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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 339

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

V. REPORT OF THE 2016 RES. 4-03B TASK FORCE ON RECOGNIZED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

3.3.3 Tier II MSO in the Restructured RSO
Program: “Mission/Ministry Multiplying
‘Alongside’ the Church”
Governed to an acceptable degree (as determined in policy) by
members of LCMS congregations. In no respect opposes the doctrinal or practical position of the Synod, although may be unable
in every circumstance, due to governmental regulation, to advance
that doctrinal or practical position. Faithfully and demonstrably
weighs decisions about moral cost of being in a space versus moral
cost of allowing the organization to be forced out of it. Faithfully
and demonstrably advocates for and maximally uses freedom to
carry out mission in fidelity to the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions. (Here, see the below excursus.) Intentionally and demonstrably seeks to “multiply the mission” of congregations and schools
of the Synod.

4. Excursus: What does it mean for a Mercy
Service Organization to “respect and not
act contrary to the doctrine and practice of
the Synod” (present Bylaw 6.2.1)?
The application to mercy work—often involving cooperation
in externals with those of different confessions or with governmental commitments—of the requirement that an RSO “respects and
does not act contrary to the doctrine of the Synod” (Bylaw 6.2.1)
has become increasingly complex. 2007 Res. 6-03A, for example,
held in its final resolving clause:
Resolved, That LCMS organizations and LCMS
recognized service organizations may not knowingly place adopted or foster children into any
intrinsically sinful situations where individuals
and families are not living in accordance with the
Lord’s natural and revealed law (Bylaw 6.2.1)
Without disagreeing with the convention’s conclusion, the
task force notes that there are significant jurisdictions in which organizations have had to choose between recognition by the Synod
and the ability to carry on the volume of mercy work they hoped to
perform—and where the choice has been to continue the work, the
Synod has entirely lost whatever influence it had with its formerly
recognized organizations.
Presently, public accommodation laws also challenge organizations providing low-income, elder care, or group housing to
deal with client sexual orientation and gender identity and attendant living situations and expressions of identity which the church
considers intrinsically sinful. The ability of such organizations to
perform works of mercy broadly in the community is increasingly
contingent on their suffering some injury at the hands of regulation.
Organizations whose work relies on funding or licensing that seems
to be contingent on making the occasional such accommodation are
questioning what it means, in such a context, to “not act contrary to
the position of the Synod.”
Mercy is for sinners. Mercy work will always be messy. There
is a scriptural difference between, on the one hand, extending mercy to sinners (in, one would hope, close proximity to and urging
toward a forthright preaching of the Law and the Gospel) and, on
the other, affirming, and confirming people in, their sin, or giving
children over into it. What may be suffered as the “cost of doing
mercy?” What must, on the other hand, be condemned as “pinch of
incense” to the gods of this debased age? These are not uniformly

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easy questions, and the Church must not be too hasty to condemn
those who are truly wrestling with these matters for not coming up
with “easy” or “simple” or “pure” answers.
The mercy work of the church is, and has always been, directed
toward sinners—mercy is, after all, extending not what is deserved
but what is good, what is salutary. “If your enemy is hungry, feed
him” (Rom. 12:20). Increasingly civic mores and law threaten the
very existence of mercy by treating many sins as civic goods and
demanding that goods be extended—not apart from or despite the
sins—but on their account and as their justification. Thus, the government is used, against its God-given purpose, to bestow a sham
dignity on acts that dishonor God. And that sham dignity militates
against the true and free justification that God has worked in Christ,
that He would impute by faith to repentant sinners. Regulation and
economics condition the ability to multiply mercy on some degree
of, if not deference, at least indifference toward this evil end. With
regard to clients, to non-rostered staff, to staff dependents, for these
organizations with one foot in the church and one foot in the public
social work sphere, this all presents hard questions of conscience
and law. Many organizations historically connected with the church
are vulnerable to an erosion of identity by the wear and tear of these
forces.
It must also be admitted that cooperation in externals—formerly prevalent among sometime member church bodies (and successors) of the Lutheran Council in the United States (LCUSA),
including the LCMS and ELCA—is becoming much more challenged, as confessional conflicts have invaded the realm of (revealed and natural) Law and former partners continue and increase
social activism opposed to (revealed and natural) Law. If what is
good is not agreed upon, it is hard to cooperate in doing good. If
what is evil is exalted by “partners” as we together “do the mercy
of the church,” what is confessed to them and before the world?
Here, the rephrased expectation that mercy organizations “facilitate the church’s extension of the divine mercy without compromising the church’s scriptural and confessional standards” is
intended to clarify, without diminishing, the general requirement
that RSOs “respect and not act contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Synod.” Mercy is for sinners, and not every situation
is the opportune time for direct confrontation of sinful behavior.
Much discernment and careful conversation, scriptural and confessional study, and ethical reflection on the basis of the Scriptures
and Confessions, is called for, in an active engagement of those
organizations in challenged contexts with the Synod’s RSO Office
(under the LCMS Office of National Mission), and with the Synod
as a whole. Much more will be said on this topic under the MSO
section below.

5. Call, Roster, and Ecclesiastical Supervision
of Ordained and Commissioned Ministers
One may understand a given divine call in terms of the calling
body, the task to which called, and the worker called to do it. With
regard to each of these, the RSO program—which has historically
extended the general right to call workers to all recognized organizations, but not apart from serious questions about this practice—
has to be re-examined:
•

With regard to the workers, the task force considers the
divine call to be inextricably tied to a confessional standard. The Synod recognizes, of course, only the calling
of workers who are on the roster of the Synod or who
are certified as prepared to enter that roster by virtue of
2019 Convention Workbook