THE FOUR POINTS.

120. Altar- and Pulpit-Fellowship, Lodges and Chiliasm.—Immediately at its first convention at Fort Wayne, 1867, it became apparent that the General Council was unwilling to take an unequivocal and decided stand with respect to Lutheran doctrine and practise. At Fort Wayne the Joint Synod of Ohio, through its delegates (G. Cronenwett, F.A. Herzberger, G. Baughman), after stating that, despite the reception of the Doctrinal Basis, "un-Lutheran doctrine and practise" were still found in some of the synods connected with the Council, requested an answer to the following questions: "1. What relation will this venerable body in future sustain to Chiliasm? 2. Mixed communions? 3. The exchanging of pulpits with sectarians? 4. Secret or unchurchly societies?" "Especially," they declared, "would we earnestly desire a decided answer with regard to the last item, inasmuch as the Joint Synod, for years already, in view of certain relations in one of its district synods, has had difficulties in consequence of four pastors belonging to secret societies, and would not, therefore, again burden its conscience." The answer was: "That this Council is aware of nothing in its 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' and Constitution, nor in the relation it sustains in the four questions raised, which justifies a doubt whether its decision on them all, when they are brought up in the manner prescribed in the Constitution, will be in harmony with Holy Scripture and the Confession of the Church. That so soon as official evidence shall be presented to this body, in the manner prescribed by the constitution, that un-Lutheran doctrines or practises are authorized by the action of any of its synods, or by their refusal to act, it will weigh that evidence, and, if it finds they exist, use all its constitutional power to convince the minds of men in regard to them, and as speedily as possible to remove them." (Doc. Hist., 156.) In other words: Unite with us, and then we shall see what can be done, according to the "educational methods," with reference to the Four Points. A similar evasive answer was given to the following petition of the Iowa Synod: "In order to effect a union of the Church, and that we may all truly agree in the principles of practise as well as of faith, without conditions, the delegates [G. Grossman, S. and G. Fritschel] of the Synod of Iowa propose, in accordance with the instructions of their Synod, that the General Council shall expressly acknowledge what, according to the understanding of the delegates of said Synod, is virtually acknowledged in the 'Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity' adopted by this body, viz.: 1. that according to the Confession of the Evangelical Lutheran Church there must be, and is, condemned all church-fellowship with such as are not Lutherans; for example, ministers serving congregations such as are mixed and not purely Lutheran, receiving such congregations and their pastors into synodical connection, the admittance of those of a different faith to the privilege of Communion, the permission of those not Lutheran to occupy our pulpits, etc.; 2. according to the Word of God, church-discipline be exercised, especially at the celebration of the Holy Communion, and be likewise exercised towards those who are members of secret societies." The answer was: "That the General Council is not prepared to endorse the declaration of the Synod of Iowa as a correct logical deduction and application of the negative part of our Confessional Books, and that we refer the matter to the District Synods, until such time as, by the blessings of God's Holy Spirit and the leadings of His Providence, we shall be enabled throughout the whole General Council and all its churches to see eye to eye in all the details of practise and usage, towards the consummation of which we will direct our unceasing prayers." (161.) In other words: Unite with us, and we shall see what can be done in the future, and whether your position really is in harmony with the Lutheran Confessions. Hereupon the Iowa men declared that their Synod could not unite with the Council, because "in accordance with our deep and sincere conviction, which is at the same time that of the Synod we represent, we must declare it to be a necessary precedent condition of an official ecclesiastical connection between synodical bodies that there should be a complete and hearty agreement not only in the principles of faith and confession, but also in an ecclesiastical practise accordant with such faith and confession, as set forth especially in the first of the propositions presented by us." (162.) Among the pastors who, at Fort Wayne, also declared their dissent with respect to the dubious attitude of the Council regarding the Four Points were the Revs. J. Bading, A. Hoenecke, A. Martin, C.F. Welden, and C. F. Heyer. (155 ff.)

121. Side-lights on "Four Points" Difficulties.—Dr. S.E. Ochsenford explains in Documentary History of the General Council: "The difficulty lay in the fact that some synods demanded that that should be done at once[?], regardless of consequences, which others felt could be done with much better results by following an educational method, leading in the process of time all the synods and congregations, among many of which in certain portions of the Church there existed peculiar difficulties, to the same lofty eminence of purity in doctrine and in practise, and so true unity in both. The older synods had difficulties in this respect, of which the more recently formed synods had no true conception. These difficulties could not be eradicated at once and by the fiat of any organization; but as they had grown up gradually, so they must be removed by a process of education." (164.) Dr. Spaeth gives the following explanation of the situation, and apology for the attitude of the General Council at Fort Wayne: "There appeared at this point a wide difference, especially between the Eastern and Western synods, which was in the first place the natural result of the historical development, through which those various sections of the Church had passed which now endeavored to form an organic union. The Lutheran Church in the Eastern part of our country, having been founded about one hundred and fifty years ago, had passed through all the different stages of church-life, suffering, and death, by which the history of the Church and theology of the German Fatherland was characterized in that period. We need not be surprised to find that during this time many things crept in which were in conflict with the spirit and Confession of our Church. Over against those things the renewed appreciation of the Lutheran Confession and the honest return to the same was of comparatively recent date. It was therefore not to be expected that there should have been on all sides at the very outset a thorough insight into all the consequences and obligations of a decided and consistent adoption of the Lutheran Confession. On the other hand, most of the Lutheran synods of the West had been founded at a much more favorable season. Out of the very fulness and freshness of the revived Confession, partly even in the martyr-spirit of a persecuted Church, have their foundations been laid and their structures raised. Accordingly, their whole congregational life could much more easily and more consistently be organized on the principles established in the Confession, and many evils could be excluded which in other places had taken root and had been growing for nearly a century." (164.) However, both Spaeth and Ochsenford fail to see the real issue; for the grievance at Fort Wayne was not the inability to abolish immediately all abuses referred to in the Four Points, but rather the persistent refusal on the part of the General Council to take, as such, a definite and unequivocal Lutheran attitude with respect to these questions. Nor was the charge, at least on the part of Missouri, with respect to the "educational method," as advocated and applied from 1867 to 1918 by the Council, directed against this method as such, but against the mutilation of this method by practically eliminating its eventual natural termination, expulsion according to Matt. 18, and against the apparent insincerity in the advocacy, and the lack of seriousness in the application of this method. Indeed, the real grievance was not that weak members of the General Council were lagging behind in Lutheran doctrine and practise, but that many of her prominent leaders and her periodicals occupied an un-Lutheran position and championed un-Lutheran doctrine and practise.

AKRON-GALESBURG RULE.

122. Non-Lutherans Admitted Exceptionally.—Regarding the Four Points, especially the question of altar- and pulpit-fellowship, the General Council during its subsequent history never really rose above the Fort Wayne level. In 1868, at Pittsburgh, the Council declared "that no man shall be admitted to our pulpits, whether of the Lutheran name or any other, of whom there is just reason to doubt whether he will preach the pure truth of God's Word as taught in the Confessions of our Church." (208.) As though a sectarian minister could preach in accordance with the Lutheran symbols; or offense and unionism were fully eliminated when the sectarian minister, preaching in a Lutheran pulpit, proclaims none of his errors! The same convention held: "Lutheran ministers may properly preach wherever there is an opening in the pulpit of other churches, unless the circumstances imply, or seem to imply, a fellowship with error or schism, or a restriction on the unreserved expression of the whole counsel of God." (209.) But, apart from other considerations, the fact is that, as a rule, these conditions were not and could not be complied with. Furthermore, the same convention declared: "Heretics and fundamentally false teachers are to be excluded from the Lord's Table." (209.) But the convention at Chicago, in 1870, explained: "Although the General Council holds the distinctive doctrines of our Evangelical Lutheran Church as in such sense fundamental that those who err in them err in fundamental doctrines, nevertheless, in employing the terms 'fundamental errorists,' in the declaration made at Pittsburgh, it understands not those who are the victims of involuntary mistake, but those who wilfully, wickedly, and persistently desert, in whole or in part, the Christian faith, especially as embodied in the Confessions of the Church Catholic, in the purest form in which it now exists on earth, to wit, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and thus overturn or destroy the foundation in them confessed; and who hold, defend, and extend these errors in the face of the admonitions of the Church, and to the leading away of men from the path of life." (215 f.) Accordingly, the fact that a Christian held the Reformed view on the Lord's Supper did not per se exclude him from the altars of the General Council.

