# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1856_S224
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Miscellaneous Church News. 224

—to the "Platform," man by man, by standing up, publicly and solemnly. Dr. Benj. Kurtz is naturally quite delighted about this. He sees, comforted, the deathly-sick woman raising herself up again. If only the often-deceived man is not deceived once more, and the new muscular movements are not perhaps produced merely by galvanic experiments! — At the same time the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Pennsylvania, at present made up of 98 ministers, also assembled, at Lancaster. In a report on the proceedings of this synod, it is stated in the "Jugendfreund," published by the Rev. Pastor Brobst: "For some time the English part of the Lutheran Church has been greatly disturbed by a 'Platform' built to suit the spirit of the age. This matter was also brought before the synod; no one ventured to say a single word in favor of the Platform, but everyone spoke of it with contempt, and the synod declared once again that it would hold fast to the confessional writings of the church and remain standing on the old foundation of the faith."

Methodism. On May 8 the German presiding elders of the Methodist body held a special meeting in Indianapolis, in which they agreed, among other things, to ask — lovingly, but openly and firmly — that such of their traveling preachers who lack sufficient gifts to go on working with blessing withdraw, and above all that in future they be more cautious in receiving preachers on trial and into full connection. We fear that this matter will in many cases turn out badly, for there are evidently only too many who have become Methodists for the very reason that in this way they could so easily become "Reverends."

Oldenburg. So writes the "Pilger aus Sachsen": "At the third Landessynode of the Duchy of Oldenburg (1853) the opening and closing prayer at the sessions of the church elders was rejected by 19 votes to 3, 'so that the prayer should not be profaned.' The fundamental law of the state there ordains that no one is bound to the observance of church holy days. In 1854, at the fourth Landessynode, the first sessions were begun with prayer, but this had to be discontinued, 'because it offended the feelings of certain individuals.' After heated debates it was finally resolved, by a majority of two votes, to have an opening prayer for future synods; the introduction of a day of repentance (none has been kept for sixty years) was rejected. The church of the land wishes to be called Evangelical Lutheran."

So further writes the Lutheran Dorfkirchenzeitung: "Long ago already the former Lutheran territorial church of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg had, through rationalism, become estranged from the confession of the fathers, when the upheavals of 1848 broke in. The Diet occasioned a synod in 1819, in which the church cast off its Lutheran name and its confession and all its previous order, and instead called itself simply 'evangelical,' set up no confession, and established a democratic constitution. Later people began to be ashamed of this, and in 1852 the Grand Duke appointed a commission of seven men, who were to propose a better church constitution. Their proposals contained no particular improvement; the Lutheran name was indeed taken up again, but without repentance and without openly turning back to the pure confession and to a Lutheran church order. A synod at the beginning of the year 1853 and an opinion of the supreme consistory did not even adopt all of the seeming improvements. The church did indeed call itself Lutheran again, but wishes to be a member not of the Lutheran, but of an 'evangelical' church at large, of which even to speak is already unlutheran. In 1854 a synod again convened and professed itself to this state of things. — The church is now governed from below, by the adult male members, according to a headcount vote: the hymnbook is unlutheran, religious instruction can be given by ministers in a Lutheran or an unlutheran manner, for the confession has not been restored. Church discipline does not exist, and the church is declared to be a member of the evangelical church at large — which, as a church of one confession, does not exist at all. It will be granted that such a condition of a church, whose masses are, besides, wholly worldly, is a very sad one. But the saddest thing of all is that people dare to call such a state of affairs an Evangelical Lutheran church. With the deepest sorrow we must lament here that the other Lutheran churches have not, at the very least, come forward with admonition against Oldenburg, or do not do so now. What is to become of it, if every little land alters its confession as it pleases, and then even claims for itself the name of the Lutheran Church? Is that name not thereby robbed entirely of its meaning? And if admonitions do not help, then the true Lutheran Church of all lands would have to bear public testimony against this ban in Israel, lest we all become partakers in so great a sin. Better that we become even smaller than we already are, with a good conscience, than that we let ourselves, through our silence, be dragged down together into ruin."