(Thanks to @somelutheranguy for sharing this with me!)

It’s like 5 minutes of your time. Just watch it already!

This is fantastic:

Part of it is making the pulpit a place where perplexity, where doubt is spoken and shared in the community. Where we really face darkness together, where we really stare down darkness in the thickness of life. [...] I think part of the reason younger populations of people don’t hear much in preaching is because they don’t hear anything that’s at stake and there’s no one that seems to, in this moment, bare reality.

I find myself thinking a lot about relevance and what it means to be relevant. Specifically, what it means for a church to be relevant. There have been a few blog posts over the last couple of weeks to address what young people are looking for from a church. Obviously, items like modern worship made the list. But oddly enough, theology seemed to play an important role. Young people seem to crave not just cultural or generational relevance, but theological relevance.

I find what Andy Root says here to be quite significant. How often do you hear real perplexity or doubt or darkness shared from the pulpit? These are things that are plaguing young people on a daily basis, and yet are often missing from the sermons of many pastors and preachers.

One word that keeps getting lodged in my head is accessibility. Today’s young people are amazingly accessible. They’re on Twitter and Facebook and blogs. They’re used to sharing openly and they expect such openness from others. Consider this from a 2004 article on the subject of the online disinhibition effect:

It’s well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly. Researchers call this the “disinhibition effect.” [...] Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity.

This new generation is comfortable online. As a result, they’re more open and accessible than any generation before them. How open are we, as a church? How open are we when we preach Christ? Are we tackling real issues head-on? Are we embracing perplexity from the pulpit? Are we facing the doubt and the darkness?

Are we speaking out of the thickness of life?

The first argument I had with a Lutheran pastor was about infant baptism.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get infant baptism. I find no example of it in the Bible. I’ve read Luther’s treatment of it in his Large Catechism and I still don’t get it (perhaps I’m just “simple-minded and unlearned,” as Luther calls those who disagree with the practice). I understand all the reasons for how and why infant baptism still counts as baptism in the eyes of God. I get that Biblically, it probably doesn’t matter when a person is baptized as long as they believe and are baptized at some point. What I don’t understand and what nobody has answered adequately for me is:  what Biblical foundation supports the practice? Every example of baptism I can find in the Bible is of an adult. (These adults all seem to have also first believed, but that’s a whole other can of worms.) The examples that aren’t specifically adults are vague at best (such as the reference to a family being baptized).

Now, I’m not arguing that infant baptism is somehow invalid. I agree with Luther’s assessment that it is the Holy Spirit that validates baptism, not a person’s belief. I also agree that God does work in and through those who have been baptized as infants, further demonstrating that infant baptism functions as intended. But neither of those points address the underlying question of why infant baptism became standard practice and has remained through the ages. I sort of thought the whole purpose of the reformation was to do away with traditions that seemed to have little or no Biblical foundation. If that’s the case, wouldn’t post-belief baptism (credobaptism) be more appropriate? Not any more valid, mind you, just a closer match to Biblical practices.

I really feel like in any church, you ought to be able to point at a practice and ask “what Biblical foundation does this have?” and be able to come up with an easy answer. I also feel that this should be especially true in a Lutheran church, considering its history and development. While an answer exists for infant baptism, it seems far from easy. It seems to be supported more by the Catholic background of the Lutheran church than a solid Biblical foundation.

Granted, I don’t see this as “primary doctrine”. I don’t see the age of baptism as having an impact on your relationship with Christ or on the grace Christ’s death and resurrection bring us. I can’t imagine God turning someone away who simply got wet at the wrong time. The problem, for me, is that the Lutheran church seems to have a lot of practices that stem not from the Bible, but from tradition. Yet this same church claims “Scripture alone” as one of its guiding principles.

Am I the only one that sees a disconnect here?