American Lutherans: No Reason to Kick

The quiescence of the 1,000 delegates attending the sixth biennial convention of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) held earlier this month in Minneapolis was rarely shattered throughout the six-day meeting. Despite such issues as pornography, capital punishment, busing, and the Viet Nam war, and the stimulating if not explosive topics of Lutheran merger and the further ordination of women, little roof-raising debate soared through the main arena of the Minneapolis Civic Auditorium. Vice-President David W. Preus (cousin of embattled Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod [LCMS] president J. A. O. Preus) commented, “I find it hard to believe that we’ve gone through [so many controversial subjects] with virtually no debate.”

The question of women appeared central to the problems of ALC fellowship with the LCMS—at least the way the ALC sees it. But Missouri’s official observer Ralph Bohlmann stated that the uneasiness between the two churches, which maintain tenuous pulpit and altar fellowship, stems primarily from a bigger question than the ordination of women: the authority of Scripture. “The Missouri Synod considers the question of women’s ordination to be symptomatic” of the problems in the ALC, he explained.

The ALC adopted a modified statement on women in which it pledges to “take extra steps to bring women significantly into leadership roles in the church” and “to take steps toward encouraging women to pursue theological education, calling women to the faculties of theological seminaries, creating an accepting climate for women in theological education.” A dissenting delegate questioned the advisability of reinforcing the ALC’s controversial stand on women in view of Missouri’s disagreement with it. But another pastor, referring to LCMS conventions, replied, “First we were told to wait for Milwaukee, now we’re told to wait for New Orleans, and I’m tired of waiting for Missouri.” A member of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Concerns of Women and the Church in Society told delegates that LCMS women “are looking to this report and the ALC” for encouragement.

The Missouri Synod in an unusual procedure had requested that the ALC reconsider its position on women. In response ALC president Kent S. Knutson asked the church’s three seminary faculties (Wartburg, Luther, and Evangelical Lutheran) to study the question. Each seminary arrived at its pro-female ordination decision independently, said Knutson. He added that Preus in a letter thanked the ALC for its study but commented that the LCMS still felt the matter had not been adequately investigated. According to Bohlmann, however, Missouri hasn’t yet seen the new report.

LCMS president Preus informed the assembly that “I would be less than honest with you if I were to say that everyone in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has been completely satisfied with the fellowship which was established in 1969. An additional strain was put on our fellowship by the action of the American Lutheran Church two years ago in initiating the practice of ordination of women.” Later in a ten-minute mini-press conference Preus reported that the ALC’s latest action in regard to the position of women in the church “probably was not the most helpful thing” the denomination could have done.

Preus reiterated that Missouri, though uninterested in organic union, had appointed four representatives to participate in the discussions of the Inter-Lutheran Consultation. The ALC and the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) consider these representatives to be observers only, though Bohlmann insists that the LCMS resolution on the Inter-Lutheran Consultation calls them participants.

Bishop Knutson (trial use of the title will continue for the next two years) in a press conference said that within the next four years “we will have a better idea of where Lutheran unity is going.” In Dallas he had told the LCA (see July 28 issue, page 35) that the ALC wouldn’t merge without both Lutheran bodies. But in Minneapolis Knutson told delegates that since Missouri had mailed its regrets to the proposed merger party “we must now decide if we’ll hold the party anyway.”

Several observers think Knutson is losing patience with the LCMS and has changed his mind since Dallas. Preus told CHRISTIANITY TODAY that he sensed such a change. Others, however, think Knutson is dragging his feet on merger to accommodate Missouri.

Knutson now is looking for cooperation at the grass-roots level. “The time has passed for church mergers at the national level,” he told reporters. And he is no longer talking about a “common structure” but “common structures.”

LCA president Robert Marshall told the ALC convention he didn’t think the ALC was dragging its feet on merger and agreed with Knutson that “the grass roots may truly produce the growth for the flowering of the church of the future.” Marshall added that, along with agreement on inter-Lutheran cooperation and the desire for common structures, “we even agree about the role of women in the church.”

The ALC’s progressive concern for women was seen not only in the statement on women (though a quota system was deleted in committee) but also in the fact that there were eighty-six women delegates at the convention. Women outnumber men in the ALC 52 to 48 per cent. The first woman nominated for national office, Birgit Birkeland, received 124 votes for general secretary, making her runner-up to the winner and current general secretary Arnold R. Mickelson, who won on the first ballot with 704 votes.

