Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 56

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

56 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

in the Lutheran Witness as a sound Lutheran theologian, taking
the same stand on Inspiration as do we, after it had been abundantly
proved that he found historical and scientific mistakes in the Bible.
The article in the American Lutheran by the then editor of the
Lutheran Witness denouncing the Wisconsin Synod as a body which
ought to be told that it should leave the Synodical Conference
because it found fault with the Common Confession. When that
most unkind article entitled. “What Price Patience” was answered
in due time, the readers of the American Lutheran were informed,
by way of footnotes, that the quotations from Luther were from
a period long before the Wittenberg Agreement, when the state-
ments were all taken from the year 1544. Here we also have docu-
mentary evidence to substantiate the serious charge. The misin-
formation given the readers of the Lutheran Witness in its discus-
sion of the Affirmation, and which the editor refused to correct
after he had been shown the untruth and had promised to make
the correction. The readers of the Lutheran Witness were never
informed of Dr. Brommer’s resignation from the Unity Committee
and of Dr. Engelder’s statement on that same day. While a number
of those who were then present are no longer among the living,
there are most certainly enough still with us who can bear witness
to what they on that day heard from Dr. Brommer: “I have a con-
fession to make,” and to Dr. Engelder’s statement as well.

If there be any place where we have reason to expect the prin-
ciple to be followed: “Open covenants openly arrived at,” it is in
these meetings where matters pertaining to our most holy faith are
being discussed. Our people should be told what has taken place,
what has been said, whether it be by our representatives or by the
representatives of the body with which we are dealing.

No matter what treatment we shall be given because we can-
not accept the Common Confession as a settlement of the doctrinal
differences which have separated, no matter what motives may be
ascribed to our refusal, no matter how it will cut to the quick
when former brethren tell us that they would rather walk with
those who now make common cause with the very ones from whom
we for conscience’ sake had to separate a generation ago than with
us who have wanted to uphold the principles of our Synodical Con-
ference, this will have to be our abiding comfort: “We can do
nothing against the truth, but for the truth,” 2 Cor.13:8. While
much which is as unhistoric as it is untrue has been related from
the crucial days of the Reformation in the interest of an outward
union with those with whom we are not one in faith, we wish to
record in closing a statement from the great Reformer, as recorded
by the faithful Myconius, who was present at that Wittenberg
meeting in 1536. In addressing the Reformed theologians Bucer and -
Capito, who had come to Wittenberg for the colloquy, Luther main-
tained “that it would be better to let the matter rest and remain
in its former status, where it now was, than that they by a doctored-
up and pretended agreement should make a deal (ein Handel)
which, though wicked to begin with, would thus be made a hundred
times worse. Our descendants would not be so blind and dumb
that they would not detect and expose such deception. And even
if we could deceive the whole world, we would not be able to
deceive the eyes and ears of the Lord, who hears all things.” St. L.
Walch, XVII: 2093—94.