# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 11 21_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

50
weightier counter-reasons to be untenable, and thereby to confirm the justice of the former judgment and to admonish the guilty party to thorough repentance and, where possible, also to human restitution of his wrong.

Equally, however, Christian love also required that Mr. P. Albach's petition be granted; for since he, precisely through this request for a renewal of the investigation of his case on the spot, came forward anew and did not turn away in hostility, Christian love, which hopes all things, required absolutely that one meet him halfway. Moreover, before that unhappy quarrel, in which he erred hardly with an evil will, but out of unclearness of knowledge, indeed partly out of an erring conscience, Mr. P. Albach was never a quarrelsome wrangler, but a morally thoroughly honorable man of unspotted conduct, and we who stood here with him in years of intercourse have never found him otherwise than a thoroughly upright, faithful, self-denying Christian and servant of the Church; and hardly can his English brethren in office and synod before that sad quarrel bring anything else against him than that to this one and that, who hitherto in a good unionistic fashion served in their congregations, especially in the admission to the Holy Supper and in the distribution of the same, his Confession-faithful Lutheran practice was inconvenient and distasteful.

Finally, the petitioner proves the sincerity of his disposition in the conclusion of his petition, which reads literally thus:

"Finally the undersigned permits himself the remark that he indeed does not wish to give anyone cause for offense, and also will gladly and willingly let himself be rebuked, if he is shown to be more in the wrong than he has acknowledged and confessed before the Synod itself. And if perchance his resignation, announced to the English District Synod, should be a hindrance to an investigation, he would herewith have the same withdrawn, in order to remove such a hindrance out of the way. As to what concerns the English District Synod, the undersigned cannot here also do otherwise than let it stand with the protest sent to it last autumn; that the wording of the said protest might in some respect have been a milder one, he does not wish to deny."

In view of this conclusion I now ask every impartial and discerning reader: how could the Ministerium of the General Synod of Ohio act thus against justice and love together, "to lay the petition of Mr. P. Albach on the table forever," that is, to declare therein that it wished to have nothing more to do with him and his cause? For granted that it were not satisfied, as to the form, with the declaration of his hasty former withdrawal from the English District Synod and his present retraction of this step, or that it required a formal retraction of the expressions in that protest against the proceeding of the District Synod which were possibly offensive, the Ministerium of the General Synod must nevertheless have made this its desire known to him, and then granted the investigation if he had fulfilled it.

What remains, then, for P. Albach but, from such unjust denial of right and from this unchristian repulse, in which he is tacitly designated as a morally incorrigible person, to appeal by a public writing to the judgment of the Lutheran Church, in order at least, in moral respects, to save his honor before the world, but with regard to the disposition and conduct of the Ministerium toward him, to appeal from it to God, who, as the righteous Judge, will in His time also judge this injustice and make manifest the counsel of the heart. — *)

3. Since a judgment of the Synod on secret societies was desired by members of the Synod, the following resolution was passed:

"Resolved, that this Synod holds all societies outside of the Church, and especially the secret ones, as soon as they set before themselves as their aim the purposes which the Christian Church has and must have according to the word of Jesus, to be unchurchly, inasmuch as they not only become wholly unnecessary through the Church, but are also fitted to promote indifference toward the kingdom of Jesus, yes, often complete estrangement from Christianity, as well as unbelief."

Thereupon, however, the Synod, which is supposed to be, and wants to be, an advisory body, leaves the pastors and congregations in need of counsel, upon whose inquiry how to proceed with members of the congregation who are at the same time members of secret societies, as of old without counsel and in suspense; for it gives them only the indefinite counsel "to act according to their own conscientious conviction and in conformity with the Word of God," so that the inquirers are in fact as wise as before; for about that they surely wished to have instruction and teaching from the Synod, in what manner one, according to God's Word, should heed the conscience of one's own members and of those others, and thoroughly instruct the latter, who are at the same time members of secret societies, in order to bring them to the right knowledge of their wrong and where possible to move them to withdraw from these societies, and whether and when church discipline is to be applied against them? To this last part of the inquiry the Synod now gives an apparently more definite answer, which, however, on closer inspection also contains nothing satisfactory; for it says "it is of the opinion that the same procedure is not to be applied in all cases, and that church discipline would then be exercised therein when the above-mentioned consequences show themselves." For surely in all cases the same procedure is to be applied, to instruct the members concerned thoroughly out of and according to God's Word (for which, however, the Synod, from poverty of means and long-lasting infirmity, has remained debtor of the counsel and guidance), that and how the persistent participation and membership in secret societies is wholly incompatible with the Christian faith and with a good conscience toward God and His Church and stands in the sharpest contradiction; and then surely church discipline must be applied where the knowledge of the unscripturalness and reprehensibility of that membership has already been wrought in the understanding and conscience of those instructed, and yet the will persistently does not follow this better knowledge. The Synod, however, gives the indefinite, wide and roomy counsel, "church discipline is to be applied then, when the above-mentioned consequences" (namely "indifference toward the kingdom of Jesus, yes, often complete estrangement from Christianity and unbelief") show themselves." In that case it would often, strangely enough, have to step in even before that thorough instruction and the better knowledge produced by it, since surely, individual cases of ignorance with an otherwise upright heart excepted, the most become, and are, members of secret societies out of "indifference toward the kingdom of Jesus and in unbelief." Verily: whoever should discern from such counsel the right moment for letting church discipline set in, would be wiser than his counsellors.

Finally there followed now this remarkable resolution:

"Resolved, that we, as a synodical body, only then, when the above-mentioned consequences show themselves, feel called upon to the exercise of church discipline, in future, however, will receive no one into our connection who belongs to the above-mentioned societies."

Here one would like to exclaim with the Roman poet: difficile est, satyram non scribere, that is, it is hard not to write a satire; for this resolution, popularly translated and paraphrased, reads thus:

If a Lutheran pastor who is a member of a secret society requests admission into our synodical connection, we refuse him

*) We are greatly pleased to learn from the latest number of the "Lutheran Standard" that the Ohio Synod of the Northern District (under the present President, Pastor H. Lang, Rev.), in one of the sessions held last month at New Washington, Crawford Co., O., has performed the act of mercy to which Solomon exhorts in his Proverbs, chap. 31, 8., for which the LORD will bless it. For thus it is said in the proceedings published by this Synod, loc. cit.: "Whereas some dissatisfaction was expressed both with regard to the procedure observed in the exclusion of Brother Albach from the Ministerium, and with regard to the attention which his appeal, submitted to the last General Synod, had found: therefore be it Resolved: That we herewith instruct our delegates to move a complete re-investigation of Brother Albach's case." — The same Synod at the same time expresses its "hearty thanks" for a warning which came to it from Dr. Sihler concerning a candidate who had let himself be misled into accepting an invalid call at Huntington. Ed. of the L.