Linnaeus here.

On this eve of St. MLK Jr. Day, let’s review the anti-racist resolution that Rev. Warren Graff (and Bryan Wolfmueller) put forward to the 2025 Rocky Mountain District of the LCMS convention (it passed 145 to 14). The same one, in fact, that occasioned OldLuth’s debate challenge to Wolfmueller.

I’ll take it paragraph by paragraph.

Whereas, The Apostle Peter speaks of the Church as “a chosen generation” (1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen generation [γένος], a royal priesthood, a holy nation …” [NKJV, 1979; cf. KJV 1611]); and

We agree that this is a quote from 1st Peter.

Whereas, several modern translations speak of the Church not as a “chosen generation” but as “a chosen race” (1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation …” [ESV, 2001; NASB, 1995]); and

We agree that there are translations which use this terminology.

Whereas, the Apostle Peter is using the language of the Prophet Isaiah, where Isaiah gives the promise of “my chosen people [LXX, τὸ γένος μου τὸ ἐκλεκτόν; MT, עַמִּ‍י בְחִירִ‍י]” (Is. 43:20), such that with this word Isaiah is referring not to racial categories as used in modernism (“modernism” in the sense of post-enlightenment ideology) to speak of several races divided from one another, but rather speaks of the chosen people of God;

We agree that Peter was using the language of Isaiah. However, Graff actually undermines Peter’s argument (along with other passages of Scripture) by claiming that Isaiah has no racial category in mind.

Peter, in calling Christians God’s people, is actually making an analogy to Israel’s selection by God as a racial group.

To get a sense for that, let’s look at the other texts that Peter is alluding to in addition to Isaiah—who was in fact also alluding to these texts. Note the insistence of God that He was choosing a particular racial (family) group out of all of the nations (other families) of the world—which assumes, contra Graff, “several races divided from one another“.

Now in the third month of the departure of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt on this day they came into the wilderness of Sina. And they departed from Raphidin and came into the wilderness of Sina, and Israel camped there opposite the mountain. And Moyses went onto the mountain of God, and God called him from the mountain, saying, “This is what you shall say to the house of Iakob and report to the sons of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, and I took you up as though on eagles’ wings, and I brought you to myself. And now if by paying attention you listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be for me a people special above all nations. For all the earth is mine. And you shall be for me a royal priesthood and a holy nation. These words you shall say to the sons of Israel.”

Ex 19:1-6, NETS Bible (emphasis mine)

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord your God has chosen you to be for him an exceptional people, more than all the nations on the face of the earth. It was not because you are more numerous than all nations that the Lord chose you and picked you—for you are very few in comparison with all the nations. Rather, because the Lord loved you, and since he was keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a strong hand and with a high arm and redeemed you from a house of slavery, from the hand of Pharao king of Egypt.

Deut 7:6-8, NETS Bible (emphasis mine)

Note how it was specifically the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that culminated in His choosing their fleshly descendants, the Israelites, to be His own nation. God could not have taken the Egyptians to Canaan and declared them to be the fulfillment of these promises, for the precise reason that the Egyptians were not the descendants—not of-the-race-of—the men to whom the promises were made, but were another race altogether.

Another reason this adoption of Israel has to be understood in the fleshly sense, and not merely the spiritual, is that it was done precisely for the purpose of bringing the Christ into the world in the flesh. Christ had to be of the physical race of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because according to His promises and prophesies God had decreed that it was so.

Hence, according to Peter’s analogy, whereas the Israelites were God’s chosen fleshly race who would deliver the Christ to the world, believers are God’s chosen spiritual race who will be delivered by Christ from the world.

This is why Peter could go on: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” Which is to say: once we were not bound together with select (ahem, elect) others from all times and places, but now God has forged those from every fleshly nation, tribe, people, and tongue together into a new, spiritual nation, or race.

Without the category of race according to the flesh, none of the foregoing can make sense, because Scripture is constantly reasoning from the fleshly (that which we see and know with our senses) to the spiritual (that which is invisible and apprehended by faith). If it were not so, why did Christ tell such mundane parables?

Whereas, the Greek word γένος is used to translate the Hebrew word עַם (e.g., Is. 43:20, et al) which references not “races” (in the modernistic sense) but “people,” and the Hebrew word זֶרַע, meaning “seed” or “lineage” (e.g., Jer. 29:32, et al), and to translate the Hebrew word גּוֹי (e.g., Jer. 31:36, et al), which, again, cannot mean “races” in the modernistic sense, but “nations”; and 

This is bafflegarble word salad. “Seed” and “lineage” pertains to descent of a particular stock. A group of humans who share a common lineage, being all of the seed of a common ancestor, is called a “race.” This is the inescapable semantics of the thing, as I proved conclusively in the Race Debate with Wolfmueller.

“Modernistic” is a scare word that Graff repeatedly employs to discredit the ancient habit of grouping men according to shared characteristics, which they come by due to shared ancestry. Or did Levantine herdsmen of ancient time not know of shared characteristics from common descent? Laban certainly evinced such understanding when he manipulated Jacob’s flocks all the way back in Genesis.

Whereas, the prophets use the language of “the people/my people” (or “lineage” or “generations”) to reference not “races” in the modernistic sense, so that the prophets are proclaiming that the chosen lineage includes all those brought into the Promise of the Christ—i.e., the lineage of Abraham (as also the lineage of the promise to Adam and Eve, Gen. 3:15 and of the promise to Noah, Gen. 9), with the people of promise including all those from many other families and tribes whom the Lord gathered into the lineage of Israel (e.g., the Ruth the Moabite, Rahab the Canaanite, et al); and

Ruth and Rahab are absorbed into Israel on account of their offspring, because both women married Israelites and their children and grandchildren married Israelites. Ruth, notably, is still called “the Moabite” in the final chapter of her eponymous book, because it was a title denoting her heritage—much like you might call Sven the son of Thor “Sven Thorsen” long after Thor is dead and Sven has moved away from his ancestral home. Ancestry is something durable that you carry with you; always has been. But I digress.

Graff begs the question here. In the Old Testament, “my people” was repeatedly and reliably used of the Israelite race, those descended from Jacob according to the flesh—as I demonstrated above. In fact, God’s repeated warnings to His people that he would scatter them for their disobedience make no sense if He was not speaking of a particular racial group. When God casts off “my [His] people,” He is not casting off all who believe (how would that even make sense?), but all who are physical descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs.

This is why Paul can equivocate between the flesh and the spirit and say that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” That is, not all who are of the physical race of Israel are of the spiritual race of Israel. Yet again, this Scriptural saying would make no sense without acknowledging that there is a category of physical, or fleshly, race.

The prophets and the apostles recognize both fleshly race and spiritual race, and use and interact with each category as befits the situation contextually. Graff prefers to acknowledge the latter only, and foreclose the former as “modernism.” This myopia rivals that of Eli the priest himself.

Whereas, the word “race” prior to modernism refers to the human race (singular), and not to “races” (plural)—where races are be set against each other, such that O.E.D. identifies the first usages of “races” in the modernistic sense (to denote not the human race descended from Adam and Eve, but several races divided from each other within the human race) to the mid-1700s and later; and

This is simply untrue. The Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.) lists several instances of “race” as referring to various familial tribes distinct from one another prior to the 18th Century. Here is a selection.

Slide with thy plumes, and tell the Troyan prince,
That now in Carthage loytreth, rechlesse
Of the towns graunted him by desteny:
Swift through the skies, see thow these words conuey.
His faire mother behight him not to vs
Such one to beme therefore twyse him saued
From Grekish arms: but such a one
As mete might seme great Italie to rule
Dreedfull in arms, charged with seigniorie,
Shewing in profe his worthy Teucrian race.
…
Armes vnto armes, and offpring of eche race
With mortal warr eche other may fordoe

Certain bokes of Virgiles Aeneis turned into English meter by the right honorable lorde, Henry Earle of Surrey, 1557, emphasis mine

Ther lacke no examples to verifie this. It was dryven in to the head of temperour C. Caligula, that he was subiecte to no power, that he was aboue all lawes, and that he might laufully doo what him lu sted. This lesson was so swete to the fleshe, that it was no soner moued than desired, no soner taught than learned, no soner hearde than practiced. First by like that thempire should not goo out of his owne race, he coupleth not with one, but with all his su∣sters, like bitche and dogge. He killeth his brother Tiberius, and all his chiefest frendes: he murdereth many of the Senatours of Rome. 

A shorte treatise of politike pouuer and of the true obedience which subiectes owe to kynges and other ciuile gouernours, with an exhortacion to all true naturall Englishe men, compyled by. D. I.P. B. R. VV., 1556, emphasis mine

[S]he stoutely answered: “Theagenes was my brother (said she) who beinge a valiaunt Captaine, and fightinge against you for the common safegard of the Greeks, was slaine at Chæronea, that we together might not sustaine, and proue the miseries, wherewith we be now oppressed: but I rather than to suffer violence vnworthy of our race and stocke, am in your maiestie’s presence brought ready to refuse no death: for better it were for mee to dye, than feele sutch another night, except thou commaunde the contrary.”
…
The Queene after she vnderstode by the bastarde’s letters the trouth of the mariage, sent for Rolandine, and in great rage, called her caitife and miserable wretche, in stede of cosin, reciting vnto her the disparagement of her noble house, and the villanie she had committed against the honorable race whereof she came, and against the will of her which was her Queene, kinswoman and maistres, by contracting mariage without the licence of the king and her.
…
Bvt now we haue beegon to treate of the stoutnesse of certayne noble Queenes, I wyll not let also to recite the Hystory of a lyke vnfearfull dame of Thessalian land, called Theoxena, of right noble Race, the Daughter of Herodicus Prynce of that Countrey in the tyme that Phillip the Sonne of Demetrius was kynge of Macedone, tolde also by Titus Liuius, as two of the former be.
…
And amonges diuers his cogitations, there came to his remembraunce the bounden dutie which he dyd owe to his Maister, and the goodes and honours which he had receyued at his handes, on the other syde, hee considered the honour of his house, the good life and chastitie of his syster, who (he knewe well) would neuer consent to that wickednesse, if by subtiltie shee were not surprised, or otherwyse forced, and that it were a thing very straunge and rare, that he should goe about to defame hymselfe and the whole stocke of his progenie. Wherefore hee concluded, that better it were for hym to die, than to commit a mischief so great vnto his sister, whiche was one of the honestest women in all Italie. And therewithall considered how he might deliuer his countrie from sutch a tyrant, which by force would blemishe and spot the whole race of his auncient stock and familie.

William Painter, The palace of pleasure beautified, 1566–1567, emphasis mine

The Englishe race overrunne and daily spoiled, seeing no punishment of malefactors did buy their owne peace, alied and fostred themselves with the Irishe, and the race so nourished in the bosome of the Irishe, perceiving their immunitie from law and punishmente degenerated, choosing rather to maintain themselves in the Irish mans beastly liberty, than to submit themselues and to liue there alone, and not the Irish in the godly awe of the lawes of England.

A letter sent by I.B. Gentleman vnto his very frende Mayster R.C. Esquire. 1572, emphasis mine.

…all of thair races clannis and names duelland within the boundis of the hielandis and bordouris.

Acts of Parliament of Scotland (1816)  vol. IV. 73/1, p73, 1594, emphasis mine

The word Mogoll, in their language is as much as to say, the great white king; for he is a white man and of the Race of the Tartares.

Captain Robert Coverte, A True and Almost Incredible Report of an Englishman, p39, 1612, emphasis mine

In this village scarce dwell any others, then Hunters, and Butchers; who flay the beasts that are killed. These are for the most part a mungrel sort of people of several Bloods. Some of which are born of white European people and Negros, and these are called Mulatos. Others are born of Indians, and white people; and such are termed Mesticos. But others are begotten of Negros, and Indians, and these also have their peculiar Name, being called Alcatraces. Besides which sorts of people, there be several other species, and races, both here and in other places of the West Indies. Of whom this account may be given, that the Spaniards love better the Negro Women, in those Western parts, or the tawny Indian Females, than their own white European race. When as peradventure, the Negros and Indians have greater inclinations to the white women; or those that come near them, the tawny, then their own.

translation of A. O. Exquemelin, Bucaniers Amer.  i. iii. p28, 1684, emphasis mine

As you can see, all but the final quote date prior to the publication of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method in 1637, which many consider to be the inauguration of the Enlightenment (Graff’s chosen bogeyman in his other writings on this subject).

Race has always been associated with lineages, which naturally diverge as family groups break off from one another. This clause of the resolution is a lie in both fact and in spirit.

Whereas, as those of the Church, the chosen generation/ γένος (1 Peter 2:9), we are given to proclaim not the words of modernistic ideology (such as doctrine of “races” often taught in our public schools and in much political rhetoric), but rather the words of the Prophets and Apostles which proclaim Jesus Christ crucified for all nations/ἔθνη; therefore be it

The phrasing “Jesus Christ crucified for all nations” accedes that there are distinct nations.

To the modernist like Graff, a nation is just a random aggregation of people in an arbitrarily defined economic zone.

In the pre-modernist fleshly sense (the sense in which I argue, contra Graff), a nation is a race, and a race is a nation. Members of foreign races can graft themselves into a nation—be adopted into it—but they are never so much part of it as they are attached to it (though their children are another question).

Resolved, that we reject modernism’s doctrine of several “races” by which the human race is divided into different typological categories, categories wholly unknown to the Prophets and Apostles; and be it further

The Prophets spoke of Israel as a fleshly race distinct from other fleshly races.

The Apostles praised God that men from any fleshly race—whether fleshly Israel or not—could be grafted into the spiritual race of Israel.

