# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 30_S89
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass away now and nevermore." Rev. of John, Chap. 14, v. 6, 7.

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 11.  St. Louis, Mo., January 30, 1855.  No. 12.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers out of town, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 Cents. Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Prof. Dr. Sihler.)

Pastor Löhe's Report about Us, and Its Judgment according to Truth and Justice.

In the Correspondenzblatt of "the Society for Inner Mission according to the Mind of the Lutheran Church," edited by Fr. Bauer, Director of the Mission Institute at Neuendettelsau, and E. Stirner, Pastor at Fürth, there is found in No. 5 of the fifth volume also a report on the pastoral conference held at Fürth on the 24th and 25th of April, 1854. At this conference Pastor Löhe also gave "a report on the present state of the North American mission cause"; and in it the words run thus:

"Immediately thereupon followed Pastor Löhe's report on the present state of the North American mission cause. The reporter began by casting a glance back over the past twelve years and showing how, under God's unmistakable blessing, the work of the Lutheran mission across the ocean has prospered. He showed how the present so numerous Missouri Synod has come to its present importance chiefly through the emergency helpers who went out from here and who were induced from here to join the Lutherans who had earlier emigrated from Saxony to Missouri. Partly the personal deception which these Saxons had suffered at the hands of their leader, Pastor Stephan, partly the democratic current in which they live, drove them, and with them the whole Synod, to a conception of the spiritual office as a natural fruit of the universal spiritual priesthood, which, though it could be supported with many passages from individual writings of Luther and of older dogmaticians, appeared one-sided and divergent from the Word of God not only to the Prussian Lutherans dwelling around Buffalo, with Pastor Grabau at their head, but also to our more mature brethren Großmann and Deindörfer, who believed they observed at close range many evil consequences of that doctrine of the ministry for the life of the Lutheran congregations, and who were thereby led to refrain for the present from full union with the Missouri Synod, and to persist on this point of doctrine in their view, which departed from that of the Missourians. Großmann wished the question of the ministry to be treated as an open one; but since the Missourians would by no means agree to this, and a greater tension was to be feared, and they themselves also proposed the removal to Iowa, it appeared to be a way of peace to leave Michigan with the Saginaw Seminary, and to transplant the same to Iowa beyond the Mississippi, so that it might become the outward and inward center of the Lutheran congregations lying round about."

We cannot but express at once, in general, our deep regret that Pastor Löhe could write thus. For the greater part of his statements by no means accords with the truth; and however gladly, according to love, we would judge that they spring only from error, yet it seems to us almost impossible that he could be so obstinate, after we have dealt with him so often and so thoroughly, in writing and by word of mouth, and he might well have been instructed better. Yet we will reserve our judgment until the end, and proceed at once, to the honor of the truth, to demonstrate his erroneous assertions as such:

1. When Pastor Löhe asserts "that the present so numerous Missouri Synod has come to its present importance chiefly through 'the emergency helpers' who went out from here (that is, from Bavaria and especially Franconia);" this is in several respects not in accordance with the truth; for first, as regards the number, the brethren who have gone out partly from Franconia and Bavaria generally make up only about a third of our present Synod, and the seminary at Fort Wayne never had more students than after Pastor Löhe had ceased to send them over; unsought and unsummoned they came from this country and abroad, so that for the most part some twenty were together at the institution.

Second, as regards the weight of the members, from which surely "the importance" of an ecclesiastical body chiefly flows, it is likewise not the case in this respect that our Synod "has come to its present importance chiefly through the emergency helpers who went out from Bavaria (resp. Franconia);" for however faithfully they all, by God's grace, have remained true to the confession of the Church, and in accordance therewith conduct their office in the fear of God and with