# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S25
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1906. 25

Word from the Scriptures will overcome this danger, which lies in the selfish stirrings. The main emphasis therefore lies on unity. A capable man should be independent in his faith and in doctrine, but in this activity be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit.

The Union wants precisely to preserve unity, but how? All union proceeds from outward considerations, so in Germany from political considerations, since the church was entangled with the state body through the consistory. Then the people recognized that the Union would be more convenient for them, and used our text, laying the emphasis falsely on the word peace, whereas for the Apostle the unity of the Spirit is the main thing. Among the Unionists the principle holds: One should not dispute about doctrine, for that matters less. That means nothing other than: Everyone may teach what he will, or, as it was once expressed here in earlier days: We agree to disagree [printed in English]. Then it is at once all over with the truth of the Gospel; unity in doctrine cannot be maintained thereby. In this the Holy Spirit cannot work faith and through it the unity of the Spirit.

Thus purity of doctrine and unity of the Spirit condition each other. They are also expressed in the Augsburg Confession, in that it says that we must not only hold to pure doctrine, but also teach harmoniously according to God's Word.

From the Discussion.

The center of the unity in the Spirit is that which creates the unity, which is also in turn to be preserved by the Christians through the power of the Holy Spirit: doctrine! The doctrine that is carried on in the Church, that which the individual members of the Church believe, is to be a unity. Luther has developed this thought under the most various images. So he says: In the house the head of the household has the word; what he says holds in the family. In the state the superior has the word; there what the emperor, the king (the legislature!) says holds. With the Christian Church it is a quite peculiar matter; it is solely and alone God's house and building. Whoever therefore lets anything other than God's Word be heard in the Church, he thrusts from the start the foundation wall of this building to the ground, he practices anarchism, he thereby drives everything apart. Every unity in the Christian Church that is not at the same time unity in doctrine is not unity in the Spirit, not unity in the Christian sense, but a caricature. Therefore the opinion runs through the whole Holy Scripture that in the house of God, in the Christian Church, only God's Word is to speak. "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." Already in the Old Testament it is represented as something quite improper and senseless when anything other than God's Word is spoken in the Church of God. So Jeremiah asks (23:28): "What