Task
Force States Need for Unified Polity
The long awaited 80 page, 8½ x 11 "Preliminary Report of Task
Force on National/District Synod Relations" was just received in the mail.
The Task Force gets high marks for identifying the current polity crisis in the LCMS
and low marks for legitimizing District bureaucracy.
Regardless of the opinion of the growing factions of the Board-of-Director-CEO-Church
Growth/Leadership Training-PLI enthusiasts and pre-Walther-Hyper-Euro-Lutheran Pastors in
the LCMS, according to the Task Force, POLITY MATTERS!
Has the Task Force been reading Reclaim News? We quote from the report: "Education
about the polity of our Synod is needed, to varying degrees, by all the members of our
Synod as well as some of the lay members of its congregations."
"... in recent years many pastors, teachers, an other professional church workers
have embarked upon their initial placements with little or no familiarity with the
Constitutions and Bylaws of the Synod."
"A lack of familiarity with our basic polity on the part of the Synod's members
and lay members of our congregations has increasingly resulted in attitudes, teachings and
practices that are at variance with and sometimes even inimical to the Synod's
polity."
But what about the freedom of the Gospel to do whatever we like in the LCMS? The Task
Force correctly says there are two reasons for the Synod's polity, first that
congregations "do the same things in matters of doctrine and practice" according
to God's Word. Secondly, there is a need for unity in matters of adiaphora (things neither
commanded nor forbidden in Scripture) such as congregations "calling only rostered
Missouri Synod Pastors."
According to the Handbook congregations that call pastors from outside the Synodical
roster are automatically expelled from Synod. This is a law that we all follow in the
Synod, out of love. Obviously, our love is the fulfillment of the law.
The Task Force makes the following observation about American Culture: "In the
last 30 years, cultural critic Dr. William Bennett notes, our society as a whole has
placed less and less value on sacrifice, restraint, and moral obligation, and 'greater
value on things like self-expression, individualism, self-realization, and personal
choice.'"
This is gives a clear picture of the self-styled pastors who are inventing their own
polities throughout the Synod.
Task
Force Endorses District Bureaucracies
The following statement says volumes about the LCMS: "Full-time
or part-time? During the 1960s and 1970s the number of full-time District presidencies
grew dramatically throughout the Synod. Today only two of our Districts have a part-time
president, whereas only two had a full-time president in 1962."
We also note that the Synod had 3 million members in 1962 as opposed to 2.6 million
today.
Yet, regrettably, the Task Force concludes that District Presidents should remain
full-time because of "the complexity and the volume of problems that are being
brought to District Presidents."
Congregations founded the Synod and now the Task Force is telling us that congregations
are no longer viable without an entrenched full-time District bureaucracy.
The Task Force explains in detail why visitations circuits should be no larger than 5
to 7 congregations, but fails to follow this logic as to why Districts should be no larger
than 100 congregations. A part-time District President with his own congregation would be
compelled to delegate his duties to the vice-presidents and circuit counselors.
Synod for
the District Office and by the District Office
The Task Force made no claims of speaking about congregational
polity. But its perception is that LCMS congregations can't exist without a full-time
District President and staff.
As one reads the 80 page document it becomes clear that the Task Force views District
Presidents as the primary readers of their document an not the lay people and
congregations. What will these District Presidents let us do? We must be careful not to
upset them, even though their office is not included in the Bible. The Task Force has
altered Christ's words to "Wherever two or three are gathered together with a
full-time District President, there am I in the midst of them."
Hence the Task Force proceeds to put a Band-Aid on a broken leg.
Their correct conclusion that the Seminaries and pastors don't follow the Synod's
polity is even more compounded by the fact that the congregations and laypeople are
ignorant of congregational polity. The result of raising a generation of confused laity,
is that 10 times the number of full-time District Presidents will not be enough to
properly administer LCMS congregations.
The Task Force is relying on institutional dry rot in place of congregational viability
to "save" the Synod. Perhaps we will need the loss of additional hundreds of
thousands of members and another generation before the Synod decides that it will be much
stronger with autonomous, self-governing, self-reliant and polity savvy congregations led
by Voter Supremacy.
To the Task Force we say: The District President is not the Church! Without lay people
you don't have a church!
When this write was 17 in New York City the Atlantic District had 155,000 members. Now
it has 40,000 members. This is the handwriting on the wall for the Synod's
"large" districts.
Evangelizing
with District Bureaucracy?
The majority of District Presidents have become the primary
promoters of PLI and Church Growth/Leadership Training in order to prove they know how to
get results. Collecting a large crowd to enjoy religious entertainment is now called a
"large congregation" in the LCMS.
The Task Force shows us the Synod turned in on itself. It must save the Full-Time
District President in order to save the congregations. The Synod is rife with the verve of
Church Growth gurus teaching the Gospel of congregational corporate management and
marketing. At the same time, there is virtual silence on the Synod's historic position of
congregational polity and Voter Supremacy.
Walther built the Synod (notice, I said Synod, not church) by attracting lay people to
the LCMS that not only had better doctrine but a better polity than any other church body
and that our laity practiced the full Biblical blessings of the priesthood of all
believers. Now the "layman's church" has become the Full-time District
President's Church. Maybe if we had a 1000 Full-Time District Presidents we would have
enough people to play the organ, teach Sunday school, take out the trash, and cut the
grass. Make that 10,000.
Cross
Purposes
On the surface, the Task Force seems to have moved in opposite
directions. On the one hand, the Task Force notes that a number of Districts are now
training and certifying their own workers for their Districts. The Task Force "notes
that the Synod has not authorized any sort of church worker certification or
commissioning, however termed, at the District level."
On the other hand, the Task Force recommends that the Synod should be divided into four
regions for the purpose of electing the five vice presidents and organizing regional
district budget consultation to avoid duplication of efforts.
First, they defend national certification of workers to preserve Synodical unity and
then they sow the seeds for the break-up of the Synod into four smaller Synods led by four
regional vice-presidents with another layer of bureaucracy between the District Presidents
and the Synodical President.
The best advice we can give the Task Force is to place the congregations first.