123. "The Rule Is."—At Akron, O., 1872, in answer to a question of the Iowa Synod referring to the declaration of 1870, Dr. Krauth, then President of the General Council, submitted the following: "1. The rule is: Lutheran pulpits are for Lutheran ministers only. Lutheran altars are for Lutheran communicants only. 2. The exceptions to the rule belong to the sphere of privilege, not of right. 3. The determination of the exceptions is to be made in consonance with these principles, by the conscientious judgment of pastors, as the cases arise." (216.) At Galesburg, 1875, the General Council declared: "The rule which accords with the Word of God and with the Confessions of our Church is: 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only—Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only.'" (217.) However, this declaration, which, for the time being, satisfied the Iowa Synod, admits of the interpretation: The exceptions are: Lutheran pulpits for non-Lutheran ministers, and Lutheran altars for non-Lutheran communicants, as was virtually admitted also by the General Council in her answer of 1877 to an appeal from the Ministerium of New York against violation of the Galesburg Rule. (217.) Returning—if indeed a return was required—to the Akron Declaration, the General Council, in 1889, stated "that at the time of the passage of the Galesburg Rule, by the General Council, the distinct statement was made that all preceding action of the General Council on pulpit- and altar-fellowship was unchanged.... Inasmuch as the General Council has never annulled, rescinded, or reconsidered the declarations made at Akron, 0., in the year 1872, they still remain, in all their parts and provisions, the action and rule of the General Council. All subsequent action of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted according to the principles there determined and settled.... The present position of the General Council is to be understood and interpreted in such manner that neither the amendment and further explanation at Galesburg nor the original action at Akron be overlooked or ignored, both of which remain in full force and mutually interpret and supplement one another." (219.) Exceptionally, non-Lutherans may be admitted to Lutheran pulpits and altars—such, then, was the final official decision of the General Council as to the question of pulpit- and altar-fellowship. In the Lutheran of May 3, 1917, Rev. J.E. Whitteker, president of the General Council Home Mission Board, said that it was his custom not to refuse the Lord's Supper to non-Lutherans. (L. u. W. 1917, 463.) Dr. J. Fry, The Pastor's Guide, says: "It is not considered proper to give a general invitation to persons belonging to other congregations to participate in the Communion at the time when it is administered. If any public invitation is given, it should be at the time when the Communion and preparatory services are announced, and such persons be requested to make personal application to the pastor, so he may know who they are, and judge of their fitness to join in the Communion. The door should not be opened wider to strangers than to children of the household." (54.) In 1904 Dr. Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod declared: "We do not see that in the circles of the General Council, as a whole, the churchly practise has improved and become less offensive, and that earnest proceedings are instituted against members who are guilty of offensive practise—a state of affairs which our Synod never can and will sanction." (L. u. W. 1904, 516.)

INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWSHIP.

124. Sound Principles.—The doctrinal basis of the General Council as well as a number also of its later declarations and resolutions as to church-fellowship and cooperation with non-Lutherans are sound. They breathe the Lutheran spirit revealed in the manly words of C.P. Krauth: "The Lutheran Church can never have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the reverence and loyalty of her children while she allows the fear of denominations around her, or the desire of their approval, in any respect to shape her principles or control her actions. It is a fatal thing to ask, not, What is right? What is consistent? but, What will be thought of us? How will our neighbors of the different communions regard this or that course? Better to die than to prolong a miserable life by such a compromise of all that gives life its value." (L. u. W. 1917, 468.) In 1909 Dr. T.E. Schmauk, then president of the General Council, declared in regard to the World's Missionary Conference: "We regret our inability, on account of our sound fundamental principle of unity as a prerequisite to cooperation, to enter in as one of the active elements in such a meeting." The committee reported: "We approve of the President's position as to the World Conference and the Federal Council." In 1913 the General Council resolved with respect to participation in "The World Conference on Faith and Order": "While regretting that it is unable to unite with the Communion of the Episcopal Church in arranging for, and conducting, a Conference on Faith and Order, yet, nevertheless, it hereby resolves to appoint a Committee on the Unity of Faith, which shall be authorized, without participating in organization or arrangement of any conference, to present and set forth the Lutheran faith touching particular doctrines, either independently, or when they are under discussion in any conference or gathering, without, however, granting the committee any power of association, arrangement, fellowship, or practical direction, but confining it to the one specific function of witness and testimony to the faith that is in us, and which we rejoice to confess, and to have tested, before all the world." In 1915 the General Council made the statement: "Regarding general movements in the Christian world which have arisen in the last few years looking to the drawing together of the whole Christian Church on earth, such as the movement of a free Protestantism toward a united foreign mission objective, the Federation of Churches, and other movements of a similar character, we recommend that, while we cannot at this time [sic!] organically participate, it is well, nevertheless, to keep fully informed as to their trend, direction, and development." (467.) In 1917 Schmauk said in the Lutheran: "The Lutheran faith has suffered terribly in the past by attempts of union and cooperation with various Christian denominations and tendencies. Usually they have penetrated insidiously into our spirit, and poisoned our own life-roots, and taken possession of our palaces. But these damages have been wrought through an attempted unity with men who are not at one with us in the profession of a common faith. As Luther said: 'They have a different spirit.'" (468.)

125. Facts Discounting Declarations.—Although the General Council as such has always confined its fraternal intercourse and cooperation to Lutheran synods (General Synod, United Synod South, etc.), its members and official boards have not. In 1916 several representatives of the General Council attended the Latin-America Missionary Conference, its Mission Board was connected with the "Foreign Mission Conference," a body composed of Adventists, Baptists, Quakers, Universalists, Reformed, etc. (461.) In his pamphlet, Dangerous Alliances, 1917, Rev. W. Brenner, a member of the General Council, wrote: "The Woman's Mission Worker, the Foreign Missionary, and the Home Missionary [periodicals of the General Council] have published letters and articles defending Lutheran participation in 'union movements.' In the Lutheran of September 14, 1916, Rev. C.F. Fry lauds federation in 'mission-work' and 'Reformation celebrations.' 'On Tuesday evening pastors of non-Lutheran churches presented their greetings,' so the Lutheran of November 18, 1915, describes in part the 175th anniversary celebration of St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church at Easton, Pa. Rev. E.S. Bromer, D.D., of the Reformed Church, addressed the congregation of the First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pa., on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary. (Lutheran, Nov. 18, 1915.) Emmanuel Lutheran Church of the Augustana Synod laid the corner-stone of a new church edifice, November 12, 1916, at Butte, Mont. 'Brief congratulatory speeches were made by Hon. C.H. Lane, mayor of Butte, and the Rev. J.H. Mitchell, chairman of Butte's Ministerial Association.' (Lutheran, Nov. 30, 1916.) We have also read of Anti-Saloon League representatives, and Women's Christian Temperance lecturers, male and female, who delivered speeches in the Lutheran churches." (463.) In 1915, when the General Council met in Rock Island, Dr. Gerberding occupied the pulpit of the Presbyterian church. At Port Colborne, Can., on November 11, 1918, Rev. Knauff of the General Council fellowshiped with Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans in a united Thanksgiving service. (Luth. Witness 1919, 14.) Dr. J. Fry in his Pastor's Guide: "A Lutheran pastor may officiate on any occasion, or perform a ministerial act in which ministers of other creeds take part, provided the occasion and circumstances are such as will not violate synodical order, nor compromise his confessional position." (84.) Again: "Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s, Christian Endeavor, etc., are rarely [sic!] to be recommended to our people, as they are generally conducted on 'new-measure' lines, and their influence is to make our members dissatisfied with Lutheran or churchly ideas and usages." (97.) It may be safely said that without the sanction of this species of unionism openly practised within the General Council, the Lutheran Merger of 1918 would have been an impossibility. And yet, this practise admits of but one construction: mutual acknowledgment. "When teachers and preachers exchange pulpits and chairs, it is an emphatic way of declaring, not their personal friendship, but their endorsement of each other's teachings; it is all the same as to infer that they are in accord in their essential teachings." (Editor of the Presbyterian.)

ATTITUDE TOWARD LODGES.

126. Sound Lutheran Principles.—At its convention at Pittsburgh, 1868, the General Council made the following declarations with respect to secret societies: "1. Though mere secrecy in association be not in itself immoral, yet as it is so easily susceptible of abuse, and in its abuse may work, as it has often worked, great mischief in family, Church and State, we earnestly beseech all good men to ponder the question whether the benefits they believe to be connected with secret societies might not be equally reached in modes not liable to the same abuse. 2. Any and all societies for moral and religious ends which do not rest on the supreme authority of God's holy Word as contained in the Old and New Testaments; which do not recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the true God and the only Mediator between God and man; which teach doctrines or have usages or forms of worship condemned in God's Word and in the Confessions of His Church; which assume to themselves what God has given to His Church and its ministers; which require undefined obligations to be assumed by oath, are unchristian, and we solemnly warn our members and ministers against all fellowship with, or connivance at, associations which have this character. 3. All connection with infidel and immoral associations we consider as requiring the exercise of prompt and decisive discipline, and after faithful and patient monition and teaching from God's Word, the cutting off the persistent and obstinate offender from communion of the Church until he abandons them and shows a true repentance." (Doc. Hist.,208.)

127. Practise out of Tune with Principles.—From the very beginning the official declarations of 1868 were and remained a dead letter. With the exception of the Augustana Synod, lodges were generally tolerated and, in part, practically encouraged within the General Council throughout its history—resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding. Lodge-men were received with open arms, and no questions were asked. In 1873 the English District Synod of Ohio, affiliated with the Council, deposed Rev. Bartholomew because, for one reason, he, in a sermon, had testified against the lodgism prevailing in Synod. (Report 1874, 45. 47 ff.) The Pilger, a German paper published within the General Council, wrote in 1875: "Testimony against secret societies will bring little result so long as the Church [General Council] looks on in silence while pastors of the Christian Church are members of antichristian lodges. Indeed, many resolutions have been passed against pastors being members of secret orders; but paper is patient, and those who are rebuked laugh at Synod's resolutions." Herold und Zeitschrift, August 2, 1884, related of a pastor connected with the Council: "He is a Freemason. He does not refrain from showing his attitude toward the lodge. Recently, after delivering the funeral address for a Freemason, he put on his Masonic uniform before the congregation, and marched out to the grave. Some time ago he announced a lecture on Masonry in his church. Appearing before a large audience which had gathered, in the white leathern apron and other paraphernalia of his order, he, in eloquent fashion, set forth the advantages of Masonry, etc., making special mention of its great antiquity and marvelous liberality." In 1886, the Lutheran declared that excommunication because of membership in a secret society had never been an official demand of the General Council. The Lutherisches Kirchenblatt, edited by pastors connected with the Council, reported a meeting of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, held in January, 1887, as follows: "Pastor Hinterleiter made a motion that pastors ought not belong to secret societies. Pastor Struntz vehemently opposed this motion, declaring that it had no place in a constitution, but was part of a pastor's private life. Dr. Fry expressed it as his opinion that such a resolution would give offense." In the Lutheran Church Review, April, 1903, Carl Swensson wrote: "I believe the entire stand taken by, for instance, our Augustana Synod on the secret society question has been a mistake and a misfortune. Society members, inside or outside of the Church, should be treated just as any other people." (L. u. W. 1903, 184.) In the same year a number of General Council ministers publicly joined the Mystic Shriners. On May 6, 1917, the pastor of the First English Lutheran Church in Kitchener (Berlin), Ont., held a lodge-service for the Freemasons and Odd-Fellows. At the convention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1917 a petition signed by thirteen members was presented to amend the constitution by striking out section 51 in Art. 10, according to which "any minister belonging to the Ministerium who shall, after due admonition, persist in fellowship and cooperation with any such antichristian society or order [lodges], whether secret or not, shall be subject to discipline." (Proceedings 1917, 182.) No action was taken by Synod.

128. Educational Method a Pretense.—In dealing with offenders also against the Lutheran principles pertaining to lodge-membership, the General Council advocated the "educational method." But the fact is that during the whole course of its history no serious and persevering efforts whatever were made to enlighten the congregations as to the utter incompatibility of Lodgism and Lutheranism. Geo. Fritschel: "It cannot be denied that the General Council as such has done nothing to bring about a progress in this question" (concerning lodge-membership). The same, he says, was true of its chief synods. Partly they did not want any discussions on this question. The officers of the Pennsylvania Synod remained unconcerned even when ministers joined the lodges. (Geschichte, 2, 322.) The Iowa Kirchenblatt, November 24, 1917, declared that the policy of education as advocated by the Council had utterly and finally failed. (Luth. Witness 1918, 387.) In the same year Rev. W. Brenner wrote: "There is an official General Council declaration which solemnly warns its pastors and people against all fellowship with, or connivance at, secret societies (Doc. Hist., 208); but from the attitude of some General Council ministers and their practise no one would ever suspect that they had ever read, or were aware of the fact, that such a document existed. During their seminary days little was heard on the subject, and so they are surprised when they see how other pastors who studied in other seminaries take a firm stand and refuse absolutely to officiate at any funeral where lodge-chaplains are permitted to take any part in the service." (L. u. W. 1917, 462.) Dr. J. Fry, professor in the Seminary of the General Council at Mount Airy, advises in his Pastor's Guide: "Ministers should not refuse to officiate at the funerals of persons who were not members of the Church, or who died impenitent.... Neither should a minister refuse to officiate because some lodge or other society may be present and have its service at the grave.... He should finish his service, and quietly step back." (64.) Again: "Pastors are sometimes asked to preach special sermons before lodges.... If there should be any good reason for their coming as a body, the service should be at an hour which interferes with no other service." (75.)

CHILIASM.

129. Official Attitude.—At the convention in Pittsburgh, in 1868, the following declaration regarding Chiliasm was adopted by the General Council: "2. The General Council has neither had, nor would consent to have, fellowship with any synod which tolerates the 'Jewish opinions' or 'chiliastic opinions' condemned in the Seventeenth Article of the Augsburg Confession. 3. The points on which our Confession has not been explicit, or on which its testimony is not at present interpreted in precisely the same way by persons equally intelligent and honest, and equally unreserved and worthy of belief in the profession of adherence to the Confessions, should continue to be the subject of calm, thorough, Scriptural, and prayerful investigation, until we shall see perfectly eye to eye both as regards the teaching of God's Word and the testimony of our Church." (Doc. Hist., 207.) According to the General Council, then, while the gross and carnal millennialism of the Jews must be rejected, there is a chiliasm which should be tolerated and continue to be the subject of further prayerful research. Pastors Bading, Adelbert, and Klingmann of the Wisconsin Synod, however, immediately, protested that they "rejected every form of chiliasm as against the Scriptures and the Confessions."

130. Kind of Chiliasm Tolerated.—The chiliasm which had always been advocated by members of the General Synod, and which the General Council refused to reject, was of a kind with the one entertained by Dr. John Geo. Schmucker (1771—1854), the father of S.S. Schmucker, and by the Drs. Helmuth, Lochman, Daniel Kurtz (died 1856), by Loehe and leaders of the Iowa Synod, and especially by Dr. J.A. Seiss of the Pennsylvania Synod. According to J.G. Schmucker, the Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer and, among others, also the following passages of the New Testament: Matt. 5, 35; 8, 11. 26. 29; Acts 3, 20. 21; Rom. 8, 20. 21; 11, 25. 26, treat of a coming millennium, in which Christ will reveal Himself in a visible pavilion, take possession also of the civil power, govern the world according to the principles of the New Testament, bring about a great temporal happiness, prolong the life of the saints, etc. These and similar views were endorsed and advocated also by the Lutheran, the organ of the conservatives within the General Synod. (L. u. W. 1861, 282.) In his Last Times and Lectures on the Apocalypse, Dr. Seiss taught: "There is a first resurrection at the beginning of the Millennium, and a second resurrection at the end of the Millennium. The one embraces the martyrs and saints,—who are 'blessed and holy,' 'who have fallen asleep through Jesus,'—the other is the resurrection of the remaining dead." Seiss also denied that the Papacy is the true Antichrist. In the Lutheran Cyclopedia, published by Jacobs and Haas, Dr. Seiss states: "That there have been teachings and beliefs put forth, and usually called chiliasm, which are heretical and subversive of the true Gospel, there can be no question. That Jesus and His apostles, as well as the great body of primitive Christians, held and taught what some call chiliasm, or millenarianism, can as readily be substantiated. And that there are various open questions touching these eschatological particulars on which the final word has not yet been spoken, and which may be considered chiliasm, must likewise be admitted." (87.) A chiliasm, then, which expects a time of universal prosperity and glory for the Church on this side of the resurrection, a time when the whole world will be converted to Christ, a time when peace and righteousness will be established from the rivers to the ends of the earth; a chiliasm which believes in a future twofold coming of Christ, a double resurrection, a conversion and restoration of Israel, a future personal Antichrist, embodying all antichristian elements,—such a chiliasm, according to Seiss, the Lutheran Cyclopedia, and the General Council, conflicts neither with the Bible, nor the Confessions, nor Lutheran orthodoxy. (87 f.)

OTHER ABBERRATIONS.

131. Reformed Tendencies.—In the Lutheran and Missionary, April 13, 1876, Dr. Seiss declared that it was an arrogance to make the doctrine that unbelievers as well as believers receive the true body and blood of Christ at the Lord's Table an article of faith. Nor was the Puritanic doctrine concerning the divine obligation of the Sunday, universally held in the General Synod, discarded by the synods and congregations constituting the General Council. The Reading Kirchenblatt, December 19, 1903, wrote: "On the second Sunday in Advent the Philadelphia Sabbath-Association celebrated its anniversary in the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Rev. C.L. Fry) in Philadelphia. Addresses were made by prominent Sabbath-workers. The leading speakers were the well-known John Wanamaker (Presbyterian) and the Methodist Rev. Dr. Mutchler.... Pastors of our own Synod foster un-Lutheran doctrine, and our superiors remain silent. Do they know of it? Certainly! All the dailies brought the news: first the invitations, then long reports. And what do our professors say to it? They keep silence.... But why do so many of our pastors hold a false, Puritan doctrine of the Sabbath? Because they have learned no better. If the students in our institutions would learn Luther's true doctrine concerning Sunday and sanctifying the holy-day, they could not, after becoming pastors of Lutheran congregations, take part in the fanatical doings of the sects. But, as it is, they go hand in hand with the sects, invite them to their churches, and permit them to present a false doctrine of the Sabbath to their Lutheran church-members." (L. u. W. 1904, 38; 1901, 85.) In his Catechist Dr. Gerberding teaches: "The law of one holy day of rest: its purpose is rest for the body and refreshment for the soul. All works of mercy and real necessity are allowed." In 1816 the District Synod of Ohio refused to discipline a pastor who did not believe that a child becomes a Christian, and is endowed with faith, in Baptism. (Luth. Witness 1918, 341. 356.) Rev. Brenner: "How long ago has it been considered a good policy in the General Council for its Mission Boards to agitate 'working together with the denominations about us for the best interest of our fellow-men,' and to 'agree on a program to lift the world to a higher level' by 'petitioning, demanding, and insisting upon special legislation for abolishing the saloon,' and doing a thousand other things which is the business, not of the Church, but of the State.... Individual synods have passed prohibition resolutions. Individual pastors have gone entirely too far in this matter. They are fanatical on the subject. Some have almost gone daft over the liquor problem." (L. u. W. 1917, 465.) The Home Missionary, December, 1916, declared that what the Lutheran Church teaches in reference to the separation of Church and State is "rot" and "fool" theology. (464.)

132. Qualified Confessional Subscription.—It was an ultrasymbolism, not countenanced by the Lutheran Church, when the Lutheran and Missionary maintained in its issue of September 27, 1867, that it was false, dangerous, and inconsistent to declare it the duty of Lutherans to compare for themselves the confessions received from the fathers with the Scriptures, and if found erring, to correct them; that this unbridled and radical theory, resting on the false assumption that private investigation of the Scriptures is the foundation of our faith, could not be proved by the Scriptures, and, reduced to practise, would endanger all purity of doctrine, and finally destroy all ecclesiastical communion. (L. u. W. 1867, 371.) In the Lutheran, March 5, 1908, however, Dr. H.E. Jacobs, defending the other extreme, wrote: "Some of the difficulties that men whom we esteem have urged against the acceptance of all our Confessions are due to a misunderstanding of what is involved in a confessional subscription. They conceive of the Confessions as an external law that binds the conscience to a mechanical acceptance of all [doctrinal matter] that may be found in these documents. What is properly confessional in these documents is their answers to the questions that rendered the framing of a confessional statement necessary.... We must study our Confessions as an organism, and appreciate the relation of each part to the other parts and to the whole Confession. Where the heart of each confession and of each doctrine confessed lies, must be the object of our search. To tear passages from their connection, or to represent isolated passages and merely incidental statements as having confessional authority is as unfair to the Confessions as it is to the Holy Scriptures." (Jacobs denies that all of the astronomical, geological, historical, and similar statements of the Bible are true.) The Lutheran World, commenting on Dr. Jacobs's statements, remarked: "But do not Dr. Jacobs's declarations sound very much like a quatenus rather than a quia mode of confessional subscription? For a long time we have not seen a theological statement that reminds us so much of the 'substantially correct' mode of subscription formerly in vogue in the General Synod. It certainly does not sound as stalwart as the General Synod's resolution in 1895, when she declared 'the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as throughout in perfect consistence with that Word'—namely, the Word of God." (L. u. W. 1908, 233.) In his Book of Concord, 1893, Dr. Jacobs declared that only the primary, not the secondary, arguments of the Confessions are involved in the subscription. "'The primary,' says Jacobs, 'are the dogmas set forth with the purpose of showing they are believed and taught by the Lutheran Church, the confutations of errors whereby it wished to declare that it contradicted them, and formulas of speech either expressly prescribed or proscribed.' The secondary are 'all those particulars introduced to confirm or illustrate the former,'" etc. (2, 13.)

ROMANISM.

133. Jacobs and Haas on Ordination, etc.—With respect to the doctrine that the public office of the ministry originates in, and is transferred by, the local congregation, Dr. Jacobs declared: "Nothing can be clearer than the antagonism of our great Lutheran divines to this position, nor anything be more convincing than their arguments against it." (Gerberding, The Lutheran Pastor, 73.) Luther's language on this question, Jacobs maintains, is "not guarded with the same care as that of the later dogmaticians." (74.) According to Jacobs the right to call a minister "belongs neither to the minister alone nor to the laity alone, but to both in due order." (Summary of Christian Faith, 427. 424.) Dr. J.A.W. Haas: "The transference theory has been developed in antithesis to Rome, and in it Lutherans have agreed with the Reformed." It "makes the ministry an organ growing out of the congregation, which ill befits the divine origin of the ministry." "In it the main accent is placed on the vocation, of which ordination is the attestation." (Gerberding, l.c., 77.) Ordination, Dr. Haas declares, is "the prerogative of the whole Church." It includes "the separation for the ministry with invocation of blessing and consecration under divine approval." For this reason "ordination is not repeated." (112.) "This realism of a divine gift [in ordination] was apparently not held by Luther.... He declares the right of all believers to the office, because of the spiritual priesthood, and sees the consecration (Weihe) in the call. 'Ordo est ministerium et vocatio ministrorum ecclesiae.'" (116.)

134. Gerberding and Fry on the Ministry.—In his Lutheran Pastor Dr. G.H. Gerberding, professor at the seminary of the General Council at Maywood (Chicago), declares: It is clear "that this transference theory is not held by our older theologians. Neither have we been able to find any ground for it in Holy Scripture. Where is there a single proof that the congregation, made up of believing priests, does on that account possess the right to exercise the ordinary functions of the ministry? Where is the proof that the ministry is created by the congregation? Where is it written that the minister is amenable to the congregation? If the congregation of laymen alone makes the minister, then it can also unmake, or depose, him from his office. The whole theory is unscriptural and unhistoric. Only the fanatical sects, which have a low view of the means of grace, can, with any consistency, hold such a view." (82.) Again: "This [the outward call] does not come from the ministry alone. Neither does it come from the laity alone. It must come from the Church. But the Church is neither the ministry without the people nor the people without the ministry.... Christ, then, exercises His power to call men into the ministry through the Church [ministers and laymen]. The Church may exist either in the congregation or in the representative Church [synod], made up of ministers and lay representatives of congregations. Either the congregation, as defined above, not without a pastor, or the representative body, made up also of pastors and people, has a right to extend the outward call." (86.) "The transference theory is unscriptural and not consistent with the Lutheran doctrine of the means of grace." (110.) "It is unscriptural and un-Lutheran to hold that the meaning and use of ordination consists essentially in this that it publicly attests and satisfies the validity of the call." (110.) Ordination "conveys the special grace needed for the special work of the ministry." (120.) In his Pastor's Guide, 1915, Dr. J. Fry, professor at the seminary of the General Council in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, teaches: The call to the ministry "must come from God, from the Church [synod] and from a particular place or congregation." (5.) "Of all these qualifications [required for the ministry] the Church [synod] must be the judge, and in her synodical organization and authority must extend the call to the ministry." (6.) "A pastor serving a parish of more than one congregation has no right to resign one congregation and retain the others without the consent of the president of the synod to which the parish belongs." (14.) "The call should also specify that either party desiring to withdraw from the agreement [between the pastor and congregation] must give three months' notice to that effect to the other party. This provision will do away with the very objectionable custom in some congregations of holding annual elections for a pastor." (9.) "The power to decide and impose penalties belongs to the pastor and church council." (92.) Dr. Fry regards "the pastor and church council as the highest authority in all congregational matters." (98.) All of these tenets are corruptions of the Scriptural and evangelical doctrines as proclaimed again by Luther. Consistently developed, their terminus is Rome. However, in the atmosphere of American liberty, where State and Church are separated and the will of the former is not foisted on the latter, Romanistic tendencies cannot thrive, nor did they ever to any extent succeed in practise in the Lutheran Church, a Church whose fundamental articles are the doctrines of justification by faith alone and absolute spiritual freedom from every human authority.

SYNERGISM.

135. Synergistic Teaching on Conversion.—In his Confessional Principle, 1911, Dr. T.B. Schmauk rejects Melanchthon's aliqua causa discriminis in homine, some kind of discriminating cause in man. Schmauk writes: "Several qualities and motives in Melanchthon's nature, including his humanist outlook on free will, and his tendency to emphasize the necessity of good works, contributed to inspire him with erroneous views, when the evangelical doctrine began to be wrought out more expansively, and led him to find the cause for the actual variation in the working of God's grace in man, its object. This subtle synergistic spirit attacks the very foundation of Lutheranism, flows out into almost every doctrine, and weakens the Church at every point. And it was practically this weakness which the great multitude of Melanchthon's scholars, who become the leaders of the generation of which we are speaking, absorbed, and which rendered it difficult to return, finally, and after years of struggle, to the solid ground once more recovered in the Formula of Concord." (611; L. u. W. 1912, 33.) Evidently, this is sound Lutheranism; and similar testimonies were occasionally heard within the General Council throughout its history. (L. u. W. 1904, 273: Rev. Rembe; 1917, 473: Rev. G.H. Schnur.) But it was the song of rare birds. The synergistic note was struck much more frequently and emphatically. For making his anti-synergistic utterances Schmauk was called to order by Dr. Gerberding. And in 1916 Schmauk himself opened the Lutheran Church Review to L.S. Keyser, the zealous exponent of synergism within the General Synod, who wrote: "Faith's experience always includes the fact that, while the ability of faith is divinely conferred, the exercise of that ability is never coerced, but belongs to the domain of liberty.... The same is true of all volitions: the ability to will is divinely implanted; the act itself belongs to the sphere of freedom. The ability to repent is from God; the use of that ability belongs to man's liberty." "The Scriptures never command men to regenerate; they always put that category in the passive voice, 'Except any one be born again'; but the Bible again and again commands men to repent and believe, putting the verbs in the active voice, imperative mood. What inconsistent commands these would be if man possessed no freedom in the exercise of repentance and faith!" "God's fiat of the individual's election unto salvation must have been decided upon in foresight and foreknowledge of the whole content of faith, including both its divine enablement and its human element of freedom." (65.) Similar views on man's freedom and responsibility were expressed by Dr. Haas in Trends of Thought, 1915. In his book, The Way of Life, 1917, Dr. Gerberding explains: "After prevenient grace, however, begins to make itself felt, then the will begins to take part. It must now assume an attitude, and meet the question: Shall I yield to these holy influences or not? One or the other of the two courses must be pursued. There must be a yielding to the heavenly strivings or a resistance. To resist at this point requires a positive act of the will. This act man can put forth by his own strength. On the other hand, with the help of that grace already at work in his heart, he can refuse to put forth that act of his will, and thus remain non-resistant." According to Gerberding man "may be said, negatively, to help towards his conversion." (167 ff.; L. u. W. 1917, 214.) Prior to 1901 Rev. C. Blecher, by order of the pastoral conference of Connecticut, belonging to the Council, published a pamphlet which was recommended for the widest possible distribution by the Lutherische Herold. In it Blecher, in direct opposition to the Formula of Concord, Art. 11, section 60 ff., maintains: Two persons are never in equal guilt when the one resists the grace of God from inherited blindness and weakness, like Peter, while the other resists contumaciously and purposely, like Judas." (L. u. W. 1901, 65; 1902, 144.) In 1900 Dr. Seiss had maintained in the Lutheran: "Conversion is largely one's own act. God first makes it possible; but then the responsibility rests upon ourselves to determine whether or not we will comply with the truth brought to our understanding." (L. u. W. 1900, 243. 246.) Misstating historical facts and revealing his own synergistic attitude, Dr. G.W. Sandt wrote editorially in the Lutheran of March 27, 1919, concerning Dr. Stellhorn's polemics against the Missouri Synod: "When the controversy with Missouri was at its height, he [Stellhorn] could do no other but cast his soul into it and stand for the defense of the universal call to grace and salvation as over against the special call as Calvin and others teach it. He resented the charge of synergism which came from his opponents, and renounced it as strongly as any Missourian could."

136. Synergistic Predestination.—Synergism in the doctrine of conversion naturally leads to synergistic teaching on predestination. Moreover, the doctrine of predestination is, as it were, the bacteriological test whether one's Lutheran blood is really and absolutely free from synergistic infection also in the doctrines of conversion and justification. However, also in these tests as to the doctrinal purity of the General Council the results, as a rule, were negative. In his Summary of Christian Faith, 1905, Dr. H.E. Jacobs gives the following presentation of the doctrine of predestination: "Since God has not predestinated all that He has foreknown ('for all that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of men purposes and desires to do and will do, God sees and knows before,' ib.), but, in His inexplicable will, has allowed a certain measure of freedom and contingency in His creatures, and afforded them a degree of moral responsibility, knowing from all eternity what will be the result of their use of this trust, He also has determined how in every case their decision and activity will be treated." "When, therefore, God has willed that He will be determined in a certain decision by the free decision of a creature, that freedom of the creature will certainly be guaranteed in the result; but what in the exercise of this freedom the decision of the creature will be, as well as the determination of His will concerning it, He knows from all eternity, and makes His plans accordingly." "The fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the proviso or condition is contained in the foreknowledge which determined the free destination." (556 f.) According to Jacobs, then, Predestination depends on the divine foreknowledge of the use that man will make of the freedom with which God has entrusted him. Plainly synergistic doctrine!

LIBERALISTIC TRENDS.

137. Rejecting Verbal Inspiration.—Even the doctrines of the verbal inspiration and the complete inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures have been assailed by prominent representatives of the General Council and the Lutheran Church Review. Dr. H.E. Jacobs, in his introduction to Biblical Criticism (1903) by Dr. J.A.W. Haas, states: "It is, therefore, the Word and not the words; the divine substance and not the particular human form in which that substance is clothed; the divine truth and not the human language, with all its limitations, which, in accommodation to human finiteness, the Holy Spirit employs, that is 'the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.'" (18.) "Nevertheless, the subordination of the words of Holy Scripture to the Word in no way diminishes the need of the most reverent handling and the most careful judgment of the words themselves when considered in the place which they are intended to serve." (19.) "A text from Genesis and one from John, one from the Psalms, and another from Romans, cannot stand upon the same footing.... Many a precious passage in the Old Testament can no longer be used as the sincere expression of Christian faith in the light of the clearer revelation of the Gospel." (21.) "There are few theorists who would assign the same degree of inspiration to the statistics and rolls in Ezra or Chronicles as to those parts of the New Testament for whose reading the dying ask when all other earthly words have lost their interest. Even the distinction between the Petrine and the Pauline theology, which the Tuebingen school so greatly exaggerated, contains within it an element of truth, when the difference is found to be one of degree, but not one of kind." (21.) "The time has come when, in antagonism to such [radical] criticism, the Church must offer a restatement of its doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. The theories of our dogmaticians are not the confessional declarations of our Church. The Augsburg Confession contains no statement on this topic." (26.) "It is only the Formula of Concord that gives an official utterance.... But it formulates no definition either of revelation or inspiration. It simply presents to us in the Scriptures an inerrant and infallible judge concerning all religious truth.... Religious truth, it declares, 'is to be received only as revealed in God's Word," and for this Word we turn to the Scriptures." (27.) "For the truths made known by such revelation we are referred to a record. But that such a certain and indubitable record should be made, another supernatural act is necessary, and this is inspiration. This includes everything that is necessary to render the record an infallible standard of all religious truth." (27.) "If the verbal theory of inspiration mean that every word and letter are inspired, so that the writer was purely passive and performed a merely mechanical office, as 'the pen of the Holy Ghost,' this, we hold, is an assumption for which we have no warrant.... All we need to know is that in the Holy Scriptures we have a complete, clear, and unerring record of revealed truth, that is made the standard, for all time, of religious teaching." (28.) Evidently, then, Drs. Jacobs and Haas do not believe that the Holy Scriptures everywhere are inspired and free from error.

138. Bible Fallible in Scientific Matters.—Dr. J. Stump, professor in the seminary of the General Council in Chicago, supporting Dr. Jacobs, maintained in the Lutheran Church Review of January, 1904: One cannot speak of a confessional Lutheran doctrine of inspiration. Quenstedt's doctrine of verbal inspiration is mechanical and in conflict with all that we know of the Holy Ghost's activity; it cannot be proven from the Scriptures, nor indeed is it necessary. Stump considers the Bible free from error in its religious teachings, but not in its astronomical, geological, physical, and similar statements. To quote literally: "The holy writers were not inspired, however, to be 'teachers of astronomy, or geology, or physics,' and no number of contradictions in this sphere would shake our confidence in the absolute authority of Holy Scripture as the infallible test of theological truth, and inerrant guide in all matters of faith and practise." "The dogmaticians were led to maintain it [the verbal inspiration] by the exigency of the times and the stress of their severe dialectics. [The interest of the dogmaticians was to present the clear doctrine of the Scriptures on inspiration.] And as a result of their doctrines, they were logically obliged to claim the absolute impossibility of any kind of error or inaccuracy whatsoever in the Scriptures, even in unimportant externals; and further more to claim that the Scriptures are not only the sole and infallible guide in matters of religion, but also an infallible guide in matters of human science so far as they touched upon any part of science's domain, —claims which a careful examination of the Scriptures and the purpose for which they were written do not bear out." (L. u. W. 1904, 85.) It was in agreement with these views when the Lutheran, prior to 1904, maintained that the Bible must be explained according to the modern sciences.

139. Other Symptoms of Liberalism.—As a rule, the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures is denied in the interest of the theory of evolution, a doctrine absolutely incompatible with, and, consistently developed, destructive of, the very fundamentals of Lutheranism. The evolutionary doctrine, however, this antipode of Christian thought, which, wherever digested, has proved to be the beginning of the end of Christianity, was adopted also and publicly defended within the General Council. Rev. Brenner says: "I have heard General Council ministers say that they did not believe everything that is written in the Bible, and as they continued to explain their views, it became very evident that they were evolutionists." (L. u. W. 1917, 465.) Dr. T.E. Schmauk, the president of the General Council, declared in the Lutheran, April, 1912: "Evolution is the most wide-embracing, suggestive, and fascinating theory of things and life that ever has been offered. In innumerable cases it has been found to be in accord with nature and with history. In itself it is not a cause, but a process. Evolution as a partial process may be within Christianity." In 1915, in his book, Trends of Thought, Dr. J.A.W. Haas wrote: "If evolution as a biological theory remains within its limits and knows its sphere, it will not contradict the claims of Christianity. If we avoid a materialistic philosophy in biology, and if we do not make nature all-controlling, we can accept evolution as not in disagreement with Christianity." "But, on the other hand, Christianity must be careful not to demand as Biblical facts old hypotheses of species. It must differentiate between statement in popular religious language and the interpretation which tradition has put upon Biblical statement. In this tradition there are elements of past science which have unconsciously colored the Biblical account. Christianity must also treat its document historically, and not be disturbed if the temporal vessels of its religious truths are not shaped scientifically. Were they thus shaped, they would fail in their very purpose. It is general, popular, descriptive, childlike language, which is universal and lasting. But Christianity must make certain great reservations over against any theory of evolution. It must demand that the doctrines of a personal God, of the final spiritual character of life and its origin, and of the divine nature of man's spirit be not violated." "Christianity can allow an evolution as the continuation of creation." (L. u. W. 1915, 514.) The Lutheran, June 21, 1917, published an article of L.S. Keyser in which he maintains: "Evolution is God's method of developing that which He has previously created. The evolutionary process may have continued for millenniums upon millenniums until the introduction of life. Whether man's body was evolved or not, surely his soul must have been created. We should use two terms: creation and evolution. Together they afford an adequate explanation of the universe as it is to-day." (Lutheran Witness 1918, 372.) According to Lutherischer Herald, October 15, 1904, Dr. Pick, of the General Council, declared: "Harnack is all right." (L. u. W. 1904, 517. 564.) "Keeping company with liberals, we are not surprised that some of our ministers are liberals in both doctrine and practise," says Brenner in Dangerous Alliances, 1917. "What is to be thought of the orthodoxy of a General Council minister who says: 'God spoke to the Christians of that day through their experience no less clearly than through the words of St. Paul'? Lutheran, March 29, 1917, p. 7. What about the soundness of the faith of a D.D. who can recommend Hastings's Bible Dictionary as a reliable work of reference? Rev. M.S. Waters recommends a book that is full of the worst heresies; but the president of the New York and New England Synod, Rev. W.M. Horn, when his attention is called to the matter, bluntly declares: 'I will do nothing in the case referred to.' On request of the District Synod of Ohio, the president of the General Council appoints a committee, with Dr. Joseph Stump of the Chicago Seminary as chairman. The committee investigates. It reports that 'The General Council at this stage has no jurisdiction in the case.' The charges were not denied. This question has not been settled, and so far as we know, no effort has been made since the General Council met in Rock Island, two years ago, to settle it. On the evidence submitted to him, Dr. T.E. Schmauk, president of the General Council, stated in his report: 'I am convinced that the man's views are unevangelical and thoroughly subversive of the principles on which the General Council is founded.' Gen. Council Minutes, 1915, p. 23." (L. u. W. 1917, 465.)

EQUIVOCAL ATTITUDE.

140. Maintaining a "Wise" Neutrality.—In the controversies of the Lutheran Church in America the General Council has persistently and on principle refused to take a definite stand. "The General Synod," says Dr. Singmaster, "has wisely refrained from making minute [!] theological distinctions, and has thus obviated much useless discussion. Apart from the special activities already alluded to, it has made few [quite a number of false] special doctrinal deliverances." (Dist. Doctr., 60 f.) Doctrinal neutrality was the policy also of the United Synod in the South and of the General Council. The Lutheran, April 24, 1902, stated that, over against the General Synod, the fathers of the Council insisted on an unequivocal doctrinal and confessional basis, while, over against Missouri and other synods, they left room for divergence in the application of certain principles. "Kiss and make up," was the advice Carl Swensson, writing in the Lutheran Church Review, gave to the disrupted synods of the Lutheran Church in America. (L. u. W. 1903, 146.) With respect to the doctrinal differences between Ohio and Missouri the Lutheran Church Review wrote in 1917: "There are less clear doctrines which despite the honest, sincere, and persistent efforts of men to state them in harmony with the divine Word admit of an honest difference of opinion." (450.) "There has been," says Dr. Jacobs, "no controversy within the General Council on the subject of election, and, therefore, no official declaration by the Council on the subject that has so largely occupied the attention of a number of synods." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 116.) That applies to practically all of the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of our country. In reference to them it has always been the policy of the General Council to maintain a wise neutrality. In Lutherisches Kirchenblatt, December 29, 1900, Rev. Wischan of the General Council hit the nail on the head when he said: "As to our doctrinal position, we find ourselves in a peculiar situation. When questioned concerning our attitude toward those doctrines which have been discussed in the most spirited manner, and partly have become the occasion for ecclesiastical separations, we are embarrassed for want of an answer. We know exactly what the position of Missouri is in the doctrines of conversion and predestination. We know also what Ohio teaches in opposition to Missouri. But who can tell us what the General Council teaches on these points? Possibly, many among us agree entirely neither with Missouri nor with Ohio. Possibly some incline to the views of Ohio, while others prefer the Missourian doctrine. But at present there is no clarity in these matters in our midst, everybody apparently having the privilege of choosing his own position without fearing that the Church might call him to account. Very convenient indeed; but surely it is not the ideal. Or do those questions lie on the periphery to such an extent that an answer is a matter of absolute irrelevancy to a Lutheran Christian?" (L. u. W. 1901, 53.)

141. Not in Sympathy with Missouri.—The unionistic and indifferentistic position of the General Council with respect to the differences in doctrine and practise prevailing within the Lutheran synods of the United States naturally led to a high degree of animosity and unfriendly charges against the Missouri Synod. Her attitude of certainty and conviction in the doctrines which she championed was branded and denounced as "intolerance," "bigotry," "narrow-mindedness," "exclusiveness," "aloofness," "pride," "Pharisaism," etc. In his Problems and Possibilities Dr. Gerberding wrote: "We have often said that this body of Lutherans, more than all others, has saved the Germans of the Middle West from being swamped in materialism and rationalism. Honor to whom honor is due. But the very prosperity of these Lutherans has made them haughty, self-sufficient, self-righteous. A tone of Pharisaism and of infallibility seems to run through their utterances. They seem not only to believe in an infallible revelation from God, but in themselves as infallible interpreters of that revelation. Every one who does not accept their interpretation is branded as a heretic of the same kind and quality as those against whom the apostles warn, and whom believers are not to receive into their houses nor bid Godspeed. All who do not accept their interpretation in every jot and tittle are anathema in the apostolic sense. Their interpretations, glosses, and theses, and resolutions as to what the Confessions mean also seem to be infallible. Woe be to the Lutheran who dares even to question their conclusions!" (162.) Revealing the same animus, Dr. G.W. Sandt published in the Lutheran of December 12, 1918: "The new and powerful stream of immigration, which was headed by Dr. Walther, and out of which has grown the Synodical Conference, with its more than 800,000 communicants and the largest theological seminary in the land, represents the reaction against the unionism of the State Church in Saxony. A man of deep piety, strong convictions, and sound theological learning, he became the apostle of a sturdy confessionalism, as orthodox as that of Hengstenberg, as vital and spiritual as that of Spener, and as fruitful in good works as that of Francke. He and his followers nursed that orthodoxy so faithfully and fenced it in so securely as to make Missourianism the synonym for the straitest sect of Lutheranism in the world. A doctrine of rigid aloofness and separatism was developed as a wall of defense, as binding upon a Missourian's conscience as almost any article in the Augsburg Confession could possibly be. It was inevitable that he and his followers should come into conflict with such leaders as Loehe and the Fritschels (founders of the Iowa Synod), with Loy and Stellhorn and Allwardt in the Joint Synod of Ohio, and with Schmidt in the United Norwegian Church as it then existed. The controversies on the ministry, on predestination, on conversion and synergism, while expressive of deep conviction and loyalty to the Truth, do not form a chapter in our history of which Lutherans can feel proud. When orthodoxy becomes so strict and strait-laced and legalistic, when it stands up so erect as to lean backward, both the interests of the Truth and of the Church are bound to suffer. The cause of unity is harmed, and union or cooperation is rendered impossible." However, if the paramount object of the Lutheran Church always was, is now, and ever must be, to maintain the truth and the unity in the Spirit, then, whatever in other respects may justly be said in praise of the General Council, her neutral attitude toward the doctrinal differences of the Lutheran synods in America, though temporarily it may have proved expedient in the interest of external union, was in reality neither Christian, nor Lutheran, nor conducive to the unity or any other real and abiding blessing of our beloved Church. For while indeed forbearance also with the weak in knowledge and faith is a mark peculiar to the Christian spirit, indifferentistic silence as to what is true or false, right or wrong, is neither a virtue, nor, in the long run, will ever prove to be of true advantage anywhere, least of all in the Lutheran Church.



THE UNITED SYNOD IN THE SOUTH.

ORGANIZATION.

142. Synods Participating in the Union.—The United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South was organized June 23, 1886, in Roanoke, Va., after a doctrinal basis had been agreed upon at a preliminary meeting in Salisbury, N.C., 1884. The following synods participated in the union: 1. The North Carolina Synod, organized in 1803, and since 1820 prominent in the General Synod. 2. The South Carolina Synod, organized in 1824, of which Dr. J. Bachman, who opposed the confessionalism of the Tennessee Synod, was a member. Bachman (1790-1874) served the same congregation in Charleston for sixty years, and became renowned also as a scientist. E.J. Wolf: "Bachman was in the first rank of ornithologists in his day. With Audubon, whose two sons married his two daughters, he prepared The Birds of America and The Quadrupeds of America. He was a member of numerous scientific societies and numbered among his correspondents such men as Humboldt and Agassiz." (Lutherans in America, 475.) 3. The Virginia Synod, organized 1829, in which S.S. Schmucker, J.G. Morris, C.P. Krauth, J.A. Seiss, and B.M. Schmucker were active for a time. 4. The Southwest Virginia Synod, organized in 1841 and adhering to its loose doctrinal basis till 1881. 5. The Georgia Synod, organized in 1860, of which the Lutheran Cyclopedia remarked: "Half of the pastors are compelled to engage in secular pursuits for a support." At present the Georgia Synod is one of the most prosperous in the Southern group. There is no pastor of a regular parish of the Synod who is not supported by his parishioners. The members of the Georgia Synod are for the greater part descendants of the Salzburgers, who, in 1734, founded Ebenezer, twenty-five miles from Savannah. 6. The Mississippi Synod, organized in 1860. 7. The Tennessee Synod, founded 1820. 8. The Holston Synod, which branched off from the Tennessee Synod in 1860.—These synods are almost entirely English. Very few of its congregations have regular German services beside the English. The synodical Publishing House and Theological Seminary are located in Columbia, S.C. Other schools are: Newberry College in Newberry, S.C.; Roanoke College in Salem, Va.; Lenoir College in Hickory, N.C. The official paper of the United Synod, the Lutheran Church Visitor, has appeared for fourteen years with the motto, "God's Word, Our Rule; Christ, Our Pattern; A Pure Faith, Our Watchword." Dr. W.H. Greever, editor of the Visitor from 1904 to 1914, now edits the American Lutheran Survey. In addition to several benevolent institutions, the Southern Synods support a heathen mission in Japan since 1892. In 1886 the United Synod numbered 32,000 communicants, 14,000 belonging to the Tennessee and Holston Synods. The figures prior to the Merger in 1918 show 257 pastors, 484 congregations, 53,226 communicant, and 73,510 baptized members.

143. Origin of General Body South.—In 1863 the North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Southwest Virginia Synods withdrew from the General Synod because of the Civil War and offensive resolutions adopted by the General Synod with respect to Southern Lutherans and their attitude toward the war. In the same year the four synods, uniting with the Georgia Synod, organized the "General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Confederate States of America." After the war (1866) this name was changed to "Evangelical Lutheran General Synod in North America," and subsequently to "General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South." In the interest of union, the Tennessee Synod, which occupied a truly Lutheran position and stood for an unqualified adoption of the Lutheran symbols, sent a delegate to the General Synod South in 1867. Seventeen years later, 1884, at Salisbury, N.C., a doctrinal basis was adopted, which in 1886 resulted in the organization of the United Synod in the South, now merged into the United Lutheran Church in America.

DOCTRINAL BASIS.

144. From Laxism to Confessionalism.—The secession of the four Southern synods in 1863 was not caused by any doctrinal differences or dissatisfaction with, and opposition to, the un-Lutheran confessional basis and unionistic practise of the General Synod. Nor was it of any immediate consequence as to the doctrinal and confessional attitude of the General Synod South, organized in the same year. Moreover, at its first convention in 1863, the General Synod in the Confederate States, the liberal-minded Bachman presiding, after animated discussions, declared in favor of a qualified subscription to the Augsburg Confession. Unanimously and solemnly the following doctrinal basis was adopted: 1. That the Holy Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith and practise; 2. that the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Augustana "contain the fundamental doctrines of the Holy Scriptures"; 3. that, whereas different views concerning some doctrines of the Augustana have ever obtained and still obtain among the members, Synod permits "the full and free exercise of personal judgment with reference to these articles." (Dist. Doctr., 1893, 171.) Doctrines in question were those of the Lord's Supper, absolution, baptismal regeneration, Sunday, etc., as set forth by Schmucker and Kurtz. However, already in the revised constitution, printed in the Book of Worship, 1864, the third, the most offensive point of this basis, was omitted. And soon after contact with the Tennessee Synod and the desire to draw her into the union of the general body, led to a movement in the confessional direction. In 1867 the General Synod South resolved to deny approval to publications supporting principles in conflict with the Augustana, and to refuse appointment of theological professors holding doctrines in conflict with this Confession. According to the Book of Worship of 1868 the candidates for ordination were required to take an oath of fidelity to the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions based thereon. The Form of Confirmation contained a pledge of lifelong fidelity to the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1872 Synod adopted an essay of Dr. Dorsch, in which he declares that the General Synod South unequivocally confesses the Augsburg Confession in its true, real, and original sense. According to the Constitution of the Theological Seminary (1873) the professors acknowledged, and subscribed to, "the Augsburg Confession, as in all its parts in harmony with the Rule of Faith and a correct exhibition of the doctrines of the Word of God." In 1880 the General Synod South informed the Tennessee and Holston Synods that she adopts the secondary Lutheran symbols "as in accord with, and an unfolding of, the teaching of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." In 1882 the General Synod declared itself ready to enter into organic union with other Lutheran bodies "on an unequivocal Lutheran basis." Several years later, as stated, the union was effected.

145. Sound Lutheran Basis.—The confessional basis agreed upon 1884 and adopted at the organization in 1886 embraces the following articles: "1. The Holy Scriptures, the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments, the only standard of doctrine and church discipline. 2. As a true and faithful exhibition of the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures in regard to matters of faith and practise, the three ancient symbols, the Apostolic, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds, and the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of Faith. Also the other Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, viz.: the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Smaller and Larger Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord, as true and Scriptural developments of the doctrines taught in the Augsburg Confession, and in the perfect harmony of one and the same faith." Substantially this was the basis of the Tennessee Synod; its adoption at Salisbury must be regarded as a triumph of the confessional fidelity of this body. "The strength of the Tennessee Synod," says Dr. E.T. Horn, "was given to the maintenance of orthodoxy; nor are we able to deny that their championship was needed and has been effectual." Among the other factors contributing to this result the testimony of Walther and the Missouri Synod must not be overlooked and underrated. Dr. A.G. Voigt, professor in the Seminary at Columbia, S.C., admits: "Lutherans in the South could not remain untouched by the influences that were at work in other parts of the country. The increasing appreciation of confessional Lutheranism which in the middle half of the nineteenth century passed over from Germany into and through this country also gradually permeated the South. It served to deepen the devotion of the Tennessee Synod to the historic Lutheran Confessions, and to awaken in the other synods a growing esteem and affection for the same Confessions." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 181.)

INDIFFERENTISM

146. Actual Conditions.—All sectarian churches formally acknowledge the Bible, yet they reject many of its doctrines. So a Lutheran synod may, in a formal and official way, accept the Lutheran symbols, and at the same time ignore or reject its material content. Witness the Lutheran state churches in Europe and the General Synod in America. In a measure, the actual conditions also within the congregations and district synods of the United Synod in the South have always been in conflict with their truly Lutheran basis. False doctrines, especially pertaining to the Puritanic observance of the Sabbath, were held and taught within the Synod. Without a word of criticism, for example, the Lutheran Church Visitor, July 13, 1911, published the following from the Sunday-school Times: "Don't use a public vehicle on Sunday unless you are prayerfully convinced that it would be sinning against God and man not to do so. Is not that a reasonable and safe principle? Is any other principle a safe one? A very limited amount of Sunday travel seems to be necessary. Probably more than ninety-nine one-hundredths of it is unnecessary and therefore wrong. To use a trolley car or train to go to church on Sunday may or may not be right; it is simply a question of God's expressed will for the individual at that particular time. To walk, or to attend another church would sometimes be the solution. To make a mere convenience of Sunday travel, under any circumstances, would seem to be a violation of the spirit of the day. But God will make each case clear to each surrendered seeker after the light of God's will, if the doing of God's will and the avoiding of sin by the widest possible margin are the only impelling motives."

147. Ignoring Intersynodical Differences.—With respect to the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of America the United Synod has always maintained a neutral and indifferentistic attitude. Dr. Horn writes: "It can be said of the doctrinal basis of the Southern Synods that it is the sincere and intelligent confession of the churches. By this I do not mean that the Lutheran churches in the South have pondered all the controversies in which the symbols originated, and to which they gave the answer; nor that they have accepted all the inferences which sincere Lutherans now draw from the Confessions, and even may be justified in urging." (Dist. Doctr., 1893, 183.) Dr. Voigt: "The United Synod has no distinctive doctrines apart from the distinctive doctrines of common confessional Lutheranism." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 179.) In other words, the United Synod accepts only those doctrines in which all agree who claim to be confessional Lutherans. The Lutheran Church Visitor, March 15, 1917, wrote: "The United Synod has the fundamental doctrines, rests on them, and is satisfied with them. Not, perhaps, the doctrines fundamental to Missouri, but fundamental to Christian faith and life." Ridiculing the doctrines of conversion and election as taught by the Missouri Synod, the Visitor continues: "These doctrines are the simon-pure, unadulterated, unalloyed Lutheran doctrines! Missourianism and Lutheranism are convertible terms!"— Regarding the fact that the United Synod has refused to take a definite stand with respect to the doctrinal differences within the Lutheran Church, the Visitor, March 15, 1917, remarked: "Still, husband and wife may live together in peace and happiness although they do not agree on every point. It may even be understood that some subjects are altogether taboo." This, evidently, is the spirit of indifferentism, inherited from the General Synod, with whom, in accordance with the law of spiritual affinity, the United Synod exchanged fraternal delegates, and is now organically united in the United Lutheran Church in America.

