50 years ago, Prof. Klug sounded the alarm: “silence is not only questionable but culpable”

      A year ago the LC-MS celebrated what they called their 175th anniversary.  Of course, that only applies to the Old (German) Missouri Synod. —

      A little over 50 years ago, the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, published a pamphlet that caused one professor in the LC-MS, from Springfield, Illinois, to rise up and loudly warn against it. In June 1973, 50 years ago, in an obscure group of "Book Reviews", appeared an explosive 8-page book review of this St. Louis faculty pamphlet. It was published in the journal The Springfielder. In 2003, CTQ Editor Prof. David P. Scaer stated in his eulogy for the author of that "Book Review", Prof. Eugene E. A. Klug (CTQ 67:3/4, July/October 2003, p. 195): 

“Dr. Klug played a prominent part at the 1973 Denver [sic: New Orleans] Convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in defining the synod's theology in the face of its new definition espoused by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis. Just before that convention, he provided an extensive critique of that faculty's theological position, Faithful to Our Calling, Faithful to our Lord in The Springfielder (37:1 [June 1973], p. 67-74.)”

One may read what Dr. Scaer is referring to in the 1973 New Orleans Convention Proceedings, p. 37, and pp. 133-139, and especially pp. 136-138. 

      Because Prof. Klug's "Book Review" is so pivotal in the history of the LC-MS (perhaps even more so than that of Pres. J. A. O. Preus) during that tumultuous time, I am publishing a polished OCR text version of it with added hyperlinks and highlighting.  But before that, I present a few choice quotes from the pen of Dr. Klug:

• …the vortex of the cauldron that caused synod's pot to boil over and was threatening now to blow things sky high.
• …the faculty had need to account for in a responsible way at this serious juncture in synod’s history, and that they have failed to do
• superficial and subtly inadequate theologizing
• Much of the old familiar language is still there, but with new, unfamiliar, and unwelcome theology.
• …then silence is not only questionable but culpable
• many pastors are willing to let the dust settle as it may, indifferent to what’s going on and how it will come out.
• throwing overboard the only principle which Lutheran theology has ever recognized as authoritative and final in establishing all articles of faith, the Scriptural Word of God
• “Is the faculty position different from what Missouri taught previously? Of course it is.”
• No call for a doxology “of praise and wonder” can hide the spirit of agnosticism which hides behind the veiled language
• The issue turns on this question, whether the Missouri Synod will remain what she was till now, a Confessional evangelical Lutheran church!

Below follows Dr. Klug's full essay:

A DOCX file of the above may be downloaded here.

One may read more of the history of what resulted from Dr. Klug's momentous essay here. — May  this 50th anniversary re-publication of the essay of the dear Prof. Eugene Klug be a guide for readers in judging their own teachers of theology today! Amen!