In September the Synod's President named Charlie Kirk plainly. In July his convention refused the name, and refused to let its theologians look where he looked.
The CTCR will certainly look at its prior documents including the "Dissent" documents in its new assignment. I don't think the convention needs to micromanage its bibliography (especially considering that few of the delegates voting have likely read any of these documents.
As for the naming of Charlie Kirk in a synodical resolution on political violence, Charlie Kirk was an outspoken political conservative and the mere mention of his name has considerable political connotations. In a sermon preached a few weeks after Charlie Kirk's murder on the topic of evil, the devil, and spiritual warfare, I took note of and named not only Charlie Kirk but also Melissa and Mark Hortmann of Minnesota, as victims of politically motivated violence, balancing the political spin. A general resolution descrying political violence (do we really need such a resolution in the first place?) needs to be non-specific in its political perspective. One cannot name a prominent victim without naming others otherwise a general resolution becomes specifically about that person, whether intended or not.
I understanding your reasoning about not naming Kirk or others specifically in a Resolution regarding "poltical violence", that the Resolution could potentially give undue focus on certain people and undermine the purpose and principle of the resolution. Parenthetically, (with an "e.g."), if not a Kirk, might an assassination attempt of a president [purely political], as with Trump, been included in the resolution, to appropriately give added weight to it, and have amplified the evil of 'political violence'? Such a resolution would not be necessarily be viewed as being about Trump or Kirk, or anyone in particular, if names are used as 'examples' of the principle conveyed in the resolution.
Regarding your sermon last year, wherein you named named the Hortmanns and Kirk as "victims of politically motivated violence", did you communicate that only about them, or did you also refer to Kirk as a victim of "Christian persecution"? If Kirk was not mentioned as being martyred or murdered for his faith, is your perception of him primarily a political figure instead of a Christian influencer?
With respect, Pr. Cwirla, why name specific racial groups then?
Charlie Kirk was one of our generation’s most effective apologists for the Christian worldview. No one asked to name Trump or the Hortmanns, or Gabby Giffords, or any number of other victims of political violence in recent years precisely because their lives were NOT spent defending the Christian worldview in the public square. The LCMS punting on this is cowardly. And possibly that cowardice to engage with current issues is precisely the reason young men flocked to churches after Charlie was murdered, but they didn’t really flock to LCMS churches.
But I have an honest question, because I’ve seen this failure to engage with anything in current events for 30 years now in the LCMS. I want to put the best construction on our pastors. Are they trained in seminary to stick like glue to Law/Gospel and avoid teaching on current issues that the laity are grappling with?
I'm not sure what you are referring to with regard to "racial groups." A resolution dealing with racism need not mention any specific group either, lest it give a particular group some privileged status. Racism is simply racism.
The resolution in question denounced political violence not religious persecution. Viewed through a political lens, naming a particular individual with strong right wing ties would be viewed as a political statement. A resolution on political violence might well have mentioned the attempts on Pres. Trump's life, Gabby Giffords, the Hortmanns, Charlie Kirk, etc as examples. But these aren't necessary to the point of the resolution.
The sermon to which I referred dealt with the nature of evil as it manifests itself in the world and our culture today and how God overcomes evil by the ultimate good of the Cross. The occasion was the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels and the text was Revelation 12 and the great war in heaven. The key verse was: "Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
The main point of my sermon was that the violence and evil that we see at work in the world, exemplified by the murder of Charlie Kirk and others, is the work of the Evil One who seeks to stir up division, despair, and disbelief, and that our warfare is not political but spiritual, fought by the Word of God and prayer with the angels fighting along with us. I also took note of how Kirk's widow Erica was an example of how evil is overcome by good and how her public witness caused many to reconsider their own spiritual lives and turn to Christ. God always works all things together for good in the all-reconciling death of Jesus.
Anyone who knows me and is familiar with my body of work knows that I do not avoid current or controversial issues. I analyze and interpret them through the spiritual lens of the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions. My task as a preacher is to speak prophetically to the issues not politically. People tend to want their side to be vindicated and to be justified in their political positions and party loyalties, but the Word calls all people to repentance. That means no one is going to be happy, as the prophets of old can attest.
Personally, I consider Charlie Kirk to have been a political figure and an apologist for critical thinking who happened to be a Christian. HIs organization, Turning Point, is not evangelistic nor were his gatherings billed as Christian events. His positions on abortion, human sexuality, etc. were not uniquely Christian perspectives but were based on natural law and sound reason, which is how he presented it to the students he engaged. I view his death as a grave tragedy and a crime against free speech and the free exchange of ideas in the public square. It is certainly the work of the Evil One and a symptom of the degeneracy of our times. But I don't see it as a "martyrdom" in the Christian usage of that word.
