American Lutheranism Volume II Part 7

ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD LODGES.

126. Sound Lutheran Principles.--At its convention at Pittsburgh, 1868, the General Council made the following declarations with respect to secret societies: "1. Though mere secrecy in a.s.sociation be not in itself immoral, yet as it is so easily susceptible of abuse, and in its abuse may work, as it has often worked, great mischief in family, Church and State, we earnestly beseech all good men to ponder the question whether the benefits they believe to be connected with secret societies might not be equally reached in modes not liable to the same abuse. 2.

Any and all societies for moral and religious ends which do not rest on the supreme authority of G.o.d's holy Word as contained in the Old and New Testaments; which do not recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the true G.o.d and the only Mediator between G.o.d and man; which teach doctrines or have usages or forms of wors.h.i.+p condemned in G.o.d's Word and in the Confessions of His Church; which a.s.sume to themselves what G.o.d has given to His Church and its ministers; which require undefined obligations to be a.s.sumed by oath, are unchristian, and we solemnly warn our members and ministers against all fellows.h.i.+p with, or connivance at, a.s.sociations which have this character. 3. All connection with infidel and immoral a.s.sociations we consider as requiring the exercise of prompt and decisive discipline, and after faithful and patient monition and teaching from G.o.d's Word, the cutting off the persistent and obstinate offender from communion of the Church until he abandons them and shows a true repentance." (_Doc. Hist._,208.)

127. Practise out of Tune with Principles.--From the very beginning the official declarations of 1868 were and remained a dead letter. With the exception of the Augustana Synod, lodges were generally tolerated and, in part, practically encouraged within the General Council throughout its history--resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding. Lodge-men were received with open arms, and no questions were asked. In 1873 the English District Synod of Ohio, affiliated with the Council, deposed Rev. Bartholomew because, for one reason, he, in a sermon, had testified against the lodgism prevailing in Synod. (Report 1874, 45. 47 ff.) The _Pilger_, a German paper published within the General Council, wrote in 1875: "Testimony against secret societies will bring little result so long as the Church [General Council] looks on in silence while pastors of the Christian Church are members of antichristian lodges. Indeed, many resolutions have been pa.s.sed against pastors being members of secret orders; but paper is patient, and those who are rebuked laugh at Synod's resolutions." _Herold und Zeitschrift_, August 2, 1884, related of a pastor connected with the Council: "He is a Freemason. He does not refrain from showing his att.i.tude toward the lodge. Recently, after delivering the funeral address for a Freemason, he put on his Masonic uniform before the congregation, and marched out to the grave. Some time ago he announced a lecture on Masonry in his church. Appearing before a large audience which had gathered, in the white leathern ap.r.o.n and other paraphernalia of his order, he, in eloquent fas.h.i.+on, set forth the advantages of Masonry, etc., making special mention of its great antiquity and marvelous liberality." In 1886, the _Lutheran_ declared that excommunication because of members.h.i.+p in a secret society had never been an official demand of the General Council. The _Lutherisches Kirchenblatt_, edited by pastors connected with the Council, reported a meeting of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, held in January, 1887, as follows: "Pastor Hinterleiter made a motion that pastors ought not belong to secret societies. Pastor Struntz vehemently opposed this motion, declaring that it had no place in a const.i.tution, but was part of a pastor's private life. Dr. Fry expressed it as his opinion that such a resolution would give offense." In the _Lutheran Church Review_, April, 1903, Carl Swensson wrote: "I believe the entire stand taken by, for instance, our Augustana Synod on the secret society question has been a mistake and a misfortune. Society members, inside or outside of the Church, should be treated just as any other people." (_L. u. W._ 1903, 184.) In the same year a number of General Council ministers publicly joined the Mystic Shriners. On May 6, 1917, the pastor of the First English Lutheran Church in Kitchener (Berlin), Ont., held a lodge-service for the Freemasons and Odd-Fellows. At the convention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1917 a pet.i.tion signed by thirteen members was presented to amend the const.i.tution _by striking out_ section 51 in Art. 10, according to which "any minister belonging to the Ministerium who shall, after due admonition, persist in fellows.h.i.+p and cooperation with any such antichristian society or order [lodges], whether secret or not, shall be subject to discipline." (_Proceedings_ 1917, 182.) No action was taken by Synod.

128. Educational Method a Pretense.--In dealing with offenders also against the Lutheran principles pertaining to lodge-members.h.i.+p, the General Council advocated the "educational method." But the fact is that during the whole course of its history no serious and persevering efforts whatever were made to enlighten the congregations as to the utter incompatibility of Lodgism and Lutheranism. Geo. Fritschel: "It cannot be denied that the General Council as such has done nothing to bring about a progress in this question" (concerning lodge-members.h.i.+p).

The same, he says, was true of its chief synods. Partly they did not want any discussions on this question. The officers of the Pennsylvania Synod remained unconcerned even when ministers joined the lodges.

