Name it and claim it

I spent the first seventeen years of my life meeting only three people with my name. Then in my first week at Seward I met about 35 other Rebekahs and Rebeccas, in addition to a huge surplus of Rachels and Sarahs. Apparently the matriarchs were the baby girl names to be had among families with a heavy investment in LCMS culture from 1975-1985.

I bring this up because if families with a heavy investment in LCMS culture are still sending their kids to Concordias 10 years from now, I think the places will be overrun by Anastasias, Marys, Evangelines, and Lilys.

Alimentary, my dear Watson

Maybe it is the time I spend with fourth grade science books that makes me think this depiction of the life of an overture to the LCMS convention is a little TOO clear.

O brothers, where are ye?

I wax synodical. Bo-ring.

The good news for all in disagreement is that the problems I cite will never change, because the top priority of the seminaries is to remain solvent, and the obvious way to do that is to enroll as many students as possible, and the way to do that is not to exclude any possible student. Penny wise, pound foolish is a discussion for another day.

Factor 1.  Recently I spoke with someone acquainted with a pastorless church. Soon one of its members will become an SMP student. "He's willing to be their pastor," I was told, "but he's not willing to drag his family to the seminary and wherever else for four years."

I sympathize. Well do I remember the hardships of men who dragged their families not only to the seminary and wherever else for four years, but even dragged them to a synodical college before that to complete pre-seminary training requirements. Without SMP, it wasn't enough simply to be willing to be a pastor. The seminary was a place and a community and a concrete committment, not merely a pragmatic entity. Many things about it were unpragmatic.

Factor 2.  My husband has few "seminary friends." The reason for this, I think, is that we were married a week after we graduated from college. He never lived in a dorm or even on campus. His hours outside of class were devoted to earning wages and maintaining me.

This makes for a different fraternity of pastors than was produced in the old days when seminary students were not permitted to be married. Surely there were many disagreements among those men, but they knew each other well, having spent a lot of time in close academic, spiritual, and living quarters. They were more like brothers because they had lived more like brothers.

Factor 3. Yes, I attended the seminary as a student myself. Once a student informed another student in my presence that you didn't want any chicks in a certain venerable professor's class because that professor would be considerably less forthcoming, especially on a certain topic. Frankly, I think the church would have benefited a lot more from that professor's unbridled forthcomingness than it did from me sitting in classes for pastors.

Now we factor the common factor. I think the camaraderie of our pastorate is in bad shape. In making the seminaries more "family friendly," in characterizing them as having been segregated rather than consecrated and legalistic rather than judicious, we have reaped pastors who are less fraternal with each other. I do not think there would be more agreement among them if they had formed stronger bonds during their training, but I do imagine there might be less animosity and more charity, less suspicion and more respect*. They would disagree, compete, labor, and love more as brothers than as acquaintances or coworkers or self-selected friends.  I do not mean to idealize brotherly love (I have some brothers myself :D), but it is a gift we are unwise to undermine among our pastors so carelessly. Dudes need dudes, and they need them close, and they need them without chicks around, and the more exclusively dudely their undertaking, the more do they need those things.

A bunch of men living together under compulsory celibacy has its own set of problems, and I don't know that second career pastorization should be categorically excluded, and I am not advocating the construction of a girl- or layman-proof fence around the seminary campuses (not that such a thing would help if and when the seminaries cease to possess locality). But we are foolish not to give serious thought to the implications of the drastic changes pastoral formation has undergone in the last couple of generations. What have our pastors gained from the changes at their rightful alma maters? Might they get along with each other better, even and especially in disagreement, if they had ever necessarily taken up the habit, so to speak? Would a more personally united pastorate make for a more personable and united Synod? And a bunch of other stuff.

*I particularly have trouble imagining (and I am 100% imagining here, so I may be 100% delusional and wrong) any sort of "alternate route" pastor achieving a parity of respect with pastors who got at it the old timey way. Ordained is ordained, but they are simply not equals in terms of effort. This is math, not meanness. It seems to me a formula for resentment all around.

Shut those selfish jerks down.

Step 1: Read

All families with fewer than three children should be combined such that all the children be placed under the care of one set of parents. The other set of parents will be released from parental obligation.

Larger families are able to use resources more efficiently via economies of scale. Children in large families naturally learn better to share, to be patient and delay gratification, and to make good use of their time and resources. They are more independent and better problem solvers and initiative-takers. They develop stronger internal motivation and work ethics. They are less spoiled and indulged. In large families, the children's individual skills are cultivated, valued, and called upon for authentic tasks; they are true assets to the family and derive from this a sense of organic responsibility. Large families are more diverse and the children benefit from contact with siblings who have different gifts and interests. Children of large families also have more opportunities to acquire sensitivity to and serve the wide variety of needs to which they are exposed.

