Ministry: Resignation
from Clericalism and Sectarianism
– T. V. Druckenmiller

You will notice the addresses of the letters to two churches. My father served two country congregations on alternate Sundays; they were both Lutheran and are still there to this day. They were not greatly distant apart so the congregations could go back and forth and share if they wished to attend church every Sunday.

The Word of God tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body – that all believer collectively form the body of Christ or the Church.

• For years I have been struggling in an inward inner fight, in a controversy with God. I believed in the Lord unto salvation and yet could not see that I was fully yielded to Him and being used by Him in accord with His promises.

• Graciously the Lord has led me to see that denominationalism is a dividing factor – coming down to us through the various heresies and false teachings that have crept into the church since the beginning on Pentecost Day.

• In Slatington for example it should be today as it was in Corinth – Paul wrote unto the Church which is at Corinth.

• But to Corinth he wrote in heaviness because division had come in – He wrote
  • “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”, 1 Corinthians 1: 13.

• We can well ask in line with this as we look at denominationalism – Was Luther or Calvin or Knox crucified? etc.

After years of wondering why the continued heaviness, I find the Lord wants to bring His saints or believers in Him together into one fellowship with Him

• and that in many places such fellowship does prevail on the same basis as the early Christians gathered and had fellowship one with another and with the Lord in the breaking of bread and the cup of communion on the first day of the week.

• Well, such is the Lord’s will today, not this denominational emulation and division – not this ostentatious building of churches and schools, human programs of so-called Christian and religious education.

And to be true to the fellowship of the Lord as well as believing in Him for salvations, I see I must yield all to Him and henceforth live unto Him who died for all and rose again.

• When a person believes in Christ unto salvation they are at once united to Christ in one body – the church. Then why join something else which is a broken fellowship?

• The Lord desired to have the believer’s whole life for Himself, to bless Him with His gracious presence and all His grace, and in this blessed fellowship there is manifested the glorious liberty of the children of God and the Holy Spirit worketh the various gifts that are severally given to the members of the body as He will. 1 Corinthians 1: 11.

• Instead of this divine program being carried on in its purity and simplicity look at Christendom and the worldly, fleshly doings that prevail in the Church as it has become divided up today.

Now to be true to the Lord and be walking in fellowship with Him I want to be just where He has put me through regeneration by faith – a member of His body.

• Hence this letter to advise you that I have written to the President of Synod along the same line – telling him that I am now renouncing Lutheranism and am sending him my Ordination Papers.

You may not see any reason to this decision – nor any justification to my action.

• Well, I needed a long, long time till I began to see things in the clear light also and so there we are.

• The Lord is graciously dealing with us all in His forbearance and love, but to be well pleasing to Him we must obey Him and walk in fellowship with Him and our fellow Christians as He has been pleased to arrange it – even a great, glorious body of believers throughout the earth – which He has not at all planned to have divided as it is today.

This will also advise you that I will, of course, not attempt to be a preacher in any Lutheran church again. On Sunday there will be services at the Jerusalem Church, East Salisbury – Southeast of Allentown.

• Since through the Lord’s leading I am out of the Lutheran persuasion you will, of course, be interested in having a supply preacher arranged for.

This decision has been long but slow in forming and was not definitely reach until today. So I could not get advice to you earlier. I shall write out a resignation to be read on Sunday at the services.

Sunday is also the time for the annual meeting of the Congregations. I shall submit the report of the Pastor for the last year.

I want to say, Corson, that I have only the deepest affection for all who truly believe in Christ as Saviour. There are those among all denominational groups.

• But, oh, the yearning in the heart of the Spirit and of Christ the Head for His own as they are ensnared in all sorts of carnal divisions.

• When one stops and thinks – into which denomination does the Word of God place a believer? Can there be any other answer than not one?

• But the Word of God places one in the body of Christ, His Church and Bride, purchased with His blood and adorned in the robe of Hid righteousness.

Cordially yours in His faithfulness and fellowship,

Titus V. Druckenmiller.

We are born into this world without knowing anything about it. As we grow we become conscious of our surroundings – the world of nature and the world of humanity.

• We also become conscious of a longing in our hearts for something better and more lasting than the present world affords.

• This longing is the longing for God and He has made ample provision to satisfy this hunger in our heart by giving us the Bible, or His Holy Word and preserving it for us down to this day.

In this Word we find light from God and directions for becoming a spiritual being.

• Sooner or later we hear that God spared not His Only Begotten Son but gave him to be born at Bethlehem in utter humility, to live a very humble life – having not where to his head and yet teaching as never man spake, and then to die on the Cross.

• All this God has done because He loves us and all mankind from the foundations of the world and throughout all the ages.

• The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that if we believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, that He will give us power to become the Sons of God, and thus be born again not by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, or the will of man but born of God. John 1: 11-13.

• In 1 Corinthians 12: 13 it is written
  • “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”.

• Wherever the truth of the Church is stated in the New Testament there is always this word – the Church, one body or the Body of Christ.

• If you ask yourself then, Into what present-day denomination does the Word of God place a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and thus a member of His Body, the Church?

