In a letter to Texas District pastors Vice President Linderman wrote
about me, "I don’t think we need a carpetbagger theologian to come to Texas and
tell us what it means to be a Conservative Lutheran."
I wish that Linderman would have mentioned my being raised in New York City.
"Carpetbagger" is so generic. Linderman and the other Texas Vice Presidents and
the District President all seem to have no trouble inviting northern Church Growth
carpetbaggers like Bill Hybles and Michigan Church Growth consultants from Church
Consultants Group to reorganize their District. They don’t want any carpetbaggers
telling them how to be Conservative Lutherans but they beg and plead to get the
"Church Growth" carpetbaggers to tell them how to grow their churches with
entertainment and how to get more bodies and more money. Yes, more, more, more. My problem
must be that I’m not charging a big enough fee.
Why go to Texas? Well, first it is there.
Second, the challenge of speaking about the need to maintain a consistent witness to
the Gospel with the three Creeds and then publishing the statistics about the Texas
District from the Lutheran Annual in Texas, and the possibility of being denounced by
Texas District officials for daring to make these issues public was more tantalizing than
I could resist.
Third, Texas is so much like the Michigan District but not quite as thoroughly advanced
in the same Church Growth/ Leadership Training disease promoted by "the Michigan
102". "The Michigan 102" are a group of pastors and lay delegates who
issued a signed manifesto to the 1997 Michigan District Convention supporting the kind of
"Church Growth fanaticism now spreading in Texas. Like so many other LCMS Districts,
the Texas District Office and Convention have bought into the New World Order, secular
humanism, New Age, transformational dialectic processing, manipulation techniques, and
universalism of the Church Growth Movement and Leadership Training. These are all promoted
by Fuller Theological Seminary, Willow Creek, The Leadership Network, Peter Drucker,
Harvard School of Business, Covey, and hundreds more Church Growth consultants.
Fourth, lining up a series of speaking events where I can gain lots of enemies by
insisting on the confession of the three Creeds in the Missouri Synod and tour Texas for
five days before Lent at the same time is a little more thrilling Mardi Gras.
Fifth, and most directly, my goal is to promote the passage of two resolutions at the
2001 LCMS Convention. The first is to reaffirm "Walther’s Church and
Ministry" as the official position of the LCMS. The second is to return all full-time
District Presidents back to being full-time congregational pastors. Let them learn to
delegate as they did in the first century of the LCMS when the Synod experienced its
greatest growth. We must cut back the bureaucracy.
Sixth, there is also a much more important reason to go to Texas and speak at
Arlington, San Antonio, and Houston. In spite of the domination of Church Growth advocates
on every Texas Board, the District Office, the offices of the District President and all
four District Presidents, Texas also has a small but vocal minority of confessional
pastors. In fact there are more confessional pastors who also support C.F.W Walther’s
Church and Ministry and who will stand up and be counted in Texas than in any other LCMS
District.
While in San Antonio for the first time on Feb. 15th, I visited the Alamo. It is
something we heard about on Walt Disney back in New York City in 1956. In Mrs.
Howell’s fourth grade class in P.S. 77 we all sang "Davey, Davey,
Crocket...." However, you never get the sense of what really happened there till you
actually walk into the Alamo. It’s a large stone mausoleum in the shape of a church
for the nearly 200 men who died there for, of all things, principle. There are flags there
from every state in the Union where these men came from. They gave their lives for an
ideal and belief in something that was worth dying for against impossible odds. The
emotion of it all as you walk in is overwhelming.
It was at the Alamo that I realized why Texas had more confessional Lutheran pastors
who will stand their ground for the use of Lutheran hymn books, catechisms, agendas, the
Creeds, and the name Lutheran, than any other District in the Synod. They know what it
means to stand for principle against insurmountable odds. There was no political solution
at the Alamo. The Alamo is not the place for anyone seeking a career advancement.
What contrasts we find in Texas. In each location I spoke a District Vice President
stood up on behalf of the District President and explained in public why it was against
their principles to answer the written questions about their faith asked by Arlington
layman, Jim Runzheimer. It’s a long way from the Alamo to the Texas District Office
in Austin.
The Texas President and the four Vice Presidents all signed a statement explaining why
they couldn’t answer 10 simple questions about their faith. The following are just 4
of the questions. 1. (yes) (no) I support Walther’s Church and Ministry as the only
correct teaching and practice for all Texas District Congregations. 2. (yes) (no) I oppose
the confession of any manufactured creeds and statements of faith in place of the three
Ecumenical Creeds in all Texas District Congregation worship services. 3. (yes) (no) I
believe that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are correct statements of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ and agreement with them, without addition or deletion, is necessary for
membership in the LCMS. 4. (yes) (no) The only way to heaven is by faith in the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.
We ask 13 year old confirmands to say they would rather die than give up the confession
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as stated in the Lutheran Agenda and then they confess
the Apostle’s Creed. But these men can’t even agree to sign these simple
questions from a Lutheran layman. When I asked Linderman why he couldn’t answer
number 4 he responded that there might be a trick in it.
Well just suppose there is a trick. What do they think it is? After giving 8.7 million
dollars in 1997 to the Texas District Office the Texas lay people can’t even get
their President and Vice President to answer question number 3. I tried to make it easy by
not including the Athanasian Creed but they would not even agree to the Apostles’ or
Nicene Creeds. What do they think would happen? Would they be shot? Would Santa Anna then
burn their bodies if they agreed to question number 3?
Quite frankly, I came down to Texas to stand with and fight along side some pastors who
possess a rare quality in the LCMS, a quality I can’t find in Michigan, men who will
stand their ground for the Gospel of Jesus Christ at any cost, men who are proud to be
Lutherans, men who hold to their principles and will not bow down to the Church Growth
Movement, men who are not afraid to answer questions in writing.
Linderman and the others certainly expect all the pastors in the District to fill out
long forms explaining their beliefs and practices to keep on file at the District Office.
However, they themselves are not accountable to a lay man who dares to ask them simple
questions about their faith. Did the blind man in John 9 meet any better at the temple?
One should read Linderman’s attack on Jim Runzheimer in this issue for daring to ask
him questions.
There are other reasons why I came to Texas that I will not share. But let me assure
you that the Lord gave me a great opportunity to meet and surpass every objective I hoped
to accomplish. He gave me a letter signed by the Texas President and Vice Presidents,
handed to me the first night I was in Texas, that explains why they will not answer any
questions about their faith.
May God preserve the pastors and congregations in their struggle against the Texas
District Office, President, and Vice Presidents.