From Reformed to Confessional Lutheranism (and MORE!) with Dr. Jordan Cooper

Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church in a post-Christian culture . Step into the action with the ULC at unitel leadershiporg . This is Leigh Time .

Quite a story too , and I'll just give you a little bit of his background . He served in a number of congregations ordained in the American Association of Lutheran Churches , so you ever hear about the AALC Was a pastor in Iowa and then Illinois , Ithaca , New York , as a ministry fellow . He is a scholar .

His doctorate actually was completed back in 2019 with a dissertation on radical Lutheranism and the scholastic method . He studied a lot on the early patristic soteriology . I've been walking through the patristics recently , Jordan . It's so , so good and a new perspective on Paul . He is currently the leader of Just and Center . He's had a weekly podcast .

It's been out since 2012 . And recently took on the presidential role of the American Lutheran Theological Seminary in the fall of 2020 . He's teaching systematic theology . They have an online MDiv . So grateful for you today , Jordan . How are you doing man ? Thanks for hanging out with me .

My parents were new converts in college , not long before they got married , and my mother converted under the ministry of James Boyce very well known Presbyterian in Philadelphia at the time , and so I was baptized in a Presbyterian church . So that was where my parents were at . They were eventually part of a Presbyterian church plant .

That was at the end of middle school , beginning of high school , so by the time I was really thinking through my faith , and that was in high school when I'm really thinking through , like what does it mean to be a Christian ? What do I actually believe , and those kinds of things . It was within that Reformed context .

Also went to a Christian high school and our Bible teacher was a very , very adamant Calvinist . I mean it seemed like that was just about all he talked about . So it was just my church context as well , as my schooling was very much in that milieu . I ended up attending Geneva College , which is another Reformed school as well .

So if you don't know anything about Geneva , it's a Christian school in Pittsburgh area . Love it Highly , recommend going there still , as much as I don't agree with all of their theological points . But why was there ? It was part of the RPCNA Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America and they're kind of the most Calvinistic of the Calvinist groups .

They are old school Scottish Presbyterians . They only sing Psalms in their worship services . They don't use any instrumentation . They're very committed to their tradition , which is something I respect , and people are just kind of committed to being who they are . I think there's value in that .

But anyway , that was my theological context and my hope was to train for and I didn't know if I wanted to go into pastoral ministry or if I wanted to go into the academy . So I knew I wanted to get a PhD and it was like do I go pastoral ministry ? Do I go immediately into the academic realm and teach ?

But while I was there I was confronted with a number of both theological and kind of personal spiritual issues that really maybe wrestled through my theological commitments at that time and the theological issues were and they're so intimately related . I don't want to divorce those two things .

But the theological issues were largely through reading a lot of the Church Fathers . I always loved the early Christian writers and I was just kind of always drawn to them . So I really did wrestle with and it was really well . I read Psalm , I guess in high school actually .

But college was when I really delved into the Fathers and I saw a lot of discontinuity with the Fathers and then what the reforms were saying , and that was especially true with the issue of the sacraments . So that just it wasn't that I was at a point of saying , well , whatever the Fathers say , I'm going to believe . But it was .

Is there something in the text that I'm missing ? If all of these other people saw this stuff and we're not seeing it . So it got me to rethink the way I was reading certain texts about the sacraments . But along with that there was also at the same time , this struggle I was having spiritually and I suffer from OCD pretty badly .

It was really bad at the time of encripling . There were days I couldn't really function or do anything , but it was pretty .

It got pretty serious and some of a lot of I think what was underneath that really was not entirely but a lot of it was a really spiritual struggle of trying to reckon with the reality of a limited atonement , this reformed idea that the death of Christ was only for some .

And there was this constant struggle of in question of how do I know this was for me , am I really one of the elect , am I really saved ? This constant kind of looking at myself and knowing that my motivations were not always right . I commit a sin and then I really want to stop but I do it again . Just these ordinary struggles .

I think with sin that the kind of Calvinism I was really really interested in at the time and was kind of steeped in was a very introspective , inward pointing type of faith and I wasn't finding assurance of my salvation . It led to just this profound anxiety all the time .

So I was pointed to the work of Martin Luther , largely because Calvinists love at least a little bit of Luther , they like the bonnet of the will . But I was pointed by someone else to his Galatians commentary and I started reading that and along with that I was pointed to CFW Walter Sprouper , distinction between law and gospel , by a reformed Baptist pastor .

It's very strange but I'm very thankful that he did that and he told me this is a great book , but ignore all the stuff about the sacrament . But it was wrestling . Yeah , I know that's kind of at the core of a lot of it and so it was reading those texts , especially Luther . Really Luther's Galatians commentary was a balm to my soul .

It really was like this healing truth of the objectivity of the gospel and Luther's so pastoral in that text too , and it was one of those books where I read it and I was just thinking it was like he knew me and was writing specifically this book for me and I don't really ever feel that way about books , but I did about that commentary .

So with all of that , this got me to start looking into Lutheranism . My idea of Lutheranism , I think , was very different than the reality . My assumption was that Lutherans were all ELCA . I guess my assumption was kind of just . There isn't really a robust Lutheran tradition that really is consistent with those early reformers .

They hold to higher critical views of scripture and other things that I certainly was not willing to look at those issues at all . I was not to compromise .

But when I met someone who was part of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod , who was a friend of one of my friends in college , who just came to visit campus one day and was telling me about the Missouri Synod , I said I didn't know this was a thing I didn't know confessional Lutherans existed .

