The Rev. Timothy J. Scharr was elected to his fourth full term as president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) Southern Illinois District at the district’s 59th convention, held Feb. 3–5 in O’Fallon, Ill.
Scharr was elected on the first ballot.
Also elected were the Rev. Mark Nebel of Red Bud, Ill., as first vice-president and the Rev. Dr. Kirk M. Clayton of Mascoutah, Ill., as second vice-president. The officers were installed into their positions during the convention.
The convention theme was “One Foundation,” based on 1 Corinthians 3:11: “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
Delegates passed resolutions to:
- Establish a new foreign mission partnership with the Seminario Concordia El Reformador in the Dominican Republic and encourage congregations to pray for its students and staff, share information about its mission and support it with mission offerings;
- Reject the use of online or virtual Communion, urging all congregations of the Synod to cease this practice;
- Affirm the church’s essential nature and function, confessing that the government has no authority to restrict the church’s celebration of the Divine Service, and exhort all congregations to peacefully implement government actions that do not interfere with the church’s God-given functions while respectfully disregarding those that do interfere;
- Reject critical race theory as unbiblical and counterproductive; and
- Promote pastoral leadership of worship at parish schools, urging pastors to take up their duties as spiritual leaders of their schools and encouraging schools to welcome their pastors in leading liturgical chapel services.
Posted Feb. 23, 2022
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Perhaps our very rejection of critical race theory…ultimately achieves only one thing…our denial shows just how real it is…and that we are guilty of living in denial!