Concordia Wisconsin – Biggest and Best
Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 1
January 3, 2011
A major portion of this issue reports on a study of U.S. Colleges published in the November, 2010 First Things. The LCMS’s Concordia, Wisconsin is the only Lutheran school which received an “Honorable Mention” on the First Thing’s list of “Best Seriously Protestant Schools.” “Forum Letter Reports on First Things College Issue” on p. 11 reports:
“Concordia University Wisconsin made the list of ‘Schools on the Rise Filled with Excitement,’ though there was no commentary to tell us what is so exciting; still, good for them. As for the rest, you can quarrel with the methodology, and even with the very idea of rating colleges in this way, but you can’t quarrel with the reality that these are not your grandmother’s church colleges.”
While First Things did not say why Concordia, Wisconsin made its list of “Schools on the Rise Filled With Excitement” and was the only Lutheran school even receiving an “Honorable Mention” on its list of “Best Seriously Protestant Schools,” here are ten reasons why Concordia, Wisconsin may very well be, not only the largest but best Lutheran “Protestant” college in the nation, if the fine small colleges of the WELS, ELS, and CLC are not considered large enough to be ranked.
Years ago this editor spoke in some of the schools of the Concordia University System. Several of the hundreds of articles CN published about the LCMS schools are in the Christian News Encyclopedia. Hundreds of students came to hear the editor. Liberal profs were miffed.
1. Statement on Worship
Christian News knows of no finer statement on “Worship in a Collegiate Setting” adopted by the Faculty and Board of Regents of any college in the U.S. than “Worship in a Collegiate Setting” (p. 13) prepared by the faculty and Board of Regents representatives during the 1995-96 academic year. CN said when it first appeared that the CUW statement should be adopted by all Lutheran schools.
2. A Lutheran Worldview
“Is the Concordia University System Lutheran?” (p. 13) in the November 24, 1997 Christian News reprinted much of What Richard C. Eyer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at CUW wrote in “Does Concordia lack a Lutheran Uniqueness?”in CUS’s October 2, 1997 Beacon. The entire article in CN appears on p. 13. The concluding statement from the CUW Beacon is: “Before we can put aside what for some may be boastful pride in being Lutheran and for others appears to be the shame or embarrassment of being Lutheran we must learn together the uniqueness of a Lutheran worldview based on Lutheran theology. It is our gift to the world and our contribution to the Church through the academy known as Concordia Lutheran University Wisconsin.”
3. Leaders in Pre-Seminary Enrollment
“Concordia University Wisconsin Leader in Pre-Seminary Enrollment” in the March 1, 1993 Christian News reported that “Information compiled by the Concordia Seminary, in St. Louis notes that graduates from Concordia University, Wisconsin comprise the largest number of incoming students compared to all colleges and universities.
“Concordia is proud to maintain its tradition of preparing students for the pastoral ministry.”
4. Liberal Professors Removed
Eight years ago Christian News was sent a 14 page letter for publication claiming that President Ferry “is more a politician than pastor” and that liberals and pro-abortionist are not removed from the faculty. CN sent the letter to President Ferry and Professor Gene Veith.
Dr. Veith, some of whose excellent books CN has long promoted and sold, responded on February 24, 2002 in part:
“There are liberal and un-Lutheran elements on our campus, I regret to say, but whereas on most campuses they are in charge, with the conservatives being a beleaguered minority, on our campus the opposite is the case; conservative theology is the norm, though there is a small number of liberal dissidents. Some of the liberalism comes from part-time faculty members, hired at the last minute to cover courses necessitated by our growing enrollment. (Mr. ________ mentioned in the letter, is one of those.) This is a weakness, but, to give the administration credit where it is due, I have known the administration to fire some of them in mid-semester, when they have taught evolution or something similarly egregious.
“At our last faculty meeting, someone nominated David Benke as alumus of the year. Though such a nomination should never have been made, and though a couple of my colleagues spoke in his defense, the nomination was voted down decisively. Not only did I speak out against it, so did our theology faculty, and so did Dr. Ferry. Again, there is liberalism here, but they are outweighed by the conservatives. (It will be interesting to see what the other Concordias do with the Benke issue.)”
“It is possible for a student, who is well-advised (which is why they come to me), to avoid the liberal teachers and just select those who are solid. Our theology division is very trustworthy. (Why didn’t this letter writer mention any theology and Bible classes that she surely would have taken?) Significantly, our Science division is strongly creationist, something that few Christian or Lutheran colleges can claim these days.
“Yes, we have our problems—I battle them every day—but this letter creates the wrong impression about Concordia, Wisconsin. I am even suspicious about who it is that keeps circulating this letter –rival institutions, perhaps, who want to tear down Mequon’s reputation? It is no coincidence that the school that is the most conservative is growing the fastest and has the fewest financial problems.”
5. A Christ Centered, Articulate President
“Dying to Live,” a report in the Feb. 20, 2001 CN of youth conference held in the LCMS’s Wyoming District where President Patrick Ferry was among the speakers said:
“While all of the speakers made a good presentation and had much to offer, this editor was particularly impressed with the speakers on the first video, Senkbeil, Rast, Ferry, and Lange. Youth could soon find out that confessional Lutherans are Christ-centered and real men who speak with solid conviction. They are not some mealy mouthed, wishy-washy theologians who leave everything up in the air. The editor had never heard Dr. Ferry until he viewed his session in this series. It is no wonder that an increasing number of confessional pastors are urging those in their congregations who want to go into full time church work to attend Concordia University, Wisconsin. Every LCMS college should have such a Christ-centered, articulate president who speaks with authority. CN is reprinting one of CN’s reviews of Pastor Senkbeil’s Sanctification: Christ In Action. CN has sold many copies of this book. Senkbeil’s book Dying to Live is also available from CN.”
6. Confessional Lutheran Lectures
The Summer 2002 Concordian has this notice of a series of presentations at CUW featuring lectures by confessional Lutherans: CUW Lectures New Video Series
A series of presentations given at CUW in 2001 noted Lutheran scholars has been made available in video format as a nine-part series on Lutheran spirituality, under the title Saved by Grace. . . Now What? It is ideal for use in adult Bible study or assimilation class, confirmation instruction, and high school or college Bible study or religion class.
