Altar and pulpit fellowship has, in the Missouri Synod tradition, always been held to bind both doctrine and practice, the unity of faith and life, and not assent to confessional articles alone. The 69th Convention will hear the question again in the CTCR study Unity in Doctrine, Uniformity and Variety in Practice, and again in the cluster of overtures on the AALC. The Synod’s own twentieth-century record contains two distinct precedents for how such a fellowship question is to be answered, set far apart by the discipline brought to bear on each.
The discipline
Ohio · Iowa · Buffalo
Fellowship withheld until the controverted doctrine was stated to exclude all error.
≈ 51 yrs
from the 1881 rupture to the 1932 benchmark, with ratification refused at every interim stage.
1880-81
The Election Controversy
The dispute over election intuitu fidei, the “two forms.” Ohio withdraws from the Synodical Conference; Iowa stands opposed.
Marquette dissertation1903-06
Free intersynodical conferences
Direct talks fail to remove the differences that had divided the bodies.
WELS history of the movementc. 1916
Intersynodical Committee
A standing committee of Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, and Buffalo is set to work toward agreement.
WELS history of the movement1925
First draft of the theses
The initial Intersynodical (Chicago) Theses are printed and circulated to the synods.
Concordia Lutheran Conf. (1925 draft)1926
Missouri defers
The examining committee finds the article on conversion and election not yet brought to clear, complete, error-excluding expression, and records besides an unresolved divergence in the understanding of church fellowship, a matter of practice.
Der Lutheraner 82 (1926)1928
Final Chicago Theses
After three more years the committee settles a final text.
Concordia Lutheran Conf. (1928 final)1929
Missouri rejects
Judged inadequate: chapters straddle the point at issue and at times incline toward the opponents' position.
Synod examining committee, 19291930
The ALC is formed
Ohio, Iowa, and Buffalo merge; the intersynodical track and Missouri diverge.
1930 merger (Buffalo Synod)1932
A Brief Statement
Pieper’s confession is adopted as Missouri’s benchmark for all future union efforts.
A Brief Statement (1932), text1969 · 1981
Vindicated caution
Fellowship with the ALC, finally declared in 1969, is suspended in 1981.
AALC history (1969, 1981)The haste
The AALC path
Concord declared swiftly, with the practical scope left to be contested afterward.
≈ 2 yrs
from the opening of formal doctrinal discussions to a declared altar and pulpit fellowship.
1987
The AALC is formed
Twelve ALC congregations decline the ELCA merger and organize on the inerrancy of Scripture.
AALC history (1987)1989
Talks begin
AALC and LCMS representatives open informal conversations about possible fellowship.
AALC-LCMS talks from 19892005-06
Six formal discussions
Church and ministry, lay ministry, the role of women, and the practice of close communion are taken up; yet the AALC’s profession of “responsible communion,” neither open nor closed, is left unresolved before the committees recommend fellowship.
LCMS Reporter (2006)2007
Fellowship declared
Both conventions declare altar and pulpit fellowship as agreement in doctrine and practice, a concord in faith and life.
LCMS Reporter (2007)2025-26
The scope contested
The AALC now contends the fellowship binds doctrine alone and not practice, against the mutual terms declared in 2007. The matter falls to Floor Committee 5 under 5-03 through 5-09.
AALC responds (Ad Crucem News)The Comparison
A settlement tested across half a century, set beside one declared before its practice had been secured. With Ohio, Iowa, and Buffalo, Missouri declined a union formula three separate times because the controverted article had not been stated so as to exclude all error, and it withheld fellowship until it could publish a benchmark of its own.
With the AALC, the same body moved from its first formal doctrinal session to a declared fellowship in roughly two years, and the very question the older discipline was built to settle, whether the agreement governs life as well as faith, is now the matter in dispute.
The divergence was not hidden. In 1926 the examining committee refused to gloss the synods’ differing understanding of church fellowship; with the AALC the difference in eucharistic practice, the profession of “responsible communion” against the Synod’s closed communion, was observed in the discussions and then passed over rather than resolved.
Related Business Before the 69th Convention
Phoenix, Arizona · July 18 to 23, 2026 · Floor Committee 5, Theology and Church Relations.
- 5-03 through 5-09, concerns with current partner churches, the cluster under which the AALC question falls.
- 5-01 and 5-02, recognition of fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Christian Church of Bolivia and Lutheran Mission-Australia.
- CTCR study Unity in Doctrine, Uniformity and Variety in Practice (2025), on the doctrine-and-practice question itself.