# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1857_S124
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

124 Lutheranism in America.

and Dr. B. Kurtz at their head. The former is professor of theology at the seminary in Gettysburg; he received his theological training at a Presbyterian seminary, and although at his installation into his present office he was solemnly charged, in the name of the synod under whose control the institution stands, "to ground the students entrusted to him in the faith of the Lutheran church," he has in his theological views turned only from Calvin toward Zwingli. Dr. B. Kurtz, the editor of the Lutheran Observer, stands at his side. From them proceed, and by them are advanced and defended, such writings as the Definite Platform, which the editors themselves would gladly have withdrawn again, though more out of shame at its failure than at its content, and such views as that the Lutheran church in America requires a different theology than elsewhere, and that only a Native is capable of grasping and appreciating this theology. A by no means inconsiderable number in the so-called General Synod follow them. The right wing comprises the so-called Old Lutherans, namely the Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states, and the Synod of Buffalo. To the middle are reckoned those who belong to neither the one wing nor the other, such as the synods of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, and others, and various individual members of the General Synod.

The author comes out decidedly against those in the left wing. Of those in the right wing he speaks with recognition, one might almost say with partiality, and defends them against the accusations of their enemies, and seeks to clear away the prejudices prevailing against them even in wider circles. Of the middle, although he himself belongs to it, he has nothing particular to say.

The reviewer, however, cannot hold the author's standpoint to be the correct one; for he must, regrettably, but for truth's sake, confess that reading through the work gives the impression that the author is not a Lutheran for conscience's sake, but rather because he judges in his understanding that the Lutheran church has particular advantages over the other church communions — and so is not a Lutheran for the reason for which Luther was a Lutheran, and for which all true Lutherans are Lutherans. How else could the author, for example, say: "Is there anyone present who would have sufficient authority to set everyone's conscience at rest as to whether Luther was right in this and Calvin wrong, or the reverse" and so forth, p. 129. "It is impossible to regard these differences of opinion, grounded as they are on one and the same word, as the result of blindness or perhaps malice. p. 128. Calvinism, with its strict discipline and zeal for the law, represents one of the most important features of the word of God and of the character of the church. The distinctive character of the Lutheran church The distinctive character of the Lutheran church consists in its intimate acquaintance with the entire economy of the Old and New Testaments, and so forth. Shall the former, then, give up that in which its strength consists . . .?