Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

But when the essence of faith is changed and weakened, so
that there remains merely an indifferent assent to the Word,
without personal appropriation of what God has said and
promised, then the kernel of faith is gone and only the shell
remains. This kind of faith, dead faith, is never troubled by
temptations and trials. Those who have it will not
experience any spiritual conflicts and affliction because of
their faith. But conflict always accompanies faith when it is
genuine and real. 62
The fall of the Norwegian Synod to liberalism and unionism was the result of a
great deal of indifference to the Word of God. Even after it became clear to many that the
Madison Settlement had in effect denied true Scriptural doctrine and the new course that
had been set by its proponents was away from true Lutheran doctrine and practice, few
left. S.C. Ylvisaker laments,
Even many who were in sympathy with the stand they had
taken toward the Union (the protesting pastors who left to
form the ELS) deplored the fact that they wanted to
undertake the hopeless task of trying, with so few and
humble workers and such small resources, to build again on
the ruins of the old synod. 63
But spiritual steel is forged in the fire of trial. In the lobby of a St. Paul Hotel, a
faithful remnant was struggling with their conscience as well as the clear Word of God.
And in this small meeting, the smoldering coals of the Norwegian Hermeneutic were
fanned back into flame. One year later at the 1 st convention of the reorganized Synod in
Lake Mills, IA, Bjug Harstad, called all those gathered to return alone to the Scriptures
for guidance,
This must call forth strange thoughts and questions. Why
do we meet alone? Why not together with so many near
and dear ones who wish to believe and be saved, as well as
62 Koren, On Using God’s Word, 2.
63 Ylvisaker, Grace for Grace, 117.
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