Lead Time
Lead Time
The Messy Early Years of the LCMS...No One Talks About
Bob Sundquist takes us on a captivating journey through the turbulent founding story of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod—a tale far more complex and human than most church histories acknowledge. Moving beyond simplified narratives of heroes and villains, Sundquist reveals how the first "celebrity pastor" of the LCMS, Martin Stephan, led 700 Saxon immigrants to America in 1838 only to face accusations and eventual exile across the Mississippi River.
This conversation reveals how historical understanding helps us navigate present church tensions between pastoral and congregational authority.
• History is fundamentally about storytelling and understanding people, not just memorizing dates
• Martin Stephan was the first "celebrity pastor" of the LCMS whose leadership eventually created a crisis
• The accusations against Stephan of sexual impropriety likely had no concrete evidence but were used to remove him
• C.F.W. Walther developed Lutheran understanding of church authority through the trauma of Stephan's removal
• Pastors should focus primarily on Word and Sacrament ministry rather than business management
• The LCMS has historically had a hyper-fixation on the Office of Ministry as a result of early traumas
• Walther's "Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod" (1879) offers wisdom for contemporary church conflicts
• The Missouri Synod repeats the same resolutions without taking action, indicating unresolved tensions
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time. This is Tim Allman and we got Jack Kauberg here and we're going to have an awesome conversation. Before I get into it, jack, love and life.
Speaker 3:I am love and life man. It's a great day to be here in Arizona. We just came off of I don't know when this podcast drops, but we just came off of a very intense two-day consultation in our own trip how we can get better at multi-site ministry. So that's been something, a real kind of eye-opening experience. Shout out to the people at Unstuck Group they're really cool, really cool partners to be hanging out with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you get the chance to work with Unstuck, for sure. If multi-site is a part of your present or your future, very, very useful. Today we get to hang out with Robert Sundquist, pastor reverend Now. I had you on my American Reformation, now the Tim Allman podcast six months ago or so you were right in the doctor journey, is that? Are you officially now a reverend doctor, Robert?
Speaker 4:Nope, nope, nope. They haven't found a way to get me yet.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, robert, nope, nope, nope, they haven't found a way to get me yet. Okay, so we're going to be talking Robert and I were classmates from Concordia Seminary in St Louis back in the day, both 2008 graduates, and we're going to talk about the early story of the LCMS connected to CFW Walther, martin, stephan and their kind of battle for control. This goes into kind of the authority of the local church and Bob spoke where our president, district president Mike Gibson, heard him speak and he told me he was like hey, tim, you got to get. You got to get Bob on to talk about some of the history. So, before we get in, I mean, you're a historian, your office smells like rich mahogany and you have many leather bound books.
Speaker 2:But, bob, why is understanding, why is understanding history so important? Just, and frame this up, because I got a son. You know I'm like dude. I told you history is important, man, I was a history major. Understanding where we've come from, very important. So phrase it up for people maybe young or old, but people are are like I don't really care much about the past. What would you say to them?
Speaker 4:I would say that, um, they were likely not taught history very well. They were probably taught history as a discipline of memorizing facts or dates, um, and and they felt obligated to do so and it felt unimportant or uninspired, and so that's probably what happened, and it's a bummer, yeah, yeah, but honestly, everybody is really good at history because we're social beings and history is the story of people. And if you, if you want to inspire somebody to learn history, tell them stories and tell them interesting stories. History, tell them stories and tell them interesting stories, because we actually do history all the time. I would venture that your children are really good at recounting the history of their day, especially if there's a drama or something going on or a conflict or celebration. They'll tell you the history of success and they'll tell you the agony of defeat and all those kinds of things. So we, by nature, are storied beings, and so that's what history is and that's what makes it amazing.
Speaker 2:Hey, yeah, that's it. And the reason I love history is because our God stepped down into it, cared about us in time and space and became flesh for us. The greatest historical being the world has ever known is the person of Jesus Christ. So I'm reading a book right now called the Atlas Factor by a guy by the name of Lance Ford. I'm trying to get him on and he talks about the various lenses through which we understand history and, specifically, leadership. But I'm going to keep it at a high level of history with you.
Speaker 2:There are multiple different ways we can look at it, and one is kind of the hero man lens. So you look at the Winston Churchill as the primary character in World War Two and everything's kind of seen through his lens, and I think this can lead us to a short and maybe even in our LCMS story. This is where we're going to be going. We have different heroes and we have different villains in the story. Right, and obviously for us it's CFW Walter he's like the guy, and then Martin Stephan, evil guy, power hungry. You know this kind of thing and it's obviously never that simple, but human beings like to make what is complex more simple, and to do that we like to find the heroes and the villains of the story. Say more there, Bob, if you would, about that understanding of the way we do history.
