I’m sorry I waited so long.

I was fascinated with the Lutheran Confessions the first time I perused them. But for the life of me I don’t understand why so many Lutheran churches have abandoned not only the richness of liturgical worship but the veracity of the Confessions and even of Scripture itself.

I made excuses for belonging to not-so-liturgical and not-so-Confessional churches for much longer than I should have. Fear of betraying friends or of appearing selfish for simply being a starving sheep, kept me slogging through vapid contemporary worship music. (Jesus is not my boyfriend!) Pile on week after week of messages on social activism and “do gooderism” in the place of proclaiming Christ and Him crucified, and/or self-help “sermons” sometimes with little or no Scriptural context, left me wondering why I bothered to be part of a church.

I studied psychology in college. Though it can be good for our mental health to understand how humans think and feel, psychology has no power to save anyone from sin, death and Satan. The church as psychologist or worse, political activist, is a poor substitute for Christ and Him crucified, God’s only begotten Son, given to save us from our sins.

I need God’s Word. I need the Absolution. I need the Creeds. I need the liturgy and the hymns. I need the Sacrament.

The difference between a Confessional, liturgical church and any other kind of church is the difference between a bag of ramen noodles from the dollar store for dinner, and a full five star banquet.

I can’t live on “Jesus Lite.” Neither can you.

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,  to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?  For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:15-17 (ESV)

Christians aren’t here to win popularity contests or to lead charmed lives. For most of the history of Christianity we have been compelled to speak unpopular truths. Today it is seen as “unloving” or “hateful” to call what Scripture clearly names as sin as being a sin.

I struggle with sharing my faith with my friends because so many people I know are involved in heretical churches that are substituting do-gooderism or psycho babble for the sound proclamation of Law and Gospel. I really cringe at churches who call themselves Lutheran, but who are in practice, universalists who abandoned the Lutheran Confessions and Holy Scripture, and in doing that denied our Savior long ago.

The original sin of the Garden was, “Did God really say?” That sin is alive and well today in those movements that call themselves Christian, but reject the One Apostolic Faith, once given to the saints. Movements abound that question the Atonement, the truth of Scripture and even the divinity of Christ. They have replaced the shepherds with wolves, and most of the sheep are none the wiser.

Go ahead and call yourselves universalists- the “all dogs go to heaven” church, or the church of the high holy tree huggers, or even the chapel of the drag queens. But you do not need to use the name of Christ to promote your culture friendly “religion lite.” It isn’t Christian. For a quick reference guide to basic Christianity, see the Apostles Creed. Can you say it and believe it?

Satan was once an angel of light. Warm fuzzies and do-gooderism don’t save anyone. All of us have been lost in trespasses and sins and apart from the atoning sacrifice of Christ we have all fallen short of the glory of God. Jesus ALONE bought and paid for the sins of the world.

By the precious grace of God in Christ, in my Baptism I was brought into something called the Church Militant- the church still here on earth who believes Jesus and that His Word is what He says it is. Salvation is a gift of faith given to us in our Baptism. By the grace of God the Holy Spirit exposes the counterfeits and lies for what they are, and He compels me and all who He calls out to seek, knock and ask for His truth- the Word and the Sacraments. Nothing less is the One True Faith.

To many people I have known for years my statement of belief is a stench in their nostrils- I carry the aroma of death to those who reject Christ and His salvation or who believe the universalist lie. But I cannot compromise. The more that I delight in my Savior and His Word, the more I grieve and pray for the people around me to know Jesus and to be brought to saving faith in Him.

Here I stand. God willing I can do no other.