Dr. Lito Cruz is correct - the four Walther sects in America do not agree with each other, so they lack a confession of faith. Concord means harmony, and harmony is missing, especially among their own inbred kin.
The LCR, too small to be in the Walther Four, also spit and hiss among themselves, but that may have slowed down, due to a lack of spitters and hissers.
Decades ago, the WELS elite - to stretch the term a bit - made clear that they were not in prayer fellowship with ELCA while serving on at least one board with ELCA. Doubtless they had a Wayne Mueller type step in to say this to his wise guys - "Don't let me catch you praying!"
WELS does not like the ELS at all, but they are in mutual fellowship. When an ELS congregation formed a congregation in Ohio, only one (1) WELS pastor showed up for the festivities.
Adding the LCR to Walther's Fab Four and ELCA, six sects+ are devoted to the same version of the Chief Article - except the sick six all oppose Justification by Faith. On the most important points of doctrine, "scholars are divided," but they are painfully united in Objective Faithless Justification, a daisy-chain of dogma.
Rolf Preus - "A feature of micro synods that form because of a dispute over doctrine or practice is that the point of division assumes a prominence among the articles of faith confessed. Typical is the fixation on fellowship."
LCR in Wikipedia
"In 1951, the Orthodox Lutheran Conference (OLC) was formed by pastors and congregations of the LCMS who were critical of the theological changes occurring in that body.[3] The OLC itself split in 1956 when Paul E. Kretzmann, a professor in the OLC's seminary, suspended church fellowship with some congregations after they charged him with teaching error in class. Those congregations formed the Concordia Lutheran Conference,[4] while most of the others, along with Kretzmann, later joined with other conservatives leaving the LCMS to organize as the LCR.[5]
After the 1959 convention of the LCMS, conservative members of the synod began holding State of the Synod Conferences to discuss the problems they saw. Kretzmann, Wallace McLaughlin, and Harold Romoser, who all had been involved in the formation of the OLC, were also involved in these conferences. At the first conference, a 200-page book of documentation prepared by pastor Herman Otten of Trinity Lutheran Church in New Haven, Missouri, was presented. It listed every controversy within the LCMS since 1950, with sections on Martin Scharlemann, Jaroslav Pelikan, Martin Marty, the Common Confession, and Biblical authority and inspiration. The conference on May 15–16, 1961, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was attended by over 400 laymen and pastors who hoped to make progress on their concerns at the synod's upcoming convention in 1962. However, the State of the Synod Conference was not permitted to have a booth at the convention and the issues of concern were not addressed. As a result, St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Detroit, Michigan, whose pastor, Cameron A. MacKenzie Sr., was a leader in the conferences, left the synod.[6]
In early 1964, a group of pastors and laymen meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church in New Haven, Missouri, agreed that the time had come to form a new church body. The LCR was officially formed on April 28–29, 1964, at Emmaus Lutheran Church in Chicago. Notably, neither Otten nor Trinity Lutheran joined the new body. MacKenzie was elected as the first administrator and Romoser as the first coadjutor. By 1965, the LCR had seven member congregations, with applications from three more and ten other congregations in fellowship.[6]
The LCR discussed church fellowship with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in the 1960s, but finally decided, in July 1970, that the differences regarding the doctrine of church and ministry were divisive of church fellowship.[7]
In 1972, St. Matthew's in Detroit left the LCR because of what it saw as improper involvement of the LCR in the congregation's affairs. Four other congregations were removed from membership in 1973 because they sided with St. Matthew's. Three more congregations, including Rosomer's, left for the same reason in 1976.[6]
The Fellowship of Lutheran Congregations (FLC),[8] is a group of congregations that left the LCR in 1979 after a dispute concerning the proper procedure of excommunication,[9] namely, whether the person being excommunicated had to be present when the voters' assembly considered the question.[6] The congregations of the FLC joined the Concordia Lutheran Conference in about 2004.
For a time in the 1990s, the LCR was in official church fellowship with the Illinois Lutheran Conference (ILC). The ILC was organized in 1979 after three congregations left the WELS in protest after a pastor was suspended due to claims he made regarding the King James Version of the Bible.[10] There was controversy between the ILC and the LCR regarding the "appearance of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22) and the doctrine of church and ministry. The LCR severed the fellowship because of differences discovered during the controversy over the "appearance of evil".
In February 2006, five congregations and four pastors suspended church fellowship with the rest of the LCR when, in the wake of a disagreement regarding the doctrine of the ministry, an LCR congregation was dissolved through legal action by certain members, most of whom were female, who disagreed with their pastor. This led to accusations of female suffrage by one side and legalism by the other. The LCR was never asked by either side of the congregation to adjudicate the division. The congregations that suspended fellowship in February 2006 withdrew their membership from the LCR in April 2006 after a special convention called to address the controversy refused to discuss the matter of female suffrage and the aforementioned dissolution. A position paper titled The Ministry and Auxiliary Office with Respect to Legalism[11] that was presented at that conference in an attempt to resolve the controversy has since been adopted unanimously by the remaining congregations of the LCR. Another LCR position paper titled Liberty or Death,[12] written to draw attention to different kinds of legalism, was subsequently adopted in July 2007. Those congregations that withdrew membership with the LCR have declared church fellowship with each other[13] and have since organized the Orthodox Lutheran Confessional Conference (OLCC).[14] A sixth congregation, in Hudson, Michigan, later withdrew from the LCR over the same issues, and remains independent."
The editor requests an extended break to get some Dramamine - possibly an antidote against dogmatic drama.
