A Little Bit of Unionism History

S. S. Schmucker backed unionism with the Reformed (Calvinism).
His seminary was Gettysburg (we have been there).
The General Council, about half of the General Synod, broke with the unionists/revivalists and formed the Philadelphia Seminary (I was interviewed there). Together they formed United Lutheran Seminary and called a Presybterian woman as their first president, then fired her.

On the General Synod. I do not know their leaders well but they were unionistic with the Calvinists. The American Platform from S. S. Schmucker was to drop baptismal regeneration and the Real Presence. I imagine they thought that left JBFA a gem, but it all goes together.  S.S. would not talk to his son Benjamin, who became a genuine Lutheran.

 I talked to David Preus for the Michigan Synod, LCA, when he gave a speech saying the ALC was now willing to merge with the LCA. The former executives really regretted that merger, Crumley and Preus especially. He is first cousin of the sainted Jack and Robert Preus brothers. Hence this message from David:
"A short (75 pages) book of mine entitled Two Trajectories was published this year. It was written primarily for Preus descendants and briefly describes immigrant Norwegian-American church life and its legacy as it affected the various Lutheran church bodies and their members. The inability of Jack and his Missouri Synod followers to live peaceably with those of us who are now ELCA gets a critical airing."
They are all one with ELCA now, through UOJ.

Lots of Lutheran-Calvinist union congregations were started in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The LCA broke up a number of them, which shared equity and things like that in some kind of weird merger. But then, in the spirit of David Preus and communion with the Reformed, the LCA and ELCA began forming new "Lutheran"-Reformed congregations.

The original Wisconsin Synod (limited to that state) was unionistic at the core. So was the Michigan Synod which joined with WI to form WELS. That is the short version. In brief, lots of Lutherans were willing to give up the Real Presence, and that is a NO-GO, especially for a guy who saw grape juice and chicklet breads passed along the pews of the Disciples parish in Moline (now closed due to lack of interest). The altar said "Do This in Memory of Me" - the Sacrament is a ritual, symbolic, a memorial meal.

Some Lutherans used slightly different distribution formulas and some were vague. I only heard that once, where an Asian missionary alternated two formulas, one Real Presence and the other rather vague. 

1. There was a long period of deliberate unionism with the Reformed, where the Sacraments were no longer treated as sacraments, plus other idiocies.

2. In recent times, due to David Preus, that started over again with joint communion with many different denominations.

3. The "conservative" Lutherans long for that too and celebrate that by going to Fuller with ELCA and the Church of Rome.

WELS, the Little Sect on the Prairie, and the LCMS are all dedicated to unionism and doubtless more indifferent than S. S. Schmucker himself. In those day, questioning God's Creation would have meant an instant exit from any Lutheran group.

 When I wrote to David Preus about my opposition to communion with the Reformed, something he championed and led, he wrote back, mocking the Real Presence. The good die young.

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 In the late 1980s, Trinity Seminary was coaching its graduates on how the evade "the question" from call committees. This is the resulting lawsuit - which you do not want to read. Trinity is now a part of Cap University, ELCA.

Some distinguished professors and authors who taught at the seminary:

1. R. C. H. Lenski
2. H. C. Leupold
3. Matthias Loy

Herbert Carl Leupold on the Historicity of the Creation account in Genesis:

We are utterly out of sympathy with such an attitude; for it does not conform to the facts of the case. Nothing in the book warrants such an approach. It is rather a straightforward, strictly historical account, rising, indeed, to heights of poetic beauty of expression in the Creation account, in the Flood story, in the record of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, in Judah’s plea before Joseph, and the like. But the writer uses no more of figurative language than any gifted historian might, who merely adorns a strictly literal account with the ordinary run of current figures of speech, grammatical and rhetorical.

Leupold. Exposition of Genesis. 1942. Introduction

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Dr. Herbert Carl Leupold, Columbus, Ohio, was born at Buffalo, N. Y., on July 23, 1891. He received his early education in the Lutheran parochial schools at Buffalo and later finished his elementary and secondary education in the Buffalo public schools. He received his pre-seminary and seminary training at the Martin Luther Theological Seminary at Buffalo, NY., which was discontinued when the Buffalo Synod became a part of the American Lutheran Church. Dr. Leupold graduated from the Martin Luther Seminary on June 24, 1914.

Thereupon he served as pastor of a mission, Ascension Lutheran congregation in Buffalo, and at the same time held an assistant professorship at the Martin Luther Seminary until 1922. He served as professor of historical theology at the Martin Luther Seminary from 1922 to 1929. In 1929, when the Buffalo Synod dosed Martin Luther Seminary, Dr. Leupold was transferred to the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary at Capital University, Columbus, O., where he became professor of Old Testament Theology, in which capacity he is serving at the present time. He was elected secretary of the Theological Seminary faculty in 1941.

Dr. Leupold received the Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Chicago Seminary in 1926 and the Doctor of Divinity degree from Capital University in 1935. Dr. Leupold has gained renown as an Old Testament scholar and an authority on liturgics. He has become a well-known lecturer and writer in these fields.