# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 05 02_S138
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

These requests were then also discussed repeatedly by word of mouth by the author of the petition and set forth in the necessary light; nevertheless it was all in vain to obtain for them even an unprejudiced, willing reception, and one of those present, one of the so-called "fathers" of the synod, remarked rather impatiently: "Let us proceed to business!" By this he meant the examination of the financial affairs of the Lutheran Standard, compared to which, as was only fitting for him, closer consideration of those requests appeared to be a useless waste of time and a mere trifle.

Nothing was thus achieved, except that the disposition of Number 1 was referred to the ministerium — that is, to the assembly of ordained preachers — and it was resolved there to postpone the decision on this request for three years, namely to the next general synodical assembly.

In addition, at this synod at Lancaster, with regard to the "German Lutheran Seminary" at Columbus, the resolutions of Zanesville from 1844 were revoked by a majority vote of those inclined toward English — resolutions which had restored, according to the plain wording of the constitution, the German fundamental character of the seminary, which had been lost through unconstitutional practice.

How then was it, as Mr. H. thinks, "unjust" for us to separate from this synod, which by such conduct showed only too clearly that it held to the Lutheran confession merely outwardly, while in heart and deed denying it in such important points and thereby serving the church-mixing of our time — a synod which, moreover, even after being accurately corrected, persisted in such a unionistic disposition?

Or is the unionism of our day not indeed a subtle, yet very powerful, persecution of the Lutheran Church, in the face of which it is precisely incumbent upon her children not only to bring out the confession itself all the more decisively and forcefully, and thereby ward off the persecution, but also to emphasize just as emphatically what is confessionally proper in the individual areas of ecclesiastical practice — in teaching and defending, in the customs of divine worship, in private pastoral care, in church discipline, and in church government? For if, rightly, all these vital activities and actions of the church are in general to be borne and permeated by her one, pure confession — how much more does this hold true where she must at the same time, with heart, mouth, and deed, raise testimony against a false union contrary to Scripture?

Or would she not rightly, and through her own fault, come under suspicion of church-mixing, if, for example, she adopted or retained ceremonies peculiar to the Reformed or unionistic churches; instructed her school-children and confirmands, according to whim, now out of the small Lutheran Catechism, now out of the Heidelberg Catechism; made use of unionistic agendas; served as baptismal sponsors for children of Reformed or United church members; approved attendance at unionistic or enthusiast worship services, or merely kept silent about it out of fear of man; acknowledged unionistic church authorities as her rightful superiors and overseers; and the like?

But Mr. H. has asserted that we had acted not only "unjustly" but also "unwisely," and indeed because "we had deliberately drawn the salt of the German and Lutheran element out of the church" — though of course by this he can only mean the Synod of Ohio — "so that it" — namely, of course, not the church but the synod — "must now, with accelerated speed, inevitably fall prey to English influences."

To this the following brief reply may now be given:

There has been among us absolutely no talk of any particular deliberateness in this matter, and we are almost tempted to return to Mr. H. the reproach of "unwise," since it is at the very least quite hasty to conclude at once, from the mere hearsay of certain actions, as to the disposition of the doers, in such a way as to impute to them the worse motives. Furthermore, by God's grace, we have never stood under the delusion of considering ourselves to be some special "salt," either in an ecclesiastical or a linguistic sense. In sum, we have simply and plainly done what became a matter of conscience for us, without, in a carnal manner, looking to the right or the left, backward or forward, or upon ourselves — namely, under the aforementioned circumstances, separating ourselves from the synod, which partly rejected our requests concerning the common good of the church so hostilely, and partly received them with such indifference.

To the best of our knowledge and conscience, we would have acted very unwisely to remain any longer in this synodical association; for even granting that a good part of the synod, and especially those synodical members grown old in the accustomed routine and dead mechanism of business, had not yet recognized the essential nature and importance of our requests, there was unfortunately also no willingness present to arrive at such insight. The more influential among the younger members, however, who lacked neither this insight nor earnestness, diligence, and zeal, nevertheless seemed to regard us only with tension and mistrust, as though we wished, in a carnal manner, somehow to seize control for ourselves. We neither might nor could remain silent while those grievances noted above continued; yet our continued testimony against them would have accomplished nothing; so for both parties nothing was better than separation.

And that this was not "unwise" has been shown by the outcome in two ways. In the first place, precisely since our withdrawal, our testimony has hopefully also given a new impetus to some of those more seriously minded synodical members inclined toward ecclesiastical decisiveness, as the Lutheran Standard, for example, has of late itself demonstrated. In the second place, it has thereby become possible for us who separated to unite, in the year 1847, into one synod with the Saxon Lutherans, the dear brothers in Missouri, and other brothers in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, etc. — regarding which Mr. H. remarks scornfully — "in order at last to form and gather the true Lutheran Church of America, naturally quite in the narrow-minded spirit of the Old Lutheran separatists."

What this Prussian cathedral-candidate, viewing things through unionistic spectacles, calls a "narrow-minded spirit" we have already seen above; he means, namely, our steadfast adherence to all our church symbols, and especially to the Formula of Concord. But for the sake of our confessional faithfulness, we are glad to bear from the broad-minded unionists such titles and similar ones as Old Lutherans and separatists, even though we are thereby of course made hateful and repugnant to uninformed people — and even though, according to the truth, the reverse is actually the case. For are those really dissenters and separatists who remain true and firm to the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church — writings which are also legally recognized and guaranteed in solemn treaties of peace — and who allow no worldly authority to impose upon them anything that violates, more or less, this faithfulness and their Christian ecclesiastical conscience? Or are those not rather the separatists who deviate, mediately or immediately, from this ecclesiastical confession and, like most among them, obey men more than God, and render to Caesar what is God's?

For the rest, however, we are not at all ashamed or afraid to confess freely and publicly that, as our synodical constitution also makes known to the informed reader, we have indeed come together solely with the intent, according to the measure of grace and gift received for it, to direct all the purposes of the church — for her sound formation, establishment, and expansion — solely on the foundation of our dear, precious confession.

It should therefore, by God's grace, be among us no dead, merely outward paragraph of our synodical constitution, no formal signboard behind which we, like other so-called Lutheran synods, practice the church-mixing mischief of our time — which indeed brings no reproach among the people and puts money in the purse; nor shall it be merely the bony frame-

*) It is strange enough that Mr. H., in mentioning our preparatory meeting with these brothers at Fort Wayne in July 1846, again calls them "followers of Stephan," after he himself had testified above, in accordance with the truth, that they had bitterly repented and sincerely confessed their earlier delusion — it being a matter of common knowledge that they have had nothing more to do with this unfortunate man since 1839.