Lead Time
Lead Time
From Baptist to LCMS: A Theological Journey with Reverend Dr. Rick Serena
Imagine taking a deep dive into the theological roots of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, guided by the incredibly knowledgeable Reverend Dr. Rick Serena. Join us as we embark on an enlightening journey from the Evangelical Baptist churches to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. We'll discuss the joy of discovering Reformation theology, the challenges of raising teenagers in a post-Christian culture, and the importance of Jesus and the joy of the Lord in our lives.
Our conversation takes a turn down memory lane as we explore the historical foundations of the Missouri Senate and Lutheranism. We'll examine the immense responsibilities of pastors and bureaucrats and hear the inspiring story of Rick's transition from New Jersey to the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR). Be prepared to hear about the stunning beauty of the mountains and how it's influenced his spiritual path.
But it doesn't end there! We'll also delve into the complex challenges faced by the CTCR, the relationship between theology and science, and some hot-button cultural issues. Rick provides a clear roadmap on navigating difficult church issues and emphasizes the need for scripture-guided decisions to avoid cultural commentary. Ready for a journey of theological enlightenment? Step right into our conversation with Reverend Dr. Rick Serena.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective hosted by Tim. Ollman and Jack Calliberg. The ULC envisages the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the believers through world-class leadership development at the local level. Leigh Time taps into biblical wisdom for practical solutions to today's burning issues. Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church in a post-Christian culture. Step into the action with the ULC at unitel leadershiporg. This is Leigh Time.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Leigh Time Tim Ollman, here with Jack Calliberg. It is a fantastic day. We pray that the joy of the Lord and the love of Jesus for you, sign sealed and delivered in the waters of baptism, is giving you a lot of passion, a lot of purpose, a lot of peace today as you carry out whatever vocational calling the Lord has put before you. Today we get the privilege of hanging out with a brother from another mother who is recommended by Bart Day, and don't hold that against him. Bart Day is an awesome, awesome friend, the president of Lutheran Church Extension Fund, and he says you got to hang out with Reverend Dr Rick Serena, who is the associate executive director of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, ctcr as it is often called. Serena came to CTCR in 2020 after serving parishes in urban Dallas, rural West Texas, suburban New Jersey. Those are unique contexts.
Speaker 3:He earned his doctorate in Reformation Studies at Concordia Seminary, st Louis, and is taught at Concordia Seminary as well as Concordia College in Bronxville. He edits books for the journal Logia. He's written one book on Nicholas of Cusa of Brickson's Sermons. This is fascinating and his really main expertise and his doctorate was in Reformation Studies. He's published numerous essays and book chapters dealing with ecclesiology, the late medieval church easy for me to say and Reformation Theology. He also is married to let's just talk about this before we get into much of the theology married to Christina and has six kids, from, I think, what teenagers down to nine months old. How is that going for you, rick? Welcome to lead time today. Thanks for hanging with us, buddy. How do you?
Speaker 4:think that's going for me Exceptionally, exceptionally, child. I'm actually an only child. My wife is one of seven, so this is not my world, I'm just kind of living in it a little bit.
Speaker 3:And you were saying like it's hard because I got three teenagers Jack has a teenager it's hard to wrap our heads around how they're going to be functional adults.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, that was a private conversation, Tim I didn't think you were going to actually put on the podcast, sorry.
Speaker 4:So to my son, John, if he's listening, I apologize. He made that up, that was not for my mouth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, no, that was totally just me.
Speaker 4:Because, if nothing, my 15-year-old wants to do more then listen to his dad on a podcast.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sure this is exceptionally compelling, yeah, for him. So tell us how the Lord called you. I do have to add something to it.
Speaker 2:I have heard by a wise person that said that the purpose of a teenager is to point out every single fly that you have as a parent, and that's proven out true to me. Nice, nice, exactly.
Speaker 3:We all need Jesus. So guess into your story a little bit, rick. How did you come to follow Jesus, claimed in the waters of baptism? Are you a lifer in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod? And then how did the Lord kind of call you into ministry?
Speaker 4:Sure, I was actually raised largely evangelical Baptist churches and so forth before eventually coming in into the Missouri Synod from Florida originally, I did my undergrad at the University of Florida. Actually oh Gators, yeah, yeah, well, it used to be Go Gators, now it's a little darker days. And so actually I did my undergrad at the University of Florida mid-90s, late-90s and I kind of went there actually to get into sports journalism it was the third ranked journalism school in the country at the time and realized very quick I didn't want to do that and kind of bounced around different majors I wanted to be a football coach, inexplicably, athletic training school counselor, all sorts of things, high school history teacher, and then I just started taking religion classes at the University of Florida and I mean it's a strange place At the 90s, a comparative religion department at a major state university you can't think of anything that would, sort of face value, be less hospitable to a Christian than that. But I loved it. The teachers I mean a couple were kind of traditional Orthodox Christians, majority were Unitarians of some sort or even worse. So it was a very strange environment. But I was exposed to all sorts of historical Christian figures and ironically, and sometimes more of a charitable way than even within Christian theology we treat some of these historical Christian figures. So, getting a chance to read about Aquinas or Francis, for instance, augustine these all of a sudden became very towering figures for me and I kind of cut the theology bug as a consequence.
