# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S495
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 495

Void “Common Confession”
(Memorial 605)

Under the caption “Your Synod,” Lutheran Witness, Decem-
ber 21, 1954, p. 442, the statement is made: “Since the American
Lutheran Church has taken action to merge with the Evangelical
Lutheran Church (Norwegian), the United Evangelical Lutheran
Church (Danish), and the Lutheran Free Church (the merger,
however, has not as yet been effected), the Common Confession
becomes a document which is set aside.”

This proposed merger is now being negotiated and will doubt-
less be consummated in the near future. The purpose for which
the Common Confession was composed according to Resolution 17,
Proceedings 1950, p.587, was to establish church fellowship with
the American Lutheran Church, as it was then organized. The
American Lutheran Church, as it was constituted when the doc-
ument was framed, is now on the point of surrendering its in-
dependent autonomous status as a separate church body, being a
party to the contemplated merger. This action would automatically
nullify the purpose for which the Common Confession was written.

The proposed new church body is to be formed by the merger
of the American Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Lutheran
Church, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, and, possibly,
the Lutheran Free Church. The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod had no negotiations with the Evangelical Lutheran Church
or with the United Evangelical Lutheran Church or with the Lu-
theran Free Church in drafting the Common Confession. Should
this pending merger be effected, and in the event that this newly

formed body, or for that matter any other Lutheran church body,
would desire establishment of fellowship with The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod, it would be necessary that negotiations
to that end be instituted anew and that new doctrinal discussions be
initiated specific for that church body. In the article quoted above
from the Lutheran Witness it is also stated: “If the merger be-
comes a reality, there will no longer be an American Lutheran
Church. There will be a new body, with which our Synod has
had no negotiations.”

Therefore we petition the St. Paul Convention of The Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod formally to resolve, as an action
in consequence, that the Common Confession be declared voided
as a document for establishing church fellowship.

Tae LurHeran Unity COMMITTEE OF THE Sout Dakota District
J. R. SHEPPARD, Secretary