# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 10 30_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pass away now and nevermore."

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

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 6.  St. Louis, Mo., October 30, 1849.  No. 5.

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 the same 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 sent to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc., are to be sent hither 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?

(Conclusion.)

P. Would you remain in the societies a single moment longer, if by so doing you made yourself guilty of participation in idolatry?

C. God forbid, what makes you think of such a thing? Our societies have indeed nothing to do with religion; how then can we make ourselves guilty of idolatry?

P. Yes, so it goes, alas! We still always suppose that the devil must appear with horns, horse's foot and cow's tail, else we do not take him for what he is. But he does not come so; for he knows better than we believe that "in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird," Prov. 1:17. Have you not appointed prayers in your meetings, at your burials, appointed ceremonies, appointed persons whom you call prophets, or priests, or something else, through whom you have the prayers spoken and the ceremonies performed?

C. Yes, but I do not understand how praying and ceremonies can make anyone an idolater!

P. That depends! However, here the question at first is only whether your societies have anything to do with religion or not; whether they are not religious societies. For when you pray, you must surely worship a higher being, and when you have religious ceremonies, there belongs to them also a God whom you thereby serve; or do you carry on all this merely in jest and make buffoonery of it? That would indeed be too horrible a blasphemy.

C. We do indeed have prayers and ceremonies, but it has never occurred to me that our societies would thereby become religious societies of their own; for if that were so, we should thereby have separated ourselves from the Church!

P. Without doubt, and that is also the case, although it may not yet have come clearly into the consciousness of the Christian members of the society; but that the societies, as societies, know this very well, they show by this, that wherever they can they establish their own churchyards or burial grounds, in order thus entirely to separate themselves from the Church. Enough! The societies as societies have their own prayers, their own ceremonies, their own divine service and persons for the service, this you cannot deny. Thus you have, as a society, also a god of your own, whom you worship and whom you serve.

C. Well, even if so, you still cannot call that idolatry.

P. The only question is: Which God do you worship? The Christians' God or another?

C. What a question! There is indeed only one God; whom then should we worship but this One true God?

P. That strikes me, to take a poor comparison, just as if a target were set up before a company of marksmen, and the captain said: Now fire away, men! Do not trouble yourselves whether you shoot into the blue; you see there is only One target there, so you cannot hit any other!

C. But one might nevertheless shoot beside it —

P. So you also might pray beside it, and the prayer that does not have and hit the One true God as its aim is precisely idolatry.

C. But there is a difference after all: the target stands in one place and takes up a certain space; God is everywhere, and what rises up in me in prayer rises to Him, and hits Him.

P. That is an excellent proof, and shows sufficiently how you have increased in wisdom and keenness of understanding in your societies! Do but consider what a horrible word you have spoken. According to your belief it would be all one whether a man be heathen, Jew, Turk or Christian; they all worship the One God. And that is also the belief, or madness, of the present world, which still calls itself Christian but has fallen back into a gross heathenism, and now seeks first to smuggle indifferentism and a mingling of faiths in among the still somewhat believing Christians, in order gradually to lead them into the universal world-religion; and that is also the tendency, and, though unconscious to many, the purpose of the societies.

C. That I by no means meant to say.

P. So the thoughts of your heart have betrayed themselves against your will. According to your view the true God, who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures, must be a lying idol, because He is zealous against the idols and idolaters. The prophets and apostles were abominable fools, in that for the sake of their faith and their preaching they let their heads be laid at their feet, and together with the whole host of the holy martyrs praised God by their death. Then it is also today not only the greatest folly, but the cruelest superstition, that the Christian Church sends out missionaries, indeed still preaches at all, in order to lead the heathen back to the one true God, whom they have forsaken, and now serve idols. For there is only One God, who is everywhere — therefore every one who worships anything at all must worship the One true God, and the different religions do not stand over against each other as truth and falsehood, divine service and idolatry, but are only different ways of viewing the One true God, which show themselves different also according to the lesser or higher knowledge of the different peoples or persons, but at bottom come to one and the same. Do you not see, then, that you are sinking quite and wholly back into the shallowest and most abominable rationalism, which is much more horrible than that which by God's grace you have forsaken in the knowledge of Christ and have learned to abhor? It is indeed true that there is only One God, and there are no other gods but the One, whom all creatures are to worship. But the devil will not suffer that the honor which is due to this One God be given Him. Therefore he has indeed