72. Southern Synods Withdrawing.—One of the arguments advanced against confessionalism was that synods subscribing to all of the Lutheran symbols neither agreed in doctrine, nor succeeded in effecting a union. But did her unionistic principle enable the General Synod to steer clear of dissensions? In 1860 the General Synod embraced two-thirds of the Lutheran Church in America: 864 out of 1,313 pastors, and 164,000 out of 235,000 communicants. But the following decade completely shattered her dream of a Pan-Lutheran union. In 1868 the General Synod reported 590 ministers and 86,198 communicants—hardly one-fourth of the Lutherans then in America. At a convention in Chicago, May 7, 1860, the Swedes and Norwegians severed their connections with the District Synod of Northern Illinois. The rupture was the direct result of the admittance of the Melanchthon Synod in 1859, which the Scandinavians regarded as a fateful victory of the Platform men. In the preambles of their resolution of withdrawal the seceders state: "Whereas we are fully convinced that there is a decided doctrinal difference in our synod; and whereas there in reality already exists a disunion, instead of union, in the synod; and whereas strife and contention tend to destroy confidence, and to weaken our hands and retard our progress; and whereas we are liable at any time, by an accidental majority of votes against our doctrinal position, to have a change forced upon us; and whereas it is our highest duty to maintain and preserve unmutilated our confession of faith, both in our congregations and in the theological instruction imparted to, and the influence brought to bear upon, our students, who are to be the future ministers and pastors of our congregations; and whereas our experience clearly demonstrates to us that we cannot be sure of this, in the relations we have heretofore sustained." (Jacobs, 449.) The Scandinavians were followed by the Synods of the South. At Lancaster, May, 1862, the General Synod passed and, by a committee, presented to President Lincoln resolutions respecting the Rebellion. Among them were the following: "Resolved, That it is the deliberate judgment of this Synod that the rebellion against the constitutional Government of this land is most wicked in its inception, unjustifiable in its cause, unnatural in its character, inhuman in its prosecution, oppressive in its aims, and destructive in its results to the highest interests of morality and religion." "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with all loyal citizens and Christian patriots in the rebellious portions of our country, and we cordially invite their cooperation, in offering united supplications at a Throne of Grace, that God would restore peace to our distracted country, reestablish fraternal relations between all the States, and make our land, in all time to come, the asylum of the oppressed and the permanent abode of liberty and religion." (30.) Two further resolutions were added with special reference to the Southern Lutherans: "Resolved, That this Synod cannot but express its most decided disapprobation of the course of these synods and ministers, heretofore connected with this body, in the open sympathy and active cooperation which they have given to the cause of treason and insurrection." "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with our people in the Southern States, who, maintaining their proper Christian loyalty, have in consequence been compelled to suffer persecution and wrong, and we hail with pleasure the near approach of their deliverance and restoration to our Christian and ecclesiastical fellowship." (31.) As these resolutions practically amounted to an expulsion, the five Southern synods felt justified in withdrawing and organizing, at Concord, N.C., May 20, 1863, "The General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Confederate States of America." In 1869 the General Synod appointed a committee to correspond with the Southern synods on the propriety of returning to their former connection. (64.) And in 1877 Synod declared: "The action of former General Synods was not intended to compromise the Christian character of the ministers and churches of the General Synod South, and is not so interpreted by us; and if there be anything found therein that can rightfully be so construed (i.e., as compromising the Christian character of said ministers and churches), we hereby place upon record our belief that such is not the sentiment of this body." (27.) The result was mutual acknowledgment and an exchange of fraternal delegates.
73. The Fort Wayne Rupture.—The last and, by far, severest blow, the separation of the synods which afterwards organized as the General Council, came as an aftermath of the admission of the Franckean Synod and the consequent withdrawal of the Pennsylvania delegation, in 1864, which the General Synod construed as the act of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. However, since the Ministerium, reassured by the adoption of the York Amendment and Resolution, had already resolved to maintain its connection and to send a delegation to the next convention of the General Synod, the Fort Wayne schism could have been averted. And probably the break would have been avoided if the hasty establishment of the Philadelphia Seminary (as such, an act altogether justified, especially in the interest of the growing German element) had not caused suspicion and chagrin within the General Synod. As it was, the resolution of the Pennsylvania Synod, May 25, 1864, at Pottstown, to establish a new seminary at Philadelphia, and the subsequent election, on July 27, of Drs. C.F. Schaeffer of Gettysburg, W.J. Mann, and C.P. Krauth as the first faculty, was generally viewed as the first actual step toward a breach. According to Dr. Jacobs both the establishment of the Philadelphia Seminary and the subsequent disruption of the General Synod would probably have been avoided, "if the chair at Gettysburg, vacated by the resignation of Dr. S.S. Schmucker, had been filled by his [Charles Porterfield Krauth's instead of J.A. Brown's] election." (462.) Howbeit, at its convention in Fort Wayne, May, 1866, President S. Sprecher ruled that Synod could recognize the Pennsylvania delegation only after receiving the report of an act on the part of the Pennsylvania Synod reestablishing its relation to the General Synod. In spite of vigorous protests on the part of the Pennsylvania and other delegates, the chair in its ruling was supported by the majority of the convention. After a good deal of parliamentary fencing and quibbling, Synod adopted, with a vote of 77 to 32, as the "ultimate resolution": "Resolved, That after hearing the response of the delegates of the Pennsylvania Synod, we cannot conscientiously recede from the action adopted by this body, believing, after full and careful deliberation, said action to have been regular and constitutional; but that we reaffirm our readiness to receive the delegates of said Synod as soon as they present their credentials in due form." (Proceedings 1866, 3. 5. 9. 12. 25 ff.) Of the alternatives, either practically applying for readmission or withdrawing from the convention, the Pennsylvania delegation chose the latter course. At the same time they stated "that in retiring, as they now do, they distinctly declare that this their act in no sense or degree affects the relations of the Pennsylvania Synod to the General Synod." (28.) President A.J. Brown replied in behalf of the General Synod: "This body has not decided at any time that the Pennsylvania Synod was out of the General Synod. But having by its delegation openly withdrawn from the sessions of the General Synod, at York, Pa., the former President [Sprecher] ruled that the practical relation of the Synod of Pennsylvania to the General Synod was such that no report could be heard from that Synod until the General Synod was organized…. The General Synod hereby extend to the delegation from the Synod of Pennsylvania the assurance of its kindest regard." (28.) "The die was cast," says E.J. Wolf. "The prospect of a general Evangelical Lutheran organization in this country was dispelled." (369.) A few weeks afterward the Ministerium of Pennsylvania declared its connection with the General Synod dissolved. The New York Ministerium, the Pittsburgh Synod, the English Synod of Ohio, and the synods of Illinois, Minnesota, and Texas followed suit. In 1873 the General Synod, on motion of Dr. Morris, proposed an interchange of delegates to the General Council. The Council proposed, instead, a colloquium—a proposition which was accepted by the General Synod South, but declined by the General Synod in 1875. The Lutheran Diets held in 1877 and 1878 at Philadelphia, though temporarily barren of results, helped to pave the way for the General Synod's revision of its doctrinal basis and the subsequent establishment of fraternal relations and interchange of delegates between the two general bodies.
74. Subsequent Separations.—Within the seceding synods the Fort Wayne rupture also led to various internal separations. A number of English pastors and congregations, in 1867, severed their connection with the New York Ministerium (leaving it an almost exclusively German body) and formed the New York Synod which, in turn, joined the General Synod. In the same year ten ministers and seven laymen withdrew from the Pittsburgh Synod, on the ground that, in adopting the Principles of the General Council, Synod had violated its constitution. The receding party claimed the name of the Synod, and as such was recognized by the General Synod. A minority of the Illinois Synod organized the Central Illinois Synod, which also united with the General Synod. The Pennsylvania Ministerium, too, lost some of its pastors and congregations, which united with the East Pennsylvania Synod, a member of the General Synod. The Central Pennsylvania Synod received a few Pennsylvania Ministerium congregations. On the other hand, pastors and congregations in Philadelphia and the neighborhood, hitherto belonging to the East Pennsylvania Synod, united with the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. The English Church at Fort Wayne, in which the battle of 1866 had been fought, entered the Pittsburgh Synod of the General Council. Other congregations in various parts of the country united with other synods of the Council. Some congregations were divided, one portion remaining with the Council, the other entering the General Synod and vice versa, while law suits were carried on by rival claimants for the property. (Ochsenford, Doc. History, 166.)
