Fr o m t h e Ed i t o r

Ch u r c h Br e a k s Yo u r He a r t Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

t has been said that the one great contribution of post- senior year in Slovakia, where my parents went to do mis- Imodernism to scholarship will be the autobiographical sion work, with my little brother in tow. I spent about half clause in the introduction. This is it. My associate Paul the year as a Division for Global Mission volunteer at the Sauer and I don’t believe in hidden agendas: our agendas library of the Lýceum, an English-language Lutheran high are going to be in plain sight. school in Bratislava. It, like Lutheran Forum, is one of those rare projects where e l c a and l c m s people willingly cooper- am the p.k. of a p.k. My other parent is the daughter of ate. There I also saw Christianity in a different light, in a I a Lutheran parochial schoolteacher, thus the closest you post-Communist society, where consciences had been com- can get to p.k.-dom without actually being one. As long as promised as a result of the regime’s slow and steady effort my family had been in the u.s., they’d been Missouri Synod to extinguish the churches, and pietism was a relief from Lutherans. Then my folks went to and met at college in the state-imposed silence on the faith. Ft. Wayne in 1973–1974. At the same time some stuff was Then I went to college in North Carolina at Lenoir- happening at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis; not good Rhyne, one of the lesser-known Lutheran colleges. A stuff. My dad went to St. Louis but not to Concordia—to few weeks into my freshman year, after putting up a pal- that other school instead. I was born at ground zero of try fight, I declared myself a theology major, though still American Lutheran schism. with every intention of avoiding the pastorate at all costs. So the first lesson I absorbed about church is that church Bishop Michael McDaniel gave me a wonderful gift while breaks your heart. Again, and again, and again. I always I was there: the right to be interested in everything. Theol- know now when I’ve met a Seminex pastor. It’s like the ogy, he insisted, has a wide and generous scope. mark of Cain. As it had been my whole life long, it was easy to be We moved around a lot when I was little, but the sec- Lutheran at college. Then I went to work at First Things, ond half of my childhood was spent at and it was not so easy to be a Lutheran a rural parish in upstate New York. It I was born at ground zero there. I was not well prepared for the was a nice place to grow up. Pastors’ challenge and struggled a great deal kids always have a strange relationship of American Lutheran to make sense of what I was hearing. to the community around them, and Richard John Neuhaus is not one to be it wasn’t till much, much later that I schism. shy about his opinions! Whatever one figured out that I’d lived only on the may think of his opinions, though, he surface of that community. There were all sorts of deep is a generous man, and he gave me another wonderful gift: structures going on there that I couldn’t fathom. That, too, the chance to learn how to write. turned out to be a lesson about the church. In the midst of that year at f t , two unanticipated things At the end of the nice rural years, I graduated a year happened. The first was that I published my first article, early from high school to spend what would have been my which sometimes I fear will follow me to my grave: “Sub-

