LCMS Convention Proceedings: highlights and oddities

The first convention judges a neighbour's bans

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1847 · 1st Convention, Chicago, 1847, p. 17 EN

Two of the Synod's first acts judged another body's discipline. Fifty-seven Wisconsin Lutherans asked, through their deputies, what to do about Pastor Krause; the answer was that they had “nicht nur das Recht, sondern auch die heiligste Pflicht” — not only the right but the most sacred duty — to leave him, if the reports were true. It also admitted E. M. Bürger, whose Buffalo hearers Grabau had banned “ohne hinreichenden Grund,” without sufficient cause.

Only the power of the Word

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1848 · 2nd Convention, St. Louis, 1848, p. 31 EN

Walther opened the second convention by naming what the Synod could not do. Its constitution gave it “nur die Gewalt des Wortes und der Ueberzeugung” — only the power of the Word and of persuasion — no decrees, no laws, no binding ruling: “stehen wir nicht über unseren Gemeinden, sondern wir stehen in ihnen und ihnen zur Seite.” Eleven pages on, the same minutes assure Neu-Melle it may have its release whenever it asks.

A mission colony proposed for Oregon Territory

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1848 · 2nd Convention, St. Louis, 1848, p. 49 EN

The Mission Commission looked past Michigan to Oregon Territory. It proposed calling a man to St. Louis to meet visiting chiefs, then recruiting settlers — some from Germany — for a colony near Oregon City, with a school for “Heidenkinder,” heathen children. The convention declared itself agreed “im Wesentlichen,” in essentials, and voted nothing. Oregon appears once more in these ten volumes, in 1854, and only to be set aside.

A pastor shoves the investigator three times

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1850 · 4th Convention, St. Louis, 1850, p. 147 EN

St. Matthew's, Detroit, belonged to no synod when sixteen of its members complained that Pastor Winkler was imposing the ban at will. They appealed to Walther, who sent August Crämer. Crämer's report, printed entire, reaches its point in a single clause: “Herr Pastor Winkler gerieth so in Wuth, daß er mich dreimal mit dem Arm auf die Brust stieß” — flew into such a rage that he shoved me three times in the chest.

The year the address was not given

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1851 · 5th Convention, Milwaukee, 1851, p. 165 EN

Cholera in St. Louis kept Präses Wyneken from Milwaukee, and because word of it came too late for a substitute to prepare, the convention address was dropped altogether. His written report stands in its place, and it opens with a death: missionary Maier of the Shiboyangk mission station “fand seinen Tod in den Wellen” — found his death in the waves — wrecked in a storm on Lake Michigan, 15 September 1850.

Buffalo calls itself a murdered sister synod

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1853 · 7th Convention, Cleveland, 1853, p. 249 EN

The 1853 minutes print the whole Missouri–Buffalo correspondence “unverkürzt,” unabridged. Buffalo's letter — signed at Buffalo, 27 May 1853, by Grabau, ten other pastors and eleven congregational deputies — charges nine years of meddling in its discipline and asks Missouri to be reconciled with “der so tief beleidigten und, so weit es in ihrer Macht stand, ermordeten Schwester-Synode”: the sister synod so deeply insulted and, so far as lay in Missouri's power, murdered.

A district president loses his fellowship over chiliasm

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1857 · 9th Convention, Fort Wayne, 1857, p. 350 EN

The ninth convention opened the case in its second session and closed it in its eighteenth. Georg Albert Schieferdecker, president of the Western District, would not give up his thousand-year kingdom. Pressed with one plain question overnight, then six in writing, he qualified every yes. The Synod found that he “mit ihr auf Einem Glaubensgrunde nicht mehr stehe” — no longer stood with it on one ground of faith — and withdrew synodical fellowship.

Walther will not make his conviction a law

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1857 · 9th Convention, Fort Wayne, 1857, p. 336 EN

The chiliasm proceedings turned aside into a quarrel over Revelation's canonicity, which an article in Der Lutheraner had questioned. Walther answered in his own voice: “ich habe weder ein Recht, solche meine Ueberzeugung der Synode als ein Gesetz aufzudringen, noch glaubte ich dem Aufsatz eines Bruders die Aufnahme … verweigern zu dürfen” — no right to press my conviction on the Synod as a law, nor to refuse a brother's article. The Synod concurred.

Whether to give up the Indian mission

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1860 · 10th Convention, St. Louis, 1860, p. 69 EN

The Mission Commission reported “mit bedrängtem Herzen,” with a heavy heart, that the work had gone backward. The floor then argued the mission's “Sein oder Nicht-Sein,” its to-be-or-not-to-be: costly years without fruit, dispirited missionaries, money better spent on travelling preachers among scattered Germans — against which it was answered that one should think of “Beispiele, wie das von Hans Egede.” Both stations were kept. No speaker is named and no money was voted.

