tremendous influence of the Lutherans in the West, the _Observer_,
February 19, 1864, wrote, in his usual subjective fashion: "There was a
time when our Church had peace. From 1830 to 1840 she enjoyed a
universal peace and flourished greatly. This flourishing condition
extended far into the following decade. In these days, and already
somewhat earlier, the transition from the German into English caused
some friction. Nevertheless, it was a time of revivals and of great
bloom. The number of our churches increased. Our seminary at Gettysburg
was filled with students.... Between 1845 and 1850 a change took place
with a part of our Church. A little cloud, like the hand of a man,
appeared in the West. The Germans came in ever greater multitudes and in
more rapid succession. They no longer joined the American Lutheran
congregations generally. An Old Lutheran in Bavaria [Loehe] turned his
eyes on this country, sending colonies of hyper-Lutherans. These opposed
the revivals. Some of them were pious men, but their religious type
differed from the American. They were surrounded by influences which
hindered their amalgamation with American Christians. They had been
imbued with mistrust against the General Synod. Their system was such as
not to encourage spiritual life and progress.... These children of a
foreign soil had been sent over with a bitter prejudice against the
liberal Lutheranism of America. In the year 1845 there were probably no
more than one or two dozen old-Lutheran congregations in this country.
Now there are perhaps no less than 700 symbol-Lutheran congregations of
the old school in the country, whose preachers--numbering almost 500--
are all symbol- and hyper-Lutherans who profess to believe that the real
body and blood of Christ are orally received in the Lord's Supper, and
that the unbelieving communicant as well as the believing partakes of
the true body and blood of the Savior. They also believe in regeneration
by Baptism, and some of them also in private confession, in exorcism, in
beautifying the church with pictures and crucifixes; some of them also,
in bright daylight, light wax candles at Communion.... This German,
anti-Biblical, anti-American element could have been checked and
absorbed by the American Church if another element had not been added.
But during the rise of the great revivals of the fourth decade of this
century in our own Church unfortunately a class of people arose who are
far more dangerous and more powerful for mischief than the European
preachers. These American preachers became disloyal to the basis of the
General Synod, and began to raise a banner against the revivals and
against a spiritual Lutheranism.... They began a systematic persecution
of the most prominent men of the General Synod. In order to execute
their plans, they began to curry favor with the German symbolists. They
succeeded in adding tenfold bitterness to the prejudice and suspicion in
the hearts of the foreigners, until finally an almost unsurmountable
abyss seems to be fastened between the foreign high-church party and our
General Synod.... Every Lutheran of this country should have endeavored
to lead our foreign brethren to the General Synod, showing them that the
pure spiritual Lutheranism of this land is so much better than the
leather-bound symbolism of the Bavarian autocrat, as our political
institutions are better than those of the old Fatherland. But, instead
of this work of love, our benighted symbolists have strengthened the
prejudices of the foreigners in saying to them that the Lutheranism of
the General Synod is a pseudo-Lutheranism."--The origin, then, of the
confessional commotion within the Lutheran Church of America must be
traced chiefly to such men as Wyneken, Sihler, and especially to
Walther, who since 1839 had been zealous in unfurling the banner of true
Lutheranism, seriously, determinately, aggressively, victoriously. If
the confessional movement was wrong, Missouri, above all, must be
condemned as the great disturber of the peace, but Lutheranism itself
must go down with it. (_L. u. W._ 1864, 59.) The sincerity, seriousness,
and determination of the men of Missouri in applying the principles of
Lutheranism as they saw it, commanded the admiration even of an opponent
like S.S. Schmucker, who wrote in the _Observer_, September 21, 1860:
"Would it not reveal a lack of self-respect if the General Synod were to
receive men who seem to believe that she has departed so far from the
Lutheran doctrine that she could no further lay any just claim to the
name Lutheran? The opposite way of the Missourians is much more
honorable and has won the respect not only of the General Synod, but of
the Church everywhere."(_L. u. W._ 1860, p. 353.)
90. Improved Conditions.--In the issue of the _Lutheraner_ dated August
31, 1852, Walther declared: "Since the last eight years, conditions have
really improved in many respects, and to this end, according to many
testimonies which have been made against us, God has used and blessed
also our humble testimony." (9, 1.) The enmity which Missouri met
everywhere was indeed a significant symptom of conditions changing for
the better. It proved that the leaven of "foreign symbolism," as
Schmucker pleased to style it, was doing its work. Foremost among the
men that witnessed to the powerful influence of Missouri by testifying
against her was B. Kurtz, who again and again denounced all
confessionalists, especially those of the West, as "resurrectionists of
elemental, undeveloped, halting, stumbling, and staggering humanity," as
priests ready "to immolate bright meridian splendor on the altar of
misty, musky dust," men bent on going backward, and consequently, of
necessity, going downward! (Spaeth, 1, 344.) In 1859 the _Observer_
wrote: "It is true that there are some small factions who call
themselves Lutherans, but they are not of us, and there is no hope that
the Missourians, or Buffaloans, and other small communions will ever
become wiser in their generation. But it is to be expected that their
children and children's children will outgrow the prejudices of their
fathers, and become sensible and useful Christians. As said before, we
do not regard these factions as Lutherans; they have stolen a part of
Luther's livery, but they lack his spirit, and would be disowned by the
great Reformer if he were on earth now." (_L. u. W._ 1859, 227.) "The
symbolists have forgotten that Luther had a soul, and that they are only
quarreling over his old hat, coat, and boots," the _Observer_ declared
in its issue of April 1, 1864. It was a great shame for them that they
made the doctrine concerning the reception of the body and blood of
Christ in the Lord's Supper also by the wicked an essential part of the
Lutheran system. "The Lutheran Church of this country," the _Observer_
continued, "moving forward gloriously on the basis of the General Synod,
had gradually forgotten everything pertaining to the old boots, coats,
and hats, until this extreme party [Missouri] rose, gathered the old
rags, tied them to a stick, and now calls upon all Lutherans to agree
with them on pain of excommunication." (_Kirchl. Mitt._ 1864, 56.) In
May of the following year Dr. Conrad wrote, in a similar strain: "The
extreme symbolical standpoint, adopted anew in America and Europe and
demanding an unconditional subscription to the whole [doctrinal] content
of the Symbolical Books, is historically hyper-Lutheran, essentially
schismatic, practically disastrous, and providentially condemned." (_L.
u. W._ 1865, 217.) Referring to Kurtz's tirade on "Luther's old boots,"
etc., the _Lutheran_ remarked: "Is there no one in the General Synod who
will call to account such a blasphemous slanderer?" However, it was but
the language of a foe who began to realize that defeat was imminent.
EXPLANATORY STATEMENTS.
91. Resolutions of 1895, 1901, and 1909.--Owing to the efforts of the
conservatives in the interest of bringing about a closer union with the
General Council and the United Synod in the South, the General Synod
passed a number of resolutions affecting its confessional basis: 1895 in
Hagerstown, Md.; 1901 in Des Moines, Iowa; 1909 in Richmond, Ind.; 1911
in Washington, D.C.; and 1913 in Atchison, Kans. The resolution adopted
at Hagerstown, June 15, 1895, defines the "Unaltered Augsburg Confession
as throughout in perfect consistence" with the Word of God. It reads:
"Resolved, That in order to remove all fear and misapprehension, this
convention of the General Synod hereby expresses its entire satisfaction
with the present form of doctrinal basis and confessional subscription,
which is the Word of God, the infallible rule of faith and practise, and
the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as throughout in perfect consistence
with it--nothing more, nothing less." The resolution adopted June 6,
1901, at Des Moines objects to any distinction made between fundamental
and non-fundamental doctrines in the Augustana. It reads: "Resolved,
That, in these days of doctrinal unrest in many quarters, we rejoice to
find ourselves unshaken in our spiritual and historic faith, and
therefore reaffirm our unreserved allegiance to the present basis of
the General Synod; and we hold that to make any distinction between
fundamental and so-called non-fundamental doctrines in the Augsburg
Confession is contrary to that basis as set forth in our formula of
confessional subscription." Concerning the other symbols of the Book of
Concord the convention at Richmond declared, June 8, 1909: "Resolved,
That, inasmuch as the Augsburg Confession is the original, generic
confession of the Lutheran Church, accepted by Luther and his
coadjutors, and subscribed to by all Lutheran bodies the world over, we
therefore deem it an adequate and sufficient standard of Lutheran
doctrine. In making this statement, however, the General Synod in no
wise means to imply that she ignores, rejects, repudiates, or
antagonizes the Secondary Symbols of the Book of Concord, nor forbids
any of her members from accepting or teaching all of them, in strict
accordance with the Lutheran regulating principle of justifying faith.
On the contrary, she holds those Symbols in high esteem, regards them as
a most valuable body of Lutheran belief, explaining and unfolding the
doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, and she hereby recommends that
they be diligently and faithfully studied by our ministers and laymen."
With respect to the phrase in the Amendment of 1864, "the Word of God as
contained in the canonical Scriptures," the Richmond convention
resolved, "That we herewith declare our adherence to the satement, [tr.
note: sic!] 'The Bible is the Word of God,' and reject the error implied
in the statement, 'The Bible contains the Word of God.'"