Speaker 4:I knew that these faculty members at the University of Florida were not going to give me a very faithful representation of Christianity. I knew that very quickly. But just the ability to engage with these sources and these individuals and the thoughts, the way they articulated things was very compelling to me and I knew almost immediately not only did I want to study religion in Florida but also that I wanted to continue studying that more and I felt compelled. Probably before I was compelled to become a pastor I was compelled to study theology and so that ultimately led me into seminary a couple of years later and really that honestly, that trajectory has kind of carried through.
Speaker 4:My interest has always been how Christians understand and articulate the faith, and the parish was what I enjoyed to do most. We all kind of have our thing in the parish. That really gets us going. For me it was preaching, it was teaching, it was interacting with other clergy and talking and really honestly debating things and to figure out how to articulate the faith more clearly, more accurately, more faithfully, more responsibly and, to some degree, why this is such a comfortable call for me to the Commission on Theology and Church Relations? Because I get to do that every day, all day.
Speaker 3:That's so good. So how are you exposed to the Missouri Synod in particular? Can you tell a little bit about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I was very fortunate, I stumbled into it, got to know some Lutherans who were very serious about their faith, very serious about the Missouri Synod, and I ended up in a really, really terrific church actually in Dallas, texas. We're just a kind of the best things of Lutheranism, as I've heard it described. Just a terrific pastor, and that makes all the difference in the world. To this day.
Speaker 4:I probably don't agree with that mentor pastor of mine on like 75% of the things we actually take seriously. But to be introduced to Lutheranism through a really really charitable, thoughtful, persuasive, winsome pastor, that was meaningful for me and really set a high bar for me in terms of what parish ministry should look like and probably some reason why I was never very satisfied with what I did in the parish, because you're always measuring yourself up against somebody who kind of towers over you in many respects. So yeah again, a wonderful congregation, wonderful worship, wonderful pastor, wonderful sermons, wonderful education, all of that just being exposed to it. For me theology was the most compelling. But to see that theology set in place in a particular way that was very persuasive, very compelling, very winsome, that added to the attraction of Lutheranism for me at an early stage.
Speaker 2:Rick, one of the things that I've been learning because I'm a student in studying theology right now and like an aha moment for me is that there's a difference. There is a distinction between being a theologian and being a pastor, in that a pastor needs to be a good theologian, but not every theologian Is able to function well as a pastor. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 4:I mean, I think that's it, that's it, that's it. That's entirely, entirely fair. There is, I think you know, traditionally the seminaries had this thing where you had to be a parish pastor for five years before you could, you could take a position and that's you know, kind of. I Think it's relatively in place, I'm not sure exactly, but there was this sense that you kind of need to know what it's like on the ground floor to be able to articulate theology in a way that's that's clear and that's prevent to the issues at hand. And I do think there is sort of a danger for those of us who are, who are I'm not an ivory tower, I'm actually in a purple palace.
Speaker 1:Here at the International Center in St.
Speaker 4:Louis and an office building and and Some people this is their dream. My daughter still refers to it as as luxurious. That's not how I approach an office building.
Speaker 4:Nonetheless, you know, when you're an ivory tower, an office building, there's a sense of which you you kind of lose contact with some of the issues that are so highly sensitive for your parish nurse and the ability to sometimes to, to articulate those, and while you're you're attending worship and obviously you're involved in a local parish, there's, there's still something different about being being forced, as you guys experienced right when you're interacting with a parish National who's going through some of these kind of mind-bending, personal, theological and and political difficulties, to actually be able to listen to those, to make sense of those, to respond in a way that's, that's sensitive, yet yet Yet thoughtful and and and theologically sound. That's a challenge, man. That's. Those are some of the most challenging times I experienced as a parish pastor and those were also some of the most rewarding times. They are also when I realized at times that how, how, how challenging that vocation is On the ground floor. So I do think there is there is something to that. Not every theologian is going to be a very comfortable in a parish setting.
Speaker 3:But that parish experience is Absolutely invaluable, and the further we are disconnected from it, I think, the more impoverished our theological articulation is going to be one of the thank you, one of the ulc's goals, rick, is that those in ivory towers or purple palace office buildings and those of us who are, you know, on the ground floor in a variety of different contexts would develop deeper Relationships of love and care and respect for one another. And I think ctcr that's one of the aims of the organization is to bridge that gap, to speak to a number of those cultural issues and to To listen to. How do we clear it? Because we're gonna get to some, you know, sensitive topics as it relates to our culture today, and ctcr is speaking into that. Are we listening to those who are having to preach, to people who are walking through the struggle with with a child, struggling with gender and Identity and those types of things like it? These are very sensitive, sensitive topics and so I pray we're we're listening well to one another. Before we get into more of the ctcr stuff, though, I'd love to just allow you to go into your field of expertise as it relates to late media, medieval church, reformation, theology.
Speaker 3:What was your doctorate in and how did that impact your ministry, rick?
