LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 105

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104 OTHER PRESENTATIONS

Now I would like to talk to you about three points this
afternoon in true Lutheran fashion. The presidency, the
Synod, and the doctrine. Those are the three points. And
what I am going to say is not all sweetness and light—but
I said what I did about the previous men and I could say
it about thousands more—that I am disturbed and dis-
tressed at some of the things that have happened in this
church in the past year. A year ago, a very prominent
leader, a man who is in this auditorium at this time, told
me we are going to get Ralph Bohlmann in 1986, and if
we don’t do it, then we are going to get him in 1989. Now
this church has gone through a terrible struggle in which
over 500 pastors left, up to maybe as many as 200 con-
gregations, and thousands upon thousands of people, and
millions upon millions of dollars were expended because
we believed that it was important to contend for the faith
which our Lutheran fathers have always believed, taught,
and confessed. But today, we have a church body that is
almost totally made up of people who feel that way.

There were people who use to razz me and say, “Look
at that, you have lost 200 congregations,” to which I said,
“and yes, there were 6,000 that stayed.” Now, we must not,
brethren and sisters, fall into a fight and a lot of political
action and a lot of acrimony and defamation and party
spirit among people who are united in the faith, who have
fought for the faith, who confess the faith. This must not
happen to us—and I have to say, somebody mentioned to
me a little while ago, he said, “Man, you are nervous.” I
said, “I haven’t been as nervous in five years.” I went
through this thing for eight years as president of this
church, and it was absolute hell. One wag said the day J
was elected in Denver in 1969, “Preus won't last six
months.” He also kind of went on to say, “We will harass
him to make sure he doesn’t.” There wasn’t a day in eight
years that I didn’t consider resigning. It was tough, but it
was worth it. The church gave us, in that last term, $80
million with the great Wil Hyatt in Forward in Remem-
prance. And people were working together and walking
together as a Synod and loving each other. I walked off
this job that day, and I said, “I feel good. The Synod is
united, the Synod is at peace. We have a fine, upstanding
president who is an honest and honorable man. He believes
what our church teaches, and he will stand up for it.” That
was my feeling for four years. I felt that way until I heard
this declaration of war representing more vindictiveness
and dislike than anything else. And you delegates, don’t
get the idea in your head for one minute that these things
that have been going on have not been orchestrated and
have not been planned. I think it is a terrible thing to inflict
this on a church body, when inflicted on our chief executive
officer, because the president of synod is like the pastor of
the congregation. The congregation does not rise above its
pastor. And if you pastors went out every Sunday morning
after church and found one of your dissident members
handing out petitions and all kinds of attacks about your
character and your method of operation, what on earth
would you do? And I can tell you that one of the reasons
so many pastors are having difficulty with their congre-
gations is that people are saying, “If we can abuse the
president of the Synod, we can abuse Rev. Shultz, or Rev.
Schmidt, or whoever he happens to be.” This call of mine

for peace and love and working together applies not only
to the other officers of the church, it applies at all levels
of this great church of ours. Much has been said about
Article 11 of the constitution and the powers of the presi-
dent drawn up by Walther—never changed, never
amended. The president is the chief executive officer of the
Synod. But the work is done not just by sitting down and
saying, “here’s Article 11.” The work is done by talking,
listening, mediating, negotiating, and doing all kinds of
things—many of them never published, many of them
never broadcast, many of them very pastoral, some of them
very troublesome. Nevertheless, the office of president is
basically that of a pastor of a congregation, and if you love
your congregation and you love your Synod, then also love
your pastor.

I really feel very strongly that there is a need for peace.
I hope we will not go out of the convention without people
expressing this to one another. I have stood out here in
the halls and talked to all kinds of people, on both sides
of these questions. I like them all. And I think most of
them, in their way, have liked me. I am not encountering
a lot of hostility and a lot of anger, and we don’t need it.
The program of vilifying Ralph Bohlmann is really the
lowest thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life, and
I thought I had seen it all. The issue before last of Christian
News contained 57 untrue statements. And yet, the dele-
gates are sent all this stuff. Letters go out, all kinds of
complaints.

How is the average delegate, pastor, or layman, to sift
through all this stuff and figure out what he is to believe
and what he is not to believe? So I do hope before this
convention is over, the power of Christian News has not
been so great. It has intimidated the Council of Presidents.
It has intimidated the Board of Directors. It is constantly
attempting to intimidate the officers. I don’t hate anybody.
I hope his congregation will pray for the brother who edits
this journal. I hope this convention will pass a resolution
which will tell him, “If you've got complaints, use the pro-
cedures. But go out of business, and let the elected officials
of this church do their job.” Don’t ever forget, folks—pray
for the brother; don’t hate him. Remember, folks, there has
been one crucifixion in the history of the Christian church.
We don’t need any more of them. And that one crucifixion
basically teaches us what we confess in our Creed: “I be-
lieve in the forgiveness of sins.” Let forgiveness rule in this
church. Our president needs our respect, so that he can
have the time to do the job that the church elects him to
do and not spend all his time in anger, irritation and frus-
tration. The boards of the Synod are made up of some
wonderful people, they are fine boards and fine staff. Let’s
work with the president, let’s work together with all of the
officers that the work of the Synod can go forward.

Which brings me to point two. We just saw the slide
presentation on Alive in Christ. I really believe that the
controversy of this fussing around that has gone on for the
past year has probably cost us about $10 million in receipts
on that Alive in Christ drive. I can’t prove that, but nobody
can say lam wrong, either. I hope you will go home to your
congregations and pass the hat again. Let’s go back to it
and not talk about $50 million or $60 million but the $80
million or $100 million that we are eminently capable of