92. Objectionable Features of Resolutions.--Among the weak points of the
resolutions of 1895 and 1901 are the following. First: It implied a
contradiction when the General Synod in her new resolutions, which give
an unqualified assent to the Augsburg Confession, at the same time
declared herself fully satisfied with, reaffirmed and set its seal of
approval on, the qualified basis of 1864. From the very outset the
leaders of the new confessional movement dodged the open acknowledgment
that the doctrinal basis of the General Synod, also that of 1864, was
misleading and un-Lutheran. In the resolution of 1895, Synod expressed
her "entire satisfaction" with the doctrinal basis of 1864. In the
resolution of 1901 she reaffirmed her "unreserved allegiance" to this
basis. In 1909 Synod declared: "We reiterate our firm belief that our
confessional basis [of 1864] is adequate and satisfactory." (58.) Again:
"The confessional resolutions referred to [of 1895 and 1901] are not
alterations of the constitution, and contemplate no alterations; they
are simply explanations of the meaning of the General Synod's
confessional basis. Therefore, it is not necessary to submit them to the
District Synods of the General Synod" (for adoption). (58.) The Report
of Dr. L.S. Keyser, delegate to the General Council in 1907, which was
adopted by the Richmond convention, urged Synod to defend, vindicate,
and maintain her doctrinal basis of 1864. Also the _Lutheran World_, the
organ of the conservatives, maintained that the General Synod's
resolutions of 1895 to 1909 were but "a restatement of its confessional
basis in harmony with all its previous statements." (_L. u. W._ 1909,
370.) Secondly: When the resolution of 1901 declared it contrary to the
basis of 1864 to make any distinction between fundamental and so-called
non-fundamental doctrines in the Augsburg Confession, this, too, was an
unwarranted assertion. The Richmond convention stated: "When the General
Synod says, in her formula of confessional subscription, that she
accepts 'the Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibition of the
fundamental doctrines of the divine Word, and of the faith of our Church
founded upon the Word,' she means precisely what she says, namely, that
the fundamental doctrines of God's Word are correctly set forth in the
Confession. She does not mean that some of the doctrines set forth in
the Confession are non-fundamental, and, therefore, may be accepted or
rejected; she means that they are all fundamental, and their exhibition
in the Confession is to be accepted by those who subscribe to the
Confession." This interpretation placed on the York Amendment by the
resolution of 1901 was unknown to the General Synod and her theologians
before as well as after its adoption in 1864. As shown above, the phrase
"fundamental doctrines" of the York Amendment, historically interpreted,
has but one meaning, _viz._, that some of the doctrines of the Augsburg
Confession are fundamental, while others are not. Besides, while it is
certainly correct to regard all doctrines of the Augustana as Scriptural
and binding, it is theologically false to declare all of them, _e.g._,
the doctrine of the Sunday, fundamental doctrines.--Thirdly: The
convention at Richmond adopted the statement: "While the General Synod's
formula of confessional subscription mentions only the Augsburg
Confession, without specifying the terms 'altered' or 'unaltered,' yet
it is a historical fact that the General Synod has never subscribed to
any edition of the Confession save the 'unaltered' form, and does not
now subscribe to any other edition." (56.) If this means that the
General Synod ever subscribed, _e.g._, to the rejection in the Tenth
Article, an essential feature in the unaltered edition, but omitted in
the edition of 1540, the statement is not borne out by the facts.
--Fourthly: The resolution of 1909, by stating that every member may
accept the Secondary Symbols "in strict accordance with the Lutheran
regulating principle of justifying faith" (60), insinuates that these
symbols are in need of such an interpretation, thus placing them below
par. The self-evident fact that the Secondary Symbols should be tried
also according to the Augsburg Confession and the doctrine of
justification did not justify a limitation, which could be interpreted
as a justification, _e.g._, of the professors in Gettysburg Seminary,
who, from Schmucker down to Richard, maintained that the Secondary
Symbols were not in agreement with the Augsburg Confession.
RESTATEMENT OF BASIS.
93. Atchison Amendments.--The resolutions of 1891 to 1909 were not
submitted to the District Synods for adoption, nor subsequently embodied
in the constitution of the General Synod. Instead, the convention at
Richmond, 1909, instructed the Common Service Committee "to codify the
several resolutions and statements explanatory of the Doctrinal Basis of
the General Synod, adopted at York, Pa., in 1864; at Hagerstown, Md., in
1895; at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1901; and at the present session of the
General Synod, and incorporate the substance of the same into one clear
and definite statement of our Doctrinal Basis, and to report the same at
the next meeting of the General Synod with a view to placing it in the
Constitution of the General Synod by amendment in the manner prescribed
by the Constitution itself, there being no intention in this action in
any way to change our present Doctrinal Basis" of 1864. (115.)
Accordingly, two new articles were presented to the assembly in
Washington, D.C., 1911, which were subsequently referred to the District
Synods for action. The articles submitted for approval read as follows:
"Article II. Doctrinal Basis. With the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
the Fathers, the General Synod receives and holds the canonical
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God and the only
infallible rule of faith and practise; and it receives and holds the
Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibition of the faith and
doctrine of our Church as founded upon the Word. Article III. The
Secondary Symbols. While the General Synod regards the Augsburg
Confession as a sufficient and altogether adequate doctrinal basis for
the cooperation of Lutheran synods, it also recognizes the Apology of
the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Small Catechism of
Luther, the Large Catechism of Luther, and the Formula of Concord as
expositions of Lutheran doctrine of great historical and interpretative
value, and especially commends the Small Catechism as a book of
instruction." (_Proceedings_ 1913, 126.) Two years later, all District
Synods having approved the articles, the convention at Atchison declared
"that the said amendments have been adopted, and are parts of the
Constitution of this body." (_L. u. W._ 1916, 6.)
94. A Stride Forward Officially.--Considered by themselves, no criticism
will be offered by any Lutheran on the new articles embodied in the
General Synod's constitution. Even the blemishes still adhering to the
resolutions of 1891 and 1909 have disappeared. Specific reference to the
York basis of 1864 is omitted; likewise the limitation with reference to
the adoption of the Secondary Symbols, etc. True, the new articles
contain a confession of the Augustana only, while in our day, also in
our country, it is certainly of special import for Lutherans to
acknowledge all Lutheran symbols in order to show at the very outset
that they occupy a correct position also with respect to the
controversies after Luther's death, which, in part, have been revived in
our own country. Indeed, the second of the new articles has been
interpreted by some as involving a confession also of the Secondary
Articles. But Dr. Singmaster is right in declaring with reference to the
new formula: "The General Synod does not require subscription to the
Secondary Symbols as a condition to membership in that body. Their
formal acceptance is a matter of liberty with the individual synod."
However, since the confessional formula of 1913 contains neither a
limitation as to the adoption of the Augustana, nor any criticism of the
other Lutheran symbols, the present doctrinal basis of the General
Synod, as stated in the new articles, must be viewed as satisfactory--
_caeteris paribus_. By adopting the Atchison Amendments, the General
Synod in reality, at least formally and officially, did not merely
reaffirm and reiterate, but corrected and changed its former qualified
confessional basis. As it reads, the formula of 1913 is tantamount to a
rejection of all former doctrinal deliverances of the General Synod, the
resolutions of Synod and asseverations of her theologians to the
contrary notwithstanding. Dr. Neve admits as much when he says: "Thus
the General Synod took a great stride forward in the direction of
confessional correctness. The express mention of the 'Unaltered'
Augsburg Confession constitutes an outspoken confession against
Melanchthonianism, that is, against the Definite Platform theology, or
American Lutheranism. And the removal of the old formula concerning the
fundamental doctrines means the removal of an expression which has done
much harm in the General Synod." (158.) In part, this progress was a
result of the testimony of Walther and the Missouri Synod, whose
fidelity to the Lutheran Confessions had been stigmatized for decades by
the theologians of the General Synod, even such men as Charles
Porterfield Krauth (in 1857), as "rigid symbolism," "German
Lutheranism," "deformities of a Pharisaic exclusiveness," etc. Dr. Neve
remarks: "The close unity coupled with its size (for Missouri soon
became by far the largest synod) exercised a powerful influence on those
without, strengthening, especially in the Eastern synods, the already
awakened confessional consciousness."
95. Remaining Contradictions.--Even apart from the actual conditions
prevailing in the General Synod as to Lutheran doctrine and practise,
one cannot maintain successfully that the General Synod, in adopting the
new articles, fully and satisfactorily cleared the situation as to its
doctrinal attitude. For in more than one respect also the official
confessional movement inaugurated in 1891 was contradictory of itself.
First: In a previous paragraph we have already referred to the
contradiction contained in the fact that the General Synod, while
adopting the new resolutions, at the same time reaffirmed and endorsed
the York Amendment of 1864. This endorsement, which practically
invalidates the adoption of the new articles, was not withdrawn at the
subsequent conventions in 1911 and 1913. The York Amendment still bears
the official seal of the General Synod. Dr. Singmaster says in
_Distinctive Doctrines_ of 1914: "The doctrinal basis, as amended in
1866 [1864], remained unchanged for nearly fifty years. Various
deliverances made at the convention of the General Synod during this
period repudiate false charges, and affirm the Lutheran character and
confessional fidelity of the body.... The doctrinal basis as it now
exists, means to the members of the General Synod exactly what it meant
before its verbal amendment. For a generation it has been interpreted to
mean an unequivocal subscription to the Augsburg Confession." (57.)
Secondly: The so-called York Resolution, which, as shown above (No. 71),
rejects the Lutheran doctrines of the real presence, absolution, and the
Sunday, thus openly conflicting with the Atchison Amendments of 1913,
which give an unqualified assent to the Augsburg Confession, was not
rescinded by the General Synod. The report of the delegate to the
General Council, adopted by the General Synod in 1909, states: "In our
address before the General Council [1907] as your representative, we
defended, with all the courtesy, clearness, and positiveness we could
command, the confessional position of the General Synod. This we did by
referring to our official declarations, namely, the York Resolution of
1864, our revised formula of confessional subscription of 1869 [1864],
in which this body planted itself unequivocally on the Augustana, and
our confessional resolutions of 1895 and 1901." (54.) At the same
convention the General Synod declared: "Those official resolutions [of
1895 and 1901], together with the well-known York Resolution, adopted in
1864, bind the General Synod to the Augsburg Confession in its
entirety." (57.) In keeping herewith the General Synod provided that, in
all future editions of the Augsburg Confession published by the General
Synod, the confessional declarations of the General Synod (the York
Amendment and the resolutions of 1895, 1901, and 1909) "be inserted
immediately after the York Resolution." (59.) Nor was the York
Resolution disavowed at the convention at Washington, 1911, as appears
from the following recommendation of the Common Service Committee
adopted by Synod: "With these amendments [finally adopted at Atchison]
there remains only the York Resolution of 1864, concerning alleged
errors, to be disposed of. As this is simply of an explanatory and
apologetic character, it cannot well be incorporated in the
constitution. It seems to your committee that this resolution has served
its purpose, and needs no further repetition, _especially as it remains
on record for reference_. We believe that both the constitution and the
confession will appear more dignified, and will inspire greater
confidence, unbuttressed by subsidiary statements." Accordingly, the
York Resolution "remained on record for reference." (24.) Thirdly: The
amendments of 1913 are in a hopeless conflict also with Art. IV, Sec. 8,
of the General Synod's constitution, reading as follows: "They [Synod]
shall, however, be extremely careful that the consciences of ministers
of the Gospel be not burdened with human inventions, laws, or devices,
and that no one be oppressed by reason of differences of opinion on
non-fundamental doctrines." Accordingly, while the Atchison formula
calls for an unqualified subscription to all doctrines of the Augustana,
Art. IV, Sec. 8, of the same constitution grants liberty in
"non-fundamental doctrines," _i.e._, interpreted historically, liberty
in the articles which distinguish the Lutheran Church from the Reformed
and other Evangelical Churches.--The convention at Richmond, 1909,
maintained: "It is only by her [General Synod's] official declarations
that her doctrinal position is to be tested and judged." (58.) If this
contention, though facts frequently speak louder and much more
convincingly than formulas, be granted--according to which set of
contradictory "official declarations" was one to test and judge the true
attitude of the General Synod?
