# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1858_S383
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church-Contemporary Affairs. 383

II. Abroad.

The Amenish Congregation. So a friend writes us from Germany: It has
its center in München-Gladbach and is the foundation of a fanatical Jewish
Christian, Israel Pick, who has in various little tracts set up and
sought to spread the principle that the Jews should worship Jesus as
their Messiah, but, as Christians, should not lose themselves in the
existing Christian congregations, but rather form an unmixed church of
Jews — and who accuses and reviles the great apostle to the Gentiles, St.
Paul, for not having kept the believers from among the Jews separate from
those from among the Gentiles. Since his church of Jews for the time
being has no prospect or hope, he has turned to simple Gentile Christians
and impressed upon them that they must prepare the way and the place for
the people of God — that is, for the people of Israel who will come to
believe in the future — and flee out of the hopelessly corrupted world
surrounding them into the promised land, where the Israel of God will
gather, and so forth. Around Pick a new sect formed which, because it
believes all the prophecies are now Amen — that is, near their fulfillment
— gives itself the name Amenish Congregation, and which has in view
nothing less than emigrating to Palestine.

The Lutheran Conference at Rothenmoor is also mentioned in the
newspapers. They make fun of the fact that the strictly orthodox party is
not united among itself, and play up isolated harshly-worded statements.
Thus Brömel is said to have declared that he would pray with no man who
would not abandon Reformed false doctrine, while a Göttingen man
(Diekhoff) figures as spokesman of the opposite extreme, and Philippi, in
the struggle against both, as representative of the correct middle course.
— Brömel considered this announcement so important that he likewise
defended himself in a newspaper against his slanderer.

Baierlein. In the Hamburger Correspondent the Leipzig Mission was
discussed at length, and Baierlein too was mentioned most honorably. —
The world takes notice of the church and doffs its hat wherever it senses
a strength that proves itself in visible works. Yet it hates the truth and
prophesies no good to the "men of darkness," now that, as it is said, the
King of Prussia has formally transferred the regency to his brother. For
it — the world, which does not know God — ascribes to him alone the fact
that simple Bible-faith has raised its head.

Napoleon. As one repairs one's houses when winter is at the door, so
the high potentates, in this time heavy with disaster, seek to clear away
everything that might disturb the peace. To this end Napoleon forbids the
distribution of such Protestant tracts as might arouse passions belonging
to bygone times. — When it is quiet, the fishermen spread out their nets.

Russia. Emperor Alexander II has not only lifted the ban, issued under
the previous government, on the distribution of Bibles in Russia by the
Bible Society, but has also assured the Bible Society of an annual
subsidy of 25,000 silver rubles.

Pastor Brunn writes from Steden in Nassau: "Our church life goes on
its quiet, calm course as before. Thank God the Lord has kept me, up to
this point this last winter, in full health, so that I have been able to
carry out my office uninterrupted. Through the administration of the
Gemünden congregation I am doubly occupied. There we still have to hold
our services in the forest, because the raging village police will not
permit us to hold them in the village itself. We hope, however,
confidently, that it will soon be otherwise, if it be God's will that we
be helped through human instruments. .. What weighs on us is only the
condition of the Gemünden people, and then Brother Hein's stay in
distant and costly Frankfurt. God has, to be sure, wonderfully preserved
him there; we therefore do not doubt in the least his further help and
guidance either. We are thinking of holding our Rhenish pastoral
conference before long in