Speaker 4:So there's something in history called hagiography and that's what you're talking about, and it's hero stories. And an excellent example of this in America is Paul Bunyan, who was likely a real person, but they make his story into a grander story. And it is a grander story because his story has nothing to do with Paul Bunyan. It has everything to do with the American logging industry in the North and immigrant culture. And so his big blue ox did not create the Thousand Lakes of Minnesota and he could not fell a forest with the swing of his ax, but his story, his hagiography, became the larger story of things that were actually happening. And so all the way from Minnesota to Moscow, idaho, you know you have Paul Bunyan, but it wasn't Paul Bunyan, it was Paul Bunyan with a thousand faces. And so Joseph Campbell kind of gets into this with narrative storytelling. And so Joseph Campbell kind of gets into this with narrative storytelling. And so any hero that you have is telling a real story of a larger representative story that's going on. And so you have CFW Walther, when Walther would not have counted himself as a hero at all. He may have thought of Loeber, or he may have thought of Marbach, or he may have thought of other people as more important to him.
Speaker 4:Even later on in life, cfw Walther didn't have a lot of bad things to say about somebody who had a lot of hagiography, which was Martin Stephan, who was the person who helped a group of immigrants to find freedom of religion in America. But he was the first celebrity pastor of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. But, like today, you have celebrity pastors that have a lot of hagiography around them and fail. So did Stephan. He failed, which led to interesting kind of consequences in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. You said battle. I don't think they would have thought of it as a battle between good and evil. I think they would have thought of it as a traumatic fight that happens inside of a family, that leads to a schism that is deeply felt and its consequences are probably still relevant today. Does that make sense? It does, it does.
Speaker 3:Jack, any response to that. I'm just thinking about how often that happens with so many historical figures that we deal with, like George Washington, there's all kinds of crazy folklore around him, you know, cutting down the cherry tree and all that kind of stuff. And there's all kinds of folklore surrounding Martin Luther, right, like lots of really interesting stories that a lot of times have been debunked, but they're still part of the narrative of that person because of his impact on us. So that's really fascinating. So is it your view then, with these figures like Stefan and Walther, that there's a lot of folklore tied to that? That may or may not be true for these characters.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure, and I think, to just speak for a second about what people do today, since we live in a society, a secular age, as Charles Taylor would want to say, where we're a mosaic self, where we create our own narrative and we manage it. I think that we, before we die, want to be storied people, and so the problem with today is that people chasing after experiences to story their existence so they can live their own legend right now, which I think is folly, um, and I think it's tragic, um and its consequences as we see in culture today. Um, I would say that um, there's a lot of hagiography about you know, like uh, stefan and and walter. One of the one of the most damning ones, uh for stefan, is that he's often seen as a? Um, as somebody who fooled around with women.
Speaker 4:Um, he was accused of that back in dresden when he was serving a little bohemian congregation up there in the 1830s, and that stink just couldn't leave him. When he came to the Americas, it was only after people were very dissatisfied with his performance and his controlling behavior. His celebrity turned when he got on the ship to come to America. So what ended up happening is that old accusation came back, but in our work at Concordia Historical Institute in the research department, we were not able to find one shred of evidence that he actually committed adultery. There was accusations and no proof. Even his maid, who followed him across the river to Illinois where he was banished for the rest of his days, the river to Illinois where he was banished for the rest of his days, it was all just hearsay. The truth of the matter is is that he didn't follow the Billy Graham rule. Oh, if we only had Billy Graham. You know today, you guys know the Billy Graham rule. Say it. The Billy Graham rule for clergy is that you never meet with a lady alone.
Speaker 2:Well, this is a great rule.
Speaker 4:It's an excellent rule which Stefan was completely foolish about, and so he would. He got used to in Dresden having late night meetings conventicles, if you will, if you're willing to accept that by which he would go walking and people would join him for walks, and some of them were ladies and sometimes it was just ladies and all that kind of stuff. In america, when their dissatisfaction about his well, his performance, he, he lost all the charisma when he, when he became bishop, when they swore him bishop on the way over january 14th, um, on the ship 1838, I think it was um when he became bishop, all his charisma left. So everything that they were enamored with him and his celebrity pastorness was gone. His preaching fell by the wayside. He wasn't working on it, he became reclusive and suspicious, him like thirty five hundred dollars as like a fee to come to america and then he just kind of spent the money however he wanted. So there was very low accountability which would have been big money back then.
Speaker 4:right, yeah, it was a hundred. Uh, what's called a hundred dollars? It sounds like dollars, but it's t-h-a-l-e-s and so, um, you know, they, they were all very dissatisfied and all of a sudden, ladies were. They came to a pastor named Loeber and they confessed that they felt like their time with him was inappropriate. And then Loeber broke the seal of confession and went and ratted him out to Walther, which was hilarious when you think of the vows that we take today, when you think of the vows that we take today, which led to a series of events his expulsion from his house and, you know, expulsion into was it?
Speaker 4:Horse Prairie, illinois, I don't know, someplace in Illinois. They still have a Stephanite church over there today and, yeah, that's kind of we got all this hagiography about. You know all that, but the fact of the matter is we have no proof that he actually did that. But what we do have proof of is that everybody's really angry at him and they found a way to get rid of him that was consistent with accusations from Germany or, excuse me, from Dresden and those areas into a little institutional bullying, you know. And there we go. Even if it was the right thing to do. It was a pretty rough way to treat a guy.
