Are we becoming a three ring circus? The Abuse of the Call in Missouri.

[Issues, Etc. Blog of the Week 12/11/2009]

The Augsburg Confession teaches: "Concerning church government it is taught that no one should publicly teach, preach, or administer the sacraments without a proper [public] call." [Augsburg Confession, Articles of Faith, XIV. Concerning Church Government] (Kolb, R., Wengert, T. J., & Arand, C. P. (2000). The Book of Concord : The confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.] Note that this article is undisputed. It is the norm accepted by the whole church at the time of the Reformation!

Since becoming a Lutheran I have been concerned about an ongoing constellation of problems concerning the office of the ministry in the Missouri Synod. I cannot deal with all of them here. I want to briefly describe some things I have personally observed concerning what I will name as the "Abuse of the Call."

One note before describing the problem is that these abuses have become so common and in some cases so long standing that long time LCMS folks may not give them much thought. I hope that this will stir you up to revisit the Lutheran Confessions and other books concerning the Office of the Ministry (by such men as Chemnitz and Walther).

The first ring of abuse, and the highest in the hierarchy of the church, is at the level of District Presidents. Two main areas have been noted. I review them here.
1) Removal of men from their calls without proper reason and process (Todd Wilken, Martin Noland, et al.) -or- allowing a congregation to do so. This is often followed by activity noted below.
2) Hindering confessional men from receiving a call through active and passive acts, i.e. acts of commission or omission. Actively blocking the call process through various bureaucratic means, providing unwarranted negative input about a man (perhaps in violation of the 8th commandment), unilaterally taking names off of a congregation's call list, refusing to pass a name on to another district. Passively doing nothing to help a man, not following up in necessary steps to help a man to receive a call -or- "not so benign" neglect.

Note that this kind of abuse is despite the fact that DPs have no constitutional or confessional authority to hinder or abuse the call process. The Power of the Keys, and thus the power to call belongs to the Church and by extension and in practice to the local congregation!

The second ring of abuse is when churches do not take seriously their responsibility/authority to properly call a man.
1) This often happens due to ignorance or lack of understanding concerning the Power of the Keys and the authority to call a qualified man. This often exhibits itself by churches allowing a DP to usurp the congregation's responsibility/authority. Nature abhors a vacuum.
2) Another reason is due to lack of finances. There are many (small) churches that have severe financial issues. "Pay scale guidelines" can serve as a further obstacle to calling a man. However, so called "tent maker" options could be explored (i.e. a man has a part time job and serves the congregation). Many men are willing to serve for less than pay scale guideline levels. Willingness to share a man with other small congregations might work in such cases. A local congregation might need to re-examine its priorities. They may have more resources than they think. Churches must take the initiative to explore their options.
3) The most disturbing problem is due to convenience/lack of commitment. Some churches are more than willing to allow a "fill-in" pulpit supply situation to be the regular, ongoing situation. I won't discuss the problems with many ad hoc or fill-in pulpit supply situations here. The issue is congregations that for various reasons do not regularize their public ministry through a proper call. This neglect of their congregational responsibility/authority is a serious problem. In the Saint Louis area, as in any seminary/graduate school town, such ad hoc arrangements are common. However, is this truly what the confessors taught in AC XIV?

The third ring is by servants of the Word themselves:
1) The most common is politicking for a call. We have all seen the process abused when men use personal influence to get a call. Walther considered this to be illegitimate (cf. Walther's Pastoral Theology).
2) Another abuse is contributing to the degradation of the office of the public ministry by participating in invalid or illegitimate situations. I have come to the conclusion that in doing so many servants of the Word have unintentionally contributed to the problem. Too often many "logical" reasons are given for such ad hoc arrangements--but how many are truly emergencies? Once again does AC XIV allow for such ad hoc arrangements? And even if a theological argument can be made for such arrangements is the situation presently such that faithfulness to the Lutheran Confessions requires a strict adherence to the doctrine in order to restore proper order?

Finally, the issue at stake is not merely organizational. The real issue is the proclamation of the Gospel and confidence that the man in the pulpit is speaking for God, that the man at the altar is forgiving sins by the authority of Christ through Word and Sacraments. With such treasures given to the Church by our Lord why would we settle for uncertainty, confusion, and lack of proper order?