LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 56

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56 THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

the Commission on Social Action to the “Commission on Social
Concerns.” The commission continued to concern itself with
issues that were important in the life of the contemporary
church and accepted responsibility for study on such issues as
abortion, race, drugs, ecology, dissent/war and peace, and
sexual morality. But again in 1971 it was noted that “the effec-
tiveness of the commission has continued to be limited by its
failure to have an executive secretary” ‘Convention Workbook,
1971, p. 388). A number of recommendations were considered
in order to overcome this limitation. Finally the 1973 convention
on recommendation of the Committee on Organization, the
Board of Directors, the Commission on Theology and Church
Relations, and the Commission on Social Concerns itself, de-
cided that the Commission on Social Concerns should ‘“‘cease
functioning as a separate commission” in order to “function
on the level of a full committee of the Commission on Theology
and Church Relations.” (Convention Proceedings. 1973, Res.
4-13, p. 147)

Once again undergoing a change in name, the Social Con-
cerns Committee, as it is now called, has functioned during the
past biennium in this new relationship with the CTCR. This
has proved to be a mutually enriching relationship. Without
having lost its identity as a separate committee, the CTCR’s
Social Concerns Committee has increased its capacity to be of
service to the church. Of special importance is that for the first
time in its varied history the committee now benefits from having
staff services.

Organization and Personnel

In September of 1973 the CTCR appointed nine individuals
to 2-year terms of membership on the Social Concerns Com-
mittee. Those appointed included four former members of the
Commission on Social Concerns: Prof. Victor Bohlmann, Rev.
Robert Collins, Mr. John Fraser, and Dr. Eugene Linse. Addi-
tional appointees included Dr. Richard Bardolph, Dr. Henry
J. Eggold, who served as CTCR liaison, Mrs. Jean Garton, Dr.
Frede Mortensen, and Dr. Martin Scharlemann. Dr. Scharle-
mann was elected chairman and Dr. Linse secretary.

The committee has continued to meet approximately four
times every year or eight times during the biennium. During
the course of the biennium Professor Bohlmann and Dr.
Scharlemann submitted their resignations. Dr. Eugene Linse
was elected as the new chairman and Mrs. Jean Garton as the
new secretary. Rev. Eugene Gruell and Mrs. Mabel Warnke
were subsequently appointed by the CTCR as new members
of the committee. Staff services were provided by CTCR
Executive Secretary Ralph A. Bohlmann until his leave of
absence from the CTCR in May 1974 and by Rev. Samuel H.
Nafzger, Assistant Executive Secretary of the CTCR.

Work of the Social Concerns Committee

In order to provide guidance to the Synod ‘in suggesting
and outlining studies of contemporary issues, including also
current social issues, as they affect the church and as the church
may affect such social issues,’ (Handbook 2.109 b 1 dd), the
CTCR’s Social Concerns Committee has involved itself during
this biennium with the study of a number of issues that are im-
portant in the life of the church today.

One of the most important issues addressed by the committee
is that of abortion and related life concerns. Upon indicating
its willingness to assume responsibility in this area, the Social
Concerns Committee was authorized by the CTCR in January
1974 to develop both immediate and long-range plans for effec-
tive life concerns programs for the various segments of The
Lutheran Church ~ Missouri Synod constituency.

In partial fulfillment of this assignment the committee de-
veloped and sponsored a number of Life Concerns Workshops
throughout the Synod. A St. Louis conference was sponsored
in February 1974 to which key leaders of the Synod were in-
vited. Several nationally known speakers were featured, in-
cluding Dr. John Willke, a Cincinnati physician and author of
Handbook on Abortion: Mrs. Marjory Mecklenburg, president
of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life; Dr. Calvin J. Eich-
horst, an American Lutheran theologian and pastor; and Mrs.
Judy Fink, secretary of the National Right to Life Committee.

Life Concerns Workshops were subsequently held on the
campuses of a number of synodical colleges including Concordia
College, St.Paul, Minn.: Concordia Theological Seminary,
Springfield, Ill.: Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.; and Con-

cordia College, Bronxville, N.Y. The committee also assisted
in the planning of a Life Concerns Program held on the campus
of Valparaiso University in fall 1974.

