Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

sent out by a Chicago group, I shall quote that here, as its
contents may be of some interest to you. 222
Lillegard goes on to share the official reply to Knubel and the ULCA. 223
222 Lillegard to Reim, letter, March 20, 1935, ELS Presidential files: 1930s, Evangelical Lutheran Synod
Archives, Mankato, MN.
223 Lillegard to Reim; The ELS resolution which was sent to the ULCA and later passed on to Edmund
Reim, was as follows:
President Knubel:
We acknowledge the receipt of the same [ULCA] invitation
with thanks and appreciate your good intentions. However, we have no
reason to hope for much blessing from the contemplated move, in view
of the fact that the official organs of the various Lutheran Church
bodies afford sufficient evidence that they are not in all essentials one
in doctrine. We enclosed a copy of resolutions passed at our last
conventions in June 1934, addressed to Mr. Paulus List of Chicago.
This will indicate the stand of our Synod in this Union Movement.
With kind greetings,
C.A. Moldstad, Acting President
The resolutions on Church Unity sent to our annual convention, have
been received and read before the Synod assembled. But in view of the
fact that your so-called unity is not the expression of God-pleasing
‘oneness in Christ,’ but rather a man-made union which permits and
fosters fellowship with those who openly flaunt the doctrines of Christ
(we refer in particular to the address delivered by one of your members
at the Century of Progress Hall of Religion, when it was dedicated last
year) we cannot enter into any fraternal relationship with you. But we
would plead with you, on the basis of God’s inviolable Word, that you
give diligent heed to that Word of truth which admonishes all who
would be disciples of our blessed Savior: - ‘Mark them which cause
divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned;
avoid them.’ Rom.16.17. The union which alone will find pleasing
favor with God is that unity which is ‘perfectly joined together in the
same mind and in the same judgment.’ I Corinthians 1:10. Even a
casual perusal of the official organs of the various Lutheran Church
bodies will afford sufficient evidence that no one can truthfully say: -
‘the different Lutheran bodies in America, in all essentials, are one in
doctrine.”
May God spare us from ever giving the right hand of fellowship to
those who will make the words of Dr. Joshua Oden, in the Hall of
Religion address, their own.
‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are
deceitful.’ Proverbs 27:6
On behalf of the Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical
Lutheran Church, in convention assembled at Mankato, MN, June 6-12.
(Adopted)
117