I. Missouri 2002
One year ago at our annual Brenham Free Conference you invited me to assess the 2001 synodical convention and to ponder what we might expect from the presidency of Dr. Gerald Kieschnick. By way of introduction today, allow me to summarize and update that assessment.

We in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod have a lamentable tendency to view every one of our synodical conventions, from 1847 until now, as if it were the final decisive confrontation between good and evil - a triennial "Armageddon" fought over and over again every three years. This unfortunate pattern is presently recurring as all of our various factions and interest groups gear up and gird their loins in anticipation of the next convention. This convention we are being told (as we have been told so many times before) will be the decisive one in which we will finally deal with all these issues and settle this once and for all. Well, my friends, don't you believe it. It isn't going to happen.

I would suggest that there is an urgent need for us to broaden our perspective and become a little more realistic. Synodical conventions actually have a diminished and a diminishing effect upon what really happens in the congregations that make up our Synod. "John Q. Average Pew-Sitter" and "John Q. Average Pulpit Stander" are not greatly interested in what transpires at a synodical convention. All of the resolutions and the debates, all of the fuss and fury, is largely confined to the convention hall itself.

The pattern which we are describing is not unique to our church body. It applies generally to every American denomination at the beginning of the new century. We might call that pattern "localization." The local congregation is becoming more important. The national church body is becoming less important. This is happening across the board. It doesn't matter what the polity or theology of a given church body may be. It's happening, in varying decrees to all of them. In a recent book entitled Denominations and Denominationalism - An American Morphology Dr. Russell E. Ritchey notes: "Congregations increasingly chart their own courses. Less preoccupied with denomination identity and less impressed with denominational delivery systems, congregations, particularly those with sufficient resources to function independently, behave like consumers." Ritchey suggests that congregations "behave like consumers." That is to say, congregations increasingly pick and choose. They buy into what they like and they ignore or reject what they don't like, like a shopper in a store. We tend to define ourselves not by our denomination but by our congregation. Our primary loyalty lies not with a national or an international church body but with our local church. All this is, of course, part and parcel of the way in which we Americans, with our exaggerated view of the individual, look at everything in our lives.

One of the other results of all this is the reality that the sociologists call "denominational ambiguity." Our individual selectivity also applies to theology. Fifty years ago, if someone said, "I am a Roman Catholic!" you were safe in assuming from that denominational label what that person believed. The same thing would have been true with someone who claimed affiliation with the Missouri Synod. That is no longer true in this church or in any church in the United States of America. Americans today feel perfectly free to belong to a church and then to pick and choose which of its doctrines they will personally subscribe to. Nor, in the view of the average American, should that doctrinal selectivity jeopardize their good standing within the church body of their choice. For instance, survey after survey has demonstrated that an overwhelming majority of Roman Catholics in the United States reject their church's teaching on issues like divorce, birth control, or the celibacy of the clergy. And yet, despite that disagreement they continue to consider themselves members in good standing of the Roman Catholic Church. Fifty years ago that would have been impossible. Today it is not even unusual. This trend is reflective of the existential individualism which has come to dominate our culture. Each individual is the ultimate arbiter of his own reality. I will decide what is right and true for me. There is no right or truth beyond my own choosing.

Within the polity of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod localization has tended to benefit individual districts at the expense of the national church body. Our congregations and pastors identify first with their home congregation, next with their home district, and only then with the national Synod. The size and the cost of district administrations has dramatically increased while the Synod's income and operation have diminished and become more dependent upon special gifts and outside revenue. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is fast becoming a federation of quasi-independent districts, each ruled as a personal fiefdom by increasingly powerful and independent district presidents. Each district establishes its own character and identity - a reality which also extends to their theology and their theological practice in a way which, until now, would have been unthinkable in Missouri. It is not coincidental that every major attempt by conservatives in recent years to practice doctrinal discipline has focused on District presidents and has ended inconclusively - from the Seminex ordination controversies of the 70's to the current Benke/Yankee Stadium brouhaha. The pattern of localization has helped to make District presidents the crucial power brokers in the new Missouri. This trend continues to reinforce itself among us as District Presidents become more assertive and influential in vacancies and calls and more willing to intervene in what would historically have been considered the internal affairs of the local congregation. District Presidents are taking a more active role in shaping the theological character of their district by determining the pastors who will be called into that district. This applies not only to the initial call of seminary graduates - although it certainly applies there - but across the board in the calling of all pastoral candidates generally.

Let us examine our church and assess where we stand. The sad reality is that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is a shrinking, aging denomination. One year ago we were 9th among churches in the U.S. Today we have slipped to 10th place, surpassed by the Pentecostal Assemblies of God. If present trends continue by next year we will no longer rank among the top ten church bodies in America. There are more Buddhists in America today than there are Missouri Synod Lutherans. Muslims outnumber us by more than two to one. We are a denomination that seems to have lost its theological vitality and is increasingly preoccupied with its own institutional structures and internal power struggles. We have turned inward upon ourselves, forfeiting the opportunity to participate in the great theological debates that are raging throughout Christendom. As I have been involved in pro-life, pro-family activities across America in recent years it has never ceased to amaze and concern me how little people know about Lutherans, particularly "Missouri Sigh-Nod" Lutherans. I was shocked, I was offended when after one speech a Southern Baptist Youth Leader came up to me and asked me the Kennedy Evangelism questions to figure out whether or not I was a Christian who believed in salvation by grace through faith. I wanted to pick him up and shake him as I shouted in his face, "I'm a Lutheran! We invented grace!" They have no idea who we are or what we believe! Why? Because we have retreated into our little institutional castle, pulled up the denominational draw bridge and filled the moat with the high water of self-righteousness and pride. We are not offering that good confession of which Scripture speaks. We do not believe firmly enough in the power and the vitality of our message of Law and Gospel because if we did we wouldn't be so fearful about sharing it with others. We have disengaged from the culture all around us - a culture which seems bent upon its own destruction. I've given hundreds of pro-life speeches over the last five or six years and without exception every single time I have given one of those speeches at least one person, often two or three people, will come up to me and say: "You know I used to be Lutheran. And if I had ever heard that kind of speech in the Lutheran Church I'd still be Lutheran today." Our people are hungry for godly leadership based upon the Word and we are not providing it. That's why we are shrinking.