Lying about something, even when it passes by supermajority of votes from pastors, does not make it true.

Resolved, that we reject any teaching resulting from or based upon this modernistic category of race, including any teaching of race-supremacy, antisemitism, race division or segregation, or any other form of racism, and be it further

We must defend the doctrines of modernity at any cost, while claiming that we are fighting against modernity!

George Orwell was writing about the Lutheran pastor.

Resolved, that we recognize and affirm our Lord’s promise to the Church that we are a “chosen lineage” or “chosen generation” (1 Pet. 2:9), which is the lineage of all those called into the Promise, and be it further

Of course we are. And this is a spiritual lineage, running through Christ. This has no effect on our lineage according to the flesh, which runs through our fathers according to the flesh—whoever they may be.

If the Holy Spirit’s equivocal (read: analogous) use of these terms confuses most pastors, then one must conclude that most pastors are not apt to teach, and thus are not pastors at all, but impostors.

We are truly a people who must needs repent, that God has seen fit to scourge us with these feeble-minded men!

Resolved, that we rejoice that as the Church, the lineage of the promise, we are given to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9), a proclamation to be proclaimed to all nations (Matt. 28), and be it further 

There’s that “all nations” thing again. Do you suppose Christ meant “all economic zones, diversely organized as they are under differently colored pieces of pole-mounted-canvas”? Or did he mean all “people groups,” which is to say lineages, which is to say races?

Graff and his fellow Lutheran pastors cannot define “nation” without modernism.

Resolved, that we affirm that any who teach or promote (whether in public or in private, including all forms of social media) any form of racism, antisemitism, or race-supremacy or division, are to be denounced by the Church for this divisive teaching and called to repentance with the hope and the prayer that the Lord restores them to the Church, the chosen lineage of the promise, and be it finally

If you cannot define race or nation with any degree of coherence, how can I count on you to define racism, the big scary sin of the new order?

Ah, but you do not need to. The blinking cube in your living room for the last sixty years has done so for you, and will continue to do so until you close your eyes for the last time, wrapped in its reassuring embrace.

Resolved, that the Rocky Mountain District in convention memorialize the Synod to affirm that any who teach or promote (whether in public or in private, including all forms of social media) any form of racism, antisemitism, or race-supremacy or division, are to be denounced by the Church for this divisive teaching and called to repentance with the hope and the prayer that the Lord restores them to the Church, the chosen lineage of the promise.

I look forward to seeing whether the LCMS will adopt this hack job at a national level this summer.

Michael Hunter, a Reformed Minister, was recently confronted by his ecclesiastical supervisors to give an accounting for his Right Wing views. This has become a common story. Therefore, Old Lutherans publishes here his response for the learning of those who will be called upon to do the same in the future.

Originally published on X. Reposted with permission from the author.

For anyone interested, here are the questions that the Minister and His Works Committee of Grace Presbytery (ARPC) asked me and my fellow minister during their investigation, along with my responses. No charges have been recommended based on these responses.

This should be instructional for a variety of reasons, some of which I may highlight in the future.

1) Have your views regarding the Westminster Standards and the Constitution of the ARP changed in any way since your ordination?

No.

2) Would you describe yourself as some variety of Theonomist? If so, can you explain what you mean by that?

I agree with WCF 19 on the law of God. I have previously described the Confession’s position as “general equity theonomy,” since the Westminster divines affirm that, although the “judicial laws…expired together with the state of that people [i.e., Israel]” and are “not obliging any other,” the “general equity” of these laws is still binding. None of the civil laws of the OT violates the general equity of the moral law. So while the civil laws of the OT do not oblige any nation today, every nation must apply the general equity of the civil laws to their own circumstances, and it is not immoral to use the OT civil laws as a model. Thus, Beza writes, “Although the particular forms of the laws never pertained to us, nevertheless, since their author is God himself, the most just and equitable Legislator, it is most right for magistrates to look to the most perfect example of the Mosaic laws (as often as some particular circumstance of time, place, or persons does not hinder them) to establish their own laws.”

3) What do you mean when you use the phrase, “Race Realism?”

This is Michael Spangler’s term, not mine, so you would have to consult his writings. To my knowledge, I have never used the term in any books, articles, teaching, or preaching. Of course, I do believe that races are real. So, for example, I believe Rachel Dolezal, a white woman, is sinning when she identifies as a black woman because she is denying objective reality.

4) In its mission statement, the Pactum Institute, of which you are a Research Fellow, says it seeks to promote, “Christian Familialism and Ethnic Complementarianism as representing the organic and divinely ordained social order for mankind.” Can you unpack how you understand that statement and its goal?

No, for the following reasons. These are Adi Schlebusch’s words, not mine. He and I have never discussed this statement, and I have not read any books or articles where he elaborates on these terms. I have never used the terms “familialism” or “ethnic complementarianism” in books, articles, preaching, or teaching. You would have to ask him how he defines those terms.

Further, the fellows of the institute are not required to adhere to all the language of the institute’s founder as he describes the institute’s mission. Indeed, when I became a fellow, I was never required to sign or affirm anything, and Adi indicated that “there are no contracts” for becoming a fellow, “just a mutual association that is mutually beneficial.” Adi is aware of and allows differences among the institute’s fellows.

It may help to describe the circumstances under which I became a fellow. Adi saw the video of my remarks before the Winston-Salem city council, in which I preached against the LGBTQ+ movement and called our civil magistrates to repentance. Because of those comments, he then contacted me and asked if I would like to join the institute. Before I agreed, I wanted to make sure it would not be an issue at the church. So I asked Eric if he thought it would be fine for me to join the institute. He looked over the website briefly and informed me that he did not see an issue with joining and that it seemed like a reasonable Christian organization. Of course, even if the institute were not Christian, this would not necessarily be an impediment to joining, since the church neither prohibits Christian scholars from associating with universities that propagate evil ideologies nor forbids Christian doctors from working for healthcare networks that openly promote wickedness, etc. We can only give an account for our own writings, teaching, and preaching.

5) What are your beliefs regarding segregation in cultures and in the church?

First, it depends on what you mean by “segregation in cultures and in the church.” I do not believe it is immoral to make distinctions within a society. For example, in some countries, there are royal and noble families who have privileges and rights that others do not have simply by reason of their birth. This segregation is not intrinsically immoral. I also do not believe it is immoral to have ethnic-specific institutions and events. For example, when I was at WTS, there was a Korean Fellowship event regularly held on campus; on at least one occasion (and I think this was their regular practice), white students were asked to leave since it was an event for Koreans. This is not intrinsically immoral. Again, when I was at WTS, there was a BIPOC group that held events on campus. As the name suggests, it was a group for black and indigenous people of color. This is not intrinsically immoral. It is also not intrinsically immoral for ethnic groups to preserve their own identity and distinction from other ethnicities through social and political practices. For example, Israel’s laws openly promote and seek to preserve Jewish dominance in their country, which requires maintaining distinctions from non-Jews. This is not intrinsically immoral. Indeed, as Vos writes,

Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral…Under the providence of God each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.

I believe that it is good to preserve boundaries between the various ethnicities and races of the world because it is better to live in a garden of many-colored roses than to live in a world of gray, cheerless uniformity and homogeneity.

The church, of course, is a unique institution. Many of our spiritual fathers practiced various forms of segregation in the church, including but not limited to ethnic segregation. For example, seating was sometimes sex-segregated, with men sitting on one side and women on the other. Also, in Reformation England there were “strangers’ churches,” that is, ethnic-specific churches, such as a Dutch church, a French church, and so on. Indeed, we are familiar with ethnically dominant churches now, such as Korean churches. But, while such practices are permissible, I believe that no distinctions should be made among Christians as Christians, since the church is a spiritual, not a natural, institution. While natural distinctions are appropriate, such distinctions do not apply to spiritual identity and Christian fellowship as such. Thus, J. Gresham Machen writes, “Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus’ name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world.”

6) You mention the “Curse of Ham” in your article on Natural Communities, what is your understanding of this curse and how does it apply to black people today?

I actually never mention the “Curse of Ham” in those articles; indeed, I intentionally avoid the expression because Ham was not cursed, Canaan was. I write, “The descendants of Shem and Japheth received blessings that the descendants of Ham did not receive, not because of anything they did, but simply because of their lineage. Indeed, one branch of Ham’s race, the Canaanites, are uniquely cursed because their ancestor Ham sinned against his father.”

I agree with the Westminster Divines’ Annotations that “the word enlarge imports a temporal blessing upon Japheth for the increase of his posterity and an enlargement of their territories; for the European Gentiles…extended their temporal empire so far as to account themselves lords of the world.” The Divines indicate that the descendants of the three sons of Noah inhabited the three regions of the world: Asia (Shem), Africa (Ham), and Europe (Japheth). Likewise, I agree with Matthew Henry that the descendants of Japheth, who “peopled all Europe” possess “the blessing of the earth beneath.” Again, I agree with J.G. Vos: “Noah’s prophecy concerns the broad lines of the future development of the various branches of the human race. God would enlarge Japheth. Japheth was the ancestor of the Indo-European peoples, to which we ourselves belong. It is a fact of history that for the last 2500 years the Indo-European peoples have been dominant in world affairs, not only in material and scientific progress, but also in political control of the major part of the civilized world.”

So while Africans and their descendants are not uniquely cursed (unlike the Canaanites), I agree with the Westminster Divines that Europeans and their descendants are uniquely blessed with temporal blessings.

7) What are your beliefs regarding interracial marriage, and in particular, marriages between whites and blacks? Would you marry a white woman to a black man if they were both professing believers?

I do not believe that interracial marriages are per se sinful, though some may be sinful per accidens. Further, not all marriages that are lawful are necessarily wise, so even where there is no sin, additional factors may make certain marriages imprudent. In my view, a minister is not obligated to marry two people just because they are professing believers; the minister must be satisfied in his own mind that the marriage is suitable. For example, a marriage between a 65-year-old Christian man and a 25-year-old Christian woman is neither illegal nor per se sinful. But it may be imprudent, and if the minister is not satisfied in his mind that the couple have sufficiently addressed the potential difficulties of the relationship, he may rightly refuse to marry the couple, while acknowledging that their marriage will be lawful if they choose to marry anyway. If I was satisfied that an interracial Christian couple had sufficiently addressed the challenges arising from the distinctive features of an interracial marriage, I would marry them.

But I also believe that opposition to interracial marriage, even if erroneous, is neither a violation of our Standards nor incompatible with being a faithful Christian. Indeed, this was the dominant position of Christians (including Presbyterians) in America from the 17th–20th centuries. The anti-miscegenation laws began in the colonies in the 1660’s and were created by a largely Christian population; these laws were established within a few decades of the Westminster Assembly. Further, most eminent Presbyterian leaders, such as Charles Hodge, Basil Gildersleeve, and J. Gresham Machen, were opposed to interracial marriage. And it would be absurd to think that our own denomination’s founders, who lived in the South in 1822, believed that approval of interracial marriage was a requirement of the Standards or of basic Christian conduct. According to a 1958 Gallup poll, 96% of Americans opposed the legalization of interracial marriage; this includes the overwhelming majority of our own denomination and the vast majority of Christians in America at the time. Since the standards for being a Christian have not changed, and since the examples provided were Christians, their views, however erroneous, cannot be incompatible with being a Christian now. I will never condemn my spiritual fathers by condemning those who hold the same views as my spiritual fathers.

8) Do you agree with Michael Spangler that black people are intellectually inferior to white people and that while it would be permissible for a white minister to come in and preach to a black church because he is intellectually superior, it would not be permissible for the black minister to preach to a white church?

Multiple studies indicate that blacks have a lower average IQ than whites. The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans, as well as Haitians, is about 67. The average IQ of blacks in America is about 85. The average IQ of white Northern Europeans is about 103. The average IQ of white Americans is about 103. The average IQ of someone with Down syndrome is about 50, and in the US someone with an IQ below 70 is generally regarded as mentally handicapped and so incompetent to stand trial. Now IQ, like the rest of creation, is a gift, and our own Standards recognize “superiors in…gifts” (WLC Q. 124). So if we are referring to IQ, then, yes, whites on average are intellectually superior to blacks.

Given the nature of the work, I believe that, ideally, a minister will have an above-average intellect relative to his congregation. So while I do not believe that there should be any rule prohibiting a black minister from shepherding a white congregation, I believe that the disparity in average intellect would obviously be an issue for consideration before choosing a candidate.

More importantly, I believe that, generally speaking, it is wiser for ministers to come from the same sorts of communities as their congregants, since congregants will be more likely to embrace and respect their ministers and since the ministers will better understand the experiences and needs of their congregants. Again, there is no rule here. But, as E.J. Young noted in The Presbyterian Guardian in 1964, “In our desire to make all men welcome in the church there is one fact that must not be overlooked. Men are not equal. There is danger of embracing the modern political doctrine of egalitarianism, a doctrine which is thoroughly unscriptural. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that men do associate with their own kind of people.” Ministry is more effective when the leaders have this natural connection with and affinity for their congregants. For this reason, the apostles in Acts 6 appointed Hellenistic deacons to address the needs of the Hellenistic widows who were being neglected. For the same reason, missions, in my view, is most effective, not when white men are sent to plant churches among black Africans, for example, but when black Africans are trained to be ministers and sent to plant churches among their own people (as with MRN).

9) Do you believe that a black man should not be elected to the office of elder in a majority white church?

As I noted in the previous answer, I do not believe that there should be a rule here. But it is generally wiser for officers to belong to the communities to which their congregants belong.

10) What do you believe should be the qualifications to vote in American governmental elections? What should be the qualifications to vote in congregational meetings in the ARP?

As a minister, I have no opinions on civil voting laws since the church has no opinions on civil voting laws. Christians are allowed to be monarchists who believe that only one man, the king, should be able to vote. Christians are allowed to support aristocracies in which only the members of elite families vote. Christians are allowed to support representative republics in which only certain members of the community may vote. And Christians are allowed to support democracies in which nearly anyone may vote. But none of this is a matter of orthodoxy, and none of it falls within the jurisdiction of the church. Nations have the freedom to arrange their own political systems, and denying the vote to some portion of the population is not in itself a violation of any moral law, since there is no moral right to vote.

Regarding church voting, I can accept our current practice of allowing all communicant members to vote. But as I noted when I was interviewed by the committee in 2022, I would prefer to raise the age limit. More specifically, I would prefer for members to be at least 21 to vote, and I would also prefer to limit voting to heads of households.

11) What are your beliefs regarding slavery?

Slavery is the ownership of another person with respect to his labor. The patriarchs purchased people for labor. God blessed Abraham by giving him “menservants and maidservants” (Gen 24:35), which included those who were “bought with money of any stranger” (Gen 17:12). God also blessed Isaac by giving him “great store of servants” who are listed among Isaac’s possessions (Gen 26:14). We should not covet our neighbor’s manservant or maidservant since they belong to our neighbor (Exod 20:17). God authorized Israel to hold foreign slaves as inheritable possessions forever:

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever (Lev 25:44-46).

Jesus Himself commends the faith of a centurion who had a slave (Luke 7:9), at a time when slaves had virtually no rights under Roman law. Under the same Roman system of slavery, Paul commands slaves who are “under the yoke” to “count their own masters as worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed” (1 Tim 6:1). He recognizes that some slave masters are “believing,” “brethren,” “faithful,” “beloved,” and “partakers of the benefit” (1 Tim 6:2). Scripture repeatedly imposes obligations on masters and slaves toward each other.

The Westminster Divines apparently did not view slavery as a violation of their Standards, since multiple members of the Assembly owned or participated in companies that used African slave labor (e.g., William Fiennes, Philip Herbert, Henry Rich, Robert Rich, John Pym, Benjamin Rudyerd, Josias Shute, John White). In 1683, only a few decades after the Assembly, a presbytery in Ireland sent the Scots-Irish presbyterian minister Francis Makemie to America to establish the first presbytery in the colonies; Makemie would later be known as “the father of American Presbyterianism.” From the 1680’s to his death in 1708, Makemie, in addition to being a minister, ran a plantation in Virginia, and when he died, he left 20 African slaves as an inheritance to his family. Neither his home presbytery nor the newly established presbytery in America apparently viewed this as a violation of the Standards. During the same period, Matthew Henry compares the slavery authorized in Scripture with English slavery. He writes, “This servant must not be an Israelite, but a Gentile slave, as the negroes to our planters,” and, “Thus in our English plantations the negroes only are used as slaves.”

The situation was the same in the Dutch Reformed church of the 18th century. Jacobus Capitein was a black man who had been sold into slavery as a child. His Dutch master later freed him. Capitein received his Master’s degree from Leiden University. His dissertation was a biblical and theological defense of slavery, including the Dutch involvement in African slavery. This dissertation was praised by members of the Dutch Reformed church, and Capitein was then ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church the year after he graduated, becoming the first black man to be a minister in a Protestant church. So the Dutch Reformed Church too affirmed the lawfulness of slavery.

Our own church was founded as the Synod of the South in 1822. While some of its ministers opposed the slave institution, the church did not bind anyone’s conscience on the question, and the Synod had members in good standing who owned slaves.

Likewise, American Presbyterians of various backgrounds believed in the lawfulness of the slave institution. Charles Hodge writes the following:

We have in modern abolitionism another illustration of this same truth…A holy slaveholder is in his view as much a contradiction as a holy murderer; and he therefore, cannot regard a slaveholder as a good man. But if, (as what sane man can doubt?) he may be a sincere Christian, to be in a state of mind which forbids our recognising him as such, is to be morally diseased or deranged…It is however, one of the most certain marks of a true Christian, to recognise and love the Christian character in others, and it is one of the surest marks of an unrenewed heart, to feel aversion to those who are the true followers of Christ…In itself, and as far as it is allowed to operate, it is evident that a principle which makes the man who entertains it, regard and denounce good men, who really love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, as heinous criminals, unfit for Christian communion, must pervert the heart, and, where it has its full effect, destroy all semblance of religion…While we admit that…there are many good men among the abolitionists, we regard it as a notorious fact, that the spirit of the party, as a party, is an evil spirit; a spirit of railing, of bitterness, of exaggeration.

And again:

It is on all hands acknowledged that, at the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, slavery in its worst forms prevailed over the whole world. The Saviour found it around him in Judea; the apostles met with it in Asia, Greece and Italy. How did they treat it? Not by the denunciation of slave-holding as necessarily and universally sinful. Not by declaring that all slaveholders were men-stealers and robbers, and consequently to be excluded from the church and the kingdom of heaven. Not by insisting on immediate emancipation. Not by appeals to the passions of men on the evils of slavery, or by the adoption of a system of universal agitation…They caution those slaves who have believing or Christian masters, not to despise them because they were on a perfect religious equality with them, but to consider the fact that their masters were their brethren, as an additional reason for obedience. It is remarkable that there is not even an exhortation to masters to liberate their slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty. They are commanded to be kind, merciful and just; and to remember that they have a Master in heaven…It is not worth while to shut our eyes to these facts. They will remain, whether we refuse to see them and be instructed by them or not. If we are wiser, better, more courageous than Christ and his apostles, let us say so; but it will do no good, under a paroxysm of benevolence, to attempt to tear the bible to pieces, or to extort, by violent exegesis, a meaning foreign to its obvious sense. Whatever inferences may be fairly deducible from the fact, the fact itself cannot be denied that Christ and his inspired followers did treat the subject of slavery in the manner stated above. This being the case, we ought carefully to consider their conduct in this respect, and inquire what lessons that conduct should teach us.

Similarly, J. Gresham Machen writes that slavery is not intrinsically sinful, but rather it afforded “both slave and master genuine opportunity for the development of Christian character and for the performance of Christian service.” B.B. Warfield says, “Paul…implicitly recognized ownership in human chattels. He even explicitly allows this ownership.” John Murray writes:

If the institution is the moral evil it is alleged to be by abolitionists, if it is essentially a violation of basic human right and liberty, if slave-holding is the monstrosity claimed, it is, to say the least, very strange that the apostles who were so directly concerned with these evils did not overtly condemn the institution and require slave-holders to practice emancipation. If slavery per se is immorality and, because of its prevalence, was a rampant vice in the first century, we would be compelled to conclude that the high ethic of the New Testament would have issued its proscription. But this is not what we find. It seems hardly enough to say that the New Testament quietly establishes the principles which would in due time expose the iniquity of the institution and by their irresistible force stamp it out. If it is the evil it is stated to be, we should expect more. The apostles were not governed by that kind of expediency; they openly assailed the institutions of paganism that were antithetical to the faith and morals of Christianity…And, without doubt, the economics of that day were to a large extent bound up with the evils that were the occasion for such denunciation. The apostles were not afraid to upset an economic status quo when it violated the fundamental demands of equity. The facts with which we are confronted require us to hesitate before we indulge in wholesale condemnation of the institution of slavery as such.

Examples could be multiplied. Indeed, Anglican bishop John Henry Hopkins’s A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery demonstrates that church councils and ministers from the early to the medieval to the Reformed church and beyond affirmed the lawfulness of the slave institution.

12) What did you mean when you wrote to Adi Schlebusch regarding Covenant of Grace church, “We want to be a place that is a refuge for people who hold views like Spangler and me?”

I meant that I wanted CoG to be a place of refuge for people who affirm the Westminster Standards, walk in the paths of our spiritual fathers, and do not add requirements for church membership beyond the gospel and basic Christian obedience as our spiritual fathers understood it. In other words, I wanted CoG to be a place of refuge for traditional Christians who are despised by the world and punished by “cancel culture.” This was precisely the point of contention at CoG. Eric and I believed that our oath prohibited us from adding conditions to the gospel as a basis for Christian fellowship. If someone believes what our spiritual fathers believed, he is welcome to worship with us, even if he and our spiritual fathers were wrong about something. Max, Phil, and Todd took the position that we can and should add conditions to the gospel as a basis for Christian fellowship, such that the standards of Christian fellowship constantly change. That is, if someone believed X 200 years ago, he may have been a faithful Christian then, but if someone believes the exact same thing today, he should not be regarded as a faithful Christian now. Eric and I rejected this constantly moving target and ever-changing standard in favor of an immutable standard, such that if a Christian believed X 200 years ago and still was a faithful Christian, then a Christian can believe that very thing today and still be a faithful Christian, whether he is wrong on the issue or not.

13) Your Associate at Pactum, Adi Schlebusch, recently described the Holocaust as, “the Nazi’s battle with the Jews during World War Two” and has said he questions the, “the post-World War II consensus” regarding this event. What are your views regarding the Holocaust?

Again, you will have to ask Adi what he means by those comments. I have never discussed them with him.

Regarding my view, I am answering as a minister, and as a minister, I do not have (and cannot have) an official position on extrabiblical historiography for the following reason. The object of faith is the Word of God, and principally Christ revealed therein (WCF 14.2). Thus, the Word of God is our only rule of faith and practice (WCF 1.2, 1.6). Requiring belief in any historiography other than biblical historiography as a condition for Christian fellowship is either 1) adding to the canon or 2) denying that the Word of God is our only rule of faith and practice. Adding extrabiblical beliefs as a condition for a right relationship with God and Christian fellowship unlawfully binds the conscience (WCF 20.2) and is a denial of the gospel (cf. Galatians). Therefore, the Church cannot require a Christian to believe in any historiographical account outside the Bible. Therefore, extrabiblical historiography, including accounts of the Holocaust, cannot be enforced by the Church. The minister has no official opinions beyond what the Bible teaches as that teaching is summarized in the church’s subordinate Standards. Since neither the Bible nor the subordinate Standards have an official position on extrabiblical historiography, including the historiography of the Holocaust, neither does the minister.

Of course, there is a distinction between moral premises and historiographical premises. For example, if someone says that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill Kennedy, that is not an impediment to church membership. If someone says that 1) Oswald did kill Kennedy 2) that Kennedy was civilly innocent and 3) that killing a civilly innocent person is okay, then it would be an impediment to church membership, not because of the historiographical premises (1, 2) but because of the moral premise (3). So if someone said, “If Oswald killed a civilly innocent person, that would be wrong, but I don’t think Oswald killed a civilly innocent person,” the speaker would not be impeded from church membership. Historiography deals with particulars; morality deals with universals. The Church cannot bind people’s consciences regarding extrabiblical historiography (i.e., whether such an account of history is correct) because the Bible says nothing about those events and to do so, therefore, would be either to add that historiography to the Bible or to assert that the Bible is not our only rule of faith and practice. The Church can bind people’s consciences regarding moral law because the Bible says everything about the principles of moral law (the Ten Commandments). But adding historical beliefs about the Holocaust (or any other extrabiblical historiography) to the Christian creed would be a functional denial of the Christian faith because it would add an extrabiblical condition to the gospel.

Further, I have never studied the primary source material regarding the Holocaust, which I am not required to do either as a Christian or as a minister, so I have no fully developed view of the matter.

14) Bret McAtee of Pactum has said, “Jews do in fact play a disproportionate role in the destruction of Western Civilization and the white race via the Great Replacement.” What is your view on this as well as modern Jews generally?

Again, you will have to ask Bret what he means by those comments. I have not discussed those comments with him.

The following is my view of the Jews. God chose the Jews to be the nation, or ethnic group, through whom he would bring the Messiah and so accomplish our salvation. Thus, Jesus says that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). As I write in my Natural Communities article, “Jesus…continues to be a son of David, from the tribe of Judah, an Israelite, and a Semite.” And as I preached before presbytery earlier this year, “According to the gospel, Jesus Christ had to be a Semite, an Israelite, a Judahite, and a son of David.”

In Romans 9-11, Paul further addresses the status of ethnic Jews in the NT. The Jews in view here are united by blood, not necessarily by belief. Thus, Paul identifies the Jews whom he is discussing as his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3). On this passage, Hodge notes that the connection is one of “race,” and Murray identifies the connection as “a natural, genetic relationship.” So Paul is discussing Jews as a racial or ethnic group, not a religious group. Indeed, one of the errors of the New Perspectives on Paul was reading first-century Jewish identity as religiously monolithic. Jews did not have to be united by religious belief to be Jews; thus, Paul, a Christian, can refer to Pharisees and Sadducees, who disagreed with him and with each other, as “brethren” because they are all racially or ethnically Jewish (Acts 22:1; 23:6). According to Paul, these ethnic Jews, as a category, rejected their Messiah and so were “broken off” (Rom 11:17). Similarly, according to the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, the Jewish nation, considered as a whole, killed the prophets and Christ, and so God destroyed them (in 70 AD) and bestowed His covenant on the Gentiles (Mark 12:1-12). Of course, there was a remnant of the Jewish nation that remained faithful, including the apostles and Christ Himself, and even today, we have ethnic Jews in our own congregations. But the Jewish nation considered generally was cut off, and their minds were blinded (2 Cor 3:13-14). Because this ethnic group actively rejected their own Messiah and because God cast them off (Rom 11:1-2), they have been particularly hostile to the Gentile Christian church, as indicated in Acts and throughout the church’s history. Thus, Paul writes, “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes” (Rom 11:28). Likewise, Paul says that “the Jews…killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men” (1 Thess 2:15).

