I was surprised to see yesterday that one of my posts on X has garnished almost seventy-five thousand views (at the time of this writing). Given the subject matter, I’m glad it did.
There was a lot of conversation in the comments and some interesting QTs in the first day after the post dropped. During that time I did my small part to make the internet a better place by blocking the tradcath and convertodox scouts who showed up in my mentions. You’re welcome.
The worst comments came from LCMS Lutherans, though. Far and away the worst. Truth be told, I blocked most of them, too. Your time is precious. So is mine. Let’s not waste it.
To be fair, though, plenty of the LCMS commenters were well and rightly disturbed. The camel’s knees are quite clearly quivering ‘neath the load. This was yet one more straw. When the beast’s back breaks, where will the rider roll? That is the question. If our DMs are any indication, there will be more than a few for whom it will be a crash and tumble unto life, peace of conscience, and true freedom in the Gospel, away from the Babylonian captivity1 of the neo-Lutheran parachurch corporations — “synods” falsely so-called.
No, it will not be the majority, but c’est la vie. This fact should not trouble any Christian heart. Expect Gideon’s Ratio to keep applying in these scenarios from now until Christ’s Second Advent. (Postmils keep walking.)
Mr. Picard issued a video apology earlier today. And before we proceed, you can go ahead and arrest your sanctimony and unhand those pearls: I am not a parishioner at his church; we are not on a first-name basis; there is no law dictating the styling by which men in the ministry are to be addressed; and there is nothing dishonoring or dishonorable about the title “Mr.” — I call to witness the papacy, which the neo-Lutherans adore so much, whose priests were still going by the title “Mr.” (“Don,” “Monsieur,” etc.) well into the nineteenth century, “Fr.” being a title for monastic clergy only. Oh no! But my tradlarp fantasy!!
Anyway, here is what Mr. Picard said:
I apologize for anything that I said that was upsetting to anyone in regard to the Athanasian Creed. I had expressed to the congregation that I had served before that I find it rather lengthy and given to some misunderstanding in regard to works righteousness towards the end. That was all that I intended by that. I don’t disagree with the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed, or the Trinity, or anything of that nature, and having led anyone to think so, I apologize.
In the broad sense of the term this is indeed an apology, which is to say, it is an explanation. But it is not one in which repentance plays any sort of part. There is no admission of wrongdoing, not even an “I should not have said that.” By the end of it, the Athanasian Creed is still problematic, and Mr. Picard reserves the right to his contemptuous opinion. It is “lengthy,” you see — heaven forfend that Sunday morning goes eight minutes longer than usual! — and “given to some misunderstanding in regard to works righteousness towards the end.”
That last is really a rather astounding statement, given that the end of the Athanasian Creed is literally a quotation of these words of Our Lord from John 5:
For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (vv. 28-29)
I won’t belabor the point, because it is obvious. In ordinary circumstances, sayings from Holy Writ which are “given to misunderstanding” are elucidated in what is known as a “sermon.”
Suffice it to say, Picard’s statement is not exactly an “I, Berengarius.”2 And it should be. If the LCMS Corp were a synod in spirit and in truth, not just in name, that’s more or less what would be required. Mr. Picard’s new/current congregation would be entitled to — and require — some assurances, and so would the congregations which are in communion with them and therefore him. Dare I say, there would be some penance restitution:
Thus concerning restitution, Gregory says that repentance is false if it does not satisfy those whose property we have taken. For he who still steals does not truly grieve that he has stolen or robbed. For he is a thief or robber, so long as he is the unjust possessor of the property of another. This civil satisfaction is necessary, because it is written: “Let him that stole, steal no more” (Eph. 4:28). Likewise Chrysostom says: “In the heart, contrition; in the mouth, confession; in the work, entire humility.” This amounts to nothing against us. Good works ought to follow repentance; it ought to be repentance, not simulation, but a change of the entire life for the better.3
But now we’re getting into fan-fic — and a pretty low-effort variety, at that, since I am not exactly what you would call a “fan” of the LCMS Corp, in case you have somehow missed this prior to now.
(While we’re on the subject: “‘LCMS, Inc.’ and ‘the LCMS’ are not the same!” is a lamer cope than that gaudy, shimmering monstrosity that you bought at the Almy spring sale. Sell both of them and buy a sword.)
If you, as a member of, e.g., the LCMS Corp “worker” roster, were to publicly make any of the foregoing observations at this point in time (i.e., after the airing of the apology), you would be the one coming under scrutiny, possibly to the nth degree (“de-rostered”), for failing to be properly “loving,” conciliatory, etc. This is one of the reasons why you won’t do it — at least not under your real name.
Likewise, if you as a member of, e.g., an affiliate congregation of the LCMS Corp — a lowly, untonsured4 layman — were to point this out, a pastor would tell on you to your church’s pastor. The latter would sit on you, give you a “now now” Eighth Commandment talk, and maybe even eventually withhold communion from you until you confessed your love for Big Brother. Among other things, your struggle session would be an occasion for Daddy to gently remind you that, as a layman, you really have no business criticizing one of the members of his guild.
Depending on who your pastor is, he might not do all of this immediately. But if pressure came through the pipe and he sensed that his rostered status might eventually be threatened for his “refusal to deal pastorally” with you, you had better believe that he would. This is one of the reasons why you won’t be that guy — at least not under your real name.
Do you believe that your pastor would be an exception? For most men not named “Ryan Turnipseed”, this is Schrödinger’s Quantum Excommunication Cat. Results only exist if the test is taken. If you don’t believe me, ask your dejected mutual who just got his spit-check back from 23andMe.
