LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Page 73

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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT 73

legal one, because in 1981 the Synod moved from a con-
tractual-type arrangement with our executives and went
to the possibility of simply dismissing executives at the
pleasure of the appointing authorities. Because the ap-
pointing authorities must concur, we have a kind of “check-
and-balance” system that provides a certain amount of due
process for the executive. When you reach an impasse, you
do various things. You have committees come in and meet,
which we did. We had a committee of district presidents
spend quite a bit of time on that. We had personnel people.
All of it seems to have failed to break the impasse. I am
among those who do not feel, when push comes to shove,
that the President of the Synod should be in a position to
overrule the wishes of a board. If you read the first part
of my report, you will notice that already last March—I
believe that was when I wrote that—I asked this conven-
tion to provide a procedure for resolving such an impasse,
and to do so in a way that will provide the protection of
due process for executives, on the one hand, while retaining
the sovereign responsibilities of boards for their own ex-
ecutives, on the other. I believe this question needs to be
resolved at this convention, but I hardly think it illustrates
any kind of unwarranted centralization of authority, and,
as far as I can see, I don’t think the other instances that
I hear about do, either. I tell you in all candor and honesty
that I am the last person who would want more power
centralized in the office. It is a pastoral office; it’s not bas-
ically an authoritarian office.

There are much weightier matters before this conven-
tion, I believe, than those sorts of things that I have been
talking about up to this point. Let me address these in the
remainder of my time with you this morning.

One such important issue is the quest for effective and
faithful church relationships at this time in the history of
the Synod. As you know, in just a few months, it is pre-
sumed that a new Lutheran church, nearly twice the size
of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, will come into
being. That will surely pose for us in a new way the ques-
tion of who we are and how we differ from other Lutherans.
I would venture to say that many of you in your home
congregations and in the communities where you live are
already asked those questions: “Why aren’t you a part of
it, and how are you different?” It is important for us to be
able to answer those questions, and to answer them in
intelligent and helpful ways. I think we do that by by point-
ing out the important doctrinal differences that do exist,
unfortunately, between us and many other Lutherans, but
also by expressing the distinctive features of our life and
work together.

Considerable attention to inter-Christian relationships
has been exercised during this past triennium, and that
will no doubt continue as we move into the new triennium.
It will include studies about future forms of inter-Lutheran
cooperation that will be in place when the present Lu-
theran Council in the USA ceases to exist at the end of
1987. A great deal of work has already been done on that,
including contacts with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lu-
theran Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, both
of whom were so closely related to us for many years in
the Synodical Conference. May I pause for a moment to
report that we do have the high honor and privilege of

having observers from those two church bodies with us in
this convention, and we will be making every effort to have
you meet them and provide opportunities to hear from
them, if they would like to bring greetings.

In the area of church relations, an especially important
dimension is the contact with our partner churches all
over the world and the 25 churches that work together in
the International Lutheran Conference. What an honor
our partner churches have bestowed on us by visiting this
convention in such numbers; no fewer than eight Presi-
dents of partner churches are a part of this convention.
They depend on us for leadership and for fraternity, and
we must give it. One of the privileges of my office is the
opportunity to visit our partner churches as I have during
the past triennium—in Nigeria, for example, or on the way
to China about a year ago. What a fabulous experience
that was! How wonderful it is to be associated with our
partner churches all over the world! We need to give more
attention to strengthening that bond and finding strong
and creative ways to build not just a strong Lutheran
church in North America, but around the world. It has
been said that the world is a kind of global village, and
indeed it is. We’re a part of that village, and because we’re
a big brother in it, we need to assume leadership.

In this convention, as one of the highlights of our church
relationships, we will consider the rather exciting requests
coming before us from our Argentine District and our three
Canadian districts to form autonomous, independent part-
ner churches of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
If those requests are granted, we will then have oppor-
tunity to consider new and creative ways to be in part-
nership with these church bodies that have been our
districts.

Just last week—some of you may not have heard this—
the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federa-
tion, which brings together some 99 Lutheran churches
worldwide, meeting in Munich, Germany, expressed the
desire for increased contact with The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod. The representative from our partner
church in Germany was so excited about this that he called
me long distance from Munich. According to his report, it
was stated that our absence of fellowship with most of the
churches in that federation is unacceptable to them, and
that we need to find ways to talk. In my judgment, we
should seize any opportunity to discuss our theology with
other Lutherans, if we can do so without compromise.

By God’s grace, we remain the largest and strongest of
confessional Lutheran churches in the world, and our vig-
orous, strong, and yet compassionate interest and lead-
ership is expected more and more each day. We really don’t
have anything to be afraid of. Our people are well trained
in God’s Word and Lutheran doctrine. We don’t need to be
afraid of compromise when we sit down with third-world
Lutherans and tell them what we believe, teach, and con-
fess, for example. For that reason, studies by the Com-
mission on Theology and Church Relations, involving all

. sectors of the Synod—the pastors, the laity, the Bible study

groups of our churches—need to be encouraged to help us
think and work through the questions of inter-Christian
relationships that pertain to all of us. In these ecumenical
times—and we can’t change these times—the future of our