• I say, if you ask yourself, Into what denomination does the Word of God place you or me or any believer – you will find by the help of the Holy Spirit that the Word of God places you nowhere except in the body of Christ – one body and one fellowship of believers.

• The various groups, as sects and denominations and religious organizations that are in the world today are due to the mind of the flesh interpreting the Word of God, instead of waiting up the Spirit to give the true teaching.

• In utmost humility we must wait upon God, lest the flesh in any way begin to interpret and thus the mind of the natural man is speaking and reasoning, instead of the mind of the Spirit.

• The mind of man will under Satan’s influence create a leavened of adulterated doctrine and thus the church of God has suffered the sad dividing up that presentS to us the sad situation that prevails in the church and the world today.

You and I are not responsible for what man has done in the past.

• But if we neglect to read and meditate upon the Word of God and to pray for guidance as He directs, we will be responsible if we continue to be party to the errors of the past.

• For in His Word God gives us ample instructions to teach us that His church is one church, the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ – that this church is not of this world but is spiritual, the born again souls of believers united into one body with Jesus Christ the Head, and in fellowship through the Holy Spirit with one another.

• Now on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell upon or baptized about 120 souls into this body, who as the Holy Spirit controlled them spoke the wonderful works of God, giving testimony of the saving power of the cross of Jesus Christ.

• Through the Holy Spirit using these believers in this testimony the Lord added more than 3,000 souls to the church in that day. We also read in Acts 2: 42 how this church continued in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

• Now with this light of the pure Word of God to guide us we are responsible if we reject this light and will not have the fullest reward at the judgment seat of Christ, and of course if not born again through faith we shall be utterly lost.

In past years I have been in ignorance of much important truth in the Bible – and with continued study and searching, constrained in the Spirit, the Lord has graciously led me into the light of His truth.

• In my flesh or old nature I am no better than anyone else; but as the Scriptures declare by nature a child of wrath and under the curse of God, just as vile as any other human being.

• Yea, I must confess myself as a chief of sinners, for, I have been as a grievous wolf, biting and devouring the sheep, and leading them in wrong pathways through wrong example and ofttimes hasty judgments.

• Only this I did ignorantly, not knowing the Holy Scriptures as God desired me to know them.

• God has graciously shown me this serious shortcoming and has graciously forgiven me and restored me into precious and sweet fellowship with Him and His people, the church of believers throughout the world, who are not in any way associated with the numerous divisions of denominations, sects, orders, and so called religious organizations that are in the world today.

• The church is in the world but not of the world and the Lord, the head of the church, desires through the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to keep his church pure, without spot and without wrinkle, waiting His returned – commanding His own to be witness unto Him and to occupy until He come again to receive His church unto Himself.

• Meanwhile the Holy Spirit is to be the administrator, calling the believers together for fellowship and preaching wheresoever He will.

Through God’s gracious guidance through the Word, the Spirit, prayer and providential circumstances the Lord led me to the most serious decision that has ever concerned my life.

• When I began to see that His will was to lead me out of the Lutheran ministry and all denominationalism – and just be utterly cast upon Him, not knowing wither or where I was going but that I was just His own as He wanted me to be – I thought of wife and children, I thought of home and country, I thought of friends and relatives, I thought of self – but to every fretful murmur of myself, will and flesh, the constraining Holy Spirit brought the Holy Scriptures to bear upon my mind.
  • “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you”.

• God will supply all your need according to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus and many, many more assurances were graciously brought to my soul in its last remonstrance’s of self will and then at last resting on the sure Word of the eternal God, who liveth and abideth faithful forever I was led to decide to give up my connections with the Lutheran denomination and to decline my Ordination into the ministry of the same.

Having done so, I can of course no longer continue in fellowship with you, either as minister or pastor or member in the Lutheran denomination.

• Nor can I belong to or have fellowship with members of any other group save those who hold themselves wholly unto the Lord that He may keep them His own little flock in safety now and forever.

Assuring you of every good will toward one and all of you, and praying that through the searching of the Scriptures and by the gracious help and power of God so abundantly afforded to all who believe through His Holy Spirit and divine providence in the circumstances of life that all who name the name of Christ today may be led into the one fold of the one Shepherd and Bishop of Souls.

Assuring you of my good will and prayers for you all and commending you to God and to the Word of His grace,

• I hereby tender this notice of the fact that the Lord has separated me through His cross and death wholly unto Himself and His body, the Church, and therefore from this time forth I am no longer, as heretofore your minister.

I am deeply cognizant of the fact that during the past seven years, or almost that, that I have received many kindnesses and favors from you, for all of which I most heartily thank you – one and all.

• May you be faithful to searching the Holy Scriptures for the divine comfort and guidance of your lives, trust the Lord Jesus alone and utterly as the true Shepherd and Bishop of Souls and the only one who is able and who has met the old enemy, Satan, the arch deceiver, and has despoiled Him.

• But only by the mighty power of God working in us, unhindered by any human expedient or resource – yea, only by the cross of Jesus Christ and His death can we be in victory – but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

• Henceforth, God’s choice for me is to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ in Him crucified.

Cordially yours in His faithfulness and fellowship,

Titus V. Druckenmiller.