Christianity Today

Hi Nicholas, Is not being a polemicist at a pluralistic ceremony where the 'job' is to bring the truth and the gift Of Jesus to the people anywhere close to 'endorsing' another faith? Of course not. We have no record of an apostle standing around in a public place trashing other faiths do we? We do have them speaking about the goodness of God through Christ though. I think it is evident that a public mourning ceremony is NOT the place to pick a fight and start trashing other faiths though.

Nicholas, I'm definitely following this story! The "takeaway" of the public-at-large I'm seeing is that the LCMS didn't care enough about the hurt of the community to have wanted to participate. You and I know this isn't the case! Of course the LCMS leaders cared DEEPLY about the people of Newtown! Rev. Morris was in a difficult position. Policy is policy! And doctrinal distinctives are vital to protect when it comes to the foundational things. These situations are always tricky to navigate. However, no one believed that the different clergy praying together after this crisis were endorsing ecumenism or the other religions. They were Americans, uniting as Americans to apply a spiritual salve to the wounds. Americans are tired beyond description of people with differing beliefs not getting along. It's good to have deep beliefs, but we need to be Americans and show the strength of this country uniting esp. in times of crisis. I'm glad that Harrison's reevaluating.

Within the church, the main debate has been not over whether endorsing other religions is okay (if you believe Jesus is the only way to salvation, you would have to be malevolent to teach that any other path was acceptable), but what exactly constitutes an endorsement of a non-Christian or heterodox faith. For those that would write off ceremonies like the Newtown prayer service as patently not an endorsement, consider what might happen if a pastor were to teach the full Gospel at such a service and condemn other paths, such as Islam and Hinduism, as false. While I don't think that the mere presence of another faith in the ceremony automatically constitutes an endorsement of that faith, I do realize that the structure of these events imposes certain constraints that we should carefully consider rather than simply brushing off. We should reconsider especially the wisdom of letting our church-and-state-separated government act as our collective high priest.

Missouri Synod Lutheran here, very interested in this article and the response. Very happy with the article, states the facts nicely without blowing anything out of proportion, though the quotation marks on "debacle" made me smirk a bit. I didn't realize at first that that was Harrison's word--I thought it was a comment on how this matter which is so big in the LCMS is barely noticeable to anyone else. Maybe it really is that way--we're always talking about things that the larger evangelo-sphere doesn't usually seem to bother with.

Hi Jim G, Your questions are quite valid and it may be a while until (and if) we hear the fuller story. As with most groups and organizations, people trust the leaders to always make wise decisions and when they do not, often the internal criticism is not shared publicly. This is not to say the Missouri Synod did or did not have internal criticism after this bad decision, just that we have no idea at this point really. There could have been considerable criticism from within that we are not hearing about and that would be normal and unremarkable. At this point, we can pray our Missouri Synod brothers and sisters have made clear that this decision was foolish at best and bring clarity to the policy(ies) on working with others in the pluralistic public sphere.

Since when does a religion's doctrine trump what the Bible teaches?

All true, JR, and well said. Still, I could wish that the community of Christian faith as a whole was better at holding ourselves responsible, rather than waiting for entities beyond our fellowship (e.g. the secular media) to call us to account. To this specific example, why has not the whole LCMS fellowship moved to change this hurtful and unnecessary policy after recent prior similar incidents, before its heedless application here brought disrepute on the name of Jesus and His Church?

Hi Jim G, Because they are humans like the rest of us. And unlike the rest of us, when they screw up, it is all over the news.. When you or I say something stupid, only a few people around us usually know. At least he apologized for his own deeds and owned up to it unlike most of us who look to apologize just for someone being offended.

Another case of Christian leaders behaving badly until they are crowd-sourced back into truly Christian expressions of our shared faith. Why is this such a repeating meme?