# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1858_S350
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

350 On the Character of the Württemberg Church.

hearts saddened, while the unbelievers, on the other hand, are strengthened, so that they despise the pious ordinances of the fathers, tear down the fence of the Church, and throw the people into confusion and disorder — ruthlessly to reject the pious ordinances of the Reformation wherever they go beyond the letter of Scripture, or to assert themselves as fixed ordinances at all. To do this with ruthless zeal is Christian freedom and duty, which one must exercise and use; it is faithfulness and the victory that overcomes the world."..

It has already been remarked how the little land of Württemberg distinguishes itself above others by the piety and geniality of its inhabitants. That this, however, holds true only of one part, and indeed only of the smaller part, the time of the Revolution has sufficiently shown. The Christian portion, however, seeks its spiritual nourishment chiefly in the edification-hours, holding them (according to Eberle's testimony) to be the holy thing, while to them the Church counts only as a forecourt. Indeed, Herr Oberconsistorialrat Kapff himself has repeatedly declared publicly that the true Church, the congregation of the saints, is now to be found only in the conventicles. How much more correctly, by contrast, has Eberle recognized this view as one of the pietistic excrescences that ought to be done away with again, so that sound church life might return. That, now, would be the pastor's task, the shepherd's calling. But if the pastor is a disciple and follower of Baur, and thus a rationalist, then the hours and their leaders are to him contemptible from the outset, and he in turn is suspect to them from the outset; there can be no talk of any wholesome influence there; under such care only democratic elements, and not Christian and churchly ones, can thrive. But if the pastor is a follower of Beck, it is no better in regard to the conventicle-people and their leaders; for to him too this practice seems a contemptible methodistic formalism, and to want to lead them back from their "dead formalism" to a churchly frame of mind seems to him a poor gain and a great folly; so his aversion to mission and Bible and tract societies, etc., must likewise estrange from him the hearts of those people who set such great store by these very things. But there is yet a third class of pastors in Württemberg, who are themselves nurslings of the old pietism and in turn foster and promote it with all their might. But instead of exercising a wholesome influence upon the pietists, their hours and their leaders, they stand rather under the influence and power of these, so that, holding piety in the highest esteem, they not only bow before many a leader of the hours, but through regard for them are even sometimes carried away into approving their false teachings, or at least keep silent about them and make no attempt to work here in a healing and furthering pastoral way — for which, indeed, given their own standpoint, they are wholly incapable. Many among them, however, are beginning to feel that things ought to be otherwise; they simply do not know how to go about it. They feel the difficulty of the task, and do not venture the attempt to resolve it; for the conventicle-people, and especially their leaders, will be handled only with the utmost skill and delicacy, if one does not wish to make matters worse and quickly lose all standing, all influence, with them.