King's God: The Unknown Faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Lutheran Witness said that King “Is first of all a committed Christian.”
Who told the truth about him? The LCMS or Christian News?

King’s God: The Unknown Faith of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Christian News, January 30, 2012

As a young man, Martin Luther King Jr. rejected many of the orthodox views of Jesus’s divinity, resurrection, and return. The author shows how King flatly rejected “a literal interpretation of biblical stories, claiming such a reading would be ‘absurd’ in a Copernican world.” On these issues, Scofield argues, King did not change his mind in later years. by Robert James “Be” Scofield.

You undoubtedly know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a progressive Christian and champion of civil rights and the social gospel. You may also know that he spoke out against the Vietnam War, harshly criticized U.S. foreign policy, and questioned the capitalist system that produced poverty. But do you know his theology?

Right up until Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to support striking sanitation workers, the civil rights leader worked—not as a secular activist but as a Baptist minister—to awaken the conscience of the nation. What was the meaning of Jesus for Dr. King? Did he see Jesus as divine? How did he interpret the Bible?

Biographies describe King as a liberal Protestant, but what does this mean? What was his understanding of Christian doctrines and why are they important to us? A number of academic papers written during his seminary years (1948-1951) provide an intimate look at the young King as he struggled to reconcile religion with a changing, dynamic, and modern world.

Prior to entering the liberal Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, King had developed only a tenuous relationship with Christianity. Despite being raised in a lineage of orthodox Baptist ministers, King at a young age demonstrated skepticism of the irrational claims of religion, and embarrassment at the emotionalism of his father's preaching. His entrance into Christianity at the age of six came from neither a genuine religious conviction nor a crisis moment; rather, he saw his sister make the altar call during a local religious revival and quickly followed suit. He claimed that during his baptism he had no idea what was occurring. Perhaps most striking was his denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school at the age of thirteen. From this point he stated, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."[i]

King carried these suspicions with him when he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at the age of fifteen. He had originally planned on being a doctor or lawyer. At Morehouse, under the guidance of President Benjamin E. Mays and professor George D. Kelsey, he began to believe that religion could be both "intellectually respectful and emotionally satisfying." Mays's weekly talks on the social gospel enchanted King, while Kelsey's Bible course taught him to see the Bible metaphorically, leading him to conclude the Bible has "many profound truths which one cannot escape."[ii]

While the "shackles of fundamentalism" broke off during these years at Morehouse, it was at Crozer that King discovered the insights and potential of liberal theology and began to articulate his opinions about Christianity. It was here that he found his calling, graduating first in his class and delivering the commencement address. He would go on to study the twentieth-century giants of theology -- Tillich, Wieman, Niebuhr, and Barth -- while pursuing a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. But by the end of his seminary years at Crozer he had already laid out his understanding of the core doctrines of the Christian faith. And it is here that we now direct our focus.

How did Dr. King understand Jesus? Did he see him as the Son of God? In "The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus," a paper written for a class called "Christian Theology Today," King clearly lays out his view on the divinity of Jesus:

The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadequate. To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental. To invest this Christ with such supernatural qualities makes the rejoinder: "Oh, well, he had a better chance for that kind of life than we can possibly have ..." So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied. The significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit of God. Christ was to be only the prototype of one among many brothers. The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human than any other, and in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine quality or this unity with God was not something thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement through the process of moral struggle and self-abnegation. [iii]

The question King answered was not whether Jesus was divine but rather how he became divine. This approach allowed him to deal with the "insuperable difficulties" of the orthodox position while still explaining why Jesus was unique and different from other people.

In line with his metaphorical interpretation of Jesus, King searched for the deeper significance of the history and context in which the Christian doctrines were created. He suggests, "We should delve into the deeper meaning ... and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation," and when we do this "we will find they are based on a profound foundation."[iv]

In a paper discussing the creation of orthodox beliefs, King argues that the virgin birth story represents a pre-scientific worldview: Christ's followers believed that Jesus's uniqueness could only be explained biologically. According to King, Jesus's early disciples saw his "spiritual life so far beyond theirs" that any attempt to explain his existence as human was inadequate. He concludes, "We of this scientific age will not explain the birth of Jesus in such unscientific terms."[v] This same type of thinking led Christ's followers to externalize their inner experience of his lasting power through the story of the bodily resurrection. Those who knew Jesus "had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality," King writes, which led them to believe that he "could never die."[vi] The living and eternal presence they experienced was then transferred into the story of a bodily resurrection.