The parents who are not given the care of the children will be better able to serve society since their interests will not be divided. They may wish to devote themselves entirely to their previous extra-familial duties, which will enable them to contribute more to society since their assets will not go toward an inefficient model of family maintenance. Alternatively, they could provide foster care to or adopt groups of three or more children. Perhaps, drawing on their (albeit inadequate) parental experience, they could also seek part-time employment in an auxiliary capacity or volunteer for a [proper] family.

Some families are simply too small to benefit society. It is selfish of both parents and children of such families to insist upon existing autonomously. This insistence is stubborn, greedy, unneighborly, and sentimental. Any families with fewer than three children who do not want to be restructured should have more children.


Step 2: Multiply all numbers by 10. Replace family with congregation, children with parishioners, parents with pastors, and society with Our Beloved Synod.

"At least he's liturgical."

Sometime during my husband's excellent adventure/bogus journey through seminary, there was a panel discussion among a WELS pastor, an LCMS pastor, and an ELCA pastor. The WELS guy wore a sport coat and tie. The ELCA guy wore clerics with a sharp suit. The LCMS guy was the horrific hybrid of both we all know and love. I was a fly on the wall for some discussion of these telling facts and remember hearing someone say of the ELCA guy, "At least he's liturgical."

I am not so sure about this. It seems to me that a guy in clerics who chants the liturgy AND thinks it's fine for a chick to do the same because he doesn't think God really said thus and such is not on the side of the church or the liturgy or clerical dignity or any good and blessed thing. He is a burlesque of every good and blessed thing. He is not closer to being right and he is not at least a little bit on the right side. He is the lie that is so much stronger because it is mostly true.

Vestments and liturgy and ceremony originate rightly in Scripture, the holy catholic and apostolic Church, and humility; they prefigure the marriage feast of the Lamb. Where Scripture is interpreted through the whims of the world and the flesh and the devil, where the holy catholic and apostolic Church is mocked and defamed, vestments and liturgy and ceremony make a shameful parody of Jesus Christ and his holy Bride. It is a strange tradition which cherishes external forms while scrambling the substance from which they arose (cf American Christmas). In fact, scrambling the substance renders the forms merely accidental, and when the forms are accidental, phylacteries are broad and the borders of garments are enlarged and no room is too uppermost.

Please, church-resembling entities in the habit of choosing your own Bible adventure, stop being liturgical.

“If anyone saw you now, they’d think you were Aslan, the Great Lion, himself.”

(Or would they? :P)

Expert opinion

Here you may read a graciously sympathetic post from the Anchoress, who kindly takes the time to consider what the life of a mother of many young children is really like, and a vision for a program of care to such mothers. Also included is this link to a writing from a Roman Catholic mother who is upfront about a hard fact of perpetual parturition: it places extreme demands on a marriage (NFP or not), even a strong marriage, even a strong marriage between two people equally convicted about the catholic teaching on marriage. The writer told her husband,

The worst part is, I blame the Church. I blame the ban on birth control, the fact that NFP doesn’t work for us, the reality that I will never, ever have a chance to get a handle on things because I’m constantly pregnant or nursing. I can’t crawl out from under the pregnancy-and-postpartum rock because the rock follows me everywhere, just waiting to smash me again. Intellectually, I believe the Church. I understand the arguments against birth control. I agree with them, even. I just no longer think I’m a good enough person to follow the rules.

There are many reasons people use contraception, and no one understands them better than people who don't. I have no use for the faux-debaters who will bellow forever about binding consciences, the first and last refuge of the lazy Lutheran. The loyal opposition I DO respect is comprised of those who are honest enough to say: "The church might really be right about that, but we just can't do it. It's too hard." They're right. It IS too hard. :P

The Anchoress' vision is unlikely to become a systemic reality anywhere. It may happen in individual Roman Catholic parishes where someone with a "heart for that ministry" undertakes it. Much less will it happen in our Synod where anybody with more than four kids is a caricatured joke, the lowest of the evangelists and the blandest of persons. The Republican Party at Prayer will never stop secretly wanting us all to be Michele Bachmann (physically attractive, kid count in the high-reasonables, bonus good-personism, successful career, and of course "conservative"). I can only be thankful for the dear people in my parish who are kind to me and help me as they are able simply because we are sisters in Christ, not because they share an interest in my personal pious cause. Developing a fantasy about some kind of formal support system serves merely to depress; my recommendation is don't bother.

