Francis Pieper correctly writes in his work, Christian Dogmatics, “A congregation or church body which, in spite of the divine order, tolerates false doctrine in its midst is properly called a heterodox church.”[1]. Not only are the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Church, and the Reformed churches heterodox, but “also the church bodies which, though bearing the Lutheran name, do not profess and actually teach the doctrine of the Church of the Reformation.”[2] Just because the building has the name “Lutheran” on it doesn’t mean that church actually teaches the true doctrine.
What makes a church body heterodox? Pieper tells us to look not only the official doctrine of the church body but also actual teaching in its pulpits and classrooms. By this standard, the Missouri synod is heterodox because she has abandoned God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions as demonstrated in the previous chapters. Pieper goes on to say that a congregation or church body doesn’t become heterodox by the casual intrusion of error, but when it no longer applies Romans 16:17 and does not “combat and eventually remove the false doctrine but tolerates it without reproof and thus actually grants it equal right with the truth.”[3]
Throughout this series it has been demonstrated that the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod has refused to remove error and false doctrine and, in many cases, has given it “equal right with the truth.” False teachers are rarely disciplined and removed from the clergy roster. Many pastors—with District support—practice open Communion. The Synod has approved resolutions which contradict the Lutheran Confessions, yet most of those resolutions have not been rescinded to this day. Congregations worship like revivalists and employ lay ministers with the Synod’s endorsement. The official position of the Synod on the doctrine of justification contradicts the Scripture and Lutheran Confessions with its insistence on a general justification of the world. The Missouri Synod refuses to remove pastors and congregations that cause doctrinal division. The Synod tolerates them and, in many cases, celebrates them and promotes them.
There are many faithful pastors and congregations who remain members of the LCMS. But no matter how confessionally sound the pastor or parish may be, by remaining in the Missouri Synod, they willfully choose to remain in communion with the errors of Missouri. Some will say, “Those things aren’t happening in my parish so they don’t affect me.” But the Scripture says that we are not to share in the sins of others by tolerating them or turning a blind eye to them. Holding membership in the Synod means one is in fellowship with every other pastor and congregation in the Missouri Synod.
Some disagree with this assertion. They imagine that they can remain in a fellowship, the synod, and not be in Communion fellowship with pastors and parishes who embrace false teachings and unscriptural practices. Some pastors say they’d never commune a heterodox LCMS pastor at their altar. When pastors say this, they are deceiving themselves and their hearers. The Synod’s self-understanding, laid out in its constitution, bylaws, and resolutions, is that all its members are in communion with each other. The Committee on Constitutional Matters ruled in Opinion 11-2610 that
all of its congregational members (congregations that have joined the Synod) and individual members (ministers of religion―ordained and ministers of religion―commissioned on the roster of the Synod) are in fellowship with one another.[4]
The ruling gives a meticulous reading of the Synod’s Constitution, bylaws, and resolutions on church fellowship to exhibit that this has been the self-understanding of the Synod since its inception.
The ruling goes on to cite an October 1966 Committee on Constitutional Matters Opinion that “refusal to commune or commune with another while having no desire, decision, or action to carry out the mutually accepted provision of dispute/conflict resolution (Bylaw 1.10), are divisive, un-brotherly and are themselves destructive of the fellowship or a ‘walking together’ and ‘militate against the essential unity intended by the structure of the Synod as provided in its Constitution and Bylaws.’”[5]
When a pastor willfully holds membership in the synod but refuses to abide by the Synod’s stated doctrine of fellowship, what is the point of belonging to that fellowship? If a pastor imagines he can pick and choose who he will or will not commune based on what he deems to be orthodox, he makes his personal judgment of someone’s heart the basis for fellowship. He separates Church fellowship from altar fellowship, thereby teaching his flock that church and synodical membership make no difference. If one’s membership makes no difference, then there is no need to reform the synod.
What about staying in the Synod to fight for the truth? Practically speaking, reform of the Synod is highly improbable. Change in the corporate office and the bureaucracy of Synod isn’t a “win” in the fight because even the “good guys” tolerate the incremental creep of false teaching and unbiblical practices. Winning the next election cycle won’t help because the Dispute Resolution Process makes the rebuke of false doctrine a near impossibility as recent decades have shown. Some compare the Synod to a large ship that will take years to turn around. But how many decades should it take to correct false teaching and remove false teachers? And while God can turn the Synod into an orthodox Lutheran church body, nowhere in His Word has He promised to save man-made fellowships which habitually tolerate error. God could make the United Methodist Church into an orthodox Lutheran Church body. It would be foolish to join that errant body and wait for God to change it.
