1. Early Period.
Before considering the essays presented at the convocation it will be helpful to put
them in perspective by reviewing some history, beginning back at the time Dr. Walther
composed his theses, Church and Ministry.
There were four issues in the forefront of Missouri's battle with Grabau and Loehe,
over which, it should be remembered, the spirits of Stephan, Vehse and Marbach hovered.
First, the definition of the term "church."
Second, the essence of the thing it denotes. Third, the means by which the office of
the ministry is established. Fourth, the essence of the office.
Walther had to deal with the following errors concerning the Church:
- The Christian Church is a visible church comprised of only those who gather around Word
and Sacrament.
- Where there is no Christian Church so understood there is no salvation.
- Members of the true church are not found in communions that teach error.
- The keys of the kingdom of heaven were given solely and exclusively to pastors.
- The efficacy of the sacraments depends on the Word of God and a valid ministry.
Walther answered in Theses 1-3, 5 and 9 that the "Church in the proper sense of
the word...is the totality of all those who have been called by the Holy Spirit though the
Gospel...,truly believe in Christ and are....incorporated into Christ through faith";
that in this sense there are no unbelievers in the church; that since no man can see into
another's heart and perceive if he truly believes "the church in the proper sense of
the word is invisible"; that "absolutely necessary for the obtaining of
salvation is fellowship in this invisible church."
He then pointed out that although the church in this sense is invisible, nevertheless,
"its presence can be definitely recognized, its marks (being) the pure teaching of
God's Word and the administration of the sacraments according to Christ's
institution."
Accordingly, Scripture also applies the name "church" to the universal
church; that is, to the totality of all those everywhere "who profess allegiance to
the Word of God that is preached and make use of the sacraments," even though
"this church is made up of good and evil persons."
And, most importantly, "Scripture also applies the name "church" to the
several divisions of the universal church, that is, the congregations found here and there
in which the Word of God is preached and the holy sacraments are administered. These are
called 'churches' (particular churches)...because in these visible assemblies the
invisible, true, and properly so-called church of believers, saints, and children of God
lies hidden."
For that reason they "also possess the authority which Christ has given to His
whole church," the communion of saints; namely, the authority to forgive sins and to
withhold the forgiveness of sins, the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
It was also claimed by the opposition that the rights and privileges of the office of
the keys do not belong to each and every Christian but exclusively to pastors and that the
efficacy of the sacraments depend on the Word of God and a valid ministry.
Walther answered in Thesis 4 that the keys were given to the "true church
of believers and saints...And it is therefore the proper and only possessor and bearer
of the spiritual, divine, and heavenly goods, rights, powers, offices, etc. which Christ
has procured and which are found in His church."
Walther had to deal with the following errors concerning the holy ministry or pastoral
office:
- Vehse's low view of the office.
- There is no priesthood of all believers.
- The ministry is a separate rank or class within the church.
- The keys were not given to every true believer but solely to pastors.
- The Lord calls and ordains men for the ministry through the clergy.
- Ordination is a divine institution and essential to the validity of the ministry.
- Pastors alone have the authority to excommunicate.
In theses 1-3 Walther points out that Scripture clearly teaches that all Christians are
priests before God but also that there "is an office distinct from the priestly
office," namely, "the holy ministry of the Word or pastoral office," an
office not of "human institution, but (one) which God has established."
He goes on in 6 and 7: "The ministry of the word [pastoral office] is conferred by
God through the congregation as the possessor of all ecclesiastical power, or the power of
the keys, by means of its call which God Himself has prescribed." This power,
"conferred by God through the congregation, as possessor of the priesthood and all
church authority," is the authority "to exercise the rights of the spiritual
priesthood in public office on behalf of the congregation."
Since, then, the "keys embrace the whole power of the church...and the incumbents
have been entrusted with the keys," therefore "the ministry of the Word is the
highest office in the church, and from it all other offices flow."
