What are the distinctives of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church?

[Laurie4b]

I am wondering what the theological distinctives are of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod? I know the basics about the Lutheran Church, but not that particular branch. Particularly, I'm interested in their view of the Scripture and their views on women in ministry.

[forty-two]

Here's the LCMS's Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles: http://www.lcms.org/doctrine/scripturalprinciples (it's long but not too long).

 

And here is the LCMS position paper on "The Service of Women in Congregational and Synodical Offices". It's kinda long (29 pages), and my general understanding is that women may not serve in any role that is pastoral in nature (pastor, elder, duties specific to pastor) but otherwise may do anything else (including congregational leadership). There's nuances and differences in application between congregations, though, as well as the reasoning behind it, which is why I'm linking to the actual document.

[Whereneverever]

Our website was linked above and has some great faqs. Do you have some specific questions we can answer about the LCMS?

[Carol in Cal.]

The main distinctive of the LCMS is that it is the largest and most culturally diverse Confessional Lutheran church body in the US, with partnerships with other such church bodies in 81 countries.

[Laurie4b]

So it looks like the Missouri Synod takes a very conservative view of Scripture.

 

I can't open the document linked on women. Are there deacons in the Lutheran church and are women allowed to be deacons? What roles are limited to pastors and elders?

 

Would you call the Missouri Synod fundamentalist? evangelical? (In the generally understood meaning of those words).

[Whereneverever]

The lcms has both deacons and deaconesses. Deaconesses can be trained at one of our universities or at the seminaries. They have diverse and varied roles. Deaconesses are often a paid position while the male equivalent is volunteer.

 

Elders are supportive of the congregation and pastor. Roles limited to the pastor- administering sacraments like communion, preaching. Performing weddings. That kind of thing. Women can be teachers in the church.

[Whereneverever]

I wouldn't consider the LCMS to really be either fundamentalist or evangelical. We are centered on Law ad Gospel, and the proper distinction of the two.

[forty-two]

So it looks like the Missouri Synod takes a very conservative view of Scripture.

 

I can't open the document linked on women. Are there deacons in the Lutheran church and are women allowed to be deacons? What roles are limited to pastors and elders?

 

Would you call the Missouri Synod fundamentalist? evangelical? (In the generally understood meaning of those words).

Here's a link to the page where I got the direct link  I posted before (which was a pdf); maybe that will help: http://www.lcms.org/page.aspx?pid=685 .

 

Definitely *not* fundamentalist, and not really evangelical in the generic American evangelical sense, either.  We're conservative theologically - or more accurate, *confessional*: we hold to the Lutheran Confessions as a true explanation of Scripture, and so  believe, teach, and confess in accordance with them.  But we mostly stay out of the political realm as a church body, believing that the church's job to proclaim the Gospel and administer the Sacraments, period.  So we don't have all the political baggage that gets hooked on the evangelical label (and we differ theologically, as well).

 

So while we are conservative wrt Scripture, it's not in the same way as evangelicals are and *definitely* not in the same way fundamentalists are.  Lutherans believe that God works through means, and so we *do* consider and engage modern textual scholarship (instead of declaring it all to be bad), yet we also maintain belief in verbal inspiration.  A professor at one of our seminaries is doing some awesome work on seriously considering and taking into account modern textual scholarship without sacrificing belief in the Bible as God's Word.  LCMS theologians are in general both serious scholars and serious Christians, and imo it gives our theology more depth and intellectual focus than is common in fundamentalism and some branches of American evangelicism, while holding to the core of historic Christianity better than some of the mainline denominations.

[msrift]

I agree the LCMS wouldn't be considered evangelical or fundamentalist, but that they do have a certain...prosletyzing(?) bent. (At least around here they do.) Maybe conservative or traditional would be better descriptions. 

 

For example, LCMS has rules about participating in community prayers. These rules have caused pastors to be censored for participating in 9/11 and Newtown vigils.