Now our own Larger Catechism requires us to view the Jews as enemies of God. According to the Larger Catechism, we are required to pray for the calling of the Jews (WLC Q. 191), which the Westminster Directory further explains as the “conversion” of the Jews. So our Standards assume that the Jews, regarded as a whole, are not converted. And, as Paul says, all who are unconverted are hostile to God (Rom 8:7). So when we pray for the Jews, we are praying for God’s and our enemies, as the Lord Jesus commanded us (Matt 5:43-45). Further, I believe that the views of our spiritual forefathers (e.g., Calvin, Voetius, Rutherford, Lavater, Bucer) regarding the Jews, while not always obligatory, are permissible.

I am also concerned that the crusade against antisemitism will become a threat to the Church. In 1936, J. Gresham Machen opposed “anti-propaganda bills forbidding criticism of racial and social groups.” He no doubt had in mind the 1935 New Jersey bill, known as the “anti-Nazi” bill, that banned antisemitic speech in political campaigns. Machen opposed such laws because he feared that they would eventually be used to limit the church’s liberty. Last year, a bill that was proposed in Florida included in the definition of antisemitism the statement that the Jews killed Jesus; this definition of antisemitism is growing in popularity in the US. If such a definition of antisemitism were to be adopted, certain texts of Scripture would effectively be illegal. The Church must assert her right to proclaim these passages without apology.

15) Michael Spangler has written, “Christians ought to recognize that many non-Christians see racial realities, and many do so better than we do. In the fight for truth we ought to acknowledge our unbelieving allies, and even learn from them…” Do you agree with this statement, and if so, who are these “unbelieving allies?”

Again, this is Michael Spangler’s comment, so you would have to ask him what he means and to whom he is referring. But of course, I suspect that there are unbelievers who recognize that races are real, while there are believers who deny such racial distinctions. So in that respect surely some non-Christians see racial realities better than some Christians, just as some non-Christians see political and historical realities better than some Christians.

Yesterday marked a very auspicious date. Fifty-one years ago, the liberal faculty majority of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, — together with the liberal student majority, to the tune of 80-90% of the student body — staged a dramatic walkout from the seminary grounds, parading out of the chapel singing “The Church’s One Foundation” and marching off campus to the flashing cameras of the waiting press — yes, waiting: as with other left-wing street performances, the fourth estate had been briefed ahead of time. Take off your shoes, Shmuel: the ground you’re marching on is astroturf.

In the standard telling of things, “The Walkout” is generally held to be the denouement in the Missouri Synod’s fight against theological liberalism. In “the sixties” things started to “get bad.”¹ As the seventies got underway “things came to a head,” and then “the dam burst” on February 19, 1974. Nowadays people refer to the whole debacle as “Seminex.”²

I use these cliché phrases and scare quotes — and, no, I will give no citation — because for the purposes of this article, the details of the conflict don’t really matter. They matter in an absolute sense, certainly, but when it comes to the Missouri Synod’s bearing in the Church today, the details are, in addition to being somewhat boring, basically irrelevant.³ Men should eventually put away childish things.

And it is indeed a childish thing that the LCMS does every year at this time, en masse. Tubby dysgenic Good Solid Confessional Guys from Team Ft. Wayne mount up on their Shetlands, arm themselves with pool noodles, and charge madly at the gay-presenting, vasectomized Eloi from Team St. Louis who are, yet again, getting started on their annual quest to “thoughtfully revisit” Seminex and “understand both sides” by giving everyone a “helpful” vs. “problematic” report card. “A Mighty Fortress” blares from a bugle, fell deeds with polyethylene foam are meted out, and the GSCGs declare victory. Everyone heads off together to the nearest brewpub for chili fries, stopping only to urinate en masse on the grave of Herman Otten. Don’t take it too hard, St. Louis guys — the first round of hazy IPAs is on us!

But in case you haven’t noticed, the fruits of victory supposedly bestowed upon the faithful of the LCMS by the heroic conservative clergypersons who stood in the gap during the Seminex crisis are a lot like the fruits of victory enjoyed by the Allied nations after the Second World War: long gone. They were rather ephemeral to begin with, and they were soon replaced by other fruits, which look much more like the fruits of defeat . . . because they were and they are. Savor your ration of orange gummies, because you’re about to eat Soylent Green for the rest of your life. No, we don’t have any orange trees anymore. Now get back to work. That interest isn’t going to pay itself.

Scapegoating the Sixties

In crafting the standard historical narrative of Seminex, the conservative LCMS establishment has leaned heavily on one of the favored tropes of American conservatism more generally: man, those 1960s!

But really, the rot in Missouri preceded the sixties. We won’t say “started much earlier,” because that would suggest that we know exactly when it “started,” and we do not — and this is not because we are not bright enough or not knowledgeable enough to make such an assessment (our mother assures us that we are); rather, it is because the question of “when did the rot start” concerns a causa irrealis. Henry Maine’s comment in Popular Government lands near the mark here:

Next to what a modern satirist has called ‘Hypothetics’ — the science of that which might have happened but did not — there is no more unprofitable study than the investigation of the possibly predictable, which was never predicted.

So we will not engage in such an unprofitable study. It suffices to say that Missouri was already on the road to liberalism well before the evil 1960s — and that she was already murdering her prophets.

Paul Kretzmann and Missouri’s Post-War Capitulation

In this matter the case of Paul Edward Kretzmann is instructive. Kretzmann was one of the great men of our church during what is sometimes called the “Forgotten Era” of the old Missouri Synod.⁴ Intrepid Lutherans has a fine summary of Kretzmann’s life and work in a post from 2011, so we will simply quote it here:

The name Dr. P. E. Kretzmann (1883-1965) ought to be a familiar one to Lutherans of the WELS and ELS, as well as those from other Lutheran church bodies tracing their lineage through the old Synodical Conference. His four volume commentary, Popular Commentary of the Bible, has graced the shelves of our church libraries since the 1920’s, and has, throughout this time, been regarded as a reliable non-technical commentary on the Scriptures. Dr. Kretzmann was raised in a modest parsonage, yet grew to become a highly educated “doctor of the church,” eventually holding three earned doctorates (Ph.D, Ed.D and D.D.) with which he served the LCMS in several prominent capacities, and the church at large through a prolific body of published works, including books and articles on history, education, theology, as well as children’s stories and sermons. When troubles began to surface in the LCMS beginning in the 1930’s, we see his commitment to the doctrines of plenary inspiration and biblical inerrancy and authority in his brilliant defense of these doctrines, The Foundations Must Stand! The Inspiration of the Bible and Related Questions – a brief work which begins by recounting the recent history of attacks against these vital Christian teachings, and which continues with an explication of Scripture’s teaching concerning itself, a teaching which has been held by orthodox Christians throughout the history of the Church.

Yes, “troubles began to surface in the LCMS beginning in the 1930’s.” And what did the conservatives of the LCMS do?

The same thing they do now: they had conferences for two decades.

Two decades of unforced errors in lieu of enforced orthodoxy. By the end of it all, concern over the errors in question had more or less morphed into concern for institutional preservation, i.e., concern about whistleblowers not respecting sacrosanct “proper channels” and the authoritative verdicts of vaunted synodical gatekeepers.⁵ Sound familiar? If not, it should.

While both the average BMI of the conference participants and the average IBU and ABV of the beer was lower from 1930-1950 than what you’ll see on the endless GSCG conference circuit today (truth be told, after-conference Gemütlichkeit might not actually have been the main priority back then), the overall approach was largely the same: talk a lot and do nothing, because doing anything would result in fracturing the “unity” of our precious Synod, which the conservatives deluded themselves into thinking was the same as a hard-won doctrinal consensus — and let’s be honest, divisions are embarrassing, never mind what St. Paul says about them.

The unfortunate truth is that for the better part of the last 100 years, conservative Lutherans in America have more and more tried to ape the papists — and in more ways than one. Specifically in view here, however, is the façade of outward institution prestige and imaginary unity which conceals a rotting framework and a crumbling foundation.

Which is more or less what Paul Kretzmann’s critique of Missouri in the late forties and early fifties boiled down to.

You see, Kretzmann was a man of the Right, not a conservative, really (although he may have called himself one). He wanted to fight liberalism by fighting liberals. He wanted to drive them out of the Lutheran Church like Our Lord drove the money-changers out of the Temple, and he was not naive about this being the necessary approach. He did not believe that a spiritual battle, in order to be properly “spiritual,” could consist only in overthrowing abstract propositions, as though the works, ways, wares, and leaven of the enemies of Christ could be done away with, but the purveyors of such things could still be allowed free reign in the Church and in her adjacent institutions.

Kretzmann knew that to refuse to “put away from among yourselves that wicked person,” to refuse to “deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” to refuse to reject a heretic “after the first and second admonition” — he knew that such “merciful” refusals constituted defiance of Almighty God and a forsaking of the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Kretzmann knew that the toleration of error in the Church made a man a participant in the sins of others and sold the birthright of the children for the pottage of worldly Respectable Opinion. He knew that the cost of such unfaithfulness would be paid in souls snatched by the jaws of the ravening lion of hell, who would now be free to prowl within the very nurseries of the Church, unimpeded by the ancient landmarks, now moved, and the old doctrinal stockade, now dilapidated and unkept.

Because he understood the friend/enemy distinction, Paul Kretzmann wanted to beat the liberals. And the conservatives of the Missouri Synod hamstrung his efforts and mocked him for it. So with a heavy heart, Kretzmann took his leave of Missouri in 1951.⁶

But you don’t hear about 1951. Many in Missouri know nothing of Kretzmann. His prolific body of work is not read at the seminaries, and his magisterial four-volume commentary on the Bible is derided as unsophisticated and outdated by Missouri’s theological tastemakers.⁷ All in all, he is belittled by academic manlets who possess a third of his intellectual acumen and a tenth of his piety.

We did it, Patrick!

No, no, no, friend — let me tell you about 1974! That’s when we won the Battle for the Bible. Ah, how glorious it was. We showed ’em! We sure did. Stood up tall on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.

No.

In 1974 Missouri swept her house, it is true. But she did not do so in the earnest manner of the woman who had lost her precious coin, but in the manner of the one that cleaned and furnished the vacant house for the returning demon and his seven friends. “And the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

The conservatives of Missouri in 1974 were rather like a woman who, out of a great concern not to damage her beautiful hardwood floors, refused to listen to the remediation man who reported that she had an infestation of black mold proliferating under her feet, and instead just swept the floor and beat the rugs. Oh yes, the Baptist and Presbyterian neighbors were very impressed by that cloud of dust coming off the front porch. “My, what a housekeeper that German dame is!” they thought.

And who was that remediation man? It isn’t fair to say that there was only one, but we’re going to do it anyway, because this is a Great Man Theory respecting website:

Herman John Otten

The mantle that Paul Kretzmann took up in the late 1940s, Herman Otten took up in the late 1950s. And for his troubles he earned the status of a pariah, a man who “went way too far” and thus could not be allowed to serve as a pastor in the Synod.⁸ Throughout the 1960s LCMS conservatives were happy to use Otten’s receipts in their contests with the liberals, but they ultimately wanted nothing to do with the man.⁹

Search high and low for an epitome of Missouri’s attitude toward her prophets, and you will find many contenders, but it’s tough to beat what went down in the Ft. Wayne seminary library in January 2017, at least in terms of snide mockery, when the seminary president, Larry Rast (vocals and lead guitar), and the synod president, Matthew Harrison (background vocals and rhythm guitar), slandered the elderly Otten to the gathered guests of the annual Theological Symposium.

What you are about to see is very cringe. Viewer discretion is advised.

Head on over to YouTube for the full concert experience.

Semicentennial Plus One

As it was with Kretzmann, as it was with Otten, as it has been with others whose names are lesser known, thus and so does the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod treat its whistleblowers today, whether the issue under investigation is the Synod’s official doctrinal publications or the state of its overseas missions. Excuse me? You did a Matthew 18. Proper channels. Point of order. Actually, no, we audited ourselves and found that we are in perfect accord with the Word of God. “Explain everything in the kindest way. It’s just a speck. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.”¹⁰ And by the way, that’s us, the Missouri Synod — we have the rule over you.

But such Jesuitical trickery is losing its power.

More men are heading back to church than ever before, and they are on fire for the godly heritage which Missouri claims to possess as the self-anointed steward of world confessional Lutheranism. These men are searching the Scriptures. They are reading the Church fathers — unexpurgated. They are reading the Lutheran Confessions and the writings of the great men of our church — men like Martin Luther, Paul Kretzmann, and Herman Otten. These men who are returning to church are like householders bringing forth things new and old out of the treasure of Christendom, for themselves and for their children.

And they compare it all to what is coming out of the official channels of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and they are disgusted. They are not going to let smarmy chumps in purple clericals piss on their backs and tell them it’s raining. “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” — yes, even if he has an M.Div and three honorary doctorates.

Christian men want the pure Word of God, and they’re going to get it.

To end where we began: we are one year out after a most auspicious date, the semicentennial of Seminex. How’s it going? How about those fruits of victory fifty years ago? Do you feel like your church is winning?¹¹ Do you feel a bit like you’re on that roller coaster featured at the top of this piece, about to take a gut-wrenching plunge?

Perhaps you can answer that question right now, or perhaps only time will tell. It’s been a pretty kinetic two years in the Missouri Synod. One thing is certain: things have been set in motion that are not going to spin down for a long time.

Thanks for reading Old Lutherans. If you appreciate our content, please consider supporting us financially by sending us a tip.