(_Geschichte_, 2, 322.) The Iowa _Kirchenblatt_, November 24, 1917, declared that the policy of education as advocated by the Council had utterly and finally failed. (_Luth. Witness_ 1918, 387.) In the same year Rev. W. Brenner wrote: "There is an official General Council declaration which solemnly warns its pastors and people against all fellows.h.i.+p with, or connivance at, secret societies (_Doc. Hist._, 208); but from the att.i.tude of some General Council ministers and their practise no one would ever suspect that they had ever read, or were aware of the fact, that such a doc.u.ment existed. During their seminary days little was heard on the subject, and so they are surprised when they see how other pastors who studied in other seminaries take a firm stand and refuse absolutely to officiate at any funeral where lodge-chaplains are permitted to take any part in the service." (_L. u.

W._ 1917, 462.) Dr. J. Fry, professor in the Seminary of the General Council at Mount Airy, advises in his _Pastor's Guide_: "Ministers should not refuse to officiate at the funerals of persons who were not members of the Church, or who died impenitent.... Neither should a minister refuse to officiate because some lodge or other society may be present and have its service at the grave.... He should finish his service, and quietly step back." (64.) Again: "Pastors are sometimes asked to preach special sermons before lodges.... If there should be any good reason for their coming as a body, the service should be at an hour which interferes with no other service." (75.)

CHILIASM.

129. Official Att.i.tude.--At the convention in Pittsburgh, in 1868, the following declaration regarding Chiliasm was adopted by the General Council: "2. The General Council has neither had, nor would consent to have, fellows.h.i.+p with any synod which tolerates the 'Jewish opinions' or 'chiliastic opinions' condemned in the Seventeenth Article of the Augsburg Confession. 3. The points on which our Confession has not been explicit, or on which its testimony is not at present interpreted in precisely the same way by persons equally intelligent and honest, and equally unreserved and worthy of belief in the profession of adherence to the Confessions, should continue to be the subject of calm, thorough, Scriptural, and prayerful investigation, until we shall see perfectly eye to eye both as regards the teaching of G.o.d's Word and the testimony of our Church." (_Doc. Hist._, 207.) According to the General Council, then, while the gross and carnal millennialism of the Jews must be rejected, there is a chiliasm which should be tolerated and continue to be the subject of further prayerful research. Pastors Bading, Adelbert, and Klingmann of the Wisconsin Synod, however, immediately, protested that they "rejected every form of chiliasm as against the Scriptures and the Confessions."

130. Kind of Chiliasm Tolerated.--The chiliasm which had always been advocated by members of the General Synod, and which the General Council refused to reject, was of a kind with the one entertained by Dr. John Geo. Schmucker (1771--1854), the father of S.S. Schmucker, and by the Drs. Helmuth, Lochman, Daniel Kurtz (died 1856), by Loehe and leaders of the Iowa Synod, and especially by Dr. J.A. Seiss of the Pennsylvania Synod. According to J.G. Schmucker, the Second Pet.i.tion of the Lord's Prayer and, among others, also the following pa.s.sages of the New Testament: Matt. 5, 35; 8, 11. 26. 29; Acts 3, 20. 21; Rom. 8, 20. 21; 11, 25. 26, treat of a coming millennium, in which Christ will reveal Himself in a visible pavilion, take possession also of the civil power, govern the world according to the principles of the New Testament, bring about a great temporal happiness, prolong the life of the saints, etc.

These and similar views were endorsed and advocated also by the _Lutheran_, the organ of the conservatives within the General Synod.

(_L. u. W._ 1861, 282.) In his _Last Times_ and _Lectures on the Apocalypse_, Dr. Seiss taught: "There is a first resurrection at the beginning of the Millennium, and a second resurrection at the end of the Millennium. The one embraces the martyrs and saints,--who are 'blessed and holy,' 'who have fallen asleep through Jesus,'--the other is the resurrection of the remaining dead." Seiss also denied that the Papacy is the true Antichrist. In the _Lutheran Cyclopedia_, published by Jacobs and Haas, Dr. Seiss states: "That there have been teachings and beliefs put forth, and usually called chiliasm, which are heretical and subversive of the true Gospel, there can be no question. That Jesus and His apostles, as well as the great body of primitive Christians, held and taught what some call chiliasm, or millenarianism, can as readily be substantiated. And that there are various open questions touching these eschatological particulars on which the final word has not yet been spoken, and which may be considered chiliasm, must likewise be admitted." (87.) A chiliasm, then, which expects a time of universal prosperity and glory for the Church on this side of the resurrection, a time when the whole world will be converted to Christ, a time when peace and righteousness will be established from the rivers to the ends of the earth; a chiliasm which believes in a future twofold coming of Christ, a double resurrection, a conversion and restoration of Israel, a future personal Antichrist, embodying all antichristian elements,--such a chiliasm, according to Seiss, the _Lutheran Cyclopedia_, and the General Council, conflicts neither with the Bible, nor the Confessions, nor Lutheran orthodoxy. (87 f.)

OTHER ABBERRATIONS.

131. Reformed Tendencies.--In the _Lutheran and Missionary_, April 13, 1876, Dr. Seiss declared that it was an arrogance to make the doctrine that unbelievers as well as believers receive the true body and blood of Christ at the Lord's Table an article of faith. Nor was the Puritanic doctrine concerning the divine obligation of the Sunday, universally held in the General Synod, discarded by the synods and congregations const.i.tuting the General Council. The Reading _Kirchenblatt_, December 19, 1903, wrote: "On the second Sunday in Advent the Philadelphia Sabbath-a.s.sociation celebrated its anniversary in the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Rev. C.L. Fry) in Philadelphia. Addresses were made by prominent Sabbath-workers. The leading speakers were the well-known John Wanamaker (Presbyterian) and the Methodist Rev. Dr. Mutchler.... Pastors of our own Synod foster un-Lutheran doctrine, and our superiors remain silent. Do they know of it? Certainly! All the dailies brought the news: first the invitations, then long reports. And what do our professors say to it? They keep silence.... But why do so many of our pastors hold a false, Puritan doctrine of the Sabbath? Because they have learned no better. If the students in our inst.i.tutions would learn Luther's true doctrine concerning Sunday and sanctifying the holy-day, they could not, after becoming pastors of Lutheran congregations, take part in the fanatical doings of the sects. But, as it is, they go hand in hand with the sects, invite them to their churches, and permit them to present a false doctrine of the Sabbath to their Lutheran church-members." (_L. u.

W._ 1904, 38; 1901, 85.) In his _Catechist_ Dr. Gerberding teaches: "The law of one holy day of rest: its purpose is rest for the body and refreshment for the soul. All works of mercy and real necessity are allowed." In 1816 the District Synod of Ohio refused to discipline a pastor who did not believe that a child becomes a Christian, and is endowed with faith, in Baptism. (_Luth. Witness_ 1918, 341. 356.) Rev.

Brenner: "How long ago has it been considered a good policy in the General Council for its Mission Boards to agitate 'working together with the denominations about us for the best interest of our fellow-men,' and to 'agree on a program to lift the world to a higher level' by 'pet.i.tioning, demanding, and insisting upon special legislation for abolis.h.i.+ng the saloon,' and doing a thousand other things which is the business, not of the Church, but of the State.... Individual synods have pa.s.sed prohibition resolutions. Individual pastors have gone entirely too far in this matter. They are fanatical on the subject. Some have almost gone daft over the liquor problem." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 465.) The _Home Missionary_, December, 1916, declared that what the Lutheran Church teaches in reference to the separation of Church and State is "rot" and "fool" theology. (464.)

132. Qualified Confessional Subscription.--It was an ultrasymbolism, not countenanced by the Lutheran Church, when the _Lutheran and Missionary_ maintained in its issue of September 27, 1867, that it was false, dangerous, and inconsistent to declare it the duty of Lutherans to compare for themselves the confessions received from the fathers with the Scriptures, and if found erring, to correct them; that this unbridled and radical theory, resting on the false a.s.sumption that private investigation of the Scriptures is the foundation of our faith, could not be proved by the Scriptures, and, reduced to practise, would endanger all purity of doctrine, and finally destroy all ecclesiastical communion. (_L. u. W._ 1867, 371.) In the _Lutheran_, March 5, 1908, however, Dr. H.E. Jacobs, defending the other extreme, wrote: "Some of the difficulties that men whom we esteem have urged against the acceptance of all our Confessions are due to a misunderstanding of what is involved in a confessional subscription. They conceive of the Confessions as an external law that binds the conscience to a mechanical acceptance of all [doctrinal matter] that may be found in these doc.u.ments. What is properly confessional in these doc.u.ments is their answers to the questions that rendered the framing of a confessional statement necessary.... We must study our Confessions as an organism, and appreciate the relation of each part to the other parts and to the whole Confession. Where the heart of each confession and of each doctrine confessed lies, must be the object of our search. To tear pa.s.sages from their connection, or to represent isolated pa.s.sages and merely incidental statements as having confessional authority is as unfair to the Confessions as it is to the Holy Scriptures." (Jacobs denies that all of the astronomical, geological, historical, and similar statements of the Bible are true.) The _Lutheran World_, commenting on Dr. Jacobs's statements, remarked: "But do not Dr. Jacobs's declarations sound very much like a _quatenus_ rather than a _quia_ mode of confessional subscription? For a long time we have not seen a theological statement that reminds us so much of the 'substantially correct' mode of subscription formerly in vogue in the General Synod. It certainly does not sound as stalwart as the General Synod's resolution in 1895, when she declared 'the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as throughout in perfect consistence with that Word'--namely, the Word of G.o.d." (_L. u. W._ 1908, 233.) In his _Book of Concord_, 1893, Dr. Jacobs declared that only the primary, not the secondary, arguments of the Confessions are involved in the subscription. "'The primary,' says Jacobs, 'are the dogmas set forth with the purpose of showing they are believed and taught by the Lutheran Church, the confutations of errors whereby it wished to declare that it contradicted them, and formulas of speech either expressly prescribed or proscribed.' The secondary are 'all those particulars introduced to confirm or ill.u.s.trate the former,'"

etc. (2, 13.)

ROMANISM.

133. Jacobs and Haas on Ordination, etc.--With respect to the doctrine that the public office of the ministry originates in, and is transferred by, the local congregation, Dr. Jacobs declared: "Nothing can be clearer than the antagonism of our great Lutheran divines to this position, nor anything be more convincing than their arguments against it."