Speaker 2:Cue Lutheran snark. Good thing we don't struggle with that today.
Speaker 4:Oh, Lutheran snark is beautiful, yeah, because it's bread and butter of who we are. So again, to call it a fight might be, or a battle might not be true. It's more like a really ugly family trauma. Does that make sense? Well, or a battle might not be true, it's more like a really ugly family trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, does that make sense? Well, it does, and it's just. It was dysfunction, handled inappropriately. Call a thing what a thing is you know? And if it's not that thing meaning sexual immorality, then please don't call it that unless there is proof and we have seen lies damage reputation.
Speaker 2:That's one of the biggest things that human beings are afraid of is reputation, savagery and the shame, the reputational shame, that comes in a group of people that you used to be close to and now no longer are. It's amazing, our hyper-indism, like we came over on the boat and we immediately go after our own way rather than taking the long, messy Jesus way to restore a brother. It's just, and I don't have a lot of sympathy for Stephan. I think his financial mismanagement was unwise, to say the least, but I think you ought to have an ounce of compassion for the way the story was handled and the villainization that gets told of this man without, without proof, anything more to say there about how we are to treat one another today, because I think that labels still exist today and we still reputation savage consistently, and this is this is unfortunate in the lcms robert yeah, I think, uh, what you're touching on is mentioned not on on, ironically in luther's small catechism, in the meaning of the eighth commandment.
Speaker 4:You know, um, we don't. We don't destroy somebody's reputation, you know, and? But let's be a little fair because history is about being even handed. It is true that Martin Stephan was very close to making the Missouri Senate a faction by leaving the way that he did. It is true that he he should have stayed in St Louis and not bought the, the, the rocky, unfarmable soil in Perry County. It is true that it was very unwise for him to become controlling and withdrawn. It is true that he did much damage by asking for his palace to be built before they even built a town, while they were all living in shanty. So it is true, you know, that he did all of these things incorrectly and I believe it speaks to a larger problem that is still true in the church today, which is pastors who see themselves as um CEOs, cfos, small business managers, when they have absolutely no training for it. We have been trained to do word and sacrament ministry and what I say to my guys when I teach is if it ain't word and sacrament, it ain't yours. Which this leads to the Marburg colloquy and Bessie was like let me handle the financials, because they had those trauma from Stephan or Stephan. And. And then Walter was having a hard time trying to reconcile that, but he eventually did.
Speaker 4:Pastors are often put into the position of being in charge of things that they have no business experience or gift for being in charge of. But let's just say that a pastor maybe had the gift a little bit of doing business stuff. Maybe he used to be and he still has some skill in it. Well, when he became a pastor, he agreed to no longer operate in those things but only operate with the tools that he's been given, which is word of sacrament. Like, for instance, I'm really good at punching people in the face. I have a skill for it, but I don't like bringing that into my pastorate. You know what I mean. That's a good idea, but I don't like bring that into my pastorate. You know what I mean. That's a good idea, so you know. So I used to box. That doesn't make me think. Well, you know I have this skill. No, I set it aside because I have a new calling.
Speaker 4:And so Stephan was put in a position where he's operating outside of his gift set because he was confusing the left and the right hand kingdom. They went with it because it fits this model of well, you're the pastor, therefore you're in charge. You're the pastor, you deal in word and sacrament. And so part of it was a confusion from the community, which I still believe is present in Lutheran churches in America today, where a pastor gets in and they say well, you're in charge of the budget, well, go ahead. Ask us how many classes we took on accounting and AR and you know all those kinds of things at seminary. The answer you had it. You made it handsome. Yeah, accounts receivable. Sorry, yeah, zero. Ask us how many organizational psychology classes we took on staff management.
Speaker 2:Maybe like one, maybe if you say pastor is leader maybe, but not like the intricate details of management.
Speaker 4:No, gosh, no, there's no way you can, yeah, yeah, how to fire, you know staff and all those kinds of things. And so the problem is is when the pastor comes in, all of a sudden they place all of these things onto him that are outside of his office. Now wise pastor says I'm going to find the people that can do that. There we go, but I'm going to stay inside a word and sacrament. And so this was one of the earliest lessons and traumas in the Missouri Synod which led to a lot of consequences for the Missouri Synod having a fixation on the office of the holy ministry. Sorry, jack, but you were trying to say something.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it was good. I was trying to stir the pot a little bit here, because in our context here at the church Tim serves at, we've got a Carver governance model, and so really what that means is Tim is the administrative lead of this church, right, and I was kind of curious to hear Tim's take on that in this conversation. No, jack.
Speaker 2:Yep, what's that? I don't do much administration, no you don't.
