A Modern-Day Naboth’s Vineyard (aka The Struggle Over CTX)

As report by Texas District President Michael Newman and First Vice President John Davis on Ecclesiastical Investigation of the Rostered Leadership and Regents of Concordia University Texas: Preliminary Observations and Recommendations is being made public in various locations (You can read the whole report HERE), the backstory behind the CTX Board filing paperwork with the state of Texas on Nov 8, 2022, declaring that they were independent of LCMS governance is now clear.

7. CTX leadership/CTX Board of Regents and the CUS had no shared understanding about
the CUS Board Resolution intended for LCMS BOD consideration on November 18, 2023.
The original discussion process between CTX and the CUS was now altered and a resolution
with unrevealed content was to be presented by the CUS directly to the LCMS BOD. Understanding that the CUS and LCMS BOD could, acting together and without the consent of input of a local BOR, divest or consolidate CTX with another university according to bylaw 3.6.6.4.i (an authority granted with a 2019 change in bylaws), and having as a backdrop closure of three LCMS universities over the past four years, the CTX BOR, at an emergency meeting on November 8, 2022, voted 13-5 to adopt governing documents that gave the CTX BOR sole governing authority of the university.

The CTX board was afraid that the Synod BOD and CUS were planning to consolidate or sell CTX, as was their right under Synod Bylaws, so the CTX BOR called an emergency meeting and filed paperwork with the State to claim that they were not under LCMS governance, which was not their right. There you have it: A modern-day Naboth’s vinyard. Or as the world calls it: premeditated theft, plain and simple.