# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1859_S122
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

122 On the Difference in the Law between the Missouri Synod, etc.

...to leave on the professorial chair is a shameful unfaithfulness
toward God and the congregations. — And what is the actual, deeper root
of this faithlessness? Why does one not simply drive out these false
prophets? Why? Because in the General Synod there is a lack of respect
for God's Word, because one does not believe that the Bible, and indeed
every word in it, is God's own true Word — for one does not believe
that one must be on guard against false prophets, one does not believe
that a little leaven leavens the whole lump — one scoffs at such
[respect for] the Word of God as Old-Lutheran narrow-mindedness. The
devil of union has sown indifferentism into people's hearts; that is
the actual seat of the evil. — Add to this one more thing: where there
is no living fear of God, there must be much fear of man. It is fear of
man, too, that keeps one from daring to attack those already "very
pious and holy people," for that might all too easily tear apart the
humanly-spun threads that hold the General Synod together; the General
Synod might fall apart, and what then would become of all those grand,
fine works — the societies, the Church Extension Society, the Lutheran
Publication Society, etc., all the many seminaries, orphanages,
hospitals, and so on, and so on — these true idols of the General
Synod, to which everything is sacrificed: confession, honesty,
faithfulness, God's Word, the truth, and God Himself. For if one wished
to confess the truth, God, and God's Word, and to be faithful and
honest, then the General Synod would indeed vanish, and what would then
become of the pious institutions, the "living Christianity," the
American religion? — Yes, the General-Synod-men are afraid that their
kingdom might fall into ruin if they act faithfully toward God and His
Word, confess the truth, and depose false teachers. Therefore they now
let everything drift along in the old sinful rut, are full of fears
that someone might stir, and always seek anxiously and carefully to
mediate, to gloss over, to cover up, to smooth things over; even what
is plainly and wretchedly sinful is nevertheless to be spared, borne
with, and judged with mildness, kindness, and gentleness, and, where
possible, overlooked in love, in "brotherly love." And such poor,
anxious, tight-throated, wretched politicians still wish to talk of
narrow-mindedness in other people!

Truly, if at our colleges false doctrine were publicly taught by any
professor, there would arise among us (and God grant that it always
remain so) a fire that could reduce everything to ashes. And the
Missouri Synod ought rather to perish a thousand times over before it
would tolerate such doctrine and such false teachers. For what does the
Missouri Synod itself matter? Nothing — let it fall to pieces however it
will, so long as God's Word and doctrine remain pure, for that can soon
raise up ten new Missouri Synods. — Where now is true broad-mindedness?
—

Now yet another fact of the faithlessness and unlovingness of the