Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1958, Page 29

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Lutheran Synodical Conference, 1958 29

for meat. The result is that, generally speaking, men and
women of spiritual strength are not being produced — and this
is a serious matter for our cause.

I feel that our Lutheran Church with its practice of thorough
indoctrination has escaped this particular pitfall, as well as the
others that I mentioned. In fact, our record on activity is a good
one from the very beginning. The very first synod meeting of
The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod in 1847 instructed its
commission for missions to look for suitable foreign fields and to
see to it that Luther’s Small Catechism was thoroughly taught
in home missions. In the second meeting in 1848 possibilities for
foreign missions among the Indians of Oregon were announced,
and an already existing mission among the Indians of Michigan
was taken over. In the Wisconsin Synod our founder, Rev. John
Muehlhaeuser, was an ardent home missionary even before he
studied for the ministry. During his spare time as a baker’s
apprentice he had worked as a pilgrim missionary contacting
churchless people in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Then
after his ordination he continued this work in New York and
finally in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin. His method was to
walk on foot with tracts and Bibles which he sold for bread and
lodging or distributed freely. In that way he gathered the mem-
bers of his first church. There was no period in the history of
either synod when it was without an extensive missionary program.
When Missouri and Wisconsin united with other synods to form
the Synodical Conference, this union was signalized in the sixth
session of 1877 by the establishment of a mission among the
Negroes of our country, and the motion to begin it was made by
the Rev. H. A. Preus of the Norwegian Synod. The activity of
the Synodical Conference in missions has grown more complex
and many-sided during the decades without ever losing its
anchorage in the Word of truth.

Yet I suppose there have been mistakes, and there probably
will be others in the future. We need to go back for guidance and
inspiration to the Scriptures, and I should like to do that now in
bringing this discussion of the active mode to a close. There is
one age in the history of the kingdom of God —the apostolic —
when both obligations of the church —the contemplative and the
active — were perfectly balanced. Because of the special outpour-
ing of the Spirit the apostles were able to create theology even
while they were upholding it and spreading it. The missionary
potential stored up for 2,000 years finally broke its bounds on
the day of Pentecost. Soon the apostles were carrying the Gospel
from one end of the Roman Empire to the other.

The outstanding exponent of the age in this regard was Paul.
When the purity of doctrine was involved — when, for instance,
an attempt was made to saddle the new church with the old Mosaic
laws, thereby diminishing the honor of Christ —how trenchant
Paul could be in his letter to the Galatians! If false teachers
caused divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine they had
received from him, his advice in Romans 16:17 was to mark them
and avoid them. He was equally sure of himself, yet forbearing
too, in those questions that weren’t primarily doctrinal, although
they involved doctrines. He tolerated both those who esteemed
one day above another and those who esteemed every day alike,