ACTUAL CONDITIONS.
96. Long Stride from Formula to Fact.--Formal adoption of a correct
Lutheran basis does not necessarily imply actual agreement with such
basis. To pass a good resolution is easy. All Christian sects protest
that they accept the Bible. But they say, and do not. "What you _are_,"
said Emerson, "speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you _say_." In a
measure this also applies when the actual conditions prevailing in the
General Synod before and after 1913 are compared with the doctrinal
basis adopted in that year. In 1866, in a letter to Pastor Brunn,
Walther wrote with reference to the synods then uniting to form the
General Council: "As far as the latter are concerned, it is true that
our testimony extending over a period of twenty years has by the grace
of God cooperated in causing some synods to speak again of the
Confession, and to base and pledge themselves upon it, at least
formally; but it is a long stride from the formal acknowledgment of the
symbols to a true knowledge of them, and a truly Lutheran spirit, and
the consequent discipline of doctrine and life." (_Letters_, 2, 36.)
Now, the General Synod did not adopt its present basis as a result of
any doctrinal discussions of, and subsequent agreements in, the Lutheran
doctrines. The confessional movement was a formal affair, without any
special effort to arrive at a thorough understanding of, and true unity
in, the doctrinal content of the Augustana. But what value is there in
adopting a confession without a correct knowledge of, and agreement in,
its doctrines? Furthermore, the Atchison Amendments were submitted to
the District Synods for approval by majority vote, not to the individual
ministers and congregations. Adoption, accordingly, did not mean
unanimous acknowledgment. Moreover, the liberal party of the General
Synod, as represented by the _Lutheran Observer_, openly denounced the
new confessional resolutions. (_L. u. W._ 1916, 58.) Others who
submitted to the new formula, no doubt felt justified, in accordance
with the repeated approvals on the part of the General Synod of the
basis of 1864, to interpret the former according to the latter.
97. Doctrinal Confusion.--The General Synod has always been a babel of
doctrinal confusion. In it unity did not even prevail as to the
doctrines which distinguish the Lutheran Church from the Reformed. From
1820 down to 1918 the General Synod, in its periodicals and by its
representative men, and in part also as such and officially, defended
and supported indifferentism, unionism, synergism, chiliasm, abstinence,
the divine obligation of the Sabbath, and other un-Lutheran and
distinctively Reformed doctrines. (_L. u. W._ 1917, 471; 1918, 43.)
Doctrinal discipline never has had as much as a shadow of an existence
within the General Synod. Nor did the Atchison Amendments effect any
apparent and marked change in the spirit and attitude of doctrinal
indifferentism. Reformed errorists were tolerated after as well as
before 1913. In its issue of September 12, 1918, the _Lutheran Church
Work and Observer_ declared: "Our body breathes the free atmosphere of
America, and is not so legalistic and Puritanical as to think that every
person who offends must be brought before the judgment-bar of the church
for discipline." After as well as before 1913 some of the General
Synodists continued to indulge in dreams of a millennium and union of
all Evangelical denominations in America. (_L. u. W._ 1918, 87; _Luth.
Wit._ 1918, 373.) The Sabbath-day was declared to be "of perpetual
authority," and its observance as "binding on all by divine
requirement." In 1918 the _Lutheran Church Work_ asked for state
legislation to enforce the Sabbath, because the "Almighty Jehovah is
'the Lord of the Sabbath,' and has given us an indication of the
importance which He places on His holy day by having put it even before
the commandment in the Decalog which says: 'Honor thy father and thy
mother.'" (_L. u. W._ 1918, 336; cf. 1915, 397; 1911, 510.) The same old
Puritanical attitude was maintained by the General Synod also with
respect to the prohibition movement. (_Proceedings_ 1917, 140 ff.)
98. Tolerating Modern Liberalism.--The General Synod never did, nor
intended to, exercise church-discipline with respect to Reformed
aberrations. Nor is there a single case of church-discipline against any
form of liberalism recorded. Yet practically from its very beginning the
General Synod declared herself against Socinianism. And in 1909 the
_Lutheran Quarterly_ stated that the General Synod, though not
exercising church-discipline with respect to Reformed errors, does
exclude Unitarians, Universalists, and Christian Scientists. (15.) In
1917 the _Lutheran_ asserted: The Lutheran Church in America "stands as
a unit in protest against the creed of Reason, known as the
ever-variable 'New Theology,' and presents an unbroken front in loyalty
to the Gospel." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 562.) But is this claim really borne
out by the facts? The theory of evolution, which vitiates every
Christian doctrine when applied to theology, has been defended again and
again in the _Lutheran Observer_, the _Lutheran Quarterly_, the
_Lutheran Church Work_, and other publications of the General Synod.
Endorsing the evolution doctrine, the _Observer_ wrote in 1909: "That a
law of development runs through all nature, life, and history, is one of
the ruling postulates in present-day investigations. That the continuity
of nature, life, and history which this implies is not inconsistent with
theistic and Christian belief is also clearly recognized, and
consequently the impression of a panicky feeling which pervaded so much
of the discussion of evolution which immediately followed the
publication of the _Origin of Species_ [of Darwin], is to-day
conspicuous by its absence." (_L. u. W._ 1909, 279.) In 1901:
"Originally, all was soft and plastic. The granite foundations were
mortar and ashes or cinders and water. Cosmic forces have since been
crystallizing rocks out of the same elements which exist in the soil, or
float in the streams and exhale in the atmosphere." (_L. u. W._ 1901,
185.) In 1917 the _Lutheran Quarterly_ declared that the doctrine of
evolution can be accepted "in so far as it is descriptive of God's
method with the world." (96.) Dr. L.S. Keyser, of Wittenberg Seminary,
philosophizes: "God created the primordial material. Without losing His
transcendence, He became immanent in His creation, developing it through
secondary causes for, doubtless, long eras; at certain crucial steps, as
was necessary, He added new creations and injected new forces; such
epochs were the introduction of life, sentiency, and man. This
world-view should be called 'creation and evolution,' with as marked an
emphasis on the former as on the latter." (_Syst. of Nat. Theol._, 114.)
Furthermore, in 1891 the _Lutheran Observer_ editorially defended Dr.
Briggs, whom the Presbyterians expelled because of his liberalism, as an
innocently persecuted man. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 214.) In 1901 the _Lutheran
Quarterly_ said of Harnack that in his _Essence of Christianity_ he
assigns a position to Christ "which must have made a deep impression on
his hearers." (_L. u. W._ 1901, 370.) In 1909: "Even if we should in the
end have to acknowledge that Jesus had a human father as well as a human
mother, that would simply teach us what we are confessing and believing
even now: Jesus is not alone true God, but likewise true man. His
divinity would not be affected thereby." (_L. u. W._ 1909, 228.) In 1918
the _Lutheran Church Work and Observer_ recommended Dr. James Denney's
book, _The Atonement and the Modern Mind_, in which Denney practically
rejects the authority of the Scriptures and departs from the Christian
doctrine of satisfaction made by Christ. (_L. u. W._ 1918, 482.) In the
_Lutheran Church Work and Observer_, April 4, 1918, Rev. W.R. Goff
maintained: "The writer cannot find one passage in Scripture that
definitely and positively asserts a visible return of the Lord." (_L. u.
W._ 1918, 423.)
99. A Second Edition of Quitman.--For quite a number of years Dr. E.H.
Delk, a prominent member of the General Synod, has been an ardent
advocate of modern rationalism and evolutionism. He denies the verbal
inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, rejects the Lutheran doctrine of
the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, attacks the dogma
that the death of Christ was a ransom and a substitutional sacrifice for
the sins of the world, corrupts every Christian doctrine, and demands
that all of them be restated in order to bring them into harmony with
modern evolutionistic science and philosophy. "The Bible and our
Confession do not ask man to throw away his reason in the reception of
truth and in the _judgment_ of the theological problems," Delk declared
in 1903. (_L. u. W._ 1903, 185.) A number of years ago, Dr. Delk was
permitted to present his radical views to the students of Gettysburg
Seminary; and the _Lutheran Quarterly_ published the lecture without a
word of criticism. At Atchison, 1913, when resolutions were offered
rejecting the doctrines of Delk, the General Synod refused to take
definite action. The _Lutheran Observer_ boasted that Synod was not
ready to sacrifice liberty of thought and speech. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 370;
1902, 136; 1903, 185; 1913, 145; 1916, 67.) In 1916 the _Lutheran Church
Work and Observer_, the official organ of the General Synod, opened its
columns to Delk and his theology. In 1917 Delk continued his propaganda
by publishing his views in a booklet, _The Need of a Restatement of
Theology_. In 1918 the _Lutheran Church Work and Observer_ endorsed and
advertised the book. Identifying himself with some of the views of
modern German liberalism on Luther and his theology, Delk wrote in the
_Lutheran Church Work and Observer_ of November 1, 1917: "We see now in
the light of a fuller history of the man [Luther] that he was a child of
his age and carried over into his Protestant thinking traits of medieval
thinking.... Luther was not the end, but the beginning of new advances
in the political and religious ideals of the world.... We are separated
by a millennium of thought from the critical thought-standpoint of
Luther." (_L. u. W._ 1918, 43.) Also by Drs. Keyser and Voigt, Delk has
been charged with substituting the teachings of philosophy and science
for Christianity, and with propagating heretical doctrine concerning the
inspiration of the Bible and the deity and atonement of Christ. The
advocacy of evolutionistic theology, as tolerated by the General Synod,
however, cannot but be regarded as a return to the rationalism of
Quitman and Velthusen.
UNLUTHERAN PRACTISE.