I thought that Lutherans were just kind of mainline maybe anything goes and that was my impression and they also .

For the record , I grew up in Massachusetts , where most of the churches are mainline churches that don't believe anything , and I think in that area of the country those churches are even less committed to anything than you find in other parts of the country too .

So that's what shaped my understanding and that led me then to buy a book of Concord and start visiting an LCMS church and thinking through and praying through all sorts of issues and eventually that led me to Lutheranism . So I know that was a long answer , but that was about as short as I could give it to you .

just met this young woman . She was a freshman , especially she was 18 at the time and it was one of these things where I knew her for two weeks and was like this is it , we're going to get married . So I was like well , I'm not going off to seminary right away , so I'm going to stick around for a little while .

She finished college in three years , but within that two-year period I was just working a minimum wage job and this is 2008 recession here too , so it was 2009 . So at that time I was like but I really want to continue my study of theology . And then that led me to the Wittenberg Institute , who had just started up this distance master's of theology program .

So I was like , oh , this is going to be an opportunity to continue my education from a distance , so I don't have to . Because I thought it was like I'll just wait a couple years and then start my MDiv , which would have been fine . But this opportunity just opened up . I thought it sounded great and it gave me something to do to continue my studies .

And then that just led me in some different directions . That brought me to

having a conversation with the . Well , I guess he wasn't then the one who became the bishop of the AALC . And someone had told me about the AALC and I was actually just considering where do I go ?

Because I knew I was a confessional Lutheran and I was like LCMS is where the church that I was attending , and it was a great congregation , but it was like I don't know . I just know I love Lutheran theology .

I wasn't like I'm committed to the LCMS and I certainly didn't have an issue with them , but I just did some looking to say I just want to know what's out there and what would be the best place for me to go .

So I knew the LCMS and I spoke with people at what was then forming as the NALC and just in terms of especially women in ministry , I was like I couldn't in good conscience go that direction . I spoke with the Freelutheran Church .

I mean , I had all these conversations with all sorts of people Because I'm just like I just want to make sure that I'm in the place where God's calling me to be . And so I had one conversation with our again , he was the assistant to the bishop at the time for the AALC and I just was like that's it , like I'm sold .

This is very clearly where I don't know it fits . You know , like doctrinally , but also in terms of just the temperament of my ministry , and it just fit , that's all . So there's no like being against the LCMS or anything that led me away from it . It was just circumstances led to that , that's all .

So tell the origin story , then , of 2012 , justin's Center , because we you know , we this is a podcast the night leadership collective trying to highlight kind of best practice , leadership values around culture , system structure , just basically the character of Christ .

If we could have leaders who have the character of Christ like that's , like our main , our main heart . So tell the story of Justin's Center a little bit .

One is as I was looking into Lutheranism , I had a really hard time finding resources and it was it's like if I didn't go out of my way to do the searching on my own , I never would have come across confessional Lutherans , like there just wasn't a large presence you know online , or there weren't you know publishing houses that were , I guess , widely known

outside of Lutheran circles . And this is the thing is that I think that Lutherans have done a really good job at getting resources theological resources , practical resources to people that are Lutherans , and those things were great . But it took me a long time to even find those things .

But I don't think that we've done as good of a job reaching outside of those boards , and I think there are . There are all sorts of reasons for that , I think , historically and culturally , but I knew a lot of people that became Calvinists because they encountered the Ministry of RC , sproul in particular , and I love Sproul .

Sproul was my really inspiration for doing what I do . I mean , he's the one who got me to really love , love , teaching , you know , and see the value in the kind of things that I do . But when I , when I became Lutheran , it was , you know , I wish we had something like that .

You know , I wish that we had those resources so that other people could find Lutheranism more easily . And I don't know , I guess I've . I've always been kind of a maybe a DIY kind of person . I was in like the punk rock culture when I was younger . That was part of the aesthetic here .

The whole culture is like well , no one else is going to do it , like , do it yourself , make your own stuff , do your own thing , and so I think that just kind of stuck with me . So it was like , well , you know , this idea was in the back of my head of maybe you could .

You know , maybe you could help do something like that , like , if no one else has this , maybe you can try to start start something like that , because I wanted other people to find the resources that I wish I had . Yeah , and that's really driven .

A lot of what I do is , and a lot of even books I've written or resources that I produced is what are the things that I had wished I had come across ? And so I did that and my my actual jumping into the podcast . This is something that happened . That had been an idea for a while . I wasn't going to , you know , do it before while I was in seminary .

That would have been . I need to get a pastoral call first . I do encourage seminary not to do these kind of things . I think it's not healthy for them .

But when I , when I received my first call , I was in , I was in Iowa and I at the time I was , I was ready to start a PhD and I , you know I was looking into Cambridge and Oxford and I was talking to some people there about different dissertation topics and trying to make decisions about where to go .

And then I I ended up committing basically to a school in London . And then , you know , I was my first son , had just been born , my first child , and my wife very lovingly said to me she's just like you know , I just want you to .

She said I'll respect whatever you decide to do , but I want you to just think about your commitment doing a dissertation right now . You know we just had our first child , you're a brand new pastor , your first congregation , and you know she she wouldn't have been like pushy of like you can't do that . But but there's wisdom , wisdom in listening to do .

Your wife , who knows you better than anybody at least there certainly was was there . So , you know , I took a step back and I'm grateful that she said that , because I , I again , took a step back and prayed about it and thought about it and said you know , I think , I think I should probably wait a little bit before I do this .

