# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Mai 1949_S55
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Number 5                                        May 1949                                        Page 55

we must seek no other and must avoid every other. To bear witness to this, in word and deed, is our office. It is therefore also our office, out of faithful hearts and in brotherly love, to warn against the false paths that spoil and destroy the church. Such a false path is, according to Scripture and all the experiences of church history, unionism, the attempt to help the church by union without unity. Even today it must still hold true what Claus Harms wrote in 1817 with regard to the union then being planned: "As a poor maid one now wants to make the Lutheran church rich through a copulation. Perform the act, only not over Luther's bones! It will come alive from it and then — woe to you!"

—rst—

Of Books

Evangelical-Lutheran People's Calendar for the Year 1949

88 pages, price DM —.90

At last it has arrived, the Evangelical-Lutheran People's Calendar for 1949! Even though, through no fault of those responsible, it comes somewhat late, we nevertheless extend to it a heartfelt welcome for its third arrival this year! Once again it has something to tell us that is not only worth reading but downright indispensable for us, even after the calendar portion in front of us has fulfilled its purpose. First we are shown, drawn by an artist's hand, the second main part of the Small Catechism, the three articles of our Christian faith with Luther's brief, plain, and yet so substantial and all-encompassing explanation. We are given instruction on how we can sing the faith — namely, the so-called "great" faith, that is, Luther's incomparable hymn of faith — according to its melody dating from the year 1524, in church and at home. A calendar is a book bound to time. It is therefore very fitting that it enlightens us about time and, from a Christian-biblical perspective, places its meaning and its tasks in the right light. Whoever reads these reflections on time devoutly, and considers them from the vantage point to which we are led here, will be offered true wisdom for life. Here we learn how our lifetime, according to God's will and good pleasure, is to be filled, so that the actual purpose of life may be realized and the goal of life attained. The calendar wishes not only to instruct its readers but also to guide them toward joy in all that is good, noble, and beautiful in the world, which the almighty, gracious God lets his children enjoy on earth. It leads us into the musical workshop of God and tells of the glorious works of art that the masters of music, such as Bach, Handel, and others, have brought forth. There is something wonderful about these works, which move even people not musically trained, but which are meant to move us Christians to heartfelt thanks toward God and to longing for heaven, where we shall be masters in singing. A beautiful art is also the gift of storytelling. It comes into its own in the new calendar in truthful accounts from times past. The eventful life of Luther's wife, Katharina von Bora, is portrayed; we learn something of the choice of profession of the Alsatian hymn-writer and faithful Lutheran Friedrich Weyermüller. We are permitted to pay a visit to Lutheran institutions of charitable work, to the Naemi-Wilke-Stift in Guben and to the children's home in Berlin-Dahlem. That noble poetry, too, comes into its own will surely meet with all readers' approval. For us free-church Lutherans, the enclosed directory of addresses of pastors, preaching places, and institutions is of lasting value, and in looking through it we become aware of the gratifying growth of our church work. May the calendar find wide distribution and many attentive readers!

A. Stallmann

[Image: view of a city with church towers]

News from Our Churches

Report of the Lutheran Theological College Oberursel/Ts. on the Winter Semester 1948/49

While in the great church politics the waves ran high and the parties of Protestant Germany, amid many unpleasant disputes, shaped the new church unity of the EKiD, the College carried out its quiet work in the winter months in the unity of the Lutheran understanding of the Gospel. Yet the work done in quiet was not work done in isolation. What was taught and pursued at the College in the past semester was rather deliberately placed within the great churchly events and within the intellectual struggle of our time in general. No leadership of a college of Lutheran confession conscious of its responsibility can afford to leave the future servants of the church unequipped for the tasks and struggles that await them, sooner or later, as shepherds of Lutheran congregations. Therefore theological training cannot be thorough and many-sided enough. But therefore, too, the dust of church-political everyday life must be kept away from our students. With all its relevance to the present, theological study must not lack the consecration of theologia sacra (Holy Theology).

