Early this morning, on my Facebook page, I posted the below review of Randy Boyagoda's 2015 biography of Richard John Neuhaus. Observations about the ALPB are included.
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Neuhaus edited the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau’s Forum Letter for years until he became Roman Catholic. The New York City area-based ALPB is a lackluster pan-Lutheran group that can barely if at all articulate why it continues to exist. The ALPB is pretty lukewarm doctrinally (AND IT'S NOT GOOD TO BE LUKEWARM – Revelation 3:16). Several other ALPB leaders joined Neuhaus in becoming Roman Catholic. Like Neuhaus and First Things, ALPB can have its moments, but not very often. It’s barely hanging on. Membership in churches can increase or decrease for good or bad reasons, but the member numbers of ALPB-influenced Lutheran churches have been dropping like a rock and figure to continue to do so.
As the current Executive Director of the ALPB, I am happy to respond to your criticism and use it as an opportunity to expound on who the ALPB is.
For many folks, this message board seems to be the public face of the ALPB. That is not the case. We provide it as a forum, but it is not our primary mission, nor does it define or reflect our identity. Many of the participants here are not subscribers to ALPB publications.
On to some specifics:
1. You can find an articulation of why we exist here:
https://alpb.org/about-us/ Outgoing ALPB Board President John Hannah and Incoming President David Benke both expand on that articulation in the latest issue of Lutheran Forum.
2. We are not New York City-based. The majority of Board members now come from outside of New York City. Our "headquarters" is in upstate New York. The executive director (me), lives in California.
3. Can you provide some specifics of where the ALPB advocates for "lukewarm" doctrine? Admittedly, the focus of the ALPB in recent years has been on liturgical, ethical, historical, and devotional resources so perhaps we are not addressing your particular doctrinal concerns. From my perspective, the poor praxis of modern American Lutheranism is at the root of much of American Lutheran decline and why our publishing focus has been geared in that direction, as opposed to focusing on the politics of the church which dominated the Neuhaus era.
4. Some of our more prominent spokespeople have gone to Rome... and some have gone East . . . And others have joined the various churches of the Augsburg confession through the resources of the ALPB. We will welcome allies in an evangelical and catholic renewal to the faith wherever they may be found.
5. I am not sure how you measure decline (or success) but we are proud to have the financial support of hundreds of small donors from across the Lutheran spectrum, and even some outside of it (you can read their names each year in our listing in Lutheran Forum). Lutheran Forum also remains the largest independent Lutheran journal in the United States.
6. I am not sure how you measure ALPB-influenced churches. I love data, so if you have some that helps us assess our impact (positive or negative) on the state of American Lutheranism I would love to see it.
Finally, and I will post this in its own separate thread, we are always looking for contributors to Lutheran Forum, Forum Letter, and our book publishing ministry.