In "The Christian Pertinence of Eschatological Hope," a paper King wrote for Christian Theology Today, he explores the core doctrines. The one he denounces most directly is that of the second coming, writing, "It is obvious that most twentieth century Christians must frankly and flatly reject any view of a physical return of Christ."[vii] What were the early Christians trying to convey in predicting the return of Jesus? King states:

Actually we are celebrating the Second Advent every time we open our hearts to Jesus, every time we turn our backs to the low road and accept the high road, every time we say no to self that we may say yes to Jesus Christ, every time a man or wom[a]n turns from ugliness to beauty and is able to forgive even their enemies. Jesus stands at the door of our hearts if we are willing to admit him.... The final doctrine of the second coming is that whenever we turn our lives to the highest and best there for us is the Christ.[viii] This is in effect the continual return of Jesus.

In addressing the orthodox notion of the Day of Judgment, King suggests that we "set aside the spectacular paraphernalia of the judgment scene and the literal throne."[ix] Jesus has already come to judge the world. When we judge ourselves against the life of Christ or experience closeness to him we are experiencing the Day of Judgment. King also denies the traditional notion that some are destined for eternal communion with God while others are destined for hell. In "The Christian Pertinence of Eschatological Hope," he writes, "A physical heaven and a physical hell are inconceivable in a Copernican world ... for us immortality will mean a spiritual existence."[x] And in "Why Religion?" he says, "In reality I know nothing about heaven ... personally I don't believe in hell in the conventional sense."[xi] In the end King interprets the kingdom of God not as some cataclysmic end time or a theocratic kingdom that triumphs over "satanically inspired regimes."[xii] Rather he associates the kingdom of God with the eternal love of God on earth, writing, "When we see social relationships controlled everywhere by the principles which Jesus illustrated in life -- trust, love, mercy, and altruism -- then we shall know that the kingdom of God is here."[xiii]

For entire article see Christian News, January 30, 2012; Vol 50, No 5; http://www.christiannewsmo.com/

LCMS Wins Supreme Court Case- But at What Price?

LCMS Wins Supreme Court Case - But at What Price?
Christian News, January 23, 2012
Vol. 50, No. 4

The unanimous Supreme Court Decision published on January 11, 2012, to protect the right of churches to fire a church worker under the free expression of religion has been praised by American denominations/church corporations and by many religious rights organizations. (See page 39 opinion at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf ).

There is no question that under the First Amendment a church has the authority to remove any church worker, pastor or teacher, without government intervention, for moral turpitude, incompetence, dereliction of duty, incapacity, false doctrine, and financial duress. But this is not why Hosanna Tabor Lutheran Church fired Lutheran School teacher Mrs. Cheryl Perich.

Perich was fired because she threatened to sue her church. In other words, the U. S. Supreme Court has agreed with the LCMS that a member of the LCMS surrenders their right to due process because LCMS pietism teaches it is a sin against the Bible to file suit against another Lutheran.

The U. S. Supreme Court has now recognized the LCMS Doctrine of Dispute
Resolution, invented by the LCMS Council of District Presidents and adopted by the 1992 Convention, as the religious doctrine of the LCMS.

We quote Chief Justice Roberts from the transcript published by the LCMS Reporter, “It’s possible for Lutherans, he said, to say, ‘[L]ook, our dispute-resolution belief is just as important to a Lutheran as the all-male clergy is to a Catholic."

The LCMS has convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that Dispute Resolution, as understood by no less than U. S. Chief Justice Roberts, is “…an important and central tenet of our [LCMS] faith.”

LCMS church workers who object to decisions by church courts, Dispute Resolution Panels, Commission on Constitutional Matters Opinions, Convention resolutions and Handbook by-laws now have no standing in American Courts.

Under LCMS Dispute Resolution all LCMS Pastors and teachers have a right to be judged by a panel of their superiors. So if you choose to work for them you have to ask yourself, “Do I trust these people?”

We quote part of Chief Justice Roberts opinion in favor of the LCMS:

“Reversing that judgment, this Court explained that the First Amendment ‘permit[s] hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters.’ Id., at 724. When ecclesiastical tribunals decide such disputes, we further explained, ‘the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them.’ Id., at 725. We thus held that by inquiring into whether the Church had followed its own procedures, the State Supreme Court had ‘unconstitutionally undertaken the resolution of quintessentially religious controversies whose resolution the First Amendment commits exclusively to the highest ecclesiastical tribunals’ of the Church. Id., at 720.”

The Obama administration, no friend of religion, went in way over its head in defending this obscure test case all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. They thought they found a weak link and could fly under the radar of the large democrat leaning denominations like the Catholic Church, the ELCA, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church U. S. A., and the United Methodist Church; not to mention Jews, Mormons, and Muslims. Who is going to pay attention to a small Republican oriented church body like the LCMS that represents less than three quarters of one percent of the U. S. population? The LCMS projected greetings from President Bush on a large screen at its 2004 and 2007 Conventions.