Speaker 2:I distinctly remember today saying there's a lot of projects that I know we're going to be doing and I'm excited to hear how they get done so I can cheer on a team that's working very hard to support the Office of Holy Ministry, but it's not specifically Word and Sacrament Ministry. I'm blessed to have just enough wisdom to know what I don't know, and it's pretty much everything but what Bob said, and then I include Word Jack, as when I taught culture and love and how we respect one another and how Jesus loved and cared for one another. So, as we're talking about different opportunities for change, all for the advancement of the kingdom, we're going to do so in a way that honors Christ and honors one another, like that, that is, like I want to make sure the fruit of the Holy Spirit is seen. We're a very passionate group here, bob, like there's there's a lot of wonderful and, as any kind of organization that grows in complexity, with a church and a school and a number of those things, you're going to have the move, the interplay between what are Adiaphora things which I can release with strategy types of things, and then how we end up here. Here's the way I like to say it, bob, and I'll get your take on this. I do have, because the scriptures are clear go and make disciples. We need to be in the disciple business baptize, teach, and so that is, that is a vision. Our community is growing and so I will preach toward reaching people in the marketplace, in our homes, reaching people with, with the gospel.
Speaker 2:And then I have a group of people who are open to train different leaders and different evangelists et cetera to do that in their various contexts. In my mind that's word work, right. And some may say, well, that's a vision. Well, I don't know if it's vision per se, but it's. Jesus left a vision Jerusalem, judea, samaria, to the ends of the earth. And so in our context, that has to be a part of my word work. But then the how that gets accomplished, it varies, right, in various different, how the training goes about for our different small group leaders et cetera. I don't have to be a part of that, I need to make sure it's happening. But the training mechanisms behind the scenes work. There's a lot of freedom toward that end.
Speaker 2:But then what I do monitor quite closely, and I would say it's not just the advancement of the gospel but I do monitor the culture that is here and I'm held accountable toward that, jack, by our board how well people are loved and treated, both who call this place their church home and who are called to serve here in this space as a part of their vocation. Like, I'm seriously concerned about that. I view that all under word work in our community. But the finance, the HR, all of the like, if I touch any of that, oh my goodness, not good, not good.
Speaker 2:And, jack, you and I just recently had a conversation around different staff coming. Like I can have those kind of conversations. It's uncomfortable for me too. So I would much assume, delegate to you and to a team what it looks like behind the scenes to get the right people here and to keep the right people here who have the heart and mind of Jesus. I'm saying a lot but just letting people a little bit more behind the curtain even of a large church. I view myself word and sacrament is my primary call, obviously, and I can do other things, but that's what God has called me to do. Robert, any take on that? Or Jack, I'll go to you and then let Robert kind of finish it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean bouncing back to me.
Speaker 3:It's so fascinating to me because I've I've functioned in so many different governance styles in the church, right, and the first, the first style it was, it was designed around exactly, bob, what you're talking about, whereas, like the pastor, the pastor makes no business decisions here.
Speaker 3:Our team of lay people, they're going to make all the business decisions here, decisions here, and that led to a certain amount of dysfunction in the church, in that there seemed to be a disconnect between the type of vision that we were putting together for ministry and maybe, like you know, how business people were thinking about how to administer things. Like there's just a disconnect here, right, and I don't know, maybe I guess the way I think about it is kind of the Lutheran way that we just hold a lot of things in tension, right, you know. But I do know that how we function now seems to be a lot more healthier than how we functioned in the past. But I also know that a lot of pastors couldn't, maybe necessarily couldn't, step into the role that Tim is into this function and maybe might not necessarily be able to function as well as Tim does, because he's very gifted in this area.
Speaker 2:I think more could if they were put in the right.
Speaker 3:Just in the ability to give away things and to understand like Fair enough, fair enough, but that's just.
Speaker 2:That's just knowing what I don't know Right. Knowing, really doubling down, bob, on what you say, stay in your, stay in your lane Release, and I do. And knowing, really doubling down, bob on what you say, stay in your lane release, and I do have to have accountable conversations around different things, but that's just the way it goes. That's again. That's word work. So I don't shy away from difficult conversations and the biggest pain point for me, as I'm just highlighting here, is character, is the heart and mind of Christ and the humility of Jesus being seen in our team as we go about our work. Any observations there, bob? We being seen in our team as we go about our work Any observations there?
Speaker 4:Bob, we're letting you just kind of behind the scenes into our church world here. It's great. No, that's fine. Yeah, I would say that the real key to doing that successfully, which you probably would all agree with, is in those moments when you are casting vision or doing those kinds of things. You're asking the question what tool am I using to do that? Am I using business models and strategies, or am I using the word? And as long as it's the word and you're not doing theological excuse, making like just give me all the money, that's what the Bible says, and I'll go make the zoo.
Speaker 4:As long as you're not being spiritually abusive with the word, then yeah, you're doing it correctly. And then, at moments when people are, for instance, engaging you at a personal level and it ceases to be about confession and absolution, then you would be able to say, hey, maybe you should seek the help of a mental health professional, because this is a little outside of my wheelhouse but it takes a lot of humility to be able to do that to your point about other pastors is because there's something very intoxicating about power and control, which is the lesson we learned from Stephan. There's something very intoxicating about power and control that you feel like as a pastor, you get to be at all these really heavy places in people's lives and it feels very intoxicating to be able to be the guy who says things and people do stuff, and that's a lure of the sinful flesh and of the devil and of the world. And this is where celebrity pastors end up. Going wrong is because they have nearly unrestricted access to people, to money and to celebrity, and what that creates is a perfect invitation by your sinful nature to do the wrong thing and people put the celebrity on the pedestal and they're all so surprised when they give them all of those things and then they fall into sin and Lutherans are sitting back going, well, yeah, you know, that's our biblical anthropology. And so the same thing happens with pastors is oh, pastor, what should we do? And you're just kind of spitballing here and you're using adverbs and adjectives and it sounds great, you know, and everybody's loving your idea.
