# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S906
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

520 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

Joint defense implies and demands joint action in establishing
fellowship with other church bodies or their component parts. s
Independent action in the establishment of fellowship by indi- a
vidual members must be regarded as an offense against faithful- =
ness to one’s membership pledge, a breach of confidence, which,
if persisted in, would lead to separation or disruption.

“On this principle that every member of Synod has foregone %
the right to establish fellowship with another church body inde- a
pendently is based Synod’s repeated warning given at St. Louis and
again at Fort Wayne, that no action be taken by any of our pastors
or congregations which would overlook the fact that we are not
yet united. At: Saginaw the attention of the members of Synod
was called to the resolution of 1941 which warns all concerned
against forcing the issue and establishing any form of outward
fellowship (prayer, pulpit, or altar fellowship), since this would
militate against the law of love and,the spirit of fellowship.”

Since adoption of the principle of selective fellowship by any
pastor, teacher, or congregation of our Synod must therefore be
regarded, as our Committee on Doctrinal Unity declares: “as
hindering the earnest, patient, and God-pleasing endeavor of
Synod to establish fellowship” with any other synod, your Com-
mittee recommends that the request of Memorial 615 be denied.

“Agreement” Regarding “A Statement”
(Memorial 616)

Having served as appointees of the President of Synod to
meet with representatives of the signers of “A Statement,” the
undersigned members of Synod welcome the information given by
the Presidency of Synod and the signers that certain sentences
in “A Statement” and its accompanying letter which, if understood
in the sense which the words ordinarily convey, contain potentially ;
divisive errors and defamatory charges were not so intended by cia
the signers. We are happy to note that the signers have given
the definite assurance that:

1. In regard to three of the assertions made in the accom-
panying letter

a. they did not intend to charge any members of Synod with
denying the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel when they de- ag
clared that “in more than one area of Synod” there is a spirit which | 7
has “its origin in... a tragic misconception of the very essence
of the Gospel,” and that “a strange and pernicious spirit, utterly

~at variance with the fundamental concepts of the Gospel .. . has
lifted its ugly head” (it was explained by them that by the word
“Gospel” they meant not the message of God’s grace in Christ,