[Click here for Proposed Convention Resolution]
On this subject, I would like to pay particular thanks to Rev. Bill Bischoff who
recently wrote an illuminating analysis on how far the LCMS has
strayed from its historical roots.
When the Saxons came to Missouri in the 1840's, their leader was Rev. Stephens. He had
guided the flock from Germany and in America, proceeded to anoint himself Bishop. Charges
of improper conduct with female parishioners added to the turmoil with the net result that
Stephens was banished from the church.
One of his lieutenants, C. F. W. Walther succeeded to the leadership role and in 1847
was part of the formation of the LCMS. His legacy as first President was to move away from
the Bishop role and establish the principle that the congregation was the unit in which
political authority in the church was vested. Additionally, that there was no distinction
between the clergy and layperson.
The consequences of this heritage was that from 1847, the year of the founding of the
LCMS, until the Cleveland Convention of the LCMS in 1962, the exclusive authority to call
and thus ordain a Pastor was a congregation of Synod.
At the 1962 Cleveland convention, at the recommendation of the COP, authority to ordain
was expanded beyond the congregation to an agency of the church.
Among those qualified for ordination in the future would be; pastors, assistant
pastors, associate pastors, some Professors, some Instructors, Missionaries, Chaplains and
Executive officers of District or Synod.
By this means, as Rev. Bischoff related, it was now no longer the local congregation
who identified the pastoral office by means of the call and ordination, but it was Synod.
Suddenly, an organization derived by human arrangement (the Synod) had replaced the
divinely instituted local church.
C. F. W. Walther's genius in recognizing and affirming that Christians organized in
congregations have the exclusive authority to call and ordain a Pastor is immediately
apparent when the development of the Pastoral Leadership Institute (PLI) is analyzed.
PLI at its founding in 1998 prevailed upon its contacts in the PSWD to extend a call to
its leader to work to correct claimed leadership training deficiencies in the training of
our future Pastors of our two Seminaries. PLI was compelled to withdraw its claim that our
Seminaries were not providing leadership training for our future Pastors, but it has
continued in business nonetheless. But for the actions of the 1962 Cleveland Convention,
the PWD could not have extended such a call.
The CCM recently ruled that the several hundred thousand dollars which the LCEF has
given as a grant to PLI was without the authority of any provision of the LCMS
Constitution or Bylaws.
The Detroit Convention in 1965 took the LCMS further down the road of shifting
authority away from the congregations to the bureaucrats in the District and Synod by
changing the name of the LCMS by adding the word, that it is a "Church." Up
until then, it was a Synod of Churches.
The importance of this whole issue of where is the authority in our church, at the
congregational level or the bureaucracies of District and Synod should not be
underestimated. At the congregational level, laymen have a dominant voice. At the District
or Synodical level, laymen may be on boards and commissions, but they are to a large
extent, subject to the influence and persuasion that full time bureaucrats can assert.
Rev. Bischoff traces the effort to further silence laymen, when he reports that at the
1965 Detroit Convention, not by a vote, but by a ruling from the chair on the first day of
the convention that laymen, non-delegates, cannot speak on the convention floor of a
Synodical Convention and the Convention further adopted a prohibition on laymen submitting
Overtures in future conventions.
The virus which has infected some of our clergy, that laymen are not on the same par
with the clergy, has also infected some of our District Presidents.
It is appropriate at this time to submit an Overture to the 2001 LCMS Convention to:
- Require PLI to refund all of the money which is has illegally received from the LCEF
immediately.
- Require the 2001 Convention to make a finding that if there is a deficiency in the
leadership training in our Seminaries of our future Pastors, that the Seminaries of the
LCMS adopt the necessary changes to correct this deficiency and PLI be a part of and under
the direction of our two Seminaries and PLI as a separate corporation be dissolved.
- That the LCMS establish as a bedrock principle that the exclusive authority to call and
ordain a Pastor be at the Congregation level.
Only A Congregation in the LCMS May Extend a Call and
Ordain a Pastor - And Requiring a Finding Relative to the PLI
WHEREAS, from the founding of the LCMS in 1847 and until 1962, only a
congregation could issue a call and ordain a Pastor; and
WHEREAS, at the 1962 Cleveland Convention of the LCMS authority to extend a call
and ordain was expanded beyond a congregation to an agency of the church; and
WHEREAS, the issue on how a church should structure itself is directly related
to the question: of what structure of the church best serves the mandate at the
congregational level or in bureaucracies of the church?; and
WHEREAS, the LCMS experienced rapid growth during the period from 1940 to 1975,
and that Franklin Littell of Temple University wrote in a 1976 atlas entitled The
Macmillan Atlas History of Christianity about the LCMS:
"Church growth today seems to be a function of lay initiative and lay initiative
seems to be most vigorous in those churches which have no strong hierarchies or
judicatories.
"One of the most rapidly growing churches is the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
which has in the last fifteen years added nearly 600,000 members. Since 1940 it has shown
a 120% increase, while the more liberal Lutheran churches have registered less than 60%
increase.Under (Walther's) leadership an extensive system of parochial schools was
inaugurated. In 1872 a Lutheran Synodical Conference came into being which united several
conservative groups which stressed the responsibility and initiative of members of local
congregations."
Littell stated that the most important cause of growth is decentralized policy which he
properly defines as those churches which have not strong hierarchies or judicatories. The
term "Judicatory" means a system of courts of law for the administration of
justice.
Rev. Martin R. Noland, in his address to the Association of Confessional Lutherans on
April 4, 1997, at Chicago stated:
"The survival of Biblical and confessional theology in the Missouri Synod was
chiefly a result of its decentralized policy, not of any particular virtues in its
membership or even its theology"; and
WHEREAS, PLI at its founding in 1998 prevailed upon its contacts in the PSWD to
extend a call to its leader to work to correct claimed leadership training deficiencies in
the training of our future Pastors of our two Seminaries. PLI was compelled to withdraw
its claim that our Seminaries were not providing leadership training for our future
Pastors, but it has continued in business nonetheless. But for the actions of the 1962
Cleveland Convention, the PSWD could not have extended such a call; and
WHEREAS, The CCM recently ruled that the several hundred thousand dollars which
the LCEF has given as a grant to PLI was without the authority of any provision of the
LCMS Constitution or Bylaws; and
WHEREAS, How the leaders of PLI were able to obtain a call from an agency of the
church, the PSWD, not a congregation, illustrates quite clearly the wisdom of C. F. W.
Walther, our first LCMS President, to place the authority to issue a call and ordain a
Pastor in a congregation; be it therefore
RESOLVED, Our congregation submits this Overture to the 2001 Convention of the
LCMS to do the following:
1. Require PLI to refund all of the money which it has illegally received from the LCEF
immediately.
2. Require the 2001 Convention to make a finding that if there is a deficiency in the
leadership training in our Seminaries of our future Pastors, that the Seminaries of the
LCMS adopt the necessary changes to correct this deficiency and that PLI be a part of and
under the direction of our two Seminaries and that PLI as a separate corporation be
dissolved.
3. That the LCMS establish as a bedrock principle that the exclusive authority to call
and ordain a Pastor be at the Congregation level.
Adopted this _____ day of __________, 2001, at a regular meeting of the governing body
of the:
Name of Church _________________________________________________
Address ________________________________________________
Chairman/President _______________________________________
Secretary _______________________________________________