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1. Some LCMSers might know that the narrative starts earlier than this; most, however, do not. ↩︎
2. The disaffected libs would go on to establish Christ Seminary, which they called the “seminary in exile” — hence the portmanteau “Seminex” which soon came to serve as the term of art for referring to the whole ordeal from start to finish. Non-Lutheran readers will be interested to know that this is the contingent which would eventually join up with other liberal Lutheran bodies (the ALC, the LCA, and others) to form the notorious Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, in 1988. ↩︎
3. If you want to learn about the events immediately precipitating the Walkout, read Exodus from Concordia: A Report on the 1974 Walkout, published by the the Board of Control of Concordia St. Louis in 1977. Then watch the videos in this playlist. Then, if you are still interested in the topic, read Anatomy of an Explosion by Kurt Marquart. Skip everything else. ↩︎
4. If this term is unfamiliar to you, be sure to check out these episodes from Word Fitly Spoken on the topic ↩︎
5. Kretzmann’s own account of the history of these decades can be read here. ↩︎
6. One of our writers recently highlighted a point of doctrine on which Missouri very clearly changed its position, which was also pointed out by Kretzmann in 1949: the biblical teaching that marriage is entered into by “rightful betrothal.” Further elucidation here. Read Peperkorn’s STM thesis in full here. See also footnote 5. ↩︎
7. The Kretzmann Project is the canonical online repository for Kretzmann’s commentary on the Bible. Note that when a book of the Bible is selected, a dropdown titled “Select Article” appears. Here readers can find all of Kretzmann’s topical doctrinal essays from the original commentaries. These are pure gold. For those desiring a resource with permalinks to commentary on specific passages, we recommend the version found at Bible Portal. ↩︎
8. For the details here, see Marquart. Marquart and Otten were roommates at Concordia Seminary and remained fast friends their whole lives. ↩︎
9. The St. Louis seminary faculty refused to certify Otten for ordination back in 1957, but the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church in New Haven, MO, called him to serve as their pastor, anyway — an office which he faithfully performed for fifty-five years. This event prompted the LCMS to rewrite its Bylaws so as to foreclose the possibility of such an “outrage” ever occurring again. ↩︎
10. “They quote also Heb. 13:17: ‘Obey them that have the rule over you.’ This passage requires obedience to the Gospel. For it does not establish a dominion for the bishops apart from the Gospel. Neither should the bishops frame traditions contrary to the Gospel, or interpret their traditions contrary to the Gospel. And when they do this, obedience is prohibited, according to Gal. 1:9: ‘If any man preach any other gospel, let him be accursed’” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXVIII: “Of Ecclesiastical Power,” 20). ↩︎
11. Do you think that wanting to win is the “theology of glory”? If so, you might be retarded. Walter A. Maier does not want you to reproduce. ↩︎

Brief:
Matthew Harrison’s February 2025 letter on U.S. immigration and Lutheran organizations attempts to relieve himself and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod body politic of any and all culpability for money laundering. His false statements and use of dissembling rhetoric are examined here, to the conclusion that Harrison and the LCMS are indeed guilty of crimes against the American people, whether a charge of money laundering sticks or not. Indeed, through their facilitation of mass immigration, the LCMS, its Recognized Service Organizations, and the leadership who oversee them both, are all guilty of economic (and otherwise) violence against United States citizens.

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In aerial warfare, the two biggest dangers are radar, and your own heat signature; both can be used to direct missiles to your aircraft, and ultimately to bring you down. That is why many aircraft carry two countermeasures when flying into enemy space: chaff, and flares.

Chaff is released in the aircraft’s wake to obscure radar, effectively allowing the aircraft itself to evade radio detection. Flares burn extremely hot for several seconds, enough to fool heat-seeking missiles into chasing them away from the aircraft. Both of these countermeasures are vital for ensuring that the aircraft itself can continue on its mission, unimpeded and intact.

This very strategy of deploying evasive countermeasures was, by analogy, employed by Matthew Harrison, Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) president, this past week in his response to inferences of money laundering operations involving LCMS Recognized Service Organizations. Let me explain.

General Flynn Tweet and Response

On February 1st, 2025, retired General Mike Flynn posted the tweet in the below screenshot, noting that billions of American Government dollars have been directed to various Lutheran Non-Government Organizations (NGOs).

Elon Musk agreed and amplified, noting that the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was on the case.

These statements naturally raised many questions for Lutherans. Many were sure that this was predictable Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) funny business. Others appealed to Lutheran leaders for a statement.

The ELCA statement came immediately, as their Presiding Bishop appeared on video the very next day to rebuke General Flynn and his accusations.

President Harrison of the LCMS, however, had a fortuitously scheduled Council of Presidents meeting from February 3rd through February 6th. That council eventually produced the statement from Harrison’s desk, published on February 6th.

You can read his statement in full here.

Unfortunately, rather than accepting accountability and owning what amounts to — at best — gross negligence in his duties to oversee matters of the Synod, Harrison chose the path of Deny, Deflect, and Defend. In short, he launched chaff and flares, and embarked on a strategy of evasive countermeasures in an attempt to shake pursuit.

Addressing Harrison’s disinformation, then, is the major objective of this essay.

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Before getting into Harrison’s glaring omissions and half-truths, it behooves us to consider his rhetorical skill as employed in this missive.

He begins with “Grace and peace in Jesus!” followed by a gratuitous block quote from Ephesians 1:15-23, where Paul gives thanks for the believers in Ephesus and extols Christ.

This is an interesting choice for Harrison, who has a track record of getting straight to the meat of what he considers a pressing issue for the Synod. Compare and contrast his opening in his letter on the death of George Floyd.

Or consider how he began his denunciation of the “alt-right.”

In fact, I can find no cases of such gratuitous Scriptural citation as a preamble to a letter going at least as far back as 2022, only perhaps a single verse used as a leading line in one out of eight cases. See for instance this example from Harrison’s letter about the Buffalo shooting.¹

Though of course in the sequel he was back to his usual style of beginning with a punchy thesis statement.

I point out this aberration in his typical style because, cynically, this gratuitous citation of St. Paul is an appeal to good faith and transparency before the audience in precisely the same way as the magician declaring that there is nothing up his sleeve — with accompanying cuff-tugging flourish.

Perhaps you are not yet prepared to make so severe of a judgement, and that is well enough. I will come to more supporting reasons for this assessment as we progress.

Runnin’ Against the Wind

Next, after a paragraph of recap on the Flynn/Musk Tweets to introduce the controversy, Harrison embarks on a three paragraph campaign of Public Relations-coded assertions about the LCMS.

• The LCMS is a law-abiding and patriotic church body.
• The LCMS uses legal means to fight for First Amendment rights when those rights are under attack.
• The LCMS loves all people. 

These focus-group-tested assertions are then backed up with further assertions, each in turn.

But perhaps the most remarkable comes in the form of this run-on sentence for the ages:

We have suffered formal legal action and much more as we have watched as DEI philosophy (formally rejected by our church body along with white supremacy) has pervaded nearly every aspect of government activity, even as the U.S. government has burgeoned beyond all ethical and rational propriety, in effect stealing the future from our children.

This sentence attempts to invite sympathy, portraying the Synod as embattled defenders of the First Amendment. What makes it remarkable is the appeals it makes in so doing.

In the first place, the legal action against Synod is unspecified. Through context we are given to infer that it had something to do with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), but Harrison does not say that outright. A strictly technical reading allows us only to conclude that the Synod has suffered formal legal action concurrent with the emergence of DEI, but not as the result of it. The type of rhetorical sleight of hand that politicians and used car salesmen alike are known to employ.

But can we be charitable and assume that Harrison had a specific case in mind?

Well, it’s possible that he was thinking of the suit brought against Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW) by Dr. Gregory Schulz. What would make this an odd reference, of course, is the fact that the cause of Dr. Schulz’s lawsuit was his suspension after exposing the school for its growing DEI initiative. That is, the school’s DEI push was the first domino in the sequence that led to this lawsuit being brought. So, yes, in a sense the Synod has suffered formal legal action over DEI, but the catch is that they were the ones promoting it!

And the LCMS owned and operated Concordia University System (CUS) schools still rigorously adhere to it to this day. See photo carousel for images taken from their websites on January 24th, 2025.

And let us not forget that our seminary and the Lutheran Church Extension Fund are also lite participants via their recognition of a known heretic and gross sexual pervert.

Returning to the run-on sentence, no one missed the refrain of “condemning white supremacy,” which has featured in 90% or greater of Harrison’s public statements in the past two years. He just had to work that in.

But eventually we come to the end of the sentence, where Harrison asserts that “the U.S. government has burgeoned beyond all ethical and rational propriety, in effect stealing the future from our children.”

This is true, of course, but what Harrison does not specify is that the US Government has done so precisely through the USAID and HHS Grants that fund his LCMS RSOs!

Indeed, it is through NGOs — such as these LCMS RSOs — acting as the Deep State’s hands and feet to drive Kalergi replacement migration into Western nations that the future of our children has been stolen. Harrison wants to bluster that fault back upon the Federal Government, but the burden is not so easily shaken, as we shall see.

LIaRS LIaRS

After stating in no uncertain terms that “The LCMS is officially pro-immigrant,” Harrison goes on to tell a story about how, after a long, long partnership, the LCMS separated from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. He makes sure that he includes a vignette depicting himself as the bold confessor standing up to an ELCA heretic for good measure. He is the hero we need, you see.

But the reason for the LCMS’s departure from LIRS (which was partial, at best) is not specified. Harrison alludes to it being in order to remove the LCMS from “cooperation in externals” with the ELCA and its secularizing influence on e.g. sexual morality, and an overall diminishment in Lutheran identity. But overall the story reads more as one of love slowly grown cold rather than any line-in-the-sand moment.

“We just slowly grew apart and became different people and eventually went our separate ways” is far from the heroic stand for the truth that Harrison tries to bring into the picture. Notice that his statement to the ELCA Bishop, “I’m no longer sure we are praying to the same God,” came at least six years before the LCMS quietly divorced from LIRS, despite the fact that Harrison was LCMS president for all of that intervening time, which would have also contained, at minimum, two LCMS National Conventions.

Further, during that time when Harrison concluded that the ELCA might have a different God, and after, he and his LCMS administration had a very, very close relationship with LIRS indeed.

So close, in fact, that the LCMS’s Commission of Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) report, “Immigrants Among Us: A framework for addressing immigration issues” was coauthored with LIRS in 2012.

As a brief digression, the primary drafter of this report, identified above as Leopoldo Sanchez, was also the author of the Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications (LCACA) essay on Social Justice, which attempted to rehabilitate the concept for incorporation into Lutheran theology. Here is a video for a brief window into his ideology regarding immigration.

He is also one of, if not the, primary actors for organizing the annual Concordia Seminary, St. Louis Multiethnic Symposium each year. Multiethnic multiculturalism (that is, literally: DEI) is almost, as the kids would say, his whole personality.

At any rate, here is the Immigrants Among Us document, which is even today still prominently featured at the very top of the LCMS webpage on immigration.

In this document, co-authored with LIRS, the immigration NGO is referenced a surprising number of times.

The authors of the document (Sanchez and LIRS) consider the idea that immigration should be regulated to avoid the ethnic balkanization of the United States through multiracialism and multinationalism to be immoral discrimination.

Further examples of LCMS leadership’s partnership with LIRS, and their disdain for the native White population of the United States (and hence of the LCMS itself) could be multiplied. And, to give you an idea of the scope, they will be.

For instance, in 2013 Bart Day served as Executive Director of the Office of National Mission for Harrison’s LCMS, and concurrently served on the Board of Directors for LIRS. His thoughts in favor of immigration reform (a euphemism for amnesty for illegals) can be read below in his editorial advocating for the S.744 legislation.

A summary of S.744, quoted from the Congressional Budget Office:

S. 744 would revise laws governing immigration and the enforcement of those laws, allowing for a significant increase in the number of noncitizens who could lawfully enter the United States on both a permanent and temporary basis. Additionally, the bill would create a process for many individuals who are present in the country now on an unauthorized basis to gain legal status, subject to requirements specified in the bill. The bill also would directly appropriate funds for tightening border security and enforcing immigration laws, and would authorize additional appropriations for those purposes.

In short, this was one of the Obama-era tactics for flooding the United States with foreigners.

But the LCMS in partnership with LIRS (and ELCA) did more under Harrison to advocate for S.744 than write editorials. It also sent members of the Council of Presidents (CoP) to Capitol Hill to advocate for the legislation.

When Harrison says “The LCMS is officially pro-immigrant,” you’d best believe him.

Also in 2013, the LCMS voted in convention to “Give Thanks and Praise for LIRS 75th Anniversary”.

Here is the text of that resolution:

WHEREAS, In 1939, Lutherans in the United States, committed to the mercy work of the church, rose up to 41 help Lutheran refugees from Europe displaced by World War II; and

WHEREAS, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), in partnership with Lutheran congregations 44 across the country, has resettled over 400,000 refugees in its 75 years of ministry; and

WHEREAS, Christians are called to welcome the stranger (Deut. 10:18–19; Matt. 25:36), working to protect, 47 embrace, and empower migrants and refugees through ministries of service and justice; and

WHEREAS, LIRS in partnership with Lutheran congregations continues to serve over 10,000 refugees and 50 20,000 detained torture survivors, victims of trafficking, and unaccompanied children every year; and

WHEREAS, The ministry of LIRS is still sorely needed in today’s war-strewn, conflict-ridden world; therefore be it

Resolved, That the Synod declare Sunday, June 22, 2014, as Refugee Sunday in which congregations offer 1 thanks and praise to God for the 75 years of mercy work for migrants and refugees through Lutheran Immigration 2 and Refugee Service; and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod invite congregations to tell the stories of their acts of welcome to refugees and 5 migrants―signs of witness, mercy, and life together; and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod utilize its communications mechanisms to share these stories and inspire action 8 throughout the LIRS 75th anniversary year; and be it finally

Resolved, That the Synod encourage congregations and organizations to engage with and support the LIRS 11 mission of welcoming the stranger through gifts of time, talent, and treasure.

