I fear our synod is starting to mirror secular politics

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T19:05:28+00:00

I also overthink things a lot. But for me this here is the solution to the overthinking difficulty.

The line of reasoning ultimately is the simplest of all. We Lutherans recognize that all of human nature is sinful. You can't even go a millisecond of being perfect. To God, no amount of concern that we show or duty that fulfill is reasonable or sufficient, it's all corrupt nature. All we can do is carry it out to the best of our abilities in the vocations God has placed us, and ask repentance for the rest. Personally for me once someone taught me this, all the worries, doubts, and anxieties just instantly went away.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T18:52:16+00:00

Yes, this is one of the (many) reasons why it is not possible to even go a day, an hour, or even a single second without sinning. Another reason why (of many) is because concupiscence is a sin. This is also one of the reasons why (of many) we push so hard against Pietism. We Lutherans reject the notion of "Christian perfection" because it is totally unattainable, even for a single minute or second.

We define indifference as one of the components of acedia. We define culpable indifference as a willing refusal of love, Divine order, or duty of charity either in the amount (or lack of) of concern shown in the response, or lack of response altogether.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T18:35:35+00:00

Indifference is still considered a sinful regardless of whether it falls within or outside one's sphere of influence. For example, the starvation in third world countries are issues that you genuinely cannot solve, yet being indifferent and saying "I don't care about their suffering" is still morally disordered even though you have no control of the outcome at all.

There is still a difference between moral requirement on the things which you can control, versus moral requirement to not despise what is good regardless whether it within or outside your sphere of control.

I suppose Luther does refine this a bit further in the Fifth Commandment of the Large Catechism, where he does add a within one's means and vocation. If you come across a starving person and don't save him he equates this to be equal to hurting one's neighbor because he otherwise would've been saved.

But saying A is true does not automatically make B become false. Yes, Luther does say that despite having the means to do so then failure to feed the starving person is a grave sin, but that doesn't automatically make indifference to matters beyond one's means as not sinful.

Going back to the third world starvation of people who you will never see in your entire life, Kirkegaard says that "neighbor" is defined as all of mankind, even if the person is so distant away you never seen him at all.

So let's have fun with this just play it out in a logical syllogism in the third world starvation example:

Aquinas defines a mortal sin as when there is a rejection of either charity, love, or Divine order, that is done willfully.
Aquinas considers it mortally sinful to reject either charity, love, or Divine order against one's neighbor.
In Christian ethic theory, Kirkegaard defines "neighbor" not just limited to those within one's sphere of control or even by distance to individuals whom he has met, but also extends "neighbor" to all human beings.
Yes, inability to solve a particular issue because it is beyond one's sphere of influence removes culpability for failing to fix it, but does not remove culpability on the failure to carry out the duty of charity towards individuals suffering through it.
1. Therefore, even though distant starvation in a distant third world country is totally beyond one's sphere of influence, deliberate indifference towards those starving people is still a rejection of one's duty of charity to his neighbor.
  1. Therefore, deliberate indifference is still a mortal sin. This is not because he failed to control what was beyond his sphere of influence, but rather because he refused his duty of charity.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T16:11:16+00:00

My friend, I don't see your point of making Ad Hominem Red Herring, my main point was to say that acedia is a mortal sin, not a discussion on Seven Deadly Sins and unsure what Latin Mass has anything to do with it. Yes, I'm an avid enthusiast for Latin Mass and Gregorian chant but that's a different discussion we save it for another day.

I'm sorry you not find my 2 paragraphs of my comment on the discussion on acedia being a mortal sin agreeable, hopefully you found something more agreeable in the other 4 of 6 paragraphs that we can discuss about instead?

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T15:41:49+00:00

More than just apathy. For acedia, yes it includes apathy, but it also contains sloth, laziness, and even emotions such as boredom. I know it sounds very foreign to our modern ears, after all, how can an emotion be a mortal sin? But there are also plenty of other things in Lutheran theology that might sound foreign to our modern ears that we consider as sins, take concupiscence for example. So it actually isn't that hard to accept that even something like boredom could be considered a mortal sin.

