# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1857_S284
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

284   Church and Contemporary History.

The Baptists in the United States have, according to their Almanac for 1858, 6,648 ordained preachers, 942 licensed, 897,718 members (of whom 61,771 were added in the year 1856). Besides these regular Baptists there are here further: Anti-Mission Baptists 58,000; Free-Will Bapt. 49,817; Six-Principle Bapt. 2,500; Seventh-Day Bapt. 7,250; Winebrennerians or Church-of-God Bapt. 13,800; Disciples or Campbellites 200,000; Dunkers 8,200; Mennonites 36,280.

The Synod of Wisconsin held its annual convention beginning June 8. As we learn from a report contained in the "Kirchenbote," the confessional position on which this synod means to stand is the following: "Every congregation that desires to join this synod thereby confesses itself to the symbols of the Lutheran Church, among which are especially to be named the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and Luther's Small Catechism, and it adopts the last-named Small Catechism as the book of religious instruction for its youth." As deplorable as the indefiniteness lying in this is, so gratifying is what we read further: "at this year's convention the last remnant of this "'necessary evil'" (the licensure system) was now also dropped, and in its place an examining committee was appointed, which is to examine the candidates for the ministry who present themselves and, according to its findings, to ordain them. Licensure had already lost its credit among us far too much for it to be able to maintain itself any longer. In many respects it has become manifest as an evil. To this day bad characters are still roaming about here in Wisconsin as pastors who years ago were empowered by license to preach and to administer the sacraments because men had not yet judged them worthy or unworthy of the office of the ministry, while many an upright brother was hindered by that very thing from the joyful exercise of his office, since men were unwilling to make an exception with him and to ordain him, and indeed could not well do so if licensure was once to stand as a valid institution. Now it has been carried to the grave in the hope that it will rise again no more in the Wisconsin Synod. — As many a note of complaint was raised over licensure, so also in many respects over the agenda published by the Rev. Synod of Pennsylvania. We cannot conceal that we perceive in it much that is rationalistic and unlutheran as well. One need only think of what sounds rationalistic in the formula of dedication, in the second baptismal formula, and in others, and one will not find it unjust if it seems to many that men wish to please everybody." — This testimony is worthy of all honor; on the other hand it is indeed disgraceful that a synod which bears the name of the mother synod of the American Lutheran Church should seek to accommodate the enemies of the truth in its own church book — a disgrace which ought in all fairness to be blotted out speedily, with hearty repentance and humiliation before God and men.

The English "Ev. Luth. Synod of Iowa" held its third annual convention on May 7 and the following days at Fairfield, Jefferson Co., Iowa. According to its report it consists at present of 12 ordained and one licensed preacher with 11 congregations. The 2nd article of its constitution reads thus: "We believe that the Word of God is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and that the doctrinal articles of the Augsb. Conf. our views in an essentially correct exercise of one's own conviction in matters of religion are the natural and inalienable prerogatives of all men, and that no civil or ecclesiastical government can deprive us of them. We hold also that, since God has constituted the minds of men differently and we cannot all see alike, we are therefore bound as reasonable and thinking beings to receive as our brethren those Christians who hold fast the fundamental doctrines of religion, although they may differ from us in points of lesser importance." From this it is clear that these gentlemen synodists bear the name Lutheran from Luther as lucus from non lucendo, that they not only do not believe in a Lutheran manner, but also hold that God Himself has wisely so ordered it that not all should be of one