# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 04 27_S139
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

139

Were the Synod truly an Evang. Lutheran one, it could also not possibly make common cause with the unlutheran, yea anti-Lutheran General Synod, e.g. in the publication of the liturgy and church agenda (p. 29 ff.).

Finally, the Synod has assembled in Reformed and Presbyterian churches with those people for common services (p. 3.), whose confession it must nevertheless reject as false, if it truly holds its own Lutheran confession to be right. Yea, it has entangled itself most especially in a manifold contradiction, in that it has also attended the service in a Methodist church (ibidem); for the chosen text, Psalm 93, 5: "Thy Word is the right doctrine," allowed one, if it was rightly explained and applied, to expect nothing else than a refutation of all false doctrine, including the Methodist, and a commendation of the right doctrine, namely the Lutheran.

I must further mention here that the Synod has passed the resolution to enter also into a more intimate relation with the Unity Brethren (Moravian Church, or Herrnhuters) (p. 14 and 17.). Had, then, not a single one of the 51 preachers present the slightest knowledge of the mass of the leaven of false doctrine with which the writings of this sect are filled, of the mendacity of their pretense of being genuine successors of the old Moravian Brethren and faithful adherents of the Augsb. Confession, of their rage for reviling the Lutheran Church and its upright teachers, of their zeal for conversion, or rather seduction, through which they brought many Lutheran Christians over to their side! Are all the Pennsylvania preachers, then, so utterly unacquainted with the church history of their own state that they know not the least of how the venerable Mühlenberg, that righteous soul, was by the unrighteous works of Count Zinzendorf, the founder of this sect, and of his adherents, ever and again tormented, and thereby the work of the Lord in many congregations was made so very hard, and how he in this work of the Lord could and would make as little common cause with the Herrnhuters as Zerubbabel once did with the Samaritans, who did not permit them to take part in the building of the temple. But as these then became his and the people's worst enemies, which is described Ezra 4. 1. ff., so also the Herrnhuters showed themselves hostile toward Mühlenberg; yea, even the kinship of names between the two is remarkable, for Samaria means in German Herrnhuth. Has perhaps the essay in the deutscher Kirchenfreund with the boastful title "Zinzendorf the First Lutheran Preacher in America" so confused the leaders of the Synod that they let that name of honor be robbed from their venerable father Mühlenberg without any contradiction; and is it not in every respect a lamentable testimony which a whole Synod that would be Lutheran bears against the voice of all Lutheran teachers, and particularly against its own predecessors in office, as also against itself, when it without any scruple, at haphazard, repeats after its President "the Herrnhuters have the very same confession of faith with us" and accordingly resolves to enter into a more intimate relation with them?

That the Synod is not really what it pretends to be, namely Lutheran, one sees also from its procedure with regard to the call to the holy Ministry. Were this important doctrine, as it is so briefly and concisely set forth in the 14th Article of the Augsb. Confession, better understood by the preachers and brought better to the consciousness of the congregations, the wretched hiring by the year, something quite unbiblical and therefore unchristian, would more and more be abolished. One must be astonished when one reads through the list of the changes of pastoral charges, page 6 and following, and finds there how those who call themselves Evangelical Lutheran change their places so quite unevangelically and unlutheranly, as one changes clothes. There the one takes "for the present only out of compassion" a congregation of another faith, another wishes to serve another congregation "for a year." Ten preachers have "given up, resigned or left" their places, and only in the case of a single one is a reason given, namely want of support. If a preacher no longer likes it in a congregation, if he can "do better" elsewhere, off he goes without more ado, like a guest from the tavern when he has drunk his glass of beer; and if the preacher does not please a congregation, "it does not like him any more," it gives him notice, like a farmer his hired man. Now if that is to be Evangelical Lutheran, then God preserve every preacher and every congregation from such Lutheranism.

The same holds of the so-called licensing of candidates, which dates from a time in which one allowed oneself ever more licenses (liberties) in deviation from the right doctrine and the tried church usages; he who is once lawfully called and ordained is then no longer a candidate, i.e. no longer one who is first awaiting a call, but one who has actually received it and accordingly is a regular pastor. Does not that procedure, of committing to candidates all the official functions of a pastor without regarding them nevertheless as actual pastors, stand in manifest contradiction to the text of the ordination address, Acts 2, 42: "They continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine" (p. 43.), since there is not a trace of it to be found either in the whole doctrine of the apostles or in the church's practice? —

The President's proposal that the Ministerium should draw up a genuinely Christian Evangelical Lutheran church order deserves, as very timely, earnest consideration not only on the part of this, but also of all other synods, which, however, it has not found with this Synod. It is striking that the Synod has not even taken up for deliberation so important a subject, while it nevertheless gave its attention to far more trifling things. This phenomenon is explicable, however, when one considers the countless difficulties connected with the drawing up and introduction of such a church order, before which a secret dread has probably come over the members of the Ministerium, on account of which they preferred to pretend as though they had heard nothing of such a proposal or had forgotten it again; perhaps many do not even know what all belongs in such a church order, e.g. the chapters on doctrine, on the ministry, on church discipline, on the appointment of church offices, on schools and church visitations. To draw up such a church order, which should be "genuinely Christian Evangelical Lutheran" and yet at the same time should "conform to the spirit of our Church in this country," which unfortunately is now so genuinely unevangelical and unlutheran: that is a true masterpiece.

What we may expect in the present circumstances for a church order, if indeed one is still to come into being, is shown by the new liturgy or church agenda of the year 1842. Three committees of nine Lutheran preachers labored on it four whole years, three synods unanimously resolved its printing, and already now one must think again of preparing a new and, what one does not like to have known aloud, improved edition, because one is gradually beginning to be ashamed of this botched work. The committee charged with the improvement of this agenda has still not finished in the course of a whole year, and it is easily possible that the order now renewed (p. 29 ff.) will not yet be fully carried out even after another lapse of a year. But should this also happen, experience will teach that it is only patching new pieces upon an old garment, whereby the rent only becomes ever worse. But what is one to say to this, that the committee is instructed "to act with a similar one of the General Synod?" Does that not mean setting the goat to be gardener?

The chief difficulty in this undertaking lies probably in this, that one does not properly know oneself what one wants, whether one will be 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, or still less Lutheran. So much, however, is probably settled with most, that one does not wish to be wholly Lutheran.

It is similar with the new edition of the small Lutheran Catechism, which likewise has been resolved upon by the Synod (p. 31). Accordingly the catechism that was in use in the oldest congregations is to be reprinted, whereupon, however, the question again arises whether the same is truly a word-for-word reprint of the original catechism. However, the condition has been laid down in this connection