Chapter 20

102. Encouraging Lodgery.--The General Synod has never taken a stand against Freemasonry or any other secret society. To join a lodge was always viewed as a purely private affair and of no concern to the Church. Neither laymen nor ministers were forbidden to unite with lodges. Indeed, for a minister to attain a higher degree in a lodge was occasionally referred to as a special honor and regarded as a recommendation. In 1902 the _Pennsylvania Freemason_ said of Dr. Stock, a pastor of the General Synod: "The Doctor is in possession of the highest honors of Freemasonry, and enjoys the love and respect of all his brothers. As indicating his good influence for Freemasonry we mention of his writings: _What Freemasonry Owes to Luther, The Knight Templar and the Holy Week_." Copying this, the _Lutheran Evangelist_ commented that everybody has a right to join a lodge as long as he gives the first place in his heart to the Church. (L. u. W. 1902, 115.) The _Observer_, March 14, 1902, reported with satisfaction that the prominent Lutheran Mr. Dewey had become Grand Master of the Freemasons in Kansas, and appointed his pastor, the Rev. Fuller Bergstresser, Grand Chaplain of the lodge. (_L. u. W._ 1902, 115.) Lodge-membership, said the _Observer_ of January 17, 1913, is a non-essential, permitted by the Augsburg Confession. Reviewing a sermon of Rev. Bowers in which he defended and recommended the lodges, the _Lutheran Observer_, in 1909, remarked: "It is a fair and unprejudiced presentation." (_L. u. W._ 1909, 227.) In the same year a committee of the General Synod declared with respect to a resolution of the Wartburg and Nebraska synods, forbidding their ministers to hold membership in lodges: "The General Synod as a body has never taken any action, so far as we know, upon the so-called lodge-question. We deem its position sound and wise, and especially in view of the fact that the Lutheran bodies in this country which have indulged in such legislation have by no means escaped trouble.... We deem it their [Wartburg and Nebraska synods'] synodical right so to judge and affirm so long as they do not ask other synods of this body to accept their judgment and affirm their action.... A synod has a right to voluntarily restrict itself if it so chooses, and impose upon itself such limitations as it may elect." (_Proceedings_ 1909, 126 f.) Also with respect to this attitude of the General Synod toward the lodges the Atchison Amendments brought about no marked change whatever. After as well as before 1913 prominent lodge-men, without protest, were elected to, or continued to hold, some of the most important offices of Synod. In 1917 Dr. George Tressler, a 32d degree Scotch Rite Mason and a Knight Templar, was chosen president of the General Synod. Prof. C.G. Heckert, president of the Theological Seminary at Springfield, 0., is a Freemason. Mr. J.L. Zimmerman, president of the Lutheran Brotherhood of the General Synod, who took a leading part in the Lutheran Merger movement, also is, and was publicly declared to be, a Mason. Nor did the practise cease of arranging for special lodge-services and entertainments of lodges. September 17, 1918, the Masonic Lodge of Camp Hill, N.J., held its anniversary dinner at the General Synod church, the women of the church serving the dinner, etc. (_Luth. Witness_ 1918, 386.)

103. New Formula Dead Letter.--Though one will readily admit that the Atchison Amendments signified a stride forward officially and formally, the actual conditions prevailing within the General Synod till the Merger in 1918 (the official indifferentistic and unionistic attitude of the General Synod as such, as well as the teaching and practise of District Synods, ministers, and congregations) were not in agreement, but in open conflict with the formula of 1913. In its issue of June 18, 1915, the _Observer_ stated: "The acceptance of this basis, they [the opponents of the new basis] further maintain, involves certain corollaries, such as the rule of 'Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers only, and Lutheran altars for Lutheran communicants only'; the withdrawal of fellowship with other Christian bodies in general religious and moral movements, such as the Federation of the Churches, the International Sunday-school Lesson Series, and evangelistic campaigns, in which the congregations of a community unite their efforts to reach the multitudes of the unchurched and the unsaved. It includes also condemnation of secret orders, such as Masonry and Odd-Fellowship." (_L. u. W._ 1916, 58.) Such, indeed, was the price of the new doctrinal basis. The General Synod as a whole, however, was evidently neither possessed of the power nor even of the earnest will to draw the consequences of her new articles practically. The fact certainly is, as shown in the preceding paragraphs, that neither the General Synod as such nor its constituency did make any serious effort at paying the price required by an unqualified subscription to the Augustana as professed at Atchison. However, as long as a religious body contents itself with having a correct Lutheran basis merely incorporated in the constitution; as long as it shows no determination in reducing the principles of such basis to actual practise; as long as it objects to the discipline which this basis calls for; as long as it declines responsibility for contrary teaching and practise on the part of its ministers and congregations; as long as it adheres to the principle of agreeing to disagree on doctrines plainly taught in the Lutheran Confessions, and never to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare them free,--just so long even the very best Lutheran basis embodied in a constitution will remain, in more than one respect, a scrap of paper and its formal recognition "a solemn farce and empty show."