Speaker 4:I think the only thing less less appealing than then talking about the ctcr is talking about my area of academic. Yeah, you know, I I did my work in reformation studies. I wrote primarily on questions related to the 15th century. Nicholas, of course, that was the 15th century Theologian, philosopher, mathematician, so forth. But he also served as a residential bishop, right and and I found this really fascinating right, the high-minded intellectual serving as a bishop which is basically a parish pastor to some degree on a larger scale in the 16th and the 15th century, rather preaching on a basically you know, by weekly basis. Right again, not the image that you have of of the medieval church and and and Preaching it's amazing preaching completely over his parishioners heads. I mean, like there's zero chance. The average he's in kind of what's modern-day northern Italy, but then was part of the Holy Roman Empire, kind of a rural outpost. There's zero chance. Anybody knew what he was talking about half the time, right, and so I identify.
Speaker 1:Because I'm not a very good preacher.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean that kind of thing again. Not to it was, it was. It was interesting to me from the perspective of a Lutheran looking into the Middle Ages through the lens the Reformation, and realizing a lot of the pictures I have are simply not very accurate. But on the other hand it was also very helpful to see the struggles of, of a pastor of any age preaching and teaching in a context that at times is very ill-disposed toward him because culturally, intellectually, politically, there they're so different from him. So that was it was.
Speaker 4:It was helpful for me and really kind of to be quite frank with you a Rekindled a desire to be back in the parish and to approach it from a different perspective. And so we took a call out to New Jersey after phd work, actually To a little congregation in northern New Jersey about 35 miles outside of the city, which might as well have been 350 miles. It was such a different, different context from New York and from the urban areas and and had an absolute blast getting a chance to put put into practice Some of those things that that you would have never thought doing a phd dissertation. You would have a new perspective on parish ministry, but but but in fact I did both the challenges and and and and the yeah, the the possibilities, opportunities that you have.
Speaker 3:Just one other question on your doctorate what is the LCMS Do you think have to learn? You kind of were teasing out we may have a caricature of the Catholic Church Before Luther kind of gets there and that may not have been entirely, entirely true. So what is the LCMS today? Have to learn from the late medieval, medieval church.
Speaker 4:He has a really good question. And then, boys, I can, I could tackle that, but I think, I think, to prevent your, your, your listeners, from Extreme boredom or drinking too much coffee to stay awake, for this, I would say it's. It really is kind of what makes what makes the Missouri Senate what it is and really what makes Lutheranism what it is, is that the the fundamental differences were were were at root theological right. But you had faithful parish pastors, right, not everybody was evil or wicked. You had believing Christians who were deeply pious. You had pastors who took their faith seriously, took their jobs seriously, who took education seriously. You had, lo and behold, bureaucrats like me who, who also took their responsibilities very seriously and tried their best, sometimes against a sort of countervailing cultural and political and economic wins, to do their jobs.
Speaker 4:So that's kind of the main thing is that the differences weren't People didn't have faith, or they weren't serious Christians or didn't they face seriously enough, or they didn't do their jobs well enough. Those are all kind of outmoded criticisms. The real issue were the theological differences at root and those were serious, real theological differences. That that in the 15th century May not have been as obvious, but by the time you get to the 16th century and you have new tools for biblical study, you have new discussions going on, new knowledge of history and so forth. Those, those, those differences in biblical interpretation and theological formulation became, became increasingly obvious.
Speaker 4:So that's, that's what I would say, is I meant that I was just teaching, I'm teaching, I teach an S&P class on on Monday nights and I teach a Class for for African students.
Speaker 4:There's a pilot program for African students through this is St Louis Seminary and some teaching them both Reformation right now, which is, which is a fascinating study.
Speaker 4:In contrast, right, because the way you and I might talk about the Reformation church history Is very different from the way you talk about it to Africans who who, in many respects, share a lot of the cultural and social assumptions but that medieval Europe had, but but so different from our cultural context. And so you kind of talk about with these different people and the thing that I Kind of underscore for all of them is is you have to, you have to learn to see the positive and not just the negative and the traditions that preceded you, and I think that's a, that's a, that's a helpful way To frame our interpretation, appropriation of lots of things right. So, jack, you were talking about, about, about your son, and that you learn all the mistakes you make as a parent, what you need to know, those right exactly, which is also nice to nice to know what you did right and you know, even if it's not fun, right?
Speaker 2:and?
Speaker 4:that bounce. I think that that's. That's the historical balance we owe our followers of the faith, whether that's 15th century Christians, whether that's the Reformation, whether that's 19th century Lutheranism or whether that's baby boomer generation.
Speaker 3:So then you got called out of New Jersey to CTCR, Is that right?
Speaker 4:Rick.
Speaker 3:Is that your journey? So what attracted you to CTCR this season of life?
Speaker 4:Well, obviously the office building.
Speaker 2:The Purple Palace did it. We were in the mountains, man, I tell you what I love New Jersey.
Speaker 4:We were in the mountains of New Jersey, right Backed, right up to 26 miles of trails. I could look out, I get bears would walk by my office window, I mean it was just. It was so, so idyllic and bucolic. But really it kind of goes back to 20, some odd years. I remember being at seminary and if you remember this, tim, but they would have the convention workbooks laid out so seminary students would take that and of course no seminary students would ever take the convention workbooks Well, so I kind of pick them up and I just was drawn to the CTCR section in the workbook, to their report and to their detailing of their work and to their actual reports that are in the workbook.
