LCMS Dystopian Future

[RDPreus]

I know the Gottesdienst guys, and they are all good men and fine theologians.  For those of you who would like to attend a good conference featuring some of the Gottesdienst guys and yours truly, I'd like to recommend Christ and the Law: Catechesis on the Ten Commandments, June 21-23, at Peace Lutheran Church in Sussex, Wisconsin.  Pastor Peter Bender is the host.  I hope to see some of you there!  I'm sure you will find it edifying.

[Dave Benke]

I am fine with orthodox hymns that reflect stem from any culture of people of any skin color. But they shouldn’t be segregated into a hymnal just for those people. Call it Christians Hymns for Divine Service and put it in every congregation. Don’t make a black hymnal for black peoole served by the black clergy caucus educated at tne black seminary. It was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.

My 8th grade class is in D.C. this week. Eleven are black, ten are white. None, I hope, care one way or the other. We didn’t send two buses, schedule separate tours for them, or plan a segregated graduation ceremony like so many progressives these days seem to like.

So, what do you suggest, Peter? Come out with a new edition of LSB thicker by say 200 orthodox hymns gleaned from TFBF? Or just tell our constituents who like and wish to use African-American style worship and hymnody that their hymnody isn't suitable for Lutheran worship, or at least we can't be bothered to curate and produce a suitable selection?

Or just keep doing what's been done all this time, which is allowing This Far By Faith to be resource available in the LCMS for use with guidance?  Which it is and has been. 

Most of the dialog here on the downside has given the impression that TFBF is "less than", and that people who use it with guidance are "less than" those who don't. 

Gosh, we're supposed to respond, we didn't understand that TFBF is not considered a doctrinally pure hymnal by convention imprimatur, but only a hymnal for use with guidance.  Thanks for letting us know.

And gosh, we're supposed to respond, we didn't understand that an African American Resource for Worship is a description that makes the hymnal doctrinally impure, because the impression given by using that description is that it's a black hymnal.  Thanks for letting us know. 

The impact is to drive people to less variety in worship, er, the liturgies and hymns of The Divine Service, and to hone in on the phrase "exclusive use."

Dave Benke

[Steven W Bohler]

I am fine with orthodox hymns that reflect stem from any culture of people of any skin color. But they shouldn’t be segregated into a hymnal just for those people. Call it Christians Hymns for Divine Service and put it in every congregation. Don’t make a black hymnal for black peoole served by the black clergy caucus educated at tne black seminary. It was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.

My 8th grade class is in D.C. this week. Eleven are black, ten are white. None, I hope, care one way or the other. We didn’t send two buses, schedule separate tours for them, or plan a segregated graduation ceremony like so many progressives these days seem to like.

So, what do you suggest, Peter? Come out with a new edition of LSB thicker by say 200 orthodox hymns gleaned from TFBF? Or just tell our constituents who like and wish to use African-American style worship and hymnody that their hymnody isn't suitable for Lutheran worship, or at least we can't be bothered to curate and produce a suitable selection?

Or just keep doing what's been done all this time, which is allowing This Far By Faith to be resource available in the LCMS for use with guidance?  Which it is and has been. 

Most of the dialog here on the downside has given the impression that TFBF is "less than", and that people who use it with guidance are "less than" those who don't. 

Gosh, we're supposed to respond, we didn't understand that TFBF is not considered a doctrinally pure hymnal by convention imprimatur, but only a hymnal for use with guidance.  Thanks for letting us know.

And gosh, we're supposed to respond, we didn't understand that an African American Resource for Worship is a description that makes the hymnal doctrinally impure, because the impression given by using that description is that it's a black hymnal.  Thanks for letting us know. 

The impact is to drive people to less variety in worship, er, the liturgies and hymns of The Divine Service, and to hone in on the phrase "exclusive use."

Dave Benke

I don't know if you have to work at coming up with these things, or if it just comes naturally.  But no one has said what you assert above: "...an African American Resource for Worship is a description that makes the hymnal doctrinally impure, because the impression given by using that description is that it's a black hymnal...."  That is pure race-baiting and has no place in this discussion.

I would expect better from a former district president and a doctor of the Church.  But you never cease to disappoint, Dr. Benke.  Never.  And that is truly sad.

[Dan Fienen]

I suspect that there is much talking past each other going on here. I don't fully understand Peter's problem with having a "Black" Hymnal, but I really don't think it's that the "Blackness" makes it doctrinally impure. Rather, I surmise that it's part of his objection to identity politics that separates us into distinct and separate racial groups based primarily on skin color, and designates certain groups for special treatment.


I agree with Peter's objection to identity politics as it is being practiced. It's another stanza in the long running racist song. I just don't see TFBF as bound up with identity politics but rather providing culturally appropriate worship materials for one of the several distinctive American cultural traditions. Unfortunately, like everything else, being culturally sensitive has become politically fraught.