"The LCMS constitution states that members must denounce “unionism†— mingling of Lutheran and other Christian theology or practice — and “syncretism,†the mingling of Christian and non-Christian theology or practice."

 

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/02/13/newtown-debacle-reopens-old-wounds-for-missouri-synod/

[Whereneverever]

I agree the LCMS wouldn't be considered evangelical or fundamentalist, but that they do have a certain...prosletyzing(?) bent. (At least around here they do.) Maybe conservative or traditional would be better descriptions.

 

For example, LCMS has rules about participating in community prayers. These rules have caused pastors to be censored for participating in 9/11 and Newtown vigils.

 

"The LCMS constitution states that members must denounce “unionism†— mingling of Lutheran and other Christian theology or practice — and “syncretism,†the mingling of Christian and non-Christian theology or practice."

 

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/02/13/newtown-debacle-reopens-old-wounds-for-missouri-synod/

Proselytizing is about attempting to convert others. Our stance on public group events isn't about converting anyone, it is about acknowledging differences in beliefs and respecting that we don't all believe the same.

[msrift]

True, that was poorly worded. I didn't mean to link the two.

 

The main distinctive of the LCMS is that it is the largest and most culturally diverse Confessional Lutheran church body in the US, with partnerships with other such church bodies in 81 countries.

 

The bit about community vigils was supposed to be in response to this. The edict against community prayers always struck me as a bit separatist. 

 

(I'll admit, I'm not LCMS. My former almost-fiance was and as he was being groomed to be a pastor, we spent a lot of time within the church and leadership.)

[Whereneverever]

There are a lot of things we can cooperate on. Prayer just isn't one of them.

[QueenCat]

I find LCMS to be theologically fundamentalist but I grew up ELCA so I may be a bit a prejudiced. I can remember people from the LCMS looking "down" on us, and not being willing to do joint services together. Our community had several churches (ELCA Lutheran, Southern Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and a couple of others)  that would do special services together but they would never join in.........

[forty-two]

I find LCMS to be theologically fundamentalist but I grew up ELCA so I may be a bit a prejudiced.

The LCMS is theologically *conservative*, especially compared to ELCA, but it isn't fundamentalist, as fundamentalist, or fundamental, has a specific meaning. Specifically, fundamental Christians are those who hold a particular set of Christian beliefs, drawn from a set of essays written in the early 1900s, called "The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth". And as not all of those fundamentals mesh with the Lutheran Confessions - in fact we disagree strongly on several points - LCMS Lutherans are *not* fundamentalists.

[QueenCat]

The LCMS is theologically *conservative*, especially compared to ELCA, but it isn't fundamentalist, as fundamentalist, or fundamental, has a specific meaning. Specifically, fundamental Christians are those who hold a particular set of Christian beliefs, drawn from a set of essays written in the early 1900s, called "The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth". And as not all of those fundamentals mesh with the Lutheran Confessions - in fact we disagree strongly on several points - LCMS Lutherans are *not* fundamentalists.

 

I do actually know the origination of fundamentalism so I'll agree my choice of verbiage was wrong. I would say legalistic and conservative would be truer to my experiences with the LCMS church. Mostly, I remember them being very exclusive & not open to commonality of all of us being Christians, and keeping themselves separate, unwilling to participate in joint, interdenominational services and activities. Admittedly, I was about 17, since I was working with the joint youth activities for a few special events, so this was about 30 years ago. Hopefully, the attitude was local, and hopefully, it still isn't that way.

[forty-two]

Mostly, I remember them being very exclusive & not open to commonality of all of us being Christians, and keeping themselves separate, unwilling to participate in joint, interdenominational services and activities.

...

Hopefully, the attitude was local, and hopefully, it still isn't that way.

