LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 426

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426 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

today: A congregation has no right to call or dismiss a preacher or

teacher by contract.*!

Those “Saxons” who defended the consistent Lutheran under-
standing of the call were, of course, none other than the founders of
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Practically speaking, when the “pastor” knows beforehand that
he will serve a particular congregation only for a very limited time,
he may tend the flock very differently from the way he himself
would shepherd them with a true Divine (that is, open-ended) Call.

Students respond to a substitute differently than their full-time
teacher; a child’s relationship with a baby-sitter cannot compare to
the love she shares with her mother and father. Similarly, the peo-
ple will not afford a “temp” pastor the same treatment they would a
man who is “theirs,” knowing that he will be around for only a
short time. They can dismiss what he says, for very soon another
will come after him. Like any secular job, the man has come to
complete a short-term assignment.

These attitudes harm the parish and undermine the office. In the
long run, such attitudes will almost certainly make it harder for the
man who accepts the Divine Call to serve that congregation. He
will then have to re-educate them, and overcome the attitude that
“if I don’t like what this pastor teaches, I can go elsewhere, or we
can find someone else to take his place.” Scripture warns us against
this: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doc-
trine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate
for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will
turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths”
(2 Tim. 4:3-4 NASB).

A temporary call by its very nature militates against any long-
term commitment and personal investment on the part of both pas-
tor and congregation. Like a good marriage, a warm relationship
between pastor and parishioners takes time to develop. Both bene-
fit when the pastor becomes warmly familiar with his people, learn-
ing how to influence them with his loving and caring example.

It hardly seems appropriate to compare the length of time of ser-
vice to the location of service, and the matter of salary seems to be
of a different sort altogether from either one of those. To link loca-
tion, salary, and length of service together,® and then to describe
them as some sort of humanly determined bundle is to make the
pastor a hireling of the congregation. Such reasoning simply does
not follow from (indeed, it undermines) the scriptural, confessional,
and synodical foundations established in the first part of the docu-
ment.

Certainly the pastor’s salary is humanly determined, although
not apart from the Word of God concerning what the hearers owe
their pastor.

The location or jurisdiction is determined by God, even if it is
conveyed through the mediation of the church in a document of vo-
cation. The Methodists, Romans, and other episcopal church com-
munities routinely “relocate” pastors in order specifically to pre-
vent congregational attachments to their pastors from growing too
strong. Any suggestion that the pastor’s location can be entrusted to
the church to administer “by human right (de jure humano)”™
would seem to further centralize a synod’s structure and polity.

This section on “The Local Pastor” concludes with a paragraph
containing no basis of support for the position set forth. Indeed, a
sentence alerts the reader to the forthcoming shift in the winds:
“The above paragraphs assume a normal, settled situation in which
the parish pastor is the local pastor (pastor loci) of a particular con-
gregation.” Bold assertions then follow:

A Call is not open-ended in that it persists beyond the existence of a
congregation. Situations can and do change, having an impact upon the
pastor and perhaps altering the specifics of his call—as when, for ex-
ample, a congregation must enter into a dual parish arrangement. To
take another example, a situation could exist where a congregation may
want to plant a cross-cultural congregation. So they may decide to call a
man to serve as a church planter for a specified length of time consid-

ered reasonable for assessing whether such a ministry is feasible or sus-

tainable.**

These statements draw upon no precedent or authority from the
norms of the faith. By what divine right, and/or on what basis, can
a congregation experiment with the ministry to see whether it is
“feasible or sustainable”? This logic, of course, stems from the
false presumption (noted earlier) that the Gospel itself is not effi-
cacious. When the method or the man is considered determinative,
then of course anything can be discarded or justified in pursuit of
“whatever works.” The “church planter” depicted in this manner
seems to be little more than a prospector paid on contingency.

Pastors in Specialized Fields of Service “

A pastor is a shepherd, and a shepherd’s “‘specialty” ought al-
ways be defined by and confined to his flock, not the field in which
they graze (or the wolves to which they are exposed). The very
human concept of “specialization” seems difficult to employ with-
out the designing and engineering language of “job descriptions.”
Such terminology consorts poorly with the proper understanding
of the divinity of the Call and the one office of the Holy Ministry.

Sadly, in a fallen world it is the nature of de jure humano con-
siderations to eclipse the de jure divino. The permissive caution
that ‘“‘such-and-such may be done ... as long as it does not under-
mine the divine institution of the office or hinder in any way the
proclamation of the whole counsel of God” cannot ensure that the
proposals and assertions it invites do in fact affirm, support and re-
inforce scriptural and confessional principles. Beyond such mild
platitudes, it is certainly important to remain alert against unautho-
rized liberties being taken with respect to the Gospel, the divinity of
the Call, and the divine institution of the one office of the Holy
Ministry.

Particular caution is appropriate when the reasoning employed
to justify a practice employs a kind of casuistry, relying upon con-
venient hypothetical examples. In every case and every place, may
the church’s own decisions and activities determine what can be
considered appropriate? Certainly not: this violates the basic logical
fallacy that “7s does not equal ought.” Is it so implausible that the
church has engaged in practices that actually contradict the Word
of God and the Lutheran Confessions with regard to the Divine
Call and of the office of the Holy Ministry?

Theological Professors

“Christ is the subject matter of theology,” said Luther. Theology
is not creative speculation, but revelatory interpretation of the Word
of God. If a professor’s teaching and preaching lacks theological
content, he ought not be considered a professor of “theology.” If
that theological content does not contribute to the proclamation of
the Gospel, then it ought not be considered Lutheran. Teaching,
preaching, and the administration of the Sacraments are not “por-
tions” of the Gospel somehow incomplete by themselves. Each de-
livers the full gifts of Christ in the Gospel. For this reason, many
believe that theological professors at our colleges and seminaries
can and should be considered in the Predigtamt, or preaching of-
fice, which is the one office of the Holy Ministry.

At the same time we recognize that, along with teaching and
preaching, the administration of the Sacraments is vital to one’s
faithful service in the office of the Holy Ministry. Furthermore, if a
professor’s preaching and teaching is not anchored in and drawn
from the Word of God, he can easily meander into “philosophy and
empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to
the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to
Christ” (Col. 2:8 NASB).

For these reasons, it behooves the Church to see that her theol-
ogy professors are associated with a particular altar, font, and pul-
pit as well as a particular classroom. This can best be assured when
a congregation in the synodical fellowship extends a call to the the-