The LCMS Synod President’s office, as currently constituted, requires a single man to function simultaneously as the church body’s chief theological officer and its chief executive officer. Those two roles are inevitably in persistent, but largely unacknowledged, competition for his attention. The tension is asymmetric, as his report shows: administrative crises are immediate, bounded, and responsive to personal intervention. Doctrinal crises are diffuse, slow-moving, and resistant to the kind of decisive action that produces a satisfying resolution in a triennium report.

Consequently, over a long enough tenure, the administrative role crowds out the theological one. That is not due to any failure of conviction, but to the reality of perpetual Synodical triage when the corporation is a sunsetting global empire. The garden goes untended because the building is always on fire.

Harrison’s own convention report supplies the evidence for this thesis, perhaps with a thoroughness he almost certainly did not intend.

Constitutional Requirements

Before examining the record, it is necessary to establish the standard against which it is to be judged, because Harrison’s convention report implicitly assumes a standard that the LCMS Constitution does not share. The report presents a president who is busy, engaged, and consequential across a broad range of institutional domains. The Constitution requires a president whose primary function is something considerably more specific and limited.

Article XI.B.1 of the LCMS Constitution assigns the President supervision over “the doctrine and the administration” of Synod officers, Synod employees, the individual districts, and all district presidents.2 Article XI.B.2 establishes the duty that flows from that supervision: “It is the President’s duty to see to it that all the aforementioned act in accordance with the Synod’s Constitution, to admonish all who in any way depart from it, and, if such admonition is not heeded, to report such cases to the Synod.” Article XI.B.3 is the most sweeping formulation: “The President has and always shall have the power to advise, admonish, and reprove. He shall conscientiously use all means at his command to promote and maintain unity of doctrine and practice in all the districts of the Synod.”

These provisions do not describe an executive manager with a hobbyist theological portfolio. They describe a theological officer with an institutional remit, and the ordering is very deliberate. The LCMS First Constitution, the founding document produced under C.F.W. Walther, stated the synodical purpose as follows: “To stand guard over the purity and unity of doctrine within the synodical circle, and to oppose false doctrine.”3 Walther himself was characteristically unambiguous about the priority:

“Whether our Synod gains friends or makes enemies, wins honor or invites disgrace, grows or declines in numbers, brings peace or incites enmity, all this must be unimportant to us — just so our Synod may keep the jewel of purity of doctrine and knowledge.”

The office the Constitution created was built to serve that purpose, and no subsequent accumulation of institutional complexity has altered the black-and-white intent of the text.

Against that measure, the content breakdown of Harrison’s 2026 convention report is revealing. Analyzing the report’s substantive content yields about 35–38 percent theological and doctrinal material, versus 62–65 percent administrative and operational narration. The theological portion, moreover, is not uniformly substantive: several sections that open with doctrinal framing, the ecclesiastical supervision passage chief among them, quickly resolve into procedural self-defense rather than doctrinal reckoning. Strip those out, and the genuine theological proportion declines further.

The senior Synod Officer, who is constitutionally required to use “all means at his command to promote and maintain unity of doctrine and practice,” devoted roughly a third of his triennium report to that mandate, and a great deal of the remaining two-thirds to managerial problems.

That inverse ratio is not an accidental stylistic choice. It is a governance signal that the President’s office, as currently structured, does not reliably prioritize what the Constitution does. The convention report is the official record of where presidential attention actually went, and it shows which master won. Readers who wish to understand how clearly the current Synod President once understood this dynamic are encouraged to consult his own pre-candidacy document, It’s Time: LCMS Unity and Mission (2008), in which he wrote that dollars, bylaws, structure, and administrative concerns “all inevitably, like centrifugal force, drive the heart of the church (Christ and the Gospel — theology!) to the periphery, despite all our best intentions. I know whereof I speak. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I’ve suffered it. I’ve been guilty of it.”^† What follows is the record of what happened next, despite his foresight.

The Man Who Saw It Coming

The structural critique advanced in this article is not original. Its most perceptive author is Matthew Harrison himself, writing in October 2008, two years before his first election as Synod President. In a document titled It’s Time: LCMS Unity and Mission, submitted to the Southern Illinois District’s Board of Spiritual Care and Supervision during the Blue Ribbon Task Force period, Harrison diagnosed the LCMS’s institutional pathology with a precision that makes his 2026 convention report extraordinarily difficult to read without irony.4On the centrifugal force of administration: “Dollars, bylaws, structure, legal matters, day to day nuts and bolts concerns about keeping the lights on, controversies, and political divisions, the constant need to raise funds — all inevitably, like centrifugal force, drive the heart of the church (Christ and the Gospel — theology!) to the periphery, despite all our best intentions. I know whereof I speak. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I’ve suffered it. I’ve been guilty of it.” He then proposed the remedy: “The structure of Synod should defuse [sic] power away from the International Center to congregations and districts, with strong partnerships with the seminaries.” The man who wrote those sentences spent the next sixteen years personally convening ad hoc financial review panels for Concordia universities, negotiating inter-district real estate arrangements, launching a property and casualty insurance entity, and personally brokering university absorption deals. He did not diffuse power away from the International Center. He came to personify the International Center.

On the corporation problem: “The more the central offices become like a corporation, think like a corporation, act like a corporation, are governed like a corporation, dominated by constitution and bylaws instead of the pulsing heart of theology (Christ), the less funding will come to the national offices.” Harrison’s 2026 convention report is, in its dominant register, a conventional corporate annual letter. It presents $80 million in expenditures, 78 percent program efficiency, 44 RSO terminations processed, 28 new applications handled, and the launch of an insurance entity. It is precisely the document Harrison warned against in 2008, produced by precisely the institutional dynamic he named.

On honesty about real problems: “Let’s be honest. There are enduring divisions in the Synod… These divisions are publicly minimized or maximized depending upon one’s particular theo-political persuasion. They are artfully capitalized upon by various factions for political ends.” Compare the convention report’s treatment of the Our Savior Lutheran Church & School (Arlington, VA) case — a public doctrinal crisis in which Harrison had been formally appealed to in writing, had endorsed a district president’s closure of the investigation, and had seen the orthodox complainants illegally stripped of membership rights — which does not appear in the report at all, replaced by the anodyne assurance that “about 90 percent of the issues of ecclesiastical supervision that I discuss with district presidents are addressed calmly and corrected before they ever reach the public.” We have to be frank; this is not honesty about real problems. It is, in Peck’s terminology, which Harrison himself deployed in 2008, “pseudo-community”: the institutional presentation of a smoothly functioning supervisory architecture in place of a reckoning with its documented failure.

On speaking in generalities: Harrison explicitly identified “speaking in generalities” as the characteristic failure of Jacob Andreae’s first, unsuccessful attempt at Lutheran concord, and the very marker of pseudo-community. “One of the characteristics of pseudo-community is that people tend to speak in generalities.” The ecclesiastical supervision section of his 2026 convention report is, from first sentence to last, a study in generalities. Not one case is named. Not one offense is specified. Not one outcome is described. The section that should be the theological heart of a presidential convention report, the accounting of where doctrine was defended, where it was compromised, and what was done, is an exercise in the precise rhetorical mode Harrison identified in 2008 as the failure mode of institutional self-deception.

On the Formula of Concord model: Harrison argued in 2008 that real doctrinal unity requires stating controversies not only in positive terms but in negative terms, “the clear rejection of errors”, and that Andreae’s failure was his refusal to name errors and the men who taught them. Chemnitz succeeded, Harrison wrote approvingly, because he “never dictated” but “discussed until the disputed points were so clear that either his opponents could agree with him or they at least had to respect his judgment.” Sixteen years later, Harrison’s convention report declines to name the congregation whose pastor publicly endorsed transgender symbolism, declines to name the pastor, and declines to name the district president who closed the investigation without interviewing the complainants. The positive assertion that the supervisory system is working stands without the antithesis — without the acknowledgment of where it failed, and why, and at whose hands.

To rub salt in the wound, Harrison blames the internet for making his life harder than J.A.O. Preus’s:

“President Preus never had the internet to deal with. Instant communication. Instant judgment. Dealing with problems of doctrine and practice requires some deliberation and conversation. The online world does not grant that. And it demands all information and all justification now. Some matters are black and white. Many are nuanced. Some are thoroughly confused. But by the nature of the beast, dealing with individuals or a congregation is not something that is done in front of the public.”

— Harrison, Convention Report, R1 ↗

The OSLCS case was older than Parmigiano-Reggiano and more rancid than a block of Stilton before the internet ever noticed it. Nobody was asking for or expecting instant gratification, just some example of safekeeping the jewels of our theology. The United List and Steadfast Lutherans did not promote Harrison because they wanted a more well-oiled synodical machine, but because Harrison was supposed to arrest and reverse former President Kieschnick’s liberal theological drift.

Harrison wrote in 2008 that the LCMS’s cycle of pseudo-community and chaos was becoming “intolerably boring and unhealthy” and that “it’s never going to unite” through political means. He was right. What he did not anticipate, or perhaps did not wish to examine, was that the office he sought would subject him to precisely the centrifugal forces he described, and that sixteen years of institutional management would produce a convention report that embodies, with remarkable fidelity, every pathology he diagnosed in 2008. The man who saw it coming became, in the end, its most distinguished example.

The CUAA Benchmark

The convention report devotes approximately 450 words to the closure of the Concordia University Ann Arbor South Campus, and every one of them is worth reading carefully, because they establish what Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison can do when he classifies a crisis as important enough for his personal attention.5

He personally requested the CUAA financials. He personally convened an ad hoc review panel, drawing chief financial officers from the other Concordia institutions to assess the situation independently. When the panel’s conclusion was “stark: a critical situation,” he personally contacted Concordia University, St. Paul, to explore whether absorption was possible. He personally urged the regents to retain as many programs as possible at the Ann Arbor campus. He personally requested a meeting between Michigan District leadership and CUWAA leadership, tracked the resulting negotiations, and noted when the tentative agreement fell apart. He told the delegates what he had done at each stage, what had succeeded and what had failed, and why the final decision rested constitutionally with the regents rather than with him.

The report’s CUAA account is candid about the limits of presidential authority, and that candor is itself revealing. Harrison understands the distinction between personal intervention and formal constitutional power. He intervened at every point where he could, documented the interventions, and explained their outcomes. He did not save the Ann Arbor campus, but not for want of attention, energy, or personal engagement across multiple stages of a fast-moving financial crisis.

The CUAA episode is not, moreover, the most compressed example of Harrison’s capacity for swift personal action. That distinction belongs to the January 2023 controversy over Luther’s Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications, published by Concordia Publishing House. On January 22, 2023, the Gottesdienst blog published a critical review alleging that the volume’s contemporary application essays exhibit wokeism and political leftism. The next day, within approximately twenty-four hours of the online criticism appearing, Harrison ordered CPH to cease distribution of the book, unilaterally and via a public Facebook post, notwithstanding that the volume had completed the Synod’s formal doctrinal review process and that Harrison himself had contributed the foreword.6 He then reversed the halt eleven days later, on February 2, having concluded upon reflection that the controverted sentences contained nothing at odds with biblical and confessional Lutheranism. The CTCR subsequently issued a unanimous statement on February 17 affirming the volume’s doctrinal soundness, vindicating the original review.7 Whatever one concludes about the merits of the initial decision, the speed of Harrison’s personal intervention in response to right-flank blog criticism is not in dispute: twenty-four hours from online objection to executive action halting a Synod publication.

The record of presidential alacrity, then, runs as follows: one day to halt a book in response to blog criticism; vigorous multi-stage personal intervention to save a university campus; and six months of deferred inaction on a formal written appeal documenting a pastor’s public endorsement of transgender symbolism in the chancel and homosexual affinity in his congregation and church school, the exclusion of the catechism from school instruction, and the banning of orthodox members from worship. The comparison is not just unflattering but also serves as an index of which crisis category reliably commands the president’s attention, involvement, and energy.

The OSLCS Standard

The Ad Crucem News investigation of Our Savior Lutheran Church and School, published in three installments between November 11 and December 1, 2025, documents the following sequence of events with primary source correspondence.8

On May 4, 2025, four members of the congregation submitted a formal request for an investigation to Southeastern District President Rev. Harmon. The request documented three substantive areas of concern: doctrinal compromise including the pastor’s public support for homosexual and transvestite imagery and symbolism; the exclusion of Luther’s Small Catechism from school instruction, with the pastor’s own stated rationale being that it might be “a stumbling block to non-Lutherans”;9 and systematic retaliation against the members who had raised objections through proper Matthew 18 channels, including bans from worship, exclusion from the Lord’s Supper, and the accusation that a Board of Education member who raised the presence of Islamic library materials was a “white nationalist.”10

DP Harmon received that request, held conversations with the pastor and the principal, and, by June 2025, declared the matter closed, affirming that the pastor had “remained faithful to his ordination and installation vows.” The members who filed the complaint were neither interviewed nor provided with the investigative findings.11

On June 20, 2025, two members appealed directly to the Regional Vice-President and the Synod President, attaching detailed evidence and arguing that the district’s review had lacked due process and transparency. They asked Harrison to “take the reins of investigation” and confront what they described as “a blind spot in the system.” The regional VP subsequently informed the complainants that the President was satisfied the DP had handled the issue correctly and considered the matter settled.12

In this sequence, Harrison was not merely copied on correspondence in passing. He received a formal appeal, with evidence attached, from members of an LCMS congregation alleging that their pastor had publicly endorsed transgender symbolism in the chancel, that their school was operating outside Synod resolution on catechetical instruction, that Islamic materials affirming Allah and Muhammad were shelved in the school library, and that orthodox members had been banned from worship for raising these concerns. He reviewed the appeal. He endorsed the district president’s closure of the investigation. He considered the matter settled.

What followed is now well documented. On October 19, 2025, the OSLCS Voters’ Assembly stripped the three original complainants of their voting rights in a proceeding that created a membership class the congregation’s own constitution does not authorize, denied the affected parties any notice or opportunity to defend themselves, and was decided by voice vote.13 The faithful members whose formal appeal Harrison had closed in June were, by October, formally stripped of the membership rights they had exercised in filing it. By contrast, Harmon was awarded a prominent role at the recent Concordia Theological Seminary Call Day.14 The laity sees this double standard and resents it intensely.

Ad Crucem News published its initial investigative report on November 11, 2025.15 On that same day, Harrison issued a public letter stating “the matter was being handled.” The letter named no congregation, no pastor, no offense, and no timeline.

A form of resolution arrived on December 1, 2025, when Rev. Wayne Fredericksen resigned from the LCMS roster under threat of investigation.16 The proximate cause was not the transgender stole Fredericksen’s own resignation letter acknowledged as a “five-year-old” issue, not the suppressed catechesis, and not the Islamic library materials. As Ad Crucem News reported: “No mention was made of his accountability for first graders attending a queer musical and Islamic supremacist books in the school library.” DP Harmon, who had spent the summer actively blocking a meaningful investigation, received no public discipline. The congregation declared itself in full compliance with LCMS teaching and bylaws within days of the resignation it had not sought and the process it had actively obstructed.

The OSLCS case was not simply a congregational scandal that the supervisory machinery eventually resolved. It was, as Ad Crucem News argued in a series of three analytical pieces in the weeks following Fredericksen’s resignation, a diagnostic event that exposed, with unusual documentary precision, every structural weakness in the LCMS’s governance architecture simultaneously.17 A truncated investigation conducted without complainant interviews, a district president whose assurances were accepted as dispositive, a regional VP who was structurally bound to defer to the same assurances when a formal appeal landed on his desk, a Synod President who endorsed the closure and considered the matter settled.

Each failure corresponded to a specific and nameable gap in the accountability architecture: the absence of mandatory interviewing procedures, the absence of written investigative findings, the absence of meaningful whistleblower protection, and the substitution of therapeutic “reconciliation” for adjudicative fact-finding.

“The central problem shown by the Arlington, VA, scandal is that the LCMS governance model is built around assumptions that are no longer viable. We assume that doctrinal fidelity will be maintained by ordination vows, Christian character, personal goodwill, and fraternal admonition. This high-trust assumption has ceased to exist and is entirely unrealistic and unwise to maintain.”

— Ad Crucem News, December 2, 2025 ↗

Our proposed remedy, drawn from modern secular governance models, was precisely the bifurcation this article argues for: a theological officer relieved of administrative entanglement, and dedicated administrative and governance officers accountable for the procedural architecture that doctrinal oversight requires to function.18 The OSLCS case did not merely illustrate a problem that had always existed, but rather supplied the most granular public record the LCMS has produced in decades of what happens when a “duty to prevent” architecture is absent.19

The contrast with CUAA is not incidental. It is the whole case, and it has been repeated in the same district with the governance crisis at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Easton, MD.

A Problem of Governance Geometry

Harrison is not, on all the evidence, a negligent or incompetent man. The CUAA record and improved Synod finances prove it. Nor is he without theological conviction and teaching gifts. The problem is geometric rather than moral: the office he holds has a center of gravity that pulls administrative matters to the front of the queue, and, by its nature, doctrinal supervision perpetually surrenders to administrative and managerial immediacy driven by legal pressures.

Consider the pressures on the Synod President. When a university campus faces financial implosion, the relevant parties are identifiable, the question is bounded, the failure mode is visible and permanent, and the timeline is compressed. Personal presidential intervention, therefore, has direct, legible, attributable effects. Without intervention, consequences will be reported in every Christian press outlet within the week.

When a congregation is dissolving, theologically and literally, the relevant parties are dispersed and resistant, the questions are diffuse, the failure mode is invisible to the casual observer, and the timeline becomes infinitely elastic. Doctrinal drift accumulates over the years before it becomes publicly undeniable. Personal intervention by the President is accordingly diffuse, productive of messy arguments about Matthew 18 and Bylaw 1.10, and attributable only with difficulty to any specific outcome. The absence of intervention, meanwhile, is costless in the short run, because the failure is invisible until it might reach public ears.

An administrative officer who rationally allocates his time will, under these conditions, attend to the university crisis and defer the doctrinal one. Harrison is not irrational for having done so. He is, however, primarily the chief theological officer of the Synod, and the rational administrative response is the constitutionally wrong one. The OSLCS complainants understood this clearly enough to write, in their June 2025 appeal, that there was “a blind spot in the system.” They were more accurate than they perhaps knew. The blind spot is structural, and it is not Harrison’s alone. Harrison diagnosed it himself in 2008, predicted it would continue unless the structural conditions that produced it were changed. But then he assumed the office and left that machinery in place. The geometry he described has continued to operate precisely as he warned it would.

Controlling the Narrative

Harrison is a gifted communicator and synodical politician. His convention report demonstrates a sophisticated command of what to include, what to abstract, and what to omit entirely. The CUAA narrative is candid, specific, and self-exculpatory in a smart way: it documents Harrison’s every intervention while attributing the ultimate failure to the regents’ constitutional prerogative, which is both accurate and conveniently exonerating.

By contrast, the ecclesiastical supervision section is abstract, procedural, and anodyne, offering the assurance that “about 90 percent of the issues of ecclesiastical supervision that I discuss with district presidents are addressed calmly and corrected before they ever reach the public”20 without naming a single case, offense, timeline, or outcome. In It’s Time, Harrison identified “speaking in generalities” as the defining characteristic of institutional pseudo-community — specifically the failure mode of Jacob Andreae’s first, unsuccessful attempt at Lutheran concord, the one that “beat around the bush and left most of the basic problems unresolved.”^† The ecclesiastical supervision section of his 2026 convention report is the exact specimen of the genre he named in 2008.

Unfortunately, his claim does not survive the OSLCS record. The case reached the public precisely because six months of non-public process had produced a closed investigation, an endorsed DP non-finding, and the punitive disenfranchisement of the orthodox complainants, still without justice. The resolution that followed was forced by public reporting, not by supervision. And the correction, such as it was, addressed only the most personally indefensible element of a doctrinal pattern that the Synod President had reviewed in June and waved off as settled.

The RSO section of the convention report supplies a third exhibit in the same pattern, though one that operates through understatement rather than omission. Harrison notes, with apparent satisfaction, that “over the past three years, some 50 agencies have ceased to be LCMS RSOs,” many of them “organizations whose practice aligned with the ELCA’s position on sexuality.”21 What the report does not volunteer is the timeline against which that figure should be read. Harrison himself states in the same paragraph that when he “became head of LCMS World Relief and Human Care in 2001,” there was already a “tremendous push by LCMS and ELCA staff to get as many organizations recognized by the LCMS and affiliated with the ELCA as possible.” He has therefore known that deviant RSOs were a structural problem for a full quarter-century, and has held the means to address them as Synod President for sixteen of those twenty-five years. Fifty terminations in three years, after decades of accretion, is not a program of reform.

It is a rate of attrition that, as Ad Crucem News observed in its analysis of the RSO disciplinary framework, reflects an informal system “based on overlapping levels of trust and goodwill” with no formal radical expulsion process and a preference for handling withdrawals “administratively to avoid public attention and negative press.”22 The report’s characterization of the RSO situation as improving is not incorrect. But it does not disclose that organizations whose practice the report describes as aligned with ELCA sexuality positions, some of which, as Ad Crucem News has documented, have been aligned with the advocacy of the Church of Satan, remained credentialed LCMS RSOs while Harrison exercised the full authority of the Synod Presidency for sixteen years. “It takes time… but we’re getting there” is the convention report’s closing note on the subject. The delegates should examine what, precisely, it has taken sixteen years to begin getting to.

The same selective lens applies to Harrison’s account of international church relations, which the convention report presents as a sustained success narrative. The LCMS is described as the most heavily resourced Book of Concord church in the world; the ILC is portrayed as a body of faithful partner churches seeking LCMS theological guidance and responding to the corrupting influence of the LWF; new fellowships with the Lutheran Church of Bolivia and Lutheran Mission Australia are celebrated as doctrinal fruit. What the report does not mention is the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (SELK), an ILC member body in altar-and-pulpit fellowship with the LCMS, whose 15th General Pastoral Convention in Hofgeismar in June 2025 declined to confessionally foreclose women’s ordination.23

The convention voted against a structural mechanism for parallel women’s ordination by 53 to 28, but qualified both its principal resolutions with the word “currently,” making the rejection explicitly time-bound and contingent on present delegate composition rather than rooted in Scripture and the Confessions! More telling still, 47 percent of SELK delegates voted that women’s ordination is “theologically possible,” and seven-eighths voted to promote women to roles that 1 Timothy 2:12 expressly forbids. A church body where nearly half the pastors have no theological objection to female ordination is not a church body that can be described, without qualification, as seeking LCMS theological guidance and holding fast to the Book of Concord. Harrison’s convention report describes the LCMS’s global theological leadership in uniformly triumphalist terms. SELK does not appear in it.

The convention report’s omission of Rev. Michael Mohr is in the same category, though its gravity is incomparably greater. Mohr, the former Central Illinois District president, was arrested on January 28, 2026, on federal charges of producing child sexual abuse material involving multiple juvenile victims,24 and was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury.25 Harrison personally visited Mohr in prison on February 9, issued a pastoral letter through the LCMS Reporter, and eventually suspended Mohr from the roster, pending his immediate resignation.26 The removal was swift once it came.

Harrison’s letter did not announce formal suspension, removal from office, or initiation of disciplinary proceedings under Synod bylaws. There was only an oblique reference to discipline: “Our church body has an ecclesiastical process for conduct unbecoming a minister of the Gospel. These processes will be followed.”

— Ad Crucem News, January 30, 2026 ↗

The letter did not disclose whether Mohr remained in good standing on the Synod roster, whether formal proceedings under Bylaw 2.17 had commenced, whether suspended status under Bylaw 2.13.4 had been imposed, or what procedural timeline was in effect.27 Under Bylaw 2.15, district presidents are authorized to take immediate disciplinary action in cases of immoral or scandalous conduct; whether that authority had been invoked was not disclosed. None of this appears in the convention report, including any accounting of what the Mohr case reveals about the oversight architecture and how it needs to be modernized.

Harrison does not shade the facts through invention, and his convention report is far from dishonest in any conventional sense. The shading operates through political selection: what is narrated with granular specificity, what is narrated abstractly, and what is not narrated at all. The pattern is consistent — administrative competence is documented and attributed, but doctrinal failure is managed through abstraction, procedural references, and the quiet confidence that most delegates will be blind to the gaps.

The Reform the Office Requires

The necessary structural reform is plain and simple: the LCMS Synod President’s role should be formally split into a Chief Theological Officer and a Chief Executive Officer, because the consolidation of those two roles in a single person, in a lavish transnational corporation that C.F.W. Walther would surely be shocked by, has consistently produced an officer drawn toward the executive function at the expense of the theological one, and because the theological function is constitutionally the primary one. Harrison himself warned in 2008 that “the more the central offices become like a corporation, think like a corporation, act like a corporation, are governed like a corporation, dominated by constitution and bylaws instead of the pulsing heart of theology (Christ), the less funding will come to the national offices” and proposed that “the structure of Synod should defuse [sic] power away from the International Center to congregations and districts.”^† He did not diffuse it. The reform this article proposes, and which Ad Crucem News has been advocating for months, would create meaningful obstacles to executive overweighting.

The Chief Theological Officer, the constitutional heir to the Synod Presidency as the framers conceived it, would hold doctrinal accountability over the districts and their presidents, the seminaries, the congregations, the RSOs, and the Synod offices. That officer’s primary output would be theological: formal doctrinal investigations and findings, COP engagement, church relations, international fellowship, and the confessional leadership that requires sustained attention. That officer would not be personally negotiating with university regents or convening ad hoc financial review panels. The constitution would not require it, and the job description would not permit it. His urgency would be directed to preventing the devouring of the sheep by tyrannical shepherds and incompetent leaders marinating in dysfunctional structures that reward seniority over merit.

The Chief Executive Officer would hold administrative accountability: the Board of Directors relationship, the budget, the Concordia institutions, the mission boards, the conventions, and all of the operational complexity that currently competes with doctrinal supervision for the Synod President’s calendar. That role would derive its authority from the BOD rather than from the theological office’s constitutional prerogatives.

The objection that the LCMS’s congregationalist polity makes such a bifurcation theologically problematic is answerable. The Synod President’s theological authority already operates through persuasion, visitation, and the COP rather than through direct juridical power over congregations. Harrison himself has acknowledged, in the convention report’s overture supporting expanded authority for the mission boards, that a reduction in the Synod President’s administrative scope “is a good move.”28 However, he does not appear to have connected that acknowledgment to its logical conclusion.

The objection that Harrison is a gifted man who has managed both functions capably is both true and precisely the point. The LCMS should not design its governance around the assumption of extraordinary individuals. It should design governance that produces adequate theological oversight even when the Synod President is ordinary or lacks capacity in both roles. The current structure does not reliably produce that outcome. The sixteen-year Harrison tenure is the best-case version of the consolidated office, and even the best-case version produced a convention report in which the arrest of a district president on federal child exploitation charges does not appear, in which the most fully documented case of congregational doctrinal dissolution in the triennium is treated as evidence that the system works, and in which the president’s most vigorous and specific documented interventions are uniformly administrative.

What will the United List do? It’s time.

Its Time

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The 2026 Convention Workbook runs 559 pages. The election slates span seven senior-officer offices and twenty standing bodies. The overture docket encompasses ten floor committees and ranges from the mundane (standardizing vacancy pastor remuneration) to the genuinely significant (the future of the Specific Ministry Pastor program, eucharistic discipline, the structure of the Concordia University System, and whether the Synod President should be reclassified as a bishop). Most of this material is technically public. Practically none of it is navigable or digestible for a 21st-century audience.

That is the problem we set out to solve.

LCMS2026.ADCRUCEM.NEWS

The LCMS 2026 Convention Microsite, published by Ad Crucem News at lcms2026.adcrucem.news, is a structured, searchable, cross-referenced public reference for every substantive element of the 2026 convention. It is free to use, requires no account, and carries no paywall.

The underlying data model is built from the workbook itself: 374 overtures parsed into structured records, cross-referenced against the 279 overtures from 2023, every named person resolved to a consistent identity record, every submitting body tagged by type and district, every floor committee linked to the overtures assigned to it, and every board and commission seat tracked with its current membership and slate status.

What You Can Do With It

The site is designed around the actual use cases of the people most likely to need it.

Delegates preparing for the floor can browse all 374 overtures by floor committee, by submitting body type (district, congregation, circuit, board, or commission), or by filing district. You can filter by multiple criteria simultaneously, for instance, all overtures submitted by congregations assigned to Committee 5 (Theology and Church Relations) — and click through to the full WHEREAS-and-Resolved text with workbook page citation.

Those tracking the election cycle will find the senior-officer nomination slates compiled and analyzed: Harrison’s 900 nominations to the synod presidency represent 51% of all nominations cast for that office and a 566-nomination margin over his nearest competitor. The First Vice-President slate is organized with the full 21-name list and nomination counts. The five Regional Vice-President slates are shown with their regional totals. Across all twenty bodies, the site tracks which of the 114 seats have published slates and which are still pending, updated as Today’s Business documents arrive in May and June.

Those doing comparative research will appreciate the 2023 archive. Every 2023 overture is in the system. The Compare section lets you identify where the Synod has returned to the same ground it covered three years ago, often with the same language, sometimes with sharpened edges. Missing reports will be backfilled over time.

Feature inventory

• Overtures — all 374, filterable by committee, submitter type, and district

• Elections — senior officer slates with nomination counts; board and commission seat tracker

• Compare — 2026 overtures cross-referenced against the 2023 record

• Committees — all eight floor committees with assigned overtures

• People — every named nominee and officer, with linked nominations and roles

• Reports — workbook reports with a structured rubric for evaluation

• Boards & Commissions — all 20 electing bodies, current rosters, and slate status

• Districts — overture activity by district

• Data export — (PENDING) structured download of the full overture dataset

• Public API — (PENDING) REST endpoint for researchers and builders

• Workbook downloads — links to official LCMS workbook documents

• Articles — editorial analysis and commentary from Ad Crucem News

Does The Convention Matter?

The 2026 convention is not a routine triennial housekeeping session. The docket is unusually dense with substantive structural questions, and several of them are genuinely contested in ways the Synod has not seen for some time.

The pastoral formation debate alone has generated 88 overtures assigned to Committee 6. The range of positions is wide: from overtures demanding the suspension of the Specific Ministry Pastor program and affirmation of the residential seminary path as the exclusive route to ordination, to overtures calling for expanded online degree pathways, to efforts to expand, reform, or conclude the Pastoral Formation Committee itself. The floor will have no shortage of material to work through — and delegates will need to understand the landscape before they get there.

The Concordia University System governance question is similarly live. Committee 7 will receive the Board of Directors’ proposal to dissolve the CUS corporate entity and replace it with a commission, alongside overtures from the CUS Board itself pushing back. The post-mortem on Concordia Ann Arbor — proposed by the Michigan District — adds another dimension. These are not routine resolutions.

The ecclesiastical supervision docket (Committee 10) carries a cluster of overtures originating from congregations and circuits in the Southeastern District that are plainly the legislative output of specific pastoral disciplinary proceedings. Whatever one thinks of those proceedings, the overtures represent a serious attempt to reform the dispute resolution framework from the floor, and the convention will have to decide what to do with them.

And then there are the overtures that will attract broader attention simply by virtue of their subject matter: three overtures proposing to recognize Charlie Kirk as a Christian martyr, competing resolutions on IVF, overtures on woman suffrage in the church, and the proposal from two congregations to restore the Synod president’s election to the convention floor rather than the internet ballot.

The Synod’s floor deliberations are only as good as the preparation delegates bring to them. We built this site because we believe informed deliberation is worth investing in.

A Note on Independence

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The Articles section at lcms2026.adcrucem.news/articles carries our editorial work on specific overtures, election dynamics, and doctrinal matters. That content reflects the confessional Lutheran perspective that has characterized Ad Crucem News since its founding. The data infrastructure is neutral; the editorial voice is not and we will be clear about the distinction at all times.

Ad Crucem News is a division of Arboradix LLC d/b/a Ad Crucem. Coverage of the LCMS 2026 convention is independent editorial work. Not affiliated with, endorsed, or authorized by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

The reports section of the 2026 Convention Workbook precedes the overtures and runs to roughly 500 pages, comprising 60 or so individual reports. They are from the President, the Secretary, the Praesidium, the Board of Directors, the two mission boards, the four standing commissions, the Pastoral Formation Committee, the two seminaries, the Concordia University System and its constituent universities, the thirty-five districts, two auxiliary organizations, three task forces, the Commission on Constitutional Matters in its opinion-publishing capacity, and the Commission on Theology and Church Relations, whose theological documents alone fill thirteen subsections. The reports are the institution describing its work, and, read against the overtures that follow them, the reports also disclose, by what they emphasize and what they do not, where the institution and the floor have begun to diverge.

Officer and staff reports

R1 President (Matthew Harrison)

The President’s report names rising adult confirmations since 2022, identifies strong seminaries grounded in inerrant Scripture and the Book of Concord as the central institutional priority, and characterizes the Concordia universities as recovering Lutheran identity after doctrinal drift. Harrison endorses the Set Apart to Serve initiative, defends the Specific Ministry Pastor program as legitimate but limited, proposes a task force to revise what he calls cumbersome reconciliation bylaws, and reports record missionary recruitment and the launch of Concordia Plan Services to absorb rising property and casualty insurance costs for congregations.

R1.1 Church Relations

The Church Relations report frames Lutheran fellowship as agreement in doctrine and all its articles, documents annual international church relations conferences in Wittenberg, and notes that three LCMS sister churches are in the process of leaving the Lutheran World Federation. The Synod has formally entered fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Christian Church of Bolivia, has restored relations with Lutheran Church-Canada, and has reopened dialogue with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod after the historic breaks of 1955 and 1963.

R 1.2 through R1.2.5 Chief Mission Officer cluster

The Chief Mission Officer’s reports cover National Mission, International Mission, Pastoral Education, Mission Advancement, and Communications. The National Mission report cites church-planting momentum, expanded family ministry resources, the All Nations Ministry program for ethnic and immigrant outreach, and the new $1,700 federal tax credit for LCMS school donations effective January 2027. The International Mission report claims missionaries consistently funded ahead of need, with one-third of congregations now supporting a missionary directly. The Office of Pastoral Education reports that Set Apart to Serve has been adopted across all 35 districts.

R1.3 KFUO Radio

KFUO operates as the Synod’s broadcast and streaming media ministry, presenting Bible studies, theological programming, and live coverage of seminary chapel services.

R2 and R2.1, R2.2 First Vice-President and Colloquy Committees

The First Vice-President oversees pastoral and commissioned-minister formation oversight. The two Colloquy Committees, one for pastoral ministry and one for commissioned ministers, certify candidates from non-LCMS Lutheran backgrounds for entry onto the LCMS roster.

R3 Praesidium

The Praesidium, comprising the President and the six Vice-Presidents, characterizes itself as functioning more deliberately as a theological body than in prior decades, meeting regularly with exegetical and confessional focus and deliberating on disciplinary casework.

R4 and R4.1 Secretary; Rosters, Statistics, and Research Services

The Secretary’s report documents the Synod’s official rolls and publishes the convention workbook itself. The Rosters, Statistics, and Research Services report provides the underlying data on rostered workers and congregational membership against which most subsequent reports are measured.

R5 and R5.1, R5.2 Board of Directors and corporate Synod operations

The Board of Directors characterizes corporate Synod’s financial position as the strongest in 40 years, with approximately $80 million in annual expenditures, a cost-of-funds ratio of ten cents per dollar, and a 78 percent program-efficiency ratio. Concordia Publishing House is reported to have maintained positive revenue for five consecutive years amid an industry-wide decline. Concordia Plan Services has been launched as a property-and-casualty carrier serving Synod, congregations, schools, and agencies, an institutional response to insurance markets the report describes as exploding.

Sidebar · Reports, 2023 to 2026

What changed since the last triennium

Renumbered and consolidated

The 2023 Convention Workbook ran its reports through R66 and beyond, with the Pastoral Formation Committee at R60, the 2019 task force on conventions at R62, the Concordia University Texas situation in a dedicated R64, and the Church and Culture committee’s technology report at R66.4. The 2026 workbook has reorganized the entire scheme: R13 anchors pastoral formation, R14 the Concordia University System, and R62 has been redeployed as the CTCR document series running R62.1 through R62.13. Indeed, the consolidation itself is the first finding, because it places CTCR theological output at the top of the document hierarchy rather than as appendix.

New reports because the 2023 floor mandated them

R58, the Task Force on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, originates in 2023 Res. 1-04A. R59, the Task Force on Electoral Circuit Parameters, originates in 2023 Res. 9-06A. R60, the Report on Mental Health and Mental Illness, originates in 2023 Res. 3-03A. R8, the Joint Mission Assessment Committee report, is also new for 2026. Concordia Plan Services, a property-and-casualty carrier, is a newly launched institutional entity reporting in 2026 that did not exist in 2023.

Same author, changed terms

President Harrison still authors R1 but reports a rise in adult confirmations since 2022 as a new data point. CTSFW reports from a new president, Jon S. Bruss, who replaced Lawrence Rast Jr. The CUS report describes a system relieved of operational responsibilities by the 2023 floor, treats the Concordia University Texas crisis as past tense, and treats the partial closure of Concordia University Ann Arbor (averted through Lutheran Church Extension Fund Michigan assistance and an approximately $10 million Concordia Wisconsin contribution) as the new urgent question. Lutheran Hour Ministries reports six new mission fields opened in Peru, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bolivia since 2023.

Continuities the reports preserve

The tonal scaffolding has not changed. Every argument is grounded in the inerrancy of Scripture and the Book of Concord. The pastor shortage remains the recruitment problem of record. Set Apart to Serve remains the institutional vehicle, now adopted across all 35 districts rather than newly launched. The thirty-five district reports retain their common form. LWML and LHM continue to meet or exceed their stated mission goals. Yet the constancy is itself an interpretive datum: the institutional self-description has not, in three years, fundamentally reframed itself, even as the floor has filed 374 overtures arguing that it should.

Major boards and commissions

R6 Board for National Mission

The BNM directs the Office of National Mission and reports on congregational planting momentum, the expansion of family-discipleship resources, and the consolidation of ethnic and immigrant outreach under All Nations Ministry. LCMS Life Ministry is described as the most prominent non-Catholic pro-life church in America, having reached approximately 640,000 mothers and children through matching-dollar partnerships during the triennium. The BNM’s report is also the source of the now widely cited admission of “a record number of submitted overtures.”

R7 Board for International Mission

The BIM coordinates global church planting in partnership with the two seminaries and with international partner churches, reports expanding Spanish-language and other-language publications through the Lutheran Heritage Foundation and a Latin American regional office, and notes record missionary recruitment alongside slightly dipping operational funding.

R8 Joint Mission Assessment Committee

The committee jointly assesses national and international mission strategy and provides the workbook with overture 4-01, which would commend and sunset the Synod's seven existing mission priorities.

R9, R10, R11 Constitutional Matters, Doctrinal Review, Handbook

The Commission on Constitutional Matters interprets the Synod’s Constitution and Bylaws and renders binding opinions, the Commission on Doctrinal Review supervises Synod publications and resources for doctrinal conformity, and the Commission on Handbook stewards the operational procedures and manuals that govern Synod practice.

R12 Commission on Theology and Church Relations

The CTCR’s overall report frames the work of its thirteen theological documents (R62.1 through R62.13), addresses the administration of the Lord’s Supper with a stated rejection of grape juice and pre-packaged elements, and produces guidelines for lay readers conducting non-Communion liturgy.

Pastoral Formation Committee and the seminaries

R13 Pastoral Formation Committee

The committee oversees formation pathways across the two residential seminaries, the Specific Ministry Pastor program, and the ethnic and immigrant institutes. It maintains the residential Master of Divinity as the strongly preferred pastoral formation route, while sustaining full tuition support, and characterizes SMP as a legitimate but limited option for specific congregational situations in which M.Div. graduates are unavailable.

R13.1 Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

Concordia Seminary reports a stable financial position with the endowment now supplying 40 percent of the operating budget, the approval of a comprehensive Campus Master Plan 2026, and the reappointment of President Thomas Egger to a second five-year term. The seminary characterizes itself as implementing the 2023 convention’s Resolution 6-03A in the direction of residential preference and SMP restriction.

R13.2 Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne

CTSFW reports the recent election of Rev. Dr. Jon S. Bruss as 17th president following the 13-year tenure of Lawrence R. Rast Jr., the addition of faculty chairs in Lutheran Confessions and in Pastoral Ministry and Missions, the completion of a comprehensive Facilities Condition Assessment, and the adoption of a 2024 to 2029 strategic plan with five primary objectives. The seminary continues to offer five distinct pastoral formation programs with the residential M.Div. as the primary focus.

R13.3 through R13.6 Pastoral formation subsidiary reports

The remaining R13 subsections include reports on the Center for Hispanic Studies, the Cross-cultural Ministry Center, the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology, and the comparative study of approaches to and outcomes of residential and non-residential pastoral formation. R13.4 in particular supplies the empirical material on which the SMP debate in Committee 6 will be conducted.

Concordia University System

R14 Concordia University System

The CUS report characterizes the system as relieved of operational responsibilities by the 2023 convention and refocused on Lutheran identity and mission oversight. Formal visitations were conducted at all universities and received affirmations of compliance with the Lutheran Identity and Mission Outcome Standards (LIMOS). The CUS reports 120 five-thousand-dollar scholarships awarded in 2025 to LCMS church-work students, and an active dialogue with Luther Classical College regarding potential CUS membership and articulation. The CUS also addresses the Concordia University Texas governance and doctrinal questions per 2023 Resolution 7-03, and the partial closure of Concordia University Ann Arbor, which was ultimately averted through assistance from the Lutheran Church Extension Fund Michigan and a Concordia Wisconsin contribution of approximately $10 million sustaining Ann Arbor operations for an additional decade.

R14.1 through R14.5 The five Concordias

Concordia University Chicago reports a 45 percent reduction in long-term debt over the prior two convention cycles and the deployment of a $7.7 million state capital grant. Concordia University Irvine, Concordia University Nebraska, and Concordia University, St. Paul submit reports continuing the institutional pattern of mission-aligned programming, enrollment management, and confessional curriculum claims. Concordia University Wisconsin and Ann Arbor, treated as a single institutional entity in the report, frames the Ann Arbor outcome as a sustained but eventually contracting operation.

District reports (R21 through R55)

Thirty-five district reports follow a recognizable common structure. A grouped summary characterizes the pattern, with named districts cited where their reports diverge.

Each district report opens with the district’s mission statement and a sketch of its territorial reach, names the District President and the senior staff, and proceeds through congregational and school statistics, financial position, mission and ministry highlights, and church-worker wellness initiatives. The Atlantic District reports the merger of Unity Lutheran Church, Albany, and the work of Witness in the Public Square. The California-Nevada-Hawaii District reports disaster-relief partnerships particularly around the Maui fire response, with LCMS Disaster Relief, Lutheran Church Charities, Orphan Grain Train, and the Lutheran Church Extension Fund. The Central Illinois District reports the arrest of its district president in January 2026 on child pornography charges, an event whose institutional consequences are visible in several Committee 10 overtures on supervisory transparency. The Eastern District reports a regional listening-session model and a small-church clarity initiative across four sub-regions. The English District, a non-geographic district of 155 congregations across 22 states and Ontario, reports the establishment of a ministerial health commission and continues to use the title bishop for its district leader, a usage Overtures 9-50 and 9-51 would either generalize or formalize.

Common patterns across the district reports include named pastor and educator shortages, declining congregational remittance to district and Synod despite stable or rising overall congregational giving, sustained school-ministry support through executive staff and administrative training, expansion of campus-ministry footprint, planting and revitalization initiatives that mirror the National Mission report, disaster-relief and human-care work, and consistent attention to church-worker wellness through retreats, sabbatical encouragement, debt-reduction programs, and mental-health resourcing. The district reports provide the demographic and financial data that the National Witness, Pastoral Ministry, and Ecclesiastical Supervision committees will use in their work.

Auxiliaries

R56 International Lutheran Laymen’s League / Lutheran Hour Ministries

LHM reports six new mission fields opened in Peru, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bolivia, employing local teams and emphasizing children-and-youth ministry, digital social-media outreach, and multimedia content. LHM-Kenya has expanded radio evangelism into Tanzania with Bible Correspondence Course promotion, and a partnership with SAT-7 extends Gospel reach across the Middle East and North Africa.

R57 Lutheran Women’s Missionary League

The LWML reports exceeding its $2.35 million mission goal for the 2023 to 2025 biennium, with 31 mission grants funded, and a new 2025 to 2027 goal of $2.622 million underwriting 33 grants.

Task forces

R58 Task Force on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The task force, established by 2023 Resolution 1-04A, conducted nearly 1,500 digital surveys and reports widespread acquaintance, in school and church settings, with persons struggling with sexual identity. Its recommendations include the expansion of Created Male and Female retreats at Shepherd’s Canyon with trained facilitators, the cultivation of recommended-counselor lists in every district, district and circuit study of the survey findings, and the commissioning of multi-level catechetical and apologetic resources. Overture 5-41 proposes to receive the task force’s recommendations and conclude its work.

R59 and R59.1, R59.2 Task Force on Electoral Circuit Parameters

The task force, established by 2023 Resolution 9-06A, addresses delegate selection and bylaw ambiguity around multi-congregation parishes that cross district or circuit lines. The two whitepapers trace the historical principle of congregational equality (Stimmengleichheit) through the 1854 adoption of district delegation, and propose bylaw recommendations on which several Committee 9 overtures depend.

Other reports

R60 Report on Efforts to Address Mental Health and Mental Illness

This standalone report, mandated by 2023 Resolution 3-03A, documents Synod-wide efforts on clergy and lay mental-health support, names the Vitality program and Shepherd’s Canyon ministry as central institutional vehicles, and supplies the empirical foundation for the Committee 3 worker-wellness overtures (3-06, 3-07, 3-08).

R61 Opinions of the Commission on Constitutional Matters

The CCM’s opinion catalog from the 2023 to 2026 triennium is published as a single appendix. Its inclusion is structurally important for the floor’s consideration of overture 9-52, which would declare the CCM unconstitutional and void all of its opinions.

CTCR theological documents (R62 through R62.13)

R62CTCR overall

The Commission on Theology and Church Relations frames its thirteen-document body as both responsive (to specific synodical questions) and constructive (developing study materials).

R62.1 Christian Decision-Making and the End of Life (2023)

An update and supplement to the 1993 document Christian Care at Life’s End, addressing contemporary end-of-life ethical questions from a Lutheran confessional standpoint.

R62.2 Response to Wyoming District Request Regarding Immortality of the Soul (2024)

A theological-anthropological document addressing the question of soul immortality, produced in response to a specific district request.

R62.3 Mission and Ministry Principles and Practical Observations and Suggestions (2024)

A guidance document for congregational mission and ministerial practice, named in the workbook as a reference for the Pastoral Ministry and Seminaries committee.

R62.4 Response to the 2021 Final Report of the Theological Conversations between the ILC and the Roman Catholic Church (2024)

The CTCR’s evaluation of the International Lutheran Council’s theological conversations with the Roman Catholic Church.

R62.5 Response to the Lutheran Church of Australia’s “Way Forward” Proposal (2024)

The CTCR’s response to a partner-church structural and theological proposal, named as reference material for both Theology and Church Relations and International Witness.

R62.6 Online Technology in the Church: Study Materials (2024)

Study materials addressing the use of digital technologies in worship and ministry, the framework against which several 2026 overtures on AI sermons and social media will be considered.

R62.7A Theology and Philosophy of Lutheran Education (2025)

A theological foundation document for the educational mission of the Concordia University System and synod-wide schools.

R62.8 Unity in Doctrine, Uniformity and Variety in Practice (2025)

A study document that distinguishes doctrinal necessity from legitimate liturgical and pastoral variety within confessional commitment, an essential reference for Committee 4’s contested worship overtures.

R62.9 Theological Engagement of Contemporary Issues (2025)

A study document framing the CTCR’s approach to contemporary theological controversies, including those that became the subject of the 2026 overtures.

R62.10 Deacons, Evangelists, and the Office of the Holy Ministry in the New Testament (2025)

A New Testament study addressing the relationship of the offices of deacon and evangelist to the office of holy ministry, the reference document for Committee 6 overtures on commissioned diaconate (6-84) and lay service (6-86 through 6-88).

R62.11 Lay Reading of Sermons and Conduct of Worship in the Absence of a Pastor (2023)

A CCM-requested CTCR opinion on lay-led worship in the absence of a pastor, a document directly relevant to the contested overtures on women lectors (5-27 through 5-29) and on children’s sermons by laity (4-30).

R62.12 Lawsuits between Christians or Members

A CCM-requested CTCR opinion on intra-Christian and intra-LCMS litigation, a document whose relevance to the HotChalk and Concordia University Texas litigation accounting overtures (8-16 through 8-18) is unmistakable.

