Demonstration today!

I've been on the road a lot for the past week, so the updates have been sporadic (as you've noticed). But watch this space for updates on the demonstration outside LCMS world headquarters today. Brandon is hoping to liveblog the event as it unfolds. It's scheduled to start at 11!

7,000+

More than 7,000 people have now signed the petition supporting Issues Etc. You can follow the link to sign, if you're not one of them.

From resolutions to... ?

Now that some district pastors' conferences have passed resolutions supporting Issues, Pastor Randy Asburry asks a good question: what next? What do we expect to come out of these resolutions, and all the other shows of support for the program? He's starting a good discussion on that topic, so go chime in.

More pastors speaking out on Issues

Pastors are speaking out about the cancellation of Issues Etc. The South Dakota District Pastors' Conference has passed a resolution petitioning the synod to revisit its decision to cancel the program. And the Southern Wisconsin District Pastors Conference has passed -- by unanimous voice vote -- a resolution supporting the show.

Synod leadership's theological motives

Pres. Kieschnick and David Strand say Issues Etc. is gone because it lost too much money and had too few listeners. But it turns out a special "Radio Committee" had been given a long list of anonymous negative comments about Issues Etc. -- BEFORE the decision to cancel Issues was announced.

Apparently the members of this committee were furnished materials previous to the cancellation of Issues, Etc. that include a couple of pages listing anonymous negative comments about Issues, Etc.. These comments include the expressions “abrasive” and “hyper-orthodox” — as well as a comment about the program following its own “political agenda“.

What’s more — not one positive comment was furnished. Not one.

As Mollie points out, listeners regularly send positive comments about Issues. But those comments didn't make the cut when synodical leaders passed along the information to the Radio Committee. It raises the question -- were the financial reasons the real reasons behind the cancellation? Or is it part of a political and theological agenda by those in charge of the Missouri Synod?

Message from Pastor Todd Wilken

Pastor Cwirla has another message from Todd Wilken posted at his blog.

Get your Issues fashion

And now you can be a walking billboard of support for Issues Etc. Just head over to the Lutheran Gear store at Cafe Press. Thank to Pastor Cwirla for pointing it out.

You are not free to criticize the synod?

From a while back, Scott at Die Schreiben von Schreiber has a post that may seem unrelated to the Issues Etc. cancellation. But I think it says more about it than anything we've seen out of synodical headquarters so far. He quotes Pres. Kieschnick, from a 2006 appearance at an LCMS Ohio District convention:

“You are NOT free to preach or teach publicly that Synod is wrong on ANY given issue.”

Kieschnick reportedly repeated the statement slowly to give listeners a second chance to catch it.

Given that Todd Wilken and guests were openly critical of a lot of the things the Kieschnick administration is enamored of -- even though they tended not to criticize the LCMS directly.

And incidentally, does this mean synodical leaders will go after pastors who've signed the petition supporting Issues? Their signatures are a clear indication that they believe the synod is wrong on at least one issue.

HT: Territorial Bloggings and High Barbaree

Housekeeping reminders

It's been a while since I reminded you about what's coming up in the effort to rally around Issues Etc. and what it stands for. The place to go for those plans is Augsburg 1530. You can register to participate in an evening prayer service and bratwurst dinner at 5 p.m. April 13, at Emmaus Evangelical Lutheran Church in St. Louis. You can also register to attend a demonstration supporting Issues Etc. outside the LCMS International Center in St. Louis, from 11-1 on April 14.

"Unified" synod split on WSJ responses

A major thrust of Pres. Kieschnick's rebuttal to the Issues article in the Wall Street Journal was that the synod is unified, not divided. Today, that letter got printed on the Journal's website -- along with four other letters that agreed with Mollie Z. Hemingway's original article. That would appear to call into question Pres. Kieschnick's assertion that the Missouri Synod is unified.