Then , though , that was like well , hey , if you're not spending that time dedicating to something so serious , maybe you can engage that element of you know , the element of myself that I wanted to continue to do through academic work , because maybe I could do a podcast .

A lot of times I think we just kind of fuss about stuff . I love that part of your story . Don't fuss , just let's offer something , hopefully a value . If I'm a learner , I'm a leader . Other people may want to learn right alongside me and the quickest way we kind of instill various , you know , be it academic or character qualities is through doing right .

We have to talk and so your , your learning journey , just included now and now , includes thousands of people who get to take in whatever it is that interests you and that's just grown with more and more influence . What I ?

What's kind of fascinating to me because I was just at this best practices of ministry conference I'm a pastor here in Phoenix , you know , and we have these small little groups . There's a couple thousand mission oriented confessing Lutherans there all learning together , and because I've been doing different podcasts and stuff like I'm .

It's a much smaller audience and you're speaking to every single week , but like people kind of notice you and there can be this tendency to think , wow , I'm , I'm doing something of value . You know , the devil just wants to attack the ego over and over again . So what are some ? I can show some

of my kind of practices right now , but what are some of the practices that you have to just kind of let Jordan know hey , man , you're , you're not a big deal Like . Let this is all about Jesus , cause I think that you maintain humility in a Lutheran famous type of world is a real thing . So how do you maintain humility , jordan ?

want power or something like that , and that's just not not . This is not the case . But I think I think the most important thing is always to be aware of that temptation , and I know people that jump into these spaces and get a platform that don't check themselves and don't have people that check them .

And I have people that I communicate with about this stuff regularly .

I have people that I say like hey , if , if I ever act like this , you know , if I ever seem like I'm getting really arrogant , or if I'm just missing people , or if I'm acting like I am some , you know , superior to somebody because of an audience , you know , then say something , do something .

And I do trust , trust those people to be able to be able to say something , and I think it's very important to make sure you have those kinds of checks and balances in place . I don't know .

To some extent , though , when I look at , like , my , my platform , I just it's grown significantly , but I also just look at how much bigger platforms all these other people have .

You know , I don't know , and I guess , like to me , it's like there's always somebody , there's always somebody that's a lot bigger , and I look at the things that I have or the people that watch me and I'm like , I don't know , you just see so many people that have so much more influence , which is , which is fine .

I don't need that much more influence , but , yeah , I think having those people to hold you accountable is really important . Something else that I that I am very intentional about is trying to make sure that people don't see me as their spiritual authority .

Yes , and I think that anyone that is a pastor with a public platform needs to do this very , very intentionally , because I've observed people , and I've actually I've done this very purposely . I've looked for patterns of those who have fallen into abusive and narcissistic behavior and tried to say like , okay , what are the , what are the warning signs ?

Like , what are the things that you see here ? What are the common patterns of behavior ? And then how and I'm being analytical about it , because that's how I am about everything , but what ? That is how I operate . So and I'm like , okay , what are the common patterns of behavior ? And then , how do I avoid those kinds of traps ?

And as I as I started to look into the differences between somebody who has a public platform and , you know , seemingly never had these scandals or never had these kind of reputations like some other people you know , you've got your Mark Driscoll . He's the most famous just because there's a whole podcast about him .

But it's a story about a lot of people , and one of the common factors that I saw is that a lot of those who seem to develop that kind of narcissistic behavior see themselves as spiritual authorities over their audience , and that is a very dangerous place to go .

So I think you have to distinguish between being a guy who teaches things on the internet that can lead people toward their actual spiritual authorities versus me saying I have some kind of of God given authority over my you know 50,000 subscribers or something which I don't at all . You know .

So I'm just a guy that talks about some stuff that they might find interesting . That's it , and I'm happy to be that guy , but I'm not their pastor , and this is something that I think God God taught me very early on .

In my public platform , I had people that reached out to me for advice or to do counseling or all sorts of other stuff , people that I didn't know in person .

I knew them online and we had conversations and and I think and maybe there was some arrogance involved in my thinking I could do that there was certainly naivety there and maybe it was a mix of both of those things . But then I was involved in situations where I gave bad advice or I , and it was because I didn't know these people .

You know it's like and I and somehow it was like I can I don't know what I was thinking you know I can , can spiritually advise people that I'm not living with , I'm not , they're not in my community , they're , they're just they should have their own pastors , and they do have their own pastor . Why are they talking to me ?

So it was through some bad decisions I think I made that God really taught me that lesson . So maybe it was , you know , in a difficult way , but I'm thankful for it at the same time . So , looking back it's I have made that decision to clearly say look , I am not your pastor and people ask me , for example , why do you not wear your collar ?

You know , because I wear my collar when I'm doing pastoral ministry . I always have it on the side of the office . I do not wear it in my videos and people are like what's wrong with that ? Why aren't you wearing your collar ? And they come up with all sorts of weird reasons .

They think that's the case and I said because I don't want to look like I'm your pastor , because I'm not , and and I try , I've tried to make those decisions intentionally . So there's plenty more I could say , but there's the , there's the short of the .

We had no matter what you're saying , whether you're a pastor , a 50 people , 5000 people have 50,000 people on , whatever you know , we're not that , we're not that big of a deal . We're really not , and we're . We're sinners through and through and we're just a beggar trying to help another beggar find food which is found in Christ . That's it .

