American Lutheranism, Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General Council, United Synod in the South)Bente, F. (Friedrich)
History
American Lutheranism, Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General Council, United Synod in the South)
Bente, F. (Friedrich)
Lutheran Church -- United States -- History; United Lutheran Church in America -- History
79. Dr. James Allen Brown.--Brown, born 1821, was licensed in 1845 by the
Maryland Synod; served as pastor in various congregations; as professor
of theology in Newberry College, S.C., from 1859 to 1860; as chaplain in
the U.S. Army; as professor of Systematic Theology at Gettysburg from
1864 to 1879; as editor of the _Lutheran Quarterly_ from 1871; insane
since 1880, he died June 19, 1882. During the Platform controversy Brown
was a zealous opponent of Schmucker and regarded as a conservative. In
the _Evangelical Review_ he charged Schmucker with teaching false
doctrines concerning regeneration, justification, and inherited sin.
Articles against Brown appeared in the _Observer_ and in the _Evangelical
Review_. (_L. u. W._ 1858, 65.) Though an opponent of Schmucker, Brown
shared practically all of his peculiarly Reformed and unionistic views.
"To separate her from the great multitude of God's sacramental host,
degrades the Lutheran Church, the Mother Church of the Reformation,"
Brown declared in his pamphlet against the assailants of the General
Synod. (22.) And when asked, in 1868, in the lawsuit of Hebron
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leechburg: "Do you believe as Professor
of Didactic Theology at the Seminary of the General Synod that the
doctrines of the Augsburg Confession agree with Holy Scripture?" Brown
answered under oath, "I hold the Augsburg Confession to be a correct
exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the divine Word." Asked
again, "Do you believe as such Professor that the Augsburg Confession
teaches some things which are not in harmony with the Bible?" he
answered, "In certain points there are, according to what appears to be
its true and original sense, some things taught in the Augsburg
Confession which I do not consider as taught in the Bible or in
agreement therewith." Requested to enumerate fundamental doctrines of
the Word of God found in the Augsburg Confession to which the
constitution of the General Synod referred, he mentioned seven of the
twenty-one articles as fundamental, one as not fundamental, and all the
others as containing doctrines of fundamental character, but not
fundamental in their exact expression. In his pamphlet, "The General
Synod and Her Assailants," Brown wrote: The Lutheran Church has its
confessions, liturgies, etc., "but she enforces none of them upon her
members in the form of rigorous and compulsatory law; ... it does not
lie in the genius of our Church to enforce her utterances, in all their
details, as if they were indispensable, either to Christianity or
herself." (12.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account