# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S251
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 251

Whoever knows the first and second volumes of this same work, and has read them diligently, will have good reason to expect, along with us, something excellent and outstanding in the third volume as well.

Those who wish to become subscribers to this Exposition of the Catechism are asked to apply to Mr. Bergmann, at the address J. H. Bergmann, New York City. The editorial staff of the Lutheraner likewise offers to accept subscriptions.

Church and Contemporary History.

I. America.

A New Scandinavian Synod. The Lutheran Standard of July 6 reports that the Scandinavian brethren who recently withdrew from the Northern Illinois Synod have assembled in Clinton, Illinois, and organized themselves as a new synod under the name Augustana Synod. This new synod presently consists of 27 ministers and has published the following as its confessional basis: "As a Christian body in general, and as an Evangelical Lutheran one in particular, this synod acknowledges that Holy Scripture, the revealed Word of God, is the only sufficient and infallible rule and standard of faith and life; it likewise holds fast and confesses not only the three ancient symbols (the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian), but also the unaltered Augsburg Confession as a short and correct summary of the principal Christian doctrines, understood as they are developed and explained in the other symbolical books." It has abolished the unscriptural and un-Lutheran license system, and makes it the duty of its president to visit, as far as possible, the various congregations within its bounds, to ascertain their needs, to give counsel where necessary, and to catechize the youth. Provision has also been made for a reliable arrangement for the examination of candidates for the preaching office and for the reception of members from other bodies. It has furthermore resolved to found its own theological seminary in Chicago, to which it intends, as soon as feasible, to call a Norwegian and an English professor to assist the Swedish professor. In the meantime instruction in the Norwegian and English languages is to be given by assistant teachers. — May God bless the work of these brethren and let it redound to His honor and to the salvation of many souls.

The Tennessee Synod. Regarding that portion of the Tennessee Synod which last December resolved on a withdrawal from the synod, the fifth annual meeting of the Virginia Special Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Tennessee Synod has adopted the following resolution: "Since we have learned with regret from the resolutions of the Special Conference held in the State of Tennessee that the ministers in that state belonging to our synod intend to request an honorable dismissal for the purpose of forming a synod among themselves, and since, in the opinion of this Conference, such a step would impair the work assigned to the Evangelical Lutheran Tennessee Synod, be it therefore resolved: that, in the opinion of this Conference, such a proceeding would at present be inadvisable, and would instead be one that would destroy the best interests of our church, and that it would be advisable for our brethren in the State of Tennessee to continue their present connection with the synod."

The Northern Illinois Synod. A member of the Northern Illinois Synod reports, under the name Philip Melanchthon Jr., in the Lutheran Observer of June 8, that the said synod, on account of the Scandinavians alone, changed its former qualified confession of the Augsburg Confession into an unqualified one in 1853 at Galesburg and in 1854 at Peru, even though the "American brethren" have all along accepted the Confession only in a qualified sense. The Scandinavians, it is alleged, had pretended that the