LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 115

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114 OTHER PRESENTATIONS

10. Response to Greetings from Lutheran Leaders

When Bishop Crumley spoke to this convention some
few years ago, he pointed out that we in The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod and most of American Lutheran-
ism are on what he called “diverging courses.” That means
that, as I take it, we not only appear to be on separate
tracks, but on tracks that tend to move apart from each
other rather than closer to each other, at least so it seems.
And I will simply underscore that we have such very deep
differences in so many doctrinal areas with our other
American Lutheran colleagues that we earnestly desire to
discuss them with them again and again under the Word
of God and under the Lutheran confessional heritage, that
I know I speak for Missouri in asking you to take back to
your church bodies, not only our greetings in return for
your very cordial greetings, but also the earnestness of our
desire to further in every way we can a very faithful, Lu-
theran witness in every respect.

It was said by one of the greeters that we have made
harsh judgments against the Association of Evangelical
Lutheran Churches. One part of me says, “I suppose we
have in those days when the heat was very intense and
when we lost control of ourselves so very often in so many
situations.” But in all humility, I want to say to those who
are members of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran
Churches, that we too reel under the impact of the judg-
ments you expressed against this church body when you
said in rather plain language that you considered that we
had left behind the Gospel of Jesus Christ or had called
down upon our seminaries the judgment of God. Those
were not kind words. And I think the healing of the divi-
sions calls for both the kind of candor that we heard this
evening and the kind I am employing right now. What I
hope, however, is that the spirit of forgiveness that was so
evident in Dr. Ewald’s comments can indeed become the
spirit between and among all Lutherans.

As we heard from all of our church body representatives
and greeters, both from the bodies and from the councils,
there is so much work that needs to be done. We are doing
so many things together in the name of Jesus Christ as
we bring some relief to those who suffer and welcome the
strangers to our shores and in so many other ways. Presi-
dent Swanson of the council brought such hopeful greet-
ings as well about the future of that kind of work. And in
all of our greeters we heard reference to our common Lord,
Jesus Christ, and His Spirit of love and forgiveness for all
people.

I particularly welcome the word from Dr. Hamman from
our brothers and sisters in Australia, the reminder to put
the marks of the church, as he called them, Word and
Sacrament, uppermost in our attempts to be pure and
right, as the Augsburg Confession says, in all of our re-
lationships. And I hope that he especially will bring to his
church body our pledge to do just that.

We in the Missouri Synod are working hard these days
to develop clarity and a measure of contemporaneity in the
application of our Biblical and confessional principles as
they apply to inter-Christian relationships. The Commis-
sion on Theology and Church Relations, working under the
mandates of previous conventions to give high priority to
inter-Christian relationships, is developing guidelines, as
they call them, and this convention will later on have an
opportunity to hear some comments about the progress
we're making as we try to study those areas of work. For
it goes without saying, that, when you're living in a world
that has a nuclear cloud hanging heavily over it, as we
are, and when you're living in a world in which the younger
generation isn’t even sure they will live to see 50, or in
some cases 40, years of age because they just don’t know
whether we'll keep the peace, such relationships are vital.
In a world in which Christianity grows larger, but grows
proportionately smaller every day, where we are at most
one out of four people on the face of this earth, with the
command and the commission of our Lord Jesus to bring
the Gospel to the nations—it seems to me to be incumbent
on all of us who call Jesus Christ Lord and Savior, as part
of that group that is a tiny minority in this world, to learn
to talk to each other; to learn to put each other’s confession
under the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions; to
work very, very diligently; to do all we can to present to
this world a united confession of the faith and the hope
that is within us. I pledge to our Lutheran friends and
colleagues who are with us this evening and who have
honored us with their presence, that we in The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod are willing, yea, eager to pursue
every invitation, every avenue, every opportunity that we
can pursue with integrity and with faithfulness to God’s
Word and the Cross of Jesus Christ in an effort to do just
that.

One of the reasons we had all of these greetings early
in our convention was so that Floor Committee 3, as it does
its work on theology and church relations matters, might
have the benefit of these words of greeting. And so I would
especially ask Floor Committee 3 to consider these words
that you heard this evening, and if they can help to guide
and shape your resolutions as you bring them to us in final
form, I hope that you will do that.

My deep gratitude to all of you, fellow Lutherans, fellow
Christians, and fellow strugglers to confess the name of
Jesus Christ before the nations. We thank you for honoring
us with your presence. We bid you good-bye, which means
“God be with you,” and ask you to bring our greetings to
your brothers and sisters and ours in your church bodies
and councils.

Dr. Ralph A. Bohlmann

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