# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Mai 1949_S57
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Number 5                              May 1949                              Page 57

The Young Lutheran

LUTHER: WE SHOULD RELY ON NOTHING
NOR DEFY ANYTHING
+ EXCEPT THE LORD +

No Illusions!

Most of us take it for granted that we may go to church. I do not mean those who do not want to go to church at all, but rather those who are living young Christians. But it is no longer so self-evident, and it will become less and less self-evident.

Why?

We must once and for all do away with the illusion that we still live in a Christian nation. The de-Christianization of our German people has been proceeding beneath the surface for many years now; and it is emerging ever more strongly day by day. What does this mean for us young Christians? It means nothing other than that with every passing year people will point their fingers at us more, because we go to church. It means that people will show us ever less understanding; it means that for our faith's sake we will experience ever more mockery, hatred, and enmity. It means, finally and ultimately, that the church will increasingly find itself in the situation it was in during the first three centuries of its existence, when it suffered and fought for life and death.

Let us first consider in broad outline this development up to the last war. We have all learned in religious instruction that Luther was tormented by the question: "How do I get a gracious God?" That was also the question of his entire age. There was a longing for salvation. That is why the evangelical church was able to spread with such incredible speed at that time. If we look at the documents of that period, whether political or otherwise, we can establish that very many of them invoke God. Surprising? That was no coincidence: that age was Christian in its outlook.

But today? Does one still hear today: "How do I get a gracious God?" I have not heard anyone ask that — except in church. But what one can hear everywhere today is: "Is there a God at all?" That is the question of our time; that is how far things have come.

How could a development toward unbelief happen? Well, it cannot surprise us if we have read our New Testament attentively. Look up the following passages, which we cannot print in full due to lack of space: 2 Peter 3:3–5; 2 Timothy 3:1–5; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:3. From these we see: we are in the midst of the great falling away of the end times; humanity is hardening itself against God and against one another.

Let us ask ourselves what this falling away looks like in reality. I would like to name one catchword here that everyone knows: materialism. Today one is almost tempted to accept materialism as something that simply has to be and that is self-evident. But that is not the case. Materialism has existed for only about a hundred years; and even though many parties today may have written it on their banners, may have given it scientific underpinning and proclaim it as the only correct view, it nevertheless remains true: materialism is an unmistakable sign of the inner decay of humanity and its spiritual disintegration, a sign of the last, troubled time. However progressive and modern materialism and its representatives may consider themselves, God's Word knows better and is at all times the most modern thing there is. Here it should be expressly noted that materialism is not found only in the East; it exists no less in the West, only in a different form.

Now, in the second half of the last century, two large groups broke away from the church in our fatherland: the educated and the workers. That is simply a fact. To what extent this was the fault of the church itself shall not be examined here. In our Lutheran free churches we do indeed find both educated people and workers (as befits a true Christian congregation), but at that time our Lutheran free churches were still in their earliest beginnings.

With the great upheavals of the years after the First World War, the increasing de-Christianization of our people, which until then had not been so clearly noticed, became more evident. Then followed the deliberately anti-Christian training work of the Hitler Youth. In this area others had already done good preparatory work for it; it did not have too difficult a task. No illusions! We do not yet notice the effects of this Hitler Youth upbringing, because the church is currently relevant on account of Christian relief work. But if ever the faintest breath of a godless movement should come, then we will find the vast majority of this generation, which was trained by the Hitler Youth, in the other camp.

What does the situation look like now, after the war? This is especially important for us young people; for this generation, in which we are now growing up, our generation, will be our environment for the entire duration of our lives. If it is now hostile to Christianity, it will be no less so later. What, then, is the relationship of our generation to Christianity? Two examples may serve to illustrate this:

The Dresden Protestant newspaper "Der Sonntag" reported: "In a survey among 700 children of both sexes between the ages of 9 and 12, when asked who Jesus Christ was, 45% of rural children, 7% of urban children, and only 1% of children living in the outer city zone could give a satisfactory answer. Of the 7% of urban children who knew something about God, only two percent had learned anything about Jesus from their mother. Of 179 urban children, only 8 prayed daily."

A pastor in East Berlin conducted a survey among his confirmands asking who believed in God. About 90% did. The second question was who believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior. That was fewer than 10%.

