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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 425

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

FLOOR COMMITTEE REPORTS AND OVERTURES ASSIGNMENTS

5. Theology and Church Relations
REPORTS
R1, R1.1, R1.2, R1.3, R10, R12, R15,
R58, R59.1–13, R60, R65, R66
OVERTURES
Ov. 5-01

To Recognize Altar and Pulpit Fellowship with
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belgium
Preamble
The Lutheran Church in Belgium goes back to the very beginnings
of the Reformation in the 16th century. Many writings of the
Reformer Martin Luther were already printed and distributed in
Antwerp as early as 1518. However, after the Diet of Worms,
opposition to the Reformation gradually grew in Belgium.
Persecutions began and many were taken prisoner to die at the stake,
burned alive. In 1523 the first two martyrs of the Reformation were
executed in Brussels. When Luther heard about this, he wrote his
letter to the Christians in the Low Countries (Belgium and the
Netherlands or Holland) “Eyn Brieff an die Christen ym
Nidderlande” and also the hymn “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.”
Just 40 years later, after Luther’s death and the peace of Augsburg,
the Reformation became influential again in Belgium, particularly
in Antwerp. In 1566 the first Lutheran congregation was organized
and recognized by the city magistrates. This was the first Lutheran
congregation in the entire region of the Low Countries. One of its
pastors was not so unknown—Matthias Illyricus Flacius.
Unfortunately, the period of religious freedom in Antwerp was
short. In 1585, Antwerp fell to Roman Catholic Spaniards, who all
but extinguished Lutheranism and Protestantism in Antwerp. This
was one of many battles in the 80 years of religious war between
the Dutch and the Spaniards, a war that eventually spread
throughout Europe (the Thirty Years War) before its eventual end
with the peace of Muenster/Westphalia in 1648. In this treaty almost
half of the territory of the Low Countries, including Belgium and
the southern part of the Netherlands, remained under a Roman
Catholic government. The northern part of the Netherlands was
finally free from Spanish dominion and established a Protestant
government. After the Fall of Antwerp most of the Lutherans had
fled to the north and established the first Lutheran congregations in
Amsterdam and other cities. A Calvinistic environment prevailed,
however, and Lutheranism would remain a minority church,
supported mainly by German merchants.
In 1830, Belgium won its independence and crowned a Lutheran
monarch, King Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg. Religious freedom was
also guaranteed by the new constitution. Nonetheless, apart from
some Scandinavian Seamans missions, it was not until 1939 that a
Lutheran congregation would exist anew in Belgium, once again in
Antwerp.
The origin of this Antwerp congregation is closely tied together
with the life and work of Pastor Lambert Hellings (1889–1956).
Reading the New Testament transformed his life. He studied
theology and began to work as an evangelist in the suburbs of
Antwerp in the early 1930s. Through his friendship with a

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Norwegian Seamans pastor he became aware of Lutheran theology.
He also obtained the address of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis,
resulting in other contacts with Lutheran churches in England and
France. In 1939 the small free evangelical Lutheran congregation in
Antwerp became a member of the French Synod, which later
changed its name to the Evangelical Lutheran Church–Synod of
France and Belgium.
In 1987 services in the Netherlands started. In 1992 English
speaking services in Brussels began. Unfortunately, current work in
the Netherlands is temporarily suspended, but the work in Brussels
has led to the establishment of a Lutheran congregation: the All
Lutheran Church of Brussels. Presently, only services in English are
offered.
The desire for independence from the French Synod eventually took
shape, since the Synod of France and Belgium was formed by
churches in two different countries and contacts were nearly all
administrative. In May 2002 the French and Belgium synods
became separate entities, but at the same time formed a partnership
in order to stress the good relationship that existed between the two
churches. In 2004, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belgium
(ELKB), formed by the Antwerp and Brussels congregations, was
established. The ELKB is a member of the International Lutheran
Council (ILC).
WHEREAS, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Belgium
(ELKB, Evangelisch-Lutherse Kerk in België) has had a longstanding association with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
dating back to the 1930s; and
WHEREAS, The ELKB was in altar and pulpit fellowship with the
Synod when it was a part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church–
Synod of France and Belgium; and
WHEREAS, The ELKB cordially separated from the Evangelical
Lutheran Church—Synod of France (EEL—SF) in 2002 and
became a self-governing church body which was legally recognized
in 2004; and
WHEREAS, The ELKB has requested altar and pulpit fellowship
with the Synod; and
WHEREAS, The ELKB is in altar and pulpit fellowship with many
Synod partner churches; and
WHEREAS, The ELKB accepts all the canonical books of the
sacred Scriptures of the Old and of the New Testaments as the
infallible, revealed Word of God and the symbolic books of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, compiled in the Book of Concord of
1580, as the correct exposition of the sacred Scriptures, and it will
not admit any modification to this rule; and
WHEREAS, The 2016 Handbook, Bylaw 3.9.5.2.2(b) says, “When
a church body applies for formal recognition of altar and pulpit
fellowship with the Synod, such recognition shall be proposed at a
convention of the Synod only after the approval of the
commission”; and
WHEREAS, The Commission on Theology and Church Relations
has examined and approved the doctrine and practice of the ELKB
as faithful to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and has
proposed the recognition of fellowship between the Synod and the
ELKB; therefore be it
Resolved, That the Synod formally recognize the existence of
altar and pulpit fellowship between the ELKB and the Synod; and
be it further

2019 Convention Workbook