I think this short article applies equally well to the Lutheran Church.

Timotheos

Reading reviews [for example, here and here] of David Bazan’s latest disc, Curse Your Branches, it is easy to get the point: whereas Bazan used to write explicitly “Christian” songs (whatever it means for a song to be “Christian”), he has now entered a new stage of maturity where he doesn’t merely accept all the things he was once taught; now he uses his music to question his previous assumptions and explore what it means for him to still believe in God.

A few notes about the music itself: the full songs were interesting to hear after listening to Bazan sing them live with only a guitar (e.g., on the Live at the Grey Eagle set that he made available on his website).  The musical progression is as clear as his religious progression.  This is not Pedro the Lion, nor even Fewer Moving Parts.  The full instrumentation includes a lot of nuance that will take multiple listens to catch.  The background choral vocals on “Bless This Mess” seem sort of out of place on a David Bazan album, probably due to how strange they would be on a Pedro the Lion CD.  (For me, David Bazan was Pedro the Lion, so I don’t make a big distinction between his various lyrical incarnations.)  Nevertheless, the choral vocals fit well once the listener has had a chance to reconcile this sound with what Bazan has done before.  As in the past, the darker lyrical tone often conflicts with the upbeat and swiftly moving music, which has the effect of stopping the listener dead at times, especially when singing along!  His music is as easy to listen to and as catchy as always (if you don’t find yourself humming “Bless This Mess” or “Please, Baby, Please” incessantly, you should check your pulse).

Back to the reviewers: they are continuing the story that Bazan tells about his own development and faith.  In one interview from a few years ago (parts of which are quoted here), Bazan said that he would not call himself a Christian in any sense that would be accepted by most Christians.  He is still clearly uncomfortable with that or any other label on where he stands theologically and spiritually.  At the same time, he is now in a different place than he was when he gave the interview to the Daily Iowan.  [See also here and here for two more interviews.]  He speaks honestly and forthrightly about that progression in this interview from Relevant Magazine.  And the songs on Curse Your Branches reflect what he told Relevant.  He is struggling with what it means to believe in God, when the God in which he believes is not the “Jehovah of the Bible,” as he puts it.  But it is easy, if the narrator of the songs is Bazan himself, to see where he is in relation to God.  “Bless this Mess” is an appeal for humility from Christians when faced with sin and sinners (though I wonder if he thought about titling it “Bless Me and My Family”).  It seems that in Bazan’s view (and this theme runs through nearly every album he has released, as Pedro the Lion, Headphones, and under his own name) “Christians” are primarily to be known for their hypocrisy and self-righteousness, rather than for being followers of the one whose Name they bear.  Presumably, Bazan knows some Christians who don’t quite fit that picture (although those who are truly Christian will know better than him that they don’t deserve the name of Christ), but I wonder if it is possible for Bazan to see beyond the picture he has drawn to the fact that his targets surely face the same struggles and temptations that he upholds in “Bless this Mess.”  There is, in fact, a curious, inverted self-righteousness in holding oneself up as the Doubter, the Questioner, the Humble, the Struggling Believer over and against the Convinced, the Certain, the Arrogant, and the Holder of Answers.

From interviews and comments during shows, I gather that Bazan has experienced exactly the sort of “Christian” behavior he enjoys puncturing and satirizing.  And much of it is, I think, deserving of the holes and the satire.  More than that, I think songs such as “Criticism as Inspiration” held much more power when Bazan was throwing rocks from within the Christian glass house.  Now, he seems to be throwing rocks from the outside, trying to shatter other peoples’ houses, and it is hard to hear those older songs (e.g., “Letter From a Concerned Follower” on The Only Reason I Feel Secure—let alone “Be Thou My Vision”) without wondering if they were meant to be ironic, or simply cynical.  While Bazan pleads for grace from those who have, either really or apparently, rejected him and his music, does he offer the same grace?  Perhaps Arrogance is merely on the other end of the spectrum of sin from Doubt.  But for Bazan, as for his defenders, doubt is the primary virtue while arrogance is the ultimate vice.  So maybe, in his view, Bazan’s lyrical self-righteousness-covered-with-humility (I’ve never met him personally, so this is based solely on the songs) is completely justified.

If Bazan is simply looking for space to ask questions, and if the church(es) in which he grew up discouraged questions and encouraged blind acceptance of abstract teachings, I would have no problem.  But there are two options when it comes to asking questions: either one asks in order to search out the answers; or one asks in order to revel in the questions, with no intention of reaching, or even looking for, the answers.  No doubt there are questions that Christians, let alone all humans, ask for which answers cannot be given.  But there are questions that have, as far as Christians are concerned, rather simple answers.  And perhaps the continual asking of questions is a way to avoid those answers, because they are distasteful.  Bazan asks one of those questions in “Hard To Be,” wondering if the fact that it’s hard to be decent human being should really be attributed to eating some “magic,” poisonous fruit a long time ago.  “Helpless to fight it/we should all be satisfied/with this magical explanation/for why the living die?”  Well, why do you ask?  If he is, as in so many of his songs, annoyed and frustrated with Christians who don’t live up to the Christ-like ideal, and if they excuse their sin by appealing to the Garden of Eden (“the devil made me do it”), his annoyance and frustration are justified.  But if he’s asking because Christians claim that they can never live up to God’s standards as a result of the sin has infected the entire creation (yes, on account of what happened in the Garden) and Bazan thinks it’s not so hard to do what’s right, that is indeed a problem.  But is it Pelagianism, so that Bazan thinks one can do what’s right, even in the sight of God, without God’s grace in Christ?  Or is it simply the fact that Bazan wants people to be outwardly righteous, regardless of what they are inside?  That would be true hypocrisy, which is nothing but pretending to be what you are not.  I contend that every person, even David Bazan, is a hypocrite.  Humans can’t not be hypocrites, because if we did everything according to what we are, the world would not be better, but worse.

Curse Your Branches is full of questions put to, and even accusations against, the God with whom Bazan grew up, and the God he sees in the Scriptures.  That is clear on “Hard To Be,” “When We Fell,” “Bearing Witness,” and “In Stitches.”  On “When We Fell,” which contains Cake-like rhythms set to a driving, joyfully rebellious beat, Bazan takes up the charge that God created people, knowing that they would fail and sin: “When You set the table/when You chose the scale/did You write a riddle/that You knew they would fail?  Did You make them tremble,/so they would tell the tale?/Did You push us when we fell?”  And: “You knew what would happen/and made us just the same/and You, my Lord, can take the blame.”  Behind that, the song is an objection to the Christianity that depends for its existence on a fear of hell and damnation.  While there are certainly strands of Christianity that rely on such fear, does Bazan really think that that is its primary basis, or is he simply reacting against the church of his youth?  No doubt a reliance on fear of hell has led many, perhaps including Bazan, to reject the idea of hell altogether; unfortunately, many Scriptures—even the words of Jesus—have to be ignored in order to hold that position.  (Of course, if the Scriptures are not the Word of God, that’s not hard to do.)

But why do I get the feeling that David Bazan has been reading a little too much Ditchkins and not searching to see if any intelligent Christian has an answer to his questions?  He sounds as if he thinks his questions have never been asked before, and now, suddenly, the Church (and God) have to sit up and take notice and presumably say, “Hm.  I never thought of that before.”  Seriously?  The only way out of the dilemma of why God created humans when He knew they would transgress His Law is to deny that God?  The only way to believe in the God who shows Himself in the Scriptures (but more precisely, in Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the Scriptures) is to take the parts we like and trash the rest?  Who gets to decide?  And if we decide that there are some passages of Scripture that do not apply to Christians today, we had better have a better reason than “I don’t like that.”

In “In Stitches,” Bazan sings, “When Job asked You the question/You responded, ‘Who are you/to challenge Your Creator?’/Well, if that one part is true/it makes You sound defensive/like You had not thought it through/enough to have an answer/or You might have bit off more than You could chew.”  In these few lines, Bazan exposes the contradiction that runs through Curse Your Branches.  Earlier, in “Curse Your Branches,” he sang, “And why are some hell-bent upon there being an answer/while some are quite content to answer ‘I don’t know’?”  But Bazan wants it both ways: he wants a “good” answer from God to his questions, but he doesn’t like it when others seek answers that don’t fit with his theology.  The whole answer of the Book of Job to the question of suffering is a semi-content and very human “I don’t—and can’t—know,” but in that case, it’s David Bazan who is “hell-bent on there being an answer.”

I am not a music critic, though I listen to a lot of music in all genres.  (I have all the PtL discs, Bazan’s two solo discs, and I have seen PtL live a number of times.)  What I find most interesting is not Bazan’s spiritual progression (or regression, depending on the perspective), but the way that the reviewers treat it.  Often it is not explicit, but the undercurrent runs something like this: David Bazan has matured from his earlier “Christian” music, and now he is making much more honest and critical music that deserves to be taken seriously by people.  In other words, he has matured out of his unquestioning Christian infancy and into an honest and open faith closer to agnosticism.  He says he still believes in God, but doesn’t know exactly what that God might be like.  Bazan probably doesn’t play for church groups anymore, but I’m guessing he gets a lot more critical acclaim now (attested by the two songs from CYB I just heard on NPR’s World Café.)  The fans who were always nervous around the more explicitly “Christian” songs will no doubt be applauding this album.

