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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 99

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

CONVENTION ESSAYS AND REACTIONS
3. Formula of Concord, Epitome XII, 30: “All these and
similar articles, together with their erroneous implications and conclusions, we reject and condemn as wrong,
false, heretical, and contrary to the Word of God, the
three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology,
the Smalcald Articles, and the Catechisms of Luther.
All pious Christians, of high degree and low, must
guard against these if they dearly love their soul’s eternal welfare and salvation (emphasis added).” Theodore
G. Tappert, trans., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1959), 500.
4. Examples of ways in which our Synod has historically
cooperated with other church bodies in externals are
given in Commission on Theology and Church Relations, Inter-Christian Relationships: An Instrument for
Study (St. Louis: The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod, February 1991), 29. See also CTCR, Theology of
Fellowship (n.d.), 28, and CTCR, A Lutheran Stance Toward Ecumenism (November 1974), 14, 16.
5. Ironically, some LCMS members may actually be em-

barrassed about our doctrine on this very matter, fellowship, believing that it is unfriendly or unloving and
thus a detriment to evangelism. They might be surprised to read the following from the catechism of another denomination often admired for its evangelistic
activity: “8. Why ought not Baptists to commune with
believers of other denominations? Not because we think
we are better Christians than they, but because we believe that they have not been baptized or that they are
not walking orderly in their relation to the church.” W.
E. Davidson, A Catechism of Bible Doctrine (Nashville,
TN: Broadman Press, n.d.), 24. It is especially noteworthy that “the Catechism came to America out of the mission field.” Ibid., 2. The reality is that the great majority
of the world’s Christians practice close(d) Communion.
6. Pilger durch Welt und Kirche (a publication of the General Council), 5:370; quoted in W. H. T. Dau, “At the
Milestone,” in Ebenezer 1847–1922: Reviews of the Work
of the Missouri Synod during Three Quarters of a Century, ed. W. H. T. Dau (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1922), 530–31.

200l Convention Proceedings