Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 182
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 182

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

162 CHURCH RELATIONS

of doctrine and evident correction of its lodge practice
and unionism; and be it further

Resolved, That the LCMS through its appropriate
agents offer to The ALC humble evangelical counsel,
encouragement, admonition, help, and example in cor-
recting such unscriptural doctrine and practice as still
prevent establishment of God-pleasing fellowship; and
be it finally

Resolved, That should the Missouri Synod declare
pulpit and a‘tar fellowship with The ALC, in whole
or in part, despite current, valid, undeniable impedi-
ments thereto, we declare ourselves unable, for con-
science’ sake, to honor such declaration or to participate

in such fellowship.
P TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH

La Porte, Ind.

JOHN Hacker Jr. President
CHARLES FRIEND, Secretary
Cari L. MoeLLMAN, Pastor

(3-230)

Not to Enter into Fellowship but
to Admonish The ALC

Wuereas, God's Word states: “Now I beseech you,
brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions
among you: but that ye be perfectly joined together
in the same mind and in the same judgement” (1 Cor.
1:10); and “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them
which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doc-
trine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Rom.
16:17); and

WuereEas, The Augsburg Confession states in Art.
VII: “For it is sufficient for the true unity of the Chris-
tian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity
with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments
be administered in accordance with the divine Word”;
and

Wuereas, Art. VII of the Augsburg Confession is
speaking of the unity wrought by the Spirit of God and
held by members of the holy Christian church and does
not represent a doctrinal statement for the union of
synods and or denominations (Apology of the Augs-
burg Confession, VII, 31: “We are talking about true
spiritual unity, without which there can be no faith in
the heart nor righteousness in the heart before God.
For this unity, we say, a similarity of human rites,
whether universal or particular, is not necessary”): and

Wuereas, Preaching the Gospel must include a num-
ber of articles of faith (the article of God: the article of
original sin, which shows man's need for the Gospel:
the article of the Son of God, who became incarnate
and redeemed man; and the article of justification by
grace) and therefore encompasses the entire text of all
canonical books of both Old and New Testaments of
the Holy Bible; and

Whereas, The Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Posi-
tion of the Missouri Synod states: “Since the Holy

Scriptures are the Word of God, it goes without saying
that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that
they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth,
also in those parts which treat of historical, geographi-
cal, and other secular matters’; and

Wuereas, It follows that it is the publicly expressed
doctrine taught in the congregations, in the forms of
essays presented to meetings and conventions, and in
books and literature published for distribution to clergy
and laity that determines the theology of a church synod
(Brief Statement, Par. 29): and

Wuereas, The American Lutheran Church Constitu-
tion shows “The American Lutheran Church accepts all
the canonical books of the Old and New Testament as a
whole and in all their parts as the divinely inspired,
revealed, and inerrant Word of God, and submits to this
as the only infallible authority in all matters of life,”
but the President of The ALC interpreted these words
as follows: ‘‘The American Lutheran Church holds that
the inerrancy referred to here does not apply to the text
but to the truths revealed for our faith, doctrine and
life” (‘The Church's Confessional Stand Relative to the
Scriptures,” Dr, Fredrik Schiotz, 1966); and

Wuereas, The ALC by their neglect to demand a re-
traction of this false doctrine of errant Scripture from
Dr. Fredrik Schiotz has apparently accepted this in-
terpretation; and

WuerEAs, It is impossible to obtain truths for faith,
doctrine, and life from a text that contains errors (Ibid.):
and

Wuereas, This false doctrine has been supported by
others in Luther College: “To simply affirm that every
statement is inerrant, therefore impervious to critical
examination, is not only an obscurantist attitude but
fails to recognize that God used human beings to bring
us His Word” (Luther, Luther College Bulletin, Vol. 4,
No. 2, Spring 1967); and

Wuereas, A regular convention of The ALC officially
approved The Bible: Book of Faith, and thereby ac-
cepted and supported the anti-Scriptural J-E-D-P
source hypothesis found in this book (Augsburg Pub-
lishing House, 1964, Ch. 5): and

Wuereas, A survey published in July August 1967
Trans-Action showed that (1) only 23° of The ALC
clergy accept the Scriptural doctrine of inerrancy of
the Bible: (2) only 49% of The ALC clergy believe
that “Adam and Eve were individual, historical per-
sons’, (3) only 81% of The ALC clergy accepted the
following: “I believe that the virgin birth of Jesus was
a biological miracle” (Lutheran News, Dec. 25, 1967):
and

Wuereas, The ALC’s Augsburg Publishing House
has published and recommended The Encyclopedia of
the Lutheran Church, written under the direction of the
Lutheran World Federation, which claims that (1) the
Bible contains errors; (2) man does not have an im-
mortal soul: (3) God used evolution to create man and
the world; and (4) both Old and New Testaments con-