2017 Sabre Goes to Rev. Dr. Gottfried Martens and Trinity Lutheran Church of Berlin

The Sabre of Boldness for 2017 went to the Reverend Dr. Gottfried Martens and his congregation Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, Germany, for their steadfastness in the face of possible deportations, beatings, and threats of death for conversion to Christianity as over a thousand members of the congregation have come from Persia and other Muslim lands to the joy of knowing and being baptized into Christ.

Pastor Martens was a nominee for the second straight year. He had been pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church in Berlin for many years, a church which has seen hundreds of refugees come in, Muslims seeking the truth and finding it under his preaching and catechesis, being baptized and brought into his congregation. His success among the immigrants has put his name in the German news, and so has put him personally at risk, due to the violence that so easily attaches itself to the Muslim extremists who do not take kindly to losing nearly a thousand converts to Christianity.

Dr. Martens has recently become pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin-Steglitz, which is almost entirely comprised of immigrants who have converted to the Lutheran faith. But the German governmenthas recently begun to deny en masse the refugee claims of many of these converts, following what Dr. Martens is calling deeply flawed refugee hearings. The problem, Dr. Martens says, is that “Many [of those hearing the cases] are manifestly clueless about the situation of Christians in Iran and Afghanistan, and worse yet they are utterly clueless concerning questions relating to the Christian faith. But all of this does not prevent them from assuming the role of self-appointed experts, whose questions ‘unmask’ the supposedly deceitful Iranian asylum applicants one after another, even when those hearing the cases don’t even know the difference between the [Apostle’s] Creed, and the Our Father [Lord’s Prayer].” The challenges come after a year of other difficulties, as converts to Christianity have faced increasing persecution from Muslim refugees angry at their conversions from Islam. Congregational members and candidates for baptism are being attacked, sometimes beaten and threatened them with death, both in Germany and from their homeland to which deportation is threatened The refugees are instructed in the Christian faith prior to baptism—or excluded, if a genuine conversion is not evident. Currently baptisms sit at between 30 and 40 a month.

What the editors have chosen decided for this year is to offer the Sabre of Boldness for 2017 to Rev. Dr. Martens and his congregation, Trinity in Berlin-Steglitz.

Rev. Wilhelm Torgeson, a close acquaintance of Dr. Martens and an adjunct professor at the Lutheran seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario, was on hand to receive the award on their behalf.

Sabre of Boldness Nominees Sought

The Sabre ceremony, with which regular Gottesdienst subscribers are familiar, is in its twenty-second year.  Nominations are hereby invited and encouraged THIS WEEK (ASAP) in anticipation of the Symposia in Fort Wayne January 16th-19th.  

Please submit your nominations via email: full name of nominee, reason for nomination, with as many details as you can, nominee's address, phone number if you have it, and your own name.

The award is given “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity on behalf of the Holy Church of Christ while engaged in the confession of His pure Gospel in the face of hostile forces and at the greatest personal risk.” The degree of the adversity, steadfast resistance to pressures to compromise, heedlessness of threats, and a clear confession of faith are considered.  The slate will close on Tuesday, January 17^th. 

What is the Sabre of Boldness?  – an excerpt from Fr. Eckardt’s Sabre speech in 2003:

The Sabre of Boldness is a venture which has been undertaken annually since 1996 by the editors of Gottesdienst as a gesture, however inadequate, toward the acknowledgment of unsung heroism which sometimes defines the deeds springing from Christian faith.  Maybe you aren’t supposed to know this, but the original idea was not quite so earnest.  If you haven’t already guessed it, the Sabre of Boldness was conceived in a bit of jest.  There was a fully intended and not-too-subtle double-entendre in the awarding of the S. O. B.: the recipient was on the one hand bold in the faith indeed, so much so that for his boldness, on the other hand, he had certainly gained recognition, of the kind not generally sought after, a page in someone’s Who’s Who among the Infamous.  But the Geist of the award very quickly changed, when it became evident that there were not a few readers who had a genuine and very serious desire to stand in solidarity with unsung heroes of the faith; heroes such as we seek to note, ordinary people whose boldness of confession, we imagine, must be recognizable as extraordinary at least to the angels, however unnoticed or even disdained by the masses who prefer to recognize status or reputation in accord with the norms of the world.

Those norms, we hasten to add, are often and routinely used to judge honor not only in the world, but also by people who like to go to church, and even in the judging of churchly matters.  Wherever they see compromise, call it virtue; whenever they find people willing to back down a bit from their principles, they call them wise.  Conversely when they see fidelity and dedication to one’s ideals they call it stubbornness, and when they find someone delaying the whole train just for the sake of conscience they call him a fool.  And since their kind of wisdom resonates well with the wisdom of the world, they sometimes even get lucky enough to find themselves in the world’s craved limelight, where the world in turn calls them wise, honorable, and even holy men.