100. Unionism Unabated.--In 1917 Dr. Neve wrote in the _Lutheran Church
Review_: "The different Protestant Churches, that is, the leading ones,
are not arbitrary developments with no right to exist, but they
represent the historical endeavors to bring to an expression within the
Church of Christ the truth of Scripture." (167.) This view was at the
bottom of the pulpit, altar, and church-work fellowship indulged in by
the General Synod throughout the course of its history from 1820 down
to its exit in 1918. This attitude of indifferentism naturally led to
the exchange of fraternal delegates with the Reformed and other
Churches. It resulted in a cooperation of the General Synod with the
Federal Council, the Home Missions Council, the Foreign Mission
Conference, the International Sunday-school Association, the
Sunday-school Council of Evangelical Denominations, the Inter-Church
Federation, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the W.C.T.U., The Anti-Saloon
League, etc. And the new confessional resolutions brought no change in
this practise. With respect to the action of the Wartburg Synod,
excluding other than Lutheran ministers from its pulpits and other than
Lutherans from its altars, Dr. J.A. Singmaster, at the convention in
Richmond, 1909, offered the resolution "that the General Synod, while
allowing all congregations and individuals connected with it the fullest
Christian liberty, does not approve of synodical enactments which in any
way narrow its confessional basis or abridge intersynodical fellowship
and transfers." (_Proceedings_ 1909, 128; Neve, _Gesch._, 73.) The
_Lutheran Observer_ remained the same enthusiast for
"interdenominational fraternal cooperation and work in the Federation of
Churches," etc. (_L. u. W._ 1916, 63.) The ministers of the General
Synod continued to exchange pulpits and to arrange for joint
celebrations with sectarian preachers. (_Witness_ 1918, 404; 1919, 14.)
Despite the new basis of 1913, the General Synod remained a member of
the Federal Council, which Dr. Delk in 1912 extolled as the "Twentieth
Century Ecumenical Council." In 1909 the report of the delegates to the
Federal Council was adopted, stating: "We heartily endorse the work of
the Council, and we welcome the opportunity of cooperating with all who
love our Lord Jesus Christ in promoting the work of His kingdom.... We
recommend that nine delegates be sent, and that an annual contribution
of $450 be paid out of the treasury of the General Synod for the support
of the Federal Council." (115.) Again, in 1917, a report of the
delegates to the Third Quadrennial Meeting of the Federal Council was
adopted, which said, in part: "The Federal Council is mobilizing the
forces of Protestantism against any and every foe of evangelical
principles and practises. A committee has been appointed to arrange a
Pan-Protestant Reformation celebration for 1917.... It was a great
privilege to have participated in this historic council. As the
federation idea originated in the United States in the mind and heart of
a learned and devout Lutheran, Dr. Samuel S. Schmucker, it was a great
joy and satisfaction to see and participate in this consummation of Dr.
Schmucker's hope of all Protestant bodies in council and cooperation in
the one common task of propagating the kingdom of God in society and
throughout the world." (27.) Dr. MacFarland, the General Secretary of
the Federal Council, was introduced, and addressed the General Synod.
(131.) In the same year the General Synod appointed Dr. Delk, Dr.
Wolford, Rev. Russell, and three laymen as "delegates to the Federal
Council," and Dr. Bell as "representative to General Assembly of
Presbyterian Church." (372.)
101. Fellowshiping [tr. note: sic] Jews and Unitarians.--Universally
General Synodists, down to the Merger in 1918, have defended and
practised church-fellowship with the Evangelical denominations. Regarding
religious communion with Jews and Unitarians, however, Dr. Neve wrote in
1909: "Such is a rare occurrence and always would meet with the
disapproval of nearly all members of the General Synod." (_Lutheran
Quarterly_ 1909, 12. 19.) According to Neve, then, there are members of
the General Synod who do approve of church-fellowship even with Jews and
Unitarians. Commenting in the _Lutheran Church Work and Observer_, of
October 31, 1918, on a Communion service in which Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Reformed, Unitarians, etc., united, Dr. L.E. Keyser
declared: "Such a conglomeration of beliefs and creeds would be
impossible in the Lutheran Church. To stand or kneel at the altar with
people who even deny the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity,
and the need of atonement for sin, is impossible with Lutherans who are
serious in their convictions." But what of the facts? In 1903 the
_Lutheran Observer_ declared: "When, at the great Parliament of
Religions in Chicago, men of all beliefs united in the Lord's Prayer,
who shall say that they had no right to do it, even though it was not
with full understanding of its meaning? God is the All-Father. All men
are His children." (_L. u. W._ 1903, 184.) At the World's Fair in St.
Louis, 1904, Dr. Rhodes of the General Synod celebrated a union
Thanksgiving Service in Festival Hall with Archbishop Glennon, Rabbi
Harrison, etc. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 565.) In 1909 Dr. Delk indulged in
religious fellowship with the Reformed Jews in a Jewish temple. (_L. u.
W._ 1909, 558 f.) On November 28, 1918, Rev. A. Homrighaus united in a
Thanksgiving service, in which a Jewish rabbi and a Unitarian
participated, etc. (_Luth. Witness_ 1919, 14.)
102. Encouraging Lodgery.--The General Synod has never taken a stand
against Freemasonry or any other secret society. To join a lodge was
always viewed as a purely private affair and of no concern to the
Church. Neither laymen nor ministers were forbidden to unite with
lodges. Indeed, for a minister to attain a higher degree in a lodge was
occasionally referred to as a special honor and regarded as a
recommendation. In 1902 the _Pennsylvania Freemason_ said of Dr. Stock,
a pastor of the General Synod: "The Doctor is in possession of the
highest honors of Freemasonry, and enjoys the love and respect of all
his brothers. As indicating his good influence for Freemasonry we
mention of his writings: _What Freemasonry Owes to Luther, The Knight
Templar and the Holy Week_." Copying this, the _Lutheran Evangelist_
commented that everybody has a right to join a lodge as long as he gives
the first place in his heart to the Church. (L. u. W. 1902, 115.) The
_Observer_, March 14, 1902, reported with satisfaction that the
prominent Lutheran Mr. Dewey had become Grand Master of the Freemasons
in Kansas, and appointed his pastor, the Rev. Fuller Bergstresser, Grand
Chaplain of the lodge. (_L. u. W._ 1902, 115.) Lodge-membership, said
the _Observer_ of January 17, 1913, is a non-essential, permitted by the
Augsburg Confession. Reviewing a sermon of Rev. Bowers in which he
defended and recommended the lodges, the _Lutheran Observer_, in 1909,
remarked: "It is a fair and unprejudiced presentation." (_L. u. W._
1909, 227.) In the same year a committee of the General Synod declared
with respect to a resolution of the Wartburg and Nebraska synods,
forbidding their ministers to hold membership in lodges: "The General
Synod as a body has never taken any action, so far as we know, upon the
so-called lodge-question. We deem its position sound and wise, and
especially in view of the fact that the Lutheran bodies in this country
which have indulged in such legislation have by no means escaped
trouble.... We deem it their [Wartburg and Nebraska synods'] synodical
right so to judge and affirm so long as they do not ask other synods of
this body to accept their judgment and affirm their action.... A synod
has a right to voluntarily restrict itself if it so chooses, and impose
upon itself such limitations as it may elect." (_Proceedings_ 1909, 126
f.) Also with respect to this attitude of the General Synod toward the
lodges the Atchison Amendments brought about no marked change whatever.
After as well as before 1913 prominent lodge-men, without protest, were
elected to, or continued to hold, some of the most important offices of
Synod. In 1917 Dr. George Tressler, a 32d degree Scotch Rite Mason and a
Knight Templar, was chosen president of the General Synod. Prof. C.G.
Heckert, president of the Theological Seminary at Springfield, 0., is a
Freemason. Mr. J.L. Zimmerman, president of the Lutheran Brotherhood of
the General Synod, who took a leading part in the Lutheran Merger
movement, also is, and was publicly declared to be, a Mason. Nor did the
practise cease of arranging for special lodge-services and
entertainments of lodges. September 17, 1918, the Masonic Lodge of Camp
Hill, N.J., held its anniversary dinner at the General Synod church, the
women of the church serving the dinner, etc. (_Luth. Witness_ 1918,
386.)
103. New Formula Dead Letter.--Though one will readily admit that the
Atchison Amendments signified a stride forward officially and formally,
the actual conditions prevailing within the General Synod till the
Merger in 1918 (the official indifferentistic and unionistic attitude of
the General Synod as such, as well as the teaching and practise of
District Synods, ministers, and congregations) were not in agreement,
but in open conflict with the formula of 1913. In its issue of June 18,
1915, the _Observer_ stated: "The acceptance of this basis, they [the
opponents of the new basis] further maintain, involves certain
corollaries, such as the rule of 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran
ministers only, and Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only'; the
withdrawal of fellowship with other Christian bodies in general
religious and moral movements, such as the Federation of the Churches,
the International Sunday-school Lesson Series, and evangelistic
campaigns, in which the congregations of a community unite their efforts
to reach the multitudes of the unchurched and the unsaved. It includes
also condemnation of secret orders, such as Masonry and Odd-Fellowship."
(_L. u. W._ 1916, 58.) Such, indeed, was the price of the new doctrinal
basis. The General Synod as a whole, however, was evidently neither
possessed of the power nor even of the earnest will to draw the
consequences of her new articles practically. The fact certainly is, as
shown in the preceding paragraphs, that neither the General Synod as
such nor its constituency did make any serious effort at paying the
price required by an unqualified subscription to the Augustana as
professed at Atchison. However, as long as a religious body contents
itself with having a correct Lutheran basis merely incorporated in the
constitution; as long as it shows no determination in reducing the
principles of such basis to actual practise; as long as it objects to
the discipline which this basis calls for; as long as it declines
responsibility for contrary teaching and practise on the part of its
ministers and congregations; as long as it adheres to the principle of
agreeing to disagree on doctrines plainly taught in the Lutheran
Confessions, and never to settle disputed points, but to omit them and
declare them free,--just so long even the very best Lutheran basis
embodied in a constitution will remain, in more than one respect, a
scrap of paper and its formal recognition "a solemn farce and empty
show."
The General Council
SYNODS COMPOSING THE COUNCIL.
104. Organization of New General Body.--After severing its connection
with the General Synod at its convention at Lancaster in 1866, the
Ministerium of Pennsylvania appointed a committee (Drs. Krotel, Krauth,
Mann, C.W. Schaeffer, Seiss, B.M. Schmucker, Welden, Brobst, Laird,
etc.) to issue a fraternal address to all Lutheran synods, ministers,
and congregations in the United States and Canada which confess the
Unaltered Augsburg Confession, inviting them to a conference for the
purpose of forming a general body of Lutheran synods, in the interest,
especially, of maintaining "the unity in the true faith of the Gospel
and in the uncorrupted Sacraments." Accordingly, in December of the same
year, representatives from thirteen synods met in Reading, Pa. The
synods represented were the Pennsylvania Synod, the New York
Ministerium, the Pittsburgh Synod, the Minnesota Synod, the English
Synod of Ohio, the Joint Synod of Ohio, the English District Synod of
Ohio, the Wisconsin Synod, the Michigan Synod, the Iowa Synod, the
Canada Synod, the Norwegian Synod, and the Missouri Synod. After the
Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity and Articles on
Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, prepared and submitted by
Dr. C.P. Krauth, and discussed from the 12th to the 14th of December,
had been approved, the resolution was passed that the first regular
session of the new body, "The General Council of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of North America," should be held, if the Fundamental
Principles had been adopted by ten synods. At the first regular meeting
in Fort Wayne, November 20, 1867, again representatives of thirteen
synods were present, the Augustana and Illinois synods taking the place
of the Missourians and Norwegians, who had withdrawn from the movement.
