Marquart Keeps Supporting the Divine Institution of the LCMS
By Rev. Jack Cascione

Marquart Defends Divinity of Synod

TO THE EDITOR,
CHRISTIAN NEWS,
(573) 237-3858

Sir,

In response to Pr C's latest broadside:

First, I am grateful for the generous invitation to the Walther Conference. Normally I should have been delighted to accept. Unfortunately my prior commitment to an extension course in Alabama for three weekends in November makes it physically impossible for me to be at the St. Louis conference. I really regret that. But thanks all the same!

Second, we are told: "if the Synod is church it could just tell the congregations what their worship should be..." So being church means having the right to give orders and commands! This is good Machiavellianism or papalism, but has nothing to do with the biblical Lutheran understanding of the church. The fallacy here is deep and foundational.

Third, Pastor C's own Walther-quotes clearly and expressly refute him!

Fourth, "Marquart's equation of Voters' Assemblies with Bolsheviks" is an ill-tempered fabrication indicating inability or unwillingness to read.

Finally, just for good measure: Who said this: "A church is a group or assembly of baptized and believers under one shepherd, whether of one city, or of an entire country, or of the whole world"? Answer: Martin Luther. Source.' Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics III., 431. Suggestion to would be responders: please read, preferably study, Pieper's whole section on the church before rushing into print with ill-considered sloganeering.

Yours faithfully,

K Marquart

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Marquart Keeps Supporting the Divine Institution of the LCMS

We admire Marquart's eloquent and precise command of language. It was a privilege to be in his classes in 1977 and '78. We recommend them to future students. If I am going to be corrected, at least he makes me look forward to the trip.

But even the Synod's finest theologian can't debate black into white. He consistently presents his flawed opinion on Voter Supremacy to "receptive" pastoral gatherings and conferences where opponents are not given the opportunity to debate or present an opposing view. His friends aren't doing him or the Synod any service in this.

Marquart refuses to support the Synod's historic polity on Voter Supremacy, he offers the false alternative that the Synod is Church, an LCMS abomination. He completely misapplies Acts 9:31, comes to an incorrect conclusion on Luther, whom he quotes from Pieper Vol. III, 431, and totally misrepresents Walther and Pieper who taught that the Synod is not church but a human organization.

If my conclusion that he calls Voters' Assemblies Bolsheviks was over stated he certainly relates "Bolshevik" to the subject of Voter Supremacy in the same paragraph of his earlier letter. We also quote his earlier writing where he states: "'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?"

Of more than 111 examples of the Greek word for "church" or "churches" in the New Testament, Marquart bases his Biblical support that the Synod is church on one variant reading in Acts 9:31 from the NIV instead of the KJV. The singular "church" in the NIV is supposed to prove the divine institution of the LCMS and not just the local congregation.

The reader should take note of the differences in the following translations of the same verse to which Marquart appeals for support.

KJV Acts 9:31 "Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied."

NIV Acts 9:31 "Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord."

All the other examples of the word "churches" which appears about 35 times in the New Testament apply to the local congregation. The other 81 or more examples are the singular "church." Of these, the majority also speak about the local congregation. The remainder refer to the church universal, the Body of Christ, such as Matt. 16:18 and Eph. 5:22ff.

First, the Missouri Synod is neither a local congregation nor the entire body of Christ, but a human organization of individual churches that belong to the Body of Christ.

Second, Marquart's appeal to Acts 9:31, as biblical support for calling the Synod a church, stretches credulity. He has based his doctrine on one variant reading. The "Majority Text," representing 90% of all the ancient Greek texts in existence, doesn't even question that the preferred reading is "churches" instead of "church." The NIV follows Nestlé's Western minority reading in Acts 9:31 with "church," while the King James follows the vast majority of readings with "churches."

