Thank you for bringing this to light. We laity need to act swiftly and decisively now or risk loosing everything. It is no longer optional for our young men to be involved. In local congregations get on council asap.
A unitary executive in a church body is fatal. The time has arrived to separate the business from the theology, because in every edge case, money will speak over Scripture. This bifurcation should be repeated at the district level (we probably need 60-70 districts to achieve adequate supervision). So, my proposal is to split the current Synod President's office into two: a Chief Theological Officer and a Chief Executive Officer. The relationship should be like a merchant banker and a sell-side analyst under the same brand - they must maintain a "Chinese wall" with almost obsessive focus on avoiding and preventing conflicts of interest. The CTO will be accountable for maintaining pure doctrine. The CEO will be accountable for maintaining pure 'books'. The CTO's primary duty is to prevent Scripture being subordinated to money and power, no matter how costly it is.
So your idea when it comes to an inflated and time-wasting bureaucracy is to double the amount of bureaucrats by doubling the amount of districts, and then double that amount by doubling the amount of overseers in order to separate the business from the theology.
Ask how many adjudication and conflict situations there are across all districts in a given year, for starters. .2% of all congregations in the denomination, maybe? .1%. It's not that many. Now you're going to quadruple your overhead and management for the sake of those 50-100 issues, in a diminished and diminishing denomination.
Do you really have accurate data on the number of conflict and adjudication situations or is this just a guess? We personally know of at least three recent ones in our rural area. If that number were applied more generally, there would be far more than you state. What about the conflict situations that never make it to adjudication because people run up against a blank wall, are persecuted in the congregation, and quietly leave? We know of too many of those, too.
That's a good stat to obtain. I refer to my time in office which was lengthy (24 years) but ended awhile ago (10 years). If there are a lot more, that's not a great sign. My estimation has been that conflicted church work means you argue more and more until you're always arguing about something, and tend to miss the fact that most people have left the building along the way.
And having taken the training in this arena, church conflict moves from smaller problems to larger problems to deep conflict to irresolvable conflict (1-5), escalating along the way. The wider church reconcilers can get involved at any of those levels. The other thing not discussed on this dialog board is that there is a distinct possibility that personal issues can be masked by purported doctrinal concerns. The Hatfields and McCoys, to use an old analogy, can choose to duke it out over the pastor's chasuble or liturgical style when really the Hatfields like the pastor and the McCoys want him out. Anyway, my way of saying that this is more than a theological or doctrinal conversation.
Do we not act on what we believe? Splitting behavior from theology or doctrine is the real mask here. The circular reasoning here doesn't consider why the Hatfields like the pastor and the McCoys do not. Everything is driven by our beliefs, not the other way around.
Yes, we act on what we believe. We also act on past experience, emotional ties, changing medication levels, and a host more rationales when acting and determining to act. The Hatfields had proposed a distant family member when the congregation needed a new pastor. The McCoys whose patriarch headed the call committee, nixed the Hatfield relative. So the Hatfields, even with an excellent young pastor arriving, wanted him out before he even got there. Etc. Etc. Etc.
So - yes, we act on what we believe. But we act on the basis of many more inputs individually and corporately than only statements of belief.
No, Dr. Benke. 1) DPs should be attached to an altar and participating in the life of the church. Preaching regularly, doing shut-in visitation, and so on. Not sitting in an office doing bureaucrat things. 2) The number of disputes can be reduced massively if the DPs are actually doing their jobs and being proactive. The entire structure of our governance needs to shift to a Duty to Prevent Doctrinal Dissolution.
Regarding your number 1, I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly, and along with a couple of my brother DPs, practiced what you're preaching pretty much the whole time in office. The thing about carving larger districts into smaller ones doesn't make much sense to me, and in fact I would prefer it to go the other way, to 10-12 districts for the sake of pastoral mobility in a larger geographical area. Try to find a half dozen workers to come into New York City from our mostly midwestern denomination.
Regarding your number 2, your focus is so precisely on doctrine that you're missing the forest for the trees. The number of disputes that are theological are a much smaller component of overall disputes, which tend to be over personalities and not fine points of doctrine. The color of the carpets in the sanctuary is often the back-breaking dispute between the churchly crips and bloods, or blues and reds. And now we have the additional mess with the invasion of worldly politics into church life.
#2 is easily addressed. The pastor is there to address doctrine and the doctrine of life. If the people want to fight over carpet colors, let them, but remind them that the kingdom of heaven is not concerned with such things.
Forest, meet trees. If you were ordained and made the exact one sentence speech you just made about "letting them fight" over carpet colors and pooh-poohing their concerns by remonstrating about kingdom of heaven concerns, you'd more than likely chop the congregation in half for no good reason other than your unwillingness to be a force for reconciliation. This is not your metier. Pastors are continuously arbitrating, engaging and praying through upsetment in the church family system from minor to major. "Easily addressed". Wow. I've survived carpet color fights. They are decidedly not easily addressed.
Doctrine - certainly. LCMS doctrine in the areas of Scripture, Confessions and the doctrinal positions of the denomination should be examined, discussed, debated and determined in a faith group that adheres to the policy whereby the sheep (congregants) are to judge the shepherds (pastors). At the same time, we ask who judges the sheep who called the shepherd and are judging the shepherd?
Your seventy districts with double supervisors for finance and doctrine, therefore 140 strong, should do a test run on carpet colors before plunging into the deeps of doctrine.
I've been arguing basically all these points for over a decade. Of course the underlying problems are two. 1) We have at least 3 different confessions under the corporate umbrella. 2) There is no longer enough strength or money in the system to maintain it without dramatic simplification. But bureaucracy only gets more complex until the crisis.
Mark Brown, I agree and have been arguing the same points. The bureaucracy of the Synod seems more concerned about protecting itself than addressing issues.
What this piece shows with painful clarity is a church structure that no longer begins with fact-finding. It begins with managing outcomes. When reconciliation is treated as the default response, truth becomes optional and the party with institutional authority decides the shape of the story before anyone has gathered the evidence. The result is predictable: complainants bear the weight of the crisis while leaders declare matters resolved. What happened in Arlington is not unusual. It is what happens in a system where adjudication has been replaced with image-management, and where accountability has been allowed to atrophy for decades.
Perfect time to re-open the conversation about the need for the LCMS to adopt an episcopal polity. Congregations need to be held accountable to men who will uphold the traditional standards of orthodoxy, because they have not been doing so for the past few decades.
Perfect time to close the conversation about any LCMS need for an episcopal polity, which is the last thing the LCMS needs, based on the abominable conditions in religious organizations with episcopal polity.
He who prefers peace over justice shall soon have neither.
I have the feeling centuries worth of lacking Inquisition are about to catch up on Lutheranism.
Thank you for bringing this to light. We laity need to act swiftly and decisively now or risk loosing everything. It is no longer optional for our young men to be involved. In local congregations get on council asap.
On point 3, can you unpack that a little and what is your solution?
A unitary executive in a church body is fatal. The time has arrived to separate the business from the theology, because in every edge case, money will speak over Scripture. This bifurcation should be repeated at the district level (we probably need 60-70 districts to achieve adequate supervision). So, my proposal is to split the current Synod President's office into two: a Chief Theological Officer and a Chief Executive Officer. The relationship should be like a merchant banker and a sell-side analyst under the same brand - they must maintain a "Chinese wall" with almost obsessive focus on avoiding and preventing conflicts of interest. The CTO will be accountable for maintaining pure doctrine. The CEO will be accountable for maintaining pure 'books'. The CTO's primary duty is to prevent Scripture being subordinated to money and power, no matter how costly it is.
Thank you. Much to chew on and think about.
So your idea when it comes to an inflated and time-wasting bureaucracy is to double the amount of bureaucrats by doubling the amount of districts, and then double that amount by doubling the amount of overseers in order to separate the business from the theology.
Ask how many adjudication and conflict situations there are across all districts in a given year, for starters. .2% of all congregations in the denomination, maybe? .1%. It's not that many. Now you're going to quadruple your overhead and management for the sake of those 50-100 issues, in a diminished and diminishing denomination.
Do you really have accurate data on the number of conflict and adjudication situations or is this just a guess? We personally know of at least three recent ones in our rural area. If that number were applied more generally, there would be far more than you state. What about the conflict situations that never make it to adjudication because people run up against a blank wall, are persecuted in the congregation, and quietly leave? We know of too many of those, too.
That's a good stat to obtain. I refer to my time in office which was lengthy (24 years) but ended awhile ago (10 years). If there are a lot more, that's not a great sign. My estimation has been that conflicted church work means you argue more and more until you're always arguing about something, and tend to miss the fact that most people have left the building along the way.
And having taken the training in this arena, church conflict moves from smaller problems to larger problems to deep conflict to irresolvable conflict (1-5), escalating along the way. The wider church reconcilers can get involved at any of those levels. The other thing not discussed on this dialog board is that there is a distinct possibility that personal issues can be masked by purported doctrinal concerns. The Hatfields and McCoys, to use an old analogy, can choose to duke it out over the pastor's chasuble or liturgical style when really the Hatfields like the pastor and the McCoys want him out. Anyway, my way of saying that this is more than a theological or doctrinal conversation.
Do we not act on what we believe? Splitting behavior from theology or doctrine is the real mask here. The circular reasoning here doesn't consider why the Hatfields like the pastor and the McCoys do not. Everything is driven by our beliefs, not the other way around.
Yes, we act on what we believe. We also act on past experience, emotional ties, changing medication levels, and a host more rationales when acting and determining to act. The Hatfields had proposed a distant family member when the congregation needed a new pastor. The McCoys whose patriarch headed the call committee, nixed the Hatfield relative. So the Hatfields, even with an excellent young pastor arriving, wanted him out before he even got there. Etc. Etc. Etc.
So - yes, we act on what we believe. But we act on the basis of many more inputs individually and corporately than only statements of belief.
No, Dr. Benke. 1) DPs should be attached to an altar and participating in the life of the church. Preaching regularly, doing shut-in visitation, and so on. Not sitting in an office doing bureaucrat things. 2) The number of disputes can be reduced massively if the DPs are actually doing their jobs and being proactive. The entire structure of our governance needs to shift to a Duty to Prevent Doctrinal Dissolution.
Regarding your number 1, I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly, and along with a couple of my brother DPs, practiced what you're preaching pretty much the whole time in office. The thing about carving larger districts into smaller ones doesn't make much sense to me, and in fact I would prefer it to go the other way, to 10-12 districts for the sake of pastoral mobility in a larger geographical area. Try to find a half dozen workers to come into New York City from our mostly midwestern denomination.
Regarding your number 2, your focus is so precisely on doctrine that you're missing the forest for the trees. The number of disputes that are theological are a much smaller component of overall disputes, which tend to be over personalities and not fine points of doctrine. The color of the carpets in the sanctuary is often the back-breaking dispute between the churchly crips and bloods, or blues and reds. And now we have the additional mess with the invasion of worldly politics into church life.
#2 is easily addressed. The pastor is there to address doctrine and the doctrine of life. If the people want to fight over carpet colors, let them, but remind them that the kingdom of heaven is not concerned with such things.
Forest, meet trees. If you were ordained and made the exact one sentence speech you just made about "letting them fight" over carpet colors and pooh-poohing their concerns by remonstrating about kingdom of heaven concerns, you'd more than likely chop the congregation in half for no good reason other than your unwillingness to be a force for reconciliation. This is not your metier. Pastors are continuously arbitrating, engaging and praying through upsetment in the church family system from minor to major. "Easily addressed". Wow. I've survived carpet color fights. They are decidedly not easily addressed.
Doctrine - certainly. LCMS doctrine in the areas of Scripture, Confessions and the doctrinal positions of the denomination should be examined, discussed, debated and determined in a faith group that adheres to the policy whereby the sheep (congregants) are to judge the shepherds (pastors). At the same time, we ask who judges the sheep who called the shepherd and are judging the shepherd?
Your seventy districts with double supervisors for finance and doctrine, therefore 140 strong, should do a test run on carpet colors before plunging into the deeps of doctrine.
I've been arguing basically all these points for over a decade. Of course the underlying problems are two. 1) We have at least 3 different confessions under the corporate umbrella. 2) There is no longer enough strength or money in the system to maintain it without dramatic simplification. But bureaucracy only gets more complex until the crisis.
Mark Brown, I agree and have been arguing the same points. The bureaucracy of the Synod seems more concerned about protecting itself than addressing issues.
The LCMS has functionally abandoned adjudication.
What this piece shows with painful clarity is a church structure that no longer begins with fact-finding. It begins with managing outcomes. When reconciliation is treated as the default response, truth becomes optional and the party with institutional authority decides the shape of the story before anyone has gathered the evidence. The result is predictable: complainants bear the weight of the crisis while leaders declare matters resolved. What happened in Arlington is not unusual. It is what happens in a system where adjudication has been replaced with image-management, and where accountability has been allowed to atrophy for decades.
Perfect time to re-open the conversation about the need for the LCMS to adopt an episcopal polity. Congregations need to be held accountable to men who will uphold the traditional standards of orthodoxy, because they have not been doing so for the past few decades.
As a member of a Southeatern District congregation i would like to know more about this situation. Is there any way to get more details?
Hi Dan, take a look at:
1) https://www.adcrucem.news/p/doctrine-governance-and-process-dispute
2) https://www.adcrucem.news/p/205-days-to-reconcile-an-lcms-pastor
Perfect time to close the conversation about any LCMS need for an episcopal polity, which is the last thing the LCMS needs, based on the abominable conditions in religious organizations with episcopal polity.