R62.13 Abortion as a Continuing Crisis

A continuing-crisis treatment of abortion, framing the Synod’s pastoral and public posture against the post-Dobbs American context.

Cross-cutting themes

Five themes recur across the body of reports, and naming them is the cleanest way to read the workbook against the overtures that follow.

1. Confessional identity. Nearly every officer report, board report, seminary report, university report, and CTCR document grounds its argument in the Synod’s confessional commitments, namely the inerrancy of Scripture and the binding authority of the Book of Concord. The seminaries describe their formation as confessional; the universities describe their identity work as confessional; the international relations work conditions fellowship on confessional agreement; and the CTCR’s thirteen documents, read together, constitute a continuing exposition of the confessions applied to specific contemporary questions. Indeed, the institution is presenting confessional fidelity as the asset it most wants to defend.

2. Pastoral supply and the formation pipeline under sustained pressure. The President’s report, both seminary reports, the Pastoral Formation Committee report, and most district reports name a pastor shortage and a recruitment problem. The reports document Set Apart to Serve, full-tuition support, ethnic and immigrant institutes, residential preference, restricted SMP use, and the comparative study of formation outcomes. Yet the reports also acknowledge that vacancy rates remain elevated and that the existing pipeline is insufficient for the demographic moment. The 88 overtures filed to Committee 6 are the floor’s response to a pipeline that the reports themselves describe as strained.

3. Financial sustainability through stewardship, partnership, and consolidation. The Board of Directors describes the Synod’s financial position as the strongest in 40 years. The seminaries report endowment-driven operating support. The Concordia University System reports the rescue of Ann Arbor with assistance from the district and Concordia Wisconsin. Concordia Plan Services has been launched in response to pressure from the insurance market. Concordia Publishing House reports five consecutive years of positive revenue growth amid an industry in decline. Nevertheless, district reports describe declining congregational remittances to Synod, slightly under-recruited missionary funding, and continued institutional pressure. The reports show that the institution manages scarce resources with operational discipline and recognizes their scarcity.

4. Mission expansion against an explicitly named secularizing context. The mission boards, the auxiliaries, and several district reports describe expansion: new fields in Peru, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bolivia; All Nations Ministry; Lutheran schools growth; campus ministry; All-Spanish-language publication. Yet the reports also explicitly name the cultural headwinds, including radical secularism, liberal theology, prosperity gospel, media propaganda, and the contemporary confusion around sexual orientation, gender identity, artificial intelligence, and mental health. Consequently, the reports project institutional confidence calibrated to sober cultural realism rather than to triumphalism.

5. Five: church-worker wellness as a sustained institutional priority. Reports from districts, seminaries, the Mental Health and Mental Illness report (R60), the Office of National Mission, and the auxiliaries name worker wellness in operational terms. The institutional vehicles are DOXOLOGY retreats, Shepherd’s Canyon ministry, Vitality programming, pastors’ wives’ retreats, debt-reduction support, sabbatical encouragement, and intentional community-building through circuits and conferences. The wellness theme intersects directly with the Committee 3 overtures on telehealth and worker wellness, the Committee 6 overtures on bivocational and sabbatical practice, and the Committee 10 overtures on social-media discipline, which recognize digital strife as both a wellness threat and a supervision question.

What the reports collectively offer is the institution’s best public version of itself, and it is, on the whole, a confident and well-stewarded account. The overtures that follow them in the workbook are, in many cases, the floor’s argument that the account is incomplete or, in some cases, that the institution has been describing itself in terms that the floor no longer takes at face value. Reading the reports first and the overtures second is therefore the recommended order, because the divergence between the two is the convention itself in miniature.

The email was cc’d to Rev. Dr. Bill Harmon, District President of the LCMS Southeastern District (SED), and Rev. Michael Thress, Circuit Visitor of the Delmarva Circuit, as well as the full Board of Trustees and Board of Elders lay leadership.

Pastor Tooley’s stated basis for these actions is: “willful, wanton and persistent transgressions of the 5th and 8th Commandments; causing division, strife, contention, factions, quarrels, slander and confusion within the congregation; going beyond the Scriptural admonitions of bearing with one another in love and reconciliation by collaborating with an independent news outlet, bypassing the Biblical and normal structures our church has put in place to reconcile areas of concern; and breaking the public promise of putting the best construction on all things between congregation and pastor.”

The “independent news outlet” is Ad Crucem News.

One of the ILC Members is a former officer of Immanuel Lutheran Church and a Certified Fraud Examiner with decades of legal compliance experience. The other has a background in law. They are not new to raising concerns at Immanuel: one brought to light seven years ago that Immanuel was not an incorporated body despite its constitutional requirement to incorporate, and nearly five years ago that Immanuel’s paid-off mortgage had not been recorded in Maryland Land Records. In each case, the intervention corrected or exposed a problem that leadership had failed to identify on its own. For more than a year, they have been warning Immanuel’s leadership about potential federal harboring liability under 8 U.S.C. § 1324, tax compliance failures involving potential unrelated business taxable income, and financial opacity, the same concerns documented in the three preceding articles in this series. They used the appropriate internal channels and raised their concerns privately, in writing, and in formal meetings with the Board of Trustees, the Board of Elders, and the pastor. They escalated to the District President and Synod President. They were ignored at every level for months, with no substantive response to their documented concerns.

Now they are being expelled, not for heresy or immorality, but for talking to a journalist, because their own church, district, and Synod leadership refused to address critical problems that touch on many Commandments.

What Immanuel’s Constitution Requires for Expulsion

Immanuel’s constitution and by-laws, approved by the Voters’ Assembly on November 18, 2018, and approved by the Southeastern District, contain a specific provision governing expulsion. By-Laws Article I, Section B.5, titled “Expulsion,” states:

“Expulsion is necessary when a member persists in living as a ‘manifest and impenitent sinner.’ The offense must be a willful, wanton, and persistent transgression against God’s Word and will. A member may be expelled only after persistent admonitions as prescribed in Matthew 18: 15-17. When he has resisted all efforts by the Pastor and elders to amend his life, he shall be declared expelled upon the recommendation of the Board of Elders and after an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the next Voters’ Assembly.”

This provision includes several procedural requirements, and the question of whether any of them have been satisfied warrants careful examination.

First, Matthew 18:15–17 prescribes a specific, graduated sequence:

1. private admonition between the two parties; then admonition in the presence of witnesses;

2. then admonition before the church; and

3. only then, if the member refuses to listen at every stage, may the member be treated “as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

The constitutional provision requires “persistent admonitions as prescribed in Matthew 18:15-17” before expulsion can proceed. The ILC Members maintain that no private pastoral visit or admonition occurred prior to the April 22 phone call from Pastor Tooley, the Head Elder, and the Congregational President requesting an urgent meeting. In their April 25 response letter, the ILC Members stated plainly: “at no time have you met with us to discuss such transgressions pursuant to Matthew 18:15-20.” Whether the Matthew 18 sequence has been followed is, in our opinion, a question the Voters’ Assembly should examine with extreme care before casting any vote.

Second, the offense must be a “willful, wanton, and persistent transgression against God’s Word and will.” Pastor Tooley’s letter characterizes the ILC Members’ conduct as violations of the Fifth and Eighth Commandments, that is, harm to the neighbor’s body or life, and bearing false witness against the neighbor.

The ILC Members, for their part, maintain that they raised documented, factual concerns about legal and financial compliance through proper channels over a period of more than a year, and that they turned to Ad Crucem News only after months of unanswered correspondence to the pastor, the boards, District President Harmon, and LCMS President Harrison. Whether raising governance concerns with a journalist constitutes a “transgression against God’s Word and will” is a theological characterization that, in our opinion, should trouble any Lutheran who has read the words of Martin Luther on the duty to speak truth to, and resist, unjust authority. As the ILC Members observed in their response: “the LCMS has no blanket prohibition of any kind of its members talking to the media.”

Third, the constitution requires that “he has resisted all efforts by the Pastor and elders to amend his life.” The documentary record, as we will demonstrate below, shows that it is the ILC Members who have been persistently seeking engagement with the pastor and elders, and the pastor and elders who have declined to respond to their substantive concerns. The ILC Members did not refuse to meet on April 24. They asked three questions first, and received no answers.

Fourth, expulsion requires a two-thirds vote of the Voters’ Assembly. Under By-Laws Article II, Section A.4, all meetings must “be announced to members in writing at least fifteen (15) days prior to convening.” A quorum is defined as 30 voting members (Section A.5). The same Voters’ Assembly that has never been informed, according to the ILC Members, of the harboring risk, the UBTI question, the suppressed financial review, or any of the other governance concerns documented in this series, is now being asked to expel two members for making public the very information that leadership has refused to share with them. Similarly, this congregation has not had a proper budget and accounting in place for some time1, but now wants to get serious about potential excommunication.

Property Ban

Separate from the expulsion process, a signed letter of injunction, executed by the Congregational President on behalf of the Board of Trustees, bans the ILC Members from “the grounds and from entering the building of Immanuel Lutheran for all activities of this congregation.” The ban is effective immediately.

Two baptized, confirmed, communicant members of Immanuel Lutheran Church have been barred from attending worship services, receiving the Lord’s Supper, hearing God’s Word preached, and participating in the life of the congregation, before any vote of the Voters’ Assembly has occurred, before any formal expulsion, and while they remain, as of this writing, members under the constitution.

The letter threatens that if the ILC Members set foot on church property, the Board of Trustees will file a “Peace Order” with the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office. For those unfamiliar with Maryland law, a Peace Order is a civil protective order typically sought in cases involving harassment, stalking, or threats of bodily harm. It is a legal instrument designed to protect individuals from physical danger. Immanuel Lutheran Church is threatening to use this instrument against two of its own members, a husband and wife, whose documented conduct consists entirely of raising governance concerns and speaking with a journalist.

The irony of a church denying access to Word and Sacrament while simultaneously accusing the ILC Members of spiritual transgressions requiring pastoral absolution is, in our opinion, not lost on anyone who has read Luther on the purpose of the church. However, this is the second example of such behavior with a Southeastern District congregation.

Three Unanswered Questions

Pastor Tooley’s letter states that he “attempted, with civility and openness, to meet with you and avail you of such this last full week of April, 2026. You refused in like kind, as per your emails below.”

The emails below, which Pastor Tooley included in his own communication, tell a different story.

On April 22, 2026, at 9:30 PM, following a phone call initiated by Pastor Tooley, the Head Elder, and the Congregational President, one of the ILC Members responded in writing. He did not refuse to meet. He asked three questions, one of each man, and said the ILC Members would attend the proposed meeting once the questions were answered. He wrote: “Your responses will demonstrate to us your trustworthiness.”

The questions were specific and, in our view, entirely reasonable:

To the Head Elder: The Head Elder had allegedly stated during the phone call that the last time he reached out to the ILC Member as an Elder, the member had responded “extremely callously and disrespectfully” by email. The ILC Member challenged this characterization, noting that the Head Elder had historically reached out by telephone, not email, and that after reviewing his entire email and text history with the Head Elder, he found “no evidence of a single incident” of such conduct. He asked the Head Elder to produce the evidence. The ILC Member also noted that he had honored every request the Head Elder had ever made of him, including personally driving to the Caroline County Detention Center the prior week at the Head Elder’s request to visit an individual who specifically asked for him.

To Pastor Tooley: At the October 30, 2025, meeting, the ILC Members were handed a document titled “Corporate Confession & Absolution,” a scripted text they were expected to recite, attesting to their being sinners present to receive forgiveness and absolution from the leadership. The ILC Member asked Pastor Tooley to “provide the standard doctrinal or liturgical provision you used as the basis to convene a private gathering of officers of the congregation with two specific members in a private room at Immanuel for a ‘Corporate Confession & Absolution’ session.”

To the Congregational President: Two months earlier, the Congregational President and the treasurer had received the ILC Member’s written request, which itself forwarded a prior unanswered request from November 2025 to a previous president. The ILC Member asked the Congregational President to indicate why he did not respond.

Twenty-four hours later, on April 23, 2026, having received no answers, the ILC Member followed up. He noted the ILC Members’ puzzlement “in light of the fact that we honored your urgent request to us that we meet with you as soon as possible.” He gave a deadline of 10:00 AM on April 24 for responses.2

No answers came. Instead, at 6:04 PM on April 24, the ILC Members received the property ban and expulsion notice.

The Real Agenda

Pastor Tooley’s letter frames the proposed meeting as an act of pastoral care: “I desire to absolve you of these confessed sins and attempted, with civility and openness, to meet with you and avail you of such.”

The ILC Members’ April 25 response letter reveals what actually happened on the April 22 phone call. Pastor Tooley “disclosed no agenda, intent, or purpose of the proposed meeting until I expressly requested toward the end of your call, ‘What is the agenda here, the topic?’” Tooley’s answer: “The agenda [of the meeting] is surrounding the two Ad Crucem letters.”

Both ILC Members witnessed this statement and memorialized it in contemporaneous notes.

The significance is plain. The proposed meeting was not, by the pastor’s own words during the call, about confession, absolution, or spiritual welfare. It was about the Ad Crucem News articles. The pastoral framing in Tooley’s April 24 letter, the language of spiritual concern, of desiring to absolve, appears to have been layered on after the fact. The ILC Members’ own April 23 email, which Tooley himself attached to his letter, confirms as much: “with regard to the Ad Crucem articles you intended to [be] the basis for meeting with us, we can only suggest the following.”

Consequently, the pastor told the ILC Members on the phone that the meeting was about the journalism. He then wrote a letter two days later, characterizing it as an offer of absolution. The ILC Members’ refusal to attend without first receiving answers to reasonable questions was recast as a refusal of pastoral care, a reframing that mirrors the same pattern leadership employed in October 2025, when the ILC Members’ administrative and legal concerns were absorbed into a “reconciliation” process that produced emotional theater rather than institutional action.

A Reconciliation Process in Name Only

The ILC Members’ April 23 email included a passage central to the legal and procedural analysis of what followed:

“Pastor, please be advised that if you three are unable to honor the requests we’ve made, we will be unable to henceforth ever meet with you without a neutral party, an independent mediator of our choosing, to attend with us. This is primarily because, pursuant to LCMS Bylaws on Dispute Resolution and Standard Operating Procedures, the prior ‘reconciliation process’ that occurred last October was misused.”

The email went further:

“That mediator we choose will not be [the Head Elder] or [the Congregational President], or [a former Congregational President], or any other member of the BOE or the BOT as witnesses or helpers. Instead, it will be one whom we choose from among SED-trained reconcilers and mediators, perhaps Ambassadors of Reconciliation (AOR), or our own lawyer/mediator as counsel to keep things God-pleasing and fair.”

The ILC Members were citing, by name, exactly the right process.

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) maintains a formal Dispute Resolution Process under Bylaw Section 1.10 of the LCMS Handbook. The Synod describes this process as “the exclusive and final remedy” for resolving disputes within its member congregations. The process is graduated:

1. it begins with informal face-to-face efforts,

2. proceeds to a single trained reconciler,

3. then to a dispute-resolution panel of three reconcilers drawn at random from across the Synod, and

4. finally to an appeal panel of three district presidents.

Each LCMS district trains approximately four reconcilers for this purpose. The training is provided by Ambassadors of Reconciliation (AoR), an LCMS Recognized Service Organization based in Billings, Montana, which has prepared over 160 reconcilers since 1997.3

Critically, Bylaw 1.10 specifically provides that the dispute resolution process is available to “members of member congregations of the Synod” when they “challenge the procedures used in their excommunication.”4 This is not an obscure provision. It is a right explicitly afforded to members facing exactly the situation the ILC Members now find themselves in.

The Southeastern District itself appears to agree that this process matters. On March 9, 2026, six weeks before Pastor Tooley’s letter, the SED published an article on its official website titled “Walking Alongside: The Work of SED Reconcilers,” promoting its trained reconcilers and inviting members to seek them out. The SED’s own published materials confirm that trained reconcilers are available within the district and that Ambassadors of Reconciliation provides additional resources.5

The timeline is, therefore and in our view, devastating:

1. On April 23, the ILC Members asked, by name and citing the correct Synod bylaws, for the very process the LCMS prescribes, and the Southeastern District promotes.

2. Less than twenty-four hours later, Immanuel’s leadership responded not by offering a reconciler but by escalating to the most severe ecclesiastical penalty available: a property ban, a demand for voluntary withdrawal, and a special Voters’ Assembly for expulsion.

3. They bypassed the entire graduated dispute-resolution framework designed precisely for situations like this.

Pastor Tooley’s letter states that these actions are taken “in full agreement with the Board of Trustees, the Board of Elders, myself as your pastor, and with full knowledge of Bishop Bill Harmon and Circuit Visitor Michael Thress.” If that is accurate, then District President Harmon and Circuit Visitor Thress were aware that the ILC Members had requested the Synod’s own dispute resolution process and approved the congregation’s choice to bypass it. The SED’s own website was, at that very moment, promoting the reconciler program that the ILC Members had asked for and that the congregation declined to use.

DP Harmon advised ILC leadership not to respond to detailed questions from Ad Crucem News sent on March 17, 2026, as shown below.

ILC Members Invoke Bylaw 1.10

On April 25, 2026, at 6:00 PM, less than twenty-four hours after receiving Pastor Tooley’s letter, the ILC Members sent a formal response. Their letter was addressed to Pastor Tooley and cc’d to the full Board of Trustees and Board of Elders lay leadership, District President Harmon, Circuit Visitor Thress, and LCMS President Matthew C. Harrison.

The letter is precise and measured. The ILC Members state that they “neither desire nor intend to enter onto Immanuel Lutheran Church Easton’s property.” They note that Tooley has “provided no substantiation” for his claim that they transgressed the Fifth and Eighth Commandments. They observe that the sole basis identified in his letter is their “collaborating with an independent news outlet” and that “at no time have you met with us to discuss such transgressions pursuant to Matthew 18:15-20, which calls into question your characterizing them as persistent.”

They then invoke their rights directly:

“We exercise now and hereafter our right, pursuant to LCMS Bylaw 1.10 and the Synod’s formal dispute resolution process, to challenge the procedures at work in your attempted ‘expulsion.’ This is consistent with what we communicated to you and the two Immanuel leaders in our April 23, 2026, email that you attached to your email letter.”

The ILC Members further specify that any mediation will occur “not at Immanuel Lutheran Church Easton but at a remote location,” and that the mediator will be either an SED-trained reconciler from Ambassadors of Reconciliation or their own legal counsel.

The formal invocation of Bylaw 1.10 is now a matter of record. The ILC Members have exercised the right that the Synod’s own bylaws afford to members challenging the procedures of their excommunication. The question now is whether the Southeastern District and the Synod will honor the process that their own governing documents prescribe, or whether the same ecclesiastical authority that was silent for eight months while the ILC Members sought help will now attempt to circumvent their procedural rights as well.

Immanuel’s Constitution Silent on DR

There is a structural dimension to this failure that warrants attention.

Immanuel’s constitution contains exactly one reference to the LCMS’s Dispute Resolution Process, and it appears in Article VII.C, which governs the dismissal of pastors, not the discipline of members. That provision states: “The congregation shall follow the principles found in Matthew 18: 15-17 and the established procedures of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Dispute Resolution Process relative to such actions.”

The member expulsion provision in By-Laws Article I, Section B.5, requires the Matthew 18 sequence, persistent admonitions, a recommendation from the Board of Elders, and a two-thirds vote of the Voters’ Assembly. It contains no reference to the LCMS Dispute Resolution Process, no provision for an independent mediator, no mechanism for a member to request a neutral reconciler, and no procedural safeguard beyond the Voters’ Assembly vote itself.

Immanuel’s governing documents, therefore, provide more procedural protection for a pastor facing dismissal than for a member facing expulsion. A pastor is entitled to the Synod’s formal dispute resolution process. A member, under Immanuel’s by-laws as written, is entitled to admonitions from the very leadership that is prosecuting the case, followed by a vote of a body that leadership controls the information flow to.

This does not mean the ILC Members are without recourse. Bylaw 1.10 of the LCMS Handbook operates at the Synod level, above the congregation’s own governing documents, and it explicitly grants members the right to challenge expulsion procedures.

A Familiar Pattern in the Southeastern District

Readers of this publication will recognize this pattern. It is the same pattern documented at Our Savior Lutheran Church and School (OSLCS) in Arlington, Virginia, also in the Southeastern District, also under the ecclesiastical supervision of District President Harmon.

At OSLCS, members and parents who raised concerns about a pastor's conduct were subjected to a governance process that appeared designed to silence dissent rather than address the actual complaints and evidence. Harmon presided over a congregational meeting at which, according to records, voting rights were questioned, social media was blamed for the congregation’s problems, and the pastor who was the subject of the complaints was given the option to resign rather than be defrocked. The complainants were never interviewed as part of the District’s investigation.

At Immanuel Lutheran Church, Easton, MD the pattern is repeating with even sharper clarity: the ILC Members raised documented governance and legal concerns; leadership declined to act; the ILC Members persisted; and the institutional response was not to address the concerns but to remove the people who raised them. In both congregations, District President Harmon was a common denominator. In both congregations, the complainants’ substantive concerns were, in our opinion, subordinated to the institutional priority of maintaining the authority of existing leadership and papering over problems. It is little wonder that voices critical of clerical authority are growing louder in the LCMS.

The question is not whether Immanuel has the constitutional authority to expel members; it does, through the process outlined above. The question is whether expulsion for speaking publicly about unaddressed governance failures constitutes the kind of “manifest and impenitent” sin that the constitutional provision contemplates, or whether it is retaliation given a pastoral veneer.

Comfort Dogs and a Prejudicial Press Release

The institutional response to the Ad Crucem News series includes at least one additional measure that needs scrutiny.

On the Third Sunday of Easter (April 19, 2026), Immanuel hosted a visit from Lutheran Church Charities’ K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry. The Comfort Dog program provides trained therapy dogs to “communities experiencing grief, trauma, or crisis.”

On or about April 20, 2026, Lutheran Church Charities published a press release on its website titled “Comfort Dogs Help Small Church Community Find Peace and Comfort.” The release named Immanuel Lutheran Church in Easton, MD, and stated that “the church has been navigating a period of stress and sadness following a difficult situation involving REDACTED BY AD CRUCEM NEWS.” It continued: “In recent weeks, concerns REDACTED BY AD CRUCEM NEWS… many members were left shaken and struggling to process what had unfolded.”

The press release described a deployment of two LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs, Amos (Our Savior’s Way, Ashburn, VA) and Kezia (Emmanuel, Baltimore, MD), who arrived for the 8:30 AM service and remained through fellowship time and the 11:00 AM service.

There are several problems with this press release, each of which raises serious concerns about the judgement of Pastor Tooley, ILC leadership, and LCC.

First, the release publicly identified an individual by name and title, and described an incident, all in a document published on the website of a nationally known LCMS RSO. Publishing the individual’s name alongside characterizations of him and a description of an incident on the website of a nationally recognized church ministry, accessible to the general public, including potential jurors in Caroline County, is, in our opinion, extremely reckless. It is, at minimum, deeply imprudent for a ministry organization to publish the name of a person facing court proceedings, and it raises the question of whether anyone at Immanuel or Lutheran Church Charities cared enough to consider the likely prejudice to the individual before publishing.

Second, the press release’s narrative does not match the documentary record. The Comfort Dog deployment was not precipitated solely by the specific incident. It occurred in the weeks following the Ad Crucem News series documenting governance failures at Immanuel (until now, unnamed), the same series that prompted the leadership to initiate expulsion proceedings against the ILC Members. By framing the deployment entirely around the incident that occurred on the Friday before the dogs were brought in, and omitting any mention of the Ad Crucem News investigation, the press release presented a selective account of why the congregation was in distress. The question of who provided the framing and wording to Lutheran Church Charities is one the congregation needs to discover and address.

Third, the release described the situation in pastoral and sympathetic terms, “the close-knit nature of the church community, where relationships are deeply intertwined,” which does not reflect reality at the congregation. The comfort, it appears, was offered selectively.

After Ad Crucem News raised concerns about the press release with Lutheran Church Charities6, the release was removed from public access, and comments were closed. We commend Lutheran Church Charities for its responsiveness. We would have appreciated a receipt acknowledgment, a note to readers explaining why the content was deleted, and a full apology to the individual concerned. The fact that such a release was published at all, containing what amounts to prejudicial gossip, raises serious questions about what information Pastor Tooley and Immanuel’s leadership communicated to Lutheran Church Charities about the nature of the “crisis,” and whether the organization was given a complete and accurate picture of the situation into which it was deploying its dogs.

Selective Engagement

Pastor Tooley’s April 24 letter states that the actions against the ILC Members are taken “with full knowledge of Bishop Bill Harmon and Circuit Visitor Michael Thress.” Both are cc’d on the email.

This is worth pausing on. For months, the ILC Members attempted to engage both Harmon and Thress on the substance of their governance concerns. Harmon’s October 28, 2025, letter, which, as we have previously reported, rendered a legal conclusion about harboring law that he was not, in our opinion, qualified to make, was his only substantive communication. The ILC Members’ written communication to Immanuel’s leadership on February 18, 2026, containing detailed documentary evidence, received no response. Their March 9, 2026, letter directly to Harmon, noting that Harmon’s October letter “offers no value in addressing the situation” and that Harmon appeared to have acted “in direct contradiction to LCMS President Harrison’s stated position,” received no response. Their March 19, 2026, letter to LCMS President Harrison himself, in which the ILC Members described the “Corporate Confession & Absolution” session as an “ambush,” reported that Immanuel had cycled through five Congregational Presidents in just over three years (two of whom were reportedly asked to resign), and asked that the Office of the President “discourage any personal attacks we may receive as a result of simply trying to save this church from itself,” also received no response.

Yet when the time comes to ban two members from church property and initiate their expulsion, bypassing the Synod’s own dispute resolution process that one of the members had explicitly requested the day before, Harmon and Thress are engaged, informed, responsive, and apparently supportive. The contrast speaks for itself: ecclesiastical authority was unavailable when the ILC Members sought help with documented governance failures, but fully available when Immanuel’s leadership needed to punish them for making those failures public.

The SED’s own March 9, 2026, article on reconcilers, published the same day the ILC Members’ letter arrived at Harmon’s desk, makes the contrast all the more stark. On March 9, the SED was telling its members that trained reconcilers are ready to “walk alongside” them. On March 17, 2026, SED DP Harmon received questions about ILC from Ad Crucem News that should have triggered a reconciliation process from his office. On April 24, Harmon was cc’d on a letter that bypassed the reconciliation process entirely in favor of the most punitive action available.

The Timeline

August 19, 2025 — Immanuel’s Board of Trustees minutes record discussion of ICE activity in the area. Pastor Tooley contacts a local sheriff about the “harboring test.” Guidance reviewed for potential ICE raid during services. A dinner with Luz de Vida leadership is scheduled for the following evening.

October 14, 2025 — Circuit Visitor Rev. Michael Thress affirms District President Harmon’s response to Pastor Tooley. Neither, according to the ILC Members, conducts an independent investigation of the facts.

October 22, 2025 — Pastor Tooley reframes the ILC Members’ administrative and legal concerns as a matter requiring spiritual “reconciliation.”

October 25, 2025 — The ILC Members respond in writing, reiterating that the concern is “exclusively an administrative/business one.”

October 28, 2025 — District President Harmon sends letter concluding that “Immanuel’s circumstances do not meet the legal definition of ‘harboring’”, without having investigated the underlying facts, according to the ILC Members.

October 30, 2025 — Meeting with BOT, BOE, and Pastor Tooley. Meeting opens with an unscripted “Corporate Confession & Absolution” session. ILC Members present harboring and UBTI concerns. Concerns acknowledged and validated. No action taken.

February 18, 2026 — The ILC Members send detailed written communication to the BOT, BOE, and Pastor Tooley, accompanied by numbered documentary evidence. No response.

March 9, 2026 — The ILC Members forward the entire package directly to District President Harmon. No response. On the same date, the SED publishes an article promoting its trained reconciler program.

March 17, 2026 — Ad Crucem News sends detailed questions to District President Harmon and ILC leadership.

March 19, 2026 — Having received no response from Harmon after ten days, the ILC Members escalate to LCMS President Matthew C. Harrison, forwarding the complete chain of correspondence. No response.

March 24, 2026 — District President Harmon responds to Ad Crucem News and writes,

“I have limited familiarity with Ad Crucem News and, in general, I do not view public platforms as an appropriate or helpful means for resolving concerns within a congregation in a Godly manner. Therefore, I have encouraged the congregation not to respond to your request.

If individuals are seeking your counsel, I would encourage you to guide them toward the orderly and faithful processes the Church has established.

Your kindness in this matter is much appreciated. “

March–April 2026 — Ad Crucem News publishes a series of articles (more to come) documenting governance failures at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Easton, MD (unnamed until this article).

April 20, 2026 — Lutheran Church Charities Comfort Dogs deployed to Immanuel. A press release is subsequently published and then removed after Ad Crucem News admonishes LCC via email for publishing prejudicial information.

April 22, 2026 — Pastor Tooley, the Head Elder, and the Congregational President initiate a telephone call to the ILC Members requesting an urgent meeting. When pressed for the agenda, Tooley states it is “surrounding the two Ad Crucem letters.” The ILC Members respond at 9:30 PM in writing with three questions, one for each man, requesting substantiation of claims and responses to unanswered correspondence.

April 23, 2026 — The ILC Members follow up at 10:43 PM. Note that the prior “reconciliation process” in October 2025 was misused. Request an independent mediator, citing LCMS Bylaws on Dispute Resolution and naming SED-trained reconcilers and Ambassadors of Reconciliation as the appropriate mechanism. Set a 10:00 AM April 24 deadline for responses. No answers provided.

April 24, 2026 — At 6:04 PM, Pastor Tooley issues a letter banning the ILC Members from church property, advising them to voluntarily withdraw membership, and announcing a special Voters’ Assembly to expel them. The letter reframes the proposed meeting as an offer of absolution. The letter states actions are in “full agreement” with the Board of Trustees and Board of Elders, with “full knowledge” of District President Harmon and Circuit Visitor Thress.

April 25, 2026 — At 6:00 PM, the ILC Members send a formal response to Pastor Tooley, cc’d to all boards, Harmon, Thress, and LCMS President Harrison. They formally invoke their right under LCMS Bylaw 1.10 to challenge the expulsion procedures through the Synod’s dispute resolution process. They note that no Matthew 18 admonition was ever conducted and that the LCMS has no prohibition on members speaking to the media.

The documentary record reveals a pattern that, in our opinion, is indefensible: for eight months, the ILC Members’ substantive governance warnings went unaddressed and unanswered at every level of ecclesiastical authority. Within weeks of those concerns becoming public through Ad Crucem News, and less than twenty-four hours after the ILC Members formally requested the Synod’s own dispute resolution process, they were banned from their own church and placed on the path to excommunication.

The pattern is identical to what happened at Our Savior Lutheran Church & School in Arlington, VA, where whistleblowers were stonewalled and harassed until they appealed to Ad Crucem News for help. Then the church leadership and District President moved with alacrity to entrench themselves and abused the church Constitution and Bylaws to attack the complainants. To this day, justice has been denied to the OSLCS whistleblowers.

What “Love Covers a Multitude of Sins” Does Not Mean

Pastor Tooley’s letter invokes the language of spiritual care: “I am concerned for your spiritual welfare.” It frames the expulsion as a response to sin: “willful, wanton and persistent transgressions.” It presents the property ban as a reluctant measure taken only after the ILC Members refused a meeting.

The ILC Members did not refuse to meet; they simply asked for clarity before agreeing to a specific date, time, and agenda. The questions were not answered, and the ban followed within hours of the ILC Members’ own deadline passing.

The Scriptural injunction that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) is a call to forbearance and forgiveness within the Body of Christ. It is not a directive to conceal governance failures, suppress financial audits, ignore federal compliance obligations, and punish members who bring these matters to light. If “love covers a multitude of sins” is to be invoked at all in this situation, it might more appropriately be directed at the leadership of Immanuel Lutheran Church. Two members spent more than a year, quietly, through proper channels, at high personal cost, trying to protect their congregation from legal and financial risk before ever speaking to a journalist.

Immanuel’s letterhead reads: “We proclaim the Gospel of Christ to all by loving God through worship, by growing together through Bible study and fellowship, & by serving others in the name of Jesus.” The ILC Members would say they were trying to do exactly that.

The Deeper Question

This is the fourth article in a series that began with a broad examination of governance failures at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Easton, and has progressively revealed a pattern of institutional self-protection at the expense of transparency, accountability, and the welfare of the congregation’s own members.

The deeper question is not whether Immanuel has the right to expel the ILC Members. Under its constitution, it does, through the process outlined in its by-laws, with the safeguards of Matthew 18 and a two-thirds vote of the Voters’ Assembly. The question is whether the leadership has followed that process, whether it has offered the dispute resolution mechanisms the Synod provides and the ILC Members explicitly requested, and whether the real offense here is spiritual transgression or institutional inconvenience.

The deeper question is what it says about an institution when the only members it moves to discipline urgently are the ones who begged for governance correctives for years.

Immanuel’s leadership did not call a special Voters’ Assembly when it learned that its building-sharing arrangement with Luz de Vida might expose the congregation to federal harboring liability. It did not call a special assembly when it learned that its financial practices might create UBTI obligations. It did not call a special assembly when it was told that its articles of incorporation had never been filed despite constitutional requirements and public representations to the contrary. It did not act when members resigned over the Luz de Vida arrangement, or when a former president of the guest congregation was reportedly apprehended by ICE, or when its own Board of Trustees discussed what to do if federal agents arrived during a church service. Nor did it call a Voters’ Assembly to look into its accounting problems.

The ILC Members have now formally exercised their right, under LCMS Bylaw 1.10, to challenge the procedures used in their attempted expulsion through the Synod’s formal dispute resolution process. That process will involve scrutiny of whether the Matthew 18 sequence was followed, whether the Synod’s own reconciliation mechanisms were offered or deliberately bypassed, and whether the expulsion was procedurally sound or a vehicle for retaliation.

Ad Crucem News will continue to report on this matter because we care about sin, justification, and Christian justice. The pattern of the Southeastern District in the two cases we have covered is contrary to Scripture and needs to be corrected with force and clarity. We continue to invite Pastor Tooley, Immanuel’s Board of Trustees, District President Harmon, Circuit Visitor Thress, and the LCMS Office of the President to respond. Our contact information has always been, and remains, publicly available.

Series: This is the fourth in a series examining governance failures at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Easton, Maryland, in the LCMS Southeastern District.

Sources and citations referenced in this article:

6

April 22, 2026, at 20:50:48 EDT, “Immanuel LC Easton article contains private information - please delete”

The 2026 Convention Workbook of the LCMS contains 374 overtures, an increase of nearly a hundred over the 279 carried into the 2023 convention, and the Board for National Mission has declared it “a record number of submitted overtures.”

The overtures are unevenly distributed. Five of the ten floor committees, namely Pastoral Ministry and Seminaries, Life Together, Structure and Administration, Theology and Church Relations, and Ecclesiastical Supervision, together carry roughly 300 of the 374 overtures filed. Consequently, the convention’s activity will be very concentrated and tilted toward disputes that the prior triennium did not resolve and that the current triennium has been compounding.

The mood the workbook surfaces is the end of cordiality. This Convention will be more combative because the overtures underscore how many issues are seen as make-or-break in 2026. It is, in our view, the starkest divide between the broad camps of the Missionals and the Confessionals, but the Missionals face a simple numerical disadvantage based on recent Convention voting trends. The forecast is for the Confessionals to prevail on the most contested items, setting up a decision point for the Missionals post Convention.

SMP Questions

The single largest committee by overture volume is Pastoral Ministry and Seminaries, which carries 88 overtures, by far the heaviest docket. Within that committee, a single block dominates: the Specific Ministry Pastor program, which is being prosecuted from both directions simultaneously, with overtures variously demanding its suspension, its restoration, the removal of its age requirement, the broadening of its scope, the strengthening of its post-ordination supervision, and the streamlining of its pathway to general pastoral certification.

Nineteen overtures, between 6-09 and 6-63, deal with the SMP question, and they point all over the compass rose. The committee will be obliged to choose, and the choice will determine, by floor vote rather than by drift, whether the de facto formation policy of the Synod becomes the de jure one.

The second largest is Life Together at 56 overtures. The floor will be asked to redefine the Synod’s purpose. Mission priorities are simultaneously being commended and sunsetted (overture 4-01), replaced (4-02, 4-03), retained (4-10), and abolished altogether in favor of a single congregational sustainability goal (4-09). The arrangement of these proposals on a single docket establishes that the Synod’s national programmatic architecture is now a contested matter.

The third is Structure and Administration at 52 overtures, which carries the unfinished work of the 2010 restructure, multiple proposals for term limits, a four-year convention cycle, district realignment, the enfranchisement of commissioned ministers, the use of the title bishop by the Synod President and the district presidents, and a single overture (9-52) that asks the floor to declare the Commission on Constitutional Matters itself unconstitutional and to void all of its opinions, which is a dramatic vote of no confidence.

Theology and Church Relations carries 44 overtures, including a nine-overture cluster that reopens, with three separate filings, the 1969 settlement of women's suffrage. Ecclesiastical Supervision carries 39, including a twelve-overture run that proposes a comprehensive replacement of the Dispute Resolution Process with a “biblical, workable, and effective system.” Twelve consecutive overtures aimed at a single procedural mechanism are critical to note as a declaration that the Synod’s people have lost all confidence in the existing processes.

Sidebar

2023 to 2026

The 2023 Milwaukee convention adopted 86 of the 87 resolutions acted upon, drawn from 279 overtures across twelve floor committees. The 2026 workbook arrives with 374 overtures across ten. Indeed, the numerical jump is the superficial story; the substantive story is that nearly every disposition the 2023 floor accepted has been refiled with greater volume and harder language.

The 2023 Resolution 6-03A restricted the Specific Ministry Pastor program to be “the exception, not the principal rule,” and nineteen 2026 overtures now contest that line in both directions. Three identical 2023 overtures titled “To Reconsider Woman Suffrage in the Church” were placed in Omnibus B, and a floor motion to extract one for substantive debate failed; the 2026 docket refiles three identical overtures plus two more, plus three flanking overtures on women lectors. The 2023 floor declined Resolution 9-09A, which would only have appointed a task force on the four-year convention cycle, by 309 to 486; the 2026 floor has filed the cycle change directly. The 2023 floor adopted, by 716 to 283, a resolution calling Concordia University Texas leadership to repentance; the 2026 floor asks instead for a comprehensive accounting of the HotChalk, CUTX, and Hong Kong International School Association litigation monies (8-18).

Consequently, there is a recognizable pattern. Where 2023 absorbed, deferred, or pastorally rephrased, 2026 has refiled the original demand in operative language.

Hot buttons

From the body of the workbook, six clusters can be reasonably forecast as the matters most likely to dominate floor debate, press attention, and post-convention controversy.

1. Routes to ordination, with the Specific Ministry Pastor program at the center. The SMP block of overtures is seeking definitive answers to questions the Synod has been deferring for two decades. The deferral has produced a class of pastors whose formation, supervision, and standing are perpetually under negotiation and suspicion, and the floor has now filed enough overtures, in enough directions, that further deferral is impossible.
   Adjacent overtures on residential seminary primacy (6-14 through 6-20, with seven separate “exclusive use of Synod seminaries” filings), online and hybrid M.Div. programs (6-28 through 6-32), and the composition of the Pastoral Formation Committee itself (6-64 through 6-71) ensures that pastoral formation will dominate not only its own committee but the larger meta-conversation of the convention.

2. Ecclesiastical supervision, the Dispute Resolution Process, and the response to clergy sexual abuse. The DRP overhaul cluster (10-11 through 10-22) and the abuse response cluster (10-27 through 10-30) are on the same docket and are not unrelated. The floor is suggesting, in language a careful reader will not miss, that the existing supervisory machinery has failed. Three overtures (10-28, 10-29, 10-30) demand the completion of ecclesiastical investigations and the strengthening of the response to clergy sexual misconduct, and a fourth (10-27) demands a standardized response to rostered worker sexual abuse. Yet the supervisory cluster also carries (10-02 through 10-05) the floor’s first sustained attempt to address the use of social media, anonymous accounts, and digital strife within the Eighth Commandment frame, which means the supervision question is being reframed for an environment the Synod has not yet doctrinally addressed.

3. Women’s-roles, with the woman-suffrage question reopened. Overtures 5-27 through 5-35 include three identical filings to “Reconsider Issue of Woman Suffrage in the Church” (5-31, 5-32, 5-33), one further overture to study and reexamine woman suffrage (5-34), and a separate overture to “Affirm Role of Women in the Church” (5-35). Adjacent overtures condemn the use of women as lectors (5-27), demand the correction of the practice (5-29), and reaffirm that women are prohibited from the public reading of Scripture on the grounds that “Reading Is Preaching” (5-28). Whichever way the committee disposes of this block, the convention will be on record about whether the 1969 settlement, fifty-seven years old this summer, remains a settlement or a compromise to the gods of the age.

4. Heterodoxy charges and demands for institutional verdicts. The 2026 docket is unusually direct in its institutional naming. Overtures 5-38 and 5-39 would declare the Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership (CMPL) “a Heterodox Tract and Mission Society.” Overture 4-20 would condemn the false teachings of Stone Choir by name. Overture 5-37 would clarify the doctrine of the Holy Trinity over against the eternal functional subordination of the Son. Overture 5-25 would publicly acknowledge theological and ecclesial errors in the Synod’s response to COVID-19. The willingness to name names, on the floor, in the workbook, with formal verdict language, is a definite meta-trend.

5. The Charlie Kirk question. Three overtures (4-53, 4-54, 4-55) propose, in escalating language, that September 10 be established as a Day of Prayer for Faithful Witnesses, that Charles James Kirk be recognized as a Christian martyr, and that his confession that Kirk died a Christian martyr be formally commended. The Synod has not, in living memory, been asked to render a judgment of this sort about a contemporary public figure, much less one whose death is fewer than eight months in the rearview mirror.

6. Structural and procedural appetite for reform. The overtures aimed at reconfiguring the Synod’s organizational form are unusually numerous and consequential. They include a four-year convention cycle (9-42, 9-43), term limits for the Synod presidency and vice-presidencies (9-28 through 9-30), a sixty-percent supermajority requirement for non-election matters (9-38), a referendum process (9-40), district realignment (9-17), restoration of presidential election to the convention (9-21, 9-22), the Concordia University System’s conversion into a Commission for University Education (7-01), and the dissolution of the Commission on Constitutional Matters (9-52). Taken together, these overtures propose to redraw more of the Synod’s organizational form than any convention has redrawn since 2010. Whether the floor agrees to redraw it, or merely to debate the redrawing, is the question that will define this convention’s posterity.

Three main moods

Three observations follow from the docket as a whole, before a single resolution has been gaveled.

1. The floor is no longer outsourcing accountability to the existing supervisory mechanisms. The twelve-overture DRP cluster, the abuse response cluster, the demand in 8-18 for a comprehensive accounting of monies spent on the HotChalk, Concordia University Texas, and Hong Kong International School Association litigations, the call in 10-07 for an independent appeals panel in cases involving the President’s decisions, and the demand in 9-52 for the dissolution of the Commission on Constitutional Matters all run in the same direction. Each amounts to a constructive vote of no confidence in a particular institutional mechanism that the floor considers to have failed in whole or in part. Nevertheless, the cluster is not anti-institutional; it asks for replacement structures with explicit standards. The floor wants discipline, not its absence, and it wants discipline that runs by published rules.

2. The directness of naming has reached a level that the workbook seems unlikely to have tolerated in prior conventions. The Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership, Stone Choir, the Commission on Constitutional Matters, the eternal functional subordination position, and the Synod’s COVID-19 response are named, in formal overture language, with the explicit request that the convention render a verdict. Moreover, the same is true on the affirmative side: Charles James Kirk is named, by overture, with the request for explicit commendation. The willingness to attach names to verdicts is itself an inflection.

3. The question of what constitutes Lutheran identity has migrated from the seminaries to the convention floor. Eleven overtures across Committee 7 (7-14 through 7-24) deal with the prior approval process for theological faculty and Concordia presidents. Seven overtures in Committee 6 demand exclusive use of the Synod seminaries to prepare men for the office of holy ministry. Three identical overtures in Committee 6 (6-02, 6-03, 6-04) demand “Deep and Broad Study of Holy Scripture in Synod Seminaries,” and three further identical overtures (6-05, 6-06, 6-07) demand the same of the Book of Concord. The triple-redundancy filings tell the floor that several circuit forums considered the matter urgent enough to file independently and identically. The structural evidence is that Lutheran identity is no longer being delegated to the institutions historically charged with maintaining it, and the floor now wants to specify the deliverables.

Conclusion

A consumer of the 2026 Convention Workbook will notice, before any debate has begun, that the workbook looks like the skeleton of an MMA octagon. The dominant clusters within those committees, namely pastoral formation, ecclesiastical supervision, women’s roles, named heterodoxy, the Kirk question, and the structural-reform appetite, are not narrowly procedural matters that will resolve themselves through quiet committee compromise. They are floor-defining questions, and the floor has filed them as such.

Consequently, the upcoming convention won’t be remembered for the resolutions adopted with pleasantries and singing the Doxology. It will ultimately be remembered for the most vigorous floor debates and the vote totals spread on critical resolutions.

Lcms 2026 Convention Workbook

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Source: 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Overture numbers are taken directly from the workbook’s index pages and floor-committee assignments. First in a series on the 2026 Convention.

Overture database: Claude Opus 4.7

This is the third in a series of articles examining governance failures at an LCMS congregation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The first article laid out the broad pattern of financial opacity, constitutional non-compliance, and institutional self-dealing. The second examined the tax implications of misclassifying rental income as charitable donations. This article addresses a different category of risk, one that the congregation’s own leadership has discussed internally, been warned about by its own members, and not fully responded to.

Ad Crucem News

Another Congregational Governance Crisis Boils Over in the LCMS Southeastern District

When a member of a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) congregation discovers that something is amiss in his or her congregation, what is the faithful course of action? The answer should be straightforward, given our overlapping polities with constitutions, bylaws, and fiduciaries. The Synod has a President vested with supervisory authority over Distr…

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a month ago · 44 likes · 16 comments · Ad Crucem News

Ad Crucem News

Rent or a Tithe? Don't Mess with the IRS

There is a simple question that every LCMS congregation sharing its facilities with another organization should be able to answer: Is the money we receive from it rent or a donation…

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24 days ago · 14 likes · 17 comments · Ad Crucem News

The issue is straightforward: What are the legal obligations of an LCMS congregation that shares its building with a guest organization whose membership may include individuals without lawful immigration status?

It is a question that no one at this congregation appears willing to answer definitively.

The Facts as They Stand

The LCMS congregation shares its facilities with an independent Pentecostal church under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The guest congregation has approximately 300 attendees, roughly four to five times the host congregation’s regular attendance. It holds services, stores equipment, maintains a locked office inaccessible to the host’s own members, uses the host’s address as its legal domicile on all Maryland regulatory filings, and has 24/7 access to the building.

In the summer of 2025, the host congregation’s Board of Trustees (BOT) discussed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the area.1 The BOT minutes of August 19, 2025, record that “Guidance was reviewed for what to do if ICE shows up to service to conduct a raid,” and that the pastor “contacted Sheriff Joe Gamble and he explained to him the ‘harboring test.’ Based on this, the church doesn’t appear to have any legal liability.” The minutes also note a “Dinner with Luz de Vida Leadership” scheduled for the following evening, reflecting the close social relationship between the host and guest congregations’ leadership.

Two concerned members of the LCMS congregation, each with graduate education and professional backgrounds comprising decades of legal and compliance experience, recognized that the BOT’s response was inadequate. They raised their concerns through appropriate internal channels, beginning with private correspondence and culminating in a formal meeting with the Board of Trustees, Board of Elders, and the pastor on October 30, 2025. “The conversation of what occurred derives from the personal accounts of the two members as participants physically present at the meeting who made contemporaneous notes during and immediately following the meeting.

The substance of their warning was as follows: the congregation’s leadership has a closer relationship with the guest congregation’s leadership than any rank-and-file member does. The host congregation’s leaders attend joint meals, conduct joint meetings, and interact regularly with the guest congregation’s officers. The host congregation’s members, by contrast, have essentially no contact with the guest congregation; they do not attend the same services, do not speak the same language, and have no visibility into who comprises the guest congregation’s membership and how its leadership functions.

The concerned members did not demand an immigration audit. The pastor’s own October 22, 2025 email acknowledged as much, though it initially characterized their inquiry as seeking “names and contact information”, a characterization the members rejected in writing, clarifying that they were raising the matter “as exclusively an administrative/business one which the BOT specifically introduced to all congregation members in its ‘Meeting Minutes’ of 8/19/2025.” What they asked was far simpler: have a conversation with the guest congregation’s leadership to determine whether any members lack lawful immigration status, and if so, to offer compassionate guidance, including information about voluntary departure programs, in accordance with the LCMS’s own published position, which supports immigration but opposes illegal immigration and encourages congregations to help individuals come into legal compliance.

