Barrier Breakers & Distinction Keepers: Two Theological Impulses
A Thought Experiment to Get to the Root of the Argument
https://wolfmueller.co/barrier-breakers-distinction-keepers-two-theological-impulses/
A Thought Experiment to Get to the Root of the Argument
Let’s begin with a thought experiment.
Across the Texas District (and in the wider Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod) we hear the divide between “confessional” and “missional” churches and pastors. These categories, though frequently used, often obscure more than they clarify. “Confessionals” insist they are missional. “Missionalists” claim they are faithful to the Confessions. The terms have become loaded, imprecise, weaponized, and unhelpful because neither side will own them. It doesn’t help get to the root of the issue.
There is a division in the pastors and congregations of the LCMS, but to address the issue we need to identify it in a way that all sides can agree, “This is the problem.” We need new labels.
I’d like to suggest that we step back from the “confessional” and “missional” labels and instead try to identify the underlying theological impulses at work. That’s what this essay proposes to do, and I’d appreciate your feedback.
Naming the Impulses
Let’s imagine that the current tension in our church is animated by two fundamental theological instincts:
One impulse is driven by a deep desire to break down barriers for the sake of the Gospel.
The other is driven by a sincere desire to maintain theological distinctions for the sake of the Gospel.
We might call those shaped by the first impulse Barrier Breakers and those shaped by the second Distinction Keepers. (Pastor Davis does not like these labels, and he will be so happy if you have better ones.)
Both instincts are theological. Both seek the good of the Church. Both are motivated by the Gospel. Both can be found in the Scriptures and in our Confessions. But both come with certain dangers and temptations, and these two impulses often and naturally conflict with one another.
The Impulse to Break Barriers
The barrier breakers are animated by a missionary zeal. Their concern is that no man-made obstacle, cultural, linguistic, traditional, architectural, whatever, should prevent someone from hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. They often cite texts like Matthew 28: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19) and 1 Corinthians: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22).
From a confessional perspective, barrier breakers highlight passages in the Lutheran Confessions that talk of our Christian freedom. At its best, this instinct is creative, adaptive, bold, and sacrificial in bringing the Word of God and the preaching of Christ to a lost and hurting world.
The barrier breakers see the different confessions and denominations like flavors of ice-cream, and Lutheran is their flavor, their tribe, if you will. Their basic theological convictions match up with the contours of the Lutheran Confessions, but any heavier use of the Confessions feels constraining to them.
But it also faces temptations: blurring theological lines in the name of accessibility, overlooking important distinctions, downplaying the role of theology, over-simplifying the Biblical message, forgetting the traditions handed over, etc. In its zeal to make the message heard, it can sometimes confuse the message itself.
The Impulse to Keep Distinctions
On the other side, the distinction keepers are driven by a love for theological clarity. They believe that maintaining proper boundaries, between Law and Gospel, between the Church and the world, between true and false doctrine, is essential to preserving the integrity of the faith. They are compelled by passages like: Jude 1:3: “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”, 2 Timothy 1:14: “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”
From a confessional standpoint, they look to the careful distinctions laid out on every page of the Book of Concord. They highlight the Formula of Concord, which warns against syncretism and theological ambiguity. This impulse has a noble legacy: preserving the truth of the gospel in the face of error and heresy. In some ways, this is the unique vocation of the Lutheran Church, to hold to the theological distinctions, especially the distinction of Law and Gospel, for the sake of comforting consciences.
The distinction keepers understand the different denominations as theological arguments, holding and promoting divisive errors, and church history as a long debate through which the Holy Spirit has protected the pure Gospel from all errors, and that pure Gospel is the unique possession of the Church of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.
The temptation here is different: in guarding the boundaries, they may inadvertently erect barriers that keep people out. In prioritizing purity, they can become insular. What was intended to protect the Gospel may end up hiding it from those outside.
Misunderstanding Each Other
Herein lies the conflict.
The barrier breakers sometimes look at the distinction keepers and see gatekeepers—those who are more concerned with rules and order than with people. They worry that excessive caution is choking the missionary impulse of the Church. When you are looking at everything in terms of barriers, then even distinctions look like barriers, and you see those insisting on keeping distinctions as if they are building obstacles to the Gospel.
Meanwhile, the distinction keepers look at the barrier breakers and see theological compromise. They worry that the gospel is being diluted or reshaped to fit the spirit of the age. When you look at the world in terms of careful distinctions, the barrier breakers are blurring those distinctions, and the pure Gospel is being lost.
In some profound ways, both critiques are correct. This is not merely a conflict of practice or style. It is a theological tension, a genuine divergence. Each side believes it is preserving the gospel. And each side suspects the other of endangering it.
I’d like to pause here and check in. If these labels are going to be helpful, then they need to resonate with each side of the debate. So, the question: do you think this will hold? Is this articulation of the two theological impulses accurate?
