Lutheran-Episcopal alliance criticized by conservatives
LCMS News Service, October 22, 1999
A.L. Barry, president of the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, says recent votes by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to approve full communion with The Episcopal Church and the Moravian Church in America “have pushed our two churches further apart, and this is truly a sad fact.”
The ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly voted 716 to 317 – 27 more than the two-thirds needed – to approve full communion with The Episcopal Church. The proposal will be considered by the Episcopal General Convention next summer.
While the vote on full communion with the Episcopalians came after long and sometimes emotional debate, the vote for full communion with the Moravians was 1,007 to 11 and generated virtually no debate.
“Because of our desire to be faithful to God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions, and motivated by our love and concern for the people and pastors of the ELCA, it is important for our church body to express to the ELCA our profound regret and deep disagreement with these actions,” Barry said in a statement released Aug. 26.
“Full communion” is similar to altar and pulpit fellowship and permits the exchange of clergy and joint mission work. The Missouri Synod believes that such fellowship requires full doctrinal agreement. “Many people across our Synod are understandably troubled by the fact that these actions will inevitably lead to an even more serious erosion of a genuine Lutheran identity in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” Barry said.
He said that “a former leader in the ELCA, expressing his concerns before these decisions were made, said, `We must not sacrifice God’s truth on the altar of unity.’ This is a statement that we would affirm, and a truth to which our Synod is committed.