To What Do We Owe the Fear of Opinions?

Good-faith correspondence across disagreement is still possible, even in the Missouri Synod.

Recently, Concordia University Nebraska (CUNE) president Dr. Bernard Bull shared Ad Crucem’s LCMS convention resource, LCMS2026.adcrucem.news. He correctly noted that this project is where artificial intelligence truly excels at processing vast amounts of data in a relatively short time. Then it can follow detailed directions to apply complex structuring, indexing, and cross-linking to the data.

It is all but impossible for anyone to digest all 374 overtures, comprehend the larger trends, and master the fine details of critical proposals. That’s why the synod has floor committees specializing in narrow areas and empowered to distill the initial flood of overtures into a coherent and manageable subset that the floor can grapple with. Nevertheless, the demands on every delegate are unbearable if we think that providing them with the equivalent of a printed White Pages is a solution this deep into the new century.

That’s the bullish case for LCMS2026.adcrucem.news, and we thank Dr. Bull for his appreciation of it. The bearish case came in a comment on Dr. Bull’s post from Rev. Ben Squires:

HOWEVER! Squires is echoing what has been reported to us about comments in some of the online liberal pastor groups that the Convention App should be avoided because it “might be divisive”. That is asinine. Dr. Bull was very clear in articulating that his appreciation of the Convention App was not an endorsement of the editorial opinion it contains.

Yes, we have a dedicated editorial section that blends Ad Crucem News commentary, opinion, data, and news. It’s clearly labeled and caveated, which means it’s very easy to mark and avoid it if you think reading the articles might count you among the publicans and prostitutes. There is no editorial intervention in the workbook re-rendering; it is a machine-generated reorganization (3.5 million tokens and counting) of existing public data that anyone could have undertaken, and still can.

Rev. Squires, the people will be just fine. Many delegates have even gripped real newspapers in their hands to laugh at the comics or check movie start times rather than the op-ed pages a few flips away. They did not wag a finger at the paper boy for daring to hand them data and opinions in a single package.

It is surprising that Squires, who loves to editorialize and politicize online and from the convention floor, suddenly has qualms about opinions and is confused about the difference between data and viewpoints.

Nevertheless, all of that is a distraction. The real anxiety is that various liberal and confessional factions fear that undecided parishioners or voters might be persuaded by Ad Crucem opinions and change their minds. We would recommend that folks learn from Pr. Tim Ahlman. We are far apart on many issues, but we correspond in good faith and without devolving into screaming matches.

It’s okay to talk across factional lines, Missouri, and we should do more of it.