So it is really no wonder, in retrospect, that this award began to take on such an aura of dignity among our readers, who have always been hungry for things which resonate well with the mind of our holy Christ. After all, He certainly did not fare well according to the wisdom of this world. The world certainly did not account Him virtuous or wise, at least not until after it saw that it would be advantageous to do so. Before that they easily scoffed, and reckoned that His stubborn fidelity to His Father’s ideals brought Him nothing but grief, crucifixion and death. Whoever has the mind of Christ must also acknowledge that what is lovely to the world is an abomination to God, and the world’s rejection or acceptance ought never be the allowed to determine the difference between a fool and a hero of the faith. As it is written, He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Thus the Sabre of Boldness has become our own meager way of saluting not merely its bearer, but anyone who, in however otherwise unnoticed a way, did the very kind of bold deeds that we saw in other heroes of the faith: Moses before Pharaoh, Joshua against the kings of Canaan, or Jael in the tent against Sisera.  The Sabre is fittingly a sword, reminiscent of Gideon’s against the Midianites, Ehud’s against Eglon, or even Goliath’s, against himself in the hands of our David. It signifies most of all the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God against our greatest foe, running him through by the stubborn, unbending, and fierce resolve of our Lord Jesus Christ to endure crucifixion and so to redeem us all. That Sword, in the hands of the Christian warrior, is what produces the kind of spirit which the world and its minions find so annoying, since it is ever so intractable and unyielding. Therefore we salute herewith every Christian who has such a spirit: first of all, those saints in glory for whom martyrdom was preferable to compromise, and after them also any who gave up some claim for worldly adulation, because they deigned instead to do the right thing for conscience’ sake, and closed their ears to the clamor of the world’s folly.

The Sabre certainly does not get any legitimacy from us clumsy louts at Gottesdienst who now find ourselves annually in this awkward position of being a kind of judges’ panel for something which, though we don’t quite feel qualified to judge, we really do consider a very highly honorable and salutary thing to recognize. The highest honor is the honor of suffering for the name of Jesus. He who suffers for Christ is honored already. The Sabre only seeks to emphasize this truth.

Strange Things Are Happening

by Burnell F. Eckardt Jr.

The words of Randy Newman, memorable because of their inclusion in the iconic Disney film Toy Story, come to mind with ease in this surreal year of 2016.

As of early this morning, the Chicago Cubs are World Series Champions, so hell must also have frozen over. 

And this in the midst of a presidential race that is utterly remarkable, pitting Donald Trump, of all people, against Hillary Clinton, of all people. It has been a wild several months, and with days left before the election, we have grown to expect strange new twists each day.

Two years ago we could scarcely have foreseen the possibility of the Cubs ever breaking the curse, and this presidential race is a phenomenon unlike anything I can remember.

So this seems also a fitting year for the Pope to come out and praise Martin Luther when visiting Sweden the other day. He actually said that the doctrine of justification “expresses the essence of human existence before God,” though he didn't say anything about what he meant by that. And granted, this comes from Frank the Hippie Pope (a brilliant moniker from Rev. Hans Fiene), who routinely manages to say things that leaves the curia scrambling in damage-control mode. But still, it is unprecedented that the head of the Catholic Church should speak in such glowing terms, even beyond the sentiments of his predecessor, about Martin Luther. Wasn't he excommunicated, after all, and his books burned?
 

Actually, I'm troubled. 

There was at this gathering an ecumenical prayer service that stressed, among areas of agreement, the need to work for world peace and justice. These strike me as code words, in a way, for an agenda of social reform that is generally bereft of, and sometimes inimical to, the doctrine of the Gospel as we know it. Mention was also made of the importance of being welcoming to immigrants, which, while on the surface sounds just like what Christians ought to do, seems to have politically leftist overtones in harmony with those who are pushing for open national borders. I might not be so cynical were it not for the fact that these matters were brought up in the very context of Martin Luther and justification. At the least it's anachronistic, and at most a gross misrepresentation of things that mattered to him.

I'm also reminded of the agreement that was reached in 1999 when representatives of Rome met with Lutherans and produced a joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, in which it was agreed that "by grace alone, in faith and in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit" (DDJ 15), but at the time I wryly noted, as did many others on both sides, that this was really nothing new, since it did not change either position. Both sides have always agreed that grace alone is the force behind salvation; where they have not agreed is whether or not we may speak of a kind of merit (meritum de condigno is the official term, I believe) that proceeds from grace and enables us to believe: an intervening merit, in a way, between grace and faith. For Luther all talk of merit is out of the question in connection with justification. Not so for Rome, if one carefully parses.

But I don't think anyone involved is thinking too seriously about justification at all.

In any case, this ecumenical fervor that is making "Lutherans" excited about the prospect of a future reconciliation with Rome is actually coming from Scandinavians allied with the likes of such Lutheran World Federation, which is, shall we say, not known for confessional integrity. The Lutheran Church of Finland has actually persecuted confessional Lutheran Pastors in Scandinavia, as Gottesdiensters may well remember. 

So if we indeed are, as the pope put it, to move past "controversies and disagreements that have often prevented us from understanding one another,” then perhaps I may be forgiven if I am led to wonder whether he means moving away altogether from such things as the matter of justification by faith, and on to the the "more important" matters that ecumenical leftists like to talk about. And if this is true, then those of us who might object will quickly be dismissed as being still bound to "fear or bias with regard to the faith which others profess with a different accent and language.”

If the year 2016 is curious, the year 2017 may be curiouser and curiouser, not least because it marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I would not be surprised to see, though I hope I do not see, the emergence of a feigned rapprochement that will leave us who seek a genuine doctrinal unity not only disappointed, but cast aside and even persecuted. It has already happened to some.

Sabre of Boldness goes to Wildner: full story and other nominees

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 21 January 2016.

The 2016 Sabre of Boldness went to Rev. Charles Wildner, now of Abingdon, Maryland, formerly of Baltimore. Rev. Wildner was faithful pastor at St. Thomas in Baltimore for three decades, serving in an inner city parish whose members often had drug addiction problems. He was a Christ figure in the inner city, welcoming the homeless and aimless into his home. When he got married, he developed “Concordia House,” a place for these people to go, to recover, and to receive the Gospel. Recently, while he was away on business, he was, accused of sexual misconduct by a drug addict who didn’t like him. This outrageous and utterly baseless charge has resulted in his suspension from office after a brief investigation interviewing only a few antagonists who had no evidence.  Pastor Wildner served faithfully and tirelessly for well over three decades in the inner city, a veritable picture of Christ among some of the most forgotten people in the land: drug addicts, homeless, destitute people. The baseless charge of impropriety has led suddenly to Pastor Wildner's shameless suspension from office. The editors gladly attest to this man's character and Christian humility, being saddened by the political forces that unjustly took advantage of the situation. We are honored to have the opportunity to burnish his reputation with our own. 

The nearby photo shows, from left to right: Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt, editor-in-chief of Gottesdienst; Rev. Charles McClean of Baltimore, who received the award on Rev. Wildner's behalf; Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer; Dr. Daniel Johansson from the Lutheran School of Theology in Gothenburg, Sweden; Dr. Chris Barnekov of Scandanavia House in Fort Wayne (both of these men representing the Scandanavian nominees), and Chaplain (Colonel) Jonathan Shaw, who is Gottesdienst's Sabre of Boldness editor.  There were seven other nominees, each of whom we also count worthy of honor for their dedication to duty and boldness in the face of evil. They were:

Rev. Michael Kearney, Pastor at St. Paul’s in Alden, Iowa. He has only served  for about a year and a half, but when he arrived, he immediately had to deal with some cohabitation problems in his parish. He dealt with them pastorally and clearly, stating that a cohabitating couple must not think they could simply rectify their impropriety by getting married, but by repenting of their sin. This led to some unsavory treatment of the young pastor, but, we have been advised, has also led to some God-pleasing repentance.

Rev. Annsi Simojoki of Finland. Rev. Dr. Anssi Simojoki, together with four other pastors, was defrocked by the Cathedral Chapter (the governing body) of the Archdiocese of Turku in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. His crime: participation in the life and work of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland. They are not seen in a favorable light by the Cathedral Chapter in Finland because they do not support the ordination of women, and they uphold the vows of their own ordination into the Pastoral Office.

Rev. Rogner Block of Sweden. Similarly to Rev Simojoki, Rev. Block was defrocked in Sweden because of his participation in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese, and also, similarly, because he could not support the ordination of women, a matter the State Churches could not tolerate. He and Rev. Simojoki have preached the Gospel, administered the Sacrament, heard confessions in congregations which had no pastors.

Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dr. Scaer has worked tirelessly in support of the unborn, both within and outside the church, lobbying politically for the upholding of their right to life, and preaching within the church on the need to do so. His efforts have been ceaseless for several years now, and he is recognized as one of our clearest voices on behalf of the unborn who have no voice of their own.

Rev. Brian Hamer, formerly of Flushing, New York. UPDATE (our original information was not entirely accurate): Rev. Hamer, a faithful pastor for over a decade in New York, was recently removed from serving as chaplain to his own congregation's school without cause, by district officials working behind his back and in collusion with congregational antagonists, as part of an ongoing effort to run him out of town. He never wavered in his commitment to his call, but last year he finally  took a call from the LCMS Board for International Mission to full-time military chaplaincy in the Navy.

Rev. President Terry Forke, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Harowtown, Montana, and President of the Montana District. President Forke was instrumental in finally bringing a resolution to the flagrant false teachings of Dr. Matthew Becker of Valparaiso. Dr. Becker, still unrepentant, has at last been removed from the LCMS.

Rev. Gottfried Martens of Berlin, Germany.  Rev. Martens has been pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church in Berlin for many years, a church which has seen hundreds of refugees come in, Muslims seeking the truth and finding it under his preaching and catechesis, being baptized and brought into his congregation. His success among the immigrants has put his name in the German news, and so has put him personally at risk, due to the violence that so easily attaches itself to the Muslim extremists who do not take kindly to losing nearly a thousand converts to Christianity. Yet his efforts continue unabated. 

Sabre Nominations Still Open

Sabre Nominations Still Open

Next week, during the Symposia at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, we at Gottesdienst have plans to announce the recipient of our prestigious Sabre of Boldness award, in the student commons after the Symposia banquet, on Thursday, January 23^rd.

The Sabre ceremony is in its nineteenth year.  The list of recipients includes parish pastors, district presidents, bishops, some well known and some unsung heroes of the faith, and, as of last year, a lay woman. 

Nominations are invited.  The award is given “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity on behalf of the Holy Church of Christ while engaged in the confession of His pure Gospel in the face of hostile forces and at the greatest personal risk.” Submit a nomination to Fr. Eckardt via e-mail or in person at the Symposia (until Tuesday, January 21st, when the slate will close).  State the name, address, and telephone number of the nominee and the reasons why he or she is a fitting choice for Sabre Bearer.  The degree of the adversity, steadfast resistance to pressures to compromise, heedlessness of threats, and a clear confession of faith are considered.  