Instead of arguing about a violation of equal employment, the Obama administration should have argued that the First Amendment negate the right to due process. If a church body says it is a sin to pay taxes is the U. S. Government going to agree with that? What was the Obama administration thinking in a 9 to 0 defeat including two of its own appointees to the court? Their performance is beyond inept, unless they purposely took a dive in order to promote Shariah law in United States courts.

There was great rejoicing in the Vatican and Mecca over this Supreme Court decision. The right to sue includes the right to discovery and force church corporations to open their financial records. It was reported on FOX news that the Catholic Church and other large denominations had been waiting for a decision like this for 30 years.

The unique feature of this new Supreme Court ruling is that the LCMS can file suit against whomever they please but it is a sin and false doctrine for laypeople, churches, pastors, and teachers to sue the Synod.

Legal Counsel to the LCMS Board of Directors, Sherri Strand filed suit against Sharon Bowles, Mary-Ann Hill, Portia Ridgeway, and Celia Moyer for the church property of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church of Oakland, CA (case number RG07363452). She is representing California-Nevada-Hawaii District President Robert Newton in the suit for the church property. Strand also asked the court to make other members such as Ben Chavis show all his financial records including personal accounts, business activity, and tax filings.

Attorney Leondra Kruger argued for the Obama administration. “We’re saying the ‘government’s interest in preventing retaliation against those who would go to civil authorities with civil wrongs is foundational to the rule of law.” This was an excellent point. But Kruger pressed too many other Non sequiturs. How can the First Amendment nullify the right to due processes for American citizens?

We are saying that the First Amendment gives Hosanna Tabor the right to fire Cheryl Perich for parting her hair the wrong way, but not for the right to due process, a right guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution. What is the Supreme Court saying? “If you want the full protection of the U. S. Constitution, don’t join a Church body?”

This was her sin. Hosanna Tabor argued: “As grounds for termination, the letter cited Perich’s ‘insubordination and disruptive behavior’ on February 22, as well as the damage she had done to her ‘working relationship’ with the school by ‘threatening to take legal action.’”

Last week was pivotal for Religion America. The Supreme Court Decision issued on January 11, 2012 was in favor of the LCMS. However the day before on January 10, 2012, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that blocked the implementation of an Oklahoma law barring judges from considering international or Islamic law in their decisions.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling released Tuesday, affirmed an order by a district court judge in 2010 that prevented the voter-approved state constitutional amendment from taking effect. The ruling also allows a Muslim community leader in Oklahoma City to continue his legal challenge of the law’s constitutionality.

If the LCMS Church courts have the force of law that suspend constitutional rights, the same is true for every other religion including Muslim, Islamic or Shariah Law. If the Supreme Court says First Amendment protects LCMS Dispute Resolution, it also protects Shariah Law, and Vatican Cannon Law.

In his opinion Chief Justice Roberts reflects on the problems of religious influence in Colonial American courts prior to the U. S. Constitution. But hasn’t the Supreme Court just laid the ground work for a revival of the same problem and a new ecclesiastical feudalism?

There is great rejoicing in LCMS District Offices and St. Louis headquarters over this new ruling. The irony is that the LCMS was founded on Waltherian congregational polity and abhorred every kind of European clerical hierarchy and sacerdotal legalism. However, now the LCMS rejoices over words such as “this Court explained that the First Amendment ‘permit[s] hierarchical religious organizations to establish their own rules and regulations for internal discipline and government, and to create tribunals for adjudicating disputes over these matters.”

This is the same position that Strand argued in her motion to the Court in Oakland on September 9, 2010, filed for Newton:

“‘The LCMS is a connectional religious denomination, under which each member congregation has agreed to and are committed to act in accord with the Synod’s Bylaws and Constitution. (Resp. Fact 1). The LCMS more resembles—at least for present purposes involving secular court determinations of properly disputes —a ‘hierarchical’ structure where the congregation is ‘itself part of a large and general organization of some religious denomination, with which it is more or less intimately connected by religious views and ecclesiastical government.’ Episcopal Church Cases, 45 Cal.4th at 480 (citing Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679, 726-27 (1871)). Therefore, the cases resolving property disputes involving so called ‘hierarchical’ churches are most applicable to resolving a property dispute within the LCMS. In such cases, as here, ‘whenever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these [hierarchical] church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them.’ Id. at 408 (citing Watson, 80 U.S. at 727; Serbian Orthodox [sic] Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 710 (1976)).”

The Supreme Court has now agreed that the LCMS is a “hierarchical religious organization” regardless of what they tell the Convention delegates and the laypeople in the congregations. Under the Dispute Resolution Process LCMS District Presidents now function as regional church magistrates whose jurisdiction is recognized by the U. S. Supreme Court. This wasn’t nearly as much a victory for the small-fry LCMS as it was for the Vatican, Mecca, and Salt Lake City.

