The Three Pitfalls - Why the LCMS is shrinking and will continue to do so

[Original Post 2/6/07]

Once upon a blog, I posted some topics that I might address. This topic is one of them, and is clearly the “heaviest.” I doubt I can do it justice, but let me give it a try. Since the topic is serious, and its discussion is lengthy, I will talk about the first pitfall today, and leave the others for subsequent entries.

I am a member of a congregation, and that congregation is a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). By rule, that makes me an LCMS Lutheran, but in my heart, I am not. In many ways, I feel like an outsider in my denomination. As I look at what makes me uncomfortable, I believe I recognize some of the reasons that the LCMS is shrinking. There are many symptomatic reasons, but the three primary reasons are Intractability, Hyper-Exclusivity and Anti-Humanism. Unfortunately, these words do not describe the situation well enough, so examples are required.

Intractability: The first example of this, and the one which surprises non-LCMS Christians most, is the refusal of the LCMS to allow women to be pastors. The issue has been raised several times over the past half century, but the decision has consistently, and recently, been to continue this policy. A tract is available from the LCMS documenting the rationale for the decision, but when it is examined closely, it has very little biblical basis at all. The biblical support, if applied consistently, would not allow women to do a great many things in the church. This, of course, was the situation up through the first half of the 20th century in most LCMS congregations, but the needs of the ministry made it clear that a reversal was required. Women, of course, should be allowed to be lay readers, vote, serve on boards, chair boards, and so on. Yet, the pastoral Call is still denied them.

In the end, the justifications for refusing to recognize that a woman could have a Call from the Holy Spirit to be a pastor are really just rationalizations to keep the status quo.
Many long-time LCMS members will tell you they can’t imagine having a female pastor; they would be uncomfortable with one. But discomfort with “something” doesn’t make the “something” a sin. In fact, it is possible that the discomfort is the sin.

Meanwhile, the world (at least the Western world, and increasingly the Eastern and Middle-Eastern worlds) recognizes the value and equality of women in all areas of life, and those enterprises which embrace them most grow from it.

This is but one example where the inability of the LCMS at large to change is causing it to become less relevant, and to expose the underlying tendency to value long-standing rules on par with revealed truth. This was the way of the Pharisees, and was anathema to Jesus.

In fact, one common thread in all three of the pitfalls is this tendency toward putting tradition, or rationalized rules, at a much higher position than I believe is acceptable. And that will be evident when I discuss the next pitfall.