Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — März 1911, Seite 130

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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13⁰ Kirchlich⸗Zeitgeschichtliches.

ings that have led to various denominational organizations among evan-
gelical Christians — tie mode of baptism. church polity, the reprobation
of instrumental music and all compositions but the psalms in the church's
singing, speculative views on predestination, interpretations of the sacra⸗
mental mysteries — do not exelude from the Ecumenical Church or rep-
resent thie saving, essential doctrines of the Gospel. Thus holding that the
agréeements betweéen evangelical Christians are vastly more in volume and
significance than their differences, the General Synod has always been
ready to cooperate withe them for the furtherance of the kingdom of God
among men. In deéfending the action of athe General Couneil at Pittsburg,
in 1868, in its refusal to endorse the position that all church fellowship
with such as are not Lutheran is to be condemned, Dr. Krauth. after ad-
mitting that there might be even in the Rowan Church men situated like
Luther, when the Reformation began, continued: If, then, in that cor⸗
rupt church this is true, can we vot find in the churches which have fought
withus against the common enemy — for Protestantism over against Rome,
lor the sufficieney of Seripture over againsteits insufficiency, for justifica-
tion by faith over against justifieation by works — ean we not find those
Whom we can invite into our pulpits? We must make a difference be⸗
tween those who differ with us on the essential Christianity, and those
wFho agrée with us on those precious truths Wwhich rise above all distine-
tions.“ Though a few years later, in defending the Galesburg Rule,
Dr. Krauth ignored this distinetion which he so carefully pointed out, he
did not and could not obliterate it. The ableést plea that has been made
for an exelusive Lutheranism came from his pen, but it did not convince
the General Synod any more than it did some of his strongest contem—
poraries in the General Couneil. Dr. Krotel wrote to him in 1877: The
logical and inevitable conelusion of your argument would be such an ex⸗
elusiveness as was not even always seen in Luther's day, and such as
vould render anything like an approsimation to a better understanding
wäth others an impossibility. It has always been clear to my mind that
there must be a difference in the attitude we assume to the Romanists
and Greeks — and to the „Evangelical Denominations.“ If we refuse any
and every kind of reécognition to every one that refuses to hold every
boint that we consider Seriptural. or that holds any point that we con⸗
sider unscriptural, where are the divisions to end? Is not this the very
disease from rhich our German orthodox Lutherans are suffering? Do
they not, here and in Germany, unchurch each other simply because they
ditker on some points on which they insist as à part of God's truth? If
they go on in this way, how numerous areé the divisions of Lutheranism
likely to be?' The fact is, the diflerences that separate evangelical Chris-
tians do not pertain to those primary facts and truths of the Gospel which
make it glad tidings' and the power of God unto salvation, but arise in
connection with theologizing. which représents the action of finite, fallible
minds working with infinite truths, values, and relations, seeking to
define and classify tliem and draw out their remoter inferenees — a human
statement of divine things. Differences here there always have been and
always will be. It is a capital mistake to regard our human, fallible
theological const ruet ions as synonymous and coterminous with the Gospel
itself, and 1o allow our differences in the former to destroy our fellowship

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