Marquart Still Opposed to Voter Supremacy in LCMS Congregational
Constitutions
We have come to the point where we are talking about the wording about Voter Supremacy that has been in LCMS congregational constitutions since the beginning of the Synod. Was it an error on the part of C. F. W. Walther? Rarely, if ever, has an LCMS professor been so forth right in stating his opposition to the traditional wording on Voters' Assemblies in LCMS congregational constitutions. Perhaps Marquart will convince the lay people why the Voters are not supreme and their constitutions are in error?
It was not my intension to misunderstand what Professor Marquart said. I thought he meant Voters' Assemblies were "humbug."
Marquart had written:
". any religious body has, under the First Amendment, the right to maintain whatever nonsense and humbug it wishes,..As a legal corporation a congregation is perfectly free to vote..."Earlier Marquart also wrote:
"'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?"Again, Professor Marquart wrote, "So much for 'supremacy,' including that of 'voters.' What then does it mean that 'the congregation in its own sphere constitutes, according to Matt. 18:17, the final and highest court,' (Walther, Pastoraltheologie, p 381)?"
The good Professor Marquart knows that Walther taught that the Voters' Assembly, by process of elimination, is the voice of the congregation in Matt. 18:17.
Walther wrote:
"The Congregational Meetings"
"Since, according to God's WORD, the congregation is the highest court within its circle (Matt.18:17; Col. 4:17), and the preacher has church authority only in common with the congregation (Matt. 20-25-26; 23:8; 1Peter.5:1-3; 2Cor.8:8), the preacher must be concerned that the congregational assembly, both regular and special ones as needed at times, be held in Christian order to consider and carry out what is necessary for its governing (Matt. 18:17; 1Cor. 5:4; 2Cor.2:6; Acts 6:2; 15:1-4, 30; 21:17-22; 1Tim. 5:20).""All adult, male members of the congregation have the right to participate actively in the discussion, votes, and decisions of the congregation since that is a RIGHT OF THE WHOLE CONGREGATION. See Matt. 18:17-18; Acts 1:15, 23-26; 15:5; 12-13, 22-23; 1Cor.5: 2; 6:2; 10:15; 12:7; 2Cor.2: 6-8; 2Thess. 3:15. Excluded from the exercise of this right are the youth (1Pet.5: 5) and the female members of the congregation (Cor.14: 34-35) [see also 1Tim.2: 8-15]." (Pastoral Theology by C.F.W. Walther, CN New Haven Mo., 5th Edition 1906 page 257)
For Walther the supremacy of the congregation is also the supremacy of the Voters' Assembly. Walther is talking about voting on everything.
I'm delighted to see that in his latest correspondence of May 24, 2000 Professor Marquart writes, "Of course decisions have to be taken by vote...where have I denied this?"
I have to admit that I thought that Marquart's previous statement as follows directly "denied this." He previously 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."
By limiting Voter Supremacy to the kingdom on the left it seemed he was preventing Voter Supremacy on calls, excommunication, doctrinal resolutions, and the pastor's preaching and teaching.
Perhaps Professor Marquart could help out Rev. David Anderson, Chairman of the Board of Regents, whom the Faculty at Fort Wayne has thoroughly confused?
First Anderson wrote to me, "I talked with a number of our professors at CTS this past week and found no one who teaches or who knows anyone who teaches that the congregational voters' assembly is not supreme."
Later Anderson wrote about me:
"So his [Cascione's] statement, 'At this time, 6 of the 33 professors at Fort Wayne have agreed with Walther's Voter Supremacy' doesn't mean too much." He then informed me that the faculty refused to give an answer on Voter Supremacy.Now Marquart writes:
"Of course decisions have to be taken by vote..;" and Marquart also writes: "there is a difference between "voting" and "Voter Supremacy."Does Marquart mean a vote has limited or no authority?
No wonder the graduates are confused on this issue, not to mention a few others!
Marquart says, I let "the cat out of the bag" when I wrote, "the Voters must have the freedom to do the wrong thing." I went on to say, "or else their confession and good works will be fruit decorating a dead tree."
I also wrote, "There is no question that the Voters cannot change Article II on doctrine in the LCMS Constitution and remain in the LCMS.
But the Voters have the right to be wrong, which is why the authority to be wrong must rest in their hands or how do they have the authority to be right?"