75. Causes of Disruption.—Though not publicly advanced and pressed at Fort Wayne, the ultimate reason of the separation was the growing confessional trend within the Pennsylvania and New York Ministeriums and other synods over against the confessional and doctrinal laxism of the leaders and the majority of the General Synod. In 1853, when the Pennsylvania Synod reunited with the General Synod, the former body resolved that, "should the General Synod violate its constitution and require of our synod assent to anything conflicting with the old and long-established faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, then our delegates are hereby required to protest against such action, to withdraw from its sessions, and to report to this body." (Minutes of Penn. Synod 1853, 18.) For confessional reasons the entire Pennsylvania delegation in 1859 voted against the admission of the liberal Melanchthon Synod which succored the Platform men. After the admission, at York, 1864, of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod in spite of the protest of 28 representatives of various synods, the Pennsylvania delegation, referring to the resolution of 1853, submitted a paper in which they declared that, since the terms upon which the Franckean Synod was admitted were in direct violation of the constitution of the General Synod, they would withdraw in order to report to their synod. (Proceedings 1864, 25.) In the same year the Pennsylvania Synod approved of the action of their delegates. In 1865 she resolved, "That, in our judgment, all the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession do set forth fundamental doctrines of Holy Scripture." At the same time she reaffirmed her resolution of 1853, but, being reassured by the adoption of the York Amendment and Resolution, decided to maintain her connection and wend a delegation to the convention of the General Synod at Fort Wayne. Accordingly, at Fort Wayne, the Pennsylvania delegates advanced no further scruples respecting the admittance of the Franckean Synod, and declared themselves satisfied with the doctrinal basis of the General Synod. In his pamphlet "The General Synod and Her Assailants," J.A. Brown says: "At Fort Wayne and on the floor of the General Synod it was repeated, again and again, that there were no doctrinal difficulties between the Synod of Pennsylvania and the General Synod, that all were now satisfied with the doctrinal position of the General Synod. It was declared to be entirely a question of order." (11.) Yet back of the diplomatic technicalities and parliamentary fencing were the conflicting principles of governmental centralization versus independence of the District Synods, and especially of liberalism versus confessionalism. And although the subsequent separation did not proceed on purely confessional and doctrinal lines, the bulk of the conservatives, including practically all truly Lutheran conservatives, went with the seceders, while the great majority of the liberals remained in the General Synod. (L. u. W. 1868, 95.) In its issue of January 30, 1868, the American Lutheran commented: "Now that the symbolistic element has been eliminated from the General Synod, for which we may thank God, we are enabled to speak and write our peculiarly American Lutheran thoughts without having to fear that we offend those who never were in agreement with us. Our unfortunate York Compromise with our symbolistic brethren failed, like all compromises." (L. U. W. 1868, 95.)
INFLUENTIAL THEOLOGIANS.
76. Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker.—That the actual doctrinal position of the General Synod, especially during the first half of its history, was much lower than its official confessional formulas would lead one to believe, appears from a glance at some of the most prominent men of this period. S.S. Schmucker (1799-1873), the author of 44 books and pamphlets, and perhaps the most influential man of the General Synod, was not merely a unionistic, but a pronounced Reformed theologian, rejecting and denouncing all doctrines distinctive of Lutheranism, as shown in the preceding pages of this history. He was a scholar of Helmuth, and finished his theological studies at Princeton, 1818-1820. From 1820 to 1826 he was active in pastoral work at New Market, Va.; and from 1826 to 1864 he filled the chair of Didactic Theology at Gettysburg, training about 400 men. After his resignation in 1864 till the end of his life, in 1873, he devoted himself to authorship. His first larger publication was a translation of Storr and Flatt's Biblical Theology. His Popular Theology appeared 1834 and passed through eight editions. Schmucker also was the author of most of the General Synod's organic documents, as the constitution and the formula of government and discipline for its synods and churches, the constitution of the theological seminary, etc. In London, 1846, at the organization of the Evangelical Alliance by Dr. Chalmers, Schmucker, because of his "Appeal" written in 1831, was lauded by Dr. King of Ireland as the "Father" of the Evangelical Alliance. The nine articles adopted by the Alliance were regarded by Schmucker as a sufficient basis for a union of Evangelical Christendom. They formed the standard according to which he revised the Augsburg Confession in the Definite Platform of 1855, which "alienated from him many former friends and clouded the evening of his days." (Luth. Cycl., 433.) According to the Memorial of the convention of the General Synod in 1875, Schmucker is to be remembered as "the first professor of theology in the Theological Seminary of the General Synod, a chair filled by him with distinguished ability for nearly forty years; a man most successful in the work of organization, whose wisdom, energy, and devotion to the Church contributed most largely to the development of the General Synod, to the founding of her literary and theological institutions, and the organization of her benevolent societies." (41.)
77. Dr. Benjamin Kurtz.—Shoulder to shoulder with Schmucker stood B. Kurtz (1795-1865). He studied theology under G. Lochman; was assistant pastor to his uncle, J. Daniel Kurtz, at Baltimore in 1815; pastor at Hagerstown, Md., from 1815 to 1831; at Chambersburg, Pa., from 1831 to 1833; editor of the Lutheran Observer from 1833 to 1861. His book Why You Are a Lutheran had a wide circulation. In 1841, at Baltimore, Kurtz was appointed by the General Synod to write a "judiciously written life of Luther," which, however, though later committed to Reynolds, never appeared. In most enthusiastic manner Kurtz pleaded the cause of the General Synod, not only in America, but also in Europe, where he succeeded in collecting $12,000 for the Gettysburg Seminary. (Proceedings 1827, 29.) In the Observer of July 3, 1857, Kurtz made the following confession: Originally he, too, had endeavored to teach "on the benefit of the Sacrament" in complete accordance with the symbolical books; later, when such was no longer possible to him, he had explained his own faith into the Catechism; this becoming a burden to his conscience, he had been on the point of joining the Presbyterians or Methodists; his older colleagues, however, had held him back from taking this step; they had advised him not to be troubled about such matters, as the Lutheran Church was far too liberal mid generous to insist on agreement with the symbols on minor matters, and that without compunction they themselves deviated in various points from the Confessions farther than he did, it being sufficient to adhere to the great fundamental doctrines; this advice had suddenly given comfort to his heart and made the Lutheran Church dearer to him than before; and ever since he had boldly told his catechumens that he did not believe what the Catechism teaches of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, etc. Thus Kurtz's Lutheranism, like that of Schmucker's, deteriorated as the years rolled on. Kurtz was a fiery advocate of "new measures," revivals, protracted meetings, Sabbath- and temperance-reform, etc., and an ardent champion of "American Lutheranism" and the Definite Platform. He violently opposed every effort at Lutheranizing and confessionalizing the General Synod. Through the Lutheran Observer he wielded a tremendous influence, weekly filling it with ferocious attacks on the Lutheran symbols and the "symbolists" who opposed the Reformed theology of Schmucker and his compeers, and ridiculing in the coarsest fashion everything distinctive of true and historic Lutheranism. In its issue of November 23, 1849, Kurtz wrote, revealing the spirit that moved him: "The Fathers—who are the 'Fathers'? They are the children; they