Speaker 4:And that's kind of what I instinctively was drawn to. And I love the idea of churchly theology, of theology that's not kind of strictly academic like I would have been exposed to at University of Florida, but it's an attempt to bring academic theology into conversation with the church in a way that's productive and helpful, that explains it, hopefully in a clear and accessible way to the parishioner. We struggle with that at times because, honestly, some of the stuff is so complicated and that's an area that we're trying to improve, quite frankly, with you in terms of more accessible, shorter documents, more not popular necessarily, but at least accessible. So that was always very compelled by it. I actually was a member appointed by the Council of Presidents beginning and after the 2019 convention, so I was a member of the commission as a parish pastor.
Speaker 4:There are 20 members on the commission, including four appointed by the Council of Presidents. I had been appointed and just got to know the Executive Director, joel Lambauer, larry Vogel, who was my predecessor in this position, and the members of the commission, and loved the work, loved the opportunities, loved the interaction, the fact that there are so few places in the Senate where you actually have a lot of wires and channels crossing right. We get to hash it out with seminary profs, with bureaucrats, we get to hash it out with parish pastors, with district presidents they're all kind of at the table together and that's a unique expression of the Missouri Senate that we don't see a lot of times. So, again, that was very compelling to me, very attractive to me to be a part of that and, of course, the office building.
Speaker 2:So, rick, not everybody is 100% certain of this. What would you describe as the core job description of the CTCR?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, a couple things. It's actually a kind of a layered thing. What we like to talk about is there are sort of two main components, defined by the name right Theology and church relations. With respect to theology, what we're responsible for doing is responding to questions from Senate. Really, now, that primarily comes from the Senate and convention. Secondarily, it comes from members of Senate, president of Senate, council of Presidents, congregations Anybody can ask us a question that we may take up and then, of course, to some degree, issues that we see arising within Senate that need to be addressed on some level. So that covers the gamut.
Speaker 4:I mean, you look on our website and it's everything from social issues that we have now a lot of church and culture stuff, some primarily nitty-gritty doctrinal theological issues and some kind of more, I would say, practical church and ministry types of issues. But that's just the theology component. Then there's the whole church relations component, which is again very layered. You deal with international church bodies that are seeking fellowship with us. So we're responsible for examining those church bodies and making a recommendation to the Senate and convention to recognize fellowship with them. We have dialogues with non-Christian churches, with I'm sorry, forgive me with non-lutheran churches, with also with other Lutheran church bodies like the Wisconsin Senate and the evangelical Lutheran Senate. And then we also have plenty of conversations with our other partner churches around the globe as they deal with issues. They come to us for help with that. So again, the tentacles are all over the place touching all sorts of things, but those two main components, theology and church relations that comprise our name, those are kind of the two-fold sigh of what we do as a commission.
Speaker 3:I think most people don't know that you help examine a number of the different church bodies that were brought into Al-Tarpolba fellowship at the most recent convention and that for us, as we've had a lot of convention-focused conversations, that was one of the highlights of the entire gathering is seeing the think of the faithful Ukrainian bishop who was there in the trenches in the midst of war and persecution potentially. So all of that that you guys get to be the front lines for engaging those respective church bodies, that's an amazing calling. I think a lot of people don't know that about CTCR. So I'd love to hear kind of how the CTCR mission has evolved over the years, kind of the origin story, because I don't know that many other church bodies. I could be wrong. You know about other church bodies. I don't know that many other church bodies have a group like CTCR connected to, say, the Southern Baptist or something like that. But enlighten us a little bit with the origin story and how it's evolved.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a good question and really there aren't many parallels. I've tried to find them to see if other church bodies have something like this, other denominations have something like this. They'll have committees that are similar to this, but nothing on this scope with this kind of really manpower available to it. It formed in 1962, the 1962 Senate Convention. There's an old sort of saw, I'll call it that. Because of the tensions in Senate, the Commission on Theology and Church Relations was created to resolve the issue, specifically the questions of, like you know, fellowship, of historical criticism that were arising in the 1960s and, in a certain sense, that Senate didn't trust the seminaries, particularly the St Louis Seminary, any longer, so they had to find another body that could deal with these disputes and investigate them. That's not really true at all. In fact, there was massive restructuring of the Senate in the 1950s going on.
Speaker 4:You had all of these different committees out there that were responsible for things like what the CTCR does now. You had an advisory committee on doctrine and practice. So if you had a question about whether or not you should allow intention, for instance, or one of these issues, you would bring it to the advisory committee on doctrine and practice, and that was one group. You had a committee on Lutheran unity. This is probably the most direct antecedent to the Commission on Theology and Church Relations. This was to, whenever we were interacting with another church body of any sort, specifically Lutheran, that there would be a clearinghouse to vet them, dr Reinerly, to conduct those discussions. There were 10 members of that and again, representatively it's almost the same representation in terms of where they're coming from parish pastors, teachers, laity, seminary profs and so forth.
Speaker 4:You had amazing things like the committee on finished relations. We had a standing committee on relationships with the FEN. This is extraordinary. It was the most boring committee. They never had any report. They finished talking with the FENs and what are we supposed to do? Well, we'll just wait for more FENs to come over.
