# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S25
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Tenth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1902. 25

Christianity therefore also does not consist in faith in Christ, but in
man's own morality, toward which man is to be stimulated and guided by the
unique personality of Christ. This teaching is, as has been said, nothing
new. The Unitarians and rationalists of every age — that is, the deniers of
the Holy Trinity and the so-called believers in reason of every age — have
taught it. But it is a fact that, occasioned by Harnack's appearance,
debates on the essence of Christianity have been carried on in almost the
whole world.

And the result? The result is by no means agreement among those who call
themselves Christians. We stand before the fact that those who call
themselves Christians do not agree on what Christianity is.

One might ask in astonishment: What? Christianity has now been in the
world for almost two thousand years — indeed, since the proclamation of
the first promise of Christ, for almost six thousand years — and Christendom
is still not agreed on the essence of Christianity? People still dispute
over what Christianity actually consists in?

To this it must be said: Christendom is entirely at one regarding the
essence of Christianity. All members of the Christian church actually hold
that, through faith in Christ, the Savior of sinners, without merit from
their works, they have forgiveness of sins and salvation. It is through
this faith, and through nothing else, that they are members of the
Christian church. Whoever has this faith belongs to the Christian church;
whoever is not of this faith does not belong to the Christian church. Even
the souls who belong to the Christian church within the papacy and among
the sects are of the belief that they have forgiveness of sins not through
their works or their own "morality," but through Christ. This is the one
faith which the apostle Paul declares of the Christian church when he
writes, "One Lord, one faith," Eph. 4:5. This is the "one mind" which the
Holy Spirit has worked and maintains in the whole of Christendom, as we
sing of the Holy Spirit: "The whole of Christendom on earth holds, in one
accord, to one mind." The faith and mind of all Christians is expressed in
the words of Scripture: "The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
cleanses us from all sin," 1 John 1:7, and: "We hold, then, that a man is
justified without the works of the law, by faith alone," Rom. 3:28, as well
as in the children's verse:

    Christ's blood and righteousness
    My beauty are, my glorious dress;
    Thus well arrayed I need not fear,
    When in his presence I appear.

Differing opinions regarding the essence of Christianity are found only
among the crowd that calls itself Christian but is not...