that our churches confessional identity or adherence has fallen if we ourselves are not confessing this faith in an active, lively, and sound way. Especially as we ourselves are either presbyters, or being prepared for the office of presbytery, the weight of this rests primarily on ourselves. Is the church slipping into non-denominatioanlism? Look at the pastor. Yes look at his synodical fellowship, yes look at his preaching, but even more so look at his private life. What does he personally believe – this is question one. What then is his private practice of that faith? And thirdly how does he acculturate that faith into his home and among those he lives with?
What does he believe?
As with all believing, it presupposes a message. First and foremost, for one to confess something they must first hear it or be exposed to it. (There is essentially here a bit of a “circular” movement with the problem of the loss of a confessional identity). We can call it a chicken-egg scenario, a kerygmatic circle. We can call it whatever we want to but the fact of the matter is that in order for a pastor to believe the Lutheran confession he must first hear the Lutheran Confession. And where is this pastor to hear this confession? Ideally, people are born to Lutheran homes where their parents are active in inculcating the Lutheran confession into their children, where their pastors preach this confession, and their synod has a strong confessional identity. But we don’t live in that situation. While those are the things we need to be active in doing, the fact of the matter is that we must start somewhere. Which should remind us all of the sheer importance of these matters before us. That if we fail to actually live this confession out in our lives; then our wives, our children, our churches, and the future of Lutheranism will spiritually die – being led away from Christ and His assurance by false confessions, and man-made doctrines of fear, of terror, and of law. So starting wherever it is we started. Whether you are as blessed as Pastor Roland to be raised in a Missouri synod home, or like myself, encountering this confession along the way, being called out of a false confession by the grace of God – some how, some way, people will be called.
So then, having been called by this message of the cross, the pastor (or layman) then come to believe this message. But what are they doing to actually practice that confession themselves in their own private lives? Like a plant, once planted, must be watered and nourished in order to grow so also the faith of a Christian and the confession of a Lutheran, must also be continually heard again and again and again. So, how is that happening? How is that done? By going to church to hear the Word preached. With pastors that isn’t a problem (unless they’re on a pastoral team), but particularly in the case of laity we must ask, well, is it so that you believe the Lutheran confession and yet continue to attend this baptist or this Roman or this Presbyterian church? And I don’t just mean regularly. Am also asking here, why it is such a prevalent practice not only among laymen but even among pastors to use our vacations as excuses to indulge in heterodoxy? We must remember also that the church we attend and what we hear on Sunday mornings is not incidental to our faith. What we believe and what church we attend (even on vacation) are not two separate things that exist concurrently in our lives but the one directly coincides and cultivates the other.
But more than this, what are we listening to outside of church (podcasts, videos, friends and family). In the present age that we live in “confessions” in every form are certainly not lacking. We have an amount of theological podcasts, YouTube channels, music, and church sermons that would rival anything gained in a seminary classroom – and all for free. And so, are we using them? And are we using them rightly? How, and in what way are we using them? What confession have we given our ears and our hearts over to in our extra-ecclesiastical listening time? Do we spend our days throughout the week listening to truth? Or errors?