The series was sponsored by CUW’s Cranach Institute and taped by Lutheran Visuals. Dr. Gene Edward Veith, Director of the Cranach Institute, introduces the topics: Justification, by Dr. Karl Barth; Means of Grace, by Dr. Arthur Just; Vocation, by Dr. Steve Hein; and Theology of the Cross, by Dr. Robert Kolb. Lutheran Visuals provided expert editing and a study guide. Available from Lutheran Visuals at 1-800-527-3211 or www.lutheranvisuals.com.
7. “Professor Kurt Marquart – An earned D.D.” in the April 30, 2001 Christian News said:
“Concordia University, Wisconsin, and its fine president Dr. Patrick Ferry, should be commended for awarding Professor Marquart a D.D. Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, should have given it to him long ago. The fact that Concordia, Wisconsin, is awarding Professor Marquart a D.D. is just one more reason why youth should consider attending Concordia, Wisconsin.”
The Winter, 2002 Concordian which had a photo of Concordia, Wisconsin’s President Patrick Ferry awarding Professor Marquart a D.D. said in “Ferry Reappointed President”: “Under Dr. Ferry’s leadership enrollment of those preparing to be Lutheran pastors, teachers, and other church workers, the historic focus of the school, has increased to nearly 900 students.” Under faculty and staff highlights such confessional Lutheran scholars as Roland Cap Ehlke, Nathan Jastram, Timothy Maschke, Angus Menuge, G. Edward Veith and Kevin Vogts are listed.
Dr. Nathan Jastram is the author of “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Bible Jesus Could Have Used” in the Winter, 2002 Concordian. He mentions a letter of introduction from Professor John Strugnell whose work was often commended in Christian News.
8. CUW Making the Grade
“CUW Making the Grade” in the Summer, 2002 Concordian reports how CUW students graded their professors. 95% strongly Agree/Agree “My Concordia advisor/mentor …” “Is friendly and demonstrates Christian concern.” 90% said that the Concordia faculty “Has excellent teaching ability.” Dr. Tamara Ferry, Director of Institutional Research at CUW comments: “These statistics portray a talented, dedicated, and approachable faculty, and a university fulfilling its mission by providing excellence in teaching and learning. The people behind these numbers are Christian servants who are committed, as our Mission Statement says, ‘to helping students develop in mind, body, and spirit for service to Christ in the Church and the world.’”
9. Upholding Creation
Dr. Angus J.L. Menuge recommended Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” in the Spring, 2008 Concordia of CUW. CN published several articles on this movie. Professor Menuge noted: “Historically, Lutherans have upheld creation as a fact discernible by natural reason (Romans 1:18-20; Psalm 19). Several of the great scientists at the forefront of the scientific revolution were Lutherans whose scientific work was guided by design, e.g. Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Jochim Rheticus.”
10. Plagiarism Cover Up
“Professor Says Plagiarism Cover Up in CUS,” a story on page one of the November 1, 2010 Christian News published the cover of the Spring, 2010 Concordian of CUW which featured Dr. Nathan Jastram in a story titled “The Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit and Biblical Faith.” As far as CN knows Dr. Jastram, Chairman of the Department of Theology at CUS, is the only CUS professor who has had the courage to oppose a clear case of plagiarism on the part of a leading LCMS theologian who has been the president of Concordia University, St. Paul, Minnesota, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and now is president of Concordia University, Chicago. After the rank plagiarism was covered up for years by leaders of the CUS and the LCMS bureaucracy, Dr. Jastram finally went public by sending Christian News the documentation. CN sent it to the Concordia University, Chicago president and Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne where the plagiarism was published and was still being promoted. After Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne ignored CN and did not publish a correction and apology CN published “Professor Says Plagiarism Cover Up in CUS.”
When Dr. Jastram was doing graduate work at Harvard University he also served a congregation. A student who was a member of the congregation at the time told CN that he was “not only a great scholar but an excellent, personable and gentle preacher and teacher.”
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Nothing New In LCMS
Organized Conservatives Supporting ESV, Opposing AAT and Calling for End of Christian News
NOTHING NEW IN LCMS
Christian News, December 20, 2010, Vol. 48, No. 48
This issue (p. 1), includes a letter Christian News sent to various publications and blogs of the organized conservatives in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod asking them if they believed Christian News should continue and if they prefer the AAT over the ESV. Please read the letter. Some conservatives have asked CN to close shop. CN also asked the conservatives if they registered any protest when the editor’s congregation was suspended from the LCMS and is now under the threat of expulsion. Did any of the organized conservatives object when the editor of Christian News, who has been the pastor of an LCMS congregation for 52 years, was told by the present LCMS administration that he was not to participate in the big installation service of LCMS leaders at Concordia Seminary in September? All LCMS pastors, and professors in the area were invited. Several hundred participated. The LCMS district president, who led the installation, ordered the editor not to participate in any installation or preach in any LCMS church because the editor is an “Impenitent sinner on the road to Hell whom I would never commune.” The LCMS bureaucracy considers the editor an impenitent sinner because he would not retract a statement he made in CN which said that Jesus First Leader Charles Mueller, Sr., wants the LCMS to be broad enough for clergymen who promote women pastors, evolution and the theological position of Seminex condemned in Resolution 3-09 at the 1973 convention reaffirmed in 2010. CN has documented this as fact for more than 35 years. But who reads Christian News? A panel of district presidents chaired by now LCMS First Vice-president Herbert Mueller ruled that the Jesus First leader has always been orthodox and that the Christian News editor sinned against Mueller by not telling the truth about him. The COP panel refused to consider the documentation the editor had and banned him from the meeting when the case was heard. He was not permitted to face his accusers. The new LCMS administration has expressed a high regard for the COP despite its long record of supporting liberal causes and opposing Christian News.
Fifty years ago the editor faced the same attitude from conservatives. “The AAT: The Best Modern English Bible Translation,” an editorial in the November 9, 1998 Christian News, concluded:
“Forty years ago Beck was about the only prof at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who supported the editor’s concerns about liberalism being promoted at the seminary. Even conservative officials took issue with Beck for opposing the liberal theology and higher critical views of various seminary professors. They tried to get Beck to stop supporting Otten. They did not get behind his translation the way they should have. Even if today’s conservative LCMS officials, who have plenty of financial support, back the RSV and NIV, this is not going to stop CN from going ahead now and again publishing the AAT.”
During his students day in the 1950s the editor protested against the higher critical views of the Bible taught by some liberal professors. They were the anti-scriptural notions held by the translators of the Revised Version of the Bible of the National Council of Churches which the liberals were promoting. They included a denial of the inerrancy of the Bible in all matters, a denial of direct rectilinear messianic prophecy, a denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Penteautuch, promotion of the J-E-D-P source hypothesis a denial of the unity of Isaiah and a promotion of the Deutero- and - Trito- Isaiah theory, a denial of the Sixth Century B.C. dating of the book of Daniel and promotion of the 160 B.C. date, denials of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the flesh, and the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. The editor recognized that Dr. William Beck was correct when he noted that the theology of the RSV translators undermined historic Christianity and was often reflected in their translation. The LCMS’s COP defended the pro-RSV seminary professors.
Other than Paul Burgdorf’s Confessional Lutheran, very few of the “respectable” conservatives protested when the seminary refused to certify the CN editor for the pastoral ministry and the LCMS bureaucrats suspended and expelled the CN editor’s congregation from the LCMS. Fortunately at that time the LCMS had a Board of Appeals where the editor could present his evidence and face his accusers. The editor with the assistance of Kurt Marquart and Siegbert Becker won his case with the seminary. His congregation was reinstated in the LCMS. Today the LCMS no longer has such a fair judicial system where evidence is carefully evaluated and the accused faces his accusers. The COP rules and the bureaucracy says “yea and Amen,” banning the editor from any installation and communion service. It would be an embarrassment for bureaucrats to have a photo published showing the CN editor with them at the installation.
50 years ago the CN editor did not bow down and give in to the bureaucrats. With help from a few friends, he wrote the four part News and Views Series “What Is Troubling the Lutherans.” It was sent by the Church League of America to all LCMS churches. The editor compiled the 1961 and 1962 Books of Documentations distributed at the State of the Church Conferences. These books contained the essays and reports of liberal professors the COP was defending.
The editor wrote scores of overtures for friends all over the nation to submit to LCMS conventions. He collaborated on one overture with Dr. Lawrence Faulstick. It was signed by several hundred pastors and laymen throughout the U.S. The LCMS bureaucrats got wise to the editor’s tactics and were eventually able to deprive laymen and pastors the right to submit overtures unless they could get some official group to submit them. The overtures the editor had submitted to LCMS convention were on the inerrancy of the Bible, the historicity of Genesis and Jonah, the J-E-D-P source hypothesis, the unity of Isaiah, the authorship of Daniel, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the flesh, evolution, universalism, etc. Liberals were miffed at CN. Wayne Saffen, mentioned in the December 6 CN in the editorial on his Bonhoeffer House, published in 1968 in the Lutheran Campus Pastor: “concerns which had been generated when the editor was still a student have almost all been validated by convention resolution: affirming a six-day creation, a historical Jonah, an inerrant Scripture, Adam and Eve as real historic persons, etc. Missouri Synod in convention assembled has vindicated almost every doctrinal stand of Herman Otten as its official position. Now, that has to be impressive. How can the Synod, then, still withhold recognition of his ordination when it was carried out in strict accordance with the directions of C.F.W. Walther?”
It was not Otten’s position the LCMS reaffirmed but the position the LCMS had always held. It was being undermined by the RSV supporting higher critics in the LCMS who opposed Beck’s position and that of his AAT.
How much has appeared in publications and now the blogs of the organized conservatives opposing the destructive critical views of the RSV translators, many of which are now in the ESV based on the RSV? Instead the organized conservatives get on the Bonhoeffer bandwagon, who said he actually demythologized the Bible more than Rudolph Bultmann.
Translating the writing of the ancient fathers, opposing open communion, unionism, the lodge, etc. is fine but it is not enough. The destructive higher critical views of the RSV-ESV translators must be exposed and rejected.
It is nothing new in the LCMS for the organized conservatives to want CN to cease publication. It is nothing new for them to oppose the AAT and support the RSV-ESV. It is nothing new for them to remain silent when the editor is banned from an installation service, participation in communion, and ordered not to preach in any LCMS church while his congregation is placed under the threat of expulsion. Nothing new in the LCMS. It all first happened 50 years ago while organized conservatives remained silent and ignored bold champions for the truth such as William Beck, Paul Burgdorf and Kurt Marquart.
NOTHING NEW IN LCMS
Christian News, December 20, 2010, Vol. 48, No. 48
This issue (p. 1), includes a letter Christian News sent to various publications and blogs of the organized conservatives in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod asking them if they believed Christian News should continue and if they prefer the AAT over the ESV. Please read the letter. Some conservatives have asked CN to close shop. CN also asked the conservatives if they registered any protest when the editor’s congregation was suspended from the LCMS and is now under the threat of expulsion. Did any of the organized conservatives object when the editor of Christian News, who has been the pastor of an LCMS congregation for 52 years, was told by the present LCMS administration that he was not to participate in the big installation service of LCMS leaders at Concordia Seminary in September? All LCMS pastors, and professors in the area were invited. Several hundred participated. The LCMS district president, who led the installation, ordered the editor not to participate in any installation or preach in any LCMS church because the editor is an “Impenitent sinner on the road to Hell whom I would never commune.” The LCMS bureaucracy considers the editor an impenitent sinner because he would not retract a statement he made in CN which said that Jesus First Leader Charles Mueller, Sr., wants the LCMS to be broad enough for clergymen who promote women pastors, evolution and the theological position of Seminex condemned in Resolution 3-09 at the 1973 convention reaffirmed in 2010. CN has documented this as fact for more than 35 years. But who reads Christian News? A panel of district presidents chaired by now LCMS First Vice-president Herbert Mueller ruled that the Jesus First leader has always been orthodox and that the Christian News editor sinned against Mueller by not telling the truth about him. The COP panel refused to consider the documentation the editor had and banned him from the meeting when the case was heard. He was not permitted to face his accusers. The new LCMS administration has expressed a high regard for the COP despite its long record of supporting liberal causes and opposing Christian News.