And so , if , if I've been given anything it's the only thing . I've said this many times Jordan man , the only thing I hold with a close fist is the one who holds me with a close fist , and that's Christ , and him crucified right . Everything else , whatever leadership , influence , it's all open hand man , and I got a lot of gifts and I got more gaps .

You know Jesus is , and I need the body of Christ and I need , I need brothers and sisters to hold me accountable , to speak truth and love to me . I need those places where I've been .

I've been wrestling with hierarchy a lot lately , just a concept of hierarchy and how does , how , does the leader take that humble place right , that , that place of Christ to pick up our cross and follow after him .

So the inverted kind of hierarchy of of lowering ourselves , recognizing there is , sociologically , people who have been placed in , in positions , but , man , I think this is let me get your take on this If pastors and leaders , those that are in synodical offices , presidents , et cetera , if they consciously continually took a lower place , asking for help , speaking

about what they can offer but what they cannot offer and why they need the body of Christ , if this was just more a part of our vernacular , it sounds simple . You know what we would become better at Jordan , at making friends . I'm making friends Like I've been wrestling with too .

The concept of friendship is simply learning to ask someone else for help , right , and if pastors can enter into the parish and just say you know , I've been called to Word and Sacrament ministry , I want to steward that very , very well , but I just need a lot of help .

I got a lot of blindsides and , man , wouldn't the church just be that much more healthy , raised up , and this kind of the combative , and we speak a lot about the priesthood of all believers and when you have a confessing , yeah , maybe this is where I'd love to get your take when you have a confessing traditional conservative all the adjectives that describe us

there can be that propensity to , I would say , inappropriately elevate the office of holy ministry at the expense of , maybe , the priesthood of all believers . And we need one another deeply . It's both and it's not either or Any comment to that Jordan , just the heart of humility and the leader .

So it's not I don't want to say it's not a question of hierarchy , because there is , you are the pastor and that is a called office and that is a distinctive office . But it's not just a question of who's in charge , but it's a question of what is your unique calling in the church ?

And of course , that's the imagery that Paul uses about the body right , and the head is Christ , right , not the pastor , you know .

So there are different vocations and callings within the church , and so I think , just the recognition that the pastor is called to a very particular ministry , and that is what we usually call ministry in the more specific sense of word and sacrament .

It is the pastor's role to deliver the word and the sacraments to his people , but that doesn't mean that the pastor does everything else , and I see this misunderstanding not just on the part of pastors but on congregations as well , and to some extent , I think there's a mutually reinforced idea that you have there between pastor and congregation , where the pastor is

, the church basically kind of stands or falls with the pastor and all ministries , and that now I'm using ministry in the broader sense of , like you know , a mercy ministry kind of thing , the other outreach events that the church is doing . Certainly the pastor is to oversee those kinds of things , but doesn't have to be the one doing all the work .

And I think , just as a leader in general , the way to be , one of the ways to be a successful leader is to , of course , equip other people and give other people freedom to do things .

This is a problem in leadership in general and oftentimes it is the this is the like kind of decisive thing that is going to determine whether any organization is going to survive its founder . Because if you have and I think about this , because what I want to do with my organization , justin Center , is to actually have it outlast me .

That's the goal and I'm trying to get the right people in places that's where I to die . You know , tomorrow it would go on and we're not at that place yet , but that's where I would like it to be . So , but there is this

control issue that a lot of people have , that pastors can have , and it is ultimately a pride issue of I don't want to . I don't want to give anything up because if I let other people take care of this or have authority here , it's not going to be right . You know this is what they call .

They talk about this as like founder syndrome in organizations , where it's like that if the founder won't give up control of everything and needs to oversee every little piece of any operation , that organization is going to fail inevitably , because if they're successful it's going to grow , and the more it grows , the less they could actually keep track of everything .

And now you're just disorganized and nobody's letting anything get done , because you're not letting anything get done if you don't have your hands in it . But you can't possibly have your hands in everything . And so I think the church really functions in the same way Is a good leader equips other people to be leaders . So you empower people right .

Instead of disempowering them and saying I'm leader , do what I say . You try to recognize the gifts of the people in your congregation .

You try to equip them and encourage them in those gifts and say I need you and we need you to use these gifts here , and we need you to use these gifts here , and when you're not doing that , you're not fostering a church community and you're not .

It sounds weird to use this kind of language at a church , but people don't really have buy-in in the church . In a way , there is this if you're bringing something valuable to something , to anything , whatever any organization , and if you feel like your contribution is of value , you want to be involved more , you feel like you have buy-in .

But if you're just going in and out and you're just a kind of consumer which is how a lot of people view well , a lot of things in our culture , but people tend to view church sometimes in that way of like I go in and then I leave and the pastor does all the work , you don't have that same kind of connection , right ?

You don't have that same kind of buy-in to the community and to the church itself . So what that means then is that pastor leaves and you're like oh well , I liked his preaching , so I'm just gonna leave , because you have no sense of like the , your own contributions to the church or your own involvement in the congregation .

But you should be very early on in your development process . Probably what some people think is kind of unwise , maybe with cause . A lot of times we people get so far ahead of others on the development spectrum that then they go back and it's like I can't even see myself there . So just like one or two steps ahead , right , and this should go without saying .

But this is what Jesus did , jordan , like we talk about the words of Jesus all the time and the work of Christ , him crucified and risen from the dead , but he was the greatest leader of all time , taking 12 , taking 70 . In the course of he developed them over the three years he gave them invitations into ministry , if you will , casting out demons .