Here are Linda Hartke’s (LIRS President) remarks from the convention podium:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, thank you for your affirmation of our shared ministry of welcome.  Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is your partner in ministries of mercy — and for nearly 75 years we have answered the question “who is my neighbor” with faith, hope and love as we welcome newcomers.

This work of mercy began with many of our own ancestors — Lutherans fleeing the cataclysm of war in Europe … and Lutherans in this land opening their hearts and their homes.

Today Lutherans all across America continue to stand for welcome — together this year we will receive nearly 12,000 newly arrived refugees — most from Iraq, Burma and Bhutan.  They flee war and torture, religious and ethnic persecution — they long to be able to return to their homeland, but after many years waiting in refugee camps some of the 14  million refugees in the world will make the overwhelming journey to begin a new life in a new homeland in the United States. And I praise God because you are there to embrace these new neighbors in your local communities and schools, your workplaces and churches.

We are also called to lift up our voices and act for some of the most vulnerable brothers and sisters among us — as the 2010 Synod Convention recognized when you overwhelmingly adopted an overture on human trafficking.

The LCMS and LIRS have partnered to launch the End Human Trafficking Campaign and many congregations and youth groups have used the Bible study, video and prayer resources to learn and take action.  Thanks to you, we have already delivered more than 1,000 petitions to the White House.

I also give thanks that the LCMS is playing a leading role in the theological reflection that undergirds ministries of mercy with aspiring Americans.  We should all be grateful for the work of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) in preparing their report, “Immigrants Among Us,” which every congregation and churchworker has received.

I encourage you to join us in preparing for the 75th anniversary of our shared ministry with newcomers next year.  It will be a time to celebrate, recall the stories of lives forever changed by your congregations’ hospitality, and recommit ourselves to welcoming newcomers.

Thanks be to God.

In 2014 and 2015 LIRS released “Refugee Sunday” resource kits, which the LCMS promoted to their member congregations.

These kits came in three flavors: ELCA, LCMS, and LIRS, which were customized for their respective audience. You can get the idea of what these kits contained (such as Sunday school outlines, bulletin inserts, litanies, etc.) from this 2014 kit PDF.

Notably, LCMS pastors are directed to look online at the LIRS Refugee Sunday Kit website for sermon notes to aid in preaching the message of Refugee Sunday from LCMS pulpits.

The 2014 edition sermon notes were written for LIRS by John Nunes, former head of Lutheran World Relief (which shares a street address with LIRS)…

…who wrote the LCACA essay condemning gentrification, and has since left the LCMS roster to act as president of an ELCA university.

The 2015 edition sermon notes were written for LIRS by Larry Vogel, who in 2023 published his PhD thesis, Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America. In this paper, he argues that LCMS membership decline is due to the Synod’s racial/ethnic homogeneity (its Whiteness, in so many words), and reversing course requires aggressively striving to become a multicultural, multiethnic church. If this sounds like Leopoldo Sanchez, referenced above, then it will come as no surprise that Sanchez was on the board of approval for this paper.

Here is the full paper.

Also in 2014, the LCMS gave a $100,000 grant to LIRS to support their work of settling foreigners into your American communities.

Moving on, in 2016 the LCMS held a run so that the National Youth Gathering participants could raise money for LIRS — the check totaled $30,000 of LCMS member money.

Also that year, the LCMS in convention gave thanks for LIRS in resolution 3-05A, the text of which is as follows:

In 2017 Matthew Harrison’s Executive Director of the Office of National Mission, Bart Day, was back on Capitol Hill with ELCA Bishop Elizabeth Eaton (same as appears in the video above) to meet with Nancy Pelosi on behalf of LIRS.

As best as I can tell, it was in 2018 that the LCMS quietly distanced itself from LIRS, because that is when the LCMS Reporter stopped using the “Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service” tag.

But why then? Did the LCMS leadership have a quiet change of heart regarding the flooding of immigrants into the United States? Did they suddenly realize just how bad the ELCA was (despite Harrison’s claim that he realized they worshipped a different God years before)?

No.

2018 was the year that Linda Hartke, CEO of LIRS since 2010, was fired over “financial irregularities” which occurred during her tenure. This may have had the effect of scaring the LCMS leadership off, or so it seems to me.

Original story of financial mismanagement/fraud

Followup story of Hartke’s termination

That did not stop the LCMS in convention from voting in 2019 to again commend the CTCR Report “Immigrants Among Us” (see above), co-authored with LIRS, for study and discussion…

…but it seems to be the end of an era when it comes to LIRS partnership with the LCMS.

Ongoing Relationship

Earlier I compared the end of the LCMS’s relationship with LIRS to a quiet divorce. However, as is sometimes the case in these quiet divorces: despite separate domiciles, frequent nights over still sometimes happen.

Of LIRS, Harrison in his new letter claims, “For the past five years, the LCMS has provided no funding to LIRS and has provided no official representation on the board.”

Implied is that the LCMS was providing funding and board representation prior to five years ago, but that’s easily enough inferred from the foregoing section. What I want to focus on, one at a time, are two facts which Harrison conveniently omits:

1. The LCMS continues to have representation on the LIRS Board of Directors (BoD)
2. While the LCMS no longer provides funds to LIRS, the Synod does continue to provide funds to LIRS proxies in the immigration business

Let’s begin at one.

Rev. Dr. Yared Halche is the Executive Director of Witness and Interethnic
Ministries for the LCMS Southeastern District. His bio, from the LCMS Southeastern District web page, states in part, “He currently serves as Mission Engagement Facilitator with the focus on Interethnic Mission Initiatives in the Southeastern District.”

That is, Halche is a Synod employee.

At the same time, he serves on the LIRS (currently DBA Global Refuge) BoD, where his representation as an LCMS employee is prominently displayed.

This means that Harrison’s claim that “the LCMS has provided…no official representation on the board” is guilty of gerrymandering around a technical definition in a manner that would have made the Pharisees blush. A sort of Clintonesque, “that depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Only here, the word is “official.”

It may be true that Halche was not appointed to hold this board position by an official act of a board or an officer of the LCMS (or, since Halche himself is an officer, should I say another officer). Insofar as that is concerned, we can say that he is not “official representation.”

However, this is not satisfying to the intellectually honest or fair minded person for the simple fact that we still have an official Synod employee representing the LCMS on the LIRS BoD, in his official Synod position and not as a private citizen (hence, again, his label on the LIRS webpage). It is “official” in several senses of the term, but Harrison, in an artful lie, chooses to deny official representation based on another sense of it. He made the conscious choice to conceal the fact that the LCMS does in fact have an employee on the BoD, rather than admitting to the same and elaborating on the nature of that relationship.

The discerning reader will recognize the signs of a politician in full spin here. Robert Baker, who previously worked with Concordia Publishing House (CPH) on a bevy of projects has alluded to exactly this sort of political factor, appealing to the well-known fact that Harrison, himself the head of LCMS World Relief from 2001 until his election to the office of President in 2010, came to power because of connections made in the world of Lutheran social service organizations such as LIRS (and more, which we are coming to).

For instance, he was known to be close to John Nunes, then head of Lutheran World Relief (LWR) (not to be confused with LCMS World Relief) as the two were the heads of counterpart organizations at that point. Nunes himself, who was also briefly mentioned previously, is also an outspoken proponent of a multiethnic/multicultural America and church, and is on record in multiple places disparaging the LCMS for its racial makeup.

Which brings me to the second thing omitted by Harrison: that the LCMS does continue to provide funds to LIRS proxies in the immigration business.

RSO Status

In order to understand what is happening here, you must first be aware of the category of LCMS Recognized Service Organization (RSO).

To bring you up to speed, here are the FAQs from the LCMS’s own page.

What is a Recognized Service Organization (RSO)?
A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that is independent of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) but whose operations foster the mission and ministry of the church, whose program activities are in harmony with the Synod, and who agrees to respect and not act contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Synod. Such organizations that meet this criteria have applied for and have been granted status as an RSO.

What are the benefits of becoming an RSO?
There are a number of benefits for the applying organization. For example, an RSO has the ability to call ordained and commissioned ministers on the LCMS roster, use the LCMS logo, and obtain loans through the Lutheran Church Extension Fund.

It’s that last bit that concerns us here. “Obtain loans through the Lutheran Church Extension Fund.” That is, the LCEF, which you might think of as the bank of the LCMS, where funds are invested, and loans and credit are offered to qualifying parties. Those organizations that are approved for LCMS RSO status are given lines of credit from the LCEF.

The money in the LCEF is almost entirely a product of usury (their periodical is literally called Interest Time; no, I am not making that up), but some does come from other sources, such as bequests, where they entice the elderly to leave them a sum of their estate to avoid pesky estate and income taxes.

They do, of course, accept donations. But why donate when you can invest?

Returning to the point: we have established that LCMS RSOs are therefore funded by Synod’s bank, insofar as they take advantage of the credit and investing services that LCEF provides, among all of the other benefits the LCMS offers to its RSOs.

Oh, by the way, the President and CEO of LCEF? Bart Day, the same man we saw earlier was working with ELCA’s Elizabeth Eaton to lobby Nancy Pelosi on immigration services while he sat on the LIRS BoD in 2017. In fact, it was September 1st of that same year that Day stepped into this role with the LCEF, and it was November 11th that year that allegations of financial corruption at LIRS hit the press (see above). Sounds like someone found the eject button just in time.

Now, I’m not insinuating that Day perpetrated any financial crimes. I am noting the objective historical fact that he was on the LIRS BoD when they happened. And then he got promoted into a position where he’s the top dog running lines of credit from the LCMS bank to LCMS RSOs, many of which turn out to be mass immigration NGOs.

Sobering.

Now let’s take a look at the LCMS RSOs themselves.

LCMS RSOs = Immigration NGOs

Let me give you a copy of the LCMS RSO directory.

Here is a list of LCMS RSOs that deal with immigration, as compiled on the LCMS website.

I’m going to cut right to the chase: I have gone through the publicly available tax documentation of these groups and have found that in a stunning number of cases, they receive millions of dollars from LIRS to act as subcontractors for bringing wave after wave of immigrants to US soil and settling them into American communities.

To restate: When Harrison writes that the LCMS no longer provides funds to LIRS, he is deliberately omitting the fact that the Synod provides funds to LIRS proxies, i.e. subcontractors.

This is trivially easy to discover by simply perusing the LIRS 990 forms. Here’s the most recent as of this writing:

For your ease, I took a screenshot of a portion of Section I, detailing grants and other monies bestowed by LIRS on other organizations. The NGOs boxed in red are just some of the LCMS RSOs.

A note on “Children’s Services,” as some of these are marked. Money coming from LIRS for this purpose are used for unaccompanied minor children which are not United States citizens. Hence, still for immigration services.

The LCMS still works with LIRS financially, just through proxies like LCEF and its RSOs.

In fact, if we return to the list of Lutheran NGOs posted by General Flynn, we do indeed see LCMS representation.

RSO Madness!

What I am going to do now is take you on a whirlwind tour of some LCMS RSO/mass immigration NGO information. The point of this section is to invite you to ponder what the LCMS is up to being in bed with these organizations. I’ll suggest it is a constellation of factors, such as love of money, love of acclaim, exchange of political favors, and good ol’ fashioned elite disdain for the American people, upon which they have foisted a tidal wave of immigration, particularly over the past four years.

Let’s begin with:

Lutheran Social Services of the National Capitol Area (LSSNCA)

The former board chair of this RSO recently testified in writing that LSSNCA had LCMS approval for its immigration and foster care programs.

Let’s look at what those entail.

Foster care first. Do I understand this correctly that the LCMS approves of inviting and encouraging members of “the LGBTQIA+ community” to foster children?

I’m just reading what the man wrote.

And the LCMS must also be for mass immigration and resettlement, then.

I’m just reading what the man wrote.

And the LCMS approves of LSSNCA accepting a million dollars two years in a row from the Muslim Association of Virginia for “Afghan surge staffing”?

I’m just reading what the man wrote.

Of their total $24.6m of expenses in 2022 (most recent year on record), $20.7m (84%) went directly to foreigner resettlement, with LCMS approval.

I’m just reading what the man wrote.

Per Propublica, LSSNCA’s revenue went from $5.4m in 2019 to $31.8m in 2022.

How convenient that once the Biden administration took over, monies for immigrants became so very, very available to the LCMS’s mass immigration NGOs!

With LCMS approval.

That is what the man wrote.

Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSNW)

This LCMS RSO is very politically active in attempting to reshape laws for the benefit of the foreigners it brings in.

They are also very much engaged in the DEI that Harrison claims in his letter is oppressing Christian First Amendment speech rights.

To the point, and to the extent that they celebrate Sodomitic Pride Month.

Per ProPublica, in 2022 (most recent year available), LCSNW spent $12.8m of its $46.9m total spend (27%) on “immigration and refugee services”.

Note also orange highlight.

LCSNW does not like President Donald Trump taking away the mass immigration gravy train, and condemned his policies in no uncertain terms in an open letter.

And, of course, as per the RSO requirements, LCSNW has LCMS (x2) representation on their BoD.

