Way Save the LCMS?

We believe that the LCMS is worth saving as a church body.  We believe that the LCMS has been hijacked by a foreign theology that has taken over the synod much the way a virus takes over the body by invading the body’s cells.  We believe that it is worth the effort to rescue the LCMS from its Babylonian captivity to an aggressive form of bureaucracy that is hell-bent on transforming Christ's Church into a seeker-sensitive, emergent “church” under the pretense of making it more competitive in the American religious marketplace.

Why go through the trouble of saving the LCMS?  Why not simply depart in peace, as some are suggesting?  We cite four reasons:

1.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is at stake.  Where the Gospel is at stake, the souls of men and women for whom Christ died are at stake, as is the article upon which the Church stands or falls.  This is really the second round of a war that began in the 1970’s.  Then, the formal principle of our theology was at stake - the Holy Scriptures.  Today, the material principle of our theology is at stake - the message of justification by faith alone through grace alone for Christ’s sake alone.

2.  The institutional structure of the synod is useful.  We have two fine seminaries, a network of universities, an historical institute, a radio station, a publishing house, and a system of districts and circuits that could, if run properly, serve our congregations and the spread of confessional orthodoxy throughout the world.  To abandon this structure would mean to start everything over from scratch, something that is certainly possible but not practical.  To walk out would be to relinquish ownership of the synodical machinery into the hands of those who clearly have little use for it.

3.  The LCMS name continues to be recognized in the world as a leader of confessional Lutheranism.  Thanks to our mission and human care work, confessional Lutherans worldwide look to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for theological leadership.  In spite of efforts to change our name, we enjoy a high degree of name recognition among Lutherans in Africa, the Pacific Rim, eastern Europe, Russia, Siberia, the free Lutheran churches of Europe, and our persecuted brothers in the Scandinavian free churches.  It would be a shame to abandon the LCMS name to those who do not wish to fly the banner of confessional orthodoxy.

4.  The LCMS is neither our grandfather’s church nor is it our church.  The LCMS is a fellowship of churches who have been called by Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church, to stand firm in the one true faith.  It is the church body who gave us CFW Walther, Franz Pieper, Walter A. Maier, Oswald Hoffmann, A.C. Piepkorn, Kurt Marquart, Norman Nagel, and so many others who contended for the faith.  Our fathers and grandfathers are being dishonored in word and deed, and by extension, so is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are called to rise and speak in the present moment.  We owe it to our fathers in the faith to contend for what they taught us and not let our Reformation heritage be adulterated by false prophets and misleading methodologies

We believe there is a faithful remnant in the LCMS that holds fast to our tradition of hymnal-based liturgical worship and biblical-confessional theology, that grieves over the disunity caused by those who would effect change and introduce novelties into our churches, that is resolved to resist the intrusion of false theology and misleading methodology into our fellowship of churches.  We stand together with them to inform and inspire.

For these reasons, and more, we choose to stay and mount a vigorous confessional resistance.  We encourage others to join this new reformation so that the glorious light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ may once again shine forth clearly from congregations gathered together under the banner of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.