Seminary at Columbia, S.C., admits: "Lutherans in the
South could not remain untouched by the influences that were at work in
other parts of the country. The increasing appreciation of confessional
Lutheranism which in the middle half of the nineteenth century passed
over from Germany into and through this country also gradually permeated
the South. It served to deepen the devotion of the Tennessee Synod to
the historic Lutheran Confessions, and to awaken in the other synods a
growing esteem and affection for the same Confessions." (_Dist. Doctr._,
1914, 181.)

INDIFFERENTISM

146. Actual Conditions.--All sectarian churches formally acknowledge the
Bible, yet they reject many of its doctrines. So a Lutheran synod may,
in a formal and official way, accept the Lutheran symbols, and at the
same time ignore or reject its material content. Witness the Lutheran
state churches in Europe and the General Synod in America. In a measure,
the actual conditions also within the congregations and district synods
of the United Synod in the South have always been in conflict with their
truly Lutheran basis. False doctrines, especially pertaining to the
Puritanic observance of the Sabbath, were held and taught within the
Synod. Without a word of criticism, for example, the _Lutheran Church
Visitor_, July 13, 1911, published the following from the _Sunday-school
Times_: "Don't use a public vehicle on Sunday unless you are prayerfully
convinced that it would be sinning against God and man not to do so. Is
not that a reasonable and safe principle? Is any other principle a safe
one? A very limited amount of Sunday travel seems to be necessary.
Probably more than ninety-nine one-hundredths of it is unnecessary and
therefore wrong. To use a trolley car or train to go to church on Sunday
may or may not be right; it is simply a question of God's expressed will
for the individual at that particular time. To walk, or to attend
another church would sometimes be the solution. To make a mere
convenience of Sunday travel, under any circumstances, would seem to be
a violation of the spirit of the day. But God will make each case clear
to each surrendered seeker after the light of God's will, if the doing
of God's will and the avoiding of sin by the widest possible margin are
the only impelling motives."

147. Ignoring Intersynodical Differences.--With respect to the doctrines
controverted within the Lutheran Church of America the United Synod has