We predict that LCMS Districts, the LCMS Convention, not to mention numerous other religious organizations, will be busy crafting new resolutions, opinions, by-laws etc. to clarify, strengthen, and increase the scope of their newly confirmed legislative and judicial powers over church property and lay people.

This author accused the LCMS of real-estate fraud over an opinion issued by the LCMS CCM in May of 2004. We now must apologize. It is not real-estate fraud for a District President to have the right to suspend proper channels in congregational constitutions. According to the Supreme Court they have that right even if the laypeople are not aware of it.

As for me, I wish to thank the Chairman of the Council of the District Presidents and the Michigan District President, William Hoesmann, for removing me from the LCMS clergy roster without a hearing for complaining about LCMS real-estate fraud. Dispute Resolution is not my religion; I do not confess it, and I do not believe the same religion the LCMS confessed to the U. S. Supreme Court, even if it did cost me half of my pension for the rest of my life. In the future lay people will be advised to see what a congregation’s constitution actually says and also the jurisdictional and legal controls the parent church body exercises over the congregation before they join it.

CHRISTIANS TELL THE TRUTH

Official Definition of Holocaust
“The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators as a central act of state during the Second World War.” President’s Commission on the Holocaust, forerunner of the official U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, 1979.”

CHRISTIANS TELL THE TRUTH

Holocaust Theology Examining the Evidence
(Preface to a new book Christian News

intends to publish when funds are available)

“These are the things you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates” (Zachariah 8:16).

“All liars will find themselves in the lake burning with fire and sulfur; this is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

“Speak out for those who can’t speak, for the right of those who are doomed. Talk up, render a fair decision, and defend the rights of the poor and needy people” (Proverbs 31:9).

Chief among those who have been doomed, exterminated, and who cannot speak up, are the many millions who have been slaughtered because of the pro-abortion policy of their nation, America, Germany, Russia, Israel, etc.

When the editor of this book began Christian News during the 1960s he was considered some “kook” out of step with the times for fighting against abortion and complaining that many unborn infants, even in Lutheran hospitals, were being slaughtered. His congregation petitioned the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod prior to the 1973 Supreme Court pro-abortion ruling to declare abortion sinful killing except in the rare instance where the life of the mother is in danger. When Christian News began, most were remaining silent about abortion. Even the LCMS’ Concordia Publishing House published a book supporting abortion. In 1976 the CN editor was invited to speak on “Why Christian News” at a meeting of the Lutheran Editors and Managers Association meeting that year at Concordia Publishing House. The editor concluded after presenting the reasons why Christian News began: “Why Christian News? If you Lutheran journalists on the staffs of official Lutheran publications continue to support abortion and remain silent about this tremendous sin, Lutherans surely need an independent publication
which warns that abortion is sinful and which exposes the fact that thousands of unborn infants are being killed even in Lutheran hospitals”.

Eventually the LCMS adopted the position recommended by the editor’s congregation. It became the first major Protestant denomination to condemn abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court ruling.

During the 1960s and 70s, Christian News published hundreds of articles against Communism and supporting the captive nations and pleading the case for Christian martyrs suffering under Communism. The editor’s congregation petitioned the LCMS to adopt a resolution calling for an observance of Captive Nations Sunday and prayers for Christian martyrs in nations controlled by the Communist. In 1975 the LCMS adopted this resolution proposed by the editor’s congregation.

(To read complete article see Christian News, Vol. 50, No 3 – 1-16-12; www.ChristianNewsMo.com)

ALL CLAIM BONHOEFFER WAS A CONFESSIONAL LUTHERAN

CAN THEY All BE “Dead Wrong”?

What Do Marty, M. Becker, McCain, Harrison, Collver, Netto, Andrea, KFUO, Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, CPH, Thrivent and The Lutheran Witness Have In Common?

ALL CLAIM BONHOEFFER WAS A CONFESSIONAL LUTHERAN

Christian News, Vol. 50, No. 2, January 9, 2012

This issue includes a review which appeared in the December 27 Christian Century of Martin Marty’s new book “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Paper’s from Prison: A Biography” (p. 1)

Marty has long been a great fan of Bonhoeffer. The May 27, 1966 TIME said: “So persuasive is his influence that Lutheran Church historian Martin Marty once suggested dividing the world into two groups: Those who admit their debt to Bonhoeffer and those who borrow his ideas without acknowledgment.”

The Christian Century’s review of Marty’s new book on Bonhoeffer concludes: “Both the casual fan and the serious scholar should commend Marty for his fine account of Bonhoeffer’s most famous and most enigmatic book.”