But it is not merely our ears through which confessions of faith, but also our eyes. What are we reading? This is the exact same question. With so much material and information in our world today, enough to rival any seminary program, and all for free (believe it or not, most books that currently exist are free), there is simply no excuse for being ignorant of every single confession of faith under the sun. But how are we using it? This question is really 3-fold. Firstly are we using these resources at all? And not only we ourselves but the laity in our parishes. What is being done with our time throughout the week? How are we using that time to nurture the faith that has been given to us? Are we engaging with podcast, video, and sermonic, and written material at all? Or are we simply coming home and turning the TV or the xbox on and giving ourselves over to a slavery to entertainment? Secondly, once we shift our way of spending time in the first place from being passive or entertainment focused to an intentional use of the resources around us for the sake of nurturing our faith lives – we then need to make sure that we’re doing it in two ways. Firstly, we need to be using the wealth of resources at our disposal to gain a surface level understanding of every confession of faith around us. There is no excuse for theological ignorance of any confession of faith. Moreover, there is no surer way than to kill your effectiveness as a witness in this world for the truth than knowing the errors that stand against you. So many of the pastors we know, and the laity even more so simply assume that every other church around us is just like us (more or less). Unaware of the fact that almost every church in your community will reject the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, reject the efficacy of baptism to save sinners, reject even the gospel itself and the finished work of Christ on the cross for sinners. But even more important than this, is to know the truth far better than the errors. To use these resources to gain a deep and constant flow of Lutheran theology into our heads, and our hearts. Far more dangerous than the pitfall of being ignorant of error and falsehood, is being ignorant of the truth. An all too high number are far too familiar with error, so much so that they mix it with truth, or let it take the place of truth in their faith and their ministries. Yes – that is the sermons you listen to. Yes – that is the podcasts you listen to. Yes – that is- the videos you watch. Yes – that is the books you read. So indeed we should read broadly in a surface area way, but must always drink far more deeply the fresh water of the Lutheran confession and drink it from each and every one of the sources available to us in our modern context.
Once this faith is received from hearing it preached or taught, and then nourished daily through every kind of means our context has maid available to us, we must then look to what does our personal piety and the practice of that faith looks like. As the famous ancient phrase goes, lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. The Law of prayer is the law of faith is the law of life. Meaning, as you pray so you believe and as you believe so you live, and vice versa. So how do we do this in a way that aids us in re-appropriating a confessional identity into our lives? Aside from incorporating a recitation or meditation on the Catechism or another part of the BoC into your devotional lives and practice (a great thing to do by the way) we must ask ourselves what a confessional Lutheran prayer life itself looks like. IS there a way in which the confessional Lutheran devotional life differs from that of the evangelical, that of the Romanist? Indeed there is. I’m sure you can all probably imagine where ours differs from Rome – the lack of Mary’s omnipresence in our prayers and devotions, the lack of saintly invocations, the lack of centrality that rosaries, picture kissing, and idol touching might otherwise have – etc. Yet, its actually also the ways in which we share so much with Rome’s prayer and devotional life that we differ from that of the evangelical. In the matter of prayer itself, the evangelical (as I’m sure you’re aware) prayers with many poorly thought out words they just came up with on the fly. They whisper sweet nothings to their abstract and far away God, all the while Gnostically avoiding any kind of physical engagement in their worship if they can help it. Scripture reading is done but it’s often done on ones own time, in ones own way. Yet, when we look in contrast at the historic Lutheran practice which is still done by those of confessional stripes, we see that the form and shape of our prayers is liturgical and corporate. It takes the form primarily of the daily offices, also known as the liturgy of the hours. For fear of accidentally giving a presentation on the liturgy of the hours, I’m going to skip over what exactly it is and how it developed and simply say here that its in praying Matins, Vespers, and Compline that Lutheran prayer life is formed. It’s in the singing (yes, singing at home) by yourself or with family of the canticles and the psalms, the praying of these written prayers, the recitation of the our father, the creed, the daily confession of sin and the absolution in Compline, – and these constancies in our daily life at home that a Lutheran prayer and piety is born. The psalter here takes the form of a cycle, along with the reading of Scripture. Shaped not by private personal will, but by connecting the private life of the personal prayer life in the home with the whole corporate body of Christ, sharing in the universal liturgical tradition of prayer that the Anglicans, the Romanists, and the Orthodox join us in. As we have our own form of this Liturgy, obviously the best manner of using it to aid us in re-appropriatign that confessional identity is by using the Lutheran Service book, the Lutheran book of worship, or whatever text your parish uses for this rather than the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the Orthodox book of Hours, or the Roman Breviaries, however, we will be far less hampered in using those instead than in using the method of daily prayer as used by the Evangelicals. On top of this praying of the liturgy of the hours, and the reading of the daily lectioanry, comes also the overlap into the question of reviving the confesisonal identity of the church – particularly regarding daily Divine Service. The answer is obviously yes. And here is seen the complete overlap between the private personal life and public parish life. The health of the latter is directly dependent on the former not only in regard to the pastor but to the whole community. Where our churches have strong Lutherans, our churches are found to be strong churches. Again, this is the “chicken and egg circle (hermeneutical, kerygmatic, and liturgical) that we’re dealing with here).
