I read what the acronym means... I went to their website... (www.eldona.org) So rather than just directing me to their website, is anyone able to provide a bit of commentary on them?
Considering the 'answers' that have followed your request (the making of assertions based on having no clue about the history of either Logia or Higher Things or the relationship/lack thereof between them, and commentary by an LCMS 'bishop' poking at them for their wearing of churchly garb), I think one can easily see that reading their website is a far better idea than asking those who are ignorant of them to comment on them.
They seem to be disaffected LC-MS folks... but I'm not sure on that. Any help would be appreciated, so I can better understand their answers to the interview questions!
The diocese consists of those who recognized that the LCMS had strayed, which necessitated (by reckoning of their conscience) their leaving--most after the 2004 convention, some earlier--and who subsequently recognized that fellowship existed between them. At present, a number of LCMS, ELS, WELS, etc., pastors are making inquiry of them.
Did Dave Benke play a role in their leaving the LCMS? It is best to consider this in tems of a dog biting a neighborhood kid and the owner of that dog. His biting the kid (by praying for the salvation of people already dead, by communing at an ELCA church, etc., etc.) is not really the reason that the owner is punished, but the fact that a) the dog already had a history of biting, and b) the owner blatantly said that it never was going to do anything about his biting, so that he would be able to treat the kids obnoxiously in the future, as well. That, among other things, was part of the 'too much' they had experienced in the LCMS.
Yet, it was so much more than Dave Benke. It was the continued practice of open communion being tolerated (i.e., restudied ad aeternum), the continued violation of Augustana XIV, etc.
Yet, it was more than that, too: it was the LCMS 'system'--Walther's experiment fallen into horrible abuse that led to such goings on. Thus, the formation of a system that is not like the American 'synods', nor yet like the state church episcopacies...a system in which there is no coercive power exercised over congregations, but in which the Superintendent's/Bishop's relationship is with the pastors and not with the parishes.
But now I have spoken too far for one who is not a member and, thus, has no standing so to speak; for authoritative answers (including whatever style tips Pres. Benke needs), I would suggest you do the non-Missourian thing and simply
ask them by using the contact link on their website.
As to Pr. Speckhard's speculation:
If the LCMS soudly rejected Kieschnick and did everything ELDoNA wanted, in a ten years they'd be in a state of confession against the LCMS again for some other reason
I would say that the time spent serving LCMS congregations by those involved would contradict that. Their leaving was not capriciousness but conviction, not by snap judgment, but by long consideration...not simply over these most recent issues, but because of some long-standing ones, as well. I do not think it inappropriate to ask that others not take a 'worst construction' approach to this new body (or to the ACLC, the OLCCIC, and so on) simply because of the history of the nanosynods (so that now we can debate who came up with
that term) that have left Missouri in the past, etc. This is, imo, a different thing altogether, something unlike the others I have seen, at least. At any rate, I would think that we could all find something better to do than to a) criticize their clothing and b) sin against both the equal members and the one elected first among equals by saying that the former were "buzzing around waiting for command-tones"...but, of course, that is the sort of comment one has learned to expect from the Rev. Benke and his cohorts, who need have no contact with a person or group before making such comments about them.
EJG