The First article in CN’s Bonhoeffer and King: Their Life and Theology Documented in Christian News 1963-2011 - A Fifty Year Battle vs. Intellectual Laziness is “Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” an editorial which appeared in the November 15, 1965 Lutheran News (now Christian News) when Lutherans in the Detroit area praised Bonhoeffer more the Martin Luther at a Reformation Service. The editorial quoted at great length from Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, Fortuna, S.C.M. Press, Great Britain, 1953. CN, almost 50 years ago, suggested that readers study this book for themselves.
Bonhoeffer wrote in his Letters and Papers from Prison that “the Old Testament is not a religion of salvation.” He denies that the known eighth century B.C. Prophet Isaiah wrote the book of Isaiah (112).

Among the “mythological” elements he found in Christianity is the resurrection (110). According to Bonhoeffer, Rudolph Bultmann did not go far enough in demythologizing the Bible (p. 24). Bonhoeffer writes “we are preceding towards a time of no religion at all: men as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore” (p. 91). “God is teaching us that we must live as man who can get along very well without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34)” (p. 122).

“Belief in the Resurrection is not the solution of the problem of death (p. 93). According to Bonhoeffer, the demythologizer of the Bible, God is now superfluous (pp. 103-165).

In his book on Creation and Fall, Bonhoeffer wrote that the book of Genesis contains myths.

Reprinted on page 3 from the June 27, 1966 Lutheran News is “Bonhoeffer Influence.” It is on pp. 9 and 10 of Bonhoeffer and King.

The three major articles in the book published by CN in 2011 on Bonhoeffer by Christian theologians who show that Bonhoeffer rejected such doctrines as the resurrection of Christ and repudiated historic Christianity are by Raymond Surburg, Cornelius Van Til, and Richard Weikart. They all quote Bonhoeffer and show that Bonhoeffer’s Christ is not the Christ of the Bible.

Bonhoeffer’s last book, Letter’s and Papers From Prison was published in 1953. This editor attended Concordia Seminary St. Louis from 1952-1958.

Bonhoeffer, now hailed as the most important Lutheran since Martin Luther, was hardly mentioned by liberal or conservative professors. They all must have been extremely ignorant and uninformed. Barth, Aulen, Nygren, Emil Brunner, Pauck, the Niebuhr brothers and Tillich were praised as the great important “Christian” scholars whose books must be read and quoted by those who wanted to be considered well informed intellectuals and scholars. Bonhoeffer was never mentioned by faculty members in their Concordia Theological Monthly. There is no mention of him in the index of the Concordia Theological Monthly 1930-1959.

However the index does list Cornelius Van Til’s “Christianity and Crisis Theology”. It is in the Christian News Encyclopedia together with numerous other articles the Bonhoeffer fans should read to get informed about what is going on in the theological world. As Kurt Marquart said, for intellectual snobs, something in a publication they despise just does not exist. Van Til’s “Dietrich Bonhoeffer – A Review Article”, which first appeared in the May 1972 Westminster Theological Quarterly, is on pp. 71-85 of Bonhoeffer and King. It has 94 footnotes, most of them quotes from Bonhoeffer.

“Scripture and Myth In Dietrich Bonhoeffer” by Richard Weikart is on pp. 128-139 of Bonhoeffer and King. Raymond Surburg’s “An Evaluation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life and Theology after Half a Century” is on pp. 23-33. Many of the 61 footnotes are quoted from Bonhoeffer, including some 10 from Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. Since Surburg was long a professor at Concordia, Springfield, Illinois, then Ft.Wayne, Indiana. CN suggested that at least one of the Bonhoeffer fans and scholars the seminary invited to speak at the seminary’s big Bonhoeffer centennial re spond to Surburg. What Surburg exposed about Bonhoeffer’s anti-scriptural theology was totally ignored by the scholars who follow the crowd of Bonhoeffer admirers.

CN has suggested that CPH publish a book with Surburg’s essays on a variety of topics in the Christian News Encyclopedia. CPH and Paul McCain are more interested in promoting Bonhoeffer’s writings. They have the wholehearted financial support of the Schwan Foundation.