While the ALC is progressive on the question of women, it is falling far behind its sister denominations in youth participation. The ALC had only twenty-one official youth observers at the convention, and a total youth attendance of thirty-five. Representatives of the Luther League (ALC’s youth program) ran a coffeehouse, the Wilderness Edge, for delegates each evening after the convention adjourned. According to Mett Sorgenfrei, youth observer from Parrysburg, Ohio, this was the first year the church’s youth people were involved at all. Youth observers plan to “plant seeds” to get more youth involved by the next convention.

An establishment-organized “Youth Happening” preceded an evangelism service at the Sunday-evening session. The three-and-one-half-hour program, attended by about 5,000, included youth singers and an address by Knutson on evangelism.

Under the Key 73 banner, “Calling Our Continent to Christ,” Knutson told an enthusiastic but not frenetic crowd that “if there is anyone in the national office who turns up his nose at evangelism he gets a kick in the pants from me.”

Knutson emphasized evangelism throughout the convention. “We’re going to work at making our congregations understand evangelism,” he reiterated several times. As expected the convention reaffirmed ALC participation in Key 73. But ALC “unofficial” participation in the charismatic movement (see September 15 issue, page 50) received little attention. A delegate raised the matter from the floor. Executive Director of Evangelism Jack Hustad told the convention his commission had prepared materials on this divisive issue for congregational use, and that these will be released soon.

Delegates waded through social statements with a minimum of interest and excitement. Statements on busing and obscenity were referred back to ALC congregations.

The almost apathetic atmosphere lifted when delegates considered and passed “SOS: A Call to Affirmation of Human Values,” a statement of comment and counsel that struck many delegates and observers as an anti-Nixon document. With no debate the convention approved a balanced statement on amnesty and one on Viet Nam that was reworded to condemn all military activity in that country by all governments. A minority report applauding Nixon on Viet Nam was pushed through in the convention’s closing hours.

Delegates adopted restructure plans to reduce the twenty existing national units to eleven. Among major changes will be a new “Division for Life and Mission in the Congregation” that will include such former units as education, evangelism, worship, and youth activity. The convention also approved a new Assembly of Congregations recommended by Knutson, who estimated 10,000 people would attend such a conclave, to be held once a decade. The first one may convene in 1976.

At the final session a $24 million budget was approved, $198,000 over the original budget request. Observers sum up this convention as a “happy” one, and the surplus pledge is just one proof of it. Few problems were voiced, little complaint was heard, and resolutions were passed commending Knutson for his job. Delegates who were asked why everyone seemed so satisfied with the ALC answered with one word: “Knutson.” If the ALC president hasn’t been able to bring off Lutheran merger, he at least has been the stabilizing influence J. A. O. Preus two years ago predicted he would be.

Interview With Preus

Newswoman Cheryl Forbes recently chatted with Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president J. A. O. Preus about the holy war involving himself and Concordia Seminary of St. Louis, and about Lutheran unity. Here are some of her questions and his answers:

What are your chances for re-election? The nomination process doesn’t begin until March. Each of the 6,000 congregations will send in a nomination with the five highest nominees voted on by the convention. The suggestion of Oswald Hoffmann for president is ridiculous. A group of kingmakers got together, that’s all. I’m sure he (Hoffmann] must be very embarrassed. I don’t know about the election. I stand where I’ve stood.

Is this a battle of personalities? No, it’s a matter of doctrine. I like John Tietjen [Concordia Seminary’s president], It would be most unfortunate if it were billed that way.

How much grass-roots support do you have? My mail is running about eight to one in favor of my stand, and I’ve received thousands of letters. About 99 per cent of the clergy approve and 70 per cent of the laity.

What about the American Association of Theological Schools? I don’t want to say anything at all. The school’s administration refused to appeal the decision which I don’t understand. And then Tietjen was elected to the AATS executive committee to which the appeal would have been directed. If the seminary is so bad why elect its president to the disciplining board? The whole situation is a strange phenomenon.

What about student reaction? Students have shown restraint and wisdom, though there have been some complaints from them. Some students passed around a petition, but less than half the student body signed it. Remember, this has been going on through three different classes.