Thirdly we must ask of our private lives, how are we working to inculcate this confession in others around us. Primarily in our home (our spouses and children), but also outside of our homes. In our friends and families, in our neighbours and neighbourhoods. Again in the same theme of the overlap of personal and the parishonal – this is to be the primary mover in church growth. What are we doing as people, what are our parishioners doing as people, to go out in the contexts they live in and spread this confession of faith – to witness to their community, their friends, family, and co-workers?
As we move into discussing how to re-appropriate a confessional identity in our parish, here also we begin with the pastor. And right back to the first question we asked, so also now we must ask, WHAT does our Lutheran pastor believe? It’s a sad situation we find ourselves in when we actually have to ask this question, but that IS the situation we’re living in. A sad matter of fact is that most Lutheran congregations outside of the Missouri & Wisconsin fellowships don’t even care to ask their pastors what they believe. They might simply assume that they’re Lutherans, but an increasing number of congregations simply don’t care. Because if that is not your congregational identity, then why does it need to be your pastors identity? If your congregation is broadly evangelical or protestant, then it should be enough for your pastor to be so too. If your congregational is “mere”-ly Christian, then it ought to be enough for your pastor to be so too. And if “Lutheranism” to your congregation means ethnically or culturally germanic, then all that matters in your pastors is genetic heritage, theology is irrelevant. And if you think I’m castastrophizing here, let me point you to the fact that in fact, at this very moment, more than one Lutheran body has defaulted to calling ministers who have explicitly non-Lutheran identities, on purpose, and as norm. We have drifted so far that not only do we no longer check to see that our Pastors are confessing Lutheran doctrine correctly, not only are we ambivalent to that confession being proclaimed, but now churches are purposely seeking non-Lutheran confessions of faith to fill their pulpits.
But, with this being the situation, how then are Lutheran pastors going to be made? Where ought to a pastor’s (or any person’s) confessional inculcation begin? From birth, ideally. At home, in private, from their parents. We ought not to call a baptist pastor into a Lutheran congregation, asking him to take courses at a Lutheran seminary so that he can hear this confession. Rather, we, ought to make sure that all of this is being done in proper order. Beginning with families, moving then to churches, and then to presbyteries. And when that is done we ought to be calling those who are already confessional Lutherans and who are fostering confessional identities in their lives. And that’s the first step, making sure that your Lutheran pastor is doing everything in his private life that he can in order to foster that confessional identity within himself so that when he gets into that office for counselling or confession, into that lectern for catechesis or bible study, when he gets into that hospital room, and most importantly when he gets into that pulpit or stands behind that altar or that font, that he is already solid. We do not seek to take non-Lutheran pastors and hope that we can make them Lutheran. Rather, we ought to seek to take Lutherans and make them into pastors. Because it is there, through the office of the ministry of altar and pulpit that faiths and confessions are formed. If your Lutheran church calls a baptist pastor, they will not make him into a Lutheran. He will make them into baptists. The pulpit is the rudder of the church.
Now, assuming the Lutheran pastor the church is already a solid confessional Lutheran. What then ought to be done in order to foster this confessional identity in the parish?
