Workbook page: 209
PDF page: 244
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LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 244
2026 Convention Workbook 209 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS —COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS February 2, 2024 Wyoming District Board of Directors ATTN: The Rev. John Hill 2400 Hickory St. Casper, WY 82604 Re: 2021 Wyoming District 1-01 “To Confess the Immortality of the Soul and to Clarify the Synod’s Public Doctrine” Dear President Hill, Greetings in Christ! We write in response to the 2021 Wyoming District Resolution 1-01, “To Confess the Immortality of the Soul and to Clarify the Synod’s Public Doctrine,” which was received via correspondence dated July 28, 2021 and which asked the Commission to clarify the following: “Does the Synod, in its teaching, affirm that man has in any way an immortal soul, deny this, or leave it as an open question?” The Commission apologizes for any delay in responding to this matter. As is our custom, this assignment was placed on our agenda during the last triennium and referred to one of our standing subcommittees, which discussed it at length. However, due to the need to complete several pressing assignments from the Synod in convention and from the Synod president before the en d of the triennium, we placed your request on hold. It was also anticipated that other overtures to the 2023 convention might be submitted on this topic which would allow us the opportunity to address your concern, perhaps together with other concerns, in the new triennium. (Ultimately no such overtures were submitted to the 2023 convention.). Again, we sincerely apologize for any delay and offer the following determination in response. First, in reviewing 2021 Wyoming District Resolution 1- 01, several factual errors were cause for confusion on the Commission, leading in part to a delay in responding sooner. The resolution specifically cites a 1969 paper by J.A.O. Preus II, entitled “Immortality of the Soul and Resurrection of the Body,” suggesting that the paper was submitted to the CTCR for discussion immediately prior to the adoption of its report, “A Statement on Death, Resurrection, and Immortality.” However, the Commission has no record of this paper in its files. After downloading the paper from the Wyoming District website, the CTCR noted that this appears to be a personal copy of the draft belonging to then- CTCR secretary Ralph Bohlmann, who wrote in Dr. Preus’s name as author and a date of (what appears to be) March 6 -8, 1969, and who noted it as “Draft #1.” After extensive study in our minutes, it was found that, in the first place, the date of this paper is actually March 6 -8, 1967. The CTCR did not meet on March 6- 8 in 1969, but it did meet on those dates in 1967. Furthermore, Dr. Preus was not the sole author of this draft, but served as the reader of the draft at the March 1967 meeting. In fact, our minutes indicate that this document was drafted by a committee consisting of Preus and four other authors or contributors. According to Wyoming District Board of Directors February 2, 2024 Page 2 the January 1967 CTCR minutes, this drafting committee appears to have included Martin Franzmann, parish pastor Alvin Wagner, and CTCR executive secretary Richard Jungkuntz, along with Concordia Seminary’s Herbert J.A. Bouman and Hebert T. Mayer. It is uncertain how any or all of these individuals specifically contributed to the draft document. By our count, the paper included on your website was the sixth of eleven such drafts reviewed before acceptance of the final version. Second, the draft ultimately approved by the Commission in March 1969 was, in fact, principally written by Preus himself. He had revised the aforementioned March 1967 paper for review at the Commission’s February 10-12, 1969, meeting. That paper was then condensed by Herbert Mayer and approved at the March 13- 15, 1969, meeting, subsequently being published as “A Statement on Death, Resurrection, and Immortality.” Based on this background research, it should be noted that the paper cited in your resolution and posted on your website was not an alternate draft by Preus that was rejected by the CTCR, but an earlier committee draft that was revised by Preus himself and was eventually condensed into the final 1969 CTCR report. Third, and to the matter at hand, the Commission believes its 1969 report clearly affirms the immortality of the soul. It does so primarily by rejecting two very different alternatives to the biblical affirmation of the soul’s immortality. On the one hand, it unequivocally rejects “soul sleep” as the teaching that “between death and resurrection” the soul of the Christian is “not conscious of bliss” (III.6f). On the other, it specifically rejects the pagan view of the immortality of the soul, namely, “that the soul is by nature and by virtue of an inherent quality immortal, as the pagans thought and as is taught in a number of fraternal orders today.” It furthermore goes on to claim that this latter view of the immortality of the soul “denies the Christian G ospel of the resurrection of our Lord and of the resurrection of the believers through Him alone” (III.6 e). In these statements, as throughout the document, it amplifies the assertion of 1967 Resolution 2-30: “That the soul of man does not cease to exist after death and that only those who believe in Christ receive eternal life.” In the Commission’s view, the Synod and our own 1969 report categorically reject any definition of the soul that denies the immor t ality of the soul or teaches an immortality other than that found in Scripture (whether “soul sleep” or pagan iterations of immortality). We note further that the position of Synod and its explanation in the 1969 report were not a serious matter of contention at that time, nor—in the CTCR’s view —are they a major subject of contention in the Synod today. The 1973 convention unanimously commended the 1969 report, finding “the doctrinal content of this position paper to be in agreement with Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions” (1973 Res. 2- 03). In the decades since, no concern was officially raised regarding this issue until a sin gle overture in 2019 (Ov. 5 -28, “To Encourage Our Pastors to Preach and Teach in a Very Clear Way the Promise of Everlasting Life”). To respond as unambiguously and directly as possible to the Wyoming District question regarding Synod’s teaching on the immortality of the soul, the Commission answers in the affirmative: the Wyoming District Board of Directors February 2, 2024 Page 3 LCMS does hold to the biblical doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It steadfastly rejects related errors such as “soul sleep” and pagan notions of immortality. Yet it has always been hesitant to say more about the immortality of the soul than Scripture does. The Commission acknowledges that neither its report, nor Synod in convention, have addressed this topic as comprehensively or as definitively as some might wish. The concern for greater precision on such matters is understandable given our commitment to preaching and teaching the Scriptures with utmost clarity. We commend the Wyoming District for the seriousness with which it takes that task. At the same time, we would intone the words of Franz Pieper —included in the 1969 report, yet well worth stating agai n—concerning the importance of hewing closely to the words of Scripture on these challenging eschatological matters: “Holy writ reveals but little of the state of souls between death and resurrection. In speaking of the last things, it directs our gaze primarily to Judgement Day and the events clustering around it” (Christian Dogmatics 3:511). On this matter, we must say no more—and no less—than Scripture. The Commission on Theology and Church Relations Adopted Unanimously, February 2, 2024 R62.2