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Church and Ministry in the LCMS - Resolution 7-17A
What does this mean?

Issue # 6 - Summary to Date
June 4, 2002

In the year 1854 Synod meeting in convention adopted Dr. C.F. W. Walther's theses, The Voice of Our Church on the Question Concerning the Church and the Ministryas its official position. Central to that position are the principles, drawn from Scripture, that only a local congregation of believers gathered together for the express purpose of publicly administering the office of the keys is a church in the sense of that term as it is used in Scripture; that the organizing of local congregations is mandated by God; that the authority to publicly administer the office of the ministry of Word and sacraments can be conferred only by a local congregation by means of its call; that this call is from God Himself; that this office, because of its divine origin, is the highest office in the church, all others mere auxiliaries of it; that ordination, even though a responsibility of the calling congregation, has no part in this conferral but is merely a human rite by means of which the conferral is confirmed publicly.

In the year 1962, the delegates to the Synodical convention, in defiance - or, more likely, ignorance - of both its official position and its constitution, adopted a resolution that in a most dramatic fashion inadvertently shifted Synod's position on church and ministry, displacing its congregational form of church government by substituting in its place an episcopal form. The office instituted by Christ when He called the apostles and conferred exclusively by a local congregation by means of its call was displaced by a newly created office. Set above and out from under the control of local congregations entry into the office is accomplished by means of the human rite of ordination controlled by and administered on the authority of the Synodical episcopate.

In the year 2001, Synod meeting in convention adopted a resolution reaffirming its official 1854 position. There is now no longer any need to dispute with those in Synod who tout episcopalianism and seek to conform theirs and our practices to it. They are in rebellion against God's Word and in defiance of the pledge they've made as members of Synod to uphold its resolutions. They are beyond reformation. What is needed now is an enlighten laity, faithful pastors who hold tenaciously to our official position and are willing to risk all in defending it, and, most important of all, prayer begging for a leader to surface who fits the mold of the sainted Dr. J. A. O. Preus and who can lead us, first, in taking action to rescind the action of the 1962 convention and then in ridding ourselves of the episcopalian, Romanizing usurpers who have brought the Missouri Synod once again to the brink of disaster.

The Missouri Synod over the course of the past 40 years and because of the misguided measures adopted by the 1962 convention has, in practice, drifted away from its official congregational system of church government into episcopalianism. The turmoil we are presently experiencing, which will become even more intense in the months ahead, is the inevitable result. One thing about the turmoil is especially noteworthy. It is taking place within the episcopal hierarchy. The laity is nowhere to be seen. We are nonessentials.