LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 413

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 413

this concrete reality—the exercise of authority—is what God states
that He does not allow a woman to wield over a man.

Paul F. Nus

September 9, 2005

Notes

1. “Scripture on Women in the Church,” Proceedings of the
Forty-Third Regular Convention of the Lutheran Church—Mis-
souri Synod, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), p. 563.

2. Ibid.

3. Authentein—A Report in Response to a Request from the At-
lantic District on the word authentein (to have authority over) as
used in 1 Tim. 2:12—Approved April 16, 2005, and placed online
June 2005, p. 10.

4. Authentein, p. 12.

A Minority Statement on In Statu Confessionis:
A Response to Questions from
the Praesidium of the Synod

Among Lutherans, a declaration of “7 statu confessionis has
demonstrated a consistent tradition. The action challenges efforts
to impose certain practices upon Christians or to perform them in
Christ’s name. Which ones? Those understood to be incompatible
with the Gospel or contrary to the Scriptures and Confessions.
These are the common elements: (1) the protest of faith and free
conscience (2) against coercion or misrepresentation (3) through
political mandates or bureaucratic indifference.

Congregations and pastors in the LCMS are protected against
such coercion by Article VII, Section One of their Constitution. It
may be presumed that those declaring 77 statu confessionis are sim-
ply announcing to the rest of the Synod that some “resolution of the
Synod...is not in accordance with the Word of God.” Every mem-
ber’s commitment to uphold Article II of the Constitution requires
them to signal “an unwillingness or steadfast refusal to implement
or follow” any such resolution.

I disagreed with the CTCR majority at several points:

(1) Charity and fairness would recognize that these congregations
and pastors have issued a state of protest precisely Because they
do Wish to remain members of the Synod.

(2) Members refrain from communing when they remain unrecon-
ciled with others within their fellowship. To suspend or refrain
is not to sever. /n statu confessionis may be viewed as an extra-
ordinary but temporary measure of church discipline or unre-
solved conflict within a voluntary association, where ordinary
channels seem to have broken down.

(3) Pastors and congregations are entirely consistent (and charitable)
when they single out for Communion discipline only those who
are “manifestly impenitent” of teaching falsely or sinning stub-
bornly. There’s no consistency in disciplining those who aren’t
actively promoting a teaching or practice contrary to Scripture
or the Confessions. A declaration of i” statu confessionis does
not rashly pronounce someone a heretic, but speaks the truth in
love to erring brothers and sisters.

(4) The commission calls upon protestors to endure further wounds
against conscience. Yet in a marriage afflicted with mistrust,
anger and abuse, what kind of pastor would insist that the wife
must consent to all her husband’s sexual advances “until all av-
enues for working towards resolving matters have been ex-
hausted”? Communion is more intimate than sexual relations; it
unites our souls. A deep sense of betrayal and violation is felt by
many in our Synod—among all parties to our disagreements. Re-
pentance and reconciliation are necessary aspects of forgiveness
and the full enjoyment of our fellowship in one body.

Synodical membership does not work like Visa or MasterCard:
it guarantees no one automatic admission to a particular altar. Our
synodical President has frequently noted that the Synod’s consis-
tent practice of “close” Communion has always made provision for
“responsible pastoral discretion.” The binding and loosing keys be-

long to the Church and are administered by the parish pastor, not
the synodical Handbook. Unlike the ELCA or the WELS, we rec-
ognize no scriptural or confessional basis for the congregation and
its pastor to surrender those keys to the Synod.
Presumably, the intention of those declaring /7 statu confessio-
nis forces them to work outside of what they see as a theologically
indifferent or corrupted system.
As William Oesch wrote from Germany in the 1970s: “A truly
faithful orthodox church is in a permanent status confessionis over
against all others and so is each individual Christian. In instances
where sound doctrine or practice are publicly deviated from in any
way, faithful believers must publicly avoid such errors. This is what
status confesstonis requires! It is the only form of selective fellow-
ship which follows the true doctrine of the Church. Not to observe
itis a violation of that doctrine, a failure or refusal to put it into prac-
tice. It is the only form of selective fellowship which is permissible
and sanctioned by the Lutheran Confessions.”
Online references for the theological, confessional and/or his-
torical background of 7 statu confessionis include the following:
¢ Status Confessionis and Selective Fellowship, by W. M. Oesch
* In Statu Confessionis (A State of Confessional Protest), by Alvin
E. Wagner

* In Statu Confessionis at reformationtoday.tripod.com

* State of Confession for Trinity Lutheran Church, Herrin, IL at con-
cordtx.org

«What Do You Mean: “In Statu Confessionis?”, by James W.
Tauscher

Paul F. Nus
September 9, 2005

A Minority Opinion on In Statu Confessionis:
A Response to Questions
from the Praesidium of the Synod

The majority document lamentably confuses divine and human
obligations, resulting in the false ““even-handedness” of Question 4,
point f.: “the approach taken in dealing with those who declare
themselves in statu confessionis with the Synod and refuse to com-
mune district or synodical officials should be the same approach
taken in dealing with those who ignore or oppose the Synod’s po-
sition on close(d) Communion and thus choose to practice open
Communion in violation of their commitment to the Synod.” In
other words, those who do their solemn duty to the evangelical truth,
by refusing church fellowship to public errorists, must be “pun-
ished” in the same way as those who violate the truth by “open com-
munion”! By contrast, we need an approach which will recognize
the absolute priority of God’s truth over all human regulations or
so-called “covenants of love.”

The expression “state of confession” is based on the Tenth Ar-
ticle of the Formula of Concord, which, however, speaks not of a
“state” but of a “case” (FC SD X, 2) or a “time” (par. 10) of con-
fession. The basic issue is the absolute primacy of the divine, evan-
gelical truth in the church, as the following excerpts from Article X

of the Formula show:

[No compromise even in adiaphora (indifferent things) may be ac-
cepted] “in a period of persecution and a case of confession, especially
when the adversaries are attempting either by force and coercion or by
surreptitious methods to suppress the pure doctrine and gradually to in-
sinuate their false doctrines into our churches again” (par. 3, Tappert,
611).

We believe, teach, and confess that at a time of confession, as when
enemies of the Word of God desire to suppress the pure doctrine of the
holy Gospel, the entire community of God, yes, every individual Chris-
tian and especially the ministers of the Word as the leaders of the com-
munity of God, are obligated to confess openly, not only by words but
also through their deeds and actions, the true doctrine and all that per-
tains to it, according to the Word of God (par. 10; Tappert, 612).

2007 Convention Workbook