American Lutheranism, Volume 2 / The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General Council, United Synod in the South)

by F. Bente

CONSTITUTION.

114. Fundamental Articles of Faith.—At the preliminary meeting at Reading, 1866, "Fundamental Principles," embracing nine Articles of Faith and Church Polity and eleven Articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, were adopted as a necessary condition of the contemplated union. The first Article of Faith states that, "to the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel," etc. The second declares: "The true unity of a particular church, in virtue of which men are truly members of one and the same church, and by which any church abides in real identity, and is entitled to a continuation of her name, is unity in doctrine and faith and in the Sacraments, to wit, that she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true members embrace from the heart, and use, the articles of faith and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinctive name." The third article distinguishes general and particular symbols. The fourth emphasizes that these confessions are a testimony of unity and a bond of union only when "accepted in their own true, native, original, and only sense." Those who "subscribe them must not only agree to use the same words, but must use and understand those words in one and the same sense." According to the fifth article the unity of the Lutheran Church "depends upon her abiding in one and the same faith." Article six reads: "The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by preeminence the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reservation make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone, in the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term, is the Evangelical Lutheran Church." According to the seventh article the only churches "entitled to the name Evangelical Lutheran are those which sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." The next article reads: "We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in perfect accordance with the canonical Scriptures: We reject the errors it condemns, and believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the Church of right belongs to that liberty." The ninth article declares "that the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doctrine and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural," and that all of them "are, with the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same Scriptural faith." (Ochsenford, Documentary History, 178 f.) According to the By-laws of the Constitution "the first two morning sessions after the opening of the convention shall be devoted to the discussion of doctrinal points and important practical questions."

115. Articles on Church Polity.—According to the second of the eleven articles of Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government, the church "has no power to bind the conscience, except as she truly teaches what her Lord teaches, and faithfully commands what He has charged her to command." The third reads: "The absolute directory of the will of Christ is the Word of God, the canonical Scriptures, interpreted in accordance with the 'mind of the Spirit,' by which Scriptures the Church is to be guided in every decision. She may set forth no article of faith which is not taught by the very letter of God's Word, or derived by just and necessary inference from it, and her liberty concerns those things only which are left free by the letter and spirit of God's Word." The fourth continues: "The primary bodies through which the power is normally exercised, which Christ commits derivatively and ministerially to His Church on earth, are the congregations. The congregation, in the normal state, is neither the pastor without the people, nor the people without the pastor." This paragraph permits of an interpretation that opens a loophole for Romanism. According to the sixth article "a free, Scriptural General Council, or Synod, chosen by the Church, is, within the metes and bounds fixed by the Church which chooses it, representatively that Church itself; and in this case is applicable the language of the Appendix to the Smalcald Articles: 'The judgments of synods are the judgments of the Church.'" This seems to imply that the judgments of synods are as such correct and binding. The tenth article reads: "In the formation of a General Body the synods may know, and deal with, each other only as synods. In such case the official record is to be accepted as evidence of the doctrinal position of each synod, and of the principles for which alone the other synods become responsible by connection with it." This paragraph, which was embodied also in the constitution of the United Lutheran Church, opened the door to indifferentism inasmuch as it made the General Council responsible, not for the actual conditions within, but only for the official attitude and deliverances of its district synods.

116. A Legislative Body.—The seventh article of "Ecclesiastical Power and Church Government" reads: "The congregations representatively constituting the various district synods may elect delegates through these synods to represent themselves in a more general body, all decisions of which, when made in conformity with the solemn compact of the constitution, bind so far as the terms of mutual agreement make them binding on those congregations which consent, and continue to consent, to be represented in that General Body." According to the ninth article, "the obligation under which congregations consent to place themselves, to conform to the decisions of synods, does not rest on any assumption that synods are infallible, but on the supposition that the decisions have been so guarded by wise constitutional provisions as to create a higher moral probability of their being true and rightful than the decisions in conflict with them, which may be made by single congregations or individuals." In keeping herewith Article I, Section 4 of the General Council's constitution provides: "No liturgy or hymn-book should be used in public worship except by its [the General Council's] advice or consent, which consent shall be presumed in regard to all such books now used, until the General Council shall have formally acted upon them." That the General Council was not a mere advisory, but a legislative body, was brought out in the Lima Church Case in which the judge decided that, according to the constitution and the expert testimony of members of the General Council, Synod had jurisdiction over its pastors and congregations, and that hence he could not adjudge the property to that part of the congregation which had refused to submit to Synod. Dr. Seiss testified (April 6, 1876) that, according to the constitution of the General Council, congregations are obliged and bound to respect and obey all constitutional resolutions of Synod. In its issue of September 26, 1901, the Lutheran maintained that Christian liberty did not prohibit the Church from making prescriptions to individual congregations in the adiaphora; that pastors and congregations, by joining the Pennsylvania Ministerium, yielded the right to decide and act for themselves, and agreed to submit to the regulations of Synod in the points enumerated; that it was not an infringement of the rights of a congregation to make this a condition of synodical membership. (L. u. W. 1901, 305.) In 1915 the Augustana Synod adopted a resolution recommending a change in the constitution of the General Council in order to make the body "both in principle and practise a deliberative and advisory body only."

117. Conforming to Decisions a Moral Obligation.—In 1866 Dr. Krauth, defending the polity of the General Council, wrote in the Lutheran and Missionary: "We entirely agree with our friend in the Lutheraner that the strength of the Church does not depend upon a 'strong government,' but on the unity of faith, doctrine, and confession. But 'strong' and 'weak' are relative terms. We want a real government; something which shall hold in a genuine outward bond, however mild, the true confessors of our Church's faith, and enable them to work in harmony, and if we understand the principles which control the government of the Synod of Missouri, we are sure that we desire nothing stronger nor better in the government of our whole Church in this country than these principles would give us. We only ask a church government which shall bind us by the gentle laws of love and peace, which shall take offenses out of the way, which shall be an aid in causing all things to be done decently and in order in the Church—which shall be a safeguard to conscience, and shall not lay, nor attempt to lay, burdens on it. The decisions of a synod which shall be such a government representatively will indeed be merely human, as the decisions of all earthly governments are merely human—nay, often manifestly wrong; nevertheless, we hold that the generic governmental principles and the right of representation are as really of God in the Church as in the State. The obligation to conform to the decisions of such a [representative] synod is the obligation of peace, love, and order; and where violation of them (except on the ground of conscience) creates scandal and offense, there is a moral obligation to conform to them." (Spaeth, 2, 172 f.) However, the constitution of the General Council does not contain the limitation: "where violation creates scandal and offense"; and Missouri holds that a congregation may ignore a resolution of synod, not only on the ground of conscience, but also whenever it finds a resolution unsuitable for her conditions.