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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1941, Page 288

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

288 Intersynodical and Doctrinal Matters

Petition to Withdraw the Doctrinal Basis for
Church-Fellowship Adopted 1938
(Memorial 603)

The Delegate Synod, assembled in St. Louis, Mo., 1938, ac-
cepted the Brief Statement, the Declaration of the American Lu-
theran Church Representatives, and the Report of Committee 16,
together with Synod’s resolutions regarding the same, in good
faith, believing that these documents constituted a sufficient doc-
trinal basis for future church-fellowship with the American Lu-
theran Church and furthermore believing that this basis did not
represent any departure from the doctrinal position of the Missouri
Synod; but ,

Wuereas, The aforesaid doctrinal basis has proved to be in-
sufficient for its purpose (Exhibit A); and

Wuereas, The aforesaid doctrinal basis contains errors in doc-
trinal and historical matters (Exhibit B); and
Wuergas, The aforesaid basis, if not withdrawn, may be mis-
used to defend liberalism and unionism; now, therefore, we, the
undersigned,

Petition the Delegate Synod, assembled in Fort Wayne, Ind.,
June, 1941, to withdraw the aforesaid doctrinal basis.

Davin L. PrerrreR HH. BRAMMEIER

Exhibit A: Insufficiency of Doctrinal Basis

1. Synod and the American Lutheran Church have no common
doctrinal basis for church-fellowship.

Our Synod accepted this statement of its Union Committee:
“To understand which [the Declaration of the A. L. C.] it will be
necessary to compare the Brief Statement of our Synod.” (Pro-
ceedings 1938, p. 221.) We, then, want the Declaration understood
in the light of the Brief Statement. ;

The American Lutheran Church, however, takes an opposite
view of the matter and wants the Brief Statement viewed in the
light of its Declaration. This view is expressed in the first two
paragraphs of the conclusion to the Declaration. (Proceedings 1938,
pp. 225, 226.) The same view is more clearly expressed in sub-
sequent statements of the A. L.C. commissioners. (A Letter of the
Committee on Lutheran Union Addressed to the Clergy of the Mis-
souri Synod, Dec. 8, 1939, p. 8.) An immediate practical result of
the A.L.C. view is the A.L.C pronouncement at Sandusky that
the Brief Statement, viewed in the light of the Declaration, does
not contradict the Minneapolis Theses. (Lutheran Witness, Nov. 1,
1938, p. 373.)

In harmony with the aforesaid view of the American Lutheran