Our liberal friends typically use these sad facts to argue for the further abandonment of our historic doctrine and practice. Their constant refrain is: "We got to get more flexible. We got to become more modern and catch up with the world around us. We got to get rid of all this stuff that is so controversial and get in step with what is happening in the culture." That is exactly the wrong advice. I would suggest to you today that precisely the opposite is true. We are shrinking and increasingly impotent and irrelevant because our confession of the truth of God has grown hesitant and timid. We don't need to be less Lutheran. We need to be more Lutheran to make a difference in the world today for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Heeding the foolish counsel of those who have sold their souls to the "church of what's happening now," we have muted our confession and we have compromised our doctrine. We jump on the band wagon of every fad and fancy that sweeps through the church adopting every new program that comes along. But we are a conservative church, after all. That means we stay a few years behind everybody else. We're jumping on that band wagon at just the point when our more progressive friends are jumping off to move on to something else.

We have allowed glib distinctions between style and substance to separate our doctrine from our practice - to sever what we believe from what we do. We are endlessly assured that these new programs are all "theologically neutral" and will not change our doctrine. The bottom line is that while theology is pushed aside, results and success become the arbiters of our church's practice. If it works - do it, until some new and improved program comes along to replace it..

We have become a church where much of what passes for Bible Study is little more than the shared experiences of self-obsessed consumers who want the chance to talk about "what God is doing in their lives." What they really mean is what they are allowing God to do in their lives, on their terms. Real Bible study, that is, wrestling with the words and grammar of the Biblical text is too much work for us - both pastors and laymen. It's boring, and besides it might require me to change who I am and how I live. We were once a church which humbly declared, "Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth." We are rapidly becoming a church which by its actual practice says, "Lord if You want me to allow You to be a part of my life, then listen up, for your servant speaketh."

We have cast aside the Biblical depth and evangelical power of our liturgy with its clear focus upon God and the means of grace for man-centered entertainment. We have discarded the great chorales and hymns of the church for superficial praise songs and mind numbing ditties which reflect the intellectual poverty of generations weaned on TV's thirty second sound bites.

We have failed to rouse our pastors and our people on the great moral issues of life and family now before the culture. The price of our failure has been the bloody butchery of nearly 40,000,000 innocent little boys and girls in America's abortion holocaust. We have passed fine resolutions. I don't think there is another denomination in Christendom that has passed as many fine resolutions condemning abortion as the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. And yet, the overwhelming majority of our pastors and our people remain completely uninvolved in the struggle for life within this country. The Missouri Synod's two best known elected officials in recent years are former Illinois Senator Paul Simon and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. They are both outspoken defenders of "reproductive freedom" and "a woman's right to choose" - the euphemisms which we utilize to conceal the ugly reality of abortion. What a powerful witness to the world it would have been if either one of those two champions of abortion had been placed under discipline and, in the absence of repentance, excommunicated by the LCMS congregations in which they hold membership! We've heard a lot of talk lately about bringing the LCMS to the nation's attention. If you are interested in bringing the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod to the attention of the nation, the conscientious discipline of politicians who support the murder of innocent unborn children would have gotten us a whole lot more press than a few ill-chosen words at Yankee Stadium. But, of course, that never happened.

We have allowed ourselves to become salt that has lost its savor. It should then come as no surprise if we are thrown out on the ground and trampled upon by men. The LCMS is faltering today because it has traded its precious heritage as a confessional church where doctrine reigned supreme which existed for the sole purpose of offering the good confession for the worthless worldly porridge of trendy, politically correct, modern denominationalism.

II. THE KIESCHNICK PRESIDENCY
Having argued the general insignificance of synodical conventions, allow me now to return to the subject of the 2001 convention. The most important thing a convention does are not the resolutions which it adopts, which are largely ignored, but the officers it elects to represent the Synod and conduct its business. The most important single officer in the Missouri Synod is the synodical President.

If the 2001 convention is remembered at all, it will be remembered as the convention which first elected Dr. Gerald Kieschnick as president of the LCMS. I am convinced that the Kieschnick presidency will play a crucial role in determining the long term future of our church body. Kieschnick is well positioned to be a decisive figure in Missouri's history. He embodies the spirit of our age and enjoys broad support throughout the synod's power structure.

The election of Gerald Kieschnick brought an end to the nine year interlude of Dr. Barry's presidency. I use the word "interlude" deliberately. An "interlude" is a brief pause in an otherwise on-going pattern or trend. I believe that Dr. Barry's presidency was indeed an "interlude" within the broader context of the modern history of the LCMS. It represented a brief pause in the gradual drift toward cultural conformity which has characterized our recent history. Please do not misunderstand my words. Al Barry was a good and a decent man. He was an orthodox Lutheran who tried to do the right thing whenever he could. But he never really held the power in this church. That power is held by the Council of District Presidents. The fact is that an overwhelming majority of those district presidents opposed Dr. Barry and his vision of the Synod at every turn. Ironically, Texas District President Gerald Kieschnick, all of his protestations of theological conservatism notwithstanding, was one of the key leaders of Barry's opposition in the COP. He was a constant thorn in Dr. Barry's side. Barry's predecessor, Dr. Ralph Bohlmann, was able to exercise almost dictatorial power as president only because he had the firm support of the COP. Al Barry never enjoyed that support and his presidency was hamstrung because of it. Nevertheless, the Barry presidency allowed conservatives the comforting illusion that Missouri was not yet lost and that we remained in control. That illusion was shattered, or should have been, with the election of President Kieschnick.

