Lead Time
Lead Time
From Doctrine to Outreach in Lutheran Thought with Rev. Dr. John Pless
Lutheranism’s struggle between mission and doctrine finds renewed clarity in this episode as Dr. John Pless offers insights from his unique journey and extensive theological experience. The conversation highlights how confessional integrity lays the groundwork for effective mission work, calling for unity and collaboration among church members to actively live out their faith in the world.
• Introduction of Dr. John Pless and his background
• Discussion on the influence of historical Lutheran figures like Wilhelm Lea
• Exploration of the relationship between doctrine and mission
• Analysis of the perceived dichotomy between mission and confession
• Insights into the roles of pastors and laity in evangelism
• Examination of the challenges facing the LCMS today
• Reflection on responses to the annotated Luther's Large Catechism
• Emphasis on the importance of unity within the church
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. It's a beautiful day to be alive, jack. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. We're hitting the colder weather here in Arizona. Now it's getting into Arizona's version of sweater weather which is, like you know, 60s and 70s. Yeah, no, it's pretty great. It's pretty great. I'm right on the heels of closing up high school football coaching and where our team's in the playoffs tomorrow. So by the time this gets recorded we'll know if we how far we made it. But it's super, super fun. We pray.
Speaker 2:The joy of the Lord is your strength today as we get to have a great conversation with Reverend Dr John T Pless. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr Pless. He is an assistant and now kind of modified service semi-retired professor at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. He's the past president of the International Leia Society and book review editor for Logia. He's been writing for CPH book titles such as Praying Luther's Small Catechism. I also saw a book Pastors Craft Essays and Sermons by John T Pless and he's also serving with CTCR. So if you're in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the Commission on Theology and Church Relations, and he's a visiting professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Pretoria, south Africa. Dr Pless, how are you doing, brother? Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Real good, good to be here on finally kind of a cool fall day in Fort Wayne. We've really had really warm weather here and up into the 70s and clear. But it's looking more typically Fort Rain, indiana today Gray skies and cool temperatures and a little drizzle there. But great to be with you brothers, here this morning.
Speaker 2:Likewise, so this is going to be super fun. Let's start out just kind of with a broad definition. We've got a lot of Lutheran leaders, pastors et cetera who listen to the podcast. Love to get your take especially connected to your story. You didn't grow up in the Lutheran Church. Missouri Synod, you told us. You came into the Synod post-seminary. So tell us a little bit of that story and then branch into what you love about being a Lutheran theologian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I grew up in North Carolina. My home congregation was a congregation of the ALC, the American Lutheran Church, which became part of the merger in 1988 that formed the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, elca. I went to Texas Lutheran College in Seguin. I was pretty much convinced from probably my sophomore year in high school that I wanted to be a pastor. I was influenced by my boyhood pastor, pastor that had married my parents and baptized, confirmed me great role model for the ministry, and so probably by the time I was a sophomore in high school I was pretty much intent on being a pastor and followed through on that with pre-seminary program at Texas Lutheran went to Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus and, you know, while I was at college I encountered some professors who had, you know, expressing doubts about things like the resurrection of Jesus or basic creedal statements in the virgin birth. And I came from what I thought was a pretty traditional conservative congregation. Pastor never gave us any indication that he believed that anything in the Bible was not true. He represented, I think, just a kind of a solid stream of confessional Lutheranism from that period of time.
Speaker 3:And I went then to seminary in Columbus and was certified for ordination in the American Lutheran Church but decided to postpone a call on ordination to take a position at Valparaiso University and so I actually worked there for four years with Norman Nagel.
Speaker 3:Norman Nagel, who was very influential on my own theological formation and development, and also another professor there at least the first year I was there was Kenneth Corby now with the Lord, but he again had a real strong understanding of law, gospel preaching and pastoral care and his own doctoral work. On Wilhelm Leia you mentioned. My involvement with Leia Society was really kind of through that impulse and long and short of it is I decided that confessionally I would fit better with the Missouri Synod than what was happening in the ELCA. So I colloquized through Fort Wayne and then took a call to serve the Missouri Synod campus ministry, as you mentioned, at University of Minnesota, really had no intention of coming to the seminary to teach. I was very happy being a university pastor and kind of out of the blue, one Sunday afternoon Dr Winthe, the president of the seminary here, gave me a call and asked me if I would allow my name to stand for the whole pre-approval process and you know and be open to an interview for the faculty.
