Special LCMS Report in Lutheran Witness
LCMS IN FINANCIAL CRISIS
Christian News, May 23, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 19
“The Synod headquarters is in a financial crisis,” writes Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Matthew Harrison in “A Special LCMS Report” in the May, 2011 Lutheran Witness. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans assisted in funding the special issue also sent to many non-subscribers. It includes an offering envelope.
Harrison writes: “We are launching the ‘Koinonia Project’ to begin to deal with the theological issues that have caused us to distrust each other. We are attempting to lead in a way that does not divide.” No action is expected to be taken against anyone on the LCMS clergy roster who promotes women pastors, evolution or the general anti-scriptural theology of Seminex.
Dr. Lawrence Rast of Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne mentions that the Ebenezer campaign of 1967 designed to raise at least $40 million took in less than $15 million.
A chart of “Career Missionaries” shows that in 1960 the LCMS had 350 career missionaries in 1971 and in 2010 it had 50.
A Fan into Flame Updates says:
“Through March, the campaign had raised $63.8 million in cash and pledges. Of that among, $44.9 million has been collected in cash. To achieve the original goal, $46.2 million still needs to be raised by Reformation Day, Oct. 31, when the formal campaign ends.
“Challenges persist. Fan into Flame was designed to incur operational costs of no more than $10 million of its original $100 million goal—the lowest reasonable operational expense in order to maximize new funds for work in the mission field. But those expenses (which include costs for materials, management and staff) have exceeded $18.3 million. The economic recession and additional operational expenses not included in the original campaign budget) have contributed to increased costs.”
“A snapshot of LCMS Pre-K12 Education” reports that “During the last three years, the economy has had an impact on the number of elementary schools. The church has lost over 100.”
A report on the Concordia University System says that “For the 11th consecutive year, all 10 of the Concordia colleges/universities were included in the annual ranking of ‘America’s Best Colleges’ by U.S. News & World Report.”
The CN editor’s Bonhoeffer and King – Their Life and Theology Documented In Christian News 1963-2011 – A Fifty Year Battle vs. Intellectual Laziness includes a speech the CN prepared for delivery at Concordia University Wisconsin on February 3, pp. 251-296. The editor commented on the Concordia University System.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
What is the Greater Blight? FACING THE LCMS'S FINANCIAL CRISIS
What is the Greater Blight?
FACING THE LCMS’S FINANCIAL CRISIS
Christian News, May 23, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 19
The special May, 2011 Lutheran Witness (p. 1) sent to many thousands of non-subscribers besides subscribers reports that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is facing a financial crisis.
Christian News has said for decades that the LCMS’s bureaucracy should be curbed, full time district presidents returned to the parish ministry, limit the number of meetings of the Council of Presidents and cut the salary of district, synod, and CPH executives to that of the recommended district salary scale for pastors. “Curb the LCMS Bureaucracy,” a resolution submitted to the LCMS’s 2010 convention by Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri, documents the tremendous growth of the LCMS bureaucracy while the LCMS year after year has fewer members. The overture shows the long pro-evolution, liberal, and pro-Seminex theological position of the LCMS’s Council of Presidents majority. It urged that all district presidents return to the parish ministry. CN has long said that church bureaucrats at the LCMS’s International Center and Concordia Publishing House be paid about what the average pastor receives. Why should congregations which can hardly afford to pay their own pastor the district salary scale, be expected to send money to the district and synod so that the bureaucrats may continue receiving their six figure salaries?
CHURCH GROWTH IN LCMS
“Church Growth in the LCMS,” the lead story in the April 5, 2010, reproduced here, listed some of the figures published in the LCMS’s Lutheran Annual. It showed how small the LCMS’s Lutheran Building was until 1983 when the LCMS built its costly International Center. At the time CN said it was not at all necessary.
The LCMS bureaucracy banned the publication of the overture “Curb the LCMS Bureaucracy. The May 19, 2010 CN published photos of some of the costly office buildings of LCMS districts. Prior to full time district presidents, district presidents often used their own church office for the district office. Today with full time district presidents and costly office buildings and staff the LCMS is smaller.
The May 10, 2010 CN, which published photos of some of the costly LCMS district offices also published an article titled “CN – A 47 Year Frugal Christian Mission – (No Bureaucracy to Support).” It said in part that “Some have commented that CN produces more than many costly church offices and buildings. Compare CN’s 50’x120’, $100,000 metal building with the multi-million dollar church offices pictured here.”
STAY HOME
CN has often said that it would be far better for the families and congregations of church leaders if they would spend less time traveling to meetings and more time at home. When LCMS officials were installed in 2010 at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in a ceremony involving foreign churchmen, CN said it would have been far more economical to have the installation at the close of the convention in Houston where the officials were elected and where churchmen from other nations were already present. This was done in the past rather than paying for the flight and expenses of so many officials and foreign church leaders to gather for another service. The LCMS treasurer could not tell CN how much the service cost but did tell CN that the Schwan Foundation paid for the travel expenses of at least some of those who came from overseas. When some 90 churchmen were flown to a training session in Santiago, Chile, CN said that far too much mission money today is being used for travel rather than supporting a missionary who remains on the field preaching, baptizing and communing instead of being…….. (for entire article see Christian News, May 23, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 19)
FACING THE LCMS’S FINANCIAL CRISIS
Christian News, May 23, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 19
The special May, 2011 Lutheran Witness (p. 1) sent to many thousands of non-subscribers besides subscribers reports that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is facing a financial crisis.
Christian News has said for decades that the LCMS’s bureaucracy should be curbed, full time district presidents returned to the parish ministry, limit the number of meetings of the Council of Presidents and cut the salary of district, synod, and CPH executives to that of the recommended district salary scale for pastors. “Curb the LCMS Bureaucracy,” a resolution submitted to the LCMS’s 2010 convention by Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri, documents the tremendous growth of the LCMS bureaucracy while the LCMS year after year has fewer members. The overture shows the long pro-evolution, liberal, and pro-Seminex theological position of the LCMS’s Council of Presidents majority. It urged that all district presidents return to the parish ministry. CN has long said that church bureaucrats at the LCMS’s International Center and Concordia Publishing House be paid about what the average pastor receives. Why should congregations which can hardly afford to pay their own pastor the district salary scale, be expected to send money to the district and synod so that the bureaucrats may continue receiving their six figure salaries?
CHURCH GROWTH IN LCMS
“Church Growth in the LCMS,” the lead story in the April 5, 2010, reproduced here, listed some of the figures published in the LCMS’s Lutheran Annual. It showed how small the LCMS’s Lutheran Building was until 1983 when the LCMS built its costly International Center. At the time CN said it was not at all necessary.
The LCMS bureaucracy banned the publication of the overture “Curb the LCMS Bureaucracy. The May 19, 2010 CN published photos of some of the costly office buildings of LCMS districts. Prior to full time district presidents, district presidents often used their own church office for the district office. Today with full time district presidents and costly office buildings and staff the LCMS is smaller.
The May 10, 2010 CN, which published photos of some of the costly LCMS district offices also published an article titled “CN – A 47 Year Frugal Christian Mission – (No Bureaucracy to Support).” It said in part that “Some have commented that CN produces more than many costly church offices and buildings. Compare CN’s 50’x120’, $100,000 metal building with the multi-million dollar church offices pictured here.”
STAY HOME
CN has often said that it would be far better for the families and congregations of church leaders if they would spend less time traveling to meetings and more time at home. When LCMS officials were installed in 2010 at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in a ceremony involving foreign churchmen, CN said it would have been far more economical to have the installation at the close of the convention in Houston where the officials were elected and where churchmen from other nations were already present. This was done in the past rather than paying for the flight and expenses of so many officials and foreign church leaders to gather for another service. The LCMS treasurer could not tell CN how much the service cost but did tell CN that the Schwan Foundation paid for the travel expenses of at least some of those who came from overseas. When some 90 churchmen were flown to a training session in Santiago, Chile, CN said that far too much mission money today is being used for travel rather than supporting a missionary who remains on the field preaching, baptizing and communing instead of being…….. (for entire article see Christian News, May 23, 2011, Vol. 49, No. 19)
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Creation - Or Evolution?
CREATION — OR EVOLUTION?
A Sermon By Dr. Walter A. Maier
Christian News, May 16, 2011
The Lord God formed man — Gen. 2, 6
Ed. CN has often said that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod did not follow the Fundamentalist, Reformed, or anyone else when it opposed evolution and affirmed the inerrancy and historicity of the Bible. It simply defended what the Bible, the Lutheran Confessions, and Luther taught. This sermon by Lutheran Hour speaker Walter A. Maier was preached 80 years ago.
"CLOSE your eyes and think of some muddy gutter or frog pond full of stagnant water, with a scorching sun glittering down on the green slime which floats among the bulrushes and swamp weeds. These cesspools" — I am quoting verbatim from a current popular account of the origin of man — "were the cradle of life on earth." For millions of years, to cite the opinion of another book, which for many months was a best seller throughout the country, this jellylike mass floated about aimlessly. Some of its cells preferred to move about and became fish. Some of the fish gradually adapted themselves to live on land, and they became the first reptiles. Some of the reptiles began to live on the tops of trees, covering themselves with feathers. They developed into birds. But other reptiles adopted hair instead of feathers and became the first animals. And now the climax, which I quote from the bland statement of the original: "One animal in particular seemed to surpass all others.... This creature, half ape and half monkey, was your first manlike ancestor, a very ugly, unattractive mammal. His head and most of his body was covered with long, coarse hair. His hands looked like those of a monkey. His forehead was low, and his body was like the body of a wild animal." There you have the modern, popularized account of the origin of the human race, an account which is essentially the same as that which has been taught to most of the army of young people who in these weeks graduate from our American colleges.
THE BIBLE CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY ASCRIBES OUR CREATION TO GOD
As contrary to this as any two irreconcilable extremes may be, we have this simple, but sublime record of the Scriptures, which tells us that the Lord God formed man." This is the revelation of Heaven, which assures us that the human race was called into existence by a very direct act of God, so that you and I must trace the beginning of human existence, not along the path which leads from some primitive life cells upward to the bleary-eyed, coconut-munching, trapeze-swinging baboon, but directly to the creative hand of God, who formed man as His masterpiece, in His own divine image.
In acknowledging confidently and gratefully, as we do, this revealed truth, we are, of course, not unaware of the fact that the animal origin of man has been announced to the world as an established fact. We know that the curator of our National Museum at Washington unhesitatingly claims, "It has been definitely established that man originated from the anthropoid [manlike] apes," and that a German authority, with equal positiveness, asserts, "We do accept the theory of evolution now as the foundation of all our teaching of biology and social psychology." But such confident pronouncements, intensify them as you will, cannot decide the issue. Produce all of the endorsements for this frightful insult to God that you can; compile all possible statistics showing the number of teachers in our American high schools and colleges who accept evolution; bring on all the reconstructed ape-men, these exotic masquerades of scientific madness, — and all of this, multiplied to the thousandth degree, cannot begin to outweigh this divine summary of revealed truth, to which the Scriptures repeatedly lend such pronounced and emphatic endorsement, The Lord God formed man." This is the conviction of the psalmist, who declares, Know ye that the Lord, He is God; it is He that hath made us." No room for natural selection there nor for the theory of oozy life cells clinging to a rock in mid-ocean! This is the humble confession of the evangelist-prophet Isaiah, We are the clay and Thou our Potter; we all are the work of Thy hand." No accidental origin and ape ancestry in such statements! This is the unwavering assurance of St. Paul, who says that Adam was the first man, not the Java ape-man, that mythical missing link reconstructed from two mysterious bones and two equally questionable teeth found at different times and different places and withheld from scientific men in a most significant manner; nor the Southwestern Colorado man, built up three years ago from part of a set of ancient teeth, but torn down again when it was found that the teeth were those of an old horse; nor the more formidable Hesperopithecus Haroldcookii, built up from that notorious million-dollar Nebraska tooth, which distinguished scientists described as the molar of an American ape-man, but which is now admitted on all sides to be part of the dental equipment of a wild pig. That sublime truth, that the Lord God formed man," is finally crowned with the endorsement of the highest of all authorities, my Lord Jesus Christ, who in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew directly declares His Father to be the Creator of both man and woman in the beginning. And Christ’s Word, even in things scientific, is always the unimpeachable truth of heaven.