The General Council

SYNODS COMPOSING THE COUNCIL.

104. Organization of New General Body.--After severing its connection with the General Synod at its convention at Lancaster in 1866, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania appointed a committee (Drs. Krotel, Krauth, Mann, C.W. Schaeffer, Seiss, B.M. Schmucker, Welden, Brobst, Laird, etc.) to issue a fraternal address to all Lutheran synods, ministers, and congregations in the United States and Canada which confess the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, inviting them to a conference for the purpose of forming a general body of Lutheran synods, in the interest, especially, of maintaining "the unity in the true faith of the Gospel and in the uncorrupted Sacraments." Accordingly, in December of the same year, representatives from thirteen synods met in Reading, Pa. The synods represented were the Pennsylvania Synod, the New York Ministerium, the Pittsburgh Synod, the Minnesota Synod, the English Synod of Ohio, the Joint Synod of Ohio, the English District Synod of Ohio, the Wisconsin Synod, the Michigan Synod, the Iowa Synod, the Canada Synod, the Norwegian Synod, and the Missouri Synod. After the Fundamental Principles of Faith and Church Polity and Articles on Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, prepared and submitted by Dr. C.P. Krauth, and discussed from the 12th to the 14th of December, had been approved, the resolution was passed that the first regular session of the new body, "The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America," should be held, if the Fundamental Principles had been adopted by ten synods. At the first regular meeting in Fort Wayne, November 20, 1867, again representatives of thirteen synods were present, the Augustana and Illinois synods taking the place of the Missourians and Norwegians, who had withdrawn from the movement.

105. Synods Remaining with the Council.--Of the synods represented at Fort Wayne the following retained their connection with the General Council throughout its history: 1. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the so-called "Mother Synod" of the Lutheran Church in America. It was organized 1748 by Muhlenberg. In 1778, numbering 18 ministers, it adopted a constitution which formally acknowledged all of the Lutheran symbols. The new constitution of 1792 admitted lay delegates, but eliminated the confessional basis. In 1820 it was represented at the organization of the General Synod at Hagerstown. At the same time it planned a union seminary and organic union with the German Reformed Church. In 1823 it severed its connection with the General Synod, which was followed by a long period of indifferentism. In 1850 the Ministerium established official relations with the Gettysburg Seminary. In 1853 it returned officially to a confessional position, adopting "the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel as these are expressed in the confessional writings of our Evangelical Lutheran Church and especially in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." In the same year, urging all other Lutheran bodies to follow the example, the Ministerium, by a vote of 52 against 28, resolved to reunite with the General Synod. In 1864 its delegates withdrew from the sessions of the General Synod at York because of the admission of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod. In the same year the Seminary at Philadelphia was founded. In the organization of the General Council the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was the prime mover. At present it numbers about 400 pastors and 580 congregations with a communicant membership of 160,000, more than one-fifth of them being German. 2. The New York Ministerium. This body, when organized in 1786, confessed the Lutheran symbols. In 1794 it adopted the new constitution of the Pennsylvania Synod, containing no reference to the symbols. Under Quitman a period of rationalism and Socinianism followed, and under Hazelius (since 1815 professor in Hartwick Seminary) a period of Methodistic revivalism. In 1859 the Ministerium acknowledged the Augsburg Confession "as a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word," and in 1867, having severed its connection with the General Synod, extended its confession to embrace all the Lutheran symbols. The New York Ministerium has repeatedly passed through a change of language. It numbers about 57,000 communicants, 160 congregations, and as many pastors. 3. The Pittsburgh Synod. It was organized in 1845 and admitted by the General Synod in 1853. Under W.A. Passavant it became the "Missionary Synod," to which the Canada, Texas, Minnesota, and Nova Scotia synods owe their origin. It reports 155 pastors and 190 congregations with a communicant membership of 24,000. 4. The English District Synod of Ohio, organized in 1857 and, in 1869, because of its connection with the Council, stricken from the roster of the Joint Synod of Ohio, embraces 55 pastors, 86 congregations, and 14,000 communicants. 5. The Canada Synod, founded in 1861, went on record as opposed to exceptions in the rule regarding pulpit- and altar-fellowship. Most of its present pastors come from Kropp, Germany. It reports 42 ministers, 74 congregations, and 14,000 communicants. 6. The Augustana Synod, which maintained its connections with the Council till 1918, when it refused to enter the Lutheran Merger. It numbers about 700 pastors and 1,200 congregations with a confirmed membership of 190,000.

