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libraries
The Doctrines
of the Churches of Christendom
and of Other Bodies
Religious
Examined in the Light
of
Scripture
By
TH. ENGELDER
U
W. ARNDT TH. GRAEBNER
MAYER
F. E.
ST.Louis, Mo.
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE
1934
PRINTEDINU. S. A.
c\0
Copyright 1934
by
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE
St. Louis, Mo.
LIBRARIES
FOREWORD.
The present volume is intended to serve as a guide to the study
of the distinctive doctrines of the various religious bodies and move-
ments represented in ISTorth America.
In order to fulfil its purpose, both in the classroom and as a work
of reference, a text-book of Comparative Symbolics must satisfy three
major requirements: It must be comprehensive and complete; it
must be up to date in its discussion of church-bodies and of the tenets
held by them; and it must be objectively correct in its presentation
of facts and in its interpretation of creedal statements. Accordingly,
the authors of this Popular Symbolics have endeavored to include
in their program all church-bodies, sects, cults, and movements,
however small in membership or influence, represented in the United
States and Canada to-day; they have permitted these various de-
nominations to speak for themselves by quotation from their official
literature and standard theologians; and they have striven to keep
their judgment unbiased when interpreting the relation of these
many divergent religious views to the teachings of Scripture. They
have regarded these principles to be paramount if they were to deal
fairly with the student, pastor, and layman who asks: What is dis-
tinctive or characteristic of this church-body? What does it teach?
What is the relation of its doctrine to the teaching of the Word
of God?
In view of the spirit of indifferentism which prevails in the
religious world to-day, a spirit which, consistently, would make all
the labor spent both in the writing and in the study of this book
a purely intellectual exercise, and not a very profitable one, it is
necessary to elaborate upon the point last mentioned. Our volume
is a Lutheran handbook of Comparative Symbolics. That is to say,
it is not satisfied merely to present the teachings of the various
churches as a matter of historical interest, but finds it imperative to
examine them in the light of Scripture. The spirit of Lutheran
Comparative Symbolics is that of a burning love for the pure doc-
trine and a corresponding burning hatred of all false doctrine. This
;
feature of Lutheran Comparative Symbolics will, we are aware, be
A
counted by many as a serious fault. book presenting this feature
cannot hope to achieve wide popularity: "In modern theology Po-
lemics has been well-nigh abandoned. ... It is not probable that
Polemics will be much cultivated in this generation; for there is
a remarkable lack of enthusiasm for the differences between the re-
ligious bodies among scholars really competent to distinguish them
[HI]
IV FOREWORD.
properly and to maintain them." (Charles A. Briggs, Theological
Symbolics, p. 19 f.) And in our generation, owing to the ever-
increasing dominance of the unionistic spirit, this situation has been
most seriously aggravated. The terms false teaching, heterodoxy,
heresy, false teacher, heretic, errorist, sectarian, are to-day obsoles-
cent. Writers on Symbolics are asked to leave out controversial
matters, to cease "waving the denominational flag." If they dare
to deal with false doctrine as false doctrine and to insist on the sole
legitimacy of the pure doctrine, they are accused of fostering ex-
clusiveness, sectarianism, a bigoted, pharisaic, loveless Christianity.
But in spite of the popular disfavor to be expected Lutheran con-
fessionalism cannot do otherwise than present the pure doctrine as
the one great need of the Church, bring it to the attention of those
who know it not, and combat false doctrine wherever it appears.
Even the liberal Briggs declared: "There is, however, room for
Polemics if it be carried on upon the basis of the Symbols themselves,
and especially after a comparative study of them" (1. c.). There is
room for it, and there is need of it. Comparative Symbolics of the
Lutheran kind is needed as long as there are men without and within
the Church who are not fully acquainted with the pure doctrine of
Scripture and as long as any Christian is in danger of being deceived
by false teaching. And Scripture enjoins the study of that kind
of Comparative Symbolics on all Christians. "Be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope
that is in you, with meekness and fear," 1 Pet. 3, 15. "Believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many
false prophets are gone out into the world," 1 John 4, 1. The pastor
is asked "by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gain-
sayers," Titus 1, 9. The faithful pastor applies Scripture for doctrine
and for reproof, 2 Tim. 3, 16. In order to shepherd "the church of
God, which He hath purchased with His own blood," Acts 20, 28,
he must both lead his flock into green pastures and guard it against
the "grievous wolves," Acts 20, 29. And not only the pastors, but
also the laymen are required to "try the spirits," "earnestly to con-
tend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints," Jude 3.
Scripture requires it, and the Lutheran Church requires it.
The Lutheran Church thus speaks to her pastors: "Moreover, since
for the preservation of pure doctrine and for thorough, permanent,
godly unity in the Church it is necessary, not only that the pure,
wholesome doctrine be rightly presented, but also that the opponents
who teach otherwise be reproved, 1 Tim. 3 (2 Tim. 3, 16) ; Titus
1, 9, for faithful shepherds, as Luther says, should do both, namely,
feed or nourish the lambs and resist the wolves, so that the sheep
V
FOREWORD.
may flee from strange voices, John 10, 12, . . ." (F. C., Th. D.,
Comp. Sum., 14).* The Lutheran Church wants books on Com-
parative Symbolics placed into the hands of the laymen also: "These
highly important matters concern also the common people and lay-
men [as they are called], who, inasmuch as they are Christians,
must for their salvation distinguish between pure and false doctrine"
(1. c., 8). Men who subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions say:
"These and like articles, one and all, with what pertains to them and
follows from them, we reject and condemn as wrong, false, heretical,
and contrary to the Word of God, the three Creeds, the Augsburg
Confession and Apology, the Smalcald Articles, and the Catechisms
of Luther. Of these articles all godly Christians should and ought
to beware as much as the welfare and salvation of their souls is clear
to them." (F. C., concluding paragraphs.)
Comparative Symbolics of the Scriptural, uncompromising kind
cannot but perpetuate the terms false teaching, heretic, sect. It does
not aim to perpetuate the disunion in the Church. It aims to bring
about a real union, a union in the truth; and that can be effected
only by rejecting, banning, and interdicting that which causes the
disunion false doctrine. Comparative Symbolics of the Scrip-
tural kind is therefore outspokenly and vehemently antiunionistic.
In no other way can the true spiritual interest of the Church be
served. Klotsche has well expressed it thus: "This consensus de
doctrina evangelii means not merely agreement in general or agree-
ment in so-called fundamentals only, but agreement in all articles
of revealed truth. Wherever a clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures
is denied or repudiated there can be no true union, because there is
no unity of the faith. 'We are anxious to advance that unity ac-
cording to our utmost power by which nothing of the divine truth
of the Holy Gospel is surrendered' and 'no room is given to the least
error' (F. C., Th. D., XI, 95 f., Trigl., p. 1095). There can be no
compromising with error. Church-fellowship with errorists is sinful
unionism and can never be pleasing to God, for treating errorists as
though they were brethren in the faith is a denial of, or at least in-
difference to, the revealed truth of God. Let each man choose for
himself this day between the errorists and Jesus Christ, who says:
'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,' and again: 'Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are
* "Ein Prediger muss niclit alleinweiden, also dass er die Scliafe unter-
weise, wie sie reclite Christen sollen sein, sondern aucli daneben den Woel-
fen wehren, dass sie die Schafe niclit angreifen und mit falscher Lehre
verfuehren und Trrtum einfuehren; Avie denn der Teufel niclit rulit." Etc.
(Luther, IX, 1100.)