Speaker 4:And then afterwards, after three years or so, they say, oh, we didn't really want to do that, but we thought it made you happy. So we just said yes. And you're going wait what? Because your idea wasn't based off of your vocation in the word or the sacraments it was based off of hey, let's go get stuff done, you know, in the name of Jesus, and you create all, you fall into all these traps.
Speaker 4:And so, knowing your limitations, as Tim said, and being humble enough to be able to accept them and to use the resources that God has truly given into his church, which is word and sacrament and the gift of people, the gift of the other, to be able to say, hey, you're a business guy, funds for a building before, but everybody's telling me I got to do it, Will you please, oh, please, oh, dear God, please help me. Or when somebody shares something very personal and it's outside of your pay grade. Don't pretend to be the professional. Instead, say I can help you with the Word of Sacrament, let's get some other people involved. So that just takes a lot of humility. Stephan didn't learn that lesson, and now the Missouri Senate has reacted so hard ever since, Ever since. That? Does that make any sense? It does so, do you feel? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Tim.
Speaker 3:So I was going to ask if you felt that you know, do you feel that Walther learned that lesson in the midst of Stephan's failures? You know, in terms of his work in founding the LCMS?
Speaker 4:I think Walther really struggled with that. Again, it wasn't so clear of a battle between good and evil. I mean, stephan was the person who pulled him out of pietism. Walther was drowning in Dresden and pietism and this guy told him he says there's this really dynamic pastor and he's confessional and he's really great and he talks real pretty and he's handsome and you know he's, he's Czech, so he's a little, you know, it's like having a little tattoo peek out of your sleeve like Ooh, he's. You know he's edgy, he's Czech. And so Walter wrote to him. And Walter was really nervous when he wrote back because he thought this guy's just going to tell me that I'm doing the wrong thing and I need to do this instead of that. He was very nervous. And so when he read Stephan's letter which asked him to appeal to Christ you know, to go to Christ for comfort, not for your own pietism Walther was very much changed in that moment.
Speaker 4:So for Walther it wasn't so easy as to say, yeah, let's just get rid of him. I mean, it was ripping his guts out. It was very much like a divorce or a trauma in a family. And so Walther suffered a severe depression, a very severe depression, to the point where the majority of those immigrants had wondered if they were even a church, you know, because they were just confused theologically. And so it took him a while and it took for him some very careful work through scripture. He was very much helped by Luther's kind of writings to help to kind of clear the fog, and so it wasn't so easy. There weren't horns on Stephan's head and it was very confusing. This guy helped me to be the kind of pastor I am today. But now he's bad. And am I good? Did we do the right thing? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. So you said that we should have stayed in St Louis. That may have caught some people's attention. Say why you think we should have stayed in St Louis rather than going down to Perry County.
Speaker 4:St Louis had more accountability, had more accountability. And that's exactly what Stephan needed to stop acting the way that he was. And it was very clear that he liked Perry County because it was super cheap. It was super cheap and that was very suspicious to everybody. They're like why is it? Why is he so concerned about that? I mean, we gave them all this money. You know what's the deal. There were 700 immigrants, you know, and they all ponied up $3,500, you know back then. And so it's like what's the deal? And so what stefan needed was accountability.
Speaker 4:But he immediately started withdrawing himself when he got to st louis. When he took the steamboat willie up to st louis, he didn't even come off the boat. He stayed in his luxury cabin all night and everybody was very disappointed. And then he snuck into his hotel rooms at night and stayed very reclusive. So he, st Louis was a place where he would have been held accountable. First time he preached in St Louis, the papers were running like hey, there's this dynamite, you know, celebrity pastor from Dresden, and everybody go and watch him preach, and so and he just tanked. He tanked and I think it's because he knew he couldn't hide behind his celebrity anymore, and so it was just, it was just rough. So I think St Louis was the better option. They should have stayed. Should have stayed. Yeah, that's that's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Dfw Walther begins to. After he comes out of the fog, he begins to kind of take on the mantle of a new bishop of sorts. What was it Go?
Speaker 4:ahead.
Speaker 2:He didn't like the bishop thing. Yeah, he didn't use that term at all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because that was a Steffen thing. Okay, so he was just a pastor, yeah yeah, yeah, and so writing a Congregational Rites of Truth. Sorry to interrupt that, but Walter would like roll in his grave right now.
Speaker 2:You know, if you heard that You're not a yeah, cfw author, don't roll over, you're just a pastor. Good, good Thanks.
Speaker 4:Just a good guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Just a good, just a good guy. So well, you mentioned on a congregation's right to call their pastor. What was the background context for that?
Speaker 4:Because they believe that the church was generated through the pastor rather than through the congregation, and so it became very clergy focused rather than congregationally focused.