The leadership’s response, according to the two members, was to acknowledge the concern, validate the members’ expertise, express personal agreement that the situation posed risks, and then do nothing. Apparently, no such conversation with the guest congregation has occurred, and no legal counsel has been retained. No information has been shared with the LCMS congregation’s voting members since the matter was, in the words of a leadership communication, “dispositioned.”

The congregation’s inaction is all the more troubling in light of recent media reports about regional ICE activity wherein individuals, including a former president of the guest congregation, were apparently apprehended by ICE. Despite widespread local news coverage and direct knowledge among them that federal immigration enforcement had reached into the guest congregation’s own leadership, neither the pastor of the host LCMS congregation nor its leadership has taken action to reduce potential risks to the host congregation they serve.

Potentially Playing With Fire

The federal prohibition on harboring is codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii). It provides that any person who, “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place” is subject to criminal penalties.

There are two elements:

1. knowledge (or reckless disregard), and

2. an affirmative act of concealing, harboring, or shielding from detection.

The whistleblower and Ad Crucem News are not asserting that this congregation has violated federal harboring law. We are observing that the congregation’s leadership has been formally warned by its own members, individuals with relevant professional expertise, that the factual circumstances create potential exposure under the statute, and that leadership has declined to take any action to determine whether the risk is real or to mitigate it if it is.

The distinction between knowledge and reckless disregard is important. You do not need to know for certain that someone lacks lawful status. You need only act with reckless disregard, meaning you are aware of a substantial risk and consciously choose not to inquire.

When a congregation’s own Board of Trustees has discussed ICE enforcement activity in the area, reviewed guidance on what to do if ICE conducts a raid, and when qualified members have formally warned in a documented meeting that the building-sharing arrangement creates potential harboring exposure, continued inaction cannot be plausibly explained away, in our opinion.

The Unincorporated Problem

The potential legal exposure is exacerbated by a structural fact that the whistleblower has been warning about for years: the LCMS congregation is not properly incorporated.

Most LCMS congregations are incorporated as nonprofit corporations under their state’s laws. Incorporation creates a legal entity that can own property, enter into contracts, and be sued — shielding individual members from personal liability for the organization’s obligations and legal exposure.

This congregation, despite years of urging by its own members and a constitutional requirement in its governing documents that it incorporate, has never done so. The property’s Deed of Trust [as opposed to the Deed itself] remains in the names of deceased former members. Every voting member of the congregation is, in the eyes of the law, potentially personally exposed to any liability the congregation incurs, including possible federal liability under immigration law.

As one of the concerned members stated in the October 2025 meeting: “Every member of this congregation, in the eyes of the IRS, is a landlord.” The same principle applies to federal immigration enforcement. Without a corporate shield, liability could flow through to individuals.

The Guest Congregation’s Corporate Filings

The guest congregation, by contrast, is incorporated. Its articles of incorporation were filed more than a decade ago with the Maryland Secretary of State’s office using the host LCMS congregation’s address as its legal domicile. The articles were subsequently amended, at the request of one of the same concerned members, to clarify that the building is not owned by the guest congregation. The amended articles now list one of the guest congregation’s officers’ home address in Cambridge, MD, as the resident agent.

However, that officer of the guest congregation does not have a publicly listed telephone number or email address, and the host congregation’s members cannot reach him directly. In fact, even if one searches for information about contacting the guest congregation, the results direct one to either visit the host LCMS congregation’s street address or ask members of the host congregation. Likewise, Moody’s online business listing directory lists the guest congregation’s contact information under the host LCMS congregation’s address.

Notably, all communication between the two congregations flows through a former LCMS host congregation's president, who serves as an apparent self-appointed, sole liaison and has received inquiries from the guest congregation about buying the LCMS host congregation’s building (reported comments made during BOT meetings). The host congregation also does not advertise the guest congregation as one of its missions.

When Every Authority Says “Not My Problem”

The sheriff’s response was only the beginning. What has followed is a cascade of non-response that extended through every level of ecclesiastical authority available to the congregation.

After consulting with the sheriff, the pastor sought guidance from his ecclesiastical superiors. He contacted the Delmarva Circuit Visitor and the Southeastern District President, Rev. Dr. Bill Harmon. Both responded, but neither, it appears, conducted an independent investigation of the facts on the ground.

On October 14, 2025, the Circuit Visitor emailed Harmon:

“Thank you for your quick and thorough response to [redacted] and for keeping me in the loop. I’m glad that you were able to connect directly and that you could confirm the LCMS guidance for him and his congregation in their situation. It also affirms my conversation with him.”

On October 28, 2025, District President Harmon sent a letter to the pastor, the identical letter that was subsequently forwarded to the concerned members as the official response to their warnings. Harmon wrote:

“As we discussed, both the Southeastern District and Synod have provided guidance for congregations should ICE approach a church. Nowhere in that guidance is it recommended or required that a congregation gather or provide names of individuals. Your conversation with Sheriff Gamble also reaffirmed that Immanuel’s circumstances do not meet the legal definition of ‘harboring.’”

There are several problems with this response. First, the District President is not a lawyer and does not indicate that he consulted counsel. Therefore, the conclusion that the congregation’s circumstances “do not meet the legal definition of harboring” is a legal determination that, in our opinion, he was unqualified to render. Second, according to the concerned members, key facts appear not to have been communicated to Harmon: that the guest congregation maintains a locked office inaccessible to host members, that the guest congregation’s corporate checks are reportedly processed as “offerings” through numbered giving envelopes alongside member contributions, that the guest congregation used the host’s address as its corporate domicile for years, and that (by leadership’s own admission at the October 30 meeting) no member of the host congregation’s leadership had ever attended a guest congregation service or had direct knowledge of its membership composition.

Third, and perhaps most significantly, Harmon’s letter reaffirmed the sheriff’s conclusion without independently investigating the underlying facts. Sheriff Gamble himself, as the pastor noted in his own October 22 email, was consulted because “he and I serve on the same [town] Prayer Breakfast Committee.” The sheriff is, by all accounts, well-intentioned, but he, too, is not a lawyer, and the legal analysis of federal harboring law was not, so far as we can determine, based on a comprehensive understanding of the building-sharing arrangement or direct knowledge of the status of officers and members of the guest congregation.

The pastor’s October 22, 2025, email to the concerned members reveals an avoidance approach: what the members had raised as an administrative and legal concern was reframed as a matter requiring spiritual “reconciliation.” The pastor wrote at length about the need to “reconcile our thoughts” and to come to a “table of Biblical reconciliation.” The concerned members responded on October 25 by reiterating that they had brought “the present matter to the table as exclusively an administrative/business one.” Their request was not honored. According to their own subsequent written account, the October 30 meeting “became a theological, ‘reconciliation’ issue despite that we were trying to present clear, simple reasons for our concern that Immanuel members faced potential liability regarding illegal harboring, and IRS non-conformance which would threaten Immanuel’s tax-exempt status.”

The result was that a legal and compliance concern was absorbed into a pastoral discipline process designed to produce emotional resolution rather than institutional action. As recognized by one of the concerned members, “Personal feelings aside…there exists no standard doctrinal or liturgical provision for a pastor to convene a small, private gathering of congregational officers plus two specific members in a private room at the church building for a session expressly called a ‘Corporate Confession & Absolution’ hearing.”

The District President’s Apparent Conflict

The adequacy of District President Harmon’s October 28, 2025, response must be evaluated in light of his own public activities during the same period.

In March 2025, Harmon appeared on a panel at an “Immigration Forum” held at the Lutheran Church of St. Andrew in Silver Spring, Maryland. The event was co-billed with Kristyn Peck, CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area (LSSNCA). The forum’s stated topics included “The work of LSS in Immigration Services and Refugee Resettlement” and “What we can do to serve our new neighbors.”

LSSNCA’s own publications from the same period describe its legal team conducting “Know Your Rights” workshops “directly inside apartment buildings” in communities experiencing ICE enforcement activity, helping families “create emergency plans for what to do if there is an ICE raid,” and offering legal services ranging from “fighting deportation to petitioning for family members and applying for citizenship.”

Whatever one’s views on the merits of that work, LSSNCA represents an overt institutional hostility toward immigration enforcement, one that, in the opinion of some LCMS members, is difficult to reconcile with the Synod’s stated position.

LCMS President Matthew C. Harrison addressed the relationship between the Synod and such organizations directly in a February 6, 2025 letter to the church body. Harrison stated unequivocally: “The LCMS is a law-abiding and patriotic church body. We don’t invite or support illegal immigration.” He further noted: “There are indeed millions who have broken federal immigration law. That is wrong.” Harrison also wrote that the LCMS encourages congregations to welcome immigrants and “also always urge and often assist them in doing the right thing, that is, becoming legal residents.”

In the same year that President Harrison was publicly affirming the Synod’s position that illegal immigration is wrong and that congregations should help individuals come into legal compliance, District President Harmon appeared publicly alongside an organization whose own published materials described its legal team as “fighting deportation” on behalf of undocumented immigrants and conducting “Know Your Rights” workshops in communities experiencing ICE activity.

Moreover, in the LCMS’s official RSO (Recognized Service Organization) update covering August 2025 through January 2026, posted January 30, 2026, Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area appears under the heading “Dissolved/Withdrawn/Terminated.”

None of this proves that Harmon’s advice to the congregation was deliberately misleading or that he obstructed immigration enforcement. However, it raises a question, in our opinion, about whether a District President who had publicly aligned himself with an organization actively assisting undocumented immigrants was the right person to objectively evaluate whether a congregation’s building-sharing arrangement with a guest church potentially harboring undocumented members posed legal risk.

Unanswered Letters

The concerned members continued to follow up after the October 30, 2025 meeting.

On February 18, 2026, one of the members sent a detailed written communication to the Board of Trustees, Board of Elders, and the pastor, documenting the full history: the August 2025 BOT minutes, the reframing of their administrative concern as a reconciliation issue, leadership’s refusal to inquire into the guest congregation’s membership, the Harmon letter, the LSSNCA connection, and the Harrison letter. The communication included documentary evidence numbered for reference. It also noted that Immanuel had reportedly seen members resign in recent weeks “because of factors that we understand to involve the existing Luz de Vida arrangement.”

No substantive response was received.

On March 9, 2026, the same member forwarded the entire package directly to District President Harmon, noting that Harmon’s October 28, 2025, letter “offers no value in addressing the situation” and that Harmon appeared to have acted “in direct contradiction to LCMS President Harrison’s stated position.”

Harmon, too, did not respond.

On March 19, 2026, the same member forwarded the entire package, now containing the unanswered letter to Harmon, to LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison.

Harrison also did not respond.

The documentary record, as it now stands, shows that the concerned members raised the immigration issue through every channel available within the LCMS’s polity: private correspondence to the pastor, formal meeting with both boards, written communication to all leadership, and direct correspondence to both the District President and then to the LCMS President himself. At every level, the response was the same: no direct acknowledgment, no direct engagement, and habitual inaction.

A Transparency Problem

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this situation is not the legal risk itself but the deliberate decision to keep the congregation’s voting members uninformed about it.

The Board of Trustees raised the subject of ICE activity in its August 2025 minutes, but then took no visible action beyond consulting the sheriff. Concerned members raised the issue formally, in writing and in person. Leadership acknowledged the concern and took no action. The District President was consulted, and he provided a letter that, in our opinion, was not informed by the material facts. The broader congregation, including those who may face personal legal exposure because the church is unincorporated, has not been informed that the issue exists, that it was raised, that members with professional expertise in law, compliance, and forensic accounting warned of specific risks, or that leadership chose not to act.

In a congregational polity, where the Voters’ Assembly holds ultimate temporal authority, the decision not to bring a material legal risk to the voters cannot be dismissed as a mere oversight. It is straightforwardly a governance failure. The voters cannot exercise their constitutional authority over matters they do not know exist.

This is consistent with the broader pattern we have documented at this congregation: financial opacity, suppressed audits, self-appointed officers, and a leadership circle that treats transparency as a threat rather than an obligation. The immigration question is the same problem.

Misdirected and Misapplied Compassion

This article is not an argument against immigration, against a ministry to immigrants, or against the presence of non-English-speaking congregations in LCMS buildings. The LCMS’s commitment to the Great Commission transcends language, ethnicity, and national origin. Lutheran churches should be places where all people hear the Gospel in their own tongue.

It is an argument that a congregation cannot claim to act in Christian love while simultaneously refusing to determine whether it is placing its own members in legal jeopardy, refusing to offer lawful pathways to the very people it claims to serve, and refusing to tell its own voting members that the question has even been raised.

Compassion that depends on ignorance is not empathy or sympathy, but convenience. It will stop being convenient the moment federal enforcement arrives at the door, which is precisely the scenario the congregation’s own Board of Trustees thought important enough to discuss, even though the ultimate result was to only partially address it.

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Board of Trustee’s [sic] Meeting Minutes - 8/19/2025

They’ve put together a brief questionnaire to better understand your preferences (what you reach for, what you avoid, and what makes a piece feel just right). Your feedback will help guide future designs so that what they create is not only meaningful, but something you will enjoy wearing and genuinely get use out of.

Take the Survey Here

Most people see a finished piece and assume it began with the artist’s inspiration to create. I didn’t. It began with sourcing. Before a single bead is strung, or earring is wire-wrapped, there is an invisible process of tracking down the right materials. Chains need to have the right scale and drape. Crucifixes that are chosen for being as reverent as they are tasteful. Finding beads that feel appropriate for prayer (or wear). That part alone takes longer than making the piece itself.

Kelly’s work leans heavily into the devotional side—chain-based designs, crucifixes, and prayer beads. Pieces meant to be held, not just worn. Used, not just admired. There’s a responsibility in that. Every component has to feel intentional, durable, and fitting for its purpose.

Jennifer’s work subtly carries meaning to invite conversations, but it shares the same foundation. Nothing is accidental. Every bead, cap, and finding has to be sourced, and stored. Not just for how it looks, but for how it holds up, and what it communicates.

Then comes the part people expect—the design, the color play, the assembly, the finishing. But after that comes photographing, writing descriptions, pricing, packaging, and shipping. The pieces pass through their hands more times than you would guess.

That’s part of what makes their work different. Not just that it’s made by hand, but that it’s mindfully sourced, thoughtfully designed, carefully assembled, and handled at every step by someone who cares whether it’s right.

Jennifer and Kelly are open to doing custom pieces whether it’s incorporating a specific symbol, verse, stone, color, or meaning. They are willing to work through the details and create something that fits. If you have an occasion in mind and cannot find what you’re looking for, please let us know.

The pastor thanked everyone and introduced the dogs by name with a lame joke, “ Boyfriend, girlfriend, you know”. Before the full service began, he said this:

“Not only do these dogs do this, but these fine ladies are also well-trained and are an extension of the pastoral ministry in so many different ways.”

Two factual notes before we go further. First, so far as public documentation shows, a sweep of Lutheran Church Charities’ own materials, district communications, parish livestreams, and news coverage, this is not how “comfort dogs” are typically deployed in LCMS services. They are meant to show up in adverse situations to give people interacting with them a dopamine hit that could reduce anxiety. They do not, as a rule, process with the pastor or stand on the chancel. What happened this last Sunday morning is, by every indication we can find, an outlier rather than a common occurrence or trend.

Second, Lutheran Church Charities itself does not claim what the pastor claimed from the chancel. LCC’s own “About” page for the K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry describes the program as “a bridge for compassionate ministry, opening doors for conversation about faith.”1 It calls the work a “national human-care ministry.” The word“ pastoral or pastor do not appear. LCC keeps the program carefully on the mercy side of the line, which is more appropriate, but still confusing because of its manifold “ministry” labels.

First, there is a matter of order. Lutherans, of all people, should know that worship is not chaos. Later in the very same service, the pastor would preach from Acts 2 that Pentecost was “not drunken chaos” because “God is acting by intent and design.” Quite so. But intent and design are also the register of the liturgy, the procession, the invocation, the confession, the absolution. A dog in the procession is not a neutral addition to that register. It is a noun that does not belong in the sentence. However sweet the dog, however well-trained, the chancel is reserved for the holy things of God, as is the entire nave.

Animals have absolutely no place in a worship space (save for seeing-eye dogs), but especially not in the very space where the holy body and blood of Christ Jesus are given in bread and wine. Ditto, attaching the title ministers to the women on the chancel.

A retriever on the chancel steps is not the collapse of Western civilization or the death knell of Christ’s church, but it is a fatal pastoral misjudgment. It tilts toward blasphemy when you take into account his sentence about the pastoral ministry.

Augsburg Confession Article V says plainly that God instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry so that we might obtain the faith that justifies. That office is not a general disposition of comforting presence. It is not a franchise that can be extended to any Christian who happens to be kind, any volunteer who has training, or any layman who shows up with a dog leash in hand. It is the office Christ himself instituted, filled by men he himself calls through his Church, exercised in the preaching of his Word and the distribution of his Sacraments.

To stand in the chancel and tell the gathered people that the handlers beside you are “an extension of the pastoral ministry” is not merely a homely welcoming embellishment. It is a category error that slashes at the core of Lutheran theology. And it is especially jarring because, eight minutes later, the same pastor will say the words the office exists to say: I, a called and ordained servant of Christ, forgive you all your sins. That absolution lands with the weight of heaven because it is Christ’s office, but here it was defaced with shocking irreverence.

For the record, we are not the first people to worry about this line being blurred when it comes to comfort dogs. Back in 2015, Rev. Dr. Mark A. Wood, then the LCMS’s own Director of Witness and Outreach, published a piece on the Synod’s resource site titled “Has Our Witness Gone to the Dogs?” He wrote, plainly:

“As great as dogs are, no dog is a Means of Grace.” And again: “Petting a comfort dog may ease one’s tensions and bring a sense of relief…but a comfort dog can’t bring peace to a person’s soul. That peace and comfort come only through the Word. And the Word comes to people through us, not through dogs.”

A Synod officer speaking through a Synod mouthpiece could not stop what was inevitable: the careless use of a term like “comfort dog ministry” was eventually going to ensnare a careless pastor.2

The dogs should do what dogs do well, in the places where their work might be appropriate. We can honor the handlers, but mercy ministry isn't the pastoral office, and the chancel isn’t a therapy room. Christ has given his Church a Comforter, and his name is not Amos or Kezia. His name is the Paraclete, and he is shared with us through the Word preached and the Sacraments administered by the men Christ has called to do it. The Holy Spirit is brought to us as our advocate, intercessor, helper, or comforter. He alone provides the only comfort that carries God’s eternal promises to their final destination in Christ alone.

Dogs can lick the sores of the afflicted and abandoned, and they also lick up the blood of innocent Naboth and wicked Ahab, and crunch Jezebel in their jaws. They are just dogs, and the Church has already had to deal with a dog ministry cult.

When the royal priesthood doctrine the LCMS has cultivated is detached from St. Peter’s original meaning, we produce a very different thing from what the Apostle meant or might have recognized.

In practice, as mediated through the Waltherian tradition’s emphasis on lay possession of the Keys, it produces a great deal of congregational dysfunction. Laymen end up exercising maximal authority inside the church over everything not expressly delegated to the pastor, while the sacrificial-living dimension of Peter’s original call makes almost no demands on their conduct outside it.

The “royal priesthood” becomes a contest of governance rather than a vocational reality. The laity possesses authority, but whether they live as priests has become optional, if not irrelevant (hence, Missouri’s problem with dead orthodoxy and the antinomianism it produces).

This inversion is visible at the congregational level in ways that any LCMS pastor will recognize. The Waltherian framework, intended to prevent episcopal tyranny, has in many parishes produced its mirror image: laymen treating every pastoral decision as requiring a veto or consent and affirmation. That’s not because of doctrinal conviction, but as institutional insurance against the next pastor, who may turn out to be a total dud (and it is virtually impossible to deal with a dud without being vicious or demolishing the call).

Consequently, the ghost of the Martin Stephan drama haunts every corner of the Synod nearly 200 years later. What began as a necessary correction to Stephan’s abuses has hardened into implacable lay suspicion of pastoral authority, especially in Synod entities that are not strictly pew-and-pulpit affairs. We are now also facing an increasing opposite crisis: congregations so dysfunctional in governance, stewardship, or doctrine that no faithful pastor can serve them without being destroyed (and, probably, his family as well).

Consider the tenor of many Council or Elder meetings: the operative ecclesiology is not whether an idea is doctrinally or practically sound, but whether the pastor has the authority to implement it, or whether any pastoral decision must be approved as congregational policy in order to survive the pastor’s departure. The underlying assumption is utterly corrosive: that pastoral decisions are inherently provisional and suspect until ratified into permanence by the congregation.

That’s the essence of the Waltherian Church-possession thesis, which is to say, the Carl Vehse thesis, working itself out in real life, and as unbalanced as an overloaded washing machine because there is no Office of Holy Ministry (OHM) counterweight. Indeed, it is the source of untold congregational screaming matches and permanent grudges.

The Waltherian Inheritance in Practice

The standard LCMS presentation of the “royal priesthood” builds almost exclusively on the Church-possession side of the Waltherian synthesis and addresses its practical exhortation entirely to laypeople: you, as spiritual priests, have the right and authority to “speak forgiveness”. The divine-institution side typically receives token acknowledgment, just a line or two noting that not all priests are parish pastors, before the typical Synod article, essay, or convention paper returns to celebrating lay empowerment.

What routinely goes under-cited is Augsburg Confession (AC) XIV: “no one should publicly teach, preach, or administer the Sacraments without a regular call.”1 AC V, which establishes that God instituted the Office of the Ministry so that we might obtain justifying faith, is even more conspicuously absent from the standard treatment.2 And the distinction between the mutual consolation of the brethren and the authoritative absolution administered by a called and ordained pastor is almost never dealt with or glossed over at best. From the Smalcald Articles, Part III, Article IV (“The Gospel”):

“God is superabundantly generous in His grace: First, through the spoken Word, by which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world [Luke 24:45–47]. This is the particular office of the Gospel. Second, through Baptism. Third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar. Fourth, through the Power of the Keys. Also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren, ‘Where two or three are gathered’ (Matthew 18:20) and other such verses [especially Romans 1:12].”

— Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, CPH edition (2005, 2006).3

Luther lists four means of the Gospel, not five. However, the mutual conversation and consolation of the saints is a distinct thing that LCMS “royal priesthood” teaching habitually mixes in with the Keys with little care. The teacher who tells a student, “You are forgiven by Jesus, and I forgive you,” takes what Luther explicitly set apart under “Also” (mutual consolation) and imbues it with a power reserved to item four (the Keys).

It is a risky formulation precisely because it takes on the form of a ministerial act performed without a ministerial call. It is an unfortunately common error across the Synod that amounts to a vernacular confusion about the precise boundary between pastoral and lay ministry, an ambiguity that official teaching has done little to correct and much to reinforce. Indeed, the principal divide between the Missional and Confessional factions in the Synod concerns the priesthood of all believers, precisely because it is carelessly handled.

The Grabau Irony

There is a historical irony here worth unpacking. While Vehse was pressuring the Saxon pastors from below in 1839, Pastor J.A.A. Grabau of Buffalo, New York, the leader of a parallel Prussian Lutheran immigration, was pressuring them from above. In his 1840 Hirtenbrief (Pastoral Letter), sent unsolicited to the Missouri Saxons, Grabau argued that the pastoral office was a divinely instituted Stand (a special rank or estate), that ordination was essential for valid sacramental administration, and that the laity had no authority whatsoever to elect men to perform pastoral functions. For Grabau, the office constituted the church, not the reverse: precisely the Stephanite position in a Prussian accent.

The Saxon pastors, led by Loeber, responded to Grabau in 1843, rejecting his clericalism. As Rev. Dr. William Cwirla documented in Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly,4 this exchange was itself part of the process by which Walther refined the synthesis that became Church and Office. Grabau was the ditch on the right; Vehse, the ditch on the left. Walther’s paired theses were an attempt to build a fortress that might withstand siege from both directions.

The LCMS officially rejected Grabau’s clericalism, but Grabau at least understood something that the Synod’s standard “royal priesthood” presentation has subsequently muddied: the spiritual priesthood and the pastoral office are categorically different things. Grabau insisted that the spiritual priesthood concerns the believer’s sacrificial relationship toward God, while the pastoral office is a divine commission to the congregation for the public administration of Word and Sacrament. That distinction is essentially what Peter was saying in 1 Peter 2:9, and it is essentially what AC V says, and it is essentially what the LCMS has collapsed by allowing the Vehse-derived side of Walther’s synthesis to swallow the other. The Grabau exchange illustrates the broader problem. The LCMS rejected clericalism but intensified congregationalism, and the imbalance has only deepened since.

The imbalance is encoded in the common LCMS axiom that the Office of the Holy Ministry comes "from below" (the priesthood of all believers) and "from above" (the divine institution). The shorthand is useful, but when the "royal priesthood" teaching consistently loads "from below" and carries all the rhetorical and literal weight, the effect is to make the priesthood the foundation and the Office the derivative. That is functionally hyper-congregationalism, regardless of the both/and language that frames it. It will play a major role at the 2026 LCMS National Convention.

The LCMS faces no comparable Altenburg episcopal emergency, although it is now entering a crisis of congregational competence. But Walther’s compromise formulation has been turned into holy writ and used as a platform for lay “empowerment” (encroachment on the preaching office), with all the errors and confusion it propagates.

One encounters the sentiment, sometimes in official publications, that “pastors choose to carry out the office mandated by Christ.” They do not. There is no LCMS teaching that allows for a man to choose the Office of the Holy Ministry, only to be called to it by the Church and ordained into it.5 The verb “choose” introduces a voluntaristic condition that undermines both the divine institution (Christ establishes the Office) and the churchly call (the congregation extends the call). The pastorate cannot be opted into; it can only be externally conferred (albeit with the man’s co-operation and assent).

The voluntaristic language may reflect how most non-parish officials understand their own positions. The problem is that formal Synod offices do not belong to any single individual. There should be no legacy, no monument, and no building named after any office holder because it risks making that office a personal instrument rather than a perpetual institutional trust.

LCMS Synod and related entity offices have predecessors and successors. The occupant inherits the institutional consequences of his predecessors’ decisions and establishes the conditions his successors will have to navigate. This is what it means to hold an office rather than a grandiose personal commission and to fashion it according to one's personality.

A Chain of Appropriation

At the congregational level, the consequences of over-emphasizing Walther, who was more indebted to Vehse than the Synod probably has been comfortable admitting, are too evident, with the doctrine of sacrificial priestly identity morphing into a doctrine of lay governance supremacy. The structure Walther forged to hold two truths in tension has always tended to overload on the unintended “royal priesthood” side.

The chain of appropriation, traced in Part I and visible in its practical effects throughout this article, runs in one direction. Peter declared a sacrificial identity. Schleiermacher grounded ministry in community consciousness rather than divine institution. Höfling at Erlangen translated this into Lutheran categories. In the aftermath of an ecclesial scandal, Carl Vehse deployed the result via Luther to build a case for lay supremacy over the clergy. Walther adopted Vehse’s framework, but softened it by pairing theses on the divine institution of the Office. Subsequent LCMS teaching has reproduced the Vehse-derived emphasis without Vehse’s crisis, mostly without Walther’s corrective counterbalance, and without acknowledging that the intellectual pedigree runs through the father of liberal Protestantism (Schleiermacher).

Each link in this chain moves further from Peter’s meaning and closer to a political instrument. What began as “you are a people set apart for God” became, through Schleiermacher, a theory that ministry derives from the community. In Vehse’s hands, “the laity have the right to supervise the clergy.” In Walther’s hands, a more nuanced doctrine of the Church’s possession of the Keys, balanced by the Office. In common LCMS usage, “you possess the right and authority to speak forgiveness,” which is true in the context of Luther’s mutual consolation, but false if it means what it sounds like when a teacher pronounces Christological absolution to a student.

The LCMS has treated Walther’s Church and Office as a divine constitutional document for the better part of two centuries. It is, surely, brilliant crisis theology: a polemic born on the banks of the Mississippi in the aftermath of one man’s disgrace, substantially shaped by a lawyer’s reactionary brief whose philosophical roots, as David Scaer has noted, trace back through the Erlangen school to Schleiermacher.

When constitutionalized, crisis theology does not preserve the faith it was designed to protect. It makes rigid the corrective posture of one historical moment and creates a permanent institutional stance, contributing to the very dead orthodoxy and antinomianism that Peter’s actual call to sacrificial priestly living was meant to prevent. This is not to say the LCMS necessarily needs less Walther, but it does need all of Walther: both sets of theses, held in the tension he designed, liberated from the Vehse-derived imbalance that has flattened them. And it needs, above all, to read Peter again as though Schleiermacher, Höfling, Vehse, and the Altenburg crisis had never happened, because Peter was not writing about church governance, but about how Christians should live.

Research inspiration: Senior teacher of the LCMS A.
Insights and clarification: Senior teacher of the LCMS B.
Source development, collation, and citations: Anthropic Opus 4.6
Spelling and grammar check: Grammarly

Updated Methodology

The scoring model has been updated in two meaningful ways, and both changes were applied retroactively to 2025 data so year-over-year comparisons remain valid.

1. Engagement: The previous formula divided views by subscribers and years active, which restated the work age was already doing in the momentum calculation. The fix: engagement is now simply:
   log₁₀(Views / Subscribers).
   Cleaner, and fairer to channels that have been building for a long time.

2. Gravitas: The old formula capped out after three years of channel history, meaning a channel with three years of track record was treated identically to one with fifteen. The new formula adds a logarithmic tail:
   min(Y/3, 1) + 0.2 · log₁₀(max(Y−3, 0) + 1)
   So, legacy channels continue to accrue a modest, if diminishing benefit for their sustained presence and without a ceiling.

Both changes are documented in full on the methodology page.

A note on comparability: 29 of the 43 channels have comparable 2025 data under the revised formula. The other 14, mostly new entrants or channels with estimated figures, show “—” for their 2025 index and delta. That limits what we can observe about year-over-year movement for roughly a third of the dataset. However, the purpose of the database is not a snapshot

Fighting for the Faith: Still #1, But Sliding

Fighting for the Faith holds the top position at 223.4, but the year-over-year story is more complicated than the rank suggests. A drop of −36.1, from 259.6 to 223.4, is the steepest fall in the entire top ten. It remains the dominant channel by raw scale (109,000 subscribers, 23.5 million lifetime views), and nothing else is close to it at #1. But momentum is clearly softening relative to a year ago.

The Big Move: On The Line’s +100.3

Nothing else in the dataset compares to On The Line this year. Its index jumped from 92.3 to 192.6, a +100.3 gain that is, by a wide margin, the largest delta in the entire dataset. The driver is momentum: nearly 20,000 new subscribers in the past year, which is the highest raw growth figure of any channel tracked here. A year ago (using the new methodology), On The Line sat below the median. Now it’s third overall, and closing in on the channels above it.

Lutheran Satire Slips

Lutheran Satire falls from 220.7 to 199.3, a −21.5 swing. It holds #2 and remains well above the median, but paired with Fighting for the Faith’s decline, the top of the table is compressing. Genuine competition is emerging at the top of the table.

The Stable Middle

The narrative below the top three is largely positive. Jordan Cooper is flat at 176.2, essentially unchanged, which is a strong result for a channel already operating well above the median. Jonathan Fisk (+4.4), Bryan Wolfmueller (+3.2), Higher Things (+7.7), Lutheran Warbler (+8.1), Chad Bird (+2.1), and CPH (+7.5) all post gains. The top ten, other than the two at the very top, are moving upward across the board.

Further down, notable climbers include Unite Leadership Collective (+18.2, now at #20), Kelsi Klembara (+19.6, now at #28), and Tyrell Bramwell (+8.2). The broad picture below the top two shows a healthy, growing ecosystem.

New Entries

Fourteen channels join the index for the first time in 2026, including Lutheran Kantor Project (#36), Men Who Understood the Times (#43), Banned Books (#33), and Issues Etc. (#32). New entrants can’t be compared year-over-year, but their 2026 scores establish a baseline for next year’s update.

The Cloud, flagged in earlier coverage for its anomalously high raw engagement ratio, comes in at #40 with an index of 56.7. The rescoring confirms that “The gravitas adjustment” did its intended work. Although The Cloud’s engagement signal is real, a channel launched in March 2025 with 150 subscribers hasn’t yet earned a high composite ranking.

The Media Matrix

The Media Matrix maps 31 Lutheran-adjacent news and commentary outlets across print, digital, radio, podcast, blog, and journal formats, serving as a companion to the channel rankings for understanding the broader Lutheran media landscape.

Note: Chad Bird has been removed from the rankings because he has further disqualified himself from consideration as a trustworthy Lutheran YouTuber/content creator.

Whenever we have the chance to visit Europe, I end up marveling that the people could have become so secular while their churches are utterly exquisite. This dreadful contrast is so saddening. Then my second thought is that the stones indeed cry out when these have become silenced. By contrast, our churches in the US are pretty bland for the most part, and much as I hate to admit it, a banner does not go nearly far enough to beautify our sacred spaces. It’s one of the reasons the window clings are my favorite part of the business: they give a more permanent sense of meaning to the church building. I wish our churches had the budgets to create and harbor the beauty that our European forebears did so many hundreds of years ago.

All good Lutherans know our history with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer who agreed on so many points with Dr Luther, but could not accept the real presence, and for this reason, we would not be in fellowship with him. Zwingli’s church is the Wasserkirche on the Limmat River in Zürich. If you go below into the crypt you will find a statue dated to around 1300 of Charlemagne. It makes history come alive, especially when traveling with one’s homeschool children.

Another church I enjoy visiting in Zurich is the Grossmunster Cathedral. It has used thinly sliced agate for light around the doors, the light shines through the stone, bringing an ephemeral hue to the inside of the church. The doors of this church are fascinating, I wish I had traveled with a step ladder, so that I could get a better look at the images higher up, but alas, ladders don’t fit in my luggage. This church was built around the 12th century AD, and is also Calvinist.

Across the river are two more beautiful churches, the Fraumünster Church which quite a few thousand of our customers have given greeting cards depicting. We photographed the spire in 2013 and used it for a condolence card when we launched Ad Crucem.

These beauties are all in the tourist district and probably get hundreds of visitors a day. But high above the bustle of the city, on a quieter road, lies my very favorite church. Few tourists know of it, as it sits as a silent witness to a disinterested people. The Liebfrauenkirche is a 19th century delight. I visit there to read my bible and marvel at the murals. My photos don’t do this beautiful church justice. My hope is that someday we will have the ability to make our churches as beautiful as these, while keeping our lights shining and our wicks trimmed.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

The verse appears in LCMS convention essays, pastoral columns, lay empowerment literature, house organs, and synodical teaching with remarkable regularity. It is deployed to affirm the priesthood of all believers and to justify functionally repositioning possession of the Keys to the laity. Within that transfer, the laity is exhorted to “speak the Gospel and forgiveness in their daily vocations”, thereby cloaking themselves with an authority that should belong exclusively to pastors.

The typical presentation quotes Luther and C.F.W. Walther at length, celebrates the spiritual priesthood, and urges the baptized to exercise that priestly identity. As pastoral encouragement, this is unobjectionable. As theology, it needs more attention, because 1 Peter 2:9 has quite a career in the LCMS and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). The time and distance between what Peter wrote and what Missouri has made of it have produced many unintended consequences.

Peering into Peter’s Paper

Peter’s “royal priesthood” is not an ecclesiological statement or position about church governance. Nor is it a statement about who holds the Keys, or how ministerial authority is distributed, or what laypeople may do in relation to the pastoral office. It is simply and only a declaration of identity and vocation: baptized Christians are a priestly people insofar as their lives are informed and characterized by sacrifice, prayer, proclamation, and the bearing of God’s gifts and promises into a watching, but cynical and hostile world. The passage calls Christians to be something (a people set apart for sacrificial living), not to possess something in competition with or as a check upon the pastoral office.

This distinction is critical because the LCMS has appropriated Peter’s language for purposes the Sainted Apostle never had in mind. When the text is read as Peter wrote it, the royal priesthood is a call to live as sincere Christians. However, when the text is read as Walther deployed it, the royal priesthood becomes a thinly constructed argument about the what, where, why, and how of ecclesiastical authority. Both versions contain truth, but they are not the same reading.

The Stephan Crisis

Every LCMS seminary student knows the outline of the Martin Stephan affair (excuse the pun). However, the implications of that scandal for the Synod’s theology of ministry are less well known or considered.

In 1838, Martin Stephan led roughly 700 Saxon Lutherans from Dresden to Missouri. Stephan had cultivated an almost episcopal authority over the group during years of leadership of the conventicle in Saxony, and he was formally invested as bishop aboard the ship Olbers on January 14, 1839, and a “Pledge of Subjection” was signed on the riverboat Selma on February 16. However, within months, he was removed for sexual misconduct and financial impropriety (there is reason to be cautious about all the tawdry details).1 He was deposed on May 30, 1839, and involuntarily shipped across the Mississippi the following day to live in exile in Illinois, dropped at a rock formation known as Devil’s Bake Oven in Grand Tower.2 Stephan spent his final four months of life as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Red Bud, Illinois, where he was greatly beloved by his congregation.3

Running Stephan out of Perry County created an ecclesiological emergency for the Saxon immigrants. Whether intentionally or not, Stephan’s charisma had concentrated the colony’s churchly identity in his person and office. So, if the legitimacy of their church depended on their bishop, and the bishop was a fraud, were they even or ever a church at all? Were their sacraments valid? Was their confession and absolution worth anything? Had their pastors been legitimately called? The transplanted Lutherans had to confront the reality that their pied piper was apparently a wolf who led them (their womenfolk, especially) into the wilderness to be devoured. Indeed, some go so far as to say Stephan was a cult leader.

A Lawyer’s Brief

It was not C.F.W. Walther who first proposed the ecclesiological solution that would become Missouri’s signature doctrine. It was a lawyer.

Dr. Carl Eduard Vehse was the former curator of the Saxon State Archive in Dresden. As such, he was a highly influential layman among the immigrants because of his legal training and expertise in archival research. On August 5, 1839, barely two months after Stephan’s deposition, Vehse submitted a set of six propositions to Pastor O.H. Walther (C.F.W.’s older brother). The propositions asserted the Lutheran doctrine of the universal priesthood of all believers and argued that the office of the ministry was merely a public service, valid only when committed to an individual by a congregation.4

The clergy resisted. They warned the St. Louis congregation against those “who would unfairly abuse this declaration in order to discredit our office, maliciously sow the seeds of distrust against us, and bring about dissension and offense in the congregation.”5 C.F.W. Walther himself was among those who resisted Vehse “most vigorously.”6

Vehse was undeterred. On September 19, 1839, he and two other laymen, Fischer and Jaeckel, submitted a formal, detailed protest comprising three chapters.7 It maintained a firm juxtaposition between the laity and the clergy, asserted the congregation's rights over those of the clergy, and declared the congregation's supremacy. Their claims were based, as John C. Wohlrabe, Jr. documented in Concordia Theological Quarterly, “primarily upon the earlier statements of Luther concerning the priesthood of all believers.”8 At Stephan’s own suggestion, these laymen had studied Luther’s writings for years while still in Germany, and “their knowledge of Luther’s writings was astonishing.”9

Vehse returned to Germany, departing on December 16, 1839. However, his brother-in-law, Franz Adolph Marbach, continued pressing the lay delegation’s case, eventually issuing a manifesto in March 1841 declaring the colony’s entire church polity sinful! The situation was deteriorating rapidly. Carl S. Mundinger’s analysis: “At the end of March 1841 the whole colony was fast approaching a state of complete disintegration.”10

C.F.W. Walther resolved the crisis via the Altenburg Debate of April 1841. He grounded the Church’s existence not in the office-holder but in the collection of believers who possess the Word and Sacraments. The Keys belong to the Church (Gemeinde), and the Church essentially runs a lending library for the Keys, handing them over to their rightly called and ordained pastors upon arrival, and taking them back into stock when they leave. That allowed the Saxon immigrants to remain a “true church” in spite of Stephan’s womanizing and fraud.

To be sure, this was a piece of brilliant pastoral theology and ecclesiological maneuver. But here is the critical fact that standard LCMS accounts routinely understate: Walther’s Altenburg position was substantially Vehse’s position. Walther himself acknowledged this with startling candor:

“With deep gratitude I must here recall that document which, now almost a year and a half ago, Doctor Vehse, Mr. Fischer, and Mr. Jaeckel addressed to us. It was this document, in particular, which gave us a powerful impulse to recognize the remaining corruption more and more, and to endeavor to remove it. Without this document—I now confess it with a living conviction—we might have for a long time pursued our way of error, from which we now have made our escape.”

— C.F.W. Walther, as recorded by J.F. Koestering; translation by P.E. Kretzmann in Concordia Theological Monthly XI, 169ff. See also A. Baepler, A Century of Grace (CPH, 1947), 47–48.11

It is a rather incredible statement. Walther says that without the Vehse protest, the clergy “might have for a long time pursued our way of error.” So, it’s not a minor intellectual debt. The Church-possession thesis that became the foundation of LCMS ecclesiology was not the product of intense research, study, and wrestling by a theologian, but rather the protest brief of a lawyer who felt the clergy had failed the laity and argued his case on a narrow recasting of the priesthood of all believers.

Philosopher’s Shadow

Where did Vehse get his ideas? Standard LCMS lore treats his propositions as though they sprang fully formed from Luther’s writings. They did not. As Rev. Dr. David Scaer of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, has noted, Vehse’s position has its intellectual origins in Friedrich Schleiermacher.12

Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the “Father of Modern Liberal Theology,” grounded theology not in divine revelation or institution but in the religious consciousness of the community. Applied to the ministry, this meant that the Church does not receive a divinely instituted Office from above. Rather, the community generates its own leadership structures from below, out of ‘practical necessity’. Schleiermacher explicitly advocated a form of “transference theory”: offices derive “solely from the whole body,” and the formation of clergy into a self-propagating corporation “has no Scriptural basis of any kind.”13 He gave “to every Christian the right of leadership” and insisted that only when “the religious consciousness of the people is left unfettered can the ministry of the church flourish.”14

This framework was taken up by J.W.F. Höfling at the University of Erlangen and applied specifically to Lutheran ecclesiology. Höfling argued that the pastoral office was not divinely instituted but was merely a human, churchly arrangement for maintaining good order. The community creates the office; the office serves at the community’s pleasure. William Weinrich explicitly links Vehse and Höfling as holding the same functional position: both “claimed that the pastoral office was of a human churchly institution in order to maintain good order in the church.”15

Vehse’s August 1839 propositions make precisely Höfling’s argument: the ministry is “only a public service” valid only when committed to an individual by a congregation. In other words, the intellectual pipeline is transparent from Schleiermacher to Erlangen to Höfling to Vehse to Walther to the LCMS, with each stage translating the same basic idea: ministry as a community function, not a divine institution, and laundered through confessional proof-texts.

The irony for the LCMS is significant. Walther’s second thesis on the Ministry in Church and Office, “the preaching office or pastoral office is not a human ordinance, but an office established by God himself”16, was written against Höfling and Vehse. But the Church-possession side of Walther’s synthesis, the side that Walther adopted from Vehse, has in practice swallowed the divine-institution side that Walther wrote against Vehse. The denomination ended up operationally where Schleiermacher’s theology of community consciousness would predict, while officially confessing the opposite. That has manifested negatively in dozens of ways, and we will cover some of them in part II.

The Office of Instability

Walther knew he could not leave the argument in Altenburg. In Church and Office of the Ministry,17 the theses on the Church’s possession of the Keys are systematically paired with theses on the divine institution of the pastoral office to produce an attempted synthesis. That structure is intentional, matching the belief that believers hold the Keys with the Ministry theses that establish that Christ instituted a distinct office for their public administration. It was a clever design because neither was subordinate nor superior to the other. If you remove or over-emphasize just one of the pairings, you risk clericalism or congregationalism.

Walther found a way to keep the Saxon peasants upright on their horses and to note the ditches they might fall into on either side, echoing Luther.18

The problem is that the two sets of theses have different origin stories: the Church-possession side from Vehse’s protest (which traces back to Schleiermacher via the Erlangen school) and the Office of the Holy Ministry from eternal Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.19 Consequently, Walther’s professional career was overwhelmingly concerned with the question of who possessed the Keys. To be fair, without his formulation, there would be no Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Nevertheless, the result is that LCMS clergy and laity have struggled not to fall into Walther’s ditches. So, we witness the Synod’s persistent frictions over lay ministry, licensed deacons, alternate track pastors, and the hard boundaries of the preaching office. Cameron A. MacKenzie is careful to note that “we cannot press Walther’s congregationalism into a New England mold. His concern was to insist upon the means of grace as the marks of the church and not to restrict the church to some outward form.”20 But whether Missouri heard that nuance or heard only the Vehse-derived emphasis on lay authority is another matter entirely.

Walther wasn’t necessarily wrong, but something has gone awry in treating his splitting of the baby as birthing a divine and eternal constitution for congregations. As with all constitutions, they are subject to very selective quotation and gerrymandering.

In Part II, we will examine what the “royal priesthood” doctrine actually seems to produce when it is detached from St. Peter’s meaning and deployed as an ecclesiological argument in ordinary congregational life, including the Synod’s persistent confusion about the distinction between the mutual consolation of the brethren and the authoritative absolution of a called and ordained pastor

• Idea for article: Senior Teacher of the Lutheran Church “A”

• Historical lineage clarification: Senior Teacher of the Lutheran Church “B”

• Source development and research: Anthropic Opus 4.6

• Cover illustration: ChatGPT

Most congregations have no systematic way to answer the question about what their real state of non-spiritual affairs is.

They might have a general sense; attendance is up, or the boiler is old, or giving has softened, but that sense is impressionistic. It lives in the treasurer’s head, or in the pastor’s instincts, or in the unspoken concern of a board member who keeps raising the same agenda item. What congregations rarely have is a structured, documented, scored picture of their own organizational health.

That gap is the problem EcclesiaPulse was built to address.

What It Is

EcclesiaPulse is a church vitality and sustainability assessment platform developed by Ad Crucem. It evaluates 81 questions across seven dimensions of organizational health, scored on a 1–5 scale and aggregated into a weighted composite grade from A through F. The seven categories are:

1. Policies & Controls,

2. Human Resources,

3. Governance,

4. Financial Status,

5. Facilities,

6. Membership, and

7. Demographics & Community.

The framework is deliberately organizational, not spiritual. EcclesiaPulse does not claim to measure the health of a congregation’s faith. It measures the systems, structures, and processes on which a ministry depends for its continuity. A church can be theologically orthodox and administratively failing simultaneously. That distinction matters, both for honest diagnosis and for honest remedy.

What It Covers

The grading thresholds are not arbitrary:

• A (85–100%): Healthy, with sustainable trajectory for a decade or more.

• B (70–84%): Functional, but some controls are absent, or stress is emerging.

• C (60–69%): Distress is affecting operations. Risk of failure within ten years.

• D (50–59%): Month-to-month survival mode. Rising risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.

• E (40–49%): High dissolution risk. Week-to-week. Fiduciary exposure is substantial.

• F (0–39%): Failed or imminent failure. Extreme risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Those lower thresholds are not alarmist, calibrated descriptions of what institutional failure looks like from the inside, familiar to anyone who has served on a struggling church council, or watched a 100-year-old congregation falter when it should not have.

The financial controls category alone covers expenditure approval, monthly bank reconciliation, independent audits, tax compliance, and fraud prevention — fifteen questions that most church boards have never systematically worked through together. The governance category examines whether constitutions and bylaws are current, whether congregational meetings are properly noticed, and whether safe-conduct policies with background checks are in place. These are not optional nice-to-haves. They are the minimum infrastructure of a functioning institution.

The Composite Scoring Model

One of the more considered design choices in EcclesiaPulse is its composite scoring approach. The assessment is designed to be completed independently by multiple officers (pastor, treasurer, council president, board members) and the platform aggregates their responses into a single composite score for an institution. A solo self-assessment by any individual officer reflects that person’s vantage point and blind spots. A composite score from, say, five independent submissions reflects the institution’s actual condition more accurately than any one of them can.

The audit trail feature, logging all score adjustments with timestamps, original values, and stated reasons, is the kind of accountability mechanism that separates serious institutional tools from survey platforms dressed up as assessments.

Who Should Use It

The platform is applicable beyond the local congregation. It is equally designed for seminaries, district and synodical offices, mission organizations, and other religious non-profit ministries. Any institution with governance obligations, financial controls requirements, and a membership or constituency it is accountable to will find the framework applicable.

The assessment takes 30 to 45 minutes. Results are immediate.

