# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1855_S102
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

102 Church News

19.) Yes, in those days Unionism still played the raging braggart Dionysius, who wanted to devour poor Damon, hide and hair, and incidentally, at least for appearance’s sake, Pythias as well. Times have changed. Now it pleads quite meekly and contritely: Let me, grant me this request, be the third in your league; and after another twenty-five years it will be said of it as well: When Dionys ceased to be a tyrant, he became a little village schoolmaster. The glorious chimera of the future now dominates only a few minds. If Unionism has no future enforced by the police, then it has no future at all. The future belongs to Christ, not to the Unionist dream of Theses 24—26.

20) Since in the great church of the future everyone will follow only the inspirations of his own spirit, Theses 27—35, concerning the indirect abolition of Holy Scripture and the Apostles’ Creed, and the direct abolition of the other ecumenical and Reformation confessions, are entirely self-explanatory.

21) “By accepting the three ecumenical confessions with entirely equal recognition, the Reformation remains connected from the outset with the old deceit of Scholasticism.” Indeed! Previously Unionism at least still wished to remain connected with universal Christendom through these three creeds; do you hear how the bird whistles now? But it becomes still clearer:

22) The great religion of the future that Dr. Stier & Co. are preparing to create will be essentially different from the Christian evangelical religion, since “much—for example, first of all the Trinity, the Incarnation, and self-emptying; then human freedom and God’s counsel; furthermore, the entire doctrine of the Church, the ministry, and church polity; prophetic theology and eschatology; chiliasm and Hades; infant baptism, etc.—awaits not only development but also correction,” because the Reformers presented it “contrary to Scripture” or left it “unsupported.” What do the confessors of the eternal Gospel say to this program for a new one? Is the Union, then, concerned only with the doctrine of the Holy Supper, as the simple-minded have so long been told and are still being told, or with the whole religion, as the “fanatics” have always maintained? Who has “lied about the Union so outrageously that the beams might bend”?

23) “You wish to offer us a Scripture authoritatively interpreted by the Church? To demand submission to this new tradition?” (Theses 36—38.) Far be it from us! How could we wretched Lutheran heretics presume to do such a thing against the great manufacturer of religion, Stier? No! Unfortunately, we cannot “help create the new confession,” because we lack “understanding”; but not to hinder the great work, not to “resist the lofty Spirit” when it wishes to blow from Schkeuditz to Nineveh—that is to be our task.

24) Beware, beware, you who wish to be Evangelical Lutheran,