LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1977, Page 107

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108 GREETINGS OF THE ALC PRESIDENT

be total agreement, not only on matters dealt with by the
Scriptures and Confessions but also on decisions made
by church conventions and councils.

We do not understand, for instance, a view of
fellowship that makes Missouri tell the ALC, in effect,
that the ALC must by 1979 agree with the LCMS in all
matters the LCMS declares important or we can no
longer have fellowship. That was not the basis on which
we entered fellowship in 1969. We believe churches
ought to carefully search the Scriptures together and
find where the Scriptures speak directly to a subject and
where it leaves matters to the best judgment of the
church. We see an ecclesiastical tyranny at work when
your representatives tell us that we must see the same
problems in the same way as you see them and come to
the same answers in all matters—and by a certain date
at that. The ALC and the LCMS do not have the same
strength of opinion about various issues. That should be
expected. Our histories are not totally similar. Our
churches have not been agitated by the same matters.
We do not expect you to appropriate our history, nor do
we think you should expect that of us. Fellowship
depends on holding together the basic doctrines of the
faith, not on being able to agree on the secondary human
judgments the churches must make from time to time.

Look, for instance, at the issues of ecumenical
activities and the ordination of women. The ALC
belongs to the Lutheran World Federation and the World
Council of Churches, and we are ordaining women.
Neither the Scriptures nor the Confessions directly
address these subjects. A church body has to deliberate
on these matters on the basis of deductions from the
Scriptural Word and its own best wisdom. In other words
there are issues to be faced that cannot be solved by a
direct appeal to Scriptures or the Confessions. The
churches must make judgments as to what is necessary
for this day and is consistent with the overall message of
the Scriptures.

That is what the ALC has prayerfully and carefully
sought to do in these matters. We cannot be positive we
are right. Neither can anyone else with a differing
position. We say it is enough that we agree on those
matters which the Scriptures and Confessions do
address directly. Differences on other matters should
not be divisive of fellowship. Furthermore, I would call
attention to the fact that there have been no serious
LCMS Biblical efforts to show us in the ALC why some
other position than ours is preferable as regards
ecumenical activities and the ordination of women. No,
there has only been a handful of people telling us that
this is the way the LCMS sees it, and unless we see it like
you do, there will be an end to fellowship. We ask for
something that takes our Scriptural reflections just as
seriously as yours. We do not believe God has cast The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as the sole teacher
of us all. We believe it is as possible that you might learn
from us as that we might learn from you. We do not
believe the unity of the church is to be expressed by any
one church body saying, “We have the truth; now all the
rest of you line up and agree with us.”

The story is similar with regard to the doctrine of
Scripture. We in the ALC take second place to no one in

confessing “Sola Scriptura.” We believe the entire
Scripture to be the inspired and authoritative Word of
God. We declare allegiance to what the Scriptures
themselves and the Lutheran Confessions say about the
Scriptures. We find ourselves in agreement with LCMS
Lutherans in understanding what the Scriptures teach
us about all the chief articles of faith. We are even
willing to affirm “the inerrancy of Scripture,” a phrase
that neither the Scriptures nor the Confessions use. But
when we are told that we must believe that inerrancy
means just exactly what some Missouri Synod
theologians say it means, and that nobody else’s
thinking on the subject is to be allowed at pain of loss of
fellowship, then that smacks to us of ecclesiastical pride
and tyranny.

Let me put it frankly. It has been suggested in this
convention that there are some ALC fleas causing the
LCMS to scratch and howl. Please know that we also
find some LCMS fleas afflicting us. That should not bea
surprise to Lutherans, who confess that we are all sinful
and unclean. We all have fleas, and if we are ever going
to embrace each other as sisters and brothers in Christ,
we will have to take each other—fleas and all.

Hear a few further worries that have grown out of our
dealings with official LCMS persons and committees.

1. You in LCMS hear very clearly God’s word that
warns us to beware of false teachers. We see no
corresponding concern for the powerful word of God
calling us to manifest the unity of faith that is among us.
We believe there should be great joy at the huge
edifice of unity that exists between us even as we
carefully inspect the small planks of disagreement. We
believe the church is called by God to express the
measure of the unity it has even as we continue to
discuss areas of disagreement.

2. You in LCMS show commendable concern for
God’s word that calls us to constantly seek, proclaim,
and defend the truth. We see no corresponding concern
for the word of God that again and again warns us
against self-nghteousness. We think you need to hear
just as much as we do God’s word that “we should not
think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.”
LCMS is no less vulnerable to the sin of self-
righteousness than any of the rest of us.

3. Wein the ALC worry about what appears to us to
be an LCMS flirtation with turning the Gospel into a
new law. In your desire to protect the Gospel you add
legalistic ‘‘protections” that the pious are required to
affirm. A spirit arises which has God’s people inspecting
each other for total doctrinal rectitude before there can
be openhearted sharing of the grace of God in Christ.
The Gospel’s strength is in its proclamation, in its free
course, not in its being safely hedged in by protective
rules and regulations. We have rejoiced in the many
instances where LCMS and ALC Lutherans have
together proclaimed and heard that Gospel. I know how
much I have enjoyed sharing the pulpit with Oswald
Hoffmann at various youth gatherings around the
country. We have been proclaiming the great Gospel of
God and not checking each other’s fleas. That is the way
we think it ought to be. There is something wrong when
suspicion and isolation and accusations replace the