: The Lutherans of New York Their Story and Their Problems by Wenner George Unangst - Lutherans New York (State) New York

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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Apology Introduction Their Story In the Seventeenth Century--1648-1700 In the Eighteenth Century--1701-1750 In the Eighteenth Century--1751-1800 In the Nineteenth Century--1801-1838 In the Nineteenth Century--1839-1865 In the Nineteenth Century--1866-1900 In the Twentieth Century--1900-1918 Their Problems The Problem of Synods The Problem of Language The Problem of Membership The Problem of Religious Education The Problem of Lapsed Lutherans The Problem of Statistics Epilogue Appendix--The Churches; Deaconesses; Former Pastors; Sons of the Churches; Institutions and Societies; Other Associations; Periodicals; Book-stores; Bibliography; Index.

Apology

Lutherans are not foreigners in New York. Most of us it is true are new comers. But with a single exception, that of the Dutch Reformed Church, Lutherans were the first to plant the standard of the cross on Manhattan Island.

The story of our church runs parallel with that of the city. Our problems are bound up with those of New York. Our neighbors ought to be better acquainted with us. We ought to be better acquainted with them. We have common tasks, and it would be well if we knew more of each other's ways and aims.

New York is a cosmopolitan city. It is the gateway through which the nations are sending their children into the new world.

Lutherans are a cosmopolitan church. Our pastors minister to their flocks in fifteen languages. No church has a greater obligation to "seek the peace of the city" than the Lutherans of New York. No church has a deeper interest in the problems that come to us with the growth and ever changing conditions of the metropolis.

In their earlier history our churches had a checkered career. In recent years they have made remarkable progress. In Greater New York we enroll this year 160 churches. The Metropolitan District numbers 260 congregations holding the Lutheran confession. But the extraordinary conditions of a rapidly expanding metropolis, with its nomadic population, together with our special drawback of congregations divided among various races and languages as well as conflicting schools of theological definition, make our tasks heavy and confront us with problems of grave difficulty.

On the background of a historical sketch a study of some of these problems is attempted by the author. After spending what seemed but a span of years in the pastorate on the East Side, he awoke one day to find that half a century had been charged to his account. While it is a distinction, there is no special merit in being the senior pastor of New York. As Edward Judson once said to him: "All that you have had to do was to outlive your contemporaries."

These fifty years have been eventful ones in the history of our church in New York. All of this period the author "has seen and part of it he was." But having also known, with four exceptions all the Lutheran pastors of the preceding fifty years, he has come into an almost personal touch with the events of a century of Lutheran history on this island. He has breathed its spirit and sympathized with its aspirations.

Lutherans have their place in Church History. Our doctrinal principles differ in certain respects from those of other churches. We believe that these principles are an expression of historical, evangelical Christianity, worthy of being promulgated, not in a spirit of arrogant denominationalism, but in a spirit of toleration and catholicity. Yet few in this city, outside of our own kith and kin, understand the meaning of our system. We have made but little progress in commending it to others or in extending our denominational lines.

While therefore recent progress affords ground for encouragement, it is not a time for boastfulness. It is rather a time for self-examination, for an inquiry into our preparedness for new tasks and impending opportunities.

We are living in an imperial city. What we plan and what we do here in New York projects itself far beyond the walls of our city. Nowhere are the questions of the community more complicated and the needs of the time more urgent than here. We should therefore ask ourselves whether the disjointed sections of our church, arrayed during the Quadricentennial as one, for the purposes of a spectacular celebration, but each exalting some particularism of secondary value, adequately represent the religious ideas which four centuries ago gave a new impulse to the life of the world. If not, where does the trouble lie? Is it a question of doctrine, of language, of organization or of spirit?

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