Chapter 9

44. General Synod Involved as Such.--In spite of its noncommittal policy as to doctrine, the General Synod also as such has not been able to conceal its distinctively Reformed complexion. The letter of 1845 admits and approves of the fact that Luther's doctrine of the bodily presence of the Lord's Supper had long ago been abandoned by the great majority of the ministers of the General Synod. It was the Reformed theology, taught in the books of Schmucker, in the books of Kurtz, in the _Observer_ edited by Kurtz, and in the _Hirtenstimme_, published by Weyl, against which Wyneken protested in 1845, at Philadelphia. But his appeal for true Lutheranism over against Reformedism impressed the General Synod merely as funny (spasshaft), and his motion in the matter was tabled. Wyneken was compelled to sever his connection with a body whose every prominent feature was Reformed. The confessional Resolution adopted 1864 at York rejects, as will be explained later, the Lutheran doctrines of the real presence, absolution, and the Sunday. The minutes of the General Synod contain frequent resolutions in favor of the sectarian views of the Sabbath, total abstinence, the introduction of the Bible into the State schools, etc. At New York, 1848, Synod declared "that we heartily approve of the 'New York City Temperance Society, organized on Christian principles,' and believe it to be the only system of operation that will be ultimately successful and triumphant; that we commend this Society to the attention of the Synods in connection with this body, and to our churches generally, and urge them to prosecute this great and philanthropic enterprise upon the Christian principles adopted by this Society." (8.) At Harrisburg, 1885, the resolutions were adopted "that we do hereby declare our belief in the divine authority of the Christian Sabbath as a day of sacred rest and religious instruction and worship of Almighty God; that we recommend to the respective Synods of the General Synod that they take such action from time to time as shall lead to more frequent and earnest appeals from all the pulpits of our Church upon this all-important subject; that with uplifted hands to that God who is the Father of us all we unceasingly implore that the day be hastened when all the earth shall be freed from the power of sin, and when life shall be one universal Sabbath to the ends of the earth." (69.) (_Proceedings_ 1848,44; 1853,28; 1864,45; 1883,46; 1887,61; etc.) In 1854 T. N. Kurtz of Baltimore published a "Lutheran Almanac," featuring on its title-page the pictures of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin as "those great Reformers," and listing as "great theologians of the Lutheran Church" also the names of Herder, Paulus, Ammon, Bretschneider, Wegscheider, Gesenius, Roehr, etc. (_Lutheraner_ 10,15.) This is a true-to-life picture of the General Synod in her palmiest days-- Zwinglianism, Methodism, Rationalism being the most protruding features. (4,198.)

45. Verdict of Contemporaries.--In his pamphlet _The Distress of the German Lutherans in America_, Wyneken said with special reference to the English part of the General Synod: "They have totally fallen away from the faith of the fathers. Though enthusiastic over the name 'Lutheran' and zealous in spreading the so-called 'Lutheran' Church, they, in a most shameful and foolhardy manner, attack the doctrines of our Church and seek to spread their errors in sermons, periodicals, and newspapers, notably the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the connected important doctrines of grace, of the two natures in Christ, etc. ... Besides, they are ardent advocates of 'new measures' and altogether Methodistic in their method of conversion." In 1845, after severing his connection with the General Synod on account of its refusal to renounce the Reformed doctrines and usages advocated by Schmucker, Kurtz, and Weyl, Wyneken denounced the General Synod as "Reformed in doctrine, Methodistic in practise, and laboring for the ruin of the Church, whose name she falsely bears." (_Lutheraner_ 1845,96.) In a letter to Walther, dated December 11, 1844, Dr. Sihler wrote: "Our main enemies here in Ohio are not only the Methodists, but also the false brethren, the so-called General Synod, which, as generally known, is decidedly Reformed in the doctrine of the Sacraments, and in its practise decidedly Methodistic." Again, in 1858, Sihler branded Kurtz, Schmucker, and others as "open counterfeiters, Calvinists, Methodists, Unionists, and traitors and destroyers of the Lutheran Church." (_L. u. W._ 1858, 137.) The _Lutheran Standard_, October 27, 1847, declared: "History has already recorded it for posterity that the General Synod is not an Evangelical Lutheran body, inasmuch as it fails to adhere to just those doctrines by which the Evangelical Lutheran Church differs from other denominations. History declares that the General Synod has expressly and without disguise renounced the distinctive doctrines of Lutheranism, and at the same time declared herself in favor of Union and Methodistic practise." (_Lutheraner_ 2,56; 4,46.) The _Evangelical Lutheran_, published at Springfield, O., remarked that Schmucker and his compeers were