A Letter from Rev. Gizynski, a 2012 Sabre Nominee

Rev. Richard G. Gizynski
Ebenezer Ev. Lutheran Church
Chicago, Illinois 60623-1347

February 29, 2012

Gottesdienst

c/o St. Paul's Lutheran Church 109 South Elm Street Kewanee, Illinois 71443

Dear Rev. Eckardt,

I was gladdened to receive you latest correspondence. Not because of the gift, although I am grateful for that, but because I had misplaced the address so that I could make this reply.

I was honored to have been nominated for the Sabre of Boldness award. Even more so, I was humbled. I do not consider my service to the saints of Ebenezer an act of boldness nor of courage. Rather, I see it as my duty to Christ who brought me here to tend this flock.

We often speak of the doctrine of the Call these days. It can be argued that it is under attack from many fronts. But it is my belief in this doctrine that has led me to endure, for the most part joyfully and even happily, here at Ebenezer despite the challenges that are faced by the congregation collectively and by myself individually.

The tale of my journey to Ebenezer is a long and convoluted one, but I am utterly convinced that God brought me here. The tale of my tenure at this parish is equally complex and curious. God has sustained this congregation in ways inexplicable and unpredictable. The faithful of Ebenezer will continue to gather around his Word and sacraments, and I will continue to serve them until God reveals his will otherwise.

The love shown to me by those who have heard some of the tale is truly and deeply appreciated. Your gifts have helped sustain me bodily and have lifted me up in my spirit. I see this providence as further proof of God's will for my being here and for the ministry of this church. I am indeed blessed.

It is my prayer that all who labor in the Lord fully realize and appreciate his providential nature. May all know his blessings even as he uses them to be a blessing to others.

Peace and Joy in Christ,

Rev. Richard G. Gizynski

Rev. Paul Rydecki Receives Sabre of Boldness 2012

On Thursday night, January 19, 2012, Rev. Paul Rydecki, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Las Cruces,  New Mexico, was selected from among six nominees for the 2012 Sabre of Boldness.  The Sabre has been awarded by the editors of Gottesdienst for seventeen years. Originally slated to be held at La Quinta Hotel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the ceremony was moved to the commons at Concordia Theological Seminary due to the threat of inclement weather.  As it turned out, this also made matters more convenient for attendees at the seminary's Symposium banquet the same night.  The Sabre ceremony was held shortly after the banquet's conclusion.

Rev. Rydecki is a founding member of Intrepid Lutherans, a blog (www.intrepidlutherans.com) which serves as an online forum to “promote, support, and where necessary, encourage a restoration of confessional Lutheranism within the Wisconsin Synod.” He was given the award for his steadfast willingness to publish the Intrepid Lutherans blog, in spite of the hardships that he has incurred because of it. 

The Sabre Ceremony was recorded, and the link to the audio is here.

There were five other nominees, all of whom the editors consider most worthy of the award, and whom we wish to honor as well.  They are listed here below.

1. Rev. David Kind is pastor of the Univ. Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis.  The chapel is being sold by the district’s Board of Directors.  Fr. Kind has remained faithful in the face of hardship and opposition to this important campus mission.

2. Rev. Richard Gizynski is pastor of Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Chicago.  This church and its parsonage are in the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, one of the most economically, depressed, crime, drug and gang ridden areas in Chicago. Today the church and parsonage are for sale because of the congregation’s poverty. He has not been paid in months, and faces potential homelessness, but he remains committed to serving his congregation faithfully, as he has done for years, for as long as he is able.

Due to this troubling situation, the editors deemed it proper to set up a fund for the purpose of providing Pastor Gizynski with aid.  In addition to funds collected the night of the ceremony, we have established the capability for donors to contribute online, at our regular Gottesdienst website under "Make a donation." Be sure to list Pastor Gizynski in the "Purpose" box.  The link is here.

3. Rev’d Jonathan L. Jenkins, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lebanon Pennsylvania, practices confessionally orthodox worship and has stood up for the faith in the face of secularization and revision of the faith in the ELCA. He has organized Lutherans Reform! in Central Pennsylvania and has been a strong voice for orthodox Lutheranism.

4. Rev. Donavon Riley, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Webster, Minnesota, is under extreme stress as his eldest son, Owen, age 9 has fluid on his brain which threatens to push the cerebellum into the spinal column and will most likely require brain surgery. At the same time, his wife is pregnant and has developed gestational diabetes. Yet he continues to post both to his own blog “The First Premise” (http://thefirstpremise.blogspot.com/) and co-edit the blog Gnesio (http://gnesiolutheran.com/, and carry out a full schedule of regular duties.  Meanwhile his church has suffered financial difficulty and he himself has faced criticism for his unwavering preaching of the Theology of the Cross and fidelity to the Gospel.

5. Provost Gert Kelter of the SELK (our German sister church), pastor of the Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, is a powerful orthodox force among the leadership of the SELK as one of the four supervisory clerics under the bishop.  He has been severely criticized and threatened for a straightforward piece he has published in Logia regarding the Islamic surge in Europe.  He has consistently been the confessional voice in the SELK.

Sabre of Boldness Nominees Sought

Nominations for the 2012 Sabre of Boldness Bearer are invited.  The award is given “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity on behalf of the Holy Church of Christ while engaged in the confession of His pure Gospel in the face of hostile forces and at the greatest personal risk.”  Please submit a signed nomination to Fr. Eckardt via E-mail.  Simply state the name, address, and telephone number of the nominee and the reasons why he or she is a fitting choice for Sabre Bearer.  The degree of the adversity faced by the nominee, a demonstration of steadfast resistance to pressures to compromise the truth of the Gospel, heedlessness of threatened personal consequences, and a clear confession of the truth at stake are considered.  The slate of nominees will close on Wednesday, January 18^th, 2012.  Then the editors of Gottesdienst will meet privately to make their selection.

 The Sabre ceremony is slated to be held Thursday night, January 20th, following the symposium banquet, at La Quinta Inn and Suites, on 2902 East Dupont Road in Fort Wayne.

Sabre of Boldness Recipients

1996 The Reverend Peter C.  Bender
1997 The Reverend Jonathan G. Lange
1998 The Reverend Dr. Edwin S.  Suelflow
1999 The Reverend Gary V. Gehlbach
2000 The Reverend Peter M. Berg
2001 The Reverend Dr. John C. Wohlrabe
2002 The Reverend Erich Fickel
2003 The Reverend Dr. Wallace Schulz
2004 The Reverend Charles M. Henrickson
2005 The Reverend Edward Balfour

2006 Bishop Walter Obare

2007 The Reverend Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn

2008 The Reverend Aaron Moldenhauer

2009 The Reverend Juhana Pohjola

2010 The Right Reverend Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn

2011 The Reverend Brian Saunders

IDE Pres. Brian Saunders Receives Sabre of Boldness

The Sabre of Boldness for 2011 has been awarded to Iowa District East President Brian Saunders, for his tireless efforts to in seeking to obtain calls for the 21 men from Concordia Theological Seminary who did not receive them at the April 28, 2010 call service. Pres. Saunders took more CTS candidates into his district than any other district, and has set a fine example for the other members of the Missouri Synod Council of Presidents in doing so.

The ceremony, which followed the Concordia Theological Seminary banquet, was held at the La Quinta Hotel in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gottesdienst Sabre of Boldness columnist Chaplain (Colonel) Jonathan Shaw made introductory remarks to explain what the Sabre was, using several battle images of faith from the Psalter. He then introduced Gottesdienst chief editor Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt, who spoke further on the award and its meaning (see the text of his remarks below), and then announced the nominees and the winner, Pres. Saunders, who was present to receive the award. Pres. Saunders also spoke briefly to the crowd following his reception of the award.

There were seven other nominees: Pastor Rob Jarvis, of Minnesota, for his confessional convictions for which he has endured severe hardships, and following which he has come down with cancer; Bishop Roland Gustafsson and Auxiliary Bishop Matti Valsanen, both of the Mission Province in Sweden and Finland, for their strong confession in the face of the hostile Scandinavian Church and the hardships they have endured due to that confession; Rev. Jonathon Fisk, for his faithfulness in spite of parish hardships, and his boldness in his Internet confession of faith in his Worldview Everlasting videos; Rev. Ari Norro of Finland, for enduring “discrimination” penalties of the Finnish Supreme Court because he refused to acknowledge women as pastors; Rev. Olav Lyngmo of Norway, for his stance against homosexuality against the church body and a civil trial which ruled against him, resulting in personal hardships; Rev. Michael Grieve of Illinois, for his continued faithfulness in the face of perpetual grief from one of the congregations of his dual parish.

Here follows the text of Dr. Eckardt’s remarks:

“This is the sixteenth annual Sabre of Boldness ceremony. That means we have been at this since 1996, when some of the seminarians here were in fifth grade.

“It all started out rather like an illegitimate child: over drinks in a dimly lit hotel room at a Holiday Inn not far from here. It was conceived in a spur-of-the-moment bit of rather spontaneous and reckless thinking, as many of you are already aware; and for all intents and purposes nothing was really expected to amount from it, as is the case with all one-night . . . events. And the award itself is the child of the editors of Gottesdienst, a disreputable crowd by their own standards, to say nothing of the standards of the folks who perambulated the high places in St. Louis in those days. It bears remembering that the double-entendre of the S. O. B. award has always meant that its recipient, for all his boldness in the faith, is likely already to have gained for himself a kind of notoriety not generally sought after, placing him in the lower ranks, among the sons of . . . men.

“The Sabre of Boldness really should not have survived. It had too much going against it. Not only did its origin suggest trouble for it; there were calls for it to be set aside, even from among people we admire. Friendly fire, as it were. It has been, to borrow a phrase from Paul Simon, slandered, libeled, it’s heard words it never heard in the Bible.

But, to borrow another phrase, from blessed saint Paul, behold, it lives! It’s sixteen, going on seventeen! – to borrow yet another phrase, from Oscar Hammerstein.

“The list of recipients over the past fifteen years contains some pretty illustrious names, too. It includes a District President (Rev. Edwin Suelflow), a Lutheran Hour Speaker (Dr. Wallace Schulz), a renowned theologian (Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn), and Bishop Walter Obare of Kenya, to name just a few. The current bearer, The Right Reverend Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn, is president of the Lutheran Church of Ghana. So the award has people, as they say.

“Back in 2006, when we gave the Sabre to Bishop Obare, his reception of it was immediately hailed by members and friends of the Mission Province in Sweden, which he supports, and a Swedish press release declared that ‘The Sabre of Boldness is given annually to a Lutheran who has taken a stand for the Gospel in a courageous manner and thereby has encountered threats and persecution’; and then there’s this: ‘Gottesdienst is the journal of the Missouri Synod.’