Fifty years ago the editor faced the same attitude from conservatives. “The AAT: The Best Modern English Bible Translation,” an editorial in the November 9, 1998 Christian News, concluded:
“Forty years ago Beck was about the only prof at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who supported the editor’s concerns about liberalism being promoted at the seminary. Even conservative officials took issue with Beck for opposing the liberal theology and higher critical views of various seminary professors. They tried to get Beck to stop supporting Otten. They did not get behind his translation the way they should have. Even if today’s conservative LCMS officials, who have plenty of financial support, back the RSV and NIV, this is not going to stop CN from going ahead now and again publishing the AAT.”
During his students day in the 1950s the editor protested against the higher critical views of the Bible taught by some liberal professors. They were the anti-scriptural notions held by the translators of the Revised Version of the Bible of the National Council of Churches which the liberals were promoting. They included a denial of the inerrancy of the Bible in all matters, a denial of direct rectilinear messianic prophecy, a denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Penteautuch, promotion of the J-E-D-P source hypothesis a denial of the unity of Isaiah and a promotion of the Deutero- and - Trito- Isaiah theory, a denial of the Sixth Century B.C. dating of the book of Daniel and promotion of the 160 B.C. date, denials of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the flesh, and the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. The editor recognized that Dr. William Beck was correct when he noted that the theology of the RSV translators undermined historic Christianity and was often reflected in their translation. The LCMS’s COP defended the pro-RSV seminary professors.
Other than Paul Burgdorf’s Confessional Lutheran, very few of the “respectable” conservatives protested when the seminary refused to certify the CN editor for the pastoral ministry and the LCMS bureaucrats suspended and expelled the CN editor’s congregation from the LCMS. Fortunately at that time the LCMS had a Board of Appeals where the editor could present his evidence and face his accusers. The editor with the assistance of Kurt Marquart and Siegbert Becker won his case with the seminary. His congregation was reinstated in the LCMS. Today the LCMS no longer has such a fair judicial system where evidence is carefully evaluated and the accused faces his accusers. The COP rules and the bureaucracy says “yea and Amen,” banning the editor from any installation and communion service. It would be an embarrassment for bureaucrats to have a photo published showing the CN editor with them at the installation.
50 years ago the CN editor did not bow down and give in to the bureaucrats. With help from a few friends, he wrote the four part News and Views Series “What Is Troubling the Lutherans.” It was sent by the Church League of America to all LCMS churches. The editor compiled the 1961 and 1962 Books of Documentations distributed at the State of the Church Conferences. These books contained the essays and reports of liberal professors the COP was defending.
The editor wrote scores of overtures for friends all over the nation to submit to LCMS conventions. He collaborated on one overture with Dr. Lawrence Faulstick. It was signed by several hundred pastors and laymen throughout the U.S. The LCMS bureaucrats got wise to the editor’s tactics and were eventually able to deprive laymen and pastors the right to submit overtures unless they could get some official group to submit them. The overtures the editor had submitted to LCMS convention were on the inerrancy of the Bible, the historicity of Genesis and Jonah, the J-E-D-P source hypothesis, the unity of Isaiah, the authorship of Daniel, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the flesh, evolution, universalism, etc. Liberals were miffed at CN. Wayne Saffen, mentioned in the December 6 CN in the editorial on his Bonhoeffer House, published in 1968 in the Lutheran Campus Pastor: “concerns which had been generated when the editor was still a student have almost all been validated by convention resolution: affirming a six-day creation, a historical Jonah, an inerrant Scripture, Adam and Eve as real historic persons, etc. Missouri Synod in convention assembled has vindicated almost every doctrinal stand of Herman Otten as its official position. Now, that has to be impressive. How can the Synod, then, still withhold recognition of his ordination when it was carried out in strict accordance with the directions of C.F.W. Walther?”
It was not Otten’s position the LCMS reaffirmed but the position the LCMS had always held. It was being undermined by the RSV supporting higher critics in the LCMS who opposed Beck’s position and that of his AAT.
How much has appeared in publications and now the blogs of the organized conservatives opposing the destructive critical views of the RSV translators, many of which are now in the ESV based on the RSV? Instead the organized conservatives get on the Bonhoeffer bandwagon, who said he actually demythologized the Bible more than Rudolph Bultmann.
Translating the writing of the ancient fathers, opposing open communion, unionism, the lodge, etc. is fine but it is not enough. The destructive higher critical views of the RSV-ESV translators must be exposed and rejected.
It is nothing new in the LCMS for the organized conservatives to want CN to cease publication. It is nothing new for them to oppose the AAT and support the RSV-ESV. It is nothing new for them to remain silent when the editor is banned from an installation service, participation in communion, and ordered not to preach in any LCMS church while his congregation is placed under the threat of expulsion. Nothing new in the LCMS. It all first happened 50 years ago while organized conservatives remained silent and ignored bold champions for the truth such as William Beck, Paul Burgdorf and Kurt Marquart.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
A Prince In Israel Has Fallen
A Prince In Israel Has Fallen
By Dr. Louis Brighton
Christian News, Vol. 48, No. 48 12-20-10
Published in the November 28, 1966, Christian News at the death of AAT Translator Dr. William F. Beck.
“Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel.” The death of William F. Beck will be mourned by many, but none more than the common man of the church pew.
The gifts of the man, his stature and maturity in theology, his intellectual powers were witnessed by many. It was especially his love for the Word of God and his passionate desire that all people hear and read that Word in a way they could understand it and take to it that stood above all else to this gifted man. But it was just this gift that his peers, his fellow pastors, professors and officials in church were slow to see and appreciate. In fact a good part of his energy was spent in trying to move his fellow men of the cloth to accept what he had to offer the church. Though his professional colleagues did not always have the theological insight to realize what a gift he was to the church, the laymen appreciated immediately the blessings he had from God to share with them. It was to them, average church goers and non professionals, that his New Testament in the Language of Today gave the greatest joy. While the professional theologian was slow to see the value and import of this translation of God’s Word into plain usable English, the common man took to it and made it to be his own.