Let me also point out that Gerald Kieschnick was elected only because petty bickering and personal divisions among conservatives squandered the benefits of Barry's residual incumbency and allowed one of the liberal candidates to eke out a narrow majority. Missouri almost always elects its incumbents. For an incumbent not to be re-elected there must be some major turmoil going on within the church. That has only occurred three times throughout our synod's entire history (Photenhauer, Harms, Bohlmann). Although Dr. Barry had died shortly before the 2001 convention, conservatives enjoyed nonetheless what might be called a "residual incumbency." That is to say, there was some inclination among many of the center delegates, who constitute the real majority at an LCMS convention, not to rock the boat, but to continue the themes of the Barry presidency. Those themes were graciously personified at the convention by Dr. Robert Kuhn who had chosen not to run for the presidency himself. Conservative candidates were in a position to receive more votes at this convention than we would otherwise have been able to expect because of that "residual incumbency." However, conservatives chose to discard the benefit of residual incumbency by squabbling with one another. The liberals were much wiser. They also faced the dilemma of having two candidates on the ballot, Muchow and Kieschnick. There were significant differences between the two and different factions within "Jesus First" and "Daystar" certainly had their favorites. But there was no public dissension or criticism within the liberal camp. Instead they trained all of their fire on the conservative candidates, Wenthe and Preus. That is why Gerald Kieschnick is president of the Missouri Synod today and Dean Wenthe is not. At the next convention the significant benefits of incumbency will all belong to President Kieschnick and his supporters.

Dr. Gerald Kieschnick is Missouri's first "post modern president." He is a deliberately non-theological individual. The nature of the man is tellingly revealed by an incident at a Wyoming District Pastoral Conference earlier this year. The President's participation in a pan-Lutheran worship service held in an ELCA church in Manhattan had been challenged. President Kieschnick issued a moving plea for understanding based on the intense emotion of the moment. He spoke of the choking dust and the reek of death at Ground Zero. He argued that it was impossible for anyone who had not been there to understand the intensity of the occasion. The president asserted that he didn't even know where he was and did not realize that it was an ELCA church when on the spur of that awful moment the group felt moved to pray. It was completely spontaneous and unplanned, he contended. One of the pastors present at the conference then produced a printed service folder which listed all of the participants (specifically including Dr. Kieschnick) and choirs which had traveled from across the New York area to be present for what was obviously a worship service very carefully planned in advance. The president sputtered briefly and then simply re-asserted that you had to have been there to understand. It was a classic post-modern moment - Don't bother me with the facts. Let's talk about my feelings.

Our president is a man who can call for the re-institution of the office of prophetess or deny baptism regeneration without embarrassment. Such things are not his primary concern. But do not allow his lack of theological interest to cause you to underestimate the man. Gerald Kieschnick, as we know well here in Texas, can be a very effective leader. He is not a theologian but he clearly understands power and its uses. He knows how to talk to people and empathize with them. Like another very effective post-modern American leader, he is able to empathize, to convey to people the sense that he feels their pain. His goal is success: success judged by the "Growth" standards of bodies and bucks. Those who debate doctrine are an obstacle to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. They must be marginalized or eliminated.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Dr. Theodore Schmauk, a leading theologian of the Lutheran Council, warned of a new breed of leaders which he feared would arise in the Lutheran Church of the future:

"Men who are filled with noble ardor and enthusiasm to do things, and men who are not deeply rooted, or who live for the moment, or who are time-servers; men who would yield up - some more, some less - the confession of the evangelical church, with its doctrines of justification, faith, the Word, and the Sacraments...The very mention of confessional fidelity throws a dark and gloomy shadow athwart the stream of 20th century life for men like these."

Today, at the turn of the 21st Century, his words seem ominously prophetic.

Like Ralph Bohlmann before him, Gerald Kieschnick enjoys the overwhelming support of the Council of District Presidents. That makes him a formidable figure indeed, as conservatives have already learned to their chagrin. The power of the synodical president combined with that of the Council of Presidents is most difficult to resist or overturn. After his ouster from the presidency, in a not so subtle suggestion that the synod spurn the leadership of Al Barry, his successor, Dr. Bohlmann reminded us that District Presidents are the most democratically elected leaders in our church. In a sense, he was correct. I believe that our new president and his supporters in the COP reflect the views and values of the majority of our pastors and our people. I read an Internet report a few days ago indicating that our pastors support the Kieschnick/Benke position in the current controversy by a 2/1 majority, while the laymen support Benke/Kieschnick by an overwhelming 6/1majority. I fear those numbers may well be accurate. John Adams once offered the caustic observation that "The problem with democracy is that you get the kind of leaders you deserve." Liberal strategists are already gloating that conservative fury over Benke's syncretism will alienate the center and serve to further marginalize the Synod's confessional remnant. For example, James Nuechterlein, writing in the April, 2002 issue of "First Things - A Journal of Religion and Public Life," notes hopefully:

"Most Americans aware of the issue, including most American Christians, find the charges against Benke silly or worse. There is also evidence that a considerable majority of Missouri Synod Lutherans, conservative as they are, recognize and make allowance for the extraordinary circumstances in which Benke acted...As for the effects of the incident within Missouri itself, there may even be a happy ending for those eager to draw the Synod out of itself and into a critical engagement with the larger Church and with American culture. The ultraconservatives in the LCMS seem to have overreached themselves, and the net result could be an advance in the cause of Missouri's beleaguered moderates."