engaged in selling Reformed goods under the trademark of Lutheranism. (April 9, 1868.) Dr. Mann, who himself for many years had intimate connections with Philip Schaff, wrote in the _Lutherische Zeitschrift_ of November 17, 1866: "It is the peculiarity of the un-Lutheran party [of the General Synod] that it is essentially committed to Reformed sentiments. Dr. Schmucker has long ago openly confessed views which are in open conflict with the doctrines of the Lutheran symbols, but harmonize with those of the Reformed confessions, especially of the Zwinglian type. In this sense many of his publications are written, and in this sense he has taught for many, many years in a Lutheran seminary. He is inspired by a Zwinglian-Reformed spirit, and has endeavored to imbue his scholars with it. It has never dawned on him and them what is properly the Lutheran view of Christianity. He himself has not the least sympathy for it." (Spaeth, _A. Mann_, 189 f.) In 1873 the _Lutheran Visitor_ in the South charged the General Synod with fostering disloyalty to, and causing defections from, the Lutheran Church by destroying the peculiarly distinctive marks of Lutheranism. (_L. u. W._ 1873,94.)

REVIVALISM.

46. "Justification by Sensation."--According to the Bible and the Lutheran Church the divine measures for converting sinners are the preaching of the pure Gospel and the administering of the unadulterated Sacraments. "New-measurism," then, as the very term indicates, is a human makeshift. Indeed, the Lutheran Church approves of all methods, also new measures, which merely serve to bring the divine means of grace into motion and men in contact with them. But it condemns all methods and measures, new or old, which hinder or corrupt or eliminate the divine means of grace. The new measures introduced by revivalism, however, are just such corruptions of, and substitutes for, the divine means of grace. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"--of this truth New-measurism is a denial _in toto_. New-measurism denies the Gospel-truth that God is already reconciled and has already pardoned sinners. It denies that this pardon is freely offered in the unconditional promises of God's Word and in the Sacraments, the seals of grace. It denies that justifying and saving faith is the mere trust in these promises of God. It denies that faith in these promises alone engenders divine assurance of pardon. It mistakes, as C. P. Krauth put it, justification by sensation for justification by faith. (Spaeth 2, 35.) It holds that one cannot be assured of grace without certain peculiar sensations, emotions, and feelings in his heart. It denies that faith is purely a gift of God, and teaches that man must cooperate in his own conversion. It insists that special measures must be resorted to in order to frighten men into doing their share of conversion, and to produce the emotional and neurotic conditions which warrant assurance of grace. As such measures it prescribes emotional appeals, shrieking and shouting in preaching and praying, special prayer-meetings, the anxious bench, protracted meetings, camp-meetings, etc. Revivalism brands men as spiritually dead and unconverted who, like Walther and Wyneken, base their assurance of grace, not on alleged feelings and spiritual experiences, but on the clear and unmistakable promises of God in His Word and Sacraments. New-measurism condemns and ridicules the old methods of catechetical instruction, doctrinal preaching, and of administering the Sacraments as spiritually ineffective and productive merely of head Christianity and dead orthodoxy. "Jist git the spirit started," said a Methodist to C. P. Krauth, "and then it works like smoke." "Very much like smoke, I guess," answered Krauth. (1,67.) Indeed, Pelagianists, who believe that conversion is a mere outward moral improvement, effected by man's own free will; Romanists, who teach that man can and must by his own efforts and works earn the grace of God; Arminians and Synergists, who believe in man's ability to cooperate in his own conversion and salvation; Calvinists, who, denying universal grace, base their insurance on special marks of grace in their own hearts and lives; Reformedists and enthusiasts, who deny that Word and Sacraments are the only means of grace, collative as well as operative; Pietists, who insist that the terrors of conscience must be of a peculiar nature and degree, and that faith must be accompanied by a happiness and a sanctification of a special kind and measure before a sinner may fully be assured of his pardon and conversion,--they all may be, and, in fact, naturally are, in sympathy with one or the other form of New-measurism and revivalism; but Lutherans, who believe in a Gospel of real pardon and power--never. If the Lutheran doctrine of grace and the means of grace is Scriptural, then the work-nerve-and-emotion Christianity of New-measurism is wrong, and _vice versa_. Not Lutheranism, but Arminianism, Enthusiasm, and Reformedism are the premises of revivalism. The fact that New-measurism was enthusiastically hailed, defended, and extensively introduced by her leading men, is but a further proof that the spirit then rampant in the General Synod was not the spirit of Lutheranism.