Speaker 3:And I kind of postponed that. I asked him to hold off a bit and I still had some things I wanted to take care of in Minneapolis. But he said I'm going to come back and ask you that question again next year this time. And he did. And then I felt that I should at least go through the process and for whatever reason I believe the Lord had obviously a hand in this that I was called to the faculty and been here ever since.
Speaker 2:I love it. And man, you mentioned Dr Nagel.
Speaker 2:I actually had Dr Nagel in seminary, yeah yeah, and so what did you learn from him? And then how did that kind of formation, the influence of Leah Nagel Okay, in seminary, yeah, yeah, and so what did you learn from him? And then how did that kind of formation, the influence of Leah Nagel and other like what was your doctorate in? And then how did you? You've what we know about you, dr Pless, is, I mean, you've you've kind of had a wide stream, you've you've had influence, you've been influenced and influenced along a variety of different topics in the kind of Lutheran ecosystem. So what have you taught over the years and how did Nagel and Lea kind of influence?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was influenced by Norman Nagel to read and study the writings of this Lutheran theologian, hermann Zassa, and in turn Zassa was one who had been influenced by Wilhelm Lea, a 19th century Lutheran pastor, who was a man who made a pretty big impact on the Lutheran church in the 19th century. He was a parish pastor in Nguyen Dettel Sao, a little village in Bavaria. Village in Bavaria. I never really left home but was quite an organizer for world missions and sent men and money, established a seminary that I'm teaching at, but also established missionary colony in Michigan, saginaw Valley, frankenmuth, to reach Chippewa Indians. Had plans to do something similar in the San Francisco area to reach the Chinese, but life is kind of short and he didn't have time to really kind of materialize that plan.
Speaker 3:But one church historian has said that the Lutheran church today would be about one-third smaller if it weren't for the efforts of Wilhelm Leya, and Leya was one who, in my mind at least, really brought together a strong emphasis on the importance of the Lutheran confession, the importance of doctrine with mission. So you know, a lot of times you know we have folks today who want to pit mission against confession, being missional, being confessional. There's really a marriage there. Of the two you don't have one really without the other, and for me Vahamleah embodied that, and so Leah would talk about the church is our mission, is nothing other than the one holy Christian, apostolic church in action. He talked about this church that is being always drawn to the preaching of God's word, to baptism, to the sacrament of the altar, but then it's also sent, it's dispersed into the world and comes back then to the means of grace always. And for me I've tried to model that in my ministry at University of Minnesota.
Speaker 3:But then, in terms of teaching future pastors here, you had asked about topics or things I teach here. As I said, I turned 67 about four years ago and at that point my initiative decided to do modified service, which meant that I gave up all administrative responsibilities I'd been field ed director, gave that up but continue to teach two courses each quarter, which also gives me time for writing and for some work overseas. And the courses that I am currently teaching would be pastoral theology, particularly a course that we call pastoral theology two, which is a kind of bridge course between Vicarage and First Call. I teach a catechetics course, which is a course basically on the catechism of Luther and how to teach it. I teach theological ethics and then I do some elective classes an elective on the pastor's devotional life and an elective on the theology of.
Speaker 3:Herman Zasa.
Speaker 3:I just mentioned that a few minutes ago, love it, so that's kind of my day job here at Fort Wayne and appreciate the community you know of scholars and students and everything that our campus has to offer a beautiful library, wonderful chapel with daily services. And yet, you know, I'm also trying to get out into the church and since 2009, I've been serving as a visiting professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Pretoria, south Africa, which means I go over there twice a year, teach for two weeks at a time and have been able to develop some good relationships there with students who are now pastors really throughout Africa and are doing great work in the Lord's mission in that context.
Speaker 3:So that's really kind of a joy that I've been able to partake in there, yeah.
Speaker 2:So good, Dr Pless, you bring up Leah and his drive toward unifying doctrine and mission and, as you alluded to the missional confessional conversation today, I think it's a false dichotomy.
