# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Juni 1948_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Number 6 June 1948 Page 43

Conflict within the Lutheran territorial churches?

In "Der Lutheraner" there has repeatedly been reporting on the ecclesiastical development of the German Protestant territorial churches since 1945. Since the "Evangelical Church in Germany" (EKD) was proclaimed by representatives of all territorial churches at Treysa after the collapse (August 1945), there is reason to fear that the Lutheran territorial churches, despite all assurances and efforts to the contrary, will in the end still allow themselves to be incorporated into a unionistic church structure. It is true that from the Lutheran side serious efforts are being made to ensure that the union of all German territorial churches may be understood only as a "federation" and should in no way take on the character of a unified church. There is no doubt that these Lutheran concerns will be given considerable weight in the formulations of the constitution. But the actual facts themselves will presumably have a stronger effect than all reservations, interpretations, and precautionary measures. Among the facts that have been created in order to give effective shape to the united "Evangelical Church in Germany" are, above all, the Church Chancellery under the presidency of Hans Asmussen D.D., the comprehensive Evangelical Relief Agency [Evangelisches Hilfswerk], the central direction of all ecumenical relations with any churches and church federations abroad, and the service to men, women, young men and young women through the widely ramified large associations — all of which, as "works of the Evangelical Church in Germany," bear a quite definite unionistic stamp. The most effective fact, created with shrewd calculation right at the beginning, and one against which the official representatives of the Lutheran territorial churches have as yet never declared themselves, is and remains the name — even though the order for the union has not yet been fixed in detail — the programmatic name: Evangelical Church in Germany! As long as one agrees to the program implied by this name, or even merely negotiates about it, instead of rejecting it unconditionally and fighting it relentlessly, one contents oneself with representing, within the united Evangelical Church, merely one direction among others. But this contentedness is nothing more and nothing less than a denial of the Lutheran confession. For because God's Word forbids us church fellowship with those who hold fast to false doctrine, the Lutheran church cannot unite with churches of other confessions. The scriptural confession of the orthodox church claims sole validity in the whole church. It cannot and may not be represented merely as the program of one direction that stands with equal rights alongside other directions opposed to it. Now, admittedly, the Lutheran [territorial churches?] have since 1945 been earnestly striving to unite with one another on the basis of their confession into the "United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany" (VELKD). But this plan, good in itself, has from the outset lost its real meaning "within the Evangelical Church in Germany." Either the name "Evangelical Church," which is contrary to the confession, must finally be dropped for the sake of the federation with non-Lutheran churches, and action taken accordingly in all areas, or it will turn out that the name "Evangelical Church" is in fact meant exactly as it sounds, namely as a union of Lutherans, Reformed, and United [churches] into one united church. In that case, however, the union of the Lutheran territorial churches within this Evangelical Church no longer leads to a United Lutheran Church, but perhaps still to a union of formerly independent Lutheran churches which have now allowed themselves to be bound to the united "Evangelical Church" in contradiction to their own confession.

This assessment of the development within the territorial churches has hitherto been represented in "Der Lutheraner" by men belonging to the Lutheran free churches. The readers of this paper should, however, learn that there are also individual persons within the Lutheran territorial churches who are earnestly striving, in view of the present decisions, to arrive at a clear judgment on the basis of Holy Scripture, to bear clear witness accordingly, and to allow themselves to be led step by step toward action in keeping with the confession — despite the opposition that arises against this from all sides. Within the Lutheran territorial churches a serious struggle is currently underway against the program of the "Evangelical Church in Germany," which is contrary to the confession, and against the fact that the responsible representatives of the Lutheran territorial churches have repeatedly agreed to this program. This struggle within the Lutheran territorial churches aims, if it is still possible in any way, to prevent a final binding of the territorial churches to decisions contrary to the confession, and thereby to preserve the conditions under which the actual state of affairs in the territorial churches might, more and more as time goes on, correspond to the rightful claim of the Lutheran confession. If it does not succeed, even at this last hour, in preventing the binding of the Lutheran territorial churches to the "Evangelical Church in Germany" and its unionistic program, then those now still fighting for their territorial church face a difficult decision: either they must act against their conviction, against their conscience, against the Lutheran confession, against Holy Scripture, and in the end still fit themselves into the "Evangelical Church in Germany" — this would be the path that, a hundred years ago, the so-called "Union Lutherans" [Vereinslutheraner] took within the Union, a path on which no promise rests — or it will come to the point that at least some pastors and congregation members will not shrink even from the [logical] consequence, and will offer determined resistance to a church government bound by decisions contrary to the confession, in order precisely by this path to remain faithful to the Lutheran confession and to leave everything further to the LORD of the church.

Mühlhausen near Bamberg, Fr. Wilh. Hopf.

"Scarcely!" — "Nevertheless!"

Even the small words in Holy Scripture are worth attention. Have you ever fixed your eyes on the little word "scarcely"? It seems to be "unique" in Holy Scripture. St. Peter says it in the word: "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter 4:18) So harshly, then, does it pass by the fate of being swept away by the storm of God's wrath — even for the righteous, the pardoned, the redeemed! A word that deeply humbles us!

Does the full, rich grace unfold alongside this? A morning walk recently gave me clarity on this. What shimmered there in the middle of a field of rubble, catching my eye with the brightest gleam? Was it a lost, shining diamond? On coming closer it turned out to be — a piece of broken glass! But the rays of the morning sun had shone into it; hence this bright gleam! "I am a broken vessel [potsherd]," says the psalmist. In today's language: a person of fragments, so to speak a broken person, a halved person! So much of life's time, so many gifts, so much strength were consumed, even squandered! Only a shard, not, say, a crystal vessel! And now the poor shard is illuminated over and through, all through, and reflects back the sunlight! It yields nothing to the diamond in brilliance! God's Spirit, the Savior's overpowering might, works this wonder in the most wretched, the least, the most fragile!

Let the little word "scarcely" not frighten us; for beside it, above it, stand the little words "nevertheless" (Ps. 73:23), "wholly," "through and through" (1 Thess. 5:23).
Bochum Greve

When God forgives a person all their sins and heals all their infirmities, that person is not only spared from wrath and condemnation, but is at the same time also an object of the most incomprehensible love of God — the great divine love that surpasses all reason.

Rosenius.