From a Reader:
I was perusing the link to Sandt's book
on Schmauk that Pastor Jackson recently provided on the Ichabod blog. Thought it
was worth sharing. Written in 1912, yet a hundred years later the Lutheran
synods insist on grafting a WARRENSTANLEYFULLER shoot. Sad! (as Donald Trump
might tweet)
“If
conservatism has become too fossilized and degenerated, it may be necessary to
graft a more vigorous shoot in the old stock, but it should be a shoot of the
same species, and should look to the bringing forth of its own perfections, and
not to an imitation of the perfections which are found in other species of
spiritual vitality.
The
Lutheran Church will never grow as long as we are looking for our
progressiveness to what others outside of us are doing and are using up our
strength in adopting their devices and in imitating them. We shall never be able
to reproduce their finest fruit or flower, and we shall be depreciating and
failing to give attention to our own.
Let us take the strong elements
and qualities and character of faith and life that inhere in our own Gospel, in
our own confession, and in our own Church; let us plant this seed without doubt.
Let us be assured that it is the richest, the strongest, and the most genuine
Christianity in the world. Let us labor patiently to keep the soil cultivated,
to prune the trees, to keep them free from all parasitic and other destroyers,
and our own inherent vitality will assert itself and bring forth splendid
results.
Progressive conservatism is the application of our own treasures in an
up-to-date way, to the problems of the Kingdom of God and of the life about us.
This application should not be antiquated, but should be vigorous and
enlightened."
Excerpt From: George Washington
Sandt. “Theodore Emanuel Schmauk, D.D., LL. D.” United Lutheran publication
house. iBooks.
