LC-MS Mega-Church Pastor Challenges Facts on Foundation
By Rev. Jack Cascione

First, a letter:

To Christian News
Rev. Herman Otten, Editor
3277 Boeuf Lutheran Road
New Haven, Mo. 63068-2213

Dear Herman Otten:

Greetings in the name of our risen and victorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

On the front page of your Monday, December 4, 2000, issue is found the article titled, "LCMS Officials and Seminary Continue Tough Stand vs. Pastor - Editor." In that article you lamented over the fact you have not been certified while others, whom you suggest are far worse sinners and whose sins you seem to most willingly talk about in print, are part of the LCMS. Has it ever occurred to you that the unwillingness of the LCMS to certify you has something to do with the 8th Commandment?

Let me give you one example as a case in point. While freedom of speech is a liberty granted to us by the U. S. Constitution in the Bill of Rights, and therefore frees you to print whatever you want in your paper, Christians are bound by a higher law, God's law. The 8th Commandment, as Luther so beautifully discusses in his Large Catechism, tells us we are to speak well of others and put the best construction on what others do. It warns us against misleading others so that people would draw the wrong conclusions or misjudge the motives and actions of others.

In the same edition, you, as editor allowed an article which uses half truths and lies to deceive people into thinking that LCMS Foundation is both financially backing Parish Leadership Institute and that there was something wrong in the LCMS Foundation Board of Trustees electing Mr. Mark Stuenkel to be the President of the Foundation. I refer you to The Christians News, December 4, 2000, issue on page 18, column 5, paragraph one. And again in the January 1, 2001, edition; page 15, column 4, paragraph 5, you allowed the printing of a misleading sentence that clearly misrepresents the facts. The net effect of your misrepresentation of the facts and truth in Christian News might lead people to assume that the LCMS Foundation and the Parish Leadership Institute are together doing something terribly wrong and unethical.

Perhaps you will use your editorial powers to correct these sinful misrepresentations of the truth.

Allow me to set the record straight regarding the LCMS Foundation and its alleged support of the PLI, as well as the election of Mr. Mark Stuenkel. In 1999 I was elected to fill a vacancy on the Board of Trustees of the LCMS Foundation created when one of the pastors on the Board resigned. This past November I was privileged to be elected to a full three-year term. I believe I have a little more information to the facts on these issues than neither you do or the writer of the articles you published, whom I believe was Rev. Jack Cascione.

First, the LCMS Foundation does not have nearly a billion dollars in assets with which they are free to do with as they please. Those moneys belong to our customers and are designated for specific usage. The LCMS Foundation does generate small revenue from the management of those assets, just as a secular financial institution would do. This revenue generated from fees does not cover the Foundation's operating budget.

The Foundation has from time to time used its limited revenue, as the law permits and as similar foundations do, in various forms of advertising to generate new business. One of those ways is to sponsor a dinner and then present the Foundation's story as it solicits support from both current and potential customers. Our Synodical colleges, seminaries, and the agencies have done similar things. On occasion the Foundation has sponsored a dinner at a PLI program in order to inform those pastors in attendance of the opportunities the Foundation offers to congregations and their members. This is the sum total of the Foundation's financial involvement with the PLI. The Foundation never has, does, nor will give to PLI or any organization moneys for their operating budgets, unless the Foundation is specifically directed to do so by an investor.

On the second matter, that of the election of Mr. Mark Stuenkel, let me again set the record straight. When Mr. Norm Sell announced his retirement, the LCMS Foundation requested from the member congregations of Synod nominations for the position of Foundation President. I believe we received a list of names that totaled over 40. A subcommittee of the Board reviewed each nomination, which included written responses to a questionnaire that was sent to each nominee, and reduced the number of candidates to five.

