# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1855_S383
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Miscellaneous Church News. 383

of November 15 Pastor Grabau writes, after having in a "survey" concerning the congregations of his district depicted, in his own manner, the "rioting" and "devilish ways" of the Missourians at every point of his visitation, the following, in good Müntzerite fashion, among other things, in an address to our president: "The Lord our God announces to you through his mouthpiece: "'they will not carry it on for long, for their folly will become manifest to everyone.'" That is, according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit, now the Missourian future!" Sapienti satis!

The New Church at Bremerhaven. — The building of the church at Bremerhaven has recently been completed. There was curiosity as to how the religious needs of the inhabitants would be met, since by far the greatest part of them are Lutherans, and only a comparatively small part consists of Reformed. This curiosity was set to rest by the "Church Order of the United Evangelical Congregation of Bremerhaven," published by Heyse in Bremen, which leaves no doubt regarding the ecclesiastical position of the congregation. In the 1st paragraph it says: "the congregation of Bremerhaven consists of all inhabitants of Bremerhaven who profess one of the Protestant confessions," and this is more closely explained by the 29th paragraph, which reads as follows: "the preacher must belong to the Reformed or the Lutheran confession, or be a congregation-member of an evangelical congregation, and is obligated to teach according to the principles of the Bremen church, insofar as such principles do not apply exclusively to the Lutheran or Reformed confession."

If we look more closely at these provisions, it seems at first beyond doubt that all inhabitants of Bremerhaven who are Reformed or Lutheran or (otherwise?) evangelical are to belong to that congregation for which a church has been built and for which a preacher is about to be chosen. To all these inhabitants the church order grants the rights of congregation-membership and lays upon them the obligations that are attached thereto. They are not asked whether they have the will and the capacity to belong to this congregation; rather, the appearance of the church order and its introduction make them members of the congregation. If we ask after the faith or the doctrine of this congregation, we are referred solely to the paragraph that deals with the doctrine of its preacher. The preacher is indeed to be either Reformed or Lutheran or (otherwise?) evangelical, but he is not to teach the doctrine of one of these confessions, nor even that of all of them, but rather the doctrine of the Bremen church, or rather he is to teach according to its principles. That, to be sure, is now an unknown quantity, of which we learn only this much: that it excludes the particular principles of the Lutheran and the Reformed confession.

Thus we have here a union, and indeed one which does not, as for instance the Prussian union does, declare that it wishes to let the confessional writings and the particular doctrines of both confessions retain their validity, and notwithstanding this