Speaker 1:Committee on Women's Suffrage, for instance. There was a committee on Bible translations Never really did anything.
Speaker 4:The thought was, instead of having all of these independent committees out there, why don't we do this? Why don't we consolidate them into one? There was massive restructuring going on in the late 50s, early 60s. It came to fruition in 1962.
Speaker 4:Actually, the creation of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations had very little to do with the issues at the seminaries and far more to do with structural change in the Missouri Senate and, again, the consolidation of all of these scattered different committees. That said, there were a number of lingering theological issues on the table and I think I want to say like 12 or 14 from the very outset that were itemized and kind of given to the CTCR to address. But again, it wasn't to take away the position of the seminaries in any way, shape or form. Matter of fact. It was loaded with seminary faculty right. I mean up to eight at one point in time in the initial membership. So in no way, shape or form was it to circumvent the position of the seminaries or their work or cast doubt upon the competence of many of the faculty members there. But it did become a clearinghouse to some degree over the course of the 60s and early 70s for dealing with these internal disputes within the Missouri Senate.
Speaker 3:That's a great history, rick, that's really good. You're a remarkable historian, bro. I'm not just saying that to teach your horn. It's exciting, it's exciting, it's exciting. Rick actually said this is going to be one of the most boring podcasts you've ever had.
Speaker 1:I did, I did.
Speaker 3:This is so exciting, Rick.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. So I got to follow up on that tape. Go ahead, Go ahead, Jack. This is fantastic. So, what would you say, from your experience, has been some of the more difficult issues that the CTCRs had to tackle in recent times.
Speaker 4:I feel like you're trying to bait me into saying something.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to get into controversial here. I'm just trying to say, like I know you're not, we're talking about hard to think through, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a really good question, obviously, because there are things that are just sort of like divisive, potentially eviscerative, and that's one thing and you have to. You know a lot of the issues related to the role of women and so forth in the church. I mean, you've got to be real careful there to make sure that you're not going beyond what Scripture says, but you're also making clear what Scripture says and you're also making clear why the Missouri Senators come to certain positions on this that it has in the past, and that's a challenge. And of course they're the cultural hot button issues and that becomes, you know. So I was kind of alluding to the large catechism thing when I said you were, which again is you know, there are certain things that become just flash points, less so because of the topic or the issue at hand and more so because of what's going on culturally more broadly, and those are tricky because you can't anticipate how someone is going to respond to things like that. And then there are things that are just more conceptually difficult right to explore and to explain adequately. We've had things like the relationship between creation and between that, rather between theology and science, or the natural knowledge of God is another one that we were just kind of looking at recently with respect to something else.
Speaker 4:These are such complicated issues that, honestly, just understanding them within the commission internally is difficult enough, let alone producing a document that's accessible to people.
Speaker 4:So I mean, that's, you know, there's nothing to my mind, honestly, jack, that's that in terms of what I read before I came on to the commission or what I've experienced as a part of the commission, that I would say is conceptually or theologically or even ecclesiastically challenging or difficult, nothing like what they went through the 1960s, 1970s, because I mean to be quite frank with you, those were such turbulent times and Senate, and we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of of, of Simex and everything that led to the walk out, and there is there's much to be learned from that period. Mistakes that were made, assumptions that were made, directions that were taken that had not been taken before and sent it have not been taken sense into my mind, won't be taken again. That said, the, the emotional intensity of that, of the relationships that were challenged by virtue of those issues in the late 60s and early 1970s, were very, very dense and and the repercussions for personal relationships, churches splitting churches leaving Senate, workers leaving Senate. We have not faced anything on that scope and Lord willing we won't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that we're still walking through some of the wounds. There's still some generational wounds that still exist from Simex and for me, 42, you know, third generation LCM. As pastor, I don't have those wounds. So even sometimes, things I'll say are you know, because we're very much into reaching people with the gospel. I think Jesus and the Holy Spirit want us to reach people with the gospel while staying true to our Word and sacrament ministry.
Speaker 3:And so some of some of my frustrations I have to step back, maybe with the battle between and it's not a battle, it's just a conversation between the Office of Holy Ministry and the priesthood of all believers, and and wanting to walk that middle line, which I think we as Lutherans, especially here in the LCMS, we do, we do quite well, but sometimes we may get imbalanced one way or another, and so I can. I can get frustrated from and from time to time, and I think some of those frustrations still go back to to the wounds of Semen X, for sure. Anything more to add to that? And then I'd love to hear what CTCR is currently working on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I mean, I think I think your idea is so many of these issues and really one of the I guess I mentioned this before I'm passing one of the one of the real interesting aspects of the CTCR that kind of gets reflected in this work is is how representative the, the commission, is to be of Senate, and that's you know, that's it's not personally. I mean, here's the deal, everybody else is wrong and I'm right, right.
Speaker 1:I mean like and this is.
Speaker 4:This is I can't get people to acknowledge this. It's the most difficult thing in the world to get people to acknowledge it. I'm actually right, right that that that that theology of the one is going to be is going to be infallible, theology of the many is going to be, be be erroneous, and the organization of the commission is really directly contrary to that Right. In fact, there's this, this old 1973 resolution, that, regarding the Constitution, how many members supposed to be on the CTCR? And it says it is to be a microcosm of Senate and it really is. I mean you got, you got 20 members on here. You know Conventional X five, two parish pastors, two, two laypersons, one parish teacher. The Council President's selects for two late to clergy, the seminary send their guys to from each, plus both presidents. You have the president's, senate appoints three people, including a C us faculty member, and then you still have the president and first vice president of Senate on hand, plus staff.
Speaker 4:I mean you got a lot of different minds in the room from a lot of different perspectives, a lot of different backgrounds and and it's it's virtually impossible to the CTCR with a particular perspective. So you, you have a lot of views represented. You've got a lot of regions represented, you've got a lot of backgrounds and theological perspectives represented, and and that's that's challenging, right. So you got to sit in a room and hash things out and and we break down. We actually break down the three different committees, usually about six, six people in each, six to seven. And man, those conversations can get hard because now you don't just assert something, it's not just Serena says this, now Serena's got to defend that point. And I'm not defending it against, against, you know, against a, you know a 23 year old seminary student that I teach I'm defended against fellow theologians, and so I mean, we kind of go at it and it's fun, I love it.
Speaker 4:I have a lot of love and and and, and you know what, some of the professors that you think are the strongest minded people in the world, the biggest overstaters they will sit there in that room and they will back down and say you know what I was wrong, you're right, I stand corrected. I love that Right. And I got to do that all the time too. We, every document that we produce, guys, we, we actually read the word by word around a table multiple times Is this word right? Is this word right?
Speaker 4:And if you wrote that word, you know you're kind of like, of course, that word's right because I wrote it but but. But but maybe it's not right, and and that's that that. It's challenging, it's humbling, but but to understand that everything you're reading is, is, is intended to be signed off on by every member, and they're coming from all different corners of Senate, all and representing all sorts of shapes and sizes of Missouri Senate, lutheran you got to bring your receipts when you're, when you're in debate and conversation there, and that's that. Again, it's challenging, it's humbling, but also I think it produces, hopefully, a little more clarity and a little more pertinence to the things that we, we, we, we draft them.
Speaker 2:So when a statement is made, this is a consensus statement. This isn't, so we got 51% here and 49% here.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, I mean theoretically it can be that right, yeah, If we want to push that through. But my colleague Joel, who's been executive director for 15 years or so now, he's dead set against that. He wants consensus, and I completely agree with him. If we can't produce something on a pivotal aspect of our faith that represents a consensus, if we can't do that, then we're not working hard enough or we have sort of indissoluble differences that we're just not going to be able to deal with, but I don't think, in most of these issues, we do.
Speaker 4:Most of these issues, it's a question of phrasing, of terminology, of substantiation from scripture, the confessions.
Speaker 3:When I get out of the seminary, rick, I received a stack of CTCR documents like this going back every seminary and did and I'll tell you what those did not just sit, you know, underneath the desk Like. I pulled those out consistently and still do to this day, because I found the documents to be so reasonable, centered in scripture and the confessions, with a tone and it's not just what you say, it's how you say it with a tone that's accessible as well. So kudos to you guys it takes a lot of work to get to that point of consensus and to Joel Lamebauer and the whole team, and you guys are doing wonderful work. So I'm curious what projects are you working on right now, rick?
Speaker 4:Well, I mentioned earlier that in 1962, there were, I think, 12, 14 assignments, whatever it was. That was kind of the previous record. Well, this is number two. This convention has given us, to my knowledge, the second most assignments that we've ever had, nine in fact, and it can do a couple of carryover from the last trinium. So we have a lot of stuff on our plate.
Speaker 4:I think that you know, you could kind of put them in some buckets, but I think that one of the ironies that we're dealing with now is okay, you put out a statement, say, on abortion in 1984, church state in 1985, something like that, when all of a sudden things have changed drastically, culturally, intellectually, legally, so you have to go back and revisit those things. So convention has asked us to do a reboot of our abortion report from 1984 because with the striking down of Roe v Wade, the Dobbs decision last year, that has changed the game. The question of abortion theologically is still the same In our position, in our stance, is still the same. But legally, politically, right advocacy has now shifted to the state and local levels and away from kind of the federal level. I mean you're dealing with new laws that are being put in place medically. The move towards medication, abortion has entirely changed the nature of the locations for abortion. So we have to be aware of those things, we have to be conscious of them, we have to find a way to address those in a way that's going to be helpful and supportive to those who were involved in advocacy, to those who want to know about this new medication and where the lines are between things that are clearly abortive, things that are abortive patients and things that are not. So that's a huge challenge. You know what? Because I don't know this stuff. You just asked me what I did my dissertation in. That is not applicable in any way to reform, to some of these social issues. So that's a challenge.
Speaker 4:And one of the things and I guess this is one of the things that people probably don't know about the commission either is we typically don't just draft this as a group. Ordinarily we will ask a drafter to compose a document for us. Usually it's a drafter who has expertise in a field, who has written a good degree in it. We've read something that they've written that's helpful and thoughtful and seems accurate, and then it will kind of go through the commission after they supply it to us. Usually those are seminary professors, right, not always, but usually. The challenge, though, is where do you go to find somebody who knows the legal and jurisprudential aspects of abortion and the political and the scientific, medical and the theological? So I don't know if you guys know people. I'm serious, I'm all ears and any listeners of the podcast. If you have names of people or specialists who know this stuff, we desperately need to know who they are to make sure that we get the best, most faithful, most accurate draft that we can for us to review and consider.
