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DMcFadden · #21 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 02:06 AM

Quote:

While "Issues, Etc." never criticized Mr. Kieschnick or his colleagues, its attacks against shallow church marketing included mention of some approaches embraced by the current leadership. It opposed, for instance, the emergent church -- an attempt to accommodate postmodern culture by blending philosophies and practices from throughout the church's history -- and the Purpose Driven Church movement, which reorients the church's message toward self-help and self-improvement.

This isn't the first time the Missouri Synod has been divided between confessional Lutherans and those enamored with the latest religious fads. In the 1970s, alert confessional laity thwarted a top-down imposition of chic liberal theology in the church's seminaries.

. . . As synod bureaucrats support congregations that hide their Lutheran identity while terminating the strong witness of "Issues, Etc.," members of the denomination are asking if they can have their grandfather's church back.

Sad, just very, very sad. My assistant is the wife of a LCMS pastor. She and her husband love listening to White Horse Inn. My guess is that they were fans of "Issues, Etc." too.

Even with my theological training in the broad evangelical movement and one of my master's degrees in organizational management (with two other certificate programs in cognate fields), this just grosses me out! Maybe we should skip biblical and theological training entirely and just send ordinands off to get their MBAs. Then they could come by their market driven reductionistic techniques honestly.