LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Sheet 404

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

CONCLUSION

In the first part of this report the Commission on Theology and Church
Relations has attempted to present the nature of fellowship on the basis of a
review of what God's Word has to say about this concept. Our study has
reached the conclusion that in the Scriptures fellowship is understood in the
sense of its root meaning as having part ina common thing. ? Contrary to the
understanding of fellowship prevalent in Christendom today as relating to
“matters about which men are free to make their own arrangements” and
that “whether fellowship is granted or withheld depends on the good or ill will
of those concerned.” ”? the writers of the New Testament use this term to
refer both to spiritual unity in the body of Chnist and to external unity in the
church. Each of these relationships. therefore, may properly be referred to
by the use of the English word “fellowship.” But neither of them is the result of
human achievement. nor “are they matters about which people are free to
make their own arrangements.”

Christians are not in spiritual fellowship with their Lord and with each
other in the body of Christ because they have voluntarily decided to “get
together.” God's holy Word reveals that believers are brought into a spiritual
telationship with Christ and with all fellow believers by virtue of their
incorporation into the body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit working
through the means of grace. Having been made one in Christ, members of
His body are exhorted to be what they are. Christians therefore seek to be
faithful to what the Scriptures teach about manifesting their unity in Christ

“= Elert, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four
Centuries, p. 4. Elert points out that Martin Luther also under
stood fellowship in this way. Says Elert: “Luther proceeded
differently. He was uneasy about the theological use of the word
fellowship (Gemeinschaft). Even in translating 1 Cor. 10:16 he
hesitated to use it. In his Large Confession of the Lord’s Supper
(1528) he traced the misunderstanding of his opponents partially
to this word. ‘It is not the genuinely German equivalent as | would
like to have it. for to have fellowship is ordinarily understood as
Meaning to have something to do with a person. Here (1 Cor
10:16), however, it means, as! have explained earlier, many using,
enjoying, or having part in acommon thing. [ have had to translate
‘fellowship’ because | simply could not find a better word.’”

“ibid., p. 3. Elert attributes this understanding of fellow.
ship to the continuing influence of Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Writes Elert(p. 2): "For him [Schleiermacher] the church is above
all ‘a fellowship’ (Gemeinschaft). He says in his Glaubenslehre

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principles of fellowship and cannot therefore be regarded as viable models for
interchurch relations at the church-body level today

Of those models for external unity in the church which have been
examined in this report, only ecclesiastical declarations of altar and pulpit
fellowship offer at least the possibility for being able to take into account all of
what the Scriptures have to say about the nature of fellowship. The
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, therefore, while recogniz-
ing that this model is neither divinely ordained nor Scripturally mandated, is
convinced that The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod should continue to
seek to carry out the Scriptural principles of fellowship at the church-body
level by means of ecclesiastical declarations of altar and pulpit fellowship
based on agreement in doctrine and practice. +

In making this recommendation, however, the Commission also finds it
necessary to point out that the adoption of ecclesiastical declarations of altar
and pulpit fellowship is by itself no guarantee of a church body's automatic
faithfulness to the Scriptural principles of fellowship. Two church bodies, for
example, may formally agree in a confession of faith which compromises the
Holy Scriptures as the only norm of the Gospel (Thesis 3). An overemphasis
on the spiritual unity of the church can serve to obscure the Scriptural
mandate to seek to manifest this unity externally(Thesis 9). A loveless
“concern for the truth” and a pharisaical pride in the rightness of doctrine.

“+In making this recommendation the CTCR is renewing a
recommendation which it made in its 1966 report “Theology of
Fellowship.” See the "Suggested Guidelines for the Church inthe
Practice of Fellowship” {pp 29—30). In this report the Commis-
sion made several recommendations (referred to as “Scripturally
sound, and in harmony with the Lutheran Confessions”), includ.
ing the following: “Our Synod should treasure the fellowship in
the Gospe! and in the sacraments which it enjoys with its sister
churches and which it expressed through what is usually called
pulpit and altar fellowship, and it should foster this fellowship with
all diligence. . . . Our Synod should work zealously for the
extension of this fellowship by engaging in doctrinal discussions
with other churches in the interest of achieving such fellowship
where this can be done without compromising sound doctrine
Our Synod will be well advised to retain the principle that
Scripturai practice is important for church fellowship. When
ecclesiastical practice is in harmony with Scripture and the
Lutheran Confessions, the church is edified. On the other hand.
when ecclesiastical practice constitutes a denial of the Gospel.
the work of the church is undermined.” This report was adopted
by the Synod in 1967 (Res. 2-13)

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externally. Forbearing one another in love, they are eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace on the basis of agreement in the
confession of the faith through which they have already been made one in
Christ.

