# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S530
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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530 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

admittedly does not exist. A consideration of the following points
will make this clear:

A. The Lutheran World Federation lists among its purposes:
“to bear united witness before the world to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ as the power of God for salvation” (Constitution III, 2, a).
The Lutheran World Federation is herein acting as only a church
can act: (The witnessing subject is the Lutheran World Federa-
tion.) As such, the Lutheran World Federation (since it does not
presume to scrutinize a member church’s de facto adherence to
Scriptures and the Confessions) is giving equal room and scope
to orthodox and heterodox churches and their proclamation. The
ultimate question of truth or error, of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, is
being bypassed. Consequently, membership on the part of a con-
fessionally conscientious and courageous church is made impos- |
sible. Such a church could, of course, utilize the forum of the
Lutheran World Federation to make its testimony heard; but in

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view. of the actual confessional quality of member churches of
the Lutheran World Federation such as Sweden, Brazil, Batak,
and Pomerania, there could be no question of a really united wit-
ness. And if the testimony given within the Lutheran World Fed-
eration is to be merely negative, it may fairly be urged that that
testimony can best be given outside the Lutheran World Federation.

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| B. Another purpose of the Lutheran World Federation is “to
a foster Lutheran participation in ecumenical movements” (Constitu-
| tion III, 2,d). The purpose as stated leaves unasked and unanswered
i the highly important question whether the “ecumenical move-
| ments” are to be scrutinized as to their true ecumenicity (that is,
of a gentiine love and concern for the whole Body of Christ) or
are merely or predominantly a part of the present-day tendency
toward mass-church formations on the basis of the least common
confessional denominator.

C. Another purpose of the Lutheran World Federation is “to
support Lutheran groups in need of spiritual or material aid”
(Constitution ITI, 2,f). Now, an evaluation of the practical work-
ings of the Lutheran World Federation is difficult, since any at-
tempt to evaluate them is complicated by the fact that the lines
of demarcation between the missionary and educational endeavors (
of the Lutheran World Federation and those of individual member
churches are vague and sometimes artificially established. To cite
but one instance from South America: A Lutheran student pastor
at Porto Alegre in Brazil was sponsored jointly by the Lutheran
‘World Federation’s Committee on Latin America and with the
United States’ Lutheran Student Association, the Lutheran Church | :
of Brazil,-and the Foreign Office of the Evangelical Church in Ger-

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