LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 428

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428 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

the man’s service in his called position, or placed upon him at a
later point in time, is finally of no decisive difference. As the para-
graph in the Commission’s Report concludes:

Such conditions directly infringe upon the divine character of the
call issued by the church, and detract from the central task of the office.
Precisely correct! Could we conceive of a congregation placing

conditions upon their pastor’s ability to grant them Holy Absolu-
tion? Certainly not, and neither would we wish to place strictures
upon the office he uses to convey the Word of Life. Christ told His
apostles, “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one
who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One
who sent Me” (Luke 10:16).

May a Call Be Terminated?

As previously noted, “[p]roper causes simply make it clear that
God has already deposed the man as a hireling or a wolf.” In other
words, it is precisely not a matter of the Church determining to re-
move a pastor. It is rather the Church’s right and responsibility to
carry out the Lord’s removal of an unfaithful pastor from the of-
fice of the Holy Ministry. Faithful practice requires clear agree-
ment based upon the Word of God as to those “proper causes.” For
this reason, the church ought never to carry out any such removal
without a clear “Thus saith the Lord.”

Any pastor proclaiming “Thus saith the Lord” in sermon or
counsel may provoke resentful accusations of “domineering.” How
shall the Church objectively assess a pastor’s conscience as
“overly” or “inadequately” sensitive? Who could ever be classified
as “totally wicked’? Any man occupying the office of the Holy
Ministry could consider himself threatened by those who go so far
as to insist: “In more extreme situations when a pastor refuses to
accept a need recognized by all, he may have to be relieved of cer-
tain duties or even relieved of his call altogether.””' Here, the ex-
tremity is in the eye of the beholder, and the de jure humano once
again seems to overrule the de jure divino. What would protect the
pastor from being deposed for his failure to accede to a congrega-
tion’s demand for “greater diversity in worship styles”?

Such precarious criteria (and the abuses they invite) pose sig-
nificant threats to both the Call and the office. Speculation derived
from Walther’s occasional comments cannot be presented with the
same authority as the biblical and confessional reasoning.”

Marquart defends the scriptural position as follows:

If the call is really divine, then of course it is not subject to frivolous
termination either by the incumbent or by others. If the pastor is “God’s
man” (1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:17), then if he is to be moved or removed,
God Himself must do it. Our old theologians were fond of pointing out
that if while visiting friends one were annoyed by the behavior of one of
their servants, one still would have no right to dismiss somebody else’s
servant. Still less may anyone presume arbitrarily to remove God’s and
His church’s servant. If a minister is to be removed without sacrile-
giously preempting God’s own prerogatives in governing His church,
it must be clear that the man in question has already been disqualified in
the sight of God by ungodly doctrine or life or by plain incompetence.
These, however, may not simply be asserted without proof, but must be
established before a proper churchly forum, and all allegations be prop-
erly supported by witnesses (1 Tim 5:19). Mob rule, or popularity con-
tests, or secular “votes of confidence” have no more place in the church
of Christ than does autocratic clerical rule; and the absence of proper
biblical grounds for removal may not be prettied up with the unctuous
pretense of “prayerful consideration.””*

Nor may they be “prettied up” with still other pretenses such as
a “safety net” and “every effort” being made to assist him in re-
ceiving “another call suitable to his talents and gifts.”” It strains
credulity to identify problems belonging to the man, and then sug-
gest that these can be solved through simply altering his situation
through a negotiated “relocation” that moves him where the man’s
“particular gifts” may be “best utilized.” This is simply another eu-
phemism for man moving or removing the man. God is the One

2004 Convention Workbook

who utilizes the man’s gifts, wherever He puts him, and (to reiter-
ate) God alone removes the man from the office.

It must be acknowledged: there are times when a congregation
wrongfully seeks to discharge its pastor. At such times, for the
good of the congregation and the pastor, ecclesial supervisors must
follow due process, but above all, they must see that “the Word of
God prevails and has free course in our midst.” Other pastors,
whether newly called or merely serving the wrongly created va-
cancy, should deny the sacrament to such a congregation until it
publicly repents of violating the Divine Call and stubbomly disre-
specting the office of the Holy Ministry.

Performance Evaluations

The “lazy” and “negligent” who “hide behind or appeal to” their
Call are wamed: a “pastor’s refusal or persistent failure to devote
himself to growth in the Word of God ... could constitute grounds
for removing him from a congregation—and perhaps even from the
office of the ministry itself.”’* The CTCR Report provides no scrip-
tural or confessional support for this statement.”

Implementing this admonition could actually transform “certi-
fication” from a one-time procedure into a continuous monitoring
process. This would enable dissatisfied congregations and over-
zealous ecclesial supervisors to multiply the hurdles any pastor
must traverse simply to remain in the office. Who measures the
“growth” (and applies the spurs)? How shall the “persistence” be
defined in concrete detail?

Every pastor could find himself in a perpetual and tenuous pro-
bationary status, never free from the threat of immanent removal.
That would surely dishonor the divine institution of the office of
the Holy Ministry. Let these words designed for evangelical prod-
ding never be used to infringe upon the pastor’s freedom and re-
sponsibility to proclaim the whole counsel of God in keeping with
his subscription to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.
That having been said, performance evaluations can be helpful
when they are part of a genuinely mutual discussion (and not just
“building evidence” for dismissal).

Resignation and Retirement

Service is “ministry,” even when rendered on a limited or part-
time basis.’? The Commission’s Report suggests that a retired man
serving on that basis can be recognized as “in the ministry.””* In
order for this to be true and properly understood, it must be the case
that the man retains a Divine Call and continues to serve in the Of-
fice.

Certainly, retirement is a contemporary concept.” There is no
scriptural or confessional basis for compelling a congregation or
pastor to presume that the attainment of a particular age requires
(or permits) a pastor to discontinue his service, relinquish his of-
fice, and resign his Divine Call. It is important to avoid conclusions
drawn from the false premise that the Call’s permanence was
granted by the Church, by human will, for circumstantial reasons.
In fact, the Call’s permanence—an inherent feature by divine will
—has always been the scriptural position of the Lutheran Church.”

As their pastor approaches “retirement age” (as commonly de-
fined by secular organizations), many congregations have found it
appropriate to call a younger associate pastor in addition to their
senior pastor. Over time, these two called servants of the Word may
find it expedient to exchange roles, with the younger man assuming
primary responsibility for shepherding the flock in that place. The
older man can then continue to serve that congregation “under” the
younger man, with the duties (and compensation) of the former re-
duced in accordance with his abilities and availability. In this way,
he retains his Call to that congregation until and unless he accepts a
Call to service elsewhere (or he is removed for scripturally sup-
ported reasons). The divinity of his Call does not change with his
duties.