"But," some one says, "is it not true that the theory of man’s animal ancestry, accepted by some of the greatest scientific minds of our age, rests upon convincing evidences and demonstrations of fact?" In answer to that challenge we simply declare: The history of human research is replete with similar enthusiastically accepted theories, all heralded as proofs of Biblical inaccuracy, which have become mere punctured pretenses. When God has spoken, men’s contrary guesses cannot disturb us. When the Word of God is contradicted by the word of man, it does not matter how important or authoritative that man may be; his theory, even if it has the endorsement of learned societies and scientific bodies, is improvable. Every argument ever advanced to show ape ancestry, — the argument from the similar skeletal structure of animals and men, from fossil remains, from the developing embryo, from blood tests, from geographical distribution, useless organs, transmutation of species, — these and a host of other theories, drafted for the defense of this godless doctrine, have been considered by reputable and internationally known scientists, and their repeated verdict has been decidedly negative. It is usually the second-rate mind, the blatant atheist, the cynical scoffer, who rushes in where more conscientious investigators fear to tread, the dubious D. D., who, preaching in a pulpit erected by Christian faith, calls evolution "God’s way of doing things" or poetically insists: — Some call it evolution, and others call it God.
But among the very greatest of the great, a formidable number of truly scientific men have bowed reverently before the truth of our text, The Lord God formed man" and declared, in effect, with Pasteur, "Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the Creator.
When a long list of experts, eminent in the scientific world, denounce the claims of this delusion that is being taught to our boys and girls in tax-supported institutions of higher and lower learning, intelligent Christians dare not accept blindly the unguarded statements that slip into our Sunday newspaper supplements and our popular magazines and that repeat, parrot like, the unfounded fiction of the master minds of misrepresentation. This is tragic evidence of a human perversion, which dissipates its energy in the futile task of shooting infidel peas against the Gibraltar of this divine dictum, The Lord God formed man.
ONLY FAITH IN OUR DIVINE ORIGIN INTERPRETS
HUMAN PROBLEMS ARIGHT
No, the truth of our text remains; and what a world of moral and spiritual strength the belief in this divine origin must produce in every human heart! It means, first of all, that you and I are not the mere results of inexorable fate, that we are not here by animal chance, but that we have consciously been placed into the world by the loving- kindness and far-sighted providence of a heavenly Father, who doeth all things well." Humanity is not an accident, a chemical coincidence, but it is God’s supreme masterpiece, created after a counsel of the divine Trinity.
And the natural conclusion which every child of God is entitled to draw from such conviction is this: If God made me and all creatures, if in Christ I can truly call Him my Father, then surely all the changing fortunes of human existence, all my own questions and doubts and the sorrows of life may safely be entrusted to Him. He would not have given me, His child, life and existence only to desert me and to permit me to fall victim to the overpowering odds with which my life is surrounded. — For, while the delusion of man’s materialistic origin leads to the blank, insurmountable walls of despair and so frequently produces suicide, the acknowledgment of God’s creative love is the pledge to every one who believes it that no battle in life will be too hot and hard, no combination of misfortunes too crushing and calamitous, to destroy the relation that exists between a loving Father and His beloved child.
We believe in our divine origin because that belief, and that alone, shows us our individual moral responsibility and our duties to our fellow-men. If there is nothing divine in man, if he is only a refined form of the beast, then all the ideals of clean, constructive living are shattered. If, according to the materialistic theories of the origin of man, millions of years ago (how many millions is not important in the lavish recklessness that finds nothing easier than the production of immeasurable aeons of time), that from which you and I are supposed to have descended was a mere blob of protoplasm which came into existence by accidental chemical action; and if, later, after the lapse of myriads of other years, this ancestral blob, by the merest chance, be- came a jelly-fish; and if this change has been repeated in an interminable series of evolutions, each one an accidental process, so that you and I can trace our descent, not from the creative hand of God, but from the grinning gorilla, then the best philosophy of life for you and me may be this, that we rob and steal and maim and cripple and carouse and chase from the satisfaction of one lust to the fulfillment of another vicious desire. If there is no God in heaven who has placed you and me into this world for a high and holy purpose, then down with law and order! Away with purity and honor and virtue! That is the tragic, yet, logical consequence to which the doctrine of a beast beginning leads. And if you wish to know the dire extremes to which some apostles of evolution have descended, describing life, as they do, as a fierce battle in which only the fittest survive, in which aged and invalids are to be removed from the land of the living, then read Nietzsche’s description of the superman, in which every vestige of helpful and sympathetic regard for the needs of one’s fellow-man is ruthlessly cast aside.
But because God — thanks be to His holy name! — created man as a moral and responsible creature and revealed His will to man in the divine Law, you and I have a conscience, you and I know what is right and what is wrong, you and I are aware of our duties to others, you and I know the terror of sin and its devastating force in our own lives. Godless writers can laugh sin away or brand it as an animal inheritance and claim, as a recent writer did, that the tramp who meets a child on the highway, murders her for the few pennies that she clutches in her little hand, and then throws her body into the ditch is not responsible for his fiendish brutality. Modern educators can continue to heap up the iniquity of our present age by ridiculing individual responsibility and making light of the moral breakdown in the present era of our nation. The theory of chemical, mechanical, accidental human origin can deny the depravity of the human race and claim that men are steadily rising to higher planes and gradually approaching a gilded Utopian age. We look into our own hearts and round about us, and we see, with all the progress and advancement of our age, unmistakable signs of degeneracy, unquestionable evidences of moral and physical collapse; and knowing God as our Creator, we know by the plain statement of His Word that we cannot avoid the responsibilities of meeting the demands of His holiness and perfection and that at an appointed time all who remain in their sin will be gathered around His judgment-seat to answer the charges of a broken law.
But because the God who made us is the God who does not delight in the death of sinners," because He is the Lord whose boundless mercies are fresh every morning, the life that He bestowed upon man is so vital, so priceless, so precious in His sight that He gave the only potent and saving solution to the problem of sin that the world knows. He who created us has not left us as staggering, perishing victims of our own vices, but has given us — O precious promise of God’s unfailing truth! — His own Son as the payment for the overpowering debt incurred by our sins. He who created us, not as glorified animals and high- grade simians, but as reflections of His own holy image, regards you and me as of such surpassing importance that in order to restore that image of holiness and reestablish the relation of loving Father and beloved children, He paid the greatest price that earth or heaven could offer, the holy, precious blood of Jesus Christ, shed, poured out, not for descendants of apes, but for God’s lost children, to older to every sin-harassed soul that may hear these words to-night the full and free forgiveness of each and every sin that would separate it from God.
