# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1933 ff. masthead not in scan _S168
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

168

words: "Now they [contestants and fighters run and fight] thus, that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible," 1 Cor. 9, 25. Should we not take this to heart precisely for the present time? The world ventures everything in order to gain what is earthly; should we not therefore direct all our thinking and thought to this, that we gain what is heavenly? Through Isaiah God has us say: "Behold, the LORD's hand is not too short, that he cannot help; and his ears are not grown thick, that he cannot hear," Isa. 59, 1. This will give us comfort in this time, when Satan prepares so many temptations for us.

J. T. M.

Passion Play and Freemasons. Recently an invitation has come to us to attend a Passion play that is to be given in a city in Illinois. We shall not accept the invitation, even if we were to be excused the payment of the six dollars, for which one gets the trip to the city, two good meals, and a choice seat in the show hall. For it is contrary to Christian feeling to have the suffering of our Savior represented in a stage play with "a thousand magnificent costumes" and "wonderful electric light effects," as the advertisement puts it. God has given us his Word, and this we are to read and learn; to him who does this in right faith, the Holy Spirit, who always works through this Word on the hearts of those who read or hear it, also gives the right doctrine and the right comfort into the heart, as these are necessary for salvation. The life and suffering of our Savior was not that of a mere man. The holy men of God could not have described it rightly if the Holy Spirit had not given them the right words. We do not want to see our highly praised Savior as men represent him on the stage.

But now this Passion play is also being presented by the Freemasons, the Scottish Rite people. The Moolah Mystic Shrine, the Knights Templars, and other orders serve them; and then the advertisement says further: "and churches in St. Louis." Our Lutheran churches have not taken part, and other churches of which we know have not either. For we and other Christians know what Freemasonry is about, namely, that it denies the holy Trinity, the Godhead of Christ, and his holy reconciling suffering and death as the only hope of Christians. So the play that they are giving, too, is at best only misleading hypocrisy. In the advertisement we read further: "Today the world is turning again from the earthly to the spiritual. No man, woman, or child should go without the great spiritual elevation (the tremendous spiritual uplift) of this great performance!" This truly does not serve for the honor and praise of Christ.

J. T. M.

Do Star-Readers Not Sometimes Also Tell the Truth? This question has been put to us in a letter, to which was enclosed a quite foolish astrological paper with all sorts of presumptuous praises of the art of astrology and of the ability of the star-readers to guess the future from the stars. In the paper it is asserted that the astrologers who wrote it had communicated various future things that came true just as they had prophesied.

For a Christian the answer to the above question is not difficult; for he knows from his Catechism that only God can communicate to us his divine thoughts and counsels, which he has with himself. Here the Word applies: "No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared it unto us," John 1, 18. As little as a man by nature knows God's counsel of salvation, so little does he know also what God otherwise intends with the world. We are all referred to the Holy Scriptures; beyond this there are no revelations of God. Whatever apart from the Holy Scriptures is boasted of as revelation of God is blinding by the devil, of which the Apostle Paul writes: "Therefore God shall send them strong errors, that they should believe the lie, that all might be judged who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness," 2 Thess. 2, 11. 12. If an astrological paper is sent to one's house, let one tear it into a thousand pieces, say the Lord's Prayer while doing so, and say: "Here comes the devil, who wants to lead me away from God's Word." How busy Satan is nowadays in leading men into hell, we learn every day in many ways. May God stand by us against it for the sake of his dear Son!

J. T. M.

The Activity of the Atheists. Although God is visiting our country so heavily, the godless still do not let themselves be called to repentance. Two of the best-known deniers of God in our country have decided on the publication of an atheistic newspaper which is to appear under the name The Militant Atheist. Its purpose is to be to combat all religion as well as the worship of God altogether, as the name "The Militant Denier of God" already says. The two editors of the new paper are E. Haldeman-Julius and Joseph McCabe, both of whom are notorious as outspoken deniers of God. Also the two church bodies that deny the Trinity and thus also the divine sonship of Christ, the Unitarians and the Universalists, intend to bring about a closer union of all liberal-minded elements in our country, in which, however, the previous names and institutions are to continue to exist. That is, the unbelievers who are now in the Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian church bodies are to remain quietly in their church bodies. The purpose of the planned union is chiefly this, to strengthen the enemies of the Gospel in their unbelief. The damage that unbelief in this form will do is far greater than the attack from outside that the two above-named blasphemers are planning. These are at least open enemies, while the unbelievers who pass themselves off as Presbyterians or something else are false prophets in sheep's clothing.

J. T. M.

Foreign Countries.

A Testimony for the Truth. When the daily press recently reported that the party now ruling in Germany, the National Socialists, intended to make the Church of Germany a maidservant of the State, our Press Committee had a correction published in the daily newspapers. Now one knows, to be sure, from the outset that one cannot believe everything that one reads in the daily press. All the same, the testimony of our Committee was timely. In it it was denied that the thirty-nine million German Protestants are all Lutherans, since, after the Union introduced a hundred years ago, a number of territorial churches are predominantly Reformed. Further it was emphasized that the Lutheran Church of America is actually what, according to Luther's clear statements, it should have been everywhere, namely a church separated from the State, which highly values the freedom of conscience that it enjoys here. It would indeed please our flesh if one says that in the world there are so and so many -- let us say thirty or eighty million -- Lutherans; but that is not true. To be sure, there are in the world millions of Christians who have been greatly influenced in their faith by Luther's church reformation. There are also still thousands and tens of thousands of Lutherans in Germany, that is, Christians who hold fast to Luther's doctrine of Scripture concerning sole and universal grace and the means of grace, and want to live accordingly and also to die in it. But the truth is that we cannot speak of forty million Lutherans in Germany, for the simple reason that they simply are not there