I used to think there was some point where a synod would say, "Stop! We have run away from Luther's doctrine long enough."
Instead I have seen pastors grow fat and lazy while watching one outrage after another in their own district or circuit. Viewing another synod is the safest approach. Pick up the phone or email another pastor to denounce another synod. Telescopic orthodoxy is the rage. Identify a problem far, far way. Ignore the real problems next door. Never rock the boat. That's a good boy.
Pastors have secret email lists and secret blogs where one must have a password to read the precious words. How brave.
I look back on all the ousted pastors who said nothing until they became the targets. Some were happy enough to put the skids under another pastor or professor, to reduce the competition. WELS pastors told me Richard Jungkuntz was a genius at getting his fellow professor out on a limb and letting him hang there stranded. Jungkuntz became the head of a college doing that.
From my limited perspective, the first wave of this in the Missouri Synod began with the Robert Preus faction fighting to win control of the synod with Christian News helping. That never happened for various reasons. Bohlmann and Barry pushed Robert Preus out. McCain gleefully greased the skids under Preus, then gave Mrs. Preus an award for her late husband. Chokes me up, really.
Wally Schulz was not exactly an advocate for conservatives when he was riding high, working happily with one of the most liberal leaders in the LCMS, Oswald Hoffman. Schulz was successfully ousted.
Martin Niemoller is famous for this quotation:
- "When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing; I was, of course, no communist.
- When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; I was, of course, no Social Democrat.
- When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing; I was, of course, no trade unionist.
- When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest."
The new flap over the LCMS radio program Issues, Etc. is a replay of the Schulz defenestration. I doubt whether the staff got their program established after publishing in Christian News or being known for rattling the cage of the LCMS. A conservative bigshot in the LCMS is one who knows how to pose while never appearing to be a threat to apostasy.
I am not arguing that everyone in the LCMS should rise up and restore this program. The staff could easily recreate the show for a broader audience without the synod. They would lose the falling-apart Lutheran Hour network, which has become a joke. They would gain freedom.
I told one LCMS conservative leader, who phones me from time to time, "You have to stop participating. That is only encouraging people to think there is hope. No money for the popes. No attendance at their conferences. No participation in any of their meetings. Imagine what would happen if half the audience walked at the next convention. Walked away and met in a nearby hotel. Or just went home."
He said, "Yes, you are right." A few months later his photo was in Christian News. He was running for a national office. He lost.
The issue is not "leaving the synod." Too many take Holy Mother Synod with them when they leave. The two CLCs represent the refined and distilled Pharisaical works-righteousness of the places they left, with the inherent problems of incest added to the brew. I have heard that line-breeding can improve offspring, but there is no evidence of that in either CLC.
I thought the emergence of the Lavender Mafia in the LCA would awaken people. Instead, I have watched people remain in ELCA while converting their initial outrage into a defense of the gay agenda. The newest ELCA report is another leap in the wrong direction.