Luke 10 is like the life chapter for me in the sending of the 70 . They come back , they have hubris , they have arrogance . Look at what we did . Don't focus on that . Rejoice , your names are written in the book of life . Your mind , your identity is now in me .

Now just come and follow me , learn the way I did it , and then obviously this should go without saying , but you will receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses . Cast big vision Jerusalem , judea , samaria , to the ends of the earth right , and the Spirit did it . They didn't .

The Holy Spirit was alive and well and the church , just you know . So that is our foundation is releasing , trusting , experimenting , failing , reaching people with the message of Christ , recognizing different gifts .

And then you see the apostle Paul kind of just responding to what , reacting , if you will , to what the Holy Spirit was already doing in local churches , as he develops all of these kind of mutually beneficial relationships and friendships . And then he's giving authority , if you will off , to men like Timothy and others who are coming alongside him .

And it's just , it just moved I was wrestling with . There's a man by the name of Andy Jackson . Got the privilege of hanging out with him recently . Not the historical character , but Andrew Jackson is running for state house of representatives here in Arizona and he's a student historian .

He's written an awful lot and I'm moving toward patristics right now On the move of the gospel in the Eastern church in the first three , really first seven centuries , all the way up to the Muslim movement .

A lot of the struggles that took place there , and what he said Jordan , was that the Eastern church , many of the church fathers coming out of the East , so Dessa , constantinople et cetera , the Eastern church had a much more egalitarian kind of perspective than the Western church at the time .

There were bishops et cetera , but those bishops were over towns and there wasn't kind of one key bishop . Rome's significance , what he said up until the seventh , eighth century was really kind of down here like the Pope et cetera .

And then once this struggle kind of took place in the Islam you know crusades et cetera that that's when Rome kind of took on this hierarchical structure . But up until that point the church was much more just . We had networks , the monastic movement was taking place , but it was the power .

Struggles were made I'm sure they were there because we're sinners , right but it appeared as if the church was more nimble in the East and therefore spread more rapidly . So talk about your work with the patristics , your understanding of Paul and how that relates toward the topic of leadership development Jordan .

So I think that it's exactly correct that within the medieval period you do have this hierarchical system that develops around the Roman papacy that even if it wasn't for Islam , the East never would have had Right it just it was not happening there .

And some of that is just historical circumstance , just because you had these , you know , four major bishoprics all in the Eastern Church , so there was always balance . And in the West you've just kind of got Rome uncontested . So it is unfortunately just what happened . So some of it is just , it just is what it is .

You know , just the historical circumstance just led to that happening . But even in the Western Church the way that the hierarchy was understood was very different from the way that it was in the medieval church . So think , for example , about the story of St Ambrose .

Now , if you don't know the story about St Ambrose and his , his election to becoming Bishop but I say election because that's what's distinct here so Ambrose , bishop of Milan in Italy , and Ambrose , you know , fourth century , the famous , most famously known , is that the preacher that Augustine first heard .

So he was kind of a mentor , preacher to Augustine and larger to Augustine's mother as well . Ambrose is just , is probably my favorite church father . I just love Ambrose , very pastoral heart .

But so there's this story of in the fourth century in Milan there is there are these debates about who the next Bishop is going to be , and you've got an Aryan Bishop and then you have an Orthodox Nicene Bishop and the people are they're all debating .

You know it reminds it's similar to like what we have in our political debates is everybody like hates each other , but it's over theology . You know things that are like really important , which kind of I wish we cared enough about those things to debate them as much as they did then and that way .

But they you know this other debating the Aryans and the Nicene Christians , and nobody can agree on anything . And then all of a sudden somebody says Ambrose for Bishop and everyone loved Ambrose and so it was like he was the unifying guy . So everybody just starts yelling Ambrose for Bishop and he gets in and he's installed as Bishop .

So the interesting thing about that story is it shows you how the church was functioning at the time , which was the Bishop was , was not just placed there .

The Bishop was not just , you know , like by Fiat , declared to be the Bishop or by some other hierarchy , but the people , the laity , were actually involved in the process of of electing the Bishop , and what that meant was that the one who became Bishop also had to in some way have the respect of the people Right .

So you have , you have this kind of accountability there too that there's less opportunity for , I think , corruption and abuse because you don't just have one person right in authority saying well , like what you have in the middle medieval period is , you've got , like children pointed to Bishoprics because they're related to somebody important , who was , you know , someone

who had a you know , concubine when they were supposed to be a celibate Bishop themselves and had a child , and then the child is given a Bishopric and you see all this corruption .

But when you have this kind of balance in the early church with someone like , like in the story of Ambrose , it's not a perfect system , because they're always going to be corrupt people right , and they're always going to be people who abuse power , and they're always going to be manipulative people who are going to be able to abuse power .

But what you want is a system of checks and balances to try to do the best you can to minimize those situations . So in the early church I think you really did have that and I think it functioned pretty well in the West as well . The , what you think of as the . You know the papacy doesn't really develop for a long time .

I mean , there was a Pope , there was a Bishop in Rome and he was the most important Bishop in the Western church . But you don't really have a Roman papacy until until the fall , after the fall of Rome .

That's just as bad , right , but but that we should function in such a way , not that we get rid of hierarchy or even hierarchy among pastors , to have certain people in these kinds of offices there's a reason that , developed organizationally , it just makes sense but but that we need to do it in such a way that we have this accountability both kind of a top ,

from the top and from the bottom as well , and that's when things , I think , function , function the best .