BUT--I will remember what this is like. When these years end for me, I will try to be the loving presence; the listening, understanding, forgiving ear; the willing hands for any young mother who needs them so much, who is so disrespected and alone, beginning with the mothers of any grandchildren God should see fit to grant me.

Guest Post: On Why Single Females Should Not Attempt to Save the World

From a friend of CSPP who wishes to remain anonymous.

Ok, first of all, a shout-out to the doctrine of election and an acknowledgement that none of us can save the world.  Jesus does that.  We don’t.

Moving on –

If you know a Save the World type who is a single female, please make every effort to curb her enthusiasm.  By STW types, I’m referring to those optimistic and generally sincere individuals who leave the comforts of home and move to a developing country where they teach English or feed the hungry or educate women or something.  (A side discussion could easily be had about whether any of these efforts are even needed or helpful. Another time, another place.)

The problem with the single female Save-the-Worlders is that they are subjecting themselves to dangerous, hostile environs, and they often think they have some kind of force field around them for going under the name of a Christian sending organization.  I am here to warn you: No such force field exists.

The Christian sending organization will not protect you from knife-wielding malandros*  lurking at an otherwise deserted metro bus stop as you go on your merry way to church. The Christian sending organization will also not protect you from dreadful illnesses that cannot be understood or treated in the local clinica**.  Neither will it not protect you from illegit taxi drivers who are actually there to kidnap your pretty single self.  Oh, and the Christian sending agency will not protect you from experimental vaccines that are required in the foreign airports (but your out-of-country immunization record could spare you from this if you have the clarity of mind to produce it in time).  Let's not forget angry, violent political demonstrations involving tear gas and loud shoutings of anti-American rhetoric.  Oh, and house fires.  Those too.  Then again, those could happen anywhere.  But emergency response time is a LOT better in the U.S.of A.

[Alert! Alert! All of these examples are actually real! And all in the time span of one short year. I am not making this stuff up!]

Here’s the point -- and as you've already gathered, it’s coming from someone who knows:  The “mission field” is not a safe place for single ladies.  It is not.

And I know I’m being cynical with this talk about the imagined magic powers of the Christian sending agency…  We recognize that it is our own heavenly Father who commands His angels concerning us to guard us in all our ways.  I know and believe that it is only by the grace of God that I am safe and well today. I was a very stupid young woman and I realize now that things could have gone a lot worse. I am so incredibly grateful.  The same hindsight which produces this sincere gratitude, also compels me to urge others to be smarter than I was.  I did not need to go to those corners of the world. The Lord has promised that His Word will reach everyone.  I could have easily left it in His capable hands and spared myself a lot of calamity and hardship.  If my parents had had any real idea of what was going on over there, they would not have slept for an entire year.  Thankfully they were a tad on the ignorant/naive side. (Love you, Mom! Love you, Dad!)

Single ladies, please do not think you have to STW to feel good about yourself. Serve the neighbors closest to you. No passport required.  And no deadliness, either! I do understand that you may not have the same satisfaction of having done something super glamorous (Since when was living without running water glamorous? We’re all so backward!). But you will be no less a Christian.

If you have a daughter who aspires to STW, please encourage her to use her many gifts and talents in a setting that will not put her in great bodily danger.  If we aren’t ok with our baby girls sticking their fingers in electrical outlets, why would it be ok for them to wander alone into a crime-ridden foreign city 22 years later?


* Scroungers. Or a more literal translation: bad men walking.
** Oh wait, that's a cognate.  I'm not needed here!

My homegirl Phoebs

I finally caved and bought Cheryl Naumann's LCMS deaconess history on Kindle. It has a lot of primary documents, so thumbs up there.

The Lutheran deaconesses back in Germany were nurses. Later, people in the LCMS made an argument that there should be LCMS deaconess nurses because sick Lutherans should have Lutheran nurses. This is interesting. Sick people are vulnerable. I've heard of pastors having trouble with theologically stupid things nurses say to patients, and I myself have had theologically stupid things said to me by dear and loving nurses who wished to comfort my in my trouble. There's no doubt that a well-catechized nurse population would be a nice thing to have available.

But it turned out that the LCMS girls didn't want to be nurses, just deaconesses.