The delegates voted to state that specific instances of right-wing racism are evil, but not equally evil left-wing instances of racism. Naming Kinism and Christian Nationalism while leaving out BLM and Antifa is a (woke) political statement by the church.
Nearly 46% of the floor voted to recognize the obvious: Kirk wasn’t solely a political figure, but a bold Christian witness to the world.
This should make everyone who thinks he was *just* a political figure pause. And if they’re open-minded, they should go watch an hour of unedited Kirk videos. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one where he’s talking to college kids and does *not* mention Jesus. Yes, absolutely, Kirk was a political figure. But that is so clearly not all he was. Christians have a duty to speak truth into the culture, regardless of whether the issues are political.
I’ve not seen average Lutheran pastors doing the same type of bold Christian witness Charlie did on actual issues the laity are dealing with daily. (With the exception of Issues, Etc., but then, the Synod fired them as an institutional voice years ago.) I’m not saying every pastor should be a public media figure, don’t hear me wrong. But our pastors should be teaching on cohabitation, divorce, birth control, racism, hook-up culture, political violence, LGBTQ, DEI, infertility, and more—helping us apply the Bible to our real lives.
I think it’s fear or their training, or both, that keeps LCMS pastors preaching on the most obscure parts of the Bible, rather than equipping the laity with apologetics and evangelism training. I, for one, desperately desire the church to equip me to speak winsomely to the unbelievers in my life, rather than make me into theological wonk.
Our pastors will preach the Bible, and do so very well, but Kirk had a special boldness about engaging unbelievers on real, current issues, rather than standing safe in the pulpit preaching to the choir. This is why young people were so grieved by his murder while boomers asked, “Who is Charlie Kirk?”
Our pastors do not have national organizations, campus road shows, podcasts, etc. They faithfully preach the Word in season and out of season, usually in obscurity with little to no recognition or celebrity. They often endure ridicule, scorn, and slander not only outside the church but often from within the church. There is not a day that goes by in the life of a pastor that he is not called to bear witness to Christ and to endure the sufferings of Christ. This is especially true if he dresses the part in public. As for equipping the saints, anyone who has thoroughly learned the small catechism in all its parts, including having learned it by heart, is well equipped to speak on the issues to this wicked and unbelieving age. We should not blame our own personal lack of courage on our pastors. Rather, we should repent and pray that the Spirit give us the proper words to say at the proper time, as Jesus promised us.
As I said above, the pastoral task is to be prophetic not political. That doesn’t mean we avoid “political issues,” since all public issues are “political.” We all live in the ordo politicus as citizens in the temporal kingdom. But we live as aliens, sojourners, and foreigners even in our own land. We have no abiding city in this world but our citizenship is in the City of God which comes down from above. That perspective is front and center in the minds of orthodox and faithful pastors.
Regarding the racism matter, the specific problems mentioned, ie white supremacy and “Christian nationalism,” have been problems within the LCMS, which for good and ill is associated with conservative politics (often confused with conservative, confessional theology). I don’t think we have a big problem in the LCMS with Antifa, BLS, and LGTBQetc. You would have to go to the ELCA for those.
The deeper pastoral issue in play here is that conservatives are as much in need of repentance, rebuke, and correction as are liberals. God calls all to repentance, not just the “other side.” We do well to name and purge the leaven in our synodical lump of dough lest the LCMS find itself linking arms with white supremacists and Christian nationalists.
I fear we underestimate how much the progressive gaze shapes our instincts. The reflex assumption that left and right are equally prone to error is a false equivalence, not a fact.
Your point about the pastoral focus being prophetic and not political is a legitimate topic for discussion and some debate, but one statement you’ve made here, I must strongly disagree with. We do have a big problem in the LCMS with LGBT…, for example, at Orange Lutheran High School, also at CUI, at almost all the “missional “ LCMS congregations in Orange County, California, which are some of the largest congregations in the Pacific Southwest, etc., etc. Anyone who interacts consistently, personally, over the years, with the leaders, the students, and the congregation members at all these institutions sees and hears what they actually believe and what they are being taught to believe and it is a huge problem. The LRJ organization also openly demonstrates a significant “BLM“ category of issues and problems that have not diminished even though sometimes they move into the background.
