A. Actions During the Present Triennium The main responsibilities of the commission are to rule on appeals of decisions of a doctrinal reviewer before an item is published and to rule on a challenge to the doctrinal content of a publication by any of the Synod’s entities. During the present triennium the commission received one appeal of a doctrinal reviewer’s decision. The commission denied the appeal and ruled in favor of the decision of the original doctrinal reviewer. Also, the commission received one challenge to a published item and ruled that the item needed to be revised to correctly present Christian doctrine. The required revision was made by the publishing entity. Also, the commission dealt with two other matters: • •
The commission received a question about vague or misleading wording in an already published item. While vague or misleading wording is to be corrected in the doctrinal review process before publication, bylaws do not allow this to be the basis for a challenge after publication, so no action was taken. The commission received a question about the doctrinal statement in a publication, but no formal appeal was received. The publisher was contacted and agreed with the questioner that, due to a typological error, there was a misstatement that needed to be corrected. The publisher agreed to make the needed change, and the questioner agreed that no formal appeal needed to be filed in this case.
B. Bylaw Revision to Consider The commission is concerned that there is a difference between the reasons a doctrinal reviewer can reject a submitted item or ask for a revision of an item and the reasons that a member of the Synod can challenge an already-published item. Specifically, language that is vague or misleading is to be rejected by a doctrinal reviewer (Bylaw 1.9.2 [f]), but such language cannot be challenged once an item is published (Bylaw 3.9.3.2.2 [a]). If vague or misleading language is not desirable before publication, it is difficult to understand why it should be allowed to stand in an item that has been published. On the other hand, opening challenges to a publication on the basis of vague or misleading language may prompt many challenges and overwhelm the commission’s capacity to deal with them. This situation ought to be examined as to whether a bylaw revision is necessary or desirable.
C. Need for Training for Doctrinal Reviewers to Provide More Uniformity in Review Procedures and Doctrinal Analysis of Items Submitted for Review While doctrinal reviewers are conscientious and take their responsibilities seriously, there is little guidance offered them in performing their duties other than informing them of the bylaws that are to guide their work. This inevitably leads to a certain lack of uniformity in decisions. While total uniformity can never be achieved, the process might be improved by developing an online training module for reviewers that they should complete when they
are appointed. Synod has the institutions of the Concordia University System and two seminaries that could help in producing such a module. This training module could include: • a review of the bylaws concerning doctrinal review and the duties of a reviewer;
- examples of documents to be reviewed with items that need to be corrected either because they contain false doctrine or because of vague or misleading statements;
- an introduction to the appeal process when an author challenges the decision of a reviewer; and
- an introduction to the bylaws governing the process followed by the Commission on Doctrinal Review when an item is challenged after publication.