# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1922_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1922. 19

What are we to do as witnesses of Jesus under the changed conditions? It is clear that with the completion of the elementary school the time of education is not yet finished. On the contrary, the young person now enters a period which, if rightly guided, can have the most blessed influence for the whole of life, but which also, if not rightly guided, can mean moral and religious ruin. It is generally known how important these so-called years of development are for education.

One need only name these things, and it is at once clear to a witness of Jesus Christ what he has to do. Since under the given conditions the testimony can hardly be carried out otherwise than through the form of a school, we must establish high schools here and there in the country, especially in Lutheran centers. It may demand great financial sacrifice, it may for the moment aggravate the shortage of preachers; these are not the things that determine a witness of Jesus. He is always a witness; everything else is (in comparison with the testimony) trifling side issues.

Thus a Christian is at all times nothing and wants to be nothing more than a witness of Jesus Christ. When he does his work in the kingdom of God, his only instrument is testimony; and when he fights for the cause of the kingdom of God, he knows no other weapon than testimony. He is aware in the struggle of the irreconcilable opposition and bears witness, bears witness with his word, with his conduct, with his goods, with his suffering and death.

And his Savior, who has appointed him his witness, stands by him and gives him through the testimony the victory.

V.

Because our school system is the cause of the kingdom of God, God will stand by us mightily and lead the struggle to victory.

What does victory mean? We often still form quite fleshly thoughts about it and forget that a victory which a witness of Jesus aims at looks quite different from a victory that a general or a politician or a businessman or a lawyer or a debater and the like seeks to win. By victory in the school struggle we gladly understand something like this, that the enemies, who after all do not know our aims in school education at all, have their eyes opened about our schools, that they acknowledge our achievements, marvel at them, and are turned from opponents into admirers of our school, without however changing their fundamental attitude toward Christ. Or we understand by victory even this, that the enemies burn their fingers so thoroughly on the school question that for the sake of their own political existence they will not dare to touch it again in the future. Such and similar thoughts we like to entertain when we speak of victory in the school struggle.

That is dangerous. Since we still have the flesh about us, such thoughts will not fail to occur in any of us; but