Accomodationism in the American Church

[Randy Bosch]

The linked article from First Things provides one analysis of the "accomodationism" to secular American culture that the writer finds promoted by David French and, by implication, many other "elite evangelicals" (not scare quotes, but highlighted to note use of terms promoted by the various positions).
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/11/david-french-and-the-future-of-orthodox-protestantism
May be worth considering where Christians, as churches or as individuals, will stand as accomodationism - incorporating the progressive zeitgeist into the church - advances.

[peter_speckhard]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

[Randy Bosch]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

Well, your middle name is not Cassandra, but surely you had the integrity to call out in writing what was clearly happening, clearly evident to those who had eyes to see.  The "nothing to see here - move along" crowd censors through silence as well as public braying against the facts.
Thank you.

[Brian Stoffregen]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.


As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

[Randy Bosch]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.

As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

"What has been seen as..." is an obvious observation that does not address the issue at hand.  Thanks for participating.

[DCharlton]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.

As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

The question, however, is whether Christian orthodoxy can withstand such accommodation.  The ELCA has been undergoing and experiment on that question for 13 year, with other oldline Protestant groups doing so for a longer time.  The evidence so far is that accommodation on sexuality leads to accommodation on doctrine in general.  In terms of doctrine, apart from its newfound belief in apostolic succession, the ELCA is hardly distinguishable from the UUC.

[Brian Stoffregen]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.

As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

The question, however, is whether Christian orthodoxy can withstand such accommodation.  The ELCA has been undergoing and experiment on that question for 13 year, with other oldline Protestant groups doing so for a longer time.  The evidence so far is that accommodation on sexuality leads to accommodation on doctrine in general.  In terms of doctrine, apart from its newfound belief in apostolic succession, the ELCA is hardly distinguishable from the UUC.

Methinks that your understanding of Christian orthodoxy is more about a particular morality than it is about orthodoxy: we are sinners who are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, God's son, our Savior.

[DCharlton]

This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.

....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.

So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we've (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.

First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won't last. I truly hope I'm wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.

The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.

As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.

The question, however, is whether Christian orthodoxy can withstand such accommodation.  The ELCA has been undergoing and experiment on that question for 13 year, with other oldline Protestant groups doing so for a longer time.  The evidence so far is that accommodation on sexuality leads to accommodation on doctrine in general.  In terms of doctrine, apart from its newfound belief in apostolic succession, the ELCA is hardly distinguishable from the UUC.

Methinks that your understanding of Christian orthodoxy is more about a particular morality than it is about orthodoxy: we are sinners who are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, God's son, our Savior.

Don't be willfully obtuse.  I distinguished between the two.  You, and people like you, have argued for over 13 years that accommodation on sexual morality would have no effect on orthodoxy.  I wish you had been correct.  I truly do.

However, you have been wrong.  Since the ELCA accommodated same-sex marriage, it has also become increasingly heterodox on doctrine.  Just for example, the ELCA now tolerates and celebrates heterodoxy in regard to the first four articles of the Augsburg Confession.  Namely, the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification.  The list could go on.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Don't be willfully obtuse.  I distinguished between the two.  You, and people like you, have argued for over 13 years that accommodation on sexual morality would have no effect on orthodoxy.  I wish you had been correct.  I truly do.

However, you have been wrong.  Since the ELCA accommodated same-sex marriage, it has also become increasingly heterodox on doctrine.  Just for example, the ELCA now tolerates and celebrates heterodoxy in regard to the first four articles of the Augsburg Confession.  Namely, the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification.  The list could go on.

Please show where the ELCA where the ELCA has become heterodox concerning the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification. However, could you be sliding into the heterodoxy position of salvation by correct doctrine?


Can you affirm that as important as those doctrines are for properly understanding Christianity, they aren't the means of salvation?

[DCharlton]

Don't be willfully obtuse.  I distinguished between the two.  You, and people like you, have argued for over 13 years that accommodation on sexual morality would have no effect on orthodoxy.  I wish you had been correct.  I truly do.

However, you have been wrong.  Since the ELCA accommodated same-sex marriage, it has also become increasingly heterodox on doctrine.  Just for example, the ELCA now tolerates and celebrates heterodoxy in regard to the first four articles of the Augsburg Confession.  Namely, the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification.  The list could go on.

Please show where the ELCA where the ELCA has become heterodox concerning the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification. However, could you be sliding into the heterodoxy position of salvation by correct doctrine?

1. Trinity: Invoking the Spirit of the North, South, East and West instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit at a synod assembly.  Invoking the River, Estuary and Sea instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

2.  Original Sin:  Denying the need for redemption from Sin because all are saved in principle.

3:  Christology:  Denying the doctrine of Christ by treating Jesus of Nazareth as a mere avatar of the eternal Christ.

4.  Conflating Law and Gospel and therefore undermining the doctrine of Justification, by preaching the good work of social justice as the Gospel itself. 

Can you affirm that as important as those doctrines are for properly understanding Christianity, they aren't the means of salvation?

