# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 30_S94
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

94

wish, prayer and intercession — that the dear Mr. Pastor Löhe, through whose hand God has done us so much good, and has helped in part to raise up our Synod as a bulwark of the Lutheran Church in this land — would, the sooner the better, return, as a penitent son of the Church, from the self-deception of his so-called "churchly thoughts" and the aberration from the churchly confession arising therefrom, to the same, and apply the beautiful noble gifts which God has given him, as he also did formerly, to serve the "common good" of the Church, but not the realization of those "churchly thoughts." Then he would just as much avoid the dangers indicated above, as, with all faithful witnesses of the truth in old and new times and with all sincere and upright Lutherans who cleave unbreakably to the good confession of the Fathers, precisely because of its entire obedience to Scripture, become again one heart and one soul. That may God grant for Christ's sake; Amen!

Postscript.

We must confess that the disposition of Mr. Pastor Löhe, with which he assigned his position to the teachers' seminary erected in Saginaw, is a true riddle to us. Both the sending of our delegates, of whom the writer of this was one, and their negotiations with him, and their whole bearing in Bavaria, must have convinced Mr. Pastor Löhe that the Synod had it very much at heart, and therefore also applied all the diligence possible to it, to preserve the right unity, or where it was endangered, to establish it anew, but that truth stands higher with it than unity, and that it itself wished no unity with Mr. Pastor Löhe and his friends at the expense of truth, and with a good conscience could not and would not concede in the point of controversy concerning Church and Ministry that the question be regarded as one still open. Not until, in going through the "New Aphorisms" with Mr. Pastor Löhe, they thought they might be convinced that precisely as regards the principles a real unity in the doctrine of Church and Ministry existed between them and Mr. Pastor Löhe, and Mr. Pastor Löhe also gave this to be understood by this, that when they were minded to continue the discussion of them, he himself laid the book aside with the remark that, since we had found ourselves agreed in the principles, to continue the discussion about them was probably not necessary, only then came the establishment of a teachers' seminary up for discussion. Not with Mr. Pastor Löhe alone, but in a company of friends who took a lively interest in the Church in North America, was the matter proposed and discussed, and it was resolved, after Mr. Pastor Löhe had made known his disinclination to connect it with the institution at Fort Wayne, to erect it in Detroit under the supervision and active cooperation of Mr. Pastor Schaller, of whom Mr. Pastor Löhe knew that he, although formerly most intimately united with him, both by personal love and esteem and by like views concerning doctrine, no longer agreed with Mr. Pastor Löhe as to the last point, but had turned to the "Missourian" doctrine, that is, to the truth attested by our Church in her Confessions. How could it even in a dream occur to Mr. Pastor Löhe to believe that the Synod was served with a seminary such as it was afterwards erected by him? or that the delegates, who for the rest gladly confess their lack of diplomatic skill, would have wasted even a word over this matter, if they had not bona fide regarded it as a settled thing that the seminary would not only be conducted in the spirit of the Synod, but, although erected chiefly through the charity of the German friends, would nevertheless as a proper institution of the Synod be placed wholly under its supervision, even though the delegates believed they might assure the brethren that the Synod would gladly grant them a voice in the choice of teachers, etc., and in general, as the intimate bond which existed between us and them would bring with it, would take the greatest possible regard of them? They believed at that time that they might still assume that Mr. Pastor Löhe regarded himself quite simply and in simplicity as a fellow-servant who, for his part, would work in fellowship with the members of the Synod at what God had entrusted to him in the ordering of His work in America.

Now, if it has indeed become sufficiently evident, through the constant reminding of benefits received, through the complaining about the independent movement of the Synod, about alleged ingratitude experienced, thoughtlessness, violation of dutiful piety, etc., that in his eyes the Synod has no other position toward him and the directing committee for North American affairs than, say, colonies to the mother country, or at least dispatched missionaries to the missionary society that sends them out and claims a sort of patronage, we leave it gladly to the judgment of just readers whether it redounds more to the shame or to the honor of the delegates that not even the faintest thought arose in them that possibly any other relation of the Synod to Mr. Pastor Löhe and his fellow-counsellors and friends could take place than that between servants of one Lord, of whom one brings lime, another stones, according as the Lord has assigned to each his position and work, and who now rejoice in the building which the Lord is raising, and in which He deems them worthy to do menial service. This also we leave to the conscience of Mr. Pastor Löhe, whether we have ever failed in that which the holy Apostle, Rom. 12, 10, enjoins upon Christians, that one should prefer another with reverence, if only he will measure and weigh by the weight and measure of the sanctuary, and not by the false one of the world.

