# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1917_S14
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14 The United Synod of thé Ev. Luth. Church in the South.

couraged honést inveéstigation, if that investigation has the least
taint of rationalism. In their supreme disgust for innovations, they
have made our Church as inflexible and unfit for the varying con-
ditions of modern life as the customs and practises of the middle
ages would be out of place now. They have been completely oblivious
of the fact that theré are necessarily change and progress in theology
aud religion as well as in everything else. True, there are certain
fundamentals that never grow old; eqdually true is it that there are
some nmon-essentials that change with the varying hour. The non⸗
essential has béeen made essential, and so ströngly insisted upon that
it is almost à sacrilege even to insinuate against its authority.“

Ihr schönes offizielles Bekenntnis verleugnet die Vereinigte Synode
auch durch ihre Praxis. Kanzel⸗, Altar⸗ und Arbeitsgemeinschaft mit
den Sekten sowie auch das Logenwesen (selbst Pastoren gehören zu
Logen) gehen immer noch im Schwange. Selbst D. Voigt schreibt von
seiner Synode: „As à matter of fact and actual practise, Lutheran
ministers in the United Synod do not L2] invite others to occupy
their pulpits indiscriminately; and, although in some churches the
custom of extending a general invitation at communion still con-
tinues from earlier timées, the practise is diminishing, and in most
churches it has passed away with the introduction of the Common
Service. As to secret societiés, there is not much agitation against
them except in the Tennessée Synod, and a number of United Synod
ministers are known to be members of such orders; but the senti-
ment of most ministers is unfavorable to them.“ (Dist. Doctr., 1914,
P. 188.)

Auch wir Missourier sind keine Donatisten und können mancherlei
Schwächen tragen. Aber sunt deniqueé finés, alles hat seine Grenzen!
Und an der Grenze sind wir hier angelangt, wenn eine Shnode prin⸗
zipiell in der Frage nach der Logen⸗, Kanzel- und Altargemeinschaft
keine Stellung einnehmen will. Und so steht es eben in der Vereinigten
Shnode. Voigt schreibt: „Discussions in regard to stricter or more
lax practises havé never led to divisions nor issued in official pro-
nouncements of distinetive developments of confessional positien.“
(VDist. Doctv., 1914, p. 180; 1893, p. 182.) „Firm as they are in their
convictions, Southern Lutherans areé generally averse to controversy.
This is probably the true explanation of the conservative attitude 0of
the United Synod towards the quéstions conneécted with pulpit and
altar fellowship and secret sociéties. There are differences of view
ou these questions existing in theé United Synod. But the disposition
has always been not to fight the differences out, but to wait for time
to bring about unanimity in regard to them. In the formation of
the United Synod peculiar eircumstances thrust these questions upon
the notice of the body; but it declined to legislate in regard to them
because it was unwilling to go through the throes of controversy