# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1977_S111 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 112 ADDRESS OF THE LCUSA GENERAL SECRETARY All in all, there must be at least 125,000—chaplains, military personnel and civilians in or near military establishments—each of whom says a reverent “thank you” for your ministry to them and their loved ones. 4. One of the most headlined activities of the Council since its formation relates to the resettlement of Indochinese refugees, most of them from Vietnam. Many of your congregations responded gladly, warmly, and openly to our request for sponsorships, as did congregations of The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America. In behalf of those congregations and in behalf of the 18,500 refugees who are now well on their way to becoming contributing members of our American society (some of them have also responded affirmatively to the claims of our Savior and have become members of our congregations), I bring you a brilliant and harmonious chorus of “thanks.” And at this point I want to digress briefly but also speak directly to the current situation of refugees from Indo-China. As you must certainly have read, there are still from eighty to ninety thousand individuals scattered throughout Thailand and other areas of Asia, seeking some new place to call “home.” More than six thousand of these men, women, and children have been living on small boats in which they fled the Communist regime, unable to leave the boats because haven has been denied them by Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and many other Asian nations. The situation is severe; many “boat cases,” as they are called, have drowned at sea; many have seen ships pass them by, refusing to heed SOS signals. Our nation’s State Department has proposed that the United States approve the admission of fifteen thousand of these refugees, and as recently as last Friday President Carter is reported to have agreed to admit 15,000 additional refugees. The concern of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service for assistance to Indo-China refugees is a matter of documented record. Iam confident that Lutheran congregations, as in the past, will step forward enthusiastically and sponsor some of these families and individuals. 5. The Division of Theological Studies is the one unit of the council in which each participating church body must cooperate; none has any option to decline to participate in that division. During the past ten years it has responded to eight requests from the churches to engage in theological studies. Three of these requests came from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod: a. Unchristian and Anti-Christian Organizations b. Translation of the Confessions c. War, Peace, and Conscience One more, entitled “Function of Doctrine and Theology,” was requested by both the Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church in America. In addition to the eight studies requested by the churches, the Division of Theological Studies undertook seven other studies and engaged in dialog with Methodists, Episcopalians, Orthodox, and Reformed; and theological conversations with Conservative- Evangelicals and Jews. For these studies and dialogs, thousands within all three church bodies speak gratefully and glowingly, 6. The Division of Campus Ministry and Educational Services also makes studies—studies having to do with the campus ministry concerns of the cooperating churches. It assists the cooperating bodies in developing their campus ministries and as in establishing or relocating congregations, it enables the churches to undertake and maintain campus ministries without undue duplication of effort or waste of resources, Thousands of students, faculty members, and their families rejoice and give thanks for the processes and procedures that make it possible to reduce the numberof competing Lutheran ministries on non-Lutheran cam- puses and to avoid adding more. I also hear many expressions of gratitude for the annual campus ministry staff conferences conducted by this division for the three church bodies. At such staff conferences, campus pastors and counselors compare experiences and engage in mutual edification and discussion of ways to improve the ministry of the churches among those who are to be our civil, commer- cial, and ecclesiastical leaders of tomorrow. They too say “thank you.” During the past two years I appeared three times before congressional committees in Washington to present testimony concerning legislation or regulations which were under development by the United States government. Unfortunately, I had to say in two of those three instances that I was speaking only for The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America. Following each of the two presentations, and after my comments became generally known by way of church and secular newspapers and magazines, I received many expressions of thanks from members of those two church bodies. But since The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod does not cooperate in the council’s Office for Governmental Affairs, I received from Missouri Synod members only inquiries as to why I should speak for only two church bodies. I said earlier that I want to seek enlightened and constructive ways of reversing the trend away from a greater expression of Lutheran unity. Here is one: it would help the cause of Lutheran identity and the cause of Lutheran unity if The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod were able to cooperate again in the council’s Office for Governmental Affairs as it did for several years. I believe that another enlightened and constructive way of reclaiming the hope for a greater expression of Lutheran unity is for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to cooperate fully again in the council’s Office of Communication and Interpretation. The news bureau of that office supplies information concerning the Chris- tian faith and life as reflected in the Lutheran Church. The content of this information is the work that Lutherans are doing, either separately or in partnership, and inter-Lutheran events that are newsworthy, plus an articulation of the often confusing and complex doc- trinal concerns and policy decisions. The news bureau gathers news from a variety of sources and, applying the highest journalistic standards, supplies both secular and religious editors with bona-fide news.