Yeah, sometimes we aren't as kind and loving in living out our beliefs as we should be :(. It's often easier to focus on points of disagreements than to acknowledge that we *do* agree on many core things, and easier to look down on those with whom we disagree than to show love and mercy :(. At the same time, it's not loving nor merciful to pretend disagreements either don't exist or don't matter. It's hard, to fully acknowledge *all* of a situation, good and bad, and to use that knowledge to love fully and well, being *true* to our beliefs while still being *humble* in our beliefs.  (WRT to your post, to uphold our beliefs about worship without being exclusive, to refrain from joining activities that preach contrary to our beliefs without keeping ourselves separate from the wider Christian community - it's not easy, but it is important.)

 

Yet our beliefs certainly call us to do so. And mostly, ime, we do try :), imperfect as we most certainly are.

[PrincessMommy]

I find LCMS to be theologically fundamentalist but I grew up ELCA so I may be a bit a prejudiced. I can remember people from the LCMS looking "down" on us, and not being willing to do joint services together. Our community had several churches (ELCA Lutheran, Southern Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and a couple of others)  that would do special services together but they would never join in.........

 

That's not fundamentalist.  That's conservative and not necessarily unusual.  It's probably more helpful to understand what the LCMS teach about what exactly Prayer is - or more importantly what a prayer service is in their understanding before we start judging by our own religious understandings/standards.  Fundamentalist believe that the "fundamental" principles in the Bible are to be followed rigidly along with believing in the the inerancy of the Bible.  I believe the LCMS would believe the Bible is inspired...

 

 

 

(former LCMS butting in)

[Laurie4b]

So they are separatist? Is that a fair understanding? They are not allowed to pray with other Christians because.... that would mean....what? Do they not believe others outside the denomination *are* Christians?

[Carol in Cal.]

We are allowed to pray with other Christians, but not with non-Christian faiths, and not formally as a part of a joint worship service.

The thinking here is that joint sponsorship implies a level of agreement that we don't actually have, and as such it would be confusing and maybe even damaging in some circumstances. 

 

It's not snootiness, more 'this is weighty and important, and we take it very seriously.'

[forty-two]

So they are separatist? Is that a fair understanding? They are not allowed to pray with other Christians because.... that would mean....what? Do they not believe others outside the denomination *are* Christians?

LCMS Lutherans definitely *do* believe other Christian groups are Christian, and in fact accepts as valid *any* Trinitarian baptism performed by a Christian group (something many evangelicals refuse to do, in fact). We differentiate between heterodox and heretical beliefs. Heterodox beliefs are those that we believe are wrong yet still contain the Gospel, so we see churches that teach heterodox beliefs as Christian, but with errors. (They generally return the favor, seeing our differences as *us* being wrong ;).) Heretical beliefs, on the other hand, are those that corrupt the Gospel so much that they are not preaching the Gospel at all, and so we see those churches as not Christian. To give examples, we believe that Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists are heterodox - Christian, with errors - and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as heretical and not Christian.

 

WRT prayer, LCMS Lutherans do indeed pray with other Christians (we don't pray with people who *aren't* Christian, though). But what LCMS Lutherans *don't* do is participate in a worship service that preaches heterodox or heretical beliefs. Which is to say, we'd happily participate in an orthodox worship service with other Christians and people of any beliefs :), but we would not participate in a worship service that preached wrong beliefs no matter the pedigree of the Lutherans putting it on ;). It has nothing to do with the *people*, but rather is all about not cooperating with wrong *beliefs*. We don't want to say we agree with what we do not in fact agree with.

 

Because we believe that ideas have consequences, and that those wrong beliefs *hurt* people. And our church body doesn't want to participate in an activity that we believe is *hurting* people. You don't have to agree with us that a given belief is hurtful to respect that we *do* believe it hurts people, and so we don't want to be part of something we believe is causing harm. I think most people agree that good people don't do things they believe would hurt someone, so I'm rather surprised sometimes that people don't disagree with us on the merits - you are wrong about this belief hurting people - but instead argue that beliefs just don't matter in the first place.

 

So I don't really think separatist is a fair understanding. For one, separatists usually try to separate in *all* areas of life, and Lutheran theology is actively *against* withdrawing from society. For another, it's not about "staying away" from people with differing beliefs, or even staying away from contact with the beliefs themselves, but about not actively *participating* in the practice of beliefs we do not share. We are out in the world in many, many, many other ways :).

