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Richard J. Neuhaus was expelled from one LCMS school,
never graduated from high school, but signed up for
Concordia College, Austin, Texas, and graduated. |
Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square
by Randy Boyagoda, 2015.
Neuhaus goes way back in my connections. We heard his father preach for Easter Sunday, 1960s, in Simcoe, Ontario, which is the area where Mrs. Ichabod's relatives settled. Twenty miles away is Delhi, where Herman Otten's brother was a pastor, so Walter knew the rest of the Ellenberger clan.
I missed the Left-wing years of Neuhaus, only to follow him in the
Lutheran Forum Newsletter, where he was the first of several editors to become Roman Catholic. I wrote complaints about the LCA to him, and I was often quoted. When I wanted to become anonymous, he only wrote "a angry pastor in Michigan," which was as good as giving my address and phone. I thought it was funny.
From time to time I wrote letters to Neuhaus, and he was good at sending back replies, always humorous, even though we disagreed. I observed that his bunch was not conservative at all, just less liberal. He agreed.
Much later we actually met Neuhaus at the Ad Fontes conference. He had an animated conversation with LCA Bishop James Crumley, which was just before Neuhaus became the Catholic he always was. Perhaps Crumley was hearing the bad news at
Ad Fontes. Neuhaus, knowing I was in WELS, asked me if I planned on taking communion at the ELCA service. I said, "You are Ad Fontes. We are Fontes." He laughed good-naturedly. Of course, I soon learned how WELS and Missouri were velcroed to ELCA via Thrivent and the synodical lust for loot.
I sat at lunch with James Crumley, and he asked me about WELS colloquy. If you think the leaders do not know what is going on, guess again.
Many biographies are too detailed or too obsequious. Boyagoda's is excellent, enjoyable to read, a great way to fill in the gaps in a notable career. He has written a critical biography that offers a balanced perspective.
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| I met, talked to, or interviewed three of these Lutheran leaders - Jack Preus, Robert Marshall, and David Preus. |
Gaps
Neuhaus played pastor all the time when his father was a pastor in Pembroke, Ontario. He made such an impression at the first LCMS school he attended that the faculty asked him to leave. That led to an interim in Texas, when he bought a gas station with a loan from a relative. He did not go to school at all that year, then found himself send to Concordia High School in Austin, Texas. But there were two lines - one for the high school. one for the college. Neuhaus signed up for college and assured the registrar his transcripts would follow soon enough.
Robert Lewis Wilken was Neuhaus' roommate at Austin. Wilken was on the faculty at Notre Dame when I was there, though I felt no urge to take his courses. He made quite an impression on me when he said, "Luther is an empty concept. There is a different Luther for each generation." I still wonder when I will find a Lutheran academic who actually reads and understands Luther - only the laity do. Wilken did not approve of Neuhaus' conversion to Rome, but joined him in Roman Catholicism, later as a layman.
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Robert Lewis Wilken
The Empty Public Square was dedicated to
"Robert Wilken by the Sea of Galilee." |
Neuhaus insisted to Wilken's fiance that he and Bob had taken an oath of celibacy, so they should not marry. That came from the later influence of Father Piepkorn, one of the icons of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. I heard many references to him, but did not comprehend the reason for awe many felt for him. Doubtless Father Piepkorn was a definite step in the direction of Rome for Neuhaus.
According to Otten, Wilken and Neuhaus took over the student paper from Marquart and Otten - a successful coup at Concordia, St. Louis.
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My wife's sister babysat for Stan Hauerwas' son
and she earned a master's at Notre Dame in education. I saw him in his basement office to learn about the PhD program at Notre Dame. I applied, and got a full scholarship. I took ethics from Hauerwas, and he was on my dissertation committee. He worked with Neuhaus for a time. |
Hauerwas was an early ally of Neuhaus in their
theocon years. I would define the theocons as mainline leaders who had some indications of conservatism, compared to the zany Leftist views of the rest of them. In fact, the LCA made a point of crabbing about Neuhaus before he left, calling him, in their
Partners clergy magazine - a noisy troublemaker. Fortunately, they dumped that name, just as they got rid of
AIDS in Mission, a monthly packet of LCA promotional materials sent to church workers. And yet, both names were prophetic, no?
ELCA's worst name change was far too happy-face - T
he Living Lutheran, instead of
The Lutheran (Passavant's name for his own independent and confessional magazine)
- wishful thinking for
a dead sect with dying seminaries.
Neuhaus made much of his relationship with Martin Luther King, Junior, but Boyagoda did not find much evidence for that.
Neuhaus, Mrs. Ichabod and I only met face-to-face once, at the Ad Fontes conference, which was aimed at LCA pastors who might want to join Rome. We met Klein and his wife,
Lutheran Forum, and he became a Roman priest. A man may remain married and become a priest, but the priest cannot marry again if he becomes a widower.
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| SynCons celebrate the Adoration and Assumption of Walther, while Catholics honor the alleged Assumption of Mary. |
Neuhaus and the last LCA Presiding Bishop - James Crumley - had a long, earnest talk at the conference. I believe Crumley was trying to talk Neuhaus out of leaving the LCA for Rome.
Neuhaus invited us to take part in the Holy Communion service and grinned that we might not to, since I was joining WELS. I said, "True. You are Ad Fontes. We are Fontes." He laughed, always fun to joke with. Doubtless he knew plenty about WELS being Magna Cloaca rather than Fontes.
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| McCain got the Roman Catholics to include the LCMS in something, so great was his influence via Neuhaus. Doubtless they were grateful for all the Roman Catholic propaganda he stole from The Catholic Encyclopedia and promoted as his own work. |
Apostates Looking for a Safe Harbor
Neuhaus will be remembered for his overlapping circles of influence, from Otten-Marquart to the Pope Himself. He was certainly the kind of celebrity convert that Rome loves to promote.
However, all of them are apostates, just different flavors. Otten cannot claim to be Lutheran because he rejects Justification by Faith and confesses Universal Objective Justification. Otten agrees with ELCA and rejects Luther's Biblical doctrine.
The same can be said for the others, whether they pose as old-fashioned Bronze Age Synodical Conference loyalists or dibble and dabble in Roman, post-Kantian, Rahnerian dogma.
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| He promotes the books of conservative Roman Catholic Randy Engel. Otten loves to sell the hate-filled, dishonest The Facts about Luther that Vatican I papists adore. Otten is just as Roman Catholic as Neuhaus - just promoting an earlier era. |