An Invitation

If you serve your congregation as an officer, treasurer, or council member, or if you lead any religious non-profit institution, you’re encouraged to take the assessment. Not because the results will necessarily be alarming, but because the act of working through 81 structured questions can be clarifying. It forces the kind of honest institutional stocktaking that busy ministry leadership rarely creates space for.

If you find your church scores in the A or B range, that is useful information. If it scores in the D or E range, that's important information, and now you have a documented, category-by-category picture of where to direct remedial attention.

You can begin the free assessment at ecclesiapulse.com.

The distinction is not academic; it is the line between tax compliance and a potentially serious tax liability.

At an LCMS congregation in Maryland, a guest organization (an independent, non-denominational Pentecostal church with a different confession of faith) makes regular, predictable financial payments to the host congregation. These payments appear to be substantial as a proportion of overall income.

What makes this arrangement alarming is that guest congregation payments arrive in numbered giving envelopes. There is no exchange of invoices; only numbered giving envelopes, identical to those issued exclusively to individual members of the LCMS congregation for tracking their charitable donations. The guest church receives its own numbered envelope box (No. 97 in this particular year) each year, placed alongside the individual congregants’ boxes in the narthex for direct pickup. Members, including the guest congregation, receive separate annual statements of account recording their annual giving via the envelopes.

The question to be resolved is the purpose of the payment mechanism.

Classification Matters

Under the Internal Revenue Code, the distinction between a donation and a business payment is a substantive matter that churches game at their peril. For example, a congregation in the Denver area failed to pay taxes on income received from renting out its facilities to a third party. When the IRS found out, the building had to be sold to pay the outstanding taxes, penalties, and fines. The congregation no longer exists and was unable to hold a final service to deconsecrate its building because control had effectively shifted to its insurer, which barred access before the service.

A donation or gift, under common law and IRS precedent, is a voluntary, spontaneous transfer made out of “detached and disinterested generosity” (Commissioner v. Duberstein, 363 U.S. 278, 1960). It is not made in exchange for goods, services, or access, and it must not carry an expectation of a quid pro quo.

A rent payment is a regular, predictable remittance made in exchange for the use of property. When the payor receives designated space, scheduled access, storage, equipment use, and other facilities in return, the payment is rent, regardless of what the parties choose to call it.

The guest congregation at this LCMS church receives use of the sanctuary, narthex, audio-visual equipment, musical instruments, storage areas, an office (which is locked and inaccessible to the host congregation’s own members), kitchen facilities, classrooms, and whiteboards. These accommodations are documented in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU itself describes the financial arrangement using the words “donations and tithes”. The language that would be unremarkable if the payments were genuinely charitable, but it may become evidence of deliberate misclassification when the payments appear to be a form of compensation for the use of property by the measures typically applied by the IRS.

A financial fraud investigation expert described the situation as, “It is basically compensation, disguised as charity.”

A Constitutional Impossibility

There is an additional problem that makes the “donation” characterization not merely implausible but constitutionally impossible.

The LCMS congregation’s own governing documents restrict membership to natural persons. Corporate entities, including other churches, non-profits, Boy Scouts, sports leagues, etc., are not eligible to be members of the congregation. Only individual members are issued numbered giving envelopes, because only individual members as natural persons can make tax-deductible charitable contributions that the congregation tracks and acknowledges for tax purposes.

The guest church, as previously noted, is a separately incorporated religious organization that the LCMS congregation also treats as a “mission” it sponsors (yet which gives money to the LCMS congregation…). It is not a member, and it cannot be a member by any definition or creative construction. And, yet, it has been issued the very instrument, a numbered giving envelope, that declares to the IRS and real members that it is a bona fide member. The arrangement treats a corporate entity as if it were a congregant dropping an offering in the plate, when in fact it is a tenant paying rent for the use of a facility.

This is not a gray area. A corporate entity that cannot constitutionally be a member cannot constitutionally make a “donation” that is tracked and processed through the same system used for members’ charitable gifts. The congregation has forced a square peg into a round hole, and the reason seems obvious: calling it a “donation” is mutually beneficial.

Who Benefits from a Misclassification?

It is difficult to place the best construction on the arrangement as an innocent or convenient bookkeeping choice. In our opinion, it resembles a cooperative arrangement that may result in potentially improper tax benefits for both organizations.

For the guest church, classifying its rent payments as “donations” to a 501(c)(3) entity may allow it to present those payments to its own congregants as charitable giving rather than as an overhead cost. The question of how the guest congregation classifies these transactions on its own books remains unanswered.

For the host LCMS congregation, classifying the payments as “donations” allows it to avoid reporting the income as Unrelated Business Taxable Income (UBTI) under IRC § 512. Churches are generally exempt from federal income tax under IRC § 501(c)(3), but they are not exempt from tax on unrelated business income. Rental income from the regular use of church property by an outside organization is a textbook UBTI trigger, particularly when the arrangement involves designated space, scheduled access, and ongoing services.

Further, as whistleblower X pointed out to congregational leadership, a church may be required to pay income tax on the rental of personal property (chairs, tables, any type of mobile equipment) when the income exceeds $1,000 during any given year. X specifically cited the requisite IRS Form 990-T being used to report that income.

An additional warning X repeatedly emphasized was the issue of Private Inurement. X warned that if a group or individual renting the building is considered a disqualified person by the IRS, the church could face an excise tax of up to 225% of the benefit's value. A disqualified person is “any individual who was in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the applicable tax-exempt organization. Family members of the disqualified person and entities controlled by the disqualified person are also disqualified person.”

Therefore, X warned that a disqualified person could include someone with a financial interest who is renting the facility. The guest congregation has significant influence over the LCMS congregation: they are free to come and go at any time, and are often present during host congregation activities, as personal witnesses have observed. Most of the guest congregation’s requests are approved by the LCMS leaders, as shown in the minutes of the Trustee Meetings. The host church members are told that because the guest congregants “clean the building,” the “sharing” arrangement is perfectly acceptable.

Unrelated Business Taxable Income

The host congregation’s Board of Trustees has reportedly asserted that rental income constitutes UBTI only when the underlying property is debt-financed. This is a misstatement of the law. While IRC § 514 does address debt-financed property specifically, the threshold question under § 512 is whether:

1. the income derives from a “trade or business”, and

2. that is “regularly carried on”, and

3. is “not substantially related” to the organization’s exempt purpose.

Regular rental of church facilities to a non-LCMS organization with a different confession easily meets all three tests.

IRS UBTI enforcement is neither rare nor gentle. When a tax-exempt organization fails to report unrelated business income, the resulting liability includes not only the unpaid tax but interest, penalties, and in egregious cases, potential revocation of tax-exempt status. For a congregation already operating with a significant funding gap and minimal reserves, an IRS assessment is likely to be existential.

A critical distinction that church leaders often misunderstand, and that the leadership at this congregation appears to misunderstand, is the difference between Form 990 and Form 990-T. LCMS congregations, as churches, are automatically exempt from filing the annual Form 990 informational return that other 501(c)(3) organizations must submit. This exemption is frequently, and incorrectly, taken to mean that churches have no federal filing obligations whatsoever. That is incorrect. When a church receives unrelated business taxable income (unrelated because the income is not generated in the ordinary course of the congregation’s established activities per its Constitution and Bylaws), it must file Form 990-T and pay the tax owed, regardless of its Form 990 exemption status. The two obligations are entirely independent.

The whistleblower made this exact point to the incoming pastor in 2023, explaining that while the congregation was exempt from Form 990, it remained obligated to report and pay taxes on any unrelated business income. The warning was ignored. If the congregation has been receiving what amounts to rental income for years without filing Form 990-T, each unfiled year constitutes a separate compliance failure, carrying its own penalties and interest.

A Suppressed Review?

In February 2025, a qualified CPA was engaged to conduct a financial review of the congregation’s books. There is no apparent evidence that an engagement letter was signed, and the review was never completed. Credible accounts indicate the CPA’s work was not completed under circumstances suggesting it may have been obstructed by congregational leadership.

It is difficult to avoid the inference that the suppression of the CPA review is connected to the UBTI exposure. In our opinion, a professional financial review would immediately identify the misclassification of rental income as charitable donations. It would likely identify the numbered-envelope system as the mechanism behind that misclassification. And it would probably identify the congregation’s failure to file Form 990-T (the return for unrelated business income) as a compliance failure with potentially severe consequences: the congregation owns a property appraised at approximately $2.3 million, with no remaining mortgage. That is the asset the IRS would look to if the tax bill comes due.

Looking Ahead

The path forward is not complicated, but it requires honesty that has been absent thus far.

The congregation should obtain a thoroughly independent professional determination of whether the payments from the guest church constitute rent or donations under applicable IRS standards. Given the regularity of the payments, the quid pro quo of facility access, the MOU’s own terms (not least the guest congregation using the church address as its legal domicile on all regulatory filings), and the constitutional impossibility of a corporate entity making a “donation” through the membership envelope system, the answer seems clear.

If the payments are rent, the congregation must file amended Form 990-T returns for all open tax years, report the income, and pay the tax owed. It should engage qualified tax counsel immediately to negotiate a voluntary disclosure with the IRS before the agency discovers the problem on its own, which is highly probable given a recent immigration incident involving the guest congregation. Voluntary disclosure is treated far more favorably than discovery during an audit, as X has repeatedly underscored to leadership over the past several years.

Given the District President's constitutional supervisory authority over the congregation, these questions should have been asked and answered long ago. “The orderly and faithful processes the Church has established” do not include a process for ignoring federal tax law. That said, the pastor and officers of the congregation are the first point of responsibility.

Ad Crucem’s is not made of ivory or gold, but of solid American black walnut protected in a satin-lined royal blue velvet bag made by our seamstress, Tori.

The very first completed Evangeliary, after many prototypes, is now in the hands of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Tomah, WI.

Two Leaves, Hinged

The Ad Crucem Evangeliary is two leaves of 12” x 15” solid American black walnut, joined by a hinge that opens it like a book. But it is a working evangeliary, not merely a decorative cover or ornamental piece. The interior uses a post-and-screw binding system that holds legal-size (8.5” x 14”) folders, allowing the readings appointed for the day to be swapped in and out throughout the church year. The legal-size format means the text is set large and easy to read, from the lectern or in the aisle of the nave, at arm’s length, without strain.

Because this is an evangeliary and not a gospel book, the readings change. The folders can be prepared for each Sunday, each feast, each season. The very first gospel book completed contains the readings for Palmarum (Palm Sunday) and the Palm Procession, a fitting festival for its inauguration.

The form itself is deliberately simple, but there are dozens of hours of machine-milled and hand-finished detail.

The Process

Each evangeliary begins as a drawing and becomes a digital design. That design is transformed into a 3-D model, which is then converted into toolpaths for CNC milling. For this evangeliary, the customer chose “rounded” ornamentation for the front.

The mill does the rough work: cutting the relief, establishing the forms, carving the lettering, but that is only the beginning. What comes off the machine is precise but a little lifeless, even after 32 hours of machining from rough cuts to ultra-fine final milling.

The life comes from what happens next. Every carved surface is carefully hand-sanded to remove burrs and achieve a smooth-to-the-touch finish. Paint is applied to v-carve milling, worked into the recesses of the relief, and built up in thin layers. The figures take on depth and character that no machine can produce on its own. The walnut is oiled and brought to a soft luster that shows enough grain without overwhelming the carving. The result is a unique partnership of precision machining and patient handwork.

It would be appropriate to label it as American religious folk art. It is not trying to replicate a medieval reliquary, nor is it trying to be something made in a German woodshop five centuries ago. It is made in Littleton, CO, on demand with the tools and local materials we have, in a unique tradition we are trying to fashion rather than merely imitate.

The Front Cover: The Lamb and the Four Evangelists

The front cover bears the Agnus Dei Victorious at its center, the Lamb of God, standing and triumphant, carrying the banner of the resurrection. This is not the slain lamb of sacrifice alone but the lamb who has conquered death, the image drawn from Revelation: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.” At the end of this Holy Week, we will indeed celebrate the worthy Lamb who atoned for the sins of the whole world.

Surrounding the Agnus Dei are the four evangelists, represented by their traditional symbols drawn from Ezekiel’s vision and the Revelation of St. John.

• Matthew: Represented by the Man (or angel), signifying Jesus as the teacher and human son of David.

• Mark: Represented by the Lion, symbolizing the voice crying in the wilderness and the resurrection.

• Luke: Represented by the Ox (or calf), indicating Jesus as the sacrificial bearer of burdens.

• John: Represented by the Eagle, denoting the high-flying theological discourse on the Word of God.

These four figures have surrounded the Gospel text in Christian art for well over a thousand years. Placing them here, around the Lamb, is not an innovation, but a continuation of the traditions of the historic and ancient Christian church. The arrangement of the evangelists is also consistent with tradition since St. Jerome.

Inside: The Crucifix and the Inscription

Opening the evangeliary reveals two interior panels. The inside of the front cover bears a crucifix (designed by Lutheran artist Ed Riojas) printed on white acrylic and inset into the wood, with the text of Zechariah 13:1 — “On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” It is a passage that points forward from the Old Testament prophets to the cross, connecting the promise to its fulfillment.

As the Gospel Reading for the day is delivered to the parishioners, the pastor is aware at all times whose atonement made the good news possible and effective.

The inside of the back cover is reserved for a custom inscription. Each evangeliary can be lettered to memorialize a gift; the name of a donor, a parish, a loved one, or an occasion. This is a subtle recognition of a specific act of generosity or remembrance.

The Back Cover: Tau Rho Nika

The back cover carries one of the oldest Christian symbols in existence, older, in fact, than the more familiar Chi-Rho. The Tau-Rho, or staurogram, superimposes the Greek letters tau (Τ) and rho (Ρ) to form a shorthand for the Greek word stauros — cross. Visually, the loop of the rho sitting atop the vertical stroke of the tau has long been read as a pictograph: the head of Christ on the cross. It is a symbol that is both an abbreviation and an image.

Above the staurogram sits the letter N, shorthand for the Greek word Nika, “conquers” or “victory.” Together, the composition translates simply: Christ’s cross conquered sin.

The staurogram is carved with a 120-degree V-bit to accentuate the depth and beautiful shape, and painted in iridescent gold, which contrasts beautifully against the dark walnut. The border is painted in iridescent silver, offsetting the gold and giving the panel a balanced frame.

A One-of-a-Kind Piece

Each evangeliary is unique. The combination of CNC milling and hand finishing means that no two will ever be exactly alike, even if a design is closely repeated. The grain of the walnut in each piece of wood is like a human fingerprint and is utterly unique. Using locally sourced materials and made in our Littleton, CO workshop, these are certainly not mass-produced devotional objects. They are only made on demand and in consultation with the buyer.

The Ad Crucem Evangeliary will be available for purchase after Easter. It is truly a worthy addition for your procession and altar.

Provisional pricing

As shown: $1000

• 12” wide x 15” tall x 1.55” thick, two hinged leaves.

• American walnut.

• Satin-lined velvet draw-string bag.

• Custom inscription.

• Hand-painted and sealed.

• Post and screw binding with 3 legal-size pockets (gospel readings not included).

• Customization available.

Laser cut and engraved: $700

• Agnus Dei and Four Evangelists laser cut and engraved on metallic gold and silver acrylic.

• 12” wide x 15” tall x 1.55” thick, two hinged leaves.

• American walnut.

• Satin-lined velvet draw-string bag.

• Custom inscription.

• Post and screw binding with 3 legal-size pockets (gospel readings not included).

• Customization available.

That, at least, is the theory. The practice, as it turns out, is something else entirely.

A member of a Maryland (LCMS Southeastern District (SED)) congregation, referred to hereafter as “X”, recently approached Ad Crucem News with a detailed set of governance and financial concerns about the member’s church. They are the kind of questions that any fiduciary, any treasurer, any congregational president, any pastor, any district official should welcome and be able to answer without hesitation, if the books are in order.

The questions revolve around compensation transparency, whether the congregation’s constitutional processes are being followed, financial arrangements with a building-sharing congregation of a different confession, and whether the math of the annual budgets adds up at all. It is not even clear whether the LCMS congregation holds a clear title to the property it has paid for. These are not accusations developed from personal grievance or professional ignorance. They are specific, documented, and grounded in the congregation’s own records, bylaws, and the basic governance standards applicable to any organization, but especially to a religious non-profit.

X has done everything by the book, raising concerns privately through the congregation’s authority and leadership channels. X sought reasonable answers from the people who are supposed to provide them, but received silence, deflection, ostracism, and shaming in return. Fellow congregants, some of whom have independently reached similar conclusions and some of whom have already departed in frustration, are willing to corroborate the complaints.

The picture that emerges is not of a minor bookkeeping error or an inconsequential administrative oversight, but of a persistent pattern of failure and concealment. The congregation has experienced an intensifying series of governance failures, including financial opacity, apparent constitutional noncompliance, and institutional self-dealing, that have deepened over the years.

Our analysis has identified over twenty critical governance discrepancies at this congregation, spanning financial, constitutional, pastoral, and regulatory domains. What follows is a summary of the six broadest categories; the granular evidence will be published in subsequent installments.

Silence Is the Loudest Noise

Ad Crucem News has been asked by concerned members of the Maryland congregation to look into these matters. In the interest of fairness, accuracy, and the Christian duty to hear all sides before drawing conclusions, we prepared tailored sets of questions and transmitted them to six individuals with direct knowledge of and responsibility for the congregation’s affairs:

1. the District President of the Southeastern District;

2. the congregation’s Pastor;

3. the current Congregational President;

4. a former Congregational President with longstanding involvement;

5. the current Treasurer; and

6. a former Treasurer who has attempted financial reforms.

We gave each recipient a week to respond and assured them that this inquiry is not adversarial. Their responses would help ensure that any reporting reflects the full picture and gives a fair hearing to all parties. Each was offered the option of responding by telephone if preferred.

Five of the six recipients have remained silent. No acknowledgment. No rebuttal. No explanation. No request for more time. Not one word.

The sixth, District President Harmon, has responded. His reply, reproduced in its entirety below, deserves careful reading.

This is a surprising response for someone who is constitutionally charged with supervising the congregations in his district, ensuring doctrinal fidelity and good order, and being the shepherd of shepherds. He does not say, “These are serious questions, and I will look into them. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He does not deny that problems exist. Instead, he “encourages” the congregation not to answer the questions. He then invokes “the orderly and faithful processes the Church has established”, but those are the very processes that have already failed to produce satisfactory or meaningful answers when pursued privately and through the commended channels.

Having failed to receive a substantive response from DP Harmon, X also contacted Synod President Matthew Harrison, as did others in the congregation. To date, X’s correspondence has never been acknowledged, nor have those of other members. The entire chain of ecclesiastical authority, from the congregation to the District to Synod Inc., has declined to engage with the matter, which is what led X to seek help elsewhere.

Readers of Ad Crucem News will recognize SED District President Rev. Dr. Bill Harmon’s name from the dispute that developed at another church in his district, Our Savior Lutheran Church and School (OSLCS) in Arlington, Virginia. That case involved a pastor who modeled a transgender stole in the chancel, a school that took first graders to an LGBTQ+ musical at the Kennedy Center, Islamic proselytization books in the school library, and the exclusion and retaliation against members who raised doctrinal objections through proper Matthew 18 channels. When four members submitted a formal investigation request to Harmon in May 2025, he spoke with the pastor and congregational leadership, but, according to the complainants, did not interview them. He closed the investigation in June 2025, declaring the pastor had “remained faithful to his ordination and installation vows.” The complainants maintain that this conclusion was reached without examining the evidence they had compiled.

Now, barely four months later, the pattern of response at another SED congregation looks similar.

The broader pattern is familiar to anyone who monitors institutional dysfunction across the LCMS. When the processes fail, the institution’s reflex is not to fix them but to insist, with an air of theatrical pastoral gravity, that everyone must continue using them because they are long-established and on the books. The fact that they produce no or limited accountability is treated not as evidence of failure but as evidence that the questioner lacks patience, piety, or charity.

We must gently note that the Scriptures do not share this confidence in process for its own sake. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16) is a results-oriented standard. It would be helpful if our doctrine of sin also had some purchase in our governance, which is why the foundations of the Synod’s governance approach need examination.

What the Questions Would Have Clarified

Since neither the congregation’s leadership nor the District President has chosen to address these matters privately, and since the “orderly and faithful processes” have thus far produced only silence, we will lay out, in broad terms, what our investigation has uncovered so far. The governance concerns at this congregation fall into several distinct but interlocking categories.

1. Financial Opacity

The congregation’s annual expenditures substantially exceed any plausible estimate of its members’ aggregate giving capacity. When one compares the total expense budget against the realistic ceiling of what a congregation of this size and demographic profile can generate through tithes and offerings, one is left with a large annual gap that must be financed from somewhere.

The balance sheets show no new debt. They show no significant drawdown of existing reserves. The money is coming from somewhere, and the most obvious source is the guest congregation that dominates use of the building. If that is the case, the scale of the contribution raises substantial questions about organizational independence and about whether the financial relationship has been properly disclosed and characterized.

2. Compensation Questions

Based on the congregation’s own budget documents, the pastor’s total compensation package accounts for over 50% of the congregation’s annual budget. According to the District’s published salary guidelines, his base salary appears to exceed the recommended range for a minister at his experience level, particularly given that he holds a Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) certification. By comparison, a sister LCMS congregation of similar size in the same area compensates its pastor, a man with substantially more experience who holds a certification for general ministry, at a considerably lower figure.

Based on available records, additional paid staff positions appear to have been created without the congregational approval required by the constitution. At least one of these positions is filled by a family member of existing leadership, and another by a family member of the pastor. These arrangements present conflicts of interest that standard nonprofit governance requires to be disclosed and managed, if not avoided entirely.

In aggregate, these are not isolated irregularities. They describe a congregation whose governance appears to have been captured by a small circle of individuals who have systematically insulated themselves from the constitutional checks the Voters’ Assembly is supposed to provide.

3. Constitutional Non-Compliance

The congregation’s governing documents require that officers be elected by the Voters’ Assembly for defined terms. Available evidence suggests that at least one officer has remained in his position beyond the expiration of his term without a new election, constituting a de facto self-reappointment. The office of Congregational President has turned over repeatedly under pressure, with at least two presidents resigning under circumstances connected to disputes with entrenched leadership. One individual has resumed the presidency multiple times, thereby concentrating authority that the Constitution is designed to prevent.

New positions and titles appear to have been created and filled without the constitutionally required vote of the congregation. The Voters’ Assembly, the body that under LCMS polity holds ultimate temporal authority in a congregation, has been effectively circumvented.

4. Pastoral Credential Questions

The pastor’s ordination pathway (Specific Ministry Pastor) includes specific restrictions, among them a requirement for ongoing supervisory oversight by a pastor holding full certification. Available information raises questions about whether these supervisory requirements are currently being met. The pastor was certified for limited ministry in another state, and it is not clear from the available records whether he was subsequently certified for general ministry as a sole senior pastor.

5. Building-Sharing Arrangement

The congregation shares its facilities with an independent religious entity under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The financial terms of this arrangement are opaque, and the visible terms heavily favor the guest congregation. Board of Trustees minutes confirm that a signed MOU has been returned, but the document itself has not been made available for inspection to the congregation at large. Moreover, the MOU does not appear to bear the signature of an authorized officer of the guest congregation, which raises questions about its legal validity.

If the guest organization’s financial contribution is as large as the funding gap analysis suggests, the arrangement may have crossed the line from a building-sharing agreement into something closer to a financial dependency. Such a relationship would raise questions under federal tax law, including whether revenues from the arrangement constitute unrelated business taxable income (UBTI) and whether the financial flows are being properly characterized and reported.

6. Syncretism and Unionism

LCMS Constitution Article VI prohibits member congregations from engaging in unionism and syncretism, that is, from sharing altar and pulpit fellowship, or participating in joint worship and ministry, with congregations or organizations that hold a different confession of faith.

The guest congregation is not an LCMS congregation. It is listed each week in the host congregation’s Sunday bulletin as “one of its missions.” However, it is conspicuously absent from the congregation’s website (which boasts many other missions). Alarmingly, the guest congregation lists the host church’s address as its legal domicile in state filings and other public documents. The guest congregation, by its own description, is an independent, non-denominational Pentecostal church committed to a different confession of faith.

When an LCMS congregation shares its facilities with a church of a different confession on a scale where the partner’s financial contribution and building occupancy dominate, the arrangement has moved well beyond a landlord-tenant or charitable “mission” relationship. At that level of interdependence, the question is no longer whether the two organizations are merely sharing a building, but whether they are functionally operating as a single ministry.

In that case, can the LCMS congregation’s confessional identity and operational independence be maintained in any meaningful sense?

What Comes Next

This is the first in a series of articles about this congregation, which, based on the evidence we have reviewed, appears to have been failed by its own leadership. We have documentation and corroborating witnesses. We have the congregation’s own financial records, board minutes, published bulletins, and constitutional documents. We have given every accountable party the opportunity to respond, and with the exception of the District President’s instruction not to engage, the uniform preference has been silence.

In subsequent articles, we will highlight where the congregation needs help to restore proper governance and control over its facilities. We do this not out of malice but out of the conviction that the Lutheran confessional tradition demands both grace and truth, and that truth does not become optional when it is inconvenient for the institution.

Our reporting on the OSLCS Arlington dispute ultimately brought a measure of justice and vindication for the whistleblowers, and some restoration of good order. Every institution that had the authority and the duty to act in that case failed to do so until the evidence was made public. The “orderly and faithful processes” did not work at OSLCS Arlington until the lights were turned on.

So, we are turning on the lights again. This time, the concerns are financial as well as doctrinal, and, in some respects, they may prove more serious: the arithmetic alone raises questions that, depending on what a closer examination reveals, could warrant forensic financial review.

The whistleblower, X, has done everything the church asks its members to do. X raised concerns. X went through channels. X sought a resolution privately. When that failed, X sought the counsel of the District President. When the DP declined to engage, X contacted the Synod President and then Ad Crucem News. Only Ad Crucem News responded and commenced a review of the evidence.

That is not good order. It is institutional indifference, and the members of this congregation deserve better.

If you are a member of an LCMS congregation experiencing similar governance concerns and similar institutional indifference, you are not alone. Ad Crucem News is easy to reach.

The indictment was returned under a new case number, United States v. Michael Mohr, No. 4:26 CR 74 MTS, replacing the earlier magistrate-level complaint (No. 4:26-MJ-3008-NCC). A discovery letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri was filed today, March 25, 2026 (Doc. #24), addressed to defense counsel John C. Schleiffarth.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jillian S. Anderson under the supervision of United States Attorney Thomas C. Albus.

Discovery Letter

The government has produced a substantial volume of evidence to the defense. The production spans dozens of files across multiple categories, including:

• Facebook screenshots from Mohr’s account.

• Official records and multiple photographic files (JPGs).

• Search warrant applications and returns for a property at 1005 N. 7th (both AO 106A and AO 93C forms).

• A warrant designated 26-mj-3007.

• Victim statements prepared for the detention hearing (redacted).

• Numerous PDFs, documents, and image files totaling a significant volume.

Beyond the raw evidence, the letter contains several disclosures that clarify the shape of the government’s case.

Disclosures

• Statements of the Defendant. The government confirms that it possesses and intends to utilize verbal statements made by Mohr. These statements are included in the Rule 16 discovery production.

• Physical Evidence. Items of physical evidence were seized from the defendant or his property at the time of his arrest.

• Other Crimes Evidence. The government has advised that it intends to introduce evidence of other crimes during its case-in-chief and will make this disclosure prior to trial. This is significant. It suggests the government believes Mohr’s conduct extends beyond the specific acts charged in the indictment, and that a pattern of behavior may be presented to the jury.

• No Electronic Surveillance. The government did not utilize consensual audio or video surveillance in the investigation underlying the charges.

• No Confidential Informants. No confidential informant was used in the investigation.

• No Post-Arrest Identification. The government is not aware of any post-arrest identification of the defendant.

• No Favorable Evidence. At present, the government states it does not possess favorable evidence for the defense beyond what has already been produced in discovery.

Procedural Milestone

The transition from criminal complaint to grand jury indictment is a procedural milestone. A grand jury has now reviewed the evidence and determined that there is probable cause to bring formal charges. This is not a trial verdict, but it represents an independent evaluation of the government’s case by a panel of citizens.

The disclosure that the government holds Mohr’s own verbal statements, combined with the physical evidence seized at his arrest and the intention to introduce evidence of other crimes, paints a picture of a prosecution that is building well beyond the original counts. The “other crimes” notice under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) is particularly noteworthy. It indicates the government may seek to establish a pattern of conduct, motive, or intent at trial.

The absence of electronic surveillance and confidential informants suggests that the government’s case rests primarily on physical and digital evidence recovered through search warrants, victim and witness accounts, and Mohr’s own words.

Timeline

• January 23-28, 2026: Dates of the alleged offense conduct, per the criminal complaint.

• January 28, 2026: Criminal complaint filed (No. 4:26-MJ-3008-NCC). Mohr arrested by federal agents. FBI Special Agent Trevor Welter signed the complaint under penalty of perjury. U.S. Magistrate Judge Noelle C. Collins presiding. Government files Motion for Pretrial Detention. Defense attorney John C. Schleiffarth enters appearance.

• January 28, 2026: LCMS Synod President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison issues first letter acknowledging Mohr’s arrest.

• January 29, 2026: Mohr waives his right to a detention hearing. Judge Collins grants the government’s motion and orders Mohr detained pending trial, finding no conditions of release that would reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant and the safety of the community. Harrison issues second letter with additional details, including the establishment of a CID reporting line monitored by Mrs. Rebekah Wendling (877-276-1740).

• February 9, 2026: Harrison reports visiting Mohr in federal custody. Harrison suspends Mohr from the Synod roster. Mohr agrees to resign permanently, removing himself from all LCMS ministerial roles and leadership positions, including CID president, Concordia Seminary regent, and associate pastor. Harrison confirms Mohr will never be eligible to regain roster status. First Vice President Michael Burdick assumes CID duties.

• March 25, 2026: Grand jury indictment returned under new case number 4:26 CR 74 MTS. Government files discovery letter (Doc. #24) disclosing the scope of evidence produced to the defense.

Charges and Allegations

As previously reported by Ad Crucem News, the criminal complaint alleges that federal agents executed court-authorized search warrants at Mohr’s residence in Springfield, Illinois, and at a residence he used in Vandalia. Storage devices recovered from the Springfield residence allegedly contained video recordings of three juveniles in a bathroom. At the Vandalia residence, investigators allegedly located concealed recording devices, including a camera disguised as a wall clock and another disguised as a Bluetooth speaker.

The investigation began after one of the juveniles reported to the Vandalia Police Department that he had discovered a concealed camera disguised as an electronic device charger in a hotel bathroom. The juvenile reported finding the device the morning after Mohr allegedly stood over him and masturbated.

The government alleges that the recordings were made without the juveniles’ knowledge or consent.

These allegations are set forth in the criminal complaint and supporting affidavit and have not yet been tested in court.

Restrictions

Restrictions imposed on Mohr relate specifically to the handling of evidence involving minors, mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 3509(d). The government requires that defense counsel, the defendant, and all persons hired by the defense must:

1. Keep all documents that disclose the name or any other information concerning a child in a secure place where no unauthorized person has access.

2. Only disclose such documents or information to persons who, by reason of their participation in the proceeding, have a reason to know.

Additionally, in compliance with federal law, no child pornography or sexually explicit material has been provided directly to the defense. If defense counsel wishes to view that evidence, they must contact AUSA Anderson to arrange a mutually agreeable time to examine it at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The letter also contains a series of reciprocal discovery demands on the defense under Rules 16 and 26 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The government requests that Mohr’s side provide access to any evidence, scientific test results, and expert testimony summaries the defense intends to introduce at trial. It further requests notice of any alibi defense under Rule 12.1, and disclosure of prior witness statements under Rule 613(a) if the defense plans to examine a witness about a prior statement.

No Guilt Established

An indictment is a formal charge. It does not establish guilt. Mohr is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Looking Ahead

The case now enters its pretrial phase. Motions practice, scheduling orders, and potential plea negotiations will follow. The government’s stated intention to introduce evidence of other crimes at trial, combined with the volume of digital and physical evidence already produced, suggests this prosecution is not narrowly drawn.

We will update as further court records become available.

Admission to the SMP program requires meeting several criteria established by the LCMS seminaries. The 2025 Pastoral Formation Committee (PFC) Policy Requirements codified and tightened these into formal policy. The current requirements, combining the seminary’s standing Admission Criteria with the 2025 policy update, are as follows:

Personal Eligibility Requirements

• LCMS membership (Policy Requirement 1): The candidate must have membership and significant service in an LCMS congregation for at least the last five years. (PFC Policy Req. 1; Admission Criteria)

• Congregational placement (Policy Requirement 2): The candidate must have membership in the congregation of placement, or a nearby congregation, for at least the last three years. (PFC Policy Req. 2; Admission Criteria)

• Minimum age (Policy Requirement 3): SMP applicants must be at least 40 years old.

  • This requirement was introduced by the 2025 PFC policy. The rationale (Premise 9) states that “the SMP program is more suitable for older men than for younger,” citing higher completion rates for men over 40 and arguing that a man who begins pastoral preparation before age 40 “is likely to be able to provide 30 years or more of full-time service to the broader church” and should therefore attend full-time residential seminary. (PFC Policy Req. 3 & Premise 9)

• COP waiver: Exceptions to Policy Requirements 1–3 (membership duration and minimum age) may be recommended to the admissions committees of the seminaries by the Council of Presidents (COP) after approval by a majority of the COP. (PFC Policy Document)

• Ministry context: The candidate must already be serving in a ministry of an LCMS congregation that has identified the need for a pastor and desires his service as a pastor.

  • Eligible contexts include congregations with a pastoral vacancy, congregations requiring an additional staff pastor, church plants, and specialized ministry positions such as institutional chaplaincy, campus ministry, or specific cultural/linguistic settings. (CSL Program Page)

• District President endorsement: The candidate must be nominated and endorsed for the program by his LCMS District President, who determines whether the context is suitable for a Specific Ministry Pastor. (SMP FAQs)

• Entry-level competence: Applicants must demonstrate entry-level competence in Old and New Testament content, Christian doctrine, worship, preaching, spiritual life, Christian witness, and teaching the faith. (Admission Criteria)

• Pastor-Mentor: The candidate must be under the supervision of an ordained LCMS pastor (who is not himself an SMP pastor) who will serve as his pastor-mentor throughout the course of study. (SMP Program Manual)

• Lutheran theological maturity (Premise 13): The PFC policy document states that “the SMP program is not designed to theologically re-wire recent Lutheran converts from non-Lutheran backgrounds; it is not sufficient for this purpose.” The SMP curriculum assumes a “firm and mature grasp of and commitment to basic Lutheran theology.” (PFC Policy Document, Premise 13)

Procedural and Institutional Requirements (2025 Policy)

The 2025 policy also introduced requirements governing how the admission process is conducted:

• Seminary consultation first (Policy Requirement 4): Prospective SMP applicants must be directed from the beginning of the process to seminary admissions counselors for clarification regarding the nature of the program and for exploration of the possibilities of residential seminary study.

  • A campus visit to one of the LCMS seminaries is strongly encouraged.

  • Congregations should not vote to approve a man for SMP service before he has confirmed his willingness to enter the SMP program after consultation with one or both seminaries. (PFC Policy Req. 4)

• Doctrinal affirmation (Policy Requirement 5): Congregations and supervising pastors under which SMP students will learn must affirm their ready willingness to teach and practice according to the Synod’s doctrines and resolutions. (PFC Policy Req. 5)

• Priority admissions (Policy Requirement 6): Seminary admissions will give priority to SMP applicants who will serve congregations that could not otherwise receive Word and Sacrament ministry. (PFC Policy Req. 6)

• Funding commitment (Policy Requirement 7): Congregations and districts should pledge themselves to be responsible for the funding of the student’s program (if feasible) to create a clear sense of their involvement, a fully considered commitment, and a valuing of the SMP pastor’s program of study and service. (PFC Policy Req. 7)

The Educational Pathway

The SMP curriculum is 16 courses, delivered mostly online with twice-yearly residential intensives at one of the two seminaries. Students report weekly three-hour class sessions and two to three books per week. But it is roughly 40% of the residential M.Div. course load, and it does not include Greek or Hebrew. That absence matters—it is the single largest gap between SMP formation and the residential pathway, and it is the reason the GPC program demands Greek proficiency as a prerequisite.

1. Years 1–2 (Vicarage + First 9 Courses): After two years of vicarage and completion of the first nine courses, the seminary faculty certifies the student—a formal declaration that he is ready to receive a call. (CSL Program Page)

2. Ordination: Following certification, the student is eligible for ordination and receives a regular call, placed by the Council of Presidents into his specific Word and Sacrament ministry context. (SMP FAQs)

3. Years 3–4 (Remaining 7 Courses): He must complete the remaining courses to maintain his LCMS roster status as a Specific Ministry Pastor. (CSL Program Page)

Remaining an SMP Pastor

The Supervisory Leash

SMP pastors serve under a supervisory structure that does not expire. This is not a probationary period that ends when you prove yourself. It is permanent, and the 2025 PFC policy made it more so:

• Pastoral Supervisor: A non-SMP ordained pastor, appointed by the District President, supervises the SMP pastor throughout his entire career of ministry. (LCMS Reporter)

• District President oversight: He remains under the ongoing supervision of his District President. (Michigan Policy Manual)

• Formalized documentation (Policy Requirement 8): The 2025 policy requires that ongoing supervision be formalized, defined, documented on the LCMS Church Worker Locator and Pastoral Information Forms, and required for continued rostered SMP status. (PFC Policy Req. 8)

• Roster distinction: The LCMS roster permanently distinguishes between Specific Ministry Pastors and General (M.Div.) pastors. There is no mechanism by which faithful service, however long, automatically removes the designation. (SMP FAQs)

What an SMP Pastor Cannot Do

SMP pastors are fully ordained and can, therefore, preach, administer the Sacraments, and shepherd congregations. But their ministry is walled in:

• Locked to one context: An SMP pastor may serve only in the specific ministry context for which he was trained. He cannot accept a call to a different context without his District President’s approval and without a certification for general ministry. (SMP FAQs)

• Cannot oversee called workers: If his church grows and needs a DCE or a second pastor, he cannot bring one in and supervise them. As Frank Hart puts it: “I’d have to have like one of my real pastor buddies come in and do the call through their church.”

• Cannot mentor the next generation: An SMP pastor cannot serve as the pastor-mentor for another man going through the SMP program. Hart’s description is notable: “I’m like a mule. I can’t reproduce.” The admission criteria confirm that the mentor must be a non-SMP-ordained pastor.

• No synodical representation: SMP pastors cannot serve as the pastoral delegate to Synod convention, cannot serve as circuit visitor, and face limits on representing the ministerium.

• No expiration on any of the above: All the above restrictions remain in force indefinitely. (Unite Leadership)

The Escape Hatch: General Pastor Certification

The Synod’s answer for SMP pastors who want the restrictions removed is the SMP to General Pastor Certification (GPC) program at Concordia Seminary. It is also, by student accounts, prohibitively expensive and practically daunting for men who are already pastoring full-time:

• Admission: Good standing on the LCMS roster as an SMP pastor, a bachelor’s degree with a 2.5+ GPA, and an SMP Certificate of Completion with a 2.5+ GPA. (GPC Academic Catalog)

• Greek: You must pass the Greek Language Entry Level Competency Exam (score of 70+) or complete six semester hours of biblical Greek with a 3.0+ GPA. (GPC Program Page)

• Curriculum: An additional 28.5 credit hours (in addition to demonstrating Greek competency) are required for completion of the SMP-GPC program. Total credits earned between completion of the SMP program and the SMP-GPC program are 60.5 (https://www.csl.edu/academics/academic-catalog/)

• Cost: Hart reports over $20,000 with tuition assistance, over $40,000 without (on top of the $40,000–50,000 already sunk into the SMP itself).

• Not a full conversion: The GPC does not confer a Master of Divinity degree.

The Pastoral Colloquy is a theoretical alternative, but it is not commonly used by SMP pastors and comes with significant requirements.

The 2025 Policy Tightening

In November 2025, the Pastoral Formation Committee finalized “Policy Requirements for the Specific Ministry Pastor Program: Admission, Administration and Supervision.” Eight requirements, effective immediately, governing who gets in and how the program runs. The PFC’s process was extensive: interviews with all 35 district presidents and 59 circuit visitors, surveys from more than 1,800 pastors, conversations at most of the 35 district conventions in 2025, and meetings with seminary faculty, boards of regents, and the Council of Presidents.

The Premises Tell the Story

The PFC document is prefaced by 17 premises. Four of them reveal where the institutional wind is blowing:

• Premise 9 (the age floor): “The SMP program is more suitable for older men than for younger. Evidence shows greater completion rates in the SMP program for men over 40, compared to younger participants. A man who begins pastoral preparation before age 40 is likely to be able to provide 30 years or more of full-time service to the broader church. Young men preparing for a lifetime of ministry in the LCMS should attend a full-time residential program.”

• Premise 7 (the proportion argument): The long-term scriptural confession of the LCMS “is placed at risk if a substantial proportion of its pastors have received less preparation in biblical study, the Lutheran Confessions, Lutheran doctrine, church history, and the disciplines of pastoral theology.” The document invokes Luther at length on the necessity of Hebrew and Greek.

• Premise 13 (not for converts): “The SMP program is not designed to theologically re-wire recent Lutheran converts from non-Lutheran backgrounds; it is not sufficient for this purpose.”

• Premise 6 (residential priority): The SMP program “should be structured in such a way that it does not discourage or detract from full-time, residential seminary preparation for men pursuing a lifetime of ministry in the LCMS.”

Critics, including SMP pastors writing at Unite Leadership, see the new requirements as pulling the drawbridge up on a program that was already too constrained. Defenders see a Synod finally providing the clarity that four consecutive conventions demanded and ending the abuse of the program in several districts.

Sources

• Concordia Seminary – Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) Program

• Concordia Seminary – SMP to General Pastor Certification (GPC)

• Concordia Seminary – SMP Admission Criteria (PDF)

• Concordia Seminary – SMP Program Manual (PDF)

• Concordia Seminary Academic Catalog – SMP Program

• Concordia Seminary Academic Catalog – GPC Program

• FAQs on the LCMS Specific Ministry Program (SMP) – Concordia Theology

• LCMS Reporter: Pastoral Formation Committee Releases SMP Document (2025)

• LCMS Policy Requirements for the SMP Program (full document)

• Michigan District SMP Colloquy Policy Manual

• FLGA District – SMP Overview

• Southeastern District – SMP Resources

• “Is the SMP a Victim of Its Own Success?” – Unite Leadership

• Mart Thompson Explains the LCMS SMP Program & New Policies – Red Letter Challenge

• “Should SMP Pastors Always Be Supervised and Limited in the LCMS?” – Frank Hart, Red Letter Disciples (YouTube)

Source compilation: Anthropic Opus 4.6

Cover illustration: ChatGPT

The United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, 2026. Tehran and other cities were targeted, destroying military and government infrastructure, and killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among many other senior government officials. (Wikipedia; Al Jazeera)

The Trump administration has offered multiple proximate causes, which shifted frequently in the days and weeks following the strikes:

Justification #1: Preempting an Iranian Attack on U.S. Forces

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on March 2 that the U.S. knew Israel was going to strike Iran. It was feared that this would precipitate Iranian retaliation against American forces in the region. Therefore, the U.S. struck pre-emptively. (State Dept. transcript; Al Jazeera) Pentagon briefings to Capitol Hill, however, stated that Iran was not planning to attack unless struck first. (CNN)

Justification #2: Iran Was About to Attack Israel and “Others”

The following day, President Trump contradicted Rubio, claiming he had “forced” Israel’s hand and that Iran was about to launch its own preemptive strikes. He said it was his “opinion” that Iran was going to attack first. No U.S. intelligence assessment supported this claim. (Roll Call; JTA)

Justification #3: Iran Nuclear Program

Trump administration officials cited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 60% purity to claim that Iran was “a week away” from having nuclear weapons-grade material. (PolitiFact) This was contradicted by the IAEA, the U.S. intelligence community, and independent nuclear experts. (Scientific American; PBS) See Section 4.

Justification #4: Iran’s Treatment of Protesters

Mass protests started in Iran in January after a the national currency devaluation. Iranian security forces carried out massacres, with death toll estimates ranging from 3,117 (Iran’s own admission) to over 36,500 (opposition claims). (Amnesty International; NPR; Iran International) Trump threatened military action in response and cited the killings as a justification for strikes.

Justification #5: Iran’s Missile Program

The administration cited Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities as a threat to the U.S. homeland. This was contradicted by the 2025 federal government threat assessment, which found Iran was years away from developing a missile capable of reaching the United States. (FactCheck.org; PBS)

Justification #6: Decades of Terrorism and Proxy Warfare

Trump also cited Iran’s long history of supporting groups that killed Americans across the Middle East. This is the broadest and most historically grounded rationale, though it represents a standing grievance rather than an imminent trigger. (NPR) Notably, this framing omits a parallel history of American actions against Iran — from the 1953 CIA coup to the 1988 shootdown of a civilian airliner — that constitutes Iran’s own casus belli narrative (see Section 2a).

2. Root Causes

2a. The Deep History: Iran’s Grievances Against the United States

The American framing of U.S.-Iran hostility typically begins with the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis. The Iranian framing begins 26 years earlier.

The 1953 CIA Coup (Operation Ajax)

On August 19, 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup, codenamed TP-AJAX by the CIA and Operation Boot by MI6, was triggered by Mosaddegh’s nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, which had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP). CIA-funded agents fomented street unrest, bribed military officers, and ran a media disinformation campaign. Mosaddegh was arrested and placed under house arrest until his death. (Wikipedia; CIA — Confirmed Role in 1953 Coup; History.com)

This was the first time the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of a democratically elected government. It reinstalled the Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, whose authoritarian rule, maintained with the help of SAVAK, his U.S.- and Israeli-trained secret police, lasted until the 1979 revolution. In Iranian political memory, 1953 is the origin point for the conflict: the moment the United States and United Kingdom collapsed Iranian democracy to control Iranian oil. The 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis are, in the Iranian narrative, direct consequences of the 1953 coup.

In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged its role. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged in 2000 that the coup was “clearly a setback for Iran’s political development” and that it is “easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”

U.S. Support for Iraq During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)

During the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, the United States provided intelligence, weapons, and diplomatic support to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, including satellite imagery of Iranian troop positions and tacit acceptance of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians. An estimated 100,000 Iranians were casualties of Iraqi chemical attacks. (Foreign Policy)

Iran Air Flight 655 (July 3, 1988)

On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, a scheduled civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai, killing all 290 people on board — including 66 children. The aircraft was on a normal commercial flight path, in its assigned airway, continuously ascending after takeoff from Bandar Abbas. The crew of the nearby USS Sides had correctly identified it as a commercial flight. (Wikipedia; Britannica; U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command)

The United States never formally apologized. A settlement was reached in 1996, with the U.S. “expressing deep regret” and paying $61.8 million to the victims’ families, but the crew of the USS Vincennes was awarded Combat Action Ribbons. The commanding officer, Captain William C. Rogers III, was later awarded the Legion of Merit. In Iran, this is remembered not as an accident but as an act of impunity, and it is compared with the American outrage over the Soviet downing of Korean Airlines flight 700 and the Russian-backed militia missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines flight 17.

The 2026 Minab School Attack

The consequences of the current war have already added to the grievance ledger. On February 28, 2026, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Hormozgan province, was destroyed by a missile strike, killing at least 150 schoolchildren, mostly girls between seven and twelve years old. (Wikipedia; UNESCO/UN News; Al Jazeera)

Investigations by the New York Times, NPR, BBC Verify, and others concluded that a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile was responsible. (NPR; NPR — Video Evidence; Snopes) The school had once been part of an IRGC naval base but had been walled off from the military facility sometime between 2013 and 2016, suggesting the U.S. was operating from outdated target lists that did not reflect a decade-old change in the building’s use. (Al Jazeera)

Amnesty International called it an “unlawful strike” and demanded accountability. (Amnesty International) UN experts strongly condemned the attack and called for an independent investigation. (OHCHR)

President Trump said it could have been anyone’s missile.

The Pattern

None of this excuses Iran’s own record of supporting proxy militias, hostage-taking, or targeted killings. But Justification #6 — “decades of terrorism and proxy warfare” — presents only one side of the story. From the Iranian perspective, the United States overthrew their democracy (1953), armed their enemy with chemical weapons (1980s), destroyed a civilian airliner (1988), and killed schoolchildren with at least one, and possibly two, cruise missiles using outdated targeting data (2026). Any honest accounting of the “root causes” of this conflict must include both columns.

The 1979 Revolution and Hostage Crisis

The Islamic Revolution and the 444-day embassy hostage crisis severed U.S.-Iran relations and created a permanent adversarial posture. Every subsequent U.S. administration has treated Iran as a hostile state. But as the timeline above makes clear, the hostage crisis was itself a reaction to 26 years of accumulated grievance: the coup, the Shah, SAVAK.

