LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 390

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390

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

evidence toward their reception by a new congregation or its
bishops." ::

As a result of the Christiamzation of the West. membership in the
church was more or iess taken for granted in most parts of Europe during the
Middle Ages. Disruptive disagreement with the traditional teaching and
authority of the church resulted in excommunication. Following the Reforma-
ton, membership in Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic churches
was jargely a matter of the faith confessed by the territorial rulers. Lutherans,
while expressly refusing to condemn “entire churches inside or outside the
Holy Empire of the German Nation” but “only false and seductive doctrines
and their stiff-necxed proponents and blasphemers” (Preface to The Book of
Concord. p. 11),** taught that external unity in the church was not a matter of
ceremonies but of agreement “in doctrine and in ali tts articles” and in “the
nght use of the noly sacraments” (FC SD. X. 31). With the nse of
“denominationalism” in the 19th century. confessional Lutherans sought to
appiy these same Scriptural principies of fellowship through declaranons of
altar and pulpit feliowship with those church bodies with which they were in
doctrinal agreemen: and by the repudiation of church fellowship with the
adherents of false doctrine. In recent years other modeis for achieving
external unity in an increasingly splintered Christendom have been
advocated

In an attempt to proude guidance to the Synod today as it relates to
other church bodies. we shall examine three of these proposals which are
more frequently mentioned in addition to the more traditional! ecclesiastical
declaration of altar and pulpit fellowship. and evaluate them on the basis of
the Scriptural principles of fellowship presented in the first section of this
report.

2 Ibid . p. 128

-2Cf. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. J. Pelikan, Vol
26: Lectures on Galatians 1535 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1963), p. 25. Commenting on Gal. 1:2, Luther writes
“Therefore the church is holy even where the fanatics are
dominant, so long as they do not deny the Word and the
sacraments: :f they deny these. they are no longer the church
Wherever the substance of the Word and the sacraments abides.
therefore, there the holy church is present. even though Ann-
christ may re:gn there.”

?3Examined here are only those models for external unity
in the church which have been proposed by worldwide ecumen-
ical organizations such as the World Council of Churches and the
Lutheran Worid Federation. or which have been frequently
discussed in the Synod. Models for external unity in the church
not reviewed ere range from “ecclesial communion.” proposed

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According to this report, the word “conciliar” refers “to the mutual
reiationships of local churches within the one Church.” Stating that
“conciliar fellowship requires organic union,” many advocates of the World
Councni's model for external unity in the church have expressly rejected the
idea that “reconciled diversity” can serve as a mode! for the “shape of the
unity” to be sought.-*

Advocates of conciliarity recognize that unity in the church demands a
certain amount of consensus. “Fellowship will only last if it shares certain
articulated forms of expression.” But this should not be understood as
impiying a need for agreement in “a complete statement of faith.” On the
contrary. consensus “can be confined to a few fundamental affirmations.
provided it is relevant to present conditions.”?: This means thar “the
traditionai expressiors of our identity as confessions and communions” must
be recognized as “time-bound in their terms of reference and relevance.

The divided churches’ readiness to surrender their traditional identities
can be assisted by recognizing that “the criteria for establishing unity are not
fixed in advance.”*: The Salamanca study document says that recent New

*Ibid., pp. 29395. Cf. “Concepts of Unity and Models of
Union: A Preliminary Study Document.” 1972. p. 11. “Organic
union seems, therefore, the only model worth considering. The
statements of the New Delhi and Uppsala assemblies point in the
same direction. The ‘fully committed fellowship’ for which New
Delhi pleaded can only come about by the organic union of
Christians and congregations ‘in each place.’... Such adegree of
fellowship cannot be secured by the other models: movement,
federation, mutual recognition.” J. E. Lesslie Newbigin, one of the
fathers of conciliarism., writes: “We have nor included among the
legitimate groups for provisional separation the distinct ‘types’ of
Christian discipleship which have developed in history on the
basis of special experiences of individual leaders or national
churches, ‘types’ defined by such names as Anglican, Lutheran,
Roman. etc. Such forms of separation seem to be roundly
condemned by she language of St. Paul in dealing with the
Corinthian factions. The provisional arrangements of which
we have been speaking are those which arise from missionary
obligation” (“What Is ‘a Local Church Truly United?” quoted in
John F. Hotchkir’s “Probing the Possibilities.” Interface [Spring
1980]. 8).

"Concepts of Unity and Models of Union,” p. 13.
bid., p. 24.
32“The Un:ty of the Church—Next Steps.” p. 298.
Concepts of Unity and Models of Union,” p. 3.

