# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1973_S134
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

134 RESOLUTIONS

disturbing facts concerning “doctrinal diversity”
threatening Synod’s disruption. Specifically he cited the
following:

a very restrictive understanding of what constitutes
‘doctrine’”; a confessional subscription . . . limited
to the doctrinal points at issue; the contention that
“regarding the inspiration of Scripture . . . there is
no precise and uniform confessional position”; “dif-
ference of opinion on the nature of Biblical au-
thority”; “difference among us on the doctrine of the
inerrancy of Scripture”; that they “are inerrant
only in their function”; refusal to recognize “the
relationship between the material and formal prin-
ciples of theology,” leading to the assertion that “the
Gospel rather than the Bible... [is] the norm of
our theology,” a view sometimes called “Gospel re-
ductionism”; reinterpretation of certain Biblical mir-
acle-stories into parables or other literary devices.
(Proceedings, 1971, 54 f.)

Since the issues centered primarily in the faculty of
the St. Louis seminary, Dr. Preus explained that a Fact
Finding Committee had been appointed to probe into the
“criticisms and questions [that] have been voiced for
several years about the theological position of mem-
bers of this faculty” (Proceedings, 56). The Synod sup-
ported his judgment and action (Milwaukee Res. 2-23),
directing at the same time the Board of Control of the
St. Louis seminary “to take appropriate action on the
basis of the report.” (Milw. Res. 2-28)

In March of 1972, Dr. Preus, in consultation with the
vice-presidents, issued A Statement of Scriptural and
Confessional Principles with the declared purpose that
“these guidelines [were] not to serve as a new standard
of orthodoxy, but rather to assist the board of control in
identifying areas which need further attention in terms
of the Synod’s doctrinal position.” The St. Louis semi-
nary board “made no use of A Statement except to re-
ceive it and to ask the faculty to respond.”

Response came from the faculty in a sharp and criti-
cal reply, April 4. Their “Response” termed the Presi-
dent’s Statement “unnecessary,” “improper,” “inade-
quate theologically,” of “a spirit alien to Lutheran con-
fessional theology,” “divisive,” and “invalid both as an
assessment and as a solution of presumed problems at
our seminary.”

On Sept. 1, 1972, the Report of the Synodical Presi-
dent appeared, a book of 160 pages, issued in compli-
ance with Resolution 2-28 and compiled after the Presi-
dent had received the Board of Control’s report on June
22, 1972. (“The board to this date has found no false
doctrine among the members of the seminary faculty,”
was the announced conclusion, though problem areas
were recognized as existing, and a minority report of
the St. Louis seminary board charged that “we cannot
report in good conscience that there is no false doc-
trine.”) The synodical President’s Report was drawn
up on the basis of interviews with individual faculty
members by the Fact Finding Committee. In his prefa-
tory letter Dr. Preus stated: “We do have problems at

the seminary, which have increasingly threatened the
unity of our Synod ... We have been divided too long
... While the issues are many and complex, the basic
issue is the relationship between the Scriptures and the
Gospel. To put the matter in other words, the ques-
tion is whether the Scriptures are the norm of our faith
and life or whether the Gospel alone is that norm.”
(P. 3)

The President pointed out with dismay that the evi-
dence gathered by the Fact Finding Committee sub-
stantiated the following, if not with reference to all,
then at least with reference to individual faculty
members:

a. A false doctrine of the nature of the Holy Scrip-
tures coupled with methods of interpretation
which effectually erode the authority of the
Scriptures.

b. A substantial undermining of the confessional
doctrine of original sin by a de facto denial of the
historical events on which it is based.

ce. A permissiveness toward certain false doctrines.

d. A tendency to deny that the Law is a normative
guide for Christian behavior.

e. A conditional acceptance of the Lutheran Con-
fessions.

f. A strong claim that the seminary faculty need not
teach in accord with the Synod’s doctrinal stance
as expressed in the Synod’s official doctrinal state-
ments and resolutions. (P. 25)

With care and in detail the Report enlarges on each
of the above areas, documenting the fact that, as Dr.
Preus sums up in his epilog, “it is evident that the use
of the historical-critical method has brought about
changes both in our doctrinal stance, our certainty, and
our attitudes toward doctrine .. . We have two the-
ologies. With the influential position the seminary holds
in the church, its views will prevail unless the Synod
directs otherwise and sees to it that its directives are
implemented.” (P. 148)

Within a week, Sept. 8, 1972, came the Fact Finding
or Fault Finding? answer of Dr. John H. Tietjen, presi-
dent of the seminary. The double-column 35-page
document rejects the validity of the Report, calling it
“unfair,” “unreliable,” “untrue,” “less than Scriptural,”
and “unLutheran,” even though the accompanying let-
ter by Dr. Tietjen admits that “there are indeed genuine
doctrinal issues that must be confronted and resolved,”
that the “issue is a doctrinal issue.” The same letter
characterizes Pres. Preus and the members of the Fact
Finding Committee as “our adversaries” (a term used
in our Confessions for heretics who reject the Gospel),
and expresses doubts about the disagreement with “our
adversaries’ basic understanding of the nature of the
Gospel itself.” (“The alternatives are sharp and mu-
tually exclusive,” according to the Concordia Theologi-
cal Monthly, Nov. 1972, p. 666.)

The issues stated by the Report are in no way recog-
nized as true; the procedural method of the Fact Find-

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