106. Defections and Accessions.--The following seven synods partly declined to consummate the union, partly were temporarily only connected with the General Council: 1. The Iowa Synod, whose representatives declared before the close of the session at Fort Wayne, 1867, that they, though their Synod had adopted the constitution, could not unite with the Council on account of its equivocal attitude toward pulpit-, altar-, and lodge-fellowship. The privilege of the floor granted by the General Council to the delegates of the Iowa Synod was accepted and freely exercised till the Lutheran Merger in 1918. The Iowa Synod thus remained in church fellowship with the General Council and took part also in its missionary and other works. In 1875, the so-called Galesburg Rule having been adopted by the Council, the Iowa Synod declared that confessional scruples no longer prevented her from an organic union with the Council. The union was not consummated because the anti-unionistic construction which Iowa put on the Galesburg Rule was disavowed within the General Council and never acknowledged and approved of by this body as such. In 1904, Prof. Proehl, delegate of the Iowa Synod, gloried in the Council as _optima repraesentatio nominis Lutherani_, the best representation of the Lutheran name, a tribute, however, which President Deindoerfer of the Iowa Synod refused to endorse. (_L. u. W._ 1904, 38. 516.) 2. The Joint Synod of Ohio had not adopted the constitution of the General Council; and at Fort Wayne, 1867, her delegates finally declined to enter the union because of the non-committal attitude of the Council with respect to chiliasm, pulpit- and altar-fellowship and the lodges-- the so-called Four Points. 3. The Wisconsin Synod separated in 1868 because of the "Four Points." 4. The Michigan Synod, organized in 1860, united with the Council in 1867, withdrew in 1887, and joined the Synodical Conference in 1892. 5. The Minnesota Synod, founded in 1860, united with the General Synod; in 1867 it joined the Council; in 1871 it severed this connection and became a member of the Synodical Conference. 6. The Texas Synod joined the Council in 1868, and left it in 1895, entering the Iowa Synod as Texas District.--The following synods, most of them founded by the General Council, affiliated with this body after its organization in 1867: 1. The Chicago Synod, a name adopted later, organized and joined the Council in 1871 as Indiana Synod. It numbers about 40 pastors and 70 congregations with a communicant membership of 8,300. Its center is the Theological Seminary located near Chicago (Maywood). 2. The English Synod of the Northwest was founded by the Council in 1891 which led to various frictions with the Swedish Augustana Synod. Pastors, 37; congregations, 40; communicants, 11,000. 3. The Synod of Manitoba, founded 1897, numbers 35 pastors, 62 congregations, and 5,000 communicants. 4. The Pacific Synod, organized by the Council in 1901, numbers 21 pastors, 18 congregations, and 1,906 communicants. 5. The Synod of New York and New England, organized in 1902, embraces 65 pastors, 67 congregations, and 19,000 communicants. 6. The Nova Scotia Synod, organized in 1903, reports 6 pastors, 27 congregations, and 2,900 communicants. 7. The Synod of Central Canada, organized 1909, numbers 12 pastors, 16 congregations, and 1,800 communicants.

