Your efforts toward returning the LCMS "to that purity of doctrine and practice which once characterized our Synod " and highlighting its "increasing apathy towards false doctrine and loose practice" are certainly commendable and I wish I could wish you success in your endeavors. But, alas, that would be as fruitless as wishing death to cease. (Newsletter. Call for Action. p. 1)
Here, in a word, is why. Both you and your adversaries are guided by the same flawed principles, misguided principles that are the chief cause of virtually all of the controversies that have racked Synod now for a generation. You and they are, as it were, in the same boat. The tragedy of it is, you don't know it.
Having said that, I will now attempt to help you recognize and face up to your dilemma, fully cognizant of the fact that my efforts will, if recent history is any guide, fail to bring the desired results. But no matter, I'll try anyhow. So let's go right to it, your final overture, page 7: "To Reaffirm the Doctrine of the Office of the Holy Ministry."
I'm kind of a quiet fellow not given to loud talk. So please bear with me for a moment while I shout: 1. THE OFFICE OF THE MINISTRY INSTITUTED BY CHRIST WHEN HE CALLED THE APOSTLES IS "CONFERRED." 2. AN OFFICE OF THE MINISTRY INTO WHICH ONE IS "PLACED" OR THAT ONE "ENTERS INTO" IS NOT THE OFFICE INSTITUTED BY CHRIST WHEN HE CALLED THE APOSTLES. I'll let that sink in for a moment while I catch my breath.....
Now. The first office is divinely mandated. It can be established only by a congregation of believers gathered together for the express purpose of publicly administering the power of the office of the keys to forgive sins. The second office is totally devoid of divinity. It is established by defiant men acting in open rebellion against God.
All true Waltherians are in the Conferred column. You and your adversary/antagonists must all be numbered in the Placed/Entered column. And the twain shall never meet. They are forever divided by that icon of every episcopal-minded, nose-in-the-air, little-pope inclined, frustrated authoritarian hopeful, namely, the humanly-devised Rite of Ordination.
You highlight your position right at the start in your second and third Whereas'. You start with: ".....those who have been placed into this office...."; you finish by upending Walther in his grave: "that the Synod no longer authorize its districts to place into the ministry of the word and sacrament men......" " HUH?" Walther shouts. And you stand bewildered wondering what he's shouting about.
Everything is downhill from there:
You write in your first Resolve that "Synod should reaffirm the doctrine of the office of the holy ministry." It just did - in Resolution 7-17A of its 2001 national convention.
In your second Resolve you appeal to the Confession's "no one should publicly teach in the church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called." But the "call" of the Confessions is the same as the "call" of Missouri's official position. It is the means by which the authority to administer the power of the office of the keys to forgive sins is conferred. That is not the same as the Placed/Entered faction's "call", which is nothing more that an agreement to hire someone out of Synod's pool of clergymen-by-ordination, a sort of ecclesiastical Manpower, Inc. that organizations, including local congregations, can go to when seeking someone to perform certain churchly functions, so-called, on their behalf.
In the third Resolve you ask that "the Synod through her district presidents, district vice-presidents, and circuit counselors assist the congregations of the Synod in upholding this doctrine of Christ." Please. One seeks help by calling 911, not the office of the organizers of the Demolition Derby. Ditto for the fourth Resolve, "That the Synod promote and instruct her congregations, educational institutions and agencies in this essential confessional doctrine."
I doubt if there is one man, from the President of Synod down to the youngest circuit counselor, who did not get their church-and-ministry training from one of the members of the crypto-Grabau/Loehe, anti-Waltherian Scaer/Marquart/Nagel troika. I'll wager that the same can be said of you Consensus pastors. And laymen, these are the people being asked to assist you in upholding the doctrine of the church and the ministry. Well, the doctrine they assist you in upholding will not be the doctrine of Scripture. Rather, it will be a doctrine that undermines Scripture and begins a process that history has repeatedly proven inevitably ends in the destruction of fundamental doctrines of Scripture. There is no need for illustrations. The realities already abound.
Finally, the last Resolve: "That the Synod no longer authorize its districts to place into the ministry of the word and sacrament......." There is nothing that more clearly illustrates the bond that exists between you and your soul-mates and the Jesus First crowd and their soul-mates. Synod is a church in no sense of the word as used in Scripture. It is a human organization that neither has nor can be given divine authority. It therefore has no authority to forgive sins - even the thought is abhorrent, no authority to preach, no authority to baptize, no authority to commune, no authority to absolve, no authority to judge in spiritual matters and no authority to excommunicate. It therefore goes without saying that it has no authority to confer the authority to do these things on anyone else.
It is the local congregation of believers alone that has this authority. And it is conferred on men of its choosing by means of it election and call, not by means of Synodical ordination as you Consensus folks, your Jesus First soul-mates (at least in these matters) and most, perhaps all, of your adherents and sympathizers would have it.
I know its difficult for you, given your Scaer/Marquart/Nagel upbringing, to understand what I'm saying since you have never been exposed to the true Waltherian doctrine of the church and ministry. I want to help you overcome this deficiency. All it will take is a little study and I suggest that you start here. (http://pages.prodigy.net/cnehrenz/c&mpapers.html) After only a couple of hours your troika-engineered confusion will evaporate and you'll be talking like a Waltherian expert.
Sincerely yours,
Clyde Nehrenz
(Layman, Bethany Lutheran Church, Wellington, Ohio)
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