# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S554
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

554 INTERSYNODICAL AND DOCTRINAL MATTERS

exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, and all other
applicable texts as they relate to the question of woman suffrage
in our congregations; and be it further

Resolved, That, in the meantime, our congregations be urged
to continue the present practice of our Synod in restricting the
privileges of voting membership to qualified male communicants.”

It is clear from the second resolution that more has been
expected of the committee than an exegetical study. Obviously the
expectation was that this study should issue in some guidelines
for the practical application of the Biblical data, more specifically,
application to the matter of woman suffrage.

The assignment is not an easy one. Exegetes have been
quite divergent in their views as to certain points in connection
with the pertinent Bible passages. Divergent, too, have been the
views as to their present-day applicability.

We were greatly aided in our study when, at the time we
took up our work, there came into our hands what we regard as the
most generally satisfactory study of the problem of Woman in
the Church that has appeared up till now. We refer to Das Amt
der Frau in der Kirche by Fritz Zerbst, published in Vienna in
1950 (Dr. Zerbst is a Lutheran, a prominent theologian and ad-
ministrator of the Church of the Augsburg Confession in Austria).
With the permission of the publisher of this study it was trans-
lated into English by a member of our committee (Fritz Zerbst,
The Office of Woman in the Church: A Study in Practical Theology,
trans. Albert G. Merkens, Concordia Publishing House: St. Louis,
1955. 128 pages. Paper, $1.00). In this little book there is a pene-
trating critique of recent European literature on the subject, illumi-
nating the various approaches that have been adopted; a sane and
solid treatment of the New Testament texts, covering over fifty
pages and quite adequately presenting the history of interpreta-
tion of these texts; a survey of the position of women in the church
since the earliest days; and a study of the theological foundations
for church practice. Both Lutheran and non-Lutheran reviewers
of the study as now translated have been impressed by it as we
have been. We hope that it will prove in wide circles a counter-
active to the flood of literature on the market approaching the
problem, as a rule, on psychological or sociological or purely emo-
tional and rationalistic grounds, with seldom an effort to treat it
theologically with genuine confrontation of Holy Scriptures.

We recommend that the delegates to Synod secure a copy
of Zerbst. In connection with this report we shall give references
to this book for comparison and further study. Indeed, Zerbst is

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