Behind the Battle Lines: Missouri Synod’s Troubled Campus

Martin Luther has a grim, serious look these days as he stands on his pedestal in the parking lot facing Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Directly in the path of his gaze is the plush, paneled office of Concordia president John Tietjen, a key figure in the theological debate that is wracking the seminary and its parent, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS).

The vast majority of Concordia’s faculty and students apparently stand behind Tietjen in his opposition to charges of theological liberalism lodged by LCMS president J. A. O. Preus and a fact-finding committee (see September 29 issue, page 38).

Feelings on campus run deep. Several students in interviews spoke bitterly of Preus. They especially objected to the dismissal of Professor Arlis Ehlen (see April 14 issue, page 42). One worried student said the conflict will cause trouble for graduates when they seek jobs as pastors in the synod.

The students angrily deny charges that their teachers are not biblical and do not follow the Missouri Synod confessions. A first-year student said he had doubts before enrolling at Concordia because of the controversy. But, said he, he found to his surprise that “these guys really do teach the Bible.”

The embattled teachers themselves deny charges contained in the Preus report that they hold views contrary to Scripture and the synod’s doctrinal confession. “Really,” said New Testament professor Edgar M. Krentz, “it’s a dispute between those who are conservative and those who are more conservative.” He added that he has not changed his manner of teaching nor changed his conviction that the historical-critical method of Bible interpretation (an object of Preus’s criticism) “is the most responsible method of interpreting the Bible—the way I use it within a Lutheran mold.” He said he is also using the same textbooks as in previous years. (A seminary official confirmed there were no major changes in textbook ordering.)

Tietjen said all faculty members are engaged in writing a collective statement of belief and also writing personal statements in order to counter Preus’s allegations. Additionally, he has engaged in a series of meetings with Preus in an attempt to settle the dispute. “The only way this problem is going to be resolved is through broad and frank discussions,” said Tietjen, who headed public relations for the Lutheran Council in America before taking up the seminary post. He dismissed suggestions that the synod convention (slated for New Orleans next summer) will bring about solution of the issues. Said Tietjen: “No convention can decide the truth, and no convention can enable both sides to live together in peace.” At the same time, he ruled himself out as a candidate in liberal proposals to wrest the LCMS presidency away from Preus at New Orleans. “I just want to be president of this seminary. That’s where I’ve been called,” he said.

The students believe Tietjen. They predict that an “unknown,” perhaps from the synod’s council of district presidents, will defeat Preus for the LCMS post. “This seminary needs Tietjen much more than the synod does,” said second-year student John Freeseman, 25, of California. The seminarians, most of whom backed presidential candidate George McGovern in the recent national election, refer to the turmoil as “Preus’s Viet Nam.”

The faculty of fifty, meanwhile, is split into two camps with little discourse between them. One group—a minority of five—is headed by Preus’s brother Robert, who has taught systematic theology at Concordia for fifteen years. Other Preus-backers are Dr. Richard Klann, Dr. Ralph Bohlmann, Dr. Lorentz Wunderlich, all teaching systematic theology, and Dr. Martin Scharlemann, who teaches exegetical theology. The five have signed a statement of agreement with the Preus report and criticized Tietjen for his “intemperate and unfair” response to the report.

In the current debate, Scharlemann, once considered “liberal,” now finds himself on the “conservative” side. He had been the object of an investigation of alleged liberalism at Concordia between 1959 and 1962. Attacked for teaching that inerrancy of Scripture needed reinterpretation, he was faced at the 1962 convention with a resolution calling for his removal from the faculty. He survived by confessing he had caused “disturbance and confusion” in the church, withdrawing the essays that prompted the attacks, and asking the church to forgive him.

STRIKE ONE

A government injunction, backed by police intervention, temporarily halted a strike against the Far East Broadcasting Company’s missionary broadcast transmitting facility in the Philippines. The strike broke out when the FEBC fired a technician for joining a union. It was compounded when FEBC missionary Hanne Browne drove through a picket line. A striker claimed he had been run over and injured. Not so, insisted FEBC head Eugene Berterman from his California headquarters. The striker had merely stretched his body over the hood of the car, he said. Browne meanwhile filed charges, labeling the striker a “Communist agitator.”

The strikers were not asking for higher pay or increased benefits; they said they wanted only job security.

Fred Magbanua, FEBC’s Filipino director, replied that there was no need for a union on that ground because “FEBC is a Christian organization, and that should be enough to make our employees happy in their jobs.” He said that having a union could be dangerous to FEBC’s ministry: members “might demand that we stop our Gospel broadcasts to Russia, China, and other countries.” He added that he would wait for a government labor hearing instead of immediately dismissing everyone involved in the strike.

FEBC’s non-union policy is reinforced by Philippine law, which states that religious and charity organizations are not obliged to recognize unions among their employees.

The other faculty members, however, have closed ranks behind Tietjen. “Never have we had forty-five faculty stand together on an issue,” said Old Testament professor Ralph Klein. For the teachers, the issue is one of academic freedom to teach the Bible as they see it within the synodical confessions, he stated. (Klein was one of three professors whose contracts were under review last year. Of the three, only Ehlen was dismissed. Yet, said Klein, he and Ehlen taught the same material.)

“In many ways, the whole dispute has been a blessing,” Klein commented. “I’ve had to examine myself and my beliefs very closely, and now I feel my whole approach has new depth.” He too says he has not varied his teaching because of the dispute. He finds Preus’s report full of “misquotes and misrepresentations,” and he objects to “Preus’s sloganeering” on the issue.

The students, caught in the middle of the battle, “are very bewildered,” said Tietjen. “They are sons of the church and now they’re seeing controversy between church leaders they respect. They’re very cautious about getting caught in a church they’re not sure about. They don’t know which way it’s heading and they’re wary.” And, he added, they’re confused about the Preus charges. “It has not been their experience that the faculty is in basic conflict with Christian teaching,” he said. “Quite the contrary. They’ve found a bold affirmation of the faith.”

LCMS leaders, pastors, and church members in the meantime are choosing their sides in what is shaping up as one of the major theological showdowns of the century. The outcome may be a badly split church.

Perhaps that’s why Luther is frowning out there in the seminary parking lot.

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