The typical review template never runs in the opposite direction.  I don’t remember reading any reviews, but I wonder what the critics said when Jeremy Enigk of Sunny Day Real Estate became a Christian.  I would be willing to bet that the theme went much more along the lines of pity or horror, rather than acknowledge that someone might possibly mature out of an ignorant agnosticism into an intellectually robust faith (whether Enigk’s faith is, I don’t know).  Because that never happens, does it?  For the cultured despisers, maturity and intellectual development always move in one direction: toward atheism and modern liberalism.

And that’s the problem.  It is partly the problem of artists and reviewers, because they have no reference point for an intellectually serious faith (apparently, they’re not big on reading or actually seeking out significant Christian thought; asking questions to which they don’t want answers is more fun).  But it is partly the problem of Christians who espouse the sort of anti-intellectualism Bazan uses for his primary metaphor in “Hard To Be.”  It is silly to say that the sorts of questions Bazan asks are like “graduation” from the school of religious ignorance.  But it is equally silly for Christians to denounce “faith seeking understanding.”  The key is neither willful ignorance nor a challenge to God to tell us things that we likely could not handle (if we humans—that is to say, creatures—could handle it all, the God Christians worship would certainly not be a God worthy of the title).  The key is to recognize, as the people of Israel do in Deuteronomy, that we have been given clear revelation on certain things, but that there are also clearly limits on what we have been given and what we can know: “The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this instruction” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

This point will always be skewed when the starting point is not God-in-flesh, Jesus of Nazareth.  If someone starts with anyone or anything else, the Scriptures are a closed book, and nothing can be rightfully understood.  Don’t start with Genesis or Job or Isaiah; start with Luke 24 and John 5 and 2 Timothy 3:14-15.  Only then can we ask the “right” questions and get the “right” answers.  Only then will we know that the answer to Bazan’s charge that the Lord Himself should take the blame is, “He already has, on a piece of wood outside Jerusalem.”  In that light, other questions no longer have the ability to drain as much time and energy as David Bazan gives to them on Curse Your Branches.

For what it’s worth, I’d love to have a double IPA with David Bazan and talk this over.  Next time you’re in NW Minnesota, David…

Timotheos

Hopefully, this will be my last comment on the whole ELCA thing for a while.  The fallout may be just beginning, although in the first few days, I have my doubts.  Witness this article in the Grand Forks Herald. Anyone who thought the laity was going to save the ELCA better look for another hero.  One lady in a rural North Dakota parish had this to say:

[Edith] Anderson said she’s not open to arguments about what can be said to be right or wrong based just on Scripture.

“What the Bible is is an interpretation of people. To me, it’s not God’s word. It didn’t come out of His mouth. It’s all in how you interpret it.”

That seems to be the attitude of most of the ELCA at the moment.  Who can say?  So I’ll just go from my own instincts and feelings.  Why even belong to a church, then?  Why not just go home and meditate on the gurglings in your stomach?  Of course, if you’ve been indoctrinated with “the Bible is not God’s Word” for twenty years, is such a sentiment really unexpected?

In fact, the past twenty years are really at the heart of this whole mess.  When the ELCA’s predecessor bodies ordained women, they said exactly the same things as they were saying at this CWA.  They were arguing based on their daughters’ experiences of being rejected when they felt “called.”  They were arguing based on their emotional responses to seeming injustice and inequality.  They were wielding the “gospel” against the Scriptures.  They were fighting those nasty “law” proof-texts with Galatians 3:28 (apparently, the proof-text to end all proof-texts).  And there are pastors and people in the ELCA who are surprised at how far their church body has fallen?  They have been entering full communion with any and all takers, and sharing the Lord’s Table with anyone who believes anything about Jesus in the name of “love,” and they’re surprised that people just don’t care what the Scriptures have to say?

Frankly, they made this bed before 2005 (say, circa 1970…1950?), and now they are struggling with whether to sleep in it.  Well, this is how I measure the faithfulness of those who fought this battle to the bitter end: how quickly can you pack your things and get out?  (I say that, knowing that it takes some time to figure out how to get it done.  God bless those who are working on it.)  I’m tempted to say that I know it’s difficult, and that if my church body did the same thing, I’d struggle with leaving.  But I have to say that that would be a lie.  I would feel only the slightest qualms, because I have allegiance to the LCMS only as it holds to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.  As soon as this church body leaves those, I leave it.  (That day may, of course, come at any time.)  But the LCMS has the opposite problem of the ELCA.  Whereas the ELCA has officially approved heterodoxy and officially condoned what God has condemned, there are still some congregations that bravely struggle on.  The LCMS, on the other hand, officially holds to the whole Scriptures and the whole Book of Concord, while there are congregations who have jettisoned both for the sake of numbers, relevance, and worship-tainment.  I guarantee, as soon as the LCMS officially abandons the teachings of the Scriptures or the Confessions (ultimately, to abandon the Confessions is to abandon the Scriptures), I’m done.