Firstly, the pastor needs to make sure that the confession comes through the preaching and teaching both explicitly and implicitly. Part of this is already included in the pastors ordination vows, wherein he vows to teach and preach entirely within the line of the Lutheran confessions, or, technically “according to them.” Yet, because some genuinely Lutheran pastors have taken calls at “less” Lutheran congregations, they have elastically interpreted this vow as meaning that they are merely to not disagree with the confessions, and conveniently (for their comfort, rather than for the souls of their parishioners) leave out anything that might upset broadly united protestant worldviews, such as the objectivity of the gospel, Baptismal regeneration, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, etc; i.e., not merely important traditions of the church (such as vestments and the liturgy), but the very core of the unity and salvific substance of the Christian church is being avoided in order to save ourselves from controversy. I tell you this, not only must we not teach contrary to the Lutheran faith, but we, as Lutheran pastors are called to preach the whole Lutheran faith. That is, not to preach things all churches have in common, but to preach all that God has revealed, and all that we have confessed about His revelation. We are not called to congregations in order to leave them where they are theologically or spiritually, but to mature them, to help them, to engage them and grow them and develop them. And that is done, again, primarily through the pulpit on Sunday morning. It’s not even done in Bible study classes or Catechesis classes (good as those are), simply by the fact that most of your congregation does not come to those. If we lock our theology behind the closed doors of the bible study groups or the catechism classes, we are locking that theology away from the vast majority of our church membership. If you believe in your own confession of faith, and actually seek to obey God’s call upon your life to serve in delivering that to your congregation, you need to deliver it to them week in and week out through the Sunday morning Pulpit in the context of the Divine Service. There is no substitute or second best option here. And so our preaching ministry must not merely not contradict the BoC, nor must is merely be in accordance with the BoC, but it must itself actually proclaimthe content of the BoC, week in and week out. But stopping there too, would be selling our congregations short, if we don’t actually expose them to the text of these things themselves. It’s all good and right to preach the Word of God as it’s found in the Scriptures, and doing this will proclaim the full faith of the BoC. BUT, in doing this what we have ended up with is people who have never read or even heard of the Small Catechism or Augsburg Confession, and yet who have signed their names alongside them in church membership and council member documents. This is absolutely unacceptable simply because of how easy and simple it is to amend. Have the Catechism and the Confession confessed in the services as a congregation. Have it used in your sermons. Actually quote from it, remind the people of it. Not because there they find something revealed that isn’t already in Scripture. But because there we find what the corporate gathered body of Christians has supposedly confessed and claimed to be the faith. To use this in our sermons is to proclaim together, to meditate upon, and echo back to one another on a weekly basis the faith as we have collectively confessed it.
Secondly, as obvious as it may seem, simply having a copy of the Lutheran confessions in the church library is not something that’s often done. And yet, if we seek to re-appropriate and recover a confessional identity in our parishes it is of absolutely necessity that we do this. That the confessions are actually present and available in the parish for members and visitors, is of paramount importance in our living out of a confessional identity in this world. What is IN our churches is just as important as what is preached in our churches. You walk into a Lutheran church and go into the pews and what do you see? A bible, (sometimes), and a service book (sometimes). And yet even now those are being removed by churches that seek to move into the “digital age.’ You may not be aware of this, but the very first thing that most people do when they enter into a church they’ve never been to before after being initially seated, is they look at the resources either given to them in hand or which is located in front of them in the pews. What they find there tells them not only what’s going on in this service, but how this church views itself, how it worships, and often, what they believe. Now, for the Missouri synod and WELS and ironically the ELCA this isn’t a problem, you open up the SERVICE books and boom, there already is the small Catechism. There already are the liturgies. But you go into a CALC, ALC, NALC, LCMC church and it likely uses LBW – no catechism. So what is in the pews? Certainly the LBW tells them much about our theology and about our life and practice of the faith as Lutherans, but how hard is it really to simply order a box of small catechisms and add them into the pews? After all, that’s half the battle, isn’t it. You want to have a confessional church? Have copies of the confession in the church. Make it present, make it visible, make it inescapable.
