LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 41

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THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 41

for the information of its readers, the full text of the constitution
of the Lutheran World Federation, and called particular atten-
tion to the ‘words, phrases, and sentences which were added
as amendments to the former Constitution at the 1963 Assembly
in Helsinki,” emendations which, in most instances, had been
adopted to meet Missouri Synod misgivings concerning the
Federation’s original instrument of government. The CTCR's
1969 report also ventured the judgment that Missouri Synod
affiliation with the LWF would not offend the Synod’s constitu-
tionally prescribed “renunciation of unionism and syncretism
of every description . . . [with] heterodox congregations of mixed
confession.”

Once more, in 1971, at the Milwaukee convention (see Res.
3-06), the Synod, while rejecting overtures to join the Lutheran
World Federation, called upon “the Synod’s Commission on
Theology and Church Relations carefully to review and evaluate
the papers, reports, and recommendations of the Lutheran
World Federation Fifth Assembly . . . [and] report its findings
to the next Synod convention at New Orleans, 1973."

As the commission now reports its findings to the 1973
synodical convention, it faces the question—on the basis of this
evaluation— whether it still stands upon the position it took in
1969. Would our affiliation with the Federation. still, in our judg-
ment, be wholly consonant with “renunciation of unionism and
syncretism of every description .. . [with] heterodox congrega-
tions of mixed confession,” in the light of what was said and done
at Evian? Does the Federation remain a “free association,” of
autonomous churches, cooperating in highly important works
that can be more economically — and therefore more extensively
and more effectively—accomplished in cooperation than by
the individual church bodies? And is the Federation still, as the
CTCR described it in 1969, grounded upon a doctrinal founda-
tion which “sets forth the proper and sufficient norms for its
identity as an association of Lutheran churches, namely the Holy
Scriptures as the only and infallible norm of church doctrine
and practice, and the three Ecumenical Creeds, together with
the Confessions of the Lutheran Church, as a pure exposition
of the Word of God?”

There is, moreover, the further question whether the con-
fessional position of the LWF gave ground, at Evian, before the
urgent claims of social action, societal reconstruction, inter-
national peace and concord, civic uplift, and the espousal of
humanitarian causes. Was there, in short, a shift of emphasis.
drawing the member churches away, at least for the present,
from the tireless propagation of the Gospel, replacing it. by de-
grees, with a correspondingly increased stress on the ameliora-
tion of poverty, disease, social injustice, and racism? Is it the
church's task to engage directly and as a political instrument in
these battles, even to the neglect of soul-winning and at the peril
of setting Christian against Christian, and Christian against non-
Christian? Or, per contra. does a prim aloofness from these
humanitarian endeavours itself impede the Gospel? Or is it the
church’s task to lead men to repentance and redemption, and
then to send them forth, their lives transformed by their new
birth in Christ, to give liberally of their treasures and their
energies to, and to enlist as individuals in, secular and quasi-
secular, political and private organizations, movements, institu-
tions, and legislative efforts which have the skills, the funds, and
the social leverage for fostering the desired reforms — agencies
which would be thus energized and cleansed by the infusion of
confessional Christians into their ranks? Or, alternatively, is
there yet other ground between these choices, that may be more
God-pleasing and Scriptural than either, and did the Federation
find it at Evian?

This dilemma, so agonizing to Lutherans who take a stand
for confessionalism and a distinctive Lutheran witness, has
engendered misgivings at every level in our attitudes toward the
church’s true mission. It has set pastor against parishioner,
and brother against brother in the parish: it has disturbed the
peace of our Synod, and troubled not only the counsels of
LCUSA but, at the international level, of the LWF and the
World Council of Churches as well. Some, in the aftermath of
Evian, have even gone so far as to ask whether the existence
of the WCC does not in fact render an LWF superfluous, in
view of an alleged steady attenuation of the “Lutheranism”
of the LWF. Also at odds with historic Lutheran traditions and
practice, as The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod. and as
many other Lutherans in the United States understand them.
was the increasing hospitality, expressed at Evian, to a design

of moving quickly to universal fellowship, at pulpit and altar, of
all Lutherans, and. indeed of all Christians.