Speaker 4:Another one is church state. Right, we put up this document, and I always find this kind of interesting, right, so our stuff on church state is fairly limited. We did a bunch of stuff in the 1960s that was kind of related to contentious objection, civil disobedience, that kind of a thing that was all kind of framed in the context of Vietnam, or civil rights, right. Those are the burning issues, so you kind of address that All right.
Speaker 4:Well then, in the 1990s, you had this huge dust up over Christian America, right, with the religious right and so forth. So to what degree is America Christian? To what degree should we be partisan politically? So we have a document kind of addressing that, trying to ferret that out. Well now, man, you were in just an unprecedented situation for us, because not only is that a question whether or not it's Christian America, now a question is whether or not government is going to be directly adversarial to you, right, which sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but it potentially it's not going to get better, right, it's going to be more challenging. So that's the question for us how do we tackle that If that's such a massive amorphous subject? Again, who are the specialists out there who can provide a faithful, scripturally, confessionally responsible treatment of this that makes sense of where we are in a way that's going to be helpful to people?
Speaker 1:That's not easy.
Speaker 4:But I think those are kind of, to my mind, the real big issues for us. The practical stuff, things we're going to continually have debates over, internal tensions over those things to my mind are less momentous, say, than these bigger issues that we're going to be facing. We need competent people to be able to contribute to these things, because the commission is not. We do not have the collective expertise on a lot of these subjects. That's why we depend upon other people out there who can assist us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I love that that please, so, if you have folks that can speak into that. You could hit us up at Unite Leadershiporg or just find CTCR online and they're all ears. So thank you for that posture of humility. Now, coming down the homestretch, rick, I'd like to ask Reverend Dr Serena some personal questions, and here is why because you're always right. You're always right, so this is going to be fantastic.
Speaker 4:You need to talk to my wife.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, exactly, I'll bring that to her.
Speaker 4:Tell her that, please.
Speaker 3:Yeah, many ties. Members have concerns that pastors I'd love to get your perspective on this, because you've been CTCR as well as in the parish that pastors are becoming too political. If we mention concerns with culture in our sermons, or maybe there's posts online, what words of wisdom would you give to these pastors, simply trying to be faithful and shepherding their flock in these turbulent times here in 2023 and beyond? Yeah, just words of wisdom and love.
Speaker 4:Yeah, man, that's so tricky.
Speaker 3:I know it's loaded.
Speaker 4:I mean as a parish pastor, for instance, new Jersey, texas, where I was in rural West Texas, it was a pretty unified culture, pretty monolithic to some degree. Everybody kind of had. Again you had political differences and so forth, but compared to what you get other places in New Jersey, I mean, I'll tell you my congregation literally, if everybody wore their political colors you'd have one side of the church was red, one side of the church was blue, and I think that's not terribly characteristic of the Missouri Synod.
Speaker 4:It was very characteristic of New Jersey. So I was, frankly, a lot of times sort of kind of tonic about how to address some of these issues, because the reality is that some things come up scripturally and you have to address them clearly and directly. You have no intent to be political about this. I mean, you're just trying to reflect the faith of the scriptures and invariably half that congregation may think that you're being political. Why? Because that view that you're articulating directly contradicts whatever it is that they affirm politically or socially, and so it is tense. And I guess probably the one thing I would say here is and this applies to anything, whether it's doctrine, theologically, whether it's a political issue, social issue, whether it's an ecclesiastical issue, however you slice this up right, guys, don't say more than what scripture says. Facts, I mean, if you say what scripture says and you can justify that's what scripture says, then any criticism that comes to you you can point back to God's word and you can acknowledge it like hey, listen, I'm here on behalf of Christ to speak his words to you. I'm not going to go beyond that.
Speaker 4:The further we go beyond that in cultural commentary, cultural criticism, that's, I think, where the real danger is If people read you wrongly. My wife is. I'm a sissy in the pulpit. To be quite frank with you, my wife is the great and she would just whenever I would kind of come to her and say I'm afraid how this is going to be taken, and she would say that's okay, people expect their pastors to preach God's word, even when they don't like it. So you got to say it and you got to be bold. And that was very encouraging to me, because if I can equivocate, I'll equivocate, but to speak what God speaks, communicate his word. If you get pushed on something, go back to his word, but if you decide to go into other territories where scripture does not speak, go beyond what scripture says and to your own cultural commentary, your own cultural criticism. Well then, man, you're on your own because you don't have scripture necessarily to back it up.
Speaker 4:So that's one of the fine distinctions I think we have to make from the pulpit.
Speaker 3:And I kind of cued this earlier, but I think one of the greatest assaults today and it's the work of Satan, the one who seeks to steal, kill, destroy and divide right is the breakdown of the family and the very base of how God made us as male and female, and I never thought that that like just saying that would be a political statement by some.