President Kieschnick takes up where President Bohlmann left off ten years ago. The Bohlmann administration had a very specific theological agenda. It focused on three basic issues - lay ministry, the role of women in the church, and levels of fellowship. Kieschnick's approach will be significantly less theological but with the same overall thrust. In those areas where Missouri's historic doctrine and practice are in conflict with current cultural trends, Missouri's historic doctrine and practice must change. To grow we must blend into the mainstream, and so, blend we will to bring in the bodies and the bucks. The Barry interval is over. Now, ten years later, we are right back to where we started. Of course, throughout that decade the culture's relentless pressure to conform has continued. The church is much more receptive to the conformist agenda now than it was ten years ago. That which influences and affects our people is not the solid, sound doctrinal sermons they hear every Sunday - because many of them don't: or the substantial Bible studies in which they have regularly participated - because many of them haven't: or the thorough catechesis which they received upon their entry into communicant membership either as youth or adults - because many of them didn't. That which shapes the thinking of our people, their theology or the absence thereof, is what they hear on their radios or watch on their televisions - the message of which, if it is Christian at all, is "Christianty Lite." The Kieschnick presidency is a serendipitous meeting of the man and the moment. That being the case, Gerald Kieschnick has the potential to become one of the most significant presidents in the history of the LCMS.

III. Missouri's Confessional Disarray
The time has come for the confessional remnant within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to face some unpleasant truths - truths about our church and truths about ourselves.

We are a church body in confessional disarray. The doctrinal unity and confessional integrity which were once our cherished raiment have gradually been allowed to fray into a patchwork coat of many colors.

Over 80% of the Synod's congregations have abandoned our historic Scriptural stance on the role of women and now practice woman suffrage. Among those congregations a wide variety of practice exists as to which offices women may or may not hold, including those of elder and congregational president. It is no longer uncommon for women to serve as lectors in the public worship of the church. I had occasion this past week to talk to a young lady who is planning a wedding in our church. She was astonished to discover that her aunt would not be permitted to read the Gospel Lesson at her wedding and promptly listed three other LCMS congregations in Houston where she had observed women routinely reading the lessons in public worship in the brief course of her young life. The recent decision by Dr. George Heider, the President of Concordia University at River Forest to receive communion from an ELCA lady pastor caused little disturbance in our church. Groups like "Differing Voices - Shared Visions" continue to openly and aggressively promote full gender equality and the formal ordination of women to the pastoral office. There is a sense of inevitability about it all. Everyone seems to know that eventually it will happen. But in the meantime the pretense must be maintained lest we alarm those not yet sufficiently enlightened.

Allow me to digress for just a moment. Our discussions of the Biblical doctrine of gender, that is the significance of our identity as male and female, provide an excellent illustration of the broader significance of doctrine for our life and culture. The LCMS discussion of gender has historically been preoccupied with the specific issues of suffrage and ordination. These are indeed important questions in the doctrine and life of our church. There is, however a great deal more at stake in this debate than who can vote in a voters' meeting or even who can preach and teach the Word of God from our pulpits. Our culture is tearing itself apart, our marriages are being destroyed, our families are being fractured, and our children are being perverted and abused because we as a people have decided to deny and defy the Creator God's intent for human sexuality. The consequences of that defiance are catastrophic. The swirling tempest in our own little denomination tea-pot over these issues is only a microcosm of the great debate taking place within the culture at large. When the church fails to be the light, then the culture must dwell in darkness. In 1969, we cast aside the consistent affirmation of nearly150 years within the Missouri Synod. Our approval of woman suffrage in the church was not the result of any startling theological breakthrough or dramatic new Biblical insight. Instead, we gradually edged away from male responsibility for leadership in our voters' assemblies to accommodate the spirit of the times, leaving our opposition to the ordination of women suspended in logical and theological mid-air. In the end, this isn't about voting or, for that matter ordination. Ultimately what is at stake here is what it means to be a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, a father and a mother. St. Paul understood that very clearly. All of his inspired instruction as to the roles of men and women in the church is ultimately concerned about marriage and the responsibility of the church as the "household of God" (1 Timothy 3:15) to demonstrate God's way to the world. But in order to do that, the church must be willing to stand in opposition to the culture when the culture stands in opposition to the truth of God. Unfortunately the modern church has most often chosen to blend and bend rather than to stand and confess.

The Biblical practice of Closed Communion while officially still the position of our church is widely disregarded among our congregations. While we dither on in seemingly endless debates about the semantic distinction between "Closed" and "Close" communion, the Biblical practice and the profound concern for the welfare of souls that it expresses is slipping away from us. In some of our districts, Closed Communion has virtually disappeared. District Presidents and pastoral conferences have come to openly challenge and deny the Synod's official position in this matter.

The Benke Yankee Stadium debacle highlights but does not nearly exhaust the collapse of our doctrine of church fellowship as "Jesus First" and "Daystar" mobilize to put Missouri back in perspective and enable us to move forward into the mainstream of American religious life.

An openly organized assertive charismatic movement continues to seek renewal in Missouri accompanied by a plethora of Pentecostal signs and wonders. Decades of conversation and doctrinal dialogue with this group have failed to produce effective doctrinal discipline.

One would be hard pressed to find a majority of the science faculty in many of our Concordias prepared to unequivocally affirm Biblical creation and reject Darwinian evolution or its theistic step-child.

Church and ministry remains a topic of often bitter debate as "Hyper-euros" square off against "Voters' Assembly Supremacists." It would seem that the "Poltergeister" of Marbach, Vehse, Grabau and Löhe haunt us still.

Our list of doctrinal concerns is representative not exhaustive. It could be extended "ad infinitum et ad nauseam." The roots of our confessional collapse can be traced to issues which have been under debate among us for fifty years and more - issues which remain unresolved to this day. By now it is quite clear that the political victories of conservatives in the "Great Lutheran Civil War" of the 70's only served to defer the long term impact of cultural and theological trends which have been at work within the Synod for decades. We have learned to our shame that nominal political control of denominational structures and fine sounding official positions are nothing more than a pretense of genuine confessionalism when diversity in doctrine and practice flourishes throughout the church. The Synod's most aggressive and articulate liberals have disappeared into the ELCA by way of the AELC. Nonetheless, with thousands of congregations and pastors swallowed up into the theological black hole of the church growth movement, there is still less doctrinal unity in the LCMS today than there was in 1969 when JAO Preus first came to power.