“I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall at the IC in St. Louis, when they first got wind of that one. ‘What? Who?? How could Gottesdienst have replaced our prized Lutheran Witness and The Reporter all in one day? How has this happened? Who are these renegades, who appointed them to speak for us, and why are copies of this confessional rag showing up everywhere? Hey! You there! What are you doing spreading copies of Gottesdienst in this building? Hey! Come back here! Hey! Heyyyyy!’

“I’m also reminded of a lecture by the Professor Dr. Kurt Marquart, of blessed memory, back in 2005, in which he sought to explain what Gottesdienst means. The Gottesdienst eds were sitting together near the back of the room, and I remember seeing heads at once turning in our direction to get our reaction; which suggested to me that our journal has succeeded to some degree in debunking even Dr. Marquart’s definition, simply by virtue of its popularity. Why, Gottesdienst does not simply mean worship! It’s the name of this journal! Who cares what else it means!

“And of course it’s this journal which has produced the Sabre, which has produced fifteen recipients to date.

“But this award is not about us or about them, really. It’s about all the unsung heroes of the faith which are routinely missed, in the handing out of awards. There’s a little lapel pin we give to the recipient, because we don’t have the cash to hand out real sabers, and the pin has two crossed sabers: one for the recipient, and the other for all those heroes who go unmentioned, because we don’t know them. They confess the faith, they persist, they don’t back down, and for it they suffer. In some cases the suffering is quite physical, such as North Korea, China, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Sudan – places you should all add to your congregation’s Sunday prayer list – where people are brutalized and killed by angry mobs who cannot abide their Christian confession. In other cases, it’s more subtle, though no less real: the loss of livelihood or the threat of it, the loss of friends or status, or the loss of reputation, something the catechism tells us is one of the worst things you can lose. They get the sniffed-at treatment, the turned up noses, the complaints that they are evil, malignant, or insufferable, all because they would not compromise the faith they knew to be right, in the face of sometimes tremendous pressures from without and within. They’re people like Moses, with enemies like the sons of Korah, who rise against them and say, “You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: why then do you lift up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?” And like Moses, they humbly suffer such abuse, and perhaps wish they could be somewhere else, or do something else, but they know that they cannot be unfaithful to their Lord. And they’re all over the place, indeed all over the world, and they silently suffer for their faith. And we salute them all tonight.

“That’s what the Sabre is about, really. But we do like to choose one bearer, to carry it, as it were, each year, on behalf of them all.”


Bearers of the Sabre

2011 The Reverend Dr. Brian Saunders
2010 The Right Reverend Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn
2009 The Reverend Juhana Pohjola
2008 The Reverend Aaron Moldenhauer
2007 The Reverend Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn
2006 Bishop Walter Obare
2005 The Reverend Edward Balfour
2004 The Reverend Charles M. Henrickson
2003 The Reverend Dr. Wallace Schulz
2002 The Reverend Erich Fickel
2001 The Reverend Dr. John C. Wohlrabe
2000 The Reverend Peter M. Berg
1999 The Reverend Gary V. Gehlbach
1998 The Reverend Dr. Edwin S. Suelflow
1997 The Reverend Jonathan G. Lange
1996 The Reverend Peter C. Bender

The LCMS and Women's "Ordination"

By Larry Beane

One of the great things the LCMS has been doing over the last several years is forging international contact, and in some cases, agreements, with confessional Lutheran churches around the world.  Concordia Theological Seminary - Fort Wayne has been on the cutting edge in fostering struggling Lutherans the world over with the provision of theological education, as in the heroic and ambitious Russian Project (see "For the Life of the World," Dec 1997 article on page 10) led by Rev. Dr. Tim Quill.  In fact, we're finally seeing what appears to be the blossom of full altar and pulpit fellowship with the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, as we have now declared doctrinal agreement with that church after many years of talks, often peppered with seemingly ridiculous bureaucratic dithering on the part of the previous LCMS leadership.

Those days appear to be over, and thankfully so!

When it comes to supporting churches around the world, the LCMS brings great strengths to the table: sound theological education, a rigorous confessional reputation, and money.  It is a great boon to be recognized and nurtured by the LCMS.  And as a result, we Americans are able to help traditional and confessional Lutheranism to spread and thrive around the world.  And as is always the case, our brothers and sisters the world over provide us with shining examples of faithfulness in distress, and courage under fire, that in turn serve to inspire and support the evangelical and catholic faith in other places as well.

One of the things we should have learned from all of these international contacts is just how dangerous and evil women's "ordination" is.  It is not simply an aberration, a speedbump to unity, bad practice, or something to be tolerated.  Rather, it is a Satanic cancer that has infected the Body of Christ and, as former Church of Sweden "pastor" Ulla Hindbeck argues, something that will "lead people directly to condemnation."

The current angst and uproar over the approval of homosexuality in many worldwide Lutheran bodies is traceable to the movement to "ordain" women.  Scandinavian Lutherans led the way in the late 1940s, with Sweden beginning to "ordain" its first women in 1960.  The mockery of traditional vocations regarding human sexuality went so far as explicit and blasphemous pornography depicting Jesus and the disciples as homosexuals being displayed in the Swedish Cathedral at Uppsala with the blessing of Archbishop K.G. Hammar - only 38 years after the first female "ordinations."

