LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 384

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384 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

tule.” Christian Dogmatics, 3:386, n. 138. But see C. P. Krauth’s
very rigorous definition of “exceptions” (Wolf, 172-177). Else-
where Krauth wrote: “Every Christian is bound either to find a
Church on Earth, pure in its whole faith, or to make one. On the
other hand, he who says that the Church is wrong, confesses in that
very assertion, that if the Church be right, he is an errorist; and that
in asking to share her communion while he yet denies her doctrine,
he asks her to adopt the principle that error is to be admitted to her
bosom, for as an errorist and only as an errorist can she admit him.”
The result would be that error claims first toleration, then equality,
then supremacy. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its
Theology, 195-96.

55. Wolf, Documents of Lutheran Unity, 341.
56. Wolf, 336.

57. Ibid., 547. The same principles for altar and pulpit fellow-
ship were in place in the founding of the Lutheran Church of Aus-
tralia in 1965: “| A]ccording to the Word of God and our Lutheran
Confessions, Church fellowship, that is, mutual recognition as
brethren, altar and pulpit fellowship and resultant co-operation in
the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacra-
ments, presupposes unanimity in the pure doctrine of the Gospel
and in the right administration of the Sacraments.... We declare
that wherever continued co-operation in the preaching of the
Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments and worship ex-
ists, there we have a witness to the world of unity in the faith and a
profession of Church fellowship.” Theses of Agreement, 1966, V,
26-27. See also V, 21: “The outward unity of the Church as ‘the
fellowship of outward ties and rites’ must rest upon the same basis
on which the spiritual unity of true believers rests and depends,
viz., upon the marks of the One Church.... Where there is truth,
there is unity.”

58. Cited in Wm. Dallmann, W. H. T. Dau, and Th. Engelder
(Editor), Walther and the Church (St. Louis: Concordia, 1938),
127. ;

59. A reprint of the Brief Statement is available from Concordia
Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.

60. Under the heading “Orthodox and Heterodox Churches,”
F. Pieper writes the following: “It is God’s will and command that
in His Church His Word be preached and believed in purity and
truth, without adulteration. In God’s Church nobody should utter
his own, but only God’s Word (1 Pet. 4:11). Chaff and wheat do
not belong together. All ‘teaching otherwise,’ EtepodisacKkahetv,
is strictly forbidden. | Tim. 1:3 ‘...charge some that they teach no
other doctrine.’ ...in all Scripture there is not a single text permit-
ting a teacher to deviate from the Word of God or granting a child
of God license to fraternize with a teacher who deviates from the
Word of God.... And all Christians without exception are com-
manded to avoid such (Rom. 16:17; | Tim. 6:3 ff.).

“The distinction between orthodox and heterodox church bodies
and congregations is based on this divine order. A congregation or
church body which abides by God’s order, in which therefore
God’s Word is taught in its purity and the Sacraments administered
according to the divine institution, is properly called an orthodox
church (ecclesia orthodoxa, pura). But a congregation or church
body which, in spite of the divine order, tolerates false doctrine in
its midst is properly called a heterodox church (ecclesia hetero-
doxa, impura).” Christian Dogmatics, 3.422.

In note 29 on the same page, Pieper said: “Orthodox churches in
our day are those Lutheran congregations and church bodies which
profess and actually teach the doctrines laid down in the Confes-
sions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, because these doctrines,
on examination, are found to be the teaching of God’s Word. Im-
pure and heterodox churches are the Roman Catholic Church, the

2001 Convention Workbook

Eastern Catholic Church, the Reformed Church with its many sub-
divisions, and, moreover, also the church bodies which, though
bearing the Lutheran name, do not profess and actually teach the
doctrine of the Church of the Reformation.”

Pieper continues: “All children of God should be earnestly con-
cerned to see how real and serious this difference between the
church bodies is, because indifference as to the Christian doctrine is
rampant today among professed Christians,...Not the “official”
doctrine, but the actual teaching determines the character of a
church body.... A church body loses its orthodoxy only when it no
longer applies Rom. 16:17, hence does not combat and eventually
remove the false doctrine, but tolerates it without reproof and thus
actually grants it equal right with the truth.” (422-23).

In the sections following his discussion of orthodox and hetero-
dox churches, Pieper continues:

“Children of God in Heterodox Churches

Though God desires that all congregations be orthodox, and
though all heterodox communions exist only by God’s sufferance
and contrary to God’s gracious will, still it is a fact that also in the
heterodox communions there are believing children of God....
Though Christ denies to the Samaritan Church the right of exis-
tence as a separate church organization (John 4:22), still He re-
peatedly acknowledged individual Samaritans as true children of
God (Luke 17:16 ff; 10:33)...

Church Fellowship with Heterodox Churches (Unionism) Is
Prohibited by God

It is common knowledge that the presence of children of God in
heterodox churches is urged to prove that it is right, even demanded
by charity, to fellowship heterodox churches. This is the exact op-
posite of what Scripture teaches, for Scripture says. “Avoid them’
[Rom. 16:17; 1 Tim. 6:3 ff.; 2 John 10-11; etc.].

The argument of unionists is contrary even to natural reason.
The old Lutheran teachers point to 2 Sam. 15:11 as an illustration.
Just as the fact that two hundred citizens of Jerusalem in their ig-
norance joined Absalom did not give the rest of Israel the right to
desert their king and join the rebels, nor even to connive at the re-
bellion, so the circumstance that some Christians, from ignorance
and contrary to God’s orders, follow false teachers does not give
license to other Christians to do the same thing....

If Christians, against the divine prohibition, fellowship false
teachers and tolerate false doctrines, they commit the sin which the
Church calls “unionism,” “syncretism”...

The Christian Church can and should have patience with the
erring and seek through instruction to remove the error. But never
can or should the Church grant error equal right with the truth. If it
does, it renounces the truth itself. It is the very nature of truth to
antagonize error. Truth which no longer excludes error, but grants
it domicile, is eo ipso resigning as truth. Pertinently Luther re-
marks: ‘Whoever really regards his doctrine, faith, and confession
as true, right, and certain cannot remain in the same stall with such
as teach or adhere to false doctrine (St. L. X VII: 1180)” (423-26).

61. “Statement of the Overseas Committee,” Proceedings of the
Recessed Forty-sixth Convention, Lutheran Synodical Conference,
1961, 9-13, reprinted in August R. Suelflow, ed., Heritage in Mo-
tion (St. Louis: Concordia, 1998), 113. See also Thesis 12: “The
fellowship created by Word and Sacrament shows itself funda-
mentally in pulpit and altar fellowship. It can show itself in many
other ways, some of which, like prayer and worship and love of the
brethren, the church cannot do without, others of which, like the
holy kiss or the handshake or the reception into one’s house, vary
from place to place and from time to time. In whatever way the fel-
lowship created by Word and Sacrament shows itself, all visible