The Rev. Charles Henrickson
Charles Henrickson (Lutheran pastor, LCMS)
Is it your thinking that your words will be made stronger by the use of these titles?
Are your words alone weak and in need of false flash?
In what way are your words enhanced by suggesting they
come from a superior source by having appended a title?
Personally, I find that when reading something written by someone who waves a title
about I tend to be more critical, if I even deign to read the self-aggrandizing crap at all.
I use the title of my office when I am writing in my capacity as a pastor. I am not speaking as a private individual but in my public office. It’s actually the opposite of self-aggrandizement. It’s calling attention to the fact that it is the Word of God I am proclaiming. You may think otherwise, but that is why I do it.
“I note in your postings you favor the use of titles:”
Do you ever put your real name and your real life on the line when posting?
Seems to me your use of “humble” in your FR name is the heighth of “false flash”, as you say.
I know nothing about your personal faith, Humblegunner, and I don't want to make assumptions based on your postings. One of the big things that shocked me when I moved to the South is that I realized the spirit of the “fighting fundies” that I admired greatly while reading about the successful fights to take back the Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod existed in the same secular culture as the anti-authoritarian “Dukes of Hazzard” mentality — and what appear to be two totally different personalities sometimes exist in the same person.
Southern fundamentalism is full of people who get mad and their pastor and start their own church down the street. That's not Lutheranism, which places a high level of importance on the role of ecclesiastical office and ordination (at least in its conservative versions). I'm not a Lutheran, but for very similar reasons, my own Calvinist theology also teaches me that I am required to respect the offices of pastor, elder and deacon. I am required by my Calvinist theology — and I would argue, by Scripture — to believe that not many should become teachers (i.e., pastors and elders) because those who teach will be judged with greater severity. Likewise, those who **ARE** ordained to those offices are worthy of respect, and if guilty of errors in doctrine or life, they must be removed from office out of respect for that office.
For me at least, it's important when reading a sermon to know who preached it and what ecclesiastical body holds his ordination. If I'm reading a sermon by a conservative Lutheran, I expect him to hold certain doctrinal convictions. Same goes for a conservative Calvinist, or a fundamental Baptist, or a traditional Roman Catholic, or any other doctrinal position.
When I read a sermon by an unordained layman, in most cases I can assume he's a person who cares deeply about the proclamation of the gospel but doesn't have a lot of formal training and therefore there are likely to be serious gaps in his biblical and doctrinal knowledge. There's definitely a place and a time for such sermons — inner-city gospel missions, foreign and domestic mission fields, etc., when enough well-trained men aren't available to do the work that needs to be done — but it isn't (or at least shouldn't) be the norm.
You don't need to agree with me, Humblegunner. If you're not a conservative Lutheran or a conservative Calvinist or a member of some other denominational tradition that values formal training for the ministry, I don't expect you to believe the same things about office and ordination that people in those denominational traditions do believe.
However, please don't blame Rev. Henrickson for being faithful to his own denomination's doctrinal positions, which he has sworn before God to uphold. His use of his formal ecclesiastical title is entirely consistent with being a conservative Lutheran.