Katie’s Beer

The Reverend Professor Norman A. Madson

Excerpt from his address to the 75th Anniversary of the Synodical Conference held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 10, 1948

Fellow redeemed, grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Though it be not the same text with which the beloved Walther greeted our sainted fathers when our Synodical Conference first convened in this very city three-score and sixteen years ago, we have no other aim nor holier desire than had that fearless confessor of the faith, when he is his ex corde prayer pleaded with the Father: “Forsake us not, but grant us now and evermore, as oft as we foregather, Thy gracious presence, and sustain us, for without Thee we can do nothing but err, sin and destroy Thy work.”
Well might we have chosen the selfsame text: “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and then that hear thee, 1 Timothy 4:16, stressing, as he did, the fact that “the holy apostle does not say: “Take heed unto the chief doctrines,’ but: “Take heed unto the doctrine,’ - everything which is taught in God’s word.” But while the text be different, the tenor of our anniversary address will be the same. In fact, were we not to stress the absolute need of purity of doctrine, all doctrines, and the unequivocal acceptance of the same within our brotherhood, our very existence as a Synodical Conference would no longer be justified. For our founding fathers made that clear, from the very day of its inception, that the Conference desired to retain unsullied and inviolate as its highest good and most precious pearl, doctrine pure, as found in God’s verbally inspired word and our treasured Confessions based thereon. And they pledged one another their sacred word of honor that they would fight shoulder to shoulder in contending for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints, be their enemy “Rationalism, Unionism, Indifferentism, or Sentimentalism.”

This will involve us in stark realism, to be sure. But there is no higher realism that of our Christian religion. It must ever be frank as it is fearless. It has little room for diplomatic double-talk as it s Founder had patience with the hypocritical church leaders of His day. And we would most certainly violate a rule of all true Lutheran preaching, were we to address you as though nothing had happened during these three quarters of a century to disturb our sacred alliance.

Read on at Be Strong in the Grace

Tags: Religion, Lutheran //