(Gerberding, _The Lutheran Pastor_, 73.) Luther's language on this question, Jacobs maintains, is "not guarded with the same care as that of the later dogmaticians." (74.) According to Jacobs the right to call a minister "belongs neither to the minister alone nor to the laity alone, but to both in due order." (_Summary of Christian Faith_, 427.

424.) Dr. J.A.W. Haas: "The transference theory has been developed in ant.i.thesis to Rome, and in it Lutherans have agreed with the Reformed."

It "makes the ministry an organ growing out of the congregation, which ill befits the divine origin of the ministry." "In it the main accent is placed on the vocation, of which ordination is the attestation."

(Gerberding, _l.c._, 77.) Ordination, Dr. Haas declares, is "the prerogative of the whole Church." It includes "the separation for the ministry with invocation of blessing and consecration under divine approval." For this reason "ordination is not repeated." (112.) "This realism of a divine gift [in ordination] was apparently not held by Luther.... He declares the right of all believers to the office, because of the spiritual priesthood, and sees the consecration (_Weihe_) in the call. 'Ordo est ministerium et vocatio ministrorum ecclesiae.'" (116.)

134. Gerberding and Fry on the Ministry.--In his _Lutheran Pastor_ Dr.

G.H. Gerberding, professor at the seminary of the General Council at Maywood (Chicago), declares: It is clear "that this transference theory is not held by our older theologians. Neither have we been able to find any ground for it in Holy Scripture. Where is there a single proof that the congregation, made up of believing priests, does on that account possess the right to exercise the ordinary functions of the ministry?

Where is the proof that the ministry is created by the congregation?

Where is it written that the minister is amenable to the congregation?

If the congregation of laymen alone makes the minister, then it can also unmake, or depose, him from his office. The whole theory is unscriptural and unhistoric. Only the fanatical sects, which have a low view of the means of grace, can, with any consistency, hold such a view." (82.) Again: "This [the outward call] does not come from the ministry alone.

Neither does it come from the laity alone. It must come from the Church.

But the Church is neither the ministry without the people nor the people without the ministry.... Christ, then, exercises His power to call men into the ministry through the Church [ministers and laymen].

The Church may exist either in the congregation or in the representative Church [synod], made up of ministers and lay representatives of congregations. Either the congregation, as defined above, not without a pastor, or the representative body, made up also of pastors and people, has a right to extend the outward call." (86.) "The transference theory is unscriptural and not consistent with the Lutheran doctrine of the means of grace." (110.) "It is unscriptural and un-Lutheran to hold that the meaning and use of ordination consists essentially in this that it publicly attests and satisfies the validity of the call." (110.) Ordination "conveys the special grace needed for the special work of the ministry." (120.) In his _Pastor's Guide_, 1915, Dr. J. Fry, professor at the seminary of the General Council in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, teaches: The call to the ministry "must come from G.o.d, from the Church [synod] and from a particular place or congregation." (5.) "Of all these qualifications [required for the ministry] the Church [synod] must be the judge, and in her synodical organization and authority must extend the call to the ministry." (6.) "A pastor serving a parish of more than one congregation has no right to resign one congregation and retain the others without the consent of the president of the synod to which the parish belongs." (14.) "The call should also specify that either party desiring to withdraw from the agreement [between the pastor and congregation] must give three months' notice to that effect to the other party. This provision will do away with the very objectionable custom in some congregations of holding annual elections for a pastor." (9.) "The power to decide and impose penalties belongs to the pastor and church council." (92.) Dr. Fry regards "the pastor and church council as the highest authority in all congregational matters." (98.) All of these tenets are corruptions of the Scriptural and evangelical doctrines as proclaimed again by Luther. Consistently developed, their terminus is Rome. However, in the atmosphere of American liberty, where State and Church are separated and the will of the former is not foisted on the latter, Romanistic tendencies cannot thrive, nor did they ever to any extent succeed in practise in the Lutheran Church, a Church whose fundamental articles are the doctrines of justification by faith alone and absolute spiritual freedom from every human authority.

SYNERGISM.

135. Synergistic Teaching on Conversion.--In his _Confessional Principle_, 1911, Dr. T.B. Schmauk rejects Melanchthon's _aliqua causa discriminis in homine_, some kind of discriminating cause in man.

Schmauk writes: "Several qualities and motives in Melanchthon's nature, including his humanist outlook on free will, and his tendency to emphasize the necessity of good works, contributed to inspire him with erroneous views, when the evangelical doctrine began to be wrought out more expansively, and led him to find the cause for the actual variation in the working of G.o.d's grace in man, its object. This subtle synergistic spirit attacks the very foundation of Lutheranism, flows out into almost every doctrine, and weakens the Church at every point. And it was practically this weakness which the great mult.i.tude of Melanchthon's scholars, who become the leaders of the generation of which we are speaking, absorbed, and which rendered it difficult to return, finally, and after years of struggle, to the solid ground once more recovered in the Formula of Concord." (611; _L. u. W._ 1912, 33.) Evidently, this is sound Lutheranism; and similar testimonies were occasionally heard within the General Council throughout its history.

