Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — Juni 1907, Seite 286

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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286 Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches.

neralkonzil angehört, ein gemeinschaftliches Seminar. Der LIuheran Ob-
serrer schreibt in einem Berichte über die Versammlung der Californiashnode:
The Pacifie Seminary was the other subjeet of paramount importance en-
gaging the attention of synod in a lengthy discussion. It is proposed that
this institution shall be jointly and equally controlled by our synod and
the Pacifie Synod of the General Council; that it be located at Oakland or
Berkeley, with aà Pro-Seminary within the bounds of the Pacifie Synod;
and the Pacific Synod has asked that its professors shall subseribe to all
the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church as its confessional basis.
To this last proposition our synod returns the following modified answer:
That the doctrinal basis of this seminary shall be the Holy Seriptures of
the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the only in-
fallible rule of faith and practice; the ecumenical ereeds, viz., the Apos-
tles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian; and the Augsburg Confession, eh
animo, as the pure exposition of the Churcb's teaching. We also recognize
the other symbolical writings, viz., the Apology, the Smaleald Artieles, the
Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord, as a true interpreta⸗
tion of the Augsburg Confession. To this basis Seminary professors shall
subscribe.““ Mit dieser Abmachung ist aber die von Prof. Richard geleitete
Partei der Generalsynode, welche die Konkordienformel als eine Entstellung
der „altlutherischen“ Lehre bekämpft, nicht einverstanden. Der Observer
schreibt: The California Synod is an integral part of the General Synod,
and, as such, has made the doctrinal basis of the General Synod its own.
It has accepted this basis as the suflicient mark and eredential of its own
right to the name Lutheran.“ TJo this basis, no morxeée, no less, it obligates
ministers coming to it from any other ecelesiastical body. ... Hence the
anomaly of its action at its récent meeting. For it has nowembarked on
a project in which it agréees to impose doctrinal tests additional to those
to which it binds its own ministers and licentiates, and in excess of the
constitution of the General Synod to wiich it belongs. Presumably some
of its On members would be exeluded by these tests from service in its
oYun theéological seminary. It is certain that multitudes, an overwhelming
majority, we believe, of the ministers of the General Synod would be ex⸗
cluded — among them men now occupying professorial chairs in our theo-
logical seminaries. It is action thus, by a distriet synod that, by impliea-
tion, impugns its own and the General Synod's confessional subseription
as à sufficient eredential of soundness in the Lutheran faith.. . It bas
thus granted what the General Synod itself has steadily declined to allow.
It has set up the paradox of imposing one doctrinal test in the seminary
where its candidates for the ministry are to be trained, and another when
they present themselves for ordination, for the assertion that the later
symbols are in all respects a true interpretation of the Augsburg Con-
fession' is simply begging a question that has been at issue in the Lutheran
Church for more than threéee hundred years.“ F. B.

II. Ausland.

In Nürnberg, Bayern, wurde folgende Erklärung von 86 Pastoren
unterzeichnet: „Angesichts der gegenwärtigen Lage unserer Landeskirche
und der zutage tretenden Auffassungen und Bestrebungen, die teils lediglich
Sondermeinungen da sehen wollen, wo es sich in Wahrheit um grundlegende

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