# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 07 10_S177
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall never pass away, now or evermore."

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

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 5.  St. Louis, Mo., July 10, 1849.  No. 23.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay for it 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 addressed to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted.)

May a Christian Join the So-Called Secret Societies?

(Carl. You can surely easily imagine that all these signs and symbols have a meaning, and I do not see how you of all people can mock at them, since you are otherwise so very much in favor of ceremonies.)

Paul. Yes, for Christian ones, hallowed by the usage of the Church, which so eloquently point the Christian mind to the deep, comforting, and blessed mysteries of our faith. — You know that in our old fatherland a great cloth with a cross was thrown over the coffin, and the image of the crucified Redeemer was also carried before the funeral procession; those, to be sure, were symbols that suited a Christian funeral procession, and shone comfortingly into the poor human heart even on the sad and solemn walk, which then becomes truly conscious that death is the wages of sin, and that man is nothing but dust and ashes; but so wretched have we Germans for the most part become, that we are ashamed of the comforting and uplifting customs of our Church, in which for centuries our parents, and we ourselves in the old fatherland, were edified, and all sorts of foolish trumperies which we find in the street, or even borrow from the blind heathen, we let be hung upon us, and fear that we shall lose our honor and reputation if we do not make apes and fools of ourselves as quickly as possible.

C. Truly now, you go too far, you are becoming personal.

P. Truth, well rubbed in, hurts, but never does harm, if only it is properly applied and used according to directions. You must yourself confess that all this tinsel, and what you pass off as deep symbols full of mystery and meaning, only poorly covers childish nonsense. A Christian, and I speak only of Christians, knows that in his simple faith the whole height and depth of all divine mysteries is given him, so far as God has seen fit to reveal them to us, and that all other pretended mysteries, which are supposed to be represented by symbols, are either lies or childishness, which he regards among heathen and worldly people with a pitying smile, among Christians with aversion and abhorrence. Had I met with such goings-on, as you improved Red Men have, among students or other young people, I should have let it pass; it would simply have been a merry jest, a mockery of the indeed tedious and eccentric social conditions in the old fatherland; but that married men, fathers of families, can sink to such a degree of silliness and childishness, and in earnest take pleasure in aping the speech and expressions and customs of rude Indians, and even carry on this nonsense at the grave, that surpasses all imagination indeed, and would be repulsive and offensive to a Christian even in respectable worldly people, how much more among Christians. And to such things you bind yourself even by an oath — you, a Christian — with people of every sort and belief!!

C. Well, I should think that even if you found something unsuitable in these outward things, you would still have to overlook them generously enough, if you keep in view the aim and purpose which these societies have.

P. The Christian has only One aim: the honor of the LORD who has bought him. This aim he attains only when he walks in the ways, upright and pure, which his faith prescribes to him according to God's revealed will. But I have hitherto proved to you from God's Word that your entrance into these societies is against God's Word, and therefore sin, and your remaining in them still more, since the whole matter is on every side an offence to a Christian. The societies, as societies, cannot have the honor of the LORD as their aim, for they consist of believers and manifestly unbelievers, and the latter, as you know, being a Christian, cannot honor the LORD, since they, so far as in them lies, put to shame His highest glory, that He has redeemed them; and if at your entrance you had this aim before your eyes, you have taken a strange way to attain it, namely sin. Or have you never read that we are not to conform ourselves to the world, or 2 Cor. 6, 14.: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty"; I should like to know how you intend to bring your fraternizing with unbelievers into agreement with this word of Scripture!

C. Well then, one would have to go out of the world altogether and become a hermit, for one cannot possibly avoid coming into contact with the world.

P. Not to avoid the world outwardly is the task of the Christian, but to keep himself unspotted from the world, and in the world to confess Christ, by word and walk; that thereby the natural bonds of kinship are not torn asunder, nor the duties of love of neighbor abolished, nor finally outward business intercourse forbidden, is evident to everyone, but into a formal, and moreover secret, fraternity with manifest unbelievers and deniers of Christ, by oath or solemn promise, and initiation ceremo-