A Lutheran “Pastor” and His Long Distance Congregation
The dangers of the Internet extend beyond the naughty things we know are out there, to naughty theology and scandalous practice. I cite but one recent example. There is a man who used to be a Lutheran pastor, but who has left or has been kicked out of the full range of Lutheran churches in the USA, including the LCA, the LCMS, the WELS, and the ultra-tiny CLC. He now offers a little Internet worship service out of a spare bedroom in his house and claims to have a “congregation.” His sermons are appallingly bad, rambling rants about all things wrong with Lutheranism, real or imagined. But it gets even worse than this.I was sent this explanation by one of his “members” of what goes on. This is a classic example of a cult leader misguiding and misleading his little sect. This man also has, for years, opposed the Gospel of the full and free salvation won for the world on the cross. Here is what I was given today. He has his Internet congregants put their bread and wine in front of their computer monitors and then he claims to consecrate the elements via Internet. Pathetic, isn’t it?
I’m a member of Pastor XYZ’s Bethany Lutheran Church. Each family that attends the services either the live broadcast or replaying the recording has the bread and wine set for providing communion to themselves and their families. Pastor XYZ follows the TLH order for Communion service. He consecrates the elements of Holy Communion for those with him and for those attending in their homes around the world. It is rightly distributed. It is my responsibility as head of my household to ensure that those who I distribute Christ’s body and blood to understand the nature and purpose of Holy Communion and that it’s taken in a confession of faith in Christ alone. This happens in each home. You seem to be saying that Christ’s Word is not effective over the phone wires or when purely taught and heard over the internet? Is this true?
Is this the SAME yo-yo who got in trouble in our LCMS for this a few years back? Lord, save those poor folk, from remote-control consecration!
“You seem to be saying that Christ’s Word is not effective over the phone wires or when purely taught and heard over the internet? Is this true?”
I’ve had this discussion with the cult-followers of Pastor X as well and they (as they do with most of their errors) simply repeat the same line over and over again.
Look, the issue is not whether or not Christ’s words are effective, it’s their proper use. Luther and the Lutheran Confessions repeatedly state that Christ’s words and promises are effective when used in accordance with the sacraments as they were instituted by Christ. So, for example yelling the words of institution at an Italian restaurant at the table next to you where people are eating bread and drinking wine will not consecrate them so that the patrons will start consuming the body and blood of Christ. The famous example from the early Church was when Athanasius was a boy he used to play bishop and pretend to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. The Church Fathers agreed (as well as the later Lutheran scholastics) that this wasn’t a real baptism, since it didn’t happen in accordance with Christ’s institution.
So, the point is that when Christ instituted the sacrament, he meant for people to physically gather together: “two or three gathered in my name, etc.” That’s how he instituted the last supper! Gathering through the internet is simply not the same thing. The best pastor X can claim to be doing is having a private Mass in his spare bedroom, which as I recall is criticized and prohibited by the Augustana.
This is an interesting question, it is the Word of God that consecrates the elements, even if the Pastor is a villain (I can’t remember the exact word from the Confessions), so why wouldn’t the elements be consecrated? Especially in light of Christ’s words “Where two or more are gathered…” I realize that the Pastor is not teaching (anything even remotely close to) pure Christian doctrine, and this goes against convention. Oh the problems created by our modern Internet age…it is a mess indeed…
This must be one of those Romans 16:17 guys run amock.
I agree with Dr. Kilcrease. This is a strange practice and entirely unnecessary.
But my cousin Mose pointed out that this is simply the obverse of what used to be standard practice across the entire Missouri Synod, namely, people would in fact gather, but would not have the Sacrament. That observation made me chuckle, I must confess.
But Mose says he has some confidence that, sooner or later, the congregations of the LCMS will get the combination right: gather and celebrate the Sacrament. Or better put: gather TO celebrate the Sacrament.
Mose is crazy. I kinda wish I hadn’t given him my private cell phone number. I didn’t realize he knew how to use a phone.
Are you channeling Dwight Schrute Tom?
Put it this way, Pr. Tom Fast is just a moniker I made up.
Thanks, Dwight.
@Joe Sarnowski
Joe- I refer you back to my answer. The issue is not whether not the word is effective. Christ stated “do this in memory of me.” The “do this” means the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in accordance with how Christ instituted it. To say “well the words are effective, so it doesn’t matter if they go over the web or are even recorded” misses the point. Clearly the words are meant to be spoken by a called and ordained minister of the Word who is present with the congregants. That’s what Jesus did.
If that wasn’t the case, the the Word would consecrate every loaf of bread in ear shot. Perhaps it would consecrate bread in the church kitchen if the service is going over a speaker in the fellowship hall. Or whenever I watched a movie where there is a church-service going on and was eating a sub, then the bread would become the body of Christ. Not even the Catholics would buy this.
The irony is, that for someone who repeatedly accuses people of being Catholic, Pastor x has a remarkably mechanical and almost late medieval view of the words of institution.
Hey guys, you got the wrong “where two or three” passage! This reminds me of what I used to hear on “evangelical” TV years back, that a miracle would happen as the pastor prayed and you sat there in your living room touching the TV … where two or three agree as touching anything (as the KJV worded it). I guess it’s just touching the elements rather than the TV!
In a more serious tone, though, in addition to what is mentioned here, it also bothers me as an unreconstructed unapologetic fan of TLH, to see it appropriated by this kind of stuff.
Having been out of church for a time the issue is accountability an submitting to one another.
Community can really humble you.
So……..
…would this be “open source” communion or “close(d) server” communion?