So Ambrose is another great example , because Ambrose is one who excommunicates the emperor because of his sin to get him to repent , so like and I don't know , most of us probably are not as bold as Ambrose , but but it's rare to have someone who both has the respect of those in authority so much that they'll listen to him , but also the respect of the people ,

and and we should strive for that . You know not , not that we will will be that or that it will always be possible . But but that's that should be the the desire .

I mean that this move toward equal voices , whether you're poor or rich , whether you're Pope or lay , this is how the West collectively kind of grew and right , I mean any any response to to that today , and I so I'd love to get your take on . I mean , it's 2024 right now , bro , I mean , and we're

in an election year , and what is the role of the church in maintaining civility ?

I think we have a huge role , by the way maintaining civility , clarity around character and and a voice that speaks to people who are because you talk about the emperor there a collective voice that speaks to those who are in power , who are behaving inappropriately and do not speak like our counter to natural law , right ?

I think this is where we have to to orient ourselves . The world has been created by God and we are going against His created design , his intentional design . You can go down the gender conversation , etc . So I think our voice right now , our collective voice , with with pastors having a strong , a strong role , like .

We need a courageous heart today , jordan , to speak the truth in love , where there is air any any response to that ?

But I think if you look at like the , you know , look at the 18th century , where you see the both the American Revolution , you've got things like the French Revolution , you've got all this disruption all over the Western world , and this is there are all sorts of reasons for what's going on . Then the Enlightenment and and and .

Then corruption to some extent , and , and sometimes it can be exaggerated in terms of the aristocracies or nobilities .

But if you look at the way that something , a nation which was very strictly Roman Catholic , like France , operated , you had this , you had less accountability right from the French kings , you know all the , all the Louis , and there was this kind of absolutist approach to to the monarchy , which really was a reflection of the Roman Catholic approach to the papacy .

There's there's an intimate connection between how the church functions and then how the state functions .

So you have people like Joseph de Maistra , who was a Roman Catholic conservative political thinker , you know , at this time , and he , he argues for this kind of absolutist view of government , and I'll say there are no checks and balances , but at least among well , by the time of Louis the 16th , there were some , at least , put in place , but some of it was

rather like completely absolute of the power of the king . You put one person in power and they can kind of do what they want . There is , I think , a very significant Protestant shaping of what you find in in England and in the American Revolution .

So this and some of this in England is even prior to the Reformation , but in some ways , I think it both influences why England accepts the Reformation , but also the Reformation then further develops this a bit . So the Protestant nations , though , are the ones that have those systems of checks and balances , purposely because of the way that we view hierarchy .

So we're not saying , like the French are going to talk about the divine right of kings in this totally absolutist sense . It's like God established the kings that's the voice of God and do whatever the king says basically that simple , whereas we say no , that's not how a society functions , that's not how leadership functions , that's not how hierarchy works .

So we have this balance of understanding that God has created things that should have order . So we should have , we should have hierarchy , because God established order in the world .

But we understand this in the sense of calling , and I think Luther's idea of calling is so essential here that , like when Luther , for example , is going to talk about the difference between a pastor and a bishop , he's going to say that the difference is not ontological , right .

The difference is not the bishop is somehow of a higher order than the pastor , it's just an organizational distinction . So that doesn't make it insignificant , but he's still a pastor . He's not fundamentally of a whole different level of thing . So the same , I think , is true about our political authority .

So what we do have in the United States with our system of checks and balances is very , very influenced by the Reformation , and when it's at its best , I think it's going to kind of take that in-between road between a kind of total egalitarianism of there is no hierarchy , there's no order at all , which just is chaos , right , we don't want that or this kind

of absolutist approach where we just give ultimate power to one person as the sovereign . So the system of checks and balances that we do have theoretically works very well . I think it's not doing that today in the same way because of a lot of things that have happened culturally and otherwise .

But so now we're in this weird position is to get to the second part of this , the church . We're in a political situation that is so heated and not just heated but it's difficult to maintain your virtue and Christian character in having civic discourse right now , and that's a huge problem .

And some of this is because in some ways , the stakes are much higher than they have been historically and everybody says this this election is going to is the most important election we've ever had . He says this every time . But I more mean in terms of like , the basic questions of what is a human person . You bring up natural law .

We have the question of like what is a man and what is a woman , the created order , the nature of what that means . These are not like political questions and that's the difficulty of what we're facing now is like these are just fundamental human questions of like . Can we know what reality is ? What is reality ? Who am I , who are you ? How do we relate ?

These are much bigger philosophical questions that are unfortunately being couched under the realm of politics . So what that's done now is it has also aligned that discussion with everything else that's involved in politics , so that they're all kind of smushed together .

If you believe this about what a human being is , or that there is such a thing as a human essence , that humanity is not just a social construct as a whole which I mean a lot of people really are saying , which a lot of people on the left don't really , I don't think , know the implications of this kind of stuff .

It's just made discourse so , so difficult . So I think because of that , people want to just I don't know just attack and jump into attack mode To some extent . I want to say that maybe the reason they do that some of it is like they see what's at stake and how important it is when you're looking at those kinds of basic questions .

But there is no political or social issue that is so important that it should cause us to discard our Christian character . Amen , like there is no excuse not to act virtuously and with decorum and the way that we communicate with other people . So good . Like I would rather .

