Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 103

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Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 103

ism. The Article is headed “On Church Fellowship” and says that
church fellowship with heterodox bodies is unionism, and “we
repudiate unionism.” The article merely rejects church fellowship
with adherents of false doctrine as unionism.

The Common Confession goes somewhat farther towards a
definition of unionism when it says: “We cannot condone error or
have altar and pulpit fellowship and unscriptural co-operation
with erring individuals, church bodies, or church groups that
refuse to be corrected by God’s Word.” Here the term “unscrip-
tural co-operation” is added as being included under church
fellowship.

The Concordia Cyclopedia under the heading “Unionism” gives
a definition of that term that expresses what always has been,
and no doubt still is, the accepted understanding in the Synodical
Conference of what constitutes unionism. After citing eleven pas-
sages from Scriptures, including Rom. 16:17; Matt. 7: 15; 1 John 4:1,
the article says: “In the light of these texts all joint ecclesiastical
efforts for religious work (missionary, educational, etc.) and par-
ticularly joint worship and mixed (promiscuous) prayer among
those who confess the truth and those who deny any part of it,
is sinful unionism.” The article in the Cyclopedia quotes Luther,
who said: “It will not serve to make any compromise for the sake
of union. A compromise is in itself untruthful because its purpose
is to unite things which are mutually opposed.” The article also
adds this quotation: “The more careless we are in stating the
differences and the more anxious to hide the sores, the farther

most essence of all true unity.” .

Unionism is-more than the actual practice of church fellow-
ship. It includes prayer fellowship, condoning of error, willing-
ness to compromise, a desire to hide differences for the sake of
outward union or peace; unionism includes all efforts to arrive
at agreement at the expense of the truth; it includes co-operation
with errorists and evasion of confession of the truth for the sake
of a gain in efficiency or an increase in numbers or for any other
reason.

We speak, and correctly so, not only of the practice of unionism,
but also of the spirit of unionism. One is as unscriptural and as
reprehensible as the other. Philip Melanchthon may not have
practiced actual church fellowship with Zwingli, Bucer, and others,
but the spirit of unionism that was in him plagued him all his life
and has plagued the Lutheran Church ever since. There would

is peace, love, and charity, whereas in reality he is preaching
compromise, fear, and surrender.

Luther, during his lifetime, managed with difficulty to hold
Melanchthon in check, but Melanchthon’s Spirit finally prevailed
when Frederick William ITI succeeded in inaugurating the notorious
Prussian Union. Philip Melanchthon thought he was promoting the
cause of peace and unity in the church, but of all the controversies
that arose in the Lutheran Church after Luther’s death none caused
more bitterness and disunity than those that resulted directly from