Speaker 2:We've made that point for a while but we kind of orient ourselves still along that dividing line and I just don't understand. It's been a curious thing to me God has a mission, God's mission has a church and Word and Sacrament is absolutely the center of who we are, as we gather to be convicted of our sin and comforted by the gospel, forgiven of our sins, brought into the family through the waters of baptism, forgiven of our sins by the body and blood of Jesus and then sent out into the world. I don't know how we arrived at this place and it appears as if in Lutheran theology and in Lutheran history that has been a pain point for us or an opportunity for growth for some time. Can you give, I mean, just paint with a little bit of a broad brush? I mean, if Leah's dealing with it, how far does this kind of false dichotomy of mission and doctrine, how far does it go back in the Lutheran story, Dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Well, that you know. I'm not sure you know there were. You know, you certainly see that the two are conjoined in Luther because it's you know, the gospel, and it's not any old gospel, but it's the gospel of God's justification of the ungodly through faith for Christ's sake. So that gospel has specific. For Christ's sake, so that gospel has specific content. You know Matthew 28, the all things that the Lord has given us to teach. And yet you know Luther in a very different age, 16th century, when living in what is often referred to as kind of Christendom, where the only unbaptized people would have been the Jews. But Luther still recognized that there was a mission beyond just kind of preserving the doctrine. It's a doctrine that's preserved so it can be proclaimed and preached to the joy and edifying of Christ's holy people. And Luther would describe that gospel as a summer rain shower. So you know it's going to be, it's moving. Or as Luther puts it, and I think one of the Psalms commentary is that the preaching office puts feet on the gospel. You know, it's obviously the biblical illusion there. How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim the good news. So it is to be proclaimed.
Speaker 3:And even you know, in 16th, 17th century you begin to have world missions coming out of Lutheran circles. One of the interesting things to me it shows again how they are joined is that what we often refer to as the confessional revival of the 19th century, where there was a real effort to reclaim biblical Lutheran theology, the confessions was also a great missionary movement that these men who stood against rationalism, who stood against, you know, unionism, mixing of Lutheran and Reformed churches and so forth, were committed to do mission forth, were committed to do mission to take the truth of that gospel into all the world. And you see how that was done, you know, in the early Missouri Synod, for example. You know that sometimes they are characterized well, they were just kind of Germans in exile. But these, you know, these Saxons there in St Louis Perry County, immediately started reaching out to other German immigrants who were coming, Well that was, who were not Christian or not Lutheran American Indians in Saginaw Valley, and to the American South with what was called at the time Negro Mission, you know, african American mission. And then a world mission with somebody like Theodore Nather, the first Missouri Senate missionary, to India.
Speaker 3:And sometimes in our history there has been that tension, but I don't think it is a tension that goes back to Luther or even to our 19th century forefathers in the faith. I think in many ways it's something that has developed in more modern times and perhaps some of it has to do with the so-called battle for the Bible that influenced the Missouri Synod in the 60s and 70s, where there was a fear of losing this gospel, losing this saving truth of Christ, as attested to in Scripture, in Scripture. But then you wonder sometimes if out of that experience there's more kind of a protective mode. And yet you know, you see, I think in some ways a resurgence of mission and interest in mission that also comes out of that conflict, because it was clear that you know that mission was not to be identified with what we would call just kind of social action or human care, the kind of projects, as valuable as they are, what was sometimes characterized as kind of social gospel from an earlier part of the 20th century, but a real proclamation of Christ to people. But it is, for whatever reason, it is still obviously a tension for me, a very painful tension, because it's an unnecessary one that without the doctrine there's no reason to do mission, and you can see this in churches where they have adopted a position of universalism, that everybody is saved, and there universalism really cuts the nerve for any kind of mission activity. But because we do believe that salvation is in Christ solus Christus and by faith alone, by grace alone, according to the Word alone, there should be at least a drive toward mission, that we're not just tending to the doctrine for the sake of kind of keeping it pure, but we keep it pure so we can proclaim it.
Speaker 3:One of the essays I have my students read in the pastoral theology class is by the third president of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a man by the name of Heinrich Schwan, a German immigrant pastor, and back in the already in I think it was 1859 or so he wrote a series of propositions entitled Propositions on Unevangelical Practice. And one of the propositions or theses that Schwan states, is that we ought not cast pearls before the swine. But neither are we to keep those pearls in our pocket. And so he's kind of acknowledging the importance of having the pearls, keeping the pearls, making sure the truth of God is reverenced and articulated. But again, the purpose is not just to kind of keep that treasure in the pocket, so to speak, but to bring it to others.
