1994 Responses from the CTCR

Over the years, I have talked with many wounded individuals who came out of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. It is not exactly the most hospitable environment in which to come out as a lesbian or gay man. (God help you if you think you may be transgender!) Like most fundamentalist sects, the LC-MS is confident that it has all the answers, especially if it can also control the questions.

My closest "run-in" with highly-placed officials of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod began in 1990 when a very distraught member of the teaching faculty of one of the LC-MS schools called me with the urgent need to talk. He had just been "outed" as a gay man and suspended from his tenured position for "conduct unbecoming of a member of the teaching roster." I might add this was not for any sexual indiscretion, or for any sexual matter whatsoever. But as I’ve said a sect has all the answersand attempts to control the questions.

To make a long story short, after many hours of supportive conversation and counsel, the day came for this suspended faculty member to meet with the officials from St. Louis to negotiate his separation from the school where he had taught. On one side, he had his legal counsel. And on his other side, I sat as his pastoral counsel. It was a grueling experience, primarily because I knew that our underlying assumptions were vastly different.  Like all dedicated sect leaders, these men were not about to be baited or drawn into honest conversation or dialog for which they did not have a ready-made answer. 

[Personally, I have never been too far away from the LC–MS. My mother was raised and confirmed in the synod. My first field work parish in seminary was at Grace, El Cerrito in northern California. When on internship in 1973-74, the St. Louis LC-MS Seminary "blew up" with the suspension of then-President John Tietjen and the walk-out of the majority of the seminary faculty. I was involved in a cluster of Chicago-area Lutheran interns, many of whom were from the St. Louis Seminary, and I found myself in an informal role as peer counselor to these shocked and displaced young men. Over the years I had enormous respect for the LC–MS, even though I belonged to the ALC, especially because of its strong team of theological weight-lifters. But the day that the Missouri Synod reprimanded the venerable Rev. Dr. Arthur Carl Piepkorn, I lost all respect for the LC–MS. It was too much like the dark decline of the French Revolution, which ran amok with its own power and began to guillotine its own pioneers and reformers.]

In 1991, the outcome of this particular hearing, held in the Los Angeles area, was an undisclosed financial settlement for the tenured faculty member. This was achieved by the legal counsel present. My own "achievement" I thought was to get the agreement of the representatives of the Synod, the College, and the Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) to agree to formally answer some key theological questions which I and my own advisors would prepare and send to them.

Our questions were thoughtfully and respectfully prepared and formally submitted through the Board of Regents of the college. It took more than a year and a half for the CTCR to respond to our request for its position on these questions. Our advisory group reassembled to review what the CTCR had sent us. Although our expectations were not high to begin with, we were almost crushed anyway, as we ready "answer" after "answer." Again, it was so evident that we were not on the same page with our sibling Lutherans in the LC-MS. Our underlying assumptions were completely different. Our whole approach to God’s Word could not have been more opposite. And our ways of seeking truth and guidance were extreme polar opposites.

Although the terms of settlement for the faculty member involved were to be kept confidential (and they are), there was no such binding agreement to keep the written responses of the LC–MS CTCR a secret. They have sat in my files since April, 1994. Here I present both the questions and answers as a cautionary tale, in the hopes that readers will sharpen their own theological awareness by struggling alongside a gay man whose venerable teaching career came to a sad and sudden end, when he and his friends simply wanted to know how a Lutheran churchbody could so completely reject his life experience, his faith, and his admirable commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, simply because he discerned that he is gay.

The 12 pages of Questions and CTCR Responses are not for the theologically "faint of heart." In this material, available to download in PDF format here, the numbered Questions and their sub-parts were written by myself and my theological advisors, and submitted unedited to the CTCR through the college’s Board of Regents. The CTCR Responses were written and sent from its Kirkwood, Missouri offices and signed by its Executive Director. None of the material available here has been edited in any way; you can exactly read what the official positions say.

[Note:  I have protected the identity not only of the faculty member but of my theological advisors in this case, primarily because at the time they were active pastors and lay leaders in the LC-MS, and I do not wish to expose them to further harm than that already caused by their churchbody.]

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Inerrancy and Verbal Inspiration of Scripture

In my work for the LC/NA resource Reconciling Ministry Planner, I researched a brief essay on the doctrinal and confessional positions of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. Here is that essay and its links. "Inerrancy" and "Verbal Inspiration": The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod Views on the Bible, 5 pp. Download PDF file here.