Third, Acts: 9:31 refers to all of the Christians in Judea and Galilee and Samaria, not a particular denomination that could be applied as an example of the Missouri Synod. The LCMS could never be identified with "all" the Christians in any particular region of the United States. Who was at "rest" when the Catholics persecuted the Lutherans in Germany, some of the synod, but not the entire synod? Or, were only the churches being persecuted a synod, while the churches that were persecuting them were not a synod?

Fourth, Marquart applies Acts 9:31 three times in his book, "The Church" as a biblical example of a divinely instituted synod, though his own footnote on page 195 argues against him. Doesn't this mean that the other 35 or more instances of "churches" proves the opposite, namely that synods are not divine institutions because they are not "church" in the proper sense of the word, but only a human invention.

Fifth, during class, it was Professor Marquart, himself, who taught us that no doctrine can be based on one passage, let alone one variant reading, but must have two passages to support it from the homolougumena, the unquestioned 20 books of the New Testament.

What is the truth? Pieper and Walther clearly taught that the Synod is not church. ".the union of congregations into larger church bodies, such as conferences, synods, etc., has not been ordained by God. The command 'Tell it unto the church,' according to the context, pertains to the local church, or congregation, and it must be restricted to the local church." (Vol. III, 421)

Pieper quotes Walther for further support on the same page: "An association of a number of congregations to form a larger church body with governing officers, e.g., by means of a synod with the authority of supervision, a so-called superior board, a consistory, a bishop, etc., is not of divine right, by only a human arrangement.."

Marquart appeals to a quotation from Luther as support for the existence of one congregation, being under one pastor that could possibly fill the entire world. Dear Professor, if it is all the same congregation under one pastor, as Luther describes it in this quotation, this couldn't be evidence from Luther to prove that the LCMS is "church." A Synod is many congregations with many pastors, not one church with one pastor.

Marquart wants us to believe that Pieper included a quotation from Luther that argued against Pieper's own position (above) that the Synod is a human organization.

On page 428 Pieper says, the LCMS functions as a "representative church" and only has, "advisory power."

Marquart may be able to tell us that black is white in Russian, German, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and I'll bet even more languages. However, neither Walther nor Pieper ever taught that the Synod was anything but a human organization. Only the local congregation is divinely instituted.

There couldn't be Voter Supremacy as Walther structured it in the LCMS if the Synod was "church" because the "Big Church" must necessarily be the final authority.

Marquart's students are not able to support their position from Scripture, the Confessions, or Walther, which compels Marquart himself to come to their rescue with great rhetoric, but no evidence!

When the Scriptures speak about the churches in Galatia, Syria, Cilicia, Macedonia, or Judaea these are geographic arrangements, not divinely instituted Synod's. Even if each congregation agrees completely with the other and works in perfect harmony with the other, which would be a miracle, cooperation does not make a divine institution. Also, "a churchly" function, activity, or association does not make a divine institution. Only two or three gathered in Christ's name (the means of grace) make the local congregation the only divinely instituted church on earth.

Those who have not read or heard Marquart must not judge his outstanding scholarship, writing, and lectures on this one flaw in his theology.

It doesn't take a Seminary education for any layman to correct his pastor, only knowledge of the Small Catechism. The truth has nothing to do with office, intelligence, or reputation. The truth is its own defense.

I published "Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS" in 1998 over the shock that the "Church Growth Movement" and PLI could find a home in the LCMS. The reason, I later discovered, is that both Seminaries have given up teaching Walther's Voter Supremacy to their students. This has resulted in chaos in the congregations. With no structure, the LCMS must fragment and shrink.

There is no question that God's Word is Supreme in the congregation but the Voters' Assembly in the local divinely instituted congregation must be the final judge of that Word and not the Synod, a Pastor, or any LCMS Professor.

We can now see why the lay people are no longer being encouraged from LCMS pulpits to be in charge of, operate, and maintain their own churches. By the time the clergy wake up, it may be too late.

The Walther Conference in St. Louis is the "line in the sand." Who will stand with Missouri or who will stand with the Fort Wayne hyper-euro-Lutheran Bishops from the "Big Church" or the District supported PLI CEO's?