The Scriptural Gospel ts the voice of Jesus Christ. the Good Shepherd
who laid down His life for His sheep. Since this Gospel is the means through
which Christ calls, gathers. and keeps His flock in the one true faith. God has
commanded the church to preserve the truth of His Word. Error in doctrine
threatens unity in the body of Christ. Christian love, therefore. requires
members of Christ’s body to admonish and even to separate themselves
from those who compromise or distort the Scriptural Gospel. “Speaking the
truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), members of the body of Christ seek external
harmony in the church by following “the pattern of the sound words” which
they have learned from the prophets and apostles and by guarding “the truth
that has been entrusted” to them “by the Holy Spirit who dwells within” them
(2 Tim. 1:13-14). They desire to be faithful to the apostolic injunction “that all
of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you. but that you be
united in the same mind and the same judgement” (1 Cor. 1:10).

In the second part of this report the Commission has discussed the
implications of this understanding of the nature of fellowship for church-
body-level relationships by reviewing four contemporary proposals for
seeking to manifest external unity in the church. Three of these models have
been shown to conflict in one way or another with certain aspects of the
nature of fellowship as it is presented in the Holy Scriptures. Conciliarity.
reconciled diversity, and selective fellowship all violate at least some of the

(Par. 2. 2) that in order to know what the Christian church is one
must first establish ‘the general concept of the church together
witha right understanding of what is characteristically Christian.”
He goes on to say, ‘The general concept of the church, if there is
to be such a thing, must be derived from ethics because the
church at all events is a fellowship created by the voluntary
actions of men, and only through these does it continue to exist.”
That certainly fixes the idea of fellowship. Since a fellowship
arises through the voluntary actions of men and continues to
exist only through such actions, the church, since it is a
fellowship, arises in the same way, that is. only through ‘the
voluntary actions of men.’... The concept of fellowship which is
here said to characterize the church does not derive from the
nature of the church, but the nature of the churchis derived from
the concept of fellowship... . Behind this procedure lies the
idealist conception of man anda view of the church which already
has a long history with the English Independents and in the
German Enlightenment.”

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which tears down rather than edifies the body of Christ. can develop
(Thesis 5)

Moreover, the Commission 1s also aware that there are certain
problems, such as fellowship triangles.“? which can and do arise with the
implementation of this model. It may even happen occasionally. in this age of
“ambiguous denominationalism.” that an individual congregation may tem-
porarily find itself to be in closer doctrinal agreement with a congregation
belonging to a church body with which it is not in altar and pulpit fellowship
than it is to a sister congregation in its own synod. Jt is also happening with
increasing frequency (as a result of the high mobility that characterizes life in
our society) that individual church members find themselves moving their
membership back and forth between church bodies not in altar and pulpit
fellowship with one another, with the result that any number of special
problems arise. There is the problem of terminology and levels of agreement
Through the use of the word “fellowship” almost exclusively to refer to a
formal altar and pulpit fellowship relationship established between two
church bodies on the basis of agreement in the confession of the faith. some
have been given the impression that no fellowship relationship other than
spiritual unity in the body of Christ can or should exist among members of
Christian churches not in altar and pulpit fellowship. The fact that the LCMS
is closer doctrinally to a church body which at least formally accepts the
Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions than to those denominations
which do not is often obscured by the “all or nothing” approach that
frequently accompanies ecclesiastical declarations of altar and pulpit fellow
ship. Finally. it is sometimes overlooked that. although the Scriptural
principles of fellowship remain constant. the specific results of their
application at the individual level may differ from that at the church-body
level. The principles of fellowship are not rules of casuistry

Because of these factors the Commission recommends that the Synod
continue to study the topic of fellowship during the coming biennium by
giving special! attention to the implications of the principles of fellowship
presented in this report for relationships and activities between Christians at
the congregational, pastoral. and individual levels. Although t is neither
desirable nor even possible to develop guidelines which will answer every
case of casuistry, it will be helpful if the Synod can develop greater
understanding and consensus regarding the implications of the nature of
fellowship also at these levels.

Church body A is in altar and pulpit fellowship with
church body B but not church body C. while church body B is in
fellowship with both church body A and church body C

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