We in The
Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod consider ourselves orthodox Lutherans, as
we accept the Scriptures as the inspired and inerrant Word of
God, and we subscribe unconditionally to all the symbolical books of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated statement and
exposition of the Word of God. There are other Lutherans in America who claim
the same stance (such as the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the 3rd largest
Lutheran body), but other issues, such as type of hymnal, gender identity,
roles of men and women in church, and form of church government, keep us apart.
Why?
Lutherans in America grew to be the
third-largest Protestant church group from 600,000 baptized in 1875 to more
than 2 million by 1900, segregated mostly by ethnicity, rather than doctrine.
But that would change as not only doctrine, but semantics would create a chasm
between the two largest Lutheran church bodies in the U.S. in the 1920s, the
more liberal United Lutheran Church of America (ULCA), with its roots in the
Pennsylvania Ministerium of 1748 (and created through a series of mergers;
through more mergers, it would eventually become a shadow of today’s
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA), and the Missouri Synod.
While there had been great hope and
enthusiasm for a united Lutheran front in America, at least on the part of the
ULCA, the controversy over doctrinal subscription would keep the notion of one
united American Lutheran Church body beyond arm’s reach. Most of the midwestern
Lutherans agreed to the use of the terms inerrant
and infallible, both because they
believed it correctly expressed the nature of biblical authority and because it
brought them into harmony with the Missouri Synod on the issue. The ULCA and
others resisted using these terms, and another Lutheran body at the time, the
American Lutheran Church, used one, but not the other. The ULCA tried again in
1949 for national unity among the numerous Lutheran bodies, but to no avail.
A vivid example of the fence between the
Missouri Synod and the largest American Lutheran body, the ELCA, comes directly
from its website in these statements which they contend justifies their altar
fellowship with the Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America,
United Church of Christ, The Episcopal Church, The Moravian Church, and United
Methodist Church:
“Full communion is when two denominations develop a relationship based
on a common confessing of the Christian faith and a mutual recognition of
Baptism and sharing of the Lord’s Supper. This does not mean the two
denominations merge; rather, in reaching agreements, denominations also respect
differences.”
I know, all of this perhaps presents our
Synod as proprietary among other Lutherans, even among other Christian
denominations; however, when the very confessional documents that were
presented during the Reformation by Luther and his colleagues and followers to
defend God’s Word are altered, ignored, or simply forgotten because popular
culture and society deem them legalistic or no longer relevant…well, there can
never be unity as long as the world, not God, influence the direction of the
Church.
That’s it for now. Look for “Confessional
Unity: Part 3” next month. Until then, may the Lord bless you and keep you!
Pastor
E.B.
