Lutheran Churches of The Reformation - Relation To Other Lutheran Groups

Relation To Other Lutheran Groups

The congregations in the LCR and the Concordia Lutheran Conference were organized as the Orthodox Lutheran Conference, or OLC, in 1951. The OLC split in 1956 after Prof. Paul E. Kretzmann, suspended church-fellowship with some congregations after they charged him with teaching error in class. These congregations formed the Concordia Lutheran Conference, while the others, along with Kretzmann, joined with more conservatives leaving the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod to organize as the LCR.

The LCR discussed church-fellowship with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the 1960s, but declared that the differences regarding the doctrine of Church and Ministry were divisive of church-fellowship in July 1970.

The Fellowship of Lutheran Congregations, FLC is a group of congregations that left the LCR in 1979 after a dispute concerning the proper procedure of excommunication. The congregations of the FLC joined the Concordia Lutheran Conference circa 2004.

For a time in the 1990s, the LCR was in official church-fellowship with the Illinois Lutheran Conference, or ILC. The ILC was organized in 1979 after three congregations left in protest when a pastor was suspended from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod because of claims he made regarding the King James Version of the Bible. 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 both sides of the congregation to adjudicate the division. The congregations that suspended fellowship in February 2006 later withdrew their membership from the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation 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, which 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 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 and have since organized the Orthodox Lutheran Confessional Conference or OLCC . A sixth congregation, in Hudson, MI, later withdrew from the LCR over the same issues, and remains independent.