# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S492
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

492 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

treated as one document, with the understanding that Part II has
not yet been adopted” (Proceedings, p. 528); and

Wuereas, The Common Confession, Part II, serves to clarify,
and safeguard the orthodoxy of, the confession made by The
Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod in The Common Confession,
Part I, and must therefore in the light of history be considered
an integral constituent of that confession; therefore

Your Committee recommends that the Forty-third Regular
Convention of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, assembled
at St.Paul, Minn., adopt Part II of The Common Confession in
addition to Part I, adopted in 1950, as a statement of doctrine and
as a guide for practice in harmony with the Sacred Scriptures and
the Lutheran Confessions.

0

Wuereas, Because of the probable union of the American
Lutheran Church with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the
United Evangelical Lutheran Church on the basis of the United
Testimony on Faith and Life, The Common Confession will not
serve as a functioning union document for fellowship with the
American Lutheran Church; and

Wuereas, The Common Confession constitutes a landmark in
the history of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod’s earnest
endeavor to realize the genuinely Scriptural purpose embodied in
Article IV of the constitution of The Evangelical Lutheran Synod-
ical Conference of North America, “to strive for true unity in doc-
trine and practice among Lutheran church bodies”; therefore

Your Committee recommends that The Common Confession
(Parts I and II) henceforth be regarded as a significant historic
statement which may, like other documents of a similar nature,
serve our church for purposes of discussion and instruction, both
within our own circles and in meetings with others.

It

Wuereas, The Forty-third Convention of The Evangelical
Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America adopted the
following resolution (Proceedings, p. 193):

“Resolved, That we respectfully petition the four constituent
synods to agree to act in unison in any possible future discussions
with other church bodies, and that we to this end petition each
individual body of the Synodical Conference to appoint or elect
a standing Unity or Doctrinal Committee and to instruct these
committees to participate in such discussions as a Synodical Con-
ference unit, in order that each committee can report back to