Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

alarming rate. The water of controversy was coming in faster that the IRC members could
bail it out. For instance, at the November 12-13, 1953 meeting of the IRC, five topics
were set for discussion, five were remaining from the previous meeting, and by the end of
the session, eleven more were added for further discussion. 317
The minutes of the last five IRC meetings demonstrate the length and breadth of
WELS and ELS fraternal bond in four ways: common hermeneutical and exegetical
concerns and methodology; a common historical consciousness of the matters being
debated; fraternal defenses of each other’s synod and individual members of the synod;
and the recognition by the opposition within the Missouri and Slovak Synods that the
WELS and ELS were one in doctrine and practice.
The WELS and ELS shared biblical hermeneutics is seen immediately. For
instance, when discussion of Revised Standard Version (RSV) came up, both in the
November ‘52 meeting and in the April ’53 meeting, the objections by both WELS and
ELS officials are the same. Both Norman Madson and Edmund Reim make a point about
the RSV’s transition of Betulah as “young woman” rather than “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14. 318
George Lillegard and Edmund Reim again take up the issue in the April ’53 session. 319
But greater than any fear about any individual point of translation was the spirit in which
the translators of the RSV approached the sacred text of Scripture. The comments of the
WELS and ELS officials see the higher-critical spirit of the RSV as one foreign to the
317 Minutes of the Intersynodical Relations Committee, November 12-13, 1953, ELS Presidential files:
1950s. Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archives. It should also be noted that very few topics were discussed at
this session due to the fact that two members of the committee, Gullerud (ELS) and Voss (WELS), had
refused to pray with the LCMS men present to protest their errors. Almost the entire session was devoted to
this protest.
318 Minutes of the Intersynodical Relations Committee, November 13-14, 1952. ELS Presidential Files:
1950s. Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archives, Mankato, MN, 2.
319 Minutes of the Intersynodical Relations Committee, April 16-17, 1953. ELS Presidential Files: 1950s.
Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archives, Mankato, MN, 12.
173