# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Juni 1948_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Page 46 June 1948 Number 6

From Church and World

Encounter in Bad Boll.

The Ev.-Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States invites to a joint conference of Lutheran theologians of its own and of the German territorial and free churches in Bad Boll near Göppingen in Württemberg, which is to take place in three sections in June and July of this year and is to serve the encounter of German and American Lutheranism. The theme of the discussion is to be: "The Augsburg Confession in the Present." Participants from the Missouri Synod will be: President D. J. W. Behnken, Professors Dr. Paul Bretscher, Dr. Theo Graebner, Dr. F. E. Mayer, W. A. Baepler, A. O. Fuerbringer, and Director Dr. S. Meyer. Regarding the participants from the German side, among whom the leading men of territorial and free-church Lutheranism will be found, nothing definite is yet known.

The Month of June

will become fateful for the EKD (Evangelical Church in Germany) as well as for the VEKD (United Ev.-Luth. Church of Germany). Our readers will recall that the VEKD is striving for a special union of the Lutheran territorial churches within the EKD, and in doing so encounters the vigorous resistance of the circles promoting the union (Confessing Church) within the EKD. On the other hand, however, the VEKD does not wish to give up fellowship with the EKD either. This maneuvering between two fronts has found expression in lively constitutional struggles that have not yet been concluded. After the first draft constitution of the VEKD, which attempted to emphasize the church character of this union as opposed to the pure federative character of the EKD, was withdrawn in Treysa, Bavaria has now submitted a new draft with a clearly recognizable readiness to acknowledge the fact of connection with the other Protestant churches. This draft was recommended at the meeting of the Lutheran Council in Darmstadt on 11 and 12 March as a proposal for the General Synod, which is now to convene on 22 and 23 June in Eisenach, immediately before the Church Assembly of the EKD, which will meet from 24 to 28 June in the same place.

The decisive question here will be how the planned constitution of the VEKD can be reconciled with the "Basic Order" of the EKD, which the Church Assembly of the EKD is to adopt. The present "Draft of a Basic Order of the Evangelical Church of Germany" undertakes the rather hopeless attempt to designate the newly formed church as a federation and the federation in turn as a church, in order to do justice to both unionists and confessionalists at the same time. (Cf. the detailed critique in No. 3 of this volume.) It has since been the subject of manifold criticism and frequent revision, but remains in all essentials what it was and is meant to be, namely the order of a new church into which the various confessions in Germany are to be merged, and the instrument of a union which will now extend not merely over individual territorial churches, but over the entire church system of Germany.

We cannot help but deeply deplore this development and note the day of the adoption of these constitutions as a black day in the history of German Lutheranism, since on that day the end of the Lutheran territorial churches in Germany is to be certified and sealed.
—rst—

Amsterdam 1948.

From 21 August to 5 September of this year, the general assembly of the "World Council for Friendship Work of the Churches" (Federal Council of Churches) will convene in Amsterdam in the Netherlands for its third session, following Stockholm 1925 and Oxford 1937. No fewer than 136 member churches of the Ecumenical Council, including the EKD (Evangelical Church in Germany) as well as the Lutheran churches united in the Lutheran World Federation, will send their representatives to this enormous assembly of nearly all Protestant fellowships. Only the Lutheran churches of America and Australia united in the Synodical Conference, such as the great Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod, as well as the Lutheran free churches of Germany, will have no part in this event.

Why not? Are we of the opinion that true children of God are found only in our churches? Do we deny the fellowship of all believers, of which the World Council claims to be the representation? We think nothing of the kind. We know very well from Scripture that the Spirit of God blows where it will, that is, everywhere that God's holy Gospel of the forgiveness of sins is still proclaimed and people come to faith in their Savior through this ministry. And that happens, thank God, not only among us. But we also know that according to Scripture there is only one Gospel, one way to salvation. The Church of Jesus Christ has the holy responsibility to preserve this Gospel, which is entrusted to it through the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:12), just as it received it through the ministry of his apostles. Therefore, for the sake of this Gospel, and precisely for the sake of the believers who certainly exist in other churches as well, it can do nothing else but cultivate and seek fellowship only with those who, like itself, strive to preserve this precious pledge of salvation purely and undefiled.

Thus the Una Sancta too, that is, the fellowship of all believers, the true holy Christian Church on earth which we confess in the third article, is by no means the totality of all churches on earth that call themselves Christian, including Rome and all the sects, as the propaganda of the World Council never tires of repeating. Rather, it is, as our Augsburg Confession says, "the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached purely and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel," including precisely all those believers who live scattered in the many false churches.

For the sake of the Gospel we can and must do nothing else but warn and clearly separate ourselves from all those churches and fellowships and sects that harbor or tolerate a different gospel in their midst. Therefore we shall not be in Amsterdam. —rst—

Natural Science — Religion — Worldview.

