LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 57

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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT
with hymns or songs of praise, Scripture readings, Christcentered sermon or homily, prayer, and benediction are always appropriate and desired.
The bottom line is that the precise form of our worship
in and of itself is not a matter of divine mandate in which
specific worship forms are either commanded or forbidden
by God. The proper utilization of any form must always
provide a proper setting for receiving the divine gifts of God
and giving praise and glory to our triune God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.
May such God-pleasing worship flourish in the congregations of our Synod!
Participation in Events or Services with Other
Christians or Non-Christians
The LCMS Constitution includes as requirements for
membership in the Synod, “Renunciation of unionism and
syncretism of every description, such as: (a) serving congregations of mixed confession, as such, by ministers of the
church; (b) taking part in the services and sacramental
rites of heterodox congregations or of congregations of
mixed confession; (c) participating in heterodox tract and
missionary activities” (LCMS Constitution, Art. VI).
The question of whether or when it is appropriate to participate in an event or service at which non-LCMS participants are also present, along with the general question of
how we should relate to people outside the LCMS, especially in the rapidly changing world and country in which
we live, continues to cause disagreement and disharmony
in our Synod. In The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,
this is nothing new. These questions have plagued the
Synod for years.
As indicated in a number of my communications to the
Synod, the synodical President who faced the conflict in the
LCMS in the 1970s, Dr. J. A. O. Preus, said in his report to
the 1981 convention of the Synod:
We also have a whole series of overtures dealing in
one way or another with the subject of interchurch relations and unionism and separatism. I have been in the
ministry for over 35 years and have been involved in discussions of unionism and related matters for all of these
years. I have hoped that during my years in office some
greater clarity could be developed among us as to what
really is unionism and what must be dealt with in a disciplinary way, as over against things that might appear
to some to be a compromise of the Word of God but to
others are not such at all and no intent at compromise is
intended. I hope that the Synod will try to develop
rubrics and guidelines for a church of 3 million members in the 1980s and 1990s, rather than always relying
on definitions which are a century old, which deal basically with a European situation and are not 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 that is workable and feasible and acceptable in our own midst. We can all agree
that we want to avoid a total separatism 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. (Dr. Jacob A. O. Preus, President’s
Address, 1981 LCMS Convention Proceedings, pp.
65–66)

Frankly, my brothers and sisters in Christ, I couldn’t
agree more. Those words could very well be my own, except

57

that I have been in the ministry for only 34 years, not 35.
The matters of interchurch relations, unionism, separatism, syncretism, participating in events or services involving non-LCMS participants, and so forth, cry out for
biblically based resolution among us. While numerous examples of such difficult questions might be cited, none is
more widely known among us than the event at Yankee
Stadium on Sept. 23, 2001.
Participation of an LCMS District President at this
event, which followed the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, surfaced a deep-seated difference of perspective and belief regarding the circumstances under which pastors of our
Synod may legitimately and appropriately participate in
what have been called “civic events” or “civil religious
events” or simply “religious events.” The filing of formal
charges against the District President, who participated in
the event after consultation with his ecclesiastical supervisor (the synodical President), was followed by a decision of
the synodical Vice-Presidents to declare the President to
have a conflict of interest and to remand the case to one of
the Vice-Presidents, who decided to suspend the District
President from the clergy roster of the Synod. Subsequently, a Dispute Resolution Panel decided to overturn the
suspension, resulting in the District President’s remaining
on the clergy roster of the Synod and being restored to his
office as District President. Sadly and regrettably, the relationship between the Vice-President and his employer
was ended in connection with his involvement in this case,
which has occupied more time and resources that anyone
can count or even imagine. Officially, the case is concluded,
in accord with pertinent Bylaw provisions. My pastoral letters and extensive reports to the Synod on this matter are
available on the Synod’s Web site at www.lcms.org/president. For your convenience, my most recent letter to the
Synod regarding this matter is included as an Appendix to
this report.
In order to assist the Synod, particularly its pastors, in
making decisions about the circumstances under which
participation in cases that call for the exercise of godly discretion might properly occur, shortly after the Yankee Stadium controversy arose I asked the Commission on Theology and Church Relations to prepare guidelines for
participation in civic events. This CTCR study was not finalized in time for printing in this Convention Workbook,
but is due to be completed in April and should appear in an
early edition of “Today’s Business.” I encourage you to read
it carefully and pray it will be a blessing to the Synod.
It would be incomplete for me not to share with the delegates to this convention that, in the unfolding of the case
cited above, formal charges were brought against me specifically, asking that I be removed from the clergy roster of
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. These charges
were not unlike those brought against the District President who participated in the Yankee Stadium event. In response to questions about the meaning of a synodical Bylaw
adopted in 1998, but never used prior to the Yankee Stadium case, the Commission on Constitutional Matters of
the Synod, in an official opinion, determined that the President of the Synod could be removed from the Synod only
by the Synod itself in convention. Indeed, overtures have
2004 Convention Proceedings