A Statement (Chicago, Illinois) Collection

Collection

Identifier: Collection ID-0001

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection contains copies of publications generated by the signers of the statement, critiques of the statement, minutes of meetings between the signers and synodical officials and analyses of the statement’s significance for and impact on the history of the Synod.

The collection has been partially inventoried at the items level. Additional materials included in the collection have not been processed and may duplicate items in the detailed list.

Other Institute collections contain information on the statement, including those of E. J. Friedrich, Theodore Graebner, William Arndt and the presidential papers of John W. Behnken.

Dates

Creation: 1945 - 1996

Biographical / Historical

In September 1945 a group of Missouri Synod pastors and theologians met in Chicago to discuss concerns about the direction of the Synod. Their meeting resulted in the publication of “A Statement” of twelve affirmations and related criticisms about various aspects of the Synod’s life at the time.

Over the next several years the statement generated a great deal of discussion and controversy between those who supported the positions of the signers of the statement and those who disagreed with its criticisms or opposed its issuance. Eventually an agreement was reached to withdraw the statement from discussion.

The role that the statement played in the decades following its issuance has continued to be discussed and debated in analyses of subsequent synodical events, including the controversy that broke out in the 1970s with regard to the teachings of the faculty at Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis, and other areas of the Synod.