Word: synods
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Grass-Roots Reaction. After the election of Dr. Oliver R. Harms, a former Texas pastor, as president in 1962, the Synod did make a few cautious gestures toward other groups. Three years ago, for example, it joined the ALC and the LCA (as well as a tiny Slovak Synod) in founding the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A., a national agency that coordinates certain welfare, mission and other activities, and serves as a meeting ground for theological discussions. But at this year's convention, the moderate Harms was turned out by a grassroots conservative reaction that elected as President...
Although all three bodies agree on the supremacy of the Bible and subscribe to two of the same traditional Lutheran confessions, the Synod believes strictly in the historical accuracy of Scripture-including the entire Book of Genesis. Until now it has stubbornly shunned contact with churches it felt interpreted the Bible more freely. It has rejected most of the ecumenical movement, and is not a member of either the World or the National Council of Churches, or even of the Lutheran World Federation...
...affirmative vote on fellowship assured the continued allegiance of the liberal wing, which feels that the Synod has been falling behind the times. And the election of the doctrinally pure Preus, who pledged himself to carry out the convention's mandate for unity, may serve to mollify most of the large minority in the Synod who voted against fellowship...
...Lutherans, the Synod's action may be a long step toward greater status in the American religious spectrum. If fellowship with the ALC is followed by fellowship with the LCA, says Dr. Richard Jungkuntz, executive secretary of the Missouri Synod's Commission on Theology and Church Relations, there will probably be "some major restructuring" of U.S. Lutheranism within ten or 15 years. Jungkuntz doubts that the final result should be a massive, centrally directed national Lutheran body. Instead, he suggests, the reorganization might encourage decentralized, unified, regional synods, all in communion with one another, meeting regional needs...
Christian Duty. What has made Suenens sound such alarms so publicly? "He was convinced that he could not get a proper hearing for his ideas in Rome," says a close friend. Moreover, "he was certain that the Bishops' Synod in October would be too restricted to provide an adequate forum for such issues, and he considered it his duty as a Christian leader to speak out." Says Suenens himself: "Perhaps if more church leaders had spoken out in the 15th century, Luther and the Protestants would not have had to break away...