Finally, Dr. Walther showed that, unlike a congregation's call, "ordination is not
of divine institution but is an apostolic ecclesiastical arrangement and only a solemn
public confirmation of the call. "
(All quotations are from Walther on the Church, Tr. J.M.Drickamer.)
Given the atmosphere of the current debate, it must be stressed that Dr. Walther
supported all his theses by copious testimony from Scripture, the Confessions and the
later church fathers. In doing so he showed that it was not he and the Missourians who
shaped the doctrine of the Church and the Ministry; rather, it was the doctrine of the
Church and the Ministry of Scripture and the Confessions that shaped them.
It is this true, scriptural doctrine, formalized by Walther at Synod's request, that,
more than any other, set the Missourians apart from all other Lutherans. It is the
doctrine that served for over 100 years as a guide in determining polity and practice, and
the doctrine whose underlying principles prepared generations of Missourians to stand fast
during the theological upheavals that seemed constantly to assail them.
There are three principles here that are especially germane to the subject at hand:
- The office of the Word, or pastoral office, is the only office in the church that God
Himself instituted. All other offices are auxiliary to it.
- Only a local congregation can establish the ministry of the Word: (office of the
ministry: pastoral office).
- Ordination is nothing more than the public confirmation of a local congregation's
conferral of the office of the ministry.
As one reads over the wealth of doctrinal and practical material produced by Synod
during it's early and middle years it becomes irrefutably clear that from the beginning it
insisted that only a local congregation has the authority to establish the office of the
ministry since it is the local congregation alone that is organized for the express
purpose of administering the Word and sacraments, the marks of the one, true, invisible
church of believers. ( e.g. Walther on the Church. Drickamer, pp. 86,98,103; Pieper. Vol
III, pp. 442, 462 (Luther))
Actual practice confirmed these convictions. No Synodical official, whether elected or
appointed, including even the president of Synod and professors at our seminaries and
colleges, was considered an incumbent of the office of the ministry , or pastoral office,
by virtue of his Synodical position. If one held the office while serving in one of these
positions he held it only by virtue of its being conferred on him by a local congregation.
Furthermore, no one thought of Synod as a church in the scriptural sense of the word;
that is, as an assembly of believers "in which the word of God is preached and the
holy sacraments are administered." They knew that a synod does not have the marks of
the one true church and therefore has no authority - indeed , no reason - to establish the
office of the ministry. Nor does a synod have the "authority of a spiritual
court," the authority to excommunicate.
They had organized Synod for the express purpose of assisting members in carrying out
those auxiliary functions of the office of the ministry established by a congregation that
could be better performed in concert with sister congregations.
Training future church workers, including pastors, establishing mission stations,
protecting pure doctrine, etc., are all duties, they insisted, incumbent upon a
congregation to perform as it discharges its responsibility of administering the Office of
the Keys. Member congregations authorize Synod to perform these duties for them. Never,
however, did they suppose that a congregation or a group of congregations could empower
Synod to administer the Office of the Keys or authorize it to establish the Office of the
Ministry.
Ordination was the responsibility and prerogative of the calling congregation. Synod
was involved only as the authorized agent of the congregation in verifying the
qualifications of the man the congregation had called. It was emphasized repeatedly that
ordination is a ceremony instituted by men and, solemn though the ceremony might be, had
nothing to do with the validity of the office's public administration of the forgiveness
of sin.
2. Middle Period
Experience has shown that whenever a doctrine of Scripture comes under attack and
controversy develops, the antagonists follow a tried-and-true pattern of attack, two
features of which stand out:
- The meaning of words, phrases and terms is thrown into hopeless confusion.
- Sophistry abounds.
Experience has also shown that when the doctrine being attacked is the doctrine of the
Church and the Ministry the bottom line is always the removal of the power of the keys,
the power to forgive sins and to withhold the forgiveness of sins, from the priesthood to
be placed into the hands of a special group or hierarchy.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has not escaped the attackers. Already in the 1930s
controversy erupted within the Synodical Conference when several professors of the
Wisconsin Synod began to push for a change. By the '40s the Missouri Synod was deep into
the controversy and the antagonists were making headway.
