LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 202

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3. CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS

Report of Commission on
Constitutional Matters
I. Organization

Four members of the commission (2 clergymen, 2 laymen)
are appointed by the President and the Vice-Presidents. The
fifth member is the Secretary of the Synod, who serves ex
officio and who is elected by the synodical convention.

It is significant to note that all four appointed members who
had served under the previous administration prior to the Den-
ver convention were reappointed after Denver by the new
administration. However, since that time one has declined
reappointment, one has died, one has fallen victim to the
limited tenure rule, and the fourth is about to suffer the same
fate. Under the limited tenure rule members of the Commission
on Constitutional Matters and all other commissions may serve
only two full terms after 1965. When the Synod adopted this
rule in 1962, it specifically exempted the members of the Board
of Appeals from that provision. The Synod might want to give
earnest consideration to making an exception also in the case
of the Commission on Constitutional Matters.

Pastor Elmer Luessenhop, Arvada, Colo., was appointed
by Dr. Harms in 1962, 1965, 1967, and by Dr. Preus in 1971. His
service under the limited tenure rule will come to an end in
December 1975.

When Pastor George Sommermeyer of Long Island City,
N.Y., could not be reappointed under the limited tenure rule,
Dr. John Klotz of Fort Wayne, now of St. Louis, was appointed
his successor.

Mr. Herbert H. Freise of Walla Walla, Wash., an attorney,
is serving his first full term.

Mr. Donald Prevallet of Blytheville, Ark., an attorney, was
appointed to fill a vacancy and reappointed to a full term Jan. 1,
1974.

Dr. Herbert Mueller, Secretary of the Synod, was elected
at the 1965 convention in Detroit and reelected in 1969 at Denver
and in 1973 at New Orleans.

The commission was saddened by the death of Dr. W. Harry
Krieger, who was serving as a vice-presidential advisory mem-
ber at the time of his death.

The commission met approximately every other month and
was confronted with an increasingly heavy work load.

At the beginning of the new biennium in January 1974 the
commission chose Elmer Luessenhop as chairman and Herbert
H. Freise as vice-chairman. The Secretary of the Synod serves
ex officio as secretary of the commission by Bylaw stipulation.

II. Actions

The commission carried out its responsibility to revise the
synodical Handbook in order to bring it into conformity with
the many Bylaw actions of the New Orleans convention. Atten-
tion is called especially to the following convention actions:
Many changes in administrative relationships and functions
distributed throughout the Bylaws (see Res. 4-26): faculties,
Boards of Control, institutional presidents (6.23, 6.53—6.59,
6.77 —6.83, 6.117, etc.); membership rosters (3.49, 4.31 — 4.39):
responsibility of members (1.09 d, e): social concerns (merged
with Commission on Theology and Church Relations): Church
Extension Fund (8.51, 8.53): membership of Board for Missions
(8.01); KFUO (12.11): Social Ministry and World Relief (13.01):
Armed Forces Commission (15.21). :

The 1971 convention had asked the Council of Presidents in
consultation with the commission to develop proposed Bylaws
for the newly created Board for Lay Ministers. These proposals
failed to receive action in New Orleans. Similarly, the changes
proposed for the Colloquy Committees also failed to receive
attention.

In the next edition of the Handbook the following revisions
are to be noted: The Board for Lutheran Radio is no longer ap-
pointed by the Board of Directors but by the President of the

203

Synod (2.03): the internal reference in Bylaw 4.37 should be
*'4.33": since the Commission has been unable to ascertain how
“Executive Secretary for Medical Missions” came to be inserted
into Bylaw 2.83, it is to be removed from that place in order to
avoid conflict with Bylaw 8.75.

The commission ruled that the work of District Presidents
in screening rosters during 1973 for the 1974 edition of the
Annual should be regarded as the first year under the new
3-year rule. After the 1976 rosters have been prepared for the
1976 Annual. anyone still wishing to retain a c.r.m. status and
who has held it at least since 1973 will need to have his case
voted upon individually by the Council of Presidents. The com-
mission held that the new Bylaws (4.31 —4.39, 3.49) should not
be made retroactive but are in effect immediately.

The commission once again assisted several Districts (Michi-
gan, English, Texas} in bringing their former Boards of Appeal
into line with the requirements for the new District Commis-
sions of Adjudication.

As is well known, much of the commission’s time during this
biennium was taken up with questions directly related to the
controversies within the Synod: the status of the St. Louis
seminary president: the certification, placement, and ordination
of Seminex graduates: the existence of Seminex itself: ELIM:
procedures governing charges of false doctrine: the question
of Districts and congregations ordaining uncertified personnel:
and questions regarding the removal of District Presidents from
office. Some of the rulings are attached to this report as exhibits.

It was also asked to rule on the procedures in the election
of a River Forest president, since the Bylaws governing such
election were changed by the New Orleans convention during
the time River Forest was seeking to fill its vacancy.

The commission decided that since the Board for Higher
Education had become an elected board at the New Orleans
convention, the members elected at that time should begin
serving their terms immediately in place of those whose ap-
pointed terms would first expire at the end of the calendar year
of 1973.

The commission devoted the greater part of one meeting to
a hearing on the part of President John Tietjen and his attorney
and Chairman Ewald Otto of the Board of Control and its attor-
ney with respect to the suspension procedures.

The New Orleans convention, in adopting many new By-
laws brought about as a result the AATS accreditation action,
enlarged the Board of Control of both seminaries. It failed,
however, to fill the new positions by election at the convention.
The commission ruled that instead of filling these new positions
by appointment they should be filled by election at the 1975 con-
vention, at which time proper staggering of terms should also be
introduced.

There seems to be a felt need for new types of polity and con-
sequently for new kinds of constitutions for congregations. The
commission through an announcement in The Lutheran Witness
asked for samples of such new instruments. It then asked one
of its retiring members, Pastor George Sommermeyer, to de-
velop several constitutions which might be submitted to congre-
gations for their consideration when they request help. This
project has not yet been completed.

Since the original language of Bylaw 2.127 a might be con-
strued to mean that a clergyman from another church body
could be nominated for First Vice-President, the commission
decided to change slightly the order of words in the new edition
of the Handbook to read: *‘Each voting congregation shall be
entitled to nominate from the clergy roster of the Synod one
clergyman as a candidate for President and one clergyman as a
candidate for First Vice-President.”

The ELIM organization had published in its paper the claim
that a certain Bylaw (2.109 e) of the 1969 Handbook had disap-
peared from the 1971 edition. The commission called attention
in The Lutheran Witmess to the fact that this Bylaw had been
removed by vote of the delegates to the 1971 convention in Mil-
waukee (Res. 2-29).

It studied and evaluated the 4-page letter of the Seminex
faculty regarding the commission's rulings in March 1974.