LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 178

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178 THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

ALC historian E. Clifford Nelson notes:

It was the position of Old Lutheranism on infallibility which the
American Lutheran Conference churches in the National Lutheran
Council sought to protect in the “Minneapolis Theses” (1925) and
which the Missouri Synod enunciated in its “Brief Statement”
(1932). The Neo-Lutherans preferred to speak of the infallibility of
the message (“Word of God”) of the Scriptures, thus distinguishing
between the Word of God and the Scriptures but not separating
them. It was primarily here that the battle was joined in the union
movement from the forties to 1962, and resumed by parties within
the Missouri Synod between 1962 and 1973 (Nelson, 1975, p. 497).

“Old Lutheranism” came to be breached rather massively—
both in the ALC and in the LCMS:

By 1956, when the proposed constitution of the new American
Lutheran Church was voted on by the Evangelical Lutheran
Church, several if not most of its professors of theology were
teaching a view of Scripture at variance with the statement on the
Bible in the new constitution. ...in the course of time students were
being exposed to a new brand of Lutheranism that was remarkably
similar in all schools, whether in Chicago, Philadelphia, the Twin
Cities, or St. Louis (Nelson, 1972, pp. 164—165).

This invasion of “Neo-Lutheranism,” however, was dealt
with very differently by the two churches. The LCMS, at its
1973 convention in New Orleans, solemnly and decisively
repudiated “Neo-Lutheranism”’ as contrary to the Word of God
and to the Lutheran Confessions, as something therefore
which, in the language of the Formula of Concord (Tappert, p.
503), “cannot be tolerated in the church of God, much less be
excused and defended” (1973 Res. 3-09).

The ALC, on the other hand, has, for the foreseeable future,
placed itself into the ‘““Neo-Lutheran” camp. This is clear from
the documentation provided in the official report issued under
date of October 1980 by the LCMS representatives in the joint
ALC-LCMS fellowship commission and entitled ‘“‘The
American Lutheran Church and The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod: A Statement of Doctrinal Differences” (here-
inafter cited as ‘“‘Differences’’). It is clear from this document
that the ALC’s Neo-Lutheran espousal of historical criticism
radically relativizes the authority of Holy Scripture and there-
by also that of the Lutheran Confessions. Any relativizing of
Biblical authority must of course affect Christian doctrine all
along the line, not only in matters like the ordination of women,
but even in the central Trinitarian and Christological mysteries
of the faith (see ‘‘Differences,” p. 5, no. 20; pp. 7—11, 13—16, 17,
n. 21, 19, 22).

The massive abandonment of the Lutheran Confessions as
defining the basis and limits of church fellowship is evident in
major developments like the following:

a. Contrary to the ‘““Minneapolis Theses” (III,1) and to the
old (1930) ALC principle that not merely formal “‘acceptance”’
of the Confessions but “actual agreement on Scripture and
Confessions’ was necessary, to be established by means of
“doctrinal investigation and discussion between synods” (Fred
W. Meuser, The Formation of the American Lutheran Church
(Wartburg Press, 1958], pp. 274—275), the new ALC today “‘is
convinced that basic unity in faith and doctrine is a fact among
U.S. Lutherans. We believe that acceptance of the Lutheran
Confessions is sufficient witness to that unity in faith and
doctrine” (‘‘Differences,” p. 14).

b. Contrary to the “Minneapolis Theses” (III, 1 and 2) and
to the so-called Galesburg Rule, the joint 1978 “Communion
Practices” statement of the ALC and the LCA advocates
intercommunion also with non-Lutheran churches “because of
the universal nature of the church” (“Differences,” pp. 14—15).

