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

by F. Bente

CONSTITUTION.

17. Features of the Constitution.—The charge of Romanism, made especially by the Tennessee Synod against the General Synod, was not without foundation. The Planentwurf of 1819 provides: "Until, however, the formal permission and consent has been granted by the General Synod, no new established body shall be recognized among us as a ministerium, and no ordination performed by it as valid." This section was omitted in the constitution adopted 1820. The Planentwurf of 1819 furthermore provides: "The General Synod has the exclusive right, with the consent of a majority of the special synods, to introduce new books for general public use of the churches, as well as to make emendations in the liturgy." (Graebner, Geschichte, 1, 691 f.) This section was embodied in the constitution of 1820. According to Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution adopted in 1820, the General Synod reserves for itself the right of approving all such books and writings "as a catechism, form of liturgy, collection of hymns, or confession of faith," proposed for the use of the church. "No synod," the section prescribes, "and no ministerium connected with the General Synod shall therefore publish for public use any new book or writing of the kind mentioned without previously having submitted a complete copy to the General Synod, and heard her opinion, or criticism, or advice in the matter. Whenever the General Synod shall deem it proper, they may propose to the special synods and ministeriums new books or writings of the kind mentioned above for general or special public use. The special synods and ministeriums also shall duly heed a proposal of this kind, and if any one of them should not consider such a proposal appropriate, it is to be hoped that the reasons will be given to the next General Synod, in order that they may be entered in the minutes of the General Synod." (Proceedings, 1829, 51.) In the amended constitution of 1835, Article III, Section 2, eliminating the objectionable features, reads as follows: "Whenever the General Synod shall deem it proper or necessary, they may propose to the special synods or ministeriums new books or writings, such as catechisms, forms of liturgy, collections of hymns for general or special public use in the church. Every proposal of this kind the several or respective synods may duly consider; and if they, or any of them, shall be of opinion that the said book or books, writing or writings, will not conduce in the end proposed, they may reject them, and adopt such liturgical books as they may think proper." (Proceedings, 1839, 48.) The first report to the General Synod on the state of the Gettysburg Seminary begins as follows: "In presenting to the Supreme Judicatory of the Lutheran Church in America an account of the progress of the institution so recently founded," etc. (Proceedings, 1827, 13.) The constitution of 1829, framed and adopted for and recommended to the District Synods, provides for the expulsion and punishment of congregations that refuse to submit to the resolutions of Synod as follows: "If a congregation heretofore connected with a Synod should refuse to obey the resolutions of that Synod or the precepts of this formula [constitution], it shall be excluded from the connection with that synod as long as its disobedience lasts, and without special permission from the president neither any other synod nor a Lutheran pastor or candidate shall serve her." (Proceedings, 1829, 30.)

18. Doctrinal Features.—The Planentwurf states: "The General Synod has no power to make or demand any changes whatever in the doctrines of faith adopted heretofore among us." In the constitution of 1820, Art. III, Sect. 2, this was amended as follows: "But no General Synod shall be allowed . . . to introduce such alterations in matters appertaining to the faith, or to the mode of publishing the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the Son of God and ground of our faith and hope), as might in any way tend to burden the consciences of the brethren in Christ." (1829, 51; 1839, 48.) Interpreted historically, this section was evidently intended to make the General Synod safe, not indeed for loyal Lutheranism, but, on the one hand, for evangelicalism over against Unitarianism and, on the other hand, for confessional indifferentism and doctrinal freedom with respect to the distinctive doctrines of the Evangelical denominations. A. Spaeth remarks: "The Radicals, or New-measure men, who in their generation had not heard the Gospel preached and the faith of the Church taught according to the pure Confession of Augsburg, might look upon any attempt to go back to that Confession and to stand by it as an 'alteration, and tending to burden their consciences.'" (1, 334.) It was to serve the same indifferentistic purpose when Article III, Section 5, declares: "The General Synod may give advice or opinion when complaints shall be brought before them by whole synods, or congregations, or individual ministers concerning doctrine or discipline. The General Synod shall, however, be extremely careful that the consciences of the ministers be not burdened with human laws, and that no one be oppressed by reason of differences of opinion on non-fundamental doctrines." (1829, 52; 1839, 49.) The original reading of this section, as adopted 1820, omits the clause "on non-fundamental doctrines" found in the constitution published in the minutes of 1829, thus granting absolute doctrinal freedom. (Graebner, 708.) For the words "human laws" the amended constitution of 1835 substitutes "human inventions, laws, or devices." (1839, 49.) Dr. Spaeth: "As the bulk of the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church was classified by the leaders [Schmucker, Kurtz, etc.] with 'human inventions, laws, and devices' or, at the very best, with 'non-fundamental doctrines,' any pastor or professor might feel perfectly safe in throwing overboard the mass of these symbolical books and their contents without fear of having to answer for it." (334.) Article III, Section 8, evidently intended to satisfy the craving for a closer union with the Reformed and other Evangelical bodies, reads as follows: "The General Synod shall . . . be sedulously and incessantly regardful of the circumstances of the times, and of every casual rise and progress of unity of sentiment among Christians in general, in order that the blessed opportunities to promote concord and unity and the interests of the Redeemer's Kingdom may not pass by neglected and unavailing." (1839, 50; 1829, 53.)— According to Article III, Section 2, quoted in the preceding paragraph, the General Synod claimed the right to propose to the special synods not only catechisms, forms of liturgy, and collections of hymns, but also a confession of faith. Appealing to this section, S. S. Schmucker, in 1855, claimed that he was within his constitutional rights in urging the General Synod to substitute the Definite Platform for the Augsburg Confession. Spaeth: "It was, with a good show of justice, claimed by the American Lutheran side in the General Synod that the very constitution of the body entitled it to make a new revision even of the Augsburg Confession!" (335.) It was in keeping with these principles as well as the conditions then prevailing in the Lutheran synods that the constitution adopted at Hagerstown contained no confessional basis whatever, not even a mere reference to the Augsburg Confession. Shober, probably in order to obviate the charges of the Tennessee Synod, made an effort to have a recognition of the Augsburg Confession incorporated in the constitution, but failed. That the omission was intentional is apparent also from the fact that the General Synod maintained its silence in spite of the vigorous protests of the Tennessee Synod and her refusal to join the general body, especially for the reason that neither the Bible nor the Augsburg Confession was mentioned in its Constitution. "With this constitution before him," says Spaeth, "the editor of the Lutheran Observer, Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, in Baltimore, was right in stating the case after this manner (Lutheran Observer, April 16, 1852): 'We admit that the General Synod never formally or by express resolution repudiated or abandoned the doctrinal basis (as laid down in the Augsburg Confession and the Catechism of Luther).' But did it ever either formally or tacitly profess belief in that basis? What necessity is there for a body formally to repudiate or abandon what it never received or adopted? It is a notorious fact that the symbolic basis had been abandoned in the Church, to a very great extent, before the General Synod was called into existence, and at its organisation special pains were taken to guard against all possibility of its future imposition upon the Church. In defining the doctrinal position of the General Synod, the manifest intention was to give to each other, and to establish for posterity, a pledge that the doctrinal basis should never be allowed to interfere with their consciences." (335f.)