Lutheran panel reinstates official...
Benke was accused of praying with pagans

By Tom Heinen
Last Updated: May 12, 2003

A Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod panel has dismissed all charges against the Rev. David H. Benke for praying on a podium next to Muslims, Jews, a Hindu, a Sikh and Christians of other denominations in Yankee Stadium after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The panel reversed last year's suspension of Benke and reinstated him as president of the denomination's Atlantic District, which includes New York City.

Benke, a Milwaukee native whose great-grandfather founded some 20 Missouri Synod congregations around Eau Claire, got permission to break the news to his 91-year-old mother on Mother's Day before Monday's announcement.

"I dialed her up and said, 'I've got a little surprise for you. I'm no longer a heretic,' " Benke, 57, said Monday.

Dorothy Benke, who grew up in a parsonage in Racine, lives in Luther Manor nursing home in Wauwatosa.

A three-person dispute resolution panel was selected to hear the case in a random drawing of names from the church's 140 lay and ordained dispute "reconcilers." The panel's unanimous decision was not released until 30 days had elapsed without an appeal and it became final.

"I feel extremely pleased and vindicated by the fact that I think our church body has stood up in a very official and strong way to say my participation at Yankee Stadium put me in the right place at the right time for right reason," he said. "That means frankly that it's OK to pray in public at a time of national crisis, and our church body understands and believes that."

The issue, one of the denomination's most divisive in two decades, has been debated around the country. Benke estimates about one-third of the clergy opposes his position.

The theologically conservative Missouri Synod is one of three major Lutheran denominations in the United States and is the ninth-largest Protestant denomination. It has about 2.6 million baptized members nationwide, including about 240,000 in Wisconsin.

Benke offered a 10-sentence prayer on Sept. 23, 2001, at "A Prayer for America," a rally organized by New York City and led by Oprah Winfrey after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington, D.C.

He received permission in advance from the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, president of the denomination. But 18 pastors and three congregations from around the country later filed charges against Benke for heresy for allegedly worshipping with pagans as if they all served the same God and for praying with members of other Christian religions as if they all followed the same doctrines.

Similar charges against Kieschnick for permitting Benke's participation were dropped after a church commission determined that only the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's convention had authority over the president.

The initial decision on Benke fell to the Rev. Wallace Schulz, the synod's second vice president. Schulz found Benke guilty last June and suspended him as president - the equivalent of a bishop - of the Atlantic District.

Benke, facing expulsion from the denomination, appealed rather than apologize.

In the controversy, the Lutheran Laymen's League removed Schulz as the main preacher on its internationally broadcast radio program.

Much of Benke's defense rested on a church convention resolution that he said allowed participation in extraordinary interfaith and ecumenical civic events. Opponents said, among other things, that the Bible's prohibition against worshipping false idols was being ignored, but Kieschnick and others contended that the resolution was firmly based on the Bible and Lutheran Confessions.

"There are special times, extraordinary circumstances, civic events, where our pastors may be invited or called upon to preach or speak or read Scripture," Kieschnick said in an interview Monday. "And as long as there are no restrictions to Christian witness, a pastor has discretion" to participate.

The resolution goes on to say that other people might disagree, but that charity should prevail in such cases.

"I think the other thing that is important here is that this is a way for our church at large to reaffirm the fact that when the people in the country and the people in the world need consolation, encouragement, hope that we believe can only be provided through Jesus Christ - who we believe is savior of the world and Lord of the universe - our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is going to be there," Kieschnick said. "And that's whether we're there in the church or on the battlefield, or even in a baseball stadium."

From the May 13, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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