# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S205
# AI-corrected against the scan — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

13. Delegatenſynode von Miſſouri, Ohio u. a. St. 1911. 205

mation in glory, — grace from everlasting to everlasting. Walther's
slogan in many a controversy was: Free grace in Christ, — free,
in the sense that grace is in no way qualified in its effectual workings
by anything that is not of God; free also, in the sense that grace
is universal and impartial. We owe our historic position on this
cardinal teaching of Christianity to Walther's uncompromising atti-
tude, and the fortunes that have attended our humble labors on this
basis are not such as to urge a revision at this point either.

Walther's age, like ours, was characterized by indifferentism.
The unionist, the church-federator, the advocate of peace at any
price, the gentleman who proposes to you: We agree to disagree, —
was very busy. I know of no man in the Lutheran Church of America
between 1845 and 1887 who approached this momentous subject of
the essential unity of the entire Christian brotherhood of believers
with as great reverence as Walther, and who labored as enthusias-
tically for the true unification of divided sections of the Church.
His writings on this matter will remain Christian classics. But in
these labors Walther proved a quickener of the confessional con-
science. In his mind union and unity were two different concepts.
On Scriptural grounds he declined union without unity, and was not
greatly agitated over the absence of organic union between bodies
with whom he knew himself one at heart as regards teaching and
practice. The firm position occupied by our body on this question
was secured by Walther's conscientious application of two sets of
Scripture texts: those which issue urgent appeals for brotherly fel-
lowship, and those which issue emphatic warnings against false union.
Walther bowed to the authority of both these sayings of the Lord:
"Be ye one!" and: "Be ye separate!" In whatever form time and
the changing conditions of men may compel us to apply these sacred
rules, we propose to apply either religiously, and we call for no re-
vision at this point.

Walther labored in, for, and with the Lutheran Church. So
far as the Christian world knows of him, it knows him as a Lutheran.
Owing partly to the fact that the Lutheran Church is regarded as a
sect, and partly to the fact that Walther's work was done through the
medium of the German language, the appreciation of his work has
been limited to the German Lutheran Church. It deserves to be said
that in Walther's view Lutheranism and apostolic Christianity are
identical terms. With Walther we disclaim responsibility for the
origin of the name Lutheran as the signature of our Church. But
as matters stand to-day, we are not tired of our name, and would,
least of all, call for a revision at this point.

Walther held that the Church for whose rise, humanly speaking,
the insolence and tyranny of Rome were responsible has a mission to
discharge to the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints,