# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S533
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 535

National Lutheran Council would not welcome the Missouri Synod

as.a member if it were to join the National Lutheran Council

merely “to bear witness to the Council” and “to make our:
influence felt from within rather than from without.”

Effect on the Membership in Our Own Synod
and the Synodical Conference

Your Committee believes that joining the National Lutheran
Council would be an occasion of severe offense to many. It would
cause strife within our own midst. We believe this to be true
not only with reference to a few who may take a negative position
on the question. A limited cross-section survey made by your
Committee through interviews and consultations with laity and
clergy persuades us to believe that the majority of our pastors
and laity are at the present time not in favor of joining the
National ‘Lutheran Council. And while some of those who are
not in favor would not raise serious objections to joining, the
majority, we feel, would not be happy about such action on the
part of the synodical convention.

Joining the National Lutheran Council would have serious.
repercussions in other constituent bodies of the Synodical Con-

ference. Most assuredly, we do not want to take any action which .

would disturb the fraternal relationships with our brethren in the

Synodical Conference. Furthermore, joining the National Lutheran.
Council would not be understood by our Free Church brethren

in Europe. By many now in pulpit and altar fellowship with us
such action would be interpreted as a capitulation in matters of
doctrine:
Effect on Other Lutherans in America

If the Missouri Synod were to become a member of the
National Lutheran Council, many Lutherans outside the Synodical
Conference would, no doubt, interpret such action as a loosening
of the doctrinal cords and a weakening of the stakes of orthodoxy,
for :which' the Missouri Synod is known the world over. ‘As a
result endless misunderstanding and confusion would arise.-

Resolutions
. -Wuereas, The Constitution of the National Lutheran Council
in. theory. would permit us to join without doing violence to our
convictions; but

- Wuereas; So-much of the: program of the National Luthéran

Council is to us of a. unionistic nature; and ©
Wuenreas, In practice and in fact the field of participation would

be .very :limited as compared with the over-all program of. the

National Lutheran Council; and

semen