(_L. u. W._ 1904, 273: Rev. Rembe; 1917, 473: Rev. G.H. Schnur.) But it was the song of rare birds. The synergistic note was struck much more frequently and emphatically. For making his anti-synergistic utterances Schmauk was called to order by Dr. Gerberding. And in 1916 Schmauk himself opened the _Lutheran Church Review_ to L.S. Keyser, the zealous exponent of synergism within the General Synod, who wrote: "Faith's experience always includes the fact that, while the ability of faith is divinely conferred, the exercise of that ability is never coerced, but belongs to the domain of liberty.... The same is true of all volitions: the ability to will is divinely implanted; the act itself belongs to the sphere of freedom. The ability to repent is from G.o.d; the use of that ability belongs to man's liberty." "The Scriptures never command men to regenerate; they always put that category in the pa.s.sive voice, 'Except any one be born again'; but the Bible again and again commands men to repent and believe, putting the verbs in the active voice, imperative mood. What inconsistent commands these would be if man possessed no freedom in the exercise of repentance and faith!" "G.o.d's fiat of the individual's election unto salvation must have been decided upon in foresight and foreknowledge of the whole content of faith, including both its divine enablement and its human element of freedom." (65.) Similar views on man's freedom and responsibility were expressed by Dr.

Haas in _Trends of Thought_, 1915. In his book, _The Way of Life_, 1917, Dr. Gerberding explains: "After prevenient grace, however, begins to make itself felt, then the will begins to take part. It must now a.s.sume an att.i.tude, and meet the question: Shall I yield to these holy influences or not? One or the other of the two courses must be pursued.

There must be a yielding to the heavenly strivings or a resistance. To resist at this point requires a positive act of the will. This act man can put forth by his own strength. On the other hand, with the help of that grace already at work in his heart, he can refuse to put forth that act of his will, and thus remain non-resistant." According to Gerberding man "may be said, negatively, to help towards his conversion." (167 ff.; _L. u. W._ 1917, 214.) Prior to 1901 Rev. C. Blecher, by order of the pastoral conference of Connecticut, belonging to the Council, published a pamphlet which was recommended for the widest possible distribution by the _Lutherische Herold_. In it Blecher, in direct opposition to the Formula of Concord, Art. 11, section 60 ff., maintains: Two persons are never in equal guilt when the one resists the grace of G.o.d from inherited blindness and weakness, like Peter, while the other resists contumaciously and purposely, like Judas." (_L. u. W._ 1901, 65; 1902, 144.) In 1900 Dr. Seiss had maintained in the _Lutheran_: "Conversion is largely one's own act. G.o.d first makes it possible; but then the responsibility rests upon ourselves to determine whether or not we will comply with the truth brought to our understanding." (_L. u. W._ 1900, 243. 246.) Misstating historical facts and revealing his own synergistic att.i.tude, Dr. G.W. Sandt wrote editorially in the _Lutheran_ of March 27, 1919, concerning Dr. Stellhorn's polemics against the Missouri Synod: "When the controversy with Missouri was at its height, he [Stellhorn] could do no other but cast his soul into it and stand for the defense of the universal call to grace and salvation as over against the special call as Calvin and others teach it. He resented the charge of synergism which came from his opponents, and renounced it as strongly as any Missourian could."

136. Synergistic Predestination.--Synergism in the doctrine of conversion naturally leads to synergistic teaching on predestination.

Moreover, the doctrine of predestination is, as it were, the bacteriological test whether one's Lutheran blood is really and absolutely free from synergistic infection also in the doctrines of conversion and justification. However, also in these tests as to the doctrinal purity of the General Council the results, as a rule, were negative. In his _Summary of Christian Faith_, 1905, Dr. H.E. Jacobs gives the following presentation of the doctrine of predestination: "Since G.o.d has not predestinated all that He has foreknown ('for all that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of men purposes and desires to do and will do, G.o.d sees and knows before,' _ib._), but, in His inexplicable will, has allowed a certain measure of freedom and contingency in His creatures, and afforded them a degree of moral responsibility, knowing from all eternity what will be the result of their use of this trust, He also has determined how in every case their decision and activity will be treated." "When, therefore, G.o.d has willed that He will be determined in a certain decision by the free decision of a creature, that freedom of the creature will certainly be guaranteed in the result; but what in the exercise of this freedom the decision of the creature will be, as well as the determination of His will concerning it, He knows from all eternity, and makes His plans accordingly." "The fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the proviso or condition is contained in the foreknowledge which determined the free destination." (556 f.) According to Jacobs, then, Predestination depends on the divine foreknowledge of the use that man will make of the freedom with which G.o.d has entrusted him. Plainly synergistic doctrine!

LIBERALISTIC TRENDS.

