Having been blessedly free of the Lutheran Church Misery Synod overall and its Texas District for 6 years now, I have no standing with either. Truth be told, even for the 36 years I belonged to the former and the 28 years I belonged to the latter, I did not. But something drew me in my superannuation (Okay, I had to look this synonym up.) or perhaps in my dotage to the Texas District 2025 convention. It might have been that the first district convention I ever attended was the 1985 Texas one where my pregnant wife, myself, a pastor friend, and his pregnant wife shared a room at the Hotel Galvez (This was Airbnb-ing on a whole ‘nother level.). It might have been because those two were killed this year in a motorcycle accident.
First point: The 70/30 split between Liberal and Conservative that was observed, groused, and cursed 40 years ago at the 1985 Galveston convention still prevails. (If you want to further split out the Confessionals from the Conservatives it would be probably 35-55% of the 30%.)
Second point: Resolution 02-03-25 Subject: To: Define and Affirm Lutheran Identity. You can read it from the Convention Workbook here [i]. The minutes for this resolution can be found here[ii]. The motion as amended 02—03-25a did not follow the usual 70/30 split but 50.43/49.57 which might give reason for pause if not a modicum of hope.
Third point: If love governed the Texas District rather than Robert’s Rules of Order (which, by the way, by longstanding agreement District and Synodical officials modify to fit the peccadillos of the governing not the governed), they would never let that slim of a majority (.86%) impose its will on the minority.
Fourth point: The resolution marshaled and massed Scripture, the Confessions, Lutheran Lights, and then the holy of holies of LCMS bureaucracy, the constitution to make the point that the 30% who for 40 years have been contending that how one worships confesses what one believes are wrong. Their pro-contemporary worship argument goes back to the now very old saw that Lutheran Substance can be packaged in Evangelical friendly forms without denying or even diminution of Confessional Lutheran theology, and the Liberal denial of the 60 year-old maxim “the medium is the message”.
What they marshalled and massed Constitution and Confession wise was select. They quote the complete Article II, Confession of the LCMS constitution, but not at all from Article VI where the split between the Liberal and Conservatives has always been found. Here is the LCMS official statement about the Lutheran identity they wish to have and preserve in the LCMS. Article VI Conditions of Membership
Conditions for acquiring and holding membership in the Synod are the following:
1. Acceptance of the confessional basis of Article II.
2. Renunciation of unionism and syncretism of every description, such as
a. Serving congregations of mixed confession, as such, by ministers of the church;
b. Taking part in the services and sacramental rites of heterodox congregations or of congregations of mixed confession;
c. Participating in heterodox tract and missionary activities.
3. Regular call of pastors and any commissioned ministers and regular election of lay delegates by the congregations, as also the blamelessness of the life of such.
4. Exclusive use of doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms in church and school.[iii]
Joint weddings, funerals and Thanksgiving services, in direct violation of 2b above are regular, undisciplined events in the Texas District and have been for the over 29 years (I vicared here.) I’ve been around it. And since 2004, it is an open question at the synodical level whether services done under the flag of these United States with non-Christian clergy denies or promotes the Gospel.
Final point: Surely some confessional pastor there brought up in the last resolve where they ended their quote of FC, SD, X, 31? “4 RESOLVED that ‘the churches are not to condemn one another because of differences in 5 ceremonies when, in Christian freedom, one has fewer or more than the other’ (FC SD X 31 6 [Kolb-Wengert]), but should rejoice together in the Evangelical Lutheran foundation of grace 7 alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, and Christ alone as the foundation of ‘Lutheran identity’ 8 upon which we stand.”
They stopped in mid-sentence! The full quote from Kolb-Wengert is: “For this reason the churches are not to condemn one another because of differences in ceremonies when, in Christian freedom, one has fewer or more than the other, as long as these churches are otherwise united in teaching in all the articles of the faith, as well as in the proper use of the holy sacraments. As it is said, ‘Dissonanta ieiunil non dissolvit consonantiam fidei’ (dissimilarity in fasting shall not destroy the unity of the faith’” (Italics added).
No one in their right mind and no one with a straight face can say the Texas District of the LCMS is “untied in teaching in all the articles of the faith, as well as the proper use of the holy sacraments.” Open Communion is rampant, practiced not only unapologetically but openly defended and Closed Communion vociferously attacked.[iv] Pastors, far from renouncing “unionism and syncretism of every description” wallow in them like pigs enjoying the swill and parade about proud as peacocks for their openhearted and mindedness.
Since the 70/30 or maybe as close 50.43/49.57 are not united in teaching all the articles or in the proper use of the sacraments, that makes null and void their not condemning each other because of difference in ceremonies. Though, do note how FC, SD, X ends: “dissimilarity in fasting” not dissimilarity in Divine Service, or doctrine, or even practice in general but fasting in particular does not destroy the unity of faith. Unionism, Syncretism, open Communion, and Evangelical worship most certainly do.
Although the LCMS does reconcile open and closed Communion, it is as impossible as reconciling righteousness and lawlessness, light and darkness, Christ with Belial, or believer and unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14).[v] And that’s the reason for my title: “Synods Make for Strange Bedfellows”. I mean this quite literally. I read in Warren Sweet’s 1950 edition of The Story of Religion in America that the German Reformed Church in America in 1746 made plans “for the formation of a synod, or Coetus” (111). Look up that Latin word. It’s defined as “a coming together, an assemblage, crowd, company, [especially] a festival, feast.” And latinlexicon.org says “coetus, coetūs for coitus”. Thus giving a new level of literalness to Synods making strange bedfellows.
[i] https://txlcms.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FINAL-2025-Convention-Workbook-REV.-06.01.25.pdf
[ii] https://txlcms.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Minutes-General-Session-02-2025-06-06-2.pdf
[iii] Go to https://www.narrative.church/ . It’s an official mission of the Texas District. You tell me if they have any concern at all with the “Exclusive use of doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms in church and school.” I attended here 12-29-24. It was sad to see how this pastor with deep LCMS royalty roots and education struggles to have something like a liturgy and a Divine Service and ends up, heavily I might add, like all fence straddlers, sitting squarely on the fence. I have all my notes. I could never bear to write them in another blog about another Evangelical mission trying to fly Lutheran Colors.
[iv] See https://www.pastorharris.com/2019/01/09/were-part-of-the-15-a-letter-to-president-harrison/
[v] Please note most liberals and some goodhearted laymen misconstrue the application of this verse. I am not calling the 70% lawless, darkness, Belial, or unbelievers. I am saying it as impossible to reconcile the two Texas – and Synod – sides as it is to reconcile the listed positions.
