The "Issues, Etc." debacle
Since I'm no longer affiliated with the Missouri Synod, I haven't been in a hurry to comment on the odd decision of KFUO radio in St. Louis- the "house" station of the LCMS- to cancel its nationally popular radio show, the Rev. Todd Wilken's "Issues, Etc.," allegedly because it wasn't widely listened to in the St. Louis market.
In fact, of course, the show has been a forum for the kind of historical, sacramental, confessional Lutheranism out of favor with the church-growthy, "purpose driven," methobapitcostal-leaning current leadership of the Missouri Synod. The political motivation of the move is transparent.
Lutheran journalist Mollie Ziegler Hemingway examines the controversy here.
The current LCMS president, the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, has famously remarked that "this is not your grandfather's Missouri Synod." Well, while the congregation I'm currently serving is independent, and my actual grandfathers were respectively a Presbyterian minister turned Christian Scientist from Belfast and a lapsed Catholic grocer from Schleswig-Holstein, as someone baptized and confirmed in the LCMS I'm compelled join at least rhetorically in asking the question with which Mollie ends her article: "Can I have my grandfather's church back?"
In fact, of course, the show has been a forum for the kind of historical, sacramental, confessional Lutheranism out of favor with the church-growthy, "purpose driven," methobapitcostal-leaning current leadership of the Missouri Synod. The political motivation of the move is transparent.
Lutheran journalist Mollie Ziegler Hemingway examines the controversy here.
The current LCMS president, the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, has famously remarked that "this is not your grandfather's Missouri Synod." Well, while the congregation I'm currently serving is independent, and my actual grandfathers were respectively a Presbyterian minister turned Christian Scientist from Belfast and a lapsed Catholic grocer from Schleswig-Holstein, as someone baptized and confirmed in the LCMS I'm compelled join at least rhetorically in asking the question with which Mollie ends her article: "Can I have my grandfather's church back?"
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