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Dante Shrugged

by Larry Beane

How little things have changed since 1320, when the great poet Dante Alighieri complained about the worship wars in his own day and age in his Divine Comedy:

"Christ did not say to His first congregation:
'Go preach idle nonsense to the world,'
But gave them a sound foundation.

"And that alone resounded from their lips,
So that, in their warfare to ignite the faith,
they used the Gospel as their shield and lance.

"Now preachers ply their trade with buffoonery and jokes,
their cowls inflating if they get a laugh,
and the people ask for nothing more."

~ Dante (through the character Beatrice), Paradiso, 29:109-117

Cited by Rod Dreher in How Dante Can Save Your Life, p. 151

The Straw Man at Worship

By Larry Beane

Typically, anti-traditionalist Lutherans don't cite, study or teach the Book of Concord very often. But one passage that is sometimes trotted out as an indictment of traditionalists (who retain the ceremonies of the pre-Reformation western Mass and the customary liturgical vestments) is from the Smalcald Articles, from the article concerning the church:

Its holiness does not consist of surplices, tonsures, albs, or other ceremonies of theirs which they have invented over and above the Holy Scriptures, but it consists of the Word of God and true faith. [SA 3:12:3]

Some might be tempted to interpret this passage to be Luther's (and thus the Lutheran Church's) condemnation of vestments and ceremony.  Similarly, some might be tempted to ascribe to us a belief condemned by Luther, namely that the holiness of the church "consist[s] of" (German: "steht in"; Latin: "consistit in") traditional vestments and ceremony.

First of all, I have never heard any traditionalist liturgical Lutheran argue that vestments and human ceremonies are necessary for salvation, nor that the holiness of the church consists of such externals.  This is a straw man. Secondly, Luther's statement is made within the context of what defines the Church.  As opposed to the Roman bureaucracy and their arbitrary commands, Luther writes in the previous paragraph:

[T]hank God, a seven-year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd. [SA 3:12:2]

The essence of the church is Christ, the Shepherd, the Word of God speaking to His gathered sheep in Word and Sacrament.  But along with essentials come some "benessentials" - such as a church building in which to meet, furniture, seats in which to sit, music and musicians to sing the praise of God, lighted "exit" signs, published service times, places to park cars, air conditioning, heating, indoor plumbing, and other helpful luxuries that serve the kingdom of God.

Nobody claims that such matters are essential for the Church, nor does the holiness of the church consist in them.  Moreover, one can logically deduce from Luther that the holiness of the church does not consist in the lack of vestments and ceremonies or the lack of clerical attire, nor does it consist in roving joking and emoting preachers, cup holders, a sound stage, rock music, dancing girls, big screens, praise bands, nor the imitation of the ceremonies of the radical reformation, of sects, and of the secular world.

In fact, the Lutheran confessions explain that the genuinely Lutheran perspective is to retain the bene esse of human traditions and ceremonies - not because they justify us, are necessary for salvation, or merit God's favor, but because they are simply beneficial to good order.  This is found all throughout the Book of Concord, such as AC 15:

With regard to church usages that have been established by men, it is taught among us that those usages are to be observed which may be observed without sin and which contribute to peace and good order in the church, among them being certain holy days, festivals, and the like. [AC 15:1 German]

The text goes on to explain the valid reasons why Lutherans have not retained a small number of pre-Reformation rites, and how we do make use of the vast majority of the old rites and ceremonies that we have retained:

Yet we accompany these observances with instruction so that consciences may not be burdened by the notion that such things are necessary for salvation.  Moreover it is taught that all ordinances and traditions instituted by men for the purpose of propitiating God and earning grace are contrary to the Gospel and the teaching about faith in Christ. [AC 15:2-3 German]

Article 24 of both the Augsburg Confession and its Apology state quite bluntly that with few exceptions, we Lutherans retain the ancient rites of the pre-Reformation Church, and the that any suggestion to the contrary is a lie, and a cause of righteously indignant anger and scandal among us Lutherans:

Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass.  Actually, the Mass is retained among us and is celebrated with the greatest reverence. [AC 24:1 Latin]

To begin with, we must repeat the prefatory statement that we do not abolish the Mass but religiously keep and defend it.  In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals, when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved.  We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc. [Ap 24:1]

Should we, as one proponent of Entertainment Worship suggested, simply consider this part of the text to be "no longer applicable"?  Do we treat the Book of Concord the way the ELCA treats Scripture and simply toss that which we don't like?  Should we convert from being a church body that submits to the confessions (quia) into one that treats the Book of Concord like a cafeteria line (quatenus)?

Furthermore, one could only imagine the cries of "foul!" if the same use of the Smalcald Articles passage about vestments and ceremonies were used against anti-traditionalists, and we accused them of confessing that the essentials of the church and the church's holiness consist of anti-traditional rites and ceremonies, and that salvation were dependent upon the pastor wearing khakis and polos, the use of screens and powerpoint, entertainments, skits, gimmicks, pop music, and all of the trappings one sometimes sees in churches who are members of synod and are publicly committed to the Book of Concord.

One can also see the great wisdom in the confession that we retain the old rites out of good order and decorum, as we have seen nothing but infighting, chaos, confusion, and disunity - not to mention gross biblical illiteracy and a divorce from our historic confessions - as a result of many of our churches and pastors disregarding their own confessions and vows and adopting alien rites, vestments, and ceremonies into the church.  They have opened Pandora's Box and brought us ignorance and discord - the very opposite of the desire of the reformers that the people know the Word of God and the antithesis of the word "Concordia."

[T]he chief purpose of all ceremonies is to teach the people what they need to know about Christ. [AC 24:3 German]

[N]othing has been received among us, in doctrine or in ceremonies, that is contrary to Scripture or the church catholic. [AC Conclusion 5]

"Style Doesn't Matter" or "In the Spirit of Martin Luther..."

By Larry Beane

One of the frequent assertions of the apologists of non-traditional worship is that "style doesn't matter."  Or put another way, if the words speak the truth, the tune used is completely irrelevant.  There is also a common argument that many praise songs that are not accepted by traditionalists are actually paraphrases of the very texts traditionalists love.

It is very true that Luther used paraphrases of scripture and the liturgy.  Our congregation will be using LSB DS5 (a version of the German Mass, which in LSB ironically has no German, but includes Greek) this Sunday for Reformation Day.  It is an ordo in which the ordinaries of the medieval Latin Mass were translated by Martin Luther into paraphrased German (and centuries later, into English), and set to sung melodies rather than the old Gregorian chants.

And so, according to the argument, this proves that style is of no consequence, as the order is intact (or at least paraphrased).  Any argument to the contrary is thus only based on subjective opinion, and may even be unloving, if not elevating man-made traditions to the level of the Gospel.  Or as Augsburg Confession 15 puts it, confessing that "such things are necessary for salvation."  So why not just embrace it, especially for the sake of unity. It's an adiaphoron anyway, right?

I have to admit that the argument has great appeal.  It sounds so logical.  And upon first blush, it is a viable path to unity for our fractured synod's "walk together."  So there is the temptation to entertain the thought of giving the masses Masses that are entertaining.  After all, by means of Word and Sacrament, butts in the pews means souls in heaven.  If I snap my fingers every five seconds and someone goes to hell, I do have to do something other than stop snapping my fingers and singing old hymns to save both butts here in time, and souls there in eternity.  Hence, let's do the Divine Service to the music of the Beatles!

Ask and you shall receive!  The Beatles Mass was written and is celebrated by a person using the adjective "Lutheran" to boot!

The author says:

In the spirit of Martin Luther who changed the words of pub tunes for use in church, this Beatles Mass seeks to get people excited (we had at least 8 people who don't typically attend who came to sing Beatles tunes), and enable those who don't read music to participate.

Awesome sauce!  Or should I say, "I dig a pony" and "Obla di, obla da"?

But as I walk down the Penny Lane of Christian liberty to the Strawberry Fields of unity, I am suddenly menaced by a Mean Mister Mustard lurking behind the tangerine trees and marmalade skies.  I just can't accept the premise that style doesn't matter, and the whole thing comes crashing down like a Grand Illusion (Styx Service, anyone?)

You can read the entire ordo, a paraphrase of the Western Mass, sung to the tunes of (as irrelevant as that is according to some) Lennon-McCartney songs.  You can also watch the videos of the entire worship service in action in the real world (rather than in the hermetic bubble of a theoretical discussion).  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video might be worth a million.

Below is the consecration, the Verba Christi (or are they the Verba Lennoni McCarneyique?).


As much as I do enjoy the Beatles, I'm just not buying the premise that style doesn't matter.

To paraphrase Bob Seegar: "This kind of service ain't got the same class, give us that old time Western Mass."

V: Goo goo g' joob.
R: And also with you.

Note: None of the actual remaining Beatles were harmed in the making of this blogpost.

"Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass.  Actually, the Mass is retained among us and is celebrated with the greatest reverence."
~ AC 24:1

Grasping at Straws

By Larry Beane

In response to the last post about the use of Entertainment Worship at the chapel of Concordia Seminary St. Louis, there have been some misleading assertions.

I've seen some of them.


One of them is a straw man fallacy that Gottesdienst asserts that "Organ good.  Guitar Bad" in corporate worship. 

Of course, the attempt here is to accuse Gottesdienst (or me) of being simple and not understanding nuance.  It should go without saying that there is a world of difference between Jimi Hendrix playing Purple Haze and Andres Segovia playing Bach's Bourrèe  (both of which most of us at Gottesdienst are old enough to appreciate).  In fact, I personally know a guy who smoked weed with Jimi Hendrix. Top that, you youthful hipsters!

Is it that much of a stretch to suggest that one of these two guitar arrangements might be objectively better than the other for perhaps a prelude for the Divine Service?

Speaking only for myself, I once invited the Rev. Fred Baue to play an accoustic guitar from the choir loft to accompany the congregational singing of the Introit.  It more closely resembled Segovia as opposed to Hendrix (I am supremely confident that Father Frederick could well keep up with Jimi if called upon to do so, though I don't believe he ever smoked with Jimi...).  We are also blessed to have a violinist from the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and a highly skilled brass player in the congregation, and they often accompany the organ during worship services.

There are also some situations in which poverty dictates that a guitar is the only way a congregation can afford musical accompaniment.  This is most certainly true.

But this is a very different thing than the modern suburban American phenomenon of guitar-based "praise bands" and musical settings more like Hendrix than Segovia.  A few years ago, a female "worship pastor" was invited to "lead worship" at a Texas District event.  While I'm sure she is a very devout person and extremely talented as a pop musician, this kind of performance and use of instrumentation tends to detract and distract from the service of Word and Sacrament - which is the focus of Lutheran worship.  As to enjoying the song in the car or at a show, that is an entirely different thing.  But does this belong in a Lutheran service of worship?  Is this compatible with our understanding of the German word from which our journal and blog take their names?

Moreover, there is a good reason the organ is central to our Lutheran tradition: it simulates the human voice.  It provides clear pitches, and encourages congregational participation, even leading in the singing of harmony.  Very few people have the vocal prowess to keep up with our friend the lady "worship pastor" in a congregational setting, and the arrangement is geared toward watching a performance from a stage rather than being led from the loft.

So I think the "Organ good, guitar bad" is kind of hamfisted.


Another critique is a kind of the Tu Quoque Fallacy, arguing that while CSL may be copying Protestant worship forms, CTS "cop[ies] Roman Catholicism in their piety."

Our Lutheran worship forms are similar to Roman Catholic worship forms not because we are "copying" them, but rather because we have a mutual DNA from the pre-Reformation Church and the ancient Church before the Great Schism.  If two cousins have the same cheekbones and eyes, it is not that they are copying each other, they are genetically related.

We have no common liturgical or historical heritage with the radical reformation, with the charismatic movement, or with the worship practices of the Word of Faith movement.  These forms and theologies are alien to us.

The accusation that confessional Lutherans are "too Catholic" is a canard that C.F.W. Walter himself disposed of, as do our Lutheran Confessions (see especially AC 24 and Ap 24 in which it is asserted that for Lutherans "the Mass is retained among us and celebrated with the greatest reverence" including "traditional liturgical forms" such as "the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.).  We do not keep these things because they earn salvation, but because they "contribute to peace and good order in the church" (AC15). They are important enough to be confessed throughout our Book of Concord to be an apt description of our worship life - the efforts of some to search for loopholes notwithstanding.  We voluntarily bind ourselves to these confessions.  The Chief Confession of the Lutheran Church says that our confession "is not contrary or opposed to that of the universal Christian church or even the Roman church (in so far as the latter's teaching is reflected in the writings of the Fathers)" and "nothing has been received among us, in doctrine or in ceremonies, that is contrary to Scripture or the church catholic."  In doctrine or in ceremonies.



Another straw man is the assertion that we are saying that no hymns from heterodox confessions may be used.  

One will search in vain to find anything of the sort written here.  Our hymnals certainly include hymnody from Protestantism.  This fact doesn't disqualify a hymn in and of itself.  But certainly care should be used - especially if emotion is being substituted as a kind-of pseudo-sacrament.  Such hymns are not helpful to a Lutheran congregation or chapel.


There is also the straw man that the problem is the song's repetition, and that as a paraphrase of Psalm 136, we must also condemn the Psalter.

