No. 48. >> If we speak of the one holy church, then we are very ecumenical. Or are we not? >>DR. KLAUS DETLEV SCHULZ: We might say that with the interest of remaining a denomination called the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, that we are working contrary to the idea of the one holy Christian Church. We, however, need to say that as long as Christian denominations exist in this world, who claim to interpret Scripture differently as we do and do not promote the Lutheran faith as we do, it would be difficult to get together with them. So ecumenical today for many people would mean that one comes together and ignores the differences and merely unites around the sentiments of being together. We know the famous slogan that has been made so often in the ecumenical field. Namely, that one unites around diversity. Diversity means that one accepts each other's position without rejecting the other person. That is ecumenicity perhaps having gone a little bit too far. As we know, we need to stand firm on our Scriptures and our Lutheran Confessions. And we have referred you to Augsburg Confession VII where it says the Gospel must be purely preached and the sacraments rightly administered. So in terms of this buzzword ecumenical as it is used today, we will have our reservations. We have a policy called pulpit and altar fellowship that dictates our fellowship policies. Pulpit and altar fellowship means that we can only invite those people to preach in our churches who are either of the Missouri Synod, members of it. Or come from other partnership churches with whom we have declared fellowship. And altar fellowship would mean the same, that we can only invite those to the altar who come as members of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Or from partnership churches. We have seen at the Missouri Synod's convention in 2001 that when fellowship was declared with Lithuania and with the Lothian churches and with Haiti, that the procedure of entering fellowship with another church follows very clear -- clearly enunciated steps. It is important that before one declares fellowship, that the two churches come together around a table and discuss exactly what their belief is in order for those who are present to declare fellowship with one another.