It doesn’t take a theologian to see that the world as we know it is changing.   Some argue that the rate of change has never been faster, and there’s no sign of slowing down.  Not all change is bad!  But all change is not good, either.

Think about how technology has changed in your lifetime.  I’ve seen a humorous video clip on the Internet of teenagers unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to use a rotary telephone.  Because of the spectacular advances in technology, crop yields today would have been unimaginable even 20 years ago.  Diseases that were incurable are now much more routine and survivable.  We like those kinds of changes.

But other change is more difficult to swallow.  Retail shopping in town is undeniably different today than in yesteryear.  Sears, K-Mart, and JC Penny are just three of the notable examples.  Due to falling ad revenues and other factors, the Mitchell Daily Republic just announced that they would stop printing a Monday paper; Monday news will be online only.   And on and on.

Highlighting the technological and economic changes in our world is easy.  But those changes are just the tip of the ice-burg.  We are standing far downstream a full, raging river of moral, theological, and social change.  We “know” that as much as we “sense” it.  Churches are no longer the social center of our culture.  Increasingly, our young adults grow up and leave their churches as they leave their homes.  Even among churchgoers, Biblical literacy almost could not be any lower.  [Read more…]

Death has had a lot of press lately. Especially suicide. When two celebrities’ lives are taken away in such short order, it’s not surprising that the world wants to talk about it.

And for good reasons. As much as suicide has been blamed on poverty among minorities, and even bullying, the troubling but stubborn fact is that it’s not that simple. The highest rate of suicide today is among middle-aged white people, but it is growing in other age groups as well. Suicides rates in 2014 were the highest in three decades, where 13 out of every 100,000 people murdered themselves. That’s a 24% increase from 1999. 2006 – 2016 saw a staggering 70% increase in suicide rates among white children. It is a significant problem.

A big media news story about Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade argued that the problem is a lack of funding for psychiatric health at the federal level. In other words, it’s Trump’s fault. But the notion of funding seems shallow when considering two celebrities whose net worth are $16 million and $200 million respectively. It seems we are grasping at straws.

Sociologists point to increasing isolation and weakness in building real and lasting relationships caused by technology and social media. This argument certainly has some merit but fails to answer the question of why we allow technology to do this to us. We are not passive recipients of technology. We choose to replace real, face-to-face human relationships with digital ones. Why?

But let’s shift gears to a different kind of death for a moment. [Read more…]

If success is based on numbers, then the Church is failing.  I don’t mean just Zion.  It’s more than just the LCMS.  The Christian Church in America is getting smaller.  Every mainline denomination is facing the same frustrating problem.  Each year seems to have fewer people in our pews and on our membership roles than the year before.

This is a complete reversal for us.  The Church in America until recently had enjoyed persistent growth for several centuries before our peak around 1973.  It makes sense.  Many of our American ancestors left Europe and came to America for the free practice of religion, among other things.  But now in these last days, everything has changed.

The point of this brief article is not to unpack this change.  If you’re interested, you can read the full report from the Journal of Lutheran Mission in their December 2016 edition.  It is readily available on the Internet.

The question I want to ask is the same Christians have been asking for the last 40 years: What do we do about it?  What do we do about the abandonment of the Christian Faith in the heart and soul of our people?

Every Christian Church in America and in the west has struggled with this question.  Each denomination, depending on their church tradition, has tried different answers to it.

Some, who think the Church should be completely separate from culture, have tried to double down on their separation.

Others, who think the Church should conform to the culture to be appealing to it, have done so to the point of removing almost all distinctly Christian beliefs.  Such churches now look and feel no different than a rock concert with an inspirational speech. [Read more…]