His Cross, with everything that it implies, — a personal God, a loving God, a forgiving God, a redeeming God, a dying, but also a victoriously risen God, — is the seal and assurance of every other truth of Scriptures, also of that truth which we gratefully acknowledge tonight in the words of Martin Luther, "I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them." Any other conviction can produce only distrust and despair and look forward to nothing but dismal annihilation and destruction. But with God as our Creator, with His Son as our Redeemer, and His Spirit as our Renewer and Sanctifier, you and I are invited to look for truth and beauty and happiness here, in the assurance of our divine origin and hereafter in the blessed promise of divine destiny, the new and better life created by the same gracious Father. Amen.
[From the book, "The Lutheran Hour" 1931]
A Sermon By Dr. Walter A. Maier
Christian News, May 16, 2011
The Lord God formed man — Gen. 2, 6
Ed. CN has often said that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod did not follow the Fundamentalist, Reformed, or anyone else when it opposed evolution and affirmed the inerrancy and historicity of the Bible. It simply defended what the Bible, the Lutheran Confessions, and Luther taught. This sermon by Lutheran Hour speaker Walter A. Maier was preached 80 years ago.
"CLOSE your eyes and think of some muddy gutter or frog pond full of stagnant water, with a scorching sun glittering down on the green slime which floats among the bulrushes and swamp weeds. These cesspools" — I am quoting verbatim from a current popular account of the origin of man — "were the cradle of life on earth." For millions of years, to cite the opinion of another book, which for many months was a best seller throughout the country, this jellylike mass floated about aimlessly. Some of its cells preferred to move about and became fish. Some of the fish gradually adapted themselves to live on land, and they became the first reptiles. Some of the reptiles began to live on the tops of trees, covering themselves with feathers. They developed into birds. But other reptiles adopted hair instead of feathers and became the first animals. And now the climax, which I quote from the bland statement of the original: "One animal in particular seemed to surpass all others.... This creature, half ape and half monkey, was your first manlike ancestor, a very ugly, unattractive mammal. His head and most of his body was covered with long, coarse hair. His hands looked like those of a monkey. His forehead was low, and his body was like the body of a wild animal." There you have the modern, popularized account of the origin of the human race, an account which is essentially the same as that which has been taught to most of the army of young people who in these weeks graduate from our American colleges.
THE BIBLE CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY ASCRIBES OUR CREATION TO GOD
As contrary to this as any two irreconcilable extremes may be, we have this simple, but sublime record of the Scriptures, which tells us that the Lord God formed man." This is the revelation of Heaven, which assures us that the human race was called into existence by a very direct act of God, so that you and I must trace the beginning of human existence, not along the path which leads from some primitive life cells upward to the bleary-eyed, coconut-munching, trapeze-swinging baboon, but directly to the creative hand of God, who formed man as His masterpiece, in His own divine image.
In acknowledging confidently and gratefully, as we do, this revealed truth, we are, of course, not unaware of the fact that the animal origin of man has been announced to the world as an established fact. We know that the curator of our National Museum at Washington unhesitatingly claims, "It has been definitely established that man originated from the anthropoid [manlike] apes," and that a German authority, with equal positiveness, asserts, "We do accept the theory of evolution now as the foundation of all our teaching of biology and social psychology." But such confident pronouncements, intensify them as you will, cannot decide the issue. Produce all of the endorsements for this frightful insult to God that you can; compile all possible statistics showing the number of teachers in our American high schools and colleges who accept evolution; bring on all the reconstructed ape-men, these exotic masquerades of scientific madness, — and all of this, multiplied to the thousandth degree, cannot begin to outweigh this divine summary of revealed truth, to which the Scriptures repeatedly lend such pronounced and emphatic endorsement, The Lord God formed man." This is the conviction of the psalmist, who declares, Know ye that the Lord, He is God; it is He that hath made us." No room for natural selection there nor for the theory of oozy life cells clinging to a rock in mid-ocean! This is the humble confession of the evangelist-prophet Isaiah, We are the clay and Thou our Potter; we all are the work of Thy hand." No accidental origin and ape ancestry in such statements! This is the unwavering assurance of St. Paul, who says that Adam was the first man, not the Java ape-man, that mythical missing link reconstructed from two mysterious bones and two equally questionable teeth found at different times and different places and withheld from scientific men in a most significant manner; nor the Southwestern Colorado man, built up three years ago from part of a set of ancient teeth, but torn down again when it was found that the teeth were those of an old horse; nor the more formidable Hesperopithecus Haroldcookii, built up from that notorious million-dollar Nebraska tooth, which distinguished scientists described as the molar of an American ape-man, but which is now admitted on all sides to be part of the dental equipment of a wild pig. That sublime truth, that the Lord God formed man," is finally crowned with the endorsement of the highest of all authorities, my Lord Jesus Christ, who in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew directly declares His Father to be the Creator of both man and woman in the beginning. And Christ’s Word, even in things scientific, is always the unimpeachable truth of heaven.
"But," some one says, "is it not true that the theory of man’s animal ancestry, accepted by some of the greatest scientific minds of our age, rests upon convincing evidences and demonstrations of fact?" In answer to that challenge we simply declare: The history of human research is replete with similar enthusiastically accepted theories, all heralded as proofs of Biblical inaccuracy, which have become mere punctured pretenses. When God has spoken, men’s contrary guesses cannot disturb us. When the Word of God is contradicted by the word of man, it does not matter how important or authoritative that man may be; his theory, even if it has the endorsement of learned societies and scientific bodies, is improvable. Every argument ever advanced to show ape ancestry, — the argument from the similar skeletal structure of animals and men, from fossil remains, from the developing embryo, from blood tests, from geographical distribution, useless organs, transmutation of species, — these and a host of other theories, drafted for the defense of this godless doctrine, have been considered by reputable and internationally known scientists, and their repeated verdict has been decidedly negative. It is usually the second-rate mind, the blatant atheist, the cynical scoffer, who rushes in where more conscientious investigators fear to tread, the dubious D. D., who, preaching in a pulpit erected by Christian faith, calls evolution "God’s way of doing things" or poetically insists: — Some call it evolution, and others call it God.
