This past week I was privileged to be one of the invited speakers to Concordia Theological Seminary’s 32nd Annual Theological Symposium. The topic was a look back at the major figures of the LCMS in the events leading up to formation of Seminex. Presentations were made by Robert Wilken on Jaroslav Pelikan, Phil Secker on Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Larry Rast Jr. on J.A.O Preus, David Scaer on Robert Preus, Dean Wenthe on Martin Scharlemann, Robert Shuta on Walter A Maier and David Schmidt on Richard Caemmerer. My presentation was on the least well known of all of the figures – Berthold von Schenk.

While few of the presentations were groundbreaking in introducing new information about these key figures, the symposium itself was helpful. All presenters were able to provide humanizing pictures of these key theologians for those “old timers” who thought they knew them well, and critical reviews of theology to introduce this past generation of theologians to the present. An archive of the videos from the presentations is expected within the next few weeks at www.ctsfw.edu , so I will not devote time to recapping the presentations.

Having had a couple of days to reflect on things, what stands out most is the reaction of the attendees to the presentations. Old timers – those who had lived through the tribulation – almost always began their questions or observations with a personal reflection. Clearly, many who have lived through these events have not been given many opportunities to reflect dispassionately on the events that had occurred. For that reason alone the symposium was helpful. More opportunities are needed for Missouri to come to grips with its past. The symposium was officially titled “A Last Look at Missouri’s Critical Time: The 1950s to 1970s.” It is my hope that this “last look” becomes a first step in bringing some healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation that is long overdue. The recent death of one of the major behind the scenes players, Richard John Neuhaus, who seemed to show up in each of the presentations, is a reminder that the generation for whom these events were so personal is reaching its nadir. The greatest tragedy of all may be that for many of them, the unresolved anger (justified or not) will go with them to their grave.

The other interesting reaction was from those who were too young to have first hand memories of the period. Their interest seemed to lay, at least in the questions that were asked, in appropriating these past theologians for, among other things, the present controversies of women’s ordination and open communion.

I was pleased at the opportunity to give von Schenk a fair hearing to so many, both old timers and new who know little of him beyond his autobiography (available from the ALPB). Lost in the occasionally bombastic rhetoric, is a beautiful eucharistic theology, that in my view lies more at the heart of curing whatever ails the Lutheran Church today than the ancillary questions which have become so central for so many.