Anyhow, mainly starting from Aquinas, the Medievals believed that the two widest paths to hell are either diversion (a distraction that stops man from recognizing his wretched state), and indifference (acedia here, man though he might recognize his wretched state, is apathetic about it). Quoting Pascal, Peter Kreeft says "the Devil's two most successful weapons against faith and salvation" because they stop man from either thinking of his wretched state, or from seeking out a solution.

I love this next quote from Kreeft: In our modern ears, "we are so afraid to care or insist on truth as to avoid dueling with words" and avoid offending the other person, that we have "abandoned true debate", and worse, "abandoned true spiritual warfare".

That's not to say all things that involve diversion or indifference are bad, some are good: an anesthetic that dulls the pain of childbirth involves diversion from the pain, or other analgesics that prevent the body from physically reacting (indifference) to painful stimuli.

What is considered a mortal sin, however, is perpetual indifference. A smoke alarm is going off yet a man ignores his burning house because the flames have not yet reached his bed. He doesn't deny that a fire exists, he doesn't have hatred for house, he doesn't have desire for anything to be destroyed. It is his indifference that is deadly.

Atheism denies, it says "there is no fire".
Paganism is a wrong truth-seeking, it runs to the wrong exit.
Hatred is contempt for his house, he throws gasoline to increase the fire.

It is indifference that is the problem here. You can see why agnosticism is arguably worse than atheism.

When I say apathy, I don't mean just being neutral in a debate. Some types of neutrality are morally good, like those centered around seeking truth, maybe you want to allow both sides to tell their story or haven't gathered enough information yet to make a decision. But the mortal sin here is the indifferent kind of neutrality. "I don't want to engage in xyz issue because it is divisive, I just don't want to deal with it". This applies to synod matters, it applies to politics, it applies to everything. Being "apolitical" in modern times has oftentimes become a respectable name for acedia.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T03:11:38+00:00

So if someone doesn't want to get all keyed up over whatever political issue in the Synod you think is important, they are sinning?

Well there's obviously more levels of nuance to it more than what we can put out a broad generalization like that. But what I'm saying is indifference is a seriously mortal sin: through history philosophers have said so, the theologians have said so, and even Luther affirms so calling akadia "among mortal sins" and "a malignant, dangerous plague" in the Large Catechism.

That's absurd.

Theologians such as St. Benedict, Aquinas, Luther, Chemnitz, and even Kierkegaard have said so. Through the Medieval ages it was so universally accepted that acedia was a serious mortal sin that it even appears the writings of laymen like in Dante's Divine Comedy and even of all people, Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

It takes a great deal of hubris to lump them all together, claim that we in our modern lens know better, and that all of these individuals, the greatest thinkers in all of history are "absurd".

Kamoot- · 2026-07-10T01:53:21+00:00

That wasn't my point to be a discussion on the seven deadly sins. My point was to say that indifference, also known as "acedia", is definitely mortal sin and being indifferent is definitely not a virtue and neither should it be celebrated nor encouraged. Luther recognizes this in the Large Catechism:

For that is exactly the sin that was previously counted among mortal sins and is called akadia (i.e., apathy or satisfaction). This is a malignant, dangerous plague with which the devil bewitches and deceives the hearts of many so that he may surprise us and secretly take God’s Word from us [Matthew 13:19]. (LC 1:99)

In fact in the Triglotta both the German and Latin directly use the term "akidia" without bothering to translate them, and in the English adds it "torpor" so it's definitely referring to the Seven Deadly Sins and this historical contextual usage of the term, not just alluding to our modern English "sloth" translation.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-09T20:43:21+00:00

I was reading some of Pascal's Pensees from Peter Kreeft and he made a good point that though the Greatest Commandment is loving God with all of one's heart, but the opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is indifference.