Now that the pews are sorted, go over to the church library. What books are present on the shelves? Billy graham? CS Lewis? Amish romance novels? Not only are we missing the Book of Concord, but most Lutheran church libraries are missing really any Lutheran books. Where are the Lutherans?! But, as all pastors will know, it’s worse even than that still. Because not only are we missing Lutheran theology books. Most of our church libraries are missing really any theology at all. And so, let’s say someone walks into our church and checks the library. What are they most likely looking for? Theology books from the perspective of your theological tradition. And yet, for most of our churches what they’re going to find are weird vaguely christian children’s books, Amish romance novels, the left behind series, and maybe if we’re lucky some heterodox bapti-gelical books.
My friends, if you want to recover and re-appropriate a confessional Lutheran identity in your parishes, then clean out your parish libraries, and replace them with Lutheran books. And, aside from a great many of bibles, the first Lutheran book that your church library needs is the Book of Concord, the Lutheran confessions themselves (not Giertz’ Hammer of God). Does your church have one? That’s the first question. Second question, does it only have one? Because we don’t only want to ask IF confessional Lutheranism is present in your church, but also HOW present is it? Is it prevalent? Is it available? If one single person checks out a copy of the Lutheran confessions from the church library, has the Lutheran confession just disappeared from the Library? Is that in any way fitting for a Lutheran church?
Thirdly, if we want to nurture a confessional identity in the Lutheran church we need to be practising our faith as confessional Lutherans. Just as was the case individually, in moving away from evangelical “quiet times” and toward the rigorous prayer rule of the liturgy of the hours, so also congregationally we must move away form this free-form will worship taking place in our churches. Not only is this not what is confessed in our BoC (where we confess to retain vestments, liturgy, the lections, etc), but it’s simply not healthy. Just as private evangelical “devotions” foster disunity and individualism in an internally focused way so also the evangelical form of worship fosters disunity among congregations, and a lack of coherence in the service, which should be focusing narrowly and fixed-ly upon the one thing necessary. And the way that we are to do that is by abiding by what we have confessed, namely that we retain the vestments, the lectionary, the church year, and the liturgy. It’s by worshipping as one church, not only with all churches in the here and now across geographical chasms, but across time also, with all those who have gone before us and are at rest. And not only merely time and space, but crossing even into the heavenly realm as they come and join us in our praising of the thrice Holy Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the whole world. Here we find the Lutheran confession being actually lived out in weekly practice in the public liturgies of the church. It should not surprise us if we replace that with 5 contemporary worship songs written by baptists, and an extemporaneous prayer that we just came up with on the spot, that our church’s theology starts to slip. That our theology starts to slip, and starts to become internalized, and self focused, and curved inward. As we pray, so we believe, and as we believe, so we will pray. This is as true publicly as the parish as it is privately as individual persons.
Fourthly, there is no use talking about a confession that our church has if we are not actually going to define the lines between those inside the membership of this church and those outside by this confession of faith. If I can join your church as a full member in good standing and reject its confession of faith, then its unity is not founded upon that confession of faith. While it may functionally have a confession of faith, it may not be one that is rejected by its members. We all know this deep down at some level, as shown by the fact that nobody in their right mind would admit Muslims or Hindus or atheists into their church membership (not that they would want to join), and yet, churches are trying to claim to be confessional Lutheran all the while having members (“in good standing”) who confess explicitly to be baptists, Calvinists, Methodists, or otherwise. If that is you, then my friend, you do not pastor a Lutheran church, but a united church. If we want to re-appropriate a confessional Lutheran identity in our congregations we can never do anything less than make the confession of that faith the very first requirement of membership in our congregations.
