LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 66

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66 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

particularly helpful for our modern time. I believe our
fathers were eminently sincere and totally correct in
what they did, but I think we have to rethink our own
position on these matters so as to make their position
our own or so as to make their position something thatis
workable and feasible and acceptable in our own midst.
We can all agree that we want to avoid a total separat-
ism on the one hand and a wild irresponsible ecumenism
on the other. The difficulty is to find a middle path
which will avoid both of these extremes and which can
work in all situations in our church. We’ve had the
practice over the years of making separate rubrics for
military chaplains, hospital chaplains, campus pastors,
sometimes professors and District Presidents, and yet
have not really come to grips with the question of how
does an entire church with many, many different kinds
of ministries and many different kinds of congregations,
opportunities, historical backgrounds, etc., etc., devisea
way of relating to other churches without compromising
the theological principles which we all hold and to
which we want to be faithful? I do not think the church
has answered this question merely by breaking fellow-
ship with The American Lutheran Church, nor con-
versely by retaining it. It is a much broader question.
Some of the matters dealt with in these overtures are
very simple and perhaps can be answered quite readily;
some can be answered on the basis of previous resolu-
tions, and others require much more careful study than
we have ever given to them in the past.

It might be of interest to you to note in discussing the
matter of unionism that our Brief Statement, which is
still very much alive in our midst, says under the subject
of Church Fellowship: “We repudiate unionism, that is
church fellowship with the adherents of false doctrine,
as disobedience to God’s command, as causing division
in the Church, Rom. 16:17; 2 John 9, 10, and as involving
the constant danger of losing the Word of God entirely, 2
Tim. 2:17-21.” It is interesting to note that despite the
fact that today we talk at great length about the subject
of “altar and pulpit fellowship,” this term is not used in
the Brief Statement. What is meant in this document by
church fellowship? Is it broader than pulpit and altar, or
is it narrower? Does it include such a thing as having an
LCA professor lecture at one of our seminaries; or does it
speak of something other than having Grandma
Schmidt of the neighboring ALC church commune at a
Missouri Synod altar? Is unionism church fellowship
only with the adherents of false doctrine? In which case,
who are the adherents—are they the laity or only the
promoters and holders of false doctrine? There are
many things here that need our further study, and I
hope that the floor committee will draw on these
overtures to make some specific proposals for study of
these matters in our church.

The resolutions on the whole matter of women in the
church, ranging from a resolution to retract the previous
permission given to congregations to have woman
suffrage all the way to a study of the ordination of
women, are not the kind of questions that can be settled
and studied in depth by a floor committee or a conven-
tion. Yet they are issues which really do need more

study. We are living in an era when the whole role of
women in society is changing, and the role of women in
the church is bound to be affected. As you know, I have
always been unalterably opposed to the ordination of

~ women and continue to hold that position. But I am not

naive enough to think that the Missouri Synod woman
of 1990 is going to be exactly the kind of woman that her
great-grandmother was in 1890. The church needs to
think, not only in terms of greater involvement of
women for the fine talents they have and the contribu-
tions that they make, but also in terms of the study of
the orders of creation and what God really meant when
He established man and woman, the Christian family,
and what He meant when He established the fact that
men were to occupy the pastoral office. We are by no
means through with this subject.

Along with the whole matter of women in the church
is the whole matter of women in the home and women in
society. We certainly need to pay attention to Overture
3-30A on marriage, divorce, and remarriage, not only
with reference to professional church workers but to the
whole of our society. Related of course to this is the
whole subject of abortion, pro-life, and things of this
kind as set forth in the Workbook.

I would certainly hope that we would take a strong
position on anti-Semitism. The charismatic concerns
are still with us.

Since I am going out of office I will leave it to the
wisdom of the Synod to decide whether to call their
president a “Bishop.” I can assure you that if I had
stood for reelection, I would have fought the change.
The man who directs the destinies of the Missouri
Synod has enough aura of authoritarianism about him
with the title of “President.” If you call him a bishop,
you’ve elevated him several steps up the ladder and
probably only increased his distance from the rank and
file of the clergy and laity of the church.

Resolution 3-43 is an extremely interesting one. It
speaks about dissent. Dissent we will always have and
proper dissent is very healthy. I think some of the
dissent that was carried on years ago by ELIM and
Missouri in Perspective resulting finally in the AELC,
was certainly detrimental to the health and the unity of
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and I’m sure
that the framers of this overture had this very point in
mind. However, there are other breeders of dissent also.
Years ago the District Presidents stated that Christian
News bred dissent. If we are to pass a resolution
condemning improper dissent, it would seem that it
would be wise to include a wider spectrum of the Synod
than merely Elim and Missouri in Perspective (much as
they deserve it), but also to include all others who by
slander, character assassination, spreading of untruth
and misleading information, breed distruct and divi-
sion, and cause anguish to our Lutheran Zion. This
proposal is good, but it does not go far enough.

Closely related to it is Overture 3-44A, “To Work for
Reconciliation.” This is something that could beinclud-
ed in the above resolution.

Committee No. 3 will also have to deal with proposals
relative to terminating membership in the Lutheran