I would rather me and my family all die virtuously right than have to give up on my values for the sake of fighting a cultural fight , Because I , ultimately , we know that Christ is king and he is going to restore things and he wins in the end , no matter what . What I'm not saying is like .

Therefore , we don't fight at all and you just ignore issues in the world , as I'm saying it all , but not at the expense of your soul , and I think too many people are fighting these battles at the expense of their soul . Wow , I agree . There's so much there . Let me just draw a through line back to the early church .

Like life , true life , jordan , is not found in taking , acquiring , you know , whether it's power or resource or whatever . True life is found and the sociologists know this too , the psychologists know this too In giving our life away , in sacrifice , in service , in living in community and reciprocity , in understanding who I am and who I'm not .

I need community , I need Christ . Like living with radical humility . This is , this is the way of Jesus . And if the world culturally , if the United States of America specifically , is going to hold itself together , the church has to have that sort of a , that sort of a posture and leaders have to have that sort of a posture .

So , to get to like our context with the AALC or the LCMS and I've asked Jordan , a number of leaders in our church body Now , I'm not inviting you into our church body , you got enough stuff with the AALC right but to just get together on this podcast , or privately , and just talk about some areas where we're struggling .

Pastoral formation , you know , or kind of overly what I would say , the pietistic kind of move and very or or like the missional side of us , the entrepreneurial side of us like can we all speak with one another under the same house , if you will ?

And I'm praying the answer is like yes , and therefore we can find our common points of , I mean our unity , our mission to receive all parts of the body of Christ within our respective denominations .

And then , kind of coming up underneath the wider church , because we exist , we want to unite with anybody who calls Jesus Lord and offer our gifts of and I think the sacraments , bro , are like the gift that we have to the wider church and also recognize that we individually and collectively may have some things to learn from the wider body of Christ too , always

taking that learning posture . So , yeah , I'm praying that the fights within our denomination cool and that we have peace enough to have constructive conversations so that we'd all grow up into Jesus who is the head . That's like my prayer , Because the stakes , like you say , are too high for us to do otherwise . The enemy is not even our neighbor , our Democrat .

Whoever like , the enemy is Satan , who seeks to steal , kill and destroy and divide us from one another . Let's just call that out like consistently this is a spiritual battle that we're walking through right now and we need all parts of the body of Christ to be speaking and clarifying and challenging one another .

Any response to that , jordan , as we're coming down the home stretch here .

So if I and I talk about this in premarital counseling and I'm sure you know , probably you do too like it's just a very common thing is just , you know , if you have a husband and wife and they're having a conversation and the say say the husband is upset with the wife about something , and it could go either way and say the husband is completely right about

what he's going to say , if he approaches the wife , even if he's right and even if she would otherwise recognize that he's right and he approaches her with you did this , the natural psychological response is you're in defense mode . So you say you did this right .

So you're starting it with this back and forth and you'll never come to any agreement unless the tone of the conversation changes . And when it starts that way , it's like impossible to stop it .

So the best thing to do and we're so bad at doing this right now in every area of our society is to actually sit down with somebody and start with like questions why do you think this Right ? Why do you think that Can you tell me a little bit more about your thought process and coming to this kind of conclusion ? And this is just true about leadership ?

This is how you actually influence people in your , say , congregation or organization that you run because they're like , oh , they value my opinion because you're starting with questions . And if you start with questions and continue with questions , you're going to do a couple things . One is you're going to show them that you're listening .

First of all , you have to actually listen to what they say .

But then if you continue asking questions that are digging a little deeper , those questions are going to get the person to think themselves a little more deeply about , maybe , what some of their commitments are , in ways that if you say , well , this is inconsistent with this , or you're saying this and this , they won't listen .

If you start doing it with a question to get them to think about things , to get them to come to a realization themselves , then they'll start to say like , oh well , maybe this or maybe that .

So a lot of like the tone of conversations , as much as and this drives me crazy right now but and I don't like to comment on political candidates ever , it's not my role , but on this point I will , because I think it affects how Christians are doing discourse A lot of people say with you know , with Trump , people just said , well , the you know , it's just

me and tweets I'm like , who cares about maybe he's kind of crass , but who cares about decor ? Because , like , what he's saying is right and I'm not going to comment on policies or anything like that with him , but but just on that point . I just don't think that's true .

And I think it's demonstrably not true because the way that the discourse was set and , to be clear , I don't think our current president is any better in that way at all so but the way that the the discourse is is set on that kind of level than other people repeat , and we repeat that because that's what we're seeing or hearing , even if it's unconscious .

And the way that you do discuss things and the tone that you take and the way that you accuse and talk

really can have more effects than almost anything . Like it's , it's sometimes the most important thing in a relationship or in an organization or even in politics . So I think to just ignore that and just say , well , tone doesn't really matter , it's just not in terms of human psychology , it's just not true , like clearly , self-evidently not true .

So something that that I've been trying to do and I know maybe this is , you know odd , but or people , people tell me I'm a you know weak for all this stuff but is that I'm trying to to recapture a sense of manners , and I've been , I'm doing these like etiquette videos and I'm working on I saw some of those .

That's how I was going to bring up Like who talks about this today .

One is just it was reading through some older , you know , political debates in the United States and and just listening to older political debates and I'm talking more debates about from , like you know , political theorists , and this was true on a you know , presidential level as well but they just act so differently , like they listen to each other and this doesn't

mean they compromise on what they think . They're clear , but respectful and watching . That it's . It's so much more thoughtful . People are engaged more .

