LCMS Is Swirling Down The Woke Drain

If you think that **Matt Harrison** is a woke social justice warrior, you should maybe take a deep breath, quit sniffing glue, stop doing cocaine, etc. https://t.co/0pLdktWPp8

— Miles Smith IV (@IVMiles) February 24, 2023

It’s total idiocy. These loons are convinced that people like Harrison and myself are working with Antifa. It’s unhinged conspiracy ramblings.

— Dr Jordan B Cooper (@DrJordanBCooper) February 24, 2023

I’m still fuming about this.

Over the past year, I haven’t had nearly as much time as I have had in the past to stay informed and properly maintain this website. I’ve been banned from all mainstream social media platforms which has made my job of gathering and analyzing the news much harder. Most importantly, I have been working a lot harder in my day job which means I have a lot less time to spend on everything else. This is why I have gotten worse at responding to emails, approving comments and posting content here.

As busy as my life has gotten, I was determined this year to make more time for my faith and especially for taking my son to church now that he has gotten older. I have spent my limited time here looking at things like polls which have tracked the growth of White Christian Nationalism on the Right. It is true that public opinion has been moving in our direction on a lot of issues, but these polls are measuring the attitudes and beliefs of the ordinary rightwing American Christian, not the attitudes of church leadership.

The most spectacular example of this disconnect that comes to mind, which we have frequently covered in recent years, is the one within evangelical Protestantism between the Christian nationalist, Trump supporting MAGA base which is opposed to anti-Whiteism and the Great Replacement and Woke religious elites like Russell Moore, Beth Moore and David French. Apparently, this divide which runs through the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church, which is in the process of splitting over gay marriage, can also be found in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS).

Admittedly, I have been out of the loop when it comes to the recent activities of LCMS leadership. I have too much going on in my life to pay attention to these people. I was attracted to the Lutheran faith by studying the life of Martin Luther, the history of the Lutheran church, the example set by C.F.W. Walther who founded the LCMS and especially by the influence of my father-in-law Gordon Baum who a devout conservative Lutheran for his entire life who passed away in 2015. I never paid any attention to bureaucrats like Matthew Harrison and the people around them because supposedly the sources of our faith – the Bible, Martin Luther’s writings, the Book of Concord – have settled all these matters.

We know what happens when they don’t in “progressive” Protestant churches.

I think that I can speak for most conservative Lutherans when I say that a huge part of appeal and the brand of the LCMS to its membership is that it IS NOT the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) with its transgender bishops resigning over charges of “racism,” ordained tattooed women as pastors, its woke “racial justice” pledges, its struggle sessions over “racism” and all of the tears it spilled over George Floyd, its condemnations of Christian nationalism and drag queen performances in church. We have seen the fruits of liberalism and modernism in the Lutheranism both at home in the United States and abroad in Europe where the Church of Sweden is a “trans church” now.

Presumably, if conservative Lutherans wanted to be subjected to the fads and drift of modernism as it sails toward perdition, they would join the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). The vast majority do not and have likely been lazily operating on the assumption that this is so obvious that the matter is settled with their own church leadership even as this rot has infected and disturbed the Baptists, Methodists and the Presbyterians in recent years. It seems the LCMS is no exception to this trend.

Over the past two months, I have been hearing more and more about these trends in the LCMS leadership of which I was previously unaware. I was pointed to Corey Mahler’s podcast. Two weeks ago, I saw a literal Antifa blog release a dox of LCMS members and call for their excommunication.

Machaira Action:

“Welcome to Dismantling The Fortress: Corey Mahler and the Lutefash, a series devoted to monitoring the rise of a white supremacist faction within the Lutheran faith. We will be examining the dangerous spread of this ideology and exposing the individuals within it who pose a threat to the community.

“Lutefash” is not a word they use to describe themselves, rather it is our way of giving a name to this network of Lutheran fascists that doesn’t have any self-identifying terms (other than casual references like “based LCMS”).

This first article in our series will explore the supremacist ideology of the Lutefash movement and its broader role within the fascist “faith” community. We will also identify one of its principal thought leaders, Corey J. Mahler.

Mahler stands out as a figurehead among far-right American Lutherans. …

How To Take Action

To borrow a phrase from Martin Luther himself, the Lutefash want to raise a “mighty fortress” of neo-nazi hatred within the LCMS. Whether they succeed depends on how willing the rest of us are to dismantle it.

Folks looking for action items can contact the LCMS—and First Lutheran Knoxville in particular—and demand they denounce Mahler, as well as excommunicate him from their community. They can also contact Schulz Brau Brewing House and Fanatic Brewing and ask them to refuse any further participation in First Lutheran Knoxville’s Germanfest. In particular, Schulz Brau must also bar Mahler and McGaha from the premises and make the venue a safe space once more. Moreover, folks can also contact Chapman’s Fowler School of Law to demand a statement disavowing one of its most openly fascist alumni. …”

Is the LCMS leadership compromised and going woke?

I had been hearing these rumors about the new Large Catechism and was disturbed by them. I was watching the controversy play out on Twitter and on the Stone Choir podcast. I honestly didn’t know what to think about this until the events of this weekend confirmed my worst suspicions.

To recap:

1.) A literal Antifa blog doxxed LCMS members on Twitter and demanded that LCMS leadership excommunicate their own members for “racism.”

2.) President Matthew Harrison then RESPONDED to their call to action and swooped in and released a big statement condemning the “alt-right” for a grab bag of different things.

3.) Corey Mahler was then condemned by his own pastor and banned from his own church and removed from the property by Knoxville police.

Matthew Harrison’s defenders are trying to downplay what happened here on Twitter. He is not woke. That’s ridiculous. He has only outsourced excommunication … to a literal Antifa blog.

Undoubtedly, Antifa and woke LCMS pastors will now be emboldened to crawl social media to collect open source intelligence on LCMS members. They will send this information to Harrison who will pressure their pastors to excommunicate their members for “racism.” They have essentially deputized Antifa to stand athwart the pearly gates of Heaven at the Lord’s table with their “No pasarán” signs. It is difficult to imagine anything that could possibly qualify as more woke or outrageous than that.

The average LCMS member hasn’t heard about this controversy. They are still in the dark. I was personally unaware of this until two or three weeks ago. There is no doubt that what happened here though is only a taste of what is coming in the LCMS. Now the precedent has been set that “racists” and “white supremacists” and “fascists” can be excommunicated from LCMS over mere spats on Twitter or controversial takes on history, those terms will be stretched to the point of absurdity.

Note: BTW, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is a slippery slope that could end up with drag queen performances in LCMS churches.