# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

Christianity entirely as religion. He seeks to draw it entirely into the depth of the human life of mind and spirit. . . . From this results a dynamic Christianity" (that is, a Christianity which is power). . . . "The cultivation of this dynamic element we hold to be the core of Schleiermacher's theology." Gass adds that with this Schleiermacher's theology will remain of imperishable influence. — One could hardly speak otherwise of Schleiermacher than if he were the founder, or at least the perfecter, of Christianity. As if he had been the first to say in the Spirit: The kingdom of God is not in word but in power (1 Cor. 4:20). My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you (Gal. 4:19). As if he were the inventor of dynamic Christianity. — In any case Schleiermacher is spoken of as if there had never been a Luther. If anyone preached a dynamic Christianity and also proved it in fact, and in a way quite different from the aesthete Schleiermacher, it was Luther. And if anyone paints an inward, godly life of faith in Christ and draws Christianity into the depths of the heart, and indeed in the genuine language of the heart, not with sentimental phrases tapped from constant cool reflection, it is Luther. In the mystics before him there is indeed also a fullness of inward life of God, but while it is, apart from its evil pantheistic ground, overgrown with unhealthy, action-shy sentimentality, with Luther it stands there in the fullness of God-strengthened joyfulness. And if one wants to be fair, the Lutheran dogmaticians, who are decried by the newer theology as dead formalists, preserved Luther's heritage in their locus "on the mystical union of believers with God." Yet — Luther is not known in the newer theology. One knows Calvin, perhaps Melanchthon too, but not Luther. It is understandable: the first two are agreeable to the new theology, which is on one side speculative and on the other constantly wavering — the Luther who stands wholly and immovably in the Word is not. Who would think of drawing from Luther's deep insights into Scripture; of strengthening himself from the power of his firm faith in Scripture; of rejuvenating himself on the bubbling power of his life-filled interpretations of Scripture? One knows only this: To get the right spirit from Schleiermacher; to receive fruitful stimulus from Schleiermacher; to build further on Schleiermacher's six deep, life-producing basic thoughts. — Now, by the way, there is no question that a real influence of Schleiermacher on theology has long since ceased. An evil heritage has indeed remained, that is subjectivism. And this is not the same as taking Christianity as a practical matter of the heart, but rather this, that one takes theology from one's own spirit, from the Christian consciousness, not from Scripture — in other words: enthusiasm. — But that Schleiermacher, in spite of his declaration