Absolution and justification, the convention's largest business

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1860 · 10th Convention, St. Louis, 1860, p. 34 EN

The tenth convention gave most of its time to a paper on the bond between absolution and justification, printed whole, then debated thesis by thesis as far as the sixth. The record never names its author. The plainest image comes in that debate, fifteen pages on: men lie in a prison whose gates Christ has already burst, not knowing it, and the Gospel is the word “Gehet heraus, ihr seid erlöst, ihr seid begnadigt, ihr seid frei” — go out, you are redeemed, pardoned, free.

Missouri and Buffalo, 1847–1860

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1853 · 7th Convention, Cleveland, 1853, p. 249 EN

A quarrel that begins as two rulings about other men's congregations and ends with a book, a refused arbitration and a defection. Missouri received people Grabau had banned; Buffalo held that receiving them was itself the sin, and that no colloquy could be held until Missouri confessed it. Neither side ever moved off that sentence. The Synod's own account of it fills six printed pages of the 1853 volume and a whole appendix of the 1857.

1. 1847 · S. 22 · E. M. Bürger is admitted, the Synod finding his Buffalo hearers banned “ohne hinreichenden Grund.”
2. 1850 · S. 119 · Walther's address names no man, only a “Richtung,” a tendency, with which the Synod has lately come into conflict “von zwei Seiten her.”
3. 1850 · S. 144 · under the heading “Grabau'scher II. Synodalbrief,” a committee is charged with writing a refutation.
4. 1851 · S. 169–170 · Walther's draft is read, the trigger named, and the theses discussed across eight sessions.
5. 1852 · S. 212 · the book is sent to Grabau with a colloquy offered and a truce on polemics; the secretary's footnote reads “Dieses ist von mir bereits geschehen.”
6. 1853 · S. 247–261 · the whole correspondence, printed unabridged, ending in Grabau's public answer of 21 June.
7. 1857 · S. 352 · arbitration refused, and every future peace proposal not grounded in doctrinal agreement rejected “ein für alle Mal.”
8. 1860 · S. 22 · the Präses reports that a fourth brother “hat sich der Buffalo-Synode angeschlossen.” He is not named.

Löhe's gifts, and being informed afterwards

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1860 · 10th Convention, St. Louis, 1860, p. 63 EN

Wilhelm Löhe gave the Synod its first seminary and its first mission stations, and thirteen years later was sent a printed report telling him what had been done with the seminary. Nothing in these volumes records a break; what they record is a slow change of grammar — from asking him, to thanking him, to lending him money, to informing him. His parish name is still on the Ohio rosters in 1860: “Neu Dettelsau, O.”

1. 1847 · S. 12 · the Synod resolves to ask “Herr Pfarrer Löhe” whether the founders will hand the Fort Wayne institution over to its free disposal.
2. 1848 · S. 41 · Löhe's letter transfers the seminary “in bester Form,” in his own name and Pastor Wucherer's.
3. 1849 · S. 87 · Löhe's own Urkunde, addressed to Pastor Hermann Fick, cedes the Michigan mission stations: “Gegen dieses Ansinnen wußte Pfarrer W. Löhe durchaus nichts einzuwenden.”
4. 1850 · S. 151 · invited to come in person.
5. 1851 · S. 167 · he thanks the Synod and regrets that he cannot.
6. 1853 · S. 257 · Grabau, arguing against Missouri, names Löhe as sharing Buffalo's doctrine of church and ministry: “die theilt ja auch ihr Freund Löhe mit uns.”
7. 1857 · S. 366 · of $422.90 left in the mission treasury, $400 is entered as “Herrn Pfarrer Löhe dargeliehen,” lent to him.
8. 1860 · S. 61 · the seminary is moved to St. Louis.
9. 1860 · S. 63 · the committee quotes the 1847 deed's three conditions, judges them unbroken, and proposes that Löhe be sent a copy of the convention report “zu seiner Kenntnißnahme,” for his information.

The Indian mission, from Oregon to the question whether to stop

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1860 · 10th Convention, St. Louis, 1860, p. 69 EN

Thirteen years, four stations and no settled success. The Synod planned for Oregon before it owned a station, took Michigan from Löhe and Leipzig, buried a missionary, printed a primer in Chippewa, watched one band fall away entirely, moved to Minnesota, sent two Native boys to Fort Wayne, and then, in 1860, debated on the floor whether to keep any of it. The record is unusually candid about failure; the Commission is thanked in 1860 for reports that are “ungeschminkt.”

1. 1848 · S. 49 · the Oregon colony proposed; the convention agrees in essentials.
2. 1849 · S. 87 · Löhe and the Leipzig mission board cede Frankenmuth and Bethanien to the Synod.
3. 1851 · S. 165 · missionary Maier drowns in a storm, 15 September 1850.
4. 1853 · S. 263 · Baierlein's Chippewa primer, printed in Detroit, with translated chorales; a young man named Johannes, present at that convention, can read the New Testament.
5. 1854 · S. 289 · the Shebahyonk band falls away entirely; the Commission points, instead of Oregon or California, to the Chippewa of Minnesota.
6. 1857 · S. 365 · the new station near Crow Wing, founded deliberately without government support; Philipp Mushuk and Paulus are studying at Fort Wayne.
7. 1860 · S. 69 · “Sein oder Nicht-Sein.” Both stations kept.

