# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1973_S87 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) THE CONVENTION ESSAY 87 God’s Word, too, remains unchanged, nor will it ever pass away. Neither have the Lutheran Confessions or Luther’s doctrine disappeared. We still assert: “God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine pure shall now and ever- more endure.” It is here, and here alone, that The Lu- theran Church — Missouri Synod has found its strength and power in the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. Modify and change elsewhere will allow the cross of Christ with His words “Father, forgive” to remain cen- tral in everything which is thought, said, or done! Changes in language have also contributed to the complexity in our struggle to reinterpret our mission. The Missouri Synod had to make a transition from Ger- man to English. What’s more, the “communication gap” within the English language itself is also affecting us theologically a second time. When, for example, the orig~ inal meaning of words is replaced with a different meaning, communication problems arise. Readers make the mistake of reading into words meaning based upon their own personal experience and predilection. This little poem illustrates how the meanings of words can change: Remember when hippy meant big in the hips, And a trip involved travel in cars, planes and ships? When pot was a vessel for cooking things in, And hooked was what grandmother’s rugs may have been? ... When roll meant a bun, and rock was a stone, And hang-up was something you did with a phone? It’s groovy, man, groovy, but English it’s not. Methinks that our language is going to pot. [Parade Magazine, 14 November 1971, p. 12] In view of the linguistic and sociological changes, the basic question confronting the Missouri Synod, namely: What is the Gospel message which we must bring to our world? becomes much more complex. Answers cover a broad field. On the one extreme there may be those who feel the Gospel message must include 126 years of synodical history. On the other extreme, there may be those who question or reject or ignore the theo- logical statements of the past, who reject the Lutheran Confessions as authoritative, and who even deny that Christ is the only and exclusive way, truth, and life. Carried far enough, what results is a theological vac- uum: no past, no present, no responsibilities, no mes- sage, no future, and no God. Ernest Hemingway in his book A Clean Well Lighted Place has an old cafe-waiter sitting quietly in the darkness of night reflecting on the theological emptiness of our times. He then prays the Lord’s Prayer thus: Our nothing who art nothing, nothing be thy name; thy nothing come; thy nothing be done on nothing as it is in nothing; give us this nothing our daily nothings, as we forgive those who nothing against us. And lead us into nothing, but nothing us from nothing; for thine is the nothing and the nothing and the nothing. In view of this nothingness and frustration, a view held by more than we are aware of, we must remind ourselves again of what our Savior said just before His ascension: Go therefore and make all nations My disciples; baptize men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. [Matt. 28:19-20 NEB] What are the problems we face in carrying out the Savior’s Great Commission in 1973? Church history through past centuries demonstrates that in the very process of presenting the message of forgiveness and in teaching everything He has com- manded, that accommodation or resistance constantly tends to modify the message and the command “to ob- serve all things.” The result of such accommodation may be that a non-Christian life-style is approved and adopted, and the proclamation becomes a trumpet with an uncertain sound. Today our Synod of some three million members, faced with new tensions in the world and involved in renewed Biblical studies, finds it much more difficult to engage in dialog and rapport than when it was small and involved in close, intimate relations. We are living in a world in which man has harnessed hydrogen power and stands at the threshhold of manip- ulating the evolutionary process through controlling hormones and genes. Man has destroyed God’s creation at a more feverish pace than ever before. Man has flaunted God, and as a result and in spite of progress there is more human suffering, hunger, and destruction than ever thought possible. It is to this condition that the church, as God’s voice, must aggressively multiply its efforts to bring the Gospel and rescue a dying world. Let us remind ourselves that there never has been a period in the history of the church when the status quo was maintained in the method of preaching Christ, without regard to changes in circumstances. Change changes everything. But the people of God are supplied with the power of the Holy Spirit who continues to motivate and challenge them, equipping them to meet the new requirements. As heirs of our cumulative his- tory, it is incumbent upon us that our heirs understand their heritage, and to build confidently for the future, in spite of complexities, confusion, chaos, and death. Amidst our gnawing doubts, our agonizing fears even of one another, our despair in defeat — or our re- joicing in victory — there can be only one joy in victory which is lasting and eternal, namely our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as the Victor for us. The victory which has been gained in Him was not by a majority vote, but on Calvary’s cross. You and I need once more to step into the com- pany of the disciples, because like Thomas we have been away from them too long as we engaged in our own saviorhood, with the blind pursuits of our own personal and immediate goals, rather than those of the suffering and resurrected Christ. I said we need to re- turn to the company of the disciples and there, in spite of our doubts and fears, confess with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!” We need to be led with St. Paul on the road to Da- mascus. Perhaps at this convention we have our pockets filled with the names and addresses of both our enemies and our friends, as did St. Paul (Acts 9:1). But on the road to Damascus a blinding light flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard that unforgettable voice, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting Me?”