Where they stand

Recent Pew Research findings on the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod make for somber reading for all confessional Christians. Many like myself may not be Lutheran, but we look to the LCMS as a stronghold of traditional Protestant orthodoxy and number LCMS Christians among our friends. Indeed, one the few amusing memories from my time in academic administration was being at one of the Association of Theological School’s accreditation meetings where the LCMS representatives led morning prayers using all-male pronouns. Their indifference to the vocal protests of the faculty from the more radical schools present was a joy to behold.

Yet the Pew Research indicates that times might well be set to change. It reports that 54% of members think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Fifty percent say homosexuality should be accepted. While that represents a drop of 6% from 2014, the earlier survey was conducted by telephone, while the most recent was online. It is quite possible that difference is therefore not significant, given the caution that typically operates in less anonymous forms of polling. Fifty percent now favor same-sex marriage. Perhaps counterbalancing my caveat above, that is up 5% from 2014.

However one parses the differences between 2014 and 2024, the fact that such high proportions of Missouri-Synod Lutherans consistently affirm positions incompatible with historic Christianity is a cause for concern. For the professional doom-sages, it will likely fuel that form of lamentation that seems just a little too self-satisfied that another once-great Valiant-for-Truth has proved faithless. For those who have been in ministry, it will confirm what they know only too well: that no-one should assume that the orthodoxy of the pulpit and the office-bearers will naturally permeate the pew.

A better response than gleeful lamentation is to read such surveys as pointing to the key ecclesiastical challenges of our day and building pastoral strategies that address these. The church has always faced problems as the wider culture catechizes her people in its own values. Paul faced this problem repeatedly, perhaps most obviously with the church at Corinth. Forty years ago, when I became a Christian, old-style liberalism that questioned the supernatural, from biblical accounts of miracles to the deity of Christ, was the major foe. It was important to focus in Christian preaching and catechesis on clarifying and reinforcing the vital connection between, for example, the historicity of the resurrection and the gospel.

Today, the issue is different. It presents itself as a new morality. Hence, questions about the legitimacy of homosexuality and the desirability of gay marriage—matters that were not even part of mainstream orthodox discussion in the 1980s—are now central. And underlying these overtly moral challenges lurks the question of anthropology: What is man? That question can be recast as “What is man for?”—something that reveals the connection with matters of sex, marriage, and abortion.

This means that ministers, elders, and all with responsibility for teaching the whole counsel of God need to think about how to teach their people a sound anthropology. It is not surprising that a world whose gospel is that of personal happiness has shaped the minds of a rising generation of Christians to see aspects of the sexual revolution as acceptable. The sexual revolution has always sold itself as delivering such happiness and portrayed its opponents as kill-joys. The only way to combat this is to set forth a robust anthropology that challenges the values of the sexual revolution at the deepest level and that makes it clear to Christians that there is a necessary connection between the gospel and the meaning of man.

In practical terms, there should be a threefold strategy here. Preaching and catechesis need to bring out that necessary connection again and again and again. Only by constant affirmation of that point will people begin to understand. Worship too plays its role, raising hearts and minds above the earthly sphere to the things that are above. When the beauty of Christ is set forth in the worship service, the tawdry fake beauties of modern society will pale in comparison. And we need to embody in our daily lives what true, biblical anthropology looks like: beautiful marriages, deep friendships, homes marked by hospitality. That is the way to shape the Christian imagination in a way that will draw Christian people away from the lies of this present age.