# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1859_S274
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

274 Judgment of a Norwegian Lutheran on the General Synod.

Are not the General Synod and the (Norwegian) General-Synodists doing exactly the same thing here? Yes! Or will the "Kirketidende" go on maintaining "that it is false and cannot be proven that the leaders and officers of the General Synod are unionistic?" Here it is proven as clear as day; for if the "leaders and officers" were orthodox, they would certainly have brought it about that such Platform-synods were expelled; but not a single one of them has even attempted it. Have not the leaders, then, thereby consented and agreed to this "Union"? And the authors and leaders of the Platform movement are found precisely among the foremost men of the General Synod, e.g. Dr. S. S. Schmucker, professor at its theological seminary; and the last president of the General Synod, Dr. Harkey, says outright in his inaugural address as professor of theology at Springfield, after declaring that he refuses to accept the Augsburg Confession "unconditionally" in various "unessential points and secondary matters" in which he demands freedom, that the doctrine of the sacraments is with them "one of those points, about which we agree to differ." Is this not precisely the unionistic disposition, which agrees in this, that one can teach both Lutheran and Reformed doctrine, particularly concerning the Lord's Supper! Anyone who knows what "unionistic" means can thus see that it is proven that "the leaders and officers of the General Synod are unionistic"; indeed I add that they are all so together, however often they may call themselves "Symbolists," for they remain, after all, in the Union, in fellowship and cooperation ("earnestly and sincerely"!) with those men, and they acknowledge that they agree in this, that such difference of opinion about the sacraments does not hinder fellowship. That is what is meant by being "unionistic," by being a mingler of religions. And if the Kirketidende denies this, it only proves that it does not know what this word means. The only way the Kirketidende can free itself from this charge is by proving to us that it is not in or with the General Synod, does not belong to it, and does not work together with it. But it declares, after all, that it does this and intends to do it earnestly and sincerely.

But back to the General Synod. From this Platform movement and its fate alone, everyone must say: What more evidence do we need that the General Synod is a fellowship which is, in fact, itself acknowledged as "unionistic" or un-Lutheran? It has itself supplied the proof, in that it permits its district synods to declare that the Augsburg Confession contains errors, among others concerning Baptism and the Lord's Supper; in that it permits them to refuse to admit people who will not accept that Platform.

But, the reader may perhaps ask in astonishment, how can even that ambiguous reception-formula be stretched so far? How can these men maintain that they hold the "chief doctrines" in the Augsburg Confession to be taught "substantially correctly," when they must surely admit that the doctrines of Baptism, of the Lord's Supper, of original sin, etc. are chief