To the voting delegates to the 62nd Regular Convention of the The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod:

Included in the June 2004 issue of the Lutheran Witness are answers submitted by each of the "men whose names will appear on the ballot this summer for president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod" to two questions posed by the Witness:

1. What do you believe are the most critical issues facing the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod today?

2. How should those issues be addressed over the next three years?

Prof. Kurt E. Marquart (in part) - "There is much confusion on the nature of the Gospel ministry. At one extreme there is the temporary `licensing' of ill-trained persons for `Word and Sacrament ministry,' contrary to Augsburg Confession XIV. At the other, there is a clericalist elitism in the spirit of J.A.A. Grabau and Wilhelm Loehe, who opposed first LCMS President C.F.W. Walther's position that the Gospel-preaching ministry is indeed a divine institution, but is "owned" by and accountable to Christ's church or congregation. Interestingly enough, Loehe himself admitted that Walther's position on church and ministry was exactly that of the great Reformer, Martin Luther! We desperately need to find our way back to that golden middle way of the Holy Scriptures and our Reformation heritage, which is in fact the historic and official position of our Synod."

Controversy over the doctrine of church and the ministry is without a doubt the most pressing problem confronting the Missouri Synod today, the more so because so few people recognize that the problem even exists. Almost without exception the matters that currently so divide us are a direct result of the rejection, both in principle and practice, of the Scriptural doctrine of church and ministry as well as the rejection in high places of Synod's official position on the subject.

Reading Marquart's statement one would certainly be led to conclude that he is a dyed-in-the-wool Walther man, that he understands where those who are causing the problems are coming from, that he is the man to deal with and solve the problems. It sounds, in other words, like he is the quintessential Waltherian and that he supports and is in total agreement with the official position of the Missouri Synod. I say it sounds like that. The question is, is it true? Put another way, is it: Fact or Fiction?

Judge for yourselves: http://pages.prodigy.net/cnehrenz/marquartreview.html; then consider http://pages.prodigy.net/cnehrenz/election.html (scroll to "Caveat").


Clyde Nehrenz (member of Bethany Lutheran Church, Wellington, Ohio)