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.