lived in the infancy of the Church, in the early dawn of the Gospel-day. John was the greatest among the prophets, and yet he that was the least in the kingdom of God, in the Christian Church, was greater than he. He probably knew less, and that little less distinctly, than a Sunday-school child, ten years of age, in the present day. Even the Apostle Peter, after all the personal instruction of Christ, could not expand his views sufficiently to learn that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, and that the Church of Christ was to compass the whole world. A special miracle was wrought to remove his prejudice and convince him of his folly. Every well-instructed Sunday-school child understands this thing, without a miracle, better than Peter did. Who, then, are the 'Fathers'? They have become the Children; they were the Fathers compared with those who lived in the infancy of the Jewish dispensation; but, compared with the present and advanced age, they are the Children, and the learned and pious of the nineteenth century are the Fathers. We are three hundred years older than Luther and his noble coadjutors, and eighteen hundred years older than the primitives; theirs was the age of infancy and adolescence, and ours that of full-grown, adult manhood. They were the Children; we are the Fathers; the tables are turned." Down to its merger in 1915 with the Lutheran Church Work, the Observer has always borne the stamp of Kurtz's Reformed and Methodistic theology, as well as of his fanatical and Puritanic spirit. In 1858 Kurtz founded The Mission Institute, which was declared to be non-sectarian. (L. u. W. 1858, 351.) In 1862 he wrote: "With the editor of the Lutheran I am an admirer of the Augsburg Confession, but he must allow me to interpret it for myself, as I allow him." (L. u. W. 1862, 152.) Kurtz and the Observer were never censured by the General Synod. Moreover, in 1866, at Fort Wayne, Synod resolved, in memory of B. Kurtz, "that by this afflicting dispensation the Lutheran Church has lost one of her oldest, most faithful, and successful ministers; the General Synod, one of her earliest, ablest, and most constant defenders; and the cause of Protestantism and Evangelical piety in our country, one of its most enlightened and fearless advocates." (37.)
78. Dr. Samuel Sprecher (1810-1905) was the brother-in-law and most devoted and enthusiastic supporter of Schmucker. From 1849 to 1884 he was president of Wittenberg College in Springfield, O., which was most advanced in the advocacy and development of Schmucker's brand of American Lutheranism. Again and again Sprecher urged the necessity of making a bold and honest statement setting forth the exact tenets of American Lutheranism. "I do not see," he said, "how we can do otherwise than adopt the symbols of the Church, or form a new symbol, which shall embrace all that is fundamental to Christianity in them, rejecting what is un-scriptural, and supplying what is defective." (Spaeth, 1, 347.) Determined in his blind opposition to "symbolism," Sprecher insisted that the General Synod refuse admission to such as adhered to the Lutheran symbols and their doctrines, and declined to subscribe to the Platform. In 1858 the Religious Telescope said in praise of Sprecher: "He is a Bible-Lutheran and does not cram the heads of his students with baptismal regeneration nonsense and similar semipapal imbecilities." (Observer, Feb. 25, 1858; L. u. W. 1858, 126.) Toward the end of his life Sprecher receded from his former position. In the Lutheran Evangelist, January 15, 1892, he wrote: "I can now say, as I could not formerly, that, like Spener, I can for myself accept the symbols of the Church without reserve…. It is true that I did once think 'The Definite Synodical Platform' (that modification of Lutheranism which perhaps has been properly called 'the culmination of Melanchthonianism') desirable and practicable, and that I now regard all such modifications of our creed as hopeless. In the mean time an increased knowledge of the spirit, methods, and literature of the Missouri Synod has convinced me that such alterations are undesirable, that the elements of true Pietism, that a sense of the necessity of personal religion, and the importance of personal assurance of salvation, can be maintained in connection with a Lutheranism modified 'by the Puritan element.'" (Jacobs, 369; Neve, 113.) In 1906 the Observer remarked: "It was Sprecher's fear that true evangelical piety and the certainty of faith could not be maintained so well under a strict orthodoxy that made him hesitate to embrace all of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church in his system of faith…. This was one of the effects upon him of the New England theology with which he came in contact largely in his early life." (L. u. W. 1906, 277.) But even after his manly retraction Sprecher was not completely cured of the virus of Reformed subjectivism. Sprecher was among the first who, within the General Synod, declared that "inspiration does not make a book free of … grammatical errors, rhetorical faults, and historical inaccuracies in minor and secondary matters." (L. u. W. 1871, 126.)
