# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S531
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS 531

many — this last a federation of Lutheran and Reformed Churches.
(See Lutheran Standard, August 20, 1955.) In any case, the con-

_fessional;question is again raised. We ask again: Can an orthodox

church body be a party to spiritual aid in which orthodox and
heterodox bodies unite, to an action in which the critical question

of the Scriptural and confessional quality of that aid is left un-

answered? The stated purpose of the Lutheran World Federation
“to develop a united Lutheran approach to responsibilities in mis-
sions and education” (Constitution, III, 2,3) raises the same ques-

-tion, though not so directly, and should be carefully considered by
-both the theologians and the missionary and educational authorities

of our church. In all such cases we are forced to ask ourselves:
How can a church carry on common evangelistic, missionary, and
educational work with churches to which it must (for compelling
reasons) refuse pulpit and altar fellowship? How can it entrust
its missionary, or educational, or other spiritual ministries to men
whom it feels constrained to call to repentance for teaching or
tolerating error? Or, conversely, how can a church refuse pulpit
and altar fellowship to men and churches with whom it (by mem-
bership in the Federation) is sharing the most central and sacred
tasks of the church?

D. The Lutheran World Federation is at pains to make plain
in its Constitution (III,1) that the autonomy of the member
churches is safeguarded. Organizational autonomy is, no doubt,
guaranteed, but the actual working of the Federation in the areas
which its Constitution designates does in fact impair the confes-
sional autonomy of the member churches. Member churches are
by the fact of their membership and by the fact that they con-
tribute to the support of the Federation’s activities committed to
a public assent to activities in which orthodox and heterodox bodies
have equal voice and influence. Member churches have in reality
surrendered their confessional autonomy. The fact remains that
the Lutheran World Federation can hardly be considered a plat-
form where a confessionally conscientious church may stand and
meet its fellow Lutherans, its confessional integrity fully safe-
guarded. .

E. The confessional integrity of member churches is also en-
dangered by the nature of the Assemblies of the Federation. The
Assemblies of the Lutheran World Federation are marked by a
strong common-worship character; the common participation in
the Lord’s Supper at Hanover in 1952, while not a part of the
official program of the Lutheran World Federation Assembly, yet
was and remains an impressive and ineradicable testimony to an
assumed oneness, a testimony to which member churches are by
the fact of their membership committed.