Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1975 · 51st Convention › Page 473
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 473

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

THE MISSION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE WORLD 473

Education, A Presentation to the Board of World Missions,
Lutheran Church in America, 1968, p. 11). Thus the task
and mission of the church should become a common
cause in which there is full cooperation among Christians
of all denominations.

The deemphasis on doctrine has also led to anew and
different understanding of the Lutheran view concerning
the centrality of the Gospel. According to some, belief
in the centrality of the Gospel implies that other doctrines
(creation, miracles, inerrancy of the Scripture, the
physical resurrection of the dead, immortality of the
soul, etc.) are not essential to the church’s mission.
Therefore, different views regarding these articles of
faith should not be considered divisive of fellowship.
In this way the centrality of the Gospel becomes a kind
of Gospel-monism (Gospel only).

While in some areas of Christendom there has been
a trend toward Gospel-monism, in others there is a
tendency in the direction of neo-universalism. In re-
sponse to the Leuenberg Concord evangelical theolo-
gians both in Europe and in America recently published
the Frankfurt Declaration, in which they expressed deep
concern over the new universalism which is being
embraced in many areas of the organized Christian
church. It is a universalism which appears in many
forms, but essentially it assumes that the sinner can
attain salvation without coming into contact with the
verbalized Gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

There is a growing tendency to define the message of
the Gospel in terms of social and political action rather
than in words which articulate the good news of man’s
salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ shed for
sin on the cross. The term “salvation” assumes a new
meaning if it is identified with social change, moral
improvement, and economic progress. The word “‘re-
ligion” is defined as a set of doctrines and cultic prac-
tices rather than a relation to Jesus Christ by faith.

During the past decade and a half there has been a
strong emphasis in certain parts of Christendom on the
miraculous and the supernatural. This often appears in
the form of neo-Pentecostalism, which claims that the
church today possesses the same miraculous gifts which
were given to the apostolic church of the first century.
In the non-Christian community there has been a resur-
gence of the cults, of spiritism, and various forms of
Eastern mysticism. Apparent is also a new missionary
zeal and vigor on the part of such religious systems as
Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

Finally, there is today a strong tendency to obscure
the differences between the church and the world. Many
fail to understand that Christ called the church out of the
world, that the world without Christ lies under judgment,

_ and that the church’s principal task according to Mat-
thew 28:19-20 is to return to the world with the message
of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ in order that
sinners might believe and through faith be saved. Of
course, this is not intended to undervalue the need for
Christians to live according to the laws of God, perform-

ing deeds of love toward their fellowmen and manifesting
an active interest and participation in the sociopolitical
world.

These are only a few of the more important develop-
ments that have taken place within the past decades
which challenge the organized church to study its task
on the basis of the Scripture and to articulate its message
in the clearest possible terms. It is with these develop-
ments in mind that we now turn our attention to the
Mission Affirmations.

I. The Church Is God’s Mission

The Mission Affirmations seek to challenge our Synod
to see its mission task in terms that are relevant to the
needs and conditions of our modern world. In doing so
they highlight the important fact that the task which is
to be carried out by the organized church is actually
God’s mission. It is He who originated this plan and made
it part of His eternal plan of salvation. Just as it was God
who created the world, and just as it was He who sent
forth His Son into the world to redeem mankind after
the fall into sin, so also it is the triune God who has
commissioned His church to go into all the world to
proclaim the good news of reconciliation through the
death of Jesus Christ. It is the same God who has also
promised His church the gift of the Holy Spirit so that it
can effectively perform its mission even until our Lord’s
return. Therefore, the mission of the church is not
optional. It is the Lord’s work. A church which is not
interested in God’s mission is a disobedient church. This
is indeed a most important emphasis.

But in view of recent trends in Christendom, with less
interest being shown in the doctrine and content of the
Christian faith, it is the opinion of the Commission on
Theology and Church Relations that the Mission Affirma-
tions should articulate more fully that God has not only
given His church an important mission to perform, but
that He has in His grace also prepared and equipped it
for its task. Behind the mission of the church stands
God’s eternal plan of salvation in its entirety —all of it is
essential to the successful completion of Christ’s mission
in the world.

The plan to involve the community of believers in
Christ’s mission to the world had its beginning already
in eternity when a gracious God chose and destined sin-
ners to become His sons through faith in Jesus Christ.
Even at that time He chose them for a purpose, that they
should show forth the praises of Him who called them out
of darkness into His marvelous light.

To make it possible for His church to serve Him in His
kingdom, God sent forth His only begotten Son into the
world to take on human flesh and blood in order that He
might offer His life as a sacrifice for sin upon the cross.
Thereby He has brought peace between the sinner and
God, as witnessed by St. Paul in 2 Cor. 5:18-19:

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to
himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is,
God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not