Dissidents Jailed for Crashing Lutheran Meeting

COLUMBUS, Ohio —  Two defrocked Lutheran ministers were arrested Saturday after they tried to forcibly enter the convention assembly of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Daniel Solberg and D. Douglas Roth struggled with sergeants-at-arms for several minutes as the 1,000 delegates, who had been warned to expect the disruption, sang the classic Lutheran hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

Solberg and Roth had threatened to address the convention on various claims of their group, including the charge that the newly merged denomination was wrong in not immediately divesting church pension funds in companies that have business in South Africa. However, delegates did pass a resolution Saturday that pledged to work “tirelessly” to see that no pension funds are so invested.

Confrontation Tactics

The Pittsburgh-based group, the Denominational Mission Strategy, has pursued confrontation tactics on behalf of the unemployed in Pittsburgh and against what they say are corrupt banking practices.

Roth and Solberg were defrocked in recent years for defying directives of their Lutheran Church in America, the largest of the three denominations that Tuesday officially ratified the formation of the 5.3-million-member church body.

A court injunction was issued Friday against Roth to bar him from the convention hall, the Ohio Center, until the close of the meeting today. Church officials sought the injunction after a plainclothes officer physically prevented Roth from approaching Bishop David Preus on an escalator.

The two ex-ministers were charged by police with assault, trespassing and failure to depart the premises. Roth was being held in lieu of $4,500 bail and Solberg in lieu of $2,500. Roth, who was arrested in 1984 after he had barricaded himself in a suburban Pittsburgh church his bishop ordered him to leave, was also charged by police here with violating the court injunction.

Solberg was arrested last year at the Lutheran Church in America convention in Milwaukee when he refused to let loose of the speaker’s microphone. Solberg shouted the same accusation here that he made last year: “The church is a harlot.”

As security police dragged Solberg through a corridor here, the slender ex-minister, dressed in clerical attire and a Bible in hand, said, “Not jail, not injunction, not defrocking, not anything will stop the word of God. . . . “

Attempt at Compromise

A Southern California pastor, with the aid of a Los Angeles bishop, attempted to reach a compromise with Denominational Mission Strategy leaders late Friday night, but it failed. The Rev. John C. Wetzel, a convention delegate and pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Downey, said he proposed Friday morning that the convention listen to a spokesman for Denominational Mission Strategy, but delegates rejected the request Saturday.

“They (Denominational Mission Strategy leaders) have some serious concerns, and so many people here don’t know what’s going on,” Wetzel said in an interview.

Wetzel said he sought to prevent an open conflict here after seeing a film on the Denominational Mission Strategy cause produced by actor David Soul, who is a brother of Solberg.

Wetzel brought Bishop Stanley Olson of Los Angeles and ex-Los Angeles Bishop Karl Segerhammar to a meeting with Charles Honeywell, a leading Denominational Mission Strategy, organizer. But Olson said Saturday that he saw no room for compromise. Denominational Mission Strategy “feels the structure first must be torn down and that there is no change possible from within the church,” Olson said.

After watching the arrests and listening to Honeywell give directions to about 30 supporters who had followed Roth and Solberg into the convention hall, Wetzel said, “It appears there’s no hope for compromise.”