The conservative window of opportunity has closed. In the "good old days" of the 60's and 70's we were able to proceed on the assumption that if the issues were clearly and accurately presented - if we could bring our pastors and people to understand what the liberals believed and were teaching, they would do the right thing and affirm the historic doctrine of our church. Finally, it was the layman - "John Q. Average Pewsitter" - who rejected that which was being taught at our St. Louis Seminary and other synodical schools as "false doctrine which could not be tolerated in the church of God much less excused and defended," to use the words of the New Orleans Convention resolution. That is no longer true. We can no longer safely assume that the Synod's typical laymen or pastor will support our churches historic doctrine and practice. The theological complexion of the Missouri Synod has changed. The thorough catechesis which once characterized this church body through our flourishing system of Lutheran Day Schools for youth and in detailed doctrinal instruction for adults is rapidly becoming a thing of the past in many of our churches. By and large, our people no longer know or care to know the distinctive theology of the Lutheran Church. One of the easiest ways for a pastor to get into trouble in his congregation these days is to require too much of his confirmation class. Hassled and harried parents, many in two wage-earner or single parent households, re-act with anger and frustration to what they often perceive to be excessive memory work and participation requirements for confirmation. They will be after the preacher who insists upon such high standards "like a duck on a June bug," as we say here in Texas. At the same time, the issues now before us are more subtle and therefore more difficult than they were in the earlier "Battle for the Bible." The person who was ready to affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible thirty years ago, is much less likely to understand why he can't take communion with great aunt Hattie from the ELCA today.

The time has come to face these grim realities and admit that the conservative crusade to reclaim Missouri has failed. The church that Missouri once was, where doctrine reigned supreme and consistent unity in doctrine and practice was the Synod's foremost priority is no more. "Unsere geliebte Synode ist tot." - Our beloved Synod is dead. There may be those among us who find these words to be too strong and who flinch from this conclusion as too severe. Then listen, if you will, to the testimony of our forefathers and allow them to describe Missouri as it once was so that the contrast between what we were and what we have become may be clearly seen.

Our first quotation comes from Dr. Francis Pieper, who served as both Synodical President and President of the St. Louis Seminary. Dr. Pieper's three volume Christian Dogmatics remains the basic theology textbook of our church today. Writing in the Synod's German theological journal "Lehre und Wehre" ("Doctrine and Defense") in 1890, Pieper responded to complaints from the leaders of the General Council that Missouri's criticism of the Council's doctrinal diversity was unfounded because the church formally subscribed to all of the Lutheran Confessions. He described the doctrinal unity of the Missouri Synod in this way:

"So also, the "Missourian" perspective is this: it is unfair and unjust to charge a church body with false doctrine, if that fellowship practices doctrinal discipline and attempts, according to the Word of God, to put an end to the false doctrine which has arisen among its individual members. However, it is completely fair, proper, and required by God's Word to charge that church body with false doctrine if the fellowship has told its individual members and indeed its leaders, "You may say whatever you want to." We Missourians only then hold a church body as such to be orthodox when the true doctrine sounds forth from all of its pulpits and professors chairs and in all writings which are published within the church body, and every false doctrine, on the contrary, as soon as it makes its appearance, is eliminated in the way which God directs. According to this standard we judge others; according to this standard we also submit to be judged ourselves. We Missourians must and will be content to be judged according to the doctrine which is taught by our individual pastors whether in San Francisco or New York, St. Paul or New Orleans, or which is taught by our publications whether they be published officially or unofficially. If anyone should prove against us that even one pastor preached false doctrine, or even one periodical stood in the service of false doctrine, and we did not eliminate this false doctrine, we would thereby have ceased to be an orthodox synod and would have become a unionistic fellowship. In short, the mark of an orthodox church body is that throughout the church the true doctrine alone prevails, not only officially and formally, but also in actual reality."

This commitment to doctrinal unity was no mere intellectual abstraction. The basic concern is pastoral. It was founded in an intense concern for the salvation of souls and the spiritual well-being of our members. Dr. Pieper goes so far as to argue:

"The entire practice of our church rests upon this fact. For example, we unhesitatingly transfer members from our congregations in St. Louis to our sister congregations in San Francisco. But this only occurs because we know that the member who have been released will find the pure doctrine in all of its articles in that new congregation. Under the same assumption, other congregations can release their members to the congregations in St. Louis. The unhesitating transfer of members to other congregations of our fellowship would be unconscionable if we could not assume that the pure doctrine sounds forth from every pulpit in the Synodical Conference. If we were to define an orthodox fellowship in any other way, if we would say that it does not depend on the doctrine which actually sounds forth but only on the officially recognized doctrine; or if we believed that it was sufficient for a majority of the pastors to teach the right doctrine, we would then have already given up the distinction between an orthodox church and a unionistic fellowship. We would then be deceiving orthodox Christians when we encouraged them to join any one of our congregations without misgivings."