Fifthly, we must also reform and reclaim both catechesis and confirmation. For so many years now we have let catechesis and confirmation fall into a place of gross and widespread misunderstanding. Confirmation is not a universal milestone in life, not is it a rite of passage for one’s coming of age. Confirmation is the church’s admission of an individual into full communicant membership in the Christian church. There are reasons that it has become what it is now (namely it was part and parcel first to the Roman abuse of refusing communion to children, and refusing the cup of the laity out of fear that they would spill the sacred species, and later as a push back against the civil abuse of state churches requiring all citizens to have a priori church membership), but these reasons are either abuses, or abusive solutions to abusive problems. We must return to the pre-abuse mode of the confirmation rite, in order to re-appropriate the confessional identity of the confessing membership. One is not confirmed because they are 14 years old and it’s time. One is confirmed because they have been taught the faith and they have confessed the faith. Secondly, as part of the confirmation process, we must also reform and reclaim Catechesis itself. Due to the misunderstanding of the confirmation rite as a rite of passage for one’s coming of age, Catechesis has been understood as a necessary part of growing up, and a stage in life that has a beginning and an end. That one, at Age 12 begins catechesis (for example) and at age 14 one finishes catechesis and is confirmed into the faith as a communicant member. This is ridiculous. Catechesis means to echo. In this context, that is to echo back and forth the faith of the Christian church. If you stop hearing that faith and stop confessing it outward, you have not become a Christian, but ceased to be one. As such, Catechesis must end not in one’s coming of age, but only in ones ending of life. Catechesis climaxes and ends in death, not in confirmation. In fact for this reason, as a normative rule we ought to go back to the pre-abuse practice of confirming and communing the children who are baptized in the church. For there, not in teenagers or adults is the purest faith in the things revealed by God. For there, in those who cannot speak is the proper understanding of the Eucharist required for its reception. In Catechism we do not so much as learn the propositions that we gain acceptance to Christ’s altar by assenting toward, but through constant Catechesis, which again, needs to be happening weekly for your whole life through ordinary ministry of the church we are sustained, nurtured, and grown in that faith that we never graduate from. Just as nobody stops coming to church after they have found themselves agreeing with the gospel preached to them, so also nobody should stop being catechized once they have confessed the faith before the church. Confirmation is the beginning of Christianity, it should not be its end. As such, pastors need to put Catechesis where it has belonged this whole time, in the normative and corporate ministry of the church – the pulpit on Sunday morning. There, my brothers, is the proper place for you to be catechizing your congregations. Not locked behind a door to pre-teens who are only sitting there because their parents made them. But to the whole corporate community, again, and again, and again, and again, until they die.
Lastly, if we want to have confessional Lutheran congregations we need to pastor the congregations that we have with an intentionally theological flavour. Too often I hear people speaking (often fondly, to my dismay) about pastors who never preach doctrine but always “practical” things (i.e. the Law). Or even worse, bare and empty sentiment. We are not called to deliver warm feelings or how-to’s to our congregations, but the gospel in clarity and definition. As pastors, we need to make sure that we are constantly remembering and bringing to mind the fact that the only way in which we can maintain strong churches rooted in the Tehran confession is by making sure that our parishioners are doing this as individuals. That begins with our pastoring them with a mind that is focused upon their theology. Are we seeking in our preaching to give them a theology? Are we counselling them with a mind to form within them a theology? Or do we strip all of this down to the fruits of that theology? Comfort, assurance, kindness, etc. Friends, where do you think these fruits come from? Ask yourself this just as I ask it to you now, what do your parishioners believe theologically in their own heads? Do you know what ever single one of them believes? You should. That is your responsibility, that is your call, and that is your duty.
And in the exact same way, as we move then into discussing how to re appropriate this confessional identity in our presbytery – this one, and all other, we’re faced with the fact that we must then first have solid parishes. But assuming we’ve got those. How then can we move to re-appropriate a confessional identity in our presbyteries, in our synods, and in our associations? Simply put, as we have been discussing all of this from beginning to end needs to be done in proper order. And as it is done (if it is done), the pieces will all fall into place like dominos. If we as the individual members that make up the Lutheran church have grounded our indentity upon our confession of faith, then our congregations will be formed around that faith. And if our congregations are formed around that faith, then so also will the presbyteries, the synods, and the associations that are made up of our congregations be also. And so all of those same principles in private life, and in parishonal life apply also to “presbyterial” or synodical life. This we can boil down to 3 simple catch-all steps.