The Lutheran deaconesses back in Germany were also celibate, either virgins or widows. They were free to marry, but then they weren't deaconesses any more. OBVIOUSLY. OK, I hate it when people get snotty about obviouslies so here is why marriage and deaconessing were considered incompatible: when a woman marries, her job is to care for her family. Deaconesses are people who, since they are free of family constraints, may care for those whose only family is the Church. Speculation is of limited value, but I have a hard time imagining that Loehe and other champions of the deaconess concept would have responded favorably to the notion that a woman should leave her children and husband each morning to go and work as a deaconess. She would have failed in her service the minute she walked out the door (and if it is necessary for her to work--wouldn't it make sense for her to pursue employment that pays better? :P)

It is clear that some people, especially Loehe, really wanted there to be deaconesses. But I don't think their motive is clear. Was it because the church needed Lutheran nurses and other caregivers? Or was it because the unmarried woman (especially the unmarried young woman) was as big a practical problem back in old timey times as it is now? Probably some of both.

I found this quotation from Loehe astonishing:

"From the outset the deaconesshood is joined to the preaching office as Eve is to Adam, and a church which does God's work among the Gentiles without deacony [sic] seems to me like a one-legged man."

I respectfully (and nervously given my total lack of qualifications) disagree. I am curious about the word "deaconesshood." I do not know German. I don't know if the word used by Loehe is somehow distinct from that which might normally be translated "diaconate," or how either of these word[s] compare[s] with what comes out later in the sentence as "deacony," or if this is a translator's rendering of the same word, whatever that might be. Either way, the expression as it comes across in English suggests that deaconesses are a female counterpart to pastors. They are not. The parish is the feminine counterpart to the masculine pastor as the Church is to Christ.

Deaconesses are made up. The best way I can think to describe them is as a distillation of the Church which has occasionally been considered beneficial to have. It would help a lot if we called them something other than deaconesses since there is a New Testament OFFICE of deacon and the two can't help getting tangled up with each other when discussed. Deacon is a technical term in Scripture with specific requirements. There is simply no New Testament OFFICE of deaconess. There is only an itsy-bitsy reference to a woman named Phoebe who serves, end of Phoebe story. I could name 15 women off the top of my head from my own little parish about whom the exact same bio could be written. I could be completely wrong here, but I contend that it is hard to make a case for Phoebe's service as an OFFICIAL one. It's the exact same problem we run into today with "ministry."

Also interesting: the same idiotic arguments for everything are old news. Even back in the bad old LCMS days of women on one side, men on the other, people were boohooing about Galatians 3:28 and the horrific prospect of women's talents being wasted. I'd make a crabby comment about women being considered too stupid to figure out that they should use their talents; on the other hand, there is a bit of a problem with talentolatry conflated with hobbyism on the part of women, the novelty of which I also doubt. Golly, maybe everybody has always been pandering and/or self-obsessed! I wouldn't know, naturally . . . .

That's as far as I've gotten. It's a really long book.

Semo: a publisher's search for sales

For Father DMJ's forgotten Lutheran classics.

The 70s, man. It was a crazy time for all of us. 

St Bernadette says, "Yeah, the Lutherans published it, but how did it get into our parish library?"

66% of Christian symbols are marine, and 50% are dolphins.

Semo: A Dolphin's Search For Christ is archived by the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Office of the President.

McGovern Ought-12!

Hanging around with you traditional dorks is hilarious, because we think we're making headway. Maybe Our Beloved Synod is starting to start to head in the right direction, gosh LSB is super swell, Issues is back on KFUO, everybody hearts Harrison, the Witness isn't a joke any more, and does anybody even go to the seminary in St. Louis?

Listen, friends. I am from one of Those Churches. Higher Things didn't exist then, but considering the contempt in which the relevant parties at my church held that bastion of orthodoxy, the LCMS Youth Gathering, I am 100% certain that if HT had existed and they somehow heard of it, they would have laughed their tails off. I loved That Church and the way it did things. I hated all You Churches and your horrible, faith-numbing, convert-repelling, moribund, culturist liturgy. I wanted to you leave, to die, to quit impeding the Gospel.

And I was confident, because you were dying. You were small and old and in small, old places. You had more congregations, but not more people. When we went on vacation, my family could always find what was to us a "good church." Sometimes we'd hit one that still did some of that hymnal junk, but it was all in good fun--jokey and comfortable; sure this is church wink wink nudge nudge, but we're normal and like to have a good time and not take ourselves too seriously. The proof was right there. If traditional was right, why weren't there any really traditional churches full of stiffs? They were dead (see, stiffs). Anybody who didn't want to die changed. If they weren't shooting for full-on awesome like they should be, they had at least undone their belts and a button or two to give their Lutheran beer-guts some air.