107. Statistical and Other Data.--In 1917, a year before the Merger, the General Council reported 13 district synods with about 1,700 pastors, 2,600 congregations, and a confirmed membership of 530,000. Among the higher institutions then within the Council were the following: 1. The Philadelphia Seminary, now located in Mount Airy, Pa., and belonging to the Pennsylvania Synod. Since its founding in 1864 this seminary has educated almost 875 pastors under the Professors Drs. C.F. and L.W. Schaeffer, Mann, Krauth, Krotel, Spaeth, H.E. and C.M. Jacobs, Hilprecht, Spieker, Frey, Offermann (appointed by the New York Ministerium), Schmauk, Reed, Benze. 2. The Chicago Seminary, located in Maywood, Ill., was founded by Passavant and opened 1891. Here about 260 pastors were trained by the Drs. Weidner, Krauss, Gerberding, Ramsey, and Stump. 3. The Swedish Seminary in Rock Island, Ill. (founded in Chicago in 1860 and removed to Rock Island in 1875), has graduated more than 700 pastors. 4. The Seminary at Kropp, Schleswig, Germany, founded 1882 by Paulsen, for years received support from the General Council. 5. Muhlenberg College, at Allentown, Pa., founded 1867 by the Pennsylvania Synod, now directed by Dr. Haas. 6. Wagner College, at Rochester, N.Y., founded 1883 by the New York Ministerium, Dr. Nicum being one of its professors and benefactors. 7. Thiel College, at Greenville, Pa., founded 1870 by the Pittsburgh Synod. 8. The Swedish Bethany College, founded in 1881 at Lindsborg, Kans. 9. The Swedish Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, Minn. 10. The Swedish Luther Academy, at Wahoo, Nebr.--Apart from the Augustana Synod, about 160 parochial schools, mostly Saturday and vacation schools, have been conducted within the General Council. Judging from Dr. Gerberding's _Problems and Possibilities_ (115) and similar utterances, the English element in the General Council, like that of the General Synod, was opposed to parish schools. Foremost among the numerous benevolent institutions are the Wartburg Orphan Asylum and the Drexel Deaconess Home. In 1869 the General Council assumed the support of that part of the India mission which the General Synod, after the breach in 1866, was about to surrender to the Episcopalians. In 1841 "Father Heyer had been sent as the first American Lutheran missionary to India. He returned in 1857 and began home missionary work in Minnesota. In 1869, seventy-six years old, he offered his services to the Pennsylvania Synod for the Lutheran Mission in India, where he labored till 1871."

CHARLES PORTERFIELD KRAUTH.

108. A Star of the First Magnitude.--Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823--1883), son of Charles Philip Krauth, was educated at Pennsylvania College and the Seminary in Gettysburg. He was licensed in 1841 and ordained 1842. He served as pastor in Baltimore from 1842; in Shepherdstown and Martinsburg 1847; in Winchester 1848; in St. Thomas, West Indies, 1852 (a Dutch Reformed congregation during the absence of its pastor); in Pittsburgh, Pa., from 1855; in Philadelphia from 1859. In 1861 he resigned his pastorate in order to devote his whole strength to the editorship of the _Lutheran and Missionary_, which in his hands became a weapon against the excrescences of the American Lutheranism then ruling the English Lutheran Church of our country. In 1864, when the Theological Seminary at Philadelphia was founded, Krauth was appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology. He was the prime mover in the establishment of the General Council; wrote the Fraternal Address of 1866, inviting the Lutheran synods to unite in the organization of a new general truly Lutheran body; and was the author of the Fundamental Articles of Faith and Church Polity adopted at the convention at Reading, 1866. Krauth presented the theses on pulpit- and altar-fellowship in 1877, framed the constitution for congregations of 1880, and assisted in the liturgical work which resulted in the publication of the Church Book, completed in 1891. From 1870 to 1880 Krauth was president of the General Council. In 1868 he was appointed professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1880 he made a journey to Europe for his own recuperation and in the interest of a Luther biography, which, however, did not make its appearance. In 1882, a year before his death, he became editor-in-chief of the _Lutheran Church Review._ He died January 2, 1883. Besides contributing many articles to the _Lutheran_ and to various reviews and encyclopedias, Krauth translated Tholuck's _Commentary on the Gospel of John,_ 1859; edited Fleming's _Vocabulary of Philosophy_, 1860; wrote the _Conservative Reformation and Its Theology_, 1872; and published a number of other books of a philosophical and theological character. The most important of Krauth's numerous publications is _The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology_. The _Lutheran Church Review_, 1917: "It is doubtful whether any other single book ever published in America by any theologian more profoundly impressed a large [English] church constituency, or did more to mold its character. As theologian and confessor Dr. Krauth stands preeminent in the [English] Lutheran Church." (144.) For twenty years Charles Porterfield Krauth was one of the prominent theologians of the General Synod, and since 1866 the leader and most conservative, competent, and influential theologian of the General Council. Krauth was a star of the first magnitude in the Lutheran Church of America, or as Walther put it, "the most eminent man in the English Lutheran Church of this country, a man of rare learning, at home no less in the old than in modern theology, and, what is of greatest import, whole-heartedly devoted to the pure doctrine of our Church, as he had learned to understand it, a noble man and without guile." (_L. u. W._ 1883, 32.)