Higher Things 2017 — Erant ibidem eo
A few thoughts on the Bozeman conference by someone who was there.
Warning: This is some serious Lutheran inside baseball. Non Missouri Synod members don’t expect to understand this.
The last thing I wrote was Highway to the Lutheran Danger Zone in March of 2016 and I meant it to be my “So long and thanks for all the fish!” article to the world of Lutheran social media. Online Lutheranism had become like organized crime in the 80s; the reckless fun was over and people were starting to rat on each other. So, like any good Lutheran, I claimed my simul status, called out everyone who was bugging me, and slunk away. Fade to black.
Cut to a few weeks ago: I opened up my Facebook feed and saw a lot more notifications than normal. Long story short, apparently Brothers of John the Steadfast posted an article called “Higher Things — Quo Vadis?”, which to Latin speakers is probably a pithy headline but it made me go “huh”? Google Translate says this means “Higher Things — Whither goest thou?”, which still is a bit “huh” but I guess I’m catching the drift: BJS had a problem with one of the Higher Things plenary speakers; and if you guessed “the one who isn’t Jonathan Fisk” you guessed right.
The problematic speaker was Dr. Dan Voorhis and the related implications of The 1517 Legacy Project having some presence at Higher Things. Because the last thing I had done publicly was to slam the ministry/t-shirt-brand Christ Hold Fast, which is either officially or unofficially connected to The 1517 Legacy Project, my article was pulled into this discussion and my Facebook notifications went a little nuts.
So what to make of 1517 Legacy? Personally, I have a soft spot in my heart for Rod Rosenbladt from the days when I was a rabid White Horse Inn listener. From what I can tell 1517 Legacy is like the edgy younger brother of White Horse Inn; it’s basically the same unionistic, protestant content wrapped up with tattoos, swearing, and better graphics; it seems to exist to serve the questionable task of triggering Confessional Lutherans and thrilling oppressed Baptists. When I was a tortured Evangelical, this sort of stuff blew my mind. Now as a crusty Lutheran, I’m not a fan.
The funny thing was that when I got all these notifications, I was actually on my way to Higher Things as a chaperone for my home parish, Holy Cross Lutheran Church. I thought that maybe because I had been tangentially pulled into the controversy I would give my opinions on the event.
Doing things by the service book
Maybe the best reason to come to Higher Things is for the liturgy and the music. There’s about four services a day Matins, Vespers, Evening Prayer, & Compline, plus two Divine Services at the beginning and the end, all done reverently and strictly according to the LSB. I’ve been a Lutheran for four years now but some of the services were new to me; and all were beautiful.
We Missouri Synod Lutherans don’t have grand cathedral churches. Most of us will attend a parish with a congregation of less than two hundred. The typical Sunday morning worship in a confessional parish is beautiful but humble. So when Higher Things brings us together to sing our hymns and liturgy as seven hundred saints, the experience is, frankly, sublime. Lutherans love music and we know how to sing. (As I sang, I could hear groups around me in perfect four-part harmony.) Our musical tradition may be the best in Christendom, no exaggeration; Higher Things is an event where this tradition is highly honored and done justice.
For our youth, I think this is an invaluable experience. I’m glad that my two children who attended were able to drink deeply from our Lutheran liturgy, prayers, and hymnody in a way that the typical school week does not allow. Even if everything else was terrible, the music alone was worth the trip.
But how was everything else?
Plenary speakers
The big point of controversy was having the man from 1517 Legacy, Dr. Dan Voorhis as a plenary speaker. I sat through both his sessions and one of his breakouts. In the plenary sessions Dr. Voorhis kept close to his specialty as a historian and almost 100% focused on the events leading up to the reformation and then the events of the reformation itself.
I’m guessing that the reason Higher Things extended the invitation to Dr. Voorhis in the first place was because of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation so it makes sense on paper to invite a historian. (Personally, if Higher Things is wanting to get edgy with their guests, I wish they’d invited Dr. Carl Trueman instead of Dr. Voorhis. Wicked Calvinist though Trueman may be, he understands Luther and the Reformation better than many Lutherans and is an amazing lecturer.) Would I have invited Dr. Voorhis? No, for a number of reasons other than his mere association with 1517 Legacy. Was there anything objectionable in his sessions? Also, no. It was straightforward historical stuff and he never indulged the reductionistic tendencies of 1517 Legacy.
Jonathan Fisk was the other plenary speaker and gave a typically high-energy, very engaging, faithful overview of the Augsburg Confession. Fisk can also be a controversial speaker though not with the BJS crowd. Personally, I’m not a huge follower of Worldview Everlasting, mostly because it doesn’t appeal to me stylistically. That being said, Fisk is a fascinating character to me: he somehow combines the energy and wit of a seasoned youth speaker with conservative, confessional Lutheran theology, all the while maintaining appropriate reverence. These qualities almost without exception don’t normally go together. I thought both of his plenary sessions were a real treat and perfect for the audience. Higher Things made a great choice asking him to speak.
Breakout sessions
If you’ve never attended Higher Things, the idea behind breakout sessions is to have a number of topical lectures in different classrooms by speakers comprised of Missouri Synod pastors and laymen. I enjoyed many of these lectures but my absolute favorite was “Let Me Hear Your Body Talk” by Rev. Dr. CJ Armstrong, which was a fascinating look at 1 Corinthians through the lens of the body. I hope Higher Things brings Dr. Armstrong back. There were many other excellent speakers and I only ended up being able to attend about half of the lectures that I wanted to.
