The Reverend Keith Bender
Finding Grandpa in the pages of Christian News
Grandpa Bender, as I knew him, was a WELS pastor prior to his retirement when I was a teenager. But prior to that - and long before I was twinkle in my father’s eye - he was an LCMS pastor. He started out life as a Navy draftsman who dated my grandmother on her condition that he came to church with her. He was confirmed in my grandma’s LCMS congregation, married her and sometime after my mother was born, he went to seminary and became a pastor.
It is by chance a few years ago my mother mentioned him writing to “some Christian newspaper” with his frustrations prior to colloquializing with the WELS. I bought a subscription to Christian News and dug through the back-catalog and sure enough, Grandpa had 12 entries that I could find. I’ve shared these with family and now I share them with you.
We start with Congregational Homework, written in 1972 (prior to Seminex):
Grandpa’s subsequent writings revolved around the fallout of Seminex and the liberal caucus Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM). July, 1974:
October 1974:
“Have a blessed Reformation, that is, to those of you who still believe in the principles of the Reformation” - I’ve had some complain about the ‘snark’ in some of my writings, I guess I know where I got it from.
Kant and Hegel? Grandpa was fighting the woke! November 1974:
A rebuke of Pastors who choose to pretend “everything is awesome” when it comes to Synod. December, 1974:
The Smell of Compromise, February 1975:
Showing love by speaking the Truth, March 1975:
The Missouri Synod has no right to bind the consciences of conservative congregations by trying to play in the ‘middle of the road’. May 1975:
A final plea, May 1975:
“Such an attitude, pretending that differences in doctrine are no longer important, is a heresy, and is nonsense. The moment that we became Lutherans we rejected such an idea. Our Lutheran Confessions rule out such an idea. Our allegiance to the Holy Word of God rules out such an idea. I must, for my own sake, and for the sake of my congregation, identify my position. To be Lutheran is not to float here and there as far as doctrine is concerned. To be a Lutheran means that you stand up and say this is what I believe, and the reason I believe it is because the Holy Word of God said it. The Lutheran Church has always had a confessional background, a confessional heritage. Shall we cast aside this heritage so that we can have peace and unity even though there are doctrinal differences? Shall we pretend a false unity by overlooking doctrinal differences?”
(as an aside - how does this apply in the WELS when we have a doctrinal statement saying that we cannot affirm a transgender in their sin, but we have pastors saying it’s a matter of Christian freedom?)
A final update on April 5, 1976:
