CCM Verax Letter to Leaders of Lutheran World Federation Member Churches

16 May 2003                    [Deutsche Fassung dieses Briefes unten]

Dear Leaders of Lutheran World Federation Member Churches:

Re: CCM Verax Asks For Help to Arrange the Menacher-Hanson CCM-Debate

In a letter from 26 March 2003, CCM Verax Administrator, Dr. Mark D. Menacher, asked the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Mark S. Hanson, to arrange a public debate on the "grand deception" in Called to Common Mission (CCM) to be held at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) assembly in July 2003. CCM is the full-communion agreement between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, USA. In a letter from 06 May, Bishop Hanson responded to this request and declined to debate CCM.

This negative response from ELCA Bishop Hanson and an earlier negative response from LWF General Secretary, Ishmael Noko, seem to indicate that the ELCA leadership and the LWF central office are collaborating to suppress a full discussion of the "grand deception" in CCM.

This collaboration raises an important question for the whole LWF. Does the LWF central office serve all LWF member churches, or does the LWF central office serve chiefly the interests of the ELCA leadership at the expense of the other LWF member churches and at the expense of the truth?

Below is the CCM Verax reply from 15 May 2003 to Bishop Hanson, and thereafter his refusal to debate the "grand deception" in CCM from 06 May 2003.

CCM Verax again turns to the leaders of LWF member churches, this time to seek your support in arranging the proposed debate on behalf of ELCA Bishop Hanson. CCM is not merely an internal matter in the ELCA. In CCM, the truth of the gospel and thus the future of the LWF are at stake.

Would you, please, help to arrange this crucial debate. The leadership of the ELCA needs very much from you the episkopé of which CCM so often speaks.

Yours faithfully,

Mark D. Menacher, PhD
Pastor and CCM Verax Administrator
PO Box 26
Au Gres, MI 48703 0026 (USA)
+1 989 876 2764 (home)
+1 989 876 7415 (church)
mdmenacher@ccmverax.org
http://www.ccmverax.org