Speaker 3:And that becomes for me kind of a good teaching point to talk about this relation. I like to tell our students that our congregations ought to be rock solid at the center in terms of preaching, in terms of, you know, confessional practice. People ought to know the scriptures, they ought to know the catechism and be, you know, able to participate in the worship of the church. But our congregations also need to be porous at the edges in such a way as that we can bring people in and that our own people can actually go out and, in the places of their vocation, be confessors of Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yes, hey, dr Pless, thank you for that excursus into a bit of history and our need for the ever-present defense of the truth of the gospel for the sake of proclaiming the gospel to the world. Jesus came because he loves the world and he came to seek and save those that are lost, and I think—go ahead.
Speaker 3:No, we have no other gospel than the gospel that Christ has given us through the apostles, and so that's what we want to confess. And to confess is to say back to God what he has said to us through his word. But that confession is not just so that we can hear the echo of our own voices. Amen, it is a word that you know. To use Luther's language, takes feet and is to go into all the world. And again, it's precisely because of our confessional theology that we are engaged in mission. Think of the third article of Luther's explanation to the Apostles' Creed. I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, come to Jesus Christ, my Lord, or believe in him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, and so it's not enough for us to simply say, okay, we've got our church here. We have divine service announced on the Marquee at 8 and 10. You know people we'll let people come if they want.
Speaker 3:No, we are to go out from the divine service, carry that word of the gospel, which alone creates faith, so that they are then drawn back into the place where the gifts are being given and built up and catechized in God's word and in the reception of those gifts to live as Christ told them.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I agree that the battle over the Bible, as well as the rise in secularism, has potentially led us to a more defensive posture, and we kind of then narrow in on what it is. This is just what humans do in the midst of anxiety, things that are beyond our control. We narrow in on what we can control, and what we can control is the gathering around word and sacrament. I think somewhere in here as well, dr Pless, lies the maybe imbalance, I would say in the LCMS right now and I'd love to get your. I think we're imbalanced in terms of protecting the office of holy ministry and that balance may lead us to and denigrate, may be too strong of a word, or to downcast, downgrade maybe, our role of the priesthood of all believers. And that is a partnership, the two cannot be separated. But I think we can become imbalanced in this day and age toward the office of holy ministry because it's something we can kind of control. Any thoughts there, dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think again, you know Walther's treatise, kirk, you know Kirkanot church and office, and often in theology the conjunction is the most important word. Yeah, it's not church by itself but it's not office by itself. You don't have the one without the other. And you know, humanly speaking we tend to want to pull apart what God has joined together. Sometimes it comes, I think, from a kind of a defensive posture, whereas there was a period in fairly recent church history, kind of in some ways growing out of the World Missionary Movement, edinburgh 1910, where there was an emphasis on deploying the laity for mission, and it was almost, as you know, what really counts is what the laity now are going to be doing out there in the world. What really counts is what the laity now are going to be doing out there in the world, and at best pastors become kind of equipers or enablers, but the real ministry is kind of done by the laity. And so you have literature, for example out of the World Council of Churches, heinrich Kramer, about 1950, ministry of the Laity about 1950, ministry of the Laity In the Missouri Synod 1974, oscar Foy, everyone a minister.
Speaker 3:And then I think there's probably pushback against that. And then you would have some who would say, well, only the pastor can do missions, or only the pastor can speak the gospel that forgives sins, which is not what the confessions teach. And even though you can maybe understand how it shapes in reaction to something, we best not do theology by reaction. We best not do theology by reaction. That's where the error comes in, you know. Rather to hold together what God has put together. I think one of the ways of overcoming this is a strong and robust understanding of the Lutheran doctrine of vocation, of vocation, and you know that God has called all Christians through baptism, to faith in Christ and to a life of love, lived for the service of the neighbor. And so you know laity and even kind of use of the term laity kind of sticks there a little, because when you look at Luther, luther only actually used the term laity polemically against the Roman Catholic opponents.
