by Matthew C. Harrison
Dear Friends in Christ,
Our times are summed up by Charles Dickens in his A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.1
The pope careens from making assertions of biblical ethics to calls for the blessing of homosexual couples, scandalizing his church. Modern Protestants, still daring to claim the Reformation heritage, have given up the plot, confusing the Gospel for a mishmash of leftist social activism. Politics are a chapter in Bizarro World. Men set records competing in women’s sports. We live in the most technologically advanced era ever with undreamed of means of communication, medical knowledge and technical prowess, and we see conflict around the globe.
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), like other conservative Christians, faces the blunt, flailing sword of a culture gone crazy. Our worldview is scorned; our religion is lambasted and excluded; our values of human dignity, equality before God and sanctity of human life are twisted and used to exclude us from the public square.
And yet, here we are. It’s nothing short of a miracle that the LCMS still exists. A friend of mine from Australia — where the Lutheran church is sinking into cultural accommodation — observed a packed Sunday morning adult Bible class and said, “You have no idea how significant this is for you as a church body. In Australia, we have no tradition of Sunday adult Bible class.”
It’s a miracle the LCMS still exists as a confessing orthodox Lutheran church. We nearly lost it in the 1960s and ’70s when seminary education in the LCMS went off the rails. But the Lord is merciful. We deserve the opposite, but the Lord is merciful. He had mercy on the Syrophoenician woman who said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matt. 15:27). Luther said, “She catches Christ, the Lord, in his own words and with that wins not only the right of a dog, but also that of the children. … [Christ] let himself be made captive, and must comply. Be sure of this: that’s what he most deeply desires.”2 Jesus loves to have mercy. Jesus came to have mercy. Jesus can’t but have mercy.
The fact that we are still here, confessing the inerrant Scriptures and the truth of our blessed Lutheran Confessions, is due in large part to our Lord’s mercy in preserving and sustaining Christian education in the LCMS. Continued, robust, residential seminary education is not optional for us. Many of our parochial schools are burgeoning. COVID-19 kept kids out of school, and parents found out about the rubbish being taught to their children. Our LCMS schools stayed open and have been rewarded greatly. Our grade schools and high schools offer an education that is qualitatively superior, and they confess the truths of the blessed Holy Trinity, including the blessed Gospel of free forgiveness for all in Christ.
There is also a blossoming and robust homeschool movement in the LCMS. Children socialize in cooperatives or participate in sports and other activities with LCMS schools and even some public schools. Classical schools are recapturing the age-old and very Lutheran approach to education built around grammar, logic and rhetoric. They have demonstrated that children are capable of far more than progressive education has been able or willing to realize.
Opportunities for parents to direct their tax dollars through vouchers or related systems are increasing. The Iowa state legislature, with the leadership of key elected officials who are also LCMS, instituted a voucher system that allows parents to direct $7,500 per child to the school — public or private — of their choice. I’m told homeschool cooperatives are likely to be added soon. This story is being repeated around the country. And it will continue. Why? In many places, public education has succumbed to social engineering of the worst sort. It will get worse. A friend in Illinois told me of a Christian public high school teacher who was exasperated because a state official recently visited the high school to teach children about the intricacies of gender reassignment surgery. Thank God for our faithful LCMS teachers who remain in public schools as voices of sanity.
The LCMS, which has the second-largest parochial school system in the U.S., is poised for growth and impact, both in the basics of education and in teaching the Christian faith. It’s a miracle, but the LCMS is poised for — is in fact currently undergoing — a revolution in parochial school education. And our Concordia universities are supporting this revolution.
Thinking of a career in education? Now’s the time. We need teachers. Go to a Concordia. Are you an LCMS Lutheran wanting to openly confess Christ in your classroom? We need teachers. Come over as you are or go through the colloquy process to be added to the roster of LCMS teachers.
Now is, indeed, the time.
–Pastor Matt Harrison
1 Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1902), 3.
2 Martin Luther, The Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils, vol. 1, trans. Eugene F.A. Klug (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 325.
A ray of hope in a dark day!
I taught in public schools for 32 years, and today I learned that I was teaching “rubbish” to my students. I also thought we Lutherans valued the separation of church and state, but apparently the lure of tax dollars (vouchers) is too strong. There are great, mediocre, and terrible Lutheran schools, just as there are great, mediocre, and terrible public schools and homeschoolers. Please stop demonizing public education.
James, thank you for your comment and for your years of service. If you look back, you may notice that the letter does not in fact refer to public education anywhere in the sentence that refers to “rubbish,” but (correctly) describes the sentiment that our LCMS schools have heard over and over again for the past several years from new families: that parents were shocked by things they heard from their children’s non-LCMS schools during the COVID lockdowns and immediately began seeking alternatives. To ignore the changes going on in both public and many sectors of private education and the anti-Christian content being introduced is very difficult. You were certainly not teaching rubbish to your students, and faithful and good teachers who remain in the public school system are a great blessing, even as it becomes more and more difficult. As the letter says: “Thank God for our faithful LCMS teachers who remain in public schools as voices of sanity.”
Thanks for the nice things you said about me. President Harrison did not use the words “public education” in that sentence, but who else was he talking about? I agree that un-Christian content is bad, but what are we specifically talking about? His just saying “the rubbish being taught” sure seems broad-brush to me. The idea that secular education is inherently anti-God is certainly promoted by other articles in this issue of the Witness. How are vouchers not promoting un-Christian content with our tax dollars if they will be subsidizing religious schools that are of other denominations, or even other religions?
Thanks for this excellent, insightful, encouraging article celebrating God’s blessings so evident and blossoming through our LCMS Schools for all ages!
Our pre-secondary schools were the means through which hundreds of thousands of children from non-Lutheran, non-Christian households came to hear the Gospel. Myself and my pastor (celebrating 50 years in the pastoral office this year) would know nothing of God’s grace through faith in Christ alone were it not for our divinely-inspired, forward-thinking LCMS forefathers who understood that our schools were an investment in Christ’s Church – an engine for sustaining and growing our congregations. Unfortunately, I have been hearing a lot of recent discussion about the future of Lutheran educational institutions – pre-K through post-graduate studies – using the glib, bumper-sticker slogan “Lutheran schools for Lutheran students.” May God grant us the wisdom to make the necessary, and often painful, investments in our school system to proclaim the Gospel to all children to the glory of the Triune God.
AMEN!!