105. Synods Remaining with the Council.--Of the synods represented at
Fort Wayne the following retained their connection with the General
Council throughout its history: 1. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the
so-called "Mother Synod" of the Lutheran Church in America. It was
organized 1748 by Muhlenberg. In 1778, numbering 18 ministers, it
adopted a constitution which formally acknowledged all of the Lutheran
symbols. The new constitution of 1792 admitted lay delegates, but
eliminated the confessional basis. In 1820 it was represented at the
organization of the General Synod at Hagerstown. At the same time it
planned a union seminary and organic union with the German Reformed
Church. In 1823 it severed its connection with the General Synod, which
was followed by a long period of indifferentism. In 1850 the Ministerium
established official relations with the Gettysburg Seminary. In 1853 it
returned officially to a confessional position, adopting "the
fundamental doctrines of the Gospel as these are expressed in the
confessional writings of our Evangelical Lutheran Church and especially
in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." In the same year, urging all
other Lutheran bodies to follow the example, the Ministerium, by a vote
of 52 against 28, resolved to reunite with the General Synod. In 1864
its delegates withdrew from the sessions of the General Synod at York
because of the admission of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod. In the same
year the Seminary at Philadelphia was founded. In the organization of
the General Council the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was the prime mover.
At present it numbers about 400 pastors and 580 congregations with a
communicant membership of 160,000, more than one-fifth of them being
German. 2. The New York Ministerium. This body, when organized in 1786,
confessed the Lutheran symbols. In 1794 it adopted the new constitution
of the Pennsylvania Synod, containing no reference to the symbols. Under
Quitman a period of rationalism and Socinianism followed, and under
Hazelius (since 1815 professor in Hartwick Seminary) a period of
Methodistic revivalism. In 1859 the Ministerium acknowledged the
Augsburg Confession "as a correct exhibition of the fundamental
doctrines of the divine Word," and in 1867, having severed its
connection with the General Synod, extended its confession to embrace
all the Lutheran symbols. The New York Ministerium has repeatedly passed
through a change of language. It numbers about 57,000 communicants, 160
congregations, and as many pastors. 3. The Pittsburgh Synod. It was
organized in 1845 and admitted by the General Synod in 1853. Under W.A.
Passavant it became the "Missionary Synod," to which the Canada, Texas,
Minnesota, and Nova Scotia synods owe their origin. It reports 155
pastors and 190 congregations with a communicant membership of 24,000.
4. The English District Synod of Ohio, organized in 1857 and, in 1869,
because of its connection with the Council, stricken from the roster of
the Joint Synod of Ohio, embraces 55 pastors, 86 congregations, and
14,000 communicants. 5. The Canada Synod, founded in 1861, went on
record as opposed to exceptions in the rule regarding pulpit- and
altar-fellowship. Most of its present pastors come from Kropp, Germany.
It reports 42 ministers, 74 congregations, and 14,000 communicants. 6.
The Augustana Synod, which maintained its connections with the Council
till 1918, when it refused to enter the Lutheran Merger. It numbers
about 700 pastors and 1,200 congregations with a confirmed membership
of 190,000.
106. Defections and Accessions.--The following seven synods partly
declined to consummate the union, partly were temporarily only connected
with the General Council: 1. The Iowa Synod, whose representatives
declared before the close of the session at Fort Wayne, 1867, that they,
though their Synod had adopted the constitution, could not unite with
the Council on account of its equivocal attitude toward pulpit-, altar-,
and lodge-fellowship. The privilege of the floor granted by the General
Council to the delegates of the Iowa Synod was accepted and freely
exercised till the Lutheran Merger in 1918. The Iowa Synod thus remained
in church fellowship with the General Council and took part also in its
missionary and other works. In 1875, the so-called Galesburg Rule having
been adopted by the Council, the Iowa Synod declared that confessional
scruples no longer prevented her from an organic union with the Council.
The union was not consummated because the anti-unionistic construction
which Iowa put on the Galesburg Rule was disavowed within the General
Council and never acknowledged and approved of by this body as such. In
1904, Prof. Proehl, delegate of the Iowa Synod, gloried in the Council
as _optima repraesentatio nominis Lutherani_, the best representation of
the Lutheran name, a tribute, however, which President Deindoerfer of
the Iowa Synod refused to endorse. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 38. 516.) 2. The
Joint Synod of Ohio had not adopted the constitution of the General
Council; and at Fort Wayne, 1867, her delegates finally declined to
enter the union because of the non-committal attitude of the Council
with respect to chiliasm, pulpit- and altar-fellowship and the lodges--
the so-called Four Points. 3. The Wisconsin Synod separated in 1868
because of the "Four Points." 4. The Michigan Synod, organized in 1860,
united with the Council in 1867, withdrew in 1887, and joined the
Synodical Conference in 1892. 5. The Minnesota Synod, founded in 1860,
united with the General Synod; in 1867 it joined the Council; in 1871 it
severed this connection and became a member of the Synodical Conference.
6. The Texas Synod joined the Council in 1868, and left it in 1895,
entering the Iowa Synod as Texas District.--The following synods, most
of them founded by the General Council, affiliated with this body after
its organization in 1867: 1. The Chicago Synod, a name adopted later,
organized and joined the Council in 1871 as Indiana Synod. It numbers
about 40 pastors and 70 congregations with a communicant membership of
8,300. Its center is the Theological Seminary located near Chicago
(Maywood). 2. The English Synod of the Northwest was founded by the
Council in 1891 which led to various frictions with the Swedish
Augustana Synod. Pastors, 37; congregations, 40; communicants, 11,000.
3. The Synod of Manitoba, founded 1897, numbers 35 pastors, 62
congregations, and 5,000 communicants. 4. The Pacific Synod, organized
by the Council in 1901, numbers 21 pastors, 18 congregations, and 1,906
communicants. 5. The Synod of New York and New England, organized in
1902, embraces 65 pastors, 67 congregations, and 19,000 communicants.
6. The Nova Scotia Synod, organized in 1903, reports 6 pastors, 27
congregations, and 2,900 communicants. 7. The Synod of Central Canada,
organized 1909, numbers 12 pastors, 16 congregations, and 1,800
communicants.
107. Statistical and Other Data.--In 1917, a year before the Merger, the
General Council reported 13 district synods with about 1,700 pastors,
2,600 congregations, and a confirmed membership of 530,000. Among the
higher institutions then within the Council were the following: 1. The
Philadelphia Seminary, now located in Mount Airy, Pa., and belonging to
the Pennsylvania Synod. Since its founding in 1864 this seminary has
educated almost 875 pastors under the Professors Drs. C.F. and L.W.
Schaeffer, Mann, Krauth, Krotel, Spaeth, H.E. and C.M. Jacobs,
Hilprecht, Spieker, Frey, Offermann (appointed by the New York
Ministerium), Schmauk, Reed, Benze. 2. The Chicago Seminary, located in
Maywood, Ill., was founded by Passavant and opened 1891. Here about 260
pastors were trained by the Drs. Weidner, Krauss, Gerberding, Ramsey,
and Stump. 3. The Swedish Seminary in Rock Island, Ill. (founded in
Chicago in 1860 and removed to Rock Island in 1875), has graduated more
than 700 pastors. 4. The Seminary at Kropp, Schleswig, Germany, founded
1882 by Paulsen, for years received support from the General Council. 5.
Muhlenberg College, at Allentown, Pa., founded 1867 by the Pennsylvania
Synod, now directed by Dr. Haas. 6. Wagner College, at Rochester, N.Y.,
founded 1883 by the New York Ministerium, Dr. Nicum being one of its
professors and benefactors. 7. Thiel College, at Greenville, Pa.,
founded 1870 by the Pittsburgh Synod. 8. The Swedish Bethany College,
founded in 1881 at Lindsborg, Kans. 9. The Swedish Gustavus Adolphus
College, at St. Peter, Minn. 10. The Swedish Luther Academy, at Wahoo,
Nebr.--Apart from the Augustana Synod, about 160 parochial schools,
mostly Saturday and vacation schools, have been conducted within the
General Council. Judging from Dr. Gerberding's _Problems and
Possibilities_ (115) and similar utterances, the English element in the
General Council, like that of the General Synod, was opposed to parish
schools. Foremost among the numerous benevolent institutions are the
Wartburg Orphan Asylum and the Drexel Deaconess Home. In 1869 the
General Council assumed the support of that part of the India mission
which the General Synod, after the breach in 1866, was about to
surrender to the Episcopalians. In 1841 "Father Heyer had been sent as
the first American Lutheran missionary to India. He returned in 1857 and
began home missionary work in Minnesota. In 1869, seventy-six years old,
he offered his services to the Pennsylvania Synod for the Lutheran
Mission in India, where he labored till 1871."
CHARLES PORTERFIELD KRAUTH.
108. A Star of the First Magnitude.--Charles Porterfield Krauth
(1823--1883), son of Charles Philip Krauth, was educated at Pennsylvania
College and the Seminary in Gettysburg. He was licensed in 1841 and
ordained 1842. He served as pastor in Baltimore from 1842; in
Shepherdstown and Martinsburg 1847; in Winchester 1848; in St. Thomas,
West Indies, 1852 (a Dutch Reformed congregation during the absence of
its pastor); in Pittsburgh, Pa., from 1855; in Philadelphia from 1859.