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C. MODELS FOR EXTERNAL UNITY IN THE CHURCH

1. Conciliarity

Conciliarity or conciltar fellowship refers to the modei for church unzy
which has been promoted by the World Council of Churches. Senous
consideration of church unity has taken piace in the WCC ever since ws
formation in 1948.°* In 1957 the Faith anc Order Commission :n:inated a
study on” The Nature of the Unity We Seex.” The New Deih: Assembiy of
the WCC in 1961 spoke of the nature of the unity for which the member
churches of the WCC should strive in terms of a visible unity of “all in each
place” in“a fully committed fellowship.”?: The term” conciliar” was first used
by the Uppsala Assembly in 1968 when i! spoke of “eventuaily actualizing a
truly universal, ecumenical, concihar form of common life and witness. -*
Conciliarity as the World Council of Churches’ model for unity in the church
was given definitive formin the report of aconsuitatian convened by :1s Faith
and Order Commission to discuss “concepts of unity and moce’s of union
Salamanca in September 1973.-"

Having noted that “Jesus Christ founded one Church.” the Saiamanca
Report says that “today we lve in diverse cnurches dividec trom one
another.” Consistent with this view. if proceeds to speak o! “a united
Church” as a “vision” and as a “goal” to be acmeved at some po: me
future as follows

The one Church is to be ens

:sioned as @ conc!ar telousmp coca
churches which are themseises truly unsted In this concer
each local church possesses. :n Communion «
of cathoicity. witnesses to tne same apost
recogmzes the others as beiong:ng to the same Church
guided dy the same spint -*

by the Second Vatican Council, based on a sacramenta! expres
sion of the mystery of the Trinity (cf. John Hotchkin’s “Proting
the Possibilities,” Interface. 1980. pp. 3 f }. to the demand ot
separatistic groups for total agreement no: only in doctr:ne but
also in ceremonies, polity. and all matters of adiaphora

4Cf.,e g.. "The Church, the Churches. and the Word
Council of Churches.” Central Committee Minutes. Toronto.
1950, pp. 84-—90
’ The New Delhi Report (London: SCM, 1962). p. 11
° The Uppsala 68 Report (Geneva: WCC, 19681, p. 17

>The WCC has continued to discuss conciliar:ty s:nce
1973, e. g.. at Accra, Ghana (July—August 1974). and Nairob:
(1975)

The Unity of the Church—Next Steps.” The Ecumen-
ical Review , 26 (April 1974). p. 293

Testament scholarship has contributed to the possibility of achiev:ng this
kind of consensus by demonstrating that there was far greater diversity in the
early church than had generally been supposed at the beginning of the
ecumenical movement. **

In recent years the question has been raised ever more :nsistent!, as 10
whether the New Testament realiy contains a concept of umty At first
the churches assumed tha: it did. Each was convinced that its own
concept of unity was derived from the New Testament or, at any rate
could be substantiated from the New Testament. They aiso agreed that
they must all submit themselves and their concepts to the judgement of
Holy Scripture and they expected that one correct concep! of umty
would emerge from this confrontation utth the Bible. They soon
discovered, however, that the: different concepts all represented
contractions of the witness of Scripture. They reai:zed that the claims of
the other churches were not aitogether unfounded *

Conciliarity, therefore, in addition to demanding organic unity, embraces a
unity in diversity which includes doctrinal pluralism.

How does conciliarity as a model for external unity in the church stand
up when measured by the Scriptural principles of fellowship? On the positive
side, it should be recognized that this proposal is to be commended for its
attempt to pursue the Biblical mandate to seek external unity in the church
The Scriptures clearly teach that it is God's will and command that those who
are one in Christ should seek to manifest their spiritual unity in His body
externally (Thesis 9). At the same time, it must also be stated that this

ee
a

38Ibid.. p. 4

33Ibid., p. 7. Ernst Kasemann, among others, argues, on
the basis of a historical-critical investigation of the New Tes-
tament, that we now know that many of the doctrinal differences
found in contemporary denominationalism simply mirror the
diversity to be found in the New Testament itself. Cf. “The New:
Testament Canon and the Unity of the Church,” Essays on New
Testament Themes (London: SCM Press, 1971). Kasemann
writes (pp. 103—104): “The New Testament canon does not, as
such, constitute the foundation of the unity of the church. On the
contrary, as such (that is, in its accessibility to the historian) it
provides the basis for the multiplicity of the confessions. The
variability of the kerygma in the New Testament is an expression
of the fact that in primitive Christianity a wealth of different
confessions were already in existence. . . . If the canon as such is
binding in its totality, the various confessions may, with differing
degree of historical justification, claim as their own larger or
smaller tracts of it, better or less known New Testament writers.”

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