Lu t h e r a n Fo r u m 3 versive Virginity.” It completely missed again on Maundy Thursday when I I confessed in my ordination vows. I the mark for the f t audience. It was walked across the quad and met my stand under the Scriptures, not above preaching to the choir, in one respect; husband. He was a Luther Seminary them. in another respect, though, the point student visiting a mutual friend of Some hot-button issues: I do think I was trying to make—that a truly ours. We had dinner on Good Friday, (obviously enough) that the ordination empowering feminism would value a date on Holy Saturday, spent Easter of women is in keeping with the gos- chastity over promiscuity—was pretty Sunday apart and met up again Eas- pel, but at the same time I am not at much ignored. The result was a load of ter Monday. Just under a year later we all interested in non-theological rea- icky love letters from fans every bit as violated the old statute against getting sons for ordaining them. I have tried married during Lent, because we took very hard to conclude that homo- Do not aspire to a Luther’s insight seriously: marriage is sexual behavior is in keeping with the a school for sinners. Indeed, what bet- gospel too, and I have failed; and I church that is purified ter time of year for holy matrimony? imagine that neither the effort nor the (This same gentleman, by the way, failure will win me any friends. I think of all sinners. does the layout for l f .) That happy the much bigger problems are divorce, event took place during internship at abortion, and sexual abuse. I find it much objectifying my body as if I had St. Paul’s in Durham, and then it was hard to take seriously invocations of advertised myself in an escort service. back to Princeton for the both of us, statis confessionis where homosexual- The episode earned me the nickname this time to earn our doctorates. Four ity is concerned when it has not been “the world’s second-most-famous vir- years later we have one son, Ezekiel, invoked over divorced bishops and gin.” But, as the saying goes, you can’t who was born in Guatemala, and we non-celibate heterosexual pastors. buy publicity like that. It turns out that are looking forward to the birth of our Ecumenically: I have no desire to chastity is also a good way to launch a daughter in the same place. become a Roman Catholic and I do freelance writing career. I am now finishing a dissertation on not find the reasons that others have The other unanticipated thing Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, a French Ortho- offered for doing so compelling. As that happened while I was working dox theologian who was known for her you might deduce from my disserta- at f t —as a contrast to the general work on Russian spirituality and her tion topic, the eastern church is more onslaught against my Lutheranism— advocacy of the ordination of women. appealing to me. All the same, it’s a was that I was called to the ministry. I My “Doktormutter” is Ellen Charry, a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want am not really one to place much value Christian Jew, who has taught me that to live there. I think Lutheran indiffer- on “religious experience” and, if it doctrine is the spiritual care of souls, ence towards (other) Protestants is a had stood alone with no other con- and that one may not check Christian shame and a failure. firmation, I would probably have dis- virtues at the door in the academic Closer to home: I have examined regarded it altogether. I confess that, study of theology. the Lutheran confession of the Chris- despite the initial rush of emotion, I I’ve also been the pastor at a very tian faith at length and have not found was pretty annoyed at being sucked tiny church in Trenton, New Jersey, it wanting. In fact, in it I have found into the family business. Church for a little over a year now. As it turned life, grace, truth, and my Lord Jesus breaks your heart, after all. out, I eventually got a lot less annoyed I needed somewhere neutral to work about the family business. But I still God has always out the Lutheran-Roman Catholic find that church breaks your heart. rivalry and I knew that, whatever else trafficked with it might have to offer, the Reformed omehow it feels like giving away tradition would never tempt me to Sthe punchline before telling the rest the faithless. convert. So off to Princeton I went. of the joke, but in the aforementioned (The money helped too—God bless interest of avoiding hidden agendas, Christ. I have examined the Lutheran Presbyterians for being rich and gen- here are some things you may as well church bodies that confess the Chris- erous.) The chief thing I got out of know about me now. tian faith and have found them pro- my M.Div. education was the Bible. The Bible: As I mentioned before, it foundly wanting. But I expected that Familiarity breeds contempt; the Bible is my lifeline. I don’t find the doctrine all along because, after all, church had not been terribly interesting to me of inerrancy (of the literal-six-day- breaks your heart. before seminary. While I was there, it creation-in-fierce-opposition-to-evo- became my faith’s lifeline again, espe- lution type) illuminating or insightful. ell. This is a dire beginning! cially because of the late Donald Juel. But I do believe that the Holy Scrip- WI should be asked now, with At the end of three painfully intro- tures are the word of God and the some justice, why I have prolonged spective years, the light began to shine norm of the church’s faith and life, as this apparently masochistic relation-