In 1861 he resigned his pastorate in order to devote his whole strength
to the editorship of the _Lutheran and Missionary_, which in his hands
became a weapon against the excrescences of the American Lutheranism
then ruling the English Lutheran Church of our country. In 1864, when
the Theological Seminary at Philadelphia was founded, Krauth was
appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology. He was the prime mover in the
establishment of the General Council; wrote the Fraternal Address of
1866, inviting the Lutheran synods to unite in the organization of a new
general truly Lutheran body; and was the author of the Fundamental
Articles of Faith and Church Polity adopted at the convention at
Reading, 1866. Krauth presented the theses on pulpit- and
altar-fellowship in 1877, framed the constitution for congregations of
1880, and assisted in the liturgical work which resulted in the
publication of the Church Book, completed in 1891. From 1870 to 1880
Krauth was president of the General Council. In 1868 he was appointed
professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of
Pennsylvania. In 1880 he made a journey to Europe for his own
recuperation and in the interest of a Luther biography, which, however,
did not make its appearance. In 1882, a year before his death, he became
editor-in-chief of the _Lutheran Church Review._ He died January 2,
1883. Besides contributing many articles to the _Lutheran_ and to
various reviews and encyclopedias, Krauth translated Tholuck's
_Commentary on the Gospel of John,_ 1859; edited Fleming's _Vocabulary
of Philosophy_, 1860; wrote the _Conservative Reformation and Its
Theology_, 1872; and published a number of other books of a
philosophical and theological character. The most important of Krauth's
numerous publications is _The Conservative Reformation and Its
Theology_. The _Lutheran Church Review_, 1917: "It is doubtful whether
any other single book ever published in America by any theologian more
profoundly impressed a large [English] church constituency, or did more
to mold its character. As theologian and confessor Dr. Krauth stands
preeminent in the [English] Lutheran Church." (144.) For twenty years
Charles Porterfield Krauth was one of the prominent theologians of the
General Synod, and since 1866 the leader and most conservative,
competent, and influential theologian of the General Council. Krauth was
a star of the first magnitude in the Lutheran Church of America, or as
Walther put it, "the most eminent man in the English Lutheran Church of
this country, a man of rare learning, at home no less in the old than in
modern theology, and, what is of greatest import, whole-heartedly
devoted to the pure doctrine of our Church, as he had learned to
understand it, a noble man and without guile." (_L. u. W._ 1883, 32.)
109. Krauth's Manly Recantation.--During the first half of his
ecclesiastical activity C.P. Krauth was a pronounced unionistic
theologian. He fully endorsed the indifferentistic principles of the
General Synod, whose champion he was till 1864. During the Platform
controversy Krauth was zealous to settle the difficulties on the
accustomed unionistic lines of the General Synod. He framed the
compromise resolutions of the Pittsburgh Synod in 1856 on the Definite
Platform. In the following year he wrote a series of articles for the
_Missionary_ in defense of the General Synod and its doctrinal basis. In
1858 he defended S.S. Schmucker against the charges of unsound doctrine,
preferred by J.A. Brown. In 1859 he offered the motion for the admission
of the liberal Melanchthon Synod. As late as 1864 he continued to defend
the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles in the
Augsburg Confession, and declared that the pledge referred to the
fundamental articles only, specifically excluding Article XI of the
Augsburg Confession from this pledge. In the _Lutheran and Missionary_,
April 7, 1864, Krauth declared: "Let the old formula stand, and let it
be defined." As late as 1868, three years after his public retraction of
former errors, and later, Krauth held that, exceptionally, non-Lutherans
might be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars. Dr. Singmaster writes:
"That the Definite Platform caused the secession of the Ministerium [of
Pennsylvania] some years later seems quite improbable, for the chief
promoter of the General Council, the Rev. C.P. Krauth, Jr., was at this
time an ardent defender of the General Synod. He made apologies for his
old teacher [S.S. Schmucker], and probably prevented his impeachment by
the Seminary Board when it was urged by the Rev. J.A. Brown." (_Dist.
Doctr_., 1914, 53.) In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, July 13, 1865,
Krauth published that remarkable declaration in which he, defining his
position as to fundamentals, retracted, as he put it, his former
"crudities and inconsistencies" on this point. Among his statements are
the following: "We do not feel ashamed to confess that time and
experience have modified our earlier views, or led us to abandon them,
if we have so modified or so forsaken them." "In Church and State the
last years have wrought changes, deep and thorough, in every thinking
man, and on no point more than this, that compromise of principle,
however specious, is immoral, and that, however guarded it may be, it is
perilous; and that there is no guarantee of peace in words where men do
not agree in things." "To true unity of the Church is necessary an
agreement in fundamentals, and a vital part of the necessity is an
agreement as to what are fundamentals. The doctrinal articles of the
Augsburg Confession are all articles of faith, and all articles of faith
are fundamental. Our Church can never have a genuine internal harmony,
except in the confession, without reservation or ambiguity of these
articles, one and all. This is our deep conviction, and we hereby
retract, before God and His Church, formally, as we have already
earnestly and repeatedly done indirectly, everything we have written or
said in conflict with this our present conviction. This we are not
ashamed to do. We thank God, who has led us to see the truth, and we
thank Him for freeing us from the temptation of embarrassing ourselves
with the pretense of a present absolute consistency with our earlier,
very sincere, yet relatively very immature views." (Spaeth, 2, 114 f.)
Walther, who had rounded out almost a quarter century of faithful
Lutheran work when Krauth was still a champion of the original basis of
the General Synod, gloried in this frank and manly retraction of Krauth
as "an imperishable monument of the sincerity of his convictions."
110. Endorsing Walther's Views on Christian Union.--In opposition to the
unionistic tendencies of the Lutheran synods in the United States,
especially those affiliated with the General Synod, Walther had
maintained that church union dare not be advocated and effected at the
expense of any doctrine clearly revealed in the Scripture. It was in
complete agreement with this view that Krauth, in his address before the
Pittsburgh Synod, October 1866, declared: "With her eternal principles,
what shall be the future of our beloved Zion in this land? Shall it be
conflict, division, weakness, or shall it be peace, unity, zeal,
unfolding all her energies? It is unity. Every difficulty in her way,
every barrier to her progress, proceeds from the lack of unity. But what
is the unity of the Church? That question was answered three centuries
ago by the Reformers, and fifteen centuries before that in the New
Testament. True unity is oneness in faith, as taught in the Gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. We are one with the Church of the apostles
because we hold its faith; one with the Church of the Reformers, alone
because we hold its faith. Outward human forms are nothing;
ecclesiastical government, so far as it is of man, is nothing; all
things are nothing, if there be not this oneness of faith. With it
begins, in its life continues, in its death ends, all true unity. There
can be, there is, no true unity but in the faith.... The one token of
this unity, that by which this internal thing is made visible, is one
expression of faith, one 'form of sound words,' used in simple
earnestness, and meaning the same to all who employ it.... You may agree
to differ; but when men become earnest, difference in faith will lead
first to fervent pleadings for the truth, and, if these be hopelessly
unheeded, will lead to separation. All kinds of beliefs and unbeliefs
may exist under the plea of toleration; but when the greatest love is
thus professed, there is the least. Love resulting from faith is God's
best gift. Love that grows out of opposition or indifference to faith,
God abhors. There can be no true love where there is not also true
hatred,--no love to truth without abhorrence of error.... In Christ we
can alone find unity. Only when we meet in this center of all true unity
will we have peace. And we can be in Christ only in a faith which
accepts His every word in His own divine meaning, and shrinks with honor
from the thought that, in the prostituted name of peace and love, we
shall put upon one level the pure and heavenly sense of His Word and the
artful corruption of that sense by the tradition of Rome or the vanity
of carnal reason." (Spaeth, 2, 162 f.) With respect to the Missouri
Synod Krauth wrote, April 7, 1876: "I have been saddened beyond
expression by the bitterness displayed towards the Missourians. So far
as they have helped us to see the great principles involved in this
disputation [concerning the Four Points], they have been our
benefactors, and although I know they have misunderstood some of us,
that was perhaps inevitable. They are men of God, and their work has
been of inestimable value." (2, 236.)
111. Krauth on Predestination.--In a letter dated February 13, 1880, Dr.
Krauth said: "I have not read Dr. Walther's exposition of the doctrine
of election, but I purpose, as soon as I can command leisure, to write
something whose object shall be to show that the New Testament doctrine,
confessed by our Church, in regard to election, as fully as the most
extreme Calvinism, gives all the glory to God and ascribes to Him the
total merit of our salvation, both as secured and applied, and yet
clearly and properly makes man responsible for his own destruction....
Luther is constantly claimed by the Calvinists, and I have known
intelligent Calvinists who are entirely satisfied with the Formula of
Concord on the 'Five Points.' Yet, the claim and the satisfaction are
both groundless. The truth in the Formula so strictly follows the line
of Scripture thinking that it is hard to get a spear's point under the
scales of its armor. My own conviction about Luther is, that he was
never a Calvinist on the 'Five Points,' but Augustinian, with some
aspects of coincidence and _many_ of divergence, even where he was
nearest Calvinism." In an article found among his papers after his
death, Krauth says: "Why do men in completely parallel relations to this
election move in opposite directions? The one believes, the other
disbelieves. Is the election of God in any sense the cause of the
difference? The answer of the Calvinist is: Yes. The answer of the
Lutheran is: No. The election of God is indeed the cause of the faith of
the one, but it is neither positively nor negatively, neither by act nor
by failure to act, the cause of the unbelief of the other. Hence it is
not the cause of the difference. I choose (or elect) to offer bread to
two beggars. The election of bread for his food and the election to
offer it to him are the proper cause of the reception of the bread on
the part of the one, but they are not the cause of the rejection on the
part of the other. The first concurs in my election, but his concurrence
is the effect, not the cause, of my election. The second refuses, but
his refusal is not the effect of my election, but an effect in spite of
it. As between me and the men the decision must be, that the acceptance
of one is no more than the refusal of the other, the cause of my
election. But between the one and the other the difference is made by
the willingness to receive, wrought by me through the offer, and the
unwillingness to receive, wrought by the man himself in spite of the
offer. Faith is not the cause of our general election. That must be
admitted by all. But neither can it be the cause of our particular
election, for the particular is only possible, and indeed only
thinkable, as the result of the general. But it is the cause of the
difference between the man who receives the benefits of this election,
and the man who refuses them. This faith is foreseen indeed, but it does
not become by that the cause of the election--it is foreseen as an
effect of the election and therefore cannot be considered as the cause;
it is a finality in the work of God in the restoration of fellowship. It
is, as a condition, part of the election, and cannot therefore be the
cause of the whole." (2, 327 ff.) Evidently, then, Krauth was not ready
to solve the mystery of election by assuming that, in the last analysis,
a difference in their respective guilt is the final cause why some are
saved while others are lost.
OTHER REPRESENTATIVE THEOLOGIANS.