[Carol in Cal.]

Regarding the 'separatist' issue--it is almost unheard of, for instance, to see Confessional Lutheran homeschoolers organizing in such a way as to keep out non-Lutherans.  The SOF issues that crop up on the board rather frequently have never been Lutheran ones.  We believe that we are supposed to be 'in the world but not of the world'.  Also our doctrine of adiophora tends to promote official tolerance of a variety of views on things that are not clearly delineated in Scripture, although it does not prevent individuals from having passionate commitments to their own specific views.

[Whereneverever]

So they are separatist? Is that a fair understanding? They are not allowed to pray with other Christians because.... that would mean....what? Do they not believe others outside the denomination *are* Christians?

We certainly believe that others are Christians and actively pray for unity for the Church at large. We are real about unity not existing right now, though.

 

We can't judge people's hearts. We can only look at public confessions of faith, usually by church membership. If it's a church we don't agree with instead of ignoring the disagreements we honor that we aren't in the same place on all ideas. It's not about looking down on people so much as respecting the place they have chosen to belong and the faith that implies.

[QueenCat]

That's not fundamentalist.  That's conservative and not necessarily unusual.  It's probably more helpful to understand what the LCMS teach about what exactly Prayer is - or more importantly what a prayer service is in their understanding before we start judging by our own religious understandings/standards.  Fundamentalist believe that the "fundamental" principles in the Bible are to be followed rigidly along with believing in the the inerancy of the Bible.  I believe the LCMS would believe the Bible is inspired...

 

 

 

(former LCMS butting in)

 

I acknowledged above that I used the term fundamentalist incorrectly. I do understand fundamentalism.

[praisefor3]

This has been an interesting topic to follow. Our son (raised Southern Baptist but now non-denominational Christian) is dating a girl from Missouri Synod background. Can you tell me a couple differences they may face in their faiths?

[musicianmom]

This has been an interesting topic to follow. Our son (raised Southern Baptist but now non-denominational Christian) is dating a girl from Missouri Synod background. Can you tell me a couple differences they may face in their faiths?

The significance of Holy Communion and baptism will be the big doctrinal differences.

[Whereneverever]

Infant baptism. Real presence, not symbolic communion. Seminary trained pastors, not men raised from within. Formal membership, usually with weeks and weeks of classes. Depending on the non denom different view of the Bible. Confession and absolution probably. Liturgy.

 

If you have specific questions feel free to pm me. :)

[forty-two]

Sacraments, definitely, and also maybe end times beliefs. Lutherans are amillenialists. In many ways, the tongue-in-cheek label "pan-millennial" - the belief that God will make it all properly pan out in the end and so we don't need to sweat it - fits pretty well ;). Ime end times aren't talked about much - it's just not a big focus . General differences between Baptist/non-denom and Lutheran end times beliefs: a) dispensationalism is incompatible with Lutheran theology, b ) we don't believe in a rapture separate from the general with-trumpets-Second-Coming, and that c) we see the focus of Revelation as retelling the whole salvation story.

 

To go into a bit more detail on the sacraments:

 

As mentioned, infant baptism and the Real Presence in Holy Communion are obvious differences. But they are just the most noticable part of the deeper difference, which is the Lutheran belief in baptism and communion being sacraments, means by which God gives us His saving grace. So we believe that baptism and communion (which combine God's Word with physical elements) and God's Word itself - the means of grace - don't just point us to Christ or remind us of Christ or symbolize the salvation we have in Christ, but that God literally *gives* us Christ through those means of grace. So we believe that each and every time a person is baptized or takes communion or hears the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is actively working in them - connecting us to Christ, forgiving our sins, creating and sustaining faith :).

 

The means of grace are *huge*, foundational beliefs in Lutheran theology. They are not just the answer to how God initially saves a person, but are also the answer to how God *keeps* people saved and how God works in His people.