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Issues, Etc., Etc.
Abstract: Emotions still running high in LCMS after radio show is canceled.
Without much apparent effort, the abrupt cancellation of Issues, Etc., a popular radio program on the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) radio station KFUO has become the occasion for a number of people to vent their frustrations with the direction and leadership (particularly President Gerald Kieschnick) of the LCMS. On March 31, the Wall St. Journal published President Kieschnick's rebuttal to the Journal's March 28 opinion piece titled "Radio Silence." Dr. Kieschnick was adamant that the Synod was unified: " In truth, last summer the LCMS had its most positive and unified convention in years."
But later that day, a friend of ours forwarded an over-amped blog entry that reads in part:
These are dangerous times for Lutherans who have not signed onto Kieschnick's Purpose-Driven Ablaze Movement. The cancellation of the Issues Etc. radio program is proof enough for us that Kieschnick intends to use corporate take over tactics and informational subterfuge to destroy any and all who would dare to question and challenge HIS vision for the LCMS. Therefore, in order to protect ourselves while we shine the light of truth on Kieschnick's agenda so that there can be real debate regarding its merits or lack thereof, we have no choice but to write from behind a mask.
The blog in question is Save the LCMS which proclaims itself to be a "Christ-Centered Cross-Focused Resistance Movement."
Elsewhere, Augsburg1530 ("A grassroots movement to find out why Issues, Etc. was canceled / preserving confessional, sacramental, liturgical Lutheranism") offers Mollie Ziegler Hemingway's response to Pres. Kieschnick's rebuttal letter and also invites interested parties to register for an April 14 demonstration.
There is no shortage of more moderate voices calling for the return of Issues, Etc., but we have to wonder how the show could possibly succeed in this emotionally charged context.
