Beware Lest Breaking Appart Become More Important Than Bringing Together

By David Domsch

Note a bit of history.  Through the great immigration movements of the 1800s, little ethnic groups with a Lutheran background became scattered out across the upper Midwest.  C. F. W. Walther, the founder of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,  worked hard and long to bring as many  together as possible. 

The key point here is that bringing together and avoiding schism was a primary Walther thrust, though he also spoke strongly against union with the Reformed churches who held significantly different doctrines.  Today too many remember only the warnings against unionism – forgetting the far greater emphasis Walther placed on getting together to be able to work more effectively.

 To that end Walther led the Synodical Conference of similarly minded Lutheran bodies.  But almost from the beginning issues of fellowship with each other plagued the relationships.

A Garrison Keillor Comparison

In Lake Wobegon Days Garrison Keillor captured some of the flavor of such tensions in his description of the “Sanctified Brethren”:

 We were “exclusive” Brethren, a branch that believed in keeping itself pure of false doctrine by avoiding association with the impure.  Some Brethren assemblies, mostly in larger cities, were not so strict and broke bread with strangers—we referred to then as “the so-called Open Brethren,” the “so-called” implying the shakiness of their position – whereas we made sure that any who fellowshipped with us were straight on all the details of the Faith, as set forth by the first Brethren who left the Anglican Church in 1865 to worship on the basis of correct principles.  In the same year, they posed for a photograph: twenty-one bearded gentlemen in black frock coats, twelve sitting on a stone wall, nine standing behind, gazing solemnly into a sunny day in Plymouth, England, united in their opposition to the pomp and corruption of the Christian aristocracy.

 Unfortunately, once free of the worldly Anglicans, these firebrands were not content to worship in peace but turned their guns on each other.  Scholarly to the core and perfect literalists every one, they set to arguing over points that, to any outsider, would have seemed very minor indeed but which to them were crucial to the Faith, including the question:  If Believer A is associated with Believer B who has somehow associated himself with C who holds a False Doctrine, must D break off association with A, even though A does not hold the Doctrine, to avoid the taint?

 The correct answer is: Yes.  Some Brethren however, felt that D should only speak with A and urge him to break off with B.  The Brethren who felt otherwise promptly broke off with them.  This was the Bedford Question, one of several controversies that, inside of two years, split the Brethren into three branches.

 Once having tasted the pleasure of being Correct and defending True Doctrine, they kept right on and broke up at every opportunity until, by the time I came along, there were dozens of tiny Brethren groups, none of which were speaking to any of the others.”

 As of today there are 34 separate and distinct Lutheran church bodies in the United States – few of them in agreement with each other.

 One of the most exclusionary is the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (commonly called the “Little Norwegian Synod”) with 139 congregations.  The brand of Lutheranism taught in the ELS is far more rigid than was historically taught in the LCMS.   Originally part of the Synodical Conference, the ELS broke fellowship with the LCMS in 1955 over extremely exclusionary ideas about church fellowship.  (Sound familiar?) 

ELS Seminary Produced Leaders for LCMS           

A key player in all this has been Bethany Lutheran College and Bethany Seminary, operated by the ELS in Mankato, MN.  Bethany’s teachings have been tremendously influential in the LCMS.  Many of the key players in Missouri Synod politics had their roots in this tiny school and seminary around 1950.

J.A.O. Preus II (later President of the LCMS) taught at Bethany from 1946 to 1958.  His brother Robert Preus (later President of the Ft. Wayne seminary) graduated from Bethany Seminary in 1947.  Marvin Schwan graduated from Bethany College in 1949, followed by his close friend Larry Burgdorf (now Executive Director of the Marvin M. Schwan Charitable Foundation) in 1950 and Alvin Barry (later President of the LCMS) in 1951.  Barry finished his seminary education in the tiny seminary of a breakaway right-wing group known as the Orthodox Lutheran Church.

This group and their allies have worked ceaselessly ever since to push the LCMS toward the ELS idea of what it means to be Lutheran.  Rev. Barry’s election to the LCMS Presidency presented an ideal opportunity.  Rev. Barry used his Presidency to push his narrow ELS views on church fellowship as well as his “Get it Straight, Missouri” message, and the Schwan foundation provided behind-the-scenes dollar support.

 JAO Preuss II is widely credited with writing the 1955 ELS resolution breaking fellowship with the LCMS.  Nevertheless, a few years later he accepted a call to the seminary in Springfield and later (1969) even became President of the LCMS, whose fellowship policies he had once opposed.  Ironically, the same convention that elected him to the LCMS Presidency also voted for fellowship with the American Lutheran Church.  But that fellowship relationship, too, slowly deteriorated until it was simply discontinued in 1981.

ELS Ideas Not Traditional LCMS  Teaching

Unfortunately, because of their prominent LCMS positions, the ELS clan and their adherents have convinced many that their exclusionary ELS ideas are “traditional LCMS teaching” when they are not.  The ELS notion that all inter-Christian activities must be viewed as a unit (the so-called “unit concept” of fellowship), with all such activities requiring total doctrinal agreement, has never been the LCMS position.

 The LCMS grew strongly from the time of Walther until 1967.  Since then, membership has declined steadily.  Contributions have also declined in real terms since that time.  A coincidence? No way.  We have increasingly spent our resources on ferreting out the unworthy in our midst – first on issues dubbed “doctrine” and increasingly on issues of “practice.”  While we have “tasted the pleasure of being Correct and defending True Doctrine,” we have effectively stopped doing the work the church is in this world to do. 

Who will set the agenda for the future of the LCMS?  Will it be the ELS circa 1950,  or those who put the mission of reaching people with the Gospel before fights over practice.  

David Domsch is a member of an LCMS congregation and a principal of Lawrence-Leiter and Company, Fairway, KS.