Survey Says Part 2: What about the LCMS?
In my post yesterday regarding the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey I noted that 66% of Protestants believed that many religions lead to eternal life. Of those classified as Protestants – Evangelical, 57% believed likewise.
In a comment to that post, blog reader Ben noted that the actual report also broke down the data based on denominational affiliation. Ben’s comment/research deserves to be more than just a comment, but a full fledged blog post.
The survey classified the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) to be an Evangelical denomination. Based on the survey results of the 588 LCMS respondents, the LCMS is very open minded and tolerant. So open minded and tolerant that 78% of the LCMS respondents believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” We beat the national average! That’s not something to be proud of.
I was frankly shocked. Ben wrote, “What’s going on in our churches?” When my mother found out, she didn’t express too much surprise. She echoed what I had been ruminating on yesterday. When pastors aren’t preaching Christ and Him crucified and instead preaching on friends, depression, anger, etc., what can you expect? When the hymns/songs on the lips of the people don’t say much of anything or are not focused on what Christ has done/is doing, the people are not being catechized in the true faith.
These survey results are a cause for reflection. What is going on in your church? Is Christ and His gifts the focus of what your church is about? Do the people want or value this? God help us.
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People may have responded counter to what they really believe, saying what they thought the surveyor hoped to hear or the public would bear, afraid to identify themselves and their true, confessional beliefs.
Cowardly, yes, but it happens often in surveys.
Either way, whether they are cowards or heretics, it’s pathetic.
Anyways, thanks to Ben, this is the first place I’ve heard that statistic about the LCMS, and it is shocking and it is sad.
Certainly there are more universalists in our pews these days – especially after the impact of the Yankee Stadium debacle, but I don’t think the Pew survey pianted an accurate picture on this one. When the typical American “evangelical” at, say, Praise Tabernacle hears this question, he hears the “your religion” as Christian and so answers “no”. Many Lutherans might think, “Catholic”, and say “yes”, becasue we believe that, despite her errors, the Holy Spirit still works salvation through the liturgy and Sacraments of the Roman communion. Indeed, many Lutherans might just be thinking of their Presbyterian cousins, who they know as Christian, but not of their “religion”. Note espeically that the Pew question stated it as “can be” saved in other “religions”, which makes it easier for Lutherans to answer “yes”, because we believe it CAN happen, despite the errors of the human institution, because we trust the Holy Spirit to do His work. Certainly there are fewer impediments to His work in our congregations (generally!), but there are many Lutherans who are further away from understanding and confessing Christian doctrine than some of our confessing Evangelical, Anglican, Roman, and Orthodox friends. As any pollster will tell you, bad questions yield bad information.
Ooops, I wish I had edited the above before posting! I inadvertently appeared to mix the fides quae with the fides qua when I went over to various Christians’ understanding of Christian doctrine. That secondary point was true, but not necessarily a corollary. Probably some dynamic relationship there, but that would be worth a whole paper, not a blog post! Anyway, the real issue here is simply “saving faith”, and Lutherans understand that it is delivered through Word and Sacrament even where there is error in preaching and teaching. The Word is accomplishing His purpose where the Spirit wills, and sometimes that means we have ‘hard soilers’ sitting in our pews and not being enlightened by the means of grace – and sometimes, the saints are called and gathered regardless of the preaching of Rome or Geneva or Canterbury or Constantinople, So I can see why Lutherans might answer “yes” to that question. As to my observation about variances in knowledge of Christian doctrine it is also true, but beside the point. It is still healthy for us to acknowledge that, though. It keeps us from assuming too much about our own people.
Thanks Phil for your comments. I agree that people in varying Christian groups may interpret the word “religion” differently. Perhaps, then, some of the LCMS respondents considered Lutheran to be their religion and other Christian denominations as a different religion. Though, my initial reaction to “many religions” was more of those outside the Christian/catholic faith rather than subsets of Christianity.