I am generally very pleased with The Lutheran Witness and believe it to be a fine periodical that deserves greater circulation.
I do, however, have one comment to make about the August issue and its convention coverage. Surely there were pictures of the convention that would better reflect what it means for the Church to gather than a picture of the President of Synod and his wife. The cover is the primary image of the issue and one might presume from the picture that the issue was about Gerald Kieschnick. I thought it was about the Church. Inside the issue were no less than three picture of Kieschnick (including one with two large video images of him). In addition, his picture is always featured with his article at the end of the issue.
Knowing the humility of President Kieschnick, I believe that he would agree that so many pictures of him were overkill. The Church is not about one individual and even the President of Synod is not the face of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. In the future, one might think about the impression so many pictures of one individual might make—it is as if he was running for office when the story tells us that he had already been reelected.
Some years ago, a fine picture book was published showing the many faces of the LC-MS (A Week in the Life of…). Instead of traditional posed photos of a President at the podium or a line of people elected, more varied photos of the Convention would have been more accurate in reflecting the story of what took place in Houston. The other photos could have been enlarged and one or two of those featuring Kieschnick could have been omitted.
The Rev. Larry A. Peters
Grace Lutheran Church
Clarksville, TN
Your report on the 2007 LCMS Convention was very helpful and well written. It left me confused, however, in reading that “delegates encouraged congregations . . . to ‘return to faithful Communion practices’ . . ..”
I couldn’t tell from that whether “faithful communion practices” referred to the historic LCMS position on Communion, or the way Communion was practiced in the early New Testament Church. There is a significant difference.
Gordon Scheer
Littleton, CO
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