1418 Bear Valley Parkway, Escondido, California 92027
Phone/Fax: 760-743-4440
http://TheACLC.org
The Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches
http://theaclc.org/Informative/Official%20Response%20to%20ELDoNA%20regarding%20their%20Statement%20on%20Justification.pdf
Wednesday in the Week of the Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity, September 25, 2013
To the Rt. Rev. James D. Heiser and the clergy of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America:
Grace and Peace be with you in Christ Jesus our Lord.
With heavy hearts we, the pastors of the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches, find it necessary to address you, our brothers in Christ, about the matter which is of the utmost importance to God’s Church, namely your Theses on the Article of Justification, unanimously adopted by the Diocese on August 29, 2013.
All of the pastors of the ACLC have had the opportunity to review this statement individually and discuss it in teleconference. We take this to now be ELDoNA’s official statement on the central article of the Christian faith. We certainly acknowledge the quatenus status which you have assigned to this statement, as written in its conclusion:
These theses, like those which our diocese has previously written and agreed to, are not seen by us as additions to our vows to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, which vows are unconditional. These theses may change as the issues are further clarified (p. 12).
At the same time, as your sister church, with whom you are in a declared state of altar and pulpit fellowship, we must also take seriously what you further write:
However, we do see them as defining the limits of our fellowship with regard to these issues until such time as we are convinced otherwise from the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions, or until further clarification is needed. We are keenly aware of the fluid nature of such statements. We are also keenly aware of the clear lines of distinction they draw among those who call themselves Lutherans, and we intend to draw such lines (p. 12).
Additionally, you write:
Those inside our fellowship voluntarily agree with these theses and support them, but we also wish to have these theses function as a marker of agreement between Christians who are not yet necessarily in fellowship (p. 12).
The ACLC is certainly affected by “the limits of [your] fellowship” which this statement seeks to define. We are, therefore, compelled to state for the record that we do not agree with this
1418 Bear Valley Parkway, Escondido, California 92027
Phone/Fax: 760-743-4440
http://TheACLC.org
statement. Even though there are a number of truthful assertions in it that we do agree with and assent to, there are also a number of statements which are confusing at best and erroneous at worst. Taken as a whole, we do not assent to this statement. Indeed, we emphatically reject its conclusion, namely:
That the foregoing theses correctly reflect the doctrine of the symbolical books as demonstrated by the writings of the earliest generations of orthodox teachers of the faith confessed in the Book of Concord. Thus, the doctrine of “Objective Justification” (both the teaching and its terminology) is hereby rejected (p. 12).
We do not here intend to set forth all of the reasons why we reject the statement, nor give a critique of each theses. For the purposes of this response it will be sufficient to say that this statement fails to confess the pure doctrine of justification in all of its fullness as it is revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures and rightly explained in the Book of Concord. On that basis, then, it must be rejected as not in conformity with the pattern of sound words.
Further commentary on the statement will be forthcoming. We submitted a critique of the first draft by the due date set by the Diocese, July 2, 2013, to which we never received a response. Since the official statement has not changed substantially from the original draft, our original critique still applies. We will, however, be editing our critique to reflect those minor changes that have been made and we will be submitting it for public viewing as soon as possible.
Your Brothers in Christ,
The Pastors of the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches
