President Harrison,
I am and I am not a cradle Lutheran; I am in the sense that I had the good fortune to attend a Lutheran (yes, LCMS) school from preschool through eighth grade, and I am not in the sense that my parents were (and, sadly, still are) not Lutheran, and so I did not attend a Lutheran church in my youth. This is to say, then, that, for me, joining the LCMS was a deliberative and an intentional decision. I took my time and I read a great deal when selecting a tradition; I made my decision with one central criterion: fidelity to God’s Word. I found such fidelity in only one tradition — the Lutheran tradition. Consequently, it is with heavy heart that I now observe the beginnings of the sort of compromise that has already claimed so many churches.