There’s an important distinction between President Harrison making remarks and the Synod speaking. The LCMS is her congregations, not the president, and his comments should not automatically be treated as the official voice of the Synod. Likewise, there is no evidence that Charlie Kirk was murdered because he was a Christian. His death was a terrible tragedy, but we should be careful not to claim motives that have not been established. As Christians, we should be committed to speaking truthfully and avoiding speculation, regardless of whether it supports our perspective.
Emily Pacyga: "There’s an important distinction between President Harrison making remarks and the Synod speaking. The LCMS is her congregations, not the president, and his comments should not automatically be treated as the official voice of the Synod."
THe same might be said of President Harrison's June 2, 2020, statement: "The one who grievously and unjustly took the sacred gift of life from George Floyd — resulting in a charge of 3rd-degree murder — will, ironically, be given the very thing he denied his victim, due process of the law. Justice must be meted out according to the law. Others may be charged.
"We weep for George Floyd, for his family and loved ones because he was robbed of life."
“The same could be said about George Floyd,” yes - it absolutely could. President Harrison’s 2020 statement was also President Harrison speaking, not the Synod speaking.
I believe Charlie was murdered for his Christian witness. If the alleged shooter really did kill Charlie because of the transgender issue, then he killed him for his Christianity because Charlie's view on that issue was not a political view but a theological one.
Deflecting to unrelated grievances doesn’t answer the point the article itself raises: Does everything the LCMS president says automatically speak for the congregations of the Synod?
What was passed today by the convention delegates is something every Christian should be able to support. It does not elevate a political figure or require agreement with anyone’s secular politics. It denounces political violence in all its forms. That should never be controversial.
Ad Crucem News never said anything about Harrison being the final word and law. We merely observed that ~20 years of systemic discrimination against young white males (the Synod's bulwark) - and remarked on publicly by the President - completely skipped Committee Four's attention, even as it soft-pedaled murderous left-wing violence and asked for an inquisition of right-coded issues while avoiding all mention of left-coded items.
Secondly, it is hardly an unrelated grievance to have you, an LRJ activist, calling for care before assigning motives, when your organization has made no bones about calling Kirk a racist homophobe etc etc.
Thank you for the promotion to “activist.” I’ll gladly accept that title if it means encouraging the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus, loving our neighbors, and remembering that the Gospel is bigger than partisan politics. That’s an assignment I’m happy to keep. Peace.
https://www.charliekirkstopinthenameofgod.com/
The CTCR will certainly look at its prior documents including the "Dissent" documents in its new assignment. I don't think the convention needs to micromanage its bibliography (especially considering that few of the delegates voting have likely read any of these documents.
As for the naming of Charlie Kirk in a synodical resolution on political violence, Charlie Kirk was an outspoken political conservative and the mere mention of his name has considerable political connotations. In a sermon preached a few weeks after Charlie Kirk's murder on the topic of evil, the devil, and spiritual warfare, I took note of and named not only Charlie Kirk but also Melissa and Mark Hortmann of Minnesota, as victims of politically motivated violence, balancing the political spin. A general resolution descrying political violence (do we really need such a resolution in the first place?) needs to be non-specific in its political perspective. One cannot name a prominent victim without naming others otherwise a general resolution becomes specifically about that person, whether intended or not.
I understanding your reasoning about not naming Kirk or others specifically in a Resolution regarding "poltical violence", that the Resolution could potentially give undue focus on certain people and undermine the purpose and principle of the resolution. Parenthetically, (with an "e.g."), if not a Kirk, might an assassination attempt of a president [purely political], as with Trump, been included in the resolution, to appropriately give added weight to it, and have amplified the evil of 'political violence'? Such a resolution would not be necessarily be viewed as being about Trump or Kirk, or anyone in particular, if names are used as 'examples' of the principle conveyed in the resolution.
Regarding your sermon last year, wherein you named named the Hortmanns and Kirk as "victims of politically motivated violence", did you communicate that only about them, or did you also refer to Kirk as a victim of "Christian persecution"? If Kirk was not mentioned as being martyred or murdered for his faith, is your perception of him primarily a political figure instead of a Christian influencer?
With respect, Pr. Cwirla, why name specific racial groups then?
Charlie Kirk was one of our generation’s most effective apologists for the Christian worldview. No one asked to name Trump or the Hortmanns, or Gabby Giffords, or any number of other victims of political violence in recent years precisely because their lives were NOT spent defending the Christian worldview in the public square. The LCMS punting on this is cowardly. And possibly that cowardice to engage with current issues is precisely the reason young men flocked to churches after Charlie was murdered, but they didn’t really flock to LCMS churches.
