May 28, 2004, from Pastor Gregory P. Fryer
 
Dear Bishop Stephen:

As gently as I can, and with love and prayer, I want to confess to you that I feel that you and I are not at peace. You have helped me to think things out before, and I hope that God will grant us wisdom now.

A few days have passed since the Assembly, and my distress has cooled some, but I think that there might be some benefit in sharing with you my notes on that middle day, Friday. These notes are fresh and raw, hasty and frustrated, and yet they still express my thoughts. I was so upset by the Friday deliberations that I skipped supper (which is very rare for me), brooded in my room, and jotted down these notes:

Friday, May 21, 2004 Parliamentary procedures so worked out at today's Assembly that Bishop Bouman was asked to take the ancient and honorable seat of the Bishop - a seat that has been occupied by great people of the Church, including St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom. And Bishop Bouman failed. He should have answered, "Dear brothers and sisters, forgive me, I should have spoken as bishop earlier. The resolution we passed yesterday is incompatible with Holy Scripture and so we should reconsider it." At least he should have said, "I am uncertain about the Biblical matter. I beg for more time. Let's table this."

Though I doubt that I would have voted for George Muenich's resolution, because it seemed so harsh to me, nonetheless, I recognize the yearning for holiness in it, and the sorrow and near terror that our synod is losing the Gospel. When the center is not holding, everything else becomes ambiguous. We are losing the Gospel and therefore Evangelism, Stewardship, Seminary Education, Ordinations... everything else becomes uncertain. If our synod is losing the Gospel, for example, then our synod deserves to go bankrupt. It does not deserve a penny. And how can we rejoice that the synod preaches in twenty languages if it is not the Gospel that is preached. And the Bible is the true source, norm, and judge of our proclamation. We are facing a disaster in this synod.

President Krey's claim that all historic decisions of the church involve conflicts in reading the Bible is not good enough. It needs to be said that some readings of the Bible are wrong and that the Church used to have courage enough to say so.

And his announcement that for the next ten years, the Philadelphia Seminary curriculum will focus on the "public witness" of the church in the world, including the political sphere, was awful. I am entirely frustrated by a notion of clergy who would be mini-politicians. It shows deep dishonor for the Priesthood of All Believers. It would pretend to preach to Christians out there in the world who are called by God to actually know something about political matters.

Bishop Bouman, the reference to George Muenich is important to me. George laid before our Assembly two important matters: the testimony from Tanzania against the kind of resolution we passed on Thursday, and the reading from Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pannenberg's position is well-known and very weighty. I do not have George's version at hand, but I do have a similar paragraph from Pannenberg's article in Lutheran Forum, Summer 2001:

Here stands the boundary for any Christian Church which knows itself bound by Scripture. Those who urge the Church to change the norm of her teaching in this question must understand that they are pushing the Church toward schism. For a Church that allows itself to be pressured into regarding homosexual activity as no longer a departure from the Biblical norm, and to recognize homosexual partnerships as a form of personal relationship equivalent to marriage would no longer stand on the foundation of the Scripture but rather in opposition to its unanimous witness. A church that takes such a step has thereby ceased to be an evangelical church in the tradition of the Lutheran Reformation.

The thing that is upsetting to me is that the testimonies from Tanzania and from Pannenberg are matters that concern the episcopal office, but you were silent on them. Your ruling on the constitutional validity of the Thursday resolution was not enough.

I feel deceived by you. You had told me that you agree in almost all details with my vision of the episcopal office. Further, you said that you agreed with me about my critique of the Task Force Study Guide. But you left me out there hanging.

I am just a mess. I admit that I might be so upset that I am all muddled in my thinking. If you can guide us to reconciliation about these matters, that would be great. And if we cannot reach peace, I guess that that is okay too. I have been very, very troubled since 1996 and the disaster of the vote on abortion, yet I have tried to show honor for the office of bishop in our synod (for example, I am very pleased that you come to Immanuel and confirm our parish children) and I do not complain of these matters from the pulpit.

Also, I know that there is a lot of good going on in our synod. I believe that not only is preaching going on in twenty languages or twenty-eight languages, but that it is in fact the precious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ being preached. And of course the establishment of new congregations is good and the call to discipleship is good and the call to stewardship is good, and the strengthening of frail congregations is good. Also, our recent Assembly reveals a marvelous presence and coordination of spiritual gifts, not only in our synod congregations, but in our synod leadership. So I feel that you are close, so very close, to being a great bishop. It's just that to me, that synod assembly felt like we were a flock without a shepherd.

When you have some time, I would be grateful for your thoughts.


Your servant in Christ,
Greg