LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 342

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342

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
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Organizations may adopt operational principles that are alien or contrary to Scripture and
the Confessions (for example, a relief organization policy that forbids volunteers from
sharing the Gospel or praying with those who are being served).
Effective stewardship of financial resources is a valid theological issue.
The policies and practices of an organization must not be diffused by unstated goals or
objectives (for example, an agency organized to help the poor devotes itself to partisan
political advocacy).
The lack of a policy may indicate an unwillingness to address a necessary matter of
Christian truth. With regard to homosexual adoptions, for example, the lack of a policy
may be a tacit allowance for such adoptions.
Endorsement questions for institutional chaplaincies may be addressed under this heading
of implementation. The ELCA’s current theological course presents serious theological
challenges to any continued cooperation in endorsement procedures.

Fifth, the personnel who actually manage and lead cooperative efforts are a critical factor. Both
the public conduct and public positions taken by leaders and staff of organizations are significant
to the question of integrity. Personnel issues include (but are not limited to) such concerns as
follow:
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If an organization is staffed by someone whose lifestyle is scandalous or openly and
unrepentantly sinful, the message of God’s Word is inevitably compromised.
A leader’s public identification with and support of ecclesial, social, or political groups
which hold positions contrary to the Christian faith compromises any work, no matter
how valid it may be otherwise.
Institutional chaplaincy staffing decisions must be assessed theologically, with regard to
matters of the chaplain’s life-style decisions, theology, and ministry practices. (The
LCMS cannot support heterodox ministry, lend tacit approval to women’s ordination or
other unscriptural practices, or support chaplaincy services by those engaged in an
immoral lifestyle.)
Over time, leaders and/or staff of organizations may become unsupportive of or hostile to
Synod positions even though the ostensible purpose of the organization has not changed.
A management board for an RSO may become conflicted because of differing beliefs on
the part of its members.
The question may arise as to whether an RSO ought to be endorsed by the Synod if the
LCMS has little or no influence regarding either board leadership or staffing.
In all these instances, because of the public nature of leadership, the result will be a
compromise of the Synod’s beliefs and teachings.

a necessary work which God commands and also a work which is most effectively done in
cooperation with others. Therefore, cooperative work with individuals or entities in the ECLA is
not necessarily precluded so long as it meets the criteria given above.
This document has responded to 2010 Res. 3-03 with respect to cooperative work in RSOs and
other organizations. In such cases, we hope that these guidelines will be helpful for determining
where cooperative work can continue with doctrinal integrity and where, for the sake of that
integrity, it must cease. However, the markedly different theological courses of our respective
church bodies (LCMS and ELCA) mean that cooperation on the national level is a different
matter. The ELCA’s departure from historic Christian and Confessional Lutheran standards
makes it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for the LCMS to cooperate directly with the
ELCA national office in united efforts with doctrinal integrity.20
In the end, decisions about where the Synod may and may not engage in such cooperative work
will involve a Spirit-guided, careful, case-by-case look at each of the shared endeavors according
to these scriptural principles.
Approved by the CTCR “for sharing with the Praesidium”
December 17, 2010

Conclusion
There can and should be a measure of cooperation between the LCMS and other Christians,
Lutheran or otherwise, so long as there is no compromise of the teachings of Holy Scripture as
explicated in the Confessions. This basic principle requires that the cooperative effort is not an
act of fellowship in the Word and Sacraments (unionism). It assumes that the cooperative effort
is a godly work— something done in keeping with the eternal or “natural law” of God, written
on the human heart and clarified in Holy Scripture and the scripturally-informed conscience. It is

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For example, any continued cooperation with the ELCA in institutional chaplaincy endorsements and similar
matters seems significantly problematic.

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APPENDIX

Additional Background to 2010 Res. 3-03

The matter of cooperative relationships is extremely broad. All of life involves Christians in
countless cooperative relationships. Our Lord prays for Christian distinctiveness, but not that we
be taken “out of the world” (John 17:15). St. Paul reminds us of the impossibility of having no
association with the people “of this world” (1 Cor 5:9-10). The Confessions condemn the notion
of forbidding Christian involvement in public and private relationships and institutions (AC
XVI). Theodore E. Schmauk noted that “Wherever there is common ground, there is possibility
of cooperation.”21

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should cooperate or at least not work at cross purposes, our churches ought to cooperate
willingly to the extent that the Word of God and conscience will allow.23
Although it is not referred to by name, the concept of “cooperation in externals” (cooperatio in
externis) is central to this assertion. 24
A 1971 resolution of the Synod referred to “cooperative activity” with churches with which the
Synod was not in fellowship.25 A similar perspective from 1974 is evident in A Lutheran Stance
Toward Ecumenism with Application for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
It remains a basic principle for the Synod that the unity in the church which we seek is
not an external unification imposed from without by the adoption of common polities and
by organizational affiliation or by united endeavors in worthy causes, but the unity in the
church which results from confessional unanimity, that is, genuine concord or agreement
in doctrine. In relation to other church bodies and agencies the Synod will gladly
cooperate in externals, that is, participate in projects which do not involve joint worship
or the spiritual ministry of the church. In line with this principle the Synod will
continually examine the propriety of present affiliations and will carefully weigh
proposals to enter new alliances.26