Thou shalt not tarnish the image of a parachurch company man with something obnoxious like the truth.
That shalt not call the naked Emperor “naked.”
The ability to surf from congregation to congregation like the world’s most heroic travel nurse, giving no explanation beyond “God called me”, is the grain which the rostered ox shall in no wise be deprived of. Everything else — and I mean everything else: your livelihood, your reputation, your health, and above all else your salvation — is of secondary concern at best to the parachurch and the hirelings who manage its franchises, who are, as a rule, too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg.
Remember that. Remember it as our country heads into ever darkening times — dark economically and in more serious ways. Because for as long as the Lord tarries, everything you will see from parachurch corporations like the LCMS is going to confirm it — more and more, and unremittingly. They are going to get worse, and many will be deceived and scandalized. Many will come right up to the edge of the truth, but, their consciences being captivated by false, Romanizing doctrines of the Church and the Ministry, they will recoil, retreat, and return to eating fake steak inside the Matrix. (Not described: how they will fulfill their consideration in this bargain — it may very well involve you.) And their generations, if they have any, will pay an unspeakable cost for this quailing of spirit.
Surely Thou hast appointed judgments to them because of their crafty dealings: Thou hast cast them down when they were lifted up.
How have they become desolate! suddenly they have failed: they have perished because of their iniquity.
As the dream of one awakening, O Lord, in Thy city Thou wilt despise their image.5
Rouse your soul to watch and pray, Christian. From your sleep awaken. Pray that the Lord would rescue you and yours and fortify you with His good gifts and Spirit for however long you must sojourn in the wilderness in the wake of the coming crack-up — and, indeed, that He would do so always.
And He will. The Lord will answer. “God never yet forsook in need / The soul that trusted Him indeed.”
+SDG+
Thank you for reading. The Boniface Group is the mission society of Holy Trinity Ev.-Lutheran Church of Gem County. If you would like to support our work, you may do so here. (Crypto options coming soon.) To learn more, visit our homepage and start reading from the top. Thank you, and God bless you.
✠
Footnotes
- Stop putting it off already. Do your homework. ↩︎
- “Therefore, the fanatics are wrong, as well as the gloss in Canon Law, if they criticize Pope Nicolas for having forced Berengar to confess that the true body of Christ is crushed and ground with the teeth.* Would to God that all popes had acted in so Christian a fashion in all other matters as this pope did with Berengar in forcing this confession. For this is undoubtedly the meaning, that he who eats and chews this bread eats and chews that which is the genuine, true body of Christ and not mere, ordinary bread, as Wycliffe teaches. For this bread is truly the body of Christ, just as the dove is the Holy Spirit and the flame is the angel.” (Martin Luther, “Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,” trans. Robert H. Fischer, LW Vol. 37, Word & Sacrament III, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1961, 300)
*fn 229: “In 1059 Pope Nicolas II forced Berengar of Tours to confess that ‘after consecration the bread and wine are not only a sacrament but also the true body and blood of Christ, and are sensibly . . . handled and broken by the hands of the priests, and pressed and crushed by the teeth of the faithful, not only sacramentally but in reality. . . .’ The Swiss opponents of Luther sharply denounced this recantation, cf. Zwingli, Commentary. LWZ 3, 210; Clear Instruction. LCC 24, 198 f. Even the early scholastic theologians found that confession subject to criticism, which is reflected in Canon Law, in the Gloss on the Decretum of Gratian III, De Consecratione, dist. II, cap. 42. Corpus Iuris Canonici, I, cols. 1328 f. Berengar accordingly was required in 1079 to make another recantation which has become a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, confessing that ‘the bread and wine placed on the altar are substantially changed into the true and proper and life-giving flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that after consecration they are the true body of Christ. . . . and the true blood of Christ, . . . not only through the sign and power of the sacrament, but in their proper nature and true substance. . . .’ Cf. Roy J. Deferrari (trans.), Heinrich Denzinger’s Sources of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: Herder, 1957), No. 355. On the whole subject see Sasse, This Is My Body, pp. 82 ff.”
Important history. See also Apology, X: Of the Holy Supper, 54-56, in which it is affirmed that a change which can rightly be called “substantial” (though not “transubstantiation,” nor even “consubstantiation”) occurs in the celebration of the Sacrament. Unfortunately, mistaken notions and silly urban legends have resulted from this, mostly on account of the strange neo-Lutheran inability to walk and chew gum at the same time, together with the usual culprit: their curious desire for the Antichrist’s approval.
In any case, here is the full text of “I, Berengarius”:
“I, Berengarius, believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine that are placed on the altar are through the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of our Redeemer substantially changed into the true and proper life-giving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord; and that after the consecration is the true body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin, as an offering for the salvation of the world hung on the cross, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and (is) the true blood of Christ which flowed from his side; not only through the sign and power of the sacrament but in his proper nature and true substance; as it is set down in this summary and as I read it and you understand it. Thus I believe, and I will not teach any more against this faith. So help me God and this holy Gospel of God.” ↩︎ - Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XIIb (VI): “Of Confession and Satisfaction,” 72-73. ↩︎
- The seminaries are cutting the tonsure much lower on the body these days. And hair is right out — this one is a more permanent pruning. Rumor has it that a particular work of Origen served as an inspiration for the new Mark of the Ministerium. Unfortunately it’s not one that you can track down and read, as in this case the sword was a great deal mightier than the pen. ↩︎
- Psalm 73 (72 LXX), vv. 18-20 (Brenton). ↩︎
The Boniface Group 