But among the very greatest of the great, a formidable number of truly scientific men have bowed reverently before the truth of our text, The Lord God formed man" and declared, in effect, with Pasteur, "Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the Creator.
When a long list of experts, eminent in the scientific world, denounce the claims of this delusion that is being taught to our boys and girls in tax-supported institutions of higher and lower learning, intelligent Christians dare not accept blindly the unguarded statements that slip into our Sunday newspaper supplements and our popular magazines and that repeat, parrot like, the unfounded fiction of the master minds of misrepresentation. This is tragic evidence of a human perversion, which dissipates its energy in the futile task of shooting infidel peas against the Gibraltar of this divine dictum, The Lord God formed man.
ONLY FAITH IN OUR DIVINE ORIGIN INTERPRETS
HUMAN PROBLEMS ARIGHT
No, the truth of our text remains; and what a world of moral and spiritual strength the belief in this divine origin must produce in every human heart! It means, first of all, that you and I are not the mere results of inexorable fate, that we are not here by animal chance, but that we have consciously been placed into the world by the loving- kindness and far-sighted providence of a heavenly Father, who doeth all things well." Humanity is not an accident, a chemical coincidence, but it is God’s supreme masterpiece, created after a counsel of the divine Trinity.
And the natural conclusion which every child of God is entitled to draw from such conviction is this: If God made me and all creatures, if in Christ I can truly call Him my Father, then surely all the changing fortunes of human existence, all my own questions and doubts and the sorrows of life may safely be entrusted to Him. He would not have given me, His child, life and existence only to desert me and to permit me to fall victim to the overpowering odds with which my life is surrounded. — For, while the delusion of man’s materialistic origin leads to the blank, insurmountable walls of despair and so frequently produces suicide, the acknowledgment of God’s creative love is the pledge to every one who believes it that no battle in life will be too hot and hard, no combination of misfortunes too crushing and calamitous, to destroy the relation that exists between a loving Father and His beloved child.
We believe in our divine origin because that belief, and that alone, shows us our individual moral responsibility and our duties to our fellow-men. If there is nothing divine in man, if he is only a refined form of the beast, then all the ideals of clean, constructive living are shattered. If, according to the materialistic theories of the origin of man, millions of years ago (how many millions is not important in the lavish recklessness that finds nothing easier than the production of immeasurable aeons of time), that from which you and I are supposed to have descended was a mere blob of protoplasm which came into existence by accidental chemical action; and if, later, after the lapse of myriads of other years, this ancestral blob, by the merest chance, be- came a jelly-fish; and if this change has been repeated in an interminable series of evolutions, each one an accidental process, so that you and I can trace our descent, not from the creative hand of God, but from the grinning gorilla, then the best philosophy of life for you and me may be this, that we rob and steal and maim and cripple and carouse and chase from the satisfaction of one lust to the fulfillment of another vicious desire. If there is no God in heaven who has placed you and me into this world for a high and holy purpose, then down with law and order! Away with purity and honor and virtue! That is the tragic, yet, logical consequence to which the doctrine of a beast beginning leads. And if you wish to know the dire extremes to which some apostles of evolution have descended, describing life, as they do, as a fierce battle in which only the fittest survive, in which aged and invalids are to be removed from the land of the living, then read Nietzsche’s description of the superman, in which every vestige of helpful and sympathetic regard for the needs of one’s fellow-man is ruthlessly cast aside.
But because God — thanks be to His holy name! — created man as a moral and responsible creature and revealed His will to man in the divine Law, you and I have a conscience, you and I know what is right and what is wrong, you and I are aware of our duties to others, you and I know the terror of sin and its devastating force in our own lives. Godless writers can laugh sin away or brand it as an animal inheritance and claim, as a recent writer did, that the tramp who meets a child on the highway, murders her for the few pennies that she clutches in her little hand, and then throws her body into the ditch is not responsible for his fiendish brutality. Modern educators can continue to heap up the iniquity of our present age by ridiculing individual responsibility and making light of the moral breakdown in the present era of our nation. The theory of chemical, mechanical, accidental human origin can deny the depravity of the human race and claim that men are steadily rising to higher planes and gradually approaching a gilded Utopian age. We look into our own hearts and round about us, and we see, with all the progress and advancement of our age, unmistakable signs of degeneracy, unquestionable evidences of moral and physical collapse; and knowing God as our Creator, we know by the plain statement of His Word that we cannot avoid the responsibilities of meeting the demands of His holiness and perfection and that at an appointed time all who remain in their sin will be gathered around His judgment-seat to answer the charges of a broken law.
But because the God who made us is the God who does not delight in the death of sinners," because He is the Lord whose boundless mercies are fresh every morning, the life that He bestowed upon man is so vital, so priceless, so precious in His sight that He gave the only potent and saving solution to the problem of sin that the world knows. He who created us has not left us as staggering, perishing victims of our own vices, but has given us — O precious promise of God’s unfailing truth! — His own Son as the payment for the overpowering debt incurred by our sins. He who created us, not as glorified animals and high- grade simians, but as reflections of His own holy image, regards you and me as of such surpassing importance that in order to restore that image of holiness and reestablish the relation of loving Father and beloved children, He paid the greatest price that earth or heaven could offer, the holy, precious blood of Jesus Christ, shed, poured out, not for descendants of apes, but for God’s lost children, to older to every sin-harassed soul that may hear these words to-night the full and free forgiveness of each and every sin that would separate it from God.
His Cross, with everything that it implies, — a personal God, a loving God, a forgiving God, a redeeming God, a dying, but also a victoriously risen God, — is the seal and assurance of every other truth of Scriptures, also of that truth which we gratefully acknowledge tonight in the words of Martin Luther, "I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them." Any other conviction can produce only distrust and despair and look forward to nothing but dismal annihilation and destruction. But with God as our Creator, with His Son as our Redeemer, and His Spirit as our Renewer and Sanctifier, you and I are invited to look for truth and beauty and happiness here, in the assurance of our divine origin and hereafter in the blessed promise of divine destiny, the new and better life created by the same gracious Father. Amen.
