Pastor Aaron Rock, a Neo-Evangelical minister who serves Harvest Bible Church in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, who wrote the above on Facebook, seems to understand ecclesiology better than a lot of Lutherans - even lacking the belief that what happens at the altar and in the sanctuary during Holy Communion is a literal miracle in which Christ is truly present in His body and blood.

Canada is becoming quite an oppressive state. One recent example is the severe lockdown that went into effect just hours before Easter Sunday this year. On Good Friday, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau acknowledged the “long weekend” (a wonderful euphemism for the holiest day of the year to some two billion people) and that “we’re all going to have to do things differently again this year.”

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the first ten amendments of which are known as the Bill of Rights) does not include such a disclaimer - such a disclaimer implying that one’s “rights” are not rights at all - which come from God - but are actually State grants of privilege. That said, we have seen our governments - federal, state, and local - act as though they did have the Canadian Loophole in them. In fact, many countries - including Communist China - also “guarantee” religious freedom, albeit with the Canadian Loophole. And this shows the real value of such lofty government “guarantees.”

The past couple years caught the Church by surprise, and we learned not only a lot about our governmental leaders, but also about our church leaders. We have learned a lot about ourselves, and what we really believe, teach, and confess regardless of what we say on paper: in Scripture and in the confessions.

But as for future government “emergencies,” we need to start talking about this now. At what point do we comply? And for how long? At what point do we resist openly? At what point do we take the Divine Service underground in defiance of the State? These are questions for individual believers, families, congregations, districts, synods, and the church catholic.

And we confessional Lutherans need to crush underfoot any and all heretical and oxymoronic suggestions such as lay-communion or remote electronic consecration, not to mention granting the State unconditional authority based on a flawed reading of Romans 13. The time to wrestle with these issues is not in the middle of a crisis when pastors, congregations, and families have a window of opportunity to do whatever they want with impunity - whether out of well-intentioned ignorance, or by carefully planned stealth. After all, as the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste.

Thank you to Pastor Rock for calling Christians to deal with future “emergencies” by talking about them now.