# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1861_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Ecclesiastical and Contemporary Notes.

[Baur], as much as lay in his power, contributed to shaking the foundations
of Christianity through his criticism for many (although they themselves
have remained and will remain unshaken, despite all the gates of hell),
died on December 2 of last year. He was born on June 21, 1792.

Baron Christian Carl Josias v. Bunsen, actual Privy Councillor, Knight
etc., the well-known author of "Signs of the Times" and reforger of the
so-called Semitic Bible into the Japhetic, died at Bonn on November 28 of
last year, born 1791 at Korbach in the Principality of Waldeck.

Kirchentage. The well-known Anabaptist Rauschenbusch was recently in
Germany and took the opportunity to attend the Barmen Kirchentag. On what
he heard there, the person named now holds forth in the local Anabaptist
paper, the Sendbote des Evangeliums, and in doing so calls attention to
some ills from which the Kirchentage suffer, perhaps not altogether
unjustly. As a second ill he names: "That always the same people hold the
floor" (General Superintendent Hoffmann, Dr. Krummacher, Dr. Wichern, and a
few others). As a fourth he asserts: "That things are always steered in
advance toward a predetermined result of the proceedings. When two opposing
opinions make themselves known, one seeks to blur the difference, and
blends the two together so that only commonplace, well-worn phrases emerge,
without force or edge, and one ends up not knowing whether the matter has
been cut or merely scratched." Rauschenbusch himself would gladly have
asked for the floor, but among other things he feared that, "as a Baptist
preacher," he would not be permitted to speak. Yet he expresses the hope:
"After a few more years, perhaps Baptists too will be allowed to have a say
at the main sessions of the Kirchentag — that is, provided the Kirchentag
still exists by then." According to the Reformed Kirchenzeitung, the
Kirchentag declared, in a discussion of secular literature, and
specifically the works of Schiller and Goethe: "Not one jot (?) shall be
given up, for the sake of our poet-heroes, from the strictness of Christian
principle in outlook and in life; but it must be acknowledged that genuine
poets, against their will and despite the corrupting influences of their
age, nevertheless appear, in their purest moments and productions, to speak
as if from God toward God." It was, if I am not mistaken — so writes one
reporter, Dr. Krummacher of Potsdam — who cried out: would that I could at
least convert our jaded, card-playing young men to Schiller and Goethe!

Statement.

At the express wish of several members of our Synod and readers of this
journal, we declare that the theses on usury communicated in last year's
November number were only read aloud before the general pastoral
conference, but not yet discussed, and were given to the press solely for
the purpose of serving as a basis for discussion of this important subject
at the district pastoral conferences, and in general to stimulate earnest
searching of God's Word and a testing comparison of the divergent
convictions of the theologians of the post-Reformation era on this
question.                    The Editors.

Notice.

Just published, and obtainable for 10 cents through the general agent of
our Synod, Mr. M. Barthel, St. Louis, Mo.:

"Memorial

setting forth the grounds for the union of the two theological seminaries
in St. Louis and for the transplanting of the Gymnasium to Fort Wayne, in
accordance with the unanimous resolution of the assembly of the General
Synod held at St. Louis from October 10 to 20, A.D. 1860. Composed, by
order of the same and for the benefit and service of our dear
congregations, by Dr. W. Sihler, Pastor."

This writing, to be sure, has in the first instance only a private
purpose for our Synod, as is stated on its title page; yet it contains, in
order to serve that purpose, so much of a general nature about our present
ecclesiastical conditions and about true and false theology in general,
that we consider it our duty to make this work known in wider circles as
well, and to recommend it for open-minded and attentive reading. We do
not doubt that it will serve for rich instruction not only to us, but to
many others as well.