# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1858_S308
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

True and False Exclusivity.     308

-with all its clergy, teachers, and members who hold fast to the confession. And our church, gentlemen, shall and must be exclusive in this correct sense. But of a party that would be exclusive in the false sense of the word, I know nothing. Gentlemen! This, however, I must observe: that if such a party does not yet exist, then the attacks on faithfulness to the confession that have now become fashionable are the surest means of calling such a party into being. From the camp hostile to the faith, every clergyman and teacher faithful to the faith is watched continually; and through this constant spying and being made a target of hostility, through the ceaseless and ever more violent accusation and disparagement in the press, through all this, gentlemen, even the calmest man must in the end be thrown off balance. It can therefore well happen that even an orthodox believer, precisely because he wishes to be truly believing, may on occasion seize upon a wrong means in defense of his faith and even forget Christian love itself. Instead, however, of considering that a man faithful to the confession is not yet an angel, but remains still a weak human being subject to temptation and sin, it is habitually preferred to charge the errors made by individuals to the account of an entire party; but of the errors and the extremes within one's own camp, history wisely keeps silent — and, gentlemen, when it comes to demonstrating on which side the false, the reprehensible exclusivity is more truly at home, it is very much open to question on which side that is. At the very least, it is truly not difficult to demonstrate that exclusivity and intolerance are, at the very least, not lacking on that side."

On this the editors of the Saxon Church and School Gazette make the following remark:

Whereas at the previous Diet the confession-glad speech of a member of the chamber — one who, to our heartfelt regret, has now retired (Mayor Starke of Bautzen) — was indeed not contradicted, but was nevertheless thought to need having a damper put upon it: this time, by contrast, not a single discordant note or soft objection was raised when the rapporteur, Herr von Erdmannsdorff, entered the lists for the right of the church and the conduct of the church government against the Rittner attacks, with a sure hand unraveled the spider's web of Rittner's phraseology, and demonstrated conclusively how people who constantly have tolerance on their lips and grow indignant against exclusivity are, upon closer inspection, themselves the true intolerant and exclusive ones. No objection was raised; instead, the most joyful assent came from various quarters, and on other questions too, and in the further course of the debate, we were permitted to hear the most manifold testimonies attesting to the churchly spirit prevailing in the chamber.