Confession and absolution: the practice the Synod would not legislate

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1852 · 6th Convention, Fort Wayne, 1852, p. 223 EN

Twice the Synod was asked to settle private confession by rule, and twice it declined to, while refusing just as firmly to let the practice be abolished where it stood. The argument runs through four named congregations — Frohna, Freistadt, Baltimore, Freistatt — over fourteen years, and ends not in a resolution but in a paper: the 1860 Referat on absolution and justification, which takes most of the tenth convention's time.

1. 1847 · S. 7 · Frohna asks that the clause permitting general confession be struck; the Synod is not persuaded and refers the matter to the Missouri pastoral conference.
2. 1847 · S. 18 · the ministers are polled on private confession, Beichtanmeldung, and the use of orthodox Agenden.
3. 1848 · S. 44 · the clause is struck, on the ground that church order should not be prescribed by the constitution; Augsburg XI is reaffirmed in the same breath.
4. 1850 · S. 141–142 · Frohna is told to keep its old order; Freistadt is told the keys do not belong to preachers exclusively.
5. 1851 · S. 178 · the delegate Weinhold has the 1850 record corrected: the question was his own, not his congregation's.
6. 1852 · S. 223 · “Auf Beichtanmeldungen soll von unsern Predigern bestanden werden” — our preachers shall insist on announcement for confession.
7. 1860 · S. 77–78 · fifteen members at Freistatt ask for general confession alongside private, citing abuse of private confession they had known under the Buffalo Synod; the Synod upholds the district.
8. 1860 · S. 34–49 · the Referat, and the floor debate on it.

The language question before 1917

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1857 · 9th Convention, Fort Wayne, 1857, p. 354 EN

English is in these volumes from 1849, and the Synod's answer changes from “not yet, for want of money” to “a sacred duty” in eight years. It is not a straight line: the Fort Wayne English Academy was dedicated in 1857 and had closed by 1860, and in 1860 the Synod declined to publish an English paper of its own, partly because American Lutherans “sich nicht gern von Deutschen belehren lassen.” Two of that convention's own weekday services were held in English.

1. 1849 · S. 84 · a third professor “mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der englischen Sprache” is wanted and postponed for want of funds.
2. 1850 · S. 128 · the Altenburg deed makes German “alleiniges Lehrmittel,” the sole medium of instruction, and requires that it “unverbrüchlich bleibe.”
3. 1853 · S. 267 · experience teaches that the children prefer English, “so daß es fast gewiß ist,” that the second or third generation will be estranged from German and with it from the pure confession; the Tennessee Synod is cited as proof a language shift need not cost the confession.
4. 1857 · S. 354 · Biewend's Referat adopted: it is a “heilige Pflicht” to found English congregations once enough members understand English better than German, under four conditions.
5. 1857 · S. 358 · the English Academy dedicated 26 October, with “manche unserer hiesigen englischen Mitbürger” present.
6. 1860 · S. 75 · an English periodical asked for and declined as a synodical organ; the Norwegian Pastor Brandt speaks for it.
7. 1860 · S. 78 · Pastor Schmidt of Baltimore, himself serving an English congregation, asks the Synod to revisit the 1857 rule; it declines and stands by it.
8. 1860 · S. 81 · the academy committee is abolished “weil die Academie eingegangen ist.”

From one synod to four districts

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1854 · 8th Convention, St. Louis, 1854, p. 292 EN

Proposed in 1848 and refused as premature; argued in 1849 and refused again, with Crämer writing up the case against; petitioned for from New York in 1850 and answered with a second vice-president; resolved in 1852; declared unavoidable in 1853; carried in 1854 by a unanimous “Ja” with every congregation's assent in hand. Three years later the design was already straining: one man could not visit every congregation in three years, so the Synod made it six.

1. 1849 · S. 98 · the 1848 proposal recalled and refused again; Crämer charged with setting out the grounds for and against.
2. 1850 · S. 141 · the New York conference asks for a branch synod and is given a second Vice-Präses for the east instead.
3. 1852 · S. 214 · four districts resolved, by states rather than geography: “Es soll keine Trennung, sondern nur eine Abtheilung in verschiedene Districtssynoden vorgenommen werden.”
4. 1853 · S. 235 · Wyneken opens the convention by saying the division can no longer be put off.
5. 1854 · S. 292 · every congregation, including those not represented, has assented; the question is put and answered with “ein einstimmiges ‘Ja!’”
6. 1854 · S. 293 · Wyneken elected the first general Präses; Schieferdecker elected president of the Western District.
7. 1857 · S. 353 · the visitation requirement judged still right but not practicable in three years; the period is set at six.

