The following letter was sent by Professor Kurt Marquart, after Board of Regents Chairman, Rev. David Anderson announced that the Fort Wayne Faculty refused to agree with Voter Supremacy. Before that time Anderson said that the entire faculty agreed with Voter Supremacy and that I had sinned by saying they didn't. Anderson received my public apology which I have obviously rescinded. This is standard operational procedure in the LCMS.

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CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
6600 N. CLINTON
FORT WAYNE, IN 46825-4996

l7 May, 2000
(219) 452-2100
FAX: (219) 452-2121

The Editor
Christian News
3277 Boeuf Lutheran Road
NEW HAVEN. MO 63068-2213

Sir,

Herewith some concluding thoughts about polity I have no wish to bore your readers with a permanently revolving door on the subject.

Our historic polity is best called "congregational self-government." There are two sides to this, a spiritual-theological, and a civil-temporal. Spiritually, theologically, our congregations stand together as one confessing church in the Synod. We were not founded to be hundreds or thousands of independent little local sects, each with its own "foreign policy," i.e fellowship arrangements. Our doctrine and confession is (supposed to be) one. If a congregation dissents from the Synod's uncompromising adherence to the Lutheran Confessions-as expressed for instance in the "Brief Statement"-it must ultimately go elsewhere. But in a congregation's own local, internal affairs, the Synod is purely advisory. Of course, when we still had an independent adjudication and appeals system, it used to be customary to include in congregational constitutions the provision that in case of division over doctrine, the property would belong to that party which continued to adhere to the true doctrine of Scripture and Confession.

Spiritually, theologically, no error has the, slightest right of existence in the church. Any decision contrary to the Word of God as rightly confessed in the Book of Concord is null and void. No resolution, no matter how unanimously passed by congregations, commissions, or conventions, has the least validity, standing, or binding force if it is contrary to Scripture and Confession. Such a resolution must be resisted, opposed, treated as invalid, and ultimately reversed by all who recognize the truth, for "we ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

Legally or civilly, on the other hand, any religious body has, under the First Amendment, the right to maintain whatever nonsense and humbug it wishes, so long as no one's rights are violated. As a legal corporation a congregation is perfectly free to vote itself out of an orthodox Lutheran synod, and to be independent, or to join any other body it wishes, even one which uses the Lutheran name fraudulently, while compromising the Lutheran confession in all directions.

So, to repeat, morally and spiritually, no one has any right to violate the divine truth by a hair's breadth, "for we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth" (2 Cor. 13:8); but legally a corporation is free to confess or not to confess whatever it wishes. Any "voter supremacy" that cannot handle this vital difference is beside the point.

Congregations are properly self-governing when they let Christ in His revealed Word decide all matters of faith, and let love and mutual accommodation do the rest. And these congregations are not simply groups of individuals, but are (divinely) ordered organisms, consisting of both hearers and teachers. Further, contrary to the fantasy that in maters of customs and ceremonies ("adiaphora") the pastor simply has "one vote, like everybody else," the fact is more complex: both preachers and hearers have something much more important than "vote," and that is "voice." Luther wrote somewhere that one wise old man, citing relevant Scripture, achieved more to settle consciences and convictions at a great council than did all the great bishops and theologians put together. Wise speaking ought to guide all voting. All Christians must act according to their lights here, but pastors have a special responsibility to maintain good, churchly, customs:

. . the authority to establish in outward or indifferent things directions arid rules or definite ceremonies for order and propriety as well as to foster agreement among the members of the congregation for public worship or also to abolish them, as this is demanded by the need or benefit of the church but these powers belong to the whole church and [are not peculiar- "propriae"] to the clergy. However, we readily admit that the first and chief parts of this power pertain to the ministry of the church [John Gerhard quoted in C.F.W. Walther, Church and Ministry. P. 318]

Peace and Joy!

K. Marquart