Dear ELCA

Dear ELCA, 

You’ve been tricked. 

I’m sorry I don’t know a nicer way to say this. 

I’ve been watching your assembly videos and reading the resolutions and the social statements. I can see that you mean well, that you are driven by concern and compassion for your neighbor, which is good, but that’s part of the trick. 

I know I’m an outsider. I left over 20 years ago, and I haven’t really been paying much attention to your conversation until a few weeks ago. But I’m listening now, and I hope you will welcome a few observations from an outsider. 

You’ve been tricked into thinking uncertainty is humility.

It is not. 

It is not arrogant to be sure of the things that God has told us. 

There was a bit of hubbub in the convention regarding lines 639-641 of A Declaration of Inter-Religious Intent. The declaration states, “Hence, we must be careful about claiming to know God’s judgments regarding another religion or the individual human beings who practice it.” God, on the other hand, says, “You shall have no other gods.” And God, when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments, was talking about other religions. God, it turns out, has a very poor opinion of anything claiming to be god, and He calls people worshiping false gods “idolaters.” 

The First Commandment might be uncomfortable. It is certainly not unclear. To pretend we don’t know what God thinks about the worship of other gods is not humility; it is a breath-taking hubris. 

Theological uncertainty is, it seems to me, almost a starting point for your conversation. You seem to be more interested in what you can’t know about God than what you can. “You can’t put God in a box” was offered up time after time as the debate settler, and I suppose, it is true. 

If God doesn’t want to be in a box, woe the person trying to stuff Him in. But it must be equally true that if God wants to be in a box, woe to the person trying to pry Him out of it. But this, it seems to me, was the entire agenda of the assembly. 

God has placed Himself in “boxes”, in the body of Jesus, for one, and in the prophetic and apostolic Word. The Holy Spirit has given us assertions. The Bible is God in a box, God in a book. 

It’s no good trying to get Him out, and it’s not safe to try. 

But with the pry-bar of higher-criticism wedged against the fulcrum of uncertainty, and with all the might of culture, you were trying to achieve the humility of uncertainty. 

It’s true enough that there are things about God that we cannot know. In fact, most of the truths of God we cannot attain with our own resources. Which is why He has spoken to us. Through the prophets and apostles, and through Jesus Himself, God has spoken. And to act as if God has not spoken, as if He has not spoken about the worship of other gods, or about marriage and man and woman, or whatever else, is wrong and dangerous. 

Remember this old Hindu parable of the blind men and the elephant? One feels his tail, and says, “It’s a vine.” The other feels his leg, and says, “It’s a tree.” The other feels his ear, and says, “It’s a banana leaf.” Which is all fine, and I suppose the blind men would be humble to acknowledge the validity of the other men’s observations, at least until the elephant says, “I’m an elephant.” And then humility looks different. Humility is saying, “This is an elephant.” 

In the Scripture humility, faith, and certainty go together. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1). 

You have also been tricked into setting love against the commandments. 

At some point in your theological conversation a line was drawn, and compassion stood on one side, and the commandments on the other. Charity on one side, the law on the other. Love and truth were put in opposition. You have confused God’s mercy for His permission. You’ve made Jesus the champion of tolerance instead of the Savior of sinners. 

Let me give you an example. 

The law of God says that a man ought not to act like he is married to another man. Simple enough. At some point in the last generation, it was determined that this sentiment is “unloving.” 

In order to be compassionate and loving to the “L”, and “G”, we have to throw out the commandments of God regarding marriage and sexuality, and particularly the commands that address the “L” and “G”. 

The Scriptures state that we are created “male and female”. Simple enough. Sometime in the last five minutes it was determined that this binary is oppressive. 

In order to be compassionate and loving to the “T” and “Q”, we have to throw out the clarity of God regarding male and female. 

And here’s the trick, where the wool has been pulled over your eyes, you’ve been tricked into thinking that these are the only two options: love without the law or the law without love. 

I suppose if love and the Law were opposed to each other, we would all want to be found on the side of love. But these are not to be separated.  

God’s law is not hate-speech. God’s truth concerning male and female, and His commandments concerning marriage as a man and a woman are not oppressive and stifling. They are life-giving in the most fundamental sense. The law of God is given to us because the Lord loves us and because He desires the best for us. 

Both in showing us our sin and in showing us how to live, the Law is a gift of God’s love. Love is the fulfilling of the Law. The Law gives shape to our love. 

To weaponize love against the commandments of God is to lose them both. 

If you are tracking with me, I want to ask two things of you, or, if you will, offer you two challenges. 

First, I would like for you to consider reading Martin Luther’s Large Catechism. I don’t know anything better for addressing these things, and just about every other question that divides the church. 

You can download the text for free, but if you’d like a copy, send me your address, and I’ll send you a copy for free. My gift to you and your family. 

Second, I challenge you to call up your local LCMS pastor. Here’s the directory to find the closest one. (If you’re in Austin, give me a call.)

Invite him out for coffee. If he is confused, send him this blog post and tell him I sent you. 

Ask him about the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. 
Ask him about the Scriptures. 
Ask him about the love of God, the death of Jesus, and the forgiveness of sins. 
Ask him any theological questions you’ve been wrestling with. 

I’m convinced that certainty and humility go together. I’m convinced that love and the law go together. And I’m convinced that the best way to see this is to talk to a Lutheran pastor about life and theology. 

Let me know how it goes. 

I’m praying for all of you. 

Lord’s Blessings, 
Pastor Wolfmueller