LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Sheet 60

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT @:

to devise ways and means whereby a wider and deeper
support base for the work of the sister churches may be
developed. There is not a single church affiliated with us
overseas which is receiving sufficient financial support to
carry on a kind of expansion and to give the kind of
support to the national workers for the work which they
are doing with such great sacrifice and devotion. We need
to think in terms of raising much larger amounts of
money in order to raise the salaries of national workers,
provide better quarters for pastors and congregations,
schools and hospitals, and other institutions that are
maintained in foreign countries. We also need to give
much thought and commensurate financial support to
enable us to expand into new areas. The Synod must be
about this all-important work if we really believe that
Jesus Christ is our Lord and if we want Him to be the
Lord of all men.

It was my privilege and honor to visit the Asian sister
churches in both 1973 and 1974. These visits gave me a
much greater insight into the work that is going on
overseas. The sister churches must become organization-
ally self-sufficient. In keeping with the report of the
Mission Study Commission, we need to develop working
agreements which are acceptable both to the sister
churches and to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
which will guarantee the sovereignty of these churches
and enable them to develop a truly national identity,
without sacrifice of the doctrinal heritage which we
share together. We need to explore new areas of the
world and sustain the work both in North America and
overseas.

The presidents of all of the sister churches who make
up the International Lutheran Theological Conference
are scheduled to meet in Brazil in November. I believe
that this is going to be an extremely important meeting
for strengthening the ties which exist among us and for
encouraging and supporting one another in the expan-
sion of the work throughout the world.

On the home front it would seem imperative that
congregations should be encouraged, in consultation with
their Districts, to look for new areas surrounding them
where satellite or daughter congregations could be estab-
lished. We do not need to’think that all of the American
mission work needs to come from District motivation.
Congregations are doing some excellent work, and more
of this needs to be done in the area of establishing new
congregations and expanding their ministry.

I would like to call the convention's attention to
Resolution 2-09. For several years a Black Caucus has
been held which is basically a conference of our black
pastors. This caucus has done some very good thinking
relative to the whole matter of black work done within
our Synod and within our nation. Unfortunately the
caucus has no official voice or authority, such as a
regular pastoral conference has.

In connection with this, there is also the celebration
of the Centennial of Black Work which will be an-
nounced at this convention. The thrust of both Resolu-
tion 2-09 and the Black Centennial is to give greater
prominence to black work and to black leadership within
the Synod, particularly as it applies to bringing the

Gospel to that very large minority in our population. The
creation of a Black Mission Model Task Force is some
thing that would be a very helpful step in affirming blac:
work and black workers in carrying out the mission o!
our Lord Jesus Christ.

One aspect of the church’s mission is to contend for
the faith, and this is brought to our attention in the
report of Committee 3 on Theology and Church Rela-
tions. Resolution 3-01, “To Seek Unity,” brings to us
some very positive and helpful proposals both for solving
the doctrinal problems which still exist and for strength-
ening us in our faith and adding to our understanding of
God’s Holy Word. I would urge your very careful study of
this resolution and hope that it will meet with the
favorable reaction of the convention.

As a result of our conflict we have more people
studying the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions than
we have had in generations. I firmly believe that history
will look at our controversy much differently than we do.
History will record that there was a church which was
willing to suffer public ignominy and humiliation, loss of
income, reduction of program, and strife which reached
even into our schools and congregations, rather than lose
its Biblical faith and heritage. To use a popular expres-
sion, we were willing to go to the mat for our faith, and
there is no doubt as to the outcome. The orthodox and
historic faith which we have confessed for 128 years as a
Synod and 460 years as a Lutheran confessing movement
has prevailed overwhelmingly. An article by Reverend
Glenn Stone in the Lutheran Forum for May 1975 makes
this very interesting statement:

Missouri Lutherans historically have claimed—more out-
spokenly than many others—to have been gifted with truth.
We make no judgment on whether their confession has
really been purer, their fidelity greater, their proclamation
more robust than that of other Lutherans and Christians.
This much we believe, however: The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod has made important contributions to world
Christianity. For example, do Missourians realize that, in
terms of present Lutheran consensus their views in the 19th
century controversy over conversion and election have “won”
the debate? No one ever signed a surrender pact, of course (it
may have been Missouri’s insistence that others, in effect, do
so that long delayed the recognition of consensus). But the
Sola Gratia is more firmly entrenched in all brands of
Lutheran theology than it was before C. F. W. Walther
raised the issue a century ago.

Editor Stone is correct. The verdict of history is that
Missouri was correct, and one hundred years later that
for which our fathers contended so valiantly is now the
faith of all. I am confident that by our strong contending
for the faith of historic Christianity and historic Luther-
anism regarding the basic doctrine of Sola Scriptura, we
will go down in history not just as a group of contentious
and quarrelsome nitpickers, but as a church which cared
about its teachings and its faith and ultimately pre-
vailed. That for which we are contending so strongly
today will become the faith of many more as the years go
on. We have determined that no philosophy of writing
history and no literary critic using hypothetical theories
regarding the origin of the Bible will take away from us
our childlike faith in the clear and inerrant Word which
testifies to and connects us with our Lord Jesus Christ.