# Pieper Correspondence_St. Louis Missouri_Franz Pieper to a Missouri pastor 19 September 1912_S1
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

CONCORDIA COLLEGE

Election of Grace - Norwegians.
St. Louis, Mo., 19 September 1912.

Esteemed, dear Pastor!
Since you are the Missouri representative in the presidium of the Synodical Conference, I would like to tell you briefly how I understand the situation created by the last meeting. I expressed misgivings to you when the election of Pastor Gausewitz came into question. I feared that in the controversy over the preaching office he would take the side of the Wauwatosa men and so embarrass the Synodical Conference, and therefore also the Missouri Synod. This misgiving has disappeared when I think of a conversation I had with Pastor Gausewitz. Gausewitz will stand firm. He does have the reputation of a somewhat too liberal pastoral practice. But it is to be expected that from now on he will act more cautiously. As for the Norwegian matter, the Synodical Conference adopted three statements, whose wording has since been published. The statements are important. Statement two has the fault that it is hard for the general public to understand and does not cover the whole matter. But statement 2 too says something correct. I had the impression that the Wauwatosa men are not clear in the doctrine of election of grace either. They also attacked such points in the
(page 2 of transcribed letter).
Norwegian Theses as are quite correct. They claimed, for example, that thesis 3 teaches an election in the wider sense when it says there that according to the Formula of Concord the election of grace "encompasses the whole salvation of the elect from the call to glorification." I had to reject this criticism as unjustified and explain that, according to Scripture and the Formula of Concord, the call, conversion, justification and preservation of the elect belong as an integral part in their eternal election. God did not choose the elect from eternity without sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, but "in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth"; or: eternal election consists in this, that God from eternity for Christ's sake provided the elect with call, conversion, justification, sanctification and preservation. A double error is to be avoided. The error of the later Lutheran theologians, who put faith in front and push election out, regarding the faith of the elect as preceding election, and the error of the Calvinists, who exclude faith behind before(?) election, by
(page 3 of letter).
letting election be complete without faith (election) and counting faith only to the temporal carrying out of election. To be sure, according to Scripture and Confession, faith and the whole Christian state of the elect is also a consequence and effect of their eternal election. But this relation holds when we look at the faith and the Christian state the elect have in time, Acts 13 [transcription: "Art 13"]: As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. They then indeed dropped the reproach that statement 3 teaches an election in the wider sense. But I have the impression that the matter is unclear to the Wauwatosa men, that for them eternal election [gap in the transcription; a Greek or Latin phrase appears to be omitted] 2 Thess. 2:13 is not in Scripture, and that they have not understood why the Formula of Concord so expressly impresses that eternal election did not take place nude, and is not to be regarded nude. Unfortunately! someone on our side too spoke unclearly on this point. But in the end they did drop the reproach about election "in the wider sense." I proposed to formulate point 2 thus: "In order to establish beyond doubt that the parties hitherto not in agreement have really come to agreement on the doctrine of the Word
(page 4 of transcribed letter).
of God and the Lutheran Confession, we further ask them to confess that those who are converted and saved, in comparison with those who remain unconverted and are lost, do not conduct themselves better, but likewise badly, and are in equal guilt." I showed that this formulation is given in the Formula of Concord and [transcription unclear] the synergistic error in its various disguises and wrappings (better conduct through powers of grace or natural powers, omission of the material(?) resistance before conversion, etc.). But some members of the committee could not see that my formulation was easier to understand and covered the whole situation. So I agreed to the formulation now adopted in statement 2. On this formulation they had already agreed beforehand in a committee session at which I was not present, because it was held late in the evening. The present formulation, as already noted, says something correct, even if it leaves open the Ohio retreat(?) to
(page 5 of transcribed letter).
the "psychological mystery." The Ohio men, as is known, also say that they acknowledge the mystery of the discretio personarum [transcription: "disoretio"] in the full sense. It lies, they say, in the human soul. It is incomprehensible why those who are lost do not conduct themselves just as well or "rightly" as those who are saved, since they have the same [gap in the transcription]. If one instead expresses the matter with the Confession thus, that those who are saved do not conduct themselves better at all, but likewise badly, and are in equal guilt, then the retreat to the "psychological" mystery is cut off.
What somewhat oppresses me is the circumstance that we appear against the Norwegians in the company of the Wauwatosa men. For one thing, they are themselves not clear on the doctrine of election of grace; for another, they have now come before the public with their follies regarding the doctrine of the local congregation and the preaching office. Stub and Ylvisaker were already informed in Saginaw about the Wauwatosa publication. It therefore does not surprise me that Stub has built up this situation
(page 6 of transcribed letter).
in Red Wing to the effect that one must separate from the Synodical Conference if one does not wish to be entangled in a new doctrinal controversy over "congregation" and "preaching office." Stub gave us no hope whatever in Saginaw that he would work toward a change in the "Union Theses." Ylvisaker promised me the latter privately. From a letter of Pastor Theo. Gräbner I see that a considerable part of the ministerium of the Norwegian Synod is turning against the Union Theses.
The confusing position of the Wauwatosa men on the doctrine of church and ministry causes me almost more concern. From the conversations we had with them in Saginaw we did not gain the impression that they will retract their wild speeches. Of the outcome of the last conference, at which Börger had the paper, I have as yet no news. Have you heard anything?
With hearty greeting to you and your dear family
Your
F. Pieper.
I had begun this report to you earlier, but only finished it today (on 4 September), because I was waiting for a report from the Milwaukee conference. [So in the transcription, though the letter is dated 19 September.]
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Transcribed from the German original in Xerox copy by Reinhold A. Marquardt
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Manchester, Mo. 63011
20 November 1981.