Now that I've got myself all converted and such, vacation over a Sunday is a biannual headache. Where will we go, and what will we tell the kids about the shameful goofiness they are almost certain to see in the house of Yahweh Sabbaoth? (Disclaimer: the church we visited this past Quasimodo Geniti was ungoofy. Thanks!)

We're all like whoever it was who couldn't believe Nixon had won because she didn't know anybody who voted for him. Wake up, people. The Synod where it is not contemporary (and where is it not?) is not traditional either, because traditionally people treated church like something that deserved respect instead of joshing and redwhiteandblue flower arrangements and pastors with dirty shoes or, better yet, a haughty pseudo-acumen that would rather sniff out the possible errorist five states away than the schismatic next door but is totally fine with the smell of her own sweatpants.

Pipe dream

Forgive my organist obsession. Does any organist want to move here?

I have an idea. All the chicks who want to be pastors should become organists.

--It's harder. Seminary can be bluffed through to a large extent. Pastoral ministry including but not limited to the conduction of the Divine Service can be and is bluffed through all the time. An hour's worth of music at the ability level demanded by Lutheran liturgy and hymnody absolutely cannot be bluffed through. Instant respect!

--It's cheaper. I don't know how much organ lessons cost but I can't imagine coming out of them with an amount of debt comparable to four years at the seminary.

--It's more appreciated. Pastors can always find an elder to mumble through Matins and no one really cares. They're actually glad for the shorter service. But everyone notices and hates it when there's no accompaniment, even people who don't like singing*.

--It's an opportunity for leadership (ie inspiration, encouragement, and influence). Lots of pastors don't like choosing hymns every week and will let the organist take over the job. "The Church Sustainable" section of the hymnal will finally start getting used like it should.

--It's easier. No dealing with annoying people and their annoying problems all the time like pastors have to. Also no meetings except maybe with the pastor, which will be a great chance to throw zingers at him about how lousy his lousy non-women-ordaining denomination is.

And if it doesn't work out at church they can always play at ball games, since no one will let them pitch.

See?

*Of which there are many. Eliminating all the music is one of my big plans to make church more seeker friendly. Much shorter services, no awkward expectations of non-singers or people who don't like Ben Folds concerts, and no more getting stuck listening to a bunch of freaking soloists or church bands who think they're super awesome and that there's nothing we'd rather be doing than listening to them howl all morning.

On the doing of homework

So there's this, which is like, you people still? And this, which is pretty funny. And a bunch of people saying stuff. But please, everybody, do yourselves the huge, huge favor of reading this book, the best book ever written on the topic outside of Heilege Schrift, The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort.

Read it before you write your next post about not ordaining women!

Read it before you write your magnum opus on women in the church!

Read it even if you don't like me or this blog!

Read it even if you're a dude!

It's so important that you read this!

Yes, YOU!!!!

Fish, flesh, good red herring, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession

This thingy was at Mere Comments a while back. It looks at the "religious fertility" of a variety of traditions and categorizes them into four groups:

Religious Malthusianism idealizes 0-2 children

Implicit Natalism idealizes 2-3 children

Patriarchal Moderate Natalism idealizes 2-4 children

Patriarchal Extreme Natalism idealizes "the more, the better"

This struck me as another one of those times when we just don't fit. I have never heard any CSPP type say or imply, "the more, the better" (although they have been caricatured by their detractors as saying so, and worse). Once again, we are not Quiverfull™. The theology of the cross tells us that some won't get many or any and some will be overwhelmed. There is no right or wrong number. There is only faith's response to the gifts God would give, and faith's response to the gifts it does or does not receive.

Better early than never?

I grew up at a church that turned its late service contemporary when I was in jr. high. This has proved an interesting experiment in memory for me--it's amazing what I remember from the hymnal, having used it during the years of my life I remember least. Canticles, propers chanted in my father's voice (yup, there was chanting even at a church that went contemporary), multiple verses of hymns . . . somehow all there. Also of note to some may be the fact that LW, that old thing we're all embarrassed about, was my lifeline to the liturgy. I know, I'm supposed to be mad about the Dignus sneaking in where it doesn't belong. But I'm mad about so many other things in life I'm not sure how bad I am for failing to nurture ire at that particular offense. My husband indulges me on this matter. He's a dear.

Everything after the first sentence is beside the point, though. The point is "its late service." The only parishes where I have seen an early contemporary service are those that have so many services some of them run concurrently (so the early contemporary service competes with a traditional service--usually the only traditional service offered). I have NEVER seen a late traditional service.