The list of five names was presented to the Rev. Dr. Alvin Barry, President of the LCMS, for his approval. As our Synodical President, Dr. Barry has the authority to remove any of the names that were submitted to him. Dr. Barry approved three of the five names, including that of Mr. Mark Stuenkel. Therefore, if either you or Rev. Cascione have a gripe with the selection of Mr. Stuenkel, it seems to me you should take this up privately with Dr. Barry and not with the general "Lutheran public" in Christian News. Now I could be mistaken, but I doubt that Dr. Barry is in cahoots with the PLI and conspired together to have Mr. Stuenkel elected President of the Foundation!

After the Board of Trustees received the approved names from Dr. Barry, we met to reach our final choice. We reviewed a lot of information on each candidate including resumes, reference letters, and the like. Then we spent an hour plus interviewing in person each candidate. At no time in our sessions together was there ever mentioned a connection between Mr. Mark Stuenkel and either Rev. Norb Oesch or PLI. The fact that Rev. Oesch had been his pastor never played into either the discussion or the decision of the Board. Neither of these had any bearing on the Board's decision. In fact I asked the only question raised about his personal relationship with anyone in Synod. I asked if he was any relation to the Rev. Dr. Walter Stuenkel, the retired President of Concordia College in Milwauke. (For what it is worth, Walter, is his uncle.)

I can assure you that it was Mr. Stuenkel's financial credentials and expertise, his work experience and success, and the strong spiritual faith that he both confessed and exhibited in our interview session that led to the Board's decision to offer him the position of LCMS Foundation President.

Having now heard the facts, I pray that the truth will move both you and Rev. Cascione to retract your implications the Foundation financially supports PLI's budget and that there was any unethical connection or goings on between the fact that the Rev. Oesch was both Mr. Stuenkel's former pastor and the current PLI Director, and the Board's decision to make Mr. Mark Stuenkel our President.

Perhaps if you as editor of Christian News would make sure of the facts before printing you could prevent ungodly and misleading innuendoes from either being created or circulated. Perhaps then, your certification might be looked upon more favorably.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Dr. George E. Black
Senior Pastor
Board of Trustees
LCMS Foundation

Cc: Mr. Mark Stuenkel, President of LCMS Foundation,
Rev. Jack Cascione

---

Reply To George Black: Yes, LC-MS Foundation Supports PLI

Reverend George Black, Senior Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Utica, Michigan is a bona fide LC-MS, Michigan District, Mega-Church pastor with a congregation of more than 4000 members.

His letter challenging Rev. Herman Otten's truthfulness about the LC-MS Foundation appears on page 22 of the February 19, 2001 issue of Christian News. In the opening paragraph, Black claims Herman Otten is guilty of breaking the 8th Commandment.

Black writes about the eighth commandment, "It warns us against misleading others so that people would draw the wrong conclusions or misjudge the motives and actions of others."

Black then commences to show that Otten has misrepresented the LC-MS Foundation by claiming the Foundation supports the Pastoral Leadership Institute (PLI) and that there is no connection between the two organizations. Coincidently, the new President of the LC-MS Foundation, Mr. Mark Stuenkel, served as the congregational president of St. John's Lutheran Church in Orange, California when Doctor Norbert Oesch, founder of PLI was its senior pastor.

Black writes: "The Foundation never has, does, nor will give to PLI or any organization moneys for their operating budgets, unless the Foundation is specifically directed to do so by an investor." Is this a Clintonism? Should we ask who was the investor(s)?

On a November 3, 1999 print out of the page, (how you can support PLI) we read that the LC-MS Foundation is a "primary donor" to PLI, along with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, Lutheran Brotherhood, Aid Association for Lutherans, Wheatridge, Council of District Presidents, and others. One only has to log on to PLI-Leader.org as of February 26, 2001 and read that PLI lists the Foundation as an "advertiser." My question is how much money is given by the Foundation to advertise PLI? Pastor Black, what happened to th e eighth commandment?

No we don't think, "that Dr. Barry is in cahoots with the PLI. . .," but, were Mr. Stuenkel's credentials fully disclosed to President Barry by the Foundation Trustees?