Speaker 4:And so we can do this little exercise from the small catechism, where it says in the section on the office of the keys, on absolution, that this is the authority that Christ has given to his church. It doesn't say gave to his pastors or gave to his bishops or his archbishops or his synodical presidents Not that I have anything wrong with their synodical president, but you know, like that was very revelatory for them because they had this kind of a episcopacy that just ruined their view of what the church was. And when they realized that the Holy Spirit has given these gifts to the church church and it was the church's right to choose a pastor, that, um, that was revelatory for them and it really brought them back into mainline christianity, away from the kind of factiousness that they were kind of working with seems like we still have some room for growth in terms of the balance between the royal priesthood and the office of holy ministry, um, and even some lines of accountability.
Speaker 2:You know, I I've been to the convention, the last three in it, and it, uh, is one representation of the church, but it obviously is very, very pastor, pastor and presidium and district president, kind of centric. It's very much a political function within the church and I don't know that the laity and her voice is as loud today as I pray her voice is into the future, and this is nothing against the Office of Holy Ministry. I think, in some circles though, we've spent too much time talking about and frankly I could be accused of this with all that I've done talking about pastoral, this pastoral that you know, and not enough about equipping, releasing all of the gifts within the body of Christ in all of her various vocations, anything to say at just a high level, about how we in Missouri can become imbalanced as it relates to the Office of Holy Ministry connected to the royal priesthood.
Speaker 4:Well, I would say that the consequence of Stephan and all of that and the Marlborough colloquy is that the Missouri Senate had a hyper fixation on the office, and you can see this in our publications. We exponentially write more about the Office of the Ministry than we do any other section, even the catechism which we use the Dietrich's Catechism, if I remember correctly, when we came over, we moved the questions and answers on the Office of the Ministry forward and we added a whole bunch of questions and answers which you want to see. If an organization is dealing with something, see what they mentioned the most of, and so we've always kind of had that. I think that, honestly, a very good work on this is CFW, walther's Kirchenamt, or Church and Ministry. I think it would be excellent for people to read that. Or, for instance, he has a convention letter which is absolutely fantastic. Tim, you're going to go get one, I'm going to go get one too.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we're both going to get one. I want to see a church and ministry Fascinating yeah.
Speaker 4:Kierkegaard Amt. Yeah, I have here in my office the original, the old school translation and the new reader's translation. This is the new reader's translation. Just brilliant stuff, and I think that a lot of people will say that they have read it, which is hilarious because if they had read it, they would likely not have some of the problems that we're having today.
Speaker 3:What?
Speaker 4:should we read, bob? What parts should we read? What would be some key takeaways that somebody might get? Go ahead and just read the whole thing and here's what you'll see. Okay, I'll read the whole thing again. We will, I read it.
Speaker 2:I got to read it again. Dust it off, baby. Here we go. Tim, have you ever read it? Oh yeah, I read it at the semin.
Speaker 4:come on, yeah, yeah actually that's uh, that's different. That book that you just held up, that's uh, oh yeah well, it shouldn't be the same thing, for goodness sake yeah, that's a study on the church and the ministry, which proves my point. It's a study of the lcms oh, it's not hilarious.
Speaker 4:Cfw walter, which is yeah yours might be dark blue okay, I'm still looking, but keep going so what walter does very well is he talks both sides of the struggle, where pastors need to take their job very, very seriously and do it very, very well, which means representing the laity as well. But then, on the other extreme, he talks about the priest of all believers, and he talks about it in such extreme ways that the only thing left is, as Jack pointed out, attention, and so we will never be able to solve this. There are people who tried to solve this. What? The evangelical style, lutheran substance, people, the priesthood of all believers, people, I think even the oh, ozzie Hoffman, the statement of the 44, you know, they tried to do that too. And it's just always when you try and solve the tension, you create a new problem or you just reinvent an old one. Yeah, but you have to live inside of this tension.
Speaker 4:I think the best thing to read about this is Kierkegaard's Church and Ministry, but I have one more, and it's just one thing, and it's from this Walther's Works. Cph published one on church fellowship. Sounds like something you want to nestle up to at night, right? I just really would love to read about church fellowship. Well, listen, I don't know of a better contemporaneous essay for our synod to be reading right now, than this one which is Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod right now, than this one which is Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which is page 237 and following in this work.
Speaker 4:This is from the first Iowa District Convention in 1879 at Fort Dodge, iowa, and it is hauntingly accurate to what's going on in our synod today. And this is another gift of history. You talked about why history is important. The gift of history is sometimes you don't need to have new, because often innovation well, actually innovation is the definition of heresy in the ancient church, and so coming up with something new should make us nervous. But there's these treasures, new and old, and this essay in here, which I believe was Gerhard Bode who retranslated it or edited the translation Brilliant stuff, and it is prescient. It's incredible.
Speaker 2:So curious minds want to know does it deal deeply with power struggles? Yes, between the office and the people? Yep, and it doesn't resolve the tension. We need one another.
Speaker 4:Well, I think this essay, I think Kierkegaard, doesn't resolve the tension, which is wise.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:But I think that this essay has some magnificent solutions. Can you give us a?
Speaker 2:couple or just off the top of your head. I'm just, I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it, but what's the solution? Because I mean, this is a real thing Anytime. I'm talking about prior approval, right, I mean, and a number of different structures that we're like. Well, we need to examine these, because we could be going down the power and control pathway right now and a number of voices may not be heard in the, in the wider church. So I mean, this is a, this is a very real thing. Who gets the right to make what decisions as it relates to our life together as the church? Right, I mean, this is a real thing, bob. So I know, I'm asking you to, just you don't have to say anything.
Speaker 2:I just want you to quote it up.
Speaker 4:Quote it up, I could read some quotes, but I'm going to do a very Waltharian thing first.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:And I'm going to read his theses Waltharian thing first, okay, and I'm going to read his theses, okay, okay, and that, if that doesn't get you going, I don't know what will but then maybe I'll read a couple of books.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right.
Speaker 4:It's the primary duty to be faithful to the confessions and word and deed and therefore it must be without reservation. Confess the creeds of the evangelical Lutheran church, except only pastors, teachers and congregations that are faithful to that. Supervise the confessional faithfulness of its members. Practice fellowship only with church bodies that are faithful to that.
Speaker 4:Second thesis major duty of the Synod is that it faithfully treat its congregations in an evangelical way and therefore not assume a dictatorial role over them, but only help them in an advisory way.
Speaker 4:Assist them to acquiring upright pastors and teachers, protect them against pastors who err in doctrine, follow an offensive lifestyle and are domineering in their office.
Speaker 4:Third thesis it's a major duty that it support its pastors and teachers and therefore counsel them by supporting them in the proper conduct of their office and defend them against unjust treatment. Fourth thesis major duty is that it promotes the growth of its members and the knowledge of the truth in every way possible and therefore give priority to having discussions in convention and conferences, so not just handing things down but having conversations about it all, arranging both pastoral and teacher conferences, review their minutes, evaluate things, make every effort to disseminate good literature instead of just saying this is the right answer Thesis five major duty is to strive for peace and unity and the truth in its midst, and therefore it sees to it that all members are mutually working together, that they bear each other's burdens in brotherly love, that no unnecessary disputes arise and are continued. Do you know how long we debated the lodge? A long time, yeah, yeah, a little bit yeah, from like 1847 to like World War II.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a lot. I mean, come on.
Speaker 4:Whether they have to do with doctrine or practice.
Speaker 4:The sixth and final thesis it's the duty that it not seek its own glory but the glory of God, being intent not so much on its own growth but rather on the growth of Christ's kingdom and the salvation of souls, and therefore not employ dishonest means but above all be intent on using the gospel and all its purity and fullness to win souls and keep them much zeal for its particular community, but rather living faith, unfamed love and genuine godliness, and take an enthusiastic and, as much as possible, active part in a God-pleasing organization dedicated to the spread of Christ's kingdom in the world.
Speaker 4:And this is the point because you might have been snooze-fest on the first couple of theses, thinking that's not what I like, but by the end you're probably like, yeah, that was pretty good and this is standard Walther. And people don't get this. And the people who wear Walther and his title and they're the arbiters or harbingers of Walther often act like they've never read a syllable of him, because they say things in such a officious way and they use it in such an authoritarian way that not even Walter would agree with it. Here's my favorite example Are you ready?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 4:It's from Law and Gospel In one of his theses Luther or not Luther, excuse me, walter was talking about what's our practice on baptism. And he says if a person comes up to you and says, hey, I heard your message today and I would love to be baptized, cfw Walter makes a joke. He says, of course, what we should do then is we should say excellent, now take my eight week course on baptism, and then you'll be worthy enough to be baptized. And he says no, this is foolish. Our policy is Acts, chapter eight. Here is water. What prevents me from being baptized?
Speaker 4:Yeah, our policy is Acts, chapter eight. Here is water. What prevents me from being baptized and I think that's a perfect example of what Walther is a gift to the church for is because we will wear Walther to say he's all about doctrinal purity. Therefore, make sure everybody takes an eight week course and then you're worthy enough and he's going. No, just get some ditch water and start baptizing folks. So I think this is the fault of forgetting your history.
Speaker 3:Which is to Walther. Pure doctrine, right, why wait? And what is pure doctrine?
Speaker 4:but the gospel, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So he's not a rationalist, jack Right, and he's not a pietist Right no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I'm praying that we have more conversation around points of.
Speaker 4:I would say oh, it's OG Heart, sorry OG Heart, yeah, not Ogden it's OG.
Speaker 2:Heart Sorry, go ahead, og, heart All good, all good. I'm just praying that we have more charity and love for one another and that when we disagree, we disagree agreeably, that when we disagree, we disagree agreeably, and that this kind of just goes kind of hand in hand with cultural discourse today and I like long form podcasts, especially with people who are interesting, like you, who probably we could find something, bob, that we kind of would nuance, disagree on. But we agree on our confession, we agree on the.
