Wake Up Torpedo Hits Missouri In Big Lawsuit

Christian News 9/6
A Wakeup torpedo hit The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod on August 27 when Marshall Whitley, Judge of the Superior Court of California In and For The County of Alameda in a case involving the property of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Oakland, California. Both sides have spent several hundred thousand dollars in the case. The record shows that hundreds of thousands of dollars of mission funds were used the in the LCMS’s California-Nevada-Hawaii District. The district is the Synod in that place.

Judge Marshall Whitley, who appears to have the intellect of a Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, denied the plaintiffs, which includes the LCMS’s California-Nevada-Hawaii District, motion for Summary Judgment. The ruling is being hailed as a great victory for the rights of congregations and laymen and the scriptural doctrine of the Church and Ministry set forth by C.F.W. Walther, first president and chief theologian of the LCMS.

The ruling says in part:
“The documents specifically provide that the LCMS is not an ‘ecclesiastical government’ but acts only as an ‘an advisory body’ to member congregations. (LCMS Handbook, Const. Art VII,1, Bylaw 1.7.2, Ex. B to Defs.’ Appendix.) Congregations are members of the LCMS, but individual members in the congregations, with exceptions not relevant here, are not. (Id. Art. V; Bylaw 1.2.1.) A congregation’s membership in the LCMS gives the LCMS no interest in the property of the congregation. (Id., Art. VII.2)”

Christian News received the entire ruling just as the editor was completing the layout for this week’s CN and already had to eliminate about eight pages for reasons of space. The entire five page ruling will appear in next week’s issue.

The ruling mentions a deposition taken of LCMS President Jerry Kieschnick. LCMS and California-Hawaii-Nevada District Attorney Sherri Strand traveled several times to California. Kieschnick testified under oath, when he was deposed, that the editor of Christian News has a long history of twisting the truth. When CN reminded Kieschnick that such testimony given under oath is perjury, if he could not show where CN had not told the truth, Kieschnick remained silent. Kieschnick first told CN he knew nothing about the case and was opposed to such legal action. The LCMS’s 2007 convention opposed going to civil court. When CN asked Kieschnick to ask his California-Hawaii-Nevada District, whose president has been one of his chief supporters, to call off the lawsuit, Kieschnick refused.

LCMS publications, the publications and blogs of organized conservatives, and Jesus First and DayStar have been silent about the case even though the record was public.
It has not yet been determined just how much the ruling will now cost the LCMS district and Synod and whether the Defendants will sue the district and Synod for filing a frivolous lawsuit which caused the defendants great expense and anxiety for several years.

Famous California educator Dr. Ben Chavis, author of “Crazy Like a Fox”, a Vice-President of the California congregation was one of those involved in the lawsuit. “Crazy For LCMS To Threaten Ben Chavis” was the lead story in the April 26, 2010 CN. CN reviewed “Crazy Like A Fox.” The ruling could serve as a wake up torpedo if it gets thousands of LCMS pastors and laymen to recognize that if they want to know what is going on in the LCMS they should be reading Christian News.

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