47. Lutherans Vying with the Fanatics.--The pietism and unionism of Muhlenberg and his colaborers was the door through which, in the days of Wesley and Whitefield, revivalism had found an early, though limited, entrance into the Lutheran Church. And in the course of its history the General Synod was zealous in cultivating and developing the evil inheritance of their fathers. It sounds like a warning against the threatening contagion when D. F. Schaeffer, in the Pastoral Letter of 1831, admonishes: "Let us faithfully adhere to the Word of God and follow its precepts unswervingly; let us not follow after those whose enthusiastic behavior is more apt to promote disorder and confusion than true edification. Against such we would warn in a most friendly manner, even if they be never so beloved. As Lutherans we admonish you: 'Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.'" (25.) But the General Synod herself had already opened the door for, and encouraged, the movement. According to Chapter XVI of the constitution adopted 1829 for the District Synods, the annual Special Conferences were to meet for two days, especially in order "by practical preaching to awaken and convert sinners and to edify believers." (41.) In the following year the Hartwick Synod was organized, in order more fully to satisfy the craving of their members for revivals. At the convention of the General Synod at Frederick, 1831, a committee reported that the Hartwick Synod, having unanimously voted to join the General Synod, was divided into two conferences which were to meet as often as possible, and whose chief business it was "by earnest and practical sermons to awaken and convert sinners, and to encourage and edify Christians." (9.) At Baltimore, 1833, the Ohio Synod was censured for certain utterances against the "new measures" adopted within the General Synod. Finding revivalism in the Hartwick Synod not advanced enough, a few of its members, in 1837, organized the Franckean Synod, in order to press "new measures" to the extreme. On the Hartwick Synod the withdrawal acted as an impulse for a greater activity in the same direction. At Chambersburg, 1839, a committee reported on the meeting of this synod held in 1838: "We take particular pleasure in remarking that the proceedings of this Synod, especially the statements contained in the annual address of its President, afford the most satisfactory evidence that this Synod is decidedly in favor of revivals of religion. Protracted meetings have been held in various parts, and the Lord has especially blessed them; from which we have reason to believe that true and undefiled religion is more and more abounding within its limits. All the religious operations of the day, such as Tract Societies, Temperance Societies, etc., etc., enjoy the hearty support of this Synod." (13.) The minutes of the General Synod, of the District Synods, the _Lutheran Observer_, etc., soon began to teem with reports on revivals, visitations, outpourings, refreshing showers, etc. (_L. u. W._ 1857, 27.) At the convention of the Maryland Synod in Frederick, 1842, Harkey proposed the publication of the _Revivalist_, a monthly to be devoted to the history and defense of revivals, revival intelligence, the best measures and means of promoting and managing revivals--a plan which Synod declined as "inexpedient." At the same convention B. Kurtz, the advocate of the wildest revivalism, succeeded in having a committee appointed to draft a minute expressive of the views of Synod in regard to "new measures." The report was discussed for two days, when it was referred back to the committee, and at the next meeting of Synod the committee was excused from further consideration of the subject. (Spaeth 1, 111.) As late as 1876 the _American Lutheran_ declared that the great majority of the pastors and congregations of the General Synod favored revivals; that they managed them on the lines of those conducted by Moody and Sankey; that some of the congregations employed sectarian preachers for protracted meetings. (_L. u. W._ 1876, 182.) When, in 1877, the _American Lutheran_ merged into the _Observer_, Dr. Conrad solemnly promised to continue defending revivalism. (_L. u. W._ 1877, 60.) In 1908, referring to revivals still occasionally reported in the _Observer_, the _Lutherische Herold_ remarked that this sort of enthusiasm, formerly the rule in the Eastern and Central States, had as yet not nearly died out, _e. g._, in the General Synod congregations of Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. (_L. u. W._ 1908, 322.) Down to 1918 occasional revivals were held or participated in by congregations and ministers of the General Synod. Several years ago Rev. Bell cooperated in a revival conducted by Billy Sunday in Toledo, etc. According to _Church Work and Observer_, November 9, 1916, the General Synod church at Gettysburg, Pa., conducted a joint revival with Presbyterians, Methodists, and United Brethren.

