Expert: Dr Don Howe - 9/21/2009

Question
My son married a woman who is a member of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. She and her mother have made an intense effort to get him into that church.  He was saved and baptized into a Southern Baptist church when he was 10 and he feels that their Lutheran church is very much like Catholics.  He is not comfortable in that but they deny their communion and otherwise make him feel like a lost sinner headed for hell.   

Their first child was born last year and they baptized her so that she would not go to hell if she died before she was confirmed.

I have been a Southern Baptist for over 60 years and I am having a lot of trouble relating to this.  They treat me as if I'm a heathen.   

Could you compare the main beliefs of the Southern Baptist church with the Luther Church, Missouri Synod?    I need to know more about this.   I would appreciate any insight.

Answer
   Janiece, thank you for your question. The Missour Synod Luthereans are conserative and they are biblical in most of their beliefs. The Lutheran broke off from the Catholic church by Martin Luther in 1500's, but they maintain  many of the Catholic church order of service and traditions. LCMS (Missouri synod Lutherans) use the Apostle Creed, the Niceen Creed, they have their own catchiesm for the 6 th and 7 the grade youth and then do their own confirmation of these youth (this is a Catholic tradition), but they are very much Protestant in their beliefs. They belief the Bible is God’s Holy word, but I would not say they believe in the inerrancy of Scriptures like the Southern Baptist believe.
The LCMS believe in infant baptism, which can not be found in Scriptures unless you take the Scriptures out of context to prove your beliefs. The LCMS do not believe in immersion as the Southern Baptist believe, and they usually sprinkle, but they will immerse you if you ask for it. But it not practiced that much.  
   The LCMS have a very reverent way of doing the Lord Supper in which they use weak wine and everyone comes to the kneeling rail and takes communion. Again this more a Catholic flavor than the way the Southern Baptist gives Lord’s Supper.  The LCMS give the LORDS SUPPER individually whereas the Southern Baptists partake of the Lord’s Supper as a church body  as a whole. The LCMS gives Holy Communion much more frequent then the Southern Baptist do.
   The LCMS church uses elders in the way of doing congregational  business. They have a Board of Elders and no deacons. The Southern Baptist have a Board of Deacons and no Elders. To be true to what the Word of God says, the administration of the Church is the responsibility of the Elders and serving the needs of the congregation is left up to the Deacons. So you have both elders and deacons.  So the LCMS and Southern Baptists both miss the mark when it comes to doing  business in the church as stated in the Bible. Eldership or deaconship each is adequate in doing congregational business. I was an elder in the LCMS. I left the LCMS because my wife was a Southern Baptist and we got tired of the liturgical way of doing service. The LCMS churches do have choirs, so I participated in choir in any LCMS church I was a member of.
Here is what the problem was. The LCMS order of service is the same every Sunday after Sunday, and you do nothing but follow by rote memory the Nicene Creed and the Apostle’s Creed. It became very boring and we felt like were not being fed spiritually. There is really not very many ways of  saying the Nicene Creed and the Apostle Creed.
    The Pastor in the LCMS usually uses a predetermined set of sermons, whereas the Southern Baptist pastor prepares each Sunday as he is lead by the Holy Spirit.
    So I joined a local Southern Baptist church and was re-baptized, and I did not have a problem with that. I was ordained a deacon by Southern Baptist. And I am ordained to the minister by the Southern Baptist Convention and I am endorsed as a Chaplain by the North American Mission Board. I would have never accomplished this in the LCMS.

  Due to the conservative biblical beliefs of the LCMS, a Southern Baptist can maintain in the LCMS local congregation, but I feel he or she would eventually burn out. The Southern Baptist believer would have be open-minded to be comfortable in the LCMS due to infant baptism, liturgical order of service, catheism training of the pre-adolescent youth, confirmation of the youth, baptism by sprinkling and not immersion, and the pastor using a pre-determined set of sermons, and preaching is more of a teaching style than expository preaching, as practiced by the Southern Baptists.
  
These are the main differences.

   The problem with your son is bigger than just the differences between the LCMS and SBC. You stated “She (the wife) and her mother have made an intense effort to get him into that church.” Your son’s wife and her mother is pressuring him to join the LCMS. This is very pharisaical and spiritually abusive. They are trying to push beliefs down his throat that he is does not believe and/or want to participate in. So the problem is really a relationship problem between your son’s wife and her mother. First of all, you son needs to tell his mother-in-law to butt out as this is none of her business, and as the spiritual leader of the home (as dictated by the Word of God to the husband) your son should be the one who will decide where they will worship. If the wife refuses to follow your son’s lead, then she can worship in her favorite LCMS church and your son can worship in his favorite SBC, but this is nothing to be fighting over as married couple. But sounds like there is more going since wife is more dedicated to her mother than your son.
   Your son needs to be communicating to his wife that she needs to stop listening to her mother. Who is she married to? Your son or her mother. Your son needs to tell his mother-in-law to butt out as this not her issue in any form or shape.  
But it sounds like the  problems between your son and his wife is a lot more serious and deeper than what the differences between LCMS or SBC churches.
  I would say that if there is really maritial strife here, that they should get some counseling together from a biblically based Christian Counselor. Your son and his wife need to be worshipping, not at his mother-in-law’s LCMS church as he is only going to chewed up and chastised, but a bible preaching nondenominational church. This way they both will be on neutral common ground spiritually for corporate worship.

   You stated “he feels that their Lutheran church is very much like Catholics.  He is not comfortable in that but they deny their communion and otherwise make him feel like a lost sinner headed for hell.” I have shown what the major beliefs of the LCMS, and some of their beliefs (infant baptism for example), and order of service is like the Catholics. They should not be denying him the Lord’s Supper just because he is not a LCMS by birth, and that he is still a Southern Baptist. In the Southern Baptist church, communion is not given just to Southern Baptist believers but to all saved and born again believers. This is wrong on part of the mother-in-laws LCMS church. Not all LCMS churches limit communion to LCMS believers only. So this may be the way the mother-in-law’s church does communion or it could be the way he is interpreting it in his frame of reference and belief system. But your son is being treated like an outsider and an out cast that needs is wrong an needs to be addressed and stopped. Shame on his wife.  
After all that is mentioned above, one can see why he would not be comfortable in the LCMS church. But he is not lost, and he is not headed for hell. So tell your son he is okay as far as God concerned, as long as he saved, accepted Jesus as his Savior, and has a relationship with him. Tell your son to find a bible preaching nondenominational church and tell his mother-in-law to keep her nose out of his business, and ask his wife who is she married to. Her husband or her mother. Either way there is trouble in your son’s marriage and he and his wife needs to get some counseling.

   I am truly sorry about the problems your son is having. I will be praying for him, his wife, mother-in-law, and you. Give your son all the love and support that you can muster.

Blessings,

Dr Don Howe, RN, PhD, ThD