4 Fa ll 2007 ship with the church; why I have stuck is as probable as dry bones coming to churches were like Corinth and Gala- around, gotten ordained, pursued a life again. But that is precisely why we tia. There was also Philippi: a church Ph.D. in theology, and accepted an may hope. Our God excels in resur- that provoked Paul to joyful, not tear- rections. ful, prayers; a church in which good Those who take offense This is certainly no empty optimism. works were brought to completion, We have one Lutheran church body in love flourished, knowledge increased; at the church finally this country that looks quite a lot like a church that produced a harvest of Galatia, tending towards the legal- righteousness to the glory of God. take offense at the mercy istic and unforgiving, at the expense A church where people competed to of the gospel. And we have another proclaim the good news about Christ, of God. Lutheran church body that looks quite even from mixed motives, yet either a lot like Corinth, tending towards the way the gospel was proclaimed—and editorship for a church journal, if the antinomian and unrepentant, at the in that Paul rejoiced. A church, ulti- only payoff is heartbreak. expense of the law. The cold but real mately, which had the same mind that There is, happily, more than one comfort for us is that these maladies was in Christ. Philippi is not an alle- reason for sticking around. have such a fine pedigree. They are the gory or a type—any more than Galatia The first is the simplest. If Iam very things that the church on earth is and Corinth—but an actual, historical to find my crucified and risen Lord, always tempted by—has always been church, the real thing. Churches can I have to go where he will be found: tempted by, even under the guidance be, and sometimes even are, joyful, in the body of Christ, which is the of no less a preacher than the apostle faithful places. church. Even our own messed-up Paul himself. So, sisters and brothers, we live in Lutheran churches in America qualify. The past few decades have seen a time and place beyond our compre- Luther once wrote to fellow Augustin- swift and extraordinary changes. It hension, as old systems and patterns ian friar George Spenlein these won- should come as no great wonder that break down and new ones develop, derful words: “Beware of aspiring to our churches have been confused, mis- where great good is possible just as such purity that you will not wish to be taken, even faithless in their response. much as great evil. We have been looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. The greater wonder is that such faith- called to persevere in the thick of it, For Christ dwells only in sinners.” And less bodies are still the church of God. dead to sin and alive to God through so in my despairing moments, I say to The greater wonder is that God has our baptism, always repenting and myself—and to you—do not aspire to always trafficked with the faithless. He a church so pure that it is purified of created a world in which sin was pos- Let us become all sinners. The church is both empty sible, in which sin actually happened; and dangerous when it aspires to He preserved sinful people, fed and Philippians. such purity. Our own church bodies clothed and sheltered them, even while today are at their most offensively self- they remained hardened in their sin; always rejoicing. Let us shed our righteous when they trumpet their He called for Himself a stiff-necked Galatian and Corinthian heresies; let purity and good works on the street folk to bear His word, even while they us become Philippians. The pages of corner for all to hear. Christ is found chased after other gods. Those who Lutheran Forum are intended to map in the sinful church—in the church take offense at the church finally take out, in some small way, the path to that confesses its sins. If the church offense at the mercy of God, who Philippi, to a church that is on bal- is the body of Christ, it should come from the beginning has put Himself ance more faithful than faithless. In as no surprise that the body is broken in the lowly and undignified position groping our way forward, we confess and dying. of advocate for sinners. It was while that by our own human strength this However—reason number two— we were still sinners that Christ died is impossible, but with God, crucified the crucified body of Christ did die, for us. And while we remain sinners and risen, all things are possible. but it did not stay dead. The theol- He calls us to be His church. Therefore it is to the church in ogy of the cross doesn’t end with Philippi that this editorship is affec- the cross, because the cross has to ut I can go you still one better than tionately dedicated. LF give way, finally, to the resurrection. Bthat, which is also my third reason The death that our church dies— for sticking around. Simul justus et pecca- congregationally or institutionally tor is a doctrine for surviving the bru- or in any other way—is a divine tal parts of life. But, astonishingly, the death, one that kills to make alive. It Holy Spirit is God too! And the same may seem that a strong, faithful, and Holy Spirit can do remarkable things healthy Lutheran church in America with that peccator. Not all of Paul’s

Lu t h e r a n Fo r u m 5