# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_2016_S96
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

distinguishing between Law and Gospel, and administering the sacraments according to Christ’s establishment, and as we all share the unchanging Gospel of
Christ in the places God has given us to serve.
God has promised that the gates of hell shall not
prevail against His Church. Church history confirms
that God keeps His promises. We can’t always imagine
what God will do to sustain His Church, but we know
He will. Many of us know the story of how Lutheranism nearly came apart in the period immediately
following Luther’s death in 1546. The political and
theological challenges that repeatedly forced themselves on nascent Lutheranism over a series of years
nearly spelled the human end of the Lutheran Church.
However, God had other intentions. In the midst of
the recurring challenges and, frankly, against all odds,
God raised up wise and committed leaders who helped
institutional Lutheranism survive and thrive.
We can’t always imagine what God will do to sustain
His Church, but we know He will. In 1840, the vast
majority of America’s Lutherans had given up their
confessional identity and were largely indistinguishable from generic American Protestantism. The future
for historic Lutheranism seemed dim, even bleak. And
yet, within the span of merely a decade, the American
Lutheran (and Christian) landscape was transformed
as confessionally oriented Lutheran Synods, including
our own Synod, were founded with a clear sense of
their confessional identity and God-given mission.
The Church is always entering a new and uncertain
day. We may romantically pine for an imagined golden
age in the past, but the Church’s history shows that
our life together this side of heaven will be as fellow
combatants in the Church Militant with the faithful
of all time. Like our predecessors, we are continually
entering a new day. What that future will look like is
uncertain.

Lutheran Church in Norway.” This small church has
been striving to be faithful and to reach out with the
unchanging Gospel in an increasingly secularized
context. Beyond Norway, there is a whole series of
affirmations of fellowship that you may adopt at this
convention: Uruguay (5-02); Guatemala (5-03);
Venezuela (5-04); Almaty, Kazakhstan (5-05); and
Chile (5-06). These resolutions indicate how God is
keeping His promises to His Church.
And then there are the fast-growing churches of the
Global South, especially in Africa. With roots in the
pious mission societies of the European churches,
these church bodies often have a deep sense of mission, which manifests itself in powerful ways. The
fastest-growing churches of the Lutheran tradition are
today found in Africa. At the same time, many of the
churches of sub-Saharan Africa, whether in west, east,
or south, are striving to align their doctrine and practice with that of the historic Church.8 They have a deep
commitment to the Scriptures, but in some instances
still do not have the Lutheran Confessions in their own
language. God is at work keeping His promises.
In this regard, we must remember that we are the
receivers of God having kept His promises to our
predecessors. We English speakers must recall that
we have only had The Book of Concord in our native
tongue for 165 years. In 1851, God in His mercy gave
the American Lutheran Church the entire Book of
Concord in English, when the little Henkel Press of
New Market, Va., delivered its full translation of the
Concordia to the American church with the following
words:
We cherish the anticipation of a brighter day in the
Lutheran church. In a land of freedom, of science
and art, where the generous spirit of political wisdom encourages the exercise of reason, and guards
the decisions of conscience; where industry, energy,
and enterprise, though daily attaining fresh prospects of future improvement, are continually unburying the sacred treasures of the past, we believe
that the doctrines of our church will ultimately be
reclaimed, and that men of our western clime will
enter into the investigation of these doctrines with
all the avidity natural to a love for the truth.9

What will God do now?
As we’ve discussed above, Christianity in Europe
has largely collapsed. But it is not gone. There are
pockets—sometimes very small pockets—of faithful,
confessional Lutherans who are doing their best in almost impossible circumstances to maintain a faithful,
biblical confession. We will see evidence of that this
week. Committee 5 will put before you Resolution
5-01: “To Endorse Altar and Pulpit Fellowship with
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U P O N T H I S R O C K • Essay

8

For a very helpful analysis of the changing relationship between the LWF and some
of its African member churches, see Albert B. Collver, “Colonialism in the Global
South: The Imperialism of Western Sexual Ethics.” Journal of Lutheran Mission 3,
no. 1 (2016): 34–39, online at ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/CollverColonialisminthe
GlobalSouthTheImperialismofWesternSexualEthics.pdf, accessed July 7, 2016.

“Upon This Rock: Repent, Confess, Rejoice”