Two Quotes About the Powerful Gospel and Harmful Teachings

1 - POOR FELLOWSHIP COMPROMISES GOSPEL TEACHING: QUOTE
The Lutheran position on church fellowship holds that internal unity is expressed in external church fellowship by faithfulness to the Scriptures’ teaching. A church consistently proclaiming unscriptural teachings is still a Christian church to the extent that elements of the true Gospel are there. (For this reason Lutherans do not proselytize active members of these churches.) The presence of the Gospel in these churches, however, does not negate their false and misleading proclamation. Practicing church fellowship with them would compromise our proclamation of the Gospel. Their false teachings sadly separate us at the altar and in the pulpit from well-meaning Christians in these churches.

SOURCE: The Lutheran Understanding of Church Fellowship
A Report on Synodical Discussions
2001. LCMS – CTCR

2 - THE SPIRIT DOESN'T WORK THROUGH FALSE TEACHINGS
We rejoice in the fact that God in His grace and mercy can and does awaken, sustain, and preserve believers also in the midst of erring congregations and church bodies. I Kings 19:18. We remember, however, that he does so not through the errors that are taught and condoned there, but only through the true Gospel message that is still heard in these erring churches.

SOURCE: Commission on Inter-Church Relations. Doctrinal Statements
of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod – 1970
cited by: Brenner, John. Service in the Public Ministry of the Gospel
Is a Privilege and an Honor, p. 165
Summer 2005. Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. 102, No. 3

COMMENT: Both of these quotes rejoice in the power of the Gospel and the presence of faith, even in churches that err. But they also place the blame for broken fellowship right where it belongs, on the ones who introduce false teachings. The church that rejects outward acts of fellowship isn't guilty, because they are simply expressing how the heart of fellowship has already been broken by the introduction of harmful teachings by those who claim to be brothers.