Didn't God give Adam and Eve the freedom to eat the fruit that they were not supposed to eat? It was called free will. Why didn't a big hand come out of the sky and slap Eve's hand before she ate it? Why didn't God give David a big kick when he kept looking over the palace wall at Bathsheba?
Marquart says, I'm parting company with Walther, Pieper, and God on this point. I think it is Marquart who has parted company here.
Is the parish pastor supposed to be like Moses? When he finds the congregation voting the wrong way, he smashes the Church Constitution into pieces, grinds up the collection plates, puts the grounds in the water, makes them drink the water, and get sick?
When the Voters do the wrong thing, all I can do is teach them and confront them with God's Word. It is up to them if they want to listen. I can't force them to listen.
Marquart writes:
"no one has the freedom in the church to utter one word against God and His revealed truth." I respond, they are not supposed to do that but they do it all the time. It is called sin!I watched the Synodical Convention vote on the name "Luther" in 1995 and the use of the Creeds in 1998. The vote on Biblical fellowship at the Lord's Supper was really close. What about those who voted the wrong way on these Confessional Issues? That right to vote also belongs to the Voters' Assembly.
I once watched 17 elders unanimously vote me out of the church because they claimed I was making false statements about the head pastor. They didn't follow the Bible, Pieper, or Walther. I was out on the street. There was no circuit counselor and no district president to stop them.
Five months later they caught the head pastor with his mistress. I didn't get my call back. Perhaps I should have asked Marquart at the time to tell them, "no one has the freedom in the church to utter one word against God and his revealed truth?"
In another congregation, there were 200 members gathered by the former pro-Seminex pastor's son to throw me out, because I wouldn't serve Communion to members of the ALC. There was no circuit counselor, no district president, no seminary professor to stop them. By the grace God I yelled louder and quoted more than they did. That time, they didn't get me.
I could give many more examples.
Perhaps the good professor has been out of the parish so long he has forgotten that if the members don't have faith and obedience to God's Word the pastor doesn't have a chance?
If they vote against God's Word its time to leave and make tents.
How many times was Christ rejected by people in the towns and Paul run out of a town, before Marquart understands that congregational polity means they do what they want and if they have faith in Christ and understand His word, they do the right thing?
This sentence by the good professor was a shocker, "To allow for this crucial difference I prefer to call our traditional polity-WHICH, PLEASE NOTE, I THOROUGHLY APROVE!-'congregational self-government' instead of 'Voter Supremacy.'"
Wait a minute! The traditional wording is all about "the voters are supreme!"
I gave six examples of LCMS congregational constitutions that say the Voters are supreme. Now Marquart says he "prefers" the phrase "congregational self-government."
Here is another example from a congregation as old as the Synod: "The voting membership as a body shall have supreme authority and power to manage and adjust all spiritual and material affairs of the Congregation." St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Eastpointe, MI.
We now learn that Marquart does not agree with traditional LCMS wording for congregational polity and never has. The word "supreme" in relationship to the authority of the congregation is certainly in the Lutheran Confessions.
"Likewise Christ gives supreme and final jurisdiction to the Church, when He [Jesus] says: 'Tell it to the Church. (Matt. 18:17)'" (Treatise, Concordia Triglotta 511 par. 24)
Walther regularly quotes this citation from the Confessions, but Marquart doesn't want to use it.
If Marquart wants to make up his own definitions he can introduce his innovations at the LCMS Convention. But what about the congregations who discover their new pastor doesn't approve of their congregation's constitution because of Professor Marquart and the majority of professors at both seminaries no longer agree with Voter Supremacy?
At least Professor Marquart, the greatest theological mind in the LCMS, has the decency to tell the Synod he does not approve of the historic wording in nearly all LCMS congregational constitutions.
The vast majority of LCMS professors are now simply teaching their seminary graduates to sanitize every LCMS congregational constitution of Voter Supremacy, at their earliest opportunity.
I, for one, am not going back to the Catholic Church.
The lay people better walk into that 2001 LCMS Convention, fighting and fighting hard, because the faculties of both Seminaries and the proponents of Church Growth, and the COP, and the Hyper-Euro-Lutheran pastors will be doing everything in their power to stop the passage of a resolution reaffirming voter supremacy in all LCMS congregations.
We are talking about the lay people keeping control of the real estate and the doctrine.
Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.
May 25, 2000