Preus, Trump, and the Confessing Church
More than 50 years ago the LC-MS came under the spell of a
charismatic leader who propagated lies, politicized the Bible, created an
‘Other,’ and over a several years weaponized the institutions of a church
body for a crusade against heresy.
The LC-MS was ripe for such a leader given that the pump was primed by the rag newspaper – Christian News. CN had spewed out lies for
over a decade regarding ‘heresy’ at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
The LC-MS had held a creative tension between a more
moderate-progressive approach to theology and church life and a more doctrinaire
and ‘Herr-pastor’ approach to life in the church oft avoiding Biblical
literalism and punitive measures. Dialog was possible because of a pastoral
approach by the leaders of the Synod. The Synod family had its theological
fights but always managed to remain a family.
The Preus regime changed all that. Entering as an outsider
from a smaller more conservative group of Lutherans Preus was under no
obligation to function as a ‘family man.’ Instead, he and his brother, Robert, (Affirm)
sowed division within the LC-MS – lines were drawn, and sides needed to be
taken. The ‘Other’ (i.e., Faculty Majority) was broadly condemned with no
specific individuals’ being charged with false teaching.
To implement discipline the regime created as measuring
stick to crush descent: “A Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles”
which emphasized the extreme side of the theological spectrum in the LC-MS thus
distorting her history of dialog within the family.
It was a takeover of 1,000 cuts by infiltrating the church’s
institutions with Preus loyalist like Paul Zimmerman. The District Presidents
attempted to take a ‘pastoral approach’ which was railroaded over by Preus’
schemes and power plays.
Most of you reading this know the rest of the story.
Why do I briefly review this history? Because the same thing
is being repeated on the life of our country. Jack Preus was the first Trump. We
experienced in microcosm what the country is going through today. Why even the
death of our dear mentor Dr. Arthur Carl Piepkorn could not prevent the
inevitable takeover by the Preus regime!
How can that experience inform the current situation? The
parallel is uncanny. Trump – the outsider comes and takes over a political
party. Initially accusing Obama as not being American. The seeds of ‘the Other’
were planted and took root. Trump used the same techniques that Preus used – infiltrating
institutions with loyalists, taking over the courts, firing those who would not
bend the knee, and replacing them with “acting” positions that need no
Congressional approval.
Immigrants became the ‘Other.’ Those who disrupted propaganda at Trump’s
rallies were dispersed with violence. There was no room for dialog.
So, you see what is happening right before our eyes – a
repeat of our experience as Seminex graduates on a national scale!
How do we respond? What does one do when dialog is eliminated?
The LC-MS 1965 Mission Affirmations give us a clue:
That we affirm as Lutheran Christians that the
Evangelical Lutheran Church is chiefly a confessional movement within the total
body of Christ rather than a denomination emphasizing institutional barriers of
separation.
Our time of confessing has not ceased since “With One
Voice” but continues to this day and is urgently needed now. We are at a
Bonhoeffer moment in this country. Therefore, I propose a formal formation of a
Confessing Church; namely we call a gathering of our ecumenical partners and
create a mutually agreed upon statement in the pattern of the Barmen
Declaration of the Confessing Movement.
“The Barmen Declaration contains six theses concerning Christian
faith, which were meant to contest the claims of the German Christian movement.
Briefly, these theses can be summarized as follows:
1.
Jesus Christ is the source of Christian
faith, and no secular sources can replace Christ as the sole Word of God to the
human race.
2.
The Gospel of Christ is the central
Christian message, and therefore all of life is belongs to Christ. including
the arena of political life and leadership.
3.
Since the Gospel is central to the
Christian message, the church is not free to abandon or change it to meet
contemporary ideological or political movements.
4.
The offices of the church (and therefore
leadership) are not for domination, but for service and ministry to the
congregation.
5.
The state has a divine role in providing
for peace and justice but cannot become a single totalitarian order for human
life or intrude into the religious arena.
6.
The church has a divine calling to share
the Gospel with the world and cannot be placed into the service of an ideology
or secular purpose or plan.”
In addition, we covenant with one another as partners in
resistance to those powers that thwart justice and the free expression of our
democratic republic by advocating for voting rights, creating sanctuary
churches for women seeking abortions, immigrants seeking justice. Partner with
Black Lives Matter, union organizers, librarians, teachers, and professors who
are being censored. That we stand up against the banning of books and boldly
seek the peace of each town and city. This is a break-glass moment for a
Confessing Church to unequivocally speak out for the truth and grace of the
Gospel over against Christian Nationalism. We dare no longer be silent lest we
fall prey to repeating the debacle in Germany.
I invite your in-put as to how best to go about this and how
our ELCA Churchwide leaders can assist in making this happen.
Rev. Kenneth R. Storck
Reformation Day
October 31, 2022
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