One can not help but make a comparison with Luther. No Lutheran since Martin Luther had made a translation from the original languages of the Bible into a language of the people. No Lutheran theologian took the time to do so. Perhaps there was no need felt for such a modern translation of the Bible. Perhaps no Lutheran since Luther had the gifts and calling from God to do so. Whatever reason, no Lutheran since Luther had translated the entire Bible into a modern language. But Dr. William Beck did. Why? We can not answer save what we see in the man. He certainly loved the Bible as few men have been privileged to do. He certainly had a passion for the truth, almost to the point of exasperation. He loved people. He loved his Lord. But all of these can be summed up as being part of his burning zeal that the average person in the street, in the factory, in the home, in the school, everywhere be able to understand God’s Word in a language that was direct and common to all and yet utterly faithful to the original languages of the Bible.
That he was equipped for his task is evident to all who have sat at his feet or have received of his personality. His knowledge of the original languages of the Bible was astounding. Not just the Greek and Hebrew grammar and usage and meaning, but in addition and especially the theological sense and usage of these languages. We have met no man in Europe or America who had such a combination of the knowledge of and the theological use of the Hebrew and the Greek languages of the Old and New Testaments. He had such patience that he was known to spend weeks researching one word or phrase, and not being satisfied until he had exhausted every possible source that he could set his mind to. His files of exhaustive notes on lexicography, grammar, meaning and usage, linguistic comparisons in cognate languages, classical and theological backgrounds, would form an encyclopedia of many volumes.
He also knew the English language and into what kind of English language the Bible should be translated. He spent years in researching on the street with people, in the university with books so as to know what kind of English people mostly used in every day language both in speech and written form. He studied the language of the popular magazines and newspapers. He researched the various dialects of English spoken in North America so as to discover the idiom which was common to all. He tested at length the results of his research and studies in giving out samples of his translators. Not so much to processional theologians for he knew that they did not know of nor use that English which was common to broad America. But to the average layman with an average education he turned for testing his grasp of the Lingua franca Americana. That he succeeded so well is witnessed by the love and understanding the layman has given to his work. Criticisms there were of his work. But all from the professional man, none from the layman. The criticism which he received often made him chuckle. Some times he was saddened by them, and frequently he would be impatient of them. He received them well, for most of the criticism just went to prove his point that the professional theologian did not know common English. How much he enjoyed it though when someone went out of their way to criticize something and supplied with it material to prove or uphold their criticism. These he always loved and was thankful for. Many times, however, he would be angry and saddened at the littleness of mind and thought and love his professional colleagues showed in their criticism. But all of it made him the more humble and determined never to stop perfecting his translations and work, and how he grew in maturity and love through it all. What he treasured most though were the many notes from people of all walks of life in which they told how much his translation of the Bible helped them to understand and love more the Word of God. This was his reward, and it made all the anguish and toil worth it.
The average Christian of the street and home will miss him. Perhaps not so much the professional theologian, for they were too much caught up in their own small worlds to know of the importance or care for the contribution that Dr. Beck was making for the edification of the lay Christian. But the average Christian, both lay and cleric, will miss him, for no one else spoke for and to their greatest need - the need of evangelism with the aid of God’s written Word in the language of the people. No one else? Of all the learned essays and pronouncements and the thousands of words in print from the official offices of churches and theological professorial gatherings, so little of it means anything at all or has any significant influence in the life of the Church. But the work and the words and the spirit of this man, William Beck, will long speak to the heart and needs of people.
While we rejoice in the victory of his at the feet of the Lamb in glory, we do so in tears. Tears of thanksgiving for him, but also tears of mourning. We have today too few men of God who with such love and dedication served the truth in humility towards and concern for God’s saints on earth. Today God’s people have lost a champion. Yet in faith we know that our Lord will always provide for His people.
By Dr. Louis Brighton
Christian News, Vol. 48, No. 48 12-20-10
Published in the November 28, 1966, Christian News at the death of AAT Translator Dr. William F. Beck.
“Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel.” The death of William F. Beck will be mourned by many, but none more than the common man of the church pew.
The gifts of the man, his stature and maturity in theology, his intellectual powers were witnessed by many. It was especially his love for the Word of God and his passionate desire that all people hear and read that Word in a way they could understand it and take to it that stood above all else to this gifted man. But it was just this gift that his peers, his fellow pastors, professors and officials in church were slow to see and appreciate. In fact a good part of his energy was spent in trying to move his fellow men of the cloth to accept what he had to offer the church. Though his professional colleagues did not always have the theological insight to realize what a gift he was to the church, the laymen appreciated immediately the blessings he had from God to share with them. It was to them, average church goers and non professionals, that his New Testament in the Language of Today gave the greatest joy. While the professional theologian was slow to see the value and import of this translation of God’s Word into plain usable English, the common man took to it and made it to be his own.
One can not help but make a comparison with Luther. No Lutheran since Martin Luther had made a translation from the original languages of the Bible into a language of the people. No Lutheran theologian took the time to do so. Perhaps there was no need felt for such a modern translation of the Bible. Perhaps no Lutheran since Luther had the gifts and calling from God to do so. Whatever reason, no Lutheran since Luther had translated the entire Bible into a modern language. But Dr. William Beck did. Why? We can not answer save what we see in the man. He certainly loved the Bible as few men have been privileged to do. He certainly had a passion for the truth, almost to the point of exasperation. He loved people. He loved his Lord. But all of these can be summed up as being part of his burning zeal that the average person in the street, in the factory, in the home, in the school, everywhere be able to understand God’s Word in a language that was direct and common to all and yet utterly faithful to the original languages of the Bible.
That he was equipped for his task is evident to all who have sat at his feet or have received of his personality. His knowledge of the original languages of the Bible was astounding. Not just the Greek and Hebrew grammar and usage and meaning, but in addition and especially the theological sense and usage of these languages. We have met no man in Europe or America who had such a combination of the knowledge of and the theological use of the Hebrew and the Greek languages of the Old and New Testaments. He had such patience that he was known to spend weeks researching one word or phrase, and not being satisfied until he had exhausted every possible source that he could set his mind to. His files of exhaustive notes on lexicography, grammar, meaning and usage, linguistic comparisons in cognate languages, classical and theological backgrounds, would form an encyclopedia of many volumes.