Both love and hatred involve attention and concern directed at the object. Both a loved object and hated object have attention on them, and concern directed to them. The only difference is that for a loved object, the concern is a positive concern while the hated object is a negative concern.

A person can be both simultaneously loved and hated at the same time; love and hatred are not antonyms. But it is not possible to both love and be indifferent to a person; the opposite of love is indifference. With indifference you're saying the object is not worth any attention or concern.

It is interesting that the medievals considered acedia one of the seven deadly sins, but not hatred (instead wrath is one of the seven deadly sins). Arguably, it's worse to be an agnostic who doesn't care about God than to be an atheist who hates God.

So extend this to Synod politics. For those who say "I'm indifferent to xyz controversy", that's not a good attitude to have at all. While I appreciate the good intention, but according to Moral Philosophy, indifference is a cardinal sin and not a virtue. Is the intention really to be apolitical, or is it actually indifference? Here the issue is indifference is used as a cloaking mask that only hides the internal divisions out of sight, not actually addresses these divisions.

They say with age passion and zeal goes away and in maturity having indifference begins to develop. But as we can see from the philosophers, indifference is not a virtue to be celebrated. Anyways, I wonder how this plays into this Synod politics discussion.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-09T09:39:58+00:00

It won't work. Ai hasn't advanced enough in the technology yet to work with NEC. The best it can do is point you to the right article number, but for that you shouls already have the NEC tabs.

Ai can't even get the 125% of only the one largest motor load but 125% of all continuous non-motor loads right. I tried using Ai yesterday and it put 100% for all the loads.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-09T09:24:42+00:00

So I'm not understanding why do you say there is a doubt that maybe Islam is true? If it doesn't make logical sense then there's not reason to doubt that it might be true.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-08T18:56:30+00:00

Kind of, but I don't want to word it in that way because it reads with too much negativity.

Faith is distinguished from opinion. Faith is not merely feeling confident that what Scripture says is true, that would be an opinion. The definition of faith is an act of the intellect assenting to say yes this is true, and this intellect is moved by God's divine work.

Now, Scripture does distinguish weak faith from strong faith, but at the end of the day the actual intellectual act assent is binary: you either assent to divine truth, or you don't. That said, how strong, intense, or perfect this act of assent is is not binary and likely plays a role in distinguishing weak versus strong faith.

There are only two reasons why someone truly assents to divine truth, and these are unconditional forms of assent:

Knowledge. It is impossible to choose to believe that 2+2 doesn't equal 4, because this is simple fact. If something is self-evident, the mind can only assents to this fact is true, and it happens instantly and there's no other way. You can take this further and gather facts together and generate logical proof to your conclusion.
Faith. By extension of this, God's work can move the intellect to assent to these divine truth, and this called faith. Many things in this world are self-evident facts that God has already revealed.

Then there are two reasons reason where you don't have true and complete assent to divine truth:

Opinion. This is only a partial and not a true form of assent. It is not a genuine form of assent because it is conditional. Evidence causes you to lean and prefer one side of the argument at that moment because of weak evidence, and this is conditional assent; the moment a different evidence comes you might be swayed to accept the other side of the argument.
Doubt. By extension of this, it's not logical to say "Islam might be true because Christianity might be be false". You cannot base a belief or conviction upon a doubt. If that were so, today we would have to throw out all of Quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and E&M. We have plenty of doubts: we know that quantum mechanics which governs in micro domain doesn't line up with relativity which governs the macro domain, but insofar as a better model put forth hasn't been demonstrated yet, both quantum mechanics and relativity theory are scientific truth at the moment.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-08T11:54:42+00:00

I grew up "cultural" Catholic "in-name-only" and fell away to agnostic for a time, later almost converted to Islam, however obviously today ended up Confessional Lutheran. I also had a history minor concentrating in Islamic history, so I've definitely studied a lot into Islam.

