Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 574
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 574

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

THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP 543

separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing;

and I will receive you,

And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

In this passage, addressed to the Christians who
lived in the heathen environment of Corinth. where
both the Christian faith and Christian morality were
constantly in danger, Paul warns, “Be not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers.”

It is clear that the people against whom the apostle
warns are not erring Christians, but the unbelievers
by whom they were surrounded. It is not crystal clear
precisely what the apostle meant by “being unequally
yoked together.” The Greek word, “heterozygountes,”
is found only here in the New Testament, and only
once in the Greek translation of the Old Testament,
the Septuagint, where it is used to translate the word
rendered in the King James Version as “gender with
a diverse kind” (Lev. 19:19). It has often, and with
reason, been understood as forbidding Christians to
marry unbelievers.!!

In the Lutheran Church the passage has been re-
ferred in a wider sense to fellowship. At the time of
the Reformation Luther used it to warn against having
anything to do with the Roman Catholic mass, which
he considered idolatrous. The passage is applied a num-
ber of times against the Roman Catholic Church in the
Lutheran Confessions.'*

Our Confessions do not use the passage against the
Reformed, nor against erring Lutherans. Later the pas-
sage was used by Lutherans against Reformed teachers,
whom they considered stubborn heretics. Finally, in
the history of the Lutheran Church in this country,
some Lutherans, also in our own Synod, used the pas-
sage to forbid fellowship with other Lutherans who
were considered to be in error.

It is evident that those who use the passage in this
way have gone beyond the clear words of the text,
which forbids being “unequally yoked together with
unbelievers.”

Summary Statement

Concerning all these passages it is clear that they
were originally spoken or written for specific situations
and apply first of all to these specific situations.

It is, however, equally true that, like all Scripture
these passages too were written for our learning (Rom.
15:4), and the church must, until the end of time, study
also these passages and draw from them light and in-
struction for her life in fellowship. She will use them
properly when she is taught by them to avoid men who,
either by false teaching or separatistic, schismatic, fac-
tious activities attack the Gospel and the faith of Chris-
tians. She will be misusing these passages if she uses
them to hinder the church’s ongoing attempts to heal
the schisms in the church and to foster the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace.

B. UNIONISM AND SEPARATISM
In the discussions of the question of church fellow-
ship among Lutherans two terms are frequently used,
unionism and separatism. Neither word has been de-

fined either uniformly or in a manner acceptable to all.
This lack of clearcut definitions has been a serious
hindrance to profitable discussions and mutual under-
standing.

In the following we attempt to clarify these two
concepts in a manner that is consonant with the teach-
ings of Scripture and of the Lutheran Confessions.

1. Unionism

The terms unionism and unionist as ecclesiastical
terms came into use in connection with the efforts of
King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia to effect a union
of the Lutheran and of the Reformed churches in his
realm in 1817, the tercentenary of the Reformation. The
union was to be effected by declaring the doctrines
which divided the two confessions to be differences in
nonessentials.

This Prussian Union was very distasteful to loyal
Lutherans, and those who favored the union were called
unionists (Unionisten). **

The terms “unionism” and “unionist” were frequently
used by the fathers of the Missouri Synod. though also
the term “syncretism” (Synkretismus), which had been
generally used prior to 1817, and “mixing of religions”
(Religionsmengerei) were extensively employed.'*

In part these terms were used, as they had been in
Germany, to characterize the union of Reformed and
Lutherans without removal of the doctrinal differences
which divided them.

Later, however, the terms “unionism” and “unionist”
were frequently applied when Lutherans who were not
wholly agreed in doctrine and practice nevertheless
worked and worshiped together.!”

It is difficult to get a clearcut definition of unionism
from the literature of The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod. An official definition of unionism by the Missouri
Synod in 1932 reads:

We repudiate unionism, that is. church fellowship with

the adherents of false doctrine, as disobedience to God's

command, as causing divisions in the church, Rom. 16:

17; 2 John 9, 10. and as involving the constant danger of

losing the Word of God entirely, 2 Tim. 2:17-21 (Brief

Statement ..., Par. 28).

It should be noted that here unionism is church fel-
lowship with adherents of false doctrine generally, not
only with Reformed. as the word unionism was origin-
ally used.

Another definition, later in time than the Brief State-
ment, appears to include in the concept of unionism far
more than church fellowship with adherents of false
doctrine. namely also “joint work of those not united in
doctrine.” and “mixed (promiscuous) prayer among
those who profess the truth and those who deny any
part of it.”

We quote the following, as embodying the essential
points, from the longer statement:

Religious unionism consists in joint worship and work

of those not united in doctrine. Its essence is an agree-
ment to disagree. ...

The statement then lists the familiar passages, a num-