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Most of my history has been with the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods. My problem was rarely with doctrine - the raison d’etre for many Lutherans - but rather with discernment and sanctification. If someone gives intellectual assent to the accepted doctrines, Lutherans tend to assume that person is right with God.

I was debating theologians at 16, and attending pastoral conferences at 19 by special request. I spent six years, Junior and High, at a so-called non-denominational school.

(Non-Denominationals are really a quasi-Arminian/Anabaptist grouping unto themselves; they are far from truly non-denominational. None are ever aligned with Lutheran teaching, and I was often treated like a heretic there. It was not my choice to attend.)

I therefore have extensive experience with many denominations and with dozens of clergy. My general assessment is that “conservatives” focus on doctrine rather than wisdom (discernment), while “liberals” focus on feeling rather than lifestyle (morality).

Case in Point: I, then the principal Bible Study teacher, lost favor at one “conservative” M.S. church for questioning certain board and clergy decisions. The last and worst - keeping a man in a position of leadership despite his being functionally lapsed (in hope of keeping him connected to the church until he repented) - was the final straw for me. (See Acts of the Aostles 7.) I left rather than remain to be held partly responsible for whatever evil befell from that decision.

A year after I left, the lapsed man was murdered in a public restaurant during his lunch: He was having a sexual affair with another man’s wife, and the husband caught him and shot him. That particular congregation was famous at Fort Wayne for being ultra-conservative and for sending many “native sons” to seminary. I never heard through contacts that there was a sincere acknowledgment of their complicity in the outcome of the man’s life. They did not have a lax view of sexual immorality; they lacked the wisdom to see that keeping him in authority was neither spiritual nor responsible.

Presbyterian: The aforementioned “conservative” versus “liberal” dichotomy is even more extreme. Hard-line Calvinists tend to be very legalistic, very absolutist, and often intellectually condescending. (The Babylon Bee is obviously run by Calvinists. Entertaining? Yes. Edifying? Not really.)

Baptist: They often are described by secular media as the most conservative in Christendom, but that is misleading. They are really more often traditional (teaching the customs of Man as the laws of God) than consciously conservative (conserving what is of lasting truth and value), and they have a long history with the Democrat Party. (See Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.) The most Marxist preacher I have personally known was born and raised in a very traditional Southern Baptist church; he also attended a S.B. seminary. We were close childhood friends; his militant leftism drove us apart.

To paraphrase another old friend (who is still a friend): The purpose lies not in seeking to find a perfect church, for there is no such thing in this fallen world, but in seeking to find a church that admits it is not perfect, yet strives still to perfect itself.