I think the hefty elephant hiding in this closet, and what makes the CRM issue somewhat political in a way that someone looking in from the outside wouldn't suspect, is that I would guess (I don't have the numbers-- this is just my sense of the situation) a disproportionate number of the guys on CRM who aren't returning missionaries or chaplains or coming back from medical/personal issues are very conservative guys whose congregations decided they weren't a "good fit" because they made a stink about closed communion or had a problem with contemporary worship or something. In other words, if you break down exactly why the CRM guys are CRM, the categories would include people who simply got riffed due to the economy (smaller churches or multi-staff situations where the congregation could no longer afford salary and benefits) or do to terms of service ending (e.g. chaplains/missionaries), people who had medical/personal issues for which they had to resign calls in order to take care of things, people who went on to get a Ph.D or took some career interlude with a parachurch or secular organization, guys who got suspended for false doctrine or scandalous life and, having worked it out, are ready for a new call, and lastly, guys whose congregations ran them out on a rail because they weren't with the congregation's program and were too conservative. These guys were never formally charged with anything, they just weren't a "good fit" so the congregation basically got rid of them by hook or by crook. They never formally say that, of course, so these guys are technically interspersed through the other lists with reasons given as face-saving fig leaves, sort of like politicians who resign to spend more time with the family or actors who check into the Betty Ford Clinic for exhaustion. Congregations are aware of this, as are DP's, but nobody will say it with more than a knowing glance.
This is also why this issue relates to some of the problems people have with SMP. Many of the big suburban churches don't want a sem grad because they never know if they're going to get someone who is on board with the congregation's peculiarities (read open communion, non-Lutheran pastoral staff or other controversial thing) so they want to raise up their own pastors from within, thus insulating them from any possible change of direction imposed by the leadership. It isn't the "confessional" guys raising up SMP assciate pastors, it is the innovative, transforming, missional, or ELCA-sympathetic churches who don't want to risk getting a sem grad who's going to be all fuddy-duddy about the Confessions or embarrassing LCMS peculiarities.
The missional folks see it from the other side. They see those complaining (again, that means not returning missionaries and chaplains, but CRM guys whose former congregations ran them out) as people not in need of calls but in need of full time salaries and benefits but who don't want to do any of the things it takes to have a congregation big enough to provide those things. These congregations have done the church growth work and don't want to be a sugar daddy for people who are against what they have done and continue to do. Their attitude is-- you like polices and practices that work really well for churches of fifty? Go ahead and find a church of fifty to pay your salary, don't come grousing around here sniffing that you can't get considered for a call from a viable congregation. You're the reason congregations aren't viable, and we have the witness of your former congregation's numerical struggles (until they got rid of you) as proof.
Let me emphasize this is only my sense of the situation. Take it for what it is worth. It isn't as though I've had secret conversations with insiders about this. I just think there is a lot beneath the surface, and the guys are really are on CRM for perfectly above board reasons pay the price, because we've allowed the number to accumulate of pastors who were simply discarded by their congregations as "not a good fit."
