YOUR TRUE FRIENDS ARE IN THE LCMS

CN to Captive Nations
YOUR TRUE FRIENDS ARE IN THE LCMS
Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 2, January 10, 2011

“Dear friend’s from the former Communist nations, your true friends are in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod” the CN editor said in a sermon during Captive Nations week when members of several Communist nations visited Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri. Ever since the 1963 LWF convention in Helsinki, Finland, some members of Captive Nations looked to Christian News to publicize their plight.

This special issue on Communism and the former captive nations includes “‘There Be Lutherans’. . . in Siberia” reprinted from the LCMS President’s Newsletter in the January, 2011 Reporter of the LCMS. “What the LCMS has to Offer the Former Captive Nations – JESUS FORGIVE YOUR SINS” (p. 1) is a sermon the editor preached in 1994 when students and pastors from Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia were special guests of Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven. One of them was Vsevolod Lytkin, who is now Bishop of the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church (SELC).

CN is also reprinting an article (on p. 7) on Communism from the latest issue of the Schwarz Letter of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade which the editor began promoting more that 50 years ago when he first heard Dr. Fred Schwarz at a Christian Anti-Communism Crusade in St. Louis. The editor attended some meetings of supporters of Fred Schwarz and Phyllis Schlafly at the home of Dr. Harry Sammons in Kirkwood, Missouri. Dr. Sammons showed the films My Latvia and J. Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit at Trinity in New Haven. However, he is now one of the residents in the New Haven Care Center the editor visits every Saturday. Last week he still recalled the films.

This special issue on communism has just a fraction of the hundreds of articles CN published on the Captive Nations. Few Christian newspapers during the last 50 years have published more articles opposing communism and supporting the Captive Nations and bringing them the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ than Christian News.

It has long been a strict policy of the LCMS bureaucracy never to mention CN’s long battle vs. Communism and for the Captive Nations and Christians persecuted by communists. The bureaucracy has the same policy when it comes to reporting CN’s long battle vs. theological liberalism, abortion, homosexuality, etc. The “Johnny-Come-Lately’s” are regarded as the real heroes worthy of support and not Christian News. CN was able to supply much of the literature those in captive nations eagerly sought, not because of any financial aid from any foundation or insurance company. They prefer to support the bureaucrats who despise Christian News. Unlike bureaucrats who have their travel expenses paid, no foundation has ever paid CN.

Some of those in the Captive Nations, who wanted Christian News and the kind of literature CN was publishing were surprised that those who were financing other literature they were receiving would not make it financially possible for CN to supply all the material they wanted. They appreciated CN’s stand on so many issues. They found it difficult to understand why the LCMS refused to certify the editor. Major donors want no association with someone the LCMS refuses to certify, the only pastor serving an LCMS congregation who was banned from participating and communing by the LCMS’s new administration at the big LCMS installation service last September. As far as the LCMS bureaucrats, including those at CPH, are concerned, all CN has written about the LCMS’s Battle for the Bible, The Crisis in Christendom, A Twentieth and now Twenty-First Century Reformation and Formula of Concord, Communism and The Captive Nations simply does not exist. All this information, according to the bureaucrats, exists no more than the big lawsuit in Oakland, California exists, even though more than a million dollars of mission money has been used.

Stories and photos in this issue show the stand Trinity New Haven has taken for more that 50 years against Communism and for the persecuted Christians in Communist lands. Note “To Stand With Persecuted Christians”, a resolution the LCMS adopted in 1975 after Trinity submitted it. See the photos on pp. 10ff of pastors from former Communist nations receiving literature at Trinity, New Haven, having meal in the editor’s home and swimming at Camp Trinity. Yet Trinity is the congregation suspended several times from the LCMS and expelled. It is now again under the threat of expulsion from the LCMS as long as it does not get rid of its pastor, the CN editor. Both the Kieshnick and new administration of the LCMS are supporting this absurd ruling of the LCMS. It has absolutely no valid cause. As far as CN knows none of the organized conservatives have protested against the COP ruling vs. Trinity, New Haven. As long as their man was elected, that is all that counts. The COP can continue ruling the LCMS. Christian News has a long history of championing the cause of those both in Church and State who are unjustly persecuted by the bureaucrats. Unfortunately far too many conservatives refuse to speak up when the bureaucrats in the LCMS’s Council of Presidents place a congregation which has for decades opposed communism and defended the Captive Nations, under the threat of expulsion without any scriptural cause.

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Some of the photos on pp. 10-15 show pastors from former communist lands at Trinity, New Haven, in the editor’s home and at Camp Trinity, New Haven. Some of them wanted to finally meet the editor whom the LCMS bureaucracy refused to certify. CN has often said the LCMS’s COP and other groups seeking a delightful economic place for a retreat should use Camp Trinity. They could save thousands of dollars. The Camp was good enough for the pastors from former Communist nations.