137. Rejecting Verbal Inspiration.--Even the doctrines of the verbal inspiration and the complete inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures have been a.s.sailed by prominent representatives of the General Council and the _Lutheran Church Review_. Dr. H.E. Jacobs, in his introduction to _Biblical Criticism_ (1903) by Dr. J.A.W. Haas, states: "It is, therefore, the Word and not the words; the divine substance and not the particular human form in which that substance is clothed; the divine truth and not the human language, with all its limitations, which, in accommodation to human finiteness, the Holy Spirit employs, that is 'the power of G.o.d unto salvation to every one that believeth.'" (18.) "Nevertheless, the subordination of the words of Holy Scripture to the Word in no way diminishes the need of the most reverent handling and the most careful judgment of the words themselves when considered in the place which they are intended to serve." (19.) "A text from Genesis and one from John, one from the Psalms, and another from Romans, cannot stand upon the same footing.... Many a precious pa.s.sage in the Old Testament can no longer be used as the sincere expression of Christian faith in the light of the clearer revelation of the Gospel." (21.) "There are few theorists who would a.s.sign the same degree of inspiration to the statistics and rolls in Ezra or Chronicles as to those parts of the New Testament for whose reading the dying ask when all other earthly words have lost their interest. Even the distinction between the Petrine and the Pauline theology, which the Tuebingen school so greatly exaggerated, contains within it an element of truth, when the difference is found to be one of degree, but not one of kind." (21.) "The time has come when, in antagonism to such [radical] criticism, the Church must offer a restatement of its doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. The theories of our dogmaticians are not the confessional declarations of our Church.

The Augsburg Confession contains no statement on this topic." (26.) "It is only the Formula of Concord that gives an official utterance.... But it formulates no definition either of revelation or inspiration. It simply presents to us in the Scriptures an inerrant and infallible judge concerning all religious truth.... Religious truth, it declares, 'is to be received only as revealed in G.o.d's Word," and for this Word we turn to the Scriptures." (27.) "For the truths made known by such revelation we are referred to a record. But that such a certain and indubitable record should be made, another supernatural act is necessary, and this is inspiration. This includes everything that is necessary to render the record an infallible standard of all religious truth." (27.) "If the verbal theory of inspiration mean that every word and letter are inspired, so that the writer was purely pa.s.sive and performed a merely mechanical office, as 'the pen of the Holy Ghost,' this, we hold, is an a.s.sumption for which we have no warrant.... All we need to know is that in the Holy Scriptures we have a complete, clear, and unerring record of revealed truth, that is made the standard, for all time, of religious teaching." (28.) Evidently, then, Drs. Jacobs and Haas do not believe that the Holy Scriptures everywhere are inspired and free from error.

138. Bible Fallible in Scientific Matters.--Dr. J. Stump, professor in the seminary of the General Council in Chicago, supporting Dr. Jacobs, maintained in the _Lutheran Church Review_ of January, 1904: One cannot speak of a confessional Lutheran doctrine of inspiration. Quenstedt's doctrine of verbal inspiration is mechanical and in conflict with all that we know of the Holy Ghost's activity; it cannot be proven from the Scriptures, nor indeed is it necessary. Stump considers the Bible free from error in its religious teachings, but not in its astronomical, geological, physical, and similar statements. To quote literally: "The holy writers were not inspired, however, to be 'teachers of astronomy, or geology, or physics,' and no number of contradictions in this sphere would shake our confidence in the absolute authority of Holy Scripture as the infallible test of theological truth, and inerrant guide in all matters of faith and practise." "The dogmaticians were led to maintain it [the verbal inspiration] by the exigency of the times and the stress of their severe dialectics. [The interest of the dogmaticians was to present the clear doctrine of the Scriptures on inspiration.] And as a result of their doctrines, they were logically obliged to claim the absolute impossibility of any kind of error or inaccuracy whatsoever in the Scriptures, even in unimportant externals; and further more to claim that the Scriptures are not only the sole and infallible guide in matters of religion, but also an infallible guide in matters of human science so far as they touched upon any part of science's domain, --claims which a careful examination of the Scriptures and the purpose for which they were written do not bear out." (_L. u. W._ 1904, 85.) It was in agreement with these views when the _Lutheran_, prior to 1904, maintained that the Bible must be explained according to the modern sciences.

139. Other Symptoms of Liberalism.--As a rule, the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures is denied in the interest of the theory of evolution, a doctrine absolutely incompatible with, and, consistently developed, destructive of, the very fundamentals of Lutheranism. The evolutionary doctrine, however, this antipode of Christian thought, which, wherever digested, has proved to be the beginning of the end of Christianity, was adopted also and publicly defended within the General Council. Rev.

Brenner says: "I have heard General Council ministers say that they did not believe everything that is written in the Bible, and as they continued to explain their views, it became very evident that they were evolutionists." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 465.) Dr. T.E. Schmauk, the president of the General Council, declared in the _Lutheran_, April, 1912: "Evolution is the most wide-embracing, suggestive, and fascinating theory of things and life that ever has been offered. In innumerable cases it has been found to be in accord with nature and with history. In itself it is not a cause, but a process. Evolution as a partial process may be within Christianity." In 1915, in his book, _Trends of Thought_, Dr. J.A.W. Haas wrote: "If evolution as a biological theory remains within its limits and knows its sphere, it will not contradict the claims of Christianity. If we avoid a materialistic philosophy in biology, and if we do not make nature all-controlling, we can accept evolution as not in disagreement with Christianity." "But, on the other hand, Christianity must be careful not to demand as Biblical facts old hypotheses of species. It must differentiate between statement in popular religious language and the interpretation which tradition has put upon Biblical statement. In this tradition there are elements of past science which have unconsciously colored the Biblical account.

