# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1859_S273
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Judgment of a Norwegian Lutheran on the General Synod. 273

the holiest truths of the Lutheran Church, it tolerates, day after day, in the most important positions of trust in its synod, e.g. as professors, indeed it tolerates their continuing to teach outright in this way. And this is not enough; no! the General Synod has tolerated, and still tolerates, that several district synods have publicly adopted this wretched Platform. The first district synod to do this was the Wittenberg Synod, with its college teachers at the head as the committee that presented the Platform for adoption and, in recommending it, declared quite without ceremony that the Augsburg Confession contains five errors, "which have long been regarded by the great mass (the great mass) (see Lutheran Standard, 1855, No. 18) as unscriptural (!) and as remnants of Roman error (!!)," and of these five errors, regeneration in Baptism and the true presence of the body and blood of Christ are named as two (!!). After the synod had declared its assent to this Platform and had adopted it "as a more definite expression of the doctrinal obligation which the General Synod requires of district synods, and as a correct statement of scriptural doctrine," it further resolved, finally, "that it would admit into its synod no preacher who does not accept this Platform." So while all manner of un-Lutheran teaching, which finds five errors in the Augsburg Confession, among others concerning Baptism and the Lord's Supper, is to be tolerated — indeed while acceptance of it is in several respects demanded — it is only the faithful Lutherans, who refuse to adopt this Platform out of such a betrayal of the confession, who are not to be tolerated and not to be admitted! At least five or six other district synods have followed the example of this synod, with declarations more or less decided. This the General Synod tolerates, and does not protest against this Platform being declared and adopted in its district synods as a "more definite expression" in place of its otherwise so indefinite reception formula! Is not the whole General Synod, in all its members and district synods, complicit in this, if they do not protest against it within the General Synod and renounce all participation in it and demand that these Platform-synods be expelled? Or what does being "unionistic" mean, if it does not consist in this: that one officially permits individuals or bodies within the synodical union to teach flatly against the Augsburg Confession, e.g. concerning Baptism and the Lord's Supper — not to mention everything else in which the General Synod tolerates deviations from the pure doctrine? Do not the "Kirketidende" and all the others declare themselves "unionistic" when they say that they intend to keep working together "earnestly and sincerely" with these men? Even in the Union Church in Germany there are many who say that they honor the Augsburg Confession and accept it fully, yet they are called "Unionists," and call themselves so, because they "unite" and work together with those who reject the confession, e.g. with regard to Baptism and the Lord's Supper.