Martin Marty, Matthew Becker, Matthew Harrison, Albert Collver, Simeon Uwe Netto, Eric Andrae, Concordia Seminary, Fort Wayne, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, CPH, Thrivent, The Schwan Foundation and the Lutheran Witness all have something in common. They all praise Dietrich Bonhoeffer or finance those who praise Bonhoeffer as a great Christian Lutheran and believer in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can all these great Lutheran scholars defended by the organized conservatives who want CN to close be wrong? Read the facts revealed in Bonhoeffer and King and Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison now again promoted by Marty in a new book and judge for yourself.
Some 60 years ago when this editor and Kurt Marquart first began expressing concern at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis about some of the great liberal theologians in Christendom held in high regard at the seminary, they were almost alone. The majority considered the “Marquart/Otten team” in error and “screwballs”. The fact that all these great Lutheran theologians today praise Bonhoeffer and the CN editor is considered “out of the loop” and not “politically correct” still does not prove that the vast majority is correct. Truth is not determined by vote, but by scripture and solid evidence. Most of the “great scholars” are no more interested in studying the evidence in Bonhoeffer and King then they are in examining the evidence for the six million holocaust which has grown with the Bonhoeffer myth to show that Lutherans are pro-Israel and not “anti-Semitic”.

50th Anniversary Year - Why This Newsletter

50th Anniversary Year
Why This Newsletter?

This issue, Volume 50, Number 1, Issue Number 2298, marks the beginning of the 50th anniversary year of Christian News. The first page of the first issue is reproduced on p. 20. CN began in the basement “dungeon” of the parsonage of Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri on December 15, 1962. The editor cranked the hand mimeograph thousands of times. It was called Lutheran News until January 1, 1968.

The Statement of Policy on page 4 in each issue since 1968 was written by Dr. Kurt Marquart, who had been the editor’s roommate at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

Many of the names of those to whom the first issues of CN were sent by member of the State of the Church Conference, a group of Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastors and laymen concerned about the growth of the theological liberalism and a pro-communist attitude within churches. It began at the Mule Mountain Ranch in Bisbee, Arizona where a group of pastors and laymen concerned about a pro-communist attitude within some major denominations had been meeting annually after Christmas. Some of them heard about a recent graduate of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis serving as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Mo. They invited him to speak for four hours on their program. It took him almost 2 days to get there by bus and hitchhiking.

The anti-communist pastors and layman had him speak some 12 hours during the days at the ranch. Plans were then made to combat the theological liberalism, which the recent seminary graduate had shown the group had infiltrated the LCMS. He told them that this theological liberalism could be far more destructive than the pro-communist position of many churchman which had been their primary concern. At the time hundreds of U.S. clergyman were members of Communist front groups.

When the pastors meeting in Arizona asked the seminary graduate for the names of leaders of “your” group opposing theological liberalism, the graduate said there really was no organized group but that men like Kurt Marquart and Harold Romoser shared his concerns. When the graduate suggested that the leader of the anti-communist pastors meeting in Arizona, Dr. August Brustat, would be a good chairmen of a group opposing theological liberalism, Brustat said this would not be wise since he was a member of the “44”, an organization of leading liberals in the LCMS. Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Oswald Hoffman was the last living member of the “44”. Otten then suggested that Cameron Mackenzie: would make a good chairman. Mackenzie, a Detriot pastor, agreed to serve and immediately called for an organizing meeting in Detroit. Dr. Louis Brighton, later a long time professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, became a member of the executive committee of the conservatives at a meeting in Detroit which called for a “State of the Church Conference” in Milwaukee. A future editor of Affirm was critical of the conservatives who opposed liberalism in the LCMS. He wrote in his column “To Tell the Truth” in The Badger Lutheran of the LCMS’s Milwaukee Council of Churches that among the men associated with those calling for a “State of the Church” meeting in Milwaukee was a “a graduate whom the seminary has so far refused ordination, and a person officially connected with another fringe publication.”

The Church League of America
The uncertified graduate had done some writing for the Church League of America, including Parts I, II, III and IV of “What is Troubling the Lutherans? The series was sent to LCMS churches, throughout the nation. The seminary graduate paid for most of the $1,000 cost of mailing from his, at the time, $150 monthly salary. He also compiled the 1961 and 1962 State of the Church Documentation, about 200 pages each, printed by Cameron Mackenzie at his Detroit church.

Hundreds from all over the nation attended the 1961 SOC gathering in Milwaukee, about 400 “registered” voting delegates plus some unregistered guests.” Future LCMS President Jack Preus was among the registered delegates. He kept his registration badge inside of his jacket, in order not to displease any church officials. Among the speakers at the SOC conference were Dr. William Beck, Dr. Siegbert Becker, Dr. L.W. Faulstick, Moderator Machenzie, Dr. August Brustarts, William McMurdie, Harold Romoser, Ben Bryant, M.D., Arnold Gebhardt and Fred Bendewald.

Neither the secular nor religious press presented accurate reports about what was said and done in the Milwaukee SOC meeting. The conservatives recognized they needed their own publication to publish accurate reports.
When the seminary graduate married Deaconess Grace Anderson they went on a 5,000 mile wedding trip. Along the way they spoke to many groups on “The Crisis in Christendom.” Names gathered on this trip were also used for the first mailing of Lutheran News. Grace spent the 30 dollars she had saved for Christmas presents to pay for the first issue.

