# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_September 1950_S66 # AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Page 66 September 1950 Number 9 work in full freedom. On the "dark continent," in Africa, mission work is expanding powerfully. New territories are being opened up. Our free churches are preparing for a strengthened, expanded, independent work of foreign missions. We are waiting to be able soon to send out capable, devout young men to assist our aged missionaries, who have worked themselves weary in the work of the Lord. Mission is not the affair of a few enthusiastic circles or societies; it is the affair of the whole church. May it also be said of our Lutheran free churches what the apostle Paul writes to his congregation in Thessalonica: "We remember your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father." Hch. St. A True Christian If someone is a Christian, then observe whether he also holds the Word in honor, hears and loves it, and whether he takes it seriously; and further, whether he is also burdened and afflicted with the cross and tribulation. And where this is truly the case, he will come to church, will gladly hear the Word, will take delight in it, will believe it wholeheartedly, will pray, will thank God, and will have a good conscience. When you see this, you shall surely conclude and hold it to be so, that he is a holy person, well-pleasing to God, and you shall praise him as a holy person and marvel at him, and of everything he does afterward, whether in the household or in worldly governance, you shall say that it is pleasing and acceptable to God. And God will also reward it, not only in this life but also in the life to come, as it is written in the Revelation of John, chapter 14, verse 13: "Their works follow after them." Not only the works that concern the church and religion, but also those that belong to worldly and household governance. Luther. "Missouri" and "Wisconsin" In the year 1947 the Evangelical Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod celebrated the jubilee of its hundred-year existence, and in this year 1950 a hundred years had likewise passed since the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Wisconsin was founded. These two sister Lutheran churches in the United States of America belong to the "Synodical Conference," the federation of faithful Lutheran churches resting on genuine fellowship in faith and confession. Both stand in close brotherly relation to the allied Lutheran free churches in Germany. The Missouri Synod has expressed this brotherly bond of faith in an especially strong and heartfelt manner, particularly in the difficult years after the war, in that, alongside its great general relief work, which has benefited countless needy persons of all confessions, it has done good, according to God's Word, especially to "those of the household of faith," and has continued to support the church work of our free churches and their mission work with counsel and deed. Alongside this, however, the relations of the free churches to the Wisconsin Synod have also become ever closer in recent years, especially through the fact that the former Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Poland, which had been destroyed by the war and left homeless, has rebuilt itself anew in the eastern and western zones of Germany as the "Refugee Mission Church" and stands in fellowship of faith and work with us. The Refugee Mission Church belongs directly and organically to the Wisconsin Synod in America. Through personal relations with representatives of the Wisconsin Synod on their journeys to Germany, through this church's assistance to our theological seminary and the like, the German free churches have experienced the brotherly love and service of these fellow believers as well. Thus we take heartfelt part in the jubilee celebrations of these two Lutheran synods and praise together with them God's ways of grace in the hundred-year history of their existence. In the hundred-year history of these churches, to whom God has given his pure Word and Gospel, and whom he has allowed to grow from the smallest beginnings into great, blessed church bodies, one recognizes God's wonderful ways. Certainly every church of Christ, to whom the pure doctrine has been entrusted, holds this treasure "in earthen vessels." Much remains, here on earth, even in the church of Christ, human and imperfect, and God must have great patience with his saints, who sin much daily. But it is precisely there that the grace of God shines forth, and there the ways of grace of the Lord of the church become visible. God has richly blessed both Lutheran synods of America, has granted them one victory after another, and has let them develop side by side, often in the same city, to his honor and to the blessing of many immortal souls. Just as God's works are everywhere of manifold kind, so also each of these two churches has in a certain way its own particular character, and it is especially faith-strengthening to observe how Missouri and Wisconsin have not only worked alongside one another but have also served one another and become a blessing to each other. In their external size the two churches are very unequal. The Missouri Synod numbers over 1.5 million members, the Wisconsin Synod only 300,000. This may at first seem striking, but it has its reasons. For one thing, God gives growth and prosperity where and how he wills, quite independently of human effort and planning. But then, too, God has let the Missouri Synod experience special kindness. At the beginning of its history it was given the man whom God had prepared for himself, in order to make the forsaken, discouraged band of Lutheran Saxons who had immigrated to the state of Missouri in the year 1839 once again confident and strong in their faith through God's Word, willing and eager for church service: Karl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther. He was a man of keen understanding, of extraordinarily clear insight in Scripture and in the Lutheran confession, a natural leader such as few are, a humble Christian and faithful pastor. From him "streams of living water" flowed. In addition, the excellently edited church paper of the newly founded Missouri Synod, "Der Lutheraner," quickly became known among Germans in America; the auxiliary workers sent from Germany by Pastor Wilhelm Löhe of Neuendettelsau, who were working in the state of Michigan, joined the "Missourians"; and — most important of all — this new church, under the leadership of Walther and his co-workers, had an unshakably clear Lutheran position, which irresistibly attracted many German Lutherans. A hundred years ago Lutheranism in America stood in the greatest danger of sinking into enthusiasm and indifferentism. Missouri, at that time, helped by God's grace to save the Lutheran church. A Service of Brothers The newly founded Wisconsin Synod, too, experienced this service of Missouri. In the church papers of the Wisconsin Synod this year, reference is repeatedly made to how graciously God has led them. It was founded not by confessionally faithful Lutherans, but by zealous and devout, yet very unionistic, people. Thus it is stated in an article by Prof. M. Lehninger of the Theological Seminary of the Wisconsin Synod at Thiensville, in the "Evangelical Lutheran Church Paper": "At the founding of the Wisconsin Synod, all the congregations, apart from the congregation at Oakwood, had only just recently been newly gathered. Of a conscious Lutheranism, which cleanly separates itself from those of other beliefs on grounds of conscience, there could be no talk among them. In this spirit were the pastors trained who came from the mission institutions in Barmen, Basel, and Berlin and were sent out to Wisconsin. They were instructed to take charge of all Protestant Germans in America without distinction of confession, and to care for them with Word and Sacrament, until the congregations could decide for themselves whether they wished to be Lutheran, Reformed, or Union."