In every country where confessional Lutheranism has been persecuted from within, women's "ordination" is not only a common practice, but is the touchstone and the fountainhead.  For the hierarchy of the Church of Sweden, women's "ordination" is the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.  Candidates for holy ministry must take communion from the hand of a priestess in order to prove fealty.  Since the repeal of the "conscience clause" in 1982, there have been restrictions against ordination and against pastoral promotion for opponents of women's "ordination."  The glass ceiling in such feminist-dominated church bodies applies only to male ministers who still believe in Holy Scripture.

The Scandinavian glass ceiling was at last broken in 2005, when Kenya's archbishop Walter Obare (Sabre of Boldness 2006) boldly consecrated Arne Olsson to be a Mission Province bishop for the persecuted faithful in captivity within the apostate Church of Sweden. Bishop Obare's support of Biblical Christianity in Sweden initiated a firestorm of controversy including this courageous exchange with the aforementioned Archbishop Hammar a year before Bishop Olsson's consecration.  Archbishop Obare's resistance has had felicitous results for the faith.  One of the consequences is that Finland likewise now has a Mission Province bishop and a route to priestly ordination for faithful candidates for ministry (for the first time in a decade) in defiance of a Mother Church that has come to resemble an ecclesiastically nightmarish version of an abusive "Mommie Dearest."

Even though the LCMS doesn't "ordain" women, there is a toleration for those who accept it, or even agitate for it.  And even among those who believe W"O" is wrong, there are many who accept its validity to some degree or another.  I wonder how many pastors and laypeople in the LCMS realize just how evil this deviant theology - which veers from both Scripture and ancient catholic tradition - truly is.

This is one reason I had written this objection two years ago to LCMS ties to the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia.  Such arrangements are confusing, especially to young church workers, who are put into a situation that appears to be endorsement of female clerics.  One person read my blog and confessed to me that she had spent a year in Slovakia as a young "missionary" - sent by the LCMS - and that she took "communion" from a female "minister" the entire time, never having been informed that this was wrong.

This should not be.

I am greatly concerned that even within the conservative LCMS, there may be an underlying agenda to "normalize" the abomination of women "pastors" in Christian churches - or at very least, encourage us to see it as a minor evil.  And I am also concerned that such an agenda may take advantage of the goodwill of genuinely confessional pastors and faithful synodical officials when it comes to cooperation with sects that endorse the Satanic practice of female "ordination."

I'm concerned that we might be playing with fire here.

It is one reason I'm not personally comfortable with any cooperation with the ELCA - not even in matters like malaria prevention.  For no cause - no matter how genuine and noble - is worth the spiritual harm of exposing faithful LCMS pastors and laypeople to the specter of women wearing clerical collars and answering to "pastor."  We still have such cooperation in joint LCMS-ELCA schools, chaplaincy, the aforementioned malaria project, and Thrivent.  Membership in the latter includes a subscription to a magazine that shamelessly uses "Pastor" and "Rev." before the names of women and will show pictures of collared women without any hint that this is a diabolical ruse to confuse the faithful and to mock God's Word and the Incarnate One.

This is why I am concerned with the recent announcement of the LCMS signing a working agreement with the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, which claims to ordain women.  This is not altar and pulpit fellowship, but rather a call for the "two churches to have regular contact between the church leadership, the holding of theological lectures and convocations, and invitations to each other's theological presentations" as well as "cooperation in diakonal work."

I am really concerned about unintended consequences here.  How will this be interpreted?

Now, it may well be that the Silesian practice of W"O" is actually being mothballed, and it is going to take time to back out of it.  I hope this is the case.  This happened with the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, with which the LCMS shares fellowship, and it was a rare example of putting the toothpaste of female "ordination" back into the tube.  While there are "pastors" emeriti (emeritae?) in Latvia who lack the biological necessities for ministry, they have all been removed from any active service in the church.  The Latvian archbishop and leadership is strongly biblical and confessional, and they did overcome the burden of W"O" imposed on them in their days as a Soviet Socialist Republic.

Perhaps this is the case with Silesia.  I would feel a lot more comfortable if our own church leadership would clarify this matter.  I am in no position to speak for the many heroic Lutherans around the world who are struggling to remain faithful and who are looking to the LCMS for leadership and support, but I am reasonably certain that the last thing they would want to see is an LCMS even appearing to "go wobbly" in the face of the feminist juggernaut of western culture.

I am certainly not arguing that our current administration is in any way sympathetic to women's "ordination."  Nothing could be more clear than our synodical leadership's thoughtful and articulate opposition.  My question is one of policy.  I am just wondering out loud if this is the right thing to do.  Perhaps it is, and I hope it is!  I would love to be able to support this arrangement, but for now, I'm afraid the jury is out.

We live in a messy, fallen world.  Perhaps such "working agreements" are the best way to move forward and to bolster our more conservative brothers and sisters.  But there is also the real possibility that this only serves to give less than a clear confession to the world regarding something as foundational as the office of the holy ministry.

Finnish Lutherans Have a Faithful Bishop

by Larry Beane

Just nine days after the (Lutheran) Church of Finland elected an archbishop that approves of church blessings of same-sex couples, faithful Lutherans in Finland who believe in Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions now have a confessional and faithful bishop, the 75-year old Matti Väisänen.

