After more than 150 years since the founding of Concordia Theological Seminary at Fort Wayne, the Chairman of the Board of Regents of tells us that the faculty is actually incapable of articulating the congregational polity of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. If not incapable, at least they refuse to disclose what polity, if any, they endorse for the Synod.

If they refuse to give an LCMS pastor an answer how are the lay people they claim to serve going to learn what their Seminary teaches about their constitutions?

The Fort Wayne Faculty has refused to endorse our LCMS Congregation's Constitution drafted in 1921, "In general, the Voters' Assembly as a body, shall have supreme power to administer and manage all its external and internal affairs."

When I raised the question about Voter Supremacy in a letter to Rev. Anderson, he responded as follows on January 24h, 2000:

"I talked with a number of our professors at CTS this past week and found none who teaches or who knows anyone who teaches that the congregational voters' assembly is not supreme. If you know someone who does, it would seem to be the Christian thing to approach that brother privately and talk to him about it. If he listens to you, you have won your brother (Matt. 18:15). Having thus done all I can to run down the basis for your rumors, I asked Dr. Weinrich to reply to your questions."

I responded with a letter of repentance as follows:

"Also, please accept my repentance for misjudging you and consistently misunderstanding what the faculty, students, and graduates of Fort Wayne were saying about voter supremacy. I'm sorry to say, I thought they hated voter supremacy and that they thought it was a tool of the devil. I have in my possession about 500 pages to that effect from graduates of both seminaries. I mistakenly thought they were getting it from your professors."

After discovering that Dr. Weinrich was not going to respond, I followed Anderson's advice on Matthew 18 on and asked the faculty members if they agree with Voter Supremacy.

Six of the thirty-three faculty members at Fort Wayne wrote back that they agreed with Voter Supremacy. Then Professor Marquart wrote his disapproval as follows: "'Voter Supremacy'" is worldly, political sloganeering. Zeal for any 'supremacy' except Christ's is alien to His church. One might as well be shouting: 'All Power to the Soviets!' How's that for Hyper-Euro-Proletarianism?"

The esteemed Professor Marquart said many fine things in his letter, but refused to give any identifiable polity for LCMS congregations that anyone could even remotely put in a church constitution.

He wrote, "Here, at last, is the proper place for 'voter supremacy'- in the civil, temporal sphere, not in the sphere of spiritual, churchly rule and government." Another faculty member agreed with him in writing.

What about voting on Calls, voting on excommunication, voting on association with a Synod, voting on the hymnbook and form of worship that will be observed, voting on doctrine for convention resolutions, and judging the pastors teaching and preaching?

Marquart seems to have no place for these doctrinal issues under Voter Supremacy. By process of elimination it must be that the clergy will oversee these decisions for the congregation. Or is Marquart even aware of the implications of what he saying in the above sentence?

Worse yet, this is only Marquart's and another faculty member's view. Who knows what the others believe about polity.

In a letter to Christian News on May 11, 2000 Anderson says they won't answer me because, ".it was decided that he [Cascione] would never stop no matter what was said."

Was Cascione the one who was to one to be satisfied? I didn't ask for agreement with Cascione. I only asked for agreement with two quotations from Walther and one from the "Abiding Word."

From Fort Wayne's perspective, Anderson is correct because we are all painfully aware that Fort Wayne can't teach its students one coherent polity for LCMS congregations. Thus they are preparing gradates for no particular congregational model or Synod.

Anderson writes that people think I'm, "a laughing stock" because I want to know what the Faculty teaches on Voter Supremacy. Anderson is the man who originally told me the whole faculty agreed with Voter Supremacy.

I have previously asked for Anderson's resignation. He is clearly unable to define the polity that the "greatest seminary in the world" is teaching its students. A house divided cannot stand.

Out of fairness, a similar letter was sent to the Faculty at St. Louis. At this time, we have three faculty members out of fifty from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis who agree with Walther's position on Voter Supremacy.

The question is, will the greatest opposition to a resolution at the 2001 LCMS Convention reaffirming Voter Supremacy come from the Seminary Faculties or the Council of District Presidents?

The May 9, 2000, decision handed down by the three Judge Court of Appeals in Dallas, Texas, ruled that Ron Hunt was unjustly convicted of criminal trespass on his own church property because LCMS lay people own their own church property.

If Hunt's Attorney had consulted the Fort Wayne faculty for an opinion, Hunt would have lost his case and would still be in jail.

Yes, I've been waiting for Hunt's case to settle since January of 1999. At the same time, I was trying to get Fort Wayne to give me an answer that might have been helpful to Hunt's case, but the Judges were more helpful.

Now we have a State Court of Appeals that is clearer about the polity of the LCMS than the Seminary Faculty. The royal priesthood of all believers becomes little more than legal fiction if you haven't got it in writing for the court.

What nonsense does Marquart want us to believe; that the members control the property but not the doctrine of the Synod that they bought and paid for brick by brick?

We all know that the average LCMS layman is no longer aware that each baptized member of the congregation, voter or non-voter, is an equal owner of his or her congregation's property according to State Law. Are the peasants supposed to be thankful for the trickle-down Word of God from those who want the freedom to restructure the Synod as best suits them?

What is the value of controlling the property if the lay people don't also have control of the doctrine?

Walther wrote: "The poor German congregations groan under the godless rule of thousands of unbelieving preachers who are foisted upon them, who have for more than half a century robbed them of their orthodox agendas, catechisms, and hymnbooks, and have forced unbelieving books on them, and preached to them the most wretched doctrine of men instead of the Word of God." (The Congregation's Right to Choose Its Pastor, September 18, 1860, translated by Fred Kramer.)

Marquart fears that Supreme Voters' Assemblies will drive out orthodox pastors. However, the lay people have much more to fear. There was a time that the LCMS would remove a congregation from the roster that unjustly removed its pastor.

Now that the District Presidents no longer support the pastors in their congregations is this the fault of Voters' Assemblies? It is the majority of pastors who are promoting the election of these District Presidents.

If the lay people don't keep control of their congregations, there are going to be a lot more "Ron Hunts".

Why doesn't the Seminary see a strong defense of Voter Supremacy as a reason for Christians to join the LCMS as Walther did? Now one of our historic strengths is now regarded as our weakness and a point of confusion at Fort Wayne.