What My Suspension is NOT About
by Rev. Dr. David H. Benke

I am currently suspended from the clergy roster of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod under its bylaws 2.25 and 2.27. It all has to do with a prayer I offered in the precious Name of Jesus on September 23, 2001. The Second Vice-President of the LCMS, Rev. Wallace Schulz, has placed me in that suspended status. And that's about all I can say about that under the restrictions placed upon me by the interpretation of what have been ruled as related bylaws as determined by the LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters since this matter began.

What I can talk about is what the suspension is NOT about. This is an attempt to place things in context, and to offer some personal perspectives on myself and the mission and ministries of the Atlantic District of the LCMS, which I had served prior to June 26, 2002, gratefully and uninterruptedly as its elected President since 1991.

My suspension is NOT about:

1. Divisive Distinctions

Divisive distinctions are not of God.  What am I talking about?  How about this one?

"East Coast Liberal" 

It's been applied not only to me but also to the entire Atlantic District. This is a ploy that has been in force in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod by its radical rightwing spokesman, Herman Otten and his weekly "Christian News," for almost half a century. At a time when global disaster has struck New York City, it is obscene. At a time when people from around the country have come to see the beauty of the people of New York, it is ugly. At a time when national unity is so important, it is unpatriotic and nasty. Most of all, it isn't even vaguely accurate.

• Why is this distinction made? 

A) It seeks to divide off the "good" Midwesterners, the heartlanders, from the "bad" Easterners. They talk funny, they look different, they're not like "us," those so-called Lutherans from the East. 

B) It's done for church-political gain. Those who affiliate with, or help, or understand Easterners must be "bad" too. Un-elect them. Remove them. Let's us good guys cleanse the world of "them."

• What this kind of divisive painting of distinctions is, is SIN.  How about these examples:
• The Atlantic District requests its parishes to offer the grace-filled meal of Holy Communion on a weekly basis. Is that "liberal?"
   
•  The Atlantic District President is co-founder of a Crisis Pregnancy Counseling Center (Pregnancy Help, Inc.) that reaches more women with counsel for life than any other such center in the country annually.  Literally thousands of lives have been saved. Is that "liberal?"
   
• The Atlantic District sponsors more new mission starts than any other LCMS District for the last two years, almost all of them global in their designed outreach. Is that "liberal?"
   
• The Atlantic District President serves as Chairman of Lutheran Disaster Response of New York following the events of September 11.  Called by the head of FEMA "the best organization of its type in the United States," LDRNY has an open book track record of finding the exact places in the disaster response system where the most real help is needed. Is that "liberal?"

Insinuation and innuendo won't do these days. And they are all that some people have going for them. To have a region go through the pain of burying its dead following a national disaster of unparalleled proportion and then stand by idly as it is used as a labeling tool for church-political purposes is to add insult to injury. It is SIN.

Allow me to present a second divisive distinction:

• Pure doctrine is more important than souls being saved . 
• The tag line here is that those interested in purity can never sacrifice mere Gospel outreach to those who do not know Christ for the sake of true doctrine. It is, of course, a strategy designed to encourage failure and inwardness.  It is an excuse for sitting around and devoting hours to emailing on obscure topics from lost volumes while souls perish for lack of a common touch, a helping hand and a word of hope in the Lord Jesus. The Atlantic District, "liberal" as it is supposed to be, is accused of the fatal flaw of concern for souls. Any strategies for outreach other than those led and performed by the pastor in a catechism class are suspect to this group.

Here's what we have found:

• Good doctrine is the fount and source of outreach. Conservative Lutherans here in the Atlantic District, proclaiming now in 18 languages the truth of God's eternal love in Christ, have established new preaching stations at a rate at the top of the denomination. These are founded as part and parcel of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. As Pastor Roosevelt Gray put it at the lat national denominational convention, "We've got the message straight. Let's get the message out!"
   
• Good doctrine is both taught and caught. The Atlantic District has headed up a major inter-district and intra-synodical partnership called the Mission Training Center to make sure that good doctrine leads to good practice; that is, we believe the good doctrine needs to hit the streets running, not sit on the desk. Deacons, pastors, distance-education students, teachers – The training and equipping runs the gamut and does so on purpose. 
   
• Good doctrine is infectious in the congregation.  The Atlantic District had more newly confirmed members than any other LCMS district during 2000. Why? Because pastors are reaching their parishioners with the Gospel in an engaging, hopeful way. 25% of the Atlantic District pastoral roster is under the age of 32. These young pastors came here, and they have learned here, to hit the streets running. They don't just sit at their desks. And they have met a cadre of veteran shepherds engaged in the same craft.

The enemy of all this is the concept that growth is somehow suspicious, or evil, or to be abhorred. Shrinkage is a sign of faithfulness. Yipes! These concepts don't "Bring Christ to the Nations," they Keep Christ from the Nations. The Atlantic District is headed in exactly the opposite direction, outward and upward.

My suspension is also NOT about:

2. Name Calling

Name-calling is not of God. And it has been rampant in my situation. The overwhelming majority has been aimed at me in a very personal way. How about this for name-calling?