Reprinted in this is “Why this Newsletter?” from page 1 of the first issue of Lutheran News and “A Forty year Battle For Free Speech”, a 54 page (11”x17”) booklet published in 1995. It has the history behind the founding of Christian News. Next month CN will publish “Officials Urge New Haven-REMOVE YOUR PASTOR, the recorded transcript of a meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri, 4 days after the first issue of Lutheran News was published. After 50 years, the LCMS’ Council of President has not changed much. The COP call is still “remove your Pastor.” He is “an impenitent sinner on the road to Hell.”

For the entire article see Christian News, Volume 50, No. 1, January 2, 2012

Where Is Heaven?

Where Is Heaven?
Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 48, December 19, 2011


“Infinity and Beyond” is the title of a feature story in the December 5 Time. The Subtitle is “After 34 years in space and a combined 20 billion miles, Voyager 1 and 2 are poised for their greatest adventure yet.” A section from the article reproduced on page 2 of the December 12 CN shows that Voyager 1 is approaching the “Edge of solar system 12 billion miles.”

Time says “There’s no way of knowing exactly where the solar system ends, but the best guess is that it’s up to 12 billion miles from the sun.”

Time’s “Infinity and Beyond led CN to consider again publicizing Journey to the Edge of Creation of our Solar System and The Milky Way and Beyond. Creation Astronomer Danny Faulkner had a major role in these videos.

“Astronomer Says God Created the World in Six Literal Days”, the lead story in the November 16, 1998 CN had this subtitle: “Has the Hubble Space Telescope Shown the Universe is 13 Billion Years Old?” It said:

"Astronomers Peer Into the Past," a New York Times Service story in the October 26 International Herald Tribune (Paris) reports: "Two weeks ago, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of what astronomers think are the most distant galaxies ever studied. These galaxies probably formed in the first billion years of cosmic history, or more than 12 billion years ago. Such estimates are rough because they depend on cosmological models and chronological yardsticks based on the universe's being about 13 billion years old, which is controversial and subject to revision."

Dr. Danny Faulkner, one of the few Creationist Astronomers in the U.S., insisted at a lecture at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri, on Saturday, November 7, that God created the world in six literal days less than ten thousand years ago.

Faulkner stressed that as a Christian and a Creation Astronomer his basic assumption is that the Bible is God's authoritative and inerrant Word. He said that it was important for a Christian to recognize the historicity of man's fall into sin described in Genesis 3 and the reality of the year-long global and universal flood mentioned in Genesis 6-8.

Dr. Faulkner received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Indiana University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of South Carolina-Lancaster. His professional memberships include the American Astronomical Society, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Sigma Xi. He has conducted many nights of photoelectric observations on telescopes of aperture between 16 and 50 inches in Georgia, Indiana, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Chile. His work has been published in the Astrophysical Journal, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and Information Bulletin on Variable Stars. He is also an editor for Program Notes on Close Binary Stars, a semiannual international publication.

Dr. Faulkner's creation writings have been published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism, and Impact, a publication of ICR, the Institute for Creation Research in Santee, California. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the ICR Graduate School and a member of the Creation Research Society. He has been an invited speaker at creation conferences in South Korea, Origins 98 at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, and the 1998 International Creationism Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has been interviewed on Christian radio and appears in the Moody Institute of Science two-part video tape series Journeys to the Edge of Creation.

"Our Solar System" and "The Milky Way and Beyond”, the two-part videotape series of Journeys to the Edge of Creation, is available from Christian News for $14.00 plus postage. Dr. Faulkner served as a technical advisor for the series.

He is also the technical adviser for Voyage to the Stars and Voyage to the Planets published by the Institute for Creation Research. These books are reviewed in this issue of CN.

Dr. Faulkner accepts the statement of belief of the Creation Research Society, an organization of several hundred scientists. The statement says:

"1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

"2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since the Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

"3. The great Flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

"4. We are an organization of Christian men of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior." Pastor Herman Otten of Trinity Lutheran Church noted that when Dr. Walter Lammerts visited New Haven some 40 years ago Lammerts told him that there should be room within Bible-believing Christian churches for astronomers, biologists, physicists, chemists, and other scientist whose research may have led then to new insights as long as they do not contradict the authoritative Word of God set forth in Holy Scripture. Lammerts commented on astronomy and the billions of years which most astronomers accept as the age of the earth because of tremendous distances stars are from the earth and the time it would take for light to travel from these stars to be seen on earth. Lammerts wrote in "The Creation Concept," an essay published in the November 18, 1963, Christian News:

"A crude analogy is that of filling a large tank with water under pressure through a hose several hundred feet long. Once the tank is full the flow immediately reverses when pressure is discontinued. No matter how long the hose, water pours out immediately at a rate determined by the tank pressure. Astronomers of the uniformitarian school would have us starting with an empty hose. Then, of course, the time taken by the water to travel through the hose would be a measure of the length of the hose. So they assume stars as beginning to shine with no photons of light connecting them with the earth or other stars. But if the stars are conceived as being created by the flow of energy into them, then as soon as they begin to shine by virtue of this accumulated energy, a reversal in flow of light photons would immediately be visible here on the earth."