And in thinking through a lot of that , I , I think , I think , I think , I think , I think , you know , started thinking through the place that manners I guess had in traditional American society and almost actually any society . This is just part of how society functions in any way . There are always social behaviors that are expected in one way or another .

But I really started to see that I think that's where things have taken a turn is that we're not teaching these rules of manners in etiquette anymore .

I mean , maybe some of this is my background , like I'm from Massachusetts , my wife is from Connecticut , I work , I do ministry , at an Ivy League University , you know , and you have this kind of old , old like East Coast kind of I don't know manners and that is being lost .

Like you see that with older generations there's so much more respectful and respectable in the way that they communicate . It's not here anymore really at all . So this got me to start reading these old like etiquette manuals and once you know I started doing that , I'm like there's so much value to a lot of these principles .

Like there are reasons why people set rules in civic discourse , because if you follow those rules , man life is much easier and it gives you , like some of this is thinking through theologically . Like you know , luther talks a lot about the limits that we have as human beings .

Right , we live well within limits and he talks about this with in his Genesis commentary , with relationship like the tree , right , god is teaching by placing the tree of life in the garden . God is teaching Adam Eve limits . He's saying there are things that you can't do . There are things that you can do and we just we do well in limits as human people .

So what the rules of etiquette do is just give us those limits to say here are and we talk all about the law as a curb right , so this is the curb , these are . You don't go outside of these boundaries .

And if we understand these limits , we're sticking within those when we have social interaction , and that stops the extreme reactions to things because you say , okay , well , that maybe wouldn't be appropriate .

Some of this also is the question of like social shame , and of course , this can be done in bad ways and I think now it often is done in like crazy ways . But there is something good about there is something good about shame socially in that you don't want to look like a fool , you don't want to look like you are crazy .

And the problem with the internet right now is is you have this anonymity which has taken away social shame , so people can just say whatever the heck they want . But this is something that etiquette does , is it determines social shame .

So there is something really motivating about the fact that , oh , I really want to like call this guy an idiot , but I know that that's that if I do , that's not proper and people around me are going to look at me like I'm , you know , crazy , or look at me like I'm gross or whatever , and that's a good thing .

We should have shame over over , like insulting people in that way . So . So etiquette helps to build this just social , basic social rules and structures that , if we operate within them , you know they they've developed over many centuries because they have shown themselves to be the best ways to interact with other people .

Like it's not like someone just sat down and said , okay , I'm going to create this like rule book , this is how you should act , and these are . It's not arbitrary . This , this is just how people naturally form societies and general rules that developed , that showed themselves to be wisdom over many centuries , so there's a reason we stuck with them .

So so my hope is to kind of recapture some of this . I would love if Christians were known as the people who actually used manners . And again , they're not arbitrary , because the number one rule of etiquette is that you want to make the other person feel valued . That's the entire purpose of all of it .

So all of it really surrounds this love for others , and you'll find that if you follow these classical rules of etiquette and manners , that essentially you are going to be in your regular social interactions , prioritizing the other above yourself , and even if they have no idea why you're doing that or what you're doing , they're going to notice the difference .

You know how unusual it would have been in that culture for a tax collector to be called and you can go down the line with fishermen and others of kind of lower ish status . Now he had his status but he was seen by many as a traitor , immoral in many respects . And yet Jesus welcomed him to the table and taught him a new way of being .

And the church needs I was thinking the church needs more etiquette classes . Today , jordan and leadership development classes could be our synonymous almost with etiquette classes and how ? I'm a systems theorist . I've studied organizational leadership development , that was what my doctorate was in . But if you just boil it down , how do I keep my mind about me ?

How do I move from my reactive amygdala , limbic brain , to my prefrontal cortex , where P ? The only way that that move happens is peace , the peace of Christ , which removes anxiety , gives me a sense of my identity in Christ and then mobilizes me with curiosity rather than condemnation or fear .

We just collectively need to move toward our prefrontal cortex , and the church has a huge responsibility in helping that happen , and the peace of Christ is the only thing that really really lasts in that journey . You know , man , this has been so much fun . I could talk for another hour .

We didn't even get to a lot of stuff because while we touch patristics which was fun a little bit Ambrose , thank you . But maybe we'll chat again sometime , bro , because we need thinkers like you in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod .

This is a podcast of the United Leadership Collective , but we're proud multi-generational many of us members of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod . I'm glad that we're in partnership with the AALC , praying for you and your work at the seminary . What is the maybe the closing question ?

What is the biggest prayer request right now for you and your leadership role right now in your context ? Jordan ?

We've got to jump through the first major one . That's robust . It's a multi-year process to get through accreditation .

So just the major prayer request is just that that goes well and both that there is clear guidance for us and where to go , but also that we all find time to do the work that needs to be done , because , honestly , most of us at well , no , like all of us working at the seminary are also in actual ministry that's not that that's not actual ministry , but are

also in in-person ministry context as well . So there's , we're all balancing a lot of stuff .

As we're talking about manners and treating people well , I don't know that spending a lot of time on spaces like Twitter X or whatever it's called these days is a great idea , but you can't find me on there . So but it's at Dr Jordan B Cooper , and YouTube is really my main platform . If you want to find me on there , just look up Jordan Jordan B Cooper .

I love it , jordan . This has been so much fun . It's a good day . Go on and make it a great day . Jesus loves you . Thanks so much , jordan . Thank you .

Subscribe to our channel and go to theunitel leadershiporg to create your free login and for exclusive material and resources , and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode . Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode .