# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1965_S206 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) eee 206 UNPUBLISHED REPORTS AND OVERTURES Whenever the LWF, for instance, supports a mission or a minority church, it becomes evidently corespon- sible for the public teaching or practice going on in this particular field, and this its responsibility then is auto- matically shared by the entire Federation in all its member churches. The constitutional “changes” have not modified this aspect of the problem, just as little as the problem was solved by the fact that (so far!) membership in the LWF did not mean compulsory or automatical pulpit and altar fellowship with the other member churches. The constant pressure exerted on member churches, to extend such fellowship despite the lack of real unity, should, we believe, be in itself reason enough to con- sider with greatest caution the matter of eventual mem- bership in this Federation, and for that matter, in any similar ecumenical organization. 6. Once again, we affirm that our plea, addressed to all our dear sister churches in the world, to decline membership in the Lutheran World Federation, is in no wise prompted by a loveless attitude over against the Federation and its member churches but springs solely from the solid conviction that our confessional Lutheran Churches would by participation in the LWF be irre- sistibly drawn into antiscriptural unionism, and that our witness, far from gaining weight, would only be weakened, and our status as churches bound to the Confessions lose its trustworthiness. May our Lord Jesus Christ grant His most abundant blessings on the deliberations of your synodical con- vention. Tue EvaNGELICAL LUTHERAN CuHuRCH — Synop or FRANCE AND BELGIUM THe EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Rev. Frep C. KREISS, President Rev. BERNARD GALICHER, Vice-President Rev, GUILLAUME WOLFF, Chairman Committee on Theology Rev. Jean Bricxa, Secretary Mr. FREDERIC BACHERT, Treasurer Mr, PHILIPPE SCHWEICKART Mr, EMILE KREISS Mr, GEorrroy LUDWIG Mr, ALBERT BocH [3-37 Un] Communication from the Free Ev. Lutheran Church of Finland We would like to voice our deep concern about a matter of great importance. The matter that is causing us concern has to do with the Lutheran World Federa- tion and the proposed Lutheran Council in the United States of America. Recently the official periodical of the state church of Finland published a news item received from the United States which states as an established fact that The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod will join the proposed Lutheran Council in the United States of America. Only the exact date of joining could not be stated with certainty. The news item has been the cause of a great deal of concern not only within our own church but also within more serious-minded state church circles. Such a joining, if it actually takes place, is considered to mean a decisive change in the policy of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod in its rela- tions with church bodies with whom it is not in doc- trinal agreement. The other two church bodies that would belong to the proposed Council are both members of the Lutheran World Federation and are in church fellowship de facto with each other. Both church associations, the Lutheran World Federation and the Lutheran Council in the United States of America, are federations of a churchly nature. This fact is unmistakably attested to by the names, the confessional basis, and the activity of these associations. The Lutheran World Federation has some very specific confessional clauses in its constitution, which were expanded with the assistance of The Lu- theran Church — Missouri Synod during the Helsinki Assembly. These confessional clauses do not, however, actually have to do with doctrine but only provide for a free confessional basis. As to the Lutheran Council in the United States of America, it clearly spells out the basis and the form of its joint churchly activity in the fourth and fifth articles of its proposed constitution and in the eighth article of its bylaws. This is clearly cooperation in churchly matters (cooperatio in ecclesi- asticis rebus sacris). In judging church associations two factors must be taken into consideration: (1) what the member churches are in essence and (2) what their relation to the larger church associations (LWF, WCC) is. Member churches of this type are not true visible churches (verae ecclesiae). For this reason The Lutheran Church _ Missouri Synod has not up to now been able to take part with them in joint activity of a churchly nature. These member churches have not changed, nor have they sought to establish fellowship with The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, for example through the Synodical Conference. On the contrary, theological liberalism has been given full reign in these member churches at least so far as Europe is concerned. For this reason our free Lutheran churches have been born. On the basis of God’s Word they have separated from the state churches. For these same Scriptural reasons we are still functioning as separate church bodies today. That which the fathers of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod have taught according to God’s Word concerning church matters still applies to conditions today. Franz Pieper states: “A congregation or church body which, in spite of the divine order, tolerates false doctrine in its midst is properly called a heterodox church. . . . Impure and heterodox churches are... - also the church bodies which, though bearing the Lu- theran name, do not profess and actually teach the doc- trine of the Church of the Reformation” (Christian Dogmaties, III, 402). C. F. W. Walther states that if a church body which has departed from the pure doc- trine in practice still has the true “official” doctrine in AEE AR ARINC LE NA TA See acer ee