# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1924_S28
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

28 Proceedings of the twenty-ninth convention

upright and decent, associate with one another as much as possible without regard to theological differences, and from my own experience I know that in the Y. M. C. A. no Catholic is denied any privilege that is accorded to a Protestant, and that no kind of religion is forced upon anyone, but religion is given to everyone who desires it. Therefore I cannot see why such a distinction as the one mentioned should be continued any longer. It can do no good, but causes much agitation. Wherever a Catholic priest or layman agrees heartily with the purpose and work of the Y. M. C. A. — and I know there are many of them — they should be admitted to directorships and to every other influential position just as well as Protestants. I wish that this might be brought before the competent authority of the Y. M. C. A., and I should be glad if you would forward this letter to the right person."

These interdenominational unionists still fight one another, ridicule one another, accuse one another, set up opposition churches, write against one another and accuse one another. We cannot see what benefit is supposed to come of it.

Interdenominationalism, on the other hand, also brings much evil in its train. It produces hypocrisy. Whoever is sincerely devoted to the teachings of his own church is to cultivate brotherly intercourse with those who reject them, spread teachings that seem false to him, address the false teachers who sow discord and weeds among the people as true disciples of Jesus, praise their so-called good work and express the hope that success and prosperity may continue to be theirs. Thus many a one becomes a hypocrite, and after he has done it often, he becomes a genuine Pharisee, a hypocrite through and through; and the interdenominational unionists stand by and applaud.

In the *Lutheran Witness*, volume 29, page 162, we read: "We cannot comprehend how honest people can take up opposing positions and try to conceal the difference between truth and error. In Canada the Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians are trying to unite. These church bodies do not agree with one another in doctrine and make no secret of it. If therefore members of one of these church fellowships are convinced that they have the truth, they must believe that the others are in error. Nevertheless committees of these sects have succeeded in producing a basis of union which is to cover all these various doctrines."

The Methodist *Christian Advocate* describes such an agreement in the following words: "It is a carefully drawn-up document, an admirable compromise and an evasive statement, which is to satisfy Arminians and Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians."

How a man who holds the one doctrine to be God's revealed truth and another to be human error can deliberately seek to unite both in an ambiguous document as if they agreed, we cannot comprehend.

What folly, or, let us rather say, devilish deceit it is to want to establish true unity in the Church by hypocrisy!

Furthermore interdenominational unionism produces the spiritual