In 1946 the Synodical Conference appointed a committee to look into things and report
back. The whole matter was reported in the February 1951 Concordia Theological Monthly
(CTM), pp. 81-83. Wisconsin's position appeared in print in 1970 when its "Theses On
the Church and the Ministry" was published in the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly.
In sum, concerning the church, the theses state that "the specific forms in which
believers group themselves together has not been prescribed by the Lord (but) the local
congregation will usually be the primary grouping of Christians....The Holy Spirit...draws
Christian congregations together in larger groupings, such as a synod. In essence the
various groupings...lie on the same plane. They are all church in one and the same sense,
namely in this sense that on the basis of the marks of the church the Lord lets us
apprehend the presence of the Holy Christian Church."
An antithesis states: "We hold it to be untenable to say that the local
congregation is specifically instituted by God in contrast to other groupings of believers
in Jesus' name; that the public ministry of the keys has been given exclusively to the
local congregations."
In sum, concerning the ministry, the theses state that "Christ instituted [when He
gave the keys] one office in the church, the ministry of the Gospel...This office or
service, the ministry of the keys, has been given to the church, i.e., to the believers
individually and collectively." However, "Christians are not all qualified to
perform publicly the functions of (this) ministry...The Lord has set forth the needed
qualifications," and "there are men especially appointed to discharge publicly
(this ministry's) duties."
The antithesis states: "We hold it untenable to say that the pastorate of a local
congregation as a specific form of the public ministry is specifically instituted by the
Lord in contrast to other forms of the public ministry."
Following the Interim Committee report there is a lengthy article entitled "The
Public Ministry In the Apostolic Age" in which the following is stated: "It is a
mistake to identify the pastorate with the ministry or to speak of other church offices as
auxiliary to the pastorate. To assume that the pastorate is one divinely instituted office
and that all other offices flow from it is a misapprehension. The ministry of the Word is
one divinely instituted office and the pastorate is a branch of the same ministry."
"....Those who have been called to serve the church in a representative capacity,
and who have been given supervisory responsibility, and those who have been charged with
the care of souls for the purpose of edifying the saints and building the Body of Christ,
are all members of the public ministry, be they pastors, parish teachers, college
professors, chaplains, superintendents, Synodical officials, or institutional
missionaries."
The word game had begun and the goal became immediately clear: Wrench from the one
office instituted by Christ Himself - the office of the Word, or pastoral office - its
intrinsic power, relegating it to an office of auxiliary functions, one among many. The
pastoral office was not to be the highest office because of its essence , its power to
forgive sins, but, rather, because of the relative importance of its functions -
preaching, administering the sacraments, overseeing the whole flock as opposed to teaching
children, directing the choir, teaching Sunday School, etc.
It was for the express purpose of preventing this destructive view of the pastoral
office that our Missouri fathers had always insisted on using the term "confer"
when speaking of the office of the ministry. A man is not placed into the office; rather,
the office is conferred on the man. The office of the ministry is an office of power - to
forgive and to withhold the forgiveness of sins in the name of the assembly. Until that
power is given - conferred on someone - the office does not exist. That is what had always
been taught in Missouri.
But in the Wisconsin view the office exists at all times like a box of gospel tools. If
anyone in the course of their functioning uses one of the tools, they are in the public
ministry. If the person happens to be a man and has been ordained then he is in the office
of the public pastoral ministry. This not only undermines the God-given authority of the
pastoral office, it relegates the pastor who holds the one office established by God
Himself and who is especially chosen by Christ for the office, to the position of common
workman- at best, foreman.
But the real gut issue of the growing controversy was principles, not practices.
Wisconsin simply rejected the teaching of Scripture that God has ordained that Christians
living in one place gather themselves into local congregations in order to administer the
Word and the sacraments publicly. From that rejection followed all its false notions about
the "church."
And it rejected the teaching of Scripture that Christ instituted a special office when
He called the apostles and that He maintains that office today through the agency of local
congregations. From that rejection follow all its false notions about the
"ministry."