Speaker 3:So when he would talk about church he would talk about hearers and preachers of the Word of God together. You know church-consistent preachers and hearers, because church has no existence apart from the Word of God and this Paul in Romans 10,. How can they hear unless there's a preacher? So you don't integrate the preaching office to kind of correct the neglect of the priesthood of the baptized or the calling that all Christians have, but you keep it together and then you don't see competition or ought not see competition between pastors and laity or hearers of the Word of God and laity or hearers of the Word of God, but a way that the pastor is serving the gathered congregation through the public proclamation of the gospel, the administration of Christ's sacrament, and then individuals take what they have heard, this gospel, and they are confessing that in the places they live, the way that it works, for example, in the family. And you mentioned catechism and I teach catechetics.
Speaker 3:One of the most overlooked parts of Luther's small catechism is at the very end, where he has daily prayer and table of duty. And in fact I'm doing a presentation on this tomorrow for our Luther Hostel here on campus, talking about the catechism as handbook for parents and children and how Luther says that every mother and father are to function as bishop and bishopess in their own household. That what they have heard in the sermon, they are really in a position now to translate that and echo that as they care, as they evangelize their own family, their own children, as they teach their own children and certainly in other places. You know, christian people are going to places where I as a pastor never have access to. I learned this particularly, you know, in campus ministry.
Speaker 3:I had at University of Minnesota a lot of graduate students doing high-level work in biochemistry and in physics, all kinds of different disciplines, and I didn't have the vocabulary first of all, to interact with a lot of their peers or teachers.
Speaker 3:But they knew the faith, they were learning the scriptures and catechism and they could go into those places and make a credible confession of Christ to an unbelieving colleague, you know, and oftentimes that would result in that they're bringing that person then to church and I would provide the formal instruction or catechesis.
Speaker 3:But that wouldn't have happened unless they had actually been the kind of the link there that made you know, made the connection, and so I think we need to rather than think about, you know, royal priesthood and office of the ministry in competition or opposition, that if you're big on royal priesthood you're going to downplay office of ministry.
Speaker 3:If you're big on office of ministry you're going to trash royal priesthood, to kind of get rid of that and talk about, first of all, the office is not about the man that holds it, it's about the word that he is commissioned and entrusted to proclaim publicly, and therefore it's an office of servitude. It's not, you know, an office that kind of sets him apart as a priestly figure, to use you know Leah's language there. No, he's the human instrument that God uses for the proclamation of the word ministration and sacrament, and he's doing that for the sake of God's royal priesthood. But that doesn't mean that God's royal priesthood, then, is simply set into a position of inactivity. They receive, but then they give. And where do they give? Back in the world and the places where God has called them.
Speaker 2:Yes, so this is so helpful, dr Pless. I was at a, because I don't know that every pastor in the LCMS today articulates it the way you just did and I don't know if it's conscious or subconscious. One of the stories that just kind of sits with me was at a district convention and we were discussing this topic and one, one younger pastor, um, got up and said I think we were talking about releasing more kind of evangelists and, you know, releasing people out into their various vocations, just like we've been discussing. And and he said, uh, in the church there are and you referred to this text right From Romans 10 in the church there are proclaimers and there are hearers. This young man said and the two should not be confused. And then he stopped talking. It was made as almost like I am above and I am here to do God's, to proclaim God's word, but you maintain your posture as simply a hearer rather than one who proclaims in your various vocations. He needed to continue the conversation and so that is in the culture in various pockets of the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod, and I think your explanation really, really helps and I think another paradigm for us, moving from Ephesians, chapter five you kind of hinted at this.
Speaker 2:And Genesis, chapter two, is what God has joined together. Let the two not pull asunder. And so we move toward Christ and his connection to his disciples and, in turn, the church In Christ. Now we live and move and have our being and Christ actually makes us his temple individually and then collectively, his mouthpiece out into the world. And this divine mystery of Christ coming to both Jew and Gentile and moving the gospel forward through the work of Christ, coming to both Jew and Gentile and moving the gospel forward through the work of his church, praise God. And then this interconnection between in Ephesians 5, right, the Apostle Paul draws this connection just as Christ loved the church, so husbands are to love their wives, and so then we see this move downward, into servanthood, into sacrifice, into service. This is the role of the Christian husband.
Speaker 2:To what Elevate his bride In pastoral counseling, pre-marriage counseling. It's not you taking the high place, husband, no, your leadership, philippians. Chapter two is following in the heart of Christ to humble himself, even to the point of death. You would lay down your life for your bride. You care for her that much.
