Religious disaster

If I were to mention Sandy Hook, Newtown, Connecticut, it is highly probable that you would be reminded of the school massacre, of 20 kids and half dozen adults. That is how it should be, but unfortunately that is not how it would be, after you have read through this piece.

In the aftermath of the incident, there was an “interfaith prayer service” in the area and a Lutheran pastor Rev. Rob Morris participated in it [1], and all hell seems to have broken loose.

The pastor was brought to his knees and was forced to apologize for violating the sect’s “prohibition against joint worship with other religions”. Which is this sect? It is the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a 2.3-million-member church. Remember this: 2.3 million in a population of more than 300 million – about 0.7%.

The pastor started off gamely in an open letter in his defense, knowing full well that in the end it will be he, not the church that he belonged to, who will eat crow. He mentions how “he had spent hours with his congregation educating them about the differences between Lutheran teaching “and the teachings of false religions such as Islam or Baha’i.” He was establishing his religiosity in his church by downgrading, nay worse than that, calling other religions as false. But, he knew this would cut no ice with the faithful.

Even at the interfaith service, which he is not supposed to have attended and which he calls “community chaplaincy”, he held forth against the false religions by speaking about “Jesus and quoted from the Bible.”  This is still too weak, you would agree. After all, Rev. Morris did not seem to have called the other faiths “false” at this interfaith service. Had he done that, I am sure he would have been sent higher up the hierarchy of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod!

Now, to where he knelt down and kissed the boots of the Synod leaders. “To those who believe that I have endorsed false teaching, I assure you that was not my intent, and I give you my unreserved apologies.” You must understand that he is new at this job, serving his first year of ministry as pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Newtown. Must be a small ministry. Had he been established more at his church and been higher up the hierarchy what would have happened. I will tell you, as reported in the article.

Earlier, in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, “Rev. David H. Benke, the pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Brooklyn and the equivalent of a bishop in the church hierarchy, was suspended from ministry for taking part in a huge interfaith prayer service held at Yankee Stadium.” But read further, “Mr. Benke refused to apologize, and was cleared by a church panel in 2003 and permitted to return to ministry.” I am just speculating that the Synod needed Rev. Benke’s ministry more than it needed the Synod. Oh, I should have been more specific than that: the need is for money.

After all, why would the Synod, in the current instance and after accepting Rev. Morris’s apology have “called on Lutherans upset by what had happened to accept Mr. Morris’s apology and support him and his congregation ‘especially in providing funding for Christ the King as it continues to care for victims.’ [my emphasis].” It is all in the money, wouldn’t you agree?

Remember, the sect has a mailing list of no more than 2.3 million. If people, for whatever reason, become tightfisted the church’s future is doomed.  Though the article says that Lutherans were upset that Rev. Morris attended the interfaith service, I suspect that it is the leadership, headed by the Rev. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the Missouri Synod, that felt that it can use this instance to tighten its grip on the adherents by making an example out of this small ministry and the new pastor. A quick and casual comparison with what happened with Rev. Benke of Brooklyn ministry – which must be bigger than Christ the King in Newtown – will be illustrative.

It is all a matter of money. Rev. Benke was allowed to break the First Commandment — “I am the Lord thy God”. If he was not allowed, Brooklyn goes out taking with it all its money. The Synod played its power and money games with Rev.  Benke, but could not sustain it for much more than a year and few months. But and ironically, allowing Rev. Morris of Newtown the same liberty is also suicidal for the Synod! Today it is Newtown; tomorrow it could be any small town! The fissiparous tendencies would have undermined any efforts at keeping the flock together.

Sandy Hook - religious disaster!

Disaster management in religion is done almost exclusively through inconsistencies like here – size matters, size of your wallet, bank account etc., that is. Spirituality and other such things? Phew!

Raghuram Ekambaram

Reference

1.    Pastor Apologizes to His Denomination for Role in Sandy Hook Interfaith Service, Sharon Otterman, The New  York Times, February 7, 2013