Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 69
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 69

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

THEOLOGICAL MATTERS 69

present-day Lutheranism as one of the Confessional
churches, each of which has its own particular doctrine,
but this doctrine is not to be understood in the sense
of being exclusively or totally correct. The question
of our church’s joining the Lutheran World Federation
cannot be divorced from our relation to the World
Council of Churches and is a question which our church
ought to face at this time because of the extremely in-
timate involvement between the World Council and the
Lutheran World Federation.

3. The Lutheran World Federation, while calling
itself a federation, has certain churchly features and
functions, and thus, despite its protestations to the con-
trary, our membership in the Lutheran World Federa-
tion must of necessity involve us in certain forms of
church fellowship, even though we might not at the
beginning be in pulpit and altar fellowship with other
member churches. For example, the Lutheran World
Federation carries on mission work, supports theological
chairs, and publishes theological literature. Moreover,
many voices are raised in the Lutheran World Federa-
tion suggesting that the organization move further in
the direction of churchly activities. For example, Dr.
E. Clifford Nelson has stated in the Lutheran World for
November 1968: ‘Helsinki raised the question: Ought
not all Lutheran ‘churches’ declare their fellowship with
one another? I should like to see Porto Alegre (1970)
be bold and even incautious by saying it is time not
merely to declare fellowship but to declare that the
Lutheran World Federation is itself an ecclesiological
reality. It makes no pretense to being a ‘super-church’
(after all what and where is a super-church?), but
simply declares itself to be the Lutheran Church on an
international level.” As indicative of the same spirit,
voices were heard at the Helsinki convention urging
member churches to declare pulpit and altar fellowship
with one another (Helsinki Report, pp. 483—91).

4. The inter-Communion practices of member
churches, though of differing degree, are not soundly
Lutheran. For example, no less a theologian than Dr.
Peter Brunner has stated that altar fellowship should
not be denied to adherents of either Luther’s Small
Catechism or the Reformed Heidelberg Catechism. We
regard this practice as a denial of the Lutheran Con-
fessional principle.

5. Inasmuch as the Lutheran World Federation is
carrying on certain churchly activities, we should have
a right to expect that the organization could practice
some kind of discipline or at least ask member churches
to practice discipline among themselves. This matter
should also deter us from joining. There is really no
effective way whereby the Lutheran World Federation
can discipline a member church for a violation of the
Scriptural or Confessional principle, so long as the
member church retains an official subscription to the
Scriptures in the Confessions. For example, we cite
the above inter-Communion arrangements. We might
also mention such matters as the ordination of women,
and departure from the historic Lutheran position in

regard to Scripture. Another example is the failure of
the Helsinki convention itself to come up with a formu-
lation of the doctrine of justification. We realize that
there were several reasons for this, but certainly among
them is the disagreement among the member churches
regarding even so basic a doctrine as justification. We
have no reason to believe that the Lutheran World
Federation has protested against these teachings and
practices. Actually the Lutheran World Federation has
no forum or department in which one member church
could protest, even if it wanted to, against the unscrip-
tural and anti-Confessional position of another member
church.

6. In view of the financial condition of the Synod
and in view of the tremendous needs we have in the
field of missions and higher education, we believe that
the Synod ought not spend its money on membership
in this organization. The cost could be very great, de-
pending on the projects we support.

For these reasons we humbly but urgently and for
reasons of conscience request our beloved church not to
seek membership in the Lutheran World Federation at
this time. We also ask that our Synod continue to sup-
port the work of the Lutheran World Federation in such
areas as are possible without compromise of our Bib-
lical and Confessional principles. Thus we propose that
the Synod decline the recommendations which have
been made to it favoring membership in the Lutheran
World Federation. Avin E. WAGNER

J. A. O. Preus
RICHARD KORTHALS
(2-02)

Report of Commission on Worship

For a number of years the Commission on Worship
has been actively engaged in the revision of the service
books and hymnal of the Synod, in accord with the
directives laid down in the Synod’s Handbook
(11.113 a). At the Detroit convention in 1965 the Synod
gave indication that it desired a change in approach
by authorizing (Resolution 13-10) the project now
known as the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship.
Then in 1967 at New York the convention (Resolution
2-08) instructed the Commission on Worship to pub-
lish a supplement to The Lutheran Hymnal. These
directives have been the working orders for the com-
mission during the past 2 years.

Worship Supplement

The primary activity of all committees of the com-
mission has been directed toward completion of the
supplement to The Lutheran Hymnal which is to be
known as Worship Supplement. The Liturgical Text
Committee occupied itself almost exclusively with the
preparation of final text for materials to appear in the
liturgical section of this Worship Supplement. This
involved a careful paring down of the table of con-
tents, the final editing of established texts, and sub-
jecting certain new liturgies to a limited amount of
experimental testing.