Found: One Christian belief system, conservative. In use from the early 1980's through the late 1990's.

Really, "found" isn't quite the right word for my Christian faith. I was assigned a religion at birth: My parents, as strong believers, baptized me as an infant in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). They had both been baptized and raised as LCMS by their parents, and they did their best to raise me to be a good LCMS Lutheran, too. 

It's extremely important to understand that there are several different Lutheran denominations. The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) are the most progressive: if you're, say, Jewish, and you've worked together with Lutheran faith leaders, there's a good chance that those folks are ELCA. The ELCA are what I like to call "the fun Lutherans": they have been ordaining women since the 1970's, they support gay marriage (and gay ordination), and the Presiding Bishop, Rev. Yehiel Curry, released a statement supporting transgender & non-binary people for the 2026 Transgender Day of Visibility. The ELCA recognizes that abortion is a complex issue: they believe that some abortions are morally justifiable (e.g., cases of rape or incest), and they support neither total bans nor a complete lack of regulation.

Sadly, I was not brought up by the fun Lutherans.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, as I was raised in it, is very conservative. I was taught that:

• Women may not be ordained as pastors or otherwise perform any functions distinctive of the pastoral office (such as giving communion, baptizing people, marrying people, etc.)

• Wives must submit to their husbands (as the Church submits to Christ).

• Gay marriage is wrong and sinful. The LCMS approach could be described as "love the sinner, hate the sin," meaning that there's nothing wrong with being gay as long as you never act on it -- and "acting on it" includes homosexual thoughts, words, and/or deeds.

• Abortion is always wrong "except as a tragically unavoidable byproduct of medical procedures necessary to prevent the death of another human being, viz., the mother". (1979 Res. 3-02A), so no exceptions for rape or incest.

• Any partnered sex happening outside of the relationship of one man and one woman who are married and monogamous is sinful and wrong. (As far as I knew growing up, nothing was wrong with masturbation since no one at church talked about it.)

Interestingly, when I was getting ready to come out to my parents as transgender and nonbinary about ten years ago, I searched the LCMS website to see if they had anything to say about transgender people specifically. I couldn't find "transgender" anywhere on the website at the time, just the stuff about homosexuality being wrong. I checked again this year, out of (morbid) curiosity, and it turns out that the LCMS created a task force called "Created Male and Female" in 2019 which wrapped up its work in January 2026. The resulting materials make it clear that the LCMS believes that there are exactly two biological sexes (male and female), that these are given by God and immutable, and they don't acknowledge the existence of intersex people. If you're up for some really hard-hitting cissexism, you can check out the Created Male and Female Q&A. 

I list these LCMS stances mostly to give you a sense of what it means for me to call the LCMS a conservative Christian church. What it doesn't really capture is what it was like for me, personally, to be raised in the LCMS. 

Next time: The Adventures of Young Kit, Fervent LCMS Believer.

Thanks again for listening and for joining me on my journey!