Wisconsin's position was a repudiation of fundamental principles taught in Scripture.
Her's and Missouri's positions were irreconcilable. But that did not keep some people in
Missouri from asking questions about the viability of the Missouri position. Already in
the 1940s some at the seminaries were asking why it was that they were Christians residing
in one place but could not use the Sacrament; they could teach men how to baptize but
could not baptize; they could keep men from or authorize them for the ministry but could
not defrock or excommunicate, etc. They were, in short, beginning to rebel against
Missouri Synod practices that were based on the principles of Walther's doctrine of the
Church and the Ministry. .
People began roaming about Synod confusing everybody by asking whether the essence of
the office of the ministry was function or power. In reality they were pushing and laying
the groundwork for rejection of Missouri's position. Soon new categories of
"ministry" began piling up one on top of the other in the Annual. Things were
about to change.
3. Late Period
A dramatic shift of historic proportions took place in 1962 when the delegates to that
year's Synodical Convention adopted a resolution submitted by the Council of Presidents.
By doing so the delegates effectively set aside the scriptural principles that had been
formulated by Dr. Walther, adopted by the 1852 Synodical convention , published in the
book Church and Ministry and used as the guide for Missouri Synod polity. In their place
were set principles derived from the Wisconsin Synod's doctrine of the church and the
ministry. From that day on the Missouri Synod prior to that time has had to be referred to
as Old Missouri. It would never be the same.
The system that has developed as a result of this folly has emasculated the one office
in the church established by Christ Himself, namely, the ministry of the Word or pastoral
office conferred through a local congregation. The incumbents of the office, chosen by
Jesus as surely as He personally chose the apostles, have become, as one writer lamented
already several years ago, "low in rank, frequently frustrated, competing with
gorgeous vestments (of district officials), infested with the ambition to enlarge their
turf."
Prior to 1962, Synod's Handbook (Constitution and Bylaws) read: "B. ORDINATION AND
INSTALLATION... 4.15. Ordination of Candidates: A candidate for the ministry may be
ordained only when he has received a legitimate call from and to a certain congregation
and after previous examination has been found to be sound in doctrine, apt to teach,
blameless in life, has made application for membership in Synod, and has submitted a
request for ordination to the respective District President."
The resolution (6-35) adopted at the convention amended 4.15 to read, in part, as
follows: "B. ORDINATION AND INSTALLATIONS: 4.15. Prerequisites for Ordination. 1a. A
candidate for the office of the pastoral ministry ....may be ordained when the following
prerequisites have been met... 5. He shall have received and accepted a call extended
through the proper channels to assume full-time work in the church...6a. He shall
have...submitted a request for ordination to the proper official of the board through
which the call was extended...b1. A call shall have been extended by a congregation or a
proper board expressing preference for a particular candidate to be assigned to the
function of pastor or other syndic approved office."
Synod from now on was to be considered a "church" with authority to
administer - and authorize others to administer even though they had no connection with a
congregation - the power to forgive and to withhold the forgiveness of sins. Ordination
would be the means of entering this ministry. Being pastor of a congregation, in other
words, was now to be considered simply one function of the ministry of the Word; working
for some board or other was to be another function of the same ministry. All would be
ordained.
The effects extended far beyond those graduating from seminary. Everyone could now be
in the office of the ministry. No longer would professors and Synodical officials and
bureaucrats inside or outside of Synod have to suffer the insult of having to rely on the
voter's assembly of some local (yokel?) congregation to enjoy the prestige of being in the
office of the ministry. They, like the seminary graduates, were "in" the office
of the ministry by virtue of their ordinations.
Synod, by this action, had taken on itself a divine power not given to it by God and to
which it has no claim. It had usurped the power to forgive sins, the office of the keys.
And the usurpation was accomplished, as it always is, by means of the human rite of
ordination.
Three things were necessary to attain the goals of the leaders of the revolution:
- They had to find a way to incorporate into the polity of Synod the newly established
principle that a synod is a "church" in the biblical sense.
