American Lutheranism, page 179 by Friedrich Bente
<< Return to Title Details & Download180
on and elsewhere on Baptism, the Eucharist, Election, Conversion, and the certainty of the state of grace, as well as on union with all religious parties, to pass unreproved.--Stating the causes of the deplorable schism, David Henkel wrote in 1827: "A most unhappy difference exists between this body and the North Carolina Synod. Previous to the year 1820 some members of the former and some of the latter constituted one Synod. In this year the North Carolina Synod entered into the connection of a General Synod with some other synods. This is a connection and institution which heretofore did not exist in the Lutheran community, and to which the Tennessee Synod object as an institution calculated to subvert ecclesiastical liberty, and to prepare the way for innovations. This, together with the difference in regard to some of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion, are the principal reasons of the division." (R. 1827, 32.) In brief, the organization of the Tennessee Synod was a solemn protest against synodical tyranny and anticonfessional teaching then prevailing in the North Carolina Synod and in all other Lutheran bodies in America. Accordingly, as compared with her contemporaries, it remains the peculiar glory of the Tennessee Synod that she was born of Lutheran loyalty.
90. Back to Luther! Back to the Lutheran Symbols!--Such, in substance and effect, was the slogan sounded by the Tennessee Synod, for the first time in the history of the Lutheran Church in America, after long years of confessional disloyalty and of doctrinal and practical deterioration. By dint of earnest and conscientious study of the Lutheran Symbols and of Luther's writings, the Tennessee pastors, in particular the Henkels, had attained to a clear knowledge of Lutheran truth and practise, thereby, at the same time, becoming fully convinced that of all teachings in Christendom the Lutheran doctrine alone is in full accord with Holy Writ. March 13, 1823, Solomon Henkel wrote: "A week ago Mr. York was here, bringing wi