LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 93

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THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 93

2-158A

To Ask Sister Churches Overseas
to Withdraw from Lutheran World
Federation

Wuereas, Certain of our sister churches overseas (India
Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in
the Philippines) have joined the Lutheran World Federation;
and

Wuereas, The LWF includes among its members churches
that are only nominally Lutheran, and others that are in full
church fellowship with non-Lutheran church bodies: and

Wuereas, It is commonly held among member churches
that they are in church fellowship with all other member
bodies, and that this impression is deliberately and publicly
given in the literature of the LWF and in the writings of
theologians in member churches; and

Wuereas, One of the functions of the LWF is to “foster
interest in, concern for. and participation in ecumenical
movements’; and

Wuereas, The LWF, although claiming a Lutheran con-
fession, in fact permits conflicting views regarding the doc-
trine of the Word, the Lord's Supper, the ordination of
women, lodge practice, and even on justification by faith,
the central doctrine of the Bible; and

Wuereas, The mission theology often taught in LWF lit-
erature undermines the very purpose for which our mission
churches and sister churches have been established; and

Wuereas, The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod has
repeatedly for confessional reasons refused to join the LWF;
and

Wuereas, Such membership by our sister churches with
whom we have fellowship and whom we support financially
and with manpower involves us as a Synod in unionism, and

Wuereas, Although we certainly do not have the right to
demand that sovereign, sister churches follow us in every
matter, we do have the right to expect doctrinal agreement
and confessional practice from churches with whom we have
fellowship and especially those whom we support with our
mission funds; and

Wuereas, Christian love and concern ought to compel our
church to speak to our brothers in the faith when they fall
into error or weaken their own confessional position; and

Wuereas, Membership in the LWF does weaken their
confessional position by their fellowship with errorists and
false teachers, whom our Lord commands us to “beware of”;
therefore be it

Resolved, That Synod respectfully, as concerned brothers
in Christ, remind these sister churches that membership in
the Lutheran World Federation seriously weakens and en-
dangers their position as confessional Lutheran church
bodies; and be it further

Resolved, That, if these fraternal warnings are not heeded,
that we explain to them firmly, but in love, that The Lu-
theran Church — Missouri Synod cannot continue to remain
in fellowship with them and support them if they continue
to hold membership in the LWF; and be it finally

Resolved, That Synod require all missions and mission-
aries still supported by The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod to break their ties with the LWF wherever they exist
unless the cooperation is clearly in areas that do not con-
stitute unionism, but only in external matters, so that the
practice on the mission fields of Synod is brought into con-
formity with the position of Synod.

Goop SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH
Rock Falls, Il.

Curtis A. Peterson, Pastor

Kim Groharing, Chairman

Similar:
2-158B

Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Mo., Larry Scheer,
Secretary.

2-159A

To Accept Invitation to Enter into Merger
Negotiations with Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Canada

Wuereas, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada
has issued an invitation to the Canadian constituency of The
Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (L. C.-C.), and of the
Lutheran Church in America (LCA — Canada Section) to
enter into official negotiations to bring about a merger; and

Wuereas, We believe that there exists at this time a suf-
ficient consensus in adherence to the Gospel and the Sacra-
ments as required in the Confessions for unity; and

Wuereas, It is desirable for the furtherance of the mis-
sion of the church to have one Lutheran church in Canada;
therefore be it

Resolved, That we encourage The Lutheran Church —
Missouri Synod to accept the invitation of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Canada to “enter into official negotia-
tions to bring about a merger”; and be it further

Resolved, That negotiations for merger be carried out by
Lutheran Church — Canada through its committee on rela-
tions with other churches in consultation with the Commis-
sion on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod.

TrinITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
London, Ont.

Charles E. Broadwell, Chairman
David C. Hutchison, Secretary

Similar:
2-159B

Manitoba and Saskatchewan District, Maynard F. Pollex,
Secretary.

2-160

To Deny Petitions for Membership
in National Council of Churches

Wuereas, The Federal Council of Churches, which de-
veloped into the National Council of Churches, declared
through its president (Rev. 5S. Cadman) already in 1930:
“The day is past when any realm of our economic, industrial,
social, political or international life will be regarded as out-
side the sphere of responsibility of the churches’; and

Wuereas, The NCC is pursuing this very line so aggres-
sively that voices of distressed concern from clergymen all
over America have registered their public protest through
full-page ads in the N. Y. Times (e.g., Nov. 18, 1968), etc.
repeatedly: and

Wuereas, The NCC has released an exclusive interview
with Gus Hall, National Secretary of the Communist Party,
in which he states: “Communism and the church share so
many goals that they ought to exist for one another” (Prairie
Farmer, Sept. 7, 1968): and

WuereasS. Movements like the Methodist Laymen of North
Hollywood, Calif., have been laboring tirelessly to extricate
their own denominations from the compromising commit-
ments of the NCC for valid Scriptural and democratic rea-
sons: and

Wuereas, There are those in our Synod who have for
years been advocating LCMS membership in the NCC both
orally and in written form at conferences and conventions
of the church: and

Wuereas, The ALC has merely deferred action on pro-
posals to join the NCC out of deference to concerns still
being voiced by some of her people but expects apparently
to sidestep or overrule these concerns in short order and
could therefore involve the LCMS in further un-Lutheran
and anti-Scriptural commitments since she has in error ac-
cepted the invitation to join the ALC in pulpit and altar
fellowship: and

Wuereas, Christian people, totally committed to the Word
of God and the rule of Christ in the hearts and lives of men,