Canadian Lutheran Removes ANO/Lutheran Watch Pingbacks

Update 2018-10-18: Christopher Pelletier, LCC’s Director Communications, left a comment on this post indicating that ping-backs have been restored. I’ve verified that such is the case and I thank Chris for his prompt action.

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I’ve been writing this blog for a while, and per my usual practice of citing the sources of my material, I often link to the source articles I used. These links are sometimes called ‘ping-backs’ and can appear as comments on the original article for other people to follow and read.

When I started this blog my ping-backs to the Canadian Lutheran didn’t appear for some time. And then one day they did. At the time I thought it was rather cool change in policy for the people running the Canadian Lutheran and demonstrated a level of strength and maturity for them to expose their readers to content from outside the establishment.

Then, some time during the East District Convention, all the ping-backs vanished. If you look at a Canadian Lutheran article I wrote about you’ll see a response to my article, but the ping-back is gone. A cursory look around the site shows that all my other ping-backs are gone as well.

You may wonder “Why did this happen?”

My sources tell me it was because the site was attracting too many comments about CEF and commenting as a whole had been turned off.

If this is true – and I hope it’s not – that would be yet another confirmation that LCC as a Synod is trying to shove CEF under the carpet “out of sight / out of mind.” Which is too bad, because as horrible as CEF is and has been, it is also a tremendous opportunity for LCC as a whole to pull together and demonstrate the love of Christ through service to our siblings in the faith. Imagine the comfort and hope these depositors would have that the church really cared about them and moved heaven and earth to make things better if not completely right!

Instead the message is more along the lines of “Loving your neighbor and caring for widows and orphans? Never heard of it. But have you heard that Jesus died for your sins?!? Aren’t you happy?”

If much rejoicing is heard in heaven over one sinner that repents, imagine the weeping that results when so-called siblings of the faith treat each other like this.

The ping-backs on the Canadian Lutheran were nice while they lasted. Now that they’re gone I’ll continue discussing all things Lutheran and trust the Lord of the harvest to take care of the rest. If God can use an obscure academic to start a reformation that lives on today, He can certainly work His will through a little ol’ blogger like me.

The CEF depositors didn’t ask for what happened to them and we as members of the church need to do our part to make sure their story is neither ignored nor forgotten.