# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1981_S188
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

188 THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Identical or similar:
3-92B to 3-92D

Faith, Sioux Falls, S. Dak. O. D. Brack
Redeemer, Grand Rapids, Mich. Allen Maleske
Mount Hope, Casper, Wyo. J.B. Brown

3-93A
To Terminate Membership in the Council

WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod joined
the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. as a forum for discussing
matters of doctrine and practice and as an agency for carrying
on various activities jointly; and

WHEREAS, Christians are to be united in what they believe
and teach before they work and worship together (1 Cor. 1:10;
Rom. 16:17; Acts 2:42); and

WHEREAS, Our membership in the Lutheran Council gives
the impression to other Lutherans, to other Christians, and
even to members of our own congregations that we are in
doctrinal agreement and practicing fellowship with the church
bodies which make up the council; and

WHEREAS, The LCMS is notin fellowship with the LCA, isin
a state of ‘protesting fellowship” with the ALC (and even this
limited connection will likely be broken at the 1981 conven-
tion), and the third body, the Association of Evangelical
Lutheran Churches, is made up largely of congregations and
church workers who have withdrawn from the LCMS over
matters which are divisive of fellowship; and

WHEREAS, The publications of LCUSA, especially “Who
Can This Be?” “The Ordination of Women,” and the FODT
Report (on “The Function of Doctrine and Theology in the
Light of the Unity of the Church’) document wide differences
between the LCMS and other LCUSA members; and

WHEREAS, Synodical affiliation with LCUSA gives the
impression that we agree with the positions on public policy
presented by LCUSA in Washington; and

WHEREAS, LCUSA has failed to speak out clearly and
forthrightly on the issue of the killing of unborn children
through abortion, in stark contrast to our own stance; and

WHEREAS, LCUSA membership involves us in joint mission
planning and comity arrangements with Lutheran bodies with
whom we profoundly differ in spite of our public doctrine of
fellowship and in spite of the fact that such arrangements are
contradicted by sound principles of church growth (see Peace
Congregation’s Overture 1-11, “To Eliminate Comity Arrange-
ments Through LCUSA,” p. 48, 1979 Workbook); and

WHEREAS, Membership in LCUSA involves us in other
unionistic endeavors such as involvement in pan-Lutheran
campus ministries; and

WHEREAS, The ambiguity involved in our membership is a
stumbling block to resumption of normal fellowship with other
orthodox Lutherans in the world and gives comfort to false
teachers by our apparent blessing of their work through
LCUSA,; and

WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church through the Formula of
Concord, S.D., X, has declared:

We believe, teach, and confess that at a time of confession, as
when enemies of the Word of God desire to suppress the pure doctrine
of the holy Gospel, the entire community of God, yes, every
individual Christian, and especially the ministers of the Word as the
leaders of the community of God, are obligated to confess openly, not
only by words but also through their deeds and actions, the true
doctrine and all that pertains to it, according to the Word of God. In
such a case we should not yield to adversaries even in matters of
indifference (Tappert edition, p. 612).
Hence yielding or conforming in external things, where Chris-
tian agreement in doctrine has not previously been achieved, will
support the idolaters in their idolatry, and on the other hand, it will
sadden and scandalize true believers and weaken them in their faith.
As he values his soul’s welfare and salvation, every Christian is
obligated to avoid both (Tappert edition, p. 613);
and

WHEREAS, Discussion of doctrine where necessary and
helpful should be carried on through free conferences without
the appearance of fellowship; therefore be it

Resolved, That we respectfully ask the LCMS to take
immediate steps to withdraw from LCUSA for the sake of a
clear witness before the world and other Christians and ‘“‘that
the truth of the Gospel might be preserved” among us (Gal. 2:5).

Peace Lutheran Church
Garland, Tex.
Curtis A. Peterson, Pastor

Identical or similar:

3-93B to 3-93E

Holy Cross, La Puente, Calif.
St. Paul’s, Lusk, Wyo.

St. Paul’s, Delmont, S. Dak.
Wyoming District

Leslie Evans

W. T. Bredthauer
Gene Bauman
Robert Eckelman

3-94

To Withdraw from All LCUSA Activities
Except Theological Discussions

WHEREAS, The Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. has lobbied
for various political causes in Washington, D.C.; and

Wuereas, A LCUSA division has published and widely
distributed “Who Can This Be” a study document that attacks
the vicarious satisfaction and deity of Christ, without ever
acknowledging that it contains false doctrine that must be
retracted; and

Wuereas, LCUSA has left the door wide open for the
ordination of women into the holy ministry; and

WHEREAS, Conferences sponsored by LCUSA have attacked
the inspiration and inerrancy of Holy Scripture; and

WHEREAS, LCUSA costs the LCMS close to $1 million each
year; and

WHEREAS, The LCMS joined LCUSA with the understand-
ing that its primary purpose would be for the purpose of
theological discussions; therefore be it

Resolved, That The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
withdraw from all activities of the Lutheran Council in the
U.S.A. except for those directly involved with theological
discussions.

St. Paul’s and St. John’s Lutheran Parish
St. Thomas and Crystal, N. Dak.
Erno Szedlak, Pastor
3-95

To Ask LCUSA to Study Implications
of Historical Criticism

WHEREAS, A recent essay in Lutheran World Report (‘‘The
Augsburg Confession in Light of Biblical Interpretation,”
June 1980, pp. 3—34) argues that the whole traditional
Christology, from Nicaea and Chalcedon to Art. III of the
Augsburg Confession, is unbiblical and untenable in light of
modern historical-critical scholarship; and

WHEREAS, This essay appeared as part of an Augsburg
Confession jubilee observance in the offical organ of the
Lutheran World Federation, and was written by a leading U.S.
Lutheran exponent of historical criticism; therefore be it

Resolved, That Synod hereby instruct its representatives in
the Division of Theological Studies of LCUSA to place on the
division’s agenda as a matter of urgency a thorough discussion
of the far-reaching implications of historical criticism, as
practiced in U.S. Lutheranism, for—

a) thecentral, Christological-Trinitarian core of the Gospel;

b) the very possibility of confessional subscription;

c) the preamble of LCUSA’s constitution, according to
which

the participating Lutheran church bodies . . . see in the three

Ecumenical Creeds and in the Confessions of the Lutheran Church
...€ pure exposition of the Word of God.

Faculty

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Ind.

Norbert H. Mueller, Secretary