Speaker 3:It just is reality. It's as true as true is right. But even how we talk about those things, we need to be sensitive and bold and clear with that. Any other, any additions, because I think the conversation around the family and the assault on the family, as well as maybe the race conversation, that's definitely a heated one as well today. But, yeah, any other words of wisdom around how you just speak to these kind of base truths, especially around your respective, because you love the family, you got six kids, man for goodness sake, this is the future, so go ahead.
Speaker 4:But yeah, and that's. I mean I think, yeah, nothing more than just to say this it's. Yeah, I don't like talking about this stuff, but I mean again, if you push me, have me talk about the Reformation, have me talk about ecclesiology, have me talk about the middle, you can ask me a billion and one thing that I'll be more invested in. You know hardcore. Let's debate sanctification. Let's debate third, use of law. This is fun, right, but man, I mean this other stuff it's not, to my mind, intellectually engaging. Sometimes it's not fun to talk about. But you're exactly right, tim, it has become absolutely necessary because we got kids, right. You know, I mean, I can't tell you how many people I talk to. It doesn't matter how faithful they've been as fathers, how faithful they've been as spouses.
Speaker 4:No-transcript dealing with the repercussions of these changes and they're coming so quick, right, and I think that's one of the other challenges. I don't want to be an alarmist or a reactionary by any stretch of the imagination, but they come so quickly. We produced a document in 2014 on gender dysphoria and now that term isn't even used. Within a decade, the terminology has completely changed, where that report that is, I think, very good and very helpful is basically irrelevant. So at pace with which the change is occurring, it is alarming. That said, we just have to keep talking about it and we also have to be unified. And any suspicions that people in the Missouri Synod actually maybe they're sensitive to these issues because of what their family member has gone through, their kid has gone through any notion that that reflects a lack of commitment to what the scripture says about these things, I think betrays a complete lack of trust in our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, because we're actually all dealing with this at different levels and different scores and it's going to get far worse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly that's why unity. There's a number of different forces, I think, within any confessing historic church body like ours, and I do think it's demonic. I would love to see us divide, and I think the CTCR has a wonderful role right now because of how it's been made up all different voices within the Synod to keep us united on Christ and the scriptures and the way he relates to us through Word and sacrament. So this is wonderful. We can. Jack is online, sometimes in different groups Facebook and such and Lutheran groups and sometimes we're just on re and we love to debate and sometimes the debates lead into a disagreeable fashion.
Speaker 3:We've actually had a number of interviews with people on this podcast who may have said bad things or harsh things about us or others, and we end up having really good collegial conversation that leads us to learn from one another and grow closer to Christ and his love for us in the Word. So last question how are you praying? The LCMS becomes healthier and more faithful, more charitable, hospitable, more evangelical in the best sense of the word, moving into the next generation. Rick, yeah, I have Final prayers for the LCMS.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not easy because I don't know, right. I mean, I don't know what that looks like, I don't know what that faith looks like, I don't know what that future looks like. What I do hope is that how should I put this? That we stay the same in the best sense of the word, right, a standing firm, retaining what we have. There will be things that will variably change what that looks like.
Speaker 4:I'm a historian so I don't think in terms of kind of linear progress or linear decline. Those narratives are always kind of way too simplistic. There's always kind of an ebb and flow right, and navigating those is going to be very, very difficult. My prayer is that we remain steadfast, and part of that is not reacting too much and not changing too much because you don't know the consequences and the implications of that.
Speaker 4:My colleague Joel has this passage that he always refers to from GK Chesterdon's Orthodoxy, and it's an example of the church. Chesterdon describes the church as a cheerio rider right and you're holding onto the reins as best you can, standing up straight, to prevent the church from. You know crocheting if you want too far right or too far left right, or up and down, or however you define that and I think that's kind of what I hope and that's my prayer is that whatever confronts us, we don't allow it to change. What makes us what we are and really what makes us what we are is this fundamental theological commitment, and that takes a lot of different shapes and overtime and it has that we retain that fundamental theological commitment. Where that changes because of the culture Because I would suggest we dealt with in the 1960s that becomes increasingly problematic in terms of fracturing our unity and fracturing our witness.
Speaker 3:Amen. Praise be to God. Jesus is Lord of the Church, right Rick.
Speaker 4:No man, no matter how right I am.
Speaker 3:You were very right today, bro. This has been a lot of fun. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so? Rick, or were CTCR in general?
Speaker 4:Yeah, LCMS website, CTCR. We've got a landing page with all of our documents there. They're a little difficult to navigate, but it's categorized according to topic, and so browse those and then rickstrianlcmsorg. Any questions you have. Prishner, parish pastor, we're always ready to assist and feedback on our stuff or things that you feel need to be addressed. Those are comments that we take into consideration.
Speaker 3:This was not boring. This was a brilliant time with the Holy Spirit speaking through you, rick. I love your passion, I love your humor and you're just love for the church and wanting to be faithful. So I have gotten better today. Our listeners have gotten better because of the Lord speaking through you today. So thank you, thank you, thank you. This is lead time, sharing. It's caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is that you take in podcasts and we'll continue to have wonderful conversations to help bring unity and faithfulness to scripture and the confessions within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and hopefully beyond, as our impact reaches beyond the borders of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, rick. Jack, thanks for having me Excellent.
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