Mark Stuenkel gave and continues to give his full support for Doctor Oesch's Pastoral Leadership Institute. He also gave his approval for Oesch's peaceful release from the Congregation to head PLI in February 1998 when he was congregational president. We also know that upon reviewing PLI's program the LC-MS Board for Higher Education has refused to give PLI Recognized Service Organization status, an action supported by President Barry.

Black adds about Otten: "Perhaps if you as editor of Christian News would make sure of the facts before printing you could prevent ungodly and misleading innuendoes from either being created or circulated. Perhaps then, your certification might be looked upon more favorably."

Otten will never be certified, precisely because he tells the truth and he makes sure of the facts. God will judge.

FACT: Black is a member of "The Michigan 102" who signed the following statement:
"What is necessary for those who plan worship is time spent in the 'truth,' the Word, and in prayer. In the atmosphere of Word and prayer, those who plan worship will receive wisdom on how best to minister in the contemporary setting where God has placed them. We live and minister in a society where change is the order of the day."

Evidently, the Michigan 102 receive direct communication from God on how to plan worship, hence they have no need for a Synodical Constitution. They advocate tyrannizing congregations by inventing worship and creeds in violation of Article VI.4 of the LC-MS Constitution, a condition of membership in the Synod: "Exclusive use of doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechism, in church and school."

In reply to Black we quote The Lutheran Confessions: "In a word, enthusiasm inheres in Adam and his children from the beginning [from the first fall] to the end of the world, [its poison] having been implanted and infused into them by the old dragon, and is the origin, power [life], and strength of all heresy, especially of the Papacy and Mahomet. . . ." (Concordia Triglotta, The Smalcald Articles, Part III Art. VIII, page 497.)

FACT: There are no Lutheran hymnbooks in the pews of Black's congregation.

FACT: Black was a member of the Michigan District Board of Directors that refused to endorse the three Ecumenical Creeds as the only Creed's acceptable for worship services in Michigan District congregations. In a meeting with four members of the Michigan District Board of Directors, President Hoesmann, four board members of Redeemer Lutheran Church and myself, at the Michigan District Office, our congregation was informed that the Michigan District would not support exclusive confession of the three ecumenical Creeds. I was told, "You want it your way." The Creeds are the Synod's official statement of the Gospel.

FACT: A letter was then sent to all of the members of the Michigan District Board of Directors on November 26, 1997 asking for their agreement to the following statement: "The Michigan District only agrees to and confesses and authorizes the use of the three ecumenical Creeds in all Michigan District Congregations."

To this day, the Michigan District Board of Directors has refused to reply to the above statement. Black told me my letter was not considered and was thrown in the trash.

FACT: Now, Black is a Trustee on the LC-MS Foundation.

FACT: Black may be concerned about Otten's questioning the LC-MS Foundation' s finances. The Wallstreet Journal has even more questions about the finances of the LC-MS Foundation than Otten.

Redeemer Lutheran Church, in St. Clair Shores, was so outraged at Michigan's refusal to endorse three and only three Creeds for worship, they petitioned the 1998 LC-MS Convention. In response, the Convention adopted a resolution stating that only three Creeds are to be confessed in Congregational worship. Black and the Michigan District Board of Directors have refused to respond to the Congregation.

FACT: Black along with the rest of the Michigan District Board of Directors supported the District Convention's "commitment" to 8 Core Values. They include: A commitment to the entire Church Growth Movement such as "culturally relevant congregations," and mission congregations, "process consulting," "healthy congregational systems," and "affinity-based learning clusters and networking events." None of these have anything to do with the Bible or the Lutheran Confessions.

Those who don't support three and only three Creeds for worship must necessarily find another outlet for their creativity.

At the judgment God will decide who confessed the Gospel in the Creed's and who lied to the church and denounced their own ordination vows. Herman Otten may not be on the LC-MS clergy roster, but is George Black's name in the Book of Life?