The misery of refugees, school reform, and the absence of fathers have done their part to further advance the de-Christianization of our youth. Whereas until now it was still considered proper by some parts of our people to go to church at least occasionally, especially at Christmas, even that is slowly ceasing. There is already a large number of people in Germany who are not baptized, and their number is ever increasing. Our youth as a whole no longer has any bond with Christianity.

No illusions! The church's path will become ever more burdensome. The peaceful times are gone irretrievably. This means that your path, too, will become a difficult one, if you truly want to be a Christian in earnest. Be clear about that!

Hans-Joachim Walter

On the History of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession

In the October issue of our "Young Lutheran" we heard something about the fundamental confession of our dear Lutheran church, the Augustana. Perhaps many of you have read through it and reflected upon it, perhaps even discussed it. Alongside this confession stand other confessions of the fathers of the Reformation, some of which may not be so well known, and yet we ought to know them. They are contained in the so-called Book of Concord. In it all the confessions that have validity in the Lutheran church have been collected. We will soon hear about one that will be very well known to you all. Today, however, you shall learn something about a document that followed immediately upon the Augsburg Confession, namely its Apology.

The word "Apology" comes from the Latin and means in German: "defense." Against what does this document defend itself?

We had already heard that Emperor Charles V, after the reading of the Augsburg Confession, had a counter-document composed by noted Roman theologians: the "Confutation" (= refutation). The sharpest opponents of Luther had worked on it, for example Eck, Wimpina, Cochlaeus, and others. But they did not refute the Augsburg Confession; they merely gave expression, in slanders, to their hatred of Luther and his followers. On August 3, 1530, that is, about a month after that memorable 25th of June, the Confutation was read out. The Emperor declared that it contained the position to which he would adhere. If the princes did not want to submit to him equally, he, as protector of the church, would prevent a schism by force.

This forced the Protestants to stand up for their conviction and to defend themselves. In order to examine the Confutation more closely, they demanded a copy. But the other side was reluctant to give them one and therefore imposed the condition that the Lutherans might neither answer the Confutation nor print it or otherwise disseminate it. This was unacceptable to Luther's followers. Reconciliation negotiations in this matter remained unsuccessful. So they decided to compose a defensive document based on notes that Joachim Camerarius, the representative of the city of Nuremberg at the diet, had made during the reading of the Confutation. This task was entrusted to Melanchthon. In consultation with others he pushed this work forward quickly in mid-September. He completed the Apology in broad outline to the point that the Saxon chancellor Brück was able to present it on September 22. For in a concluding statement of the Confutation there was the remark that the evangelical confession had been refuted with good reason. But the Emperor ultimately refused to accept the Apology.

In the meantime Melanchthon got to see a copy of the Confutation and was thus able to go on to revise his Apology and to expand it considerably in some parts. In its arrangement he followed closely the articles of the Augustana, though he combined related articles together. Naturally he did not need to treat the points recognized by the opponents as extensively as the disputed ones. In addition, he supplemented some articles that had been only briefly presented in the Augsburg Confession. At the center for him stood the doctrine of the justification of the sinner by grace for Christ's sake.

By the end of April or the beginning of May 1531, the Apology and the Augustana could finally be completed in print; the Apology first appeared only in Latin. Justus Jonas then took care of the German translation. He did not, however, write in as sharp a tone as Melanchthon had expressed himself in the Latin text. The translation was published in the autumn of 1531.

At first Melanchthon published his Apology as his private work. In the Catholic camp people were completely surprised. Because the Confutation was not allowed to be printed, it had achieved hardly any significance in public compared to the Apology. Among the Protestants this document was received everywhere with joy. Lazarus Spengler, Luther's friend in Nuremberg, wrote in a letter after receiving a copy: "We have received the Apologiam with the greatest joy, in good hope that it will yet do our descendants much use and good."

Thus the Apology very soon achieved general recognition, and at the Diet of Schmalkalden in 1537 it was signed by the theologians present there. Since then it has maintained its place among the confessions of the Lutheran church.

Hellmut Fiediger

"We hope that all God-fearing people shall see sufficiently in this our document that our teaching is Christian and comforting and beneficial to all the devout."

(From the concluding words of the Apology)