In March 1974 committee member Mrs. Jean Garton was
invited to appear before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee con-
ducting hearings on human life amendments to the U.S. Consti-
tution. Her testimony follows:

Mr. Chairman, may I convey to you the appreciation of our Presi-
dent, Doctor Jacob Preus, and of our membership for the opportunity
to speak with you about something our church body considers to be
a most urgent concern. With your permission I would like to place into
the record for your consideration the following items:

(1) First, our denominational statement from the 1971 national
convention expressing the opposition of our church body to willful
abortion.

(2) Secondly, the document produced by the Commission on
Theology and Church Relations summarizing our essential convic-
tions that life is a gift from God . . . that unborn life is of special value
before God .. . and that life and death belong to the province of God.
It was Doctor Bohlmann'‘s committee which prepared this statement.

(3) And finally, a press release of five weeks ago reaffirming our
position against abortion and announcing the initiation of programs
and workshops on this subject for our three million members.

I would also like to request at this time the opportunity to submit
further testimony into the record in response to the testimony yester-
day of Representative Bella Abzug, which was spoken in the con-
text of representing the views of women. I would also like to present
the views of women covering the same areas about which she re-
marked.

However, I speak to you not only as a representative of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but as a woman who is deeply
concerned with the rights and privileges and concomitant respon-
sibilities of women in America today. The Supreme Court decision
of January 1973 made it very clear that unborn children are now
woman’s exclusive responsibility.

Fulfilling its role as teacher, what does the law now teach us as
women who must weave the fabric of society when it condones
violence to our offspring and encourages selfishness as a virtue?
To offer us death as a solution to economic and social problems
does violence to the integrity of women. It fragments our wholeness
and separates the body, making it a machine for which pregnancy
becomes a minor malfunction.

I am also concerned as a woman, as are many of my more vocal
sisters, with the right to control my own body. But in this context,
such a claim is sheer sophistry, for we are speaking, quite simply, of
the body of another human being.

Two of the children I carried are boys. Can one body be male
and female at the same time? Two of my children have blood which
differs in type and factor from mine. Can two different blood types
be compatible and exist at the same time in one body? And what of
the child who died while I still carried him? Can one body be alive
and dead at the same time? Abortion, by any reasonable biological
standard, is the destruction of a separate human life. I was pleased
to hear your report that there would be medical testimony introduced
before this committee, for I believe, too, the question is not when
does life begin but who is a human being.

However, while our denominational statements are explicitly
theological, it is my conviction that a constitutional amendment
will help to safeguard the concerns of our constituency for innocent,
defenseless life which has an intrinsic value and dignity beyond
being ‘‘wanted.” To use wantedness in connection with human beings
is to reduce them to objects. We usually want things: a new coat, a
car, a hamburger. To want or not want people is to dehumanize
them. Further, to use wantedness in connection with human beings
is to tell us nothing of that human being. I might describe you as
weary, or biased, or gentle. However, the minute I say you are un-
wanted I am no longer describing you. but I am telling you something
about myself. Unwantedness measures our attitudes and feelings. The
fact that the Supreme Court allows for the elimination of a whole
segment of the human family tells us nothing about those children,
but rather tells us what kind of people we have become.

I know that we can’t pass a law that would make all children
wanted. But I am reminded of an incident in 1964 when a United
States Senator said, ‘““You can’t pass a law that will make me love
Negroes." Negroes replied, “We don’t care whether you love us or
not: we need a law that will keep you from being able to kill us and
will protect us from all kinds of discrimination.” Iam concerned as a
mother: I fear for the children of our country for whom also the law
is teacher. Are they not learning that sanctity of life may be enjoyed
only by those who are planned? That reverence for life extends only
to those who are perfect? That quality of life takes precedence over
life itself?

Our three million people —like the unborn—are without a voice
on this issue. We would ask you to give all the people of this country
the opportunity to speak in an open and democratic forum. That
could be done through the process of proposing to the states for