Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 568
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 568

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

THEOLOGY

Synodical Conference with respect to churchly practice
and its relationship to church fellowship were laid down
in the 18 Theses. the first sixteen of which were dis-
cussed at the meetings of the Synodical Conference from
1873—1879.** The third of these theses reads:

The sole external bond of fellowship between individual
Lutheran congregations among different peoples and
languages is the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.

Thesis four says:

Therefore that is not an orthodox Lutheran congrega-

tion or Lutheran church body which does not accept the

doctrinal and polemic words of this confession as it reads.
Thesis five says:

Also he who denies the deductions which properly follow
from the words of this confession is not a true member
of the Lutheran Church, even though contrary to all
right, he clings to the name Lutheran.
An example of such a deduction or conclusion is
given in the sixth thesis:
From the character and nature of this orthodox con-
fession it follows of necessity that churchly practice
must be conformed to it. For every churchly action is
either an immediate expression and actual carrying out
of the confession, or at least such an activity which,
even though it may lie in the area of Christian liberty,
nevertheless dare not actually contradict the confession.
Because they were persuaded that churchly practice
must be in conformity with the church's confession the
fathers of the Synodical Conference concluded that
churchly practice may become a criterion for the grant-
ing or denial of church fellowship.

Thesis 7: From this necessary connection between the

confession and the church’s practice it follows logically

that a Lutheran Synod, in which the reigning practice

is in accord with the confession, dare not unite with

another Synod which calls itself Lutheran, but in which

the reigning practice is contrary to the confession.

Subsequent theses show that the fathers considered
the following to be practice contrary to the confession,
and therefore a bar to church fellowship: toleration on
the part of Lutheran pastors of pulpit and altar fellow-
ship with non-Lutherans: lack of firm testimony against
membership in secret societies; the serving of united
(unierte: referring to the kind of ‘union’ of Reformed
and Lutheran churches first established in Prussia in
1817) congregations by Lutheran pastors; the toleration
of temporary calls for pastors; lack of earnestness in the
establishing of parochial schools: lack of proper care in
seeing to it that only orthodox books were used in
church, school, and home: and the absence of doctrinal
and church discipline.”®

Essays and articles from the pens of Professors A. L.
Graebner, George Stoeckhardt, and Martin Guenther
provide evidence that the importance of churchly prac-
tice in harmony with the Lutheran Confessions con-
tinued to occupy the thinking of the leading theologians
in the Missouri Synod also after 1879 and that they
continued to consider practice in harmony with the Con-
fessions necessary for church fellowship.

Dr. Graebner was careful to define what he meant
by churchly practice:

Churchly practice is the sum total of the formal actions

(Verrichtungen) and institutions (Einrichtungen) which
belong to the life of the Church as such.**

OF FELLOWSHIP 537

The fathers sought to distinguish between the life of
sanctification of individual Christians and churchly
practice. In an article entitled “Lutherische Praxis” in
Der Lutheraner, signed G (Prof. Martin Guenther) this
sentence appears:

When we speak of Lutheran practice, we do not mean

the personal life of the individual members of a con-

gregation, or of a church body, but that which the
congregation does as a body, or what it tolerates in
its midst, its activity, its institutions, its regulations.#8

Yet the same article draws an analogy between the
faith and life of the individual Christian on the one
hand, and the church's confession and churchly practice
on the other. and says:

Even as that man is not a Christian whose life contra~

dicts the confession: I am a Christian, so also that is

not a Lutheran congregation, not a Lutheran body, whose
churchly activity (kirchliches Tun) contradicts the Lu-
theran Confession.

An essay by Dr. George Stoeckhardt, delivered in
the Central District in 1895, indicates that theologians
of other Lutheran bodies often spoke critically of the
confessional position and the resulting practice in the
Missouri Synod. He writes:

As the doctrinal position of the Missouri Synod, so also

Missourian practice has, as it were, become proverbial.

Our ecclesiastical opponents understand by it a harsh,

rigoristic, legalistic practice. The same accusation is also

made against our doctrine... , This accusation does not
fit... . Some call our practice legalistic for the very

reason that it is in accord with the Word of God, in
particular with the Gospel.”

The synodical fathers who insisted that the practice
of the church should flow from, and be in harmony with
the church's confession, were by no means unaware of
the fact that there are some matters in the area of
churchly practice which are not established by the Word
of God. On this point Dr. A. L. Graebner says:

Churchly practice is in part established by the norm of
God's Word, in part subject to the free judgment of
the Christian congregation.%

He adds:

Insofar as churchly practice is established by the Word
of God, the oneness of the norm demands unity of
churchly practice as a divine command to the whole
church. So far as churchly practice is subject to the free
judgment of the congregation, unified churchly practice
dare not be demanded as though it were a divine
command.

It was only of ecclesiastical practice clearly de-
manded by the Word of God and by the Scriptural
confession of the church that the fathers held that it
was a norm for the granting or withholding of church
fellowship.

iii. Evaluation of Churchly Practice As a Criterion

for Church Fellowship

On the positive side it should be said that the
founders of the Synodical Conference were deeply con-
cerned to be and to remain loyal to the Scriptures and
the Lutheran Confessions. They believed that this could
be achieved only if churchly practice flowed from and
was regulated by the church's confession. On this
point G. writes in Der Lutheraner:

The Confession is not to be a mere empty formula, is not
to remain a dead letter on the paper of the constitution,