[From the book, "The Lutheran Hour" 1931]
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Corrections and Setting the Record Straight - Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod
Corrections - And Setting the Record Straight - Power, Politics and the Missouri Synod, Christian News, May 9, 2011
Power, Politics and the Missouri Synod - A Conflict That Changed American Christianity by James C. Burkee is being highly praised by liberals as a book of great scholarship. The author is supposed to have unearthed material previously only in “unsealed” files and never before made public. It is published by ELCA’s Fortress Press with a foreword by Martin E. Marty, hailed as America’s premier church historian, a real scholar. Former Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and Seminex Professor Edward Schroeder says on his crossings web sit: “Burkee has unearthed documents that expose the seamy side of the ‘Wars of Missouri’ back in the 1970s. He tells all.” Seminex Professor Ralph Klein says “The dirt (Burkee) dug up and the connection to right wing political extremism are amazing.”
The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau’s Lutheran Forum has reprinted 13 pages from the book. Christian News has been selling it. The back of the book has highly favorable testimonies from Robert Benne, Director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society; Jon Diefenthaler, a district president of the LCMS; and Chris Beneke, Associate Professor of History, Bently University, Waltham, Massachu- setts. CN has published reviews by Matthew Becker of Valparaiso University, and Paul Hinlicky, former editor of Lutheran Forum, praising the book as great scholarship.
When CN began selling the book, CN was advised to include a list of corrections with each book sold because of what it said about CN. When the book first appeared as a Ph.D. thesis for Northwestern University, Burkee concluded by stating that all of the editor’s children had fallen from the faith. He ended by asking how many others had fallen from the Christian faith because of the work of Herman Otten, the editor of Christian News. When the thesis first appeared CN published much of it with corrections. Burkee did change his conclusion about the editor’s children falling from the faith and causing other to fall. However, when Fortress published the thesis, many of the same errors CN had mentioned were still included.
Here are some corrections of a book which Martin Marty and many others consider a great work of scholarship.
CN has already noted that the book’s greatest weakness is the author’s failing to grasp the real theological issues involved. “The Essence of the LCMS Battle - DOCTRINAL ISSUES NOT POWER AND POLITICS,” a front page story in the March 7, 2011 Christian News covered this matter. CN reprinted “What Is Going On? A Specification of Issues” which the editor and Kurt Marquart first formulated in the 1950s and then later published as a tract which was widely distributed in LCMS churches all over the nation. This was long before the organized conservatives spoke in public about the infiltration of theological liberalism in the LCMS. While much of what Burkee says about Power and Politics may be true about the organized conservatives, it is not true when it come to Christian News. CN year after year hammered away at the theological issues. CN had no power other than the truth and God’s Word.
Burkee’s “History”
Burkee is an historian and not a theologian. Now let’s look at some of his “history.”
Dr. Greg Jackson in his review in CN (CN February 7, 2011), of the Burkee book observes that Dr. Martin Marty in the foreword refers to the CN editor as “Mr.” rather than pastor. Liberals and even some of the organized conservatives have long refused to recognize that the CN editor has been the full time pastor of an LCMS congregation since 1958 when he was called by the congregation. Marty says that moderates disdained Otten as a Holocaust denier, plagiarizer, and violator of copyright laws. Otten has never defended Hitler or the Nazis. He has always opposed the socialism of the right and the socialism of the left. He has recognized that the Nazi’s and Communists killed many Jews and others. However, he insists that there is no evidence that the Germans during WWII exterminated some six million Jews in gas chambers. Otten’s Baal or God shows that he received permission from some 40 publishers. Those who accept the 6 million figure now refuse to debate him. They recognize CN has the facts.
When Otten quoted directly from the writings of liberals to show they denied basic doctrines of the Christian faith, the liberals complained Otten was quoting out of context. When Otten asked such liberal publications as Dialog and Marty’s Christian Century for permission to reprint the entire article to show CN was not quoting out of context, they denied permission. Copyright laws were not intended to shield authors from legitimate criticism. Marty had his chance to expose Otten as a fraud when a group of California laymen invited Otten and Marty to debate at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Each side could question the other about anything they had written. Marty was to defend the notion that Lutheran seminarians should attend an ELCA seminary while Otten would show why they should attend an LCMS seminary. Marty had written that Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and the LCMS had “gone to ashes.”
Otten agreed to debate while Marty declined. Marty would have had opportunity to show where Otten had not told the truth about the Holocaust or anything else.
Secret Meeting with LCMS President Behnken
Contrary to Burkee, (p. 1). Otten had no secret meeting with LCMS President John W. Behnken or any other LCMS leader.
Otten Most Influential Conservative in LCMS
Burkee writes: “Again, it is necessary given such revisionism, to state the obvious: Herman Otten was the single most influential conservative in the synod before 1969” (7).
“Herman Otten Jr. founded conservative tabloid Christian News following his rejection by Concordia Seminary. He shaped Missouri conservatism with an impact magnified by his freedom from church oversight. Otten was the most significant figure in modern LCMS history.” (photo caption 94f)
According to the LCMS’s organized conservatives, who shunned Christian News, Otten hardly existed. They were the one through their political activity, publications and meetings first exposed liberalism in the LCMS and should get the credit for “turning the LCMS around.”
Otten’s Truth not Biblical Truths
Burkee writes:
“Herman Otten is also the Missouri Synod’s most infamous figure. Otten saw himself, as others still see him as the ‘Martin Luther of the Missouri Synod,’ standing firm for truth regardless of the cost. But as Christian News developed in the 1960s, it came more to reflect Otten’s truth then biblical or even religious truth.” In reality Otten never saw himself as any Martin Luther. If anyone even came close to Luther, Otten said it was Kurt Marquart. Otten said he came up with nothing new but was merely reflecting what the Bible teaches and what Luther and the Lutheran Confessions affirmed.
Not For Publication
Otten did not publish “personal letters not for publication” because some letters Burkee found in Otten’s files were marked “Not for Publication” (9).