Unfortunately not all the breakouts were great. Two specifically left me somewhat troubled for completely different reasons.
The first was an anti-evolution lecture that was essentially a list of Answers in Genesis talking points. I sincerely wish confessional Lutherans could break all ties with AIG and its brand of “Creation Science”. (At this point I’ve probably disqualified myself in the eyes of many people.) If Higher Things wants to try to prepare youth for what they will encounter in a secular science class, AIG is a terrible resource and setting our students up for a crisis. It would have been much better if this lecture had attacked Philosophical Naturalism instead of the scientific merits of evolution. Naturalism is a denial of the first article of the creed, increasingly untenable as a philosophical, anthropological system, and inherently unscientific. But instead the entire lecture acted like there was no difference between Evolution and Naturalism and spent the entire time attacking Evolution with dubious arguments that will be easily demolished as soon as the students enter a secular classroom. We can prepare our youth to defend their faith better than this. Please, Higher Things, consider bringing someone qualified like Paul Edmon in to discuss these issues.
The second concerning lecture was a talk about engaging atheists as Christians. This was a packed lecture and one of the best delivered of the entire conference, which also made it the more troubling. Looking back over my notes on this lecture, I’m not sure where to begin. The speaker repeatedly attacked “religion” as contrasted with “Jesus”, which is a major pet peeve of mine. (Even when I was an evangelical, I knew “it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” was nothing but a meaningless slogan for people who felt like their faith made them uncool. Same thing for substituting “Christian” with “Christ-Follower”. We’re not fooling anybody.) But the biggest problem I had was the interpretation that this lecture gave of the Small Catechism explanation of the third article of The Creed.
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel…
This is an immensely important part of the Small Catechism and deeply comforting to those of us wrestling with doubt and fear. But the interpretation the speaker gave was something like a garbled version of Calvin’s perseverance of the saints, I.E. “You didn’t choose to believe in Jesus, therefore nothing you do can make you not a Christian”. This was repeatedly implied over the course of this lecture. Now there’s all sorts of reasons why this speaker may be drawing this conclusion, some good, some bad, and I don’t want to get into those here but frankly this is just not the message of scripture or our Lutheran confessions. St. Paul regularly urges his flock to flee and fight sin. Though we didn’t choose to believe in Jesus the implication of the Catechism is not that there is no danger of losing our faith. Instead we should teach our children to defend their faith, fight against sin, which destroys faith, and hold Christ as their treasure and hate everything which would take him away. I do hope Higher Things carefully considers the contents of this lecture. I don’t think this particular session was helpful.
Fortunately, these two lectures were exceptions to an otherwise outstanding lineup.
Chapel Sermons
I’ll be brief here: every chapel sermon was excellent. Antinomian-hunters would have left very disappointed. Every sermon was Lutheran preaching at its best: short and focused on the scriptural text and specifically Christ.
(We even had an excellent sermon expositing James 2! You don’t expect to hear “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” at a Lutheran youth rally.)
Inanity now!
I’ve had a few weeks to reflect on Higher Things. Despite the few issues with the breakout sessions, I do think it represents much of confessional Lutheranism at its finest. The chapel services were absolutely heavenly. Even those bad sessions were unfortunately accurate representations of the not-so-good fringes of our synod. For all its problems, I love the LCMS. I truly do. To go to Higher Things is to drink deep from the Missouri jug. That is some sweet, refreshing water.
As someone who agrees with the “soft-antinomian” thesis and has little love for 1517 Legacy and its ilk, it was also depressing to see how this argument went. (Calling my pastor “inane” does not win points with me.) As Lutherans we have a proud history of guarding and defending our confessions, even with blood. In the online world it seems that we interpret that history as license to always be on the attack. Judging from the political climate, maybe that’s just how social media works. But, like it or not, our relationship runs deeper than the Facebook graph.
Higher Things gave me the experience of meeting Dr. Voorhis and his family in-person. I got to see him speak up close and observe his strengths along with the insecure ticks, idiosyncrasies and affectations that we all have. To meet someone in-person, especially meeting someone with their family, is such a welcome reminder that the voice in my earbuds, the avatar on my phone is connected to a human being. In this case, a human being who drinks from the same cup at the same altar that I do. For those in the same communion, sharing a conference is deeply insignificant compared to what we share in the Divine Service. Those annoying Facebook avatars and I are joined in blood.
So what does that mean? I don’t really know for sure. But would it be so bad if we picked up the phone before we tweeted? Do we really need to engage in social media or is there a more healthy medium for these discussions? Half the speakers at Higher Things are also writers at BJS! how was there not a back channel to discuss concerns? And if something needs to change, can we use the mechanisms of our synod, slow as they are? (Just look at what finally got addressed in the last general convention; those problems took a ridiculously long time to get fixed but they did by the grace of God.) And if someone has a critique, how about we listen, even if they’re annoying?
Believe me, the irony of me blogging this is not lost. Hopefully my tone is better than the last time I wrote something. But, hey! at the same, time I’m not ordained! I’m supposed to act like this! I guess I’m asking you clergy to please show us a better way.
