Disciplinary Committee Votes to Defrock Activist Lutheran Pastor

A Lutheran Church in America synod is expected to uphold the action against D. Douglas Roth.

Controversy surrounding former Lutheran pastor D. Douglas Roth has been escalating for more than a year. Last fall, after he was dismissed as pastor of a Pittsburgh-area church, he began serving a jail sentence for contempt of court. Roth completed the jail term last month, but his troubles aren’t over.

A church disciplinary committee has voted to defrock the former pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Clairton, Pennsylvania. The 15-member committee ruled that Roth was guilty of “willful disregard and violation of the [LCA] constitution.” He has appealed the ruling to the Western Pennsylvania—West Virginia Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA). Informed observers, including Roth, say they expect the synod to uphold the verdict in June.

The seeds of the controversy were planted several years ago when Roth joined an ecumenical group of concerned ministers known as Denominational Ministry Strategy (DMS). DMS at first enlisted the support of numerous Pittsburgh-area churches and Bishop Kenneth May, of the LCA’s Western Pennsylvania—West Virginia Synod. During its first two years, the organization conducted training programs and addressed a variety of community problems related to families, youth, the elderly, and the unemployed.

By 1983 unemployment had become the main focus, and DMS took to the streets. The organization was pushing for extended unemployment benefits, modernization of steel plants, and reinvestment of bank and corporate funds in Pittsburgh industries to save and create jobs, DMS enlisted the support of union leaders, who responded by forming the Network to Save the Mon/Ohio Valley, referred to simply as the Network. Ron Weisen, president of United Steel Workers Local #1397, along with dozens of fellow union activists, joined Roth’s Lutheran congregation.

To dramatize their cause, DMS and Network members launched a campaign against business interests that they said contributed to the unemployment crisis. Mellon Bank was branded the chief villain because it allegedly made sizeable loans to businesses in Taiwan and Latin America instead of funding programs to keep Pittsburgh-area steel mills operating. A dead skunk was deposited at the entrance to a Mellon bank, frozen fish were placed in bank deposit boxes, and corporate offices were sprayed with skunk oil. Mellon Bank and U.S. Steel were picketed. Because of such tactics, Bishop May withdrew his support and criticized DMS radicalism.

A year ago on Easter Sunday, two dozen demonstrators invaded Pittsburgh’s affluent Shadyside Presbyterian Church. Interrupting the service, the protesters read a prepared statement. Other disruptions followed at East Liberty Presbyterian Church and at Saint John’s of Highland, where Bishop May worships.

May and the LCA synod headquarters also were targeted. Paint was thrown on the bishop’s house, and the tires of his car were slashed. A 25-foot cross in front of synod headquarters was burned, and skunk oil was sprayed into air ducts of the synod office building.

As DMS radicalism escalated, so did public indignation and negative reaction among churches. In no congregation was polarization more pronounced than at Roth’s church. Elsie Milton resigned from the church council last year when, she contends, Roth railroaded a $4,000 DMS allocation into the congregation’s budget. She said the pastor subsequently refused to hold a congregational meeting to reconsider the allocation. (Roth denies the allegation.) “Every sermon,” she said, “dealt with the evils of Mellon Bank, U.S. Steel, and Bishop May.”

As a result of such developments, 71 of Trinity’s 145 members asked May to intervene. Roth was dismissed as pastor in October. However, he continued to conduct worship services at the church.

On November 1 the bishop requested—and was granted—a court order enjoining Roth from performing pastoral functions. When Roth ignored the directive, Judge Emil Narick ordered Allegheny County Sheriff Eugene Coon to take the pastor into custody. On November 11, Roth barricaded the church against law-enforcement officers and again conducted services. Two days later Coon sent two deputies to arrest the maverick pastor. Roth was escorted from the church to the county jail to begin a 90-day sentence.

When the pro-DMS church council withdrew church funds from a bank account and continued to defy authorities, 92 long-time members of Trinity petitioned the synod to take over the administration and assets of the church. The synod responded by dissolving the congregation.

Refusing to relinquish the keys and financial records, radical members locked themselves inside the building, displaying baseball bats and threatening “defensive violence” if efforts were made to break into the church. Flanked by 50 deputies and police officers, Coon stormed the church in January and jailed its eight occupants. Four of the eight, including Roth’s wife, Nadine, and church council chairman Wayne Cochran, were given 60-day work-release sentences.

Still in jail, Roth continued to defy ecclesiastical and civil authorities by sending tapes to be played at services outside his padlocked church. Those actions resulted in additional jail time, extending his incarceration to 112 days.

Now that Roth is out of jail, more than 50 pre-DMS members of the Clairton church are hoping the dust soon will settle. They are planning to establish a new congregation to reoccupy the brownstone building that once housed Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Educator And Scholar Merrill C. Tenney Is Dead At 80

Merrill C. Tenney, teacher, administrator, pastor, and Bible scholar, is dead at the age of 80. Tenney, who served as dean of the Wheaton (Ill.) College Graduate School from 1947 to 1971, died March 18 at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois, of natural causes.

Former students and colleagues have described as profound Tenney’s influence on the Wheaton College Graduate School. Said Walter Elwell, dean of the graduate school: “We all, in one fashion or another, wanted to be like him. Dr. Tenney was greatly beloved by all who were his students.”

Tenney held a master of arts degree from Boston University and a Ph.D. in biblical and patristic Greek from Harvard. He was an ordained American Baptist minister. Tenney wrote several books, focusing mostly on New Testament topics. His New Testament Survey, a standard New Testament text, has been translated into Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Bengali.

In addition, he wrote five biographical sketches of apostles for World Book Encyclopedia, contributed the chapter on Revelation to Bible Expositor, and worked with the committee that translated the New International Version of the Bible.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY senior editor Kenneth Kantzer, a former colleague of Tenney’s, described him as a “brilliant pedagogue, one of the best teachers I’ve ever known.”

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