# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S604
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

604 PUBLICATION MATTERS

Now, although the translators of the RSV publicly deny the
Christian faith and although they have embodied their denials in
so many passages of the RSV, the Concordia Theological Monthly
(August 1955, pp. 567,568) tells us that we should trust these
Modernist translators as we have trusted Luther.

On the basis of such a pro-Modernist policy our church is
vigorously promoting the RSV. This is done with such an uncritical
enthusiasm that one of the articles which was printed in the Con-
cordia Theological Monthly (October 1954, pp. 766—773) now is
published as a pamphlet by the promoters of the RSV in order
to sell their version.

The greatest threat to our church today is Modernism. Its
danger is increased by handling it with a soft touch. It comes with
a smooth tongue, calling Jesus “Lord, Lord!” while it leads the
hearts of Christians away from their Savior. But now we are
calling these Modernists “scholars” and are treating them with the
highest respect. Their books are given an important place in the
training of our pastors. We act as though they were the only ones
who can translate the Bible for us. Shouldn’t we expose these
Modernists and show what they really are? How can we, partic-
ularly in a Bible translation, pat them on the back and recommend
them to our Christians as their finest friends?

Do we want our church to think that Modernism isn’t really
so bad after all? Are they the only ones who can give us a new
Bible version? Is there really to be a new policy in our church,
that a “little? Modernism in our Bible will not hurt our church
(Lutheran Witness, Jan.17, 1956, p.16)? It is time we ask our-
selves: Has Modernism won a beachhead in our church?

We have kept our hymnal pure. But now we are to have
a Modernist Bible! We have been told that we must not have
an official Missouri-Synod Bible, however good it may be. Now
we are trying to make the RSV our official Bible in our services
and in our instructions. We are told that if the American public,
after a high-pressure advertising campaign, wants the RSV, our
Catechism “would have to be adapted to the RSV” (Concordia
Theological Monthly, March 1956, p. 162). Whatever pleases the
people is now the highest authority of our church.

We have been urged to study the RSV, but those who should
have the evidence, which we need in order to study it, refuse to
print it. Our church has not printed the truth about the Modernism
of the translators or of the translation of the RSV. We are not
even given a list of the passages in which the translators have
expressed their Modernism. Why are we hiding these facts about
a version which we recommend to our Christians for their use?

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