In 1923, Professor Frederick Bente presented a similarly uncompromising view of Missouri's doctrinal unity to the Synod gathered in convention in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He declared his own generation's firm resolve to be faithful to the legacy of doctrinal unity which had been passed down by the Synod's founding fathers:

"Our fathers in the faith surrendered nothing; made no concessions; deviated not a hair's breadth from the old Lutheran position concerning the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures. They delivered to us a fortress intact - no where a rock torn from the foundation, no where a breach, all walls strong and plumb. Results? Down to the present day, not a solitary modernist has ever been heard on the floor of the Synod which our fathers founded. Nor has a liberalist ever occupied a chair in her colleges and seminaries or filled a pulpit of her congregations. Concordia Publishing House, also founded by our fathers, in its publications from the first issue of "Der Lutheraner" down to its latest book or pamphlet, there cannot be found a single sentence endorsing Darwinism, evolution, or any other liberal doctrine. The entire literature of our Synod does not contain a single statement which in any way denies the incarnation, the virgin birth, the atonement, the resurrection or any other Christian miracle, nor even a single passage that charges the Bible with any kind of error - religious, historical, chronological or astronomical. This large convention, together with all the pastors, professors, teachers, and laymen which it represents, believes and confesses the old creeds of Christendom...entirely, unanimously and without reservation, or without taking exception to a single clause. We all, with all our hearts still sing our old Lutheran hymns. As for the old Lutheran liturgies and sacred forms for baptism, the Holy Eucharist, ordination, etc., there cannot be found among us a single pastor or congregation desiring to modify them doctrinally."

Many would scorn this concept of doctrinal unity as a utopian ideal and an impossibility. Our forefathers, however, were convinced that by the undeserved grace of God this impossibility had became reality in the Missouri Synod. These faithful men of God labored under no illusions as to the difficulty of maintaining genuine unity in doctrine and practice. Every facet of the Synod's life was dedicated to preserving and protecting that precious unity. C.F.W. Walther earnestly pleaded with the pastors and congregations of the Synod to recognize the value of this God-given treasure and to strive in every way to preserve and protect it. Beginning with parents in the home, and proceeding all the way through the synodical system to the office of president, our first president urged Missouri to be unwaveringly zealous in the preservation of her precious "jewel," genuine unity in doctrine and practice. Dr. Walther wrote:

"If we wish to preserve this jewel of ours then everyone must work at it in his position and calling and all of our church institutions must help toward that end. You fathers and mothers must already lay the foundation at home, and instill in your children early in life pure doctrine and understanding and an inner love for the same together with an aversion for all false doctrine. In your schools, you teachers must faithfully further this work begun at home, and where it has not been started, make a beginning thereof with a burning zeal so that you are not hindrances , but true helpers to the holy ministry. You pastors must not be satisfied just to give what you already have, but rather continue to read and study day and night in order that you may become richer in doctrine and understanding, stronger in refutation of error and more zealous in the work of the Lord. Think for a moment, to stand still is to die. We professors in our institutions for the training of servants in school and church must unceasingly give thought to making our institutions true schools of the prophets and high beacon lights in the land for which we would gladly see all else fail, if only the light of the pure doctrine of the apostles and the prophets continues to burn brightly. Even at our prep schools we must prepare for this with the highest earnestness. Toward this goal we must always carefully and zealously make full use of our pastoral conferences and synodical conventions. We must see to it that all of our publications and all of the printing means at our disposal are used with ever greater consciousness so that our readers are led to seek in our publications not interesting light religious reading, but rather nothing else than purity, basics and firmness in doctrine and defense - no whoring with the spirit of the times, no amorous ogling of false doctrine, no respect of persons. Our synodical guardians, our presidents, must be concerned not merely with being guardians of human regulations, but rather guardians of the purity of doctrine and understanding."

IV. The Challenge for Missouri's Confessional Remnant
That which Missouri once was, she is no longer. It is a painful thing to finally recognize unpleasant truths about our own church, the church we love. However it is even more painful to be compelled to finally recognize unpleasant truths about one's self. We conservatives have tended to blame the decline of our church on others - the liberals, the culture, or the apathy of the indifferent masses in the middle. The fact of the matter is that to a great extent we have no one to blame but ourselves for what has happened to our church.

In the course of this long struggle we have been given any number of remarkable opportunities to reassert the confessional integrity of our church. But in every one of those instances, we conservatives have chosen the path of political expedience instead. We have consistently been unwilling to pay the institutional price of faithful confessionalism. To have forthrightly dealt with false doctrine as such would have meant schism and so we conservatives - again and again - have chosen to walk the way of the Handbook instead of the way of the Good Book. We have followed the path of the Bylaws instead of the path of the Bible. In so doing we have opted for legalistic compulsion over Scriptural convincing. We have been satisfied to achieve majorities rather than strive for unanimity. We have relied upon coalitions rather than genuine consensus. That is why, even when we were winning, the nature of our church has continued to change.

We have engaged in relentless intramural warfare for over fifty years and the sad truth is that this conflict itself has come to define us. In waging this warfare we have seriously underestimated the pernicious impact of power politics upon the truth of God's holy Word. Politics is by definition the art of the possible. It is about power and the effective use of power. It deals in compromise, accommodation, and the realistic assessment of that which can be achieved at any given moment. This perspective is inherently inimical to theology and the affirmation of Biblical truth. This caveat is by no means the standard pietistic disavowal of politics as sordid and worldly, unworthy of the truly spiritual person. Such false dichotomies have no place in the world view of the Biblical Christian. However, those who wish to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints in the real world must recognize the nature of politics and the dynamic of the political process. While politics in the church is inescapable, the truth must always come first without compromise or concession. The church or the churchman who is unwilling to pay the high political price that truth's priority demands may find that he has gained the whole world only to lose his own soul. Conservatives in the Missouri Synod have come to learn this painful lesson the hard way.

At the same time we must also recognize that all too often politics, particularly church politics, indulges in an end justifies the means amorality. The loftiness of our goals serves to validate the nastiness of our methods. The politics of our church have degenerated into an on-going minuet of mendacity, a squirming snake pit of forked tongues and poisonous fangs. We have said and done whatever we needed to say and do to achieve and hold on to power, always for the most sanctified of reasons, of course. Each side has bitterly accused the other of sinister political agendas while, masked in sanctimonious piety, they themselves have ruthlessly pursued their own political agendas. The quest for power tends to become an end in itself. Churchmen, both liberal and conservative, are unfortunately not immune from Lord Acton's axiom about power's inherent tendency to corrupt. We must finally acknowledge that our warfare has come to be more about control than conviction and should be abandoned. The exigencies of church politics have deprived us of both our personal and theological integrity. Let us now, finally, reclaim our honor as men of God and of His Word. Let us speak the truth in love and then be prepared to bear the cost of such integrity.