Dr. Walter Lammerts' "The Creation Concept" is reprinted in this issue, pp. 7-9. Lammerts thanked CN for publishing his essay at a time when the LCMS’ official publications, including the theological journals of both LCMS seminaries, would not publish the essay because of its strong stand against evolution.

Lammerts, and the CN editor, together with some other LCMS confessional Lutherans, met with the President and Vice-Presidents of the LCMS in St. Louis at the headquarters of the LCMS in 1965. Lammerts attempted to persuade the top LCMS leaders that evolution was being promoted in various sections of the LCMS. The LCMS officials argued that the LCMS professors Lammerts said were teaching evolution as a fact were simply promoting "progressive creation."

A recent survey showed that many LCMS high school teachers are teaching theistic evolution. LCMS officials have refused to discipline pastors and professors in the LCMS who promote evolution even though the LCMS in convention after convention has rejected evolution and affirmed the historicity of the Genesis account of creation, fall into sin, and flood.

Most denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope, accept the evolutionary origin of man and the universe.

God Enters the World as an Infant
Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 47
December 12, 2011

The Final Secret of the Universe
By Dr. Kurt Marquart
John 1:1-18

John opens his majestic prologue to his Gospel with the very first words of the Bible: “In the beginning …” (Genesis 1:1). When God started to make everything, “the Word” (Christ) was already there, because “the Word was God.” Christ is the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Christ is God’s Self-Expression, Mind, Reason, and Pattern by whom everything was created. Against the idea that Jesus only became God’s Son in His Baptism or by the Resurrection, John makes it quite clear that Christ was God all along, without beginning and without end.

Verse 3 (just like Colossians 1:15-17) draws a clear line between Christ and the whole created universe, visible and invisible. Christ, as God and Creator, is on one side of the line, and all else is on the other side, as His creation.

And then comes the most mind-boggling miracle and mystery of all: “The Word became flesh”! In Christ, God became Man-and still is. Some think that Christ put away His manhood when He ascended into heaven-or that He “Filed it away” some where in heaven, so that He is now with us only as God, not as Man. But after the Word has become flesh through His miraculous conception and birth of His blessed Virgin mother, it is impossible to tear Him apart, as if God were here and His flesh there. No, wherever He is as Man, there also He is as God, and vice versa. In Colossians 2:9 (after the Ascension!) Paul uses the present tense: “In Him all the fullness of the Deity dwells bodily.”

Luther: “So it is final, says St. Paul, the whole, total Godhead dwells bodily, that is personally, in Jesus Christ. Therefore the fellow who does not find or get God in Christ shall never again and nowhere else have or find God outside of Christ, even if he goes, as it were, over heaven, under hell, or into space!”

Millions of dollars are spent every year to spy or “eavesdrop” on the universe with sophisticated electronic gear. Scientists are straining every ounce of their ingenuity to find evidence of meaningful signals, indicating the presence of intelligent forms of life somewhere deep in space. And all along the central riddle of the universe, and its self-solution, are largely ignored: God the Creator/Communicator freely opens and offers Himself to us in the Baby of Bethlehem! This is the secret or mystery long hidden, but now made plain through the preaching of Christ’s apostles (Romans 16:25-27; Colossians 1:26, 27:2; 2:2; 1 Timothy 3:16) – and even the angels have to learn it from them (1 Peter 1:12)! And Christ still has “communication centers” all over the world – wherever two or three gather in His Name (Matthew 18:20), especially as His communicants (1 Corinthians 10:16)!

“He lived among us and we saw His glory” (v. 14). His flesh is still a kind of Shield which protects us from that divine Radiation which no man can see and still live (Exodus 33:20). Even high heavenly beings have to cover their faces before Him (Isaiah 6:1.2; compare John 12:41). Christ’s human flesh is like a screen: it “filters out”, for those who believe in Him, the death-dealing rays of God’s justice and anger-yet lets through the life-giving light of His love and grace, vv. 4, 9, 14, 16, 17! For while the Law came through Moses, grace and truth, that is God’s free favor, came by Jesus Christ. Moses and the Old Covenant are shadow and picture. Jesus and His New Covenant are fullness, body, reality (Colossians 2:17; 2 Corinthians 3:6-4:6).