Firstly, membership in our presbyteries, synods, and associations needs to be founded first and foremost upon the faith confessed by these churches. If a church identifies as anything other than Lutheran it has absolutely no place in a Lutheran synod. Moreover if a particular pastor has drifted away from the Lutheran faith, then he either needs to be brought back through restoration, or removed from the synod roster, and his congregation with him if they chose to keep him. While many view these tactics as harsh, un-nuanced and unloving, they are but common sense. Do you want a Lutheran synod? Then define its membership by the confession of the Lutheran faith.
But a synod is more than a roster or list of congregations, and it does more than hold a standing membership. Synods also meet. Synods also have cultures. And what the culture of that synod is, is in large part define not only by its leadership and its membership but also by what it does when it meets. For some synods, this is kept to the bare minimum of business meetings. As such, those synods who choose to walk that route end up walking different roots, each to his own every time. Yet for other synods, presbyteries, and associations the direction is united, but it’s united on anything and everything other than the confession of the Lutheran faith. And as such, when they meet, it is that which they find themselves united on that they discuss and form their meetings around. Again here is the hermetic circle of the chicken or the egg. What happened first? Did the synod lose its faith and then form an annual gathering around its politics? Or did it first loose its focus on theology, and subsequently forget the faith all together. Make no mistake, we become what we focus on. IF we form our synodical gatherings around issues of sexuality, or gender issues, or young earth creationism, incinerate, or even mere Christianity, that is what our synod will identify itself by, and as a result that is what congregations will identify themselves by, and as a result that is what we as individuals will identify ourselves by. If we want to steer our synods back toward the confession of the true faith, then when we meet we must lift high and proclaim that faith as we gather. We must focus on the one thing necessary.
And lastly, we must let that shared confession unite us into one body. Rather than making calls for bridging gaps and chasms between separate faiths, we need to and we must recognize and realize that the unity of the church is founded upon, as we confess, agreement on the gospel and the sacraments. You cannot have unity with those who disagree with you on the gospel and the sacraments. That is what the church’s unity is founded upon. As such we must, as presbyteries, as synods and as associations be content with letting the unity of the church stand where it does, and not try to increase it by means of ethics, or sentiment, or culture, or anything other than what it is by nature – theological oneness.
To conclude all that was said, we can summarize in saying simply this; if we want to re-appropriate a confessional Lutheran identity in private, in parish, and in presbytery, then we must make the actual confession of that faith the thing by which we identify. We are confessors are the faith. And defining ourselves in that way is the only way to re-appropriate that identity in ourselves, in our congregations, and in our synods. This is not a mystery, it is not a secret, but it is simply not fun. Because what this means is that we have to die to the idol of theological individuality, freedom, and inclusiveness that has for so long reigned in our hearts. The faith of the Augsburg Confession is not an opinion. It is not a preference. It is not one of many valid expressions of the faith. It is the faith. And you are not free in Christ to disagree with it. But bound by His Word to confess it purely, honestly, and loudly. This is the only thing Lutheranism has ever been. After all, let us ask ourselves this; how did our forefathers in the faith identity in the BoC itself? As mere Christians? As “followers of Jesus?” No. They referred to themselves as the churches of the AugsburgConfession. They identified themselves, as the confessors of that faith. The membership of their churches was maintained by the confession of that faith, their synods were constituted by churches that all together confessed that faith. They did not have these issues. Because they knew what mattered above all way the faith given, preached, administered, received, and believed. They knew that what mattered above all was that Christ, who is God in flesh, lived, died, and rose for them, for the forgiveness of their sins, which they now receive in the here and the now through the Word read and Preached and through the sacraments received. They knew that that universal promise was as real to them, and as free to them, as the gift of water and wine is as it’s in their mouth. That is the faith. And it is not up for debate. Nor has it ever been. Let us reclaim it. Let us preach it. And let us confess it. For by doing these things, and only through doing these things, will we re-appropriate it and make it our own.