c. Warren Quanbeck’s Search for Understanding (Augs-
burg, 1972), officially commissioned by both the ALC and the
LCA and officially distributed to all ALC convention delegates
in 1972, supported the new “ecumenical” line (e.g. Marburg
Revisited, 1966, with its demand for Lutheran-Reformed inter-
communion) by arguing that the Bible “presents us with a
whole complex of Biblical theologies more diverse and more
profound than any of the church’s theological systems” (p. 35),
that the ‘‘study of language has removed some of the pre-
tensions of theology, taking away its claim to be the truth or to
present truths and showing it to be symbols or signs pointing
to the truth which is in Jesus Christ” (p. 54), and that
“Reformed and Lutheran theologians have thus discovered
each other within the ample boundaries of the traditional

Christian witness to Christ. They can recognize each other as
fully Christian and orthodox” (p. 69 [cf. “Differences,” p. 15]).

d. There is even open endorsement, at an official level
within the ALC, of E. Kaesemann’s radical thesis that the New
Testament canon cannot support doctrinal unity among the
churches because the New Testament itself already contains
contradictory theologies (‘“Differences,” pp. 8, 15, 16).

e. Asamember of the Lutheran World Federation, the ALC
bears coresponsibility for the LWF’s endorsement of the
ecumenical model of “reconciled diversity,” which means
“genuine church fellowship” among the various denomina-
tions or confessions while maintaining “the legitimacy of the
confessional differences and therefore the need to preserve
them” (LWF Proceedings, Dar es Salaam, 1977, pp. 173—175).
This is, in radicalized form, the very position of the old
Prussian Union Church, which combined Lutheran and
Reformed pastors and congregations on the theory that both
churches could keep their confessions, but that “‘concurrencein
the Union merely expresses the spirit of moderation and
mildness, which no longer allows the difference with the other
confession over particular points of doctrine to serve as ground
for denying it external church fellowship” (Royal Cabinet
Order, 28 February 1834).

If the ALC’s own historic “Minneapolis Theses,” therefore,
be taken as normative, then judging by that standard, one is
compelled to say that in Neo-Lutheranism the ALC has
embraced a position which is sub-Christian in respect of the
Bible, and sub-Lutheran in respect of the Confessions. Judging
by that same standard one must also say that the Missouri
Synod is today the only one among the three largest U.S.
Lutheran churches which officially stands for Old Luther-
anism.

For the sake of fairness this conclusion should be qualified
in two ways. First, one need think only of the scandal of divided
convention votes on matters of the utmost theological impor-
tance, to realize the modest and imperiled status of the LCMS’s
own official orthodoxy. Responsible reaction to the ALC’s
official heterodoxy therefore must on no account be understood
as smug self-satisfaction. It remains true, however, that “a
church does not forefeit its orthodox character through the
casual intrusion of errors, provided these are combated and
eventually removed by means of doctrinal discipline, Acts
20:30; 1 Tim. 1:3” (“Brief Statement,” 29). And contrary to
popular caricature, the founders of the LCMS never identified
orthodoxy with theological perfection (see C. F. W. Walther
quote in FODT Report, LCUSA 1978, p. 37).

Secondly, also within the ALC there remains a—perhaps
considerable, though presently disfranchised—conservative
remnant. The sad fact is, however, that the ALC as such—as
distinct from individual ALC pastors, congregations, and
people who have remained Old Lutheran—officially tolerates,
embraces, promotes, and defends, especially at the level of its
published and “professorial” theology, and under the umbrella
of “diversity,” the Neo-Lutheran violations of the Scriptures
and the Confessions.

WHEREAS, Judged by the standard of its own ‘Minneapolis
Theses,” the ALC has in its published representative theology
openly departed from the Scriptural and confessional founda-
tions of Old Lutheranism (see “A Statement of Doctrinal
Difference,’ October 1980); and

WHEREAS, The ALC is thereby violating the church’s pure
marks, that is, of the pure teaching of the Gospel and the right
administration of the sacraments (Augsburg Confession and
Apology VII); therefore be it

Resolved, That the LCMS is hereby compelled to note with
sorrow that the ALC has destroyed the proper basis for church
fellowship (pulpit and altar fellowship and joint church work)
between itself and the LCMS, and that such fellowship there-
fore no longer exists.

Faculty

Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Ind.

Norbert H. Mueller, Secretary