The order of worship, and a complaint nobody answered

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1860 · 10th Convention, St. Louis, 1860, p. 24 EN

The Synod ruled in its first year that uniformity of ceremonies is wholesome but not necessary to the Church's unity, and that no one is to be compelled into any ceremony. Having said so, it spent thirteen years being unable to get agreement it had declined to require. The last word in these volumes is a complaint, not a resolution: the general Präses's report for 1860 calls the state of things “ein buntes Durcheinander,” and the convention took no action on it at all.

1. 1847 · S. 9 · the addition adopted on Leonhardt's motion: uniformity held “nur für heilsam,” only wholesome, with “keinerlei Zwang,” no compulsion of any kind.
2. 1847 · S. 18 · the ministers polled on ceremonies, private confession and the use of orthodox Agenden.
3. 1849 · S. 90 · the New York district conference asks how the liturgical part of the service may be restored, and answers: by teaching the people.
4. 1854 · S. 286 · the St. Louis conference's written revision of the Saxon Agende is weighed and referred back to it.
5. 1857 · S. 321 · “Sehr mangelhaft steht es noch mit der Gottesdienstordnung”; where the Old Saxon or the Löhe Agende is not used entire, the pieces are assembled “ohne gehörigen Zusammenhang und Takt.”
6. 1860 · S. 24 · still “ebenso mangelhaft … wie früher”; the liturgy is a Mittelding, a thing indifferent, and precisely for that reason the congregations ought to agree. “Gott besser's.” Nothing was resolved.

The question the twenty-fifth year put

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1872 · 15th Convention, St. Louis, 1872, p. 44 EN

The convention of 1872 met in the Synod's twenty-fifth year and opened its chief business with a question about the anniversary itself: “Welche Aufgabe haben wir zu löſen, damit der Segen, welchen Gott in den letzten fünf und zwanzig Jahren über uns ausgeſchüttet hat, von uns nicht verſchüttet, ſondern auf unſere Nachkommen vererbt werde?” — what task have we to solve, so that the blessing God has poured out on us in the last twenty-five years is not spilled by us but passed on to our descendants. The theses had been made known beforehand in Der Lutheraner; their first part sets the blessing out under seven heads, their second the dangers of spilling it. The jubilee itself had been kept on 26 April with a sermon by Walther on Ps. 119:43 and evening services in every Lutheran church of the city belonging to the Synod.

“Halt an mit Leſen” — the pastor at his desk

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1872 · 15th Convention, St. Louis, 1872, p. 82 EN

Inside the anniversary theses, under the head that preachers must go on studying, the convention took up St. Paul's words “Halt an mit Leſen!” — give attendance to reading, the words of 1 Tim. 4:13, though the page gives no chapter and verse. It applies them to the minister himself: “Der Paſtor iſt nicht treu in ſeinem Amte, welcher nicht mit Leſen anhält d. h. ſtudirt,” and calls the duty not a human opinion but “ein klarer göttlicher Befehl,” a clear divine command. What he is to read is Holy Scripture and, beside it, Luther: no Lutheran preacher should let a day pass “ohne etwas aus Luthers Schriten geleſen zu haben” — the sheet's own spelling of Schriften — because it is from Luther that one first gets the right understanding of the confession. Searched through all nineteen corrected German volumes of 1847–1914, this is the only place the Synod quotes the verse, and it means the study.

Walther lays down the chair

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1878 · 17th Convention, St. Louis, 1878, p. 50 EN

The incorporation of the Synod could not be discussed without reference to the General President, so Walther gave up the chair before the debate on it began, declaring “daß er beide Synodalämter nicht mehr länger verwalten könne, und eins ihm abgenommen werden müſſe” — that he could no longer administer both synodical offices and one must be taken from him. Pastor Schwan of the Middle District took the chair. The Northwestern District's memorial held that the theological professorship was by far the more important and could not be taken away; when the first call for a vote came, the majority answered yes but a very considerable minority demanded that the discussion go on, and it did. The Synod then resolved, “wenn gleich mit ſchwerem Herzen,” to relieve him of the presidency entirely.

A congregation suspends its pastor

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1884 · 19th Convention, St. Louis, 1884, p. 89 EN

St. John's, New Orleans, resolved on 13 January 1882, “auf Rat des Präſes, der theologiſchen Facultät und der hieſigen evang.⸗lutheriſchen Paſtoren” — on the advice of the President, the theological faculty and the local Lutheran pastors — to suspend Pastor J. F. Döscher from every official act until his nerves should be restored, and to keep him and his family meanwhile. He was not at the meeting. Told of the decision, he answered that he was glad part of his work had been taken from him, since he would now have more time for the English mission, and “Er wohnte dann auch dem erſten Leſegottesdienſte bei” — he then also attended the first reading service; soon afterwards he declared the suspension null and void. The committee's report is printed entire by the convention's own order, as the Synod's answer to his appeal.

