# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1971_S101
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

IIE /-—

102 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ALC

theran Church, to the Many district conventions this
spring, knows that I emphasize again and again the
decisive role that these Confessions play in our life.
T hear you asking about our understanding of the Bible.
Some of the things I hear you say sound strange to my

own judgment,

From our constitution: “The American Lutheran
Church accepts all the canonical books of the Old and
New Testaments as a whole and in all their parts as the
divinely inspired, revealed, and inerrant Word of God
and submits to this as the only infallible authority in all
matters of faith and life.”

Or, listen to the United Testimony of Faith and Life,
which was the basis of the formation of The American
Lutheran Church: “We believe that the Holy Scriptures

the center of the church’s life, in preaching, in teaching,
in witnessing, in worship, and is applicable to all moral

The Scriptures are the Word of God for they are the
written interpretation and communication of the Word

discover what His Word to us is by studying and lis.
tening to His book. We cannot make the book into
something we would like it to be. We must be subject
to it and must accept whatever we discover about it
aS we continue to learn from it.

We could 8° on to discuss its authority, inspiration,
inerrancy, infallibility, Law and Gospel, formal and

I hear you asking questions about the ordination of
women. It is a troublesome question — for us, for you,
and for many others. Let me try to sketch our history of
it and our attitude toward it. Many of our sister
churches in Europe have debated this issue for many
years. Sometimes there has been bitterness, In nearly
every case, after years of discussion, they have decided

stand their impact and application in the life of the
church at other times and places. You are a free and