Six congregations, six retired pastors and five teachers have been identified as holding membership in both The Lutheran Church-- Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This year's Synod convention gave them until January 2000 to resign from the ELCA or forfeit their LCMS membership.
Synod Secretary Raymond Hartwig Oct. 8 wrote to the presidents of the eight LCMS districts of which those so identified are members. The convention gave the district presidents 90 days from the end of the convention, July 17, to "notify them that this arrangement must be brought to an end" within 18 months, also of the convention's end.
Those with dual members are the Atlantic, California-Nevada- Hawaii, English, Florida-Georgia, Minnesota South, Ohio, Pacific Southwest and Southeastern districts. Hartwig said that the letters of notification from him surprised some district presidents, who did not know that some of their church workers hold membership also in the ELCA.
The convention resolution seeking an end to dual memberships said that "the Synod has been very patient in dealing with these situations, speaking to them as early as the 1977 Dallas convention ...."
The 1998 resolution said also that the "ELCA has joined in confession with church bodies that teach false doctrine" -- a reference to the ELCA's 1997 declaration of "full communion" with three Reformed church bodies -- and that it "is not possible to make confession in two church bodies at the same time." It noted that a requirement of the Synod's constitution for LCMS membership is to "renounce unionism and syncretism of every description."
REPORTER asked ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson whether his church body shares the Missouri Synod's concerns over dual membership.
"From the point of view of the ELCA, the fact that there are a few congregations that relate both to the ELCA and the LCMS has not been a problem," Anderson said in a statement to REPORTER. "While our official documents do not provide for such dual membership, concern for the spiritual needs of congregations sometimes requires unusual solutions.
"I recognize, of course, the right of the LCMS to enforce its convention's actions," Anderson's statement continued. "At the same time, my heart goes out to those members from both church bodies who will be separated from each other after many years of shared life in Christ."
"Our Synod takes no pleasure in the loss of members but desires that they join us in a free and genuine confession of the doctrine of our church," the LCMS convention resolution said.
The ELCA did assist in identifying those with membership in both church bodies.
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This news release is published by the News and Information Division, Board for Communication Services, of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. Free subscriptions to this service are available by sending an electronic mail message to mailserv@crf.cuis.edu and include the words SUBSCRIBE LCMSNEWS in the body of your message. To unsubscribe, send the message UNSUBSCRIBE LCMSNEWS to the same mailserv address. For more information, contact Paula Ross at paula.ross@lcms.org or at (314) 965-9000.
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