Yes, that must be true.  I can just see the Christian News headline now: "GOTTESDIENST CONDEMNS BOOK OF PSALMS".

First of all, there is no problem with repetition.  Our Lord Himself (Matt 6:7) does not condemn repetition in prayer, but rather "vain repetitions" (KJV) or "heap[ing] up empty phrases" (ESV).  Psalm 136 includes a repetitive antiphon "For His steadfast love endures forever."  Antiphony is a common liturgical feature in traditional worship.  Our Introits are antiphonal.  In fact, we repeat the antiphon of Psalm 136 in the Common Service (Divine Service 3 in LSB) at each and every Divine Service. Even in Divine Services 1 and 2 one finds repetition in the Kyrie that shares its DNA with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The problem is that the song "Forever" is not really a paraphrase of Psalm 136.  It includes a reference to Psalm 136.  It contains a hint of Psalm 136. That is not a paraphrase.  As with most "praise choruses" the meat of the Psalm is stripped out, the objective confession of God's work in history, space and time, the sacramental work of God, if you will, to which the antiphon responds, is eviscerated, leaving only the thin gruel of emotional babbling.

Compare the two.  Here is Psalm 136,  Here is "Forever." Any honest appraisal is going to expose the difference.  Only one of them could be described as "heaping up empty phrases", and it isn't the one inspired by the Holy Spirit.



The same critic argues that as long a song used in worship is "not teaching something false" it is okay.

I disagree.  I think that chanting page 395 out of the Chilton 1965 Mustang repair manual to Gregorian Tone 8 would not belong in a divine service of worship - its rectitude notwithstanding.  I think that singing "I Scream For Ice Cream" as a distribution hymn would be out of place, even if it contains no heresy.  If the standard is now "anything goes unless it's false," my how low the bar has fallen!  Nearly five centuries of a distinctly Lutheran tradition of excellence, theological rigor, and rich musicality is now reduced to "is it factually true?"


I've also heard it said that the video is only a "30-second clip."  

So?  I'm happy to report that there is no equivalent 30-second clip of anything of that sort at Concordia Theological Seminary.  It's logically the same objection as a man claiming that he only cheated on his wife for 30 seconds.  To quote one of our politicians: "What difference does it make?"


Others have argued that the style or melody is irrelevant.

I disagree.  Although technically you can sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" to the tune of "Come On Baby Light My Fire," I would question the appropriateness of such an arrangement in Lutheran worship.  Style does matter. It is not a matter of indifference or neutrality.

The complete fabrication that Martin Luther's hymns were bawdy tavern songs reworded with Christian themes is nonsense, perhaps grounded in ignorance of the musical term "bar."

I think the attempt to baptize modern Entertainment Worship and the CCM genre as compatible with the Lutheran theology of worship in Word and Sacrament is misguided.  I think it is based on the false premises that changing our worship will increase attendance (the Church Growth Movement has always been wedded to distancing congregations from traditional liturgical forms) by pleasing the world and making Christians look more like the world, and also on the misguided belief that traditional worship is "boring" or that we "don't get anything out of it."

The defensive attitude of many Entertainment Worship advocates in the LCMS reminds me of the line from a song by the Christian pop pioneer Larry Norman:

I ain't knocking the hymns
Just give me a song that has a beat
I ain't knocking the hymns
Just give me a song that moves my feet
I don't like none of those funeral marches
I ain't dead yet!

Perhaps this other chorus is the explanation for Mr. Norman's sentiment. I think it is.

For Lutherans to search out worship forms and hymnody out of a desire to be entertained or "get something out of it" is a very sad confession for Lutherans.  Because if we actually believe our Confessions, we get everything out of our traditional worship life together: "forgiveness, life, and salvation" in Christ.

Satis est.  Or it should be.

A Sample of Chapel Worship at CSL

We were treated to a band ensemble singing Chris Tomlin's "Forever" during this morning's chapel service, led by Seminarian Christian Jones on guitar.
Posted by Concordia Seminary on Thursday, October 15, 2015

Concordia Seminary - St. Louis posted this video of a recent chapel service at its facebook page on October 15.

The song being played by the band is "Forever" by Chris Tomlin. I'm not familiar with it, so I looked up the lyrics (below).

According to Wikipedia, Chris Tomlin is a "worship leader" at "Passion City Church."  Passion City Church doesn't list any confessional affiliation or doctrinal stance other than this single statement about what they believe about baptism:

"Baptism itself does not make us a believer in Christ, but rather a way of saying to the world that our relationship with Jesus, and our faith in Him, has already begun. Baptism symbolizes that our old self is gone (going under the water) and our new self has come (coming above the water) and that we have been made alive in Christ."  

There is a video archive of the church's sermons.

But back to "Forever," here are the lyrics, which some consider a paraphrase of Psalm 136:

"Forever" by Chris Tomlin

Give thanks to the Lord
Our God and King
His love endures forever

For He is good
He is above all things
His love endures forever

Sing praise, sing praise
With a mighty hand and outstretched arm
His love endures forever

For the life
That's been reborn
His love endures forever

Sing praise, sing praise
Sing praise, sing praise
Yeah

Forever, God is faithful
Forever, God is strong
Forever, God is with us
Forever, forever

From the rising
To the setting sun
His love endures forever

And by the grace of God
We will carry on
His love endures forever

Sing praise, sing praise
Sing praise, sing praise
Yeah

Forever, God is faithful
Forever, God is strong
Forever, God is with us
Forever, forever

Forever, God is faithful
Forever, God is strong
Forever, God is with us
Forever, forever, forever

His love endures forever
His love endures forever
His love endures forever
Forever

Sing praise, sing praise
Sing praise, sing praise
Yeah

Forever you are faithful
Forever you are strong
Forever you are with us
Forever and ever and ever, yeah

Forever you are faithful
Forever you are strong
Forever you are with us
Forever, forever

You are our God
You are God
Forever and ever and ever

And ever and ever
And ever and ever
And ever

The Authentic Alternative

By Larry Beane

This post is intended as a follow-up to an earlier recent post about worship style and the latest battles within the LCMS over worship.

The church growth movement (the term may no longer be popular, but let us call a thing what it is) and its defenders accept the premise that style is divorced from substance, that doctrine is unrelated to practice.  This is a longstanding debate that has continued to foster disagreements in the LCMS since the emergence of the church growth movement (and this latest discussion is just yet another incarnation of that philosophy).

The Lutheran confessions themselves routinely link doctrine and practice.  The ancient connection between "lex credendi" and "lex orandi" is made explicit in the Book of Concord.  So, it does matter whether the pastor wears vestments or casual wear.  It is a confession of what is happening at the altar and an expression of a pastor's commitment to the church's confession of Catholic continuity.  If it is a case of need, want, poverty, or extenuating circumstances, that's obviously a different story.

But the church growth movement is a deliberate theological thrust away from the Book of Concord and a rejection of the Catholic tradition, just as was the state of general American Lutheranism when our forbears founded the LCMS.  This different thrust is what led the early LCMS into clearly articulating an explicit "quia" position on confessional subscription as well as a more unpopular stance against Lutheran unity, and likewise against incorporation of popular, but non-Lutheran, elements in worship.  This current debate actually gets to the very roots of the LCMS, and is in part why we've tended not to join in fellowship with other Lutherans, and have been parodied as grumpy sticks in the mud.

The current discussion is similar to when people link Lutheranism to the "Lutheran" church down the street with the "nice lady pastor."  One could argue that she is teaching the same doctrine, and is maybe even a better law/gospel preacher than many LCMS men.  She is truly officiating over valid sacraments (an argument that I don't accept) and saving people from hell (I don't believe this either), and so we should not be critical.  Whether or not to ordain women is merely a style issue, based on individual tastes and preferences, not a matter of doctrine (so the argument goes), and therefore we should be "nice" about it all and offer no criticism.  But to the contrary, this is a doctrinal issue, it does scandalize the faithful, and it destroys faith.  It's wrong, and we should say so.

Many also accept the premise that none of this church growthism is spiritually harmful.  It is.  People are scandalized by this.  I nearly left Lutheranism when I moved to a different part of the country as a layman and found all sorts of LCMS congregations and pastors that wanted to be entertainers.  My own parishioners are scandalized when they go on vacation and find this kind of thing.  It's not simply that these churches have blue doors and our door is red, this is a deviation from (among others) Article 24 (an article that one church growth pastor actually told me is no longer binding on Lutherans!).  There is also an obsession with numbers among church-growthers that is at odds with our confession of the Holy Spirit, predestination, election, and our condemnation of Arminianism.  This touches upon the article of justification itself, and is no mere window-dressing - all the protestations that "we're all just like you" notwithstanding.

We traditionalists/conservatives are routinely told to shut up and go with the flow.  Don't like gay marriage?  Then don't marry someone of your own sex.  Don't like abortion?  Don't have one.  Don't want a woman pastor?  Don't call one.  Above all, don't criticize others who are different, but coexist, just like the bumper sticker tells us to do.  Our churches all have LCMS on the sign out front, and even if they don't, they're secretly part of the LCMS - as evidenced by the church worker benefit plans, and possibly even financial support and subsidization from their districts.

I believe the church growth movement is a deviation away from our confessional heritage, that it seeks to drive a wedge between doctrine and practice, necessarily leads to splitting the Lutheran confessions into articles that are bonding vs. articles that are not binding, and harms people spiritually.

I have no doubt that church growth pastors and lay leaders are sincere and mean well.  But a lot of people are sincere and mean well.  That isn't the hallmark of what is orthodox, godly, or within the rubric of what is authentically Lutheran.  When we traditionalists are compared to the Taliban, mocked as being "Romanizers" or "chancel prancers," when our sacred liturgy is cast as a losing proposition that chases people away, when our Book of Concord is marginalized and actually laughed at (and yes, I have heard this repeatedly my entire ministry by church growth advocates), when we are told to shut up about the nice lady "pastor" or the congregation with the big screens and charismatic worship style - that's all okay.  When we write critiques - be they systematic arguments against such practices, or tongue in cheek parodies and satire, and we're told we're being divisive or engaging in polemics.  Luther was likewise criticized when he would not link arms with Zwingli over what many perceived to be a minor issue that did not actually divide us.

It did, and it does.

The good news is that in the long run, the fads always burn themselves out.  Traditional worship was here when we were all born, it will be here after we are all dead.  It was here when our Lord manifested Himself in the Tabernacle, and it will abide even until Christ returns.  First-world fad worship - be it cowboy church, biker church, dancing girls and rock music, secular narcissism, entertainment worship, and everything of that ilk - will ultimately end up like 8-track players and leisure suits.  The problem is that in the mean time, people are confused about Christianity, worship of the one true God, and the Lutheran confession of the faith by being told diametrically opposite things by groups all claiming to be teaching the same things.  The church growth movement cheapens the faith by recasting the profound as shallow, by shifting the focus from eternal transcendence to the life-cycle of a 140 character tweet, from the theological to the anthropological, from atonement to enjoyment.

"In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc."  If a pastor and congregation can't say that - and it is by intention and design (rather than an inherited anomaly to be changed pastorally) - then such pastors and congregations are simply not part of the "our churches" - unless the Book of Concord is no longer relevant, binding, normal (in the sense of being the norma normata of "our churches"), and that which defines what it means to be authentically Lutheran.

One of the tenets of the church-growth movement - to which its advocates pay lip-service - one that I actually agree with, is the need for authenticity.  People will inevitably sniff out the inauthentic.  Authenticity for us Lutherans is spelled out in our confessions.  Anything contrary to what Dr. Kenneth Korby called "our Catholic Book of Concord" invalidates claims to such a pastor or congregation being truly Lutheran, and is a big red flag that says "counterfeit."  I think people are tired of counterfeit religiosity and are increasingly wary of being manipulated.  I think the church growth movement is not just wrong, contrary to the Lutheran confession of the catholic faith, and spiritually toxic, but will ultimately prove ineffective of even its own goals, because it is, by definition, inauthentic.  It is rationally self-defeating and logically self-contradictory.  Its necessary postmodernist gymnastics are incongruous with the exclusive truth claims of the Christian faith itself.

Love, both for the sinners for whom Christ died as well as for the truth itself, demands that we expose the church growth movement for what it is, articulate this reality in different ways, and present people with an authentic alternative.

A fresh new approach to church

New pastor brings new style to church

Lead Pastor Burnell Petersen leads fresh new worship style at local church

October 22, 2014 8:00 am  •  By Elizabeth Anna Vallhalla  /  Valhalla@columbustelegraph.com

0

COLUMBUS — A church is about to embark on a new journey as it welcomes new Lead Pastor Burnell H.R. Petersen.

The 35-year-old father of five said it was the Holy Spirit that called him to the Missouri-Synod Lutheran congregation accompanied by his wife, Concordia, to Columbus. “As radical as it sounds," the black-shirted pastor - bereft of hipster glasses, wispy beard, and shaved head - explained, ”I didn't scope out this place through marketing, surveys, or focus groups, but rather God called me here to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments without regard to human manipulation."  

“The mission of Jesus Christ is what got me here: to reach unbelievers (not the unchurched, dechurched, underchurched, overchurched, or entertainment-deprived); but rather people who need Law and Gospel, but are being deprived of it in their tired old feckless baby-boomer churches, or maybe they’ve been hurt or are struggling in some way with being manipulated like a focus group,” Petersen said.

