I believe LCMS membership decline will continue as long as pastors remain in fear of open dialog about the issues that confront the church. Furthermore suppressing dialog about interfaith participation and effectively keeping Luthern pastors out of the public sphere as chaplains will only accelerate its decline. This was done after the Sandy Hook shooting and no revision has been made. It gravely concerns me that the leadership of the LCMS does not engage in productive dialog with either its members or pastors. It is a sad state of affairs when even the president of the LCMS can not recognize his own negative impact on the ability of both pastors and members to engage in evangelism as a result of these theologically lazy guilt by association arguments present in the constitution of the LCMS.