# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1858_S7
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

How Are Truly Lutheran Congregations Founded and Raised Up? 7

Naturally, here too there can be no question of demonstrating further, for and in every case of congregational life, the evangelical character of a Lutheran church officer in the representative congregational assemblies. It will rather suffice, here too, to set forth the evangelical principles which, proceeding from an evangelical and confession-faithful view of the nature of the Church and of the ecclesiastical teaching office, ought to sustain and guide such an officer in all his governing conduct.

But in order to make the matter still more vivid here as well, it will do no harm first to trace out and reject the unevangelical, legalistic-driving conduct of which such officers of the Lutheran Church consistently make themselves guilty who are afflicted with a romanizing view of the nature of the Church and of the ministry.

For the prevailing manner of conduct of such Lutheran pastors in the congregational assemblies is this:

1) that in all cases which concern the confession and the doctrine — that is, directly the honor of God and His Word, and are thus simply matters of conscience for every individual member of the congregation — they, by virtue of an assumed pastoral authority of office, set themselves up as sole judges and deciders, and bind the consciences of their parishioners to their official pronouncements and judgments;

2) that in all matters whose ordering and arrangement fall to the Christian liberty of the congregation, they falsely construe Hebrews 13:17 and confuse the consciences of their parishioners, as though these were obliged, to them as their spiritual fathers, under the Third and Fourth Commandments, to render obedience also in those particulars that fall within the realm of things indifferent [adiaphora], so long as their (the fathers') ordinance is simply not directly against God's Word;

3) that they are always inclined to construe and treat an awkward understanding or a stubborn disposition in individuals as willful, malicious intent;

4) that they seek to enforce their obstinate opinions through the diligent threat of wrongly applied church discipline and the ban, and by arousing a servile fear.

Wholly different, and opposite, however, is the manner of conduct of an evangelically minded Lutheran pastor in the congregational assemblies.

Because, as a consequence of his view of the nature of the Church and of the ecclesiastical teaching office — a view conformed to the Gospel and to the New Testament character — he regards himself, in deed and in truth, at all times only as a servant of the divine Word and of the congregation founded and preserved through it by oral proclamation, and regards the members of that congregation equally as his brothers in Christ and as his parishioners, his endeavor will everywhere be directed, "with all patience and teaching," toward this: that the relevant Word of God — which mediately or immediately illumines the case actually at hand, and orders and shapes it according to the confession of the Church — be brought to bear by