He also knew the English language and into what kind of English language the Bible should be translated. He spent years in researching on the street with people, in the university with books so as to know what kind of English people mostly used in every day language both in speech and written form. He studied the language of the popular magazines and newspapers. He researched the various dialects of English spoken in North America so as to discover the idiom which was common to all. He tested at length the results of his research and studies in giving out samples of his translators. Not so much to processional theologians for he knew that they did not know of nor use that English which was common to broad America. But to the average layman with an average education he turned for testing his grasp of the Lingua franca Americana. That he succeeded so well is witnessed by the love and understanding the layman has given to his work. Criticisms there were of his work. But all from the professional man, none from the layman. The criticism which he received often made him chuckle. Some times he was saddened by them, and frequently he would be impatient of them. He received them well, for most of the criticism just went to prove his point that the professional theologian did not know common English. How much he enjoyed it though when someone went out of their way to criticize something and supplied with it material to prove or uphold their criticism. These he always loved and was thankful for. Many times, however, he would be angry and saddened at the littleness of mind and thought and love his professional colleagues showed in their criticism. But all of it made him the more humble and determined never to stop perfecting his translations and work, and how he grew in maturity and love through it all. What he treasured most though were the many notes from people of all walks of life in which they told how much his translation of the Bible helped them to understand and love more the Word of God. This was his reward, and it made all the anguish and toil worth it.
The average Christian of the street and home will miss him. Perhaps not so much the professional theologian, for they were too much caught up in their own small worlds to know of the importance or care for the contribution that Dr. Beck was making for the edification of the lay Christian. But the average Christian, both lay and cleric, will miss him, for no one else spoke for and to their greatest need - the need of evangelism with the aid of God’s written Word in the language of the people. No one else? Of all the learned essays and pronouncements and the thousands of words in print from the official offices of churches and theological professorial gatherings, so little of it means anything at all or has any significant influence in the life of the Church. But the work and the words and the spirit of this man, William Beck, will long speak to the heart and needs of people.
While we rejoice in the victory of his at the feet of the Lamb in glory, we do so in tears. Tears of thanksgiving for him, but also tears of mourning. We have today too few men of God who with such love and dedication served the truth in humility towards and concern for God’s saints on earth. Today God’s people have lost a champion. Yet in faith we know that our Lord will always provide for His people.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
TRUE LUTHERANS SHOULD PUBLISH OWN TRANSLATION OF BIBLE
Koch Showed the Way for the LCMS-WELS-ELS
TRUE LUTHERANS SHOULD PUBLISH OWN TRANSLATION OF BIBLE
Christian News, December 6, 2010 Vol. 48, No. 47
The New NIV 2011 Bible is more acceptable to those who support the ordination of women. It changes “have authority” in 1 Timothy 2:12 to “assume authority,” the translation preferred by those who support the ordination of women. Beck’s AAT has “have authority.” The publisher of the NIV is phasing out the NIV 1984 version. Note “Major Group Says It Cannot Endorse NIV 2011 Bible:” in this issue, page 1.
There is no reason for the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod to use The New International Version for its fine People’s Bible series or the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to use the English Standard Version which is copyrighted by the National Council of Churches and is 91% the work of theological liberals who produced the RSV.
The CN editor and Edwin Palmer, who was the first executive of the NIV, were good friends. Palmer urged others to subscribe to CN. Yet Palmer and the CN editor recognized that the NIV was basically the work of Reformed scholars whose theology influenced their work, while the AAT is the work of Lutherans, primarily Dr. William Beck. Only Lutheran scholars from the LCMS, WELS and Evangelical Lutheran Synod helped improve later editions of the AAT.
Dr. Henry Koch warned his WELS not to use the NIV. Koch earned his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1919. CN knows of no Lutheran theologian who has studied under so many of the great Greek, Hebrew and textual scholars of the 20th Century as Henry Koch. Koch’s “Why Lutherans Should Use the AAT – An Evaluation of The AAT and NIV Bible Translations” is in The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History’, pp. 291-300. Unfortunately, the WELS did not heed Koch’s warning about the NIV. Some WELS bureaucrats pay no more attention to whatever appears in CN even by such great scholars as Koch, Siegbert Becker, Raymond Surburg, William Beck, Robert Preus, Kurt Marquart, Paul Burgdorf, etc. than LCMS bureaucrats. Koch wrote in a letter dated November 8, 1978 on p. 322 of The Christian’s Travel Guide:
“I am very glad to see in your last Christian News that you could enter our travelogue on Rotenberg and Luther. I hope to send others and also to correlate them with the work and history of the Church in the Land of the Reformation. You also printed the article in the Northwestern by Prof. Kuske on Beck’s translation. I wrote to him and thanked him for his comments and told him that he hit the nail on the head, when he stated that Beck’s translation was the only true Lutheran one, while all the others including the NIV were in the Reformed camp and that Dr. Becker and others are forming a committee to send in suggestions for the Beck translation. I shall urge Becker to continue the good work. I think it was a very fine move on your part to have improvements in the wording of Beck’s to be added in later editions. Thus the essence of Beck’s translation is maintained and upheld and the unfavorable criticism of its lesser readability is weakened.”
Koch, like Luther, maintained that Lutherans should “not mingle with Reformed denominations” when it comes to Bible translation. He insisted that working together on a Bible translation was more than cooperation in externals. (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History p. 323). Koch wrote on November 15, 1979 (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 325): “There are many things that I cannot approve of within our own ranks such as favoring the NIV over the AAT. I am objecting to it and opposing it wherever I can.”