What Next?
First, we started by acknowledging our own theological impulse, and the temptations that come along with it.
Second, we can begin to see the other as a gift from God.
The barrier breakers need the distinction keepers as partners in the Gospel, to make sure the doctrine and practice are holding forth the pure Gospel, that the necessary distinctions are being kept. The distinction keepers need the barrier breakers to remind them of the evangelistic task before us, and encourage the godly zeal and joy of putting the Gospel before the world, and that we are not building unnecessary barriers that would prevent people from coming into the Lord’s church.
I’ll make this bold suggestion: the Lord has given us these different theological impulses for each other, to serve each other, to help us see the things that we cannot see in ourselves, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
The barrier breaker impulse has been in the driver’s seat in the Texas District for a long time, so there’s some distinction keeping questions that need urgent visiting. What is the role of the liturgy? How do we faithfully practice closed communion? What do our mission churches look like?
But there is also a distinction keeping contingent that needs to also hear the conviction and joy of the barrier breakers, especially from a few who respect the love of the distinction keepers for theological clarity.
If we can’t see this, then these theological impulses will continue to agitate until the church is divided, and the only way to peace is to split. May God prevent it!
Your feedback is requested. Thank you!
Christ is risen! PrBW
If your backyard bordered directly on a bustling marketplace, and there was no fence, no line marking where your yard ended and the marketplace began, how long would it take before your backyard itself became part of that market?
God chose Israel as an instrument that needed to be protected by boundaries and walls—so that ungodliness would not destroy it or turn it into just another reflection of the world. By remaining holy, set apart, that instrument would become the channel through which the knowledge of Him would reach the ends of the earth. “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen 22:18).
So God gave his people not only geographic boundaries but also cultural and spiritual ones. He gave them worship, the temple, laws, and ordinances. All of these marked Israel as a holy nation, distinct from the others. Even the strange food laws and ceremonial regulations in the Old Testament served a purpose: to build a clear wall, a visible boundary between Israel and the surrounding peoples. Without those boundaries, Israel would have quickly lost its identity, absorbed the idols and immorality of the nations, and had nothing left to offer the world. If Israel lost its soul, there would be no hope for the nations—for there would be no chosen people through whom God’s salvation could come.
Think again of Noah’s ark: without walls, without boundaries, the floodwaters would have overwhelmed and destroyed all life within it. But because the ark was enclosed, life was preserved. And when the waters receded, an opening was made, a way was prepared, so that the life inside could spread and fill the earth.
The church is now, as Peter says, God’s chosen nation to proclaim Gospel to the world. And the church needs boundaries. Doors are indeed necessary, but they are useless without walls. Without walls, it is not life and truth that go out through the door into the world—instead, the world seeps in from every side, flooding into a wall-less church and reshaping it into its own image. The church loses all that made it holy and distinct from the world. It no longer goes into all the world, but becomes identical with the world.
And a church that has lost its distinctiveness has nothing left to offer to the world. There is no longer a sanctuary in the midst of the wilderness; there is only wilderness everywhere, because there are no walls.
But if walls are all we have, then we simply curl up inside them and fail to fulfill the very purpose for which the Lord chose us—to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, to bring Christ as life to the nations. Living water confined within walls will not remain living; it will turn into a stagnant pond if there is no door through which it can flow out into the world. So we need walls, and we need doors.
Fantastic explanation of something I have seen, moreover, in recent years. I am a lay person and so preface this comment with the fact that I am commenting from the eyes of a lay person, not one highly trained in the faith. I am a daughter of Christ, a stay at home wife, a homeschooling parent and a faithful sinner and saint. I see this divide as you so eloquently put it in so many areas of our LCMS. I agree with how you laid out the Barrier Breakers and the Distinction Keepers. I would add to the debate about using the Liturgy in service, specifically, the worship style. As a mother of teens, who's main prayer is to raise her children up in the faith, I struggle with the divide in our church body on worship style. How do we do this? Screens? Ancient Hymns? Contemporary music? Rock bands? Organ vs piano? Gasp! Guitars???
I fear that there is push in our church to move from the "ancient" ways of worship, and join the contemporarystyle we so often see in our Evangelical Christian friends' churches. To go along with your labels, this breaks more barriers and is more "welcoming" to others raised outside the LCMS. However, I would argue, that perhaps in doing this, we push out the comfort and knowledge of what we are receiving in the Lord's Supper, reciting the ancient confessions and the beauty of singing the texts of hymns that have been sung for millenia. Joining those who have gone before us and seeing the good, true and beautiful in the lyrics of hymns.
Perhaps it is not to "do away with the old", but to better educate, within our churches, the value of such things as the Divine Service and hymns.
Thank you for your voice, Pastor Wolfmueller.