More importantly, the “stay and fight” mentality is misguided and contradicts the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. Countless passages tell us precisely what to do when error infects a church and becomes entrenched. Pieper mentioned Romans 16:17 already, “I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.” To avoid these false teachers, one must sever communion with them. You can’t avoid them while remaining in fellowship with them. Titus 3:10says, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.” Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:22that we aren’t to “take part in the sins of others,” especially the sin of false doctrine and doctrinal indifferentism. By remaining in communion with a heterodox church body, you share in its sins and as pastors, you teach your flock that church fellowship is meaningless. The words of Paul and Jesus remind us how dangerous it is to be in fellowship with error: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9).
C.F.W. Walther, the first president of the Missouri Synod, wrote in the sixth thesis of his Theses on Communion Fellowship with those who believe differently:
Those who are aware of the partial apostasy of the church fellowship to which they belong and yet continue to remain within that fellowship are not to be considered among the weak but are either the lukewarm whom the Lord will spit out of his mouth or Epicurean religious sceptics who within their hearts would ask with Pilate, “What is truth?”[6]
This isn’t about finding a church body where there aren’t sinners. Someone will always retort that there is no perfect fellowship because there are sinners in every fellowship. Fleeing error isn’t about finding a fellowship with only perfect people in it. You won’t find one. But doctrinal purity can be possessed by a church fellowship and then zealously treasured and guarded. It’s not about the men in the fellowship, it’s about whether the pure doctrine is confessed in official statements AND in each parish’s pulpits and classrooms. Maintaining the pure doctrine and breaking fellowship with those who persistently teach against that pure doctrine aren’t “pious wishes” or mere human counsel. They are commanded by Holy Scripture. When pastors and parishes imagine they can remain in Missouri and yet not be in communion with the false teachings of Missouri, they betray the Scriptures and ignore the Synod’s constitution and bylaws, which as voluntary members of the Synod, they pledge to abide by. In short, they become a law unto themselves. Nor can pastors and parishes remain in communion with the synod and make a clear confession of truth against error, since they are in communion with the very error they seek to remove.
The Scriptures clearly teach that Christians are to avoid error in the church. You avoid error by not being in communion with it. Leaving the Missouri Synod because of entrenched and institutionalized false teaching isn’t being schismatic. Schism is division in the church which God’s Word doesn’t command. Schism isn’t leaving over false doctrine but because of different church customs.
Francis Pieper writes, “Such, however, as separate from a church body because it tenaciously clings to false doctrine are unjustly called schismatics, separatists, etc. This separation is commanded in Scripture (Rom 16:17) and is the only means of restoring and maintaining the true unity in the Christian Church.”[7] Think about that for a moment. “The only means of restoring and maintaining the true unity of the Christian church” is to separate from church bodies that promote or tolerate false doctrine and practices among its member pastors and parishes. Remaining in communion with a human institution like that only shows others that a pastor and congregation condone the teachings and practices of the Synod. As long as your pastor is a member of the Synod, he’s in communion with every other pastor in the Synod whether he likes it or not. As long as you’re a member of an LCMS parish, you’re in communion with all that as well. Don’t let anyone tell you that leaving Synod because of entrenched error is schism. It’s commanded by Scripture. Missouri is heterodox even by the standards of her own teachers. It’s time for the faithful who remain in that synod to actually mark and avoid her errors, and for the sake of the purity of Christ’s doctrine and a clear confession of the truth, come out from her.
[1] Christian Dogmatics, Vol.3, 422
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 423.
[4] https://files.lcms.org/file/preview/1BCC56D2-0D1A-4766-836B-161744EBE5BF (Accessed 22 July, 2023)
[5] Ibid.
[6] https://s3.amazonaws.com/mychurchwebsite/c2001/
walthercommuniontheses.pdf (Accessed 22 July, 2023)
[7] Christian Dogmatics, III:427.