What’s the feeling on merger? Our congregations and districts have been unanimous against merger, and Tietjen, remember, is on the church-relations committee—and it too voted against organic union. The forty district presidents to a man expressed that they weren’t in favor of organic union. And not one district memorialized to merge, and in fact some were against pulpit and altar fellowship. I have received letters asking us to immediately sever that relationship because of women’s ordination. I have felt that this would be the wrong thing to do at this time.

Miss Forbes also talked with church-relations committee head Ralph Bohlmann about the upcoming New Orleans convention. His prediction:

Preus will be reelected. Fellowship with the ALC will continue but under protest and its practice not encouraged while the discussions on women’s ordination go on. In other words, it will be a polite way of dragging our feet. As for the Concordia situation, we are now conducting seminars in churches across the country on the historical-critical method of scholarship. We want our churches to know exactly what that means.

Talking Toward Togetherness

Lutheran and Catholic theologians have agreed that differences between the two faiths on the question of papal primacy may not be as insurmountable as first thought. The theologians—meeting for the fifteenth time since the inter-faith doctrinal talks began in 1965—said they were in “fundamental” agreement on the Nicene Creed, baptism, the eucharist, and eucharistic ministry, but were still discussing the church’s universal ministry.

Paramount in the discussion, they said in a joint statement, was the primacy of the pope. The group has not tackled papal infallibility yet, pointing out that historically, “primacy was an issue centuries before papal infallibility became a dogma.” Because of the meetings, the statement added, the Lutherans are more aware of the need for a ministry serving the church’s unity and mission, while Catholics see the need of a “nuanced understanding” of the papacy’s role. “God is calling our churches to draw closer together,” it said.

In Pursuit of Theology

Perched astride the hill of Tantur in the rugged Judean range on the main road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is the two-million-dollar complex of the new Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies (EIATS). During the three-day dedication rites last month, an ecumenical array of theologians presented papers in an atmosphere of unity in purpose and spirit that was indeed rare for the troubled environs of Jerusalem. The dedicatory address was delivered by EIATS rector Charles Moeller. Also taking part: Notre Dame University president Theodore M. Hesburgh, who is also EIATS president.

The institute was proposed by Orthodox and Protestant observers at Vatican II. Pope John XXIII concurred and instructed Hesburgh and Moeller (with the University of Lausanne at the time) to contact prominent scholars to shape up the project. The multi-million-dollar building costs were largely met by American philanthropists. The $100,000 library (it contains 20,000 volumes of a projected collection of 100,000) was donated by a Jewish family from Chicago. The Vatican and other religious sources have not been tapped, said an official.

Vice-rector Panayotis Christou, an Orthodox theologian from the University of Thessalonica, said the emphasis of the institute is carried in the latter half of its name. Its interest and common pursuit is theology, not ecumenism. (But at the dedication, theologian W. A. Visser ’t Hooft stressed that for the institute to succeed “we must not just study together but also pray and worship together.”)

Guidelines laid down at a planning meeting in 1965 bound the institute to “a program of common theological research, the principle theme of which would be the redeeming action of God in history and the significance of this fact for men of today.” During the past academic year, fifty scholars from Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant confessions have been pursuing study of the institute’s first-year theme, Mysterium Salutis, the mystery of salvation. Each scholar works independently, and at a weekly seminar attended by all he reports his findings. The group coordinates its work before beginning each new week of study.

DWIGHT L. BAKER

Word From Romania

“Despite recent restrictions, churches in Romania are packed beyond capacity,” says California State University professor Emmanuel A. D. Deligiannis, who doubles as general superintendent of the Romanian Apostolic Pentecostal Church of God of North America. He recently returned from a five-week ministry tour of the country.

Large numbers of young people attend the jammed services; many sing in the choirs and take active part in other ways, he states. While there, he ministered in a variety of churches and house meetings. Several university students and a mathematics professor accepted Christ, and numbers of people were healed, he reports.

Deligiannis found the charismatic experience becoming widespread among the historic churches. He also found that the “so-called underground church is very much on the ground worshiping in the church edifices on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings (the only times legally permissible), and secretly in homes during week-nights.” If found attending house meetings, believers are heavily fined—up to several months’ salary, he asserts.

Religion in Transit

Bob Jones University and its students can no longer participate in government programs to benefit veterans because of the school’s policy against admitting blacks, a federal judge has decided.

Mrs. Beulah Bucklen, a 59-year-old mother of four, died after she was bitten by a rattler during a snake-handling ritual at the Jesus Pentecostal Church outside Charlestown, West Virginia.

Congress is being asked to review tax structures, including charity contributions and exclusion of the rental value of parsonages, under identical bills introduced in the Senate and House.

In a running battle with the Internal Revenue Service, the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia refuses to deduct unpaid federal telephone taxes of $19.18 from the salaries of two clergymen protesting the Indochina war. The diocese says back taxes are a matter for the government and the individuals involved. Earlier, however, it paid $545 owed by one of the men in back taxes and deducted it from his salary.

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state’s 137-year-old abortion law, which allows abortion only to save the mother’s life. But a similar law in Connecticut granting legal status to the fetus was ruledunconstitutional by a federal court. The law violated the rights of a woman “to privacy and personal choice in matters of sex and family life,” said the court. The U. S. Supreme Court will soon rule on Georgia’s and Texas’s abortion laws.

Copeland Oaks, a retirement center in Sebring, Ohio, operated by the United Methodist Church, is under federal and state investigation. Elderly couples paying about $130 a month were suddenly hit with rent hikes; now they must pay $400 to $600 per month. They originally paid $27,000 to $44,000 just to get into a center. Church officials cite a deficit as reason for the increase.

Members of the United Methodist Church in Platteville, Colorado, acting on a challenge from young people, wore ordinary work clothes to church one Sunday to prove attire had little to do with worship of God. Now only a few wear dress-ups; the organist and pastor wear jeans to services.

The priests of the Roman Catholic diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, have endorsed diocesan participation in Key 73.

Partnership Mission of Wheaton, Illinois, plans to send a Living New Testament to each of India’s 1,200,000 telephone subscribers.

Delegates of the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey rejected 66–64 a resolution approving busing for school racial integration.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist, paid $1,506,586 in property taxes to the city of Boston weeks ahead of time to help Boston through a money crisis.

A number of regional Explo ’72 follow-up rallies failed to get off the ground, but Campus Crusade officials estimated that 30 million watched each of three Explo telecasts. More than 11,000 televiewers wrote saying they had received Christ, and 40,000 said they now have courage to witness as a result, according to Crusade.

The Presbytery of Louisville-Union (Kentucky), in a row over minister Terrence Davis’s signing up as an elector of the Communist party, endorsed Davis’s right to serve, while asserting it in no way supported the party. Davis says he is no Communist, only a “civil libertarian.”

Representatives of more than fifty agencies at a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Testimonies to the Jews have decided to work more closely than ever before in the field of Jewish witness. The group also expressed concern about discrimination against Hebrew Christians living in Israel.

Under a new policy, young people enlisting in the Army can be guaranteed a position as a chaplain’s assistant provided they have proper qualifications and complete training successfully, says chaplaincy chief Gerhard W. Hyatt.

Deficits of $56,000 are the result of “mismanagement and illegal use of funds” by recently resigned denomination executive H. Boyd Georgia, alleges an audit committee of the Presbytery of West Florida (United Presbyterian Church). Georgia quit ostensibly to seek psychiatric help. Presbytery officials say they will not take legal action; bonding companies may.

This may have been a record year for youth involvement in evangelism and missionary work. About 10,000 worked in the Ambassadors in Mission (AIM) program of the Assemblies of God. More than 5,000 served with Youth With a Mission around the world (including 500 in Egypt). Operation Mobilization enlisted over 2,000. And thousands worked with other organizations.

Physical-fitness author Kenneth H. Cooper, who may have started the American jogging craze, lists ministers as the least healthy class of citizens.

Episcopal and Roman Catholic administrative buildings were ordered off the tax rolls by the Oregon Tax Court, reversing an earlier ruling by a state revenue unit.

Personalia

A brigade of mercenaries organized by Chicago minister Paul D. Lindstrom to liberate American prisoners of war in Indochina penetrated “enemy lines” in July, said a Lindstrom spokesman.

The American Association of University Professors has appointed a committee to investigate the firing of instructor Arlis J. Ehlen from Concordia seminary, according to Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod spokesman Ralph Bohlmann.

Pastor Gene McCombs of the First Baptist Church in Duncanville, Texas, says he is the victim of a terrorist campaign and that his family and congregation have been threatened—all because he organized opposition against pro-liquor forces seeking a local option election.