• The day after I engaged in prayer at Yankee Stadium I was called a murderer and a terrorist.
   
• My prayer was called, quite proudly, in a long essay, "Genuine Terrorism."
   
• My presence at Yankee Stadium was called "The Errorist Attack at Yankee Stadium" by a pundit in another long article in the regularly vicious periodical, Christian News.

These comments did not come from some Muslim Taliban group haranguing a prayer for healing in Jesus' Name as being heretical. They came from fellow clerics on the same LCMS roster as I (although they are in no danger of the suspension sentence under which I am currently stuck), haranguing me for heresy in the most offensive way possible.

My wife is the chairman of the board of the Lutheran Counseling Center in New York. The amount of Christian counsel given by this group has jumped by a thousand percent since 9/11. I have received assistance in my own process of grief and loss from the outside. And in my case, the grief and pain has been connected directly and intimately from the events of 9/11 to these violent verbal attacks by LCMS clergy.

No one is perfect. Name-calling is not healthy no matter who engages in it.  But it is plain to me and all of us in New York that the name-calling directed at me and at us here is at the lowest possible level. It's the verbal equivalent of hitting a man while he's down, or as one of our missionaries puts it from his culture, "stabbing the open wound." 

Those who have engaged in this name-calling are given high praise by their comrades. How can this be? They are engaged in the battle for truth. And in that battle, only the strong survive. What tripe! It is sin. That is pure and simple.

My suspension is also NOT about

3. Church-political Issue Lumping

Now that's a mouthful! What am I talking about? I am talking about the practice of making my prayer at Yankee Stadium the introductory phrase in a long string of issues that supposedly are linked to me and all bad things: That Yankee Stadium-praying, East-Coast Atlantic District Liberal-leaning, Abortion-favoring, gay-rights-demanding, open-communion-practicing, women's-ordination-loving, free-style worship-propounding BENKE.

 My case therefore becomes the case to end all cases, the proof-text for purity-seekers. Because I contain personally all the diseases inflaming the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Eliminate me, and all the rest of the diseased will follow me, and pure health can prevail.

This, of course, is nonsense.  It is the kind of nonsense that IS the disease in our church body . Dr. Kieschnick and Council of Presidents Chairman Arleigh Lutz identified our church-political factions to be at the heart of a badly divided denomination. These men have been persecuted for that insight ever since.  Why?  Because it's not allowed in our denomination to talk about our faults and divisions. We have the truth. Those who arbitrate that truth must always be right.

If the leadership talks of real divisions, there might be real sin. Real repentance might follow. Real change might happen. We might experience – THE GOSPEL!

Since that is NOT the desire, those identifying division must be removed. And one way to accomplish that removal is to lump all the non-desirable items and people together.

Here's the truth.  Here's how The Atlantic District, and Dave Benke, stand on these issues:

Abortion – We and I are pro-life, and actively so; not just in word, but in deed

Homosexuality – We and I stand with the position of the LCMS contained in its recent reports, particularly in the Commission on Theology and Church Relations

"Open" Communion – We and I stand with the historic Christian position on admission to the Lord's Table

The Bible as the Word of God – We and I stand on the proposition that the Bible IS the Word of God

Women's Ordination – We and I stand in favor of the utilization of all of the gifts of God's baptized people in the Body of Christ in every appropriate way. We have discussed and dialogued on this topic in many forums in the Atlantic District, and feel strongly that the topic of women's service as church is badly politicized in our denomination to the virtual exclusion of reasonable discussion. We also feel strongly that the confusion current in our denomination regarding Church and Ministry is hurtful to pastors and laity.  Our District commitment to dialog has made it possible to walk and work together even as we explore Holy Scripture and our traditions.

Does this sound like a group of left-wing lunatics? I don't think so. And we're not.  We are conservative Lutheran exponents of grace received and distributed through Word and Sacraments, interested in reaching the world around us with the Good News of Jesus.

Those who seek to lump are not only barking up the wrong tree, they're acting out of base motive for the sake of church-political power. And control of the sizable assets.

Just bringing this up and out into the open disturbs me, and disturbs me deeply, because I and all of us in the Atlantic District stand FOR so much more than we stand AGAINST.

So I'd like to conclude by stating the following:

My suspension from the clergy roster of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod by Second Vice-President Wallace Schulz on June 26, 2002, will not deter the congregations, schools and ministries of what is currently called the Atlantic District, LCMS from the following:

• Engaging the world with the Gospel of Hope
• Strengthening congregations and pastors to proclaim the Gospel in truth and purity through word and deed, Word and Sacraments
• Founding and establishing new missions and preaching stations
• Supporting global missionaries placed locally in New York in their task
• Encouraging the celebration of the Lord's Supper weekly in all our congregations
• Utilizing our schools and social ministries as stations for love and compassion in Christ
• Working in every appropriate way with other Lutherans and other people of common values in efforts like Lutheran Disaster Response of New York
• Maintaining and strengthening training efforts like the Atlantic District Deacon program, the Mission Training Center and DELTO (Distance Education Leading to Ordination) as ways to spread the Gospel

May God strengthen and equip us to that end!

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