# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1857_S178
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

178 How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded and Raised?

And besides this, it cannot fail to be the case that, under the above procedure, the mutual relationship between teacher and hearers, between shepherd and flock, will likewise be right and sound and evangelical — and precisely the opposite of what is necessarily produced by the opposite course of action. For if, as has already been shown above, the driver's staff rules here too and the yoke is laid on the shoulder — that is, if the Lutheran ministers of the Church drive through, as essential and necessary to the confessional and churchly shape of the congregation, even that part of the church ceremonies which is not a direct expression of the confession, and those elements of the congregational order which likewise do not treat of the confession but, like that portion of the ritual, fall within the field of things indifferent and are thus subject to Christian liberty as to their form and manner — whether by entangling consciences in the false, Romanizing doctrine of the Church and of the preaching office, or through legalistic, driving officiousness and pastorly high-handedness, with diligent threatening of the ban (though the hypocritical flattering and praising of the obedient sons of the Church is not usually lacking either) — then it cannot fail that the part of the congregation enthused, indeed fanaticized, for this form clings to the pastor's person in a fleshly way and carries on a kind of idolatry with him, while the other part regards him — and this, sadly, not without some fault of his own — with suspicion and mistrust, bears a secret aversion toward him, and fears him only in a servile way, as one fears the hurler of the thunderbolt of the ban, yet gladly seizes the opportunity, under the leadership of some resolute party head, to bring about a split in the congregation.

Where, on the other hand, evangelical wisdom and Christian love guide the minister of the Church, as shown above, there this governing disposition of his will certainly also, on the average, become manifest in the congregation's dealing with those two matters, and the bond of mutual trust and heartfelt love will thereby also grow firmer. His parishioners will likewise recognize, in this his manner of proceeding, that he bears a fatherly heart toward them in Christ and means them faithfully, and seeks in them not his own honor but God's alone; they will also become aware in this that his first and last aim, in all his feeding and leading, disciplining and tending of Christ's sheep, is directed toward this: that a thorough evangelical understanding, the righteous and saving faith in Christ, and, arising from that, an upright godliness in every fruit of the Spirit, good works, and Christian virtues, take root, grow, and increase in them — and that, without such a governing sense and spirit in the congregation, a congregational and worship order imposed and dictated more from without, however excellent and edifying in itself, is a dead work of the Law and an outward thing that can scarcely please God. Nor will it remain hidden from them how, precisely also in his handling of these matters, their pastor treats them as his own