We have endeavored to carry on our work in this spirit also in the past winter semester. This was not made easy for us in some respects. The housing question pressed upon us. Part of the teaching staff still had to live separated from their families, since the lecturers' houses could not be completed to this day. All members of the teaching body had to make use of rooms that we urgently needed for students and for those employed in the household department, in order to have any accommodation at all and to be able to work. The aftereffects of the currency reform pressed upon us no less. The budget for ongoing maintenance could be balanced — though only through excessive thrift, which not infrequently harmed the matter itself — but the budget for the completion of the most necessary buildings on the grounds could not. Yet we do not want to overlook that in certain external matters we fared well in the past semester as well. We did not need to freeze a single day. The coke, thanks to the mild winter, was just barely sufficient. The food, too, was adequate and nourishing. Living almost in the middle of the forest, in the sheltered position of the Taunus, helped many a member of the institution prone to illness to hold out in terms of work. We have experienced much kindness from our brethren in the faith in America, who not only granted us the aid provided for in the 1948 budget, but also let us have a most important supplementary food allowance and various pieces of clothing for our students. But the congregations of our own two Lutheran free churches, too, have brought noteworthy gifts — in money and in goods in kind — without which we could not have gotten through. To all of them our thanks go to God the Lord, who has made hearts and hands willing to give what is, after all, necessary for the building up and continuation of a work as difficult and at the same time as important as our joint College represents. We taught 20 students here in the past semester. A large part of them men of more mature age, who have the soldier's life of the Second World War or years of prisoner-of-war captivity behind them. Diligence in work was great. One student, already Dr. phil., took his first theological examination in January.

On November 11th, the birthday of our Reformer, we held the opening celebration of the semester, which had already begun a few days before. Connected with this was the handing over of the rectorate, which is now to take place every year. Pastor Kirsten, after giving a report on the College's path thus far, laid his office into the hands of the undersigned. The new Rector delivered an inaugural lecture on the theme: Christian Faith and Formation for the Times.

The fulfillment of the lecture schedule required the utmost exertion of strength from the lecturers. To begin with the Old Testament, the systematic theologian by training, Lic. Laabs, had to read Isaiah and Old Testament theology. He was supported by Pastor Stallmann of Allendorf, who came over once a week and read Genesis. The New Testament was again distributed among several lecturers. Pastor Kirsten read the Pastoral Epistles, Lic. Laabs the Gospel of Matthew. Historical theology was, as before, taken care of by Lic. Kiunke. Church History Part III, the Reformation period, was presented, and in the field of the history of dogma Part I, which covers the formation of dogma of the Ancient Church up to Augustine. In addition he read a two-hour lecture course on the efforts toward union in the church up to the present. Amsterdam stood here at the center of interest. Because of the work connected with the rectorate, Lic. Kiunke was assigned a somewhat smaller number of hours. In systematic theology, Pastor Osch was entrusted with Dogmatics Part III as well as Symbolics. In the New Testament he intended to read the Epistle to the Colossians. Unfortunately he fell ill shortly after the beginning of the semester, had to undergo a longer course of treatment on the doctor's urgent orders, and after his return could only lecture for a few hours toward the close of the semester. Thus in the field of systematic theology only Ethics and Philosophy remained this time. Both were entrusted to Lic. Laabs. In practical theology, Pastor Kirsten read the Introduction to Theology for beginners, held homiletical exercises with the advanced students, and taught practical liturgics together with Lic. Kiunke. In addition, Catechetics was treated by Pastor Kirsten.

Since our College strives to cultivate its connections outward as well, we were glad that two professors from other universities held guest lectures with us. At the beginning of February, Professor Holsten of the University of Mainz (a scholar of missiology) lectured on missions from a Lutheran point of view and on the cooperation of Christian academics in missions. At the end of February, Professor D. Sasse of Erlangen, who had already served us once in the summer semester, stayed with us. Out of his special knowledge of these matters he gave our students a profoundly penetrating presentation of modern Catholicism.

A part of our students had been invited by the University of Mainz to take part in a weekend course with a series of lectures on modern intellectual movements. They received various stimuli from this.

Our student body, however, did not only receive. It also wanted to give and to stir its own powers. This took place above all in the work of children's instruction. This work had already been begun in the summer semester of 1948 in connection with the catechetical seminar. In the semester under report it received a most gratifying boost. More than 40 children from the partly de-churched surroundings of the College were regularly instructed twice a week in three groups by the students. Soon a regular children's worship service on Sunday after the main service was added. The initiative for this work came almost entirely from the students themselves. The parents of the children, too, were all visited by the students, and in the process many a bond was formed with people who had become estranged from the Bible. That our services, held Sunday after Sunday alternately by the lecturers in the St. John's Chapel on our grounds (in which part of the library is housed), are attended by all kinds of guests, and that a not inconsiderable missionary service is thereby carried out, has already been mentioned in earlier reports. In addition, the students brought about the founding of a trombone choir, which is admittedly still under