2b. Israel’s Security Doctrine

Israel has long regarded a nuclear-capable Iran as an existential threat. Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly described a nuclear-armed Iran as unacceptable. Rubio’s initial (and quickly walked-back) admission that the U.S. struck because it knew Israel was going to act reveals the depth of this driver: the U.S. acted at least in part to get ahead of an Israeli strike and control the escalation. (The Intercept; Axios)

It should be noted that Israel, suspected of having nuclear weapons, has refused to enter into any nuclear monitoring or arms control regimes.

2c. The Collapse of the JCPOA

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action constrained Iran’s enrichment, redesigned the Arak reactor, and imposed extensive IAEA monitoring in exchange for sanctions relief. (Arms Control Association) When the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018, Iran gradually resumed enrichment, eventually reaching 60% purity and accumulating over 400 kg of enriched material by mid-2025. (IAEA via ISIS) The JCPOA withdrawal removed the diplomatic framework that had been containing the nuclear program, creating the very conditions later cited as justification for military action.

2d. Regional Power Competition

Iran’s network of allied militias and proxy forces across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen (often called the “Axis of Resistance”) challenged U.S. and Israeli strategic interests across the Middle East. The weakening of Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in 2024-2025 arguably made Iran more vulnerable and created a window of opportunity. (International Crisis Group)

2e. Domestic Political Dynamics

The January 2026 protests represented the most serious internal challenge to the Islamic Republic since 1979. The regime’s brutal crackdown — and the international outcry it generated — created political space for military action that might not have existed otherwise. (Amnesty International; UK House of Commons Library)

3. Contradictions from American Officials

The administration’s public statements about the war have been marked by serial contradictions, often within hours of each other, and sometimes between the president and his own cabinet. (CNN; NBC News; Foreign Policy)

3a. “Imminent Threat” vs. U.S. Intelligence

DNI Tulsi Gabbard (March 2025 congressional testimony): The intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” (ODNI transcript; PBS)

President Trump (responding to reporters): “I don’t care what she said.” He asserted Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear bomb, aligning with Netanyahu’s position rather than that of his own intelligence director. (CBS News; Axios; MSNBC)

3b. Why the U.S. Struck: Rubio vs. Trump

Secretary Rubio (March 2): “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces.” (State Dept.)

President Trump (March 3): “No, I might’ve forced their hand” — referring to Israel. Trump claimed Iran was about to attack independently. (Roll Call)

House Speaker Mike Johnson corroborated Rubio’s version, stating the war happened because “Israel was determined to act with or without American support,” leaving the U.S. in fear of retaliation against their forces. (Keith Woods, Substack, March 11, 2026) Since both statements made explicit that the U.S. had gone to war for Israel, the administration backtracked.

These two explanations are mutually exclusive. Rubio described a reactive U.S. posture (getting ahead of Israeli action). Trump described an independent Iranian threat. The administration cycled through at least four different explanations in under 10 days. (Foreign Policy; CNBC)

3c. “War Won” vs. “Just Begun”

President Trump (CBS interview): “I think the war is very complete, pretty much.” (CBS News)

Department of Defense (posted on X roughly simultaneously): “We have Only Just Begun to Fight.” (CNN; MSNBC)

3d. Regime Change: Yes or No?

VP Vance: “We are not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme.” Defense Secretary Hegseth: Also stated the goal is not regime change. (Washington Post)

President Trump: Contradicted both on social media, posting “If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” (CNN; NBC News)

3e. Steve Witkoff’s “One Week” Claim

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff claimed Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.” (PolitiFact) Nuclear experts widely disputed this, noting the distinction between enriched material and a deliverable weapon. Scientific American reported that experts said Iran was “nowhere close to a nuclear bomb.” (Scientific American) The IAEA director general stated the agency did not see “a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons.”

3f. Iran’s Capabilities: Destroyed or Not?

Trump stated Iran has “no navy, no communications, no air force” and “they’ve shot everything they have to shoot,” but elsewhere described these capabilities as merely “greatly diminished” rather than gone. (CNN; ABC News)

3g. “Obliterated” in June 2025 to “Imminent Threat” in February 2026

Perhaps the single most damaging contradiction in the administration’s case spans the eight months between the two rounds of strikes.

On June 21, 2025, Trump delivered a televised address announcing the results of Operation Midnight Hammer (joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites). He declared: “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” (White House) Four days later, the White House published an article titled “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News.” (White House)

A U.S. intelligence assessment concluded the strikes did not destroy the core components of Iran’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, not years. A separate July 2025 Pentagon assessment put the setback at roughly two years. (NBC News; CNN)

Then, on February 26, 2026, just eight months later, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff claimed Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.” (PolitiFact) Two days later, Trump launched Operation Epic Fury, citing an “imminent nuclear threat” as justification. (White House)

Arms control experts noted there was a lack of evidence that Iran was even rebuilding the program after the June 2025 strikes. (FactCheck.org).

3h. The Joe Kent Resignation: The Case Against the War from Inside the Administration

On March 17, 2026, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and a Trump appointee, posted his resignation letter publicly. He became the first senior official to break ranks with the administration over the war. Kent is a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer and Gold Star husband whose wife, Shannon Kent, was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2019. He is not a liberal critic or an anti-war activist by background, he is a combat veteran and MAGA loyalist who ran for Congress with Trump’s endorsement.

His letter is significant because it confirms, from inside the intelligence community, many of the contradictions documented in this dossier:

On the absence of an imminent threat: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” (Axios; CBS News)

On Trump being misled: “Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.” (CNN; Al Jazeera)

On the “echo chamber”: “This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.” (Washington Post)

On the Iraq parallel: “This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.” (NPR)

Trump responded by saying it was “a good thing” Kent resigned, calling him “very weak on security.” (CBS News)

3i. Trump Says Israel Acted Unilaterally

Trump states that “Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran.” He says: “The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts...” He warns that if Qatar’s LNG facility is attacked again, he “will not hesitate to retaliate”, but notably threatens Iran for retaliating, not Israel for the unauthorized strike.

4. Iran’s Nuclear Program: 10 Bombs?

4a. Origins: Atoms for Peace (1957–1979)

Iran’s nuclear program began with American support. In 1957, Iran and the U.S. signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement under President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. The Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), a 5 MW pool-type reactor, went critical in 1967, supplied by the United States. Under the Shah, Iran announced plans for 23,000 MW of nuclear capacity to free up oil and gas for export. (Columbia K=1 Project; Wikipedia — Nuclear Program of Iran)

4b. Tehran Research Reactor: Medical Isotopes

The TRR has been used to produce medical isotopes, primarily molybdenum-99, which decays into technetium-99m, used in millions of diagnostic procedures worldwide for cancer and heart disease. Originally fueled with highly enriched uranium (HEU), it was converted in 1987 to use fuel enriched to 19.75%, low-enriched uranium. Iran’s stated need to enrich to ~20% was tied to producing fuel for this reactor when it could not procure it internationally due to sanctions. (NTI — Tehran Research Reactor)

IAEA inspections have confirmed medical isotope production at the TRR.

4c. Bushehr Power Reactor: Civilian Electricity

The Bushehr nuclear power plant, a 1,000 MW pressurized-water reactor, was started by Germany in 1975, abandoned after the revolution, and completed by Russia. It connected to the Iranian grid in 2011. It uses Russian-supplied fuel enriched to 4.5%, and spent fuel is returned to Russia. (World Nuclear Association)

The power plant operates under IAEA safeguards.

4d. Covert Enrichment: Natanz and Fordow

In 2002, Iranian dissident groups revealed the existence of an undeclared uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water production facility at Arak. In 2009, Obama revealed a second secret enrichment site at Fordow, buried inside a mountain. These facilities were undeclared, which constituted a violation of Iran’s IAEA safeguards obligations and fueled legitimate suspicion. (Iran Watch — History of Iran’s Nuclear Program; Arms Control Association — Timeline)

After the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran progressively resumed enrichment:

• Exceeded the 3.67% enrichment limit set by the JCPOA

• Enriched to 20% (claimed for TRR fuel)

• Enriched to 60% purity (no known civilian application at this level)

• Accumulated over 400 kg (specifically 408.6 kg as of May 17, 2025) of 60%-enriched uranium (ISIS — Iran’s 60% HEU stockpile)

The IAEA estimated Iran’s breakout time, the time to produce enough fissile material for one weapon, had shrunk from over one year (under the JCPOA) to approximately one week by late 2024. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Evidence category:

• Secret facilities: Hard evidence of concealment and safeguards violations

• Enrichment to 60%: Hard evidence IAEA-verified, no civilian justification at this level

• Weaponization: No evidence of active weapons program (see below)

4e. AMAD Project: Weapons Research (1999–2003)

The IAEA’s December 2015 assessment (GOV/2015/68) concluded that Iran conducted “a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” prior to the end of 2003, as a coordinated effort. The AMAD Project, led by physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, included:

• Warhead design work (reportedly based on a Pakistani design)

• High-explosive testing and implosion detonator development

• Manufacturing weapon components with surrogate materials

• Integration studies for fitting a warhead to the Shahab-3 missile

(Wikipedia — AMAD Project; Arms Control Association — IAEA Investigations)

However, the IAEA also concluded that these activities “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies” and found “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.” (IAEA GOV/2015/68)

On December 15, 2015, the IAEA Board of Governors voted unanimously to close the investigation into Iran’s past weaponization work. (IAEA press release; Foreign Policy)

Evidence category:

• Pre-2003 weapons research: Hard evidence confirmed by IAEA

• Post-2003 continuation: No evidence per IAEA (investigation closed 2015)

4f. Arak Heavy Water Reactor: The Plutonium Route

The Arak reactor represented a potential plutonium pathway to a weapon. In its original configuration, it could have produced enough plutonium for 1-2 weapons per year. Under the JCPOA, Iran removed the reactor’s calandria and filled it with concrete (verified by IAEA in January 2016). The reactor was redesigned to reduce plutonium output from 11 kg/year to about 1.2 kg/year, and all spent fuel was to be shipped out of the country. (NTI — Arak Nuclear Complex)

Evidence category: Hard evidence that Iran agreed to and implemented constraints on the plutonium route.

4g. What U.S. Intelligence Has Consistently Said

Across multiple administrations and spanning nearly two decades, the U.S. intelligence community has maintained a consistent assessment:

• 2007 NIE: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” (CIA official record; Iran Watch)

• 2019-2024 Annual Threat Assessments: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.” (ODNI 2025 ATA PDF) Note: this specific phrase was removed from 2024 and 2025 reports, a change flagged by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (FDD)

• 2025 Annual Threat Assessment: The intelligence community continued to assess that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and Khamenei had not reauthorized the program suspended in 2003. (ODNI testimony transcript)

• DNI Gabbard (responding to questions): Reiterated that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Trump dismissed her: “I don’t care what she said.” (PBS; CBS News)

Evidence category: Hard evidence — multiple classified assessments across administrations, publicly summarized, all reaching the same conclusion: no active weapons program.

4h. The Critical Distinction: Capability vs. Intent

The heart of the matter is the difference between capability and intent:

• Capability: Iran had undeniably developed the technical capacity to enrich uranium to levels approaching weapons-grade. With 400+ kg of 60%-enriched uranium and advanced centrifuges, breakout time had shrunk to as little as one week for enough fissile material for a single device. (ISIS)

• Weaponization steps not taken: Producing fissile material is only one step. Building a deliverable weapon requires metallurgy (shaping enriched uranium into a pit), implosion device engineering, weapon miniaturization to fit a missile warhead, and extensive testing. There is no evidence Iran was conducting any of these activities as of early 2026. (CRS; Scientific American)

• Intent: Every U.S. intelligence assessment from 2007 through 2025 concluded that Iran’s leadership had not made the decision to build a weapon. This stands as the most consistent and repeatedly affirmed intelligence finding of the past two decades. CIA Director William Burns stated in October 2024: “We do not see evidence today that the Supreme Leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program.” (NBC News; CBS News)

Nuclear experts quoted by Scientific American put it bluntly: Iran was “nowhere close to a nuclear bomb.” (Scientific American)

5. Summary Evidence Table

6. From Enriched Uranium to a Deliverable Weapon: What It Actually Takes

6a. The Seven Steps

Building a nuclear weapon from enriched uranium requires completing a series of discrete technical stages, each presenting its own engineering challenges. The Congressional Research Service and nuclear physicists have outlined these steps:

Step 1: Producing Weapons-Grade Fissile Material (Enrichment) Uranium must be enriched to approximately 90% U-235 (”weapons-grade”) for a standard implosion device. Iran had enriched to 60%, a significant achievement, but a further enrichment step remained. The IAEA estimated that with its existing centrifuge capacity, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade HEU (roughly 25 kg) for a single device in approximately one to two weeks. CIA Director Burns confirmed this timeline in October 2024. (CBS News)

This is the step that “breakout time” measures. It is only the first step.

Step 2: Conversion to Metallic Form (Metallurgy) Enriched uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), the form in which uranium emerges from centrifuges, must be converted to uranium metal, which is not trivial. It requires specialized casting and machining to produce a metallic “pit”, which is the core of the weapon. Iran has no known uranium metallurgy facilities for weapons-grade material. The IAEA has reported no evidence of such work. (CRS)

Step 3: Weapon Core Fabrication The metallic pit must be machined to precise tolerances and shaped into the geometry required by the weapon design (a sphere for implosion weapons, a cylinder for gun-type). This requires specialized tooling, clean-room environments, and experience with the material’s toxic and radiological properties. (CRS)

Step 4: Implosion System Design and High-Explosive Lens Fabrication For an implosion-type weapon (the design that can be miniaturized to fit on a missile), conventional high-explosive “lenses” must be designed and fabricated to create a precisely symmetrical shock wave that compresses the fissile core to supercriticality. This is among the most technically demanding aspects of weapons design. The AMAD Project conducted feasibility studies on implosion design before 2003, but the IAEA assessed these did not advance beyond the study phase. (IAEA GOV/2015/68)

Step 5: Weapon Assembly and Integration All components (the pit, the implosion system, neutron initiators, tampers, and casing) must be assembled into a functioning device. This requires systems integration expertise and extensive testing of non-nuclear components.

Step 6: Miniaturization for Missile Delivery A weapon must be made small and light enough to fit inside a missile warhead, and robust enough to survive the extreme forces of reentry. Iran’s Shahab-3 missile can carry a payload of roughly 750-1,000 kg. The first nuclear weapons (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) weighed 4,000-4,700 kg. Miniaturization is a separate engineering challenge that typically requires nuclear testing. Pakistan, for instance, conducted six nuclear tests before achieving a deliverable warhead design. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Step 7: Testing and Validation Every state that has developed nuclear weapons (with the possible exception of Israel and South Africa) has conducted full-scale nuclear tests to validate their designs. An untested weapon is an uncertain weapon. Iran has conducted no nuclear tests.

6b. Timeline Estimates

The CRS assessed that, at the time of the JCPOA, Iran would need approximately one year to complete all weaponization steps beyond fissile material production. (CRS) More recently, CIA Director William Burns stated in October 2024 that while breakout time had shrunk to “a week or a little more,” the remaining weaponization steps “could take as much as a year.” (CBS News; NBC News)

This means the actual timeline from decision to deliverable weapon was approximately 12 months, not “one week.”

6c. The Gun-Type Alternative Weapon: Simpler but Strategically Useless

A gun-type weapon (like the Hiroshima bomb) is far simpler to build — it does not require implosion engineering or sophisticated testing. Theoretically, Iran could build a crude gun-type device with its existing 60%-enriched uranium without further enrichment to 90%.

However, gun-type weapons are enormously heavy and bulky. The Hiroshima bomb weighed over 4,000 kg. Such a device cannot be delivered by any missile in Iran’s arsenal. It could only be delivered by aircraft or truck. A gun-type device has no strategic military value against a state with air defenses. As Scott Horton has argued on the Lex Fridman Podcast #473, this makes the gun-type route essentially useless as a military deterrent.

In late 2024, U.S. intelligence reportedly assessed that Iran may have been exploring a cruder gun-type design, but acknowledged it would be undeliverable by missile. (CRS — November 2024 update)

6d. What Iran Did Not Do

As of the February 2026 strikes, there was no evidence that Iran had:

• Enriched uranium beyond 60% to weapons-grade 90%

• Converted any enriched uranium to metallic form

• Fabricated a weapon pit or core

• Built or tested an implosion system

• Assembled a weapon prototype

• Miniaturized a design for missile delivery

• Conducted any nuclear test

(Scientific American; CRS; ODNI)

This represents the entire weaponization process. Enrichment is the necessary precondition, but the engineering work to turn enriched material into a bomb is where most nuclear weapons programs require years or decades of development.

7. The Scott Horton Framework: Challenging the Evidentiary Basis

Scott Horton, director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, and host of The Scott Horton Show, has been one of the most detailed and persistent critics of the case for war with Iran. His arguments deserve a dedicated section because they systematically challenge the evidentiary foundations of the nuclear threat narrative. His research is compiled across decades of journalism, his book Hotter Than the Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2022) (Libertarian Institute), and a widely viewed 4-hour debate with Mark Dubowitz on the Lex Fridman Podcast #473 (June 2026).

7a. The “Latent Deterrent” Argument

Horton’s central thesis is that Iran maintained a latent nuclear deterrent, not a weapons program. In his formulation, Iran deliberately demonstrated that it had mastered the fuel cycle and could build a weapon, without actually building one. This is functionally identical to the posture of Germany, Japan, and Brazil, all of which have the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons but choose not to. (The American Conservative; Lex Fridman Podcast #473)

The strategic logic is that a latent capability deters attack (because an adversary must account for the possibility of rapid weaponization) without incurring the costs and risks of actually building a weapon (international isolation, preemptive strikes, arms races).

Evidence assessment: This interpretation is consistent with the intelligence record. Every U.S. NIE from 2007 through 2025 concluded that Iran had not decided to build a weapon, even as it expanded enrichment capacity. The IAEA confirmed no structured weapons program. Iran’s behavior, enriching to 60% but stopping short of 90%, accumulating material but not converting it to metal, matches the latent deterrent model concept.

7b. “Smoking Laptop” and Questions of Fabrication

Horton has highlighted what he calls the “smoking laptop” — a laptop computer allegedly stolen from Iran and provided to Western intelligence agencies in 2004, which purported to contain evidence of nuclear weapons design work. Horton argues this evidence was fabricated. (The American Conservative)

The documented facts:

• Source: German intelligence identified the laptop’s source as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group then listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. (Antiwar.com — Gareth Porter)

• Israeli connection: PBS Frontline reported that intelligence was “laundered” through Iranian opposition groups, especially the NCRI (MEK’s political wing), to get it to the IAEA. A 2009 investigation tied the documents to Israel. (PBS Frontline)

• CIA skepticism: CIA analysts initially speculated that a third country, such as Israel, had fabricated the evidence, though they eventually “discounted that theory.”

• IAEA resolution: In its February 2008 report, the IAEA declared satisfactory resolution of the issues raised by the laptop documents. (Antiwar.com — Sahimi)

Evidence assessment: The provenance of the laptop documents is thoroughly contested. The chain of custody ran through a designated terrorist organization with an established pattern of providing intelligence to Western agencies. Whether the documents were fabricated, authentic, or a mix is an unresolved question, but it is fair to say the evidentiary chain was compromised from the start.

7c. Khamenei’s Nuclear Fatwa: Sincere or Strategic?

Horton has pointed to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons as evidence of Iran’s intentions. The fatwa, first publicly referenced in October 2003 and formally presented at the IAEA in August 2005, declared the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons to be forbidden under Islamic law. (Wikipedia — Ali Khamenei’s Fatwa)

Arguments for sincerity:

• Iran’s experience with Iraqi chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) created genuine institutional revulsion toward WMD. Iran suffered an estimated 100,000 chemical weapons casualties but chose not to retaliate in kind, even when it had the capacity to do so. (Foreign Policy)

• The fatwa was cited by multiple U.S. administrations as a factor in their intelligence assessments.

• Iran’s behavior over 20+ years was consistent with the fatwa: it never crossed the enrichment threshold to weapons-grade, never built weapon components, never tested a device.

Arguments against relying on it:

• Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator admitted the fatwa was introduced as a diplomatic tactic during negotiations. (Atlantic Council)

• Fatwas are not immutable in Shia jurisprudence — they can be modified or reversed by the issuing authority based on changed circumstances. (Norwich University)

• The fatwa’s existence was never independently verified as a formal written religious ruling.

• With Khamenei’s death in the February 2026 strikes, the fatwa’s status became a matter of debate. (The National)

Evidence assessment: The fatwa’s sincerity is ultimately unknowable. But Horton’s broader point stands regardless: the behavioral evidence, what Iran actually did and did not do over 20 years is consistent with the fatwa whether or not the fatwa itself was the reason. Iran’s restraint was real and documented, whatever its motivation.

7d. The JCPOA Withdrawal as the Root of the Crisis

Horton places particular emphasis on the causal chain from the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 to the conditions cited as justification for war in 2026:

1. 2015: JCPOA signed. Iran limited to 3.67% enrichment, 300 kg stockpile. Breakout time: 12+ months. Arak reactor redesigned. IAEA monitoring in place. (Arms Control Association)

2. 2018: Trump withdraws from JCPOA and reimposed sanctions. Iran was in full compliance per 12 consecutive IAEA reports. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

3. 2019-2020: Iran gradually resumes enrichment in response, eventually reaching 60%.

4. 2024-2025: Iran’s stockpile grows to 400+ kg at 60%, breakout time shrinks to ~1 week. (ISIS)

5. 2026: Administration cites Iran’s enrichment level as justification for preemptive strikes. (Washington Post)

Horton’s argument: the United States created the very conditions it then cited as justification for war. The enrichment that shrank breakout time happened because the JCPOA was abandoned, not despite it. Iran was demonstrably contained under the original deal. The administration that destroyed the containment mechanism then pointed to the resulting escalation as proof that containment was impossible.

Evidence assessment: Hard evidence. The timeline is documented, the IAEA compliance reports are public, and the causal sequence is direct and uncontested. This is the strongest element of the anti-war case.

7e. The Iraq Parallel

Horton has drawn extensive parallels to the Iraq War (Lex Fridman Podcast #473; The American Conservative):

Element Iraq (2003) Iran (2026) WMD claims Active WMD program (false) Imminent nuclear weapon (unsupported) Intelligence assessment CIA expressed doubts; ignored DNI said no weapons program; dismissed President vs. intelligence Bush overrode CIA on aluminum tubes Trump overrode Gabbard on nuclear status Evidence sourcing Iraqi defectors, Curveball MEK, smoking laptop, Israeli intelligence Shifting justifications WMD → terrorism → democracy → humanitarian Nuclear → preemption → protests → terrorism Regime change goal Stated, then denied, then restated Denied by Vance/Hegseth, implied by Trump

8. The Negotiators Who Didn’t Bring a Nuclear Expert

One of the most consequential details of the path to war is the composition of the U.S. negotiating team itself. In the final rounds of talks with Iran, negotiations whose failure directly preceded the February 28 strikes, the United States was represented by Steve Witkoff (a real estate lawyer and Trump fundraiser serving as special envoy) and Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law). Neither has a background in nuclear physics, nonproliferation, or arms control. (Wikipedia — 2025-2026 Iran-US Negotiations; Responsible Statecraft)

According to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the Geneva talks, Witkoff and Kushner chose not to include nuclear technical experts in the negotiating sessions. (MS Now — Diplomats Claim Witkoff Undermined Talks) When challenged on this, Witkoff defended the decision by saying he had “read quite a bit about it.” (Keith Woods, Substack, March 11, 2026) Beyond the absence of nuclear experts, Witkoff reportedly did not bring a diplomat knowledgeable of previous agreements and negotiations with Iran, did not take notes during the sessions, and did not understand Iranian proposals. (Keith Woods)

The Arms Control Association described the U.S. team as “ill-prepared for serious nuclear negotiations,” noting that Witkoff’s failure to learn the nuclear file and surround himself with the necessary technical expertise was “a diplomatic disservice to U.S. and international nonproliferation goals.” (Arms Control Association)

8a. The Tehran Research Reactor Confusion

The consequences of this expertise gap became publicly visible in Witkoff’s post-strike briefings. On February 28 and March 3, Witkoff told reporters there was “subterfuge” at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and claimed it was being used to stockpile uranium fuel “to bring it towards a weapons-grade enrichment level.” (MS Now — Nuclear Experts Undercut White House)

Multiple nuclear scientists pointed out this was technically nonsensical. Elena Sokova, executive director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, called the administration’s claims “confusing and misleading” with “technical errors,” noting flatly that “research reactors are not capable of doing enrichment of uranium.” (MS Now) The TRR is a 5 MW pool-type research reactor used for medical isotope production (NTI). It does not enrich uranium — it consumes enriched uranium fuel. These are fundamentally different processes. Confusing them is roughly analogous to confusing an oil refinery with a car engine.

The IAEA confirmed it maintained continuous accountancy and monitoring of TRR fuel assemblies and had raised no recent concerns about misuse.

Evidence assessment: Witkoff’s statements about the TRR contain demonstrable technical errors, which is hard evidence that the lead negotiator did not understand the basic infrastructure he was negotiating over.

8b. The “10 Bombs” Dispute

A central element of the administration’s case was Witkoff’s claim that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had “boasted” during negotiations that Iran possessed enough enriched uranium to make 10-11 nuclear bombs. (CBS News)

Araghchi’s account differs sharply. He stated that he told the Americans Iran had 440 kg of 60%-enriched material (a figure publicly available in IAEA reports), and that, by the Americans’ own experts’ calculations, if enriched further, this could theoretically yield material for roughly ten devices. But Araghchi said the point of this statement was to demonstrate the scale of the concession Iran was offering: Iran was prepared to give up, dilute, and downblend this entire stockpile to lower enrichment levels as part of a deal. (WION News; LBC)

In Witkoff’s telling, this was a threat, but in Araghchi’s telling, it was a negotiating offer. The distinction is enormous and, ultimately, lethal.

Araghchi later went further, suggesting that Witkoff and Kushner had a “lack of enough knowledge” during the talks. A Persian Gulf diplomat with direct knowledge of the negotiations corroborated this, telling reporters that Witkoff’s public descriptions of Iran’s pre-war offer were false. (MS Now)

Critically, the Omani foreign minister who mediated the talks traveled to Washington and told J.D. Vance and U.S. media that the negotiations had made “substantial, momentous, and unprecedented progress”, a characterization that directly contradicts the administration’s claim that talks had broken down. (Keith Woods)

Yet what Trump relayed to the press was that Witkoff told him Iran’s message was “essentially, in a real nutshell: We want to continue to build nuclear weapons.” None of the mediators present reported this. (Keith Woods) This suggests the information was distorted somewhere between Iran’s actual offer and what reached the president’s ears — a distortion with consequences measured in lives and global economic disruption.

Evidence assessment: The factual dispute is unresolved. Both sides have given their accounts, but no transcript of the closed-door session has been released. However, the broader pattern is circumstantial evidence of a negotiating breakdown driven at least in part by the U.S. team’s technical illiteracy: a lead negotiator who confused a research reactor with an enrichment facility, who did not bring subject-matter experts, and who may have misunderstood the nature of Iran’s offer.

8c. The Structural Problem

This matters because the decision to go to war was, by multiple accounts, significantly influenced by what Witkoff and Kushner reported back to Trump about the state of negotiations. (La Voce di New York; The New Republic) If the negotiators misunderstood what Iran was offering, or mischaracterized a concession as a threat, then the information that reached the president was distorted at the point of collection.

The JCPOA negotiations (2013-2015), by contrast, involved teams of nuclear physicists, career nonproliferation diplomats, Department of Energy scientists, and intelligence analysts, led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz (a nuclear physicist from MIT). The 2026 talks were led by a real estate developer and the president’s son-in-law, without technical support. (Arms Control Association)

As Keith Woods framed the dilemma: “either the war was sparked by America’s representatives being totally ignorant of nuclear enrichment while negotiating a nuclear deal, and no one along the way picking up their error, or alternatively, they actively misled Trump to lead to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf. So that’s either gross negligence and incompetence or high treason.” (Keith Woods)

Whether the talks could have succeeded with a better-prepared team is unknowable. But the absence of nuclear expertise at the table, in negotiations whose failure led directly to war, is documented.

A broader indicator of preparedness: in January 2026, the U.S. withdrew its four Avenger-class minesweepers from the Middle East, vessels that had been forward-deployed for nearly four decades, and sent them to be decommissioned in Philadelphia. They arrived in Philadelphia on the day Iran began laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. (Keith Woods)

9. A Note on Historical Parallels

Multiple analysts have drawn comparisons between the 2026 Iran war and the 2003 Iraq war. (Al Jazeera; NPR) The parallels include: shifting justifications offered after the fact, claims of imminent WMD threat contradicted by intelligence agencies, a president dismissing his own intelligence community’s assessments, and the conflation of capability (enrichment) with intent (weaponization). As with Iraq, the gap between what the intelligence community assessed and what political leaders claimed publicly is now a matter of documented record.

10. The Religious Framing: Purim, Amalek, and Dispensationalist Theology

The war with Iran began on February 28, 2026. Purim began at sundown on March 2. The proximity was not coincidental in the minds of many participants and supporters, and the religious framing that followed from both Israeli officials and American evangelical leaders raises serious questions about whether theological commitments, rather than security analysis, may have shaped the decision to go to war.

10a. The Purim Timing

Purim commemorates the Book of Esther, in which the Persian official Haman plots to annihilate the Jews of the Achaemenid Empire, but Queen Esther intervenes, and the decree is reversed, resulting in the killing of Haman and his sons. The holiday is set in ancient Persia, the civilization from which modern Iran traces its historical identity. (New Arab; JTA)

When Supreme Leader Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Shabbat before Purim, the parallel was immediately seized upon. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made it explicit in his first public address after the strikes began: “Twenty-five hundred years ago, in ancient Persia, a tyrant rose against us with the very same goal, to utterly destroy our people. Today as well, on Purim, the lot has fallen, and in the end this evil regime will fall too.” (WION News; JTA)

10b. The Amalek Invocation

More troubling than the Purim parallel is the invocation of Amalek, the biblical enemy of the Israelites whom God commands to be utterly destroyed (1 Samuel 15:3). Netanyahu stated: “In this week’s Torah portion, we read ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember and we act.” (The Nation; TRT World)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right extremist, declared there had been a “great miracle…like on Purim” and that “they will all end like Haman,” and used Amalek comparisons when discussing the war. (Al Jazeera)

10c. Ambassador Huckabee and Christian Zionist Dispensationalism

Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, former governor of Arkansas, and Trump’s ambassador to Israel, is the first evangelical Christian to serve in that post. He is an adherent of dispensational premillennialism, a theological framework holding that the return of Jews to the land of Israel fulfills Old Testament prophecies that must precede the Rapture, the Tribulation, Armageddon, and the Second Coming of Christ. (Al Jazeera; Forward)

In this theology, supporting Israel is not a policy preference, it is a divine obligation. Adherents cite Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” This verse is interpreted as a binding commandment that the United States must support Israel unconditionally or face divine punishment. (Religion News Service)

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Huckabee suggested Israel has a God-given right to land stretching from the Euphrates River to the Nile, which would encompass Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia, stating “It would be fine if they took it all.” (NBC News; Slate)

10d. “Anointed by Jesus”: End-Times Rhetoric in the U.S. Military

The religious framing was not confined to politicians and diplomats. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reported receiving over 200 complaints from service members across more than 40 units spanning at least 30 military installations, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force. (MRFF; Military.com)

The complaints described commanders telling troops that the war with Iran is “part of God’s divine plan” and that Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” One NCO reported that a commander cited the Book of Revelation at length, describing the imminent return of Jesus Christ, “with a big grin on his face.” (Middle East Eye; HuffPost)

10e. The Information Campaign: “Replacement Theology” as a Silencing Mechanism

As criticism of the war and its religious framing grew, particularly from Catholic intellectuals, Catholic integralists, and Christians holding non-dispensationalist eschatologies (amillennialism, postmillennialism, covenant theology), a parallel information campaign emerged on social media to discredit these critics by collapsing all theological disagreement with dispensationalism into a single accusation: “replacement theology,” which was then immediately linked to antisemitism.

The mechanism works as follows: dispensationalism holds that ethnic Israel and the Church are distinct entities with separate means of salvation, and that God’s covenant with the Jewish people requires unconditional political support for the modern state of Israel. The majority of Christian history has held some version of “fulfillment theology” or “covenant theology,” in which the Church is understood as the continuation of Israel’s covenant rather than its replacement. Dispensationalism labels all of these positions “replacement theology” and treats them as inherently anti-Jewish. (Salon; Jacobin)

The Ted Cruz Episode: On or around March 15, 2026, Senator Ted Cruz endorsed a lengthy social media post by the account “Insurrection Barbie” that described Catholic integralism as a “foreign” ideology carried out by “parasitic” actors executing a “ten-year project” to replace evangelical Protestant political theology within the Republican Party. Cruz called it “the best & most comprehensive explanation of what we’re fighting.” (Mediaite; Daily Caller; The Conservative Brief)

The post was condemned as an “anti-Catholic screed” by Catholics across the political spectrum, including former Trump administration officials, Daily Wire correspondents, and Obama-Biden alumni. (Mediaite)

“Christ is King” as Antisemitism: Cruz also stated in a CBN News interview that the phrase “Christ is King”, a foundational Christian confession dating to the earliest Church, was being used as “code” for antisemitism. (Gateway Pundit; Times of Israel; US News)

This produced extraordinary backlash from Christians who pointed out that “Christ is King” (Christus Rex) is a liturgical declaration affirmed by every Christian denomination on earth, and that labeling it antisemitic effectively declares orthodox Christian theology to be hate speech. Catholic Answers, the largest Catholic apologetics organization, produced a direct response. (Catholic Answers; Townhall)

The Broader Pattern: Pro-Israel media outlets published pieces framing Catholic integralists and anti-war Christians as vectors of antisemitism, while simultaneously defending dispensationalist theology as the only legitimate Christian position on Israel. (HonestReporting; Juicy Ecumenism — Part I; Juicy Ecumenism — Part II; Joshua Fund) A Times of Israel blog post explicitly framed Catholic integralism as a “protofascist” threat to American Jews. (Times of Israel)

The effect, whether coordinated or emergent, is a rhetorical system in which:

1. Dispensationalism (a 19th-century theological innovation originating with John Nelson Darby in the 1830s) is treated as the default Christian position on Israel.

2. The historical Christian positions held by Catholics, Orthodox, and most Protestants for 1,900 years are labeled “replacement theology.”

3. “Replacement theology” is declared antisemitic.

4. Therefore, any Christian who opposes the war on theological grounds, or who simply holds the eschatology their tradition has always held, can be dismissed as an antisemite.

This is a silencing mechanism. It converts a theological disagreement (how to read Old Testament covenant promises) into a moral accusation (hatred of Jews), making it socially dangerous to articulate the majority Christian position on eschatology in public. As Salon noted, the “ancient prophecy” being invoked to justify the war is in fact “a modern invention”, dispensationalism was unknown to the Church for its first 1,800 years. (Salon)

The timing is notable: this intra-Christian information campaign intensified in the same weeks the Iran war was under the heaviest public criticism, suggesting its function — intentional or otherwise — was to fracture potential opposition along sectarian lines and to make the theological case against war unspeakable by associating it with antisemitism.

None of this proves that religious motivations caused the war. The causal drivers documented in this dossier — Israeli strategic doctrine, the JCPOA collapse, the Witkoff negotiating failure, domestic political dynamics — operate independently of theology. But the religious framing matters for two reasons: first, it helps explain why certain actors were predisposed to war rather than diplomacy (if destroying Iran is God’s plan, negotiation is not just unnecessary but sinful); and second, it makes de-escalation harder (you cannot negotiate a ceasefire with Amalek).

11. Cascading Effects: First, Second, and Third Order

Wars have consequences beyond the battlefield. The Iran war’s effects are already cascading through the global economy, the international order, and U.S. strategic positioning in ways that may ultimately prove more damaging than any threat Iran posed before the strikes.

11a. First-Order Effects (Immediate and Direct)

Energy price shock: Brent crude surged from a pre-war price of approximately $65-70/barrel to over $126/barrel at its peak, a near-doubling. As of mid-March 2026, prices remain above $100/barrel. Natural gas prices have more than doubled in Europe. (CNBC; Goldman Sachs; Al Jazeera)

Strait of Hormuz closure: Approximately 20% of the world’s daily oil supply and significant volumes of LNG transit the Strait. Tanker traffic dropped ~70%, with over 150 ships anchored outside to avoid risk. Iran’s IRGC declared “not a litre of oil” would pass. (Wikipedia — 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis; Al Jazeera)

Shipping insurance collapse: Protection and indemnity insurers removed war risk coverage for the Strait, making the economic risk too high for ship owners to transit. Major shipping firms suspended operations entirely. Without insurance, commercial shipping through the Strait is effectively impossible regardless of military conditions. (Wikipedia — 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis)

Gasoline prices: U.S. gas prices surged approximately 60 cents per gallon (~20%) within the first two weeks of the war. In the first week alone, the average price rose 48 cents/gallon. (CBS News; Washington Post)

U.S. minesweeping capacity: As Keith Woods noted, the U.S. withdrew its four Avenger-class minesweepers from the Gulf in January 2026 and decommissioned them. Iran has an estimated 5,000+ mines it could deploy. During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq laid roughly 1,200 mines and it took coalition forces over 2 months to clear them. (Keith Woods)

Gulf state infrastructure attacked: Iran retaliated against Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, striking at or near U.S. military assets hosted by these countries. At least one person was killed in Abu Dhabi. All four countries temporarily closed their airspace. (NPR; Al Jazeera)

11b. Second-Order Effects (Weeks to Months)

Fertilizer shock and spring planting crisis: More than 30% of global nitrogen fertilizer exports, along with key components like sulphur (a byproduct of oil and gas processing), typically transit the Strait of Hormuz. With the Strait effectively closed, the U.S. market is approximately 25% short of normal fertilizer supplies for spring application. Individual farmers report fertilizer cost increases of 40%. The timing is catastrophic — the disruption hits during the narrow window for Northern Hemisphere spring planting, when delays of even weeks translate directly into reduced crop yields. (Carnegie Endowment; IFPRI; Live Science; AgWeb; ABC News; American Farm Bureau)

U.S. inflation reversal: February 2026 CPI was 2.4% — but this captured only the pre-war period. Analysts project CPI could rise to 3.5% by year-end if the conflict persists, reversing two years of progress on inflation. Food prices were already rising 3.1% annually before the war; disrupted fertilizer supply will accelerate this. (CBS News; CNN; Center for American Progress; TIME)

Gulf state trust collapse: Gulf states that host U.S. military bases told CNBC the Iranian attacks created a “huge trust gap” that will last years. The UAE recalled its ambassador to Israel. Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE all condemned Iran’s attacks on their territory but also signaled fury at being drawn into a war they had tried to avoid — several had denied the U.S. base and airspace access before the strikes. (CNBC; Atlantic Council; Soufan Center; Al Jazeera)

Russia sanctions relief: The Trump administration temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil shipments in an effort to calm markets and replace disrupted Iranian supply — directly financing Russia’s war in Ukraine with higher prices and restored market access. (Washington Post; Axios)

11c. Third-Order Effects (Months to Years)

Russia as strategic beneficiary: Russia emerged as an early winner of the war. Higher oil and gas prices directly fund Russia’s war in Ukraine. The U.S. is diverting military resources and attention from Europe and Asia to the Gulf, reducing pressure on Moscow. Russia also benefits from the general chaos — a distracted America with depleted strategic reserves and frayed alliances. As NPR reported, Putin “is pleased to see how Washington is forced to transfer forces from Asia to the Middle East.” (TIME; NPR)

China’s real-time intelligence windfall: China is treating the Iran war as a live laboratory for studying U.S. military capabilities. Bloomberg reported that China’s military is closely studying the operation, collecting multi-spectral imagery, electronic intelligence, and real-time data on U.S. platforms including the F-35, F-22, and the new stealth Tomahawk variant. China has also provided Iran with advanced radar systems, transitioned Iranian military navigation to China’s encrypted BeiDou-3 constellation, and used its satellite network for signals intelligence — meaning every U.S. sortie generates data for Chinese analysts. Western officials assess this is accelerating China’s preparations for a potential Taiwan contingency, with the PLA targeting readiness by 2027. (Bloomberg; Jerusalem Post; Newsweek; Al Jazeera; SpecialEurasia)

U.S. force posture degradation in Asia: The redeployment of carrier strike groups, air assets, and munitions to the Gulf directly weakens U.S. deterrence in the Indo-Pacific — the theater the Pentagon’s own National Defense Strategy identifies as the priority. Every Tomahawk fired at Iran is one fewer available for a Taiwan contingency. Every carrier in the Gulf is one not in the Philippine Sea. (Wikipedia — 2026 US Military Buildup)

Gulf basing realignment: The Atlantic Council assessed that “the Gulf that emerges from the Iran war will be very different.” Gulf states that host U.S. bases were attacked by Iran specifically because of those bases. The calculus that made hosting U.S. forces a net security benefit has been inverted — the bases made them targets rather than protecting them. It is reasonable to expect reduced willingness to host U.S. forces at the same scale going forward, which would structurally degrade U.S. power projection capability in the region for a generation. (Atlantic Council; Middle East Council on Global Affairs)

Global food price transmission: The fertilizer shock does not stay in American fields. Reduced U.S. crop yields ripple through global commodity markets. Countries dependent on U.S. grain exports — particularly in Africa and the Middle East — face food price spikes and potential shortages. The CFR described this as “the Iran war’s hidden front.” (CFR; The Conversation)

Strategic Petroleum Reserve depletion: The U.S. released oil from the SPR to calm markets, further drawing down reserves that were already at historically low levels after Biden-era releases. This reduces the cushion available for future crises. (Al Jazeera)

Probable recession: Sustained high energy prices usually precede recessions

11d. The Compounding Problem

These effects do not operate in isolation, they compound. Higher oil prices increase fertilizer costs, which increase food prices, which increase inflation, which increases the political cost of continuing the war. Simultaneously, the war finances Russia, educates China, alienates Gulf allies, depletes strategic reserves, and weakens U.S. positioning in Asia. Each week the Strait remains closed, these feedback loops tighten.

The pre-war threat assessment was that Iran had enriched uranium it was not weaponizing. The post-war reality is a global energy crisis, a food security emergency, inflation reversal, strategic intelligence exposure to America’s primary peer competitor, the financing of Russia’s war effort, and the potential loss of the Gulf basing architecture that underpins U.S. power projection. Whether the cure is worse than the disease is no longer a hypothetical question.

Sources (Master List)

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Source generation: Anthropic Opus 4.6

When the COVID lockdowns and restrictions started spilling out in Feb of 2019, and churches were expected to follow along, a bishop of a confessional synod who, without much hesitation went along with the mandates, dismissed concerns of theologically compromising and tried to encourage members by stating that even though they couldn’t have the sacrament or go to church, they could still read their catechisms at home, and that was good enough in the mean time. He concluded by saying that no one should be tempted to interpret the pandemic spiritually. He has since apologized for that statement admitting that in hindsight one could approach events of COVID spiritually and that theological factors should have been more at play.

Another prominent clergy who operated at synodical levels from the same synod said that, in trying to navigate these unchartered waters spiritually, “this was no time for theological theatrics, and let’s be practical.” To date, I don’t believe he has apologized.

It is sinful to not approach any aspects of the Christian life spiritually. There is no secular sphere in the mind of God.

It’s a bizarre and dangerous affair to believe that there is a neutral aspect to Christian living that does not require the faithful to approach it with a theological lens. In other words, that there are parts of life that God doesn’t really have any business poking His nose into. I praise God for my Wyoming District since this attitude is less of a problem there. When COVID hit, and the left hand wanted to tell the right hand how to operate in their churches, this district told the government to back off and got away with it. I would suspect that nobody here disagrees that for Christians there really isn’t something called “secular”. Since again, that would imply God is not interested in some dimension of Christian life. Pastors can’t fully carry out the duties of their ministry when it comes to individual care-giving of members, unless we disagree that all aspects of life have a spiritual side to them.

The question is not “if” but “how” the Church is to be a voice in the three estates, as an institution, but mainly through the lives of each of her members as they continue to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12) within the three estates. The first estate, church, is an easy one. Obviously, the church and pastors have a huge say when it comes to Christian living in that sphere. But how to behave in the second estate of private life gets a little more controversial: “is it really my pastor’s business how I run my family? After all, I’m the head of the house, and, so, do I really need pastoral oversight there?”. And when it comes to the third estate, public and civil life, things heat up even more (raised at several district conventions last year), as we saw with the COVID battles: how Lutheran laity and clergy were expected to behave or not behave in the public square. For here’s where it gets complicated when addressing this new, foreign-to-Lutheran dubious term “Christian nationalism”. As we’ll hear later, it’s a term created by the enemies of the true Faith. Therefore, it’s poor scholarship to embrace a definition of this term from malignantly secularist sources that have clear agendas to muzzle the Christian voice in the public sphere by weaponizing a word. By labelling Christians who are actively seeking to preserve and advance the interests and the mission of the Church through both speaking the truth in civil society and cultivating Christian culture in the public sphere, as “Christian Nationalists” (i.e. as some kind of radicals, Millenialists, Christian jihadists), they terrify humble servants of Christ out of obeying God’s commands when it comes to the Left hand kingdom. I don’t mean to offend any of you by raising this topic, but its hardly an escapable subject any more, and the way it has been handled over the last several years has caused a lot of spiritual damage, since pastoring in the third estate requires some discussion on how a deep separation of church and state is not possible nor desirable for pastoral care, or for general society. But in the wake of Christian nationalism as a gaslighted word that seeks to attack Christian activity in the public square, I believe I need to address that it some detail, and will get there during my later parts of this presentation.

God cares about all aspects of Christian living. It follows that His representatives, as ambassadors and shepherds, should too. They are, after all, His presence and voice, not only in the midst of the congregation, but also in the lives of each individual Christian entrusted to their care. In Luke 10:16 when our Lord says “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me”, He is not just speaking to Christians in general (although there is an application to the laity in terms of evangelism; when lay people talk about Jesus to unbelievers, they are the voice of God to them). But these words were firstly directed to the apostles and in apostolic office, which pastors hold today. It’s not meant as dictatorial or domineering, but part of clergy responsibility to properly and thoroughly “feed His sheep” as Jesus instructed pastors in John 21, as the ultimate expression of love for God. Jesus not only uses the word “sheep” in general, but also “lamb” indicating the intimate one-on-one nature of pastoral ministry, in which every single Christian is the lost sheep and counts to God. Yet the distinction in Greek between “arnion” and “probaton” appears to be one between the immature and mature Christians. Pastoral caregiving to a congregation is not normally practical or possible because the levels of Christian maturity and Biblical literacy fluctuate from one person to the next. Some need milk and others solid food. Pastors are always compelled to provide care on a one-to-one basis. Feeding of spiritual lambs doesn’t happen in a trough, but, in individual servings.

Most clergy would agree in principle, but application is where the controversy begins. Many argue that it is not the job of the church to pry into family life or poke around into the political views of members (A famous Canadian prime Minister said: “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”). But when it comes to God and the Church, this is not true. We don’t like such paternalism because it infringes upon our private lives and personal opinions which is where the most intense spiritual war happens. Demonic possession or oppression often scares people into the arms of Jesus, so that the devil is best to remain undercover, taking on the form of angel of light, or, as C.S. Lewis writes, just convincing people he doesn’t exist, except, maybe, as a laughable pointy-tailed cartoon character. He is more dangerous in the subtle ways that he convinces us that God’s word has little to say about the intricacies of our lives. The devil is in the details. We like to think the greatest spiritual battles involves stuff like exorcisms, as we find Jesus and apostles delivering demons. And yet Jesus says to the disciples amazed at His miracle-working abilities, “you think that’s great? That’s nothing. Blessed are you that your names are written in heaven. Salvation is the greater miracle.” Or regarding the paralytic, “bodily healing is easy, forgiveness of sins is the hard part.” “Yet all things are possible with Christ”.

The enemies of the Church have the greatest effect on the inside, and no Church Body is spared them, as we see with Judas, in our Lord’s inner circle. Now let’s close that circle even further, and let’s bring it really close to home: to our own hearts. We are our worst enemies. My heart is more of a threat to me than an anti-Christ, or a Judas could ever be. And my heart’s state is evidenced in the decisions I make within the three estates. We all need help in making those choices. The Holy Spirit helps, but He does not normally work directly. He works through means. Means include the pastoral office. That means pastors.