Note the four board members fielded by the ELCA, of which Harrison stated in his letter:

It is difficult enough to carry out what we call “cooperation in externals” (for instance, doing mercy work together without church fellowship for the benefit of people in need) when we no longer agree on what the Gospel is. It is impossible when we can’t even agree on what the Law is.

And yet in each case, these LCMS RSOs/mass immigration NGOs carry board members of both LCMS and ELCA varieties.

Again, for the slow: these LCMS RSOs, which benefit from LCMS funds and have ELCA board members on them, often have more than one LCMS board member.

What is the LCMS doing? Are its leaders corrupt, or terminally stupid? In either case, LCMS congregant, why are you consenting to rule by the corrupt and stupid?

Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska (DBA Lutheran Family Services)

Per ProPublica, in 2023, this LCMS RSO spent $12.9m of its $24.8m spend (52%) on “refugee services.”

Note also that all-important “diversity” pledge in the organization’s mission. Harrison would be appalled, I have no doubt.

LCMS Nebraska District President (DP) Richard Snow is vice-chair on the BoD. On the board with him is Scott Johnson, the head bishop of the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA.

This bishop is exactly what you would expect of the ELCA, squared. Abortion promoting, sodomy loving, and Bible denying, all in one scalp-chinned package. Read all about Snow’s co-board member here.

As a brief aside, it seems that DP Snow heard enough good things about Dr. Vanessa Seifert’s work with the Lutheran Family Services executive team that he decided to hire her to train pastors in his district.

The Bible might say women should not be pastors, but it never says women should not teach pastors — checkmate, God!

I’m going to do one more. Not because there is only one more, but because my goal is not to be exhaustive, but to show you how trivially easy it is to fact check Matthew Harrison’s claims.

Lutheran Social Services of the South (DBA Upbring)

Per ProPublica, in 2023 this LCMS RSO spent $71.2m of its $117.8m revenue (60%) on “refugee resettlement”.

This one is noteworthy for its lack of LCMS representation on the BoD which, again, is a requirement for an LCMS RSO, which it is. Who’s in charge here?

In his letter, Harrison pledged² to have the LCMS Corporate conduct a review of the RSOs. Many people across Synod have been asking for this for most or all of his presidency, but in his typical fashion, it’s not a priority until bad press forces his hand. That’s when the disinformation apparatus spins into high gear, and you see what it looks like for a politician to speedrun Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation.

Harrison exemplifies his facility with evasive countermeasures when he defiantly asserts:

…[T]hough I do not agree philosophically with every operational aspect of LIRS, if there is something legally amiss, the blame falls squarely upon the federal government. LIRS — and even our own LCMS RSOs — simply does what the government asks and pays for them to do.

There are only two kinds of people who just do what their client asks and pays them to do with no compunctions:

Mercenaries.

And whores.

Which one is the LCMS and its subsidiaries?

The United States Are Done With Immigration

Harrison concludes his letter with an appeal to a peculiar form of the National myth:

“Who will contribute to this marvelous and blessed American experiment?”

He assumes that the American people are still finding themselves. Still figuring things out. Aw, shucks, let’s keep falling forward together.

But he’s wrong.

America First won decisively in our latest national poll: the presidential ballot box.

We want Harrison’s mass immigration operation shut down. We remember that LIRS brought over Ilhan Omar, who is a stench to the body politic…

…as she advocates for Somalis and replacement of the American people with more like her. And we know that even now Harrison’s RSOs are bringing over more of the same, who will take their turn at the wheel in transforming, not this American experiment — as if we exist in some petri dish for Harrison and his ilk to add various substrates to in order to watch what happens — but this American nation, for ourselves and our posterity.

It is a mathematical fact that since the COVID pandemic, when Matthew Harrison’s churches caved to political pressure to close up shop during Eastertide, native-born American workers have never resumed their upward trajectory vis a vis numbers in the United States workforce. Instead, all growth has gone strictly and solely to foreign-born workers.

Since July 2019, the American workforce has added 4.6 million foreign-born workers, while losing almost 700,000 native-born workers.

Matthew Harrison’s partner NGOs are a material part of that problem. The reason General Flynn is even looking into this matter, with Elon Musk backing him up, is that the current administration is in the discovery phase for crimes committed against the American people with immigration as the weapon.

The Lutherans popped a flag, as well they should. Even if there is never a shred of guilt established according to the letter of the law “just following government paymaster orders” (Harrison’s last-resort defense, as we’ve seen), these LCMS RSOs/mass immigration NGOs are still guilty of crimes against the American people, which the graphs above, combined with the information in this essay, are more than enough to establish beyond a shred of doubt.

Harrison could have bailed on the whole mass immigration NGO thing the moment he took office in 2010, but he had made too many friends in those offices as head of LCMS World Relief, who helped him on his political ascent. Even if he had pulled the LCMS completely out of all such activity when LIRS was in hot water in 2017/2018, at that late date and with so much quiet, patient urging from people low on the totem pole, he would not be being scrutinized now.

Every Bad Thing Comes to an End

Remember that, when you review all of Harrison’s bluster in his latest letter, he brought this on himself.

He’s in too deep now, he can only Deny, Deflect, and Defend. He can only launch chaff and flares, and hope that the men at the radar lose interest.

You are the men at the radar. I’ve shown you how to find the signal past the flares and chaff.

Now, what will you do with it?

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1. We are free to ponder why Harrison did not see fit to write a similar letter in the wake of a female transvestite’s assault on Covenant School in Nashville, TN on March 27, 2023, which resulted in the death of six people. Nor did the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School on December 16, 2024, which killed two people besides the shooter, qualify for such attention as George Floyd and the Buffalo supermarket. With as large of a parochial school system as the LCMS has, these omissions are quite befuddling. ↩︎
2. He has pledged many things in the past, such as the following. ↩︎

Harrison says,

It is also true that millions have been enticed and encouraged to enter illegally into this country by contradictory American voices at all levels: federal, state and local. I cannot but be sympathetic to their plight.

But Harrison himself is one of those contradictory voices, as he has previously promised to put LCMS resources at the disposal of those fighting deportation for unlawful entry (English translation below, original in Spanish).

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Appendix: HSS Grant Money to LCMS RSOs for Immigration Assistance

Total dollars granted to NGOs flagged for the term “Lutheran.”

Dollars separated by assistance category. Highlighted lines are all under the umbrella of immigration.

List of Lutheran NGOs marked as recipients for the above yellow highlighted categories. Purple highlighted are current LCMS RSOs as of the most recent (Oct 2024) list update.

All told, from HHS grants, LCMS RSOs received $244 million to facilitate mass immigration onto American soil for combined Fiscal Years 2023, 2024, and (the beginning of) 2025.

As it has been amply documented by fr.s Osmanthus (read Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4) and Francis Greenwood (read On Sodomites Axioi Thanatou), Issues Etc. host Todd Wilken and guest Mike Middendorf are sorely mistaken in their reading of Romans 1:18-32 as being relevant to and regarding all sinners,-Christians included!- both in terms of bare surface logic (as Osmanthus has demonstrated) and in terms of the underlying Greek text of the Scriptures (see Francis Greenwood’s accessible exegesis of the text). But if these modern refutations were perhaps not enough to secure one’s conscience on the matter, we here at Old Lutherans are happy to produce selections from the sainted Georg Stöckhardt’s Commentary on Romans affirming all the same.

The below excerpts are formatted with the exact verse in reference at the header, with the verses themselves underlined as original. Editorial emphasis is added with bolded letters. A short concluding comment follows.

I.18
From the revelation of the righteousness of God the apostle turns to the revelation of God’s wrath. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. He who is righteous through faith will receive life and salvation. In contrast, he who is ungodly and unrighteous will incur God’s wrath. This wrath of God is the inner reaction of divine holiness against sin. When revealed, it appears as punishment, judgment and damnation for all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Ungodliness is personal misconduct against God. Unrighteousness is the denial and violation of divine law, the norm for man’s conduct.

I.19
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them. That which is known of God is known to all men, also to natural man. God Himself, as far as men are able to know Him, that is the truth which they have suppressed. This knowledge of God is in them, in their hearts. God Himself revealed it unto them. He wrote in their hearts this knowledge of Himself.

I.24
Having characterized the godlessness of men, the apostle presents their unrighteousness. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness. Therefore, because of their godlessness and idolatry God surrendered them to uncleanness. Uncleanness is here the punishment of Godlessness and divine affliction. God punishes sin with sin. This the world experiences. The curse of the evil deed is that it must produce evil.

I.28
The apostle introduces a new guilt of men, which also appears as a punishment inflicted upon them by God. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. God had made Himself known to them. Men knew God, but they lacked inner conviction of this knowledge. They did not have this knowledge subjectively. They did not make use of it, not thinking it worth the trouble. And the punishment suited the transgression: God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. Just as they did not deem it worthy to have God in their knowledge, just as they rejected God and the knowledge of God, so in like manner God gave them over to a vile mind, so that they freely and unhindered adapted themselves to their perverse disposition, so that they did what, according to their own judgement, was not proper. Along with knowledge of God there is also implanted in man’s heart knowledge of good and evil. However, even this moral knowledge men denied by their disposition and deeds.
The apostle has special kinds of evils in mind. The common thing in the transgressions listed is that the neighbor is harmed and love to him violated. Four series of transgressions are distinguished. Men are full of deceit, and not merely guilty of isolated errors and vices. From head to foot there is nothing sound in them.

I.31
The fourth series describes the evil disposition and immoral deeds of men negatively. They are disobedient to parents. Without understanding, permit no one to tell them anything. Covenant-breakers. Without natural affection, loveless, destroying all natural affects of love. Implacable. Unmerciful, hardhearted to the need of their fellow men. In short, they deny all piety, all human feeling and compassion. They have become true monsters. Why? Simply because they did not let God be their God. Only where God is known, feared and loved is true humanitarianism found.

I.32
Men have robbed God of His honor and have given it to the creature; they serve unrighteousness and uncleanness; they deny their fellow men all justice and love. Thus has the apostle described the world which he had before his eyes, the cultured Graeco-Roman world. The high degree of culture, which the world had achieved at his time, included a very deep moral decay. To all outward appearances everything was inwardly rotten and decayed.
Since Paul speaks of natural man estranged from God, this description of morals also fits the generation of our day. One cannot better characterize the religious and moral condition of our civilized world than with these words of the apostle.
It is a God-forgetting, idolatrous generations which lives upon earth. Who yet thanks God for His goodness, to which men owe their life and all blessings? The religion, the pseudo-religion, of the world is the deification of the creature. The world deifies her great man, her heroes, deifies herself, her own power, wisdom, excellence and achievements. The philosophical contemplation and adoration of God are nothing else than changing God into an image of weak, mortal man. Man views God and divine things according to human standards.
The generation of this age is an adulterous one. The world feasts her eyes upon and delights in the lusts of the flesh, shame and filthiness. Man’s carnal desires are no longer satisfied by common adultery but long for the unusual, refined enjoyment. Unnaturalness and unchastity of the apostle’s time have today only assumed another form and appearance.
It is a murderous generation in which we live. Avarice, insatiable envy, is the mainspring of commercial life. Man has no consideration for his neighbor. Every one strives to rise in the world and thus ruins and tramples upon others. It is idle scorn and mockery when the world writes humanitarianism or universal love upon her standard.
And this stream of destruction rushes onward incessantly. One can no longer check and restrain this disgraceful state of things. In vain are all attempts at reform. Men are, as it were, chained to unrighteousness by iron fetters. And why? A destiny rules over the activities of the children of men. God has given them up to their corrupt ways. Knowledge of God and morality has not altogether ceased. Man still hears proclaimed what is right before God and men. But whatever exists of truth serves only to call forth opposition, to goad men on to do the opposite of what is right. Therefore, men have no excuse. The world is continually driving herself forward to the abyss, to the Day of Wrath and the righteous judgement of God.

As Stoeckhardt demonstrates, Romans 1 addresses natural man, estranged from God; doubtless still a condition all the more prevalent today with our culture’s exceeding vileness in unnaturalness and unchastity. Yet the point stands, by no means should we conflate the condemnation of natural, unsaved man as outlined in Romans 1:18-32 with the daily contrition and repentance of justified, Christian sinners. To do so is a great danger to souls, whom hearing such from pastors could then reasonably disregard any further pursuit of sanctification in their Christian lives, because hey!- my sodomite neighbor’s buggery is just a speck in his eye, I’ve got to get working on the heterosexual log in mine. As stated above, see the thorough refutations of this antinomian heresy and its insidious logic.

A final comment may be necessary. Stoeckhardt nowhere pulls punches. He nowhere throws up his hands – however daintily – and says, we’ve had such success with the Gospel, why try Law now? No, our sainted teacher of Old Missouri blessed George is unremitting in his sober-eyed, clear judgement of the world and its children; rather, God’s judgement in particular. Stoeckhardt never mistakes the joy of the Lord with the excusal of sinners in conflating all sins as equal, nor conversely is Christ’s wrath misdirected to all sinners to the harm of those Christians covered in His blood. The world is continually driving herself forward to the abyss, to the Day of Wrath and the righteous judgement of God.

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

-Revelation 22:19

Guest Submission by Orlando Furioso

You have never heard a sermon like this in your life, Lutheran Man. And I would submit that that is your loss.

Enjoy Walther’s sermon.

:: Orl. Fur.

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Trinity XVIII Gospel Sermon

By C. F. W. Walther
Translated by E. Myers
18th Sunday after Trinity, 1844

May God grant you all much grace and peace by the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In our Savior, beloved listeners!

