# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S381
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Church and Contemporary History. 381

would disapprove of participation in such a communion and would act accordingly against students from our church; but as for other cases of conscientious scruple of the kind referred to, we may, following the oral statement of the representatives of the Mission College, entertain the confidence that such scruples too will receive a fair and truly evangelical judgment — the synod therefore resolves, while looking forward to the confirmation of the above-mentioned assurance on the part of the Mission College, to maintain the connection hitherto held with the Mission College in Leipzig, and cherishes the hope that no case of pressure on conscience will place our church under the necessity of dissolving this bond. — Among the motives of the commission for this resolution the following may still be mentioned: 1. that we had no indication from the Lord to open a mission activity of our own, and so most safely to avoid all conflicts of conscience; 2. that we believed we might give up this bond of common activity with the Lutheran territorial churches only in the most extreme necessity; 3. that already now there are students from our church in Leipzig who go to communion there without scruple of conscience. —

Church and Contemporary History.

I. America.

The Synod of the Western District of Ohio, at its meeting held in July of this year, expressed — as we learn from the printed proceedings — its disapproval of the fact that the Middle District of our synod had received the Rev. P. Eirich and the congregation in Zanesville (which is accused of an "apostasy" from the Ohio Synod!). Against the synod's resolution to ordain a candidate who had not received a call, that is, to carry out a so-called absolute ordination, the Reverend Pastors M. Loy, R. Herbst, F. Groth, and M. Sondhaus entered the following protest: "Since it is evident that the true church, because it alone possesses the priesthood, must also have the power to choose and ordain ministers of the church — and since the common custom of the churches likewise shows this, inasmuch as in former times the people chose their pastors and bishops, whereupon the bishop residing in the same place, or nearby, came and confirmed the chosen bishop by the laying on of hands, and ordination at that time was nothing other than such a confirmation — we hereby solemnly protest against the ordination of such persons as have as yet no congregational call, especially since, according to our Ministerial Order, those who do not hold a pastoral office are granted no vote regarding the admission of candidates, and since thereby action is taken quite particularly against the sayings of Christ, which testify that the keys were given to the whole church and not to certain individual persons, as the text says: Matt. 18:20. (See Smalcald Articles, Appendix on the Power of Bishops, page 328–9, new edition.)"

Doctorate. The Trustees of the College at Gettysburg have conferred the degree of Doctor of Theology upon the Rev. P. Passavant, editor of the Pittsburger Missionary, and upon the Rev. P. Ziegler, professor at the Missionary Institute in Selinsgrove.

New York. From the Lutheran periodical of the Rev. P. Brobst we take the report that in the lower part of the city of New York, during the last 20 years, no fewer than 32 churches have been sold and turned into business buildings, and no new churches have been built in that neighborhood, but only in the upper part of the city! The lower part of the city, with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, still has only here and there a church;