The daily newspaper "Die Welt" reports in its edition of 3 April on a working conference in Clausthal (Upper Harz), attended by nearly 300 scholars from all four zones and held under the theme placed above. Eighteen renowned scholars gave specialist lectures and, on the basis of the latest findings in their fields, took a position on the theme. It was declared in a programmatic way that the person of our day is once again searching for the forces that still remain in the reeling maelstrom of our time, that science and religion in truth do not form an opposition, but are a necessary spiritual complement for every serious person. The scientific views presented in detail, to be sure, often stand in contradiction to the biblical faith of Christians, but they emphasize a modesty that scientists of earlier times had often abandoned: man knows nothing about the first origin of matter, his overall knowledge of the physics of the universe is only slight, he must never lose reverence before the divine creation. It is a gratifying sign of reflection when religion is again recognized as the sustaining foundation of humanity. Here, however, it must not be overlooked that religion is not yet the Christian faith, and that the knowledge of God for the most part remains stuck in an enthusiastic sense of all-oneness (pantheism). It also remains questionable when religion is needed only "as a spiritual complement," as if the divine had to serve man and not the other way around. That man needs God as the Savior of sinners for the salvation of his soul, he will never recognize in this way. Finally, when it was discussed "both from the Protestant and from the Catholic standpoint" whether the natural sciences are compatible with Christian dogma, the report unfortunately omits the results. —rst—

A Look at the Relief Work.

However oppressively the physical and spiritual distress continues to weigh upon our homeland, our fellow believers, relatives, and acquaintances from America continue to prove themselves generous and willing to sacrifice in their help. We have received a number of new small reports about this. In the last half-year Germany received 21% of all expenditures of the total of 60 American welfare associations, 61% of all CARE packages, and 50% of all other private postal parcels. This yields an average of 31%. — 172,000 kg of coconut oil have arrived as the first installment of an oil donation from the Missouri Synod and are being processed, on behalf of the Evangelical Relief Work, into margarine and spreadable fat, with their waste products made into soap. The second installment is on its way from Hong Kong. — The Ev.-Luth. Church in the former Old Prussia will receive 9 barrack churches, the Ev.-Luth. Free Church 7. — 400,000 instructional books, catechism, biblical history, and hymnal combined in one volume, are being made ready for the Russian Zone, in order to alleviate the shortage of textbooks there. — Paper is being sent in for the printing of Lutheran books and periodicals in Germany.

These are expenditures which, together with the food packages in December, according to reports of the "Lutheran Witness," amount to well over a quarter of a million dollars — a fraction of what the Missouri Synod has already done elsewhere and previously. We thank the dear God from ardent hearts that willing hands are found again and again over there to alleviate at least somewhat our manifold distress. How much effort of assistance lies hidden behind the bare numbers! Unfortunately the basic German afflictions — refugee misery, hunger, housing shortage, lack of the most necessary everyday goods, shortage of churches, and spiritual dispersion — continue to cry out to heaven, and one would like, despairing of the possibility of a way out, to exclaim: "What is that among so many!" Unfortunately we also do not know how long God will continue to test us in this way. But this we do know, that he will not leave us nor forsake us, just as he continually helps us also through active love of neighbor, so that we shall "not utterly perish."

News from Our Churches

Deacon Training Course

From 12 to 22 April, 16 deacons and pastoral assistants from the Ev.-Luth. Church in the former Old Prussia, the Ev.-Luth. Free Church, and the Ev.-Luth. Refugee Mission Church gathered at the Theological Pro-Seminary in Groß-Oesingen for a joint working conference. It was meant to train the participants for their service in the congregations, and especially among the members living in dispersion. Pastors of the individual churches conveyed the material in a lively manner.

The day regularly began with a morning service in the church, in which President Hein expounded to us the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. The morning and afternoon hours were filled with lectures, which were always followed by a lively discussion, and every evening too the participants came together with the pastors to report to one another about their personal lives and their work.

Lecture topics were: "The Lutheran Free Church in the East" (Pastor Dr. Lerle, Heidelberg), "Daily Equipment for Service," "From the Field of Work," "Examples of Pastoral Care" (Pastor Greve, Bochum), "Jesus as Pastoral Carer" (Pastor Schwinge, Hamburg), "Introduction to the Holy Scripture," "Conducting and Shaping Reading Services" (Superintendent Heinzelmann, Essen). On one evening Church Elder Mr. Müller, of Zahrenholz, spoke about the history and spiritual life of our Oesingen congregation; on another evening the director of the Pro-Seminary, Senior Councillor for Studies Mr. Vogt, reported on the origin, structure, and tasks of the institution.

While the lectures last mentioned made clear on what historical ground one had come together, and what special work is now again underway, the lectures, together with the joint and individual discussions, produced a wealth of questions, which in a...