LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 73

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ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT
OF THE AMERICAN LUTHERAN CHURCH

Greeting Brought to the Denver Convention of The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod by President Fredrik Schiotz of
The American Lutheran Church, July 14, 1969

I am deeply grateful to your president, Dr. Harms,
for sending Dr. Wiederaenders, your first vice-president,
to our general convention last October. He brought a
warm fraternal greeting that was much appreciated.

My first recollection of an exchange of Christian
greetings between our respective churches at conven-
tion time occurred in the former Evangelical Lutheran
Church. Your convention was meeting in St. Paul, and
the sainted Dr. Behnken came to our convention in
Minneapolis with a fraternal greeting that evoked a
spontaneous standing ovation when he was through.
Since The American Lutheran Church was organized
in 1960, our two churches have practiced an official ex-
change of greetings at our respective biennial conven-
tions.

This will be the last time that it is my privilege to
represent The ALC in bringing a greeting to The Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod. The historical mo-
ment in which we find ourselves at this time requires
that my greeting be more personal than I would or-
dinarily want to make it.

There have been a lot of things spoken and written
in some circles about the president of The American
Lutheran Church. Who is the man who stands before
you at this moment? He is at heart a pastor rather
than an administrator. The pastoral desire has been
there since, as a nine-year-old boy, he sat beside his
father at a Sunday evening service in a small church
in northern Wisconsin. The visiting pastor’s sermon
centered in the love of Christ that drove Him to yield
His life on Calvary’s cross as a ransom for the sin of
the whole world. In that sermon he recognized the
Holy Spirit’s call to enter the Lutheran ministry to
proclaim the Gospel.

The president of The ALC has now served as a Lu-
theran pastor for 39 years. Life has proved to be far
more complicated than it seemed to be that Sunday
evening many years ago. But the vision of what the
call was has never dimmed. And if you ask what kind
of a Gospel does he proclaim, he would point to the
text, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sin of the world,” which he used on the installation
Sunday in each of the three congregations where he has
served. His preaching has followed the pericopes of the
church 90 percent of the time. And that means it must
be Biblical, exegetical preaching.

If you ask what is the president of The ALC’s under-
standing of the Gospel today, he would point to Ephe-
sians 2:8~10:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this

is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not because

of works lest any man should boast. For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in
them.

73

Here one finds grace, amazing grace, proclaimed; but
proclamation for a purpose — that God’s saved people
might walk in good works. Was there ever a day when
the Holy Spirit called Christians to more action and
good works than in our day?

What is The American Lutheran Church in which it
has been my privilege to serve for 39 years? It is a part
of the church of Jesus Christ. It is a Lutheran church.
It is a church that through the two larger antecedent
bodies of The ALC has had a considerable contact with
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. It remembers
that one of these antecedent churches sought fellow-
ship, found doctrinal agreement, but no fellowship was
declared. It remembers that approval was given for two
Missouri Synod pastors to speak at an inter-Lutheran
seminar sponsored by the former American Lutheran
Conference back in the early forties. It remembers that
after public announcement was made, about two weeks
before the seminar was to meet, the approval for par-
ticipation was withdrawn. It remembers a letter from
Dr. Behnken to the National Lutheran Council in Feb-
ruary 1959, wherein he declared that The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod would be glad to discuss
altar and pulpit fellowship with any Lutheran church
on the basis of the Word of God. It remembers that
Missouri’s San Francisco convention in June 1959 offi-

Dr. Fredrik A. Schiotz, president of The American Lutheran Church