It was about the Bible--but not only about the Bible. The issues that led to Christ Seminary-Seminex, to Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), to the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC), to families divided, and to questions of personal and communal identity were more serious than debates about the Bible. Our common experience, which brought us here today, has infinite variety in our memories, takes us to different physical locations, recalls different faces and conversations, and inevitably leads to different ways of thinking about "the Missouri War" of 1973 ff. (2) It was about the Bible, to be sure, but not just about whether historical criticism was a legitimate mode of interpretation. That exercised the ultra-conservative right, not the faculty. Rather, the basic issues were the relationship of the Bible to authority in the church, the relationship of the Bible to theology, and the priority of gospel to the Bible in the life and work of the church.
