Synod Criticizes Fellow Lutherans

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, concluding it triennial meeting last week, has voted to criticize the ecumenical activities of other Lutheran bodies.

Expressing profound disagreement, delegates to the national convention of the synod passed a resolution that criticized their spiritual siblings in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

At issue is last year’s approval by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of a declaration establishing full communion with three Reformed churches and the adoption this year of an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification--the theology of how people are saved.

The Missouri Synod said it maintains its doctrinal differences with Reformed Christians on the nature of Holy Communion and with Catholics on the justification issue.

The 2.6-million-member Missouri Synod is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. Because of its conservative theological bent, the denomination did not participate in the 1988 merger that brought together most other U.S. Lutheran churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.