LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 53

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SYNODICAL REPORTS 53

jointly to lead public worship services with pastors of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Ingria, with whom the LCMS is not in church fel-
lowship. It recommends that the present practice of our LCMS pastors
“filling in” when Ingrian pastors are unavailable be continued until such
a time as the doctrinal discussions between our two church bodies are
concluded.

Adopted Feb. 14, 1996

5. Opinion on Infant Communion

In January 1996 the President of the South Wisconsin District
endorsed and forwarded to the commission a request from South
Wisconsin District Circuits 18 and 19 that “the CTCR give atten-
tion and study and provide responses” to a number of questions and
documents pertaining to the communing of infants. Following con-
sultation with the seminary faculties, the commission at its April
1997 meeting adopted a report evaluating the infant communion
materials. It then forwarded this evaluation to the President of the
South Wisconsin District for sharing with Circuits 18 and 19, as
well as other circuits of the district as he may deem appropriate.
With the concurrence of the South Wisconsin District President,
the evaluation was made available upon request from the commis-
sion’s office. The evaluation is attached to this report as Appendix
B.

Adopted April 29, 1997

6. Opinion on the Propriety of Women Giving the “Children’s
Sermon”

In June 1996 the First Vice-President of the Synod asked the
CTCR to give an opinion regarding a woman giving the “Chil-
dren’s Sermon” in a public worship service. At its December 1996
meeting the commission adopted the following response:

The question of women giving the children’s message or sermon
has not been specifically addressed by the LCMS or the CTCR. The
Synod has repeatedly stated it understands the Scriptures to teach that
women may not hold the pastoral office or carry out the distinctive
functions of this office. The commission would encourage congrega-
tions to be guided by this basic teaching as it makes decisions regarding
who presents the children’s message in worship services.

The commission forwarded this response to the First Vice-Pres-
ident of the Synod, adding that it “is currently working on a com-
prehensive study on the role of women in the church which will
cover a number of these gender related issues.”

Adopted Sept. 6, 1996

7. Opinion on Implications of Minor Ban

In a letter dated February 14, 1995 the President of the New
England District requested an opinion on the following two ques-
tions: I. May a person (member) of our congregation, who is under
the minor ban (can’t take Communion), run for office, stay in of-
fice, and/or vote? 2. May the elders threaten to remove the chair-
woman of the LWML if she does not repent? The CTCR’s opin-
ion, adopted at its September 1996 meeting, reads as follows:

In a letter dated February 14, 1995, the President of the New Eng-
land District requested that the CTCR consider and render an opinion on
the following two questions:

1. May a person (member) of our congregation, who is under the

minor ban (can’t take Communion), nun for office, stay in office,
and or/vote? and

2. May the elders threaten to remove the chairwoman of the LWML
if she does not repent?

Introduction.

The term “minor ban” in Lutheran pastoral theology refers to the
suspension from the Lord’s Supper of those who are impenitent (ex-
communicatio minor).' In its 1989 report on Church Discipline in the
Christian Congregation the commission referred to this practice when it
stated: “Although a pastor may not himself excommunicate without the
congregation, he may, in the interest of a person’s spiritual welfare,
refuse to commune one whose presence at the altar would be a source of
offense to other members of the congregation, or one living in unre-
pentant sin who is still being dealt with on a personal basis by himself
or others” (21). This suspension from communion is to be distinguished
from excommunication (excommunicatio maior), expulsion from the
fellowship of the Christian congregation (which, of course, also entails
exclusion from the sacrament).”

Opinion

1. Question: May a person (member) of our congregation, who is
under the minor ban (can’t take Communion), run for
office, stay in office, and/or vote?

Answer: The practice of suspending an impenitent sinner from
Holy Communion (the so-called “minor ban”), ac-
cording to Lutheran confessional doctrine and prac-
lice, is a disciplinary measure that pertains solely to
admission to the sacrament, not to matters of church
polity. Such suspension, therefore, does not in and of
itself involve the withholding of other privileges of
membership in the Christian congregation (right to
vote, right to hold office, etc.), Should such suspen-
sion from Communion eventuate in excommunication
by the congregation whereby “manifest and impeni-
tent sinners” are excluded from the sacrament and
“other fellowship of the church unti! they mend their
ways and avoid sin” (SA II, EX), all the rights and
privileges of membership in a Christian congregation
can then rightfully be withheld. In all disciplinary
matters, pastors and congregations are cautioned
against using the refusal of Holy Communion merely
as a coercive measure of the Law. This suspension,
which should be regarded as a postponement from
Communion,? and therefore temporary, must have a
truly evangelical purpose—to bring the erring Christ-
ian to repentance.and restoration through the forgive-
ness of sins.

2. Question: May the elders threaten to remove the chairwoman of
the LWML if she does not repent?

Answer: While excommunication of an impenitent sinner from
a Christian congregation, as noted above, would
rightfully entail removal from congregational of-
fice(s), threatening an individual with removal from
office as a way of moving such a person to repent is a
form of legalism and must be rejected by Christians
devoted to evangelical discipline in the church. In
church disciplinary procedures impenitent sinners are
to be admonished on the basis of the commandments
of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures, not human or-
dinances.

Adopted Sept. 20, 1996

Notes

1 See John H. C. Fritz, Pastoral Theology (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1932), 134; Norbert H. Mueller and George
Kraus, Pastoral Theology (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1990), 182: Cf. C. F. W. Walther’s comments, quoted
by Dr. Francis Pieper (Christian Dogmatics, 3:389).

2 It should be noted that the Lutheran Confessions mean
something different when they employ the terms “major” and
“minor” excommunication or ban. They refer to the distinction
between the “greater excommunciation” (den Groszen Bann)
and “lesser excommunication” (der kleine Bann). According to
the Smalcald Articles the “greater excommunication” entailed
the imposition of civil as well as religious penalties (e.g.,
entering church buildings, entering a religious order, accepting
ecclesiastical benefices, performing valid legal acts, holding
church offices, having the right to demand that contracts be
carried out, receiving a church burial, being named in the
liturgy of the church; see Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Reformation {New York: Oxford University Press, 1996],
2:84).

Luther writes that the “lesser excommunication” (which he
calls the “truly Christian” excommunication) “excludes manifest
and impenitent sinners from the sacrament and other fellowship
of the church until they mend their ways and avoid sin” (SA III,
IX). Luther cautions, “Preachers should not mingle civil punish-
ments with this spiritual penalty or excommunication” (Ibid).

For further discussion of the above distinction see Edmund
Schlink, Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, trans. Paul F.
Koehneke and Herbert J. A. Bouman (Philadelphia: Muhlen-
berg, 1961), 211. For the practice of the early church see Wermer
Elert, Eucharist and Fellowship in the First Four Centuries,