# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 05 02_S137
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., May 2, 1848.

No. 18.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, for an annual subscription price of one dollar for subscribers living out of town, who must pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each individual issue is sold for 5 cents. Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however — containing business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc. — are to be sent here, under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Dr. Sihler.)

A German Unionist on Us Poor Lutherans.

(Continued.)

3.) After Mr. Hengstenberg has given a fuller report concerning "the Prussian Lutherans" — the correction or refutation of which, insofar as it does not everywhere rest on verified facts, we must leave to those concerned — he now proceeds to attack the separation of some of us from the Synod of Ohio. He asserts, namely, without exact knowledge of the state of affairs, and further, without having the correct ecclesiastical point of view, that in this separation we have "acted unjustly and unwisely, both as Lutherans and as Germans; unjustly, because especially in the Synod of Ohio the Lutheran confession has never been assailed; it still stands there firmly as an ecclesiastical rule; unwisely, because we have deliberately drawn the salt of the German and Lutheran element out of the church, so that it must now, with accelerated speed, inevitably fall prey to English influences."

Against this, then, let it be permitted us to justify ourselves according to the truth. When Mr. Hengstenberg asserts "that in the Synod of Ohio the Lutheran confession has never been assailed, that it still stands there firmly as ecclesiastical rule and standard (ecclesiastical rule)," he seems at the outset to contradict his own words; for earlier he calls the Synod of Ohio itself — after he had called the so-called General Synod "un-German and anti-Lutheran" — "half-German and half-Lutheran."

Why then does he call it so, if it is true that the Lutheran confession stands unassailed in this synod, as he says? How are we to resolve this contradiction between his own statements? For if he means that it suffices for a synod to profess the church symbols outwardly in order to be Lutheran in essence, why then does he call it "half"-Lutheran? For he well knows that no expressly Reformed preachers and congregations belong to it. But if it is really only "half"-Lutheran, then again that other claim — that it upholds the ecclesiastical confession — appears not to be correct. How then are we to set the matter right and resolve the contradiction? Scarcely otherwise than thus: Mr. H. probably means that, although the Synod of Ohio professes all the church symbols, its ecclesiastical practice is not commensurate with this confession and, as it were, cancels it again — namely, that the preachers of this synod, for example, in many cases serve mixed congregations as such and administer the Holy Supper to Reformed persons as such; that furthermore they do not solemnly bind their candidates at ordination to the confessional writings of the church, and the like.

If he really means this, and for that reason holds the Synod of Ohio to be only half-Lutheran, then he is of the same opinion as we, the reviled separatists, and we — as wholly Lutheran, for we can nowhere and never acknowledge that childish opposition between old- and new-Lutheran — would then not have acted "unjustly" in separating from such a synod, which by its ecclesiastical practice denies the confession in its necessary practical consequences and, under the Lutheran name, favors and furthers the unionistic intrigues of our time.

But before entering upon this separation of ours, which was forced upon us, we also, by God's grace, acted in a Christian manner and according to love. For in all humility, and not touching on all the grievances at once, we first approached the synod in writing, by way of petition, asking it to do away with the Reformed-unionistic formula of distribution at the Holy Supper, "Christ says," by demonstrating with sufficient grounds its inadmissibility for Lutheran congregations and ecclesiastical bodies, especially given the present unionistic state of affairs.

This petition was first raised at the special session of the General Synod of Ohio in the year 1844 at Zanesville, but its disposition was postponed to the synodical assembly of the following year. At that assembly, however, held at Lancaster in 1845, it was, without any serious consideration and still less refutation of our grounds, briefly and scornfully rejected; indeed, it came close to the opposite of the petition occurring — namely, that the use by the synod's preachers of the unionistic agenda edited by Doctor Demme in 1842, in which that formula of distribution stands, was made a binding matter of conscience by synodical resolution. At the same time, during the discussion of this matter, strange remarks fell — indeed from the mouths of respected preachers — such as: "It would be very inconsistent and unloving toward Dr. Demme if they were now to abolish this formula of distribution, after they had adopted the agenda and had given Dr. Demme special thanks for it" — words which sufficiently prove that regard for men seemed more important to the speaker than regard for the matter itself, and that a regrettable man-pleasing was at work here.

A similar rejection was suffered by another petition which we brought before this synod, in which we likewise, resting on cogent grounds, urgently requested:

1.) That the synod, in conferring ordination, solemnly bind the ordinand to all the symbols of the Lutheran Church;

2.) That it no longer permit its preachers to serve mixed — that is, Reformed-Lutheran — congregations as such, since this amounts to an approval and furthering of the false union of our time;

3.) That it raise a synodical testimony against the false doctrine of the sacrament held by the so-called Lutheran General Synod;

4.) That a thorough reform of the examination system be ordered.