Word: concordiae
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Arlis Ehlen, a professor of Old Testament studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, follows this mildly liberal interpretive trend. Many members of his denomination, the 2.9 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, do not. Because of the conflict and because the Missouri Synod controls Concordia, Ehlen, 40, finds himself at the center of Protestantism's biggest heresy fuss in a decade. "My own temperament is to stay away from such disputes," he says with some surprise. "My views are quite typical of those held by all the biblical teachers here...
...jockeying began two years ago, when a grass-roots revolt before the 1969 convention brought conservative Classicist J.A.O. ("Jack") Preus into the presidency of the denomination. But moderates remained in command of the Missouri Synod's respected Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, the largest Lutheran seminary in the U.S. Preus has since consolidated power with aggressive efficiency-moderates say with ruthlessness. Though a number of opponents stayed in untouchable jobs around him, he carefully nurtured grassroots support. The moderates' main complaint against their president stems from an investigation he launched last year at Concordia in response...
...fight is an old one in American Protestantism, but it has grown up anew in the Missouri Synod with Concordia's efforts to build a topflight Scripture faculty. When Preus' investigation team arrived on the Concordia campus, it was stacked with fundamentalists who see the more liberal position as heretical; a number of theologians feared a purge...
...Lingering Bigotry. As it turned out, the conservative drive was stopped by a narrow margin. Moderates retained control of Concordia's board, which should avoid any threat of purge in the seminary for at least two years. As for the resolution on doctrinal formulations, the delegates voted 485-425 for a curiously schizophrenic compromise. It retained the conservative preamble and "whereas" sections of the right-wing resolution, but substituted a moderate version of the resolution proper, simply asking-not requiring-church theologians to "honor and uphold" doctrinal statements of church conventions...
...racial hostility is difficult: the U.S. Attorney's staff in charge of the Birmingham area has only two lawyers regularly assigned to keep up with more than 60 school systems. In recent weeks, federal courts have made limited progress. They have outlawed sex segregation in Coffeeville, Miss., and Concordia Parish, La. (the practice continues in several Georgia counties). They have also ruled that merging school systems must continue to employ black principals and teachers instead of demoting or firing them and hiring whites...