Surely there is no doctrine of divine revelation, which is not at times disputed by false teachers, as incredible as this seems. Among these doctrines is, among others, also the doctrine of the Law. Who would think that a man might cast aside the Law, when this doctrine is not only written in the Bible, but also engraved in the hearts of all men including the heathen? And yet men have done just this.

Three hundred years ago Luther reclaimed the sweet Gospel from the dust. He used it to establish the poor frightened consciences who had toiled in vain in their own works and comforted them by the doctrine of God’s free grace in Christ. Right away, completely against Luther’s expectations, a sect arose which claimed that within the Christian church one should no longer preach the Law, but only the Gospel. The members of this sect were called Antinomians, or rejectors of the Law. The sect’s founder was a certain Agricola, a preacher at Eisleben in Saxony.

Do not think, however, that these rejectors of the Law did not appeal to the Scriptures. No error in Christendom, no matter how obvious, has ever arisen which has not been defended and justified by misinterpreted Bible passages. So also here.

Now the chief Bible “proof text” cited by the Antinomians was the statement of St. Paul: “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man.” (I Timothy 1:9). From this they wished to prove that the Law should not be preached to those who are baptized and are justified by faith. Such should not be frightened by the Law, but rather led to heaven by the preaching of grace alone.

However, Paul’s words have an entirely different meaning. He wants to say as much as this: to the extent that a man is made righteous by faith, to the extent that he has a new heart and a spirit willing to do God’s will in all things, to that extent such a believing, born-again Christian does not need the Law. For he does not need to be frightened and forced by threats to do good; he does good by himself, voluntarily, because of love.

Yet what Christian can say that he is already completely spiritual, that he is completely filled with the desire and love for all good things, and feels absolutely no rebellion of the fleshly nature? John answers this in the name of all Christians: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…and we make God a liar.” (I John 1:8, 10). St. Paul agrees when he confesses: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” (Romans 7:18a).

Here, friends, is the reason why even believing Christians will still need the Law: they still bear the burden of their sinful flesh lusting against the Spirit, which indeed needs to be crucified and terrified and kept under restraint by the Law.

What is likely to happen if within the Christian church the Law were no longer preached, but only the Gospel?

Soon both Law and Gospel would be lost, and everything would perish in security and corruption. Therefore Luther, in his church message on today’s text, Matthew 22:34-46, says concerning the doctrines of the Law and of the Gospel: “If one of the two is lost, it takes the other along with it, and likewise where the one remains and is rightly used, it brings the other along with it.”

Sadly we cannot ignore the fact that many among us nowadays wish to hear of practically nothing but grace, setting aside the eternally binding doctrine of the Law. Therefore I want to warn you today against the disastrous results of despising the Law.

Matthew 22:34-46 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. 

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

My friends, the text just read treats both the doctrine of the Law and the doctrine of Christ, or the Gospel. This gives me the opportunity to speak to you on

The Disastrous Results of Despising God’s Law

1. It is the Reason why so Many also Despise the Gospel, and therefore
2. So Many Deceive Themselves with a False Faith.

Lord, Thou art Holy. Thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. The wicked will not stand in Thy sight. We therefore beseech Thee to rule us through Thy Holy Spirit so we would not carelessly tolerate sin and abuse Thy grace, but rather in good works earnestly long for eternal life. To that end awaken us now by Thy word for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. The Despising of God’s Law is the Reason why so Many Despise the Gospel

It is true, my friends, that only the doctrine of the Gospel shows sinners the way to salvation. Yet why did Christ, as our text reports, not only preach the Gospel to the Pharisees, but also answered their question about the true content of the Law?

Because without the help of the Law no one arrives at the proper understanding of the Gospel, and because people reject the Gospel for the very reason that they despise the Law.

Those who reject the Gospel today allege, as did the Pharisees, that they consider the Law alone sufficient, or, as they express it so glibly in our time, that ethics, that is, the doctrine of virtue, uprightness and good works, is all they want. For, they say, “All that really matters is to be a good person. Those and those only who lead a clean, moral life can be called religious.” Sad to say, these are merely so many empty words.

The Pharisees’ and the present unbelievers’ rejection of the Gospel is not due to their desire to bear the entire burden of the Law and to keep it truly as God wants it kept. On the contrary! Men in our time no longer heed or believe the demands and threats of God’s Law. Therefore they deem the comfort of the Gospel of very little or no value.

The Gospel shows how you can receive forgiveness of your sins, how you can be delivered from God’s wrath and receive His pardon, how you can be rescued from hell and eternal damnation, and saved by pure mercy.

Now just as only the sick seek a doctor, as only the starving crave bread, as only the perishing cry out for rescue, so only those know how to treasure the Gospel and to accept it with joy who have in terror recognized their own sinfulness. Only they are ready for the Gospel who believe that they are indeed the objects of God’s wrath, and have indeed deserved nothing but death and damnation by their sins.

Now do those who despise the Gospel perhaps submit more conscientiously to the Law? Not at all. Most of the foes of the faith live in manifest sins and shame, cursing and blaspheming, anger and thirst for vengeance, drunkenness and gluttony, unchastity and adultery, lies, deceit, false oaths, yes, in hatred so great as to commit murder.

They could not care less about any law, human or divine, nor about God, hell, heaven, or a future judgment. They say with Pharaoh: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?” (Exodus 5:2). Or as Isaiah says: “The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.” (Isaiah 3:9a).

Is not that contempt for God’s Law?

Nevertheless it cannot be denied that there are many unbelievers who abstain from all such gross outbreaks of sin. Many live honorably in the eyes of the world, and their overall outward behavior before men earns them the reputation of being strict, moral people. But where is there an unbeliever who really perceives the essence and consequences of sin?

What unbeliever really is convinced that God has a right to demand that he be holy and perfect? What unbeliever sees that some day he will have to give account to God for every idle word which fell from his lips?

Who among them realizes that merely an evil desire, an impure lust, an ungodly thought is a great sin?

What unbeliever really thinks it true that he is an abomination in God’s sight for merely indulging in proud thoughts, when he covets the least honor from men, if he is not gentle and humble from the heart and regards himself as nothing?

Which unbeliever really believes that the mere seeking after riches and good days plunges him into eternal damnation? Or that in God’s eyes he is a murderer if he is merely angry with his neighbor? Or that even the least sin is a terrible insult to the great God and earns him eternal death?

What unbeliever, though he may live ever so honestly and blamelessly before men, is filled with fear and trembling at the smallest sin?

Which unbeliever watches and prays daily lest he fall into temptation?

Which one battles unceasingly so his soul might contain nothing but pure love to God and his neighbor?

Are they not guilty of thousands of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, which they consider insignificant, and over which they themselves often laugh and joke?

Here, my friends, you have the real reason why so many despise the Gospel of Christ and of His grace. Not because they live so piously that they need no Savior; not because they are now too wise and enlightened for that.

No! The reason is that they despise God’s Law, by which God tells them how man ought to be. The reason is that they do not believe God’s threats, His just and severe judgment, and the eternal punishment which will follow sin.

You see here the real root of their unbelief! It is just this, this contempt, which minimizes the importance of sin.

It is this Pharisaical conceit and belief in their own great worth, this horrible blindness in which they do not recognize their daily, hourly transgressions in their greatness and number. This is why they loathe the doctrine of grace. This is why they hate so deeply Christ the Crucified and His holy, precious atonement.

Once a person begins to take the Law of God doctrine seriously, then he certainly is not far from Christ and His kingdom either.

Why was it that at Luther’s time the Gospel was received with such great, almost universal joy? Why was it that then within a short period of time entire countries were converted? Why did the message of peace spread like wildfire over the whole known world? Why did thousands and thousands of hearts immediately open to the courageous herald of the Gospel, kissed the booklets he published with tears and joy, and gladly thanked God for His precious visitation of grace? Why did the preaching of the Gospel have such great, glorious results then, and not now?

Here is why. At the time of the Reformation the poor people had been oppressed by the burden of the Law. For even in the midst of the preceding dark ages the unspiritual priests had yet sharply proclaimed the Law. Great numbers were therefore filled with deep concern for their salvation, and with great fear and anxiety of eternal damnation. Great numbers felt their sins. That is why the Gospel was such a blessed message to their ears, just as those are blessed whose prison gates are opened and who are told: “You are free!” But this preparation of men’s hearts by the workings of the Law is now generally missing.

And why was it that Luther had to complain so soon that the men of his times were tired of the Gospel? It was because most misused the Gospel freedom and again became secure, no longer heeded the threats of the Law, and again considered their sins unimportant.

Thus the Gospel, too, was soon despised again, a contempt which has reached its peak in our days.

2. The Despising of God’s Law is the Reason Why so Many Deceive Themselves with a False Faith

A second disastrous result of despising God’s Law is the false faith by which many deceive themselves.

Unfortunately there are not a few who live in manifest sins, yet imagine themselves as standing securely in the true faith. They let their angry temper rule them, but they think that faith makes up for that.

They are not honest and conscientious in their dealings with others. They grab as much as they can get, and faith is supposed to make up for that, too. They are delinquent debtors defrauding their creditors by living as though they owed no one anything—and faith supposedly covers that, too.

They tell lies, do not forgive offenses, are vain in their clothing, worldly in their conduct, friends of the children of the world, vainglorious, inflated with self-esteem, greedy, slanderous—and all this faith is supposed to excuse.

Oh, the pitiful foolishness of it! They cite St. Paul’s statement according to which man is saved by grace. But they do not recall that the same apostle also says: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest…of the which I tell before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19, 21). And in another place: “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26, 27).

Others are not living in such manifest sins. But they are lukewarm and indolent.

They are not in earnest about being real Christians. Their Christianity is no more than idle talk, a shallow pretense. Their prayers come from their lips only. Their reading and hearing of God’s word is no thirsty drinking from the well of eternal life. They use it merely to become smarter and to criticize the sermon in proud conceit.

They do not watch their heart. They do not battle against flesh and blood. They are surly toward their family. They argue about temporal and foolish things. If not already completely hardened, they too suppose that while they might not be as good as they ideally ought to be, they nevertheless are Christians and righteous before God, because they have faith.

Thus Christ is made a servant of sin, and faith a cloak for disgrace! Thus men deceive themselves and lose life and salvation. For a “faith” bearing such fruit is a faith of froth and foam, nothing but fleshly security, nothing but a dead barren thing leading to hell at a fast pace.

But whence comes this self-deception? It arises from nothing else than contempt for God’s holy Law. It teaches that the Law no longer concerns the believer, that he need no longer obey its demands nor fear its threats. What a dreadful delusion! Christ clearly says: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven,” that is, nothing. (Matthew 5:17-19a).

It is true that the believer, as a believer, is no longer subject to any law, but is free and stands above all laws. For in Christ he has perfect fulfillment of the Law, and has the Holy Spirit who in him wants to do what is good, without any law.

But the believer as God’s creature and as a sinner is still under the Law. For the Law is the revelation of God’s will. It is therefore eternal and unalterable. It cannot possibly be replaced by faith, as little as God can change Himself and permit a creature to sin.

St. Paul, therefore, says: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” (Romans 3:31). The apostle means that our sins are not forgiven so we can now act contrary to the Law, but just because we have received the Holy Spirit through whom we become new men (2 Corinthians 5:17), receive a new heart and a new mind, so that we now actually begin to fulfill the Law truly, from the heart.

Therefore, dear listener, if you do not wish to fulfill the Law with all zeal at your command, to love God above all, and your neighbor as yourself; if you do not want to live in constant dread of sin and of God’s wrath, if you do not want to pursue sanctification with all dedication—know that your alleged faith won’t help you!

It will rather make you all the more repulsive to God and condemn you the more. For in this case you would have confessed that you wanted to accept Christ as your Savior, but merely turned Him into a servant of sin, and counted the blood of His holy redemption an unclean thing.

If you think that because you have accepted the Gospel you can despise the Law, and live without care, without earnestly striving against sin day and night—the threats of the Law still apply to you.

It won’t help you at all to claim that you are seeking the protection of Christ against the accusations and condemnations of your conscience. For in Christ there is protection only for those who were terrified by the Law, who would so much like to fulfill it, and who therefore desperately yearn for the grace, power and help of the Holy Spirit.

If you do not earnestly want to be free of your sins, God will not cover your sins by forgiveness either.

No sated spirit seeks the Cross
While trifling carelessly with sin.
While hugging to his heart the dross
Which he must lose, to enter in
At heaven’s narrow gate. Oh, break,
Proud heart, and to your need awake!

Oh, that many among us might have received a blow from our text to awaken their sleeping hearts! I beg all these: Oh, for the sake of Christ and your salvation, take good care indeed of this call by the Holy Spirit. Oh, do not thoughtlessly suppress His stirring in you.

In this very hour begin a better Christianity. In the quiet of your heart think on the pretense wherewith you have comforted yourselves up to now. Call upon God to convert your pretense into reality, your lip service Christianity into a Christian life of power, your hypocrisy into deed and truth.

Do not despise my voice.

It is not I who speak. It is God who stands at the door of your heart through his word.

Will the lamp of your sham Christianity help you when you, like the foolish virgins, lack the oil of the true faith, the Spirit and the power?

Oh, think of the last hour when you will hear: “The bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him!” Then there will be no time to buy oil. Then you will cry in vain: “Lord, Lord, open to us.” The Lord will answer you: “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” (Matthew 25:12).

Therefore, Christians, to arms! Up, arise!
With the courage of faith take hold on the Word!
The battle is fearful, yet yields you the prize:
The best of all treasures, the joy of the Lord.
With Christ you will safely emerge from the fight.
To His peace, His salvation, His rest, and His light. Amen.