Clandestine Meetings
Burkee writes: Otten “complained about the conservative movements secretive tactics but attended clandestine meetings and frequently communicated through back channels. Herman Otten’s sprawling conservatives and problematic methods gained him unmatched influence. They gained him a strong and loyal following. And they gained him enduring infamy” (9).
As far as Otten can recall, he attended only two “secret” meetings of LCMS conservatives. He made it clear at the outset that he had problems attending the meetings because of the secrecy. He was never invited back. Most of the organized conservatives refused to invite him to be a speaker even though he had drawn larger crowds, particulary laymen, than they did to meetings. Neither he nor his wife was ever presented any awards by the organized conservatives. The organized conservatives told Otten that “the LCMS was in a war and in a war you do not tell your opponents your strategy.” While at least some of the others attending the “secret” meetings had their travel expenses paid, Otten insisted on paying his own way. He did not want to be obligated to anyone. Otten repeatedly opposed the deception practiced by LCMS President Jacob Preus and the organized conservatives who backed Preus. Otten warned that some day when an honest scholar discovers this deception and double talk it could turn youth away from conservativism in the LCMS.
New Christian Right
Burkee writes:
“Herman Otten belongs on the list of the most significant leaders of the ‘New Christian Right’. Otten and the movement he helped create bridge the gap between the old and new movements” (13). Otten emphasized for more than 50 years that he was starting nothing new but merely calling for the LCMS to return to the position of its founding fathers, Scriptures, Luther and the Lutheran Confessions.
Crusader Mentality
“For Herman Otten was a product of both a moderating seminary and a crusader mentality shaped by his perception of family and history” (27). Otten simply said he was the product and champion of “Old Missouri’s school system” which included faithfulness to God’s Word.
Oswald Hoffmann
Burkee writes: “St. Matthew’s, where Herman Sr. served as congregational president, was a revolving door for the best and brightest of young often liberal pastors-in-training, including future LCMS leaders Oswald Hoffman, Ralph Klein, Walther Bouman, Art Simon, John Damm, and John Tietjen . . . Nearly every week one or more of these young men broke bread at the Otten dinner table. When Herman Jr. was away at seminary, they often took his place. And while he spent his summers upstate sweating to earn money on a dairy farm, they sat in his cool home, drank his father’s beer and talked of peace and justice” (28).
Hoffman was never a pastor-in-training or a vicar at Otten’s home church. He was an assistant pastor largely responsible for getting a long line of leading liberal intellectuals to serve as vicars at St. Matthew.
Anonymous Letters
Burkee writes:
“Before long, however, Weidman (professor at Concordia, Bronxville), began to receive confrontational letters sent anonymously. He attributed them to Herman. There is no question that Herman was capable of writing such letters – and worse. His sister, Marie, tells of a time when Herman’s younger brother, Walter, who, like Herman, was an athlete – got caught drinking beer at a post game celebration. According to Marie, what Walter got from his father was nothing compared to the vitriol from his older brother. “Marie Meyer Interview” (28). “Herman Sr. was angry only because (1) Walter had gotten caught, and (2) he wanted money by getting the bottle deposits” (ff. 69, 196).
J.T. Mueller in Hiding
Burkee writes: “J.T. Mueller hid at a nearby motel, hoping to provide moral support for Otten without associating with him publicly” (37). “J.T. Mueller, an aging professor at Concordia Seminary who . . . . . (for entire article see Vol. 49, No. 17, Christian News, May 9, 2011).
Power, Politics and the Missouri Synod - A Conflict That Changed American Christianity by James C. Burkee is being highly praised by liberals as a book of great scholarship. The author is supposed to have unearthed material previously only in “unsealed” files and never before made public. It is published by ELCA’s Fortress Press with a foreword by Martin E. Marty, hailed as America’s premier church historian, a real scholar. Former Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and Seminex Professor Edward Schroeder says on his crossings web sit: “Burkee has unearthed documents that expose the seamy side of the ‘Wars of Missouri’ back in the 1970s. He tells all.” Seminex Professor Ralph Klein says “The dirt (Burkee) dug up and the connection to right wing political extremism are amazing.”
The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau’s Lutheran Forum has reprinted 13 pages from the book. Christian News has been selling it. The back of the book has highly favorable testimonies from Robert Benne, Director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society; Jon Diefenthaler, a district president of the LCMS; and Chris Beneke, Associate Professor of History, Bently University, Waltham, Massachu- setts. CN has published reviews by Matthew Becker of Valparaiso University, and Paul Hinlicky, former editor of Lutheran Forum, praising the book as great scholarship.
When CN began selling the book, CN was advised to include a list of corrections with each book sold because of what it said about CN. When the book first appeared as a Ph.D. thesis for Northwestern University, Burkee concluded by stating that all of the editor’s children had fallen from the faith. He ended by asking how many others had fallen from the Christian faith because of the work of Herman Otten, the editor of Christian News. When the thesis first appeared CN published much of it with corrections. Burkee did change his conclusion about the editor’s children falling from the faith and causing other to fall. However, when Fortress published the thesis, many of the same errors CN had mentioned were still included.
Here are some corrections of a book which Martin Marty and many others consider a great work of scholarship.
CN has already noted that the book’s greatest weakness is the author’s failing to grasp the real theological issues involved. “The Essence of the LCMS Battle - DOCTRINAL ISSUES NOT POWER AND POLITICS,” a front page story in the March 7, 2011 Christian News covered this matter. CN reprinted “What Is Going On? A Specification of Issues” which the editor and Kurt Marquart first formulated in the 1950s and then later published as a tract which was widely distributed in LCMS churches all over the nation. This was long before the organized conservatives spoke in public about the infiltration of theological liberalism in the LCMS. While much of what Burkee says about Power and Politics may be true about the organized conservatives, it is not true when it come to Christian News. CN year after year hammered away at the theological issues. CN had no power other than the truth and God’s Word.
Burkee’s “History”
Burkee is an historian and not a theologian. Now let’s look at some of his “history.”