148. Old Spirit of Indifferentism.—To what extent the leaven of indifferentism was active also within the United Synod in the South appears from the following utterances of a layman in the Lutheran Church Visitor: "The spirit that developed this country, and that which has animated the clergy of the Lutheran Church, are antipodal. This unprogressive spirit, together with their aversion to innovations of all kinds, their refusal to deal with present-day problems, their mania for ramming doctrine wholesale down the throats of their communicants, their spirit of aloofness from ministers of other denominations, and their refusal to cooperate with them, has been the chief cause of this lack of progress in our Church. They have, in their strict and even painful adherence to dogma and form, taken the spirit and life out of the Church and its worship. The enthusiasm and warmth of natural religion have given way to a religion of form and ceremony. They have taken the life and beauty out of the Bible, and made it a code of dry and inspired theology. Instead of preaching, they have almost invariably talked theology, and theology alone. Our Church has never been in need of would-be theologians, but we have been and are now sorely in need of pastors and preachers. They have discouraged honest investigation, 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 various conditions 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 there are necessarily change and progress in theology and religion as well as in everything else. True, there are certain fundamentals that never grow old; equally true is it that there are some non-essentials that change with the varying hours. The non-essential has been made essential, and so strongly insisted upon that it is almost a sacrilege even to insinuate against its authority." The Visitor, March 15, 1917, referring to this publication, remarks: "Well, we admit the excerpt from the article is pretty raw. But the Visitor believes in allowing some freedom even to the religious press.... Unanimity ere long becomes monotony. Varietas sine unitate diversitas. Unitas sine varietate mors."

UNLUTHERAN PRACTISE.

149. Lodge-, Pulpit-, and Altar-Fellowship.—Forbearance with all manner of weakness in doctrine and practise does not per se conflict with confessional Lutheranism. But a refusal on principle to take the correct position, also as to Lutheran practise, is indeed incompatible with true Lutheranism. The attitude of the United Synod, however, toward lodge-, pulpit-, altar-, and church-fellowship has always been of a kind which practically amounted to a denial of its confessional basis. Dr. Voigt confesses: "As a matter of fact and actual practise, Lutheran ministers in the United Synod do not invite others to occupy their pulpits indiscriminately; and although in some churches the custom of extending a general invitation at Communion still continues from earlier times, the practise is diminishing, and in most churches has passed away with the introduction of the Common Service. As to secret societies, there is not much agitation against them except in the Tennessee Synod, and a number of United Synod ministers are known to be members of such orders; but the sentiment of most ministers is unfavorable to them." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 188.) "Discussions in regard to stricter or more lax practises have never led to divisions nor issued in official pronouncements of distinctive developments of confessional position." "Firm as they are in their convictions, Southern Lutherans are generally adverse to controversy. This is probably the true explanation of the conservative attitude of the United Synod towards the questions connected with pulpit- and altar-fellowship and secret societies. There are differences of view on these questions existing in the 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 circumstances 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 which a decision upon them involved. Combined with this aversion to controversy, there exists an evangelical [?] impatience of legal constraint, which impels men to act upon principle rather than by rule." "It has already been stated that the Tennessee Synod is unique among the synods constituting the United Synod in having rules against pulpit- and altar-fellowship and secret societies; and the United Synod has pledged itself not to employ in its general work, in its theological seminary, in its mission operations, in the editing of its official organ, any person who would foster secretism or unionistic fellowship." (Dist. Doctr., 1914, 147 f.; 1893, 182.)

150. Attitude toward Non-Lutheran Denominations.—The United Synod as such did not establish an exchange of delegates with any of the non-Lutheran churches. However, invitations to preach in their pulpits on the occasion of synodical conventions were not refused. The Lutheran Church Visitor, March 15, 1917: "Our United Synod ministers are not ashamed to speak of our Evangelical Lutheran testimony before Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, et al., et id genus omne." But the fact is that at such occasions the distinctive features of Lutheranism are, as a rule, passed over in silence; that full fellowship of prayer and service is indulged in; and that the spirit of indifferentism as well as the desire, on the part of the Lutheran synods and congregations, for returning the comity and kindness received at the hands of Methodists, etc., is encouraged and strengthened. As such, furthermore, the United Synod did not take an active part in interdenominational organizations, but, on the other hand, did not consider it a denial of the truth when its pastors openly and heartily participated in local ministerial unions, or when its congregations occasionally joined in union religious meetings. Thus Drs. Horn and Drach took part in the Interdenominational Conference at Edinburgh in 1910. The Lutheran Church Visitor encouraged participation in interdenominational meetings; e.g., in its issue of April 6, 1916, the Men's National Missionary Congress in Washington, D.C. "So it has done, does, and shall continue to do, and not be ashamed," declared the Visitor, March 15, 1917, and explained in defense of this attitude toward non-Lutheran bodies: "The United Synod believes that the lump [non-Lutheran churches] cannot receive 'absent treatment,' and that the Lutheran leaven cannot be placed in the lump from a prohibitive distance." However, according to the history of the Lutheran Church in America, in practically all of the interdenominational movements and meetings participated in by Lutherans, the rule has been not to confess, but, directly or indirectly, to deny the distinctive truths of Lutheranism. Speaking of the United Synod, Dr. Voigt remarked: "Rigid exclusiveness is quite foreign to its spirit."

TENNESSEE AND HOLSTON SYNODS.

151. Tennessee Lowering Her Standard.—The Tennessee Synod, whose early history is dealt with extensively in American Lutheranism, Part I, was the main factor in bringing about the change in the confessional attitude of the Southern synods. The Lutheran Church Visitor, March 8, 1917: "The Tennessee Synod helped the other synods to rise and regain their Lutheran feet. Since then she has helped them to keep their feet and to win stronger foothold." "The ministers of the Tennessee Synod," says Dr. Horn, "trained as they have been for the most part in the homes and companionship of older ministers, have not a wide and varied culture, but possess a profound acquaintance with the writings of Luther and a ready and genial knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." (Dist. Doctr., 1893, 178.) In the revised constitution of 1866 the original confessional statement of the Tennessee Synod, adopting the Augsburg Confession without limitation or qualification, was enlarged to include also the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, the Smaller and Larger Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord "as true Scriptural developments of the doctrines taught in the Augsburg Confession." In the same year the Tennessee Synod, following the example of her daughter, the Holston Synod, eliminated from her constitution the objectionable features respecting incorporation, theological seminaries, synodical treasuries, etc. Among the Southern synods the Tennessee Synod alone adopted rules against pulpit- and altar-fellowship and against holding membership in secret societies. Her endeavors to induce the United Synod to take a similar position failed. Indeed, the original constitution, submitted in 1884 at Salisbury, contained a paragraph against pulpit- and altar-fellowship, membership in lodges, and chiliasm. And when this paragraph was rejected, Polycarp Henkel, representing the Tennessee Synod, refused to vote for the constitution. In 1886 the Tennessee Synod adopted the Salisbury basis, but added a declaration which condemned chiliasm, lodge-services, pulpit- and altar-fellowship, and all church union and cooperation conflicting with pure Lutheran doctrine, and recommended that the United Synod embody in its by-laws a paragraph pledging theological professors to teach nothing contrary to these principles or the doctrines of the Lutheran Church. At the meeting of the United Synod in Savannah, 1887, Socrates Henkel proposed a corresponding by-law, which, however, was tabled till the next meeting. The Tennessee Synod reaffirmed its resolution with the threat that they would not cooperate with the United Synod until a by-law embodying the four points had been adopted. However, when the North Carolina Synod, with equal determination, took the opposite stand, Tennessee yielded, compromising on, and contending herself with, the resolution adopted in 1900 in which the United Synod assured the Tennessee Synod that, in their common work, they would earnestly endeavor to avoid everything that might tend to burden the consciences of brethren in any synod, and that all synods were equally bound to direct their practise and fulfil their duties according to their honest and conscientious conviction of the true and real sense of God's Word and the Confessions. Thus the Tennessee Synod, untrue to her noble traditions, finally did waive her demand for a correct Lutheran position on the part of the United Synod with reference to the four points. Tennessee closed her eyes to the fact that she remained responsible not only for what was done conjointly with the other synods in the United Synod, but also for the practise of these synods as such. Unionism, once again, had gained the victory. And now, after decades of fraternal intercourse with the General Synod, the Tennessee Synod is organically united with the synods in opposition to which she organized in 1820.