We must now take up again the task of theology. Lay aside your Handbook and your Workbook and dust off your Bible and your Book of Concord. Doing theology is much more difficult than playing politics. That's why the subtle seduction of power politics is so difficult to resist. Politics deals in slogans and stereotypes - us against them. Theology requires the meticulous study of the Word of God and the Confessions of our church. Politics enables us to go to meetings and fly by the seat of our pants, complaining about what the liberals are up to and plotting their overthrow. Theology necessitates that we do our homework consistently and faithfully, wrestling with the texts of the Bible and the Confessions in humility and prayer day after day. Recall Dr. Walther's admonition:

"You pastors must not be satisfied just to give what you already have but rather to continue to read and study day and night in order that you may become richer in doctrine and understanding, stronger in refutation of error and more zealous in the work of the Lord. Think for a moment, to stand still here is to step backward; not to grow is to die."

As the Benke brouhaha continues to escalate it would appear that a time of crisis for Missouri has come again. That may well prove to be a good thing. Perhaps the furor of this controversy will become the catalyst which forces us back to our Bibles and compels us to do theology as Lutherans once more. But many us haven't done theology in so long that we've almost forgotten how. This is, of course, not the first time that Synod conservatives have found themselves unprepared in the hour of trial. The opening skirmishes of the Great Lutheran Civil War in the controversy over the "Statement of the Forty-Four" in the mid 1940's found defenders of the Synod's doctrinal position similarly unprepared. The dynamic confessionalism of our early years had given way to a stolid institutional conservatism which was unable to effectively rise to the challenge posed by the "Forty-four." In his incisive "Anatomy of an Explosion," Dr. Kurt Marquart notes: "There was just enough painful truth in the diagnosis of theological arthritis in the aging synodical bones to make the new post World War II direction seem like a wholly legitimate, indeed a much needed renewal."

Our aging theological bones have again grown stiff and brittle. That brittleness can be observed in the theological fissures which extend throughout the conservative movement. If we were to review the list of theological differences which divide and trouble our church we would discover to our chagrin that not all of them are matters of disagreement between liberals and conservatives. We within the conservative wing of the Synod are divided among ourselves on a troubling number of doctrinal issues. The glue which holds us together is our common opposition to the liberal agenda for the church. That may be good enough for a political coalition but it is not sufficient basis for a confessional movement. Rumbles of schism have begun to reverberate across the church as conservative fury and fear increases. Such talk in our present state of theological disarray is premature and irresponsible. We conservatives must first set our own theological house in order. We must honestly confront the issues which divide us from one another and resolve them on the basis of the Word of God. Until we do, we are not in a position to offer theological leadership to the church. It would make little sense to endure the travail of leaving one confessionally ambiguous church simply to form another one.

At the same time, we have yet to articulate a clear, compelling, comprehensive statement of the theological issues at stake in the Synod today. In the 70's, JAO Preus' "A Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles" served that purpose. A comparable declaration carefully defining the issues now in contention is urgently needed. In this connection we must note the commendable effort of a group of pastors and laymen in producing a document entitled "Consensus." (Learn more about "Consensus" on the Internet at www.consensuslutheran.org) These brethren have made a good beginning, and their work has not yet received appropriate attention among conservatives. We've been too busy with other more pressing political priorities. What has already been produced can serve as the starting point for the substantive theological discussions which must take place among conservatives throughout our church. As did our fathers before us, we must define that which we "believe, teach and confess." The contrary doctrine must be specifically identified and condemned. That is hard work, but it is work that must be done. Until such a statement is before the church, we have no one to blame but ourselves for the apathy and the indifference that prevails across our Synod.

Under these circumstances it has been very difficult in the present controversy for conservatives to place Dr. Benke's syncretism in the broader context of the synod's confessional collapse. For Synod's liberals, of whom Benke has been an outspoken and aggressive leader for decades, these events represent a golden opportunity to advance their theological agenda for the transformation of Missouri historic doctrine and practice. Conservatives who disagree with the Atlantic District President's participation in the Yankee Stadium inter-faith service are placed in the unenviable position of appearing insensitive and unpatriotic. Dr. Benke's defenders have been quick to capitalize on the unique nature of this (hopefully) "once in a lifetime" situation and conservative critics have found themselves being compared to the Nazis and the Taliban in the media. There is, however, much more at stake here than what one man should or should not have said at a particular event. The spectacle of an LCMS District President praying with Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs is only the most recent manifestation - albeit a most prominent and dramatic manifestation - of the theological enervation which has been underway throughout our church for many years. One incident, particularly an incident so clouded by emotionalism and patriotism, cannot by itself provide a compelling basis for action. It must be emphasized and documented again and again that these events serve to signal the reality and the enormity of our church's doctrinal disintegration.

The same theological brittleness is evident in the personal rivalries and divisions that seem to riddle the conservative movement. We conservatives can be a contentious and contrary bunch. Long ago, in describing the duties of a truly Lutheran and evangelical synod, Dr. Walther warned that unity in doctrine cannot long survive in the absence of love:

"My dear brothers, let us be on our guard! Satan is sly. Right now we are brothers, living together in peace and love. But Satan will lay for us snares by which he hopes to destroy the sweet, brotherly love we now have in our hearts. We dare never think that it is enough if we just remain united in our faith and our doctrine. No, once love is destroyed it won't be long before one person believes what the other rejects and the other teaches what the first considers an error. As the Apology testifies, quarrels and divisions because of personal sins can easily produce heresy. For example, one person takes a stand and another person takes the opposite stand. Perhaps the one person dislikes the other; he simply can't stand him and for that reason he inflexibly maintains his position. It is frightening what harm can result when members of a church organization do not vigilantly guard their fraternal love."

