# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S512
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

512 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

it to be a document of compromise which does not in any way
reject the errors of the A. L. C. and which is, therefore, inadequate
as a settlement of past doctrinal differences and unsatisfactory as
a basis for union. Once again our Norwegian Synod petitioned
the Missouri Synod to “reconsider its adoption of the Common
Confession and to reject it as a settlement of its doctrinal differ-
ences with the A.L.C.” (cf. Report of the 34th Regular Conven-
tion of the Norwegian Synod, 1951, pp. 54—55). In this case our
petition was met by resolutions calling for postponement and
delay (cf. Proceedings of the 42nd Regular Convention of the
Missouri Synod, 1953, p. 539).

Finally, at the last convention of the Synodical Conference in
1954, our Norwegian Synod sent an urgent and prayerful plea to
that body, as a court of last appeal, to petition the Lutheran Church
_ Missouri Synod to take some action to remedy these many of-
fenses. Briefly we asked the Synodical Conference to vote on five
resolutions dealing with Objective Justification, Unionism, Prayer
Fellowship, the “1938” Resolutions, and the Common Confession
(cf. Report of the 37th Regular Convention of the Norwegian
Synod, 1954, pp. 43 ff.). It was our hope that, if the Synodical
Conference adopted these resolutions, it would influence the Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod to make them its own at its
forthcoming 1956 Convention, and thus avert the threatened break
in our fraternal relations.

In this memorial our Resolutions I and If covered the historical
position of the Synodical Conference on objective justification and
unionism. Our purpose in presenting these historical theses was
to lay the basis for Resolutions II, IV and V, which covered the
points on which there had been disagreement for years. The end
result was that while Resolutions I and II were adopted (Resolu-
tion I with considerable opposition from Missouri Synod, spokes-
men), Resolutions III, IV and V were not acted on directly, but
were assigned to committees for further study.

This procedure, we are convinced, will settle nothing. In the
first place, these matters (prayer fellowship, unionistic activities,
the Chicago Statement, negotiations with the A. L.C. and all the
documents pertaining thereto) have already been discussed in one
committee after the other for many years with no tangible results.

As a matter of fact, the situation is that we are not only no closer

together, but that we are actually drifting farther and farther apart.

What seems to be of even greater moment, however, is the
fact that these issues, all of which involve unionism in one form
or another, which have been discussed in committees in the past

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