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Sanctuary- Dear Brother Jerry, You must get hundreds of letters/calls/emails every day about this and I hesitate to add to your burdens. But, as a pastor who was trained in the LCMS, from Concordia High School in Milwaukee, the Senior College in Fort Wayne and the seminary in St. Louis, and having served for 23 years in two parishes, I once again am urging you to do whatever it takes to remove the suspension of President Dave Benke. I know you have been supportive. I know it is unfair that such a mess came your way so soon into your term of office and has consumed so much time and energy that ought to be directed elsewhere. But brother Benke is a wounded man, as wounded as that poor soul on the road to Jericho and by means of bylaws, constitutional matters, Board of Directors roadblocks, we have seen a whole crew of churchmen (priests and levites) pass by on the other side as though he and his people of St. Peter's and the Atlantic District did not matter. Meanwhile, this servant of God is cut, bleeding and repeatedly mugged by our so-called "confessional" pastors who place themselves in judgment over him and are using him as a target so as to sharpen their aim to come after the rest of us. It's got to stop. Now. At what point do we who are heartsick over what we have become as a church body contact our local ELCA bishops and ask for sanctuary? My roots go back a long way in the LCMS---through my own prep school, my father's 55 years as an active pastor, my uncle as professor of Greek at Concordia, Milwaukee. Dave Benke's roots go ever further and deeper. He has served long, well and honorably. I have never met a more Godly man. And even when those roots were severely tested by the turmoil of the 70's, we stayed and studied and worked, depending, as you do, on the forgiving grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Word. Is it all for nothing? Is there no longer any reason to stay, any reason to believe that one can conduct a ministry of caring, compassion and integrity without self-appointed judges picking apart every word, every act, every prayer? I am sending you this letter and asking it be distributed to every district president as well as the synodical vice presidents. It is but one voice, "crying in the wilderness" that we have become and asking for justice for Dave Benke and for a commitment to return to the one thing by which Jesus said others would know we belong to Him----love. Not bylaws, not CCM opinions, not gag rules. But love. I and my congregation pray for you in your most difficult role. Rev. David Boedecker, pastor |
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