The Bible admonishes us to "speak the truth in love." (Ephesians 4:15) The typical stereotype would indicate that conservatives are good at truth and liberals are good at love. Scripture, however, does not offer us the option of choosing between them. Those of us who would defend the truth of God must do so in the humble spirit of Christ. Some years ago, at Dr. Barry's invitation, I was asked to participate in a conservative unity meeting designed to enable us all to work together. I came to the gathering with what were quickly revealed to be unrealistically high hopes. We spent our first few hours arguing about who should be allowed to participate. "If so and so is coming, count me out!" one man would thunder. While another complained, "He lied to me ten years ago. I'll never trust him again. If he is given a place at the table we will not take part." And on and on it went. In many ways that's still where we are today. Our preoccupation with our own petty personal concerns and pride prevents us from truly coming to grips with the crucial theological issues which confront us.

The present crisis presents us with both a temptation and an opportunity. Our almost instinctive re-action is to gird up our loins to prepare to do battle at the next convention. We are already busy drafting resolutions and trying to identify the most electable candidates. I believe that is exactly the wrong approach. We must resist the temptation to respond to this challenge in terms of power politics. At the same time this challenge offers us an opportunity. It could serve as the impetus for serious theological effort among Missouri's conservatives. There have been some very encouraging signs that this may well be the case. The Pastoral Conference of the Wyoming District produced an impressive series of theological inquiries for Drs. Benke and Kieschnick. The Confessional Lutherans of Northern Illinois have formulated an outstanding summary of our historic doctrine of the church with specific application to inter-faith worship and syncretism in a document entitled "That They May Be One." In a manner fully consistent with the historic practice of Lutheranism this document has been circulated throughout our church for subscription by pastors, laymen and congregations. A courageous theological opinion by the faculty of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne effectively outlined the flaws and the falsehoods in the facile arguments used to justify Dr. Benke's participation in the Yankee Stadium service. It is instructive to note the difficulty that our elected officials have had in dealing with these theological responses. They just don't know how to handle them. Everything ends up getting referred to the CTCR for further study. Implicit in their inability to respond is the admission that theology in modern Missouri is to be reserved for our official theologians. For a nominally confessional church, this is a sad situation indeed. Our leaders ought to eagerly welcome every opportunity to articulate and to advocate that which we believe, teach and confess. Their unwillingness to do so provides yet another indication that we have become a church that is driven by the Bylaws rather than the Bible. In such a church our confession of the truth is circumscribed to the point of strangulation by legalistic minutia. And all the while, like the pharisees of old, we are straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

V. "Can These Bones Live?"
The course of action which I have outlined here today might be labeled as "deliberate disengagement." It has been my often unpopular counsel to fellow members of Missouri's confessional remnant for a number of years. To carry on Missouri's endless intramural wars must at this point be recognized as an exercise in self-destructive futility. Nor can we continue to conduct business as usual, disregarding what is happening all around us and participating in the routine activities of the denomination as though all were well. If we do, we and our congregations will eventually and inevitably disappear into the quagmire of doctrinal indifferentism that has swallowed up our church. We must "deliberately" - that is with a specific awareness of what we are doing and why we are doing it - "disengage" both from the power politics of institutional control and the ordinary activities of denominational business as usual. I am convinced that this must be a time of consolidation and preparation for each of us within our own churches and all of us together as confessional pastors and congregations. Christian Höchstetter, one of the early fathers of our church, came to the Missouri Synod in the midst of the bitter controversy over church and ministry. He left the Buffalo Synod to join Missouri because we were a church body which was characterized by what he called the "fear of the Word of God." The young pastor used that telling phrase to describe the attitude of holy awe, absolute submission and steadfast obedience with which this Synod approached the Bible. Missouri was unwilling to yield or compromise even the smallest detail of Biblical truth for any agreement, any internal peace or any institutional gain because of that reverent "fear of the Word of God." We who would reclaim the mantle of historic Missouri must be characterized by that same attitude today. Let us return again, in humble repentance and prayer, to the diligent study of the Word of God and the confessions of our church. Let us believe again, with the simple trust of a little child, in the saving power of God's Word. Let us resolve again to wield the sharp sword of the Spirit in bold confidence and steadfast faith no matter what the cost may be.

God's prophet Ezekiel was carried by the Spirit to the vast valley of the dry bones. In that grim place of desolation and despair, the Lord posed a crucial question to his prophet: "Son of Man, can these bones live?" Ezekiel's careful response, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know," acknowledged the unique power and authority of God. (Ezekiel 37:3) Then the Word of God was spoken and at His command the bones began to move. Dry bones were transformed into skeletons which in turn were clothed with flesh and transformed into bodies. Then God's all-powerful Word, proclaimed by His faithful prophet, summoned the breath of life which surged through the valley with the roar of a mighty wind and the dry bones lived! Life from death by the power of the Word! "Unsere geliebte Synode ist tot." Can these bones live? Is there any hope for us and for our beloved church? Can a heritage which has been squandered and lost ever be restored? "O Sovereign Lord, You alone know." But of this one truth we can be absolutely certain. Only the Word of God can bring forth life from death. If Missouri is ever to be restored and live again it will be by the power of the Word of God alone. That restoration will not take place in a convention hall with the passage of a resolution or the election of a candidate. Instead that restoration must begin in our hearts and in our homes. It must begin in our pulpits, at our altars and our baptismal fonts, as the thunder of God, His mighty Word, resounds among us and the blessed Sacraments of life and salvation are administered in accordance with their divine institution. If, by God's grace, we conservatives are to play a role in that restoration it will only be as faithful servants of the Word. To that end, may God bless us in Jesus Christ our Lord.