He went on to explain what sets his congregation apart from other churches in the community.

“We actually believe in this stuff.  We aren't giving people hipster gobbledygook and hackneyed warmed over phony religiosity, but the actual Gospel ” said the 2005 graduate of a certain Lutheran Seminary.  I like my motorcycle just fine, but I won't be riding it into the chancel."

He believes shallow postmodernism and silly innovations are often placed above the real reason someone attends church.

“If you asked someone off the street their idea of a church, they would think praise bands, a guy in jeans and an untucked shirt cracking jokes, just some of those older worn-out postmodern ideas of what church is, cookie cutter crap that just makes young people want to hurl," Petersen said. "Our congregation is not really any of those things. We don’t have praise bands, no middle aged pastor desperately trying to be relevant but just looking like a clown.  We understand or try to project in our culture that church is more than just trying to bait and switch people and downplaying Jesus, the cross, redemption, and the Gospel.  We don't throw our blessed Lord under the bus."

“It’s a challenge to minister as an actual believer instead of a poser, but if you simply carry out the Lord's instructions from Scripture, it's not really hard to understand that this isn't posing for selfies."

Petersen is excited about becoming part of the mission that the Holy Catholic Church has set out to accomplish since its opening in 30 AD.

“The neat thing about this body of Christ is we’re all broken, we’re all sinful and we all struggle. That grace and mercy that’s poured on us in Holy Baptism, we’re overjoyed by it.  And in spite of the crosses we bear as disciples, we can’t help but want to share it, by inviting people to the Divine Service,” he said.

There is no target age or demographic, Petersen said with the Church's culture-transcending hymnody and multisensory experience of the Western Mass in its fullness, along with the Law and Gospel he uses within his sermons, the congregation has no intended age, race, or status of wealth.

“It’s liturgical and dignified so that’s attractive to young families. It’s an authentic atmosphere on Sundays so parents feel comfortable bringing their kids here,” he said.

His congregation tends to be a little different than other churches as actually worshiping God through the miracle of the physical presence of Jesus in Word and sacrament is a normal scene - as opposed to projection screens, bad guitar music, skits, lattes, cup-holders, couches, dancing girls, and mind-numbing praise choruses,

Petersen is confident that by virtue of the Lord's incarnation and mission to seek and save the lost, Jesus will continue to interact physically and miraculously as the Holy Spirit grows the church according to the will of the Father, a reality he gladly invites.  He has no idea what the "numbers" will look like.

“It’s a really good problem to have,” he said.

Petersen describes himself as a "poor miserable sinner" who has been "called into the preaching office and set apart through Holy Ordination" with a preaching style that shuns gimmicks, current events, and modern media examples such as video clips and slideshows - focusing rather on Christ and His work on the cross for the salvation of sinners.  It's a radical idea, and one certain to raise eyebrows, but Petersen is convinced that this new way is superior to the old, traditional shuck-and-jive contemporary nonsense that turns people off with its shallowness.

“We have not abolished the Mass," said Petersen, in a shocking quotation of the Book of Concord, "Moreover, in our churches 'Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.'" 

It's an idea so radical and fresh that it's a wonder this has not been tried before.

For more information about what authentic worship does not look like, visit any number of LCMS congregations.

Religion is Dead?

By Larry Beane

This postcard just arrived from Impact Church. On the back it says:

"At Impact Church, we don't want to add religious duty to your 'list' of stuff that occupies your time. In fact, we dislike religion as much as you do."  Yes, indeed, it is trendy to bash "religion" these days.  It's good marketing in the current cultural paradigm.  It's the narrative.

But what does Scripture say about religion?

"Religion (θρησκεία) that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27 ESV)."

Indeed, visiting people in their need is something that the sinful flesh dislikes, even as we like gimmicky "churches" that brag about "fun games, cool music, exciting Bible Lessons & More!" as this postcard shamelessly says.

The postcard also says a lot by what is not said.

There is nothing about sin, grace, forgiveness, or redemption. And the only cross to be seen is in the mockery of the traditional church, in the stained glass above the forlorn altar. And indeed, that is often the way Christ and His Bride are depicted by false, fly-by-night "churches" and entertainment hucksters.

Oh, and something else is missing. Or should I say someone. The name Jesus and the title Christ are nowhere mentioned, or even hinted at, on this postcard.  Can there be anything more scandalous and more damning than for a group claiming to be a church to completely ignore the Lord Jesus Christ?

If you want Starbucks coffee, rock music, dancing girls, and other forms of entertainment, you can find them in lots of places.  But if you yearn for depth and meaning, for transcendence and truth, for God's Word, dignified worship of the Most Holy Trinity, the theology of the cross, and "religion that is pure and undefiled" in the confession of Jesus Christ unto forgiveness, life, and salvation - you can find them at faithful traditional Evangelical Catholic churches that aren't sending out flashy postcards that mock and belittle the Bride while ignoring the Bridegroom.  We are not formed by the latest Barna poll or shaped by focus groups, but rather we are called by means of Holy Baptism, forgiven by the Word, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and covered unabashedly by the atoning blood of Christ.

The counterfeit 'impact' of entertainment-worship is clear when contrasted with the Divine Service, in the preaching of Christ crucified, and in the Holy Eucharist. Churches ought not be ashamed of the name "Jesus" nor of the Gospel that He has called us to confess and proclaim.  Moreover, according to James 1:27, part of "pure and undefiled" religion is to "keep oneself unstained from the world."  In other words, pure and undefiled religion is countercultural and cuts across the grain of marketing experts, focus groups, the never-ending quest for hipness, popularity, and what sells.

Gimmick religion is dead. But Christ is risen!

Article 24 Still Matters!

By Larry Beane



"[N]o novelty has been introduced which did not exist in the church from ancient times... no conspicuous change has been made in the public ceremonies of the Mass..." 

 ~ AC 24:40 (German, Tappert ed. p 60)


The video above (from an ELCA congregation) illustrates the wisdom of our Reformation fathers, a wisdom we seek to carry on in the reverently-celebrated traditional liturgy.  Unfortunately, even in our own LCMS communion, Article 24 is often bent and stressed to its limit - if not outright broken - by both liturgical novelty (such as "contemporary worship") and theological novelty (such as women vesting and serving at the altar during Mass).

The confessors understood that such innovation is playing with fire.

The above video shows liturgical and theological innovation taken to its inevitable end.  Here we have a group of people pretending to be the church, pretending to be Lutheran, led by a man pretending to be a woman (who incidentally prefers neither the pronoun "he" nor "she," but "they"), who is pretending to be a pastor, pretending to sing the Words of Institution over bread and wine, pretending to celebrate the Eucharist, pretending Jesus is present for such a farce.

He is even pretending to sing a Beatles' song.

