ELS issues in perspective

There are two things working against each other in the ELS today.

I have previously described President Moldstad as the yeoman. Hard working, loyal, and faithful.

Pastor Preus comes from a family of knights, scholars, priests, and lawyers.

The Moldstads cut the wood and haul the water. They are the stuff on which honest organizations depend.

Rolf Preus is a knight, a leader.

The stated issues are on the topic of Church and Ministry. There is enough said on the topic in two sections of the Augsburg Confession. Conservative Lutherans (I don't know liberal Lutheran church history) have never agreed on the fine points.

All ELS laymen that I know say that there is no reason for this issue ever to have come up in recent years.

Preus represents the Missouri tradition. The Missouri tradition, loosely stated, comes from an emphasis upon the importance of a local congregation. This emphasis comes from the historical lesson of an immigrant church.

The old Lutherans in Germany questioned the validity of church acts and church authority in the New World. The Missouri Synod has strongly emphasized a set of beliefs surrounding these historical events.

The Wisconsin Synod, the other player in the conservative Lutheran league, has had an educational system which produced school teachers for parochial schools. In order to make these teachers feel important, a series of emphases have been established.

The two traditions, without getting too boring, and without me getting out of my league, have mutually co-existed. No one really buys into all of what each position emphasizes, no one really criticizes what each tradition believes. When I say "no one" I am talking about the informed laity of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.