Christianity must also treat its doc.u.ment historically, and not be disturbed if the temporal vessels of its religious truths are not shaped scientifically. Were they thus shaped, they would fail in their very purpose. It is general, popular, descriptive, childlike language, which is universal and lasting. But Christianity must make certain great reservations over against any theory of evolution. It must demand that the doctrines of a personal G.o.d, of the final spiritual character of life and its origin, and of the divine nature of man's spirit be not violated." "Christianity can allow an evolution as the continuation of creation." (_L. u. W._ 1915, 514.) The _Lutheran_, June 21, 1917, published an article of L.S. Keyser in which he maintains: "Evolution is G.o.d's method of developing that which He has previously created. The evolutionary process may have continued for millenniums upon millenniums until the introduction of life. Whether man's body was evolved or not, surely his soul must have been created. We should use two terms: creation and evolution. Together they afford an adequate explanation of the universe as it is to-day." (_Lutheran Witness_ 1918, 372.) According to _Lutherischer Herald_, October 15, 1904, Dr. Pick, of the General Council, declared: "Harnack is all right." (_L. u. W._ 1904, 517. 564.) "Keeping company with liberals, we are not surprised that some of our ministers are liberals in both doctrine and practise," says Brenner in _Dangerous Alliances_, 1917. "What is to be thought of the orthodoxy of a General Council minister who says: 'G.o.d spoke to the Christians of that day through their experience no less clearly than through the words of St. Paul'? _Lutheran_, March 29, 1917, p. 7. What about the soundness of the faith of a D.D. who can recommend _Hastings's Bible Dictionary_ as a reliable work of reference? Rev. M.S. Waters recommends a book that is full of the worst heresies; but the president of the New York and New England Synod, Rev. W.M. Horn, when his attention is called to the matter, bluntly declares: 'I will do nothing in the case referred to.'

On request of the District Synod of Ohio, the president of the General Council appoints a committee, with Dr. Joseph Stump of the Chicago Seminary as chairman. The committee investigates. It reports that 'The General Council at this stage has no jurisdiction in the case.' The charges were not denied. This question has not been settled, and so far as we know, no effort has been made since the General Council met in Rock Island, two years ago, to settle it. On the evidence submitted to him, Dr. T.E. Schmauk, president of the General Council, stated in his report: 'I am convinced that the man's views are unevangelical and thoroughly subversive of the principles on which the General Council is founded.' Gen. Council Minutes, 1915, p. 23." (_L. u. W._ 1917, 465.)

EQUIVOCAL ATt.i.tUDE.

140. Maintaining a "Wise" Neutrality.--In the controversies of the Lutheran Church in America the General Council has persistently and on principle refused to take a definite stand. "The General Synod," says Dr. Singmaster, "has wisely refrained from making minute [!] theological distinctions, and has thus obviated much useless discussion. Apart from the special activities already alluded to, it has made few [quite a number of false] special doctrinal deliverances." (_Dist. Doctr._, 60 f.) Doctrinal neutrality was the policy also of the United Synod in the South and of the General Council. The _Lutheran_, April 24, 1902, stated that, over against the General Synod, the fathers of the Council insisted on an unequivocal doctrinal and confessional basis, while, over against Missouri and other synods, they left room for divergence in the application of certain principles. "Kiss and make up," was the advice Carl Swensson, writing in the _Lutheran Church Review_, gave to the disrupted synods of the Lutheran Church in America. (_L. u. W._ 1903, 146.) With respect to the doctrinal differences between Ohio and Missouri the _Lutheran Church Review_ wrote in 1917: "There are less clear doctrines which despite the honest, sincere, and persistent efforts of men to state them in harmony with the divine Word admit of an honest difference of opinion." (450.) "There has been," says Dr. Jacobs, "no controversy within the General Council on the subject of election, and, therefore, no official declaration by the Council on the subject that has so largely occupied the attention of a number of synods."

(_Dist. Doctr._, 1914, 116.) That applies to practically all of the doctrines controverted within the Lutheran Church of our country. In reference to them it has always been the policy of the General Council to maintain a wise neutrality. In _Lutherisches Kirchenblatt_, December 29, 1900, Rev. Wischan of the General Council hit the nail on the head when he said: "As to our doctrinal position, we find ourselves in a peculiar situation. When questioned concerning our att.i.tude toward those doctrines which have been discussed in the most spirited manner, and partly have become the occasion for ecclesiastical separations, we are embarra.s.sed for want of an answer. We know exactly what the position of Missouri is in the doctrines of conversion and predestination. We know also what Ohio teaches in opposition to Missouri. But who can tell us what the General Council teaches on these points? Possibly, many among us agree entirely neither with Missouri nor with Ohio. Possibly some incline to the views of Ohio, while others prefer the Missourian doctrine. But at present there is no clarity in these matters in our midst, everybody apparently having the privilege of choosing his own position without fearing that the Church might call him to account. Very convenient indeed; but surely it is not the ideal. Or do those questions lie on the periphery to such an extent that an answer is a matter of absolute irrelevancy to a Lutheran Christian?" (_L. u. W._ 1901, 53.)