Some misgivings about Evian on the part of those who adhere
to what they conceive to be the historic stance of Missouri may
be less substantially grounded than at first appears. The central
theme of the Fifth Assembly. “Sent into the World,” does. of
course (as many of the delegates insisted). have wide and deep
implications for the church's task of spreading the Gospel.
But its very wording seemed (‘to not a few delegates) to require
the session's particular emphasis upon meeting the world’s
temporal needs: and, it may perhaps therefore be urged that
a greater than usual preoccupation with the church's healing
mission in a suffering world did not in itself signal a retreat
from the church's function as herald of the Gospel. Indeed, some
of our own synodical observers at Evian came away with the
impression that while many European and North American dele-
gates seemed to read into the Assembly's watchwords a call to
center the session’s concerns upon social action, many other
delegates. particularly those from the “third world.” construed
the words “Sent into the World” as a mission theme, above all.
with a strong stress upon evangelism.

It is of course extremely hazardous, and manifestly unfair. to
judge so large and complex an entity as the LWF by a single
world assembly. This is doubly true of Evian, distracted as it
was by tensions and pressures. generated in part by its change
of site from Porto Alegre to Evian: in part by the insistent voices
of certain delegates and factions who were present in greater
numbers than before. thanks to sincere efforts to give the As-
sembly a more genuinely representative base: and in part by the
grievous strains and disarray in world politics generally and in
the internal politics of particular nations whose churches were
represented at the session. Strong feelings and deep divisions
over such issues as individual liberties, human rights, religious
persecutions, and economic exploitation and imperialism are.
at best, extremely difficult to accommodate: but when nationals
of one country exhort and rebuke those of another on the basis
of information largely supplied by biased accounts and official
propaganda. the prospect that reasonable counsels will prevail
is further diminished. And even where information is trust-
worthy. honest differences could still divide men of equal
dedication, in competing camps. both as between nationalities
and between groups within a single national constituency. These
difficulties were compounded at Evian by the sheer size of the
Assembly, and by the circumstance that men of varying ethnic
and social traditions did not bring to the discussions the same
attitudes toward the rules and procedures under which the
deliberations were conducted.

Negotiation and parley were overshadowed by uncertainty
over the question of the degree. ina federation of autonomous
churches, of diversity that may safely coexist with united action
on sensitive issues which have both spiritual and pragmatic
dimensions. Given the longing of all Lutherans for a greater
manifestation of true unity in the body of Christ. at what point
does concurrence with a majority on particular issues of social
action imperil a church's autonomy, or compromise its credo,
or impair its witness?

Unfortunate episodes at Evian may also have exaggerated
and distorted the sense of politicization of the Assembly. Notable
in this respect were the unhappy circumstances attending the
shift, at the last moment, from Porto Alegre to Evian: and the
vehemence of younger delegates who made no effort to conceal
their impatience with confessionalism. theology. and the mere
saving of souls. when there were wars to stop. beleaguered
ethnic minorities to be rescued. natural resources to be con-
served, and gross national products to be more equitably dis-
tributed. Compounding these misgivings were the dispro-
portionate allocations of time and energies, and the passions.
expended upon these conflicts, and upon an ill-considered and
clamorous effort to prod the Norwegian Parliament into a par-
ticular choice for bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize at its next
offering.

The wounds opened by the tragic confusions attending the
removal from Porto Alegre continued to smart, to benumb men’s
judgments. impelling them to asperse each other's motives so
that brethren. assembled to take earnest counsel together, could
not even hear each other across their differences. All of this
strengthened the fear on the part of some that the Federation
may divide Christians more than it unites them. and that it may
even impede the recruitment of more adherents to our faith.