Council of Copenhagen

Two of Scandinavia's kings sent greetings last week to Copenhagen. The third, tall King Christian of Denmark, was there in person. From such far countries as India, the U. S. and Japan came delegates. Archbishops were there and Presidents of Councils and many a layman, as the cause and future of Lutheranism were bared to solemn discourse at that great sect's second world conference.

The discourse centred on two main Lutheran desires: 1) World unity among Lutherans; 2) A revival and fostering of the spirit of Martin Luther, to be engendered chiefly by intensive reading and teaching of Luther's Small Catechism.

Among the delegates moved a man whose face is full of forceful peace and whose finger tips now and again tap an archbishop's cross dangling from a black cord about his shoulders. When it was his turn to speak, not a delegate missed a syllable of his words. Everybody knew and wanted to hear the Very Rev. Nathan Soderblom, Archbishop of Sweden.

The Archbishop recalled that when Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenberg he had no intention of separating from Rome but that later "Rome expelled him from fellowship with the worldly Papal power." Queried the Archbishop: "Would the Rome of today with its sense also of spiritual values have done the same?"

There was one moment at the conference when the Archbishop's face became wistful. That was when Dr. Erich Stange of Cassel-Wilhelmshohe, Germany, suggested what he called "an audacious thought," namely, to have a central seat of learning for the Lutherans of the world.

In Wittenberg, such a seat would be historically most fitting. But in Scandinavia more than in Germany has Lutheranism flowered. The Archbishop could not help but think and hope thai Upsala, his home and the seat of Sweden's archbishopric, might some day be chosen as capital of Lutheranism. There, where once stood a glittering heathen temple, now stands as fine a Lutheran Cathedral as there is in the world, just west of where students in white velvet caps bordered in black stroll through the halls of the Oxford, the Heidelberg, the Sorbonne of Scandinavia, Upsala University.

Pregnant criticism of modern Christianity was expressed by Dr. Frederick H. Knubel of Manhattan, president of the United Lutheran Church in America. Said he: "The three tendencies which menace the growth of the Church throughout the world are first, syncretism, or the attempt to reconcile Christianity to other religious bodies, as, for instance, Mohammedanism, with which it is irreconcilably at variance; second, secularism, or the onslaught of worldly philosophies upon the Church and its teachings; and third, the social gospel or social Christianity which attempts to enforce its teachings through coercion upon a State or Nation.

"Syncretism says that all religions are true, secularism says all religions are false and also says the State must be lord over the Church, the social gospel says the Church must be lord over the State." All three attitudes Dr. Knubel viewed with alarm.

Most famed U. S. delegate to the convention was the Rev. Dr. John Alfred Morehead, executive director of the American National Lutheran Council, often referred to in Europe as "one of America's most outstanding churchmen."