LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1977, Page 111

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112 ADDRESS OF THE LCUSA GENERAL SECRETARY

All in all, there must be at least 125,000—chaplains,
military personnel and civilians in or near military
establishments—each of whom says a reverent “thank
you” for your ministry to them and their loved ones.

4. One of the most headlined activities of the Council
since its formation relates to the resettlement of
Indochinese refugees, most of them from Vietnam.
Many of your congregations responded gladly, warmly,
and openly to our request for sponsorships, as did
congregations of The American Lutheran Church and
the Lutheran Church in America. In behalf of those
congregations and in behalf of the 18,500 refugees who
are now well on their way to becoming contributing
members of our American society (some of them have
also responded affirmatively to the claims of our Savior
and have become members of our congregations), I bring
you a brilliant and harmonious chorus of “thanks.”

And at this point I want to digress briefly but also
speak directly to the current situation of refugees from
Indo-China. As you must certainly have read, there are
still from eighty to ninety thousand individuals
scattered throughout Thailand and other areas of Asia,
seeking some new place to call “home.” More than six
thousand of these men, women, and children have been
living on small boats in which they fled the Communist
regime, unable to leave the boats because haven has
been denied them by Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and
many other Asian nations.

The situation is severe; many “boat cases,” as they
are called, have drowned at sea; many have seen ships
pass them by, refusing to heed SOS signals. Our nation’s
State Department has proposed that the United States
approve the admission of fifteen thousand of these
refugees, and as recently as last Friday President Carter
is reported to have agreed to admit 15,000 additional
refugees. The concern of the Lutheran Immigration and
Refugee Service for assistance to Indo-China refugees
is a matter of documented record. Iam confident that
Lutheran congregations, as in the past, will step
forward enthusiastically and sponsor some of these
families and individuals.

5. The Division of Theological Studies is the one unit
of the council in which each participating church body
must cooperate; none has any option to decline to
participate in that division. During the past ten years it
has responded to eight requests from the churches to
engage in theological studies. Three of these requests
came from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod:

a. Unchristian and Anti-Christian Organizations
b. Translation of the Confessions
c. War, Peace, and Conscience

One more, entitled “Function of Doctrine and
Theology,” was requested by both the Missouri Synod
and the Lutheran Church in America.

In addition to the eight studies requested by the
churches, the Division of Theological Studies undertook
seven other studies and engaged in dialog with
Methodists, Episcopalians, Orthodox, and Reformed;
and theological conversations with Conservative-
Evangelicals and Jews.

For these studies and dialogs, thousands within all

three church bodies speak gratefully and glowingly,

6. The Division of Campus Ministry and
Educational Services also makes studies—studies
having to do with the campus ministry concerns of the
cooperating churches. It assists the cooperating bodies
in developing their campus ministries and as in
establishing or relocating congregations, it enables the
churches to undertake and maintain campus ministries
without undue duplication of effort or waste of resources,

Thousands of students, faculty members, and their
families rejoice and give thanks for the processes and
procedures that make it possible to reduce the numberof
competing Lutheran ministries on non-Lutheran cam-
puses and to avoid adding more.

I also hear many expressions of gratitude for the
annual campus ministry staff conferences conducted by
this division for the three church bodies. At such staff
conferences, campus pastors and counselors compare
experiences and engage in mutual edification and
discussion of ways to improve the ministry of the
churches among those who are to be our civil, commer-
cial, and ecclesiastical leaders of tomorrow. They too say
“thank you.”

During the past two years I appeared three times
before congressional committees in Washington to
present testimony concerning legislation or regulations
which were under development by the United States
government. Unfortunately, I had to say in two of those
three instances that I was speaking only for The
American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church
in America. Following each of the two presentations,
and after my comments became generally known by
way of church and secular newspapers and magazines, I
received many expressions of thanks from members of
those two church bodies. But since The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod does not cooperate in the
council’s Office for Governmental Affairs, I received
from Missouri Synod members only inquiries as to why I
should speak for only two church bodies.

I said earlier that I want to seek enlightened and
constructive ways of reversing the trend away from a
greater expression of Lutheran unity. Here is one: it
would help the cause of Lutheran identity and the cause
of Lutheran unity if The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod were able to cooperate again in the council’s
Office for Governmental Affairs as it did for several
years.

I believe that another enlightened and constructive
way of reclaiming the hope for a greater expression of
Lutheran unity is for The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod to cooperate fully again in the council’s Office of
Communication and Interpretation. The news bureau of
that office supplies information concerning the Chris-
tian faith and life as reflected in the Lutheran Church.
The content of this information is the work that
Lutherans are doing, either separately or in partnership,
and inter-Lutheran events that are newsworthy, plus an
articulation of the often confusing and complex doc-
trinal concerns and policy decisions. The news bureau
gathers news from a variety of sources and, applying the
highest journalistic standards, supplies both secular
and religious editors with bona-fide news.