I know as well as anyone can that most people hauling kids to church will choose a later rising time and more prep time if they have the option. In fact, I do this myself and almost always attend, of my husband's two churches, the parish with a later service. But what the traditional=early equation amounts to is most of the parish's children never hearing the liturgy; never accidentally memorizing it; never learning that if you're somewhere and you hear the liturgy, you're in church; never finding a refuge from the sounds and mannerisms of pop culture. I think often of the kids younger than I was at my church who just never got to notice that things changed during Lent, who never discovered that they didn't need the hymnal for this song, who would be completely lost if they ever blundered into a liturgical church, who never heard their pastor's voice running through their heads sometime during the week--"Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord"--to make up for the sermon they weren't listening to.

I'm sure contemporary proponents would argue that this is merely a matter of practicality and has nothing to do with a desire to influence the piety of the church's children. Let's exercise some largesse about that for now. But I wonder what would happen if a church decided to hold its contemporary service early and its traditional service late.

Joy that a man is born into the world

I come unto Thee with hearty thanks that Thou hast called me to serve a little child unto Baptism and regeneration by water and Spirit. I go now, with joy, in the name and stead of this child, to renounce the devil and all his ways,and with heart and mouth and in true faith to confess Thee, the true God.

How blessed to receive tidings of a baby born healthy and well, a mother safely and mercifully delivered without complication. This week I have the privilege of praying the above words, taken from the "Prayer of Sponsors Before Baptism" from Loehe's Seed-Grains of Prayer. My new niece and intended goddaughter is beautifully named for 58 brave and faithful souls whose ship bore them not across the Atlantic but across the Jordan. They came to a land of perfect worship, far beyond the better worship they sought. God rest them in peace, and her in his promises . . . and her mother in a few months. :)

CSPP offers online School for Writers and Speakers

My Women over at WLI are excited for another academic year to begin in their acclaimed Schools for Speakers and Writers. Unfortunately, women who happen to be raising children pretty much won't be able to go. But we're so talented! It would be bad stewardship for our skills not to get more skilly! So in the spirit of stewardship, CSPP is offering the following free online course for Writers and Speakers:

1. Know the right person who knows the right people to get you a writing or speaking gig.

2. And we're done!

(Bonus hint: meet the Right People at the WLI Schools for Speakers and Writers.)

And thank you, person who keeps me up with WLI so I don't have to keep myself up.

So you want to be a church worker

Hey, that's great. So did I once.

But I remember a professor back at CUNE backing up a student who took umbrage to the term "church worker." She was majoring in business or something like that and was involved at her church, but since she wasn't a DC[vowel] or LTD student, she wasn't a church worker. No, she was just a person who would be tithing on a real wage and serving her local parish not on the clock but with her free time. Think of it! Furthermore, she wasn't receiving a "church work" scholarship she'd feel obligated to work off even if she married and had children soon after graduation.

It is understandable for pious people to want to make a career of piety. But I wonder if career-ifying the service of lay people is best either for them or for the church. Lutheran school teachers, DC[vowel]s, deaconesses, and all the rest are, it is no secret, very poorly compensated (much worse than pastors). Placement is a constant problem, especially in the current economic climate. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who knows numerous Ministers of Religion-Commissioned who have been treated absolutely shamefully by church employers who ask far too much of them in the name of "ministry."

What would happen if all the good-hearted Concordia students of the world chose majors which gave them reliable prospects for a comfortable (might I even venture "fair"?) wage, supported their families thereby, and made church service a regular family extracurricular? How many families like this would it take to do the work of one full-time staff person, and what would those families gain from spending more time together at church? How might it benefit the unbelieving world to have more skilled Christian laborers, businessmen, and professionals rather than an ill-defined class of church-employed persons busying themselves in that sequestered environment with needs that have always existed in the church but only recently began requiring full time staff people? How might this affect perceptions of the doctrine of vocation? How might the church be affected by having fewer people on payroll and more people tithing off greater incomes?

I'm not saying the "church workers" are bad. I'm saying the opposite. They are devout, good-hearted people, as they have exhibited by being willing to make less money and take jobs which the world does not respect. But just imagine if all those people didn't go into full time "church work." They'd make enough money for their families to have more than soup and muffins for supper all winter. They'd have ongoing relationships with coworkers outside the church. They'd show up at church more often than Sunday morning because the life of the church is a priority for them. They'd be at evening Bible classes asking good questions. They'd be demonstrating to their kids that the best use of their free time is in the service of God and His people.

I wonder how pastors would answer if given the choice between one full time "church worker," or five active celibates or families who showed up every Cleanup Day and Wednesday night and at the homes of the sick and lonely; who salted the world and bore witness to Christ every day in their places of work; who sought pastoral counsel in matters of life and theology; who (in the case of families) grew and blessed the parish with well-catechized, church-loving children.