Speaker 2:And then to draw the through thread to, I think, the office, and I don't know that I've ever really made this connection and I'd love to get your take on it. But then the office of holy ministry. We are here as the chief servants, those who get the privilege of proclaiming the love of God to what? Not downgrade, denigrate the priesthood of all believers, but to elevate her, to lift her up, as she's mobilized for ministry, out in her various vocations, as the body of Christ. We do not exist apart from, just as Christ does not exist really, apart from the mobilization, then, of the church, as a husband can't exist apart from the care of his wife, so the office of holy ministry cannot exist apart from the priesthood of all believers. Am I making an okay theological statement from your perspective, dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you are. No, I think you are. Again, you know, the royal priesthood and the office are both from the Lord. It's not that they are interchangeable, it's not that one takes precedence over the other, it's always the both and. And so, you know, luther would talk about the drunken peasant who goes from one ditch to another, and we can see that and we can understand, I think, some of the cultural reasons for that.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, especially in our time when there's just a lot of uncertainty about what the pastor is, is he, is he a therapist, is he a community organizer? Um, is he kind of a rabbinic scholar? Is he a proclaimer? You know, and some of the writers I'm reading in pastoral theology and outside the Missouri Synod, because you see, it's not just a problem sometimes in our circle, that's kind of where we experience it, but this is kind of a more broadly put, kind of an American Christian problem. And a number of these writers have come back to this point that we talk about pastoral burnout, for example, and one of the reasons for that is pastor really doesn't know what he is there for. And then, if you really don't have this kind of clear understanding from, I would say from the scriptures and from the confessions of what the office is there for, you try to find some way to shore it up.
Speaker 3:You know, you know, and either you know making claims that go beyond what the confessions make, or you know kind of the you know excuse me here but kind of the illogical argument that this man made.
Speaker 3:That you know which, if you look at Romans 10, this hearing of the Word of God in faith leads to what? Belief in the heart, but also confession with the lips. You know, and that the royal priesthood is engaged in this act of confession, not only, certainly in the divine service we confess the creed but also how do you speak of Christ to your family, to your neighbor, to people you know you have connections with at the gym or workplace, and that's not to diminish the office of the ministry at all, and in fact you know my experience as a pastor. It was often those kinds of contacts where the gospel was initially spoken by a man or a woman who was part of the congregation to one of their friends, that that person would then be brought to the church, would be brought to a place where I could provide instruction, baptize or confirm, you know, and so it's both, and we just have to resist the temptation to pull things apart. That the Lord has joined together.
Speaker 2:Hey, this has been so much fun. I can't believe we're five minutes from our time concluding. Talk about how much.
Speaker 3:Tealica and stuff in Africa and all kinds of other things.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm sorry about that. We're going to have to have you back on us.
Speaker 3:That's OK, this was great. And the nice thing about these kind of podcasts they can be kind of free floating and you don't have to do everything at once yeah, but yeah, yeah, well, there's a lot more to it.
Speaker 2:Well, this has been a joy to close. You were an editor in Luther's Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications. A year and a half ago or so it kind of caused a little bit of a stir. You also were not just the editor, you contributed three different articles on the Coveting, ninth and Commandments, and First Article and Sixth Petition on Temptation, and so much to say there, along with Aratio, meditatio, tentatio and Luther's pastoral care. That is what we will talk about next time.
Speaker 2:But just to set it up, get your closing comments on the distribution of Luther's large catechism. It caused quite a stir. Some people said there were some woke leanings in some of the contemporary applications, annotations etc. And you kind of got to see a little bit of the underbelly, of maybe a condemning without fully understanding nature that can sometimes take place and I applaud actually President Harrison for kind of saying what is written is written and the church can kind of figure it out together as the book went out into the LCMS and beyond. So thank you for that work based especially on that experience and you kind of see a little bit of the ways we can be at odds with one another through that experience. What are your biggest prayers for unity today? Top three opportunities for unity, because that's where this is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. We are praying for unity in the LCMS for the sake of our missional proclamation. So what are some of your closing prayers as you look at the LCMS in general, dr Pless?