Dr. Greg Jackson in his review in CN (CN February 7, 2011), of the Burkee book observes that Dr. Martin Marty in the foreword refers to the CN editor as “Mr.” rather than pastor. Liberals and even some of the organized conservatives have long refused to recognize that the CN editor has been the full time pastor of an LCMS congregation since 1958 when he was called by the congregation. Marty says that moderates disdained Otten as a Holocaust denier, plagiarizer, and violator of copyright laws. Otten has never defended Hitler or the Nazis. He has always opposed the socialism of the right and the socialism of the left. He has recognized that the Nazi’s and Communists killed many Jews and others. However, he insists that there is no evidence that the Germans during WWII exterminated some six million Jews in gas chambers. Otten’s Baal or God shows that he received permission from some 40 publishers. Those who accept the 6 million figure now refuse to debate him. They recognize CN has the facts.
When Otten quoted directly from the writings of liberals to show they denied basic doctrines of the Christian faith, the liberals complained Otten was quoting out of context. When Otten asked such liberal publications as Dialog and Marty’s Christian Century for permission to reprint the entire article to show CN was not quoting out of context, they denied permission. Copyright laws were not intended to shield authors from legitimate criticism. Marty had his chance to expose Otten as a fraud when a group of California laymen invited Otten and Marty to debate at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Each side could question the other about anything they had written. Marty was to defend the notion that Lutheran seminarians should attend an ELCA seminary while Otten would show why they should attend an LCMS seminary. Marty had written that Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and the LCMS had “gone to ashes.”
Otten agreed to debate while Marty declined. Marty would have had opportunity to show where Otten had not told the truth about the Holocaust or anything else.
Secret Meeting with LCMS President Behnken
Contrary to Burkee, (p. 1). Otten had no secret meeting with LCMS President John W. Behnken or any other LCMS leader.
Otten Most Influential Conservative in LCMS
Burkee writes: “Again, it is necessary given such revisionism, to state the obvious: Herman Otten was the single most influential conservative in the synod before 1969” (7).
“Herman Otten Jr. founded conservative tabloid Christian News following his rejection by Concordia Seminary. He shaped Missouri conservatism with an impact magnified by his freedom from church oversight. Otten was the most significant figure in modern LCMS history.” (photo caption 94f)
According to the LCMS’s organized conservatives, who shunned Christian News, Otten hardly existed. They were the one through their political activity, publications and meetings first exposed liberalism in the LCMS and should get the credit for “turning the LCMS around.”
Otten’s Truth not Biblical Truths
Burkee writes:
“Herman Otten is also the Missouri Synod’s most infamous figure. Otten saw himself, as others still see him as the ‘Martin Luther of the Missouri Synod,’ standing firm for truth regardless of the cost. But as Christian News developed in the 1960s, it came more to reflect Otten’s truth then biblical or even religious truth.” In reality Otten never saw himself as any Martin Luther. If anyone even came close to Luther, Otten said it was Kurt Marquart. Otten said he came up with nothing new but was merely reflecting what the Bible teaches and what Luther and the Lutheran Confessions affirmed.
Not For Publication
Otten did not publish “personal letters not for publication” because some letters Burkee found in Otten’s files were marked “Not for Publication” (9).
Clandestine Meetings
Burkee writes: Otten “complained about the conservative movements secretive tactics but attended clandestine meetings and frequently communicated through back channels. Herman Otten’s sprawling conservatives and problematic methods gained him unmatched influence. They gained him a strong and loyal following. And they gained him enduring infamy” (9).
As far as Otten can recall, he attended only two “secret” meetings of LCMS conservatives. He made it clear at the outset that he had problems attending the meetings because of the secrecy. He was never invited back. Most of the organized conservatives refused to invite him to be a speaker even though he had drawn larger crowds, particulary laymen, than they did to meetings. Neither he nor his wife was ever presented any awards by the organized conservatives. The organized conservatives told Otten that “the LCMS was in a war and in a war you do not tell your opponents your strategy.” While at least some of the others attending the “secret” meetings had their travel expenses paid, Otten insisted on paying his own way. He did not want to be obligated to anyone. Otten repeatedly opposed the deception practiced by LCMS President Jacob Preus and the organized conservatives who backed Preus. Otten warned that some day when an honest scholar discovers this deception and double talk it could turn youth away from conservativism in the LCMS.
New Christian Right
Burkee writes:
“Herman Otten belongs on the list of the most significant leaders of the ‘New Christian Right’. Otten and the movement he helped create bridge the gap between the old and new movements” (13). Otten emphasized for more than 50 years that he was starting nothing new but merely calling for the LCMS to return to the position of its founding fathers, Scriptures, Luther and the Lutheran Confessions.
Crusader Mentality
“For Herman Otten was a product of both a moderating seminary and a crusader mentality shaped by his perception of family and history” (27). Otten simply said he was the product and champion of “Old Missouri’s school system” which included faithfulness to God’s Word.
Oswald Hoffmann
Burkee writes: “St. Matthew’s, where Herman Sr. served as congregational president, was a revolving door for the best and brightest of young often liberal pastors-in-training, including future LCMS leaders Oswald Hoffman, Ralph Klein, Walther Bouman, Art Simon, John Damm, and John Tietjen . . . Nearly every week one or more of these young men broke bread at the Otten dinner table. When Herman Jr. was away at seminary, they often took his place. And while he spent his summers upstate sweating to earn money on a dairy farm, they sat in his cool home, drank his father’s beer and talked of peace and justice” (28).
Hoffman was never a pastor-in-training or a vicar at Otten’s home church. He was an assistant pastor largely responsible for getting a long line of leading liberal intellectuals to serve as vicars at St. Matthew.
Anonymous Letters
Burkee writes:
“Before long, however, Weidman (professor at Concordia, Bronxville), began to receive confrontational letters sent anonymously. He attributed them to Herman. There is no question that Herman was capable of writing such letters – and worse. His sister, Marie, tells of a time when Herman’s younger brother, Walter, who, like Herman, was an athlete – got caught drinking beer at a post game celebration. According to Marie, what Walter got from his father was nothing compared to the vitriol from his older brother. “Marie Meyer Interview” (28). “Herman Sr. was angry only because (1) Walter had gotten caught, and (2) he wanted money by getting the bottle deposits” (ff. 69, 196).
J.T. Mueller in Hiding
Burkee writes: “J.T. Mueller hid at a nearby motel, hoping to provide moral support for Otten without associating with him publicly” (37). “J.T. Mueller, an aging professor at Concordia Seminary who . . . . . (for entire article see Vol. 49, No. 17, Christian News, May 9, 2011).
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