The clock cannot be rewound, and some in the ELCA are awakening to that fact.  Others, however, are not, and I have a hard time understanding.  Perhaps a pastor will say that he (she) is staying for the sake of the people; but is that loving, or is it selfishness?  Will they be left to the wolves when you are gone?  (And you will be gone some day.)  Is it not better to show them that their church has left them behind, along with the Scriptures, and there is no going back.  I humbly suggest that there has never been a church this far gone that has drawn back from the abyss.  It simply doesn’t work that way.  To quote someone, “God gave them over…”

So, want to be faithful?  There is only one choice: leave the ELCA.  And if you want to be Lutheran, then there’s no room in Rome.  Besides, Rome won’t be any better than the LCMS if you really think female clergy-type persons are good and closed Communion is evil.  To quote someone else, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Timotheos

Here’s the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and here’s the Grand Forks Herald.  Here’s a picture of the damaged steeple–I think that’s more than just a “piece.”  (Symbolic?  You make the call.  It was the steeple of the church where Goodsoil was having its “eucharist.”)  And here’s the link to John Piper’s interpretation.

Timotheos

Here’s one (along with part 2).  Here’s a congregation [I realize that this was four years ago].  I’ve also seen at least a couple on the ALPB discussion boards.  Here’s a website for those considering leaving.  And here’s WordAlone’s advice.  I wonder if anyone’s keeping track…

Timotheos

I suggest that this means the effective end of the ELCA.  The proposals from the Sexuality Task Force now only need to have a simple majority to pass.  According to some of the speakers, women’s ordination was passed by a simple majority as well.  Unless God intervenes by His grace, these proposals will be passed.  The ELCA will then join the Episcopal Church in its further apostasy.

But who is surprised?  It’s like Jenga: you can remove one or two or even a few blocks, but eventually the weight cannot be sustained.  The only thing that remains unresolved is, what will pastors and members of ELCA congregations who oppose the recommendations now do?

Timotheos

The ELCA is currently debating (at 9:19 pm) whether to accept or reject the sexuality proposals based on a regular 50 + 1 majority or a 2/3 “super-majority”…  This is probably the most important vote of the week.  Stay tuned…

Timotheos

That’s the question, and, although I have my suspicions, I don’t think anyone can really call it at this point.  The two votes which most people will be watching are those on whether to accept a “social statement” (probably roughly the same thing as an LCMS CTCR document) which would effectively bless relationships between two people of the same sex (essentially making a same-sex relationship the equivalent of marriage), and whether to amend the ELCA’s constitution to explicitly allow the ordination of persons who are in open homosexual relationships.  The items up for a vote are here, with more information.  (The actual Task Force recommendation on changing the ministry standards is here.)  Probably the most important vote will be on rules and procedures, and whether to adopt the proposals with a simple majority or 2/3.

There are a number of letters going around trying to influence the vote one way or the other.  There is the Open Letter being circulated by WordAlone and CORE.  There is the dialogue/debate between Herbert Chilstrom and Carl Braaten, both ELCA pastors/professors.  There is a letter from ELCA seminarians.  And a letter from Hispanic ELCA pastors.  Again, it seems that many more prominent ELCA pastors/members are opposing the proposals than supporting them, but it all depends on the voting members of the Assembly.

Now, I respect that there are faithful members of the ELCA willing to stand up for a seemingly unpopular position contra the homosexual agenda (witness this on the ELCA website; interesting timing, don’t you think?  C’mon, practically all the clergy support the proposals!  At first, I questioned the idea of a 2-1 lay-clergy membership of the Assembly; now, I think it may be the only thing that saves the day.)  I respect them, however, as I respect brave people on a sinking ship.  It may not quite be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but the iceberg is right there, nonetheless.  And I have to agree with the former bishop Chilstrom on the CORE Open Letter, regarding ecumenical relationships.  What makes the signers of the letter think that homosexual pastors will make those relationships grow cold, if female clergy-type persons and the church insurance paying for clergy abortions didn’t?  Not to mention sharing altars and pulpits with the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the United Church of Christ(!).  Surely, if the Lord’s Supper couldn’t persuade the ELCA to think twice about relationships with Rome and Constantinople, homosexual pastors shouldn’t either (especially if the “gospel” demands it).  I know the ELCA has been more involved in semi-official talks with Rome than, say, the LCMS (something we should remedy), but I can’t believe Rome would consider real fellowship with a church body that has priestesses.  Or a church body that does not discipline those that contravene even its modest rules.  (See here for a list of homosexuals who have been ordained and serve[d] ELCA congregations without or with little discipline.)