The telegraph reaches Fort Wayne

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1887 · 20th Convention, Fort Wayne, 1887, p. 3 EN

On Saturday 7 May 1887, while the fifth Delegate Synod was sitting at Fort Wayne, the telegraph brought word “daß Herr Dr. C. F. W. Walther gegen Abend um 5½ Uhr ſanft und ſelig entſchlafen ſei.” The convention met in extra session that Sunday evening and asked that the burial be put off to Tuesday 17 May, after it rose; that the grave be in the old churchyard by Holy Cross, so that anyone coming to St. Louis could visit it; and that the General President, Pastor H. C. Schwan, give the funeral address for the whole Synod, with Professor A. Crämer speaking briefly at the coffin as senior and for the faculties. It declined a long mourning service, having a great deal of necessary work before it, and “am allerwenigſten um der Landesſitte willen ganze Sitzungen ausfallen laſſen” — least of all would it drop whole sessions for the custom of the country. On Monday morning it sang “Aus tiefer Noth,” read Psalm 90, and sang the Litany kneeling.

166 votes, and then a resolution

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1899 · 24th Convention, St. Louis, 1899, p. 139 EN

“Das ſchließliche Wahlreſultat bezüglich des Präſesamtes ergab die abſolute Majorität von 166 Stimmen für Herrn Profeſſor Pieper” — an absolute majority of 166 votes. The unanimity came after, and by resolution: “Beſchloſſen, daß die Wahl Herrn Profeſſor Piepers zu einer einſtimmigen gemacht werde.” Because Pieper would now hold the presidency beside a professorship and the seminary's own presidency, the convention named a committee — Dr. H. C. Schwan, the two vice-presidents and the St. Louis theological faculty — to say how the offices could be carried together, and adopted its three-part answer. Pieper replied that the task went against his own inclination, but that he was used to giving up his own preference and leaving himself to God's leading.

“Americaniſche Ideen”

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1899 · 24th Convention, St. Louis, 1899, p. 35 EN

In his lecture “Die Kirche und Gottes Wort” Pieper named two ways a church body falls from the Word: by giving up its authority to the claims of what calls itself science, and by keeping church fellowship with those who teach otherwise. On the first he judged the Synod in no immediate danger. On the second he quoted what was said against it — that the so-called Missourians never stop being told to expect their ruin if they hold to the exclusiveness “der Alten” and give no room to “americaniſchen Ideen.” His answer is one sentence: “Wir haben unſere kirchliche Stellung nicht nach ‚americaniſchen‘ und andern Ideen, ſondern lediglich nach Gottes Wort zu bemeſſen,” with Rom. 16:17 quoted after it.

Pieper answers Harnack

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1902 · 25th Convention, Milwaukee, 1902, p. 24 EN

The lecture at the 1902 convention was “Das Weſen des Chriſtenthums,” and its first paragraph says why: for two years nearly the whole of outward Christendom had been debating what Christianity consists in, “veranlaßt … durch die Vorleſungen des Berliner Profeſſors Harnack über dieſen Gegenſtand.” Pieper's judgement of the occasion is blunt — what Harnack said and soon afterwards printed “verdient allerdings nicht die allgemeine Aufmerkſamkeit, die es erregte,” the Berlin professor having only repeated old and long-known assertions. He states the teaching in two sentences: that Christ is not God but a uniquely wise and virtuous man, and that he therefore did not keep the divine law in men's stead or bear the penalty for breaking it. Two theses of his own follow on the pages after.

Zoar, “unſer Schmerzenskind”

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1905 · 26th Convention, Detroit, 1905, p. 100 EN

The Indian mission's report to the 1905 convention heads the section on its second station “Zoar. (Unſer Schmerzenskind.)” — our child of sorrows. How the station came about is given by quoting the commission's own minute of 5 January 1903: Missionary Kretzmann had reported on the Waiaskesit settlement on the Menominee Reservation, some twenty miles from Red Springs “im tiefſten Urwald,” whose people — Menominees, Pottawatomies, Ojibwas — refused to send their children to the government or the Catholic boarding school at Keshena and had asked the missionary for a school of their own. $500 was granted for a building to serve as school, meeting house and teacher's dwelling, and Washington was petitioned for the land.

An appeal about a defence not heard

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1905 · 26th Convention, Detroit, 1905, p. 159 EN

Pastors A. and E. v. Schlichten of Cincinnati appealed to the 1905 convention against the Middle District, which at Indianapolis in 1904 had condemned them on all three of the charges President Niemann brought. Their appeal sets the case out as a court — “Herr Präſes Niemann war der Kläger. Die Synode Mittleren Diſtricts … war der Richter” — and then: “Theure Väter und Brüder, ihr findet keine Vertheidigung im ganzen Bericht des Mittleren Diſtricts vom Jahre 1904.” They had been declared outside before the hearing by the president who was at the same time the plaintiff, their names left out at the roll call, seat and vote refused. The committee found the charge against the District unfounded and the Synod adopted that finding; the committee's own willingness to recommend a commission to look into the Cincinnati affair was made conditional on a declaration the two refused to give, in speech and in writing.