Speaker 2:Maintaining Lutheran doctrine means walking the tension filled middle, middle way. I mean, this is, this is our bread and butter that we we do for. For those that are comfortable, we bring a word that makes people uncomfortable and and vice versa, right. We bring to the, to the person who is just broken and hurting and recognizing the log in our own eye, help my unbelief. We bring a word of love and care and absolution and grace and and if pastors do this with their people, which is what we've been called to do, we should do it with one another with greater intensity. So any, any thoughts there we're at time, but this has been awesome, bob Any thoughts on a call for dialogue rather than tribalism.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that made the Missouri Ascended successful in those early years is that we maintained a care for our immigrant identity and our missionary zeal, and it was never one over the other. And so we had our schools to preserve our immigrant culture, but also they were very missional. It was both, and we were very much interested about maintaining our heritage, but we were also very active, for instance, in African American ministry very early on, and there's like five books on the history of the Missouri Synod's earliest activity, working with people who were here in America in the same kind of situation, and so those are the keys to our success. And so if I were to say what could we do in the future Because I may be a little bit unique in that I worked on a project called the Doctrine and Resolution Project for Synod, which is Missouri Senate from 1847 to 2004. And we transposed the German and translated it, so it's all available.
Speaker 4:But I think what we need is to not have another resolution that says the same thing, but we need to call for action on resolutions that we already have. So, for instance, resolution 509, the last convention, about what's the difference between closed and closed communion right. I think we don't need another resolution to say the same thing as 509. We just need to actually put a date on the calendar and have that conversation and to do it in a brotherly way, in the way that's guided by some of the wisdom that people in the past like the duties of an evangelical Lutheran synod.
Speaker 4:Maybe that'd be the homework. And then we bring our contemporary situations and we would admit that, for instance, america, we have an immigrant history, so we have a multicultural America now and maybe there's something to learn there and culture is porous. It's not defined just as ethnicity, but it could be class and belief and all these kinds of things. And to just start having the conversations, my takeaway from the later doctrinal resolutions of Senate, like in the 2000s and the 90s, was that we just kept on saying the same resolution over and over again, but there was no action, and so it's time to get this family back together even though we can admit that there's trauma and maybe have that hard conversation and have a big family meeting about it. Maybe that can be a way that we can honor the past and inspire the future. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 3:It does Sociologically? Why do you think that there's this pattern of restating the same resolutions? What do you think is the thinking behind that, or the motivation behind that?
Speaker 4:I think it's because they're saying that there's still a problem. This happens in your families, doesn't it? When you're avoiding the problem and it just keeps on being said and keeps on being brought up. And I really believe it may be because of unrepentant sin, because people don't believe that they've sinned against one another. There's no confession and absolution and ironically, the church, body with the word and sacraments, won't practice confession and absolution together. Or maybe we leave it in certain places and say, well, we had a worship service, we did confession and there was absolution, so that's all done. Well, just ask yourself, is that how it works in a family? Like, oh sorry, and then we go down the road and do the same behavior. You know what I mean I do does that?
Speaker 4:answer your question, jack. I think so, yes yeah, yeah did?
Speaker 3:I concern you no, no, no, I'm just insanely curious, you know, like there's a reason why. There's a reason why, especially in a collectively, when there's collective behavior, there's a reason and there's a reason why, you know there's a reason why, especially in a collectively, when there's collective behavior, there's a reason and there's a culture that's driving that. And I think you've wisely said there's a history that drives that right. And so now we're still living out our history. It's interesting for me because I didn't grow up LCMS. I'm grafted in, right, I'm grafted in, and so I'm hearing this from others and I think some of these things they don't sit in my bones the way it might sit in somebody else's bones, you know.
Speaker 4:So it's just fascinating to me to try and kind of um hear more about this well, I didn't come from the missouri senate either, but I came from a broken family and so yeah, I think, uh, maybe some learnings from. Maybe, if people read that essay and did some family systems theory, you know wisdom there. Yeah, kind of check those things together.
Speaker 2:For sure. Hey, bob, you're you're awesome man. Thank you for this conversation. We just need to, by the spirit's power, get healthier in our, in our walk together, and history is helpful and I think I think history places us with the appropriate posture in the present, meaning we don't have to get overly anxious about things like we've been here and we're going to continue to be here because we're sinners, and we need to get specific about what sin is, how we have offended one another. Come before the cross of Jesus Christ, forgive and be forgiven and unite in mission to make him known. Our doctrine is solid, it's beautiful. Let's live it for the sake of the advancement and bring more to be grafted in, as you just said, jack, into the Missouri Synod. Praise be to God, bob. If people want to connect with you and your ministry there at Faith, how can they do so?
Speaker 4:I have an email. I rarely I'm good at it, but I try very hard. You might see me around at things and, if you, make eye contact with me.
Speaker 2:I consider that kindness so same same. This is a lead time. Please comment like subscribe. If you've got recommendations for anyone, especially along the historical front, that would be helpful for us to frame up Missouri's story for the sake of the future. Please make some recommendations and, bob, if you ever wanted Holy Spirit put some in your mind, hey, it'd be fun for you to talk to this person. We would love to have them on to continue this learning journey. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Wonderful work, jack. Thanks so much, bob.
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