Bishop Arne Olsson of Sweden's Mission Province consecrated Bishop Väisänen this past Saturday (March 20), and Sabre of Boldness recipient (2006) Bishop Walter Obare of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya preached the sermon. The newly-consecrated bishop studied at Concordia Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1963. And thanks to his consecration at the Sacred Heart Chapel in Helsinki, faithful Finnish candidates for the office of the holy ministry will be able to be ordained to the diaconate and the priesthood for the first time since 2001.

In the photo above, Sabre of Boldness recipient (2009) Fr. Juhana Pohjola, is standing right behind the bishop's crosier (the third man from the right). In the photo below, Bp. Obare gives Bp. Väisänen a blessing. Fr. Pohjola is the first man from the left.

Thanks be to God for the courageous work of the faithful pastors and laity in Scandinavia, who serve Christ and the Gospel in spite of the fiery darts of the evil one. Let us keep these brothers and sisters in Christ in our prayers, even as their example inspires us and stirs us to faithful service of our Lord and His Church.

For more information and photos, see Dr. Chris Barnekov's outstanding article here at the Scandinavia House website.

Sabre Recipient Replies

Rt. Rev. Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn, President of the Lutheran Church of Ghana, received the 2010 Sabre of Boldness award on January 21st, 2010, as we reported several weeks ago. The ceremony included a special military-style toast to absent comrades, given by Chaplain (Col.) Jonathan Shaw, editor of the "Sabre of Boldness" column, following which Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt, editor-inc-chief of Gottesdienst, announced the nominees and the winner. Dr. Eckardt's remarks at the ceremony are here.

Dr. Fynn has recently replied to us. His letter:

January 29, 2010

Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt,
Editor-in-Chief, Gottesdienst

Dear Rev. Dr. Eckardt,

We just received the welcome email of January 23, 2010. I appreciate that very much. I take this opportunity to first, thank God and your Board members for honouring me with the Sabre of Boldness award.

As you well know the work we do is by God’s grace and by His power. Through this that we are able to perform whatever He wants us to do. By ourselves we cannot do anything. We continue to thank God for the faith He has created in us so that by His Spirit we will be able to proclaim God’s word in its purity. We continue to pray for strength to enable us share both Law and Gospel so that by His spirit many people will come to know Jesus Christ.

Once again thank you for honouring me. We hope we will be able to work together in future.

In Christ

Rev. Dr. Paul Kofi Fynn
Bishop



Dr. Eckardt's remarks at the ceremony:

Welcome to the fifteenth annual Sabre of Boldness ceremony. It may interest you to know that there are some rules which govern this event, and we try to maintain them strictly.

First, we shamelessly insist that every nominee for the Sabre must be a subscriber to Gottesdienst. But before you get riled up about that, you should know that we offer complimentary subscriptions to every nominee, lest you think this whole event is some kind of marketing gimmick. To be sure, we do think we have some pretty cool marketing gimmicks, but this is not one of them.

Second, we don’t try to give the award to someone who refuses it, which has happened: generally when it is misunderstood as an attempt to flatter someone, who might then mistakenly say, “No, no, I don’t want to be part of any self-congratulations cadre.”

Which brings us to rule number three: we do not allow anyone on the Gottesdienst editorial board to be a nominee. We are humbled by the occasional attempts which have been made to nominate us, but reminded that this award was originally—fifteen years ago—conceived in jest, and there was at first another meaning to the S. O. B. acronym. And that first meaning is the kind of deprecation we feel is probably more appropriate to ourselves.

Fourth, and this one is really important: the Sabre of Boldness is not given to the kind of person we have determined to be most worthy of all, because we know we could never make such an assessment. The Sabre lapel pin is actually two crossed sabers: one for the recipient, and the other—which is really the more important—is for all the unrecognized heroes of the faith we wish to honor. The recipient wears the pin on their behalf. We could not possibly know who they all are, but we know they are legion.

Most important among them are those who have become martyrs for the faith, who were deemed worthy by Almighty God to suffer to the point of blood. Here we could speak of Deacon Joseph Mabior, who last August became the victim of the violent Islamist campaign against Christians in South Sudan, when attackers rushed at him and shot him twice in the legs. Or we could speak of thirty men and women from the town who covered him with their own bodies in a failed attempt to protect him. All thirty died. Or the 185, mostly women and children, who also died in militia attacks there last August, apparently for no other reason than that they were Christians (World, November 7, 2009, 52-53).

Or of seven family members in Pakistan who died in August, six of them burned to death by a taunting Muslim mob that had broken into their house and shot the grandfather dead, just because they were Christians, part of the tiny Christian minority there. Or of the Christians in Iran who are routinely persecuted and ordered by government officials to renounce their faith and return to Islam.
Or the community of 350 Christians in Algeria, where Muslim extremists tried to prevent them with death threats from celebrating Christmas in their rented building only last month.

We could go on to stories from Laos, Nigeria, Indonesia, China, and elsewhere. And these are only the ones that make the news. If we are to believe the data from World Christian Database, there are in the world over 450 Christian martyrs daily on average.

Listen, the Sabre of Boldness is most especially meant to be about them, not us. And to remind us of the true nature of Christian confession—martyria in the Greek—lest we forget, amid the luxuries of American Christian freedom.

So here, in our own little way, we just pick somebody out from among us, to bear the Sabre this year, mostly for them.

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