A gold medal for the parish schools

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1905 · 26th Convention, Detroit, 1905, p. 171 EN

The Synod put its parish schools' work on show at the World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904. The report to the 1905 convention lists the subjects exhibited — English composition, United States history, geography, arithmetic, religion, German composition, physiology, zoology, botany, world history, penmanship in both languages and drawing — and records that a sub-committee of the jury, three specialists, examined the exhibit closely, and that on its report “hat dann das ganze Collegium unſern Schulen in Anerkennung ihrer Leiſtungen die goldene Medaille zugeſprochen.” Two things made the award worth having: that it came from an impartial body of teachers from various countries, and “daß dies ganz ohne unſer Zuthun geſchah” — that it happened entirely without any doing of ours.

The President who was not there

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, 1911, p. 18 EN

“Nach geſchehener Regiſtration der Synodalen verlas der Ehrw. Vizepräſes F. Pfotenhauer die folgende Synodalrede.” Under the rule that closes the address, the minutes add that the General President's Präsidialrede was read by the secretary, “da der Ehrw. Präſes leider ſich genötigt ſah, auf perſönliche Teilnahme an den Sitzungen der Synode zu verzichten.” The roll of officers prints him “Präſes: D. F. Pieper;*”, the asterisk marking him excused for the whole session. The St. Louis seminary board's report gives the reason: he had had to break off the dogmatics lectures, travelled to California on his doctor's advice, and after returning in February had ventured only pastoral theology.

“Fire-traps”, and the vote to leave Addison

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, 1911, p. 51 EN

On the Saturday of the convention week a committee of seven deputies and the General Vice-President went out with the board to look at the teachers' seminary at Addison. Its report on the dormitory: rooms far too small for the number in them, halls four or five feet wide in a building housing some two hundred pupils, partly low attic rooms that ought not to be used for sleeping at all — “etliche derſelben kann man mit Fug und Recht fire⸗traps nennen” — and thirty or forty beds with as many trunks in some of the dormitories. Against that, and against an offer of land from Lutherans in and about Chicago, the convention resolved “daß wir die ganze Anſtalt von Addiſon nach Chicago verlegen (Abſtimmung ſchriftlich; Annahme mit geringer Mehrheit)” — by written ballot, carried by a small majority. The $100,000 voted for the move was then carried unanimously.

Two committees, two accounts of what the Synod is

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, 1911, p. 137 EN

“Zweierlei einander gegenüberſtehende Berichte über die Inkorporationsangelegenheit lagen vor der Synode” — two opposed reports on the incorporation question. The Milwaukee committee reported that working with the St. Louis committee joined to it in 1908 had proved impossible, the two differing in principle: the St. Louis members start from the principle “daß die Ehrw. Allgemeine Synode kein Verband von Gemeinden iſt, ſondern aus den einzelnen Gliedern beſteht,” and their two attorneys sought besides to show that the General Synod is not a religious body. The Milwaukee committee laid its own position before the convention in short theses — that the constitution of 1847 is still the constitution, that the Synod is a federation of congregations and not of delegates or representatives, and that the incorporation of 1894 was not meant to alter what the Synod had been in 1847. The attorneys' opinions are printed in English over the following pages.

The President, the Mass and Columbus Day

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1914 · 29th Convention, Chicago, 1914, p. 181 EN

Under the heading “Römiſche politiſche Propaganda hierzulande” the 1914 convention resolved on three stated grounds: that the Roman church works ever harder to influence and dominate the civil government of the country for itself and its interests, against the constitutional separation of church and state; that it had already brought “unſere Präſidenten” to honour the Roman Mass officially on Thanksgiving Day; and that a memorial had again gone to Congress to fix 12 October by law as a national holiday in honour “nicht ſowohl eines Entdeckers als vielmehr eines Angehörigen der römiſchen Kirche” — not so much of a discoverer as of a member of the Roman church — which it found the stranger because no historically important day of the country, not even the Fourth of July, had been made one. It resolved to make representation to the President over his part in the Mass, to protest as a body to Congress “gegen die Erhebung des ſogenannten Columbus Day zu einem geſetzlichen Nationalfeiertag,” and to authorise the General President to do the same whenever like efforts should come to light.

