LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 96

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ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ALC 97

different concerns and problems. We take for granted
that many years will be required to arrive at common-
ality on all concerns.

We have found strength in the process, a richness in
the variety our mergers have brought us. We worked
through an era of thinking the church to be like strained
soup, with ingredients invisible, with consistency, flavor,
and color all the same. We have known seasons when
our patience with each other ran short. Then we would
find our consensus in the Gospel and discover the church
to be better illustrated by the fruitcake. In the cake
each ingredient maintains its unique identity while mak-
ing a distinct contribution to the whole, and there is
even room for a few nuts. We believe our church strong
because of this hard work in coming together, in dying
that we might live.

These past few years of fellowship with Missouri
have allayed our fears about a judgmental, domineering
Missouri attitude. We have found each other at so many
levels. Our joint labors in LCUSA have been produc-
tive and rewarding. We have met with the men on your
Commission on Fellowship and had open, frank dis-
cussions around areas of continuing concern. We have
been confident that, with all participants acknowledging
each other’s seriousness in submitting to the authority

of the Scriptures, we would find God-pleasing solutions
to our relatively peripheral differences without threat-
ening the fellowship enjoyed. We have not imagined it
would prove necessary to put any time constraints on
the Spirit in these matters. It is our hope that our
churches may continue to affirm our consensus in the
Gospel and Sacraments, and to get on with the churches’
tasks unimpeded.

One final word. I have attended conventions in 10
of our ALC districts. The congregations of the ALC
have, out of our diversity, found an exciting unity of
spirit and mission. ALC esprit is high. We are coming
off a period of churchwide restructuring with excite-
ment at the prospect of an all-out effort for the mission
of the church. Our faces are turned outward. We are
looking for the ways to bear witness to the Lordship
and love of Christ in a worried and uncertain world.
We see a great season of evangelism before us, at home
and abroad. We intend to busy ourselves with works
of love, serving the causes of justice and mercy in the
affairs of men.

We hope and pray that we will be marching with
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod in this great
calling. God grant it may be so!

Dr. Davm Preus

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA

Dr. Preus, I congratulate you upon your election to
the presidency of the Synod. From holding a similar
office I understand something of the heavy and signifi-
cant responsibilities that you carry. I know how your
conscience must weigh your influence on the decisions
and work of the Synod and on the faith and life of
people in your church body and even beyond. Be as-
sured of my prayers that God will strengthen your
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and endow you abun-
dantly with the gifts of His Spirit.

Delegates to this 50th regular convention of The Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod, it is a privilege and

Dr. Robert Marshall, President of the Lutheran Church in America

a joy to greet you as brothers and sisters in Christ.
I am grateful for the invitation once again to visit the
Synod’s convention. I have been grateful, too, that
President Preus has twice brought fraternal greetings
to conventions of the Lutheran Church in America.

These exchanges of convention visits show that our
two church bodies do have a degree of fellowship. What
is the nature of our fellowship?

The New Testament teaches us that the church is
one body in Christ. I believe God wants that unity
made manifest. Yet we who share the Christian faith
have not found the way to show our God-given unity
in Christ through organizational structures, nor even
through agreement about altar and pulpit fellowship
between our two church bodies.

I do not know whether St. Paul would belabor us
for our divisions the way he did the congregation in
Corinth. There is a strong possibility he would say to
our two church bodies what is recorded in First Co-
rinthians 4:6 and tell us we are too “puffed up,” too
proud, too self satisfied.

Of course each of us has a good reason to maintain
an identity. We struggle for our institutional strength
as a means to an end. That end is a pure confession of
faith and a true witness to the Gospel.

At the same time the apostle’s teaching is enough to
warn us that each one stands in danger of allowing the
struggle to show more clearly than the faith, of mak-
ing the differences in our witness more evident than our