112. Dr. Wm. Julius Mann (1819--1892) was born at Stuttgart,
Wuerttemberg; graduated at Tuebingen, 1841; active as teacher till 1844;
came to America in 1845, influenced by his intimate friend Ph. Schaff at
Mercersburg, who had left Germany in 1844; 1846 assistant pastor of a
German Reformed congregation in Philadelphia; 1850 assistant to Dr.
Demme, pastor of Zion Ev. Luth. Congregation, Philadelphia, to which H.M.
Muhlenberg had been called in 1742; in 1851 he was received into the
Ministerium of Pennsylvania; served as president of this body from 1860
to 1862 and 1880; from 1864 to 1892 he was professor in Philadelphia
Seminary. From 1848 to 1859 Dr. Mann cooperated in editing the _Deutsche
Kirchenzeitung_, established by Schaff as "an organ for the common
interests of the American German [Reformed and Lutheran] churches." The
_Kirchenzeitung_, of which Mann in 1854 became editor-in-chief, was a
paper for theologians, not for laymen. It bore the motto: "In
necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." Its object
was "to prepare the way for the Lord, and add a few stones to the dome
of the Church of the future." It served the Lutheran and Reformed
churches by antagonizing revivalism. From 1863 to 1866 Dr. Mann was
editorially responsible for _Evangelische Zeugnisse_, a German homiletic
monthly, also established by his friend Ph. Schaff. In 1856 Mann opposed
the Definite Platform in his _Plea for the Augsburg Confession_, and
1857 in his _Lutheranism in America_. In 1864 he translated the _New
Testament Commentary_ of the American Tract Society into German for this
society. In 1886 he edited _Hallesche Nachrichten_ (Vol. I); 1887 he
published the _Life and Times of H.M. Muhlenberg_; 1891 the same in
German. Apart from quite a number of other books, Dr. Mann wrote
articles for various German and English periodicals. "I always prepare
myself closely," said Mann in a letter of February 14, 1866, "for the
recitations in the seminary, write every week for the _Lutheran_, more
for the _Lutherische Zeitschrift_ of Brobst, continue the translation
of the Tract Society's Commentary on the New Testament, keep up some
correspondence, and at the same time perform my various and burdensome
duties as a pastor and, find yet a little, a very little, time for light
reading." Mann, for many years a bosom friend of the arch-unionist Ph.
Schaff, whom he admired as "the presiding genius of international
theology," gradually became a conservative confessional Lutheran
theologian, opposed also to the unionism as practised by the General
Synod. On April 7, 1892, Schaff wrote to his friend: "What right had the
sixteenth and seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all
theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and to the Bible as the
framers of the confessions of faith." Dr. Mann answered: "In the air in
which this letter breathes I cannot live.... What right had the framers
of the American Constitution to lay down a basis for the administrative
side of the life of this nation?" As to the General Synod, Dr. Mann's
love for it gradually turned into aversion, because of its utterly
un-Lutheran features. He charged the General Synod with living "in a
concubinage with the Presbyterians and Methodists." In 1853 he wrote: "I
have rejoiced over the union of our Pennsylvania Synod with the General
Synod, and now I rejoice still more." (173.) Mann still failed to see
that no one can truly love the Lutheran Church who despises, ignores,
and denies her doctrines and usages. In 1855 he said of Missouri: "They
have no patience with their weaker sister," meaning the General Synod.
(176.) But in the immediately following years Mann himself began to
attack the Definite Platform and its American Lutheranism. With respect
to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America,
however, Dr. Mann never occupied a clear, firm, and determined Lutheran
position. He revealed no interest in the discussions on the Four Points.
Of the Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological
scratchbrushes (_Kratzbuersten_) of the West do an important work. They
discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only
Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying
life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical
Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain
as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and
milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where
the Germans generally are becoming a power, the longer the more. They
will obtain an ever stronger elementary influence. The German [?] blood
will make its influence felt for a long time." (Spaeth, _W.J. Mann_.)
113. Passavant, Schmucker, Seiss, etc.--Other names well known beyond
the General Council are Drs. Passavant, B.M. Schmucker, Krotel, Seiss,
Spaeth, Weidner, etc. _Dr. W.A. Passavant_ (1821--1894) was born of
Huguenot ancestry at Zelienople, Pa.; graduated in Gettysburg Seminary;
was pastor in Baltimore till 1844 and in Pittsburgh till 1855; published
the _Missionary_ in 1845, which in 1861 was merged with _The Lutheran_,
Passavant remaining coeditor. He established _The Workman_ in 1880,
which he edited in a conservative, confessional spirit, while in the
_Missionary_ he had been a fiery advocate of New-measurism. Cooperating
with Pastor Fliedner of Kaiserswerth, Passavant introduced the first
deaconesses in America; founded hospitals, orphanages, and academies;
presented, in 1868, the ground for the Theological Seminary at Chicago;
organized the home missionary work of the Pittsburgh Synod (whose
founder he was) and of the General Council. Passavant was preeminently a
missionary and philanthropist--the "American Fliedner." Dr. G.W. Sandt,
in _Lutheran Church Review_ 1918: "Passavant was educated in a
Presbyterian college, where revivals were a fixed part of the
curriculum. He prepared for the ministry in a Lutheran seminary at a
time when Lutherans were more 'anxious' about the 'bench' than they were
about the faith. It is not to be wondered at that his early ministry
reflected the fitful and unstable emotionalism of the 'Anxious Bench'
religionism, which he later outgrew and disowned." (442.)--_Dr. Beale
Melanchthon Schmucker_ (1827--1888), though a son of S.S. Schmucker, did
not agree with the Definite Platform. He was secretary of the English
Church Book Committee, a member of the German Kirchenbuch and
Sonntagsschulbuch Committee, and of the Joint Committee on Common
Service. He was regarded as the greatest liturgical scholar of the
Lutheran Church in America and admired as a parliamentarian. He was a
passionate lover of the Reformation and its literature. The _Church
Book_ of the General Council has been said to be "his lasting monument."
Through it he laid the foundation also for the Common Service. "Next to
Dr. C.P. Krauth," said the _Kirchenblatt_ of the Iowa Synod (1918),
"there is no man to whom the General Council owes so much as to Dr. B.M.
Schmucker." B.M. Schmucker published articles on liturgical,
hymnological, biographical, and other themes, and wrote the preface to
the Common Service, first published by the United Synod of the South,
1888.--_Dr. G.F. Krotel_ (1826--1907) studied theology under Dr. Demme;
was renowned as pulpit orator; succeeded Krauth in the editorship of
the _Lutheran_; repeatedly served the Pennsylvania Synod and the General
Council as president.--_Dr. J.A. Seiss_ was pastor in Philadelphia from
1858 till his death in 1904; he also served as president of the
Pennsylvania Synod and the General Council. Seiss was one of the most
prolific Lutheran authors in America. "There was a strength, a
stateliness, a dignity, and an artistic finish to all his greatest
pulpit efforts that compelled a hearing." (_Luth. Church Review_ 1918,
90.) His style is oratorical rather than churchly. His _Lectures on the
Gospels and Epistles_ are the fruit of many years of careful sermonizing
and study. In his lectures on the _Last Times_, 1856, and on the _The
Apocalypse_, 1866, Seiss championed the cause of a chiliasm which the
General Council refused to reject.--_Dr. Adolph Spaeth_ (1839--1910)
graduated at Tuebingen; active in Wuerttemberg, Italy, France, and
Scotland till he accepted a call as Dr. Mann's assistant in Philadelphia
in 1864; served as professor at the Seminary from 1867 till his death;
was president of the General Council from 1880 to 1888, and of the
Pennsylvania Synod from 1892 to 1895. He wrote the biographies of W.J.
Mann, 1895, and of C.P. Krauth, Vol. I, 1898; Vol. II, 1909.--_Dr. R.F.
Weidner_ (1851--1915), president of the Seminary of the General Council
at Chicago since its opening in 1891, reproduced in the English language
a number of modern German theological works.
CONSTITUTION.
114. Fundamental Articles of Faith.--At the preliminary meeting at
Reading, 1866, "Fundamental Principles," embracing nine Articles of
Faith and Church Polity and eleven Articles of Ecclesiastical Power and
Church Government, were adopted as a necessary condition of the
contemplated union. The first Article of Faith states that, "to the true
unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching
the doctrine of the Gospel," etc. The second declares: "The true unity
of a particular church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one
and the same church, and by which any church abides in real identity,
and is entitled to a continuation of her name, is unity in doctrine and
faith and in the Sacraments, to wit, that she continues to teach and to
set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use,
the articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and
administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a
distinctive name." The third article distinguishes general and
particular symbols. The fourth emphasizes that these confessions are a
testimony of unity and a bond of union only when "accepted in their own
true, native, original, and only sense." Those who "subscribe them must
not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those
words in one and the same sense." According to the fifth article the
unity of the Lutheran Church "depends upon her abiding in one and the
same faith." Article six reads: "The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by
preeminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its
doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental
reservation make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone, in the
true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term, is the
Evangelical Lutheran Church." According to the seventh article the only
churches "entitled to the name Evangelical Lutheran are those which
sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered
Augsburg Confession." The next article reads: "We accept and acknowledge
the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense
as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is
the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect
accordance with the canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it
condemns, and believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the
Church of right belongs to that liberty." The ninth article declares
"that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch
as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of
faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural," and that all of them "are,
with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one
and the same Scriptural faith." (Ochsenford, _Documentary History_, 178
f.) According to the By-laws of the Constitution "the first two morning
sessions after the opening of the convention shall be devoted to the
discussion of doctrinal points and important practical questions."
115. Articles on Church Polity.--According to the second of the eleven
articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, the church "has
no power to bind the conscience, except as she truly teaches what her
Lord teaches, and faithfully commands what He has charged her to
command." The third reads: "The absolute directory of the will of Christ
is the Word of God, the canonical Scriptures, interpreted in accordance
with the 'mind of the Spirit,' by which Scriptures the Church is to be
guided in every decision. She may set forth no article of faith which is
not taught by the very letter of God's Word, or derived by just and
necessary inference from it, and her liberty concerns those things only
which are left free by the letter and spirit of God's Word." The fourth
continues: "The primary bodies through which the power is normally
exercised, which Christ commits derivatively and ministerially to His
Church on earth, are the congregations. The congregation, in the normal
state, is neither the pastor without the people, nor the people without
the pastor." This paragraph permits of an interpretation that opens a
loophole for Romanism. According to the sixth article "a free,
Scriptural General Council, or Synod, chosen by the Church, is, within
the metes and bounds fixed by the Church which chooses it,
representatively that Church itself; and in this case is applicable the
language of the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles: 'The judgments of
synods are the judgments of the Church.'" This seems to imply that the
judgments of synods are as such correct and binding. The tenth article
reads: "In the formation of a General Body the synods may know, and deal
with, each other only as synods. In such case the official record is to
be accepted as evidence of the doctrinal position of each synod, and of
the principles for which alone the other synods become responsible by
connection with it." This paragraph, which was embodied also in the
constitution of the United Lutheran Church, opened the door to
indifferentism inasmuch as it made the General Council responsible, not
for the actual conditions within, but only for the official attitude and
deliverances of its district synods.