Lamech, you're so lame.

Oh, those awful patriarchs and kings. How could they have been so wrong? And their wives, their FIRST wives, their REAL wives--how could they stand it? Why did they stand it?

"Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah" (Gen 4:19). This is the first we hear of polygamy in the Bible. If one wife is good, two must be better; and Lamech's reasoning is found amenable for generations thereafter.

Interesting that God does not provide any editorial remark. Doesn't He think polygamy is bad? Well, yes. It's terrible. So terrible no one needs to say it's bad because every sane person knows. God also makes no comment on Lamech's bragging on his own malice and bloodlust a few verses down. We don't need to have it spelled out for us that Lamech's sins are sins.

But anyway, imagine Lamech's kids and neighbors. Meh, two wives. That's just how we do it in our tent, just how they do it next door. Not normal for everybody, but normal for Lamech. And what's normal for your dad or your neighbor, well, it's not that weird, right? Something you see every day isn't weird. Normal for Lamech and Adah and Zillah becomes normal for their sons, normal for their daughters, normal for their neighbors, just normal.

So Jacob: another week, another wife. David, a man after God's own heart, never gives us an indication that this polygamy business keeps him up at night for any good reason (neither does the practice solve his lust problem). Even tender Elkanah cannot imagine himself to be worth less to Hannah than ten sons, oblivious to having given her only half of himself. And if our main concern is that polygamy is bad for women, I wonder if 1000 lonely Ancient Near East guys might have some insights to offer wise Solomon.

What happens to polygamy? Exile, probably, and the poverty it brings. Roman occupation and law (thanks for that at least, nations). Once polygamy becomes abnormal again, its wrongness becomes self-evident to Christians. (Though our honored fathers can still trip us up.)

Polygamy: the sexual sin the people of God--good, pious, exemplary people of God--could not live without. Fornication, divorce and prostitution/pornography being roughly historically equal, can we possibly be so arrogant as to imagine that we have transcended this capacity for tremendous transgression, for unthinkable unchastity?

But don't worry, Protestants. As long as you're not a bishop (and what Protestant would be?) the Bible doesn't say you can't have two wives. As my favorite pastor told me, "At least polygamy is life-affirming."

Further reading.

That counts. No, really.

I recently received a copy of Lutheranism 101 on account of having a kicked out a few pages thereof. My own few pages aren't of much interest outside of the fact that I can now say very literally that I wrote, well, not quite the book, but a good part of the chapter on repentance. Plenty of expertise there. :P

Anyway, that's not what I sat myself down here to jabber about. What caught my eye when I flipped through was, predictably, chapter 14, "What About Women?" As I've mentioned here, I am of the persuasion that Our Beloved Synod has not handled the woman problem (and we are always a problem, aren't we? :D ) too well. By reason of fear (and more recently, I think, a resulting theological sciolism) and means of attrition the LCMS has really sold out to the world in this department.

So what does Lutheranism 101 say about women? That's right, the same old lame stuff. "The highest honor ever given to any human being was a given to a woman" and "The influence that Christian mothers and teachers have upon the spiritual development of children and youth is enormous." Bo-ring.

But that's just it, isn't it? What the Synodical Powers mean by approving this is for publication with the coveted CPH logo is: that counts. It counts that the Savior of the world was born of woman. It counts that women bear and raise children. All that pain, all that fear, all that loneliness, all that scorn, all that frustration, all that doubt, all that invisibleness, all that bo-ring: it counts. It is good. It is enough. It is respectable and admirable. It is blessed. It is faithful. It is the life and work to which women have been specially appointed. It is a gift twice over: to give and nurture life, and thereby to assiduously cultivate that profoundest and most painful virtue, humility. It is pleasing to God and as such should be pleasing to man.

Then after that is some blather about chicks who wrote hymns. So someone over there on Jefferson Ave. still hasn't gotten the "And what else are you doing?" question out of his or her system yet (Reb. Mary posted on this once but now I can't find it--bother). OK, whatev. The point is, if the "Mary" and "motherhood" answers sound like they don't count, like they aren't good enough, like they don't deserve the respect granted to other pursuits, it is because they are falling on ears tuned too much to the world. The fact that our little corner of Christendom still gives them top billing is a good sign.

