"Why I Left the Missouri Synod"; weeping, robbed! (Part 2a)

[2019-08-06: added a 2nd link to Scharlemann at bottom in red]
      This continues from Part 1, an update and review of past blog posts.

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50 Years Ago — Just Like Today

Siegbert Becker
"Why I Left the Missouri Synod"

       The real eye-opener in my review of old blog posts was to again read the biograghies of Prof. Siegbert Becker and his explanation for "Why I Left the Missouri Synod".  As I read his history published 50+ years ago of the fall of the LC-MS from its teaching on the inspiration of Holy Scripture, (and against Prof. Martin H. Scharleman) it seemed that I was reading about today's LC-MS and its current fall regarding the heretical teaching of Prof. Jeffrey Kloha.  One quote (p. 6 of 26) exposes just how bad things can get in the LC-MS, then and now:

"Students came to me weeping and saying that they did not know what to believe any more. They told me of girls lying on their beds sobbing for hours and so disturbed that they wanted to quit school and the church because they were being robbed of their assurance of salvation."

I like those words "weeping", "sobbing", "robbed".  Weeping and tears… just as C.F.W. Walther spoke of a lady in tears in a footnote to his 1886 Foreword in Lehre und Wehre where he reported on the Dorpat professors Volck, Mühlau, Harnack, etc. and their blasphemous disavowal of the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. (See also 1886 Synodical Conference.) On pages 2-3 Walther reported it was

"heard from Dorpat about the painful complaint that many have been confused and grieved. A lady had said with tears about the Bible: "I can not read it anymore!"

Becker's clear-headed assessment confirms a statement made by Franz Pieper in his Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1 (see this blog post):

"The fact that the denial of inspiration leads to the denial of the satisfactio vicaria was already realized in his [Delitzsch's] time..."

The new (English) LC-MS has robbed its youth, its people of the Bible – which is "their assurance of salvation".  I want to republish what the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary republished from the series originally published in Herman Otten's Lutheran News (now Christian News). Google Doc here.


I cannot leave this essay without calling attention to at least one quote from the dear Dr. Becker. In a letter to A. O. Fuerbringer, president of Concordia Seminary, Becker wrote:

M. H. Scharlemann

"...only those who are deliberately and culpably blind cannot fail to see it. If we let him [Martin H. Scharlemann, 2019-08-06 added link] continue his attacks on Scripture today, we will have no Christ tomorrow."

Concordia Historical Institute (CHI) ran a 5-part serial essay from Summer 2011 to Summer 2012 in their Historical Footnotes publication entitled “Dr. Martin H. Scharlemann: A Faithful Servant”. Purporting to tell us the story of "A Faithful Servant", it entirely ignored the famous report of Prof. Siegbert Becker and its wonderful rebukes of Scharlemann and President Behnken. At least CHI ended their series (p. 7) with the telling question:

“Will the real Martin Scharlemann please stand up.”

As I read Siegbert Becker's great testimony 50 years ago on the travesty within the hemorrhaging LC-MS, I could not help thinking of the recent testimony of a layman against a well-known LC-MS leader... in the next Part 2b.