Paul Burgdorf
Koch wrote to Paul Burgdorf, editor of the confessional Lutheran and the father of the head of the Schwan Foundation, on October 22, 1983 (“A Christian’s Travel Guide” p. 239): “I have little hope that Missouri will ever return to its former clarity and purity. The lack of proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking. In our Wis Synod I fear that our use and toleration of the NIV translation is the hole in the dam for us just as the tolerance of the 44 statementarians in Missouri under Behnken was the hole in the dam there. Proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking in our midst. We politely say that we have not adopted the NIV, but will use it. This is our hole in the dam. Let’s not forget what Luther said. ‘Das Evangelium ist wie ein Platzregen, der nicht wieder dahin kommt, wo einmal einst war,’ [The Gospel is as a passing shower that does not return where it once was] is still true. Think of what has happened to Eastern and Western Germany and look at the sad plight of Lutheranism in our country, where it could unfold and practice freely. I think it was Walther who also said, ‘So lieb uns das Evangelium ist, so lasst uns uber unsere Seminarien wachen.’ [So dear as is the Gospel to us, so let us watch our seminaries]. How true! Keep up your clear message and warning. They may not like to hear it, yet repetition is etiam et mater studiorum.”
Koch wrote to Burgdorf on November 15, 1979, The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 330):
“I am also glad to note your noble defense of P. Otten, whom official Missouri has maltreated badly. Eagerly they accept his congregation, but him they reject without proving their charges. They demand instead a flat Pater Peccavi! How inconsistent can we not be. I also am glad to note that some charges against WELS are being also voiced against our WELS regarding the NIV for instance. I have asked for clear proof of false doctrine in the KJV. It has not come. I can prove false however, in the NIV, for instance: Acts 3:21 Christ must be retained in heavens, not received as in the KJV. There they back Zwingli, who claimed that Christ cannot be in heaven and on earth at the same time and Luther rejected fellowship at Marburg on that very score. I could point to others. I warned our WELS men and told them they were digging their own graves adopting the NIV, but my warning fell on flat ears. NIV refuses to budge seemingly. It does not hurt our WELS men to hear that criticism against their stand on NIV is being challenged and not accepted.”
Armand Boehme, a former member of the LCMS’s Commission on Theology and church Relations, wrote in an analysis of the NIV published in the Logia (Vol. X, No. 1, Christian News, February 10, 2003): “A confessional Lutheran denomination that regularly uses the NIV will suffer damage to its sound biblical and confessional heritage.” Koch said the same thing for years to deaf ears in his WELS.
LCMS’s Use of ESV
Many fine pastors and scholars in the WELS wrote the excellent commentaries in the WELS’ People’s Bible. Yet again and again some of them had to correct the NIV translation. Here is an example: Wayne Mueller of the WELS writes in his People’s Bible commentary on Revelation 20:5: “The NIV translation is not accurate” (p. 196).
What Koch said about the use of the NIV in the WELS applies far more to the use of the ESV, which is based on the RSV, in the LCMS. Many fine scholars in the LCMS worked for years on The Lutheran Study Bible. But just like the WELS should have used the AAT rather than the NIV so the LCMS should use the AAT rather than the ESV. Appendix A, pp. 349-251 in Koch’s The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, shows the doctrinal weaknesses and archaic, stilted language in the ESV. It is in the November 22, 2010 CN.
It is unfortunate that bureaucrats in both the LCMS and WELS rejected the plan which CN proposed after first publishing the AAT in 1976. CN sent free copies of the AAT to churches throughout the LCMS, WELS and ELS. CN invited them to submit suggestions for improvement. The editor said in his preface: “No translation is perfect. Suggestions for revision in any future printing will be gratefully accepted and considered.” LCMS President Preus was miffed. He was determined to break CN financially. He spread untruth about Beck and the CN editor. The widespread initial appeal of the AAT was supposed to be “a feather in Otten’s hat” which Preus could not tolerate. Preus had the big money on his side.
CN then formed a committee of leading confessional Bible scholars from the LCMS, WELS, and ELS to evaluate the suggestions for improvement. They were then incorporated in future printings. This was precisely the kind of program the great Greek, Hebrew, Latin and textual scholar Henry Koch recommended. His advice should have been followed. About 250,000 copies of the AAT were sold. Contrary to critics, CN made no money on the publishing of the AAT.
There is no reason Lutherans have to rely on the work of Reformed, liberal, and fundamentalist scholars for the Bible translation they use in their commentaries and study Bibles. The LCMS, WELS, and ELS could have helped make the AAT, which is already the most accurate translation in modern English, even better.
CN would gladly have turned over, with the approval of the Beck family, the entire Bible publishing project to CPH and the WELS’s Northwestern Publishing House. CN’s plan was to have a board of confessional Lutheran Scholars be in control of the translation and any revisions. When a member of the board died or was no longer able to serve then the remaining members of the board would select a replacement. This would have enabled the translation to keep up with any new textual findings and changes in language.
TRUE LUTHERANS SHOULD PUBLISH OWN TRANSLATION OF BIBLE
Christian News, December 6, 2010 Vol. 48, No. 47
The New NIV 2011 Bible is more acceptable to those who support the ordination of women. It changes “have authority” in 1 Timothy 2:12 to “assume authority,” the translation preferred by those who support the ordination of women. Beck’s AAT has “have authority.” The publisher of the NIV is phasing out the NIV 1984 version. Note “Major Group Says It Cannot Endorse NIV 2011 Bible:” in this issue, page 1.
There is no reason for the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod to use The New International Version for its fine People’s Bible series or the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to use the English Standard Version which is copyrighted by the National Council of Churches and is 91% the work of theological liberals who produced the RSV.
The CN editor and Edwin Palmer, who was the first executive of the NIV, were good friends. Palmer urged others to subscribe to CN. Yet Palmer and the CN editor recognized that the NIV was basically the work of Reformed scholars whose theology influenced their work, while the AAT is the work of Lutherans, primarily Dr. William Beck. Only Lutheran scholars from the LCMS, WELS and Evangelical Lutheran Synod helped improve later editions of the AAT.