The New York mission and the Antimissionsliga

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1914 · 29th Convention, Chicago, 1914, p. 101 EN

The commission's report on the Jewish mission in New York to the 1914 convention calls the work of the triennium laborious, difficult and yet blessed, and takes the three in order. Under the second: the attendance the mission drew caused a stir, and “Sie bildeten aus Synagogen und Vereinen eine große Antimiſſionsliga, um unſere und andere chriſtliche Miſſionen unter Israel zu zerſtören.” The report describes printed warnings handed out before the mission hall, visits to the parents of children attending its school, disturbed services, property broken and life endangered, police protection at first insufficient and fines paid by the league — and then better protection and stricter judges, after pastors and their people began attending the mission's services. Of the triennium it says: “die letzten Jahre waren böſe Jahre für unſern Miſſionar.”

The language question, 1899–1914

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1905 · 26th Convention, Detroit, 1905, p. 113 EN

The founding-era highlight “The language question before 1917” carries this as far as 1860, where the Synod calls it a “heilige Pflicht” to found English congregations and then declines to publish an English paper of its own. Here it runs to the end of the German record: a commission's forecast that the boundary will move one way only; a memorial to strike the German-only clause of the constitution, laid over and sent in print to every congregation; a resolution that keeps the clause unaltered and on the same page opens the Synod to English-speaking congregations; the English Synod received as the English District, with the German wording of the resolutions binding on all sides; and a jubilee in 1914 at which German addresses and English addresses were given at three places each, at the same hour.

1. 1899 · S. 70 · the English-mission commission's forecast: of 21 preachers in the Western District's home mission only four still preach German alone and 17 preach both; a shift of the language boundary will go “nicht in der Richtung von Engliſch nach Deutſch, ſondern von Deutſch nach Engliſch.”
2. 1902 · S. 81 · the Southeast Missouri pastoral conference asks that Chapter II § 7, the German-only clause, be changed or struck, since it “gehört offenbar in das Gebiet der chriſtlichen Freiheit”; it quotes Walther's Pastoraltheologie § 47 for the rule that no such provision should be unalterable.
3. 1902 · S. 83 · the memorial is laid over to the next Delegate Synod, commended to the congregations to consider over the next three years, and sent to every congregation in print.
4. 1905 · S. 113 · § 7 is resolved to stand “unverändert”; four lines below, the same page resolves “daß die Synode von jetzt an auch engliſchredende Gemeinden, Paſtoren und Lehrer aufnehme, resp. in ihrem Verband behalte.”
5. 1911 · S. 34 · the English Synod is received as the English District: against the second recommendation “fiel gegen deren Annahme nur eine einzige Stimme,” and the brother who voted no answered the chair that he had no scruple of conscience about the union.
6. 1911 · S. 35 · a dispute over how to render one expression is settled by establishing that for these resolutions “der deutſche Wortlaut allſeitig bindend” is, as the English wording is for the resolutions sent from the English brethren.
7. 1914 · S. 39 · Fort Wayne engaged an assistant for boys too weak in German, but “nicht etwa ein engliſches Departement”: the aim stays men who command both languages — and “die Zahl der im Deutſchen ganz ungenügend vorbereiteten Schüler wird aber von Jahr zu Jahr immer größer.”
8. 1914 · S. 190 · at River Forest's golden jubilee, before about 30,000, the programme sets “Deutſche Reden, gleichzeitig an drei Stellen” and “Engliſche Reden, gleichzeitig an drei Stellen.”

From Walther to Pieper to Pfotenhauer

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, 1911, p. 42 EN

Three times the Synod had to decide whether one man could carry a theological chair and the presidency together, and it answered differently each time. In 1878 it took the presidency from Walther, with a heavy heart. In 1899 it gave both offices to Pieper and appointed a committee to say how they might be carried at once; in 1905 it laid a memorial to separate them on the table and would not separate them; in 1911 the St. Louis seminary board asked the Synod, together with the faculty, “von der Wiedererwählung D. Piepers zum Allgemeinen Präſes abſehen zu wollen.” No resolution on the presidency stands anywhere in the 1911 volume. The Synod answered with its ballot.

1. 1878 · S. 50 · Walther gives up the chair before the debate, “daß er beide Synodalämter nicht mehr länger verwalten könne”; the Synod relieves him of the presidency “wenn gleich mit ſchwerem Herzen.”
2. 1887 · S. 3 · the telegraph brings word of his death on Saturday 7 May, in the middle of the convention.
3. 1899 · S. 139 · Pieper is elected with an absolute majority of 166 votes; the election is then “zu einer einſtimmigen gemacht” by resolution.
4. 1905 · S. 142 · the Michigan District's memorial to separate the two offices cleanly is “auf den Tiſch gelegt”; the Synod “konnte ſich … nicht entſchließen, die gewünſchte Trennung der beiden Aemter ins Werk zu ſetzen.”
5. 1911 · S. 42 · the board of control, with the faculty, asks the Synod not to re-elect him, for the institution's sake rather than the Synod's.
6. 1911 · S. 193 · the list of officers elected for three years opens “P. F. Pfotenhauer, Präſes.”
7. 1914 · S. 17 · Pfotenhauer's first Synodalrede opens with Luther's forty theses of 1530 on the doctrine of the church, and with two groups of them “als Einleitung für unſere Synodalſitzung.”