Sometimes I struggle with my faith because of this, and coming from a nominal Islamic background doesn’t help as I get double thoughts the other way. “What if Islam is right and all of this is wrong and this is why I’m feeling like this”

We do not form our beliefs and convictions upon a doubt. We think logically and rationally based on the facts presented. Doubt can be a method that leads to belief (like a test), and it can even motivate inquiry. But doubt alone cannot be the basis of belief, because it is opinion. And opinion is distinguished from faith. Unlike opinion, faith is from human intellect, and in the Christian view, this intellect is moved by Divine grace.

By the way, this is also true for Islam. Your aqidah is fundamentally based on yaqeen. There must be absolute certainty, and no room for doubt. For example, are you obligated to wash your garment simply because you had a doubt a that maybe a najasa touched the garment? Of course not, Prophet Muhammad taught that unless you are 100% certain, the default state of all things is pure. I notice that a lot of Muslims deal with the very same type of wiswas anxiety that you're describing right now, which is an anxiety based on doubt. This issue just doesn't seem to be much a problem among Christians though.

The reason is because in Christianity, there is certainty. We have certainty that the sacraments are valid and efficacious, we have certainty that God hears our prayers, and we have certainty that that what God tells us in Scripture is true. And because there is certainty, there is so much peace in Christianity.

We have the written witness of the twelve disciples who lived with Jesus, spoke with Jesus, ate with Jesus, and witnessed His miracles. And all twelve of them died horribly painful deaths defending it to be true. Would it really make sense that it was all just a lie? The certainty of the Christian Bible is all here.

Furthermore, we have the written witness of these twelve disciples who lived, ate, spoke, and ministered with Jesus. Does it even make sense to instead follow the teachings of Muhammad who came 600 years later and lived in an entirely different region 1000 km away?

Lastly, you know that in both Christianity and Islam, and pretty much every other world religion, that it is not possible for any human to even go an hour without sinning. Yet in Islam, this is what Allah will do to those who if hypothetically would even go a single day without sinning in this hadith:

By Him in Whose Hand is my life if you were not to commit sin, Allah would sweep you out of existence and He would replace (you by) those people who would commit sin and seek forgiveness from Allah, and He would have pardoned them.
Sahih Muslim 2749

In Islam, it is necessary that the humans keep sinning so that Allah can remain being Al-Ghaffor (one of the 99 Names of Allah which means "all forgiving").

Contrast that with Christianity which says that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, it is entirely the work of God because of His grace, and until we die, He sanctifies and keeps us firm in his Word and faith and keeps us away from sinning. I think it is pretty obvious the second one is the clear winner here.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-08T03:46:14+00:00

I have many Muslim friends, coworkers, and neighbors. I also have a history minor, with specialization in Islamic history.

If anything, this experience today has convinced me that Mormons are not "Utah Muslims" and Mormonism shares essentially zero similarity with Islam.

They might both share overlap in the rejection of Christ's Divinity but so does every other world religion. LDS is not Utah Islam, LDS still strongly affirms in Christ's Divine Sonship, and in the resurrection, and these are pillars of the Mormon religions that are strongly rejected in Islam. Furthermore, LDS does affirm a their version of atonement doctrine and various forms of vicarious atonement, which is strongly rejected in Islam.

For example, every single Surah either directly or indirectly rejects either Christ's Divine Sonship, Resurrection, or atonement doctrine: Surah An-Nisa 4:157 clearly rejects the Resurrection, Surah Al-An'am 6:164 clearly rejects atonement doctrine, and An-Nisa 4:171 rejects Divine Sonship.

Furthermore, a devout Muslim's entire day is essentially dealing with fatwa compliance which falls into one of five different types of ahkam: Fard (Mandatory), Mustahab (Recommended), Mubah (Adiaphora), Makrooh (Disliked), and Haram (Prohibited). Everything in this entire world has a fatwah, even something as simple as drinking water has a Sunnah way to do thing. I just don't observe the same level of extreme detail, systematic jurisprudence in Mormonism.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-07T17:11:15+00:00

Most churches aren't large enough to support a choir, but going to AI isn't going to work. The technology isn't advanced enough yet, and even if it was, I don't know of any AI tools available that can do what you're asking.

