# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1856_S87
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

87

Answers
to the proposal made in the January number for a general
Lutheran conference.

1. Publicly, up to this day (the 18th of February), an answer to this proposal has been given only in the „Lutheran Standard.“ This paper, in its number of the 8th of February, gave the proposal to its readers in English translation in extenso, and introduced it with the following words: „We translate what follows from the January issue of „Lehre und Wehre“ and commend the thoughts presented at the close of the excerpt to the prayerful consideration of our brethren in all parts of the Church. After setting forth the principles according to which „Lehre und Wehre“ is edited, and after the editor has made some altogether fitting remarks on the tendencies of our time, he continues as follows.“ —

2. An English-Lutheran preacher, working in the South-East, outside our synod, to whom we had already privately disclosed the thought concerning a general Lutheran conference in December of last year, wrote to us as early as January 3 of this year, among other things, as follows: „As for a church convention, I can give it only my heartfelt assent. I think such a one would lead to the most beneficial results for confessional evangelical Lutheranism. It would bring about a more intimate mutual acquaintance among us who are of the same faith, and thus also effect a greater concentration of our strength to withstand the wanton rationalistic and half-unbelieving innovations against which we have to defend ourselves, and would encourage us to hold fast to what we have. For my own part, I regret that we have so long remained comparatively strangers to one another and have not yet become better acquainted than we are. Yet in expressing my approval of the project, it also becomes necessary for me to declare what ought first to be aimed at in such a church convention. I think the first thing should be a mutual communication of the ground on which we respectively stand, and of the sense in which we accept the confession of the Church and make it our own, together with a mutual examination. This for the purpose of a more exact acquaintance. Second, the pursuit of right harmony on the basis of the confession of the Church. Third, a declaration of sincere adherence to the whole confession, or the symbolical books of the Church. Fourth, a demonstration of the incorrectness of the un-confessional and anti-confessional doctrines and practices that have been brought into the Church. Fifth, an answering of the objections that are raised against our Church, its doctrines, and its worship. Sixth, a demonstration of the connection that exists between sound orthodoxy and a sound Christian life, including church discipline.“

3. A German-Lutheran preacher from a northern region writes to us