48. "The Lever of Archimedes."--In the revival agitation which swept over America in the decades following 1830 practically all of the English Lutheran churches (the German churches, in part, stood aloof) caught the contagion in a malignant form and in great numbers. While even Prof. J. W. Nevin, Schaff's colleague at Mercersburg, in his book _The Anxious Bench_ (1844), antagonized the extravagances of a movement which was germane to his own church, Lutherans such as Schmucker, Kurtz, Harkey, Passavant, and many others, became extremists in practising, and fanatics in advocating, "new measures" as the most needful and only effective methods of accelerating and deepening conversion and reviving the Lutheran Church. Vying in their wild extravagances with the most fanatical of the sects, Lutherans, in not a few places, condemned as spiritually dead formalists, head and memory Christians, all who adhered to the sound principles and old ways of Lutheranism. (Gerberding, _The Way of Life_, 197 ff.) S. L. Harkey, himself a fiery New-measurist, describes a revival held in connection with the convention of the Synod of the West, in 1839, as follows: "In an instant every soul in the house was upon the knees, and remained there weeping and praying for mercy." "The whole congregation became more or less moved. The place became truly awful and glorious, and it seemed that the time had come when a decided effort must be made upon the kingdom of darkness, and that under such circumstances to shrink from the task and, through fear of producing a little temporary disorder, to refuse to go heartily into the work, would have been nothing short of down right spiritual murder." "At one time during the meeting it was found necessary to invite the mourners to withdraw from the church and remove to the parsonage that the synod might have an opportunity to proceed with the transaction of business before it." (Neve, 97.) Dr. Kurtz wrote in the _Observer_ of November 17, 1843: "The so-called 'anxious bench' is the lever of Archimedes, which by the blessing of God can raise our German churches to that degree of respectability in the religious world which they ought to enjoy." (Neve, 95.) The _Lutheran Observer_ of March 21, 1862, while defending revivalism and misrepresenting the "symbolism" of the Missourians as the doctrine according to which one is saved by the Sacraments _ex opere operato_, without repentance and faith, condemns the Lutheran system of baptizing, catechizing, confirming, communing at the Lord's Supper, etc., as Romanism and Sacramentalism, as unbiblical and not at all the religion of Christ and His apostles, as fundamentally wrong and utterly ineffective, and disgusting also to Lutherans, as soon as they were enlightened by the Spirit of God. The _Observer_ continues: The success of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and even of the Congregationalists among the Germans is due to revivals. "The Lutheran Church in Germany and in this country is in need of religious revivals. Nothing else will save them." (_L. u. W._ 1862, 152.) In 1900, reporting numerous conversions in consequence of revivals held in congregations of the General Synod, the _Observer_ remarked: "If half a dozen of our best preachers would turn evangelists--no greater blessing could come to our Church." (_L. u. W._ 1900, 179.) The _Lutheran World_, January 17, 1901: "In our own General Synod any of our churches came to look upon the Catechism as unfriendly to vital piety, and they cast it out. Today even there are still those among us who oppose and resist the use of the Catechism under the false notion that it is the enemy of practical religion. Their idea of religion is the Methodistic notion. Fitness for church-membership, according to their view, comes through the pressure and appointments of the big meeting. Sinners must come to a bench for mourning, or they must stand up in the congregation, or they must hold their hands, or they must send in their card asking for the prayers of the church. Human devices and appointments are fixed on as requisites for having a genuine conversion and being filled with the Spirit of God. This is Romanism in disguise." (_L. u. W._ 1901, 54.)