Thus our Lord's sacrifice on the cross, His atoning blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, and the glorious good news of the resurrection to come, by faith in His name, through His grace, in the proclamation of His marvelous and merciful Word - is reduced to this shallow and rather pathetic perversion.

The Book of Concord is as relevant today as it was in the sixteenth century.  And Lutherans would do well to submit to the Lord's Word as confessed and explicated by the treasury that is our collection of symbolical writings - and to do so in matters both of doctrine and practice.  For doctrine shapes practice and practice shapes doctrine.

Our fathers in the faith understood this.  We need to understand this now more than ever.  The pastor who told me that Article 24 is no longer relevant and is not binding on pastors in our day and age is simply wrong.  Perhaps even more than in 1530, Article 24 still matters!

Come Quickly, Lord Jesus!

An Unlikely Member of The Gottesdienst Crowd™

By Larry Beane

Comedian Jimmy Fallon

Mr. FALLON: I just, I loved the church. I loved the idea of it. I loved the smell of the incense. I loved the feeling you get when you left church. I loved like how this priest can make people feel this good. I just thought it was – I loved the whole idea of it. My grandfather was very religious, so I used to go to Mass with him at like 6:45 in the morning, serve Mass. And then you made money, too, if you did weddings and funerals. You’d get like five bucks. And so I go ‘Okay, I can make money too.’ I go, ‘This could be a good deal for me.’ I thought I had the calling…

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that…Now, I’m holding hands – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba. [Laughter] I’m holding them [Singing] ha nah hey nah ho.

I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

You can read the full article here.

Fallon is a comedian.  He is being flip here.  Whether he really understands the christocentricity of the Mass or not, who knows?  But what is revealing here is his visceral sense (that I believe he shares with most people) that contemporary worship is not real worship.  It's a show.  It's at best a bait-and-switch manipulation.  And by repudiating tradition, the church has become a self-parody.

In our churches, Mass is celebrated...

By Larry Beane

In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc. ~ Ap 24:1

Some make the argument that this is merely descriptive rather than prescriptive - therefore it is purely optional. Some would even say this used to be descriptive and is actually expired or not true any more. And yet in spite of this, Lutheran pastors still take unqualified vows that this Book of Concord norms their ministry in the Church. The reality is this: the entire Book of Concord is descriptive - it describes the doctrine and practice of our churches. We do not obey the Book of Concord, rather we confess it. It describes our faith and explicates how we (Lutherans, that is) interpret the Scriptures.

Some argue that there is no theological significance to AC 24 and its corresponding article in the Apology (Ap 24), that these are as irrelevant to our faith and practice as the statement, "In our churches, we have men's rooms that have urinals and waste baskets." Such a statement would be a throw-away line, a historical curiosity like knee breeches and powdered wigs - as quaint and useless as a quill pen.

But the reality is this: the confessors laid out an entire article to describe and defend the Lutheran practices of weekly communion and traditional worship. Both were already being discarded by some groups in the 16th century, and the Lutherans were very careful to distance themselves from the infrequent-communion and non-traditional-worship parties. Our practice of weekly, traditional, liturgical, Catholic Mass is a theological consequence and lived-out practicum of our doctrines, beliefs, and interpretation of the Scriptures - so much so that the reformers angrily corrected insinuations to the contrary (e.g. "We are unjustly accused of having abolished the Mass.  Without boasting, it is manifest that the Mass is observed among us with greater devotion and more earnestness than among our opponents" (AC 24:9)).

To those who claim Ap 24 is quaint, outdated, irrelevant, and no longer part of our confession, I would argue that it is even more fresh and timely today than in 1530. For today Lutherans are pressured - by society, by other Christians, by their own hierarchs and bureaucrats, by some of their own clergy, by some of their own lay people, by moneyed interests, and by those who care more about feelings than confessions - to abandon this article and concede to infrequent communion and entertainment-based non-traditional and/or non-liturgical worship. In many cases, pastors are unable to keep this promise they made at ordination out of pastoral concern for their congregations who may have parishioners who will violently oppose something as simple as using the hymnal or having the Holy Sacrament every Sunday - and so they must pray and teach, perhaps at best hoping to "move the chains" a few yards so that a future pastor might be able to bring this great blessing to the parish - even as we are all collectively committed to do by virtue of our vows.

The reason we need the traditional worship forms and weekly Eucharist is because we are sinners. That has not changed since 1530. What has changed is that our culture is even more self-centered (living in a 24-7 entertainment culture) and less influenced by Christian doctrine and practice than in the days of the reformers. The solution is not to compromise either our doctrine or our practice. The solution is the opposite: to be faithful to our doctrine and practice - because our faith is not something that changes with every whim of the culture. We cling to traditional marriage and traditional liturgy - even though hipsters and celebrities tell us both are no longer relevant. 

They only lose their relevance when Christians reject them in order to be popular. The Book of Concord places us firmly within the catholic tradition. It never once describes us as Protestant. Not only does the Book of Concord confess traditional and liturgical worship forms, it decries novelty (AC 24:40) and frivolity (FC SD 10:9) in our ceremonial.

Not all Christians confess the Book of Concord.  In fact, very few do explicitly.  Many Christians indeed do not enjoy the blessings of weekly Eucharist (and the Real Presence) and the awestruck reverence that goes hand-in-glove with the confession of the Real Presence - a reverence that not merely results from, but also shapes, our worship life as Christians.  Those who lack it are the poorer for it.  Similarly, many Christians deny the reality that Holy Baptism regenerates, that divine grace is monergistic, and that pastors forgive sins by virtue of their office by Christ's authority.  But all Lutherans, by definition, joyfully and humbly confess these things - even as all Lutheran pastors and congregations, by definition, willingly and explicitly bind themselves to the Book of Concord - including AC and Ap 24.

And what we confess, we should also believe and teach.  What we teach we should also strive insofar as we are able, to put into practice:

In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc.  ~ Ap 24:1

Contemporary Worship, the Anabaptists, and the Hindus

This article appeared in the Michaelmas 2011 print edition of Gottesdienst.  As promised in the most recent edition, it is being posted here for perusal, in response to a request in the Letters section.

I guess Father Braaten was right. Our development officer—no, really, we have one—has been telling us that what our readers are likely most interested in is the provision of some clarity in theological thought and basis for our incessant objections to contemporary worship. So I dutifully proceeded to attempt to put some meat on the bones of our insistence that when the style of one’s worship is not traditional, something is amiss. In the Trinity 2011 issue, I sought to demonstrate that contemporary worship was fundamentally Arminian in nature, and that the drumbeats of its praise bands sought to excite what for Jacob Arminius would be the natural will’s innate capacity to make the right choice and follow Jesus. And almost before the ink was dry, we started receiving a good number of positive replies, in accord with Father Braaten’s expectations.

