# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1860_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Church and Contemporary Affairs.

in the "Lutheran Herald" the proposal for a union of all synods calling themselves
Lutheran on the basis of the unaltered Augsburg Confession. The Lutheran Observer
decisively rejects this proposal. It writes: "While no union can ever take place
between the Missourians and the other Lutheran synods, we agree entirely with Dr.
Stohlmann that there is no sufficient reason why we should not, as one church, be
cordially united. This union, however, must in any case be established not on the
altered or unaltered Confession, but on the basis of the General Synod. Why?
Because district synods may adopt part of the symbolical books, or all of them, and
yet unite with the General Synod without being wounded in their faith and without
doing violence to the conscience of their Christian brethren. Since there will
always be more or less differences among our ministers and among our people over
non-essential points" (for example, over the means of grace!) "there can and will
be devised no basis which promises more for the present peace and for the
prosperity and future glory of our Zion. Let the brethren's efforts for uniformity of
doctrine therefore be made at home, in their district synods and in their
conferences, but let these questions not be carried into the General Synod, to tear
and damage it. We know there are some in this body, at times representatives, who
hope to transform its liberal, Christian basis and shift it to the old-Lutheran
standpoint; but if that is the only purpose for which they are in it, they might just
as well not go there at all — that dream will never be realized." Lutheran Observer
of November 18 of last year.

II. Abroad.

The cross and the Jews. The Nuremberg Correspondent reports: Only in recent
years have Prussian Jews also been granted honors, but for this purpose, as is well
known, the insignia of the Red Eagle Order, the cross, was changed into a sun
when conferred on non-Christians, so that decorated Jews were thus "distinguished"
in the full sense of the word. Now the Prince Regent has issued an order that those
of his Jewish subjects to whom the honor of a decoration is intended shall be
handed only the patent, while it is left to the recipient's own discretion to choose
the form of the insignia. The Jewish Prussians so far decorated have, after this
intention of the Prince Regent became known, immediately laid aside the sun badge
and put on that of the cross.

Died. The following we read in the New Journal of Münkel: Our regional church
mourns a painful loss in the unexpectedly swift passing of Superintendent Dr. J. Ph.
Spitta of Burgdorf, who, in the midst of his strength, not yet 60 years old, was
carried off by a heart seizure following a gastric fever, on September 28, into the
higher fellowship with God. Our regional church saw in him, in earlier years, a
pioneer on the then desolate road to Canaan, where he abundantly bore the
reproach of his Lord and became to many a helper unto life. In wider circles many
will bless his memory who have refreshed themselves at the fresh spring of his
hymns. But even the journal which, up to shortly before his end, he favored with
his ever-lively participation, laments in him a loss. Yet we praise God, who has let
his faithful servant depart in peace.

Baden. In September of last year the dedication of the first Lutheran church in
Baden (since the introduction of the Union) took place in the village of Söllingen.
This year a second church is to be built at Ispringen near Pforzheim.

Roman rhetoric and logic. In an address "to the Catholics of Germany" issued by
the 11th General Assembly of the Catholic associations of Germany, given at
Freiburg im Breisgau on September 15, 1859, it says among other things: "We
make the word of the unforgettable Möhler our own: that Catholics and
Protestants will meet in the confession: we have all erred, only the Church cannot
err; we have all sinned, only she is spotless on earth." — Not stupidly said, but he
must be very stupid indeed who believes such rhetoric and logic; at least such a
believer knows nothing of logic, for logic says: what holds of all individuals holds
also of the species, and what holds of all species holds also of the genus. Or do not
all Catholics and Protestants, according to Möhler, constitute the Church, but
perhaps rather the Greek Christians?

Schiller celebration. In Berlin, Pastor Dr. Sydow gave the festive address, in which
he sought to clear Schiller of the reproach that he had not been a Christian. All the
ministers of Berlin were invited, but besides the speaker only two more had
appeared.

Closed communion. The famous Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon published a
declaration in September of last year in which he renounces the principle,
peculiar to the Baptists among the sects, that only fellow believers of the Baptists
are to be admitted to the Baptist Lord's Supper.