Suffrage

OK, Anonymous from way back when who asked about women's suffrage. If you're even still reading, you'll have to forgive me. It takes me a REALLY LONG TIME to think about something. And to talk to everyone I want to talk to about it. And to decide how I'd put it. And then to type it up. And then to let it sit in my drafts while I think about it some more. And then revise and revise and revise. And then run it by my idiocy checker. And then let it sit in my drafts for a few more months. And then . . . . . . . . . . post.

Now, the Voters' Assembly as we have it in the LCMS today is a made up thing and Americanish and mostly silly. And that's why I've never been too clear on how to respond to the suffrage question because the Bible doesn't say, "Women shouldn't go to (or speak at or vote at) voter's meetings every first Monday of every other month at seven of the clock post meridiem." Suffrage is simply not in Scripture. All I could say was, I don't go and I wouldn't.

But now that I've done the thinking and the talking I'm doing the typing (and maybe even the posting). Here's what I turned up that was helpful. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is about congregational order. To keep order, we do things the Christian ordered way, that is, with men heading families as icons of Christ our Head. At home, the buck stops with Dad. He catechizes and calls the shots because God told him to, which means it's on his head if those things are done poorly.

Family is a microcosm of the local parish. The congregation is a family. So when the family units gather as a greater congregational family, the heads do the heading. They listen, they discuss, they decide what would be best not for themselves individually but for their family. If Mom is concerned about something, she can talk to Dad about it in the mutual love and patience of their own relationship, and he will weigh her concern like he always does, and make the best decision he can see. Mom trusts Dad to represent and care for their family wisely and selflessly at church just as he does at home.

Might I ask why the heck this post so long?

OK, but the hard cases: the moms without dadly care back at our control group, the microcosm, the family. Sometimes families get messed up. They don't have Dad at the head. Mom has to step up. It's not OK, but it happens. Although she is Acting Head, she is not a true Head. We can also factor in at this point the virgins and the widows.

Well, at church we're not so micro. There are numerous heads because there are numerous families, which means: that woman who has to step up at home doesn't have to step up at church. At home she doesn't have anyone to provide for her and protect her and in whom she can put her earthly trust. But at church she does. She has every other Dad looking out for her. She can take a load off and not worry about this world's cares for once in her life (just like the virgins and the widows and the abandoned did in Luther's day and Walther's day and every other day until 1969). If she's concerned about something at the parish, she can do what she can't do at home: take her concern to a man whom she trusts, and trust him to weigh her concern regarding the parish and make the best decision he can see. A woman whose husband or father has failed her is not as a result also failed by her parish family. At church she has the comfort only a woman has the benefit of enjoying, even when she has been robbed of that comfort at home.

Will the men of her church family fail her sometimes? Yup. In some parishes, it might be pretty often or pretty serious. But just as in a family, this is not license for Mom to push back and commandeer. In those hard, terrible cases of unfaithfulness, abuse, or abandonment, it is license for her to leave.

Why are we consummate Americans asking this Voters' Assembly question? Is it because we are concerned about our rights and having our voices heard? Because that's not how Christians think. The way Christians think is, in charity and humility, "My fathers and brothers have my best interests in mind. I know I can trust them because they kneel with me at our Lord's altar every week." It means that sometimes we live with the mistakes of others, even as they live with our mistakes. It also means that sometimes we learn that someone else really did know better, or that something didn't matter as much as we felt it did.

Here's the real money line I got from my favorite consultant: women voting in the Voters' Assembly is as disordered as mothers working outside the home. It's got a lot of problems. There are costs built into it, including a greater danger of slippery slopism into other disorders than in homes where it doesn't happen. But it's pretty far from the worst thing in the world. Every sane person understands that, and Christian charity guides us to put the best construction on any particular case of it happening.

But if it doesn't have to happen--why make it happen? And in the church, it just doesn't have to happen. So I don't go, and I wouldn't, even if I weren't the pastor's wife, even at a parish that "allowed" it. Not because it's wrong for me to go, but because I think it gives a better testimony to God's ordering of human life if I don't. I think it communicates trust and humility and the otherness of the family of God if I say of my parish family, "The dads/husbands will take care of us," even as I am blessed to be able to say that at home.

I don't think women who participate in Voters' Assemblies are bad people. I do think this is a very muddled topic for the American mind, which is steeped in the language of rights, individualism, populism, and feminism, and for the legalistic Protestant mind which thinks in terms of strict chapter and verse permission or prohibition rather than Christian prudence. I am not on a campaign to end women's suffrage by Synodical resolution, that most powerful catholic force, any more than I'm on a campaign to get people to eat more spinach. But I do think in my own private mind that eating spinach is good for most people, and I eat it myself, and if someone asked for my opinion on spinach I'd say I'm for it.