LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 307

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OTHER REPORTS 307

Lutheran clergy engaged in specialized pastoral care shows a
general concern about survival—their ministry’s and their
own: “Coping with Stress,” “Caring for Oneself,” “The Future
of Pastoral Care,” and ‘What Keeps Me Alive on My Front
Line.”

The fifth in a series of national continuing education events
for SPC clergy took place in January 1983 at Zion, IIl., and
considered the general theme, ‘‘Self—Structures—Savior. A
Trinity for Health Care.” One of the speakers, Roy Oswald of
the Alban Institute, Washington, D.C., said that clergy have
been “‘bereft of self-care in schools and seminaries, even though
it’s vital. We equip people with some theology and a little
practical knowledge. All the messages from all levels are that
you can do more, and you can do better. To be effective you first
begin with the self. We need first to assimilate the love of God
for self and out of the cup that overflows minister to others.”

Division of Service to Military Personnel

Budget reductions experienced by the Lutheran Council in
1982 necessitated reducing the division's executive staff from
four to three positions. The change took place this January
with a realignment of duties among the remaining three
executives.

Ministry to Lutherans in the military services is carried out
primarily through a network of active-duty chaplains, reserve
chaplains, and military contact pastors. As of September 1982
the active-duty roster totaled 282 chaplains, of whom 98 were
LCMS clergy, and those on reserve with military units while
serving civilian parishes totaled 356, of whom 115 were LCMS.
The Civil Air Patrol chaplaincy included 17 LCMS clergy ina
total of 50 Lutherans. Participants in the “chaplain candidate”
program for seminarians numbered 42, with 17 at LCMS
seminaries. The count of civilian clergy who serve as military
contact pastors was 253, including the men who lead the four
congregations and one service center overseas supervised by
the division.

Pastoral changes have occurred at the international con-
gregations as follows: in July 1981 Luther Watness moved
from Faith Lutheran, Okinawa, Japan, to a parish in Idaho
and was followed at Faith by Roger Pearson, a retired Air
Force chaplain: the next month at International Lutheran.
Seoul, Korea, George “Pete” Brosius retired and was succeeded
by Viggo Aronsen, a former Army chaplain.

Continuing education opportunities offered chaplains have
centered on the annual series of seminar-retreats held in three
stateside locations and two overseas. In 1981 the series dealt
with “What Lutheran Chaplains Can Bring to the Military
Chapel Scene” and in 1982 with “The Lutheran Family in the
Service—Theirs and Yours.”

In the ’81 discussions the chaplains raised a number of
concerns in their ministries, such as expectations of command-
ing officers that run counter to chaplains’ convictions, lack of
cooperation from conservative evangelical chaplains, pres-
sures on Lutherans not to be distinctive from Protestants in
general in worship and sacramental practices, and the proper
relationship between the two identities of chaplains as pastors
of the church and military officers.

Pressures on Lutheran chaplains to participate in services
also involving non-Christian chaplains have led the DSMP
standing committee to adopt this policy statement: ‘Lutheran
chaplains should not be required to conduct religious services
with chaplains of religious bodies which Lutherans do not
consider to be within the Christian faith grouping. The fact
that a religious group calls itself Christian or considers itself to
be Christian is not the determining factor.”

New materials produced by the division for distribution
among Lutheran military personnel have included an updated
Service Prayer Book also containing hymns and catechism
helps. It replaced a pocket-sized devotional put out during
World War II and used by two million people in uniform
through three hot wars, a cold one, and vears of military
preparedness.

A new oganization made up of al] church bodies providing
active-duty military chaplains, the National Conference on
Ministry to the Armed Forces, came into being at the beginning
of 1982. It is a merger of the Conference of Ecclesiastical
Endorsing Agents for the Armed Forces and the General

Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel. The
conference is not an endorsing agency but provides assistance
in the endorsing process and serves as a forum for dealing with
chaplaincy concerns and engaging in dialog with the offices of
the Chiefs of Chaplains.

Division of Theological Studies

“Women and Men in the Mission of the Church,” a three
session study, ended in March 1982 with the participants
affirming ‘that God created ‘male and female’ in his own
image, with no preeminence conferred upon one or the otheras
to their being made in his image; that the biblical message
which addresses the sinful condition is meant equally for
women and men; that in Baptism all put on Christ (Gal. 3:27)
and so in Christ all shal] be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22); that God
invites—through his Word—all people into his new creation.
and all—men and women—are called to respond to this
invitation.”

The study participants expressed commitment “to the full
involvement of women and men in the mission of the church,
although we recognize that especially in regard to the teaching
and preaching offices we do not all, at this time, understand
this commitment in the same way; [and] to an understanding
of the mission of the church that seeks to the fullest a Christian
presence and witness in society; that is, for example, in the
home, the work place, the body politic, and the world of
leisure.”

Finding that “the process of theological discussion and
reflection stimulated significant growth,” the participants
asked for the development of a study guide to be used by groups
of women and men within congregations to engage them “in
questions that focus on our lived-out response to our baptism.”

When is a fertilized human egg truly human? What are the
possible psychological effects on a child conceived in a test
tube? What are the possible effects on the parents? What about
sex education? plastic wombs? stimulating life by using chem-
icals? These are some of the questions being raised by a group
of nine Lutheran theologians, lawyers, and doctors in examin-
ing the issues in one area of biomedial ethics—in vitro fertili-
zation. The two-year, six-session study began in September
1981. The group has begun drafting for possible use by the
church bodies a set of guidelines on test tube conceptions.

The division’s newest study, in which 13 theologians named
by the church body presidents are looking at the question of the
historic episcopate, began in October 1982. Other subjects
currently being examined in various ways are “Born-Again
Theology,” ‘Interfaith Worship,” ‘Historical Criticism,”
“Peace and Just-War Theory,’ and “Mental Health of Clergy.”

This February the division sponsored a ‘“‘free conference’ at
which 35 theologians and church leaders took a frank look ata
World Council of Churches document on ‘Baptism. Eucharist,
and Ministry.” It is the product of more than 40 vears of
theological study and was transmitted to churches around the
world by the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission after a
January 1982 agreement in Lima, Peru. One of the conference
participants, Chairman Samuel F. Nafzger of the LCMS
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, commented,
“The most helpful thing about this statement is that it forces
Lutherans to look at the big picture.” At the same time he called
attention to ‘the tendency to make something of the document
that it is not intended to be.”

A very positive Lutheran-Conservative Evangelical dialog
was held during 1979—81 under the division’s sponsorship. It
involved faculty members from selected seminaries in the
Midwest. The participants unanimously adopted a declaration
expressing “‘our gratitude for the experience of encounter with
one another and for the resulting awareness that we share a
great measure of common vision concerning the mission and
life of the church of Christ in our world... . Our dialogue has
contributed to our understanding of one another and of
ourselves, and we affirm the value of this process.” The
declaration cited six issues on which the participants agree.

A Lutheran-Baptist dialog, begun in 1979, ended in Novem-
ber 1981 with the release of three common statements on
“Baptism and the Theology of the Child,” “Church and
Ministry,” and ‘Divine Initiative and Human Response.”
Materials generated by the dialog were released for publication