Of course.  Doctrine exists for the sake of the Gospel, not of its own sake.  Forget doctrine and you will soon lose the Gospel for one of the many false gospels that have appeared over the last 2000 years.  If you had ever bothered to read a book by Robert Jenson or Gerhard Forde, you would know this.  Unfortunately, most our bishops and church leaders have forgotten this too.  Thus we are rapidly sliding into a mix of Gnosticism and neo-Paganism. 

[RDPreus]

The gospel is doctrine.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Don't be willfully obtuse.  I distinguished between the two.  You, and people like you, have argued for over 13 years that accommodation on sexual morality would have no effect on orthodoxy.  I wish you had been correct.  I truly do.

However, you have been wrong.  Since the ELCA accommodated same-sex marriage, it has also become increasingly heterodox on doctrine.  Just for example, the ELCA now tolerates and celebrates heterodoxy in regard to the first four articles of the Augsburg Confession.  Namely, the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification.  The list could go on.

Please show where the ELCA where the ELCA has become heterodox concerning the Trinity, Original Sin, Christ, and Justification. However, could you be sliding into the heterodoxy position of salvation by correct doctrine?

1. Trinity: Invoking the Spirit of the North, South, East and West instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit at a synod assembly.  Invoking the River, Estuary and Sea instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Yes, there was a prayer to the four directions. It was not addressed to the four directions, but to the Creator, to the Great Spirit, and in the name of Jesus. This is the closing paragraph:

Creator, you bent the earth like a bow until it was joined together into one, round, shining circle. At your word the land was drawn into mountains and deserts, forests and plains. You gathered the waters together into rivers, lakes and seas. Many times we have broken the circle of your creation by greed and violence, and we have shattered the lives of others. Creator, as we gather the waters you have given us for life, renew the circle of the earth, and turn the hearts of all people to one another, that they and all the earth may live and be drawn toward you, Through the power of your Son, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, in the circle of the Trinity, forever One.
Amen.

I don't know where you got "River, Estuary, and Sea." I searched all five worship folders, and it doesn't occur. The closest I found was "rivers, lakes, and seas," which is in the above paragraph.

2.  Original Sin:  Denying the need for redemption from Sin because all are saved in principle.

Where do you find that the ELCA has said that? Is it like your misquotes from CWA2022?

3:  Christology:  Denying the doctrine of Christ by treating Jesus of Nazareth as a mere avatar of the eternal Christ.

Where do you find that the ELCA has said that?

4.  Conflating Law and Gospel and therefore undermining the doctrine of Justification, by preaching the good work of social justice as the Gospel itself. 

It's probable that every pastor has done that - or had parishioners hear that rather than the Gospel. Where do you find that the ELCA has done that?

Can you affirm that as important as those doctrines are for properly understanding Christianity, they aren't the means of salvation?

Of course.  Doctrine exists for the sake of the Gospel, not of its own sake.  Forget doctrine and you will soon lose the Gospel for one of the many false gospels that have appeared over the last 2000 years.  If you had ever bothered to read a book by Robert Jenson or Gerhard Forde, you would know this.  Unfortunately, most our bishops and church leaders have forgotten this too.  Thus we are rapidly sliding into a mix of Gnosticism and neo-Paganism.

If forgetting doctrine means that we lose the Gospel, then the Gospel has become doctrine rather than the salvation God gives by grace through Jesus Christ. (I recognize that my statement is doctrine; but I also believe it's true even for people who don't agree with it.) Perhaps you have a different understanding of Gospel. Perhaps you limit this salvation only to the people who reach out and receive it by faith - which becomes semi-Pelagianism. If we have to do anything to help God out with our salvation we are semi-Pelagianists.

[Brian Stoffregen]

The gospel is doctrine.

Not in my understanding. If it were, then salvation would be through agreeing with doctrine or following the teachings of Jesus. The emphasis is centered on us rather than God.

[peter_speckhard]

The gospel is doctrine.

Not in my understanding. If it were, then salvation would be through agreeing with doctrine or following the teachings of Jesus. The emphasis is centered on us rather than God.

Your consistent problem understanding salvation by grace through faith is that you think of faith as a human work and thus the demand for it contrary to the Gospel. So to you, salvation is not only not by works but it isn't even through faith, it just is because God has so much grace, and you inevitably arrive at universalism lest you say of God the He lacked sufficient grace for all people.

[RDPreus]

The gospel is doctrine.

Not in my understanding. If it were, then salvation would be through agreeing with doctrine or following the teachings of Jesus. The emphasis is centered on us rather than God.

Assent is not necessarily faith.  Assent to the gospel is agreeing with it.  Trust says, "for me."  I concede that some who give intellectual assent to the gospel do not trust in it.  This trust is born in repentance.  It is worked by the Holy Spirit.  It bears the fruit of following Jesus but mustn't be confused with it.  The teaching (doctrine) of the gospel may seem but a theological proposition to those who do not trust in it for their salvation, but for those who do this doctrine is more precious than life itself.