A caveat was added by Schmauk: “But no cooperation is possible whose practical or ultimate
effect is to slight or ignore even the least central and most insignificant outpost of Lutheran
principle.”22 Although Christians must relate to every manner of person in common life, St. Paul
warned that we ought not associate with those who claim to hold the Christian faith but live in
flagrant violation of it (1 Cor 5:11). And while Jesus did not pray for His disciples to be taken
out of the world, He did pray for them to be kept safe “from the evil one” (John 17:15), and
warns that His kingdom not be confused with this world (John 18:36).
Two principles are present in the cooperative relationships of individual Christians. First, the
Christian necessarily cooperates with others in his vocations and in the assorted relationships that
occur in daily life. The Christian cooperates in the workplace, in commerce, and in her
neighborhood with people who are members of her congregation and with many more who are
not. Second, such cooperation occurs only on the basis of “common ground”—shared purposes
and understandings. Cooperation ends when it is incompatible with Christian faith and life—
when it involves infidelity to the Word of God and biblical standards of life—when it is contrary
to Christ’s call to faith active in love.

The 1991 document, Inter-Christian Relationships: An Instrument for Study, considered both the
prior usage of the distinction between communio in sacris and cooperatio in externis and also
some potential confusion that results from the term “external.”
The central role of the means of grace in our understanding of inter-Christian
relationships explains the reasons why we distinguish between “communion or
23

Theodore E. Schmauk and C. Theodore Benze, The Confessional Principle and the Confessions of the Lutheran
Church as Embodying the Evangelical Confession of the Christian Church (Philadelphia: General Council
Publication Board, 1911), 900.
22
Ibid.

Theology of Fellowship, 28. In the online version of the report at www.lcms.org/ctcr, the page number is 43.
The Wisconsin Synod’s severing of altar and pulpit fellowship with the Missouri Synod in 1961, and the
consequent demise of the Synodical Conference, were in significant measure the result of Wisconsin’s discomfort
over Missouri’s distinction between the two concepts: “cooperation in externals” (cooperatio in externis) and
“communion in sacred things” (communio in sacris).24 In the judgment of the Wisconsin Synod, such Missouri
Synod decisions as construction and operation of service centers for World War II military personnel with the
National Lutheran Council and cooperative charitable organizations with Lutherans from outside the Synodical
Conference were unionistic in nature. Even though the Wisconsin Synod acknowledged that these particular efforts
involved unambiguous restrictions against joint preaching, teaching, or worship, Wisconsin saw them as having the
“inevitable” consequence of unionism. “First, cooperation with ‘safeguard’; then, the call for complete
consolidation, thus bringing the movement to its inevitable unionistic climax.”24 From Wisconsin’s perspective,
“cooperation in externals” is simply a slippery slope toward indiscriminate union without doctrinal agreement. See
the essay by the Wisconsin Synod Conference of Presidents 1953-54, “Cooperation in Externals,” in Essays on
Church Fellowship, Curtis A. Jahn, ed. (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1996), 379-386.
25
1971 Resolution 3-26: "Resolved, That The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod restate its desire to initiate and
work toward fellowship with those Lutheran churches with whom it is not in altar and pulpit fellowship, and
continue to work toward a greater degree of unity with those with whom it is in altar and pulpit fellowship, and that
the activity proceed as follows: 1) Multilevel discussion of the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions with those
Lutheran churches with whom we are not in fellowship in order to seek agreement in doctrine and practice leading
to a declaration of altar and pulpit fellowship. These discussions may serve to provide guidelines for additional
cooperative activity;” quoted in CTCR The Nature and Implications of the Concept of Fellowship (1981), footnote
70, on 37. In the online version at www.lcms.org/ctcr the page number is 44.
26
CTCR, A Lutheran Stance Toward Ecumenism with Application for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
(1974), 11.

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It is one thing to speak of individual Christians cooperating with others, but it is another thing to
consider how churches or a church body can or cannot cooperate with other believers or
churches or church bodies. The following pages summarize official LCMS action regarding the
principle of cooperation in externals (cooperatio in externis) in recent years.
Background to Cooperation in Externals with Integrity
Meeting in convention in 1967 the Missouri Synod adopted the document Theology of
Fellowship (CTCR, 1965). Included in its guidelines it says:
Our Synod should clearly recognize that, in cases of necessary work on the local,
national, or international level, where the faith and confession of the church are not
compromised, and where it appears essential that the churches of various denominations

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2013 Convention Workbook

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