Whatever happens this week, know this: the homosexual lobby is as patient as they come.  If not this year, then two years from now.  If not then, then two years more.  This ain’t going away, and if the voting members know that, they might just as well show their exhaustion and say ‘to hell with it.’

I also wonder, incidentally, what a ‘yes’ vote will mean for heterosexuals who want to live with their ‘partners’ outside of marriage?  Certainly a double standard cannot exist, can it?

Timotheos

[Today is the recommended day in Treasury of Daily Prayer to remember Robert Barnes, Confessor and Martyr]

Preserve, O Lord, Your honor,/the bold blasphemer smite;/ Convince, convert, enlighten/The souls in error’s night./Reveal Your will, dear Savior,/To all who dwell below,/Great light of all the living,/That all Your name may know. (“Preserve Your Word, O Savior” [LSB 658:2])

Robert Barnes–Englishman, erstwhile royal chaplain to Henry VIII–was one of the first martyrs for the Lutheran confession of the Faith.  Luther wrote,

This Dr. Robert Barnes we certainly knew, and it is a particular joy for me to hear that our good, pious dinner guest and houseguest has been so graciously called by God to pour out his blood and to become a holy martyr for the sake of His dear Son.  Thanks, praise, and glory be to the Father of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, who again, as in the beginning, has granted us to see the time in which His Christians, before our eyes and from our eyes and from beside us, are carried off to become martyrs (that is, carried off to heaven) and become saints. …

Let us praise and thank God!  This is a blessed time for the elect saints of Christ and an unfortunate, grievous time for the devil, for blasphemers, and enemies, and it is going to get even worse.  Amen. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, 574-575)

Timotheos

“You see, everything went wrong last year at Nicaea.  It was terribly important.  I don’t exactly know why.  [Pope] Sylvester isn’t interested in that sort of thing.  He didn’t even trouble to go himself, just sent deputies, and they were of no help.  You see, none of the Western bishops have got a new idea in their heads.  They just say: ‘This is the faith we were taught.  It is what’s always been taught.  And that’s that.’  I mean they don’t realize they’ve got to move with the times.  It’s no use trying to puncture the horologium.  The church isn’t a hole and corner thing anymore.  It’s the official imperial religion.  What they were taught may have been all very well in the catacombs, but now we have to deal with a much more sophisticated type of mind altogether.  I don’t pretend to understand what it’s all about but I know the council was a great disappointment even to Gracchus [Constantine]…

He hadn’t the least idea what was going on at Nicaea.  All he wanted was a unanimous vote.  Well, half the council wouldn’t argue and wouldn’t listen.  Eusebius told me all about it.  He said the moment he saw them sitting there he realized it wasn’t worth reasoning with them.  ‘That’s the faith we’ve been taught,’ they said.  ‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ said Arius.  ‘A son must be younger than his father.’  ‘It’s a mystery,’ said the orthodox, perfectly satisfied, as if that explained everything.  And then there was the resistance group.  Of course everyone admires them tremendously.  It’s wonderful what they went through.  But, I mean, just having an eye out and a foot off doesn’t qualify one in theology, does it?  And of course Gracchus being a soldier had a sort of extra respect for the resistance.  So what with them, and the sold Middle-West and the frontier bishops–there weren’t many of them but they are the most pigheaded of the lot–the stupid old diehards won hands down and Gracchus got his unanimous vote and went off happy.  Only now he realizes that nothing has really been settled at all.  A general council was just the worst way to tackle a problem of this kind.  It ought to have been settled quietly in the palace and then announced in an imperial decree.  Then no one could have objected.  As it is we shall have all sorts of technical difficulties in putting things right.  All that invoking of the Holy Ghost put things on the wrong footing.  It was purely a question of practical convenience to be settled by Gracchus.  I mean, we must have progress.  Homoiousion is definitely dated.  Everyone who really counts is for homoousion–or is it the other way round?  If Eusebius were here he would tell us.  He always makes everything so clear.  Theology’s terribly exciting but a little muddling.  Sometimes I almost feel a little nostalgic for the old taurobolium, don’t you?”

The Empress Fausta (in Helena, Evelyn Waugh, 133-135)

[Timotheos]