This is the sort of cat and mouse game that makes having a church body with actual teachings so tedious to maintain. Dr. Becker, you obviously believe, teach, and confess that the Scriptures do not prohibit women from being ordained to the pastoral office, that the LCMS is wrong about the historicity of Genesis and literal Creationism, etc. You know it, everybody else in this forum knows it, you say it all the time, and the people who filed charges against you (whoever they were) also knew it. Please do not insult everyone's intelligence by claiming that the people accusing you of holding those positions are acting unjustly toward you. They aren't. They're simply observing the truth that there are discrepancies between your teachings and the official teachings of the LCMS.
You determined, like Paul Bretscher, to stay in the LCMS anyway and attempt to reform it from within because you were right and the LCMS was wrong. All your "you can't prove that" defenses are evasions of the question. In your opinion, what should the LCMS do about ordained LCMS preachers and teachings who publicly contradict the teachings of the LCMS? Removing them from the LCMS clergy roster and allowing their names to go on a clergy roster that aligns with that they actually teach seems like a perfectly reasonable solution to me.
You are responsible for the long, protracted, bitter charges and defenses because you consistently demanded proof that you were teaching things that everyone knew you were teaching; it was a waste of time. Then you turned the hearing into debates about whether the LCMS positions really are the LCMS positions, or whether the LCMS positions really align with the Scriptures and Confessions. Formal charges against someone are not really the proper place to determine those things. You could have amicably departed the LCMS for the ELCA many years ago, long before you engaged in a lengthy, multi-chapter struggle that ended up in the same place. You chose that path, not the LCMS. Or again, if you disagree, what do you think the LCMS should do when someone on the clergy roster contradicts the teachings of the LCMS?
Peter,
The way you are framing the charges that were leveled against me indicates that you share the same presuppositions as my accusers, namely, that a theological argument in favor of the ordination of women rises to the level of heresy, and that a theological argument against six-day creationism rises to the level of heresy.
The only matters that I "obviously believe, teach, and confess" are the articles of faith that are exhibited in the Niceano-Constantinopolitanum and the Apostolicum and that are normatively set forth in the Augustana and the other norma normata of the churches that subscribe to that confession. I do not "believe, teach, and confess" the ordination of women to the pastoral office. What a strange notion! Nor do I "believe, teach, and confess" a particular worldview (e.g., six-day creationism or theistic evolution or some other ideological worldview) when it comes to believing, teaching, and confessing dogma about the Creator or the doctrine of creation. I believe, teach, and confess that the triune God has made me and all creatures... (and so on).
Supporting the ordination of women and criticizing six-day creationism are important theological actions, but they do not rise to the level of establishing the articles of faith that are to be "believed, taught, and confessed." There ought to be room in the church for faithful disagreement about these issues without turning them into sine qua non articles of faith. If six-day creationism and the non-support of women's ordination were sine qua non articles of faith, then I would think the Roman Church and the Eastern churches would be disciplining those theologians in their church bodies who favor the ordination of women or who are critical of six-day creationism. Last time I checked, Roman theologians can make a theoretical argument in favor of the practice of ordaining women to the priesthood without being brought up on charges that could lead to formal disciplinary action being taken against them. I have interacted with many Roman theologians over the years, including my Doktorvater at the U. of Chicago, who have made theological arguments in favor of the ordination of women and who accept the basic consensus about the natural history of the planet (i.e., who reject six-day creationism)--and they've never been accused of undermining the basic articles of the faith or have ever been brought up on charges relating to these two issues.
Apparently, it is only the little LCMS and similar church bodies that think these matters (i.e., non-support for the ordination of women, total acceptance of six-day creationism) are sine qua non articles of faith. I would simply say in response to this mistaken view that there is an important distinction that ought to be maintained, namely, between theological exploration/argumentation, on the one hand, and believing, teaching, and confessing the established articles of faith, on the other. To be sure, they are related, but they are not the same. There needs to be greater room for dissent against these peripheral, but important matters that do not rise to the level of principal dogma or the well-established articles of faith.
Matt Becker