Money has been poured down the “consultant” sinkhole and synod (not only the confessionals but the libs who have always expected somebody else to pay) has said, “Ho, hum, when are they going to learn?”

Ans. : When 50.5% realize that Jerry only sounds like a Lutheran four months before convention and vote for somebody better!

It seems a long way to 2010, but let us pray that the results of the 2010 election show that the laity are indeed fed up. And I couldn’t agree more that Kieschnick’s term seems to have been a complete disaster from all that I have read and heard.

Do not despair (for a variety of reasons). But one good one is that unlike the other church bodies you cite, LCMS laypeople tend not to let things get out of control like the layfolks in other denominations have.

I think that one of the things that works in favor here is that even people who are inclined to like Kieschnick are pretty fed up with his management style and the disasters under his watch.

How depressing. Here I was having a good Thursday with Bible class, some communion visits, and sermon writing.

Sadly, I am not surprised. I’ve alerted others about this ‘job search’. And I sincerely hope this was a typo that somehow eluded the editors. My fear is that it is not. I agree with Mollie’s reporting/analysis following the job posting.

Sad, but it will not deter me from evangelizing this Christmas with the true Evangel of Jesus Christ!

Thanks Mollie for the depressing news. (I’m not attacking the messenger.) Jeremy

The only clear thing to me, coming from my laymen’s perspective, is that Kieschnick and his JF allies need to be defeated in the next election. The confessional Lutherans need to find one solid candidate, even if they aren’t 100%, and unite behind them to get control of this denomination out of the hands of those who are bent on destroying all of its traditions and confessions.

The 2001 result was not a ‘favorite son’ phenominum. One of the confessional candidates had been vilified in certain conservative circles and so a group of delegates who had voted for one of the confessional candidates switched to Kieschnick on the last ballot. This was admitted to by several of those delegates, and was noted by several observers at the time. Part of the reason these conservative delegates felt comfortable doing this is because Kieschnick emphasized ‘conservative’ positions in his speech by highlighting all the areas in which neo-evangelicals agree with confessional Lutherans (inerrency, creation, moral issues, etc.). So these delegates thought, “well Kieschnick is really not a liberal, and I don’t want a ‘hypereuro Lutheran’ leading my synod, and we can always vote Kieschnick out in three years….”

I say this not to argue over the past. What is done is done. I bring this up just to be clear about a larger point I’d like to make in your response to your comment about supporting a “list” nominee:

I believe it is fine for confessionals to support different qualified confessional candidates. But we need to follow an “11th Commandment” of NOT ATTACKING EACH OTHER and agree to unite behind whomever is left standing on our side on the last ballot.

If we can accept that 95% is good enough in this arena, then we will win. Conservatives care about ideas and principals. They want 100%. But, in both civil and church politics, conservatives only win when they accept the cold hard truth that – in politics – “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Who does this Kieschnick fellow think he is? What are the confessional Lutherans doing about this? Has there ever been any proposal from the confessional Lutherans to break with LCMS, Inc. to form their own synod that adheres to our confessions and traditions without any guitars, bongos, evangelistic fads, etc?

The more I hear about what they have done to the LCMS over the last seven years, the more shocked and disgusted I become. How on earth did these people get control of the LCMS? How have they been allowed to drive out confessional Lutherans from synod government or make them pariahs in our synod?

Has the LCMS truly become this liberal or is it simply that a handful of liberals, like in all politics and power structures, have simply wormed their way into positions of authority and have now taken over?

This is exactly what happened to the ELCA, the Episcopalian Church, the United Methodists, and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The liberals took control, and then proceeded to destroy the denomination. Sounds to me like the sun is about to set on the LCMS, unless I’m seriously mistaken.

Why not? We need to start putting names out, doing a bit of “vetting” and come up with at least a few names if not one. Without orgainizing we will be stuck with whatever/whoever the JFers put out on their list.