981-08 A Resolution on Lutheran Unity

81-8 RESOLUTION

LUTHERAN UNITY AND UNION

WHEREAS the Constitution of the Lutheran Student Movement in the United States of America (LSM-USA) expresses the mandate “to promote Lutheran unity in every possible way” (Article II-F), and

WHEREAS the unity of God’s church receives support through the biblical imperative found in Christ’s prayer for the church in John 17:20-21 and elsewhere in the New Testament (Ephesians 4:3-6, Colossians 1:17-18, Philippians 2:1-2, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20) and,

WHEREAS the Lutheran Confessions call to unity those bound together in a common faith and confession (Augsburg Confession VII), and

WHEREAS efforts toward a unified structure, in organic union of the American Lutheran Church, Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, and Lutheran Church in America, seek to fulfill the will of God through a common strategy for effective mission, and

WHREAS such merger efforts create the potential for vital ecclesiology, a vibrant, diversely gifted and renewed Lutheranism for those three church bodies,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

1. LSM-USA challenges all incorporated church bodies in the USA, which share in the common confessional basis of the Lutheran Confessions, to practice unity of faith in Jesus Christ in every way possible, starting with open dialog on issues of division which contradict our common witness to the Christ who reconciles and unites, so that unity no longer remains invisible but must be manifested;

2. LSM-USA urges these church bodies to continue to engage in common, cooperative work wherever feasible, including such joint efforts as campus ministry;

3. LSM-USA regrets that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has found it necessary to rescind pulpit and altar fellowship with one American Lutheran Church and urges that all efforts be made to continue the close relationship established between their congregations;

4. LSM-USA supports the Committee on Lutheran Unity and its efforts to determine an organizational structure for effective mission fulfillment, and LSM-USA expresses its desire for one truly merged church body (of the type described by Options 3 or 4, or of some type within the continuum between the two) and;

5. these declarations be transmitted, in writing, to the appropriate divisions within the church bodies, with such responsibility for correspondence evolving to the sponsor of this resolution.