LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 280

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280 SUPPLEMENT TO CTCR REPORT

of principle, to pray with Reformed and even with
Roman Catholics. They did refuse when they them-
selves were treated as heretics.

C. CHURCH FELLOWSHIP IN THE
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA

In Europe during the centuries following the doc-
trinal agreement established among Lutherans by the
Formula of Concord, church fellowship was established
by subscription to the Lutheran Confessions. Though
European nations in which the Lutheran church had
found a place, and particularly Germany, were divided
into many relatively small principalities, each with its
own territorial church, nevertheless, subscription to the
Lutheran Confessions assured full church fellowship to
all, and both pastors and laymen could move freely from
one territory or land to another and enjoy pulpit and
altar fellowship with Lutherans wherever they found
them.

However, when the Lutheran Church came to Amer-
ica, where territorial churches were nonexistent, new
units of fellowship came into existence, the so-called
ministeria, and the synods. The ministerium began as
an organization of ministers who generally worked in
one and the same area, and who practiced pulpit and
altar fellowship with one another. The synods, which
were organized somewhat later, were not, as had been
the synods before the Reformation, councils of clergy-
men called together to deal with doctrinal or practical
problems but more or less permanent organizations of
congregations with their pastors for the purpose of work
and fellowship.

Various factors were responsible for the proliferation
of synods which is observable in the Lutheran Church
in America during the 19th century. The country was
still relatively new; distances were great, and the means
of communication and transportation were rather primi-
tive; differences in language and customs complicated
the formation of one Lutheran Church in America still
further. Another very persistent obstacle was difference
in doctrine. Some Lutherans in America had come out
of circles which had been greatly influenced by rational-
ism, others bore the stamp of pietistic influence, and yet
others were so-called Old Lutherans, who were very
loyal to the Lutheran Confessions. Still others held
mediating positions.

The question which these synods had to face was
whether, in view of their doctrinal differences they could
be in church fellowship with one another. The struggles
of the various synods for church union, whether by
merger, or at least by the establishment of pulpit and
altar fellowship, were long and arduous. The meaning
of subscription to the Lutheran Confessions became a
matter of debate. The degree to which Lutheran pastors
and Lutheran congregations were to be bound by the
Lutheran Confessions was not understood in the same
way by all. Moreover, individual synods tended to
change their attitudes in this matter with the passage
of time. Sometimes a group would grow more conser-

vative, sometimes more liberal in the understanding and
application of its obligation to the Lutheran Confessions.

In every case the understanding on the part of a
synod of its confessional obligation had a strong in-
fluence on its understanding and practice of church fel-
lowship.*8

1. Confessionalism and Church Fellowship in
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod
and in the Synodical Conference

The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod came into
being as a strictly confessional Lutheran body. Its pas-
tors subscribed to the whole Book of Concord, not inso-
far as (quatenus), but because (quia) it is a true and
unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word
of God.

The Missouri Synod was not, however, separatistic,
but its leaders sought to draw all Lutherans in America
together on the basis of the Lutheran Confessions. They
tried to achieve this in accord with the pattern of the
colloquies held in Germany and other European coun-
tries during the decades following the Reformation. This
was in harmony with the previously quoted statement in
the Preface to the Book of Concord (see above, pp. 17 f.).

Dr. C. F. W. Walther and his co-workers were fully
cognizant of the difference between erring Christians
and erring churches on the one hand, and heretics on
the other. In this they were in agreement with the un-
derstanding of heretic and heresy as previously set forth
from the writings of St. Augustine and Luther.‘

Colloquies were held between members of the Mis-
souri Synod and members of the Buffalo Synod at
Buffalo, N. Y., in 1866, and between representatives of
the Missouri Synod and of the Iowa Synod in Milwau-
kee, Wis., in 1867.

At the Milwaukee Colloquy all sessions were opened
with a liturgical service.5°

Free conferences for members from all Lutheran
groups who “subscribed to the Augsburg Confession
without reservation” were held for the purpose of dis-
cussion of doctrine at Columbus, Ohio, in 1856; at Pitts-
burgh, Pa., in 1857; at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1858; and at
Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1859.54

These free conferences were all opened and closed
with liturgical services.5?

While the free Lutheran conferences among Lu-
therans who subscribed to the Augsburg Confession
without reservation did not succeed in uniting all the
synods which were represented at the free conferences,
they were instrumental in bringing about the organiza-
tion of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference
of North America in 1872.

2. The Confessional Principle in The Lutheran Church
— Missouri Synod and in the Evangelical Lutheran.
Synodical Conference of North America

Missouri, which had come into being as a body
strictly loyal to the Lutheran Confessions, had for
decades stressed:

. vag