Battle for Orthodoxy – The large Missouri Synod Lutheran denomination continues in the throes of a controversy that is provoking hostilities and division throughout the country. As most of our readers know, its president, Dr. Jacob A. O. Preus, had led a successful campaign at last summer‘s New Orleans convention to have the church declare that modem higher critical denials of the Bible’s history were not to be tolerated in the churches or schools. What the conservative supporters of Dr. Preus hailed as a battle for confessional orthodoxy, the liberals, who prefer to style themselves “moderates,” deplored as dirty politics and anti–Lutheran tyranny. After the convention the question remained what the effects of the critical decision would be especially on the denomination‘s big 750-student Concordia Seminary in St. Louis whose theological position had been explicitly condemned by the convention.
After some delays in which it appeared that some kind of compromise might be sought, in January the Board of Control of the seminary suspended Dr. John H. Tietjen, its president, who had been taking a leading role in charting the seminary‘s course, for defending, allowing, and fostering false doctrine especially regarding the Bible’s authority. Thereupon 43 professors and four-fifths of the student body walked out in support of President Tietjen and in protest against the Board’s action. Given an ultimatum of returning to classes or being dismissed, they chose the latter and went about setting up their own “seminary in exile” (SEMINEX) with the help of the Roman Catholic St. Louis University and the United Church of Christ‘s very liberal Eden Theological Seminary. In the meanwhile a greatly reduced faculty (of five) and the remaining student body are seeking to eontinue the school program at Concordia. Students from the rebel SEMINEX face a prospect of finding churches closed to them. What the consequences of these remarkable developments will be is difficult to predict. If a considerable part of the liberal leadership which has been leading the churches away from the Word of God is ousted from the church to be replaced by men loyal to the faith, this might be the beginning of a real and continuing return to orthodoxy by a major denomination which had seemed to he rapidly turning away from it. Such a development is a rare thing in our time. May the Lord grant us more of this.
Herman Otten – Uniquely influential, if widely unappreciated, in these Missouri Lutheran developments has been the role of Herman Otten. He studied at and received the STM degree from Concordia Seminary in 1958. Because of his protest to the president of the Synod against the liberalism he had encountered in classes (a protest supported by his notes from faculty lectures) the faculty refused to certify him as eligible for call to the Trinity Church of New Haven, Missouri, which had called him. In 1961, although still uncertified, he was again called by the same church and became its pastor. Eventually the church was suspended from the denomination for receiving an uncertified pastor. That suspension was overruled in 1967. However, although Herman Otten continues to be the church‘s pastor, he is still not recognized as a minister of the denomination. Ironically, the rule pushed through by liberals against pastor Otten now bars graduates of their rebel seminary and could split the denomination.
The remarkable influence of this unrecognized minister throughout the denomination is the result of Otten’s publishing a 16-page weekly paper, Christian News, with a circulation of 14,500, which is self-sustaining at a subscription price of $3.00 (Box 168, New Haven, Mo. 63(68). The paper concerns itself particularly with the liberal-conservative battle in the denomination. It emphasizes theological orthodoxy while showing a remarkable readiness to print even violent criticism of its militant editorial stand. Cordially hated by the liberals and disliked by many church officials, including conservatives, because the paper stirs up trouble, Pastor Otten has said (according to an article in the April 22 issue): “I’ve made it clear that I intend to stick to the theological issues and will not play any political game. They can trust me to tell the truth but not to play politics in the church.” The career of militant defenders of God’s truth has often been difficult in church history, but the Lord has a way of honoring the efforts of those who fight the good fight of faith for His Word. He has done it in the past and is still doing it.
“Lutherans Alert – National” – The dramatic developments in the Conservative-Liberal conflict among the Missouri Lutherans have overshadowed and perhaps led many to overlook an important parallel development among other Lutheran bodies. Last fall both the September 5 Presbyterian Journal and the September 17 Lutheran News called attention to a movement going by the name “Lutherans Alert-National.” Made up mostly of ministers and laymen from the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church, at their eighth annual convention this element decided to move toward organizing a new denomination of separating churches to be called, initially, the “Evangelical Lutheran Federation,” until a permanent name may be adopted.
The reports stated that not all members of the organization were convinced that a speedy separation was necessary. The president, Rev. R. H. Redal, observed, “We do have a basically conservative Church” and “many think the situation could be turned around if only people could stand together.” The organization, publishing a magazine with the significant title Lutherans Alert, is charting a course toward “eventual separation” and is to contact congregations interested in separating, to provide office space and support services and “act as a catalyst for the formation and successful beginning of the new church body.”
The basic conflict leading to this movement was seen to be between those who believe and those who deny the inerrancy of the Bible. Mr. Redal observed, that, “Although there are many conservatives in the pew, the denominational hierarchies and educational institutions are controlled by liberals.” Subsidiary to this basic issue of the inerrancy of the Bible are the issues of the churches’ involvement in the ecumenical movement, “an undue emphasis on the social gospel,” and the ALC’s rejection of graduates from Alert’s Faith Evangelical Lutheran Seminary. Accordingly, in the new denomination that is envisioned, local congregations will own their own property and control the calling of pastors without being limited to graduates of a particular seminary, but “the body’s constitution shall contain a strict Lutheran confession of faith.” The report concluded with the observations that if only ten percent of the membership of the ALC and LCA chose to establish a new synod, their number would exceed 500,000 members. “Whether such a plan could be realized depends on the extent to which liberals try the patience of conservatives and on the ability of the conservative leadership to rally support to its cause.”
This report comes to us as another encouraging sign of a living faith in the gospel and a readiness on the part of Christians to speak up and to stand up for it. Some may deplore this development as schismatic and call it sin. They may say that it is one’s Christian duty to stay in a church and struggle for the gospel as Conservatives in the Missouri Synod are doing until he is put out of it. Others would say that it is one’s Christian duty not to fight about such matters at all but to try to bridge over differences in love. We must remember that the same gospel which enjoins us to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3) with fellow believers, calls us to separate from unbelief and unbelievers (II Cor. 6:14–7:1). The Apostle Paul led Christians in that kind of separation when the gospel was opposed in the synagogues in Corinth and Ephesus (Acts 18:6, 7; 19:8, 9).
In this time of confusion in many denominations it is often not easy to decide how long a Christian is bound to fight for the faith within the denomination and when it becomes his duty to leave a church because of its unfaithfulness, as many Southern Presbyterians have done and as some Lutherans are beginning to do. The gospel plainly lays upon all of us the currently unpopular duty to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3), and promises the guidance of the Holy Spirit to those who prayerfully do. (Jude 20ff., Luke 11:13; 12:11, 12; John 14:16, 17.) Our Reformed fathers experienced these things; their children in today’s world are called to share that faith and experience.
Peter De Jong is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan.