# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 01 24_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

after my death say: If Luther were living now, he would teach and hold this or that article differently, for he did not consider it sufficiently, and the like — to that I say now as then, and then as now, that by God's grace I have considered all these articles most diligently, have drawn them from Scripture and examined them repeatedly by it again, and am just as certain to defend them as I have now defended the Sacrament of the Altar. I am not now drunk, nor thoughtless; I know what I am saying, and I feel keenly what it will mean for me at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Judgment. Therefore let no one make a joke or idle talk of this; I am in earnest. For I know Satan, by God's grace, a good part of him; if he can pervert and confuse God's Word and Scripture, what would he not do with my words or another's!" (See: Luther's Great Confession Concerning the Holy Supper. Works, Halle edition, XX, 1373.) Here you hear, dear reader, that those who claim Luther himself believed that his teaching (which he had, after all, taken from the eternal Word of God) could and should be increasingly "improved" after his death, are not only no second Luthers, but are also either most ignorant or, despite their otherwise outspokenness, are hypocrites on this point.

Church News.

In the 21st number of the "Luth. Kirchenzeitung" of December 18 of last year, there appears a letter addressed to the president of the General Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio by 8 Lutheran pastors and 1 schoolteacher, in which they set forth the reasons why they had to separate from the said synod. It states therein: "The first of these reasons is purely ecclesiastical and confessional in nature and rests on the following facts, on account of which the sincerity and resolve of the synod regarding churchly conviction and direction, and regarding a definite safeguard against the false union of our time, appear doubtful to us. These facts, however, are as follows:

1.) The question, "Which synods are Lutheran?", brought before the synod last year by a conference district of East Ohio, and whose resolution was postponed to this year, was tabled, while the spokesmen of the so-called Lutheran General Synod — which has only recently begun calling itself the American Lutheran Church — willfully trample underfoot the pure doctrine of the Sacrament held by our church, and set up an anti-Lutheran, unchurchly Methodist practice.

2.) The request by some of the undersigned for the abolition of the currently united formula of distribution at the Holy Supper — "Christ says," etc. — was refused, and instead the use of the Agenda introduced in 1842, which in all its absolution formulas is unchurchly and Calvinistic, and which, at the conferral of ordination, does not bind to the confessions of the Lutheran church, was recommended to the members of the synod as their duty.

3.) An important petition by some of the undersigned concerning
a. the synod's confessing itself to all the symbolical books of the Lutheran church;
b. a synodical testimony against the false doctrine of the Sacrament held by the so-called Lutheran General Synod;
c. a thorough reform of the examination system;
d. binding to all the symbolical books of the Lutheran church at the conferral of ordination;
e. the non-serving of Reformed-Lutheran congregations, and the approval implied therein of the false union of our time — was put off, and was returned to the reporting committee on account of minor formal irregularities. And finally, after the petitioners withdrew their request and put forward only the brief proposal:
"That the synod henceforth confess itself to all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran church, and solemnly bind itself thereto at the conferral of ordination" . . .
this matter was again postponed for three years in the ministerium. And from this it became evident to us that the synod, in the majority of its members, has no sincere willingness to represent our church decisively in the struggle against the false union of our time."

As the second reason for their separation, the undersigned state that the synod has faithlessly and unlawfully stripped the seminary at Columbus — hitherto the only constitutionally German one among the four Lutheran seminaries here — of its German character.

"Since now," it says at the close, "the synod has not only decisively violated the original constitution of the seminary, but since — and this is indeed the main reason for our separation — it takes so little to heart the crying distress of our church and its oppression through the false union that it will not even grant the most just requests for relief of its most pressing needs, and since it has neither ear nor eye for oral and written explanations of these requests, and can hardly now be excused as being merely uninformed, it is for us a matter of heart and conscience to separate from the synodical association hitherto existing. Yet we permit ourselves, in closing, the urgent and heartfelt request that the synod not persist in this condition, and we beg it most earnestly, for the sake of Christ and of souls dearly bought, and of the pure and clear confession of our church, and for the sake of its own heavy responsibility, that it may no longer, out of fear of man and desire to please man, flee and shun the good fight and the right testimony against the false unionism and confusion of churches of our day."

Cleveland, Ohio, September 18, A.D. 1845.
Fried. Winkler, Lutheran pastor in Detroit, Mich.
D. W. Sihler, Lutheran pastor in Fort Wayne.
A. Schmidt, pastor in Cleveland.
J. G. Bürger, pastor in Hancock Co.
J. A. Ernst, preacher of the German Evangelical Lutheran St. John's congregation at Neudettelsau, Union Co., Ohio.
Wilh. Richmann, Lutheran pastor in Berne Township, Fairfield Co., O.
Andr. Saupert, Lutheran pastor in Evansville, Vanderburgh Co., Indiana.
Aug. Selle, German Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Columbiana Co., O.
E. A. Schürmann, schoolteacher of the 1st German Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Pittsburgh.

With deep sorrow we share these proceedings with our readers. They show us that, alas, no denomination in America has fallen into so deep a decline as precisely that fellowship of those who call themselves "Lutheran." All the sects of this land are more zealous to preserve the false doctrines on which they are founded, and which give them their peculiar stamp, than the so-called Lutherans here are concerned to hold fast the holy and pure doctrine, founded upon the clear Word of God, which was entrusted to them through God's unspeakable grace. Indeed, we see that the American Lutheran church is governed not only by carelessness and indifference, but even by hostility toward the true Lutheran church; it has retained nothing but the name; it has lost the old truth and the old spirit of testimony.

Yet we also see from the above that we have no reason to utterly despair of the survival of the Lutheran church in America. God is manifestly again taking up the winnowing shovel to sweep his threshing floor and sift his wheat. God has evidently resolved no longer to look on at the secret pilfering of the false saints and their fishing in troubled waters. God is again beginning, here and there, to open eyes that recognize with horror the apostasy of which the Lutherans have made themselves guilty. God is again raising up, here and there, men who loudly call for a return to the forsaken first love. Praised be God! After a long winter the turtledove is heard again in our land. (Song of Solomon 2:11–13.) Up, then, up, dear brothers! Let us not calmly look on while the false brethren band ever more firmly together to undermine and sweep away the foundation of our church. These, because they fight deceitfully under our name, are more dangerous than our declared enemies; they are their allies, and yet in the midst of our own camps. He who dwells in heaven surely laughs at them, and the Lord mocks them, for "though the sea rage and swell, and though the mountains fall down at its tumult — Selah — nevertheless the city of God shall remain glad with her streams, where the holy dwellings of the Most High are. God is in the midst of her; therefore shall she not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early." But, however impossible it is to banish Luther's teaching — that is, God's Word — from the world, it is just as easy for us,