Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 55

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Ev. Luth, Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 55

meeting with them at Milwaukee, July 19, 1954. What was there
said by the ALC commissioners and general president is testimony
sufficient that they have not receded from a single point in doctrinal
aberrations. But that is a matter which this convention’s floor com-
mittee on doctrine had better investigate in detail.

But in order to carry out the expressed desire of the chief
essayist, that of hearing some of the experiences we have had in
these matters over a long period of years, permit us to list some of
them, experiences which have saddened us, since they bore evi-
dence of the fact that our brethren who were continuing nego-
tiations with the ALC, in spite of our admonitions, were convinced
that we were lacking in true Christian charity. And it isn’t a light
load to carry, the burden of suspicion that you are lacking that
Christian virtue, all the while you are earnestly concerned about
remaining obedient to the divine injunction: “Thou shalt not hate
thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy
neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him,” Lev. 19:17. But it is the
love to God and His Word which must ever govern our love toward
our neighbor. And it is that which prompts a Luther to say:
“Cursed be the love which would be preserved at the expense of
the doctrine of faith, for which all must give way, love, Apostles,
an angel from heaven.” St. L. Walch, IX: 645.

What has come to fruition in the Common Confession, is not an
accident. To hark back to an oft-quoted remark of Professor Reim:
“It follows a pattern.” That a person might inadvertently do that
for which he would not want to be held responsible when its full
implications have been pointed out to him, we all grant. But when
a movement in all its disturbing aspects is ever moving toward
“the left,” you have a valid reason for holding that the Kolonne-
links maneuver is more dear to the marchers than is the Kolonne-
rechts.

There have been things urged in the interest of union to the
disparagement of our Confessions. When one hears remarks like
this in the course of the colloquy: “Even our Confessions offer
contradictory exegesis,” or when the semper virgine expression
(found in the Latin text of the Smalcald Articles) is smilingly
referred to as one of Luther's weak spots, it doesn’t serve to
strengthen the ties of confessional brotherhood. Did we not hear
at the Chicago convention of our Conference that the Brief State-
ment needed further amplification, lest we become guilty of teach-
ing irresistible grace? Did we not hear a re-echoing of that same
charge in our recent meeeting with the ALC commissioners? And
what are the facts in the case? No less than four times does the
Brief Statement speak of grace resisted. You will find that Scrip-
tural truth expressed in paragraphs 13, 14, 37, and 38.

The many articles appearing both in official and unofficial
organs of communions within the Synodical Conference, Lutheran
Witness, Vol. LXII, page 282, where we are told that our fears of
25 years ago have not been realized in the Norwegian merger of
1917, The article appearing in the unofficial organ, the American
Lutheran, where Missouri clergymen hailed the Madison Settle-
ment (Opgir) of 1912 as a sound confessional document. And the
refusal of the editors to make any correction. The year-long cor-
respondence between our pastor Adolph Harstad and managing
editor Adolph Meyer is offered in testimony. Dr. Mattes reported