Gloom and Doom from Richard Neuhaus' Nephew - Ovaltines Update.They Brought It All Down, Collecting the Demolition Fees.

Richard Neuhaus graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, backed Seminex, joined the LCA, and became a Roman Catholic priest. That is also the mix at the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau Discussion Group.

Pastor Peter Speckhard (above)

ALPB Contribution Leader, Neuhaus Nephew

"I agree with the "change and decay" sentiment as sentiment of my generation, but I am heartened by the rising generation that never knew an institutionally strong and growing LCMS with mainstream aspirations and take the challenges of the world for granted as part of the bargain.  A lot of younger pastors have no illusions about salaries and fully expect to be bivocational. They see it as, in some ways at least, a feature of rather than bug in our current context. And they have no worries about not being mainstream. The question is whether they can convince any parishioners to join them in sufficient numbers to actually have congregations. But heartened as I am by their zeal, I can't join them except as a cheerleader. I was formed by a different world. I liked having a lot of Concordias. I like Valpo as an LCMS-centric Lutheran university. I appreciate a highly educated, professional clergy. I feel as though I have to focus on the next sermon and trust that the kingdom is advancing not because I am particularly faithful but because I am not really equipped to do anything else."

***

GJ - Christina and I met Neuhaus father when we were in Ontario and visiting that LCMS congregation. I corresponded with Richard Neuhaus and he quoted me in the ALPB Forum Letter, and we met him at the Ad Fontes (Come to Rome!) conference. There he spoke with the LCA President James Crumley, and we ate lunch with Crumley, a kindly person who wanted to know about my move to WELS.

LCA President Crumley attended the synod's conference for communication in Seattle. I paid for Christina's ticket. He would have been a good ELCA leader, but the radicals were already in charge before the gavel came down. WELS and the LCMS thought hordes of ELCA into their corrupted bosoms, but hey! - The Faithless Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) worshiped and learned together - WELS' Ron Roth and others were at Fuller Seminary from 1977 onward. ELCA did not officially start until New Year's 1983.

How about Snowbird ELCA-WELS-LCMS, 1991? -
"At the Snowbird Ecumenical Conference, the best ever,

according to Rev. James Schaefer, our council of presidents

and other leaders, 25 in all, were taught how to manage the

church by a woman.  They were taught what St. Paul says about

ministry by a Trinity Seminary professor, an advocate of the

historical-critical method.  They were told by a liberal

Reformed theologian that the radical left mainline

denominations were not becoming "sideline" denominations.

George Barna, Who's Who in Church Growth, also taught our

leaders at Snowbird, but they seem to know Barna's work quite

well already.  When Columbus WELS pastors invited ELCA to

discuss inerrancy, no one from Trinity Seminary showed up.

They understand fellowship.  But our synodical president

posed for photos with Rev. Herb Chilstrom, former Pietist,

who advanced himself by promoting the cause of homosexuality

and pornography-as-sex-offender therapy as bishop of the

LCA's Minnesota Synod.

 

As chairman of the board of Seminex, Jungkuntz approved this school for training future Metropolitan Community Church (gay) pastors. Many Seminex leaders were graduates of Northwestern College (WELS), where he taught earlier. 

Father Richard John Neuhaus - LCMS, AELC, LCA, ELCA, Church of Rome. So Many Connections

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.

 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.

 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.

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 - The 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.

 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.

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.

 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.

Bishop James Crumley Died Recently, Age 90

We attended the national communications conference of the LCA,
so I posed Mrs. I with Bishop James Crumley.

James R. Crumley Jr., bishop of the former Lutheran Church in America, dies

4/8/2015 2:00:00 PM

            CHICAGO (ELCA) – The Rev. James Robert Crumley Jr., bishop of the former Lutheran Church in America, died April 7 of complications from a fall. He was 90. The Lutheran Church in America is a predecessor church body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

            "To hear him tell the story of his life, the Rev. Dr. James R. Crumley was convinced that God always was full of gracious surprises," ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton said in a tribute to Crumley.
            "One surprise unfolded into another for him. Each one prepared the way for new responsibilities. As he said upon his election in 1974 as secretary of the Lutheran Church in America, 'I believe that when God calls us, God also gives us the resources to fulfill our responsibilities.' The conviction grew even deeper when, four years later in 1978, he was chosen as the Lutheran Church in America's third president and bishop," said Eaton.
            Born March 30, 1925, in Bluff City, Tenn., Crumley earned a Master of Divinity from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., in 1951. The seminary is one of eight of the ELCA. Crumley earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Roanoke College in Salem, Va., one of 26 colleges and universities of the ELCA.
            Crumley was bishop of the Lutheran Church in America from 1980 to 1987, president from 1978 to 1980, and secretary of the former denomination from 1974 to 1978. He was a member of the Commission for a New Lutheran Church, which planned the merger of three churches – Lutheran Church in America, American Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches – to form the ELCA in January 1988. Prior to serving as secretary, Crumley served as a parish pastor from 1951 to 1974.
            Crumley was a member of the executive committee of The Lutheran World Federation and a member of the central committee of the World Council of Churches. He was president of Lutheran World Ministries and second vice president of the National Council of Churches.
            "Through experiences in assemblies of The Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches, as well as engagement with the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Crumley demonstrated in manifold ways his ecumenical insight and commitment," said Eaton.
            "His understanding and vision of the church was not confined only to the Lutheran context," said Eaton. "In a historic development, he exchanged letters with Pope John Paul II in 1985. The letters affirmed the greater mutual understanding that already had emerged from U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue. At the same time, the letters urged deeper commitment to further ecumenical endeavors."
            "As the years passed and the honors accumulated, Dr. Crumley remained that same gracious gentleman who had been raised in the mountains of Tennessee but was called by the church to ministry throughout this nation and the world," said Eaton.
            Crumley married Annette Bodie Crumley in 1950. They had three children: Frances Holman, James III and Jeanne.

***

GJ - Left unsaid in this article is Crumley's regret about the ELCA merger, which really was a new radical sect, not a combination the LCA, the ALC, and the Seminex gay activists - including Mr. UOJ from WELS, Richard Jungkuntz.

I always considered Crumley a real Southern gentleman. I was not keen about his empowerment of the late Dorothy Marple, who ran all the commissions. Given her life long friend, is it any wonder that ELCA pursued its radical agenda for the last 25 years?

ELCA is now slightly larger than the LCA was at the time of the merger. The ELCA has lost the equivalent of the entire ALC in 25 years, even though their leaders met the LCMS and WELS leaders at the same Fuller Church Growth seminars.

UOJ justifies everything except Biblical, Christian doctrine,
which it denies, rejects, and twists into pretzels.