# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S502
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

502 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

IV. Church unity is attained by the use of Scripture alone
and is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. Only in this way
can it be attained between the American Lutheran Church and the
Missouri Synod or between other differing groups or by a dis-
rupted group.

V. For the purpose of attaining unity, we stand ready at all
times to confer with all such as show willingness to acknowledge
and study doctrinal differences and to settle them on the basis
of God’s Word.

VI. There is not yet the needed unity for joint work and wor-
ship between the American Lutheran Church and the Missouri
Synod or between the latter and other groups affiliated with the
National Lutheran Council.

VII. Until such time as unity is attained we will avoid those
church bodies which differ from us in any point of doctrine or
practice; that is: we will not have joint prayer, prayer fellowship,
altar or pulpit fellowship with them, or co-operate with them in
church work, which includes many of the things now called ex-
ternals (“co-operation in externals”). Rom. 16:17.

VUI. For such unity more than mere subscription to a set
of theses or a document of agreement is necessary. As a minimum
it is required that all pastors and congregations of both sides agree,
that all professors of the institutions of both sides agree, that all
synodical textbooks and other publications of both sides which
teach doctrine or church polity agree, and that there be mutual
promises of diligent watchfulness and discipline in matters of
doctrine and practice.

TX. Our doctrinal position in these matters is set forth in the
Brief Statement of 1932. May it be known in particular that we
maintain the doctrine of Verbal Inspiration, which some refer to
as the “mechanical theory”; that we maintain the doctrines of
Conversion and Election as taught in the Brief Statement, on the
basis of which we are accused of teaching irresistible grace and
Calvinism or “Crypto-Calvinism”; and that we maintain the doc-
trine of Objective Justification, a doctrine which does not include
faith.

X. We reject the 1938 St. Louis Union Resolutions, the Decla-
ration of the American Lutheran Church in particular, because for
us it contains doctrines which are divisive of church fellowship,
as is apparent from the American Lutheran Church’s own inter-
pretation of it. Neither do we accept the Doctrinal Affirmation.

XT. We repudiate any and every statement which is contrary
to the principles stated above, whether they are made by resolution