The New Language of the Skeptical Public

I've been looking at video material related to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). It not a particularly important denomination nor especially interesting. For some reason, however, I've found a lot of YouTube videos reflecting on the question I'm interested in, what is the future of Christianity? To its credit LCMS has several young preachers recognizing the failure and sharp decline in the size of their domination. Also, however, it has old white men bound and determined to do nothing and change nothing. 

From what I read elsewhere, the falling memberships and disagreements about what is happening and what the future might hold in the LCMS is quite similar in the majority of both the Protestant and Catholic branches. I was especially impressed by an interview with a retired faculty member from a LCMS seminary. The question being addressed in the video was why LCMS membership has dropped so much and what can be done about it. The professor reviewed our changing society. He said around the year of 2000 he noticed new seminar students, "...were fluent in the language of a secular society." That is, he explained, they had chosen a career as clergy but knew those in the pews would not, as in times past, accept without skepticism what their preacher said.

His explanation reminded me of an academic article I read a dozen years ago but have since lost in which a seminary faculty member wrote about the new culture. He said seminary students should be preparing to listen to the theology of church members instead to telling them the "correct" theology. The public, with its access to a variety in information, was now ready to develop its own theology and challenge any that came from seminaries. It mirrored in some ways the observation of the LCMS faculty member in the link.

The interview with the retired professor went to discuss the decades of back and forth between factions in the church. One has always wanted the denomination's view of what the Bible means hammered home in seminaries and from behind pulpits while the other wants to listen and learn from those in the pews. The LCMS is quite full of itself in believing it is superior in its view of what the Bible teaches. There are different views of how far this should be driven.

I've been to two funerals recently, both in small towns. One was at a LCMS, the other Methodist. The young pastor at the LCMS never said, as I recall, "(Dead person) is now in heaven." He said, "If there is a hereafter (dead person) is there." At the other funeral, Methodist, the preach repeated at least four times, "We know (dead person) is in heaven." 

That LCMS preacher knows the language of a secular society, that particular Methodist preacher does not.