# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 24_S70
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

70

To this it must be added that, as it appears, Herr Wier did this wicked leaving entirely on his own responsibility, did not report his affair to the President, perhaps sought counsel, and the like — whereby he also displays no small contempt for the Synod and proves in how loose a connection he had hitherto stood with it, and in fact already hereby severs himself from it in deed.

Moreover, there is also in this sufficient light upon the unchurchly standpoint of Herr Wier, that he in deed and altogether contrary to the Confession separates himself from the Lutheran Church by entering the service of the Protestant Society.

For so much is surely known to the Indianapolis Synod, that this Society either has a unionistic, hence anti-Lutheran disposition and tendency, or at bottom is, under the signboard of Protestantism, even the wet-nurse and nurturer of the "freie deutsche Katholik," and helps to spread that godless, unbelieving sect of the Rongians, contrary to Scripture, who overthrow every ground of salvation and are shameful murderers of souls and children of the devil.

Herr Wier, then, is agent of the "freie deutsche Katholik," a paper which, even in its most tolerable essays, must be un-Lutheran, since even here it wants to be "free" of Roman superstition without the Lutheran faith in Scripture, and "German-Catholic," that is, not "Roman" papistic, without, however, bowing to Christ's voice alone, that is, to God's Word as it reads, as the Lutheran Church alone exclusively does.

There is truly nothing more anti-Lutheran, impotent, and nauseating than that sham-fighting challenging and attacking of the Roman Church, since these braggarts have for the most part no other weapons than the leaden sword of common human understanding and the blindly loaded musket of carnal reason; for with such blows and shots, though they may falsely call in God's Word besides, they do the papacy about as much harm as boys do a fortress wall at which they throw balls of tow, or as foolish hunters a crocodile which they shoot at with peas.

True Lutherans ought therefore in all earnestness to protest against these pseudo-Protestants and to avoid to the utmost the evil appearance of perhaps fighting together with them against the Papists. This noble brotherhood in arms they gladly leave to the pseudo-Lutherans of the so-called General Synod, who, while they play the harlot with all the sects, yet hold themselves for true-born sons of Luther, because with those same weapons of common sense and of civil democracy, these carnal weapons of their un-Lutheran chivalry, they assail the satanic bulwarks of the papacy and merely raise a laugh for the devil. No! the papacy, this monster of the deep, has already by the testimony of Luther and of the Lutheran Church its harpoon in its body, on which it will in its time bleed to death entirely, and this harpoon is nothing else than the Word of God in Holy Scripture, rightly applied against the particular lies and errors of the papacy.

Had now Pastor Wier some Lutheran understanding, yes, even only churchly sense of honor, he would hardly have put himself in any connection with that so-called Protestant Society and that unchurchly periodical; but, if he had perhaps outward occasion and inward call to contend against the papacy, he would have conducted such a contest only from the standpoint of the Lutheran Church. But that he does the contrary, and lets himself be salaried by that un-Lutheran Society for un-Lutheran purposes, namely, by circulating that paper to help set up so-called "free German-Catholic congregations," which on the average consist only of Germans of demagogic bent, unbelieving, anti-churchly enemies of the Bible, a rabble run together out of all sorts of church communions, and which have about as much resemblance with Confession-faithful Lutheran congregations as ravens with doves: — this proves sufficiently that he either never had the standpoint of the Lutheran Church from the heart, which is probably the most likely, or has grossly and shamefully fallen away from it.

Nevertheless, for the eyes of the Indianapolis Synod, "the actual true standpoint" of Herr Wier is still surrounded by a mysterious obscurity, which only closer inquiries of the President are to dispel. Would it not, however, rather have been his duty long since, as soon as he received report of the deed of Herr Wier, contrary to the Confession and, if not consciously faithless, yet most loose and frivolous, to send to him a serious, loving, fatherly and brotherly chastening letter and therein to set before him the great wrong of his doing, to point out his practical denial of the Lutheran Confession and his actual withdrawal from their Synod, and to admonish him to return at once repentantly? If he would not do this, then he must naturally also expect that he could no longer remain a member of their synodical body, but that all upright Lutherans of this country would take just offense at him and hold him for a blot upon their Church, etc.

In this and a similar way, at least, one would have acted conscientiously and Christianly toward the poor blinded man, in order, if God would, to awaken his conscience wholesomely and to bring him back from his error. But that such brotherly rebuke and admonition did not befall Herr Wier seems pretty well certain from the report of the President and the extract from the further proceedings concerning this sad matter, since neither of such a reproof, nor of any answer of Herr Wier to it, is mention made anywhere, whereas such an answer would surely have spread sufficient light upon the "actual standpoint" of the admonished.

Instead of this, it now has the appearance that the poor man — and the Synod seems to take this for love — is left perhaps another year longer to his folly and frivolity; for the harm does not seem to it so bad, "since he is just about to found a congregation upon the Confession of the Lutheran Church and uses the Lutheran Catechism."

This news, namely, seems to offer the Synod no small reassurance, whereas it is, in deed and truth, very disquieting; for since "free German-Catholic" and Lutheran congregations are once for all essentially different, yes, opposed, Herr Wier is in any case in his just-mentioned undertaking feigning either the one or the other, halts upon both sides, and can hardly expect therein the good pleasure and blessing of God. For granted even that it were not against the intention of the Protestant Society that its missionaries and the agents of the "freie deutsche Katholik" gather Lutheran congregations on the ground of the churchly Confession, yet the Lutheran Church will not and cannot have servants who, under denial of her name, or yet as servants of a un- yes anti-Lutheran society, want to promote the Lutheran Church. —

In conclusion let the sender be permitted to add yet one remark. It is the sincere assurance that the above censure of the proceeding of the Indianapolis Synod toward Herr Wier has flowed precisely from brotherly love; for had this Synod not otherwise made such decided and gratifying progress in churchly disposition and tendency, and especially in the practice and carrying out of the Confession; — were it on the contrary, as, alas, other and older so-called Lutheran synods, to continue as before, behind the signboard of the churchly Confession, in its churchly practice, from fear of men and care for the belly, the favored and customary mixing of faiths and churches, and also otherwise remain stuck in all sorts of harmful leaven: — then the writer of this would not have taken up his pen to censure that proceeding; for in such rotten and dead synods, in which a dead mechanical routine of business and slovenly habit rule, and in which the congregations become more and more churchly decayed, there that proceeding could indeed not have been otherwise, and there it would be vain labor and waste of time to refer them to anything better than the half and insufficient. But precisely because the Indianapolis Synod, as it gladly appears, strives ever more with us from the same standpoint of the churchly Confession, in the same manner conformable to this Confession, toward the same goal, to build up and carry on the Lutheran, that is, orthodox Church, that is, under God's grace and blessing believing, intelligent, energetic