# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1120
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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544 CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS

Wuereas, Certain changes would be of unquestioned
the burdened members of the St. Louis faculty;
foregoing be it therefore

Resolved, That Synod act favorably on the following Proposals:

1. That By-Laws 6.163a are to read: “The faculty of Con.
cordia Seminary at St.Louis shall be Synod’s official doctrinal}
censor of all manuscripts of a religious or theological nature before
they are published by Synod or any of its agencies”;

2. That 6.163 b be deleted and the next three Paragraphs be
realigned accordingly, namely: 6.163c become 6.163 b; 6.163 d be-
come 6.163 c; and 6.163 e become 6.163 d;

3. That 11.23h be deleted;

4, That a new section, 11.25, be added, as follows:

i benefit to
in view of the

11.25 Eprrorsa or OrriciaL SyNODICAL ORGANS

A. The Lutheran Witness and Der Lutheraner shall be the
official organs of Synod. Synod shall elect two editorial bo
one for each of these two organs. Each editorial board shall
consist of two professors (one from St. Louis and one from Spring-
field), two pastors, one teacher, and two laymen. All editorial
policies shall be fixed by the respective editorial boards in con-
sultation with the President and the Vice-Presidents of Synod.

B. Members of the editorial boards shall serve for a term of
three years. Vacancies occurring between regular meetings of
Synod shall be filled for the unexpired term by the President in
conjunction with the Vice-Presidents, subject to approval by the
District Presidents.

C. An editor in chief as well as the necessary associate editors
for each “Official Organ of Synod” shall be appointed by the
respective editorial board together with the President and Vice-
Presidents of Synod. Appointments may be terminated by those
empowered to make such appointments. The position of editor
in chief for The Lutheran Witness shall be fixed by the editorial
board with the approval of the Board of Directors of Synod. The
editor in chief of Der Lutheraner, as also the associate editors
for both of the “official organs of Synod,” may be a professor or
a pastor. Members of the editorial board are not eligible to serve
either as editor in chief or associate editor.

D. The editor in chief and associate editors of The Lutheran
Witness and Der Lutheraner shall be responsible to their respective
editorial boards for the conduct of their offices. Censorship of
doctrinal contents of the “official organs of Synod” shall be the
responsibility of the faculty of Concordia Seminary at St. Louis.

E. Concordia Publishing House shall pay all expenses of the
editors and editorial boards of Synod’s official organs.

CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS 645

ACTION

The resolutions relating to the editorship of the synodical
organs were referred to the Praesidium, the faculty at St. Louis,
and the Board of Directors for further study, with power to act.

Discontinuing Publicity and Missionary Education
Department
(Memorial 527)

-- ‘Wuereas, Synod’s Department of Publicity and Mission Edu-
cation has from 1929 to 1949 spent a total of $874,005.39 to inform
the members of Synod regarding the work of Synod and to edu-
cate them to become more Synod and mission conscious (cf: Report
of Synod’s Treasurer, in Proceedings, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1944,
1947, in the Lutheran Witness, 1948 and 1949, and the Fiscal Con-
ference Minutes of 1949); and

Wuereas, The special publications Go and Tell and See His
Banners Go cost an additional $121,802.19 (cf. Lutheran Witness,
1949); and

Wuereas, It cost Synod $126,846.59 in 1947 to collect the Cen-
tennial Thankoffering of $1,358,945.31 (cf. Lutheran Witness,
1948); and

Wuereas, The budget for Publicity and Missionary Education
has been set for 1950 at $80,000 (cf. Fiscal Conference, February 2
and 3, September 7 and 8, 1949); and -

Wuereas, The expenditure of the enormous sum of one million,
two hundred thousand dollars has evidently not had the desired
effect of educating the members of Synod in. regard to missions
and of inducing them to contribute more for the work of Synod,
as is seen from the fact that while Synod received about 12 cents
of every “church dollar” in 1929, the contributions for Synod’s
budget in 1948 were only a little over 6 cents of every dollar raised
for all church purposes within the congregations of Synod (cf. Lu-
theran Witness, 1949); now therefore be it

Resolved, That we request Synod earnestly to give considera-
tion to the advisability of discontinuing the Publicity and Mission
Department of Synod according to its present policy, and of substi-
tuting in its place an office which would merely supply the pastors
of Synod with all necessary information; leaving it to the pastors,
as the divinely called bishops of the flock, to convey this infor-
mation to théir respective congregations without further cost to
Synod. The savings realized by discontinuing the practice of print-