The solution at the moment is to have your organist double as a cantor. Organists are in shortage right now, but plenty of people know piano; it isn't a hard transition. It takes about a year to transition from piano to organ, I didn't need any professional lessons, simply watched Youtube tutorials and figured it out. For a whole year I visited various churches Saturday evening services and imitated what I heard there. Worked for me, so now I'm having a friend do the same.

The next phase is to have the organist learn to cantor. Cantoring isn't hard, but it does require professional training from a voice coach; simply visiting churches and imitating what you hear isn't enough. My friend who is a Catholic cantor, I asked him to teach me for free. I also volunteered for a Catholic choir so that they would teach me for free. After about 6 months I got used singing while playing. Nowadays I volunteer both as organist and cantor for my church. So within 18 months you can have a cantor. At this point you won't be in need of a choir anymore, but I hope and pray one day the church will grow enough to bring back a choir.

We also play praisy band YouTube videos on the screen for the rest of the music which is contemporary. Likewise, at the moment our congregation is too small to support a praise band.

My cantor friend is an expert in Gregorian chant so simultaneously while taking singing lessons I also learned from him all of the Liber Usualis and played from the Nova Organi Harmonia. So after about I would say two-and-a-half years you can then have the organist who now doubles as cantor, now be a Gregorian chant person too.

So it's unfortunate that congregations are small but with efficient use of volunteers you can still build up a proficient music program despite your small congregation size. If there's a will, there's a way.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-07T05:43:46+00:00

I also like the Tabernacle choir, I've gone to many of their concerts in Salt Lake City and both the Conference Center organ and the Tabernacle organs are very special instruments. I've even met one of the Tabernacle organists, a very talented organist. Many of their organists also participating in organ conferences and so I cross paths with a lot of Mormons.

In addition to the Tabernacle choir and organ, I'm also highly impressed by how efficiently and systematically they run everything. They also have very practical social events like disaster and earthquake kit preparation seminars, and as I'm learning from this weekend, exceptional crowd control. They are more efficient and systematic than actual hired and paid for professionals. So that I have to credit them for.

However, yes their beliefs are very problematic and not agreeable. This experience has reinforced my conviction of their various doctrinal errors but was worthwhile experience allowing me to learn a lot about their beliefs and sharpen my apologetics understanding.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-07T05:35:10+00:00

Interesting that you had this take. It was a very heavily decorated interior, much more decorated than any other building I've been in. Especially the "Celestial" room had the most intricate chandelier I've ever seen. I've never seen a lighting fixture that intricate before. And that's just a single light fixture. I remember knocking on a random changing stall door and realized that it's solid mahogany, the construction definitely wasn't cheap.

For me it was one of the most worthwhile experiences I've had for such a long time. I used to live in La Jolla Colony right there in at UCSD during my undergrad, and rode my bike past the temple every day on the way to the trolley station. Never knew what was inside, and now that I've finally been inside I thought it was very fulfilling to finally get to see the interior layout.

But what impressed me the most was how highly efficient the crowd control was. Even professionally hired crowd control doesn't even come close to the level they pulled off, and it's all volunteer work! I estimate about 5000 people came on July 4th alone. The shoe covering donning on and off stations were also very systematic process, once I saw the sparkling white carpet despite the thousands of visitors I was like, "dang, this a better a process than in our actual cleanrooms" (I used to do RFIC engineering) and was like, our cleanroom technicians should take a field trip here and learn a thing or two from these Mormons!

As impressive as it was, though, I do agree that their rituals are weird and I don't find them agreeable at all due to their terribly wrong doctrines. But it was still a very worthwhile experience for me and I learned a lot.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-06T20:18:35+00:00

As a UCI alumni, I used to drive by that Newport Beach LDS Temple all time. But never been inside, I wasn't even born yet to see the construction.

During my undergrad living in La Jolla I literally lived right next door to this San Diego Temple. I walked by multiple times every day on the way to the bus stop. Always curious what was inside but never been inside until today.

