Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie for the Walther Conference with Noland, Baue, Wilken, Harrison and Others

If your name is Louie, or Matt, or Fritz,  or even John the Steadfast, we encourage you to attend the Walther Conference this Friday and Saturday in St. Louis at Concordia Seminary. I will be there and would be happy to meet you and give you a BJS chapter start-up kit if you are interested. I will also have some copies of the Steadfast Quarterly to give away.

Any of the conference presentations would be helpful for we  brothers of John the Steadfast. They are in harmony with our BJS goals. Not only that, three of the speakers have serious BJS connections. The Rev. Dr. Martin Noland has written for both of our inagural Steadfast Quarterly issues. The Rev. Dr. Fred Baue is the editor of the Steadfast Quarterly and the banquet speaker is Pastor Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, Etc. which is of course, the primary recipient of our BJS fund-raising for new Lutheran media.

In addition, Pastor Matt Harrison is the speaker in the final session on Saturday. I am most interested in what he has to say since I have heard many say that he would make a great synodical president some day. Many believe that he would be able to lead the synod to a greater sense of unity around the teachings of scripture and the Lutheran Confessions than we have had in the last few years. As we have said  elsewhere on this site in reference to the situation at Concordia Chicago, there is a crisis of supervision in our synod. We need to find our way to unity through doctrine.

Interestingly, as I was literally in the middle of writing this post, I noticed that Molly had put up a new post calling attention to Matt Harrison’s new document called “It’s Time.” You need to read and study this  paper carefully. The pathway that Harrison describes toward unity is through doctrinal study. That reminds me of another recent effort toward doctrinal unity. I believe the doctrinal unity that Harrison says we need to lead us out of the state of disunity that we have been in the LCMS for the last several years, is what the Lutheran Manifesto is all about. I encourage you to take a look at it as well. It addresses the doctrinal issues that divide us and both asserts truth based on the Augsburg Confession and rejects untruth based on the same blessed document.

These are interesting days in the LCMS. We brothers of John the Steadfast need to stick to our priorities so that we can be a part of the solution to the crisis of supervision in the LCMS, and not a part of the problem. The first and primary goal of the Brothers is to learn the Lutheran Confessions and promote their use throughout the church. In addition to that, we are comitted to supporting new Lutheran media such as Issues, Etc., that likewise teach and promote the Lutheran Confessions. The Walther conference looks to be another example of doctrinal teaching that can help to bring us to the unity that is ours in Christ and that we need desperately in the LCMS.

See you in St. Louie!

Pastor Rossow

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