J. A. O. Preus, aka Chairman JAO, aka The Two Natures of Jack Preus, is still a fascinating topic for Lutherans.
I sent my review of the Burkee book to Herman Otten, so I am not going to complain and act shocked that "he copied it without permission!" That tactic has been used many times, by Paul McCain and many others.
I agree with Justice Brandeis that "sunlight is the best disinfectant." I support any effort to publish what is happening in the Lutheran Church, which is Lutheran no longer.
Almost all the Lutheran blogs are political, which means they debate meaningless topics and prance around the real issues. No one wants to poke holes in a ship made of cardboard.
Jack and Robert Preus were both politicians, no less than Tietjen or Franklin C. Fry. The Preus brothers were also theologians. Their lasting contribution will be their high visibility support for traditional Lutheran doctrine, including the authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures. They never stopped their efforts.
Ralph Bohlmann earned a PhD at Yale, published a book, and did little after that.
Jack Preus published translations of Chemnitz and hauled the Second Martin out of the dustbin of Lutheran dogmatics. When Jack died, his biography of Chemnitz was published. He could have spent his retirement years fishing and hunting moose, but he wrote another book. The LCMS apostates neutralized him as much as possible in office, but he never stopped being a theologian.
Have you read any books by Tietjen lately? Jungkuntz? McCain?
Robert was also pushed out of office, with the help of former allies Waldo Werning and Ralph Bohlmann. Werning was Agent X at
Christian News. But Robert continued as a theologian, even when Missouri was busy trashing him. I know he was a rascal. I had my own experience involving his deviousness, but that is par for all church leaders today. The rest of them are not theologians.
Robert finished his life by publishing a book,
Justification and Rome, which tried to warn Missouri against poping. His own seminary has been turning out Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox priests ever since, sometimes a few minutes after graduating.
Justification and Rome is also a clear repudiation of UOJ. I wish he had been clearer, but his manuscript was edited by Dan and Rolf, who never grew beyond their MDivs and never became theologians.
The UOJ Stormtroopers still cannot deal with Robert's last book, and Chemnitz is still largely ignored. Nevertheless, the impact of Jack and Robert Preus remains. The seeds sown will grow and the Gospel leaven will permeate the lump of dough.
For all his faults, universally confessed to cover up the truth about Lutheran apostasy, Herman Otten has doggedly published a lot of material. The quirky but inexpensive
CN Encyclopedia gathered tons of information I used for
Out of the Depths of ELCA. I also used a tall stack of The LCA's
The Lutheran magazine, saved by my mother, to show what was going on. Moving from thousands of facts to a book is an arduous process. I remember typing that book on a German portable typewriter as Mrs. Ichabod brought me food. ELCA hated it. WELS hated it. The LCA and ALC responded with silence, and nothing happened.
All the implications of the merger were published in that special issue, 1987, before the merger was consummated. Now the prophets of ELCA are donning their martyr robes and speaking out about the suffering they have endured, after ignoring all the doctrinal matters (and gay quotas!) for 24 years. I especially enjoy my first LCA bishop leading the troops out of ELCA. Shorty Sauer was the chairman of the conference of bishops, a potential candidate for ELCA Archbishop.
What did Sauer know and when did he know it?
This photo captures the weariness I saw in Robert before he died. Johnson, the plagiarizing St. Louis seminary president, played games with him, as he did with Otten. Johnson pretended to hire Preus for a summer session and then took it back.
No one will write a book about Johnson.
