# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1864_S187
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

187

Church-Contemporary History.

I. America.

General Synod. As the meeting time of this body approached this year, the "Observer" of April 29 wrote: "We are all sufficiently Lutheran. Not a word should be spoken, not a resolution should be proposed, calculated to give offense to any brother or to wound any part of the Lutheran body. It may be fitting for our theological professors to discuss these questions in the lecture halls. It is appropriate to discuss them in the 'Evangelical Review.' Even in our weekly church papers these questions may be discussed (and this has indeed happened of late), if it is done in a Christian spirit and with due pastoral courtesy on the part of the controversialists toward one another. But keep controversies away from the General Synod! Let this synod in truth be a bond of union upon its old, liberal basis, which is broad enough, scriptural enough (?), and Lutheran enough (?) for the whole church of this land to rest upon. We need no better one than the good old basis. We need love, and harmony, and brotherly courtesy, and the spirit of the Lord, at our approaching convention at York. The sacramental questions have been sufficiently discussed in print. Let us all go to the Lord's Supper at the General Synod in the faith of receiving, from him whose body was broken and whose blood was shed, all the precious blessings and gifts which it has pleased him to grant to the devout communicants."

Debate in the General Synod concerning the Admission of the Franckean Synod. At this year's meeting of the General Synod, the so-called Franckean Synod of the State of New York, which does not even confess the Augsburg Confession, had applied for admission. The matter occupied the synod on the very first day of its assembling, and, since opinions on it were divided, called forth a debate, of which the number of the "Lutheran and Missionary" of May 12 gives the following summary account, which we believe we must communicate here for the characterization of that body: "On the one side it was asserted that the Franckean Synod stands upon the basis of the General Synod, inasmuch as it has adopted its Constitution, although it has not complied with the injunction which the latter once laid upon the district synods; that the confession of the Franckean Synod correctly (?) contains the fundamental doctrines of Scripture; that recognition of the Augsburg Confession is not necessary for a union with the General Synod; that the principle which would exclude the Franckean Synod would make it necessary to expel the Platform synods as well, and would even threaten overthrow for the General Synod itself, which in its own constitution does not refer to the Augsburg Confession. Moreover it was asserted that the General Synod, and every district synod, has the right to make changes in matters of faith; that all evangelical denominations ought to form a union on the basis of the doctrines common to all of them, as a sure forerunner of an immediately ensuing millennial kingdom. It was further urged that the judicial decision of the New York Vice-Chancellor Sanford against the Lutheran character of the Franckean Synod could carry no weight, since he is neither a Lutheran nor a theologian; that the Franckean Synod earnestly desires union with the General Synod, but, if rebuffed now, will not seek it again. — On the other side it was asserted that the Franckean Synod has nothing, apart from the name, to legitimize it as a Lutheran body; that it has its own confession, which it has put in the place of the Augsburg Confession, and which cannot stand together with it; that this confession evades, in particular, the doctrine of the personality of the triune God, and contains nothing definite about the sacraments, not even so much as an allusion to infant baptism; that its unlutheran character has been judicially determined by Vice-Chancellor Sanford; that it would constitute a most dangerous precedent if it