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WA board member responds to editor of The Lutheran
from Dr. Frederick Baltz (Pastor, St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Galena, IL)
News: July 7, 2007
July 6, 2007
Daniel J. Lehmann, Editor
The Lutheran
8765 West Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631
Dear Mr. Lehmann:
Thank you for including news and comment about the WordAlone Network convention in The Lutheran. You are quite right that the issues held up by WordAlone and other reform organizations represented in Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform) need to be addressed.
I must, however, disagree with the portrayal of WordAlone in your editorial. 
As reported in Gayle Aldrich's article, Professor Karl Donfried did indeed speak of a "cancer spreading through the ELCA," but he spoke as a highly esteemed academic voice from beyond the Network, and he directed his words against ideas, not people. Professor Donfried was making a distinction between two currently competing methods of hearing Scripture, the Trinitarian method which is about redemption through the cross of Christ, and a new "alien hermeneutics" that substitutes accepting people without transforming them. The stakes couldn't be higher! Powerful words are in order!
WordAlone members are concerned that Scripture is being misused on a broad scale to the detriment of the proclamation of the true Gospel. Meanwhile, the ELCA lost 80,000 members in one year. The issues of the WordAlone Network are hardly "exaggerated hairsplitting."
Sincerely,
Frederick W. Baltz
St. Matthew Lutheran Church
Galena, Illinois
Board Member of the WordAlone Network