And we also seem to have struck a nerve—again—among those who object. Somehow or other, we always manage rather unexpectedly to attract the attention even of people in the middle, people who themselves tend to eschew the crooning of the likes of “Christian music” artists Laura Story, or the Sidewalk Prophets, or countless other singers of praise songs, but who on the other hand wouldn’t want to charge those who like that kind of thing with false doctrine. We Gottesdiensters are the convenient straw men of extremism, easy targets for reproach among people who might be inclined to transform the currency of their “moderating” influence into coins of their own popularity. Without alleging that anyone in particular is actually guilty of that kind of thing—for we wouldn’t want to be judgmental or anything—I’d rather simply ask that our readers be aware that there is no shortage of caricatures of what we’ve been saying.

You’ve probably heard the canard: The Gottesdienster is a Nazi: a hard-nosed, self-congratulatory, self-assuredly pompous narcissist, in whose universe weakness is not tolerated, and certainly love is nowhere to be found. He’s incorrigible. You can’t reason with him, because his mind is made up. The Gottesdienster will bravely rush into a burning church to save the vestments before it occurs to him that there might be children or widows in there. Why doesn’t he just go to Rome, then, where he’d be much happier?

The truth is, the Gottesdienster is not really like that at all. Rome is not right for him either. The Gottesdienster cannot tolerate Rome’s mingling of love with faith before God any more than he can tolerate praise bands. The Gottesdienster really only wants one thing, though you’d never know it if you listen only to his opponents. All he wants is Jesus.

I’m reminded of the parenthetical remark, when Miriam and Aaron opposed Moses, that “Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3 KJV). Their objection, “Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?” (v. 2) reads like a who-does-he-think-he-is? kind of objection. So here’s Moses, spokesman for God, and getting all kinds of grief for it; Moses, who had in the first place been a bit on the incorrigible side when the Israelites had done their golden calf dance routine. Was Moses a Gottesdienster? Seems so. I always wonder, when I get to the part about Moses’ meekness, about the fact that it was Moses himself who had written that, which therefore makes it come off a little as though he’s defending himself. This in turn might give me a little encouragement to defend the Gottesdienster, though it still seems treacherous at best, and unseemly at worst, to do so. Moses can get away with saying that, after all, since it is the Word of God that he’s writing; but in our case, it’s rather like saying, “No, no, we’re not arrogant, really we’re not.”

Then again, Moses wasn’t really boasting of his humility; he was defending his office. In calling himself meek (Hebrew, ענו: bowed down, afflicted, poor, humble, meek), Moses was—whether he knew it or not—indicating the Christological character of his office. Christ Himself was accused of arrogance (“By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?” St. Matt. 21:23 KJV), and yet was very meek: “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8 KJV).

I can already see the eyes rolling: “You’re making yourself out to be Jesus now?” And in reply I’d say that as Moses did, we must defend our office. It is incumbent upon the preachers of the Gospel that they bear with patience the accusations against their person, while defending with vigilance their ministry against its accusers. After all, we’re just as sinful as anyone in our person, so go ahead and complain about the fact that we’re sinful: you won’t be telling us anything we don’t know. But it is our duty to proclaim Christ and His Gospel, and this sometimes means defending the Office.

So we are constrained, in submission to the office we bear, to speak out when Israel is tempted to dance around a golden calf. We’ll leave to others the question whether this means those who want to do the dancing are apostate—and no, we are not really saying that ourselves—we’re only pointing out what should be obvious. The dance itself is not compatible with pure faith.

Those who fashioned for themselves a golden calf did so because they grew tired of waiting for Moses’ return. Those who fashion new ways of worship do so because they have grown weary of waiting on God. They will object that this is what their heart is telling them to do, and we will reply that this is just the problem. And really, you must have a look at some of the videos of praise worship that our guys at Gottesdienst Online have chronicled, if you want to do some liturgical observing of your own, though of course it’s quite a stretch to call it liturgical. Their hearts are telling them to worship this way, to emote, to swoon over Jesus, to get carried away with the pleasure of the encounter. Luther’s German for a fanatic is Schwärmer, which also means one who rhapsodizes. Today’s Schwärmer close their eyes, they raise their hands, they sway, they carry on, they feel.

But their feelings are not telling them the truth. The truth is that Jesus does not approach you through the experiences of your heart, but through the office of Moses, through the ministry of the Gospel,

because we know that God approves this ministry, and is present in the ministry [that God will preach and work through men and those who have been chosen by men]. And it is of advantage, so far as can be done, to adorn the ministry of the Word with every kind of praise against fanatical men, who dream that the Holy Ghost is given not through the Word, but because of certain preparations of their own, if they sit unoccupied and silent in obscure places, waiting for illumination, as the Enthusiasts formerly taught, and the Anabaptists now teach. (Apol XIII, 12-13, Trig, 311, italics added)

See there? Melanchthon (author of that quote, from the Apology to the Augsburg Confession) was a Gottesdienster too. I guess we’re in good company.

More importantly, the Apology recognizes that it is false and pernicious to suppose that emotive worship experiences are what kindle and stoke faith. The whole purpose of the praise band genre is not to serve the Word of God, but to serve the heart. This is undoubtedly why its lyrics are so often banal and trivial, tending toward the personalization of faith experiences rather than the objective truths of the faith.

Consider, for example, these lyrics from the Sidewalk Prophets:

Three in the morning,
And I’m still awake,
So I picked up a pen and a page,
And I started writing,
Just what I’d say,
If we were face to face,
I’d tell you just what you mean to me,
I’d tell you these simple truths,

Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You’re going to do great things,
I already know,
God’s got His hand on you so,
Don’t live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don’t forget why you’re here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say . . .

Space does not permit a more exhaustive demonstration; suffice it to say these lyrics are typical. They can be interpreted to be edifying and helpful in some sense, and they certainly aren’t in themselves harmful. No false doctrine here, certainly. But not much else, either; especially, that is, when the music is stripped away. If standing alone, the lyrics suffer; they need the support of the music to make their listeners appreciate them. And that, it turns out, is just the nature of the kind of music to which they always tend to wed themselves. The music is beyond Romantic. It elicits emotion like an Italian opera might, although an entirely different genre: if you don’t know the language, it may not matter.

What matters to these practitioners is participation in a kind of reaching out, of feeling the Lord’s touch, in a very nonsacramental way. What matters is the encounter, the moment of illumination, unoccupied with doctrine, wrapped in the relative obscurity that is common to many popular lyrics.