- They had to establish the principle that ordination is the means by which the office of
the ministry is empowered.
- They had to make clear that ordination is the exclusive prerogative of Synod.
The work began immediately. A two-pronged attack was launched. One front occupied
itself with confusing the term "office of the ministry"; the other front worked
at "puffing" ordination.
All through the period of the '60s and '70s , while we were preoccupied with the Battle
for the Bible, these episcopal planners were scurrying around unnoticed (this was one
issue that both the liberals and conservatives in that battle could unite on) gathering
together all their offices of churchly functions and labeling them "office of the
ministry." It was no more difficult to do than with each new addition of The Lutheran
Annual handing the printer a list of names to be included under the heading,
"Pastors." Soon there were 18 species of pastors and no one knew exactly what it
was that being in the office of the ministry signified.
While all of this was going on ordination was being "puffed" with a fury.
Candidates were permitted to be ordained in their home congregations and the ceremony
became a solemn and sentimental affair comparable to baptism. Pomp and circumstance became
the order of the day with the clergy resplendent in glowing attire and all of it captured
on film for the local newspaper.
The recognition that ordination is nothing more than a public confirmation of a
congregation's conferral of the office the ministry was all but lost. A candidate's
request to be ordained in his home congregation was directed to the district president; no
one even thought about getting permission from the calling congregation.
In time, the result the episcopal planners sought was achieved: Most of the laymen in
Synod - and a good percentage of pastors- came to see ordination as an exclusive
prerogative of Synod. And the planners got a bonus. Not only had many people come to see
ordination as a prerogative of Synod, they had at the same time come to the conclusion
that a pastor is a pastor by virtue of his ordination.
Every revolutionary movement has its theorists, its apologists , and its intellectual
diva's (as it were). This one was no exception. All the while the Wisconsin principles
were being threaded into the polity of Synod, the printing presses were kept busy turning
out claptrap justifying the unjustifiable.
Three examples stand out. "The Ministry," published in 1981 by the Commission
on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) mercilessly ripped and tore Walther's doctrine to
shreds, without scruples defended and adopted the Wisconsin principles, then shamelessly
printed Walther's theses in full at the end of their screed and with their thumbs to their
noses, laughed, see, we agree with Walther.
Dr. Kurt Marquart's "Ministry and Ordination Confessional Perspectives" layed
the groundwork for declaring that any old polity will do. Picking and choosing from the
Confessions, he attempted to support the claim that Luther and the reformers were
indifferent towards church polity.
And, of course, there was Dr. Scaer's "Ordination: Human Rite or Divine
Ordinance" in which , after listing a plethora of reasons why he concluded as he did,
wrote, "I personally find it very difficult to designate as a human rite or
adiaphoron any ceremony in which [all of the above take place]."
To the credit of all those involved in this paper campaign it must be said that they
were eminently successful in bringing the Missouri Synod around to their way of thinking .
As far as I can determine everything they promoted has been adopted either in principle or
practice. The results have been devastating.
The most damnable thing about all of this is what it has done to the office of the
ministry established by Christ when He called the apostles. The highest office in the
church because of its essence, the power to forgive sins, it has now become the lowest due
to the usurpation of the office by Synod's bogus, powerless, man-instituted office of
function.
Our pastors, men fulfilling the highest calling on earth - administering the
forgiveness of sins to sin-sick souls - have been relegated to not much more than common
workmen hired out of Synod's pool of pastors-by-ordination to administer busy-work
functions.
And what of the congregations, groups of individuals each charged by God to tell the
world "of the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light," entrusted by Him with the power to forgive sins though the
preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments and with the authority to
appoint men to do this miraculous work for them publicly?
As planned, they have been relegated to groups of spiritual no-nothings to whom Synod
deigns to send men chosen from its pool of pastors-by-ordination to work on with Word and
sacrament. Having no part in their pastors' authority to administer the forgiveness of
sins they have become thorns in their pastors' sides, to be tolerated when necessary,
ignored mostly. It was not meant to be.