Minneapolis Star religion editor Willmar L. Thorkelson says United Church of Christ executive W. Sterling Cary of New York will be the nominating committee’s choice for president when the National Council of Churches convenes its triennial general assembly in Dallas in December. If elected, he will be the NCC’s first black president.

Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair vows she will make evangelist Billy Graham retract and publicly apologize for allegedly accusing her on the Johnny Carson TV show of sending him a letter with four-letter words, an act she denies. Graham declined to comment and meanwhile teamed up with David Wilkerson on the “Today” show to rebut an appearance—and statements—by pseudo-evangelist Marjoe Gortner.

Wycliffe Bible Translators founder W. Cameron Townsend received an Organization of American States citation as “benefactor of the linguistically isolated human groups in the Americas.” It was issued at an Inter-American Indian Congress in Brazil.

Veteran Wycliffe Bible Translator Paul Smith has launched Bible Translations on Tape to help get the Scriptures to the globe’s 800 million illiterates.

San Francisco Examiner columnist Lester Kinsolving did some digging and discovered that chess champion Bobby Fischer is not a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God as reported widely; he attends Saturday services but has not been baptized. Kinsolving also hints that the recent mysterious sojourn of Garner Ted Armstrong in exile resulted when Garner Ted questioned the “British Israel” part of his father’s dogma.

Duane Vosburg of surburban Binghamton, New York, may be the first layman appointed as a conference secretary of evangelism in the United Methodist Church.

William Carey Moore is heading up a new editorial department and editing Translation for Wycliffe Bible Translators; formerly he was assistant editor of Decision.

Baptist street evangelist Arthur Blessitt carried his cross on a witness trek from France into Spain after a delay by wary Spanish border authorities.

World Scene

Thousands of Northern Ireland Protestants and Catholics prayed side by side in Belfast and Armagh for peace during a day of prayer this month. Other interdenominational services were held in the Republic of Ireland.

South Korean Army headquarters sent nine trucks to the World Literature Crusade office in Seoul to pick up nearly one million Bible correspondence lessons donated by WLC for 200,000 soldiers who had made decisions for Christ.

Two books getting attention in Spain these days: Thirty Thousand Spaniards and God and One Hundred Spaniards and God. The latter, a best-seller, surveys the religious beliefs and opinions of 100 leading Spanish citizens. Unbelief and paganism seep through profusely. Thus the reason for the former book—by four Protestant leaders.

After a ten-day conference of hundreds of Protestant and Catholic church leaders in Birmingham, England, Methodist executive Kenneth G. Greet said it was no longer a question of whether there should be church union, but of how and how soon. The conference was called by the British Council of Churches to “deal with a crisis of faith and a crisis in the institutional life of the church.”

Wesley’s Chapel on London’s City Road, the “mother church of Methodism,” has been closed because of deterioration; renovation will take at least three years.

A six-week Methodist mission to the island of Fiji netted 5,640 decisions for Christ, according to a report in the New Zealand Methodist. Other revival reports have come from New Guinea, West Irian, the Solomon Islands, and Thailand.

New Zealand Methodists, Congregationalists, and members of the Associated Churches of Christ have given straw-poll approval to a proposed five-church merger. The Presbyterian General Assembly has already given an official okay, but Anglicans are balking.

The British Student Christian Movement may lose its non-profit status. Government officials are criticizing its gift of more than $4,000 to Agitprop, a London “liberation” movement.

The British and Foreign Bible Society, with the support of Catholic and Protestant leaders, plans to distribute a modern-English version copy of Luke to every Northern Ireland residence by Easter.

After five years, Mundo Cristao, a Brazilian family magazine sponsored by Christian Life Mission, has folded, leaving a vacuum in the field.

After a month-long tour of Red China, David Wang of Asian Outreach in Hong Kong says he is convinced the mainland has a “dynamic, witnessing, worshipping church.” He tells of teen-agers who meet regularly for prayer in one city he visited. Overseas Chinese are thronging to the mainland, he says. They include Christians intent on outreach.

The German Bible Institute in Seeheim recently received accreditation from the West German government for both its three-year Bible and missions division and its university-level theological divison, reports acting director Cleon Rogers.

The Church of Norway (Lutheran) has rejected continuation of the present church-state arrangement which gives the government final authority to determine church affairs, and is studying alternate structures.

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