116. A Legislative Body.--The seventh article of "Ecclesiastical Power
and Church Government" reads: "The congregations representatively
constituting the various district synods may elect delegates through
these synods to represent themselves in a more general body, all
decisions of which, when made in conformity with the solemn compact of
the constitution, _bind_ so far as the terms of mutual agreement make
them binding on those congregations which consent, and continue to
consent, to be represented in that General Body." According to the ninth
article, "the obligation under which congregations consent to place
themselves, to conform to the decisions of synods, does not rest on any
assumption that synods are infallible, but on the supposition that the
decisions have been so guarded by wise constitutional provisions as to
create a higher moral probability of their being true and rightful than
the decisions in conflict with them, which may be made by single
congregations or individuals." In keeping herewith Article I, Section 4
of the General Council's constitution provides: "No liturgy or hymn-book
should be used in public worship except by its [the General Council's]
advice or consent, which consent shall be presumed in regard to all such
books now used, until the General Council shall have formally acted upon
them." That the General Council was not a mere advisory, but a
legislative body, was brought out in the Lima Church Case in which the
judge decided that, according to the constitution and the expert
testimony of members of the General Council, Synod had jurisdiction over
its pastors and congregations, and that hence he could not adjudge the
property to that part of the congregation which had refused to submit to
Synod. Dr. Seiss testified (April 6, 1876) that, according to the
constitution of the General Council, congregations are obliged and bound
to respect and obey all constitutional resolutions of Synod. In its
issue of September 26, 1901, the _Lutheran_ maintained that Christian
liberty did not prohibit the Church from making prescriptions to
individual congregations in the adiaphora; that pastors and
congregations, by joining the Pennsylvania Ministerium, yielded the
right to decide and act for themselves, and agreed to submit to the
regulations of Synod in the points enumerated; that it was not an
infringement of the rights of a congregation to make this a condition of
synodical membership. (_L. u. W._ 1901, 305.) In 1915 the Augustana
Synod adopted a resolution recommending a change in the constitution of
the General Council in order to make the body "both in principle and
practise a deliberative and advisory body only."
117. Conforming to Decisions a Moral Obligation.--In 1866 Dr. Krauth,
defending the polity of the General Council, wrote in the _Lutheran and
Missionary_: "We entirely agree with our friend in the _Lutheraner_ that
the strength of the Church does not depend upon a '_strong government,_'
but on the unity of faith, doctrine, and confession. But 'strong' and
'weak' are relative terms. We want a _real_ government; something which
shall hold in a genuine outward bond, however mild, the true confessors
of our Church's faith, and enable them to work in harmony, and if we
understand the principles which control the government of the Synod of
Missouri, we are sure that we desire nothing stronger nor better in the
government of our whole Church in this country than these principles
would give us. We only ask a church government which shall bind us by
the gentle laws of love and peace, which shall take offenses out of the
way, which shall be an aid in causing all things to be done decently and
in order in the Church--which shall be a safeguard to conscience, and
shall not lay, nor attempt to lay, burdens on it. The decisions of a
synod which shall be such a government representatively will indeed be
merely human, as the decisions of all earthly governments are merely
human--nay, often manifestly wrong; nevertheless, we hold that the
generic governmental principles and the right of representation are as
really of God in the Church as in the State. The obligation to conform
to the decisions of such a [representative] synod is the obligation of
peace, love, and order; and where violation of them (except on the
ground of conscience) creates scandal and offense, there is a moral
obligation to conform to them." (Spaeth, 2, 172 f.) However, the
constitution of the General Council does not contain the limitation:
"where violation creates scandal and offense"; and Missouri holds that a
congregation may ignore a resolution of synod, not only on the ground of
conscience, but also whenever it finds a resolution unsuitable for her
conditions.
SUBTILE UNIONISM.
118. Missouri's Attitude toward the General Council.--Originally Dr.
Walther and Dr. Sihler were optimistic with respect to the movements
which resulted in the organization of the new general body. Walther
wrote: "Scarcely any event within the bounds of the Lutheran Church of
North America has ever afforded us greater joy than the withdrawal of
the Synod of Pennsylvania from the unionistic so-called General Synod.
This is a step which will undoubtedly lead to consequences of the utmost
importance and of the most salutary character. The plan to give
prominence and supremacy in this land, by means of the 'General Synod,'
to a so-called American Lutheranism which ignores the distinctive
doctrines of the Lutheran Church, and to compel the truly Lutheran
synods to occupy a separatistic, isolated, and powerless position, is
completely frustrated by this step." (Spaeth, 2, 162.) But the hopes of
Walther and his friends were doomed to disappointment, at least in part.
In spite of its irreproachable confessional basis the General Council
was imbued with a spirit of indifferentism and unionism, though of a
finer grade and quality than that prevailing in the General Synod. In
accordance with its principle that fraternal cooperation and union of
necessity presupposes unity in doctrine and practise, Missouri, instead
of participating in the hasty organization of the General Council,
insisted on Free Conferences in order first to bring about real
doctrinal agreement, the prerequisite of every God-pleasing external
union. In Reading, 1866, however, this request was disregarded, union
being the paramount, true and real unity a secondary consideration. Nor
was there a change effected in this attitude by the subsequent
correspondence between the General Council and the Missouri Synod. At
Reading the delegates passed the resolution: "That the synods
represented in this convention which prefer a Free Conference to an
immediate organization be and hereby are invited to send representatives
to the next meeting, with the understanding that they have in it all the
privileges of debate and a fraternal comparison of views." To this
Missouri responded at its convention in Chicago, in May, 1867: "In view
of the relations we sustain toward different members of the Church
Council, in reference to doctrine and churchly practise, we must be
apprehensive that the consideration and discussion of differences still
existing in the convention of the Church Council might give rise to the
reflection that we intended to interrupt the bringing about of a unity,
and are therefore fearful lest our participation, instead of leading to
an agreement, might be productive of greater alienation. Even at the
risk of appearing capricious in the eyes of the Reverend Body, and less
diligent in our efforts for churchly unity, we beg leave to declare it
again as our conviction that Free Conferences, such as are separated
from officially organized conventions of ecclesiastical bodies, on the
basis of the symbols of our Church, as contained in the Book of Concord
of 1580, are the only proper means for an exchange of such convictions
as are still divergent, and which, by the grace of God, may lead to a
unity on the basis of our beloved Confession." At Fort Wayne, in
November, 1867, the General Council renewed the resolution "that we
sincerely respect the honest preferences of our brethren [Missouri] in
regard to the best means of uniting our Church, and that we are willing
to set apart a time, during the future sessions of this body, when it
will meet them simply as a Free Conference." And, no answer having been
received, the Council, at Pittsburgh, 1868, instructed its secretaries
to bring the Fort Wayne action again to the attention of the Missouri
Synod. In the following year Missouri answered that it was not its
desire to deal with the General Council as such and during the sessions
of the same; that by such a side-dealing justice could not be done the
matter; that they desired and regarded Free Conferences as the proper
means to reach the end contemplated. (Ochsenford, _Doc. History_, 152
ff.) Thus, from the very beginning, Missouri, in the interest of real
unity as a prerequisite of union, urged free conferences and doctrinal
discussions, while the General Council offered discussions "in regard to
the best means of uniting our Church," at the same time insisting on a
mode which involved a recognition of the unionistic procedure adopted in
organizing the General Council. Considering the facts that some of the
synods, uniting in 1866 and 1867 with the General Council, had several
months before belonged to the General Synod; that ostensibly they had
severed their connection on technical grounds; that all along they had
been committed, more or less, not only to a false confessional basis,
but also to Reformed doctrines and un-Lutheran practise, etc., the
Missouri Synod, without sacrificing its anti-unionistic principles,
could hardly have taken a different course of action than it did.
Moreover, the subsequent history of the General Council, down to the
Merger in 1918, has proved conclusively that Missouri's original
evaluation of the General Council's confessionalism was certainly not
very far from the mark. It was, then, the persistent refusal, on the
part of the General Council, of free conferences, such as Missouri could
have attended without an _a priori_ violation of her convictions, that
brought about and prolonged the deadlock obtaining between the two
bodies. As late as 1904, at the time of the Inter-synodical Conferences,
Dr. Jacobs declared that he would not meet Missouri in a free conference
without a preceding joint service of prayer; and to this the _Lutheran_
assented. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 224. 370.)
119. The Primary Difference.--In 1885 Dr. Spaeth wrote: "In no other
Lutheran body of the Old or New World has the question on the great
principles of true church unity received such attention and been treated
in such a thorough and comprehensive manner as within the General
Council." There is certainly a good deal of truth in this assertion. For
the General Council did make repeated efforts at grasping and applying
the principles of true church unity. But it lacked consistency, and in
formulating the rules and theories, their theologians were influenced by
conditions inherited from the General Synod. They lacked the courage or
ability of completely breaking with their unionistic past. This was
essentially the charge of Missouri against the General Council--the
correctness of which was vindicated also by the action taken by the
representatives of the synods of Ohio and Iowa at the first convention
of the General Council, 1867, at Fort Wayne. While Walther and the
Missouri Synod demanded a real, material unity, unity as to the actual
content, that is to say, the individual doctrines of the Lutheran
symbols, the General Council was satisfied with a mere correct formal
acknowledgment of the Confessions. It was the difference between the
form and substance of unity. In the _Lutheran_ of August 22, 1907, Dr.
Krotel declared with respect to the doctrinal attitude of the Council:
It "firmly refuses to occupy the unionistic position of doctrinal
vacillation and tolerance. Contrary to the theological temper of the
age, it maintains that there are articles of faith so definite and
fixed and clear as to demand unqualified endorsement and defense."
(_Doc. Hist_., 138.) But Dr. Krotel's assertions are not supported by
the facts. Judged by the real conditions, the General Council has
always been a unionistic body.
THE FOUR POINTS.