# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1954_S66
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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-66 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

it, if it were made only in the interest of outward order and
efficiency. But when this grouping of all who are not Roman or
Jewish is carried into the field of actual church work, when it
provides the basis for the so-called “general Protestant service,”
then we must object with the charge of unionism.

The Manual stipulates also for representatives of the Lutheran
Church: “A chaplain belonging to a denomination classified as
Protestant provides a worship service which is acceptable and
meaningful to the maximum number of Protestant personnel in the
command” (Manual, p.4). In these services those separated by
differences of doctrine are united in worship and prayer. That is
unionism. Can a Lutheran minister with a good conscience officiate
under such circumstances? The service is not a Lutheran service.
The Lutheran service, if there is one, will be held at a different
time. The Lutheran chaplain may be in charge of the general
Protestant service, may select hymns, prayers, order of service, and
the like. But he is not, under the regulations, free in the one point
that matters most, in the sermon he preaches. Nothing is to be
said that is unacceptable to the members of other denominations.
Doctrinal differences are to be brushed aside, and all, the adherents
of true and of false teachings, are to be joined in the preaching
and hearing of the Word. He who should feel constrained in his
ministry of preaching “to declare . . . all the counsel of God” (Acts
20:27) and who, “as a steward of the mysteries of God,” is to strive
to be “faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2), must consent to provide a service and
sermon acceptable to those with whom he is not in doctrinal agree-
ment. That is unionism and cannot be explained away by drawing
a parallel between the general Protestant services and those held
in our churches on the ground that, also at the latter, there are
members of other denominations in attendance. The cases are not
at all parallel. Guests, no matter what their beliefs, are always
welcome at our Sunday services, but always with the clear under-
standing that they are guests at a Lutheran service. But at the
Army post members of various denominations are drawn to the
general Protestant service with the understanding and promise that
denomination lines and doctrinal differences will be ignored and
that they will be united in worship which “is acceptable and mean-
ingful” to most, in short, that unionism will be practiced — also
when a Lutheran chaplain is in charge.

In the Chaplaincy System There Is a Tendency to Become More
and More Unionistic

Unionism is a byway that leads step by step, farther and
farther, faster and faster, from the highroad of confessionalism.
That is a truth taught in Scripture, substantiated by the vages of
Church History, and apparent in the developments of rer-n: vears
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