Speaker 3:Well, certainly unity in our confession. You know, we, you've noted, you know kind of the secularism that is there and just kind of pluralism that shapes a lot of thinking, and so we together need to bring every thought captive to Christ, to use, you know, paul's language, and with one heart, with one mind and with one voice, confess this Lord mind and with one voice, confess this Lord. And for me that's the great joy of being a confessional Lutheran that we actually do have something to confess. I was really delighted to work with my CTCR colleague, larry Vogel, in editing the Annotated Large Catechism and we tried to bring the best scholarship that we could, not only from our church body but also from some men outside of Lutheran Church, missouri Synod who had kind of proven track record in being able to articulate the teachings of Luther in the Reformation. We got some criticism for that, as you know. And then, because you have 60-some different writers making contemporary application, we did not try to tell them what they had to write on some of these social issues like racism, for example, and issues of public social justice and so forth. And yet I would want to emphasize that not only did the editor, dr Vogel, and myself kind of screen. Everything went through the president's office, it went through our normal doctoral review system and it had to pass muster with the entire CTCR. It was the most doctrinally reviewed piece of literature, I think, in the history of the Missouri Senate.
Speaker 3:And I won't speculate as to all the causes of why people would react in the way that they did but it became almost epidemic, would react in the way that they did but it became almost epidemic. You know, one person hears it. Social media comes kind of echo chamber and you have people who never bothered to actually read it then on their own and yet we're just kind of repeating what they had heard from somebody else. We're beyond that, I hope. I mean the book. You know we use the book. I use the book as a text here at the seminary. A couple of my colleagues do, I think my colleagues at St Louis are using it. It's used in our colleges, it's used in congregations and so while you know, some of those initial criticisms really did hurt because we were trying to do nothing other than serve the proclamation, clear proclamation, of God's word and Lutheran confessions, you know in retrospect, ok, we weathered. That book is getting good use. I carried a suitcase full of them to use in teaching pastors in South Africa. A suitcase full of them to use in teaching pastors in South Africa. And I know others are using it on the mission field overseas as well as in congregations in the state.
Speaker 3:And closing with one quick story, because I know you're running out your time there, I regularly stop by a local Panera's and have my coffee and bagel and there was a non-denominational men's Bible class or Bible study kind of meeting there.
Speaker 3:One morning last year ago, last summer, after I had the book came out and this one guy walked in and I didn't know him at all but he was waving his copy. He said look what I found, you guys should read this. And I went up to him afterwards and introduced myself because he didn't know me and he was not a Missouri Synod person. He was actually kind of looking around at some Missouri Synod congregations coming out of another Lutheran church body. But he resonated to this and he was telling these guys from these non-denominational, you know, bible study, this is really this would be helpful, you guys ought to read this. And so that just kind of I told Larry Vogel that that made my day, probably made my year, but God's word endures, it goes on and we take a few bumps along the way, but we know that we're in the Lord's hands and that his promises will not will not fail us and his church will persist.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Tim hey, dr Pless, this has been great and I'm praying that more scholars, leaders at all different levels in our church body have that sort of evangelical spirit, because I do. I mean, that's not just an anecdotal story. There are many who are watching us confessing Lutherans today and wanting to dig deep into our attention-filled theology centered in the never-changing inspired word of God, and want to be thought theological partners. I think in this day and age, as we're moving through, you know, whatever the postmodern to pre-modern move is, it's taking place right now kind of culturally there's a desperate need, I think, in the wider evangelical church, from Catholic to charismatic, to have Luther's voice and evangelical confessing Lutherans at the table. And thank you for being an example of just that, dr Pless.
Speaker 3:You're a gift If people want to connect with yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I know I completely agree with you and you know, in Schwan's words, we have these pearls and we're not casting them before Schwan, but we're not going to keep them in our pocket either. We're going to proclaim Christ to the world with all the clarity that we have from our confession Amen, dr Pless, if people want to connect with you, what's your email, brother? Yeah, it's johnpless at ctsfwedu Dot edu Wonderful.
Speaker 2:And for those of you wondering, where did Jack go? Well, we were having internet issues and Jack, jack went bye-bye, I don't know. Hopefully Jack's okay. He'll be back next time. We have you on, dr Pless, I'll shoot you an email and we'll get that scheduled here in the next handful of months. Lots to discuss, lots more to share, and thank you. Sharing is caring, like subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in podcasts like this, and we pray that the clear proclamation of the gospel to move from pulpits out into the world is what you heard today, and we need one another's pastors, need all of the baptized to exercise their office, their priesthood of all believers, office in their home, in the places that they work and play. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thank you, dr Pless.
Speaker 3:You bet Take care.
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