# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 30_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92

otherwise they would forfeit his support; "for he must know to whom he should direct the people emigrating from Franconia to Michigan," as if they, without his care and cooperation, would be considered stepmotherly by the Synod, against which he nevertheless by no means yet entered the lists in opposition, since he at that time also declared the question of the ministry still "an open one."

The President of our Synod, Pastor Wyneken, then traveled himself to Michigan, in order to take cognizance of the relation of the Löhean emissaries to our Synod and to investigate the complaints of Pastor Clöter at Saginaw against Mr. Großmann, in that the latter had stirred up a party in the congregation against its pastor, although he himself belonged to it as a member. Although this latter evil state was removed, Mr. Großmann nevertheless showed no willingness and endeavor to become one with us on the ground of doctrine in the points in question; Iowa, as a fitting field of labor for him and his people, was not mentioned with a syllable by our President; on the contrary, he protested against it in a certain respect, when afterwards Mr. Großmann himself mentioned Iowa, because mission work was already being done there by us from Missouri. But should nevertheless one of ours privately and by chance have proposed Iowa to Mr. Großmann, which we do not know, still the proposal was by no means made by "the Missourians," that is, the Synod, as Pastor Löhe nevertheless relates it.

What did Pastor Deindörfer then do, this second "more mature brother"? — He sought to move his congregation at Frankenhilf to remove to Iowa; and although he succeeded with only one member, he left the whole congregation in the lurch and set out with this one for Iowa, taking also bells, altar furnishings, etc., which belonged to the congregation at Frankenhilf, with him, and indeed all this with the consent and in agreement with Pastor Löhe, who naturally could hardly have approved his joining our Synod. Against this Pastor Deindörfer at that time made no declaration about this his course of action, which can hardly be approved either from the Christian or from the "church-law" standpoint; also he raised neither old nor new scruples concerning doctrine and asked for no decision, but slipped silently out of the Synod, and gave afterwards also no compelling ground of conscience proved from God's Word for his withdrawal. We can therefore hardly do otherwise than to declare him either a weak, vacillating and unindependent character, or even a man who in fawning and servile manner had hung himself upon Löhean authority and favor and over it let the justice of the cause go.

6. Pastor Löhe remarked also, "that the just-mentioned 'more mature brethren' Großmann and Deindörfer believed they observed at close range many evil consequences of that doctrine of the ministry for the life of the Lutheran congregations."

True, here stands only "believed"; true, none of these evil consequences is specifically cited; yet these words, held as it were considerately, are strong and weighty enough to awaken or nourish in the readers of the Löhean report suspicion against our doctrine of the ministry. Now it is indeed questionable whether those two observers, what as "more mature brethren" they surely were bound to do, first sought thoroughly to make themselves clear whether those observed evils were really necessary consequences of our doctrine of the ministry, or not rather had flowed from the general sinful frailty of this and that person, be they pastors or congregation members or both together; and in the latter case they would indeed have had to rebuke, out of Christian love, the sin of their fellow-ministers, but not to disclose it even to Pastor Löhe; in the former case, however, they should at least, from their standpoint, have attempted to furnish the erring fellow-ministers, or if need be the whole Synod, the proof how this and that evil is really an evil fruit of their doctrine of the ministry; whether they did that is left undecided; but that they did not furnish the Synod this proof is certain. So much, however, is also certain, that from our doctrine of the ministry, as such, by causally necessary effect, not even one evil consequence can possibly be produced; for this our doctrine is the divine truth of the holy Scripture, which, as such, can bring forth only good. But as the Law of the holy Ten Commandments, without its fault, increases sin, and the corrupted nature of man takes occasion from it to be provoked all the more vehemently to the doing of the forbidden evil; — further, as Christ, without His fault, becomes a fall to many, in that, from the offense of the preached Gospel, but from the cause of their evil heart and will, their malicious unbelief is just thereby made manifest: — so, indeed, from our evangelical doctrine of the glory, dignity and rights of the spiritual priesthood of the true Christians, this and that hypocrite may take occasion, without the fault of this doctrine, to misuse it for carnal liberty and for encroachments upon the rights of the preaching office. This effect, however, is, as said, only accidental and cannot, by just judgment, be ascribed to our doctrine, since this moreover does not leave the other side of the truth behind and according to God's Word also sets duly in the light the rights of the pastoral office; and further, unseemly encroachments upon the latter by individual members of congregations find, partly in the congregations concerned from the pastors and the congregations themselves, partly, where necessary, from the visiting President of the Synod, the fitting rebuke and punishment.

So we would have shown, according to truth and justice, wherein Pastor Löhe in that report has done us wrong in both respects, and has thereby increased the already existing groundless suspicion against our churchly confession and practice. God grant that his whole conduct toward us up to now, especially after the return of our delegates (whom we had sent precisely also out of love and gratitude toward him, in order, if God willed, to regain also with him the unity of doctrine heartily desired and prayed for by us all) may spring only from an error of understanding, from a lack of thorough theologico-dogmatic training, and from his enthusiasm for certain favorite images and fancies in the appearance of the visible Church, as for instance liturgy, the so-called apostolic church orders, episcopal church government, the as it were sacramental of ordination, superfluously articulated congregational regulations, and the like. Only this well-meant warning, confirmed in many ways by history, we will not withhold in conclusion.

If, namely, Pastor Löhe does not turn back from his "own (but contrary to the churchly confession) interpretation" of many Bible passages seeming to establish his favorite thoughts, to the interpretation and exposition of the same in the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church conformable to the connection of the evangelical doctrine; — if he rather withdraws ever more swiftly from the blessed guidance of the symbols and, even only in those two articles of Church and Ministry, lets the confessional ground of the Lutheran Church go more and more: then there must needs arise, without God's special intervention, the following dangers for him and his adherents.

1. He is in danger, in a short time, of becoming estranged, first inwardly, from the whole system of doctrine of the Lutheran Church in the symbolical books; for it is impossible that one should adhere to it from the heart and follow it, precisely for the sake of its obedience to Scripture and its righteousness to Scripture, if one distrusts and calls in question even only one part of it, or asserts its erroneousness and contrariety to Scripture; for in the exact connection of all articles of the wholesome doctrine, like links of a golden chain, it is then no longer this, if even only one link were of brass; "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump"; and with right one would have to reject every churchly confession of faith and doctrine in which even only one article were not in accordance with the canon and rule of faith of the holy Scripture, as we Lutherans, according to right and justice, also do with all other confessional writings.

The inward estrangement, however, in the heart of Pastor Löhe might easily, sooner than expected, be followed also by outward renunciation, be it in express terms, or at least through practice contrary to the confession, especially in the carrying out of his so-called "churchly thoughts," that is, his peculiar private hobbies, in which he supposes himself to be precisely genuinely and truly Lutheran and to be building "the Church of the future."

2. He is in danger, first practically, then however also seemingly confessionally grounded, of taking up a sort of intermediate and separate position between the Lutheran and the episcopal Church, and in his own and his adherents'