# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S178
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

178 Is This, Then, the Theology of the American Lutheran Church?

...confession, expressed: "I reckon them all as one and the same cake, that is, as sacramentarians and enthusiasts, whatever they may be, who will not believe that the Lord's bread in the Supper is his true, natural body, which the ungodly man, or Judas, receives with the mouth just as truly as St. Peter and all the saints; whoever, I say, will not believe this, let him leave me in peace and expect no fellowship with me — nothing else will come of it." We do not merely repeat this after Luther because we believed in Luther, but because we have recognized that, were we unwilling to accept the oral reception of the body of Christ in the Supper, and its reception unto judgment even on the part of unbelieving communicants, we would thereby make the clear word of Christ and of his apostle a lie, and would deceive only ourselves and others with a presence of our own fabrication. Perhaps we shall find time to treat these points once more, and at greater length, which we have already discussed at other times briefly but irrefutably from God's word.

(Submitted by Pastor Hoyer.)
Is This, Then, the Theology of the American Lutheran Church?

(Conclusion.)

The same lack of all understanding for the meaning of the Word of God shows itself also where the "List" and another essay in the Lutheran Observer treat of confession and absolution. Here too the presentation aims at awakening the opinion that our confessions do not require faith of him who wishes to become a partaker of the blessings of absolution. That the preaching, teaching, speech, comfort, and admonition of the Christian Church, insofar as it otherwise agrees with the written Word of God, is truly God's Word; that we Christians ourselves have great need of the address of such preached Word, whether from the mouth of a friend or of the preacher, and therefore desire and seek it not only publicly in the church but also privately; that absolution is the preaching of the Gospel as it is brought to the individual who laments his temptation, distress, and anguish over his sins; that absolution is a great strengthening of faith for the believer, but becomes a judgment to him who desires it in unbelief; that our Church alone regards the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the holy sacraments as a divine command, while it regards the particular form of confession and absolution only as an edifying arrangement of the Church, to be retained not because it existed in the Church from ancient times, but because it is not contrary to Scripture and offers a fine opportunity for evangelical pastoral care, and also arises quite of itself in a rightly ordered Christian congregation — all