So, in all of the three estates, or life in both of the Two kingdoms -- however you want to categorize it -- Christians are called to see the world through a lens of the Holy Scriptures, a hermeneutic which requires pastoral involvement as the main interpreters by 1. skill, 2.training and, 3. authority. Pastors have a responsibility to then help their members interpret life spiritually with the Word of God as their guide. To deprive Christians of interpreting all of life spiritually (like the bishop who said there was nothing spiritual about the pandemic), cripples their ability to believe and behave like Christians. It also deprives them chances to pray and give thanks for all things. All episodes of suffering undergone by Christians should be interpreted spiritually. God is using it all for individual good and often for the common good. Without sounding like a Calvinist determinist, nothing is random. So when we are punished for our sins, we repent. When we suffer for other reasons, we lean more on Christ. Both lead to a strengthening of faith and deeper trust in and love of God.

This may seem obvious to many, but it needs to be stated anyways; especially in the post-pandemic days, when as a Church we confess our sins and find ways to improve, so that we don’t make the same mistakes again when we are tempted to act like the world in dealing with problems of a national or globalist level, instead of handling apparent “secular” things spiritually. It is also particularly applicable due to recent debates over soft antinomianism, which seems to question traditional tactics and strategies of Christian witness, such as historical methods of participating in the world around us (like the role of the pastoral office and the Church as an institution in the civil society).

The broader question becomes: is it the pastor’s job to, essentially, compel believers towards good works? It seems like a dumb question. But it’s not. It’s actually controversial since the idea is that though the 10 commandments are clear, how they play out isn’t. Think of the pandemic when the first, third and fourth commandments were all pitted against each other. No church should have closed, or at least for long periods of time. We all know that now. But back then it wasn’t obvious. Circumventing the issue without wanting to say out loud that you actually believe a matter is secular and that there is no spiritual dimension, or at least no clear spiritual dimension, is despicably addressed by the misuse of the word “adiaphora”.

Lutherans like to use the word “adiaphora” in order to protect Christian freedom from legalism. The intent is honourable, but in our post post-modern society, from which no Christian nor church is isolated, subjective morality fuelled by hyper-individualism (as political philosopher, Charles Taylor, once characterized individualism in North America) leads to believing that different, or even opposite, spiritual decisions are equal. But even though “all things are permissible”, the debates on food sacrificed to idols and circumcision in the apostolic age were not nearly as adiaphoric as we sometimes like to believe. The debates in Acts do not support an antinomian position to “do whatever you wish because you are now forgiven by Christ, and free from the law”).

Today, if a pastor wants to deeply unearth what good works look like in any given scenario, or even time-period in history, he may be stepping into a mine field. “Its not the church’s business”, is sometimes spoken, but more often unspoken. There’s the question as to whether or not it’s appropriate, given, again, Christian freedom. If a pastor is just sharing his own personal opinions and preferences, he may get away with it. Otherwise, its likely seen as dictatorial or domineering. Allergy towards such a level of pastoral involvement is also complicated by critics wondering whether or not this is slippery step towards works righteousness, or a protestant holiness movement. Are pastors who poke around too much into the lives of their parishioners, and judging their “personal” decisions, endangering souls by making them think firstly that they are saved by works, and secondly, that they are saved by the idiosyncratic preferences of their pastor? Yet if the pastor is God’s presence according to the Holy Office, everything in life is His business right? We have a hard time with this. We may concede somewhat by saying “Yes, it’s God’s business, but no it’s not the pastor’s. The pastor is a sinner and only human.” While at the same time we all confess that there is an element of trust that we must show to pastors and their decisions in life-living areas, and acknowledge that they are accountable to heaven for them: “To him who has been entrusted much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48).

Prioritizing seminary education is one of the Church’s ways of protecting and consoling people from abusive clergy. But the suspicion towards pastor entering more intimately into our lives is often the same one that tempts to confess our sins exclusively and directly to God through silent prayer and avoid any middle-man, like our pastor through private confession. Can we at least agree that the pastor needs a greater role to play in our personal lives? By compartmentalizing any part of our life from the pastor, I would argue you have done the same to God, since the pastor, after all, holds the divine office. And that would be saying there are certain parts of life that we don’t need to interpret/address spiritually. That means there are areas in our lives that we don’t want God to step into and speak. But the Bible says we need His illuminating light in all compartments of our lives.

We need help in letting Christ’s light expose the darkness and illuminate our souls with God’s grace, and for that reason God hasn’t just given us a holy book that we need to read on our own and work out our salvation all by ourselves. But He has graciously given us pastors, and other Christians in congregations, to do that.

A shepherd has the responsibility, not just to feed the flock, but also protect the flock from the devilish wolves that seek to spiritually devour them. A good shepherd actively throws rocks at them to scare them away, warning them and offering refuge to the flock. When he acts in this capacity, he should not be seen as going beyond the limits of his ministry. It is interesting that the word φυλάσσω (phulasso: to guard), used in Paul’s exhortations to pastors the letters to Timothy (in 2 Tim 1.13-14 and 1 Tim 6.20-21), has the sense of “keeping watch over the possessions that have been entrusted by another, and of “standing guard, defending them”. The verb is linked to the function performed by the night watchman of a city. We have a similar meaning in προσέχω (prosecho: “to take care of”) in 1 Tim 4.6-16, Acts 20.28-30. It means to be in a continuous state of readiness and willingness to investigate a future danger or need and to react appropriately. In other words, the role of the shepherd goes beyond feeding the flock and encompasses all aspects of life in which lambs may be exposed to danger.

Pastors are to be careful then on how to handle this divine responsibility of applying the third use of the law in the sensitive areas of members lives, but the bottom line is that it is their business. Inasmuch as the Bible has applications to every part of our life, so too does the pastor. Luther clearly makes it the business of pastor by talking about the distinction between two kinds of righteousness, the first being salutary alien righteousness of Christ, imputed to us by grace and received through faith, and the second one being “civil” righteousness: how we live in the world around us. The adiaphorists confuse civic righteousness (which a person can to some extent achieve through natural abilities that remain after the fall into sin) with righteousness before God (which no man can achieve or even contribute toward, but Christ alone possesses by His own virtue and imputes graciously to those who believe in him).[1]

In Luther’s prayer and appeal for a free Christian council in his introduction to the Smalcald articles, he undisputedly shows that the mission of the Church involves her voice in all three estates, as a community and not just as individuals, and with obvious organized leadership including clergy. He offers a public defense against accusations of bad behaviour exhibited in society by Lutherans (who exhibited soft antinomian behaviour!) which although involves doctrine, he makes a matter for the prince to address

O Lord Jesus Christ, do Thou Thyself convoke a Council, and deliver Thy servants by Thy glorious advent! The Pope and his adherents are done for; they will have none of Thee. Do Thou, then, help us, who are poor and needy, who sigh to Thee, and beseech Thee earnestly, according to the grace which Thou hast given us, through Thy Holy Ghost who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Father, blessed forever. Amen.[2]

Luther conceives of the Church, and her involvement in the three estates, as not just something that happens at an individual level. He also presumes this occurs at an institutional level; at a necessarily then, “political” level. The Church is a political institution and creature by nature, as are people and pastors. This is good and normal. After all, the Church is both visible and invisible. It’s “invisible” because it’s made of believers in Christ, and faith is something you cannot see. It’s “visible” because serious Christians are found together as a community, in an institution, which you CAN see. And as an institution, I believe that the Church has a role to play in the public square. Now the Roman Catholics take this too far. The Pope is the head of a religion and the head of a state (the Vatican). This is an abusive mix of the two kingdoms. But we Lutherans don’t take it far enough. We separate the two as if God is disinterested in the way we live in the public sphere. There are some exceptions, such as when our synodical president shares our theological view in congress or goes on a pro-life march. That’s terrific. But for the most part, we talk like the only voice Christianity can have in the world is by single individual Christians speaking out, as opposed to together as a Body, as the Church. Yet evangelism (and speaking into the public square with the ultimate goal of converting souls for Christ), isn’t just done by individual Christians, it’s done also by the communal body of Christ![3]

Now I’m going to say something shocking, that makes Luther sound like a Christian nationalist: Luther cared about national security! Yes, that’s right. He had a political position as a pastor. He doesn’t just tell the prince to keep Muslims out of Germany because they’re heretics. But on behalf of the Church, even though he is undoubtedly pro-evangelism (as we see in his rhetoric regarding salvation for the Jews), he tells him to keep the Turks out because they are a military threat to the nation: primarily because they attack the interests of the Church such as the preaching of the Gospel, but also because God cares about the physical wellbeing of his beloved people.

Luther never preaches politics from the pulpit, in the sense of salvation being conditional on views of public policy. But he does speak publicly about the applications of our life in Christ, applying common sense and godly wisdom to real life situations. When it comes to the third estate, the clergy drop the ball when they are paranoid of preaching politics from the pulpit by addressing moral questions of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual culture, etc. These are both spiritual and moral topics that have Biblical applications in Christian vocations in both church and civil society. As we will see, pastors as seelsorgers are expected to shape the souls of parishioners in edifying and God-pleasing ways. When WE don’t do that, we betray soft antinomian tendencies. The Church is at the center of all civilization and the cross is on top and in the middle, the light of the world. But antinomians selfishly, lazily or cowardly hide this light under a bushel. Even though “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10), soft antinomianism is manifested in a quietist position on matters of morality as we encounter them in the public sphere as individuals and as a Church.

We live in community together. Church community includes voting members in civil society. Issues of poverty or abortion don’t just happen outside the walls of the church but inside too. The three estates are not silo-insulated spheres, but overlap.

For instance, the Church is a charitable organization. Pastors officiate weddings as priests and represent heads of state. Think of evangelism techniques. We do ESL and soup kitchen ministries that help the body (as an excuse to helping the soul), and they are not only products of individuals, but also as an organization or program of a church. That is what many synodical RSOs are. Many of these endeavours are not just tolerated but seen as crucial to unique missions of local congregations. People are coached and led by pastors in those projects too, in ways that are not often theological: sharing their administrative and leadership abilities. Yet why is ESL and feeding the homeless less controversial than political involvement in moral matters encountered in the Left hand kingdom (after all, the ultimate intent is never simply fixing temporal problems but saving souls)? Probably because it touches on our idols. At end of the day addressing these personal gods is precisely what the Gospel is about, done in public ministry but often most effectively in individual pastoral relationship.

COVID offers a good example of this happening or the neglect: Was it the pastor’s job to inform about the morally questionable vaccines or not? Even later on during the pandemic: the hesitancy to talk about issues that seemed to have no bearing on spirituality at first, but then we had a hunch that we were wrong. Families were broken, worship services were reduced to zoom for years in some places. We may now admit that all things are spiritual, but have we learned from those mistakes? Are there still life-living subjects that we believe are off limits? Do pastors believe they should have spoken more about life in the third estate, or made it their business as to how their members believed and behaved? I haven’t met an American Lutheran nor Lutheran pastor who hasn’t confessed that they failed to some degree during that difficult and dark time in our history. Yet we sinners have a hard time confessing specifics.

I get asked to do a lot of presentations on spiritual warfare, especially pertaining to demonism. And I always introduce the subject with a contrast as to how we moderns view the invisible dimension of life versus our forefathers. Its not just a philosophical question that satisfies an epistemological curiosity. It has real practical implications: when the ancients looked around themselves, they did not see empty space.

They saw demons and angels around them all the time (for better or for worse). A haunted house wasn’t as freaky to them as to us. Even my parents would refer to their parents experience with spells and voodoo in the folk life of Germany. My dad’s opa apparently drank too much, and was threatened by my great oma with words like “I will pay the local witchdoctor to put a curse on you, and then you’ll smarten up”(!).

In the old days, it was more natural to engage in spiritual warfare in a very tangible way. When Luther throws the inkwell against the devil, its because he saw him there. And it wouldn’t have been that strange for him to tell the maid what happened when the mess needed to be cleaned up. We laugh. We figure he was really stressed. Why do we presume it’s a mental health problem? Was Luther crazy because he frequently had words with Satan? His hymns regularly rebuke the devil as if he’s standing in the room beside him. He doesn’t need to scream loudly either. The devil is right there! Many Lutherans including Luther, Chemnitz, Balduin and even Walther give practical steps, on how to exorcize demons, and none of them are alarmist.

Today, due to the impact of rationalism, we get chills when we hear stories about demons and poltergeists. We believe in the supernatural, but limited to the ins and outs of two sacraments. As sinners, we don’t like mystery. We don’t like not having all the answers. We think we know better than our forefathers! Why is it that when we imagine empty space, we see particles, rays and energy, instead a room crowded with angels and demons? Its because we are “scientistic”. Not “scientific”. We have bought into the false religion of science as a way of viewing the world around us. It is closely related to the philosophy of rationalism in the 18^th c, which elevated reason over God’s word, resulting in Higher criticism, where you get to judge Bible, and not the other way around. But the ancients did not see it that way. They saw demons and angels all around. If those were all manifested to us right now in the flesh, I doubt that we would be able to see each other standing a foot away.

Luther never pitted reason against faith. Philosophers such as Schleiermacher, Kirkegaard and Wittgenstein did that. Luther saw reason as good and a gift of God, but its corrupted version, he called “Frau Hulda”. She is as whore that seeks to replace the Word of God as our lens through which to the see the world (even when the Word seems to contradict itself). Lutherans believe the sacraments are what God says they are even if its humanly illogical. God says. We believe. Sadly, the practice of immediately referring those with “demonism traits” to mental health, is characteristic of Lutheran pastoral ministry today, unfortunately. We believe in sacraments doing miraculous things, and the Word, and yet it ends there. Miracles, demonic activity: some bronze agers even deny their existence entirely today. Angels and demons aren’t really part of our lives, is the impression. For if they were, we would be forced to view things spiritually, with a spiritual lens. If we did that, it would change our lives. Pastors would then be first responders on demonism. God gets praise first, not doctors, when a healing occurs. We thank God, not coincidence or chance, when miracles happen through the prayers of Christians and from the altar, when no medicine could succeed. Yet the default position today when it comes to demonism, when church leaders notice an issue, is that you send the suffering and hurting individual to the mental health experts or hospital first, even if it clearly has the marks of demonic oppression or even possession. For even if the congregation suspects that demonic activity is the cause, we have no protocol in place to address it. So we ignore or deny it. Some Lutherans refer their members to the Roman Catholics, because the papists apparently know how to deal with it better. This is a shame and a compromise. We can do the work better than they, since we have the full Gospel and right understanding of the Word. It’s a spiritual concern which means it’s a theological problem. By referring these issues to the Roman Catholics, we are conceding that they are theologically stronger, at least in this category, or have a better “in” with God. But our pastors are largely unaccustomed to thinking about it that way.

Whether it be dealing with demonism, or mental health, or the family and political decisions of our members, talking about it with them, and even among us, is uncomfortable because we have lost the art of SEELSORGER. Our Lutheran fathers saw the ministry of deliverance as a kind of unusual but still “normal” part of pastoral ministry, because they weren’t rationalists, they were seelsorgers. And seelsorgers are involved in the application of the third use of the law in all three estates.

To interpret all of life spiritually, means we need lenses to be given to us. Thanks be to God, those have been given to us through the holy catholic and apostolic Church, in Holy Baptism. Yet those lenses need some instruction on how to use them. And all the way along you need the pastor.

Historically, Lutheran pastors saw themselves as seelsorgers. This was how they equipped members for spiritual war. Certainly, sacraments do that, but just like any soldiers who have weapons, they need training. So, we need pastors to help us learn to use our weapons. Pastors are not just added extras but indispensable to our spiritual survival. Seelsorger literally means “Spirit guides” (not in the new age way, but as a kind of spiritual life coach, to put it crassly). The German word is “care for soul” giver, having no perfect English equivalent. Seelsorgers can be best likened to a “kind father”. Fathers care about the entire holistic life of their children; not just one compartment of their lives. No part of their being as a child is off the table for a good father’s involvement. Disgruntled children complain today about how their fathers were not enough a part of their lives. Children secretly expect their fathers to poke their nose into all their business. What my kids eat, who their friends are, who they marry, career goals, what they watch on screens, is all my business as a father, whether they like it or not. That’s normal. That’s love. The father’s “opinion” is not really a viewpoint among equals. He has authority over his children. They are to listen to him, show respect, obey and carefully consider his view in all things.

St Paul refers to himself as the father to Titus and Timothy and others. Its obviously not a biological relationship. It’s a spiritual one but the comparison is perfect. Its normal for us to see our pastors as fathers, and pastors to consider themselves as such, even if they are decades younger than their members. This is how the pastoral office was once viewed. Why not so much today? We will talk in a moment about some historical movements that had us drift from there. But this idea of pastor as father is essential in seeing pastors as seelsorgers.

“Seelsorger” is pretty much a uniquely Lutheran term, and expresses a Biblical view of the function of pastoral office as the pastor relates to individuals. At least since the fourth century, pastors have been known to function as spiritual physicians.

The uniqueness of Lutheran pastoral ministry became very clear to me having served 11 years as a military chaplain. Lutheran pastors had an outstanding reputation for visiting people and members among protestants. The individual caregiving wasn’t as much of an emphasis for other denominations. Pastors for them were mainly seen as spiritual helpers, but without a right view of the Office of the Ministry, pastor as “father” is not in their vocabulary. In the wider religious spectrum of the Canadian chaplaincy (in which I served eleven years), Christians were distinct, and Lutherans in particular, from “question and answer men” like rabbis or imams. Those religious leaders exist to answer your theological questions, or perform certain rites on your behalf. For Lutherans, due to Luther who gave new value to individual believers through the emphasis on the universal priesthood which meant each individual counted before God, each was a precious little lamb of the good shepherd. Pastoral care then was characterized as individual care. For Lutherans, it was crucial that pastor interacted with people. This was not the way for the Roman Catholics during Luther’s time (the Late Medieval period). This isn’t to suggest Lutheranism was doing something new. Instead Luther resurrected a practice that had been corrupted by the papacy, as was the case with most of his reforms. He went back to an earlier, healthier Christian tradition. For “seelsorgering” as an early church practice of pastoral care was known as cura animarum, “the cure of anima” or “cure of soul” from the Latin word for the Hebrew “nephesh” (which comes from “breath” as God breathed into his newly formed creature) and the Greek word “psyche” from which we get “psychology”, pertaining to the mind. So seelsorgering as pastoral care, ultimately, always recognized the connection between soul and mind, and that God’s word and ordained servants had something to say about the whole person: body, mind and soul.[4]

Lutherans carried on that tradition, but it has sort of fallen out of use. So now we may need some help to carry it on in the future.

Back to the military, ironically, in Canada the word for “chaplain” was the Spanish word for father: “Padre”. What a complement! And the way we speak and the words we use, doesn’t only reflect the way we think, but shapes the way we think. So the language was convenient for those of us who were missionizing soldiers in a Canadian environment which is radically godless compared to the USA.[5] But in the old days the Canadian “padres” or American chaplains were the mental health workers, counsellors, even doctors. They took a holistic approach to the survival of soldiers in physical war. We need to do the same as pastors and parishioners in today’s spiritual war.

But as the secularization of the Western world sped up in the 1960s, the role of the chaplain diminished, and his shepherding and fathering became more compartmentalized to just “doing” religious services, like Roman Catholic priests today. Spiritual life became a subcategory of mental health as the “helping professionals” effectively hijacked the role of pastor.

For example, did you know that PTSD used to be called “moral injury” (a religious term) and prior to that “spiritual injury”? PTSD was considered to be ‘a soul issue’ and not a ‘mental health issue’. This kind of change represents a deliberate shift to the secular world of psychology usurping the stuff of the church and making it its own. Unless PTSD among infantry men is caused by actual physical brain injury, it’s usually a result of a crisis in conscience, guilt, or existential questions regarding ‘who I am’ and beliefs about the sanctity of a soldier’s vocation and role within the machine of authorized killing. These spiritual questions remain undisputed among all health professionals as the cause of most mental injury. Yet the notion that religion should be the loudest voice in addressing them is considered absolutely laughable. I spent 3 years with NATO special forces of NATO on teams with secular psychiatrists and psychologists in creating recovery packages for PTSD victims, and clearly the spiritual side is, at best, not understood in the least, and at worst, seen as a Christian nationalist attempt at evangelization. Trying to regain this lost territory is next to impossible today, and our militaries are worse off for it.

It’s noticeable that the shift in the military to others doing the job that chaplains should be doing or once did, (like the heightened role of mental health workers active in spiritual caregiving), parallels what is happening in the church. I would guess that with the mental health stats what they are today (as roughly 20-35% percent of Americans, Christian and non, are using mental health professionals and or legal or illegal drugs to cope with life), Christians are more inclined to speak to “secular” “specialists” over pastors about their problems; issues which, again, always have a spiritual and or moral component.

I know that we pastors don’t have training in psychotherapy or counselling, but does that preclude us from being the first tier in a process of healing? It’s a huge mistake to think that any social or psychological issues in life does not have a spiritual dimension, which then requires the Word of God, administered by his pastors, to address. My kid may injure himself and need stitches, but before taking him to the doctor, I see if I can help first.

A return to such a trajectory presumes pastors, though sinners, are characteristically mature and humble enough to empathetically employ pastoral wisdom case by case, since only a truly domineering pastor puts his interests before the other to whom he has been called to feed, and for whom Christ has so graciously redeemed. It is no secret that pastoral ministry is an area where our clergy could receive “a deeper” formation, in terms of helping orthodox confessional pastors not feel threatened by difference or other perspectives in pastoral care giving. So again, with great power comes great responsibility, and just like some father abuse his role in the family, the same applies to the Church. Yet, thanks be to God that mechanisms exist to mitigate for such situations in our spiritual family.

In short, pastors as seelsorgers need to be involved in the details of the lives of their people in order to, as St. Paul writes, help them “take captive EVERY thought for Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).

“Pastoral care” is often equated with “seelsorgering”, though I would argue seelsorgering is a function of pastoral care as a description of pastoral ministry and the pastoral office. But notice that today how often “spiritual care” is substituted for “pastoral care”. It’s more open ended and less paternalistic. “Not all people are religious, but they are all spiritual, right?”. It’s a popular less offensive notion: “spiritual” versus “pastoral”. So too “spiritual counselling”, even “Christian counselling”, has come to replace the work of the seelsorger.

How did this all happen? What was it like in the old days? Individual Confession and Absolution was the way prior to the Reformation.

Afterall priests were the early psychologists, and confession was the early therapy. You confess sins, get forgiven, and the pastor then advises you on how to live better. It’s a shame that the Roman Catholics make absolution conditional by their view of penance. So Lutherans flee from anything that looks like we need to guide people on how to live the new life. But look at our rite of individual confession. At the end, we expect our “father confessor” to say more than just forgive. He is to encourage and advise the absolved sinner. It’s too bad that we have lost this art. As a seminary professor I taught pastoral ministry and had a unit on how to practice effective private confession. I compared it with a dentist who goes poking around at rotten teeth in a mouth. Each mouth is different. Each dental solution is somewhat tailor made. Yet treatment needs to be individual, as some individual teeth need more attention than others, and a general fluoride dose isn’t going to be enough to effectively improve the situation. Pastors are that dentist and confession is that process. Sometimes they poke and say “does that hurt?” or “how about this?”. In confession, it is not inappropriate for the confessor to interrupt and steer the conversation, making sure it doesn’t turn into a pity party or blaming of other people for your problems as the one confessing sins may experience meandering thoughts but spoken outloud (e.g. “I am really sorry Lord for my anger towards my sister, but she just drives me nuts and she thinks she’s so much better, and gossips about me… Lord, can you get more busy on changing her?”). As a newly ordained pastor, I would just let people say whatever they want, and just forgive them, no matter what they ever said (justifying myself by saying, “well they are just talking to God anyways, and not me”), and offering no advice afterwards. I don’t do that anymore. I’m not saying that I make it a two way conversation, but I do get involved and interact. No one has ever complained.

One of the seelsorger’s best tools is private confession. Yet most don’t like it because its too personal, and touchy, and, maybe one reason is that it prods into the sins committed within the second and third estates.

Ironically, although Roman Catholic priests don’t have the tradition of seelsorgering like Lutherans, they are structurally better set up for success as a Church due to the expectations by members to go to confession and receive the counsel of their “father”. The problem is that the frequency among Roman Catholics to tap into the benefits of a “The Sacrament of Reconciliation” aren’t great: 16% of Roman Catholics go once a month while 42% once a year. Our stats are way lower, with most Lutherans never having gone to private confession even once in their lives. In fairness, confession stats are not necessarily the best marker to measure the openness of people to let the clergy into all aspects of their lives, but it is safe to say that it is increasingly less popular among all Christians, due to the dominant influence of hyper-individualism in Western culture.

Yet historically Lutherans theoretically had the advantage over the Roman Catholic in the department of pastoral care. For the difference between Roman Catholics and Lutherans on Confession was that the ministry of “spiritual care and counselling” for the priests was largely limited to private confession (it was often an empty and robotic rite, in within a factory of confession boxes with the priest in a swivel chair, speedily hearing confessions from one side to the next,

whereas for Lutherans it became one part, a crucial part, but not the only part, of the more holistic seelsorgering of “spiritual therapy”. Thus, smaller congregations with healthier ratios of pastor to people was important for Lutherans. In contrast, this really didn’t matter to Roman Catholics, especially during the Middle Ages when just viewing priests doing the sacrament, as your go between, sufficed for salvation. Unfortunately, though, for the Lutherans, time with the seelsorger later became a necessary pastoral alternative to the rite of confession (which became optional, as sadly, it is with human nature and the third use of the law, when the Lutherans refused to mandate certain practices, like fasting or confession, they fall out of use).[6]

But on the bright side, seelsorgering was still actually very similar and complimentary to confession, even if it lacked the formal ritual. Think of when a pastor sits on the couch with an elderly woman crying on his shoulder and he pronounces Christ’s forgiveness. No liturgical rite is followed, but there are unspoken mutual understandings in place, and the objective is the same. Such “sofa ministry” certainly is a function of the pastoral office, and fits under the category of confession, yet a little casual and fluid, which I think is ok, but a healthy Christian spiritual diet includes both the “casual” and formal.

Yet seelsorging today, when practiced, has often begun to look like a kind of Christian psychotherapy. Seelsorgering in the past was more holistic with the aim to fully prepare Christians for living righteous lives. It was not limited to individual confession and absolution nor was it just about helping individuals addressinging the dark areas of their life. It was a way of equipping them for spiritual warfare in the surrounding society, as they carried out their various vocations. It happened within a more communitarian-based and less pluralist pre-American society, and where the two kingdoms were really seen as two distinctive halves of one kingdom of God. So it was a way of guiding people into the complexity of what they were dealing with in life, in all three estates. All aspects of life can fit within the circles of Church, state and family, which all overlap. Seelsorgering then wasn’t just about questions of “how to heal from my sins” but also on “how to live a virtuous life”. Pastors should not be shy to do what the hymnal encourages (though honestly it could say it a little more forthcoming): i.e. give advice on how to live better in light of the confession of specific sins, like, again, that dentist prescribing a unique diet to each client based on their unique dental issues. We expect our medical doctors to pry into our personal lives, yet when it comes to the soul, we sinners don’t like someone to do that, because the devil doesn’t like that. He has made his home in each of our hearts, and doesn’t like getting the boot.

I encourage you all to read, if you have not already, Kirch und Amt (church and ministry) and Gesetz und Evangelium (Law and Gospel) by C.F.W. Walther, where we get a picture of how seelsorgering involved more than just spiritual healing and mental health. Walther was a big a fan of making personal issues of members his business in not just estate number 1, but 2 and 3 (family and civil live). Some pastors today may be gifted in pastoral counselling, and even have the CPE qualification, but are they addressing these moral and ethical issues of, say, life in the civil estate? In what venue do we train them for that, or even talk about it? When I asked, during the pandemic aftermath, how many pastors in one confessional circuit had told their people about the pecking order between different COVID vaccines/injections (all were controversial due to their connection to aborted children, but some worse than others). Well, heads hung low and not one said that they had. Other pastors wanted to defer it all to the “specialists”, while still others tried to seelsorg but ended up reverting to offering Sunday-school answers to complex questions in spite of employing the rhetoric of “unprecedented times” to justify the lack of justification for unorthodox behavior, opinions and decisions when it came to pandemic mandates.

Some of you are familiar with LCMS Doxology crowd, intended to help equip pastors for the, dare I say, “practical” side of pastoral ministry, with its journal appropriately entitled Seelsorger. Founder and good friend Hal Seinkbeil talks about how seelsorgering has sadly become a thing of the less confessional and orthodox pastors, who are interested in spiritual counselling over traditional word and sacrament ministry. That means that the most confessional pastors, the ones that we should look to for leadership, are the least accustomed to seelsorgering. This explains for so much silence in them feeling comfortable talking about COVID issues to their members, since even though we all agree that is had a major impact on life within all three estates.

Pastor Seinkbeil writes,

[7] We found during the pandemic that the most confessional pastors had their heads in the sand when it came to addressing current topics that had direct implications on the spiritual life of members. We found members equally disinterested in pastors prying into their personal lives. Such fear and suspicion is not healthy. Where does this cowardice or lack of comfortability to seelsorg come from?

What went wrong? Well you heard me mention earlier the term “rationalism”. Rationalism was a pivotal philosophical movement that tried to reverse the roles of God and man by elevating the authority of man’s mind over God’s word. That movement was a product of a more specifically religious movement and philosophical theological system of the 17^th century called “pietism”; not in the sense of “pious” (doing good Christian behaviour or exhibiting healthy devotion to God), but the idea is that because you and God have a personal spiritual relationship, you don’t need anybody or anything else to help you in your growth. Your direct relationship with God morphs into the idea that you don’t need other people, or means! You become your own priest, of sorts. Pastors, at best, become spiritual helpers, as do sacraments, fellow believers, and congregations. But none of them are essential. Your relationship is so personal, how can a stranger really speak into that? Your relationship is so spiritual, how can a “thing” like bread, water and wine really make that much of a difference to what God is doing deep down in your heart?

The origins of this movement, which is hyper-spiritual and anti-clerical, is actually mysticism. Luther and the early orthodox reformers rebuked it as “enthusiasm” from the “schwarmer”, who boasted a direct link to the Holy Spirit, even outside of the Word, something which we find in Pentecostalism and charismatic evangelicalism today: “me and God have a direct link, without the holy Word and means of Grace”. The early Lutheran pietists would have been horrified to be associated with the theology of Zwingli, Karlstadt and Muntzer, but that just goes to show you how careful we must be with all matters of doctrine and stand up against any hint of heresy creeping into our churches.

Now there is a good kind of mysticism, not a radical non-Christian type, but the kind that springs from the Word of God and says that even though we don’t count on experiencing God in our personal devotional life, we don’t need to be afraid of it either. Luther encountering angels while receiving the Holy Eucharist[8] is a good example of that. Paul talks about levels of heaven and even possibly the existence of mystical languages[9]. They don’t consider such mystical religious experience as rewards of holiness in any way, but they admit there is a dimension of mysticism, beyond human words to describe, in the lives of many, if not all, Christians. There were even some nice offshoots of mysticism and pietism, in Paul Gerhardt hymns, that highlight your personal loving interactions and relationship with Jesus. One of my favourite devotional prayer books is Johann Gerhardt’s “Meditations on Divine Mercy”, in which, you often get the impression that, as one fourth century desert father, an Egyptian mystic monk said “only you and God exist”. But they are all based in, and assume, the sacraments as the source, and operate within the walls of orthodox theology. Mysticism at its best fosters a very personalized relationship with God within the parameters of the Bible, and never disconnected by His sacred means: the mysteries as we find them celebrated in the Church. The word “mystery” or “sacrament” in Latin itself suggests something being beyond human articulation, and thus there is a mystical element to the means of grace. Consider also how the term “mystic union” of Christ and His Body, the Church, is entirely appropriate Lutheran language.

But just like anything, when misunderstood, a great gift can become abused and dangerous.[10] And so it went with interpretations and applications of the writings of Lutheran mystics like Johann Arndt, in the sixteenth century, a highly popular devotional writer among Lutherans (with his writings taking third or fourth place to Luther’s!

Arndt, a great devotional writer was highly influential on Lutherans, reiterated, for the most part, the healthy Lutheran emphasis on individual faith and a direct relationship with God through Christ. The medium to God was the means of grace, whereas in the Roman system you had a soteriological mediation that involved not only sacraments, but priests and saints. But for the first time in a long time, in the West at least, a relationship with God was personal. This was good news. Luther taught this, but the mystics, who influenced the pietists, showed you what it looked like. And it began to look less like a communal experience within the confines of the Church as an institution, or among people as interdependent members of a indispensable spiritual communal body. So the drive toward individual spiritual development had its downfall, especially in a climate of temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater when observing the abuses of the Roman Catholic church. Lutherans struggled with how to be catholic amidst all the abuses. If it looked Roman Catholic, it was dismissed as being exclusively for their use. Did you know that in early Lutheranism in North America, even candles were controversial? No wonder it has taken us so long to get crucifixes back into our churches.

So Arndt, though not saying anything necessarily wrong, led to pietism. For instance, it led to one of the most famous Lutheran devotional books after the Small Catechism, Pia Disideria by Jacob Spener. This book is largely all legalism and law, with little Gospel, as believers are forced to climb a ladder of holiness up to heaven, never sure whether if you died right now, you would make it there through faith alone. The implied goal of life was to please or impress God and avoid His wrath, by your personal religious decisions. Pietism then meant less focus on the visible church and visible sacraments. It fostered a view of the Church, capital C, as nothing but a bunch of believers with a common interest assembling together. It’s a very inorganic and cold view of the body of Christ. It is basically the current protestant view that individual believers get to heaven, not within the wider body and institution of the Church, lead by true doctrine, but by themselves and through the works of the law.[11]

Conversely, the Lutheran Confessions say that the Church is defined as believers assembling around the Word and Sacrament (which includes the pastoral office!)(To prove it: though lay people can perform emergency baptisms they cannot preside over “emergency Eucharists!”). The Confessional Lutheran view of the definition of the Church is trinitarian and beautiful: the Father’s children gathering around Jesus, and brought there by the Holy Spirit: very warm and organic. The pastor feeds the sheep, the food purchased and won by Jesus.

Pietism caused rationalism and is closely related to it. As one friend, Rev. Paul Williams, author of one of the handouts, put it, “pietism was rationalism of the heart, rationalism was a pietism of the brain”. Rationalism rejected the Bible as authoritative. It said things like there is a rationale explanation for miracles. The red sea parted because of the wind. Demon possession is mental illness.[12] Pietism ultimately rejected the Church, the Word and her ministers as authoritative and thus as necessary. Both placed the individual, mind, heart, feeling, experience as metaphysically supreme. After all, mysticism, carves out the requisite space for rationalism. Mysticism means your spirituality is above anything knowable, including the Word of God, which is all just letter of the Law right? God is spirit, immanent, transcendent, unknowable, uncontrollable, uncontainable. Faith in this God doesn’t need to be at all reasonable, and can’t really be grounded in facts or history. Your spirituality hovers above all that, and so far above all that, that it has nothing to say about any of that, like the mundane things of the earth and every day life[13]. Besides, if your personal relationship with Jesus is everything, then who cares about anything else: how you live, or how you think about other stuff? You can be an evolutionist while holding a “spiritual” view of the creation narrative. You can believe in a “spiritual” resurrection while holding to the world’s view that physical resurrection is scientifically impossible. “We are not saved by reason, anyway, right? We are saved by faith!” Faith and reason ironically become pitted against each other, as opposed to reason bending knee to faith and faith being shown to have reasonable substance. We encounter this in the existential German philosophers, most of whom, unsurprisingly, had Lutheran roots, but watered down through rationalism. “Why study doctrine in depth if the Bible is unreliable and if my highly individualized spiritual experiences and sentiments surpass in quality and cannot be contained by words and theological formulas?” Pietism resulted in a lot of devotional acts that either tried to increase the intensity of those religious experiences, as the soul escalated the latter towards Jesus in the heart, or reduced Christianity to doing good works, having a skewed view of “sanctification”, to, again, help you get closer to Jesus in your heart.[14]

But without viewing the pastor as necessary in guiding this spirituality, and teaching the proper distinction between Law and Gospel, and the place of true good works, pietism paved the way for faith being the only thing that mattered in the end, and soooo personal that nobody else was deemed fit to judge the ins and outs of that, including a pastor, who functions really just as a more educated and moral man than the rest of us. The logic seems then also to have been extended to life living being very personal and adiaphora. This is key to this discussion.

LECTURE 2

For today, as pietism has been filtered to us, life -living is largely treated as adiaphora, based on personal and contextual decision that individuals make, with lots and lots of religious freedom. If all that Lutherans care about is forgiveness of sins, since believing that doctrine is the only one you really need, why talk about good works? In pietism, you become your own priest, your own judge. Living in the three estates, becomes a matter of opinion and preference. Your pastor may have an opinion, but yours trumps his.

Pietism had a huge influence in the Western world. It was a Lutheran phenomenon that impacted all of Western Christendom. With the Reformation’s emphasis on the individual relationship with God, the radical reformers took this to its logical conclusion and said there was no need for any mediation, such as the means of grace, which are just symbols of spiritual realities, that we “do” because God says we should. For the means of grace to do more than just being symbols of divine truths, necessarily implicates some kind of mediation. Luther is 100% correct in arguing that man can never escape a physical means in connecting to God. If you reject God’s means, your heart, brain, emotions, take the place. Like Baptist Bible Studies: “I believe the Holy Spirit is telling me that this verse means x, y, and z to me. What about you?”. Well the protestants never really respond to any of these criticism. The Peasant revolt of 1524 resembled a kind of communistic rebellion destroying the orders of creation by a misunderstanding of the order of redemption. Their logic went: “If we are all equal before God, why not before man? So let’s all destroy any distinction between priest and lay, king and subject.” This shift, which included despising the church as an authoritative hierarchical organization in any sense, resulted in demonic anarchy, rebellion and mass murder.

But the Lutherans had it right. Although individual Christians have a direct mediation with God through Christ, that mediation happens through mediation: the Means of Grace; and where the pastors also belong to those means. Whether you consider them a means to the means or means themselves, they are necessary. The Bible says it. They are “essential workers” and so are the buildings from which they operate and the tools that they use (which is why churches should not close even during a real pandemic). But shortly after the successes of the reformation were celebrated, the counter reformation was launched and much of the territory gained by Lutheran was lost quickly, and the golden age of Lutheran orthodoxy was pretty short lived. The religious wars resulted in fragmented church bodies, and lack of strong confessional leadership, with Lutheran princes hailing a status as “emergency bishops” without much of any theological knowledge, and thus clearly mixing the two kingdoms in devilish ways. Seminaries were in a poor state. Pietism meant Lutherans, who could now read and could afford Bibles, had them, along with Luther’s Small catechism, but without much orthodox instruction. After all, the Small Catechism isn’t enough to get you through all of the complexities of life in terms of Christian living.[15] Pietism meant spirituality was reduced to “Me, God and my Bible”, with the sacraments functioning as spiritual booster juice but not essential nourishment. The third book on the book shelf of an average educated Lutheran, Pia Desideria, by Spener, didn’t help the situation at all.

So when Lutherans migrated to North America, they brought with them the baggage of these pietistic ideas. Immigration always involves the importation of culture. This is why it should be a concern for Christians, and saying so is not racism!!! Due to the prevalence of Protestantism in North American, these new Lutherans found an easy fit in the American climate. The American landscape was theologically comfortable for these early “confessional” Lutherans who simply didn’t know any better. After all, pietism, rationalism and ecumenism were the largest threats to true confessional Lutheranism in America. Rationalism is a denial of mystery, and pietism, applied on a community level, meant “as long as church bodies are trying their best to grow close to God and do good works, doctrinal differences shouldn’t put up unnecessary walls in fellowshipping together with non-Lutherans”. The two notions together lead to, and fueled, ecumenism: Where nobody should be compelled to judge personal relationships with God. Pietism’s emphasis on good works and “piety” meant that most Christians appeared to be the same, in terms of a general observance of the 10 commandments. And, “after all, we have more in common than not, and we need each other to survive in the new world.”

None of this was good for Confessionalism in America. Clergy were hoped for, but not necessary. And because they weren’t there, Lutherans got used to not needing them, and doing the pastor jobs, or at least what they thought were pastor jobs, themselves. Communion practices were infrequent. There were few notable confessional pastors interested in tackling the American wild life. Courageous pastors such as Henri Muhlenberg led the Church, prior to men like Walther. Yet however confessional we wish to depict such personages in historical records, the honest truth is that he more than likely wouldn’t have passed the standards of most of our conservative districts today.

In short, pietism resulted in a lessened openness and expectations in pastors as seelsorgers, especially in the American context. The principles of democracy as expressed in the US Bill of Rights, aligned well with pietistic ideas. Don’t get me wrong. These developments were not out of place, and it has been argued that Martin Luther’s early emphasis on the “universal priesthood of all believers” was an instrumental founding pillar for the U.S. constitution regarding equality between men. As mentioned earlier, the removal of soteriological hierarchy, such as the necessity of priests and saints to get close to God, meant each individual has equal value before God, and now in America, before man. BUT the downside of American democracy was that it was rooted in suspicion of authority. After all, it was a reaction against abusive British monarchy. There is a good side to this and a bad side. I believe that the USA is one of the best countries in the world, due to the preservation of Christian culture but also its stability through wise checks and balances within the political structure. After all, there is a place for healthy suspicion, since, all men are liars, and the Bible says do not put your trust in princes. Checks and balances in American democracy (Constitutional Republic) make sense. Even the way that we ordain and install pastors shows a realpolitik sensitivity in controlling for sinful abuse of power and authority in the life of congregations: pastors and their people promise to keep each other in check in doctrine and life. We all need to be accountable to someone due to the fact that we are sinners. But the concerns of the Left hand (civil government) had a major spill into the Right hand: ecclesiastical authority. Pastors are obviously sinners too, but when they speak from the Office, and with arguments and counsel supported by the Word of God, they are the voice of God; and, unless they are actually abusive, crazy or heretics, it’s wrong not to listen to them or let them consult on matters that they believe have spiritual implications. The pastoral office IS the office of Jesus, who is God, and pastors are his presence through that office. But the tricky part is, not everything pastors say come from the office. Pastors need to be aware of that as they may inadvertently abuse their authority when their personal opinions which actually are adiaphora are viewed in a Lutheran ex cathedra kind of way.

American Lutherans already had a lowish view of clergy, by virtue of this pietistic and protestant culture to which they were exposed and by no fault of their own (surrounded by church bodies who largely have low view of the office). But also, confessional Lutherans of the LCMS stripe had a specific issue that aggravated the situation of clergy trust even more. Now I know that the pastors in the room know all about LCMS history from seminary, but many of you lay people may not have had the opportunity to hear it. So let me give you a really fast run-down on how suspicion of clergy was reinforced by those early confessional Lutherans escaping the Prussian union in 1839.

The Prussian union of protestant churches was established in 1817 by a Calvinistic king, Wilhelm III, who was ruling a majority Lutheran population, approximately 95% Lutheran. He forced the Lutherans to compromise their Faith through unionism, such as what we would call today altar and pulpit fellowship, which is why the state church in Germany today is basically theologically ELCA. The liturgy was changed in order to accommodate Calvinistic Eucharistic beliefs. Faithful Lutheran like Walther, after resisting all the wicked political manoeuvres and public policies of the king, fled to America with a few ship loads of others to be able to practice their faith without compromise. The bishop of the time was a man named Martin Stephan. Well the bishop (who already had a shady reputation as being princely and domineering) got caught in a scandal with an affair with the church secretary. After the alleged affair was revealed in a confession to a Lutheran pastor, who then shared the news with the clergy, Stephan was chased out of town demanding a fair trial, which he didn’t get. He probably did it, but, just for the record, we don’t actually know. But the point was, for those early Missourians, there were some understandable trust issues when it came to authorities. Walther had a lot of damage-control to do after the scandal. Without any strong leadership, having lost one of the ships crossing the ocean, many confessional Lutherans, had doubts as to whether or not this was divine judgements and whether to flee back to the theological reign of terror of unionistic Prussian King. The superstitious thought that God was punishing them for leaving the state church in Germany. Walther was the clear selection as a new leader, or “bishop”, but was wise not to assert his authority too strongly in light of the scandal, and also of him being a youngster, at 27 years old. It took some time for him to earn his reputation and clear designation as leader of what would become the LCMS, proving his remarkable abilities by stabilizing the situation, but in the meantime, the view of clergy improved mildly, but not enough for pastors to be really viewed as a spiritual “father” in the seelsorger way.[16] It would take months and years for Walther to build the lost trust. If being a real seelsorger was already difficult in the American climate, it would increasingly be so after this fiasco.

As much as we adore Walther, he wasn’t perfect, and his mentor, Willhelm Loehe ,[17] was Walther’s hero, having funded Confessional missions in North America through the Iowa synod of the time, at a moment in history when it was very much needed in light of the influx of so many weakly catechized “cultural Lutherans” from all over Europe. He founded the Fort Wayne seminary, was a huge fan and supporter of missions among American Indians, developed a responsibly Lutheran approach to the diaconate, and helped preserve Lutheran culture from the influence of other denominations. Walther came to America for theological reasons, to escape the persecution of resisting the syncretism of the Prussian union, which was unlike many other Lutheran immigrants prior to him, who came for business opportunism and adventure. Most of those pre-Waltherian Lutherans sadly, but appropriately, melted into the pot of the ELCA today. Loehe, on the other hand, suffered many trials in Bavaria in his fight for confessionalism, but he never visited America. It was easy for him to judge the shape that confessional Lutheranism would take in the new world. Yet that doesn’t mean his judgements were invalid, though, again, they often lacked empathy, and even sympathy. But Loehe’s big fear was Walther being tempted to compromise the True Faith in the American landscaped. For example, he warned Walther of importing democratic principles into church governance. Walther likely did not have much of a choice, politically, after the Martin Stephan, scandal. The suspicion of authority, pietism and democracy made it hard for a German episcopal “top down” ecclesiology to strive, and so a more congregationalist “bottom up” structure was pretty much inevitable. Within 100 years, Lutheran polity went from being governed solely by pastors in ministeriums to equal lay and pastor representation in Synod. Again, it was easy to criticize Walther from Bavaria, but to strain relations more, Walther was a stubborn Saxon. Personality wise, Loehe was more of an idealist and even a romantic, while Walther more practical. And so whether or not Walther agreed with Loehe on the inside, he never took heed of his warnings in any significant way. Loehe was seriously concerned about the relationship between the pastor and the people and the impact of all these factors on the role of the pastor to the congregation. Loehe was more concerned about cultivating a culture where pastor is truly a seeslsorger, whereas Walther thought that, even if all American cultural tides pummeled Lutheran orthodoxy, Lutherans were sort of, deep down, spiritually hardwired to view their pastors as fathers. Walther had his hands full in making sure the Church just survived in America, so Loehe’s concerns were pretty low priority on his totem pole.

Yet even if Walther wanted to preserve a high view of the pastoral office alongside a high view of the congregation, it was pretty difficult in an environment of lay led congregations. Many, by no choice of their own, were operating without pastors. Many German pastors were frankly ill-equipped for the ruggedness of the USA, and even wildly worse winters in Canada.[18] Some were honestly too snobbish and elitist to come to America (which, honestly, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in many cases since much of the seminary training of the time in Europe was pretty liberal due to the impact of rationalism). Congregations continued worship without pastors, and thus began to be seen as increasingly less necessary or important. Communion wasn’t possible except for occasional clergy visits. The protestant neighbours were doing ok without pastors, or communion. Joint worship was a common phenomenon, receiving shepherding by local leaders of other protestant denominations who had little theological training. Sadly, the temptation to mimic other protestants and have fellowship with them, surpassed Lutheran convictions and confessional commitments.

Johannes Grabau (father and president of the Buffalo synod, which fell out with Missouri Synod, but who was a confessional pastor, and good friends with Loehe), was a contemporary of Walther. Even more critical of Walther than Loehe, Grabau went to bat with Walther on a number of matters.[19] Without going deeply into the differences and what led to the separation between the two[20], unlike Walther (who was leading churches recovering from clergy abuse, and dealing with the power struggles within congregations), Grabau had an easier ride. He could get away with a very high churchly approach to ministry, and one that left little room for lay leadership. For instance, he insisted on German liturgical forms and orders and treated them as next to divine, atypical to the American landscape. Grabau was less tempered in his words than Loehe, and accused lcms polity as Anabaptist, poisoned by democratic processes. He used words like “people should obey their pastor except if forbidden by Scripture”. Again: to obey your pastor in everything UNLESS the Bible contradicts it. I don’t think he meant that the pastor gets to decide the colour you paint your barn or the name you give to yours kids; blind obedience to a pastor, which would be abuse of the office. But, nevertheless, the argument struck the Saxons in the wrong way. For though such a pastoral approach is intended for good, and assuming a pastor implementing the idea was a servant-hearted shepherd, it’s a good example of seelsorgering, well, to the Saxons it sounded unquestionably domineering. Albeit, it left the door open for abuse, as does seelsorgering, or private confession, or individual care and counselling, still today.

