LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 76

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76

CONVENTION ESSAYS AND BIBLE STUDIES

modate it. This does not require a great deal of wisdom or
courage.14
Postmodernists will attend a church that affords them
the best experience—a church they will “like.”15 Whether or
not the church teaches truth makes little difference. A
church made up of self-professed sinners in need of redemption who week after week participate in the same ancient liturgy, sing hymns that primarily appeal to the intellect rather than to the emotions, and are led by a pastor
who is concerned with pure doctrine stands little chance of
appealing to this postmodern culture. On the other hand,
a church offering a warm and safe nonthreatening environment with a friendly, relevant, open-minded pastor who
leads an exciting Sunday morning contemporary experience
and teaches biblical principles focusing upon marriage, the
family, values, and morals will undoubtedly win. Adding
fun-filled theme parks and colorful food courts to our facilities will also expand membership.
But the question is, if cultural accommodation becomes
our goal, what in the world are we going to do with all our
politically incorrect and culturally offensive doctrines and
practices? And we have many. We believe in original sin.
We say that man, by nature, is spiritually dead and blind.
We teach the absolute and exclusive claims of Jesus Christ.
We claim to have the right understanding of the Gospel. We
acknowledge the reality of eternal punishment in hell. Our
confessions condemn a wide variety of heretics. We practice
close Communion. We reject the ordination of women and
gender-neutral Bible translations. We contend that homosexuality is not a viable alternative lifestyle. In a postmodern culture, all of these positions are offensive and meanspirited.
The Mormons, by seeking to appeal to the sensitivities of
the culture, have been forced to clean up their act by marginalizing their offensive doctrinal elements—including
poor Joseph Smith himself.16 Without such purging, their
media blitz would bring people in the front door while their
doctrines would push them out the back. If we seek to accommodate the culture, we will have to marginalize those
offensive elements of our doctrinal theology that will also
push people out the back door.
Some have attempted the old “bait and switch” routine—bring them in with one approach, and after you get
them in, tell them the truth. The truth is, what you use to
bring them in—the baby-boomer postmodernists—you will
have to continue to use to keep them.

Marginalizing Sound Doctrine
Perhaps for some of you it is not a bad idea to marginalize offensive doctrines and adjust offensive practices. Why
go to the mat over doctrine? Why not merely emphasize all
the joy, peace, hope, and love that we have in Christ and
thereby appeal to the sensitive postmodern baby-boomer
seekers at the level of their feelings and emotions?
But what does it mean that we have joy, peace, hope,
and love in Christ? Why do we have joy? What is the source
of peace? How do we get hope? How do we define love? And
above all, who in the world is this Christ-person? Did you
know that the very popular New Age movement teaches
that “Christ” is a psychological term and the “Christ-con-

sciousness” is a part of every human being?17 Is this what
we mean when we say, “There is hope in Christ”? Does this
hope dwell latently within our higher Christ-self as some
believe? You see, the problem is, without clear doctrinal definitions all our pious platitudes and ingratiating cliches,
while appealing to the feelings of people, become open to a
wide range of interpretations.
Marginalizing sound doctrine in an age of relativism
opens the door to spiritual eclecticism. If truth is to be
found in every religious story, what is to hinder people from
embracing the religious notions they like and producing
their own personalized mix-and-match designer religion?18
A recent Barna poll indicated that 53 percent of evangelicals believe there is no such thing as absolute truth. New
Age gurus like Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and
Betty Eadie do the TV talk show circuits and are written
up in the major newsmagazines. People are exposed to their
way of thinking about spiritual matters and readily mix
reincarnation with the Resurrection and eastern mysticism
with the Means of Grace. After all, aren’t all these stories
true? As Ms. Bednarowski put it, “Only when we hear and
receive all the stories will we finally arrive at truth.”
On a recent CNBC interview Tim Russert asked Don
Imus whether or not he was a Christian.
“Sure, I believe Jesus is the Son of God,” Imus responded.
“So, you believe you are going to heaven?” Russert
asked.
“Nah,” Imus explained. “I’m into that karma thing.”
If we head down the path of accommodating the postmodern culture by marginalizing doctrine and refraining
from engaging in polemics, we should not be surprised if
there are people at our Communion tables who are also
“into that karma thing,” are invoking their “Christ-consciousness,” and receive the “word of the Lord” by visualizing Jesus as their spirit-guide. The path of cultural accommodation heads down a very slippery slope! When do we
put on the brakes so that we leave something for our children and grandchildren that remotely resembles the
Lutheranism of our fathers and grandfathers? Is truth as
important to us as it was to them? Is it still a matter of life
and death?

A Vacuum of Truth
Rather than changing our image so that we might accommodate the popular culture, I suggest that we should
be prepared to fill the voids and vacuums created by that
popular culture. Think about it. Truth is and always has
been the anchor of human existence. The great philosophers of the ages relentlessly pursued truth. Luther coined
the phrase, “Plato is a friend; Socrates is a friend. But the
honor supreme must go to truth.” Apart from truth, we
wander aimlessly. We are left with nothing greater than
our own ideas. We have no standard against which to measure the meaning of our own existence.19
The so-called experts on growing a church tell us that
we must meet the needs of people. Well, let me ask you this
question: If truth is the anchor of human existence and a
philosophy permeates our culture with the notion that
there is no such thing as absolute truth, what will become