Dr. Henry Koch warned his WELS not to use the NIV. Koch earned his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1919. CN knows of no Lutheran theologian who has studied under so many of the great Greek, Hebrew and textual scholars of the 20th Century as Henry Koch. Koch’s “Why Lutherans Should Use the AAT – An Evaluation of The AAT and NIV Bible Translations” is in The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History’, pp. 291-300. Unfortunately, the WELS did not heed Koch’s warning about the NIV. Some WELS bureaucrats pay no more attention to whatever appears in CN even by such great scholars as Koch, Siegbert Becker, Raymond Surburg, William Beck, Robert Preus, Kurt Marquart, Paul Burgdorf, etc. than LCMS bureaucrats. Koch wrote in a letter dated November 8, 1978 on p. 322 of The Christian’s Travel Guide:
“I am very glad to see in your last Christian News that you could enter our travelogue on Rotenberg and Luther. I hope to send others and also to correlate them with the work and history of the Church in the Land of the Reformation. You also printed the article in the Northwestern by Prof. Kuske on Beck’s translation. I wrote to him and thanked him for his comments and told him that he hit the nail on the head, when he stated that Beck’s translation was the only true Lutheran one, while all the others including the NIV were in the Reformed camp and that Dr. Becker and others are forming a committee to send in suggestions for the Beck translation. I shall urge Becker to continue the good work. I think it was a very fine move on your part to have improvements in the wording of Beck’s to be added in later editions. Thus the essence of Beck’s translation is maintained and upheld and the unfavorable criticism of its lesser readability is weakened.”
Koch, like Luther, maintained that Lutherans should “not mingle with Reformed denominations” when it comes to Bible translation. He insisted that working together on a Bible translation was more than cooperation in externals. (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History p. 323). Koch wrote on November 15, 1979 (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 325): “There are many things that I cannot approve of within our own ranks such as favoring the NIV over the AAT. I am objecting to it and opposing it wherever I can.”
Paul Burgdorf
Koch wrote to Paul Burgdorf, editor of the confessional Lutheran and the father of the head of the Schwan Foundation, on October 22, 1983 (“A Christian’s Travel Guide” p. 239): “I have little hope that Missouri will ever return to its former clarity and purity. The lack of proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking. In our Wis Synod I fear that our use and toleration of the NIV translation is the hole in the dam for us just as the tolerance of the 44 statementarians in Missouri under Behnken was the hole in the dam there. Proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking in our midst. We politely say that we have not adopted the NIV, but will use it. This is our hole in the dam. Let’s not forget what Luther said. ‘Das Evangelium ist wie ein Platzregen, der nicht wieder dahin kommt, wo einmal einst war,’ [The Gospel is as a passing shower that does not return where it once was] is still true. Think of what has happened to Eastern and Western Germany and look at the sad plight of Lutheranism in our country, where it could unfold and practice freely. I think it was Walther who also said, ‘So lieb uns das Evangelium ist, so lasst uns uber unsere Seminarien wachen.’ [So dear as is the Gospel to us, so let us watch our seminaries]. How true! Keep up your clear message and warning. They may not like to hear it, yet repetition is etiam et mater studiorum.”
Koch wrote to Burgdorf on November 15, 1979, The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 330):
“I am also glad to note your noble defense of P. Otten, whom official Missouri has maltreated badly. Eagerly they accept his congregation, but him they reject without proving their charges. They demand instead a flat Pater Peccavi! How inconsistent can we not be. I also am glad to note that some charges against WELS are being also voiced against our WELS regarding the NIV for instance. I have asked for clear proof of false doctrine in the KJV. It has not come. I can prove false however, in the NIV, for instance: Acts 3:21 Christ must be retained in heavens, not received as in the KJV. There they back Zwingli, who claimed that Christ cannot be in heaven and on earth at the same time and Luther rejected fellowship at Marburg on that very score. I could point to others. I warned our WELS men and told them they were digging their own graves adopting the NIV, but my warning fell on flat ears. NIV refuses to budge seemingly. It does not hurt our WELS men to hear that criticism against their stand on NIV is being challenged and not accepted.”
Armand Boehme, a former member of the LCMS’s Commission on Theology and church Relations, wrote in an analysis of the NIV published in the Logia (Vol. X, No. 1, Christian News, February 10, 2003): “A confessional Lutheran denomination that regularly uses the NIV will suffer damage to its sound biblical and confessional heritage.” Koch said the same thing for years to deaf ears in his WELS.
LCMS’s Use of ESV
Many fine pastors and scholars in the WELS wrote the excellent commentaries in the WELS’ People’s Bible. Yet again and again some of them had to correct the NIV translation. Here is an example: Wayne Mueller of the WELS writes in his People’s Bible commentary on Revelation 20:5: “The NIV translation is not accurate” (p. 196).
What Koch said about the use of the NIV in the WELS applies far more to the use of the ESV, which is based on the RSV, in the LCMS. Many fine scholars in the LCMS worked for years on The Lutheran Study Bible. But just like the WELS should have used the AAT rather than the NIV so the LCMS should use the AAT rather than the ESV. Appendix A, pp. 349-251 in Koch’s The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, shows the doctrinal weaknesses and archaic, stilted language in the ESV. It is in the November 22, 2010 CN.
It is unfortunate that bureaucrats in both the LCMS and WELS rejected the plan which CN proposed after first publishing the AAT in 1976. CN sent free copies of the AAT to churches throughout the LCMS, WELS and ELS. CN invited them to submit suggestions for improvement. The editor said in his preface: “No translation is perfect. Suggestions for revision in any future printing will be gratefully accepted and considered.” LCMS President Preus was miffed. He was determined to break CN financially. He spread untruth about Beck and the CN editor. The widespread initial appeal of the AAT was supposed to be “a feather in Otten’s hat” which Preus could not tolerate. Preus had the big money on his side.
CN then formed a committee of leading confessional Bible scholars from the LCMS, WELS, and ELS to evaluate the suggestions for improvement. They were then incorporated in future printings. This was precisely the kind of program the great Greek, Hebrew, Latin and textual scholar Henry Koch recommended. His advice should have been followed. About 250,000 copies of the AAT were sold. Contrary to critics, CN made no money on the publishing of the AAT.
There is no reason Lutherans have to rely on the work of Reformed, liberal, and fundamentalist scholars for the Bible translation they use in their commentaries and study Bibles. The LCMS, WELS, and ELS could have helped make the AAT, which is already the most accurate translation in modern English, even better.
CN would gladly have turned over, with the approval of the Beck family, the entire Bible publishing project to CPH and the WELS’s Northwestern Publishing House. CN’s plan was to have a board of confessional Lutheran Scholars be in control of the translation and any revisions. When a member of the board died or was no longer able to serve then the remaining members of the board would select a replacement. This would have enabled the translation to keep up with any new textual findings and changes in language.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)