As in much popular song, the meaning of the lyrics is made intentionally somewhat obscure to the hearer. I’m reminded of Tom Hanks’s brilliant offhand quip, in the movie You’ve Got Mail, about the sixties folk song “Both Sides Now”: “I could never be with someone who likes Joni Mitchell. ‘It’s cloud illusions I recall/I really don’t know clouds at all.’ What does that mean? Is she a pilot? Is she taking flying lessons? It’s probably a metaphor for something, but I don’t know what.” Obscurity in the lyrics of popular songs became fashionable in the sixties and seventies, about the same time Contemporary Christian music was born.
Although praise lyrics are generally not nearly so obscure, their lack of specificity regarding specifically Christian truth makes them just as suitable as vehicles of the emotional surge they seek to elicit in their hearers. Most of them could as easily be sung by Buddhists or Muslims. Consider, for example, these Laura Story lyrics, from “There Is Nothing”:

Lord I come before You
To honor and adore You
For who You are and all that You have done
Lord I am not worthy
My heart is dark and dirty
Still somehow You bid for me to come

So clothe me in humility
Remind me, that I come before a King

And there is nothing
There is nothing
More precious, more worthy
May I gaze deeper
May I stand longer
May I press onward to know You Lord

Such nonspecificity might be fine when you’re listening to, say, “Quitting Time” by the Roches, who make no pretentions about being anything other than entertainers. When this is employed as an ostensible vehicle for the faith, however, it becomes a problem. It becomes the fruits of the Anabaptist who dreams that the Holy Ghost is given not through the Word, but because of certain preparations of his own.

Remember the old George Harrison song “My Sweet Lord”? Consider these lyrics:

I really want to know you
Really want to go with you
Really want to show you lord
That it won’t take long, my lord (hallelujah)

My sweet lord (hallelujah)
Hm, my lord (hallelujah)
My sweet lord (hallelujah)

Anything objectionable there? Of course not, in fact it sounds rather indistinguishable from the kind of thing you might hear from a praise band. Unless, that is, you happen to know about the background singers’ prayer that comes in later in the song: “hare Krishna, hare Krishna, krishna Krishna, hare hare, Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurur Devo, Maheshwara, Gurur Sakshaat, Parabrahma, Tasmayi Shree, Guruve Namah, Hare Rama, hare Krishna . . .”

And that, dear friends, comes from the Bhagavad-Gita, a seminal poem that forms the basis of Hinduism. Repetition of the mantra is said to be the “sublime method for reviving our Krishna consciousness” (www.krishna.com). Here’s the explanation of the mantra from Krishna.com:

As living spiritual souls we are all originally Krishna conscious entities, but due to our association with matter from time immemorial, our consciousness is now polluted by material atmosphere. In this polluted concept of life, we are all trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in her complexities. This illusion is called maya, or hard struggle for existence for winning over the stringent laws of material nature. This illusory struggle against the material nature can at once be stopped by revival of our Krishna consciousness.  (http://www.krishna.com/content/transcendental-vibration)

No Christian should have any difficulty recognizing the odious character of that kind of thinking, but how many would recognize it for what it is if it’s left in the background, untranslated, while the banal English lyrics are made the heart of this popular song? In fact, Gospel singer BeBe Winans took this very song and removed the Krishna references and added in their place, “You’re the Mighty One, You’re the Prince of Peace, You’re the First and the Last, You’re the Great I AM, and the Precious Lamb,” as though that would somehow baptize this song for use among Christians. And for many, that sort of thing works just fine, because it’s all really about the mood anyhow, about making the experiential connection with Jesus.
And this provides opportunity to address again a central failure of the contemporary worship mentality to understand that the means of grace are not the experiences of the Christian, but the words of the Holy Gospel.

This gets to the heart of that quotation from the Apology about fanatical men who dream that the Holy Ghost comes to them if they sit and wait for illumination. “Fanatics” have the theological problem of failing to recognize that the real point of contact that a Christian has with God is only the Word of God, and of replacing that link with personal experience. And when personal experience, particularly when that experience is tied to emotion, becomes the driving force in determining the legitimacy of one’s views, it can be a very dangerous thing indeed. The self-control of which the apostle Paul speaks is particularly the control of one’s emotions: the Greek enkrateia (ἐγ + κράτεια) is derived from krateia: strength. Self-mastery has to do with keeping oneself constrained; that is, with keeping the emotive drives in check.

This is not to say that emotion has no place in worship; on the contrary, worship of the noblest kind can be very emotional, since the comfort of the Gospel is bound to have an effect on the depths of one’s soul; and hence it is all the more necessary to take great care to distinguish worship centered in the Gospel itself from worship centered in the emotions. The latter kind, when called Christian, is nothing more than a Trojan horse in which enters the mischief of a false faith rooted in something other than the Word of God.

So then, not only is true faith at odds with the natural will (as this column sought to demonstrate in the previous issue), it is also inseparably bound to the Word of God. Christian faith is dependent upon the Gospel not only at its inception, but for its sustenance. The Gospel itself must form the heart and nucleus of all Christian worship, and therefore nebulous or simplistic emotional “encounters” cannot be allowed as replacements. Nor, then, can the kind of music that lends itself so easily to the repetition of Hindu mantras ever become compatible with what is truly Christian.

And maybe the reason Gottesdiensters tend to come off as so incorrigible is simply that we know this. And ironically, we know it instinctively: we recoil when we hear music that purports to be Christian but has that encounter-driven feel to it, or perhaps even if it has to much feel to it at all. We know the incompatibility from experience as well as from an awareness that the Word of God and faith must be wedded together. But what we have experienced is the fact that our own experiences are cheap imitations and poor substitutes for the riches of the Holy Gospel.

Hence we must not only insist on right worship—orthodox worship, that is—but on the Gospel. After all, we would be no happier with a dignified and well-ordered kind of worship than with a contemporary kind if both were devoid of the Gospel.  And heaven knows there are plenty of dignified worship forms that are devoid of the Gospel. In fact, this is the reason we don’t just go to Rome, or to Canterbury, or anywhere else. It’s because we want the Gospel in its purity, and the dignity of worship and form that such places afford is not really what we’re after. Where the Gospel is watered down by merits or personal satisfactions, it is as bad for us as where it is watered down by emotive vessels that belie its heart, which is always the mercy of Christ for unworthy sinners.

Yes, we want it all. We want right doctrine, and we want right worship. We want Lutheran substance and Lutheran style too. But in this, we do object to being called selfish, for we really only want what Jesus Himself wants us to want, which is Himself. Contemporary worship’s music is bound to the emotions; we’d prefer to be bound to the Gospel. We object because we understand what’s wrong with the Anabaptists (the fanatics, that is), namely, their divorce of faith from the Gospel. This is what leads them to replace that void with the emotions, and encounters; and this in turn is what leads them to prefer—unwittingly, of course—music that mimics the mantras of the Bhagavad-Gita. From this preserve us, Heavenly Father.