Grabau saw the pastor more as father of a family, and less as a president of a congregation, because he could. Walther treats the pastor more as the mouthpiece of universal priesthood and representative of people before God. Grabau had a slightly different view of the pastoral office, troublesome to Missouri.[21] These differences of church and ministry strained relationships between Loehe and Walther, because though Loehe habitually took a middle position between Walther and Grabau, Loehe sided more with Grabau. There were also some differences between what confessional conscription meant in terms of the authoritative relationship of the Lutheran confessions and the Scriptures. Iowa wanted a historical context to dictate some matters of church practice and allowed more open questions whereas Missouri took a less flexible approach. (After all, the AC doesn’t answer every question, such as new ones, as Herman Sasse points out in 1933 when defending his battles against Naziism from “confessional” clergy who effectively thought the Lutheran Church had nothing to say about Hitler, since there wasn’t, say, a 29^th article on Naziism in the Augustana![22]:

[23]. Although these Lutheran leaders all had way more in common than not (a godly fixation on pure doctrine, infallibility of Scripture, traditional worship and the authority of the Book of Concord in its unaltered form), the falling out was significant on the theological shape that the LCMS would eventually take.

Walther and Grabau parted ways. Loehe had to decide with whom he agreed with more. He chose Grabau. The break seemed more personal than theological, though personal reconciliation between Loehe and Walther did eventually occur. In any case, Grabau was accused of having a domineering attitude. He said that what was the parishioners business is the pastors business. In other words, the pastor has a right and obligation to go poking around in the private life of his parishioners!

It may sound bad to our American ears, but is it justified, nevertheless? Now I wasn’t there in the 1800s, and I don’t know much about the guy, but when you read Grabau’s writings[24], you don’t get the impression that we have a dictator monster pastor, but rather we get a window into a deeply pastoral heart.

At the same time, you can see how a pastor prying deeply into lives of parishioners can be upsetting, dangerous and thus controversial. When asking why Private Confession and Absolution is increasingly unpopular among Roman Catholics, answers range from shame to fear, basically reflecting distrust in the confidentiality maintained by the priest. I personally believe there is a direct correlation between those who see pastor as seelsorger, as opposed to just a theological resource and/or officiant over religious services, AND those who understand him as a father, and good and trustworthy father. The Church has tried to protect her children by putting several mechanisms in place to reduce clergy abuse. Defrocking, for example, is one way. It has two clearly Biblical foundation: false doctrine and immoral life (and maybe incompetence). But we also include the reason of “domineering”, which allows for much more subjectivity. All of us here may think that we know what a domineering pastor looks like, but it’s hard to put your finger on it, especially when the alleged dictator-type pastors are theologically orthodox. In my seminary class, there was one student who was the brightest, but his attitude was sour, negative, and aggressive. The seminary delayed his ordination for years, since he would have destroyed his first parish. Yet he lived a pure life and never spoke heresy.

It’s hard to measure and assess these kind of subjective qualities in pastoral formation. We pray for our precious seminaries to have the divine wisdom to properly vet candidates in order to minimize defrocking based on domineering attitudes. And they do a really good job. But in terms of identifying problematic personalities, there is a fine line between domineering and just being a faithful father who may become unpopular due to his decisions when they are controversial.

Although I ask for my kids for their opinion at the supper table, their input doesn’t outweigh mine as father. And sometimes they don’t like my decision. I am wise to get my wife on board with my decisions, and even the kids, but at the end of the day, the family is not a democracy, and neither is the Church. One needs to be careful with accusations of a pastor as domineering, especially when considering Biblical prophets and apostles who may have failed the tests that we set for pastors today.

Since I have lived in the USA, and I am so impressed when I travel to hear all the mutually kind things said between pastors and the lay people about each other. Its really beautiful.

But, still, even in the best ecclesiastical contexts, are pastors viewed as seelsorgers? Are they willing to be used as seelsorgers? Are they getting deeply involved in parishioners lives?[25]

It takes a lot of patience and instruction for a pastor to convince his treasured flock and precious lambs that much of their “personal” lives are his business, in so far as the life of children in a biological family are the business of parents. St Paul says “For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1 Cor 4:15). He also compares himself as mother, as does Jesus, expressing an intimate and involved connection between clergy and people. Galatians 4:19, calls them “his children” for whom he is “in anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you”, much depth to unpack. But St. Paul basically sees himself as the one who chiefly forms them, like he is a mother who is with child. That he is in painful agony in that birthing and formation of them as his children. It’s normal for pastors to suffer in the process of forming his members spiritually. But Paul is playing with a kind of double image here; that precisely through him birthing them, they are birthing Christ – as Christ is being formed in them. It’s a touching image. The point is that a pre-American view of seelsorgering is fully Biblical and historical.

But the good news is that inspite of the challenges of early LCMS in light of church structure, power and authority in relationships between clergy and laity, congregational autonomy and relations to synod, you still observe lovely practice that shows pastors as more fatherly and involved in their parishioners lives than today. The notion today of separation of church and state, seems to suggest that the church has nothing to say about the life of parishioners outside of religious life, meaning the estates of family and life in civil society are off limits to pastors. But this was not the case at all in Walther’s day. Lutherans guided by their pastors freely and openly talked about family size, career choices, marriage etiquette and engagement, financial planning, what leisurely weekend activities were appropriate or not, if and whether you could attend a church of another confession (like at a funeral or wedding), who to pray with. Did you know that when you visited a congregation while travelling you needed a letter from your pastor stating that you were in good standing? Your word was not good enough? The pastor had that level of oversight over your “private” decision. Did you know that even life Insurance was a question that pastor’s believe they needed to speak to? Did you know that what we deem as pastors influencing the political opinions of parishioners, was not an issue in early LCMS, and even until recently?

For those who believe that the Church has no voice in the public sphere: The Old Testament and New are threaded with precedents. Whether Isaiah or Jeremiah, Joseph or David, the prophets warned government officials of the consequences of ungodly decisions and keeping them accountable. The imprecatory psalms praise justice and victory whenever the interests of the Church are promoted in the public sphere. Although such successes are temporal, they are still important to God. On the Two Kingdoms, Luther is clear on the Church’s obligation through the pastor, to not only pray for, but rebuke and advise the prince. In return, the “state” is obliged to protect the Church and her interests in preaching the Gospel and providing Word and sacrament ministry. Accordingly, later confessional Lutherans, even as we encounter them in figures such as Walther or Herman Sasse, pressed against government abuse and overreach in the life of the churches in Prussia[26] or Nazi Germany[27]. In 1974 the LCMS reinforced the idea also, both that there is no truly secular sphere in which the church has no public input, and that Christendom (which the enemies of the church seem to define today as Christian nationalism) is a good thing, and that Lutherans are obliged to keep the civil authorities in check by active political participation.[28]

A CTCR document from 1965, which I know is a bit controversial, and we had a somewhat improved version of it in a 1974 CTCR publication, that sought to ensure that, in good Chalcedonian Christological logic, the relationship between the two kingdoms is expressed in a Biblical and balanced way, without separation and with confusion -- still there are some golden nuggets of wisdom in there nevertheless such as this: “We acknowledge that Jesus is Lord over all the world and that there is no area of man’s existence which is secular in the sense that it is removed from the lordship of Christ and from His providential care. However, we also recognize that Christ exercises His lordship in a twofold manner. Lutherans are accustomed to distinguishing between His kingdom of power and His kingdom of grace. To function in His kingdom of power the Lord has instituted civil government or the state, and to promote His kingdom of grace He has established His church. Both are divine institutions.”[29]

The outlandish argument that the Two Kingdoms somehow coexist as two self contained silos, with no effective relationship between, was a foreign concept to our forefathers. It was absolutely inconceivable in Luther’s time to imagine a rigid separation of church and state in the sense of what we have become accustomed to. Luther presumes the tight and overlapping relationship between the two kingdoms. He was not a modern. In fact, the early Lutherans, such as the authors of Madgeburg Confession, elevated the sanctity of the state and government leadership in a way anabaptists and papists could not. Non Lutherans rejected, or tolerated it, but never glorified it. In contrast, the Lutherans thought that if God is the Lord of both kingdoms and His holy hand is at work through both (albeit through different instruments and for different goals), then both kingdoms are holy. Who gave you your glass of milk this morning? God did it. Yes, hidden through means: the one who milked the cow and sold you the product. Who gave you a speeding ticket last week? God did. Through the police officer and administrator at the local police department. Even the executioner is a holy instrument of God, via carrying out the justice of God. Every dimension of life in a society underpinned by Biblical morality and Christian virtues is thus holy, because our holy God is working through God-pleasing vocations to serve us. Both kingdoms are to be hailed as divine ordinances, unless when they contradict the Word of God. In those cases, and there are many, we Christians need to speak and act as if Christendom IS the work of God in both kingdoms. This isn’t advocating social justice or liberation theology. Instead it’s confessing that both kingdoms are God’s, and rejoicing and submitting to the Holy Spirit’s work to help and save the lost, and even our enemies.

This Lutheran high view placed on ordinary society and the civil state actually becomes problematic after the Reformation with the left hand leaders claiming a higher status and power than the right hand leaders, in the political power shifts in the 16^th c. European royalty even began to basically view themselves as divine incarnations (!), on equal footing or even higher than the pope. But Lutherans elevated the status of civil rulers not only because of their practical role regarding preserving Christian instruction, worship and virtue, but also, as the Magedburg Confessions says, political leaders and political processes are “sanctified.”[30]

There was never a thing in the minds of Lutherans as a neutral or secular sphere. Again, consider Luther’s distinction between the two kinds of righteousness, and how “civil righteousness” obviously assumes moral expression in the estate of the civil sphere. Up until the Age of Revolutions, any notion of a radical separation of church and state was absolutely undesirable. National socialism and communism were the first ideologies that sought to entirely rob the Left Hand kingdom of the influence of the Creator. Those Christians today who are opposed to envisioning our Triune God as Lord over both appear to be the same people that were all too eager, however inadvertently, to hand over that which is God’s to Ceasar’s, on a silver platter, during the panic of the recent pandemic.

Ernest Koenker in 1956 wrote: “We have become so accustomed during recent centuries to think in terms of “separation of church and state” and “established church” that we often fail to realize that these designations are quite recent developments. They are the results and sponsors of a compartmental arrangement of life. In the light of the idea that man is a unified entity, they must be judged to be pragmatic and artificial.”[31]

Who would not want Christian culture? The CTCR On Civil Obedience and Disobedience, 1967, does not just tolerate but encourages protests and petitions by Lutherans. It even provides a step by step helpful guide on how go about it in good Christian order. The logic and argumentation of how to address abuses in government reflects those of the Magdeburg Confession (i.e. Different levels of crimes or injustices require proportionate responses by the Church, to ensure that she doesn’t overreact but approaches things in the most sensitive way to the consciences of people, and displays due respect for authority).[32] In other words, Lutherans need to be careful in such high impact decisions, and follow the logic of Jesus in Matthew 18 in addressing sin publicly, but with the ultimate goal of actually addressing it, even to the point of political resistance, including in rare cases of taking up arms.

Lutherans who are uncomfortable with allowing their pastors to inform into this arena of socio-political life, and pastors who are equally uncomfortable doing it, wish that the two kingdoms can be juxtaposed. Not only is this not practical nor possible, it is not Christian. It’s easy to just flippantly say that the US is about separation of church and state, and not admit that that was never a reality in America! Remember that the US constitution rhetoric was driven by a desire to protect the church from state interference (protect the Right hand from interference from the Left hand), and not other way around! What has changed in our Church today that tempts us to agree with the liberals that somehow the right hand is an ungodly threat to the left? The founding fathers of America understood that God cares about His Word governing all of the space of both His left and right hands. Unless we are Amish, we Christians have, then, a critical role to play in the public space. It is not an advocation for a theocracy to believe so.

The difference between a theocratic country and a country grounded in Christian culture, is the fact that a theocracy mandates and forces religious principles upon all people in spite of their consciences in all areas of their lives, like an Islamic state. In some places within a “Christian society” you may have shops closed on Sundays, encouraging people to go to church, but nobody is forcing you to get off your couch and do so. Chick Fil A isn’t firing its employees who don’t agree with Sunday closures of their restaurants. One could argue that abortion ought to be illegal everywhere, not because of religion, but because of natural law and science. Fetuses are human and killing them is murder. It is easy for the unbelieving world to mudsling Christians claiming our goal is to create a theocratic Christian nation, since they are irrational and under the power of the devil in a way that we aren’t. But it is bizarre for Christians to support them. Chesterton complained about the Church of England’s tendency to tolerate “underbelievers” but to persecute “overbelievers”.[33] Lutherans enthusiastic in letting Christ’s Church and change society for the better should be supported and not shut down.[34] I have never met one Lutheran in my entire life who had an issue with Augsburg Confession, Article XVII which rejects trying to materialize the heavenly kingdom on earth through political forms.

Yet, the greatest problem of a theocracy for Lutherans isn’t even moral, it’s theological. It can lead to works righteousness: faith in Christ is not sufficient for salvation, but the political form that we adopt, or political party affiliation, is also somehow necessary to secure a place in heaven. But the argument that natural Law, logic, true science and reason, which support the vast majority of Christian notions as they apply to the public sphere, should govern the language, content and decisions in the public sphere is NOT theocracy.

Back to Walther: question of family and political life were common points of discussion, and played into Walther’s unspoken expectations that his pastors practiced seelsorgering. Although none of these moral issues or life issues are obviously addressed in the Book of Concord, they were still seen as something that needed to be discussed in the public sphere, and required a Christian response. Today, unless people ask us explicitly what we think about a heated topic, we have a hard enough time addressing in church abortion and related issues like fetal stem cell research and vaccines, sexual perversion and gender pronouns, that to raise topics like how to spend your money in God-pleasing ways, retirement decisions that maximize service to God instead of self, appropriate careers that don’t compromise the dignity of either sex, or couples choosing not to have kids or when to have them, just seems absolutely impossible. When was the last time you heard the topic of capital punishment or birth control raised in bible study?

But seelsorgering to individuals naturally spills into “seelsorgering” to groups, and can be compared to the case of the necessity of individual confession leading to the necessity of corporate confession, as we do every Sunday. If talking about these issues with individuals is important, why not also in the larger community?, Seelsorger-minded pastors tackle these topics publicly and not just privately.

Luther Classical College is already tackling these kinds of questions boldly and without compromise, in good ole fashion Missouri ways, through our Ad Fontes, Christian Culture conference and magazines. The popularity of these from those not even interested in classical Lutheran education, but just loving our topics, is pretty incredible. It shows that people are hungering for help in dealing with life as it is applied in the three estates: seelsorger material.

We at LCC hope to help set a positive example. Even while I was a professor in Ontario, recruiting at my seminary, I would raise the issue with congregations that we all have obligation to grow seminary student bodies. That it is all our jobs to encourage Lutheran boys with whom we have no biological ties, but may make good pastors one day, to consider seminary. I got the impression that I had invaded personal space. Yet our spiritual family is even more family than our biological ones. After all the blood of Christ is thicker than biological blood ties within our physical families. We need to regain such early Church communitarian views.

The importance of pastor as seelsorger, in the estate of family, is clear when examining, say, the stats of mental health and pornography. 70% of American men and 40% of women, regularly use porn. The number is lower but significant still among church going Christians. The subject of family and sex is a hugely important field that pastoral voice needs to speak into. When it comes to demonic possession and oppression (allegations of which are on the rise, and if you want to hear why I think so, you can buy my new book), entry points of demonic activity include not just false teaching about theology, occult practices, etc. (first estate) but also sexual perversion and drugs (pertinent to the second and third estates).

In 2 Cor 10, the weapons of spiritual war are presented as equipment that resides in the pastoral office; but intended to be shared with the laity, meaning it’s not going to work as well unless clergy help dress them and train spiritual soldiers. If pastors wish to fight the spiritual war alongside members, and help them fight, they need to both exemplify this Christian soldiering [as St. Paul tells the flock to “imitate me” (1 Cor 11:1) while He could have said just imitate Christ] but also deliberately address these issues throughout their ministry.

Pastor Ramirez, at an Evangelism conference a several months ago in Wyoming, did an excellent job discussing the new interest among young people, especially men, in topics such as birth control, role of sexes, Christian etiquette, appropriate gender related activities. Youth are crying out for seelsorgering. They are not just asking intellectual questions to satisfy curiosity, they want help in how to make difficult decisions. We talk about saving our youth, but how many are courageous enough to meet these “lost boys” where they are at, and to delve into the tough topics instead of tiptoeing around them, even if we lose a few who get offended? Our college is trying to do that (though we could use a little more help from the larger Church Body), as we get flack for being too cultish, as soon as word hits the street that, say, we raise questions about modesty in dress, or publicly praising fatherhood and motherhood. We have been accused of being sexists for saying that one of woman’s primary roles is having children! We have been called chauvinists for arguing that men need to rejoice in the uniqueness of being man.

But though pastors inserting themselves into topics pertaining to family is controversial, they are still justifiable in the mind of most Lutherans. We don’t say “wait a second, the church has no business talking about family life, gender roles, etc.” even though we find it really awkward when they are addressed and discussed.

But when it comes to the state, which includes politics, we back off.

Yet pastor has as much an obligation to speak to the third estate than to the others. Some Americans treat politics with a jingoist religious zeal (like America is the new Israel), which is obviously bad. Others make a similar error by treating enlightenment ideas like egalitarianism (that have some Christian roots, but unbalanced consequences) as sacrosanct. It makes it difficult to seelsorge within the third estate with some of these idols in the way. But discussion still needs to happen, and having no discussion is usually the worst scenario. Like in any family, issues that people do not want to talk about are precisely those that need to be addressed the most.

To assume that parishioners need no coaching in these topics is irresponsible. You would be hard-pressed to argue that St. Pauls’ words in 2 Timothy 3:6, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:17), that “training in righteousness” is not referring to civil righteousness. The response to COVID was a perfect example of clergy being unprepared to respond to the necessity of addressing the juncture between faith and civil life (i.e. politics) in the lives of their congregations and each of her members. Little guidance was provided to faithful Christians as to how to react to, say, certain vaccines that the Church, up until then, unhesitatingly condemned due to her stance on abortion. Clergy were disinterested or afraid to speak into the [35]personal lives of their members being unaccustomed to do so. But to suggest that moral, and thus, political positions, are a matter of adiaphora is nothing short of an endorsement of soft antinomianism. In the recent American election, Christians were free to not vote for Trump, but it was hardly justifiable for any of them to vote for his competitor, arguably a communist, who had a portable abortion clinic present at the democrat convention in Chicago. In other words, pastors should feel free to tell people how NOT to vote, (that is a totally appropriate application of the third use of the law in the third estate), which is not the same as telling them how to vote.

[T]he Church renders a service to the State by not only permitting [Christians to do their full duty as citizens], but urging members to do so. So the Church will urge her members to make use of the right of voting; to vote intelligently, and therefore to inform themselves as to the questions the vote is to decide; to make sure that they vote for the right man. The Church, through her ministers, will enlighten the conscience of members on matters before the public as to what is right and wrong; encourage them to keep informed on what kind of laws are being considered by the legislature; if good to support them; if not good, to oppose. The Church will not discourage, but rather encourage her members to take office in various departments of the State. Luther said, If you are able, you should offer yourself for some office and try to get it[36]

Christians sometimes need to be told what to do. That is what it means to preach the Law (in light of the critical Canadian election last year, in an effort to dissuade Lutherans from voting for the communist Prime Minister who sadly was elected, one district of Luther Church Canada published a “Christian Election Guide” telling people the kinds of things they should be thinking about in casting their vote. I have left that for you as a resource).

Last summer, conservative Baptist reporter and author, Meghan Bashan laid out topics that at first glance do not appear to have spiritual applications. In her book SHEPHERDS FOR SALE: HOW EVANGELICAL LEADERS TRADED THE TRUTH FOR A LEFTIST AGENDA[37], she exposes the despicable depth of corruption in Christian higher education, with multiple top schools having sold out to billionaire influencers and anti-Christian foundations that deliberately seek to poison America with cultural Marxism.[38]

Due to a vast array of reasons, pastors are often vulnerable to these leftist agendas and many have shockingly and rapidly compromised on “Me 2, LGBTQ, climate change, COVID-19, illegal immigration, abortion, and CRT. The striking success of this deliberate leftist agenda is manifested in Christianity Today, Billy Graham Association, the Council for Christian College and Universities, or Southern Baptist Convention, to name a few.

In that list, most pastors have hopefully tied into sermons, offered prayers about, and done bible studies on homosexuality and abortion. But what about CRT (the demise of logic and rationality), economic socialism and DEI (with objectives against Christian values, Christian culture and Christendom), Me2 (feminism), immigration (involving multiculturalism, the infiltration of Islam, and how a liberal agenda IS a theological agenda). National security is a very important issue for the Church, not just due to love for our neighbour’s physical well being, but also in protecting her interests like the freedom to preach the Gospel. It is really hard for church to be church, and preach the Gospel when she dwells within an Islamic or communist state! A political view on this (and political forms that best protect the Church and supports its growth) is obviously not a mark of the Church, but it is an expression of the Church, not just individual Christians, but Church capital “C”. Thus “Synod” has a role to play in public space.[39]

Hopefully 4 years after the pandemic, most of us have considered the spiritual dangers of blindly complying to government mandates during an alleged plague. Hopefully we have taken to heart father Luther’s words on ministering during a real plague. But climate change? What does that have to do with religion? How could the devil be using this apparent threat to close churches, divide families, and usurp fatherhood? Did you know that Sweden is closing 7 historic churches during winter months due to mandates on oil heating.[40] Heating churches is apparently contributing to global warming. So the government is requiring their closure during several months of the year. Nobody would have thought a political issue like climate change could be so deliberately an attack on the interests of the church. Sweden was once a historical Lutheran powerhouse, but now, the church is totally unprepared to address these issues theologically or politically. If we don’t talk about these supposed secular issues as soon as they come up, as Christians led by pastors, and view them through spiritual lenses, we will continue to be unprepared for the devilish consequences.[41]

There is no shame in pastors coaching members in political matters. In fact, I would argue its their obligation.

Lecture 3

ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF THE SEELORGER

Yet, now, I would like to address the arguments against truly practicing seelsorgering. I used the word “truly” because what Lutheran pastor would openly criticize the idea that he can always improve in being the father that He is to his spiritual children? But to actually feel comfortable doing it, is another thing. The resistance to pastors from pastors behaving as seelsorgers, who help guide and shape their members in living their lives, especially as it applies to civil righteousness in the third estate are twofold (“we over think what God wants us to do, complicating the simple ethical scenarios which involved decisions which are much easier to make than we want to believe):

1. Firstly, that most of Christian living is a matter of Christian freedom. The way antinomianism has been able to dupe Christians to think that the pastor, and thus the Word of God, has less authority than it does in questions of Christian living, is with the trump card word “adiaphora”. As Drs. Preus and MacPherson point out in the new translation of the Magdeburg Confession: the abuse of the notion of “adiaphora” was used by confessional Lutherans in their caving into government regulations when they should have pushed back. Even Philip Melanchthon, (theologically orthodox but renown for his political tact, with the downside being more susceptible to compromise in the practice of theology), gave into these temptations. But when the only thing that really matters is faith in Christ as your personal Lord and saviour, a practice of that faith doesn’t only take second place, but even very little place in the life of a Christian. For example, in the last American election, through all sorts of virtue signalling and public messaging the democrats wanted to be identified as the pro-choice party. It wasn’t just one item of their mandate, but a major identifying characteristic. Even if a Christian believes other positions for which that party stands are more Biblical than the emphasis place upon them by the Republican party (like addressing issues of poverty, as an easy example), the issue of murdering children needs to take a primary spot. Very few pastors would rebuke voting against the democrats (which is, again, not a voting for republicans, since you can always just destroy your ballot, which is a legitimate act also). Thanks be to God that most LCMS pastors would not have voted for the democrats this last election, but sadly most would not share the reasoning behind that decision with congregations (out of fear of pushback), and even more sadly, because they thought that it was wrong to do so (they thought that even though they were telling the truth about whatever the political topic happens to be, theologically they were mixing the two kingdoms, which meant, silence was preferable over vocalizing truth).

Often the justification today in dealing with the awkwardness of the matter, is that whether or not you sin in casting an ungodly vote, it’s forgiven anyways. I knew pastors in Canada who were quite open with me in saying that they didn’t want members to know why all the COVID vaccines were morally controversial, because they didn’t want to put their members between a rock and a hard place, aggravating their consciences, and forcing them to make a decision. It’s a very twisted argument. Its also a denial of the fact that we are commanded to repent of both things that we have done wrong AND things that we have not done right, in every field of life. We often don’t realize that we should have done something better unless somebody points it out to us. Our conscience may be unaware because it’s a little lazy, or it just doesn’t have all the information: so that a Christian is deprived of necessary information for a fitting confession and God-pleasing repentance because a pastor or friend didn’t have the courage to tell them what they happen to know about the subject. The bottom line is that those who took this position thought they were being loving by not telling them the truth. By not pointing out their sins, they deprive them the chance to feel guilty for those sins. Well guilt has a divine purpose in our spiritual growth and the spiritual battle. Luther considers Satan a divine tool for God’s saving purposes, because he is a great “preacher” of the Law, and accuser (Satan=accuser). Certainly the devil has evil intents for flaunting the dirty laundry of our sins in front of the noses of our souls, but that doesn’t stop the love and grace of God in using bad for good (as was the case with Joseph’s brothers, with Joseph confessing, “you intended it for evil but God for good”). We should welcome suffering and rebuke, as needed discipline of God. Not telling someone the truth because you are hurting their feelings does not represent a spiritual victory in our battles with darkness.

Besides, consciences are fallen too, and most can use some help in their formation. The secular psychologists claim that psycho and sociopaths don’t have consciences (which is not Biblical) or that their consciences are not developed (which is kind of Biblical). If decisions based on conscience are informed, at least partially by, communal values held by individuals, do you see how difficult it is for good decisions to be made based on conscience in a pluralist post-modern society? Today in our fragmented multi-cultural Western society people often don’t feel guilty when they should. That is way less likely in a homogeneous society, where people have the same morality and culture, and, therefore, feel guilty for the same kinds of sins. The secular discipline of ethics is largely about trying to form these consciences. We Christians can do better. But when pastors don’t talk about the issues individually and publicly, they are not even helping their people make godly decisions on their own, by neglecting to help form the necessary Biblical and Lutheran framework for them to do so! So even if you think that the third use of the law decisions should be considered as very individualistic and contextual, without some guidance, people aren’t able to make as responsible conscience-driven decisions in a complex American, often anti-Christian, landscape today.

And this ties into the next reason seelsorgering is not seen as essential (or even treated as dangerous) in the minds of those who embrace or flirt with soft antinomianism or versions of it,

2. “Life is just so grey and complicated, let’s just ignore it and trust God to deal with our questionable decisions. It’s covered by Christ’s blood anyways”. There is some truth here when dealing with ethics and the grayness of life, but it doesn’t mean there is not a Christian response to any of it. If we know canned pineapple is produced by children labourers in the third world, we still need to take that seriously and it should change our spending habits, EVEN THOUGH if you did the research, you would find most of our imported food from outside of the Western world is tainted by the same moral and ethical concerns. With the COVID injections, we heard that because other vaccines that we had all blindly taken were also tainted by fetal stem cell technology, why worry about these ones? I am the first to admit that while deploying oversees in the military I took, without hesitation shamefully, lots of vaccines, that I should have opposed for the same reason that I opposed the COVID ones. Yet I have repented and publicly. But many instead console themselves with Luther’s “sin boldly believe more surely” statement, by taking it out of context. Today it is used to mean that you realize something you have done was sinful, but that you shouldn’t feel too bad about it, and not really repent of it, believing that you had no other choice. Such logic gives us permission to make the same sinful decisions again, without even going through the intellectual and spiritual work as to discerning whether or not my decision is driven by right motives: i.e. grounded in true crisis of conscience, or just laziness or cowardice. Now there is some room for context to play into decisions that may vary from one situation to another. One Christian may eat meat sacrificed to idols while another doesn’t. St. Paul addresses that, and the reasoning behind it. But today, there appears to be a post-modernity element here where you can say context dictates different responses without being required to offer explanation or serious justification. Instead, the pietistic post-modern and Western hyper-individualist Lutheran asks “who are you to judge?” Ignoring the raising of such questions in our parishes and the lives of individual members suggests that not only do I get to decide the context, but I don’t even need to talk about it or justify it to God.

One problem with this is our consciences only work rightly when they are rightly informed. So back to the idea of pastors depriving people of information that would bother their conscience: means Christians can in “right conscience” make a decision that is ungodly, and feel good about it. Again, they can make a sinful decision while not feeling bad in the least. It’s the reason why militaries only let soldiers have the bare information to get the job done (on a “need to know” basis). It’s largely because they want them to follow orders, without hesitation, and not let their conscience can get in the way of that process. A soldier second-guessing orders because he is wondering whether blowing up that village over there is morally justifiable, not only puts his team at risk but can jeopardize the whole mission. Conscience is powerful, and especially when well informed. God made it that way. Yet in the end, with the individualistic approach to spirituality in America, the idea is that “I interpret the word of God as I wish; I determine the context. MY conscience almost exclusively comforts or rebukes me. I am free in Christ to live how I interpret that according to a general reading of the 10 commandments”. This careless and arrogant attitude coupled with a pietism that doesn’t appreciate pastors fully for what they are and can do, results in pastors who are uncomfortable speaking about these subjects; or pastors feel like they are about to make salvation seem conditional on non-doctrinal decisions (like, again, the hesitance to give advice after private absolution).

Again, both of these responses amounts, or at least leads, to a version of soft antinomianism, where the Law is no longer needed nor applied to the redeemed person. So much for the fourth part of catechism on Baptism on daily drowning of Old Adam!. It also diminishes the importance of sanctification and suggests that there is no pastoral role to play in the formation of the sanctified life of believers, which includes training in righteousness. Soft antinomians express an unbalanced view of the sinners that we are, and our ability to fight temptation and make godly decisions. Proponents think that spiritual completeness in possessing the alien righteousness of Christ means there is little or no need for guidance on how to live life. “Forensic Justification is all that we confess to be important: that is the Gospel. So what else is necessary? To talk about how to live life, is adding on to the Gospel, which is works righteousness.” This logic leads to a Gospel reductionist, “cheap grace” view of the work of Christ, or displays faith in the lie that salvation means you are actually no longer much of a sinner. The error represents a reaction to pietism which placed too much emphasis on being a saint and progress up a ladder of good works, and yet it kind of buys into it, by assuming that Christian holiness is a hidden and highly individualized phenomenon, best left to individuals with the Holy Spirit to figure out by themselves. Yet any father of a family knows that raising children takes work and lots of intimate conversations and involvement. They also know, even if the kids don’t, that the kids need help in figuring out how to live. Now the way your kids behave does not change their status. Whether they are lazy ungrateful slobs, versus obedient children, doesn’t change that they are still your kids.[42] But good fathers seek to improve their children and help them live up to the family name. You care about how they live inside the family system and outside (in all their vocations, throughout the other estates). You want them to be good witnesses and representatives of the family; that they spread the good reputation of the family name to the world around them.

The parallels in our spiritual family, and our status as God’s children as saints, yet needing help to live as the saints that we are, due to the sinners that we are, is hopefully clear. Soft antinomianism is often fueled by laziness or delusion. Its like accepting that your kids are just “good enough” in spite of bad behaviour and a poor representation of the family. True Christianity celebrates our status in Christ, but also the right use of law to address the flesh.

So UNLESS you believe forgiveness is all that needs to be said, and that no coaching is needed in spiritual progress, then pastors and people need to be passionate about seelsorgering. It’s the reason that I have always chosen small churches over large ones. I need my pastor. I need him intimately involved in my life (even if, as a sinner, I don’t WANT him there). I need to confess my sins and struggles to him, and have him keep his eye on me; so that he can curb my life and be my guide. Its harder to hide from him in a small congregation. After all, when we choose our doctors, we want the one who, both, has a great reputation due to competence, but also one (all things being equal), who has a small client base, so you get maximum attention. Yet why when it comes to churches, strangely, we all want to join the biggest one?

But when pastors are hesitant to guide people in the production of good works (believing that only right faith in forensic justification is adequate in making all the fruits simply grow, and doesn’t need some guidance, or pruning, by the pastor), they would be wise to make a distinction between sanctification and good works. There are all kinds of good works, but there is one sanctification, and one sanctifier. And addressing issues of sanctification is definitely something that no-one would argue falls outside of the parameters of the pastor’s business. But sanctification needs to be distinguished from good works. The Reform tend to equate sanctification and good works, and sometimes Lutherans do as well. That is why we talk about being saved by justification and grace alone, with no contribution on our part, and now, out of gratitude for God’s grace, we choose to do good works, And thus sanctification is understood as the part that you do, or cooperate with the Holy Spirit to do. Talking about sanctification seems to be a focusing on our deeds, instead of Christ’s. We may feel that we are being self righteous by talking about sanctification since it seems like we are celebrating ourselves and our good deeds.

To console the consciences of those who feel guilty talking about sanctification as somehow betraying the Gospel of Justification, we can ask ourselves, “What is sanctification?” The word “Sanctus” comes from the word “Holy”. What is holiness? It’s hard to describe. “Separate”, yes, since things pertaining to God’s nature are different from anything conceivable related to creation. But what is it? Dr. John Kleinig often points out how defining the “glory” of God is equally problematic. It’s hard to describe, since it’s so otherworldly. It has to do with concepts pertaining to the nature of God with no parallel “on earth”. Its totally unique, so we have no common references for it. We are left with only describing what holiness looks like, but are very limited. So Dr. Kleinig points out that “holiness is the glory of God revealed”, while “the glory of God is the holiness of God concealed”. Due to this limitation, it’s also hard to intellectually grasp the attribution of holiness to man, or the process of being made holy. Lutherans rightly run from any ideas of Lordship Salvation: “Jesus became my saviour, through justification, and now he becomes my Lord, through sanctification”, because it makes it seem like salvation is incomplete. Yet there is room for spiritual progress in Lutheran spirituality. Although completely redeemed and thus fully holy, there is a sense in which we are incompletely sanctified until we get to heaven. Sometimes sanctification has been defined as “ongoing justification”. That partially solves the problem for Lutherans: “I keep getting what I already have”. It’s a paradox. We Lutherans like that. Its mystical, so we can say its sacramental. We like that too. We are both justified and sanctified at the same time, both complete and yet both ongoing at the same time, like two sides of the same coin. But though there is a time and place for this analogy (namely that it seeks to ensure those two processes aren’t juxtaposed from one another), it doesn’t give the whole picture. Justification is easy to define. Forensically: we are declared righteous: the guilty named innocent. And this imputed righteousness is external to us, as so clearly articulated in the Formula of Concord. We are not justified by internal faith or spiritual changes, like in the Ossiandrian sense. But sanctification as a consequence of this, as its offspring or subsequent step, is much harder to handle. Simil iustus et pecator doesn’t help either; since we are 100 percent saved and “made” holy, and yet we are still “becoming” holy.

Sanctification is hard to grasp intellectually. Good works, on the other hand, is easier. We can see them. They are also something we do, yes through the Holy Spirit in us, but we are, in a sense, a cause. We choose to resist the Spirit’s work in our lives or not. We choose to walk the old lady across the street or ignore her. Sanctification is different. It is something that happens to you. You are entirely a passive recipient, just as you were when you first believed, were baptized, and were saved. Sanctification is that you are made, and being made, holy. The glory of God is mysteriously at work and present through, in and on His holy people. How? By the means of grace. You share in God’s holiness, even participate in His glory, and are made holy by His Word and Sacrament. In as much as a newborn baby has no choice in its birth from the womb of its mother, so was your experience from the womb of Mother Church at the font of baptism. In as much as a baby sucks life giving milk from the breast of its mom, so it is with you as you open your mouth at the divine altar and the Lord enters in. Through such sacramental acts that forgive your sins, sanctification is happening. It is really the active result of the ongoing justification that happens by the declaration of God’s divine word on God’s elect. Good works are then a result of this, or these, processes. Faith is increased by the justifying and sanctifying power of our Triune God, and good works are its fruits.

The Bible makes the distinction between sanctification and good works by saying that we are MADE HOLY in order to DO good WORKS:

The one who is cleansed of sins, is a sanctified person, useful to God, and used by God, through His good works. That means that when pastors help people examine themselves according to the Law, in all three estates, and even in the nitty gritty personal details, more good works are being produced through the labour of God.

Underscoring the importance of pastor as Seelsorger assumes that pastors are called to do more than simply absolve sins, though that remains chief and the crown of their divine ministry and holy office. In light of the threat of soft antinomianism, permit me to take some time to pitch the argument that, although we are 100 percent justified and thus, “saint”, that divine promise and reality doesn’t preclude the fact that there is a spiritual growth and thus “progress” involved in the Christian life. We are sinner/saints, completely, both, simultaneously and yet we progress from sinner into saint.

I married a convert from Pentecostalism. And in order to get my mother in law’s approval I agreed to one session of premarital counselling with her pastor. When asked where my relationship with God was on a scale of 1 to 10, I was a little snarky. I said “what do you mean?” So he said, “you know, most Christians are around a 5 or 6, he said he was maybe around and 8 or 9….” So I said, “well I’m a zero and a ten: totally deprived sinner and fully fulfilled child of God as a saint”. He really hated that answer.[43]

But we are a 1 and a 10. Otherwise, the words of St. John does not make sense about Christians being perfect and having no sin, and yet we are deceivers if we say we have no sin (1 John 1:8). But that is not the end of the story in terms of our experience of spirituality on earth. Just like a husband and wife who have a healthy relationship and communicate a lot with each other, and exchange lots of love, and intimacy, etc. are as fully and equally married than those who don’t (where there is no talk, no romance, no deep relationship), there is still room for growth in either marriage. We are declared the righteous bride of Christ, but there is still room for growth in the relationship from our end. In fact, the wedding that happened in Holy Baptism, commences a relationship of exploring how wonderful our Bridegroom is, until the day we die and we enter glory. We talk to Him in prayer. He talks to us in His Word. Our marriage is consummated weekly in the holy Eucharist. Husbands and wives are married once, and reminded of that marriage daily, and yet we could say that we are “becoming” increasingly married, the more we live together, get to know each other, and deepen our love for one another. Marriage is thus a mystery, and points to a higher mystery, as the Bible explains. So yes our identity as Christians is a paradox, being fully saint and yet still becoming, and any emphasis on third use of the law is driven by this acknowledgement. What makes the concept of sanctification different among Lutherans from all other denominations, and protects us from self righteousness is our Christocentricity and the fact that the Law always still accuses (lex semper accusat). We are not perfect and are constantly reminded of our sins and full dependence upon Jesus for all things. For this reason, where other denominations tend to slip away from spiritual growth happening at the foot of the cross of Christ, for Lutherans there is no room for ego and pride, since there is never a reason to boast in self. Any boasting happens in Christ.

As the sainted Dr. Kurt Marquart once said, in his criticism of the Finnish school on their take on deification or theosis, “all right talk [of the subject] must pass at least a twofold test, to be genuine theology of the cross. The first is whether God and His life are accessible directly, or only in the crucified and risen Savior, and in His gospel means of salvation….The second test is whether [it] is driven by the downward movement of God or by the upward movement of man.”[44]

I have a scale here with x axis showing time and y axis spiritual growth to demonstrate how we pass these two tests. For most Christians they see spiritual progress according to the top, blue line. Once converted, like I give my life to Christ, I start up in the middle somewhere (above murders but below Mother Theresa), at say a “5” and except for a few bumps along the road, I get better in my spiritual state. That is religion of the Law. But with the religion of the Gospel (the red line), you THINK you start up here, at, say, a 5. But as you “grow” in your faith, you find that your experience is a descent. In the acknowledgement of your sinful state (that it is way darker than you thought at first), you mature out of self-righteous kinds of thinking: you stop crossing off commandments off the bucket list of your spiritual life thinking you have mastered any one of them, (since you don’t lust after women like you did as a youth, you are content with your wealth level and therefore don’t covet anymore, that you finally have a regular devotional life and are never tempted to skip church on Sunday, you got the third commandment down pat, and fulfilled, and you only have, say, 3 or 4 left to master before you die). No! Instead, the mature Lutheran sees himself as descending on that scale through time. We go down, we get weak (as Luther says, “God came down….in order to lead us back into a knowledge of ourselves”[45] so Christ can go up, and we with Him, as we are revealed and made strong in him!). Spiritual growth is not a ascending but descending experience! The bumps are the self-righteous moments in our life when we THINK that we have become better, and God deals with those through verbal rebukes through the Bible, sermons and pastors, or personal afflictions like suffering. All things that make us feel uncomfortable in this process should be considered as suffering, and so suffering is what pushes us down that scale; down to the bottom: to the zero mark from the perceived 5 starting place. “May I decrease so Christ can increase”, John the Baptizer says. And that’s what we say too! When we find ourselves down at the bottom: at zero, we are a 10 in Christ! The more we examine our lives the more sin we see. And if you have a hard time believing you are a sinner, well, remember Don Matzat of the original Issues Etc? He said, “You can’t name any more sins? Ask your wife and she’ll tell you some”.

Like a tree that stretches up at the sun with is branches bearing fruit for other to eat, it grows closer and closer to the sky, not cognizant of its fruit since its disposition is directed towards the sun, the mature Christian isn’t producing fruit on his branches for himself to eat (by, say, introspection), and isn’t really aware of that fruit as others munch on it. The immature Christian talks a lot about himself, tracking his good works, boasting of spiritual progress, doing spiritual gift inventories and obsessing over his spiritual talents: eating his own fruits. But when others see those fruits and praises them, the mature Christian is kind of surprised that anything good comes from his piece of wood, out of that rotten tree, and rejoices at the miracle of it all. Like when Christ compliments the disciples on their good deeds, they naturally ask, “Lord, when did we do all these good things?” --they weren’t even keeping track and noticing in themselves-but the Lord noticed! For its the tree of the cross, producing the fruits of the spirit, through the body of Christ affixed to it, the body that you are, a body that you possess and am possessed by, which is the thing doing all that work.[46]

The moment we acknowledge some progress is involved in the Christian life, you need to acknowledge some “qualitative” change in a Christian. Again, we Lutherans are uncomfortable with the notion, understandably, since we don’t want to be lumped together with the “holiness heresies” of Wesleyan perfectionism which claims that the Christian human is intrinsically of better quality than that of unbelievers, due to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and some lack of both actual and/or original sin. Yet we are not talking about infused grace, as something salutary, reflecting Roman Catholic and Pentecostal views of a holy substance inside you that grows more and more, making you more and more holy in your holy rolling. We forgiven sinners are already holy as we are being judged and assessed by God IN Christ who is holy. And yet we still do change, transfigured daily by Word and sacrament. Otherwise, what do we do with the language of “mortification”, “renewal” and “healing of our nature” of Luther and the Formula? Chemnitz writes: “The healing and renewal itself is not such a change that is immediately accomplished and finished in a moment, but it has its beginnings and certain progress by which it grows in great weakness, is increased and preserved.“[47] Lutherans don’t slip into the “holiness movement” direction when any internal change is rooted in Christ’s works. Because sanctification isn’t just about our status before God, but also involves internal spiritual growth, a growth that is manifested in good works, there is a “qualitative” element to Christian growth and maturity.

We can’t ignore this reality. We confess this when addressing the distinction and role in Christian life between the sacraments of holy baptism and the Holy Eucharist. Baptism happens once. But its still ongoing. Unlike Roman Catholics who limit its use to a past event (just forgiving original sin and having little more to do with the here and now), or Protestants that treat it as a symbol of truth, for Lutherans, through daily contrition and repentance, we return continually to our status of being baptized, as a source of Christian comfort. But the Eucharist is more clearly an ongoing act. We don’t simply receive it as a reminder that we are already forgiven, but that we are being forgiven.

What is noticeable about Lutherans who deny salvation causing a spiritual process, and those soft antinomians, is not a verbal support of the sacrament of the altar, but a lack of sincere conviction that it is necessary. Their silent thinking is “If baptism suffices, then why do we need to keep communing?” They may argue for a need for the eucharist, and weekly, since its Biblical. But in their heart of hearts, it’s not understood as essential. Instead, the Lord’s Supper is essential for more reasons than we able to conceive, for it does change our hearts, making them more like Christ’s.[48]

So now lets look at three verses that speak to this paradox:

Here we encounter the interchangeability of the notions of justification and sanctification and baptism. Ultimately the three are grouped and even equated together. But I think it is notable that sanctification is the second in the list and justification is the third. You’d think it would be the opposite (putting justification first). I wonder if St. Paul does this in the Corinthian context of immature holy rollers who overstate spiritual growth, expressed in “penta-Baptist” self-righteous ways. But for our purposes (not to overstate the significance of the listed sequence of the terms), it informs on how all three events or processes are completed as a final act (even “sanctified”: you are completely holy, suggesting no progress happens). The fact that all three are of the passive or middle voice, means the subject is a passive recipient of an act done to them (ie. God does the work on man all by Himself). BUT with an aorist (instead of the perfect or imperfect) there is a subtle deliberate silence of when the action takes place and how long it lasts!

2. Now let’s compare this with Heb 10:14:

“Made perfect” is in the indicative, active perfect. It has been done in the past, by God alone, but with present effects. “Being made holy” or “sanctified” is the present passive or middle particle. Both are saying that the divine saving and sanctifying work has been done to, and for, you, as the passive recipient. Yet one says the process is complete and the other, ongoing. It is difficult to reconcile logically. But Lutherans say both, because God says so.

Incidentally, it happens to coincide with our human experience (although one should always be careful judging any theological truth based on human experience). We live by faith believing that we are perfect, in spite of our experience as sinners that, in the department of holiness, we are not even close, or it hasn’t even started happening at all! But in reality, consider it this way: we are in a sense growing into the clothing of Christ gifted to us by grace, the robe of righteousness given us at baptism. Our life of sanctification is God growing us into those clothes. The good works we produce which God uses to change the world around us, are evidence of us getting comfortable in that foreign attire; while as sinners its obvious to us and others, that we are squeezing ourselves into clothing a size too small or making an x-large fit a medium sized body. Even though its now our clothing, its always going to be an uncomfortable fit until we enter glory. But it still does the job. Christ lives in me and I live in Christ, and good works demonstrate that. Yet sins demonstrate that the process is not yet complete and never will be until the final resurrection.

3. Our final verse is 2 thes 2:13. “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation for sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (NASB).

God saved you via divine election through belief, which I would argue corresponds with justification (i.e. having faith in the promise of what Christ has done for us) but “for” the purpose of “the sanctification” of the Holy Spirit, implying the process of being sanctified. So again, you are chosen by God to be saved, a passive recipient of sanctification and faith/belief, yet where one process is a completed act[49], and the other is ongoing (being sanctified). But both are interdependent: we are being saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. Now some exegetes debate whether or not the preposition “for” in “for sanctification” should actually be translated as “through”, as in “through sanctification”. “For” would imply that you are saved for the purpose of being sanctified and believing. The idea is that God is saving you and sanctifying you so that you can be a fitting worshipper of Him and “worthy” inhabitant of heaven. “Through” suggests that sanctification is a cause of salvation, which Pentecostal types really abuse, BECAUSE they equate sanctification and holiness with good works and holy living. They judge faith by works; salvation by external observances of holiness. So if you smoke or drink, and participate in any unholy works of their estimation, this means you are likely not saved. They judge whether or not you are justified by your sanctification made visible by your external good deeds. But for our sake the distinction between “for” and “through” is not that important when recognizing that sanctification and holiness is a HIDDEN phenomenon, based on what God does inside us by His Holy Spirit through the means of grace. Certainly good works are a fruit of sanctification, but those works are by no means the foundation of sanctification. The fact that we are not to judge makes for a more humble and compassionate church. The good works shown by, say, a recovering Christian alcoholic who has been raised by terrible abusive parents may not appear to us to be as spectacular and as obvious as those from a Christian who has been raised by wholesome parents. The baggage of the past may make them less refined in their Christian manner. But one beautiful thing about being Lutheran is that a gracious God, not man, is the ultimate judge of the quality of good works or the tree from which they are produced.

These three verses are examples of how the Bible shows salvation as a completed process and yet ongoing, as we exist in time. Summaries: 1. We are not yet dead, so we are continually being saved[50]; 2. Part of that being saved phenomenon means there is an element of Christian growth as there are two logically distinct things going on here: God is saving us and we are being made holy. And God is the author and completer of both.[51] 3. That growth is often invisible, though having visible manifestations, since we are body/soul people. 4. The spirit of Christ within us produces true good works for others to enjoy.

