180 Years Ago: A Battle Over Pure Doctrine of The Synod of Michigan and Its Heathen Mission
A communication carried in Der Lutheraner of 8 August 1846, recording the protest, the withdrawal, and the reconstitution that produced the church order of the Cass River Mission.
Translation Note · Provenance
Der Lutheraner, Volume II, Number 25, page 99, continued on page 100
This article appeared over the signature “Eingesandt” (Communicated) in Der Lutheraner, the paper edited at Saint Louis by C. F. W. Walther, in the issue dated the eighth of August 1846, ten months before the Synod constituted itself at Chicago. The four signers, having departed the Synod of Michigan over its refusal to bind its missionaries to the symbolical books without reservation, announce their intention to attach themselves to the purely Lutheran synod then forming at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and they print, in lieu of a doctrinal platform, the church order they have already sworn to at the Cass River Mission. This translation is rendered in the English register of W. H. T. Dau, lightly modernized for contemporary readability, with the Latin terms quia and quatenus retained, since the entire dispute turns on them.
Translator: Anthropic Opus 4.7 (High)
Several German settlements lie in the southern part of Michigan, most of them founded by emigrants who were Lutheran by origin. The Reverend Pastor Schmidt at Ann Arbor first served these settlements with Word and Sacrament, and in time he prepared several young men for the service of the Church and joined with them in what they called a Mission Synod. The chief object of this body was the heathen mission among the Indians of Michigan, and its name was the German Lutheran Synod of Michigan.
Hattstaedt, a pupil of the Reverend Pastor Loehe in Franconia in Bavaria, came over upon a call to the Lutheran congregation at Monroe, which Pastor Schmidt of Ann Arbor had earlier served, and he took his place fraternally in the said Synod. He found there an ignorance of Lutheran being together with, to all appearances, a good will. This moved him to direct the Lutheran friends of the old homeland to the said Synod and to its beginning labors among the heathen of Michigan. A correspondence with Franconia followed; and on the definite assurance that the mission would be conducted only from the churchly Lutheran standpoint, and that all its missionaries would be obligated to the entire body of symbolical books of our Church, the Franconian friends joined the work in common labor in the Spirit. The Lutheran candidates for the ministry, Trautmann and Lochner, were sent to serve those German Lutheran congregations of the synodical district that stood in need of pastoral care. For the heathen mission, a small German Lutheran mission congregation set out from Franconia under their called pastor A. Cramer, that they might station themselves on the Cass River in Saginaw County, Michigan, and, together with the missionaries of the Sebewaing station whom Ann Arbor had sent out, prosecute the mission among the heathen. The Franconian Lutherans likewise forwarded considerable sums for the support of this work.
Meanwhile, a pupil of the Basel Mission Institute, the Reverend Mr. Dumkler, had arrived for the Sebewaing station. He had indeed been ordained in the old homeland, but he had not been obligated to the Symbols of our Church, and he afterward declared, moreover, that an unreserved obligation to our symbolical books would be for him a coercion of conscience. It also came to light that the so-called Lutheran Synod of Michigan had openly served mixed congregations, as such, with Word and Sacrament. The Pastors Hattstaedt, Cramer, Trautmann, and Lochner at once lodged a unanimous protest against these abuses, pressing for the exclusion of the un-Lutheran missionary Dumkler and for the public purgation of the Synod from the charge of having served mixed congregations as such.
At the synodical assembly held this past June, however, the very first motion, the exclusion of Dumkler, came to nothing, since he steadfastly persisted in his refusal to be obligated without reservation to the Symbols of our Church. Accordingly, the Pastors Hattstaedt, Cramer, Trautmann, and Lochner felt bound in conscience not only to leave the Synod of Michigan and to enter their protest against the omitted purgation, but also to lay the grounds of their withdrawal, in writing, before the synodical president, exactly as they are printed below. The withdrawing brethren will immediately attach themselves to the purely Lutheran synod now forming at Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Mission on the Cass River, for its part, will be prosecuted all the more conscientiously from the churchly Lutheran standpoint, since the church order of the German Lutheran mission congregation on the Cass River, which pastor and congregation have already subscribed in lieu of an oath, lays down the following conditions with respect to purity of doctrine.
Church Order of the Cass River Mission Congregation
Chapter I
§ 1. We confess ourselves to all the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church: to the Augsburg Confession, to its Apology, to the two Catechisms of Luther, to the Smalcald Articles, and to the Formula of Concord, or, in short, to the Lutheran Book of Concord of 1580, as it first came to light at Dresden. By the same act, we confess ourselves to the Lutheran Church herself. To her we belong, with our children, our church and our school, our pastors and our schoolteachers, without reservation.
§ 2. Our preachers and schoolteachers shall be sworn to the entire content of the Lutheran Concordia of 1580, not merely quatenus (insofar as it agrees with the Word of God), but quia (because it agrees with the Word of God); not merely out of pliability and obedience, but out of their own innermost conviction. This requirement is to be taken up into the ordination oath.
