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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 396

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

396 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

42. Cited from Der Lutheraner, III (1846), 8 in Carl S.
Mundinger, Government in the Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Con-
cordia Publishing House, 1947), 197.

43. Franz Pieper, “Einige den Beruf zum Predigtamt bretref-
fende Fragen,” Lehre und Wehre 44 (1898): 339.

44. Ibid., 340.

45. Ibid. See P. F. Koehneke, “The Call into the Holy Ministry,”
in Abiding Word: An Anthology of Doctrinal Essays for the Year
1945, ed. Theodore Laetsch (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1946), 1: 380-82.

46. The Form of a Christian Congregation, 128.

47. Walther, Church and Ministry, 303-304.

48. This is the title given to a series of essays by Walther that
appeared in Der Lutheraner in 1860-61. These essays have been
published in C. F. Walther, The Congregation’s Right to Choose
Its Pastor, trans. Fred Kramer (Fort Wayne, IN: The Office of De-
velopment, Concordia Theological Seminary, 1987). A study edi-
tion with discussion questions has been published by Concordia
Seminary Publications, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (1997).

49. Walther, The Congregation’s Right to Choose, 154.

50. Quoted in The Form of a Christian Congregation, 134.

51. The Form of a Christian Congregation, 135-36.

52. Walther, Pastoraltheologie, 58.

53. C. F. W. Walther, “Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran
Synod,” trans. Everette W. Meier, in Essays for the Church (St.
Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992), 2:6-63. For an analysis
of this essay in light of Walther’s other witings, see David Mahs-
man, “C. F. W. Walther on the Proper Causes for a Congregation to
Depose its Pastor,” unpublished paper, 1992.

54. Walther, Essays, 2:36.

55. Ibid.

56. Walther, Essays, 2:37.

57. Walther, Essays, 2:25, 35.

58. Walther, Essays, 2:35.

59. Walther, Essays, 2:37.

2004 Convention Workbook

60. Here it should be noted that all of these factors involve the
support structures of the church as a sociological entity. The as-
sumption often is that all are theologically certified and thus would
do a fine job of preaching the Gospel and administering the sacra-
ments. But not all would be appropriate or suitable for the particu-
lar needs of the congregation as an incorporated institution.

61. See Spiritual Gifts, A Report of the Commission on Theol-
ogy and Church Relations of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod, September 1994, Part II, 16-45 (online at www.lcms
.org/cter/).

62. A reason for removal might be, for example, that a man is
under discipline or suspension and therefore is no longer eligible
or available for a call. The removal of names was not to be done
capriciously by the District President.

63. See tuhe CTCR’s 1981 report on The Ministry: Offices,
Procedures, and Nomenclature, esp. 13-19 (http://www.Icms.org/
ctcr/docs/ctcr-01.html).

64. George Nielsen provides evidence that termed calls among
confessional Lutherans were not unknown in the 19th century. He
cites the case of Pastor John Kilian, who was the leader of Wendish
Lutherans who came to Texas in 1854. Nielsen writes: ‘““Among the
Wends who migrated in 1854 Kilian was without question the spir-
itual leader. He was consulted on many other matters as well, but
the temporal leadership of the Wendish community came from lay-
men. The first indication of this lay leadership was in the 1854 call
to Kilian. Kilian did not gather the members of the Weigersdorf
and Klitten congregation to lead them to Texas; laymen from scat-
tered villages in Saxony and Prussia first formed an association and
then asked Kilian to be their pastor. The laymen assumed the re-
sponsibility of gathering the migrants and of financing the venture.
The call they sent Kilian was for one year only, an indication that
the laymen could release themselves of the expenses of a pastor if
they did not succeed financially.” In Search of a Home ... Nine-
teenth Century Wendish Immigration, Texas A. & M. University
Press, 1989, 70.

65. 1998 Convention Workbook, 51.