In their conviction now of the simplicity of Mr. Pastor Löhe the delegates and the dear brethren in America rejoiced with them that the need so long painfully felt, and, what made the matter yet much dearer and more precious to them, should be remedied through the love of the German brethren.

But how quite differently the matter turned out!

In the place of Mr. Candidate Hacker, who had become known and dear and precious to the delegates, and of whom they, from his joyful acceptance of the call, were entitled to have the firm conviction that he would work in perfect agreement with the Synod, there stepped in the Candidate, Mr. Großmann, very little known to them. The institution was not, as agreed, removed to Detroit, but to Saginaw, and so thrust into the midst of the Franconian colonies, where many spiritual children of Mr. Pastor Löhe naturally also personally adhered to him with full love. Of a connection with the Synod there was no question at all. On the contrary, Mr. Großmann declared quite openly that he did not agree with the Synod in the doctrine of Church and Ministry, but stood wholly on the side of Mr. Pastor Löhe, (here, then, the difference in doctrine between Mr. Pastor Löhe and the Synod was again pronounced, which we held to be overcome) and showed so little desire to approach the Synod with confidence that he did not comply with the urgent and friendly invitation to attend its sessions then just beginning. The Synod as such has never learned whether at all, or in what relation, the institution is to stand to it. — So the Synod had then the long-desired teachers' seminary! that is, it had now a teaching institute in its midst, which it should love, cherish and foster, at which its members should work, from which it should see its schoolteachers go forth, for which it should hold itself most highly obligated, and whose head himself — confessed a doctrine which was most vehemently opposed by the Synod, and on account of which it has for years seen itself exposed to the most dreadful blasphemies!! Hardly has ever a company of servants of the Church, laboring under heavy privations and hard struggles, been more bitterly deceived! yea, I might almost add: Hardly has a more cruel game been played with people otherwise poor and hard-pressed, by friends and brethren!

At the same time Mr. Pastor Löhe, not satisfied with the oral promise of the delegates that, wherever at all possible, in the transfer of the pastors in Michigan he would be consulted and his voice heeded, made of these the demand, to be sure in very mild terms, to bind themselves also in writing toward him not to leave their positions without his counsel and respectively consent, and that without negotiating further about it with the Synod, to which those pastors with their congregations nevertheless belonged as members.

Who can deny that only the love which turns all to the best, believes all things and hopes all things, and therefore also bears and endures all things, until bearing and enduring, without at least speaking and protesting, becomes sin to it, that only this love can hinder us from seeing in these acts of Mr. Pastor Löhe the presumptions of a self-willed private person, over against a churchly body and churchly government, who fancies himself called, with paternal prudence and insight, in a land which he has never seen, whose conditions he can only imagine, to have learned from reports, which by an enormous distance, and still more by the quite new conditions, so very different from those in the old fatherland, is removed from his otherwise so clear view and his otherwise so penetrating judgment, to oversee the childish presumption of a body, and, if necessary, to render it harmless, to which yet the Lord Himself has committed the direction, oversight and furtherance of His kingdom's affairs in the district assigned to it, and not so very small and insignificant a one, and which in its labor and sacrifice before God and men can appeal to the testimony of its conscience in the Holy Ghost that it wills at least to prove fidelity?

What fruit could this manner of acting of Mr. Pastor Löhe foreseeably bring? Only think of the whole situation! The Synod is in a violent strife with another Synod over a point of doctrine which, according to its firm conviction, is not only decided most clearly in the symbolical books of our Church, but which is also so most intimately connected with the remaining fundamental articles of our faith that