This leads us to the question of what the difference is between good works produced by Christians versus by non-Christians. On the one hand, I would say Christians produce truly good works, while unbelievers are only capable of producing somewhat good works, at best. The distinction returns to the idea as to whether or not there is a “qualitative” change in Christians through the indwelling Christ or not, which I believe there is.

You often can’t tell the goodness of a work by its external appearance. So you can’t see sanctification happening, because it’s a hidden phenomenon, as the Holy Spirit works through the means of grace in Christians, while good works are indicative of that. But at the same time, God is so gracious, that He produces good works through unbelievers too, just as he gives daily bread to evil people as well as His baptized children. For example, an unbeliever and believer can both give 1000$ to a charity. These are both good works, equally good. 1000 bucks is a 1000 bucks no matter who gives it. It gets put to good work. But the one from the believer is accepted by God as a fruit of faith (even though still “tainted” with sin, since we are unable as sinners, to produce pure good works, though as saints they are received as such), while the other from the unbeliever is regarded as having no value by God (even though almighty God still uses these works for his good ultimate purposes). That “good work” from the unbeliever may even be condemned as works righteousness by those believing they can earn points with the divinity by doing them. But even if it is not a deliberate effort of works righteousness, the fact that it doesn’t come from God’s people, means it doesn’t have any positive bearing in God’s estimation of the one who does it. Muslim parents love their kids, sincerely. Not just because they fear God’s wrath. Pagans can behave kindly to each other, not just because subconsciously believe they are earning their way to heaven. The fingerprints of God remains on them too, though they are unredeemed and corrupted. They can still do legitimately good things (i.e. “somewhat” good works). Thanks be to God. But in the sight of our heavenly father, he effectively turns a blind eye from those works since they are not “truly” good works, arising from his “true” children.

Here’s an illustration to help: When my kid draws a stick man on a piece of paper in art class, I put it on my fridge and am the proudest dad in the world. Yet I know that it has no objective value. It will never get hung in an art gallery. If a stranger’s kid gave me the exact same drawing, I likely wouldn’t put it on my fridge, and maybe eventually throw it in the trash. It is the same work and quality, yet its significance and meaning changes due to its personal relationship with me. Christian good works are better in the sight of God than unbeliever’s same good works, which, relationally, can be viewed as not even good works, but bad works.[52] Our works as Christians are filthy rags, but God accepts them as beautiful since they are covered in Christ. The “good deed” of the believer and unbeliever may externally appear exactly the same, but due to the different relationship between the giver and the receiver, one has a different STATUS. In this sense, on the one hand, you could say there is no qualitative difference between good works between believers and unbelievers.

But on the other hand, when asking the question regarding a definition of true good works: Christians have the sanctifying Holy Spirit in them who makes good works happen while unbelievers don’t. This means that there IS a “qualitative” difference to a Christian’s good work. Christians do “better” good works and follow a standard that is higher. They can fight addiction more effectively. They can overcome temptation more successfully. They can do better than the world and exceed the low standards of morality that unbelievers put in place. This is why unbelievers like living in Christian societies because they experience this “Christian culture” to be true. They would trust the keys of their home in the hands of a Christian over a non-Christian. They like it when their boys date Christian girls. They hate Christ, but they like the good works that they observe in the lives of Christ’s disciples [like the new atheists who want to live with Christians and in Christian culture, though they deny God].

This implies that countries with more Christians are “qualitatively” better than those without. Christian culture matters to a better life on earth. Of course, eternity is our ultimate aim but temporality is still important to God. I may care most about what may kids do when they grow up, but I am still interested in whether or not they are having a good day, today, here and now, even though it has no real bearing on the most important events of life.

Seelsorgering then has smething to say about not only personal internal battles within Christians, but about the larger spiritual war within surrounding society. Good seelsorgering makes better Christians, one’s who behave better in their vocations in the three estates, including their political participation in civil society. Now, one needs to be careful, since the theology of cross means we are not trying to create heaven on earth, nor judge spiritual success by our eyes. In early Calvinist states, you got a fine from the government for skipping church or Bible study: a pretty compelling reason to live a holy life. We stand against Reform type ‘Christian Reconstructionism’, like America as the new Israel, because they see the USA as the most “Christian” society on earth. There is no such thing as a “Christian” country, in the sense of salvation through citizenship in an earthly society. We should even be wary using the word “Christian” as an adjective too often. But there is a sense of a Christian country, and hence, “Christian nation”, when the majority of citizens are Christian, or at least seek to live according to Christian or Biblical values and principles, underpinned by a Christian ethos, anthropology and philosophy. Christianity flavours society, it gives an aroma to the culture unparalleled by other religions.

So as Lutherans we shouldn’t be ashamed when God blesses us, as a nation. We can praise God for all the visible expressions of the internal workings of the spirit, through Christian good works which have had a measurable, quantifiable and powerful impact in the society and world around us. We should not shy away at seeing the tremendous opportunity in cultivating that even more. When pastors as seelsorgers coach their people in Christian values, virtues and morality as it pertains to specifics within family AND POLITICAL life, that is what is happening.

We have the Holy Spirit producing good works, and He is intimately at work in this life on earth. This changes society. After the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the world started to change due to the cultural influence of Christianity. John 16 prophesizes that:

This text mentions a “judgement” upon the culture of the non-Christian mainstream. Is it possible that our Lord means that the evils of the world will be exposed at a new level, because there will be a community, a Christian culture with which to contrast the pagan one?

I used to think that the Red Crescent was a Muslim version of the Red Cross. Then I found out that it was the Red Cross operating in Muslim countries, and the financial support is all Western. What we find is that the only truly altruistic religion on the globe is Christianity, because we Christians care and love everybody. Jews care about Jews and Muslims about Muslims. Buddhism is the most selfish of all religions (just thinking about yourself all day long), and Hinduism the most satanic.

Due to Christianity, the world is a better place for everybody on earth. Just consider the roots of public services like hospitals and schools, etc. It was Christianity that created the first public hospitals, networks of social care, mass education and respect for people. Constantine was crucial in creating a “Christian” nation of Rome by reforming the devilish gladiatorial games, implementing better treatment of slaves, women, and children.[53]

Christianity changed the world, not just spiritually, but in a physical way, which is evidenced in “Christian culture” today. Sure, we are all sinners, and
“Christian nations” consist of them, but the loss of this culture will eventually mean the deterioration of the God-pleasing pillars of Western civilization. Right now, we are in a kind of in-between stage in history. We still all benefit, believer and unbeliever alike, from the dregs of Christian civilization, but once those dry up, what will take their place?

My home country is a perfect example of a nation undergoing the growing pains of losing Christian culture to multi-culturalism alongside anti-Christian culture. We boast the second highest medically assisted suicide in the world, and the most free abortion laws (there are none). My former Prime Minister, proudly proclaimed when he first arrived into his office to begin his reign of terror, that Canada has no shared values. “Canada is becoming a new kind of country, not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a “pan-cultural heritage”. There is no core identity,” Trudeau said, concluding that he sees Canada as “the first post-national state.”[54] He led the country into rebellion against the authority of God and did not see himself as accountable to His Law: for amorality is immorality!

This new movement that seeks to muzzle the Church’s voice in the public sphere is all very odd and spiritually unsettling. Over the last couple of years, the bizarre buzz around the elusive phrase “Christian nationalism” has spread throughout our churches. The recent interest and confusion surrounding the concept frowns upon active participation in the public sphere by Christ’s faithful followers who are simply trying their best to live Christian lives through their God-given vocations.

As has become typical of the anti-Christian Left, who weaponize words and phrases to bar their opponents’ effective entry into the public sphere for rational discourse (such as dismissing Christians as “extreme” or “far right”, “conspiracy theorists”), Christian nationalism has become the new pejorative term intended to keep the Church’s perspective (which is God’s perspective), out of the public sphere. The leftists have framed this debate in a way that disallows a defense of Christian values, which underpins and is expressed in Christian culture. By controlling the language of the dialogue, they set the parameters of discussion within it. By embracing the language, Christians adopt a crippled disadvantage in the debate. Yet through the label “Christian nationalists”, which they manipulatively equate with being “white” and “white supremacists”, and even “Nazis” by unchristian sources, they terrorize consciences! In a society that is less equipped to think critically due to the demise of Western culture, the term has become a highly effective one in fear-mongering.

However, it has become a strangely powerful and shameful gaslighting term to dissuade Christians from fulfilling their vocational duties in the civil sphere. It’s a hot topic, and you can obviously see how this bizarre association of “Christian culture” with “white supremacy” via “Christian nationalism” are a concern for our college, with our “Christian Culture” conferences and journal. If you speak into the public sphere in an effort to foster Christian culture, you risk accusations of being called a radical, or neo-nazi, which is typical a devilish tactic to frighten Christians and stop up the mouth of the Church..

[And yet ] As my good friend and colleague John Stephenson writes that while for Luther in the Large Catechism ‘holy Christendom’ (ein heilige Christenheit) is the ‘best and clearest’ rendering of the credal article of faith in the one holy Church (LC II, 48; BS8 656,26), so that for the Reformer, Christendom and Church are synonymous terms. Since Anglo-Saxon times this noun has also had the wider sense of the geographical area over which Christ holds sway, hence not only denoting the Church stricte dicta but also connoting cultures suffused with the Christian ethos. According to the still authoritative, but less credible, Encyclopedia Britannica you may be startled by a certain overlap of its definition of ‘Christian Nationalism’ with what used to be familiar under the rubric of ‘Christendom’:

“Christian nationalism: an ideology that seeks to create or maintain a legal fusion of Christian religion with a nation’s character. Advocates of Christian nationalism consider their view of Christianity to be an integral part of their country’s identity and want the government to promote—or even enforce—the religion’s position within it.”[55]

A Two thousand year old belief system is given the status of an ‘ideology’? Moreover, a series of linked developments on five continents over twenty centuries is flippantly dismissed? The incontestable influence of Christ and His Church on history and culture, which has undeniably included the effect of Christianity on many cultures, is scornfully waved away. “Who could ever think that Christianity might be an ‘integral part of some countries’ identity’? What fool examining the historical data would ‘create or maintain a legal fusion’ been certain countries and the religion practiced by a majority of their citizens?” Consider the appearance of the Cross—in the case of the British Union Jack an overlay of three crosses—on many (actually 31 out of 196) national flags indicates that britannica.com, and the article that has provoked these reflections, are clearly ‘gaslighting’.”[56]

The contemporary Reformed theologian Carl Trueman sagely notes that, ‘The term “Christian nationalism” has become a canard used by secular progressives (and some Christians) as a rhetorically pejorative catchall for anyone who holds to any number of traditional conservative views.’[57]

Luther believed in the importance of Christendom as a support for the Gospel. Whenever you hear Luther talk about protecting Christendom, he is NOT talking about preserving a narrow sense of the preached Gospel. He MEANS the entire package of Christian culture. When Seelsorgers do their job well, they help cultivate a necessary Christian culture. They speak to three estates, including civil society which includes politics. It’s a sensitive topic, especially during the pandemic when so many pastors were terrified to speak God’s word into the third estate, but especially as we consider what is at stake over this paranoia that behaving like old fashioned patriotic American Lutherans has now become wrong, because the liberals tell us it is. As LCC’s Academic Dean, Dr. MacPherson indicated: “America has never been “Christian”, but deistic at best. But there is a lot less salt and light in this nation, than there used to be”, and we sure do notice a difference.

Even being practical, just turn to those on trial in Europe, including confessional Lutherans, for vocalizing that homosexuality is a sin, or when Britain prosecutes those who prays silently before an abortion clinic, or in Canada 112 churches (including Lutheran ones), and the numbers till grows, were burnt down by leftists due to a lie that Roman Catholic and Anglican priests had mass murdered thousands of aboriginal children, without one thread of evidence, while the P.M. defended the violence as “understandable”, and thus justifiable.

Christians seeking to explore the relationship between Church and Culture or Church and State in the context of the right understanding and application of the teaching concerning the Two Kingdoms or Two Governments, and the interaction of the Three Estates should avoid playing to the world by casting aspersions of so-called ‘Christian Nationalism’ on those who appreciate and seek the continuance or restoration of Christendom among us.[58]

Some of you already know this, but others have no idea: but I became known as the chaplain for the Canadian Trucker convoy in 2021. Remember that? Tens of thousands of truckers from across Canada came to our nation’s capital, Ottawa, to voice their concerns, at which time the government accused them of illegally occupying the city; which then resulted in a horrific use of martial law against thousands of Christian protesters in some of the most violent acts against Canadians in our peaceful history? Canada is the last country on earth that you would think the government would crack down on peaceful protesters! I say “peaceful” since no laws were broken other than parking infractions (trucks parked all over the streets, as far as the eye could see, but peppered with Canadian courtesy: always with one lane clear for emergency vehicles). Long story short, I became one of four litigators challenging the Canadian socialist government regime against peaceful protesters, and I won the case in federal court (and, recently, won a final appeal launched by the federal government), which, according to several republican governors and President Donald Trump, was instrumental to the undoing of our country’s dictatorship. Sadly, the Church didn’t care. It was implied that Christians had no business in getting involved in such matters. The newly elected socialist government of Canada, prior to their win, vocalized its intent to take away charitable status from all prolife organizations including churches (If that happens, half our churches will close within a few years). The argument that matters of the state have nothing to do with church life is an absolutely foolish, unbiblical and unhistorical argument.

We are grateful for Christian culture, and the world is too whether they acknowledge it or not. But Seelsorgering into the third estate, is becoming harder and harder due to this bizarre question as to whether or not Christendom was ever beautiful. That’s the agenda behind Critical Theory. A recent Canadian seminary professor actually published an article a few weeks ago implying that Christendom is evil such as the loss of DEI in the public sphere is lamentable.

Those critical of Christian nationalism think that there is this spiritual playground of neutral space where individual Christians are free to make decisions that are equally God pleasing to each other. It is a post modern myopic deception that the public sphere is somehow neutral of values. The New Testament clearly announces how this present age is darkness (Eph 6:12). Yet those who courageously and boldly share the voice of the Church and her Lord in the public sphere, which is more important than ever as we approach the final parousia, are being increasingly persecuted and discouraged from doing so.

When we oppose Christian nationalism in its best form (!), are we ready for what fills the vacuum left?

[59]

Those concerned that Lutherans will go too far in speaking the truth of God’s word in the public sphere and somehow jettison their catechetical instruction on eschatology through joining this fictionalized cult of Christian nationalists, should consider how, according to their own descriptions of Christian nationalism, St. John the Baptizer would qualify. He is rightly praised as a martyr, for implicitly, but not explicitly standing for Christ. How? On behalf of the Church, he condemned the immoral behaviour of government officials of the day, and he was executed by the state.

All citizens have religious beliefs that influence public policy and legislation at all levels of government whether they acknowledge them or not. Christians should celebrate and not flee from the fact that the Holy Spirit has called them to share, advocate and fight to advance those beliefs in the public sphere. Let me end with an excerpt from the first preacher of the highly esteemed and belloved Lutheran Hour, Dr. Walter A. Maier, addressed these same issues 100 years ago, and arrives at the same unsurprising conclusion:[60]

A Sermon By Dr. Walter A. Maier

WE NEED GOD TO PRESERVE OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE

We should, however, do more than cry out, “Keep America Christian!” We must act! Everyone who knows the Lord Jesus and the magnificence of His grace in reconciling a lost world to His heavenly Father must be ready to assume individual responsibility. Jeremiah does not primarily seek to start a mass movement nor ask others to act for him. He recognizes his own share, his personal duty. May the Holy Spirit awaken men with the courage of that mighty prophet who, as few others, protested ceaselessly against evil, defended the faith at all costs, resolutely championed his Lord and continually sounded the necessary note of repentance and contrition! Let American clergymen make this fearless man of God their model by clinging to the whole Word of Truth! Such loyalty may produce opposition, just as Jeremiah had to fight the chief priests and the officials in the ecclesiastical system of his day. Dare to be a Jeremiah, and you will have a Jeremiah’s blessing - deliverance in danger and persecution! If necessary, the Almighty can invoke His heavenly power to sustain you in any struggle.[61]

The problem with the rhetoric of anti-Christian nationalism is it frightens faithful Christians away from living Christian lives and into the devilish claws of antinomianism. But if pastors have open discussions about these questions and deliberately address them with their people, and model them in the public sphere, we are sure to find those fears reduced. Only enthusiasts and pietists believe the Holy Spirit can be the personal seelsorger of individual Lutherans and that that will suffice in equipping spiritual warriors in knowing how to spiritually battle within the complexities of the third estate. Instead, it’s the pastor’s job, as the Holy Spirit works through his instruction, by which he sanctifies his Church and produces the necessary fruits from which the world nibbles, so that they can taste and see that the Lord is good, and join Christ’s flock as new followers, disciples and missionaries.

So I hope I did not disappoint any of you by giving these lectures on spiritual warfare, by not speaking about the armour of God, or sharing ghost stories about demonic encounters. What we have here is far more important and relevant, since the attacks of the devil are found in these ordinary ways, and that is why pastors are crucial in that warfare, primarily as seelsorgers who have the courage and ability to speak regularly, and comfortably into all three estates. Thank you.

[1] The Magdeburg Confession (trans. Christian Preus)(CPH, St Louis, 2025), p. 33.

[2] This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg byAllen Mulvey and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary. E-mail: CFWLibrary@CRF.CUIS.EDUvSurface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA Phone: (219) 481-2123 Fax: (219) 481-2126

________________________________________________________________

[3] If we agree that all things are spiritual, (since, again, there really isn’t a secular sphere in the mind of God), then God’s word matters to the public realm. This is precisely what Luther reaffirms in his doctrine of the two kingdoms. And even though individual Christians are both living stones AND the very tools of God in building his Church, the Church as an institution is expected to boldly speak to the civil rulers, rebuking, advising, and praying, and the government in turn is expected to protect the Church and allow her to teach, preach and administer the sacraments freely.

[4] “Seelsorgering” doesn’t exist as a verb, but for my purposes here, I will just use it as such.

[5] The largely agnostic Canadian soldiers are forced to wrestle with how to incorporate chaplains into their lives as fathers, when they can’t conceive in any sense how they are their children. Still I found Americans, even though they don’t use the word “padre”, actually treated us chaplains more like fathers than Canadians, largely, again, because Canadians were less confessing Christian.

[6] Herbert Anderson, “Whatever Happened to Seelsorge?” Word & World (Volume XXI, Number 1 Winter 2001 Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry Seattle, Washington. 32-41), p. 33.

[7] Harold L. Senkbeil, “What’s Old Is New Again: The Art of Seelsorge” (CTQ, Vol 87:3–4 July/October 2023

265-274), p.267.

[8] ‘Martinus dixit saepe se expertum esse. Vidisse se visiones horribiles: saepe se Angelos vidisse: adeo ut coactus sit eessare a Missa. Elevationem ideo conservamus, propter sanctus Jesaiae: quod valde eonvenit Elevationi. Nam sonat, quomodo sedeat in throne et regnet. Et elevare corpus et sanguinem Christi nihil aliud est quam Evangelium praedicare toti orbi etc. ‘ (Analecta Lutherana; Briefe und Actenstücke zur Geschichte Luthers. Zugleich ein Supplement zu den bisherigen Sammlungen seines Briefwechsels : Kolde, Theodor, 1850-1913, p.72.)

[9] glossalia

[10] The nature of demons is abuse. Angels are holy instruments of God and demons are those that reject their instrumentality (though almighty God uses them anyways, to their eternal frustration and horror!). Yet the devil’s nature is about twisting and abusing God’s gifts, the greatest being true doctrine. What is adultery other than perversion of marriage, or a lie as the deprivation of truth? The greatest spiritual battles in life happen when it comes to divine teachings.

[11] Most of my protestant Christian friends who served with me in the military see church as interaction between them, their Bible and a whole host of internet preachers. They all help coach you in your spiritual lives. These friends desire seelsorgers, but they settle for a two-dimension pastor on a screen who they have never met or doesn’t know their name, which does not suffice.

[12] I was surprised by a devotion by Bo Giertz, one of my favourite theologians, Swedish --but he’s not perfect-- in To Live With Christ, where he makes reference to medical explanations for demonic possession in the New Testament era, in a way that implied that the disciples were less informed, scientific, educated and thus, rational, than us today in their assessment of a demoniac in categories other than mental health.

[13] I appreciate the argument of Luther in Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Sacraments and Images in1525, where the heavenly prophets are criticized precisely because they are so heavenly minded, transcending word and sacraments and the fleshly aspect of Christian living. He also implies how they are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.

[14] Baptist Lordship salvation is really a cousin of pietism. Pietism took a toll in all of Christendom, including Roman Catholicism through both the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary (i.e. (your personal relationship to Christ happens through her) or the cult of the Sacred heart of Jesus, with its emphasis on Jesus changing your heart through His heart. Incidentally, that’s what those beams of light flashing out of His chest signify. The mind—i.e. doctrine—isn’t the focus: the heart is.

[15] AND is more ecumenical than we Lutherans may want to admit (the only really offensive parts are on the sacraments, and since Vatican II, not even to most Roman Catholics).

[16] Notice how “bishop” is less popular in American LCMS circles than “president” in spite of the opposite being the case overseas.

[17] Thomas M. Winger, “The Relationship of Wilhelm Loehe to C.F.W. Walther and the Missouri Synod in the Debate concerning Church and Office”, in LTR VII:1&2 (Fall/Winter 1994 & Spring/Summer 1995) pp. 107-32.

[18] which is why so few Lutheran settlements in Canada survived, most being absorbed by Anglicans, and even handed over to them by “confessional” missionaries who asked Anglican priests to teach Luther’s catechism to their Lutheran attendees.

[19] See Benjamin T.J. Mayes, “Grabau Versus Walther: The Use of the Book of Concord on the American Lutheran Debate on Church and Ministry in the Nineteenth Century” in CTQ 75 (2011), pp/ 217-252.

[20] For a detailed study on differences between Walther and Grabau on the Church, Ministry and Pastoral Office see William M. Cwirla, “Grabau and the Saxon Pastors: Of the Holy Ministry 1840-1845” (Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly. Vol. 68 , 2, summer. 1995 Concordia Historical Institute), pp. 84-99.

[21] Ibid.

[22] “The idea that somehow the era of the formulation of the confessions was closed after the Formula of Concord would be absurd to its authors. No, we do not grab hold of the confessions in order to allow the theologians of the time of the Reformation to answer the questions of the twentieth century. We do so rather to encounter the church which still possessed the courage and the authority to produce confessions. This was the church in which there was not merely a chaos of individual opinions of lone pastors, professors, and ecclesiastical leaders, but rather the great consensus of the “we believe, teach and confess”, the consensus of genuinely churchly fellowship” [Hermann Sasse, “Church and Volk”, in The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters, volume 1, (CPH, 2005, 123-125), p.121.]

[23] which is why we create CTCR documents in order, in some sense, to “fill in the gap”. It remains unclear, though, as to their authority. Some dismiss them as having no weight and being the mere opinion of a few in synod, while others treat them as addendums to the Book of Concord. What is the middle road considering the tension between our doctrine and ecclesiology?

[24] See his Hirtenbrief. Also, see Bemjamin T. J. Mayes, “Reconsidering Grabau on Ministry and Sacraments”, in The Lutheran Quarterly, Vol XX (2006), 190-208.

[25] In Canada, in my experience, to do so, is often automatically seen as abusive and domineering. And where it is done well, it has taken many years for pastors to cultivate relationships of trust in which the parishioner allows them to be that seelsorger, which proves my point of overcoming suspicion of the holder of the pastoral office, and even lots of catechesis for them to understand what that office is and is supposed to do.

[26] Consider the controversy of emergency bishops and Prussia Frederick William III of Prussia who forced unionism upon his subjects, and, effectively, became both head of state and Church, resulting in the heroic departure of the first founders of LCMS to flee to America, from such governmental abuse.

[27] Sasse was a renown social critic of Nazi government in the 1930s.

[28] AC XXVIII, 4-5; Ap XVI, 54-55, 58-59. THE MISSION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WORLD: A Review of the 1965 Mission Affirmations. St. Louis: Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, 1974., p. 6.

[29] Ibid.

[30] The Magdeburg Confession (trans. Christian Preus)(CPH, St Louis, 2025), p. 80.

[31] Ernest Koenker, The Two Realms and the “Separation of Church and State” in American Society, Concordia Theological Monthly, January, 1956, p. 8.

[32] The Magdeburg Confession (trans Christian Preus)(CPH, St Louis, 2025), p.37.

[33] Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis” in CTQ, (Volume 64:3, July 2000), p. 196.

[34] “Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letter XXIII)

[35] “Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster” (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, XXIII)

[36] Theo Hoyer, “Church and State,” in The Abiding Word, (Vol. II, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO, 1947), p. 606.

[37]Meghan Bashan, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda (Broadside Books, 2024).

[38] For instance, she reports on the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the U.S. Federal government during the recent pandemic, the impact of atheist billionaire George Soros and his foundation, who intentionally influence evangelical leadership and work in promoting anti-Christian Marxism. She writes: “Around 32 percent of the U.S. electorate describe themselves as evangelical, and the vast majority of that group leans right. Among Americans who describe themselves as conservatives, Protestant evangelicals are the single largest religious group by 23 points. As The Atlantic put it in 2021, evangelicals are simply “America’s most powerful voting bloc.” Accordingly, conservative and evangelical church leaders, schools and organizations have been actively targeted in America by leftists, a tactic that stretches back to WWII and the Cold War. In The Devil and Karl Marx, political science professor Paul Kengor describes the process the Communist Party USA used between 1920 and 1950 to deliberately infiltrate mainline Protestant churches and woo pastors to their socialist program, particularly in the realm of education.

[39] Scripture aside, opponents must at least concede that interest in national security is part of the Lutheran tradition, back to Luther seeing a primary role of state to prevent Islamic invasion for sake of the Church. On the War Against the Turks, Luther is clearly interested in advising the heads of state. Again Luther is not just saying to the prince that he hates Muslims because he is a white supremacist, but he says keep them out of Germany for sake of the Church and Christian culture/Christendom!

[40] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sweden-is-closing-churches-to-meet-climate-goals-including-historic-churches-from-the-middle-ages/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=catholic.

[41] Or what about masks and the dehumanization that they cause when used wide scale, or the suspicion cultivated among each other in social distancing, or the unimportance of communion, or the necessity of communion together in an environment that does not foster doubt that God is sovereign, good and safe? These were clearly all demonic attacks on the Church. Spiritual soldiers never rest but need to always engage in defensive and offensive warfare. For us, that means at least talking about the truth and responding to the political and social trends.

[42] But let’s be careful even here: regarding the prodigal son, what would have happened had he not repented? He is a son but living outside of the Father’s kingdom -- essentially denying his identity, or at least living contrary to it—what would have happened had he died outside of that kingdom? We don’t know, since its not the point of the parable.

[43] So, the rest of the hour conversation revolved around practical ways of financial management of a household, like putting your credit card in a bucket of water and freezing it, so that every time you are tempted to use it, you were forced to rethink your decision…Actually, its not a terrible idea for young people today. But not really what I expected to talk about in a pastoral counselling session.

[44]Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis” in CTQ, (Volume 64:3, July 2000), pp. 195-196.

[45] WA 5: 128-129. Walter Mostert, “Martin Luther- Wirkung und Deutung,” in Luther im Widerstreit der Geschichte, Veroffentlichungen der Luther-Akademie Ratzeburg, Band 20 (Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993), p. 78.

[46] In my experience with other denominations, Lutherans are more aware of their sins than their fruits, and the fact that we talk a lot about sin causes other Christians to think we are overly pessimistic: an orthodox chaplain friend of mine once accused us of being so down on ourselves. But actually, we are realistic and honest. He never understood how we could find joy in this profound truth and mystery. Well, he wasn’t Lutheran.

[47] Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, Examen I:424.

[48]And not only that, even to take this one step further, Luther describes the bodily benefits of communion as ultimately a medicine of immortality for both soul and body. In other words, it doesn’t just change the soul, it changes the body! This is certainly not the main reason for communing, but an added, and really unsurprising bonus, given we are not Gnostics but believe in the redemption of the whole person through the God-MAN, by his incarnation and corporal presence in the Lord’s Supper. In short, the Lord’s Supper is not just something that points us to our resurrection, a reminder of a not yet materialized promise, but has practical repercussions on our mortal bodies and Christian lives now. “Lift up your hearts” isn’t a command to look up into the sky, but an invitation to tilt your head up slightly to the alter, where God enfleshed is now found. The Lord’s Supper is a reminder of what has already been achieved for us, but it’s not just a confirmation of what has already been done to us. Communion changes us.

Communion is connected to bed side ministry with a sense of urgency, not just because it offers a special reminder of the grace that is already ours. Some Lutherans behave like neo-gnostics, insisting upon a rigid separation of body and soul, until we talk about the final resurrection of the dead. But being anti-gnostic means appreciating that spiritual phenomenon has physical consequences. Miracles still happen today through prayer. Demon possession is a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem. The works of sanctification are the physical manifestation of a spiritual solution that contradicts a theology of “completeness”, for lack of a better word. The bible sometimes logically contradicts itself, but this is not problematic for Lutherans who welcome the mysteries. Example of contradiction: the debate between us and Calvinists regarding single versus double predestination: double is logical, single is Biblical. We accept God’s word as magisterium. And so it goes with the issue of justification versus sanctification. We don’t understand it. But we don’t need to. We are fully holy and yet still becoming holy. Soft antinomianism denies the mystery, and rejects the paradox.

[49] Having faith: you do or you don’t. Certainly “I believe, help my unbelief” shows that faith can grow too, but a basic faith is the starting point.

[50] Even psalms like 80:19, salvation is spoken in the subjunctive: “Do this Lord for us who are saved already, and we shall be saved”.

[51] Warning: many Bad bible translations typically interpret expressions of divine monergism of Grace as involving human activity: subjunctives or the imperfect is often translated as imperatives: commands like “Do this!” instead of appeals to “keep doing this”. In other words, don’t resist what God is already started and continues doing in you. The Holy Spirit is already at work and your job is just not to get in the way. The idea is that we are compelled not to resist his work, as sinners, as opposed to being led to believe that the work can be reduced to our cooperation with the Holy Spirit or even just a neo-Pelagian idea that we can do it on our own. When protestants don’t see holiness as happening to you, but rather it is rather something you do, it’s partially due to bad interpretations and bible versions.

[52] For give the crass comparison but did you ever notice that the diaper of your kid doesn’t really smell as bad as that from somebody else’s?:)

[53] Historian Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books, 2019) underscores this legacy, tracing how Christian values of compassion, equality, justice and human dignity became the moral bedrock of Western civilization. As Holland writes, “To live in a Western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions. The ambitions of universal human rights, the expectation that the wealthy should look after the poor, the notion that society should protect the vulnerable – all of these are deeply and distinctively Christian.” The notion of equality before men is a Christian idea which was further refined by Luther with the universal priesthood. That alone should be enough to acknowledge that Christian culture is foundation of what secular culture takes for granted and gives you an idea of what is at stake by not fighting for Christian culture. See also Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World (Zondervan, 2004).

“Yet, as secularization intensifies, the moral depth of, say, a healthy view of human rights are being eroded. Yale professor Samuel Moyn’s in The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History warns that framing rights as timeless obscures their historical and theological origins, reducing them to hollow abstractions. In such a state, rights become instruments of power rather than enduring moral principles. Oxford theologian Nigel Biggar cautions that a purely secular understanding of rights lacks the moral depth necessary to justify their universality. When this happens, rights risk degenerating into tools of political expediency – a devolution that is all-but complete, with seismic implications for the trajectory of Western societies.” Instead of appreciating the invention of human rights, by Christians, as reflective of human value, they are used and abused by non-Christians to serve unchristian ends.” Patrick Keeney, “Analysis: Notre Dame Cathedrals Rebirth Deeper Meaning” in True North News, January 12, 2025. https://tnc.news/2025/01/12/analysis-notre-dame-cathedrals-rebirth-deeper-meaning/

Accessed 01-13-2025.

[54] Candice Malcolm, “Trudeau says Canada has no ‘core identity’”, Toronto Sun, Sep 15, 2016, https://torontosun.com/2016/09/14/trudeau-says-canada-has-no-core-identity, accessed May 27, 2025.

[55] Christian nationalism | Definition, History, United States, & Facts | Britannica, accessed 14 November 2024 .

[56] From an early draft of “Aphorisms on Christendom haunted by the Specter of ‘Christian Nationalism’” (Ad Crucem, 2025).

[57] Ibid.

[58] From an early draft of “Aphorisms on Christendom haunted by the Specter of ‘Christian Nationalism’” (Ad Crucem, 2025).

[59] Koenker, The Two Realms, Concordia Theological Monthly, January, 1956, p. 9.

[60] KEEP AMERICA CHRISTIAN! A Sermon By Dr. Walter A. Maier. First Aired January 1942. https://branscome.org/KeepAmer.htm:

Need I remind you that a similar, lamentable contrast exists between the American of today and of our founding fathers; that we, too, must pray with deep-souled appeal, “O God, ‘renew our days as of old’!” The Book of Judges points to grave national calamities which began when “another generation: arose “which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel.” Similarly a new generation has now arisen within our boundaries which does not know the God who made America great nor recognize His over bounteous mercy toward our country. Despite everything radicals may try to tell you, keep this basic truth firmly implanted in your mind: Our colonies, later the States, were settled by men and women who were Christians, who came to our shores, among other reasons, because they could here spread the Gospel, erect Christian churches, and worship the Savior according to His Word! Those early pioneers had their faults, of course, and I am not endeavoring to glorify something so far distant from us that its frailties cannot be seen; but for the most part, the people who built America were outstanding in their devotion to Christ. The Charter of Virginia assures its colonists the right to live together in “Christian peace” and instructs them to help “in propagating . . . the Christian religion to such people as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.” The Plymouth Charter specifies that the colony is established “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God Almighty.” The Delaware Charter defines one purpose of that settlement as “the further propagation of the Holy Gospel.” Maryland’s Charter explains that its first settlers were moved by a “pious zeal for extending the Christian religion.” The Massachusetts Bay Charter emphasizes that Boston was founded by men who wanted to bring the new world “to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and the Savior of mankind.” The early settlers of Pennsylvania came to America, according to their own declaration, for the spread of the “Christian religion.” The Rhode Island Charter commits its people to the “true Christian faith and worship of God,” and in the Rhode Island Compact the signers declare, “We submit our persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” The Connecticut Constitution in its preamble pledges the settlers to help “preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The first article in the New Hampshire Charter begins: “We . . . in the name of Christ and in the sight of God.” The oath that this instrument requires was to be administered in the name of “the Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Savior of His people.”

Similarly, if we ask ourselves, What is the worst disaster that can overtake our beloved land? ….That deadliest danger is unbelief, ingratitude toward God Almighty, the blasphemous ridicule of His Word, the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the denial of the cleansing blood, the contempt for the Gospel, and with this, the carnival of crime, the sweeping rule of sin, the glorification of evil. God’s truth, majestic in its plain, unalterable force, warns, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish,” and every time an empire has collapsed - review this parade of fallen kingdoms: Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome, and above all, Judah - the truth of that warning is fulfilled.

The most vital necessity for America today is, therefore, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ’s power to forgive sins and restore us to God. That truth was recognized when the United States was founded; but because the opposition to our Lord and his Church is steadily increasing, while sinister anti-Christian forces attempt to destroy the faith which has been the heritage of millions, I appeal to you in Christ’s name:

Need I remind you that a similar, lamentable contrast exists between the American of today and of our founding fathers; that we, too, must pray with deep-souled appeal, “O God, ‘renew our days as of old’!” The Book of Judges points to grave national calamities which began when “another generation: arose “which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel.” Similarly a new generation has now arisen within our boundaries which does not know the God who made America great nor recognize His overbounteous mercy toward our country. Despite everything radicals may try to tell you, keep this basic truth firmly implanted in your mind: Our colonies, later the States, were settled by men and women who were Christians, who came to our shores, among other reasons, because they could here spread the Gospel, erect Christian churches, and worship the Savior according to His Word! Those early pioneers had their faults, of course, and I am not endeavoring to glorify something so far distant from us that its frailties cannot be seen; but for the most part, the people who built America were outstanding in their devotion to Christ. The Charter of Virginia assures its colonists the right to live together in “Christian peace” and instructs them to help “in propagating . . . the Christian religion to such people as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.” The Plymouth Charter specifies that the colony is established “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God Almighty.” The Delaware Charter defines one purpose of that settlement as “the futher propagation of the Holy Gospel.” Maryland’s Charter explains that its first settlers were moved by a “pious zeal for extending the Christian religion.” The Massachusetts Bay Charter emphasizes that Boston was founded by men who wanted to bring the new world “to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and the Savior of mankind.” The early settlers of Pennsylvania came to America, according to their own declaration, for the spread of the “Christian religion.” The Rhode Island Charter commits its people to the “true Christian faith and worhip of God,” and in the Rhode Island Compact the signers declare, “We submit our persons, lives, and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” The Connecticut Constitution in its preamble pledges the settlers to help “preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The first article in the New Hampshire Charter begins: “We . . . in the name of Christ and in the sight of God.” The oath that this instrument requires was to be administered in the name of “the Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Savior of His people.”

Similarly, in the early days of our War for Independence, although freethinkers sometimes occupied high places, an unmistakably Christian note rang through the official proceedings. The closing words in the Declaration of Independence confessed the nation’s dependence on God. The first American day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, in 1776, was appointed by Congress so that the colonies might “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.” The first Thanksgiving Day, ordered by Congress in 1777, asked the people’s prayers for God’s solemn blessing and “the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to blot our sins out of remembrance.” President John Adams proclaimed a country-wide fast, asking the citizens to admit their sins before the “Most High God” and with the sincerest penitence implore His pardoning mercy through the “Great Mediator and Redeemer for our past transgressions.” In the midst of the Civil War, 1863, the United States Senate passed a resolution suggesting that our people seek God’s help “through Jesus Christ.” In a hundred different ways, it could be shown, the America of yesterday exalted Almighty God as the Supreme Ruler of our commonwealth, taught that in the Scriptures His will is revealed for the infallible guidance of men, and that Jesus Christ is the divinely appointed Mediator between God and the men who make up nations.

I am not now discussing the relation of Church and State nor pleading for intolerance or religious discrimination, both of which are condemned by true Americanism and true Christianity. I am trying to show you that the founding fathers in America were not atheists, skeptics, unbelievers, pantheists, freethinkers, Mohammedans, Buddhists, but (despite their denominational differences, which I would in no way minimize) Christians who built their hope on the Lord Jesus Christ. Here and there, in the course of years and with the freedom American offered all men, a settlement of unbelievers and atheists did spring up. For example, when the city of New Ulm, Minnesota, was planned, its founders boasted that in this community the folly of religion would be revealed by the success of irreligion. Yet New Ulm and a few other similar experiments failed dismally to function as centers of antireligious agitation. Today a Lutheran college and church steeples show Christ’s victory over unbelief. On the whole, the pioneers along our Eastern seaboard, the men and women who built cities and towns in the Colonies, the first to cut down forests in the Northwest Territory, to cross the Alleghenies, to sail down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, the early farmers on our Midwestern plains, the hardy adventurers who drove covered wagons to the Rockies and then fought their way over desert or mountain passes through blister of heat of blizzard to the slopes that drop into the blue Pacific, were close to the Almighty in those days when most of our congregations were established, most of our mission groups, Bible societies, Christian charitable and educational institutions founded.

Now, however, the scene is changed. We have more churches, but not stronger churches. The clear-cut acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ which marked the original American way of life is subdued. Public orators speak of God, it is true; but have you noticed how woefully infrequent is the reference to “the Name which is above every name”? In some instances men of prominence deliberately refuse to mention Christ. Certain fraternal organizations, called “Christian,” systematically bar His name, perhaps because they are afraid of incurring the disfavor or losing the support of anti-Biblical elements. Even some religious groups which during the hard, formative periods of this country were outspoken in their loyalty to Jesus have gone over to the left wing of Modernism. They have imposing buildings, well-paid choirs, celebrated pulpit orators, elite membership, social halls, gymnasiums; but they are without Christ, the Son of God, the one Savior. They have lost the faith of their fathers, they have compromised when God’s Word demanded opposition to error and warned, “Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.”

At the same time, other countermovements have been set in motion against our Lord. Atheism has been systematically organized. Communism - and I mean the Bible-ridiculing, Christ-blaspheming sort - has made startling headway in the United States during the last two decades, and we may well expect that it will go forward in greater strides after the war. American Christians should realize that every atheistic Communist has sworn hostility to the Gospel of Jesus and that the higher his rank, the greater his influence, the more dangerous his hatred of the Savior.

When we thus behold the denial of the Lord Jesus in this blessed nation, generations ago dedicated to faith in His redemption; when we see the America in which, while strange, foreign sects and cults become firmly rooted, half of the entire population belongs to no church whatever and, therefore, comes under Christ’s verdict “He that is not with Me is against Me,” do you not agree that the prayer to be spoken from our innermost hearts must repeat Jeremiah’s plea “O God, ‘renew our days as of old’ “? Bring back the America that was not ashamed to confess the Lord Jesus; the America that had days of fasting, humiliation and penance; the America in which Sunday was a time for church attendance by the whole family; the American that wanted sermons instead of sermonettes, that listened to preachers who called sin sin; the American in which frontier settlers shared their homes with circuit riders or traveled for days to hear a preacher expound the Gospel; the America that had no streamlined trains, no airplanes, no radios, no electric power, no steam heat, no modern plumbing, no production lines, yet that had the Savior, and, having Him, was victorious over its enemies!

“Renew our days as of old!” we repeat as we recall the startling change which has overtaken American education. The first schools founded on this continent taught the Christian religion and were based on the Scriptural maxim “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Today much of public education is pointedly antireligious, with a deep-rooted determination on the part of many teachers (whose salaries are paid from public funds) to poison young minds against the Bible. Most of you have no idea of the startling extent to which textbooks used in many public schools feature an away-from-God tendency. While recent years have witnessed a remarkable increase in school building and enrollment, on a steadily mounting scale we have been forced to erect more prisons in the battle against juvenile crime. In many cities we are training children to be mentally shrewd rather than morally good, cute and cunning instead of honest and straightforward. Because the collapse of morality and reverence constitutes a serious menace to the future of the nation, we ought constantly to ask the Almighty for a return to the early American educational ideals. They had no modern theories of training in those pioneer decades, no “progressive” systems, no theories of self- expression; but they kept first things first. For them no training was complete without the study of the Bible, the memorizing of its passages, the exalting of its truth.

True, we can never fully recapture that early American ideal since our public schools, attended by children of various, conflicting creeds, cannot give spiritual instruction or require Biblical training; but the Christians of our country can return to the colonial practice - and the conditions after the war may make this necessary - by which the churches built their own elementary schools to insure religious instructional. My own Church annually spends millions of dollars to maintain and expand a system of child training which helps the pupils keep the Lord Jesus uppermost in his mind. We gladly pay our taxes to support the public educational system; but we also believe that the nation and the churches require hearts and minds illuminated by the Holy Spirit, souls daily instructed in Biblical truth. Therefore we maintain hundreds of Christian day schools throughout the land, offering more than secular culture can legally give - a sound, Scriptural training. These schools are open to your boys and girls. Give us your children so that we can help give them to Christ! Juvenile court statistics show conclusively that youngsters thus trained have a moral and spiritual force in their lives which goes far in keeping them away from crime and closer to Christ.

Similarly, we need a return to the spirit of Christian higher education which marked our country’s yesteryear, and spread of the true faith. Read the records of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries to remind yourself that the oldest, largest, and best universities were dedicated to the Savior in their charters, on their seals, and in their Scripture-centered instruction! Deeply we regret that many of the colleges thus called into existence by humble, Christian faith, built by Christian funds, endowed by legacies from Christian friends, have forsaken this foundation. In too many cases such schools have become hotbeds of infidelity and hatred of the Redeemer. As some of you parents know from bitter experience, young people who enter colleges as happy, trusting believers, leave as dissatisfied, sophisticated skeptics. Particularly in times like these, when the nation needs spiritual strength for its first line of defense, we must keep Christ in culture. Therefore, if you fathers and mothers want your children to attend a college in which Biblical religion, far from being assailed, will be exalted, write me for a list of spiritually accredited colleges connected with my Church!

Similarly, the plea “Renew our days as of old!” arises from a dozen different sectors of our life. Give us the early American household, with large families, mothers devoted to their home, fathers conscious of the fact that they must be God’s priests among their own, children who are obedient and respectful; homes, in short, with Jesus the constant Guest and His Spirit the consecrating Power! Think of it, Christian marriage was so sacred in the Plymouth Colony that during its first seventy-one years only six divorces were granted, and these on Scripturally justified grounds! Contrast with this the reports of fifth, sixth, and seventh marriages in the United States and a divorce rate which now seems primed for a startling increase!

2- WE NEED GOD TO PRESERVE OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE

We should, however, do more than cry out, “Keep America Christian!” We must act! Everyone who knows the Lord Jesus and the magnificence of His grace in reconciling a lost world to His heavenly Father must be ready to assume individual responsibility. Jeremiah does not primarily seek to start a mass movement nor ask others to act for him. He recognizes his own share, his personal duty. May the Holy Spirit awaken men with the courage of that mighty prophet who, as few others, protested ceaselessly against evil, defended the faith at all costs, resolutely championed his Lord and continually sounded the necessary note of repentance and contrition! Let American clergymen make this fearless man of God their model by clinging to the whole Word of Truth! Such loyalty may produce opposition, just as Jeremiah had to fight the chief priests and the officials in the ecclesiastical system of his day. Dare to be a Jeremiah, and you will have a Jeremiah’s blessing - deliverance in danger and persecution! If necessary, the Almighty can invoke His heavenly power to sustain you in any struggle.

Laity of America, read these Old Testament prophecies to find strength and courage during disturbed days! You are not too small, insignificant, isolated, to be heard or have your objection to apostasy sustained. The man with the Almighty on his side is still a majority. Therefore, if you hear any attack on Christ, cry out in rebuke! If in church circles you meet denial of the faith, any contradiction of God’s truth, raise your voice in disavowal! If in the realm of politics attempts are made to discredit the divine Word; for example, if efforts are made to introduce anti-Biblical, anti-American, evolutionary, Communist books, reading guides or courses into the public-school system of your community, start a petition to prohibit them! Take the lead in eliminating violations of Scriptural teachings and our constitutional rights! Some of you business men, blessed with a clear- cut understanding of the Savior’s teaching, should enter the nation’s political life and contribute the uplifting power that Christian leadership can offer. Today there is a marked need in the weighty public offices - especially those dealing with the lives of our military youth - for many more far-sighted men who know Jesus and His exalting righteousness.

Jeremiah, realizing that without God all his protests would be of no avail, turned to the Almighty in the prayer of our text. Oh, that millions from coast to coast would likewise find refuge and strength in true petition and bring down God’s benediction through fervent intercession! American on bended knees, with folded hands, bowed heads, and humble hearts could win victories over foes a thousand times stronger than our enemies across both oceans. So, pray, America! Pray penitently! Beseech God in your own room, your household, your church, wherever you may be! Pray persistently, with trust which can never be defeated because you know “with God nothing shall be impossible”! By the omnipotence of heaven , if it be His will and for our individual and collective best, He can change our sorrows, stop this war, and give the world a true and righteous peace, with all oppression defeated.

Especially, however, pray as Jeremiah did when he pleaded contritely, confessing the sins of his people as well as his own transgressions! Multitudes across this nation should repeat his prayer “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned!” Come before God, you among the unconverted who have never accepted the Redeemer! Ask the Almighty, “Turn me from sin, from hell, from eternal death! Turn me from my own sinful flesh, from my own lustful thoughts, my own selfish, hateful, revengeful self! Turn me from the lure and lust of temptation! Turn me from the despair over my transgressions, from the accusation of my conscience, from the fear of death! Turn me from Thy wrath, and for Jesus’ sake bring me into Thy love!” When you plead with this complete trust which takes Christ fully at His Word; when you know in the positive assurance of the Holy Spirit that the suffering which Jesus endured, the blood He shed on Calvary, the cry of anguish which there escaped His parched lips, the death He dies on the cross, was all for you, so that by the humble acceptance of Him as your Savior you could be turned from sin to salvation - you are saved for earth and heaven. Then, while you cling to Christ, no power of men or devils combined can tear you from His hands. You have been born again into a new existence that has turned you to God!

Plead with God in the faith of Jeremiah to turn you wholly to the Savior in body, soul, heart, mind, and spirit! My fellow redeemed, may the joy of a saved sanctified life be yours! By the power of rebirth and reconciliation to the heavenly Father, you, as believers in Christ, can be a mighty force in restoring the”“days as of old,” in keeping America Christian. God bless you in you love for the Savior, and God bless a Christian America, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

(KEEP AMERICA CHRISTIAN! A Sermon By Dr. Walter A. Maier. First Aired January 1942. https://branscome.org/KeepAmer.htm)

[61] Ibid.