79. Dr. James Allen Brown.—Brown, born 1821, was licensed in 1845 by the Maryland Synod; served as pastor in various congregations; as professor of theology in Newberry College, S.C., from 1859 to 1860; as chaplain in the U.S. Army; as professor of Systematic Theology at Gettysburg from 1864 to 1879; as editor of the Lutheran Quarterly from 1871; insane since 1880, he died June 19, 1882. During the Platform controversy Brown was a zealous opponent of Schmucker and regarded as a conservative. In the Evangelical Review he charged Schmucker with teaching false doctrines concerning regeneration, justification, and inherited sin. Articles against Brown appeared in the Observer and in the Evangelical Review. (L. u. W. 1858, 65.) Though an opponent of Schmucker, Brown shared practically all of his peculiarly Reformed and unionistic views. "To separate her from the great multitude of God's sacramental host, degrades the Lutheran Church, the Mother Church of the Reformation," Brown declared in his pamphlet against the assailants of the General Synod. (22.) And when asked, in 1868, in the lawsuit of Hebron Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leechburg: "Do you believe as Professor of Didactic Theology at the Seminary of the General Synod that the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession agree with Holy Scripture?" Brown answered under oath, "I hold the Augsburg Confession to be a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word." Asked again, "Do you believe as such Professor that the Augsburg Confession teaches some things which are not in harmony with the Bible?" he answered, "In certain points there are, according to what appears to be its true and original sense, some things taught in the Augsburg Confession which I do not consider as taught in the Bible or in agreement therewith." Requested to enumerate fundamental doctrines of the Word of God found in the Augsburg Confession to which the constitution of the General Synod referred, he mentioned seven of the twenty-one articles as fundamental, one as not fundamental, and all the others as containing doctrines of fundamental character, but not fundamental in their exact expression. In his pamphlet, "The General Synod and Her Assailants," Brown wrote: The Lutheran Church has its confessions, liturgies, etc., "but she enforces none of them upon her members in the form of rigorous and compulsatory law; … it does not lie in the genius of our Church to enforce her utterances, in all their details, as if they were indispensable, either to Christianity or herself." (12.)
80. Dr. J.G. Butler and the "Lutheran Evangelist."—Dr. Butler, pastor of the Lutheran Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., and editor of the Lutheran Evangelist, was among the most liberal of the General Synod pastors and in every respect a unionistic-Reformed-Methodistic theologian, who rejected every doctrine distinctive of Lutheranism. (L. u. W. 1908, 321.) In 1895 he wrote: "I have become almost entirely indifferent to theological and even to denominational differences of practise and belief." (1895, 251.) In 1899: "The things which separate us [evangelical denominations] are of a speculative nature and have nothing to do with the substance of that faith which saves souls and is the only hope of a lost world." (1899, 124.) At his fiftieth jubilee, in 1899, addresses were delivered by four pastors of the General Synod and seven representatives of other denominations; 250 men "of every creed, denomination, shade of religious faith, and political opinion" were invited to the banquet. (1900, 26.) In 1909 Butler gave the following advice to the Lutheran Church: "Adopt the name American Lutheran, and we may make it one of the stepping-stones toward the union of the entire Church…. The ideal is not uniformity in doctrine and life, but uniformity in love for Christ and the Kingdom." (1909, 228.) In 1909, after the death of Dr. Butler, the Lutheran Evangelist was merged with the Lutheran Observer. The last number of the Evangelist spoke of Butler as "that true prophet of God." And the Lutheran Observer said in praise of the Evangelist: "It has been a power for good in their [its readers'] lives. Of its records they may well be proud. Founded in 1876, its career of thirty-three years has been one of achievement and honor. It has made a solid and enduring contribution to the developing history of the Lutheran Church in this country." (1909, 562.) Dr. Butler served twice as chaplain in the United States Congress.