Chapter II
§ 22. If the man elected upon a vacancy is already an ordained minister, the synodical president or his deputy shall present him to the congregation and entrust office and authority to him. In every case the man elected shall, even then, publicly and on oath bear witness to his loyalty to the Concordia.
In this pure and churchly consciousness the Mission on the Cass River calls all the more confidently upon all Lutheran brethren in the faith throughout North America to active participation and support,* for the Mission has already begun the proclamation of the divine Word among the heathen, in faith and prayer and with zeal. A mission house stands built. Seventy acres of land have been purchased for the Mission. An interpreter has been engaged. The Indian bands at the Cass, the Swan, the Pine, the Cacalian, and the Beile have been visited several times. Eleven heathen children are already under the instruction and care of the Mission, and others, in greater number, are looked for daily. One heathen youth of sixteen years has asked for Holy Baptism after six weeks of religious instruction, and only the want of an interpreter skilled in the language, together with a pressing call journey of Cramer’s, has delayed its administration.
May the Lord bless this his work, and may it serve not only to lift up the honor of his holy Name by the proclamation of his pure Word and the right administration of his unfalsified Sacraments among the heathen of Michigan, but also to quicken and to strengthen the Lutheran congregations and their churchly consciousness.
*Contributions of any amount may be remitted to the treasurer, Rev. W. Hattstaedt, Monroe, Michigan. Receipt of the same will be acknowledged in the Lutheraner.
Declaration of Withdrawal
To the Worshipful President:
We, the undersigned pastors, hereby declare our formal withdrawal from a Worshipful Synod of Michigan, upon the following grounds.
We came hither out of the fatherland to serve the Lutheran Church and her mission, and her alone, and we offered the said Synod our services and our adherence on the definite condition that it should be a purely Lutheran Synod, and that, accordingly, its pastors and missionaries should be obligated without reservation to all the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church, not insofar as, but because they agree with Holy Scripture. The undersigned likewise gave notice, in the instructions they tendered, that they could not serve mixed congregations which constitute themselves as such, and they bore witness against every such ministration.
It nevertheless came to light at once that one of the heathen missionaries the Synod of Michigan had sent out had never been obligated to the symbolical books of our Church at all, and that he afterward declared, repeatedly, his unwillingness to be so obligated without reservation. It has likewise been shown in deed that this Synod has, until now, openly served mixed congregations as such.
For this reason the undersigned felt bound in conscience, in a duly summoned conference, to move the exclusion of the un-Lutheran missionary, the Reverend Mr. Dumkler. On this motion we were referred to the sessions of the present year’s synodical assembly. Moreover, in petitionary letters addressed to the then president of the Synod, we unanimously moved that the Synod purge itself, by public action of the whole body, on account of the un-churchly ministration of mixed congregations as such that had previously occurred.
In the present year’s synodical assembly of the twenty-fourth of June, we formally renewed our first motion in open session, the exclusion of the un-Lutheran missionary, the Reverend Mr. Dumkler. Before our motion could be disposed of, however, the Mission Committee of the Synod of Michigan voted to confirm Mr. Dumkler anew in office and to dispatch him to his post, notwithstanding that he had repeatedly and publicly declared his unwillingness to be obligated, without reservation, to all the Symbols of our Church. Thereupon we, the undersigned pastors, formally declared our withdrawal from the Synod of Michigan. We lay this declaration before the Synod today in writing, signed by our own hands, and we append to it a solemn protestation against the omission of the other point, namely the public purgation on account of the un-churchly ministration of mixed congregations as such.
We depart with heartfelt sorrow over the un-Lutheran standpoint which the Synod, in defiance of every loud testimony we have borne, still maintains. We pray the Lord of the Church to bring the Synod of Michigan soon to see how perilous such a standpoint is, especially under the churchly conditions of this land, and how necessary, for the welfare of our beloved Church of the pure Confession and for the wholesome working of Lutheran synods, are decisiveness and steadfastness in doctrine and practice alike.
Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Michigan, the twenty-fifth of June, 1846, being the day of remembrance of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession.
W. Hattstaedt, Pastor at Monroe, Michigan.
A. Cramer, Pastor of the Mission Congregation at Frankenmuth, Saginaw County, Michigan.
Fr. Lochner, Pastor at Toledo, Ohio.
J. Trautmann, Pastor at Danbury, Ohio.
Source: Der Lutheraner, Jahrgang 2, No. 25, St. Louis, Mo., 8 August 1846, pages 99 to 100, edited by C. F. W. Walther. Translation rendered in the W. H. T. Dau register, lightly modernized for contemporary readability, with the confessional Latin (quia, quatenus) retained. Prepared by Ad Crucem News in connection with the LCMS 2026 Convention series.
WOW, just WOW……
Precedence.