The missions widen, 1878–1914

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1914 · 29th Convention, Chicago, 1914, p. 89 EN

In 1878 the Synod had no heathen mission of its own, and kept the commission in being only to administer what property the old mission had left. By 1914 the convention was printing a statistical table for the foreign-language missions alone — Estonian, Lettish, Polish, Lithuanian, Finnish, Persian and Slovak, 28 congregations, 97 preaching places and 4,486 souls — beside the work in Brazil, London, New Zealand, India and China, among Jews, the deaf and immigrants. The same page shows how it was governed: the committee's recommendations were carried except two, and the proposal touching a Lettish mission on the Pacific coast was laid on the table on 12 May, and on the 13th the part about joining it to an emigrant mission there was struck.

1. 1878 · S. 53 · “Obgleich unſere Synode gegenwärtig keine eigene Heidenmiſſion hat,” the commission is continued to administer the mission property; money is voted for a building lot and a small church at Little Rock, Ark., for the Negro mission.
2. 1902 · S. 73 · the home-mission commission is charged to help the pastors and congregations in Brazil “zur Bildung eines eigenen Synodaldiſtricts”; until that is done they are to join the Southern District.
3. 1905 · S. 62 · after a visitation, a general meeting of pastors and deputies at Rincão São Pedro organises the Brazilian District and elects its officers, P. Mahler president.
4. 1905 · S. 93 · the Jewish mission in New York leaves Delaney Street, where whole blocks were torn down for the approaches to the Williamsburg bridge, and takes a room at 185 Ludlow Street for $28.00 a month.
5. 1914 · S. 94 · New Zealand: “Der Maori Te Punga, der in Springfield ausgebildet worden iſt,” has gone there and begun a mission among his own people, “über die uns aber keinerlei Berichte vorliegen.”
6. 1914 · S. 89 · the foreign-language statistics for June 1911 to March 1914, printed in the Synodal-Bericht because the mission “noch nicht ſo bekannt iſt, wie ſie bekannt ſein ſollte.”

The Agenda and the English liturgy, 1887–1914

LCMS Convention Proceedings, 1911 · 28th Convention, St. Louis, 1911, p. 152 EN

In 1887 the Synod declined to add to its Agenda a burial formulary and formularies for installing teachers and church officers, for laying a cornerstone and for dedicating a church, pointing instead to what Pastor Lochner had published. In 1911 it adopted Committee No. 21's report on revising the Agenda, and that report names one new piece expressly: “daß auch ein kurzes Formular für einen Leſegottesdienſt empfohlen werde” — a short form for a reading service. The commission whose recommendations the committee endorsed “im großen und ganzen” had also asked for Lochner's formulary for a burial read in the pastor's absence, shortened; the adopted report never names that one. A memorial of the same year asked for an English liturgy “im Sinne des ſogenannten Common Service,” and the resolution recommended in answer drops those words; in 1914 the committee recommended the Common Service itself, with English translations of the Missouri orders inserted, and the Synod adopted that.

1. 1887 · S. 55 · the Synod declines the burial formulary and the formularies for installing teachers and Vorſteher, for cornerstone-laying and for church dedication, and points those who need them to what “Herrn Paſtor Lochner” has published.
2. 1911 · Eingaben, S. 122 · the revision commission asks for nine occasional formularies “ſämtlich nach Fr. Lochners Lit. Formulare, aber verkürzt,” and adds: “Nur das etwas zu verkürzende dortige Formular einer Leſeleiche bei Abweſenheit oder Verhinderung des Paſtors (S. 109 ff.) hielten wir noch für wünſchenswert.”
3. 1911 · S. 152 · “Der folgende Bericht des Komitees No. 21 wurde angenommen” — and with it the recommendation of a short reading-service formulary; the revision itself goes to Prof. L. Fürbringer and P. C. C. Schmidt, their work to be approved by the St. Louis pastoral conference.
4. 1911 · S. 157 · the Arkansas and West Tennessee conference's memorial, reprinted entire by Committee No. 17, asks for a liturgy “im Sinne des ſogenannten Common Service”; the resolution the committee then recommends asks only for “eine engliſche Liturgie.”
5. 1911 · S. 158 · the part of that report bearing on an English order of service is “ausdrücklich angenommen”; a committee of three is set up and Prof. C. Abbetmeyer named to it.
6. 1914 · S. 125 · the German revision is reported finished, and defines itself by two references — “(S. 152 und 153 des Synodalberichts)” and “die Synodaleingabe 1911, Seite 118—123.”
7. 1914 · S. 127 · the enlarged English committee is adopted, the double edition — “als Altarbuch und in Taſchenformat mit den nötigſten Formularen” — adopted, and “Ferner beſchloſſen, daß beide Agenden, die deutſche und die engliſche, möglichſt bald gedruckt werden.”