A lawyer friend of mine (no lawyer jokes, please!), sent me an email the other day reflecting on Pres. Kieschnick's reply to the WSJ article. With his usual lawyerly precision and flair, he wrote:
"Gee, we drive past 10 plus LCMS churches to find a confessional lutheran church one hour away....Shoot, if only I knew how unified and wonderful and confessional all those were (and are) I would have stopped off and attended any one of them...Stupid me and shame on you for not letting me in on this wonderful state of affairs in the Missouri Synod earlier....
I guess I also don't understand why you terminate two guys and give them no reason for the termination, go radio silent for two weeks while people come unglued, tell the guys that they can have a severance package if they "don't talk to anyone about the circumstances of the termination", and then announce that the reason was--drum roll please, plain, old vanilla economics?? Don't you tell people (and begin telling them months before) the simple, uncontroversial truth that it is due to the economics that "we just have to let you go, but as we all know, the finances just are killing us"? What silence do you want to buy about that?? Happens thousands of times a day in this country....That is unless the reason really, and fundamentally, is not at all about economics...."
The nagging question in all of this is why the clumsy ambush of Issues, Etc. on the morning of Holy Tuesday? Why no warning? Why order the web archive taken down (still not operational!)? Why the attempt to gag Todd and Jeff? Why risk upsetting a fragile cease-fire among the factions in the synod?
Some are suggesting there was fuzzy bookkeeping, a plan to auction off KFUO to pay down debt, the fact that those near and dear to the administration considered Issues, Etc. "hate radio," even a clever act of "priestmanship" to distract the hounds from deeper issues, etc. Certainly Todd and Jeff stood as obstacles to the revisioning of the synod. But their hasty termination only serves to incite these speculations and inflame its supporters who see it as a severing of the confessional vocal chord of the synod.
Who really knows? And we will never know anything for certain until someone in this administration who knows the truth steps up and speaks it in a plain, transparent, genuine way and is willing to answer some hard questions. Not evasive half-truths couched in bureaucratic weasel words. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The truth will set us free. It will bring a long-needed cleansing and renewal to our troubled and divided synod.
We long to hear it. We need to hear it.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
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7 comments:
amen!
Pr. Cwirla,
Thanks for your lawyer friend's words, and for yours!
Didn't Todd or Jeff used to play a certain song when they dealt with certain church growth issues. I think it was by a 60's group and the name of the song was,"tell me lies..." or something like that?
That would be great "bump" music if
a similar replacement show ever aired, wouldn't it?! :p
That would be Fleetwood Mac for all you youngsters.
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
(tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)
Oh, no, no you cant disguise
(you cant disguise, no you cant disguise)
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
Man. I don't consider myself that old (33) and I knew that was Fleetwood Mac. :)
Dan (forever 28, really)
Oh, now I remember it. But since I know from his blog that Cwirla's an Eagles fan, maybe a more recent
song by them might be more appropos: "There's a hole in the world tonight" (as of Mar. 25!)
Responding to your last comment:
IS there anyone in standard leadership who actually does know the whole truth? If boards are being bypassed, then there actually is no actual synodical governance. There are figureheads and puppets. The real power, apparently, lies somewhere else - a "cabinet" so to speak.
Just a thought.
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