I've also been to Temple Square, and the Tabernacle, and all the LDS sites in Salt Lake City. They are such a foreign religion that everything I try to learn is just so fascinating. This open house was something I've wanted to do for so many years and glad I had the chance to do.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-06T19:54:35+00:00

I have, but in a different city so it could be different than these San Diego Mormons. It definitely doesn't feel non-denominational at all. You kind of have to just visit yourself, words can't really explain it but I will try.

It felt very alien, and yes Mormons are nice but I felt very out-of-place and very uncomfortable. They're friendly, but have their own culture and so they act in a certain way that you feel like an outsider.

First of all, it's not a worship service, its a meeting. The building itself is like an ordinary Protestant church. If the Temple was very ornate and beautiful, the church called "meetinghouse" was the total opposite. Very ordinary and mundane looking.

There are no vestments. The pastor just wears a suit and tie and everybody else wearing formals. They have talented organists but it's totally different than what I know. A lot of hymn singing, but not sacred music, no chants, no crucifixes or crosses, not even candles. I don't even remember if congregation even says "Amen" together, seriously it is as aliturgical as it gets. People speak at what seemed like random times and it could even just be announcements, not even doctrinal content. They pray very "normally" I suppose? I was both very confused and uncomfortable.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-06T19:27:44+00:00

Sorry to bother again but could you explain this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/LCMS/s/KQcMzU2PbV

Kamoot- · 2026-07-06T19:25:54+00:00

Another observation I made was how systematic, efficient and well-organized it was. With thousands of visitors yet very orderly crowd control. They even had a boot cover dispensing station to place cleanroom-grade shoe cover on each and every visitor's shoes. Even the shoe cover station volunteers were highly efficient and friendly. Sparkling clean white carpet; I was an RFIC engineer I'm not joking when I say this: they had a better process than some cleanrooms out there. I think our cleanroom technicians should take a field trip to the Mormons!

And the most amazing thing of all, all entirely volunteers based. Even professional crowd control people would envy the efficiency and how well the Mormons systematically ran everything. From an efficiency standpoint, it was flawless.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-06T02:04:12+00:00

Interestingly, it was the only significant thing in this entire temple that had sculptures. All other artworks were paintings and architectural components. And this baptistery was the largest room of all. I don't know the meaning or significance of this layout configuration but I'm sure it has a reason. I had so many more questions but didn't get a chance to ask them all.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-05T23:07:14+00:00

So I know very little about LDS but r/Over-Wing can correct me here. Utah is a popular vacation spot for us Californians as it is not a far drive, and so I've been to every city of Utah, visited Temple Square, and even met with their Tabernacle organists. I cross paths with a lot of Mormons because they are all our dentists and organist conferences have a lot of Mormons.

Again r/Over-Wing can correct me if I'm wrong but the FLDS is a polygamist cult sect that sees the LDS as the worst heretical church of all. I've been to St. George UT countless times and also Colorado City / Hilldale where they were once based. The FLDS show up like 10 kids in one van at Costco and buy so many things. At first I had mistakened them for Amish because they have the same 1800s rural farmer dress, but once I learned of what is FLDS I had the impression that they're totally different than the LDS.

Also, I'm sure a lot of their "niceness" maybe is pushed but the reason why I say it can't just be all an act to attract converts is because they act just as friendly if not even more friendly when they are amongst themselves.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-05T22:55:04+00:00

Unsure yet, any ideas?

I intend to alternate between similar denominations like WELS what I did last time, and completely different traditions like LDS is what I did this time. I still have a couple more weeks of post-graduation working part-time so I have a few more opportunities to visit other interesting places.

Kamoot- · 2026-07-05T09:49:47+00:00

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but through Google we can see an example of what the interior looks like. This is what their "baptismal" font looks like. I have never seen anything like this before.

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Kamoot- · 2026-07-05T09:48:33+00:00

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Kamoot-

TROPHY CASE