But I have an honest question, because I’ve seen this failure to engage with anything in current events for 30 years now in the LCMS. I want to put the best construction on our pastors. Are they trained in seminary to stick like glue to Law/Gospel and avoid teaching on current issues that the laity are grappling with?
I'm not sure what you are referring to with regard to "racial groups." A resolution dealing with racism need not mention any specific group either, lest it give a particular group some privileged status. Racism is simply racism.
The resolution in question denounced political violence not religious persecution. Viewed through a political lens, naming a particular individual with strong right wing ties would be viewed as a political statement. A resolution on political violence might well have mentioned the attempts on Pres. Trump's life, Gabby Giffords, the Hortmanns, Charlie Kirk, etc as examples. But these aren't necessary to the point of the resolution.
The sermon to which I referred dealt with the nature of evil as it manifests itself in the world and our culture today and how God overcomes evil by the ultimate good of the Cross. The occasion was the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels and the text was Revelation 12 and the great war in heaven. The key verse was: "Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
The main point of my sermon was that the violence and evil that we see at work in the world, exemplified by the murder of Charlie Kirk and others, is the work of the Evil One who seeks to stir up division, despair, and disbelief, and that our warfare is not political but spiritual, fought by the Word of God and prayer with the angels fighting along with us. I also took note of how Kirk's widow Erica was an example of how evil is overcome by good and how her public witness caused many to reconsider their own spiritual lives and turn to Christ. God always works all things together for good in the all-reconciling death of Jesus.
Anyone who knows me and is familiar with my body of work knows that I do not avoid current or controversial issues. I analyze and interpret them through the spiritual lens of the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions. My task as a preacher is to speak prophetically to the issues not politically. People tend to want their side to be vindicated and to be justified in their political positions and party loyalties, but the Word calls all people to repentance. That means no one is going to be happy, as the prophets of old can attest.
Personally, I consider Charlie Kirk to have been a political figure and an apologist for critical thinking who happened to be a Christian. HIs organization, Turning Point, is not evangelistic nor were his gatherings billed as Christian events. His positions on abortion, human sexuality, etc. were not uniquely Christian perspectives but were based on natural law and sound reason, which is how he presented it to the students he engaged. I view his death as a grave tragedy and a crime against free speech and the free exchange of ideas in the public square. It is certainly the work of the Evil One and a symptom of the degeneracy of our times. But I don't see it as a "martyrdom" in the Christian usage of that word.
The delegates voted to state that specific instances of right-wing racism are evil, but not equally evil left-wing instances of racism. Naming Kinism and Christian Nationalism while leaving out BLM and Antifa is a (woke) political statement by the church.
Nearly 46% of the floor voted to recognize the obvious: Kirk wasn’t solely a political figure, but a bold Christian witness to the world.
This should make everyone who thinks he was *just* a political figure pause. And if they’re open-minded, they should go watch an hour of unedited Kirk videos. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find one where he’s talking to college kids and does *not* mention Jesus. Yes, absolutely, Kirk was a political figure. But that is so clearly not all he was. Christians have a duty to speak truth into the culture, regardless of whether the issues are political.
I’ve not seen average Lutheran pastors doing the same type of bold Christian witness Charlie did on actual issues the laity are dealing with daily. (With the exception of Issues, Etc., but then, the Synod fired them as an institutional voice years ago.) I’m not saying every pastor should be a public media figure, don’t hear me wrong. But our pastors should be teaching on cohabitation, divorce, birth control, racism, hook-up culture, political violence, LGBTQ, DEI, infertility, and more—helping us apply the Bible to our real lives.
I think it’s fear or their training, or both, that keeps LCMS pastors preaching on the most obscure parts of the Bible, rather than equipping the laity with apologetics and evangelism training. I, for one, desperately desire the church to equip me to speak winsomely to the unbelievers in my life, rather than make me into theological wonk.
Our pastors will preach the Bible, and do so very well, but Kirk had a special boldness about engaging unbelievers on real, current issues, rather than standing safe in the pulpit preaching to the choir. This is why young people were so grieved by his murder while boomers asked, “Who is Charlie Kirk?”
Our pastors do not have national organizations, campus road shows, podcasts, etc. They faithfully preach the Word in season and out of season, usually in obscurity with little to no recognition or celebrity. They often endure ridicule, scorn, and slander not only outside the church but often from within the church. There is not a day that goes by in the life of a pastor that he is not called to bear witness to Christ and to endure the sufferings of Christ. This is especially true if he dresses the part in public. As for equipping the saints, anyone who has thoroughly learned the small catechism in all its parts, including having learned it by heart, is well equipped to speak on the issues to this wicked and unbelieving age. We should not blame our own personal lack of courage on our pastors. Rather, we should repent and pray that the Spirit give us the proper words to say at the proper time, as Jesus promised us.
As I said above, the pastoral task is to be prophetic not political. That doesn’t mean we avoid “political issues,” since all public issues are “political.” We all live in the ordo politicus as citizens in the temporal kingdom. But we live as aliens, sojourners, and foreigners even in our own land. We have no abiding city in this world but our citizenship is in the City of God which comes down from above. That perspective is front and center in the minds of orthodox and faithful pastors.
Regarding the racism matter, the specific problems mentioned, ie white supremacy and “Christian nationalism,” have been problems within the LCMS, which for good and ill is associated with conservative politics (often confused with conservative, confessional theology). I don’t think we have a big problem in the LCMS with Antifa, BLS, and LGTBQetc. You would have to go to the ELCA for those.
The deeper pastoral issue in play here is that conservatives are as much in need of repentance, rebuke, and correction as are liberals. God calls all to repentance, not just the “other side.” We do well to name and purge the leaven in our synodical lump of dough lest the LCMS find itself linking arms with white supremacists and Christian nationalists.
I fear we underestimate how much the progressive gaze shapes our instincts. The reflex assumption that left and right are equally prone to error is a false equivalence, not a fact.
Your point about the pastoral focus being prophetic and not political is a legitimate topic for discussion and some debate, but one statement you’ve made here, I must strongly disagree with. We do have a big problem in the LCMS with LGBT…, for example, at Orange Lutheran High School, also at CUI, at almost all the “missional “ LCMS congregations in Orange County, California, which are some of the largest congregations in the Pacific Southwest, etc., etc. Anyone who interacts consistently, personally, over the years, with the leaders, the students, and the congregation members at all these institutions sees and hears what they actually believe and what they are being taught to believe and it is a huge problem. The LRJ organization also openly demonstrates a significant “BLM“ category of issues and problems that have not diminished even though sometimes they move into the background.
There’s an important distinction between President Harrison making remarks and the Synod speaking. The LCMS is her congregations, not the president, and his comments should not automatically be treated as the official voice of the Synod. Likewise, there is no evidence that Charlie Kirk was murdered because he was a Christian. His death was a terrible tragedy, but we should be careful not to claim motives that have not been established. As Christians, we should be committed to speaking truthfully and avoiding speculation, regardless of whether it supports our perspective.
Emily Pacyga: "There’s an important distinction between President Harrison making remarks and the Synod speaking. The LCMS is her congregations, not the president, and his comments should not automatically be treated as the official voice of the Synod."
THe same might be said of President Harrison's June 2, 2020, statement: "The one who grievously and unjustly took the sacred gift of life from George Floyd — resulting in a charge of 3rd-degree murder — will, ironically, be given the very thing he denied his victim, due process of the law. Justice must be meted out according to the law. Others may be charged.
"We weep for George Floyd, for his family and loved ones because he was robbed of life."
“The same could be said about George Floyd,” yes - it absolutely could. President Harrison’s 2020 statement was also President Harrison speaking, not the Synod speaking.
I believe Charlie was murdered for his Christian witness. If the alleged shooter really did kill Charlie because of the transgender issue, then he killed him for his Christianity because Charlie's view on that issue was not a political view but a theological one.
We notice that LRJ had and has no hesitation smearing Charlie and ascribing all sorts of motives to him: https://www.facebook.com/L4RacialJustice/posts/1290114593313390/
Deflecting to unrelated grievances doesn’t answer the point the article itself raises: Does everything the LCMS president says automatically speak for the congregations of the Synod?
What was passed today by the convention delegates is something every Christian should be able to support. It does not elevate a political figure or require agreement with anyone’s secular politics. It denounces political violence in all its forms. That should never be controversial.
Ad Crucem News never said anything about Harrison being the final word and law. We merely observed that ~20 years of systemic discrimination against young white males (the Synod's bulwark) - and remarked on publicly by the President - completely skipped Committee Four's attention, even as it soft-pedaled murderous left-wing violence and asked for an inquisition of right-coded issues while avoiding all mention of left-coded items.
Secondly, it is hardly an unrelated grievance to have you, an LRJ activist, calling for care before assigning motives, when your organization has made no bones about calling Kirk a racist homophobe etc etc.
Thank you for the promotion to “activist.” I’ll gladly accept that title if it means encouraging the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus, loving our neighbors, and remembering that the Gospel is bigger than partisan politics. That’s an assignment I’m happy to keep. Peace.