141. Not in Sympathy with Missouri.--The unionistic and indifferentistic position of the General Council with respect to the differences in doctrine and practise prevailing within the Lutheran synods of the United States naturally led to a high degree of animosity and unfriendly charges against the Missouri Synod. Her att.i.tude of certainty and conviction in the doctrines which she championed was branded and denounced as "intolerance," "bigotry," "narrow-mindedness,"

"exclusiveness," "aloofness," "pride," "Pharisaism," etc. In his _Problems and Possibilities_ Dr. Gerberding wrote: "We have often said that this body of Lutherans, more than all others, has saved the Germans of the Middle West from being swamped in materialism and rationalism.

Honor to whom honor is due. But the very prosperity of these Lutherans has made them haughty, self-sufficient, self-righteous. A tone of Pharisaism and of infallibility seems to run through their utterances.

They seem not only to believe in an infallible revelation from G.o.d, but in themselves as infallible interpreters of that revelation. Every one who does not accept their interpretation is branded as a heretic of the same kind and quality as those against whom the apostles warn, and whom believers are not to receive into their houses nor bid G.o.dspeed. All who do not accept their interpretation in every jot and t.i.ttle are anathema in the apostolic sense. Their interpretations, glosses, and theses, and resolutions as to what the Confessions mean also seem to be infallible.

Woe be to the Lutheran who dares even to question their conclusions!"

(162.) Revealing the same animus, Dr. G.W. Sandt published in the _Lutheran_ of December 12, 1918: "The new and powerful stream of immigration, which was headed by Dr. Walther, and out of which has grown the Synodical Conference, with its more than 800,000 communicants and the largest theological seminary in the land, represents the reaction against the unionism of the State Church in Saxony. A man of deep piety, strong convictions, and sound theological learning, he became the apostle of a st.u.r.dy confessionalism, as orthodox as that of Hengstenberg, as vital and spiritual as that of Spener, and as fruitful in good works as that of Francke. He and his followers nursed that orthodoxy so faithfully and fenced it in so securely as to make Missourianism the synonym for the straitest sect of Lutheranism in the world. A doctrine of rigid aloofness and separatism was developed as a wall of defense, as binding upon a Missourian's conscience as almost any article in the Augsburg Confession could possibly be. It was inevitable that he and his followers should come into conflict with such leaders as Loehe and the Fritschels (founders of the Iowa Synod), with Loy and Stellhorn and Allwardt in the Joint Synod of Ohio, and with Schmidt in the United Norwegian Church as it then existed. The controversies on the ministry, on predestination, on conversion and synergism, while expressive of deep conviction and loyalty to the Truth, do not form a chapter in our history of which Lutherans can feel proud. When orthodoxy becomes so strict and strait-laced and legalistic, when it stands up so erect as to lean backward, both the interests of the Truth and of the Church are bound to suffer. The cause of unity is harmed, and union or cooperation is rendered impossible." However, if the paramount object of the Lutheran Church always was, is now, and ever must be, to maintain the truth and the unity in the Spirit, then, whatever in other respects may justly be said in praise of the General Council, her neutral att.i.tude toward the doctrinal differences of the Lutheran synods in America, though temporarily it may have proved expedient in the interest of external union, was in reality neither Christian, nor Lutheran, nor conducive to the unity or any other real and abiding blessing of our beloved Church. For while indeed forbearance also with the weak in knowledge and faith is a mark peculiar to the Christian spirit, indifferentistic silence as to what is true or false, right or wrong, is neither a virtue, nor, in the long run, will ever prove to be of true advantage anywhere, least of all in the Lutheran Church.

THE UNITED SYNOD IN THE SOUTH.

ORGANIZATION.

142. Synods Partic.i.p.ating in the Union.--The United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South was organized June 23, 1886, in Roanoke, Va., after a doctrinal basis had been agreed upon at a preliminary meeting in Salisbury, N.C., 1884. The following synods partic.i.p.ated in the union: 1. The North Carolina Synod, organized in 1803, and since 1820 prominent in the General Synod. 2. The South Carolina Synod, organized in 1824, of which Dr. J. Bachman, who opposed the confessionalism of the Tennessee Synod, was a member. Bachman (1790-1874) served the same congregation in Charleston for sixty years, and became renowned also as a scientist. E.J. Wolf: "Bachman was in the first rank of ornithologists in his day. With Audubon, whose two sons married his two daughters, he prepared _The Birds of America_ and _The Quadrupeds of America_. He was a member of numerous scientific societies and numbered among his correspondents such men as Humboldt and Aga.s.siz."

(_Lutherans in America_, 475.) 3. The Virginia Synod, organized 1829, in which S.S. Schmucker, J.G. Morris, C.P. Krauth, J.A. Seiss, and B.M.

Schmucker were active for a time. 4. The Southwest Virginia Synod, organized in 1841 and adhering to its loose doctrinal basis till 1881.

5. The Georgia Synod, organized in 1860, of which the _Lutheran Cyclopedia_ remarked: "Half of the pastors are compelled to engage in secular pursuits for a support." At present the Georgia Synod is one of the most prosperous in the Southern group. There is no pastor of a regular parish of the Synod who is not supported by his paris.h.i.+oners.