American Lutheranism, page 200 by Friedrich Bente
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, Bachman, as President of the South Carolina Synod, had voiced, with a squint toward Tennessee, among others, the following sentiments: "We have never boasted of being an exclusive church, whose doctrines are more Scriptural or whose confessors are purer than those of other denominations round about us. . . . We will gladly unite with every friend of the Gospel in producing the downfall of sectarianism, though not the obliteration of sects. Our pulpits have ever been open to the servants of every Christian communion, and we invite to our communion tables the followers of Jesus regardless of what particular denomination they may belong to." Dr. Bachman, in direct contravention to what the Henkels had maintained over against Stork and Shober of the North Carolina Synod, expressed his own indifferentistic and Reformed doctrinal position as follows: "If Baptism is regeneration, why, then, does not every one who has been baptized in infancy walk with God from his Baptism? Why does not every one lead a pious life? Evidently, such is not the case!" "As a matter of fact, for a hundred years the Lutheran Church has abandoned the moot question of the body of Christ, etc., and has left it to the consciences of its members to decide what they must believe according to Holy Writ. This we may do without deviating from the faith of our Church, since at our ordination, especially in this country, we confess nothing more than that the fundamental articles of the divine Word are, in a manner substantially correct, presented in the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession." (Kirchl. Mitt. 1846, 34 f.) In the same year (1838) the Tennessee Synod instructed its secretary to inquire of the president of the Virginia Synod (organized 1829 at Woodstock) why, according to the resolution passed at their last meeting, they do "not recognize the members of the Tennessee Conference as Evangelical Lutheran pastors." (B. 1838 12.) And, when, in 1848, the Western Virginia Synod (Southwest Virginia Synod, organized 1841) requested